"While an intolerant sect does not itself have title to complain of intolerance, its freedom should be restricted only when the tolerant sincerely and with reason believe that their own security and that of the institutions of liberty are in danger." - John Rawls.
Intolerance toward Prop 8 supporters is appropriate due to the threat to liberty that the restriction of same sex marriage creates.
There is no need to be tolerant of someone who threatens your security and liberty.
This was never about security or liberty (although it's a bit like the Monty Python sketch - "We're being oppressed, we're being oppressed! We really are!".)
I'm not saying there isn't discrimination against homosexuals in other areas, but this wasn't it.
This was basically a semantic debate about marriages versus civil unions.
A majority of Californians (Eich included) took the viewpoint that marriage was a traditional institution, and if people had a new style of relationship, they should have a new term for it, even if it had the same privileges (not rights - government's can't grant rights).
However, another group said no, we want to use the same word for it (I assume for ideological reasons, as opposed to purely utilitarian ones).
So no, please don't hoist the whole "WE'RE BEING OPPRESSED" flag - it doesn't help your case
That's incorrect. Prop 8 stripped all marriage rights. Most of those rights were restored by the time it got to the CA Supreme Court, but only because the CA Supremes said that Prop 8 was, legally, horseshit, but that to honor the will of the people they would let Prop 8 have the term "marriage". They're very clear about that in their decision.
The point of Prop 8 was to prevent gay marriage, and all the privileges that marriage includes. That is, to strip a civil right from gay people.
For thousands of years, we've had the concept of "marriage" and "families", and (more or less) monogamous relationships.
Central to this has been the idea of a man and a woman procreating, and raising children.
Now, perhaps we'll evolve away from that - maybe we'll simply clone people.
Or perhaps we'll have special breeder castes, and we'll raise the children away from their (biological) parents in learning centres.
Or perhaps the idea of having children will seem antiquated, and we'll just die away as a species.
Who knows.
But this (large scale homosexual relationships in society) is most definitely a new thing - and procreation, and nuclear families have no place in it.
Hence this whole ideological fight over whether to call it "marriage" (with all the associated ideas of families and raising children) or something else entirely.
Don't support welfare? You're against poor people.
Support welfare? You're against the working man.
You're pro-choice? You're against babies.
You're pro-life? You're against women.
