[Dialogue] cultural quake hits California; national backlash expected

[W. J.]

Today, in the midst of a tropical heatwave in northern California, our state's Supreme Court declared that to deny marriage to any couple is to brand them as second class citizens. In a month, for the first time ever, fully ten percent of US citizens will be able to marry whomever they choose.
   
  Starting tomorrow, Californians expect every rich right-wing bigot in the country to join in the coming political fray by raising multiple millions of U$D for the right-wing organizations that have put an amendment on the November ballot to roll back the court decision and enshrine discrimination in the state constitution.
   
  Bottom line is, it ain't over till it's over. Today's court decision will provoke a major call to arms by the vast right-wing conspiracy, hopefully their last gasp before they're buried in a Democratic landslide in November.
   
  The backlash from this decision may have a huge impact on national politics. The money that will flow to California to support the amendment may shift the outcome of the presidential election. If the amendment prevails, California will go to Senator John McBush, and that means that Barack will be history like Kerry, Gore, and Dukakis. Which may give Hillary another shot in 2012.
   
  On a more personal note: some of my friends were plaintiffs in this case, and one of them is a child of an interracial couple whose marriage was made legal by a decision of the California Supreme Court in 1948.
   
  Finally, I am grateful that for the first time, I will be able to conduct legal marriage ceremonies for same-gender couples in California as a United Methodist clergyman. If anyone chooses to bring a complaint to my bishop, I'll be very happy to participate in a church trial. 
   
  The United Methodist Discipline prohibits clergy from conducting 'ceremonies of homosexual union,' but it does not prohibit clergy from officiating at (some) legal marriages permitted by the state. To do so would place the church in a position of discriminating against a minority of its members whom the state allows to marry.
   
  Marshall Jones
   
   
   
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