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Published: January 30, 2009
“Decades of societal rancor and legal strife”
Brief filed on behalf of bishops, other religious leaders, says California Supreme Court should not overturn Proposition 8
Sacramento, Jan. 29, 2009 / (CNA) -- A coalition of Jewish, Catholic and Protestant organizations has filed a friend-of-the-court brief asking that Proposition 8 be upheld. The coalition argues that the successful 2008 ballot measure, which overturned a state Supreme Court decision imposing same-sex “marriage,” prevents widespread church-state conflict.
Parties to the brief include the California Catholic Conference, the Seventh-Day Adventist Church State Council, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and the Union Of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America. Their brief, one of 60 submitted to the court, was drafted by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. The brief warned that overturning the ballot measure would undermine the democratic process.
 Proposition 8 “serves the common good of society to allow the interconnected and religiously sensitive issues of marriage, family and children to be discussed and decided within the political process, not silenced by judicial pronouncement,” the brief argues. The ballot measure also prevents the creation of “a systemic, irresolvable conflict between church and state” in issues such as housing and public accommodations.
“Although no one expects these religious adherents or their ministers to be required actually to conduct same-sex marriage ceremonies, we do expect them to be -- and have already seen them be -- sued and otherwise punished for their refusal to treat same-sex and different-sex couples as moral equivalents in the numerous other contexts where religious institutions operate in society,” the brief continues.
Eric Rassbach, national litigation director for the Becket Fund, said in a Jan. 27 statement there are “many fundamental rights and interests at stake in the debate over same-sex marriage.”
“Those rights and interests can best be balanced if the political process is allowed to continue,” he said. “If the Court instead overturns Proposition 8, it sets the stage to gridlock California courts with hundreds, even thousands, of legal challenges and decades of societal rancor and legal strife. We have an opportunity here to reason, debate and negotiate our way to a place where the civil rights of both gays and lesbians and religious people are recognized and respected. But not if the court steps in and freezes the debate, forcing each side to assume an entrenched position."
(For an earlier California Catholic Daily story on this subject, please see “Entering the fray,” published Jan. 22.)
Posted Friday, January 30, 2009 3:36 AM By Charles O'Connell
Philip Jenkins, Professor of History and Religious Studies at Pennsylvania State University (an ex-Catholic), has written extensively about anti-Catholic discrimination in "The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice". However, in this self-avowedly, religiously "tolerant" land, we are currently seeing the LDS singled out among that long list of religious organization for especially vicious and organized attacks. What? Just because calls for retaliation are on the internet, then are met with acts of desecration against Mormon church facilities, this doesn't qualify as Conspiracy? It's just diffused conspiracy. It's time we all re-examined our own possible prejudices against the LDS, against Mitt Romney and Fox's Glen Beck, for being Mormon. It isn't simply a matter of "the Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend"; we're not supposed to be anyone's enemies. When our Lady brings about the realization of the age of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and the Moslems (see images of Zeitun in Egypt) and Mormons are converted en masse, how will our present regard for them hold up?
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Posted Friday, January 30, 2009 5:18 AM By Verbiage
Who authorized the phrase "civil rights of gays and lesbians?" This does these people a great disservice, not to mention the cause of defense of marriage a morality. If we admit to the false argument that there is a thing as "civil rights for gays and lesbians" we act fatally to the cause. This was a mistake. Will we next recognize the "civil rights of kleptomaniacs?"
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Posted Friday, January 30, 2009 1:10 PM By Thuvia Parth
In reply to Verbiage: Yours is either a shill-post or you do not know how to distinguish between (a) civil rights that vest in all persons because all persons are creatures of God, and (b) the God-given right to marry, also vested in all persons because they are creatures of God, but only on the understanding that marriage is not gender-neutral.
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Posted Friday, January 30, 2009 6:08 PM By JLS
Verbiage is probably trying to convey the idea that there should be no special rights for gays and lesbians ... that their human rights are already covered by normal laws. The issue is really that the gay agenda seeks to exalt itself above the normal human condition. This is an exaltation that they themselves cannot restrain, and would rise like Nimrod in the Tower of Babel so high into the sky that he shot an arrow in an attempt to kill God.
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Posted Sunday, February 01, 2009 1:12 PM By Elizabeth
NEWS FLASH................
THE PEOPLE OF CALIFORNIA HAVE SPOKEN.....ACTUALLY TWICE.
CASE CLOSED!!!!!!!!!!!
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Posted Monday, February 02, 2009 3:31 PM By Rick DeLano
The good news is, as Elizabeth said, this horse has done been beat to death already, and the California Supreme Court is probably not all on fire to precipitate a Constitutional crisis by arrogating to itself a nonexistent power superior to the People's right to amend their constitution.
The bad news -- which isn't really all that bad -- is that we can expect the Court to vote either 4-3 or 5-2 to uphold Prop 8, while simultaneously using language the LA Times will scream in bold headlines, "inviting" the twice-defeated homosexualists to try yet a third time.
Save your pennies, folks.
The Mormons won't be out front next time.
Next time, it's up to us.
I predict we will rout them by 10-15 points, if they are foolish enough to push for a 2010 rematch.
Might be tighter if they wait til 2012.....
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Posted Tuesday, February 03, 2009 11:38 PM By Patrick
The Mormons spearheaded the constitutional amendment several years ago in Hawaii that prevented that State form being the first to adopt Gay so-called marriage. Bravo to the Mormons. After Proposition 8 passed, the Mormons issued a paper explaining to all members and churches the traditional basis of marriage. They are courageous, not frightened, to stand up for marriage.
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Posted Wednesday, February 04, 2009 1:11 PM By Rick DeLano
If my post gave any notion AT ALL that the Mormons were not tremendously courageous, committed and the LEADING force behind Prop 8's victory, then allow me to clarify:
The Mormons WERE the in-the-trenches, door-knocking, check-writing, precinct walking reason we won Prop 8.
My point was, that it is our turn to spearhead next time.
It is disgraceful that the Catholics, with their immense numbers, contributed far less than the relatively tiny number of Mormons did.
Next time it will be up to us.
Not that the Mormons will shrink from the fight.
The Mormon friends I made on the Prop 8 campaign do not at all strike me as the shrinking type :-)
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