The recent bitterness over the passage of Proposition 8 in California has brought on efforts by its proponents to assuage the rift between it and its opponents. As an example in his column in the Dec. 5 Issue of Catholic San Francisco, Archbishop George H. Niederauer called for an end to hate and name calling in the aftermath of Proposition 8, and calls for reconciliation based upon trust, respect and tolerance.

He goes on to say that marriage between a man and a woman was designed by God to create a wholesome environment for the complimentary sexual union between a male and a female for the purpose of bearing and rearing of children. Archbishop Niederauer states that he contacted Mormon leaders whom he knew when he was a bishop in Salt Lake City for 12 years, to assist him and the Catholic Clergy in promoting passage of Prop 8.

The Mormon position has stated that God, not man, created marriage and that it was intended only for a male and a female. And further, their involvement in efforts to promote passage of proposition 8 was based upon their "duty" to protect God-sacred marriage.

There appears to be some confusion as to who contacted who first as the Mormons are documented as saying they, "Better get other religious denominations on board so that they can take some of the heat." Interestingly we have two juxtaposed religious organizations walking arm in arm to achieve an ungodly act in seeking to deny a persecuted minority group full rights under civil law.

Mormons have historically called the Catholic Church the whore of the earth and the Catholic Church considers the Mormon Church to be counterfeit.

It's natural for Judeo-Christian religious orders to take the lead in protecting the sanctity of marriage for it is based upon their unswerving belief that the Genesis story of God placing Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden alone as the first humans on earth constituted a marriage. This was, according to biblical time frames, some six thousand years ago ( one Bishop dated it as November 4,4004 BC) and Judeo-Christian based religious orders are adamant in honoring that time frame as firm and fixed. It is this notion of God expressly placing a first man and woman on earth roughly six thousand years ago to legitimize sexual intercourse for the purpose of procreation that energizes the religious defense of the Adam-Eve concept of marriage and its "sacred protection" for it appeared there was no other reason for God's action in establishing the garden.

Because of that belief, religious organizations feel they are in a superior position as keepers of the gate to Heaven. While intellectuals know that position is speculative at best, ordinary folk do not challenge it and as a result civil laws are made to confine and restrict those who appear to offend the righteous indignation of the keepers. Yet an inalienable constitutional civil right to pursue happiness exists as long as that pursuit does not encroach on the rights of others,

The question is does the Judeo-Christian-Islamic belief rise to the level of  absolute certainty where they have a justifiable right to propose or create civil laws to enforce believed divine sanctions and prohibitions?  The answer is that indeed the assumed duty of speaking and behaving in a manner to please God as articulated by religion does not rise to such an absolute level. They are simply living in an abyss of misconceptions and misunderstanding.

Starting with the issue of earth times and the appearance of a God meddling in human affairs we have serious things to consider. It is well known that after the last Ice Age, some 11,000 to 12,500 years ago, man was found in five climatic zones, Africa, Sumer, (Middle East) China, Indus-Ganges and Meso-America. Recent discoveries in Russia (1998) suggest that civilizations may have been on earth for at least 120 million years.      

On May 1, 1965, Chinese scientists found two teeth and some coarse stone tools in Yuanmou county, Henan province. Scientists determined that these are leftovers from primeval humankind, about 1.7 million years ago. They are called "Yuanmou people." They were the earliest ever known humankind that lived in China.

Twentieth century excavations in Europe established a pre-4000 BC existence of Homo Sapiens on earth. A multiple burial in central Europe of three male figures was dated to be 26,000 years old.

According to some writers, the stories of Moses were written during the captivity in Babylon 600 years BC. making Moses a fictional character. And there are several different stories of a Genesis by different authors, any one of which could have found its way into the O.T.  Years before the setting of Genesis and the Garden of Eden, men and women were living on earth making whoopee with partners. Were they married? Legally? If so marriage was not instituted by God for there is no record of God having had any communication with these ancients. In fact we learn that the first time God (as we have been taught by organized religion) openly intervened in the life of humans was written by a character named Moses in a book known as Genesis about one thousand years BC,  reciting a disparate ancient earth history starting three thousand years before his time.

Genesis was written to establish that Monotheism (a single God belief)  resulted as God  finally made contact with a human named Abraham around 1,800 BC and promised him and his posterity all kinds of wonderful blessings . At that date, humanity had existed on earth at least 7,200 years (outside of the Genesis time line) and at least 5,000 years at the time of the Garden of Eden story, making Adam and Eve Johnny late comers on earth. The story of Adam pre-dates Abraham by some 2,200 years. Abraham lived about 500 years after Noah and the Flood which occurred 1,656 years after Abraham's God placed Adam and Eve in the garden (as the story goes).

We have to understand that knowledge of God as held by the Genesis story was written around three thousand years after the alleged fact.

At no time in known prior earth history (outside the O.T.) had God made contact with any other human. Abraham's father Terah and others of the time worshipped the sun, idols and mythical Gods (plural).

Devout believers in Genesis and it's time frames have been taught to accept them without hesitation. As a result, there is a conflict between provable real history and what can only be described as an alternative unprovable mythical history.

Resistance by those who devoutly accept Genesis as authentic to consider the alternative real history of humans on earth is the result of repetitious indoctrination by teachers and clergy who have a vested interest in perpetuating, as truth, the apparent myth.

