As many of you know I’m not the sort of person who often resorts to prayer as an atheist-leaning agnostic… but Daigle’s words are too eloquent and too full-of-truth not to share…
On Tuesday the California Supreme Court will deliver its ruling on the validity of Prop. 8 and by extension, the validity of existing same-sex marriages in California.
So, until Tuesday, there are a few things I’m praying for.
I pray for justice. I pray that the ruling we’re greeted with on Tuesday has justice at its heart, even if it’s not the justice we hoped for. I pray the Court spent their time laboring over this decision. I hope it kept them up at night, for countless nights. I hope the gravity and importance of this choice weighed heavily on their hearts and minds and, most of all, their consciences. I hope the ruling we’re greeted with on Tuesday arrives covered in the sweat of the earnest and thoughtful pursuit of justice. We deserve nothing less. And if Prop. 8 remains, I pray that they have a damn good reason for allowing it to remain, a reason that offers us instruction on how to proceed, on how to reverse this unexpected and unwanted stumble on the road to equality. I pray that if we are forced to fight this fight again (and we will fight this, and we will win, because justice is ultimately on our side), Tuesday’s ruling makes us wiser, stronger fighters.
I pray for patience. If Prop. 8 disappears into oblivion on Tuesday, I pray that we have patience with those who will lash out at us. And they will, of course. They’ll haul out every vicious, ugly, scathing lie they have tucked away in their pockets about our relationships, our families and our lives. They’ll sling their mud and they’ll grab their Bibles and they’ll raise ten kinds of Hell. But for every lie that’s spread by the Dobsons and the Buchanans and the Maggie Gallaghers of this world, I pray we have the patience to counter the lies with dignity and reserve and integrity. If we win on Tuesday, I pray our voices are only raised in celebration – not in self-importance, condescension or arrogance. If we lose on Tuesday, if Prop. 8 survives, I pray that we have the patience not to turn into the Dobsons and the Buchanans and the Maggie Gallaghers. I pray that we don’t lash out in anger and hurt. I pray we weather the moment with dignity. The truth will prevail, and if it doesn’t prevail on Tuesday, it will still, one day (and one day soon, I believe) prevail. And our patience will be rewarded.
I pray for the couples in California. I pray that their marriages are saved. I can’t imagine what these weeks and months have been like, wondering if the day will come when the person sitting across the breakfast table from you is suddenly not your husband or wife. I pray those couples never find out what that feels like. We should all be grateful that these couples have endured, because they’ve stood as living examples of what we’re fighting for. They made a promise many of us are eager to make, and they’ve lived that promise even when voters in California decided they had no right to. They’ve earned their marriages. I pray they get to keep them.
I pray for anger. If Prop. 8 stands, if marriages are dissolved, I hope our hearts are filled with the most righteous anger imaginable. It was same anger we felt when Prop. 8 passed, the anger that fueled many of us to raise our voices for the first time, the anger that propelled us out of our homes and into the streets. I pray that anger finds us again. Our lives depend on it.
I pray for resolve. No matter what happens on Tuesday, the work doesn’t end. There will time to celebrate a victory or mourn a loss, but the work waits, and our opponents aren’t going to rest. We shouldn’t either. I pray that Tuesday gives birth to new activists for our cause, that voices ring out from every unexpected corner of the country, that equality is demanded. Yes, there’s marriage, but there’s also HIV/AIDS, DADT, employment discrimination, housing discrimination, protection for LGBT students, security for LGBT elderly – countless ways in which our lives are compromised because of who we love. Complacency is easy, resolve is not. We need the latter. Tuesday is reminder of just how much we need it. I pray we find it until equality arrives for all of us.
Finally, I pray for marriage. I pray for what marriage is beyond the politics and the rhetoric and the rulings. Gay marriage isn’t an idea or a movement – but a reality of the way a minority of Americans lives their lives. It’s the commitment I make to my partner every single day, the compromises we make, the sacrifices we make, the space we build to house our dreams and expectations for each other. That’s what we’re fighting for. I pray we not only fight for it, but live it. Even in the parts of the country where marriage isn’t a reality. We know the truth of our relationships, and if we live that truth, without shame or reservation, history will catch up to us in time.
A prayer may seem insignificant. But something happens when desire becomes request. When what you want becomes what you ask for, change comes. We know what we want. We know what we deserve.
Ask (and act, most importantly of all, act!) and we shall receive.
I suspect that most of the prayers being sent God’s way is to have the California Supreme Court affirm Proposition 8 and nullify the 18,000 marriages that took place prior to the election. Cody Daigle a writer for The Times of Acadiana in Lafayette, Louisiana has a decidedly different kind of prayer.
The California Supreme Court will finally announce its ruling next Tuesday, May 26 at 10am on Proposition 8. The measure which passed last November, wrote discrimination into the California constitution by disallowing same-sex couples the right to marry. More details 
As suspected the California Supreme Court delayed their ruling on Proposition 8 thanks to a last minute called place by San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom.