Pro-family and religious groups across California are claiming victory after voters overwhelmingly approved a measure to legally define marriage as only “between a man and a woman.” Proposition 22, “The Limit on Marriage” initiative, was approved March 7 by 60 percent of California’s voters.
Originally, Prop. 22’s organizers had called it the “Defense of Marriage” initiative, but California’s attorney general changed the name, citing its exclusion of same-sex marriages.
Majority of counties
Voters in all but five of California’s 58 counties opted for one man/one woman marriage. All of the five counties in which at least 51 percent of the voters opted for same-sex marriage were in the greater San Francisco Bay Area.
Larry Dotson, president of the California Southern Baptist Convention, said he was “not at all surprised, but very pleased” with the vote in favor of Prop. 22.
“I felt the churches were very supportive of this proposition up and down the state, not only in our denomination but in many churches,” said Dotson, pastor of Panama Baptist Church, Bakersfield.
“Obviously the people of California wanted to take a stand. You don’t get that kind of strong statement just from churches alone,” Dotson continued. “This was not a religious issue, it was a moral issue. And if 60 percent of California votes for something then obviously several million [voters] that aren’t Christians joined us.”
Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said the vote was “extremely encouraging for those who are committed to the traditional family as we have understood it in the United States and as we have received it from Holy Scripture.”
“California is a trendsetter and a bellwether state. If California is willing to affirm this traditional belief in such a landslide fashion, we can clearly surmise that the population of our nation as a whole is opposed likewise to same-sex marriage,” Land said.
Determining factor
Undoubtedly a determining factor in the size of the victory, he added, we the ability of the religious community in California to turn out at the polls.
Wiley Drake, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church, Buena Park, called the vote, “pleasantly surprising.”
“I think the whole concept that California is so liberal has been exaggerated by the media,” Drake said. “And I think that the vote on Proposition 22 is proof of that.”
Rob Zinn, pastor at Immanuel Baptist Church, Highland, Calif., said he was also pleased with the election results.
“I’m really praying this issue finally woke the church up,” Zinn said.
(BP)
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