Prop 8 did something that no other state in the history of this

In the words of Gavin Newsom, we hear the grief and outrage of justice betrayed. He speaks of Proposition 8, a measure unlike any other in the nation’s history, for it did not merely deny rights yet to be granted, but took away rights already affirmed. He asks us to imagine the cruelty of a decree that declares: “your wedding, your marriage is no longer valid.” In this vision lies the deepest wound—not the denial of a dream, but the theft of a life already built, a covenant already sanctified.

The ancients knew well the agony of rights stripped away. In Rome, when an emperor fell, the Senate would at times erase his name from monuments, decreeing damnatio memoriae, the condemnation of memory. To those who had sworn loyalty, it was as if the very bonds of honor had been shattered by decree. So too does Newsom describe the violence done by Proposition 8: the attempt to erase vows spoken, homes formed, and lives joined under the law.

His words remind us of the sacredness of marriage as more than ceremony. To strip it away is to deny not only legal recognition, but the dignity of love itself. It is to tear apart the foundation of identity, to say to two souls who stood before witnesses and heaven alike, “What you declared eternal is void.” Such an act is not merely political—it is spiritual violence.

History offers us the reflection of Loving v. Virginia, when the marriage of Richard and Mildred Loving, affirmed in the District of Columbia, was denied in their home state because of the color of their skin. They too were told their union was invalid, that their love was unlawful. Yet they endured, and the Supreme Court declared that such laws were unjust. From their suffering arose a new dawn, just as from the ashes of Proposition 8 would come greater resolve.

Therefore, let this teaching be remembered: to revoke the dignity of marriage is to wound not only the couple, but the very fabric of community. For love, once affirmed, cannot be erased by ballots or decrees—it belongs to the eternal. Newsom’s words burn as both lament and warning: that freedom once given must be guarded fiercely, lest injustice steal it away. And in this struggle, let each generation rise, to defend that which no hand of man has the right to take—the sacred vow of love.