We didn’t have to wait long for the reactions from conservative Christians to yesterday’s decision in the Prop 8. They’re predictably hyperbolic:

Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America:

“Judge Walker’s decision goes far beyond homosexual ‘marriage’ to strike at the heart of our representative democracy. Judge Walker has declared, in effect, that his opinion is supreme and ‘We the People’ are no longer free to govern ourselves. The ruling should be appealed and overturned immediately.”

Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary:

“In one brazen act of judicial energy, California’s voters were told that they had no right to define marriage, and thousands of years of human wisdom were discarded as irrational. … The central institution of human civilization suffered a direct hit, and its future hangs in the balance.”

Daniel Blomerg of the Alliance Defense Fund:

“What’s really chilling about this decision is the way the plaintiffs and the judge directly attacked the faith of millions of Americans. They presented doctrinal beliefs about marriage as evidence of bigotry, as unreasonableness.”

Let me first comment on the hilarity of Ms. Wright saying that overturning a ballot intiative is a challenge to “representative democracy.” Ballot initiatives are themselves challenges to representative democracy, as they seek to bypass legislators and allow voters to essentially write law from the voting booth. California is a mess on their account. Prop 8 was the real challenge to representative democracy, and it should have been overturned on that fact alone.