Quote Originally Posted by Koga No Goshi View Post
Churches losing tax exempt status-- again, had NOTHING to do with Prop 8, and was pure scare tactic. No church has ever or will ever be singled out and punished for refusing to conduct a marriage ceremony which is not in keeping with their particular religion or denomination's beliefs. Take the Mormons, for example--- traditional Mormons do not allow any non-Mormons into Mormon religious ceremonies, including weddings. My coworker, whose friend is Mormon and lives in Utah, married a woman who was from Japan. Her family, not knowing anything about Mormonism (I suspect that the wife didn't know much either) flew out, only to be told they could not actually sit in the church for the ceremony itself because they were non-Mormons. Kinda crappy, but the Mormon Church is not going to lose their tax-exempt status over it.
Okay, first a point of clarification. Non-Mormons are not allowed to attend Mormon temple ceremonies (neither are Mormons without a valid and current temple recommend). The vast majority of Mormon services and religious ceremonies do not take place in temples, and are open to anyone who wishes to attend. Furthermore, if your friend and his fiance failed to clearly explain the situation and their intentions to her family well ahead of time, that was gross negligence on their part and very discourteous.

Second, unless I'm mistaken, this amendment is not retroactive. I know my lesbian aunts in Berkeley were planning to be married before the election for that reason. Their union should still be legally protected, right? They've been together for many years and have two children, so it's about time their family becomes official, imo. And in case it hasn't come through already, not all Mormons are against gay marriage--just the vast majority .

Finally, as we live under a democratic nation and the will of the people of California has been expressed, even if misguided by whatever campaign tactics, the decision should be respected as final and legally binding until further legislation reverses it. As some posters have already mentioned, the effort to allow the legal protections of marriage to gay families must start with winning people over and move on to popular legislation. The straightforward way is the best.

Ajax