It was the will of the people. This was a democratic vote as it was brought before the people and they voted against it. The court over turning it would have been legislating from the bench. The court upheld the will of the people who brought a legal vote of “nay”. The court preformed it’s function of being a judiciary correctly. If the vote were the other way around the court would have had to uphold it to.
Thank God we can keep the nasty homosexuals in their rightful place, beneath us superior heteros.
[quote]PB-Crawl wrote:
jawara wrote:
thunderbolt23 wrote:
Mufasa wrote:
Among other ironies is that while “gay marriage” is styled as the new “Civil Rights movements”, the original Civil Rights warriors - Black Americans - are are the demographic bloc most solidly against it.
I’m probably gonna catch hell for this but, homosexuality is a behavior not a race. So in my eyes gay marriage isn’t the same as civil rights.
Incorrect. the original civil rights warriors were American colonists.
civil rights =/= race. In our history the two have directly linked yes, but also not directly linked. See woman’s rights movement.
a “civil rights movement” is a political movement for equality before law.
civil rights and race are not conditional.
homosexuality is an orientation. Its a noun not a verb. And there have been many non-race oriented movements in every country through out history, womens, students, religious, ethnic, ect.[/quote]
Those same American colonists weren’t fighting England over the right to have sex with others of the same sex. Sexual rights aren’t civil because when you are born you have the right to be able to have sex with anyone that wants to have sex with you.
Just like choosing the route you take when drive to work, you can orientate who you have sex with. Therefore its a choice.
I really don’t see a problem with gay marriage.I thought the whole civil union thing gave them the same rights. If to gay people want to be committed to each other thats fine thats THEIR right. The state doesnt have to accept it because it isnt a civil right.
I hear what you are saying Mufasa, I didn’t mean to shout to the heavens, but DHickey is right. There is SO much waste going on, Cali could reduce it’s problem by alot by just cutting worthless programs. Some radical ideas proposed was to deport illegal prisoners to the Feds, or to their respective country. I don’t know why we need to be in a fiscal crisis for such an idea, cuz it sounds like common sense to me. Having state workers work 10 hrs a day for 4 days per week, was another idea. Still a 40 hr work week, but would save money. There are ways to improve the situation without people thinking the sky is falling.
As far as prop 8, I think it will be a matter of time before California finally gives in and legalizes it. I speculate within the next few years or less. I know that Gavin Newsom is running for governor and if he gets elected, you can trust and believe he will legalize it.
You won’t have to wait for Newsome, Schwarzenegger has said this week that he supports and expects gay marriage to be legal in California. The gap has already closed to a very thin margin (+ or - 2%), and with the ridiculous ease of changing the Constitution there, I don’t doubt it will be on the ballot again in the next couple years.
On sexual orientation being a choice, the mental health and medical organizations say it isn’t. However, even if you’re right, the point is irrelevant. Religion is a choice, so should the state be allowed to ban marriage to anyone that isn’t a true believing Catholic?
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
The direct effect is the law requiring OTHERS to do differently than they may choose. Indeed it is only others that will be required to do anything different.
Somehow this aspect, which clearly is a key aspect – how can the matter of who is required to do differently under a law not a key aspect? – gets neglected, it seems to me, or even entirely overlooked most of the time.
jsbrook wrote:
Bill Roberts wrote:
Um, what part of my statement was incorrect?
I pointed out that what it is about is requiring OTHERS to act or respond differently. Rather than being a matter of allowing or not allowing any couple in question to interrelate with each other however they like.
How am I wrong in stating that?
Maybe I misinterpreted your post. Seemed to me that you were saying, there is no real reason to fight because they can consider their private relationship whatever they want it to be. When in fact, I guess you were just acknowledging this fact.
Seems obvious to me too. Maybe that’s why I misinterpreted.
But certainly, the important issue is the impact legal recognition of their relationship by others would have for them.
[/quote]
On the one hand you are right, but then the government already is up to its sleeves in the marriage business.
That means that they already force third parties hands.
Do not do it because the couple is gay seems to be unfair, blatantly unfair in some cases.
Hi, this is probably not the place for my first post, but reading this thread did make me finally want to stop lurking and post.
Sexual orientation is not a choice. If you ask any gay man, he will say he’s always been gay, has known it since he was a little kid. I can’t speak for lesbians, as ironically, I don’t deal with many. I work in the hospitality industry and most of the men I work with and am friends with, are gay.
