The California Supreme Court has upheld a recent statewide vote that amended the state constitution to define marriage as only between a man and a woman.  This is the same court that only months ago ruled that any ban on gay marriage was a violation of rights.  Their recent ruling, however, focuses on the legality of the vote to amend the constitution to rule out the possibility of same sex marriage.  If it is legal for voters to take away the right for gay people to marry by passing a constitutional amendment, then it would be just as legal for those voters to amend the constitution to say that marriage is only between a white man and a white woman.  That’s what California’s Supreme Court has ruled in all its wisdom.  They have legalized rampant bigotry.

In the 1960s when black people were marching for their civil rights and were attacked by white people with dogs and water cannons, well, you are the guys with the dogs or the fire hoses if you try to stop two gay men and women from marrying.

Candlelight Stories opposes bigotry and fully supports the rights of gay people to marry.  We support this completely, without equivocation or hesitation.  It is a fundamental right, just like the right to attend school or sit at a lunch counter or ride in the front of a bus or to marry outside of one’s race or ethnic group or to vote.

California was once a leader in civil rights and other social causes.  No longer.  It has officially stated to the world that bigotry is okay.  Its court has upheld a bigoted group of voters who are stripping rights away from people they don’t agree with.

The opposition to gay marriage is usually accompanied by enormous insecurity, fear and religious strictures against it. Religious beliefs have no business influencing the rule of law in the United States.  The separation of church and state here should prevent this, but unfortunately it does not.  So we see church groups funding opponents of gay marriage.  We hear people talking about how their church tells them that being gay is immoral.  If being gay is immoral, then it must be something someone chooses.  It is not.  Sexuality is built into our very being.  It is a deep and important part of all human beings.  In childhood we find out who we get crushes on.  That’s how we know what we are on a sexual level.  To try to prevent people from fully expressing this natural and glorious part of themselves is to sin against creation itself.

Candlelight Stories thinks that people who oppose gay marriage and vote to ban it are deeply insecure and frightened people who have profound issues with their own sexuality to work out.

Gay marriage needs its Martin Luther King or its Malcolm X.  Bigots must be opposed and must eventually lose.  Those trying to prevent gay marriage and vote it away will be remembered in decades to come as the hate-filled bigots of the early 21st century.  That’s exactly what they are.