I live in California, where the Historic Election(TM) was "marred" by the voters' passage of Proposition 8. Prop. 8, for those just emerging from a coma, was a constitutional amendment restricting marriage to one man and one woman. This amendment overturned a split decision of the California Supreme Court, which held that California's anti-discrimination laws required the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

The whole imbroglio has been filled with enough unintentional irony to keep a curmudgeon like me amused for months. Christians arguing against the attack on the sanctity of traditional marriage, as if the State had the power to sanctify anything. Gays proclaiming their relationships -- not just their legal status, but their very love itself -- meaningless unless the State is a third party to them. Actor Brad Pitt and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom demanding that gays be given the same right as heterosexuals to cheat on their spouses. The public schools boss calling the pro-8 campaign liars for saying that the schools are required to teach about marriage, even as his own website proudly proclaims that 98% of the public schools are doing just that. Pro-gay marriage people tying themselves in knots explaining why the "we all" who have the right to marry doesn't include polygamists, in spite of considerably greater historical and cultural antecedents for the latter family arrangement. The list goes on.

I opposed Prop. 8, though I am sure my reasons are not strictly politically correct:

• The government can decree cats to be dogs. It doesn't change the facts or my thinking. It certainly doesn't affect my marriage;
• I believe in rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's; the implication, for me, is to strictly limit the number of things that might arguably be said to belong to Caesar. This whole fight, on both sides, is not about marriage but about Caesar. Change everything to a "civil union" or, better yet, a matter purely of contract and leave marriage to the spiritual realm;
• If my experience in dealing with gay domestic violence is any indication, gay divorce should be hugely entertaining ("'No on 8. Bring popcorn' What does that mean?" "You'll see...").

Still, I am old enough to remember when the gay battle cry was to get government out of the bedroom; now they're saying their relationships are meaningless unless the State is a third party to them. And I have a long-enough memory to know that when the Left promises that a particular initiative is not the camel's nose under the tent, that we'll have the whole camel inside sooner rather than later.

As long as I don't have to change the sheets, I don't care what consenting adults are doing in the bedroom. But the "No on H8" crowd are working diligently to change my mind on the matter.

First,we're told that mere"grudging  tolerance" isn't enough; it's hate if we don't actually celebrate homosexuality. So, we can look forward to a whole raft of new "diversity training" and other Stalinist attempts to impose a rigid orthodoxy of thought, word and deed. And if you're not down with that you are, according to the Dolphin Democrats, a "nut job" (April 11, 2006). 

So the camel's nose isn't even fully under the tent but the gay activists are already shoving on his rump with all the enthusiasm they can muster. But wait, there's more. 

As I write this, California Attorney General Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown has decided to challenge Prop. 8. This is a reversal of the AG's ordinary role, and Brown's previous position, of defending the will of the voters.

Brown and other Prop. 8 opponents have compared this decision to Attorney General Thomas C. Lynch's decision to oppose Proposition 14, a 1964 constitutional initiative that overturned a state law that prohibited housing discrimination based on race. But the "anti-discrimination" law was an aggrandizement of the State, not a triumph for individual liberty. It effectively ended private property in California, seizing control from the rightful owners and transferring it to would-be owners. Property rights and freedom of association seem pretty fundamental to me. One wonders what new usurpations of fundamental rights the "No on H8" folks have in mind, in the name of equality. 

The fact is, most of those now complaining that the voters "denied gays their fundamental right to marry" -- a relatively recent assertion and one not supported even by all gays -- have been hacking away at fundamental rights for decades. Nancy Pelosi, the California Teachers Association, et al,  have been on the attack, destroying "bourgeois" liberties and replacing them with political privileges granted to a few and paid for by the many. The gay lobby itself has insisted, on the one hand, that what they do in their bedrooms and bathhouses is no one else's business (agreed) and, on the other hand, that the rest of us "owe" them a cure for AIDS. 

One area where "No on H8" almost gets it right, is that of income taxation of domestic partners. One "No on H8" author explains that the loss of tax revenue justifies the government's continued ban on polygamy (I guess "we all have the right to marry" unless it interferes with the Big Government project. But I digress).

The income tax is the most tyrannical legislation ever enacted in this country. It savages many fundamental rights including, but not limited to: the right not to be forced into involuntary servitude; the right not to be compelled to incriminate oneself; the presumption of innocence; freedom of speech. People who care about freedom should be working to abolish this abomination, not arguing over who gets to partake of its limited tax breaks. 

How about a true freedom movement? Isn't it time we all recognized each others' rights, including the right to disapprove and the right not to associate? If good fences make good neighbors, then respecting our neighbors' fences could very well find us talking over them from time to time, followed by the first, tentative invitation to a BBQ or birthday party. 

Shouldn't we all start seeing government as the system of organized theft and violence that it is, not as God walking on Earth? Christian and other conservatives should be working for a wall of separation between school and state, not arguing over what subversion the NEA will come up wth next. Gay marriage advocates should come out forcefully and unequivocally in favor of parents' rights to withdraw their children from objectionable instruction: too often during the campaign, "They have that right now," came out sounding like, "They have that right... for now."

Gays and other Protected Groups (my own included) must reject, once and for all, our Official Victim(TM) status. We don't have a right to another person's property or labor, and we don't have a right never to hear a discouraging word. Anti-discrimination laws, speech codes, and enforced sensitivity training need to hit the trash bin now, not when we achieve some mythical "perfect equality."  In our present, degraded democracy, people vote for two reasons: to coerce others, or as an act of self-defense against that coercion.

How about it? Anyone up for a real freedom movement?