I think I started caring more when I realized what my votes as a non-informed voter had provoked.  I had voted for people that stood strongly against my beliefs and I never cared enough to find out or dig deep enough to find those differences.  I was a Democrat, I voted Democrat, and that was that – no thought involved – easy stuff.

Too long of a story to add here, but I’ll just say that through experiences in life and my learning more about my Catholic faith, I now consider myself a reformed Democrat – turned away from the dark side (if I may use that term withouth George Lucas descending his lawyers upon me).  Once I opened up my mind to consider the fact that maybe, just maybe, Democrats weren’t the helpers of the oppressed and the saviours of the poor as they claimed, then I was able to use logic in my voting.  I am proud to say that I voted Republican in the last election (and I won’t get into an argument about how the Republican party is not perfect – trust me I know – but they are the better alternative at the moment). 

Anyway, back to what I wanted to talk about.  Having an open mind, and an informed conscience, I realized what was happening in California.  Activist judges were trying to force homosexual marriage on Californians and they didn’t care that California voters had already decided on this issue only a few years back.  When I heard about what this meant, and that there was actually a movement to try and fight for our rights (thanks Maggie Gallagher from NOM for coming to California), I knew I had to be part of it.  From the beginning I had the opportunity (and I say blessing) to be involved in the Prop 8 campaign. 

I was only a small drop of water, part of a group working with a region in Los Angeles to motivate Catholics to volunteer and vote for Prop 8 to protect traditional marriage.  It was hard work and we as a group faced daunting tasks.  Sometimes it seemed impossible that we could achieve our goal. Faith is what kept us going through the attacks (physical, verbal, emotional) from the other side.  Faith is what kept us going when we met opposition even in our churches – people that should know what the Church teaches and what we as Catholics believe. 

I worked with so many great people – people I would not have met otherwise – brothers and sisters from other denominations, and especially wonderful people from the Church of LDS.  Together we tackled many tasks and reached many, many voters.  Throughout the whole campaign we were told by news programs, all types of media, polls and people around us (ahem, won’t say any names) that we shouldn’t be hopeful, that we were likely going to lose and that there was no way that California would vote to overturn gay marriage.  Faith kept us going.

On November 4, 2008, the people of California spoke.  Despite so many deceiving ads from gay marriage advocates, the attacks on our churches,  the enormous amount of money that celebrities poured into the opposition’s campaign, and just the overall hatred spewed in our direction for standing up for our beliefs and our rights, Californians voted to protect traditional marriage.  The voters spoke and their will was to uphold marriage between a man and a woman. 

This did not satisfy homosexual marriage advocates.  They of course decided to challenge the decision.  Sadly, even the State Attorney General (Brown) in charge of protecting and upholding our constitution decided to proclaim the Prop 8 Amendment was unconstitutional.  Protesters to Prop 8 went to the streets and caused disrputions, and to Churches and antagonized churchgoers.  Supporters of homosexual marriage began a blacklist of people who voted for Prop 8.  They physically and emotionally attacked people at their place of work, and businessowners who privately donated to the campaign.  As they shouted for tolerance, they tried to crush our spirt and intimidate people who exercised their right to vote.

Yesterday, the California Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the actions filed against Prop 8.  Their main argument was that Prop 8 was not an Amendment, but a revision and should have gone through a 3/4 legislative vote.  In my opinion, the opposition’s arguments were weak and unsupported.  I felt the Justices were good about questioning and trying to obtain evidence from the Prop 8 opposition as to why they should overturn the will of the people – and frankly, in my humble opinion, they did not get a valid response (you can see for yourself here http://www.calchannel.com/images/tcc_live.html).

Now the Justices have 90 days to give their decision.  I remain confident that the will of God will prevail. 

Here is my recap.  Ironically, I think Elton John said it best on November 14, 2008: 

“I don’t want to be married. I’m very happy with a civil partnership. If gay people want to get married, or get together, they should have a civil partnership,”  “The word ‘marriage,’ I think, puts a lot of people off.   “You get the same equal rights that we do when we have a civil partnership. Heterosexual people get married. We can have civil partnerships.”

