Election

I have been feeling a little bittersweet about the election results this year. My mom won her race (yay!), Obama won the presidency (yay!)....and proposition 8 passed in California. I had little hope for Utah's analagous amendment to fail this year (though of course it did in 2004 before...the obvious difference between then and now), but California? California is a different story.

I know this makes me a horrible person (or at the very least a horrible Mormon) in many people's minds, but I am deeply, passionately supportive of gay marriage. I believe with every fiber of my being in the separation of church and state, that the idea of "separate but equal" is a lie, that equal rights for SOME are equal rights for NONE, and that equal rights for same-sex couples will never be achieved so long as they are barred from the civil right to be married. Marriage is about more than visitation rights, and adoption rights, and even religious convictions. It is a deeply meaningful union to Mormons, other Christians, Muslims, and athiests alike....recognized across religions and differing belief systems, a core aspect of human culture and a profound culmination of love and commitment. Moreover, so long as gay couples are relegated to a separate "committed" institution from the rest of us, the door will always remain open for differences in related rights to persist or increase. Separation of church and state ensures that religious groups will always be able to maintain their own particular ceremonies of spiritual and doctrinal significance to themselves, to bar those they choose from such unions, and to teach their children whatever they wish about marriage from a religious perspective; but denying *civil* marriage to people on the basis of differing religious beliefs about sexuality is something I cannot support. I am deeply disappointed.

So it is bittersweet to me that at the same time we've elected a black president, tearing down racial barriers to acceptance of black Americans, our nation's largest state has simultaneously seen fit to spit in the face of committed gay couples, reinforcing the reality that in America, we still find it conscionable to treat at least some groups as second-class citizens.