You were my home for over twenty years. I was born there, I grew up there, and now, when I can't live there anymore and can't vote in your elections, apparently I still know more about being a Californian than many of your citizens do. I wonder, if I ever manage my goal of moving back there, if I'll still recognize the place when I arrive.
I'm pretty sure that most, if not all, of those who will read this voted No on 8. This is not directed at you. But to anyone who did vote Yes: I may never forgive you. Not just because you let a mega-corporate church from Utah dictate the law of your state. Not just because you decided to take a right away that already existed (and mysteriously, the state completely failed to implode, explode, slide into the sea, or any such thing the entire time) for completely spurious, false reasons (and I'm not talking about anything in the Bible, before you start getting angry with me for disrespecting your religion). No, your betrayal is much, much larger than that, and I'm fairly sure most (if not all) of you never gave a single thought to the larger implications of your vote.
You see, one of those "spurious reasons" I mentioned above was the argument that if gay marriage was legal, churches would be FORCED to perform gay marriages whether they wanted to or not! HORRORS! And by the way, COMPLETELY UNTRUE. In case you hadn't noticed, gay marriage WAS LEGAL, and nothing of the sort happened. And even if there had been a gay couple who wanted to get married in a church that didn't want to (which I find ludicrously unlikely, because why on earth would anyone really even want to enter a church where they're not welcome?) the court would not have allowed said couple to force the church to obey their request. Religious freedom was preserved. Until you folks came along. You see, you've just blown a huge hole in the separation of church and state, and the basis of religious freedom in the country. Yes. You.
You've allowed a church (and remember, not just any church, but a mega-corporate church from Utah) to put their version of morality into your civil law. In doing so, you just destroyed the religious rights of any church out there that DID want to perform gay marriages (and yes, there are some, believe it or not, because they were protesting this very problem when a gay-marriage ban was to be voted on in my state four years ago). You've also damaged your own right to religious freedom, just in case the rights of other churches don't matter to you. Because now that one legislation of morality has succeeded, that opens the door to others. History has shown us over and over what happens when a religion isn't liked by the state, or what happens when one religion gets enough power to harass, persecute, etc another because the law isn't strong enough to stop them. You made that easier yesterday. You weakened the protection of the law for yourself and for everyone. Congratulations.
You may think it doesn't matter, that only "other people" will have problems. That you can't possibly be threatened by this, that I'm making up a big scary specter that doesn't actually exist. (Personally, I'd be more inclined to say that the "specter" of gay marriage is the one that didn't exist...) But you are not safe now, and it's by your own hand. The law would protect everyone, except that you've just made sure it doesn't. If the Catholic church decides that it's happy with the results of its teamup with the Mormons to get 8 passed, and decides to mess with the rights of your own church next, well... don't say I didn't warn you. You just made it easier for them. It worked once, so what makes you think they're going to be content with what they've got, and not try again?
Let me repeat what you've just done, to make it very clear: You have not only removed a civil right - the right to get married in a courthouse, not a church - you have also removed the right of a church to perform a religious ceremony if it chose. If there is justice, I hope that the next time an infringement on somebody's rights comes along, whether civil or religious, I rather hope it targets you. Not for revenge's sake, but because maybe then you'll get the hint that the act of depriving someone else of their rights threatens your own. Maybe then you'll start having compassion for someone other than yourself, which I thought was actually supposed to be a rather important part of religion and given how you voted you've been rather stunningly bad about that point so far.
In closing: I'm very, very angry with you voters of Yes on 8, and not only do I think that you were not in the least doing God's work, I think you were actually subverting it. My heterosexual marriage was not in any way threatened by gay marriage and I certainly did not need it "protected" by bigots like you pulling crap like this. In fact, I actually feel that the institution of marriage has been weakened BY the passage of this disgusting proposition, because who's to say that next you won't be telling me that civil marriages that don't involve any church AT ALL are "morally wrong?" Are you going to try and tell me that my own parents' marriage isn't "valid" next? Or how about making all marriages that weren't in YOUR church "invalid?" Will my own marriage be invalid in the eyes of the state because I didn't get married in YOUR church? Better keep a close eye on any future propositions that come up. You could be next...