No on Proposition 8

This is posted, with respect, to my Mormon friends.

If I lived in California, I would vote No on Proposition 8. I'd write you a whole big long list of why's and wherefore's, but I'm sure I wouldn't do it as eloquently asJoe Vogel, a thoughtful young writer, who happens to be Mormon. The Mormon Church is leading the charge to vote Yes on 8.

Some highlights of "A Mormon's Lament: Church is On The Wrong Side Of History Again With Proposition 8":

"You hear of marriages ruined all the time because of abuse, neglect, or stress over finances. But I have personally never heard of a divorce caused by another gay couple getting married.

Yet instead of focusing on issues that can really help nourish our families we obsess over a word. A word we refuse to share. A word that has never been perfectly fixed. There was a time, after all, when inter-racial marriage was just as taboo and illegal as gay marriage. Marriage has been many things, but the common ideal has been and should continue to be a relationship built on love and commitment."

And this....

"Maybe you don't completely understand homosexuality. Maybe you think it's a sin. But shouldn't we leave that to God and allow others to be who they are and make their own choices? As followers of Christ, isn't it always better to err on the side of compassion and love?

Martin Luther King once lamented in his famous letter from Birmingham Jail:

So often the contemporary Church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an arch-defender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the Church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the Church's silent---and often even vocal---sanction of things as they are."

Please read the whole post here.