The Bigoted Mormons, And Other Conervatives

Prop 8 in California really is about bigotry. People that voted for prop 8 (Christians, conservatives etc) did it to protect their way of life and to exclude inviting gay and lesbians into their circles. Churches don't want to have to marry gays if they find it against their beliefs, Boy Scouts don't want to be forced to allow same sex couples be troop leaders and camp out chaperons. That's not to say they can't live side by side with same sex couples and afford them all the courtesy they would any other.

Reason has a good story on this topic (Gay By Force):

Ideally, the government would leave marriage to private institutions, which managed to maintain it for almost all of its history. Short of that, those institutions and the individuals who follow their teachings should be free to accept or reject gay unions as they see fit, which means they should not have to worry about being sued for unlawful discrimination.

The key to this debate is what happened to eHarmony in New Jersey (added emphasis):

Such fears played a conspicuous role in the Proposition 8 campaign, and the eHarmony case shows they're not fanciful. Eric McKinley, the gay man who filed the New Jersey civil rights complaint that forced eHarmony to start matching same-sex couples, says the company's straights-only strategy was "very hurtful" and made him feel like "a second-class citizen."
Unlike a government that claims exclusive authority to approve adoptions or marriages, eHarmony has plenty of competitors, including online matchmakers that advertise themselves as gay-friendly alternatives. Yet McKinley could not bear the thought that one of many dating services chose to focus on heterosexuals. Such intolerance of diversity undermines the struggle for gay rights by feeding fears that equal treatment by the government means equal treatment by everyone.

The thought that not everyone must recognize gay, lesbian unions is unbearable to the gay and lesbian people. After all, in California gay and lesbians are afforded the same rights through domestic partnerships that a married couple has.

A California domestic partnership is a legal relationship available to same-sex couples, and to certain opposite-sex couples in which at least one party is at least 62 years of age. It affords the couple most of "the same rights, protections, and benefits, and shall be subject to the same responsibilities, obligations, and duties under law..." as married spouses. [1]

So what then is the big deal with "Marriage"? Marriage is a religious institution created by religious authority for people to have intimate relations with the approval of God. It just so happens that our society has combined marriage with civil unions to be recognized as the same. I don't know of many religions that promote gay marriage (other than the Episcopalians, and some "fringe" religions). It would seem to me that forcing religions to accept and preform gay marriages would be tantamount to having Gods approval. Which is ironic because most gay lesbians are, not necessarily atheistic, but non-religious. I personally don't know any church going homosexuals.