The fight for legalizing gay marriage is really for all the benefits civil unions are not allowed. I am all for legalizing gay marriage, but if we can’t do that, maybe we should extend the privileges allowed in civil unions. I know someone who had a partner who died of cancer and he could not visit his partner in the hospital, because the “next of kin,” his parents, denied him, because they believe homosexuality is a sin.
After the partner died, the parents contested the will and WON, taking away everything willed to my friend. The court basically said their partnership did not exist. I’m sure that if it had been a heterosexual couple, the courts would not have decided how they did.
I guess I just don’t see the big deal in not letting people who love each other and are in a committed relationship have the same rights and privileges I, as a straight woman, do when I get married.
I’ve shared similar stories from gay friends of mine. People must either not be aware of these cases, or must not care. I hope it is ignorance rather than apathy that motivates people to oppose equal rights for gays, but either way the end result is the same.
[quote]Mufasa wrote:
I’ve thought for some time now that the “easy” road with this issue is to say one is “for” or “against” it based on personal/religious grounds.
The much more difficult one is attempting to come to a decision based on the law and the Constitution.
Is marriage a “right” or a “privilege”?
Are you denying “life, liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” by not allowing a group to legally marry?
Is this “simply” a “moral” issue…a “legal” one; or is it both?
Tough questions.
Numerous other threads have discussed it.
Mufasa[/quote]
Good question. Actually, I would argue that the state has no business being in the marriage business at all, since it violates the separation of Church and State – It is more than a little odd to have people who have rejected religion wholly lobbying for the “Right” to essentially be beholden to someone. In the bad old days, women were married and lost their place in their families. The legal response to this was to award her half of the man’s property immediately so if he left here, there would be dire penalty (plus she would be able to take care of any children, since usually having the man haul ass meant total desertion.)
In point of fact I favor contracts which allow for people to regulate property – that is what the issue is about fundamentally, since there really isn’t much of a moral stigma for being gay from the population at large. Sure some archly conservative types get the vapors, but by and large not many people care. The question is how does this shake out in practice? Allowing for same-sex ones is easy, but what about multiples? I think that as a property issue they should be allowed (and the special case of child-parent – which is the only relationship out of this that has a inarguably biological basis – is assumed under law).
Once you figure out who gets what when who dies, then you can run down to the church of your choice and tell God all about it. It is never the purview of the State to legislate morality. Remember Prohibition?
Finally, just a note about Rights. People cheerily confuse Right=something given because of birth, e.g. calling your biological father “dad” or being a vertebrate, with the political issue of Rights. In politics, a Right is defined by the duties it imposes on others. Many times people with an agenda work hard at confusing the issue. For instance, a “right to good health” (as the UN called it recently) as a basis for social legislation. What are we supposed to do when we get sick? Throw germs in jail? When these get confused one side is trying effectively to shut off all reasonable discourse and claim that they cannot be questioned. As soon as an issue is phrased in terms of Rights, you should reject it immediately and view further calls with extreme suspicion. If they cannot assert their claim in any other way, they do not have one. (There might be one there, such as in the abortion issue, I’m just saying the speaker really has no idea beyond feeling like they are right, which is a poor way to get laws.)
And I might just be full of shit…
– jj
[quote]forlife wrote:
I’ve shared similar stories from gay friends of mine. People must either not be aware of these cases, or must not care. I hope it is ignorance rather than apathy that motivates people to oppose equal rights for gays, but either way the end result is the same.[/quote]
I think it’s the aggressive, extreme tactics like accosting old women who support traditional marriage, like storming into churches and demonizing religion… etc.
I would not mind gayness so much, but your tactics and approach are not anything I respect.
STOP trying to teach that being gay is good in our schools…STOP taking public school children to gay weddings…THEN you may have a chance. I see this ideal FORCED, and not debated. This turns me off as a voter. Perez on the Miss USA did not help either.
[quote]Rockscar wrote:
STOP trying to teach that being gay is good in our schools…STOP taking public school children to gay weddings…THEN you may have a chance. I see this ideal FORCED, and not debated. This turns me off as a voter. Perez on the Miss USA did not help either.[/quote]
Fair enough, if you STOP extrapolating the tactics of a small minority to the rest of the gay population. None of my gay friends supported Perez in the Miss USA fiasco, and none of us have accosted any old women lately.
It’s like accusing all black people of supporting Malcolm X. Malcolm X’s politics may or may not have been effective, but his approach didn’t signify the views of the entire black population.
