Un-Awesome Californian Proposition: something to think about on prop 8

The definition of marriage was changed in 1967 by the United States Supreme Court.

In the landmark civil rights case of Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court declared Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act of 1924 was unconstitutional and ended all race-based legal restriction on marriage in the United States.

In 1967 the court wrote:

“Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.”

It was controversial. The definition of marriage was changed and children were taught about a new type of family in schools. Sound familiar? It should.

On May 15, 2008 the Supreme Court struck down California's existing statutes limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples. The judicial ruling overturned the one-man, one-woman marriage law which the California Legislature had passed in 1977 and Proposition 22.

Now, it’s up to all Californian voters to vote NO on Proposition 8.

This isn’t the South in the 1960’s. This is California in 2008.

We’re smarter than that. We’re better than that. It’s absurd that there is even a proposition on the ballet that would limit civil rights. But it would be even worse if we let it pass. We've come this far in our nation's quest for equality, let's not take a giant step back.

Do what’s right and fair. Vote No on Prop 8.