I was walking through my not terribly friendly but still neighborhood BART station this morning when I noticed an assortment of “No on 8″ signs set up throughout the walkway that leads to the fare gates.  For the uninitiated, they referred to Proposition 8 on the California state ballot which if passed will reverse the state Supreme Court decision from earlier this year which legalized gay marriage.  Having already dodged the couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses posted at the front of the walkway, I resolved to quietly bypass the young man and woman who were standing close in front of the fare gates handing out No on 8 pamphlets.  Besides, I had my McCain/Palin hat on.  Surely they’d take one look at that and write me off as a potential convert to their cause, right?

Wrong.  The man tried to hand me a pamphlet as I passed by, saying to me as I did so, “Please vote no on 8.  I want to stay married.”  At which point I freely admit the words of Kinky Friedman came to mind: “I support gay marriage.  I believe they have a right to be as miserable as the rest of us.”  Then again, Friedman is a lifelong bachelor, so how would he know.

One would think with me being, well, me I’d be worked up on the subject of gay marriage.  Truth is I’m not.  I am fully aware of what the Bible says about homosexual activity.  I cannot and will not attempt to sidestep Scripture.  Not an option.  Never an option.  I am also fully aware that I have dear friends who are gay, including one who is a Christian, and that I’ve seen two people in love who are the same gender.  I don’t understand it and I don’t get it and it’s as alien to me as it gets.  But it’s there and it’s real.  So I honestly don’t know what to think.

That said, I can’t generate any enthusiasm to support gay marriage.  It’s a legal Pandora’s box that has nothing to do with alarmist “they’ll teach it to our kids in school” hysteria.  Rather, it’s a basic question: how do you define who can and can’t get married?  If you say two consenting adults regardless of gender, how then can you prohibit blood relatives?  Or enforce the age limit?  If you take away the fundamental definer — man and woman — what is there to legally keep any less restrictive definer in place?

This is the conundrum I face and will face next Tuesday when I step into the voting booth.  Gay marriage is a bitterly divisive issue.  One look at the increasingly strident rhetoric and disturbing, increasingly aggressive behavior by fringe members of one camp against any and all on the other makes this all too clear.  Also true is that the issue can divide someone within.  Which is where I am.

I don’t know.  I honestly don’t know.