Reflections on Proposition 8: California’s Shame (Part One)

What is one thing you will com­mit to do in 2009 that will draw you closer to Jesus?
(This is not a New Year’s Resolution)

“Ma’am, I’d like to talk to you about Propo­si­tion 8.”

It was a sunny Sat­ur­day morn­ing in North­ern Cal­i­for­nia, just a lit­tle after 10:00 a.m. I was not yet dressed, so I answered the door in my robe. The man I found stand­ing on my doorstep, lean­ing on the rail­ing casu­ally, had a stack of pam­phlets and other lit­er­a­ture in his hand. He looked like an out of uni­form sol­dier — his hair was cut short, neatly trimmed and combed into place. His plaid button-down shirt was as crisply pressed as his Dock­ers trousers which boasted a per­fectly lined crease down the front of each unwrin­kled leg.

I instinc­tively knew when I glanced at him for the first time that this well-groomed, polite gen­tle­man and I would find no com­mon ground on the issue at hand.

“I don’t really think we have any­thing to talk about, but thanks for stop­ping by,” I said as gen­tly as I could as I began slowly clos­ing the door.

“Mar­riage is between a man and a woman, ma’am,” he said hur­riedly in a ploy to stop me from ter­mi­nat­ing our brief encounter.

It worked.

I quickly pulled the door open fully and replied, “I don’t believe that,” chal­leng­ing him to defend his posi­tion.  I could have told him I didn’t wish to dis­cuss the issue fur­ther or that I had already made up my mind about how I intended to vote or … pro­vided an infi­nite num­ber of other rea­sons why the two of us should not spend time on that beau­ti­ful autumn morn­ing argu­ing with each other about an issue about which we both knew we would never achieve consensus.

Instead, he took my bait. “But that’s what the Bible says,” he continued.

I felt my cheeks get­ting hot and knew that if I looked in a mir­ror at that pre­cise moment, I would see that my ears were as bright as Rudolph’s nose on Christ­mas Eve.  As though I were two sep­a­rate beings, part of me recoiled at the invi­ta­tion to debate the man who had ded­i­cated his Sat­ur­day morn­ing to ring­ing the door­bells of total strangers in order to press his case.  While another part of me eagerly spoiled for the fight.

“Look, I’ve stud­ied the Bible — all pas­sages that could even remotely be inter­preted as relat­ing to this issue.  At length.  I sim­ply don’t believe as you believe.  I have no desire to stand here argu­ing with you because nei­ther of us is going to con­vince the other of the cor­rect­ness of our posi­tion.  So how about if we just agree to dis­agree?  You have a nice day,” I said, as I again began to shut the door.

“Can I leave you some lit­er­a­ture to read about what the Bible really says about mar­riage?” he queried.

I fell back on the response I always pro­vide when some­one rings my door­bell to push an agenda with which I dis­agree.  “Sure.  Leave me all of it!” I said enthusiastically.

“Oh!  Well … sure, I guess I could do that.  Will you dis­trib­ute it to your friends and cowork­ers?” he said innocently.

“No,” I replied sin­cerely.  “I’m going to burn it.”

At that moment, our eyes met and he finally accepted that he would not suc­ceed in con­vert­ing me.  Still … he was not quite ready to con­cede total defeat.

“I see that there is another reg­is­tered voter liv­ing in this house.  Is ______ at home?  Could I talk to him?  Do you know how he will be vot­ing?” he asked.

“No, he’s not home.  And he will be vot­ing ‘no’ just as I will,” I replied matter-of-factly.

With that, he prac­ti­cally ran down the steps, mum­bling “have a nice day” as he scur­ried toward the sidewalk.

That after­noon, I pur­chased my first “No on 8″ sign and installed it on my front lawn.  By the time Novem­ber 4, 2008, rolled around, how­ever, there was no longer a sign there — three “No on 8″ signs had been stolen from my front yard in the weeks just prior to the election.

