If Prop 8 passes, it will force the State government to discriminate against gays.

If Prop 8 fails, nothing will change. Currently, gays can get married, and it will stay that way.

Among the lies being put out there by the Yes On 8 folks (primarily funded by out-of-state interests attempting to amend OUR state constitution by the way) is that churches would be forced to perform gay weddings. THIS IS NOT TRUE.

Churches CANNOT be forced to recognize or perform gay weddings or any other wedding they don’t approve of. For example two Jewish people cannot march into a Catholic church and insist that the church marry them. Even two Catholic people can’t do that, and the church can refuse to marry them if they don’t do all the things the church demands them to do in preparation (catholics have to go through counseling and all sorts of stuff). This does not change with Prop 8 failing.

Remember that there are two kinds of unions called “marriage”: religious marriage, and legal marriage. Religious marriage is whatever religions determine it means. Legal marriage is a simplified process for automatically conferring a set of rights and privileges upon another person to facilitate the combining of two separate legal and financial households into a single one. This includes stuff like estate planning, retirement benefits, ownership and control of common assets, ability to make financial or other decisions on behalf of the household, and on and on. It has nothing – zip, zero, zilch – to do with religion. And it is legal marriage that gays are asking for.

Here’s a site that clears up some of the misinformation out there. I should warn you that it’s someone’s blog, so not all the stuff on there is safe for work, but if you’re looking for the best explanation (that I know of) that explains why what the Prop 8 people are saying are lies, that’s the place to read it. Or if you want something a little less “blog”ey, go to: http://www.noonprop8.com/about/fact-vs-fiction

I hope that clarifies it for you. Again, sorry to intrude, but you seemed genuinely interested in the answer and I wanted to share.

If any church was afraid of losing its tax-exempt status, it would be the one that’s been strong-arming their membership to fund the prop 8 effort. – http://tinyurl.com/prop8funding – But even they won’t be affected, they just want their members to think so.