Catholicism Object of Distortions at Prop 8 Trial

A news release by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights shows how the plaintiffs in the prop 8 trial are distorting religious views in an attempt to make the facts fit the homosexual agenda.  Lead attorney David Bois, who also represented Al Gore in the 2000 Florida election litigation, called as an expert witness professor Gary Segura of  Stanford University.  Segura's testified that religious groups which supported Prop 8 constituted 34 percent of the nation’s population, while only 2 percent of religions opposed it is a serious distortion of the facts.

What Bois is trying to do is to show the court that homosexuals are a protected class in that their life style is an immutable charcteristic like race rather than at some level a choice.  Once that has been shown he needs to complete the scenario whereby homosexuals are the object of relentless discrimination by the majority which has embeded its discriminatory ideas in law, thereby making homosexuals a "protected class" in Supreme Court parlance and therefore entitled to "equal protection" under the Constitution. 

There are a couple of problems with this line of attack.  First, this is not factually true.  While churches did provide much of the organized support for Proposition 8, the proposition passed with an overwhelming majority of voters of all faiths and non-faith.  Further, Bois distorts the religious position by claiming that Church in rejecting homosexuality wishes homosexuals ill, that the church wishes to keep homosexuals under subjegation, likes blacks under Jim Crow.  This is untrue.  The Church has always distinguished between the sin and the sinner.  As believers, we have no animus against homosexuals, only the activities in which they engage.  But please do not ask us to ratify the homosexual lifestyle in marriage.    

The second and greatest problem is ethical.  Lawyers need to provide the most effective representation to their clients.  Lawyers, though, also have a duty to society.  However, at a certain point excessive zeal in representation may do actual disservice to society.  Bois is casting religion as the villain of the piece.  Through his distortions Bois seeks to make illicit the church's ideas about homosexuality, marriage, and society. 

The lesson he wants society to draw is that you can believe anything you want but you can not vote based upon your deeply held beliefs, you can not act on your deeply held beliefs, and you can not speak publicly about your deeply held beliefs. This is the lesson of totalitarianism.  Under totalitarian systems individuals can believe as they wish but may not act on these beliefs.  Under these systems individuals need to carry two sets of beliefs, one the party line which they must pretend to profess, the other that which they actually believe. 

Does David Bois intend to prohibit bringing our consciences into the voting booth.  If so, his advocacy intends the destruction of democracy.