Sacramento Bishop Jaime Soto has released the following statement in response to a federal judge's ruling declaring Proposition 8 unconstitutional:

The Honorable Judge Vaughn R. Walker chose to ignore the common sense decision of the California voters and overruled Proposition 8.

Efforts to restore the long-standing tradition of marriage to the California Constitution will continue at higher levels of the judiciary. Hopefully, the obstinate judicial impulse to innovate will give way to the prudent principle of the prevailing historical understanding of marriage that has served the common good for generations.

The respectful and reasonable distinction of marriage as the union of a man and woman should not suffer the discriminatory, intolerant disdain that some have sought to promulgate.

Hysteria has, unfortunately, become the hallmark of California discourse. It is important for the Catholic community and all Californians of good will not to be intimidated into silence and accommodation. What we believe and what we have proposed throughout this campaign is sound and sensible.

There is a prevailing cultural confusion about sexuality and marriage. This is not a reason to retreat into some kind of pious isolation. We must continue to engage the civic discourse and enrich the conversation with the beauty and grace of the Catholic moral tradition about marriage and family.