It's known that a big chunk of the money (and possibly the majority of it) for Proposition 8 came from out of state.

The two biggest contributors were Utah (Mormon) and Connecticut (Knights of Columbus).

A Mormon friend of mine also spent considerable time canvassing door to door for Proposition 8. I presumed that everyone in his church was doing the same.

This issue is baffling to me from multiple directions.

Why do states have to get involved with any type of marriage in the first place? (including heterosexual)
(If your main answer is "for the children" then recall that a large proportion of children are born "out of wedlock" and we already have laws on the books to deal with custody, etc. in those cases.)
Why do churches believe a ruling on this has any impact on their faith?
Why do gay people believe a Civil Union with identical legal status to marriage in terms of property rights, hospital visitation, and child custody wouldn't be "good enough" if it wasn't called "marriage"?

Granted I have never run these questions by any of my ultra-religious fundamentalist friends or either of the two "married" gay couples I know (one lesbian couple, one consisting of two males).

I guess I just don't care enough about this to bother listening to rhetoric from either side.

Just seems like there are lots of raw emotions here and, as I said, these legal fights on this subject baffle me.

P.S. A friend from India tells me that (at least in his region), the marriage laws are even funkier.
If you are Hindu, you are allowed one wife. If you are Muslim, you are allowed four wives.
I suppose having only three would be overly restrictive. And having five would be sinful.
Or maybe you're just being greedy (or a glutton for punishment, depending on your perspective).

P.P.S. A few months back, California reinstated the terms "Bride" and "Groom" on the wedding forms by popular request.
It seems a lot of people found "Party A" and "Party B" to be insufficiently romantic.