Can't We All Just Get Along?

I am truly excited by the ramifications of President-elect Barack Obama. However, I am equally saddened by the passage of Proposition 8, the demand for an amendment to our state constitution that excludes gay and lesbian couples from the definition of marriage. It is a time to celebrate the choice to elect an African American to the Presidency, and it is a time to mourn that those who supported Proposition 8 seem to have forgotten that one of the pillars upon which America was founded was religious freedom. The Pilgrims endured the voyage across the Atlantic so that we could believe according to our innermost hearts. What religious conservatives have forgotten is that also includes the right to believe in something other than Christian principles or to define those principles to include homosexuality as the Metropolitan Community Churches and the Unitarian Universalist churches do.

I have been estranged from the Pentecostal Church for many years precisely because within their tenets I am considered an abomination. It is an ostracism that saddens me, because I am at heart a Christian who has based my life on the principle that I should "love my neighbor as myself." It is a belief that encompasses world peace and healing the environment on this planet and finding ways to share the wealth so that no one dies of hunger. To me, those principles are paramount in my world view.

While the crafters of Proposition 8 are determined to exclude homosexuals from the legal definition of marriage, they seem unconcerned with the state of an institution that is marked by messy divorces and painful revelations about pornography and adultery. For me, having love at the core of any marriage should be the principal intention of any marriage, especially one "sanctioned" by God. Shame on you, so-called Christians, for your hateful and discriminatory campaign.