Let me first say that I have NOTHING against gays/lesbians. Our only difference we have is our sexual orientation. That being said, I have aproblem with what has taken place in California. Just about 9 years ago I lived in LA and witnessed the passing of Prop 22. The people voted. Marriage is to be between a man and a woman. Then it was overturned. It went to vote again in the form of Prop 8…it passed
This argument is not about equality, because as you all may rememeber in California you have the same legal rights as man/woman couple . The same rights!
This is an argument about RECOGNITION and setting a LEGAL PRECEDENT.
Gays/Lesbians I understand your concern and your want to be a recognized group, but there is more to it. I have heard the argument “I love somebody. I should have the same rights” . If you base rights on love, then polygamists have the “right” to more than one wife, which I am sure rings as a perversion in your mind.  But see if Prop 8 had not PASSED then you have polygamists and other practioners of more EXTREME alternative lifestyles HAVING a legal voice.  So if you don’t mind living next door to a LEGALLY recognized polygamist, keep fighting on.
He married his wives out of love and he “deserves” the same rights as anyone else too, doesn’t he?
This is not about you gays and lesbians. This is about a body of citizens concernned with society at large. It is about our very society staying intact free of the worst that human nature can conjure up. Society has spoken, they have closed the gate preventing worse atrocities.

“The safety of the many is well worth the sacrifuce of the few.”

Stop victimizing yourselves and being selfish and understand that the people, the TRUE deciders of law, have made thier decision.

See the bigger picture, live and love, and be happy.

A bigger concern should be that the majority public have lost their voice due to the ideals of the few, namely the Clifornia supreme court and their supreme abuse of their position as judges of the law, not creators of the law.

Think what you will.

How do you spell Mormon?  M-O-R-M-O-N, but the second M is optional.

My wife is Mormon and attends the local “ward” just a block away from our home.  She often told me stories about how prior to the election, the entire focus in Church was on volunteering for prop 8.  They even had the nerve to ask ME if I would volunteer and be a “zip code coordinator”.  I not only declined, but I told them (the people who called for my wife’s church) that this wasn’t going to look good for them, especially since they (the Mormons) still heavily proselytize for new suckers… err aahhh members.  I told my wife that this would backfire if Prop 8 passed here in Cal.  She agreed, and also had nothing to do with Prop 8 (my wife is more of a “cultural” Mormon that what I’d call “true-believing or one with blind faith).  We both voted against 8, and frankly, I’m surprised it passed.  But I wasn’t surprised to learn how it passed, and who ended up voting for it.  I have many close Hispanic friends who are very much Democratic, who voted for Obama, but then voted Yes on 8. 

So yes, we can put some of the blame for it’s passage on Mormons with direct help from the State of Utah, but it’s not the Mormons alone who passed it.  They only make up about 2% of California’s population, but they are vocal (obviously).  I say in return, we as Californians pass a law not recognizing posthumous Polygamous marriages, just ask a Mormon about those, they’ll deny them, but just remind them of Section 132 of their own “Doctrine and Covenants”

Sad sad.. I grew up Mormon.. I met my first gay friend in church..

Sad to see this…

I suppose even if I wanted to I would only be discriminated if I brought my girlfriend there.. yes.. i am gay..

FROM: http://www.velvetrevolution.us/electionstrikeforce/2008/11/exit_poll_showed_californias_p.html

Around the world, exit polls are used to determine the need for investigation of elections. In the U.S., the National Exit Poll (NEP, also known as Edison/Mitofsky) now adjusts results to match vote counts before issuing its final polling numbers. Election Defense Alliance (http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/ ) downloaded NEP numbers from the internet on election night, however, before poll results were changed to match the official vote count.
snip

We at Velvet Revolution are recruiting volunteers to observe at county election offices beginning immediately. Volunteers will be trained via conference call this Sunday, November 16, at 4 p.m. To sign up for training, email us with your name, phone number, and county or counties where you would be willing to volunteer. We ask that all volunteers be prepared to give at least four hours over the next couple of weeks. We hope that most will be able to volunteer significantly more time. If you want to volunteer and are unable to attend Sunday’s telephone training session, give us your contact number so we can tell you if there is another training opportunity. The training will be conducted by Tom Courbat, founder of SAVE R VOTE (Riverside County) and Emily Levy of Velvet Revolution.