The homosexual community already has the rights to be legally in a committed relationship.  What they want is the term “marriage.”  And in order to get the term, they are willing to insult, threaten livelihoods, intimidate, blacklist, physically harm, and legally outspend anyone who believes different.  They have said it many times, whatever it takes. 

I pray for the conversion of hearts and minds, and I pray for the strength to continue fighting for my beliefs and my voting rights in the face of such intolerant opposition.

The biggest difference between a truly educated person and someone with a collection of useless facts is the ability to think for one’s self. This doesn’t mean thinking without considering the opinions of others, but to form a balance between the analysis of others and self-analysis. Characteristics of an educated person include the ability to 1) think independently through those facts to form an opinion, 2) listen openly to others’ opinions, analyze, and draw conclusions, and 3) admit when personal opinions, long held, are in error.

Not everyone with an advanced degree can claim to be educated under the above description, and most, show some at least some of those traits some of the time. Likewise, one doesn’t have to earn a degree to shows those characteristics, but without the degree, the in depth knowledge and thinking skills are usually (not always) lacking. Most importantly, a truly educated person never stops re-evaluating their beliefs and opinions when presented with new facts.

One of the most important lessons I learned during the years of my secondary education is to always approach something with an open-mind and try to understand the world through the perspective of another person. That’s what I blame on the Catholic education. It’s the idea that one’s individual self is to be sacrificed for the greater good of another, and one of the forms of this sacrifice is an intellectual (and spiritual) exercise of perspective change. What did the world look like from the perspective of Christ on the cross, as He forgave His Executioners? If God looks upon the world with the eyes of Man, shouldn’t we attempt to look at the world through the eyes of another? Isn’t this what leads to the deep feelings of compassion that we have for our fellow man?

It was with this mindset, which is quite correct and good, that many people set their political beliefs around. When I graduated high school…(more after the jump) in the year 2000, I was able to vote in my first presidential election. Like most 18 year olds, I didn’t bother following the primaries. Once the general election roled around, we were faced with the choice between Al Gore and George W. Bush. I was sure I was a Republican, but it was probably for the wrong reasons…which I have no idea at this point what they were. It probably had to do with Clinton’s actions in office, the pro-life stance of the party, and the belief in a strong military. What did I know about politics?

I felt I was a moderate, believing in the necessity of state welfare, government subsidies (whatever the hell that was), federal education assistance (I couldn’t have gone to college without it), etc, but socially conservative. So President Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” appealed to me. I was against the death penalty because I had a pretty strong dream about being on death row, which convinced me that the death penalty was wrong. Gun rights? Good idea, but please keep them out of the school zones, etc. What would be wrong with registering guns and banning assault rifles? On abortion, what right did the state have to make me pay for someone else’s abortion? However, let’s keep abortion legal for special cases. Gay marriage wasn’t an issue at the time. The media was slightly biased, but that’s ok.

Most of the moderate beliefs were reinforced during the next five or six years of typical college classes. Then I started reading blogs and listening to forum conversations. Then that whole lesson from seeing the world through another perspective returned, but with different eyes. The new facts and observations and analysis played well with Sr. Theodora’s (and others) lessons, and I found myself re-evaluating some things.

I understand now some important lessons:

1. Seeing the world from a different perspective is important, but one cannot do this through the lens of the government. The government’s solution to problems is rooted in efficiency. This lens only sees statistics. It doesn’t see the individual. Remember, from above, that whole thing of sacrificing one’s self in order to see the perspective of another? The part where we are to make personal sacrifices for the common good? Through the lens of the government, we cannot see the individual we are sacrificing our paycheck for. The forced charity that this brings about is no longer a charity (meaning love), but part of a systematic way of reducing our individualistic identity into a collective. This affects both the “giver” and the “reciever” of said charity. It is no accident that the political left are far lacking in charitable donations than the political right.
2. Seeing the perspective of the other and sacrificing one’s self requires a personal act, addressing the individual needs of the other. The needs of the other are very rarely just a “hand-out”, which is more patronizing than anything else. Give the unemployed meaningful work. Treat minorities not as victims of society, but as individuals with the same capabilities as their white counterparts. Take personal responsibility for the good of society, and not wait or expect the government to do so.
3. People will rise up to the expectations set for them if only we stop making excuses for them.
4. Conservative economic theory beats socialization any day.
5. Give the government the opportunity to take more power and they will do it…no exceptions.

