When the First Amendment Attacks…

Perhaps you’ve heard the recent news out of California, the sadly-not-yet-universally-obvious conclusion reached by U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, that lesbians and gays should have the same right to wed as hetero adults.

I prayed for this, actually. I prayed that, for once, justice could truly be done, and a verdict reached that upheld human rights. Looks like my prayers were answered, and those of the God-as-a-weapon faction were ignored. Think that’ll make anyone question their beliefs?

I’m not gay. I’m also not married. In some ways, I probably have less of a stake in this fight that most people. The reason I cared so much about the verdict, though, is simple: I want people in love to be happy.

Anti-marriage supporters have to pretend it’s complicated, though, because the basis of their stance is so ugly: an invisible judgmental being will send them to imaginary eternal torment if they allow people different from them to exist in peace.

And underlying that: “I’m miserable and afraid, so you should be, too.”

I shudder at the idea of what ghastly moral labyrinth has to exist in a person’s head to make them want to destroy the relationship of a stranger.

(Photo credit: Jackson Holbrook / Scotty Heath)