Love Thy Neighbor As Thyself - Vote No on Prop 8 - Save Our Constitution!!

In 1948, the California Supreme Court in Perez v. Sharp ruled that the California anti-miscegenation statute, prohibiting marriage outside of one's race, violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and was therefore unconstitutional. This was the first time since Reconstruction that a state court had struck down a statute banning interracial marriage.

California was the first state since Ohio in 1887 to repeal its anti-miscegenation law. In a number of states, state laws prohibiting interracial marriage and interracial sex were repealed following the Perez v. Sharp decision.

Why is it relevant to the prop 8 debate that California's supreme court struck down the State's anti-miscegenation law, a law that prevented someone of one race marrying one of another? Because the same arguments, religiously-based, societal- and culturally-based, that were used to validate that discrimination are nearly identical to those used to seek discrimination against same-sex couples today.

Those who did not believe in the mixing of the races, in the government allowing its citizens the freedom to choose who they wished to marry because they believed it would degrade society and country, that the bible specifically banned interracial marriage, and that it would create "a mongrol nation." Anti-miscegenation proponents, who are seen by today's standards simply as racists, fought to impose and maintain anti-miscegenation laws in California and almost every other state. These opponents to interracial marriage were largely bigots, many of whom in the south switched from Democrat to Republican after Johnson signed the civil rights act in 1965, but many truly believed they were saving society. In 1967, 19 years after Perez v. Sharp, the US Supreme Court finally ruled unconstitutional the remaining Virginia and Alabama anti-miscegenation statutes.

The California court in 2008, a Republican and conservative court, voted that the same legal argument, that such an infringement on civil rights, violates the 14th amendment of the US constitution.

The California Supreme Court struck down the state's ban on same-sex marriage May 15, 2008 in a broadly worded decision that would invalidate virtually any law that discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation.

The 4-3 ruling declared that the state Constitution protects a fundamental "right to marry" that extends equally to same-sex couples. It tossed a highly emotional issue into the election year while opening the way for tens of thousands of gay people to wed in California, starting as early as mid-June.

The majority opinion, by Chief Justice Ronald M. George, declared that any law that discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation will from this point on be constitutionally suspect in California in the same way as laws that discriminate by race or gender, making the state's high court the first in the nation to adopt such a stringent standard.

The decision was a bold surprise from a moderately conservative, Republican-dominated court that legal scholars have long dubbed "cautious," and experts said it was likely to influence other courts around the country.

"Our state now recognizes that an individual's capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual's sexual orientation," George wrote for the majority. "An individual's sexual orientation -- like a person's race or gender -- does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights."

Giving a different name, such as "domestic partnership," to the "official family relationship" of same-sex couples imposes "appreciable harm" both on the couples and their children, the court said.

Now those who have traditionally opposed homosexuality, placed onto the ballot Proposition 8, which would limit marriage only to heterosexual couples and would deny same-sex couples the legal tax and family benefits of a civil marriage. It is the hope of Prop 8 proponents to impose their religious beliefs into the constitution of our secular state government and our democratic society. They should not be hated for their ignorance, but they must be stopped.

Music Credit: Clay Aiken, "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" - to read more about the first day of California same-sex unions, go to: http://ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=3090

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[Tirrum]

This prop really saddens me.. :(

I think it was wrong to make the people vote on something they do not qualify on voting on.

It's the same as making a law saying straight marriages should not be legal. Cause of the children. They will grow up thinkin that love is something it's not and ignorance is the way of leading a life..

ITS STUPID... This whole prop hate should be terminated.. Put on the shelf.. The citizens doesn't have the wits to make this kind of judgment!

Peace, not war...

[yxdcvb]

Prop 8 has _nothing_ todo with what happens or doesn't happen inside a Catholic Church!

[LeopardPrintNailz]

This video made me cry!

It was so beautiful.

We are all children of God and he made us the way we are.

It's so unfair that gay people cant share their love in marriage as straight pople do.

Everyone should be equal!

[up4Dan]

Don't be so hard on yourself, sounds like you speak and write moron fluently.

[up4Dan]

God created Adam AND Eve & Adam and Steve. God even created bigots like yourself who ignore scripture and judge others.

[timin770]

HA HA YOU LOST!!!  Consider this your payback for voting Barack Osama into office.

[Lynslayer]

I'm a Christian that is voting No for Proposition 8. Christians, stop using falsely translated and misinterpreted Bible passages, Phillip blessed a gay man in Acts 8, the Ethiopian Eunuch. Archeology is showing that eunuchs were mostly known as homosexuals, and God offered these eunuchs a place in his kingdom already. We need to gather all God's children, Jesus always went to the outcasts, not outcast them himself.

[shebacolby]

GOD CREATED ADAM&EVE NOT ADAM&STEVE

[EternalSSA]

I hope all of california gives the old LDS a black eye by voting NO on Prop 8. The church people should be ashamed of themselves to stir up this crusade against a minority of citizens. Sick.

Vote NO on Prop 8

[oxoxMusicxisxlifexox]

We are all equal,lets keep it that way.Vote NO on 8!

[victor2cutube]

I hate to break it to u but if u recall there were no marriages for a few 1000 years. there were no pastors, priest or rabbies and Adam & Eve's kids had sex with their brothers and sisters .. unless they had sex with their parents.. grow up and develop some understanding of theology. I hate to break this to u but it has been researched and if a child has a single parent it is better if that parent is the father. the child does better in life with the father.

[TriplexOC]

NO on 8. It's against institutional rights. Gays & Lesbians should be treated equal as they are tax payers too. They should have the right to choose who to love & marry, the rights of equality in every form just like any heterosexual couples.