I can keep going, but the point is that I am now solidly on the side of classical liberalism – or conservatism. Not the compassionate conservativism, but solidly conservative. Yes, I still believe that the government should help out poor people wanting an education (though in a way that won’t raise tuition across the nation), government subsidies for research, etc. Art museums may need some extra help once in awhile, but dammit, Amtrak and airlines don’t need bailing out if their business models don’t work. Socializing healthcare is a bad idea: the free market would do better. Shrink the size of the federal government and return power to the states. If CA wants to experiment with socialized medicine, let them do it on their dime. Abortions are always wrong, and gay marriage is a redefinition of the basic building block of society that I’m not willing to concede.

The great fallacy of Progressivism, in my mind, is this mistaken belief that by artificially elevating the less fortunate and “downtrodden” to a position of false empowerment via cultural and government coercion will eliminate the power gradiant caused by capitalistic and aristocratic forces, thus solving the problems we face. This is quite naive and patently false, especially when coupled with the notion that seeing the world through another perspective implies a need to always apologize and bend over backwards to accomodate the other. True empowerment originates from an individual overcoming the burdens and challenges that fate has placed on the person. This artificial empowerment, on the otherhand and for the most part, is a direct result of arrogant patronization from the “enlightened” in a way to justify their own existance, inflating their lack of humility and self-worth. The individual who steps into a soup kitchen to serve soup to the homeless and poor does more good for those people than a hundred politicians handing out welfare checks. Even more, the individual who sits at the table and shares a meal with someone has much greater chance of empowering that person, even if just for a brief moment, than any government hand-out ever given, for this simple act of humility serves as a reminder to all that we are all humans, not statistics in a government report.

In this period of awakening, I’ve also realized that I want to be more involved in the political process. It’s made me question my previous desire to go a straight academic career path. I’m not sure where I want to go anymore, but we’ll see where this road takes me.

Later, I’ll elaborate on these themes in regard to the current presidential election, and I’ll talk about how, in just one week, John McCain has convinced me that he is the best man to lead this country at this time. I don’t agree with him on everything, but the McCain-Palin ticket has more hope of bringing about change (of the good kind) than any empty promise and socialized ideal that Obama has ever talked about.

In arguments over gay marriage with friends, I have often heard the phrase “separate but equal is not equal,” a reference to the Federal Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka which ended state racial segregation of schools. In this light, the CA Supreme Court ruling is not only unsurprising, it may very well have been the correct ruling, regardless of the CA voters intentions. The citizens of CA voted to allow a separate but equal form of “marriage” to be given to homosexual couples. If the only difference in the two state institutions is the name, then this is the very definition of discrimination.

Now let me pause for a second and state that I am NOT in favor of gay marriage on both moral and sociatal impact grounds. The fact that the Supreme Court of CA just gave a big “up yours” to the vast majority of voters of that state is probably the aspect of this that bothers me the most due to precedents. (More after the break) Drew at Ace of Spades HQ gives a pretty good legal breakdown of the ruling (hat tip Emperess Lucas, and the precedents it contains is not something I’m comfortable with – it’s the very definition of legistlating from the bench. However, if the ruling would very simply have stated what I wrote above, then I’d be in complete agreement.

To quote Drew from the previously mentioned breakdown:

Before this they make some pro forma claims, using italics to let you know this is constitutional law, yo, that they’ve determined that marriage is a basic substantive right, which is just jargon for “we’re going to overrule the legislature and the people acting through the initiative process, just because.”

That sounds snider and snarkier than it is. That’s really all it means. Categorizing something as a “fundamental” or “basic” “substantive” “right” is just a bit of judicial code for “We get to decide and no one else does.”

It is, in legal terms, an ipse dixit, an “it’s this way because I say it is,” and you can always tell when a court is resorting to ipse dixit because it stops citing the actual constitution and previous decisions and begins speaking of hitherto-unknown “fundamental rights.” How did they become “fundamental rights”? Oh, they always were. Just no one ever noticed.

The ipse dixits roll on. The right to establish a family becomes part of the living, breathing, sexy constitution, and with it comes the also newly discovered secondary right of that family to be treated with “equal dignity and respect.”

