No on 8. (Why are we still talking about this?)
On my way into mass today, running a little late, a man tried to hand me a "Yes on 8" flier. "No. Thank you," I said. "Yes!" he replied, but then I was past him, up the steps, and stewing a little about divisiveness battering community at that time and place. (This is the first time such a thing has happened to me at a California church; now, North Carolina was another story.)
After mass, as I often do, I picked up a few dozen song sheets and bulletins that people had carelessly left in the pews -- if you're capable of bringing in a sheet, by the way, you're capable of returning it to the stack for people attending next -- and some of those fliers were mixed in with them. I put the bulletins and song sheets neatly in their places, and the fliers in theirs: the trash can, as no recycling bin was handy. The man was no longer there after the English mass I attended, so I speculate that I actually saw him at the tail end of his target, the preceding Spanish mass (the flier was bilingual).
I'm a bit of a traditionalist, you know, and conservatively inclined by nature. I hate surprises, and I want well-supported explanations for everything. The route by which I reached progressive political and social conclusions is different from most I see. But here I am. And there is no reason in this world or the next to disfigure the poor, patched California state constitution to remove the civil right of two adults of appropriate age and consent, and absence of consanguinity and prior attachments, to marry each other in the eyes of civil law and civil community. There is no reason to deprive any child of the protection of two legally-recognized parents, of whichever sexes. The judges shouldn't have done what they did; our legislature should have done it. Everything the "Yes on 8" people say is either a lie or a misunderstanding. And for crying out loud, there is no institution more civilly normative and contributory to social stability than marriage.
There are other important measures on the ballot. But no one tried to hand me a flier about them.
After mass, as I often do, I picked up a few dozen song sheets and bulletins that people had carelessly left in the pews -- if you're capable of bringing in a sheet, by the way, you're capable of returning it to the stack for people attending next -- and some of those fliers were mixed in with them. I put the bulletins and song sheets neatly in their places, and the fliers in theirs: the trash can, as no recycling bin was handy. The man was no longer there after the English mass I attended, so I speculate that I actually saw him at the tail end of his target, the preceding Spanish mass (the flier was bilingual).
I'm a bit of a traditionalist, you know, and conservatively inclined by nature. I hate surprises, and I want well-supported explanations for everything. The route by which I reached progressive political and social conclusions is different from most I see. But here I am. And there is no reason in this world or the next to disfigure the poor, patched California state constitution to remove the civil right of two adults of appropriate age and consent, and absence of consanguinity and prior attachments, to marry each other in the eyes of civil law and civil community. There is no reason to deprive any child of the protection of two legally-recognized parents, of whichever sexes. The judges shouldn't have done what they did; our legislature should have done it. Everything the "Yes on 8" people say is either a lie or a misunderstanding. And for crying out loud, there is no institution more civilly normative and contributory to social stability than marriage.
There are other important measures on the ballot. But no one tried to hand me a flier about them.