Remember Ken Starr? He did his part to waste our tax dollars by relentlessly hounding President Clinton over lying about extramarital trysts. Money well spent since Bill was impeached, tried and...oh yeah, acquitted. Well Ken is now telling the California Supreme Court that any rights may be taken away by a simple majority vote.( http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Ken_Starr_argues_for_Prop_8_0305.html ) Wow. Think what might have happened if that had been tried with voting rights in say, Mississippi or Alabama in the sixties. Some cities in the North might have more easily taken care of the "problem" of minorities in their neighborhoods.
The shame of Proposition 8 in California is not just that a majority of those who voted said yes, it is that a major religious group played such a large financial and human support role. It is a clear example of a religion imposing its belief upon an entire state, using its financial muscle and cultural influence. I do not argue with their right to lobby and advocate, I do think it is a shame that they could use their tax exempt funds to advocate the removal of the civil rights of other taxpayers who do not subscribe to their doctrines.
Churches can do what they want as far as what they sanction or bless. None of the proposed equal marriage laws mandates that any religion or church sanction anything they do not wish to sanction. The issue is the special rights that the state awards married couples, and they are special rights. No domestic partner laws confer those kinds of rights either legally or in the eyes of society. I believe at some point the U.S. Supreme Court will decide in favor of marriage equality as far as the civil aspect. It may be even more likely to be a strict constructionist court.
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