Proposition 8 - Super Deluxe Links Edition

For more of why I support Proposition 8, you can visit here, and here.

This is going to be a super long post, and hopefully I won't end up spending the whole afternoon on it because I do have a test I have to finish up by tonight. I'm also hoping that any commentary will be coming from other people.

It amazes me what comes from the opposition to Prop 8. I emailed some of you for some of your personal encounters with people opposing the amendment. I do appreciate your responses. How does one side argue that Prop 8 = Prop Hate, and that anyone opposing same-sex marriage (SSM) is intolerant, and then turn around and berate us for not allowing others to live as they choose, behave as they want, or believe as they see fit? Don't they see the hypocrisy in that?

Unfortunately, the small-minded backlash is not limited to just the opposition. I was going to do this piece with the intention of highlighting how overwhelmingly aggressive Anti-Prop 8 people have been, but the last couple of days there have been a number of headlines showing that a lot of supporters for Prop 8 are just as obnoxious.

In any case, I did want to include some links that were forwarded to me from people with personal connections to everyone who bothers reading this blog (I think, at least):

• One girl's experience from the Pierside ward with her lesbian neighbor.
• A couple of people forwarded this story to me from Sundstrom's who now live in Northern California. That link is actually to the Mercury News up in San Jose.
• This is Brenna's experience last week with Prop 8 opposition.
• This blogger documents his Prop 8 experiences.
• This story from the San Francisco Chronicle talks about the protestors against Prop 8 demonstrated outside the Oakland Temple.

There are a number of others, but I didn't want to have to cut and paste all the stories. Next up are some additional perspectives on Proposition 8:

• This comes from Carolyn who used to go to the Newport Coast ward. I never really knew her very well, but she's a sharp cookie. She's a BYU law grad and actually gives her legal arguments for why she supports Proposition 8. It's actually really interesting, even if you're not a law person. Very well articulated.
• One person talking about the oft-repeated argument of how SSM affects your traditional marriage.
• My boy Orson Scott Card giving his take on SSM. Incidentally, that website, Mormon Times, is kind of interesting. Gives LDS news without being totally churchy, and essays on different topics.
• This story from NPR is one of my favorite summaries of the clash between freedom of religion and same-sex liberties, and how religion invariably loses that battle in the eyes of the law. Really one of the better summaries of this argument I've seen anywhere.
• Townhall writer Dennis Prager talks about the "hate" fueling Proposition 8 support.
• I liked this article from some random website. There are certain people who came that Mormons are overstepping their boundaries by entering into this political debate, and this op-ed address this argument well.

I was going to post a bunch of the stuff coming out of the Daily Kos, but they're hardly worth addressing, unless you're going to do it like this guy does on his blog. I just don't care for the Kos kids. It's the popular blog that's pretty representative of the liberal-wing of politics of this country. I'm just so grateful that the conservative voices of this country don't reflect the vulgarity, crassness, and vitriol that comes out of the left. Mind you, that's the popular news blog of the left, not just a bunch of crazy far-left radicals that represent only the fringe.

Just a couple of more thoughts from me before I wrap up this post:

I saw a BYU Forum yesterday with Roger Brown of Princeton University. He has a law degree from Harvard, Masters in Theology, and PhD in Philosophy from some other top-notch schools. The guy was so brilliant. A lot of his thoughts were over my head and I consider myself pretty able to keep up with academic arguments, but he was way beyond me. From what I was able to grasp, he brought up some really good points:

• Somehow, supporters of traditional marriage don't argue their side as vehemently as the opposition does. I forget what reasons he had listed as to why that's the case, but it's just as important that we assert our stances with respect to these issues. Now that I can't seem to recall what he said exactly, that point hardly seems profound at all.
• He mentioned the argument that some people think we should remove the word "marriage" from the government/legal lexicon because it's primarily a religious institution anyway. Some people want to give it the status of something like baptism, communion, etc, but the problem with this, he pointed out, is that it is both in the best interest of government and society as a whole to promote marriage. This is why throughout all of history, and in ever government that has ever existed, something akin to marriage has been endorsed, and even promoted, by the government because family stability contributes to the stability of the government. What happens when the family disintegrates is that the poor are those that receive the first and most exposure to the consequences of unstable families. Without stable families, people rely on outside entities for their support, i.e. government needs to intervene, and therefore government is required to expand. For this reason, it is even more imperative that we promote traditional marriage as the only legitmate form of union recognized by the law.
• He spoke at length about the philosophy of marriage. This part was where he started to lose me, but he talked about how there are two schools of thought about mind and body, essentially that one considers each to be separate, and the other advocating a communion of the two. Which line of thinking you endorse also affects the way you would perceive marriage. If spirt and body are one, then marriage as it's talked about biblically is the literal union of two people cleaving unto one another, flesh becoming as one. In intercourse, this occurs in a way that can only really exist between two people of the opposite sex, especially in the creation of life. Marriage is the fully literal manifestation of two people becoming one, and that has been, and will always be, the intention of the institution.
• Dave shared with me some statistics he heard at a symposium on Proposition 8 last Friday at Chapman law school. Although I don't doubt the statistics he shared with me, I don't have access to those numbers so I won't reference them here. However, I was able to find a number of other findings from other scientific journals that reveal the alarming patterns of promiscuity among people in same sex relationships.
• From the Journal of Homosexuality - in 1978, two homosexual doctors found that 83% of gay males have 50+ different sexual partners in their lifetime, 41% had 500+, and 26% had 1000+ different partners.
• From the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the most prominent scientific journals in the whole world, gay men were averaging 110+ different partners a year.
• Two homosexual researchers found that given enough time, the cheating ratio of committed gay men approaches 100%, from the book After the Ball.
• I haven't found this statistic, but I heard mentioned that 95% of all same-sex couples who plan on getting married, do so with the intention of having an open marriage.

Whatever myths people want to believe about same-sex relationships, there is no truth at all to the idea that they want to get married for the purpose of staying in a monogamous relationship. The numbers don't lie, and I would link you to those sources, but they're in scholarly journals and not accessible via the internet. Marriage is about the family, and the family doesn't work without stability. While these numbers may not be entirely representative of lesbian couples, it is undoubtedly true for gay men, and they can in no way offer the kind of environment optimal for child-rearing. While 50% divorce rates are alarming, 100% chances failure are surely worse.

If you haven't already donated to support the campaign, you can through this website.

I'm hoping this will be the last time I post about this until the proposition passes next week.