Now I’m not a legal expert and I’m not going to take time reading the very long decision (pdf can be found by going to Drew’s article). Nor am I going to look and see if CA actually has a clause in their Constitution to make marriage a fundamental right. I’m just going to trust Drew’s analysis since it makes sense to me, but I’ll be happy to hear contrary opinions. I want to talk about this on a larger scale, namely the implications at the national and societal levels.

The problem with this marriage debate and the idea that gays deserve the “right to marry” is that proponents to gay marriage see homosexual relationships as being of equal value as heterosexual ones. Since a good majority of society has now bought into the ideals of multiculturalism and don’t like the idea of declaring one culture or lifestyle superior to another, we have a movement to not only legitimatize what once was deemed immoral or inferior, but equalize it with the norm. The new definition of marriage, and hence its role in society, has all but eliminated the bearing and raising of children from the institution. This wasn’t brought about the acceptance of homosexuality, but by a breakdown of the traditional family. If having children out of wedlock and intentionally childless (or single child) marriages is now the accepted norm, then why not turn marriages from something two people did when they were ready for a family to something that is simply a legal contract between two (why only two?) consenting adults? So now marriage is no longer the basis for family life (since all “types” of families are equally valued), but simply a method of bestowing “next of kin” rights and getting a nice tax-break.

The issue is not a legal one brought about by activist judges or too-liberal legistlatures, but is very reflective of a societal ill that has led to the tyranny. Of course, the liberals would disagree and say it is a change for the good, and they are entitled to their opinion (even if they continue to try and deny conservatives that same right).

This brings us to the challenge that we are now facing: in a free society, ALL people have and should have the right to pursue happiness according to their own desires and beliefs, as long as they aren’t interfering with someone else’s ability to do the same. I may not agree with homosexual relationships or marriage, but I have no right to prevent them even if I wanted to. I DO have the right to not acknowledge them and to speak my mind against them.

The biggest problem with the State recognizing gay marriage is that it forces everyone to accept them as equal to heterosexual marriage, even if the vast majority of citizens are against them. Not only that, the State tells me that as an employer (which, I’m not, but one day I might be?), I can’t discriminate against a person based on sexual orientation, and if I want to extend (or am I required to?) benefits to spouses, I have to accept and legitimatize gay marriage, even if I find it highly immoral. This would also include religious institutions. This means that the State is passing legislation (via activist judges in this case) that violates my First Amendment Rights. We allow soldiers to not go to war due to their religious beliefs, but we don’t offer the same protection to civilians?

Furthermore, there is NO fundamental right to marry in our national Constitution. That right is inherited in the First Amendment’s Freedom of Religion. Marriage is a religious institution first and foremost. The State acknowledges marriages because of the importance of marriage and children to society. Since the procreational aspects of marriage is no longer acknowledged by many in society to the point that we now consider marriage as no more than a contract between consenting adults, why does the State need to acknowledge marriages at all? How can we still justify giving legal benefits on the basis of an institution that has now lost it’s purpose?

It comes down to this: The First Amendment gives homosexuals and even polygamists the right to marry under their religious beliefs. There is NOTHING that says the State or other citizens must acknowledge their marriages or beliefs as legitimate and equal to the rest of society. Hence, any judicial ruling that says otherwise is in violation of the Constitution. By the State acknowledging heterosexual marriages as deserving special rights, it is acknowledging that superiority of that relationship over homosexual ones. Once the State recognizes as equal the value of homosexual marriage, then it forces others to do the same.

I fear the best way to protect the Institution of Marriage is for the State to very simply do away with legally acknowledging it as a special contract, and pray that the strategy doesn’t backfire…but even if it does, can it really get much worse from a practical point of view?

This whole marriage debate is merely one aspect of a much larger problem. Our Constitution, being written for a Free Society, relies on the people of our society to be guided by sound moral principles:

We have no government armed in power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other. -John Adams

Many of the people of the United States, spurred in large part by an inherently flawed ideology known as Marxism, are no longer a religious and moral people, but one with “unbridled morality” – relativism. Our government is quickly eroding what it means to be Free while the People are quickly eroding what it means to be a responsible citizen and a Freedom-loving American.

At this point, is there any way to stop this run-away train?