I am echoing a piece that my brother, Phil Andonian, wrote and has submitted to several California news papers in response to the sad state of California's "celebration of bigotry" by passing Prop 8. Phil has always had an amazing way with words and I just want to support him, and obviously the cause, in anyway I can. Click the 'read more' link to read Phil's Op-ed.

Prop 8 is a slap to the face of every American who said "yes" to progress on November 4th – who made 2008 that wrinkle in time when we walked across the shadow of Jim Crow and carried a black man to the Oval Office. What's worse, this movement was the brainchild of churches – institutions that are supposed to uplift and inspire, or so I thought. The Mormon and Catholic organizations that peddled Prop 8 can feign shock at the charges of "bigotry" and "hate-mongering" that they are rightfully absorbing, but this front of indignity doesn't change reality: If the shoe fits... And in this case, it was custom-cobbled. Because their message – "us versus them" – is the immemorial battle cry of prejudice. The tragic irony of their mission, of course, is that marriage is a sacred institution to those who choose to enter it. It is gain and sacrifice; compassion and pain; joy and sorrow – and everything in between. But it is defined not by the people who embrace it, but by its inherent symbolism: it is love eternal. Sometimes it happens in church, when a couple chooses to make it about a higher power. But many times it does not. For just as marriage needs not particular benefactors to hold its value, it needs not religion to hold its sacredness. Just ask any loving couple that happily wed barefoot on a quiet beach or amidst the crush of lunchtime at a local courthouse. Religious institutions are legally free to impose limits on their services; depriving gay and lesbian couples of the right to marry with God's blessing is a perverse exception that the Constitution regularly tolerates for the good of the rules. But the threshold of these limits, of the power of religion, is the front door of the church, mosque, or temple. Because one step too far is the difference between worshiper and bigot. Americans are male and female, black and white, Latino and Asian, gay and lesbian. These beautiful differences give rise to the omnipresent similarity that even John McCain praised as the association he was most proud of – that of "fellow American." These differences are national treasures. The crusade against gay-and-lesbian marriage – the quest to declare Americans separate and unequal – is no different an affront and no less an outrage now than it was a few decades ago when its victims were interracial couples, before the Supreme Court ended this vicious practice in 1967. It is an act of bigotry at its worst on the same day America came together at its best. For this, I am profoundly ashamed to say that I was born and raised in California. Shame on everyone who allowed this dark cloud passage.

Phil Andonian
Washington, D.C.