Sunday, October 26, 2008
As the frenzy over the coming election continues to build, most eyes are turned to the presidential race, with all the mud-slinging and platitudes that contest entails. But on November 4, more than our national leadership is up for decision; the ballot will also include the controversial Proposition 8, a California measure that would amend the State Constitution to define marriage as being exclusively between a man and a woman.
This may be the last time this issue is brought before California voters — but it certainly isn’t the first. Proposition 22, an almost identical measure, was voted into law by 61 percent of voters in March of 2000. Earlier this year, however, the California Supreme Court struck down Proposition 22, on the grounds that it violated an equal protection clause, which is a part of the California Constitution.
And now Proposition 8 is up for the vote; if passed, it would reinstate the legal definition of marriage that existed in California between March 2000 and May 2008.
Debate has raged over Proposition 8, and most voters have strong feelings on the topic, whether for or against. No group is more passionately opinionated, when it comes to the legality of gay marriage, than Santa Barbara’s clergy.
The Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara, led by their minister, Reverend Aaron McEmrys, took a vote within the congregation; according to their press release, they “voted overwhelmingly to oppose Proposition 8.” Just the effort of producing and sending a press release in the first place shows their commitment to the cause; as a follow-up, the Unitarian Society plans a phone campaign to reach voters in the community individually.
“Unitarian Universalists believe that marriage is one of the highest, most sacred expressions of love and commitment that two people can make to one another,” McEmrys said, commenting on the basis for the church’s stance. “In the end,” he added, “we believe that it all comes down to basic fairness, and it is time for all of us to stand on the side of love.” This position — that limiting marriage to heterosexual unions is fundamentally unfair to same-sex couples –- is echoed by other Santa Barbara clergy who are opposed to Proposition 8. One local rabbi said in an email that he is “committed to core values of fairness, equality, and compassion” and that Proposition 8 is in violation of those values.
But some local clergy, equally opposed to Proposition 8, take a very different stance. Pastor Roy Donkin of the Cambridge Drive Community Church in Goleta, who emphasized that he (unlike the Unitarians, who reached a group consensus) was speaking for himself alone, and not necessarily for his congregation, is opposed to the bill on the basis that it’s a violation of the principle of separation of church and state.
“The framers of the Constitution and the early Baptists [my tradition] and Quakers knew that for religion to have any value it must never be coerced,” Donkin wrote. “The power of the state must not be used to enforce religious doctrine regardless of whether the doctrine is right or not … The only reasons that I have heard in favor of Prop. 8 have been religious ones and those reasons must not be used as a foundation for public policy.”
Donkin makes a very important point: that religious values, other than those that are also common to people of other faiths or no faith at all (he used murder as an example; it’s one of the Ten Commandments, yet also generally condemned), should not be legislated.
Another clergy member who responded to my informal opinion poll, Pastor Don Johnson of the Montecito Covenant Church, is a proponent of Proposition 8, for very similar reasons: his objection is that if same-sex marriage is officially legalized, his legal right to uphold his own values may be compromised. Johnson takes a very live-and-let-live attitude; he does “believe in protecting the full human rights for all people of any sexual orientation.” But his individual belief is that marriage should be between a man and a woman — and as a legal marriage officiant, his right to choose which marriages to perform might be taken away from him, should Proposition 8 be voted down. “My concern,” he wrote, “is that the refusal to officiate at a gay marriage would be considered a violation of human rights and subject to penalty.”
While this particular situation might not come to pass — since there are protections already under California law enabling clergy to choose which ceremonies they will or will not perform — the standard arguments for the passage of Proposition 8 bring up other conflicts between the public and the private, between values and legislation. In the California Education Code, Section 51890, “Family health and child development, including the legal and financial aspects and responsibilities of marriage and parenthood” is listed as one subject to be taught in health classes in public schools. If Proposition 8 is not passed, marriage — as a concept and as a word — will come to be defined in different way than it has been in this state heretofore, and thus the definition of marriage used in public school health education will also be altered.
The argument in favor of Proposition 8, printed in voter sample ballots and available online, cites this public education as one way in which Proposition 8 would impact citizens whose values oppose same-sex marriage.
Perhaps the most interesting theme to emerge from the aggregated opinions of my respondents is that Proposition 8 is more an issue of ethics and values than of religion — a fine distinction, but an important one nonetheless. While the few clergy members who are quoted here may or may not be representative of California as a whole, it’ll be interesting to see how the opinions of voters stack up against our clergy’s views on November 4.
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