In response to the upcoming primary elections, there will be a choice on a Florida state constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage.  In a handful of other states, there will be balloting for referendums.  As a priest, I have watched this debate for a number of years.  What I have concluded, is the separation of church and state no longer exists.  I have watched religious groups successfully force their views into political office long enough and my sin is that I have remained silent until now.  

For starters, same sex marriage is already illegal in Florida.  This proposed constitutional change is an attempt to take away basic human rights, veiled by a curtain of so called morality.   If you don't believe this, keep reading.

 

Up until 1967, it would have been illegal for me to marry my wife in a number of U.S. states (including Florida).  Our interracial marriage was once thought of and declared to be an abomination as states passed laws forbidding such marriages.  There were pushes along the way to bring constitutional amendments supporting such racially based hatred.  Every statement issued today which discriminates against any legal citizen in the name of “sanctity” was once assigned to people like my wife and me.

Regardless of whether or not I support a religious and moral ideology, I will not have the state dictating to me as to whom I can minister any sacrament.  The church should be self determinate within its own structure.  By the same token, no religious body should be able to indoctrinate through the means of a secular ballot.

One of the problems with humanity is a belief that we can pick and choose certain parts of holiness and ignore and reject others without any consequence.  There are far more detrimental moral issues than sexual orientation worthy of outcry and response.  Redirecting the focus from the fact that people suffer and die every day because of poverty is perhaps the worst moral crime we have ever committed.  And while I won’t be elevating the civil union of any gay couple to a sacrament of the church, the fact is that I won’t be the one who denies them their civil liberties and rights because of it on any ballot, ever.