"Today's Debate" articles on same-sex marriage from USA Today

Our view on same-sex marriage: Gay-wedding bell blues
Backers of Proposition 8 in Calif employ scare tactics to win votes.
In California during these last days of Election 2008, the biggest fear-mongering ads aren't from the McCain or Obama camps. They aren't even about taxes or national security. Almost like a time-warp trip back to 2004, one social issue is getting big bucks and big air time: gay marriage.
Religious conservatives are casting Proposition 8, which would ban same-sex weddings, as the last stand against Armageddon. They warn that ministers would be jailed for preaching against homosexuality, or that churches refusing to marry gay couples would face lawsuits and lose tax exemption.
Small matter that thousands of same-sex marriages in California and Massachusetts have neither brought the world to an end nor triggered such excess. Or that with the economy on the ropes and the nation fighting two wars, most people have other things to worry about.
In fact, Americans outside the Golden State could be forgiven for thinking that California already made its decision on gay marriage. After all, in May it became the second state to legalize it (after Massachusetts in 2004, before Connecticut earlier this month), when the California Supreme Court held that gays' inability to marry amounted to discrimination under the state's constitution.
That ruling, however, triggered a predictable backlash and prompted the ballot measure that would reverse the court ruling. Multi-million-dollar campaigns have geared up on both sides. Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger opposes Prop 8, but recent polls are close.
On the face of it, defeat of Prop 8 would be a victory for gay rights. The problem is that May's court decision reignited the divisive culture wars — hardly the best way for gay couples to gain broad social acceptance, as recent history has proved.
After a Massachusetts court legalized same-sex marriage, the result was a wave of bans against it in 2004, part of a Republican strategy to turn out social conservatives in battleground states. Twenty-seven states now have amendments barring same-sex marriage.
This year, besides California, gay-marriage bans are on the ballot in Arizona and Florida. Eight states permit the middle ground preferred by this page — allowing gay men and lesbians to enter civil unions, or register as domestic partners, with the benefits and responsibilities of marriage. The best assure people equal treatment under the law in all practical matters — such as custody of children and next-of-kin status — without the religious implications that the word " marriage" evokes.
Polls show that successive generations have tended to be more accepting of homosexuality, so time might favor an eventual acceptance of gay marriage. Regardless, the states' responsibility is to protect their citizens' rights no matter how their relationships are labeled.

Opposing View
Prop 8 preserves freedoms
By Jim Garlow
When Californians go to the polls on Tuesday, they will decide on an issue that will, because of the state's pace-setting history, have an eventual ripple-down effect on other states.
Proposition 8 would amend California's constitution to define marriage as being only between one man and one woman. Failure to preserve the definition of traditional marriage has resulted in profound losses of personal freedoms.
Let's consider public education. David and Tonia Parker's kindergarten student came home from their Lexington, Mass., school with a textbook teaching about same-sex marriage, without notification of parents. Because same-sex marriage is legal in the state, the courts declared that the Parkers have no rights to parental notification or the privilege to opt their children out of any discussions.
Private business owners face the same treatment. Elaine Huguenin, 25, of Elane Photography LLC in New Mexico, was fined $6,600 under the state's discrimination laws when she declined to photograph a lesbian commitment ceremony.
Doctors Christine Brody and Douglas Fenton of Vista, Calif., were sued for refusing to artificially inseminate a woman with no husband — who turned out to be lesbian — because of their personal religious convictions, even though they provided the names of physicians who would provide such services. The California Supreme Court ruled against the doctors in August.
Churches and religious organizations are not immune. The Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association of New Jersey, a campground of Methodist heritage, lost a portion of its tax-exempt status in 2007 because of its refusal to permit a lesbian couple to hold a civil union ceremony in its pavilion.
The common thread? When same-sex relationships — especially marriage — acquire government sanction, anyone in opposition to it must be intimidated, silenced, fined, jailed or at least threatened.
For the sake of freedom, Proposition 8 must pass. Failure to stop this in California means it will eventually come to your state.
Jim Garlow, senior pastor at Skyline Church in La Mesa, Calif., directs the California Pastors Rapid Response Team, a network in favor of Proposition 8.