There is a sense of betrayal as I write this letter to my fellow Californians and the citizens of Lake County about their passage of the marriage ban. But the tears will soon dry, and the anger subside, and I will go forth to face the society that has once more scorned me, and the person I have loved for thirty-five years, as well as the members of the LBGT community.

However you phrase it or rationalize it, the ban was not a victory for traditional family values, it was another victory for intolerance and bigotry, no matter how smug and pious you may feel in your insulated comport zone against progressive change.

The anger soon turns to hope especially after reading Elizabeth Wilson’s wonderful letter to the Record-Bee on Nov. 5, and a card from a lovely woman with the inscription that “Ignorance can be overcome.” Then I had a flashback to the 1960s when I and millions of others marched for other peoples' civil rights although ours was denied, those terrible days of fire hoses turned loose on women and children, fierce police dogs biting those who only desired their basic rights. And I feel and believe in my heart that our day has yet to arrive.

The bitterest irony is that those who financed this marriage ban were a church that once practiced polygamy (and is believed still does without official sanction) and a church that shields pedophiles from the law. How’s that for family values?

And although they speak of doing God’s will, I seriously doubt that anyone knows God’s will. If they did, would there be so many denominations? Being a church member myself, I only know that the greatest commandment is to love each other.

America is not a theocracy at any rate, and the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence trumps religious beliefs, and it declares irrevocably that all men are created equal, and are imbued with natural rights of “liberty and justice for all.” Anyone who interferes with those rights, thereby are enemies of this democracy.

So the LGBT community will go forth in that knowledge, haunt the corridors of legislature’s chambers, protest, march until that other 50 percent recognize the validity and purpose of American’s promise.

We shall overcome.

Harold Riley is chair of the Lake County Stonewall Democratic Club.

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