Sir:? While the issues regarding fairness of legal status in other states that have recently banned gay marriage may be questioned, the law up for approval in Proposition 8 on the California state ballot this year was merely an unimportant aesthetic resolution. Under California state law, provisioned same-sex civil unions were given the same rights as heterosexual “married” couples. What unfolded in California since the proposition’s introduction was essentially a $70 million smear campaign, where one side claimed that their “rights” (to be called one thing and not another) had been infringed upon, while the other scared voters into thinking that children in public schools would be subject to some construed “gay agenda” as a function of legalized gay marriage. Both points in the argument were based in equally ridiculous hysteria and essentially wasted Californians’ time, energy and money in an argument whose essential equivalent was whether or not we should continue to call dogs “dogs” and cats “cats.” The bottom line is that the name that we give to the legal status of same–sex couples (or heterosexual couples, for that matter) really doesn’t matter, as long as they are afforded the same weight in the processes of government and society. The Proposition 8 campaigns spent twice as much money than the rest of the campaigns in any state that has held an election on the gay marriage issue combined. Even considering the size of California’s population, this amount of spending on any single issue is unnecessary and obnoxious. If either side truly wants their argument mandated as law, they should resolve the issue in higher court, where resolutions regarding the status of citizens’ rights are made in a clear, national fashion at less expense to the people. The children in schools that supporters of Proposition 8 claimed to protect certainly needed $70 million to help their education more than California television stations did. Peter Schock ’08 Claremont McKenna ’12
