SOUL FOOD:

On Nov. 4 the people of California voted to ban same-sex marriage — again. Like Proposition 22 in 2000, Proposition 8 passed, albeit with a much smaller margin.

Comments made early on election night by Jeff Flint, who had worked as a strategist against the proposition, suggest he expected it to fail. Flint told a group gathered in a Sacramento ballroom, “I think the voters were thinking, well, if it makes them happy, why shouldn’t we let gay couples get married.”

He spoke of broader implications for society and for our children “when you make that fundamental change that’s at the core of how society is organized, which is marriage.” Yet he underestimated the persistent resistance to that fundamental change.

Mormons were immediately singled out for blame. But they were hardly alone among religious faithful in their support of the proposition.

Among others, Orthodox Jewish rabbis issued a statement on the eve of Rosh Hashana denouncing “gay marriage” and the “homosexual agenda.” In August, the Orthodox Christian bishops of California published a statement in support of Proposition 8.

As Flint posed it, his question was rhetorical. But I asked some local religious leaders whose faith traditions reject same-sex marriage to respond to it.

“Many things make people happy that we do not allow them to do,” said senior pastor Bill Welsh of Refuge Calvary Chapel.

Happiness, according to Gerald W. Squyres, senior pastor of Huntington Beach Baptist Church, should never be the criterion for a major cultural shift. As Bruce Garner, senior pastor of CrossPoint Baptist Church, sees it, that simply pits one person’s idea of happiness against another’s.

“America began with the idea, ‘Out of many, one,’” he said. Now he sees the nation rapidly moving in “the opposite and destructive direction [of] ‘Out of one, many.’”

All agreed that happiness is, indeed, one consideration in marriage. But as Muzammil H. Siddiqi, chairman of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, said, “It is not the only one.”

Rabbi Aron David Berkowitz of Congregation Adat Israel pointed out that our society does not countenance polygamy and would not tolerate marriage between humans and other species, even on the claim these unions may be key to the happiness of some.

Similarly, said Siddiqi, a brother cannot marry his sister.

“[The] marriage institution is not based on the whims and wishes of people,” he said. “It’s an age-old institution and it has shown its worth and value. We should not play with [it].”

Squyres concedes that heterosexual marriage is often less than perfect “because people are imperfect.” Yet, he said, it “has been the foundation of our well ordered society for centuries.”

Their tenets are shared by the scholars who wrote The Witherspoon Institute’s 47-page “Marriage and the Public Good: Ten Principles.” The institute, according to its mission statement, “is an independent research center that works to enhance public understanding of the moral foundations of free and democratic societies.”

You can download a PDF copy of its paper at www.thetruthaboutmarriage.org, a website not affiliated with the Witherspoon Institute. Its website is at www.winst.org.

The religious leaders I spoke to, of course, see the issue through their own religious perspectives, Jewish, Christian and Muslim. And Squyres and Siddiqi both also argue from nature.

“Nature has made men and women physiologically fit for [the] sexual act,” said Siddiqi. And Squyres said same-sex marriage “is contrary to biological, anatomical law” as well as “contrary to our society’s centuries old established moral code” and “a violation of God’s law.”

Welsh, too, sees not just same-sex marriage but homosexual sex as an affront to God. In Leviticus 18, Romans 1:18-27 and 1 Cor. 6:9, he said, “God has spoken clearly in His Word that homosexuality is wrong.”

Our society, though, Garner said, has largely abandoned any concept of God’s authority as the creator of life and family.

“The origin of the human family is recorded in the Bible and its basic structure of one man, one woman and their children has been upheld across human history. This is no accident,” he said.

Same-sex marriage, he said, sets aside this and all traditions and authority in order “to make its claim as a right.” Dissenting views of any kind are increasingly characterized as “hate speech.”

Welsh said he got a dose of hatred on election day when he stood for three hours on a Huntington Beach street corner with a sign expressing his support of Proposition 8.

“Foul language, gestures, threats and verbal assaults. We had been told that the homosexual community was instructed to tone down their rhetoric in the months leading up to the election so as to appear civil. The ban on the rhetoric has been lifted,” he said.

Garner said that “freedom of religion” has become “freedom from religion” in the minds of some activists. “Constitutionally protected free speech that reflects religious views now makes ordinary citizens the targets of verbal abuse, threats and hatred,” he said.

In their paper, the Witherspoon Institute scholars propose to make a rational case for heterosexual marriage that is not narrowly religious.

As the title suggests their case for marriage seeks the public, or common, good and argues, “The laws that govern marriage matter significantly.”

With the people now having voted twice to define marriage as a union between one man and one woman, attorneys for several gay rights groups have filed legal papers calling on the state Supreme Court to reject Proposition 8 as an overreaching use of the public’s initiative power. For Squyres, that was predictable.

But, he said, “Any judge [who] rules Proposition 8 unconstitutional should have another job lined up…because it’s my opinion that a recall will be initiated that will be successful.”

Indeed, calls to recall Chief Justice Ronald M. George and Justices Joyce L. Kennard, Kathryn Mickle Werdegar and Carlos R. Moreno are already afoot.

At the same time, there are Christians who are distressed that the proposition passed. They, too, had rallied to see its defeat. You can read their views and many of their stories if you Google “Christians against Proposition 8” — without the quotes.

A Soul Food column headlined, “Churches bite nails as gay couples rejoice,” June 26, looked at the issue from the perspective of some local residents who support same-sex marriage.

MICHÈLE MARR is a freelance writer from Huntington Beach. She can be reached at [email protected].