From his living room in Leisure World in Seal Beach, Larry Black has watched the anti-Proposition 8 protests on his TV. He's read about the legal challenges to overturn the measure. And he has a thought.
"It's ridiculous," said Black, 66. "It's the people's vote. . . . That's the way it should be. That's it."
Voters in Orange County passed the measure banning gay marriage last week by a margin of 14 percentage points, a larger victory than statewide.
On Main Street in Seal Beach on Monday, a sampling of supporters vented their frustration over the contentious issue dragging on after a clear win at the polls.
They related arguments made before the election -- gay marriage would lead to laws permitting polygamy or bestiality, and that it goes against the "natural order."
And they grumbled that the people's will, as expressed in the voting booth, has been thwarted by California courts before.
Black and two of his friends had ridden their bikes from the Leisure World retirement community to Main Street to get some exercise and breathe in the ocean air by the pier.
Black says he believes homosexuals are born gay, have no choice in the matter and should be able to live how they want.
But the three friends said marriage is inherently between a man and a woman, and that widening the definition would put society on a path toward a murky kind of relativism, where traditional standards of morality disappear in a live-and-let-live atmosphere.
"You have to draw the line in the sand somewhere," said Mike Mooney, 60.
Mooney fears the measure will be killed in the courts like Proposition 187, the controversial 1994 measure that barred illegal immigrants from receiving social services.
Richard "Mac" McConnell agrees.
"It makes me angry when the will of the people is not upheld," said McConnell, 82.
"Under the Constitution it's supposed to be, but it's not anymore," he said. "And that's wrong."
McConnell is one of the regulars who gather on the benches on Main Street and take in the sea breeze where the magnolias and vintage storefronts meet the plank pier.
He is not a die-hard conservative, nor a bigot, he says.
He usually votes Republican but this time he voted for Obama.
In some ways, he said, he marvels at how far gays have made their way toward mainstream acceptance.
