"Vows Than Can't Be Voted Down'

An article in the Washington Post does an excellent job of putting last week's votes in California, Florida, and Arizona that made discrimination parts of those state's constitution in perspective.

While voters were (mistakenly, in my opinion) given the right to take away rights of same-sex couples to receive the legal benefit of marriage, they could not take the act of marriage itself away from them.

From Jennifer Donnelly in the Washington Post:

For months, it made me indignant to think that my neighbors, and the entire state of California, were going to vote on my marriage -- something so deeply personal and spiritual and uniquely mine and my wife's. I wondered: How could they? Why would they?

Then I realized that they wouldn't.

Because on Tuesday, California, you did not vote on whether or not I exist; I am here, and I live in your neighborhood. You did not vote on whether your children will learn about same-sex couples; they will, when they go to school with my child. You did not vote to prevent your children from growing up gay; they already are who they are. You voted on whether to give my family the same status that other families have. You voted on civil marriage rights, not rights having to do with religious marriage or spiritual marriage. No vote can pass judgment on my actual marriage.

I was deeply saddened when Californians approved a state constitutional amendment this week banning same-sex marriage. But I remain married to the love of my life. I jumped the broom with her six years ago.

This article speaks to the truth that marriage is more than a legal agreement--at it's very heart is a covenant relationship between two people in love.

And that, folks, is not up for anyone to vote on.

Click here to read the rest of Jennifer Donnely's article.