It really is an interesting speech, and there is an mp3 version available if you want to listen to it.I suggest you do. A large portion of Dallin H. Oaks speech is exactly the type of thing that is being discussed here. You should then be able to get more to the point. Otheerwise you will force me to repeat my arguments.
Anyways, the speaker (Dallin H. Oaks) makes several good points in his talk that I will just reiterate:
1. The Constitution of the United States provides for a freedom of religion as a central freedom of the people.
2. The government does have a responsibility to weigh how religious freedom should co-exist with its own governmental responsibilities, and often times these do conflict.
3. The people do have a democratic right to express their religious ideals in a political debate, and should require "no secular justification". It is a constitutional right.
4. By defending their views on "traditional" marriage, voters are in no way trampling on the civil rights of others. Rather, they are upholding their civil rights to express their views and beliefs.
Mario F., there were also several posts in this thread which I purposely did not respond to or address, such as the back-and-forth between you and laserlight about different scriptural interpretations, etc. I didn't feel it was important for me to respond to those, and that's tangential to the point of the thread anyways.
I also understand from your previous posts that you feel it to be intolerant of religions to oppose same-gender marriages. I would offer this as a response: I don't think tolerance is the central issue here. The issue regarding "religious opposition to same-gender marriage" is an issue of a religious person's right to follow and obey a higher law according to the dictates of his own conscious.
As a quick illustration of this principle, I refer you to the story of King Saul, who at one time was waging war against the nation of the Amalekites. Saul was given a commandent by God to destroy everything, but instead of follow that commandment he thought that he'd save a few things for himself to use as sacrifices. When the prophet Samuel came, he uttered this age-old and true testimony: "Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." (1 Samuel 15:22)
Now, that whole explanation was tangential to the discussion. The main points of my post are the four which I illustrated above and summarized from the remarks of Dallin Oaks.