Saturday, November 22, 2008

What If Prop 8 Lost?

I was reading this from Orson Scott Card tonight and it prompted the question: What if Prop 8 lost? Citing Helaman 16:20-21, Card had this insight about the "No on 8" crowd:
Their story is that we Mormons somehow oppress them and force them; they claim to be our victims. And yet they are the ones who tried to force us to accept their radical change through judicial edict, rejecting a clear majority vote only a few years before.
How would things look different if Prop 8 were defeated? The first thing would be that the gay movement would be hailing this a huge victory and a repudiation of each member of the coalition for Prop 8. This would be the first electoral victory for the gay movement; all they have now are some court decisions decided by one justice.

With the Prop 8 victory, states are 30/30 in passing marriage amendments for state constitutions. Had this been defeated in California, it would have spread to other states. California has long been a bellwether for laws and regulations soon to be passed in other states.

Another major difference is that the "Yes on 8" crowd would not be illegally protesting in the streets. (Protesting is fine, but most of the early protests were without permits.) There would be no meaningful call to boycott Google and Apple, who both opposed Prop 8. There would be no vandalism against churches who opposed Prop 8. There would not likely be any lawsuits to overturn the democratic process.

Basically, the "No on 8" crowd is doing exactly what they are accusing us of doing. At the same time, they are proving correct the fears of the "Yes on 8" campaign: there have been lots of calls to remove the tax exempt status of churches involved.

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