Former California Gov. Jerry Brown (known affectionately as "Governor Moonbeam" during his heyday) is now the state's attorney general. This is unfortunate since Attorney General Brown, purportedly the representative of fair and neutral law enforcement in the nation's most populous state, has inserted himself in a most partial and biased way in Californians' attempt to amend their state's constitution to define marriage as only between a man and a woman.
How did Attorney General Brown descend from the equal and impartial justice he is sworn to dispense to the level of blatant bias in favor of same-sex marriage?
Prior to the California Supreme Court's decision to go ahead and legalize same-sex marriage in June 2008 (in spite of the fact that an amendment initiative to prohibit such marriages in the state's constitution was already on the ballot for the first Tuesday in November), the ballot title was "Limit on Marriage." The first sentence of the summary then read, "Amends the California Constitution to provide that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."
Subsequent to the California Supreme Court's decision, Jerry Brown altered the title to read: "Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry." Attorney General Brown also altered the ballot summary to assert that the amendment would have a negative impact on the state's economy because of "potential revenue loss, mainly sales taxes, totaling in the several tens of millions of dollars" in the coming years.
This assertion is based on the fact that same-sex couples are traveling from other parts of the country to legalize their relationships in California and thus, spending money in local hotels and restaurants.
So we are subjected to the spectacle of the state's chief law enforcement officer, Attorney General Jerry Brown, abandoning all pretense of impartiality and trying to stack the deck against his fellow citizens' amendment initiative, known as Proposition 8.
Whatever happened to government "of the people, by the people, and for the people"?
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Diana Butler Bass is a religion scholar and author of Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church is Transforming the Faith. She blogs at 
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Jerry Brown is more like a "Zen Catholic" and always tried to middle road it. We, the People of California, will restore Marriage to the term defined in Webster's Dictionary, to wit: (n) The ceremony, act,or contract by which a MAN and WOMAN become husband and wife.
Theology has nothing to do with it nor does homophobia. We have "civil unions" to cover that.
I think the change in title actually makes it clearer as to what the amendment does. Currently, there is a right in California for same-sex couples to marry and the amendment would take away that right. Isn't that the purpose of it? And, he is also probably correct in stating that tax revenues would decrease if that right were changed. The changes he made in no way prevent people from voting to approve the amendment. In fact, they make the consequences clearer. If those two minor changes "stack the deck," then the amendment does not deserve to pass. So, I guess the point of your post is that we need to make the amendment sound as innocuous as possible in hopes it will pass because if people understand what it does and the consequences they won't vote for it.
gmo2,
Right on!
If folks really want to save heterosexual marriage, then they should completely refrain from heterosexual divorce.
All those opposed to gay marriage can take stock in their congregations, in their families, and in their own lives. If divorce is prevalent in any of the three areas; well then, gays aren't really a problem.
Didn't the Apostle Paul urge us to get our own houses in order first?
So if the simple majority wants to return to segregating blacks and return them the "3/4ths of a person" or exclude Jews from attending public schools "becasue' they're a dirty race" then that's A-OK then?
Are we or are we not a "free people" born and "endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights among there are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?"
In what spirit of freedom is it to deny equality to our own people? Who is injured by allowing people to be free and enjoy their lives? No one can explain with any clarity who the injured parties are.
This has nothing to do with your church or your marriage -- unless it's that fragile. This is about equality under the law.
Until 1968 "traditional marriages" in the South were between people of the same race. We see that as archaic and medieval -- why can't we see the injustice now?
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