The evening of Novem­ber 4, 2008, brought mixed bless­ings. I was joy­ous when I saw the words “President-Elect Obama” flash on the tele­vi­sion screen as the major news net­works declared the elec­tion results. But hope turned to despair in the ensu­ing hours and days as the bal­lots were counted and it became clear that a major­ity of Cal­i­for­nia vot­ers approved of inject­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion into the state’s constitution.

The protests around the state sig­naled that the fight for equal­ity was far from over.

This time of year, we sing about angelic choirs bring­ing glad tid­ings of “peace on earth, good will toward men.”  I have never suc­ceeded in rec­on­cil­ing those car­ols with pas­sages such as this one:

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daugh­ter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s ene­mies will be those of his own house­hold. Who­ever loves father or mother more than me is not wor­thy of me, and who­ever loves son or daugh­ter more than me is not wor­thy of me. And who­ever does not take his cross and fol­low me is not wor­thy of me. Who­ever finds his life will lose it, and who­ever loses his life for my sake will find it.

Matthew 10:34–39

The mod­ern lan­guage trans­la­tion, The Mes­sage, puts it this way:

“Don’t think I’ve come to make life cozy. I’ve come to cut—make a sharp knife-cut between son and father, daugh­ter and mother, bride and mother-in-law—cut through these cozy domes­tic arrange­ments and free you for God. Well-meaning fam­ily mem­bers can be your worst ene­mies. If you pre­fer father or mother over me, you don’t deserve me. If you pre­fer son or daugh­ter over me, you don’t deserve me.

If you don’t go all the way with me, through thick and thin, you don’t deserve me. If your first con­cern is to look after your­self, you’ll never find your­self. But if you for­get about your­self and look to me, you’ll find both your­self and me.”

Matthew 10:34–39

The truth is that when that nice gen­tle­man rang my door­bell, I felt as com­pelled to speak the truth, as I believe it, as he felt called to get up on that day and spend his valu­able time knock­ing on the doors of strangers in order to con­vince them to vote for Propo­si­tion 8. I have no doubt that he believed he was doing the right thing.  Since the odds are good that we both claim to be believ­ers and fol­low­ers of Christ, there is also a good chance that he, like me, would claim inspi­ra­tion from the Spirit to speak out in favor of our core beliefs.

Is that notion plau­si­ble when he, along with his fel­low Chris­tians who voted for and assured the pas­sage of Propo­si­tion 8, was not just mis­guided, but flat-out wrong?  Com­pletely, if you take Jesus at his word in stat­ing his true pur­pose for tak­ing on human form.

Click here to read Part Two.

Writ­ers Offer­ing Their Finest for the Jan­u­ary 9, 2009 WOOF Con­test. Top Picks:

Poetry

• Dragon Blog­ger & Jen­nifer M. Scott – The Fallen Knight — a poem in the fan­tasy genre about a knight hunted in the snow.
• Dragon Blog­ger – Mad­ness for Love — A ran­dom twit­ter poem based on 7 words turned out to be about search­ing for love.

Non-Fiction, Phil­io­soph­i­cal, Opin­ion Piece

• Hope­ful Spirit — Reflec­tions on Propo­si­tion 8: California’s Shame — A two-part dis­cus­sion, from a pro­gres­sive Chris­t­ian per­spec­tive, of Propo­si­tion 8. The sec­ond part is found here.
• JHS, Esq. — Mon­day Mus­ings: Box­ing Day — She says, “In recent years, I have done very lit­tle dec­o­rat­ing for Christ­mas. It took me a long time to fig­ure out why I was no longer get­ting excited about the hol­i­day … but I think I finally found the answer.”

Flash Fic­tion, Fiction

• Jen­nifer M Scott – Every­man – about a ser­ial killer.

Brought to you by Plot­Dog Press with the Ser­ial Sus­pense Screen­play “Inter­ven­tion.”

Tech­no­rati Tags: Inter­net Café Chat, Plot­Dog Press, Propo­si­tion 8, Reflec­tions On the Hori­zon, WOOF Con­test

You might also like:

• Reflections on Proposition 8: California’s Shame (Part Two)
• Affirmation of Faith
• You Mean it’s Not All About Me?
• True Feminism: A Decidedly Christian Concept
• The White Carnation: A Mother’s Day Remembrance