Keep Your Fist Away From My Nose, Please.

[Proposition 8] We've read a lot of smug justifications for the LDS Church spending so much money in an effort to take away the marriage rights of gay and lesbian couples in California.

These days, the standard talking point seems to be, "Well, aren't we free to express our opinions about marriage and the family?" Well, of course. You're free to say whatever you like. Think gays and lesbians are inhabited by demonic spirits? Go ahead and say so.

However, Proposition 8 is not speech. It is an attempt to use the law of the land in order to enforce your particular opinions and beliefs upon others. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “Your freedom to swing your fist ends where someone else’s face begins.”

Well, whenever you vote to use the power of the government to limit other people's rights, you've done worse than punch them in the nose. Proposition 8 is not free speech. It is tyranny.

If you vote for Proposition 8, you're not "expressing an opinion" that gays and lesbians shouldn't get married. You're actively imposing your religious beliefs on others. If there's any "opinion" being expressed, it's the curious and un-American opinion that one group should be able to impose its will on another--which flies in the face of the LDS Church's professed beliefs.

(Brandon Burt)