Writer addresses significance of gay marriage vote

In the Aug. 30 edition, Michael Carley expressed the naiveté that many of our California citizens also claim on the issue of gay marriage.

First: It has to do with constitutional procedures. It makes an enormous difference in our country whether four men can decide that a tradition of thousands of years needs to change. That is the duty of the Legislature, not the courts.

Totalitarian countries allow four men to make laws. Our country does not. If for no other reason than this, every American should be up in arms about the change the California Supreme Court brought about when it voted 4-3 a month or two ago that marriage was not “only between a man and a woman” in California.

If a group of people want to change tradition, then they should legislate, or pass an amendment to the California Constitution.

Second: Gay couples in California can already receive most of the rights Mr. Carley spoke about.

Third: The ruling that these four judges dictated has far reaching implications. One of these is that children will be taught in schools that gay marriage is normal, and that teachers refusing to teach that curriculum will be disciplined.

Mr. Carley just doesn’t understand law and its progression. If that Supreme Court ruling is allowed to stand, then churches will not have the rights that he argued that they have. They will not be allowed to hire people that they want, they will not be able to perform marriages that they want (or don’t want), they will not be allowed to teach as they want.

For example, because the court used civil rights laws to arrive at its decision, it will become a hate crime for a minister to read and discuss Genesis 19:15, or Leviticus 18:22 and many other Scriptures in the Bible that state that homosexuality is a sin. Ministers in other countries with these kinds of rulings have already been jailed and fined. It will happen here, too.

In fact it has already begun. Suits are already being filed against ministers who teach that gay marriage is wrong.

It’s one thing to say that “their marriage does not affect me” and another to attack anyone who believes in and teaches traditional marriage. Those attacks have already begun and threats and suits are already being made against corporations and individuals who donate to the “Protect Marriage” side of this debate.

It is simply this: dictators always take a lot of effort to depose or change, and if we are apathetic, as Mr. Carley indicates he is, it will take a long time to regain our freedoms of speech and religion that are being lost.

Stanley Stark
Terra Bella