Please note that this training is specific to California and to observing many of the auditing processes set up here by Secretary of State Debra Bowen…. Democracy cannot take care of itself. It needs us. It is us. In California and around the nation, our names are being called right now. Come on down!
snip

  * Post a link to this blog item (http://www.velvetrevolution.us/electionstrikeforce/2008/11/exit_poll_showed_californias_p.html)on your MySpace page or wherever you go on the internet.
snip

Don’t Give Up—Give Time!
...

http://markcrispinmiller.com/2008/11/was-prop-8-actually-defeated.html

WAS PROP 8 ACTUALLY DEFEATED??

Well, well, well. First we find out, happily, that We the People may not be so fiercely
racist after all, as Election ‘08 has debunked the (feeble) theory of “the Bradley effect.”

And now it turns out that Americans–at least those in gay-friendly California–may not really be as hostile to gay marriage as the outcome of that state’s election has apparently suggested.

As we think about the possibility that Prop 8 was not really passed by California’s voters, let’s note something that the press, and others, won’t discuss: i.e., that the entire apparatus of computerized voting in this country–the e-voting machines and op-scans and central tabulators, etc.–is largely owned by members of the Christianist far right.

Diebold and ES&S;were both begun by Bob and Todd Urosevich, two ardent Oklahoma theocrats, while Triad, which makes the central vote tabulators used in Ohio in 2004, is owned by the Rapp family. SmartTech, the company that helped Bush/Cheney steal that state, is owned by evangelical Jeff Averbeck; and his associate Mike Connell, owner of GovTech Solutions, which also helped to steal Ohio, among other races, was motivated to such work by his desire “to save the babies,” according to Stephen Spoonamore.

Why are there so many Christianists among the owners of those companies? Because the rigging of elections is the only way that that fringe movement ever could impose its theocratic program on the rest of us. As Paul Weyrich used to say out loud, the Christianists despise democracy. After all, that system, if allowed
to stand, would put the sinful secular majority in charge–and that can’t be allowed.

And so, whether or not it turns out that Prop 8 was rigged to pass, we need to take a good hard look at those machines, and at the companies that own them–and
keep them out of our elections.

Meanwhile, let’s all stop assuming that last week’s outcome was legitimate, and look closely at the evidence around Prop 8.

I imagine Mormons were not the only people who voted for prop. 8.  Also, just because some Mormons did house to house promotion of prop. 8 doesn’t mean they are somehow collectively responsible for it’s passage.

The origins of this and other anti-Mormon sentiments are truly a mystery to me.  Anti-Mormonism seems to come from all corners in the United States.

They are most definately anti-gay.  I was raised in that cult, and they teach emphatically that homosexuality is the 2nd most serious sin after murder. 

If they were pro-marriage they would be for extending it to all groups making up society. 

About 15 years or so ago, Boyd K. Packer, one of their ‘apostles’ in the leadership of the church told church historians that if they had to twist the truth a bit when writing about church history in order to make it a ‘faith promoting experience’, that it was their job to do so. 

They lie about their history, and it’s okay to further God’s cause.  They are now lying about their purpose in this fight, by stating they aren’t anti-gay.  And they will now use the protests to paint themselves the victims of religious prejudice. 

Any negative publicity they get they brought on themseles and have it coming.  They are the most anti-American religion I know of, because they train their members not to question the prophet with their 1890 ‘Manifesto’ which stated God would not allow a prophet of the church to lead the Mormon people astray.  That statement was canonized into scripture, and came about when the 4th prophet ended polygamy.  People were afraid he’d gone astray since the founding prophet stated when he started polygamy that it would be on the earth to the end of time. 

Today, the church states marriage between one man and one woman is God’s way.  Yet, THEY were the practitioners of Polygamy.  How can they now claim they know God’s way is one man and one woman, when the founder of their church made polygamy a cornerstone fo their theology?  He said a man cannot obtain the highest degree of heaven without practicing it.  And to this day, they do.  They don’t temporally, but a man can be sealed (the word they use for marriage in the hereafter) to as many women as he wishes. 

Worse they ignore all the forms of marriage in the bible as well in claiming that one man one woman is God’s way. 

Training people to follow the ‘prophet’ blindly, funding an effort to take away rights…. lying about your history.  This church is a scourge for what it’s done.  I hope the true nature of what they are is exposed enough through this that their deception with prospective members will be exposed and those people can find a religion that truly teaches, ‘do unto others,’ and puts it into practice. 

There are a precious few Mormons who know what their church did was wrong.  They very well could be excommunicated for finding the courage to stand up publicly against their actions.  You see, they did not blindly follow the ‘prophet.’  Some have even created a website where Mormons with conscience can publicly apologize to gay men and lesbians.  You can read their apologies here: http://forgivenessfor8.blogspot.com/