Science tells us that the limbic system of the human brain consisting of the brain stem (reptilian brain) atop the spinal cord and the limbic system surrounding it--called the old brain--controls emotions such as fear, anger and aggression. Any new idea presented to the higher or new brain, (the cerebral cortex or neocortex), is stopped in its tracks if it presents a fear or contradiction to the knowledge of the old brain which shuts it down (discards). False ideas and beliefs long established in a person and society are protected and we refuse (out of fear) to even consider them. Thus the sins of the parents pass down to the third and fourth generations and beyond. It's all trapped in the limbic system of the human brain!  An appropriate term for that kind of behavior is being "brainwashed"  against new/different belief.              

It is this pious belief in the story of Genesis that creates so much conflict to human society. Proposition 8 is merely one of the examples! Reality opens all kinds of problems such as Zionism and a chosen people; Islam and yes, even Christianity!  Belief in a story (Myth) that avoids real earth history is a very shaky foundation on which to assert ones right to speak or act for God.

Insane delusion has a legal definition as, "An incorrigible belief in an idea that is based upon a false premise." That God ordained marriage at all or as only between a man and a woman because of the Adam-Eve myth is unquestionably an insane delusion.

Belief in an idea--no matter how old or how many believe it--does not make it true nor is it a basis for denying others a right to exercise their choice of life style in the absence of the ability to prove the truth of that belief system. In this case it is not provable that God ordained marriage as between a man and a woman.

Religion and Law have a centuries-old conflict. When a religious order had control of civil society, we dropped into an era of darkness (It was called the DARK AGES). Laws are then made to strengthen the control of religion over the population. In fact religion has in the past and even today, purported to have the right to destroy the lives of unbelievers. We see that "right" exemplified in the organized religious support of Proposition 8 by Mormons, Catholics and miscellaneous others, using their zealous but fear- based belief in the religious nature of marriage as ordained of God. These self-appointed apostles demand that all laws conform to a religious belief system. Proposition 8 is just one.

Truth is that marriage is made by two people mostly of male-female identity. Marriage is also made by two people of same sex orientation. The result is a family of at least two. In many cases love is confused with sex. "Making Love" is the term applied to the act of sexual intercourse--when in reality in many, if not most cases, it is a selfish act for each of the two, seeking independent carnal pleasure and not real love for the partner.

Same sex coupling has been putrefied by religious brainwashing (limbic system) of heterosexual couples for the reason that two alike genitals cannot make proper God-approved intercourse for the purpose of creating babies and therefore is perverse, disgusting and unclean. Yet, acts of sexual intercourse between committed same-sex couples likely has just as much pure love as that of sexual intercourse of mainstream heterosexuals who likely "get it on to get it off!"

The expressions of togetherness and love take many forms and are not exclusively the domain of  heterosexuals. Loving or making love has been an aspect of homo sapien relationships with one another on earth long before churches or the state usurped the right of control from consenting individuals.

Churches do not license marriage although some ceremonious events have been adopted to give the impression of its (God's) authority over marriage. It is the state,not the church, which issues marriage license--which is an audacious presumption of right, for in the absence of official marriage couples meet and mate. It would be better if the state and the church left marriage to two consensual adults who come together and wish to remain together to simply appear before a designated state official and make a solemn declaration of their marriage, receiving a certification of marriage  giving legal status to the relationship with all the civil rights and benefits marriage brings. That would raise marriage to the all encompassing level it should be and remove state and church interference to the recycle bin!

Do away with marriage licenses, Domestic partnerships or any other form of civil control over the act of  coupling. Do away with the notion that a minister (only by civil authority) or a judge has any presumptuous right or authority to join any couple in matrimony. We don't need the church or the state "marrying" people for they are quite able to do it themselves.

What we do need is the church and the state simply granting recognition of the act of the consensually coupling parties without regard to gender orientation. Laws on the books affecting rights and obligations of the certified married couple (i.e. Family Law) can remain in order to resolve later conflicts between the divorcing couple as are presently implemented.

Adoption of this practice and recognition would punch holes through the "righteousness" of church doctrine, particularly that of Mormons many of whom have been "married" for "time and all eternity" in a temple for the purpose of creating mortal and later spiritual babies to bring them eternal Celestial Glory, the concept of which is based purely on a phallic foundation.

Yet the likelihood of these married-forever temple garment-protected couples producing gay or lesbian offspring  is just as high as the married till death (or divorce) do you part couples. It's all in the percentages! Being Gay or Lesbian or bisexual is a historical fact before the story of the Garden of Eden and its residents. Homosexuality has nothing to do with conscious choice! Mormon leaders, Catholic Hierarchy from the Pope down and all other religious orders better get used to it and start teaching real history!

AFTERTHOUGHT: Since real earth history can be proven by science,  which places the book of Genesis in a state of mythical fabrication, it appears that Catholics and Mormons would rather perpetuate mythology than deal real world with earth's inhabitants. In doing this, they are using fraud to gain a living and exalting themselves as "Gods" spokesperson, tradition not withstanding!

Mormons are in an additional state of evil, compounded by merchandizing another book to gain converts--a book pretending to be an extension of the history of Old Testament peoples as the basis of their faith. The Book of Mormon is a  scientifically-proven farce as no such peoples as depicted in the book ever existed in the Western Hemisphere! Let's talk about the real sin of pushing lies on the population, not on who can or cannot be married!

For those who may suppose that this writer may be an athiest because of this article. the answer is no for he has had his own personal experience with a "higher" power.