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I should begin by clarifying that I advocate same-sex marriage on a normative basis and as the correct interpretation of the Equal Protection clause of the Constitution. I was therefore disappointed by Proposition 8's success in California.  While plenty of arguments have been offered to defend Proposition 8 on moral, natural, and familial grounds, it seems clear that the only honest motivation was religion (and perhaps the popular defense, "yuck").

The most common religious defense is that homosexual marriage threatens the institution itself. The tragedy is that many people do feel that the state recognition of homosexual marriage changes the nature of their own marriages, they have good reasons, and it's our fault for not being crystal-clear about the separation of church and state.

American Protestants have enjoyed centuries as the cultural and political heirs to the United States: The nation was founded and (until this century) owned and operated by White Protestants. And while Protestantism is hardly the only religion to blur the distinction between church and state (the Catholic Church is just as active in lobbying to change public school curricula, for example), I believe marriage is an issue over which Protestants feel uniquely entitled because they have no need to distinguish a political marriage from a religious marriage: the United States has largely codified into law the Protestant institution.

Other groups—for example Catholics and Orthodox Jews—have religious practices which are not codified into statute (Catholics do not believe in divorce but have their own church process for Annulment, Orthodox Jews have no divorce but men may grant a get). These differences remind those groups that a political marriage differs from a religious marriage.

Catholics and Protestants had very different opinions about Proposition 8. Most White Catholics in California opposed Proposition 8; White Protestants supported it with an overwhelming 85%. My explanation is that Protestants understandably feel that the recognition of homosexual marriage threatens their institution of marriage because they are rarely reminded that these two institutions are not the same thing. I believe them when they say that this will change the foundation of their marriage from one with a basis in a moral code to one with a basis in civic bureaucracy. Protestants, in short, grew too comfortable with the idea that a political and a religious marriage where the same thing.

This is hardly a decent argument against gay marriage; it has no more merit than the argument that the U.S. is a Protestant nation—or California a Protestant state—and we are therefore committed to Protestant traditions. Instead, it should be a reminder of the political problems that are created when we allow church and state to be blurred. Generally speaking, it's easy to disparage a strict secular tradition: I don't think a nativity scene in a public school in a 100% Christian community offends anyone subjected to it. That's not why I would oppose it. I oppose it because we confuse people.

When we mix religious and political traditions and space, we allow people to forget which traditions are religious and which are political. This can lead even the most liberal of electorates to deprive individuals of basic human rights.

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