Church billboard apologises for Prop. 8

It's good to see that a church is stepping up and saying that they know gay rights are important, but the separation of church and state is important, too. It's perfectly fine for a church to refuse to offer the rights of marriage to a same-sex couple. What is not okay is the state doing the same thing. Heterosexual couples are married in non-religious ceremonies every day, and that is the right we need to be giving to gay couples. If they want to be married in a church or a synagogue or whatever, that's their battle. Our responsibility is to offer them the same rights under the law as everyone else.
Also, this is the first time in American history that rights have been given to a minority and then taken away. Can you imagine if we had tried to take away womens right to vote, or African Americans' right to be free? It would never have held, and this shouldn't either.

It is never too late for change. Would you call the emancipation act too little too late? Would you call the passing of woman's right to vote to little too late? How about electing our first black president too little too late? IT IS NEVER TOO LITTLE or TOO LATE TO CHANGE!

That "right" was given by one man against the majorities constitutional approval and was never really "given." You can have equal protection under Law without infringing on Separation of Church and State. It's not up to the State to decide what the religious meaning of marriage is.

This could be stated another way. Tomorrow if it was decided that all gays wanted to be called heterosexual instead of homosexual everyone would think that would just be asinine. But it's really the same argument. Marriage is "defined" as one man and one woman. That is the battle. Gay rights advocates are fighting over a NOUN! No matter how you break it down unless you believe that there really is a "gay" agenda to destroy the family unit as the religious right claims there is just No Way that gays can be Married.

Separation of Church and state? Which Church? Who owns the copyright on the term Marriage? A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet. Marriage is the union of two people. The divine male and the divine female. This concept refers to spirit not physical attributes which are limiting. Husband and wife could very easily be compared to Pilot and Co-pilot. The change is in the semantics. Majority is not always right because at one time, the majority of people believed slavery was normal and right. The question one would have to ask... What would Jesus do? After all, did he not travel around and sleep with a band of merry men called his disciples? Did John not say it is better for a man not to marry? The legal definition of marriage is defined by the state. That is the point. And if two people love each other and want to share their life together, so what if they call it marriage. A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet. The heterosexual argument is like comparing apples and oranges. That definition is founded on scientific principles, marriage is subjective. What bothers me the most is the Christian movement claiming they have the final say in what is considered a marriage. I believe your good book, The Bible, ever reads that when two people lay together (have sex) they become one and therefore, in my opinion, are married, in the eyes of God. The terms man and woman are man's translations of a text that has been translated thousands of times. The English language (vocabulary) is limiting when trying to describe a concept.

Getting back to the truth of Christianity, Love, Compassion and not Judging.

Very heartening to see "true" Christians out there.

I don't think it is ever too late. Never. If it were there are many things that may never have taken place. Blacks and women voting, stuff like that. Might be a long road for some....but I would imagine at the end of the journey it would be well worth the time.

Morgan

Same sex marriage core concept is based on the rejection of the other sex and violates the fundamental human right of children to have a father and a mother.

Based on your thought process, it is unconstitutional and does not protect the minority (children).

Marriage brings the both sexs together and their bilogical children as well as decendants/lineage into an union for the good of society.

Interacial marriage brought the races together. It was good.

Same sex marriage is regressive an divisive.

The California supreme court was in great error.

People have corrected the supreme court in the past and Prop 8 was one major correction the voters made
in 30 states.

No state who have ssm had the people approve it. It was always the voice of one vote. It is anti democratic

this sounds more like mission gathering taking a swipe at the Mormon church for supporting prop 8...

and, what's with the name calling? calling someone narrow-minded, judgmental, deceptive, and manipulative is hardly christian... i think they just saw a great opportunity to increase their membership

This looks to me to be just one church. When ALL Christian Churches apologize maybe I'll blink.

Voted this up.

I wonder if they just wanted to stir thing up and get some publicity...

Mad props from someone who rarely stands on the side of the church!

Sheep.

Soleil, same-sex marriage will not make more people become gay. Children will still have a mother and father in many situations. I suppose you want to ban same-sex couples from adopting, too? It's the children's right to have a mother and father, just like how it's a child's right to grow out of the foster care system and commit suicide at 25 in a motel room.

By your logic, we should take children away from single parents or aunts/uncles or grandparents (or just one grandparent, like my friend) who are raising kids.

There are many people raised by single parents or same-sex parents who turn out to be good people. It's ignorant to say that a mother/father situation would be BEST for the kid, so we must eliminate all other options.

Soliel, I am a Christian woman. I work with children and families on a daily basis. Working to rescue them from crisis, homelessness, and helplessness. You seem to care deeply about children, society and unity, as I'm sure many do, gay and straight. Proponents of prop 8 leveraged those values to paint same sex marriage as the root of the downfall of the family and eventually society. If only it were that easy, but the truth is is that same-sex marriage is not the enemy of children. Poverty, crime, drugs, materialism, irresponsible media, etc... Those are the enemies of our children. Before 9:00 yesterday morning, I had 2 different mothers in my office whose husbands had left them high and dry and both of those moms were facing eviction and homelessness because their opposite sex spouses had abandoned them, both for economic reasons. It was not a gay couple that destroyed those families it was us, as a society, as a state, as a church. They both live in the community where one of the large churches in San Diego County that was behind prop 8 used to be located, but it had fled to a more affluent community over the hill when poverty encroached. Where was the church for those children? and those mothers?

As for your thoughts on interracial marriage, your right it did bring people together, but it was not popular nor legalized through popular vote. Both in California and in the United States 20 years later, laws banning interracial marriage were turned over by their Supreme Courts. You see, the people do not correct the courts, the courts exist to correct the people when our passion collides with the rights of others as guaranteed by our constitutions. The courts bring us back to what we all agreed to initially as contained in the constitutions. California's initial proposition that banned same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, that is why it was overturned. Prop 8 sought to revise to correct the error of the first proposition.

Remember my friend, we are called to do what is right by all of God's children. Not just the ones who look, think and act like us.