Prop 8 Opponents Still Fuming About Impact of Religious Groups

The people who opposed Proposition 8, the anti-gay marriage amendment, don't believe that religious people should have a right to participate in the electoral process:

Mormons, Catholics and evangelicals were responsible for last month's passage of Proposition 8 – and many opponents of the gay-marriage ban are denouncing that participation as inappropriate religious intrusion into government.

"There is no religious freedom in America when any religious group can impose their dogma on any person that disagrees with that dogma," said Newport Beach's Paul Fitz-Gibbon.

He acknowledges that efforts by Prop. 8's religious activists are allowed by law.

"But I believe it shouldn't be," said Fitz-Gibbon, a retiree whose ex-wives include a Mormon. "Religious zealotry by well-intentioned persons is the greatest unnatural threat to well being in the world today."

However, John Eastman, dean of the Chapman University School of Law and a supporter of Prop. 8, said it's a fundamental right for people to apply their religious beliefs to political campaigns.

Tax codes prohibit churches from endorsing or contributing to candidates, but not issues or ballot measures. And the First Amendment's protection of religious freedom is widely interpreted as protecting religions from government interference – but not banning religious activists from the electoral process.

"It would be wrong and discriminatory to prohibit them from being involved," Eastman said. He also pointed out that the phrase "separation of church and state" does not appear in the U.S. Constitution itself.

Isn't it funny that the people who are demanding rights that don't exist are trying to deny rights to others that clearly do exist. There is a tremendous amount of political and emotional immaturity among the anti-Prop 8 people.