Windy Sydney

I did not write this, I can't take any credit for this amazing piece of work someone put together for his blog. I hope he doesn't mind my sharing the post, I wish I could give more credit to the person who wrote this, along with a huge round of applause, but the only thing I know about him is that his name is Tom. Thank you for writing this, Tom!

If you're clicking here looking for my usual profanity and vulgarity you'll be disappointed. This is as succinct a statement as I know how to make about my feelings regarding mormons and the Prop 8 debacle and I'm going to keep it tidied up so that Sus won't have to waste time editing it for me.

Marriage as it is defined in the US is not a religious affair. Nor is it about procreation and family. To wit, an 80 year old atheist man and a 78 year old atheist woman can go down to the courthouse today and get married. They're not asked to indicate a religious preference or to declare a belief in some sort of diety. Nor are they quizzed about their procreative urges or asked to divulge any information about their feelings about family.

There is absolutely no religious requirement or inference in the process of the US government granting a marriage certificate. It is strictly a secular affair that provides extraordinary fiscal benefits to couples who choose it.

Yes, most churches are allowed to perform marriages and those marriages are recognized by the government. Hell, you can even get a certificate online that says you're an ordained minister and some states will recognize that as good enough to perform legal wedding ceremonies.

But the couple getting married are not required to have their marriage sanctioned by a church or a religious person in order to be valid in the eyes of the law. Thus a judge or other city or county employee designated by the state government can perform a marriage ceremony.

You can be opposed to homosexuality because of your religious beliefs all you want but your religious beliefs have no standing in the marriage law as it now exists. If marriage were a religious affair then atheists wouldn't be granted marriage licenses.

But they are Blanche, they are.

The Mormon church is entitled to its beliefs. No arguments there. Those beliefs however are contained within the framework of a tax-exempt religion. And that's where we've gotten into this big mess. Mormon leaders say they pressed members to support Prop 8 because it's a moral matter. But the fact is, the government is not concerned with your morals when granting a marriage license. There is no requirement for a belief in diety or a requirement to state a religious preference or a requirement for adherence to a certain set of morals in order to qualify for a marriage license.

Marriage might be a moral or religious matter in your mind, but not in the government's mind. No matter how you twist it you're not going to turn the government's granting of a marriage license into a religious affair. It's not there. And by Constitutional law the US government cannot discriminate against a designated class of people.

Beaglie can come on and spew her anti-gay venom all she wants. Doesn't bother me. (What a waste of life's precious moments though.) But her personal feelings about homosexuality aren't the issue. The Constitution provides for equal protection under the law and right now gays are the only US citizens being discriminated against when it comes to marriage rights in this country.

If there were some foundation in fact for marriages being defined as religious then we'd be having a different conversation. But there is no foundation for marriage being defined as a religious matter. It isn't there. So the courts will always keep coming back to the US Constitution where there is no provision for discrimination against a person because of their sexuality.

The US Supreme Court will always refer back to the US Constitution where all controversies and disagreements are eventually settled. If the Constitution had been written with a proviso saying "everybody except the gays" then religionists would be sitting pretty right now.

But it ain't there Dorothy, it just ain't there.

Mormonism was wrong to venture once again into a political matter. But even worse was to wage a campaign that was based almost entirely on lies. For example, no church will ever be required to perform weddings it doesn't want to perform. Catholicism and Judaism have been refusing to perform interfaith marriages forever. And they still are allowed to legally refuse to perform a marriage they don't want to perform, even in Massachussetts where gay marriage has been legal for several years.

Mormons were receiving letters and emails stating that if the gays were allowed to continue getting married in California that the church's tax-exempt status would be revoked and that they'd have to stop performing marriages in the temples because they'd be required by law to perform gay marriages there. Extraordinary absurdity but as we all know, mormons drink the kool-aid when they're told to.

On so many levels the mormon involvement in Prop 8 was wrong. Mormons made their choice and now they will deal with the consequences as best they can. My twin chose to support Prop 8 with his time and money. He made his choice and now he will have to live with the consequences of losing his twin brother.

I have a rage inside of me that I've never felt before in my life. I have lived with this horrible mormon thing for most of my life and kept my cool and done all I could to maintain civility in the face of so much abuse. Those days are over and the gloves are off. My gay brothers and sisters and our straight allies are ready to fight back.