[quote]forlife wrote:
Rockscar wrote:
STOP trying to teach that being gay is good in our schools…STOP taking public school children to gay weddings…THEN you may have a chance. I see this ideal FORCED, and not debated. This turns me off as a voter. Perez on the Miss USA did not help either.
Fair enough, if you STOP extrapolating the tactics of a small minority to the rest of the gay population. None of my gay friends supported Perez in the Miss USA fiasco, and none of us have accosted any old women lately.
It’s like accusing all black people of supporting Malcolm X. Malcolm X’s politics may or may not have been effective, but his approach didn’t signify the views of the entire black population.[/quote]
Did you just compare Perez Hilton to Malcolm X?
Fucking Christians
[quote]orion wrote:
forlife wrote:
Rockscar wrote:
STOP trying to teach that being gay is good in our schools…STOP taking public school children to gay weddings…THEN you may have a chance. I see this ideal FORCED, and not debated. This turns me off as a voter. Perez on the Miss USA did not help either.
Fair enough, if you STOP extrapolating the tactics of a small minority to the rest of the gay population. None of my gay friends supported Perez in the Miss USA fiasco, and none of us have accosted any old women lately.
It’s like accusing all black people of supporting Malcolm X. Malcolm X’s politics may or may not have been effective, but his approach didn’t signify the views of the entire black population.
Did you just compare Perez Hilton to Malcolm X?
[/quote]
An obese, flamboyant, homosexual with the fashion sense of Liberace with Down Syndrome has been compared to one of the greastest men in African-American history?
[quote]Growing_Boy wrote:
orion wrote:
forlife wrote:
Rockscar wrote:
STOP trying to teach that being gay is good in our schools…STOP taking public school children to gay weddings…THEN you may have a chance. I see this ideal FORCED, and not debated. This turns me off as a voter. Perez on the Miss USA did not help either.
Fair enough, if you STOP extrapolating the tactics of a small minority to the rest of the gay population. None of my gay friends supported Perez in the Miss USA fiasco, and none of us have accosted any old women lately.
It’s like accusing all black people of supporting Malcolm X. Malcolm X’s politics may or may not have been effective, but his approach didn’t signify the views of the entire black population.
Did you just compare Perez Hilton to Malcolm X?
An obese, flamboyant, homosexual with the fashion sense of Liberace with Down Syndrome has been compared to one of the greastest men in African-American history? [/quote]
Hey, now it all makes sense!
And don´t diss Liberace, that, in all his flamboyant gayness, was probably a great guy.
And he was gay before it became fashionable.
[quote]forlife wrote:
Rockscar wrote:
STOP trying to teach that being gay is good in our schools…STOP taking public school children to gay weddings…THEN you may have a chance. I see this ideal FORCED, and not debated. This turns me off as a voter. Perez on the Miss USA did not help either.
Fair enough, if you STOP extrapolating the tactics of a small minority to the rest of the gay population. None of my gay friends supported Perez in the Miss USA fiasco, and none of us have accosted any old women lately.
It’s like accusing all black people of supporting Malcolm X. Malcolm X’s politics may or may not have been effective, but his approach didn’t signify the views of the entire black population.[/quote]
You might be right about that, but then Malcolm X did alienate and turn off a bunch of people as well. It’s a minority, but it doesn’t matter–it’s the natural reaction. Maybe it shouldn’t be, but it is–it’s like you listening to Ann Coulter…it makes you go “this is INSANE! Do all conservatives think like this??” And at some point that begins to prejudice you against a conservative agenda, based on some nutjob. You often aren’t even aware of that change. Maybe deep down inside you are aware of it–that all conservatives don’t think like that, but it doesn’t matter–the damage is being done.
So, in the end it doesn’t matter that it’s a small minority. Their actions hurt their cause, whether it “should” be that way or not. I can tell you I sure don’t respect their tactics.
I agree with ForLife though—it’ll be back on the ballot soon, especially with the ridiculous ease of changing the constitution. In that case, I’ll applaud court decisions upholding that amendment as well. As long as the bench doesn’t legislate.
[quote]Growing_Boy wrote:
Fucking Christians[/quote]
your point?
[quote]Grneyes wrote:
Hi, this is probably not the place for my first post, but reading this thread did make me finally want to stop lurking and post.[/quote]
If you have been a lurking then you know that this topic has been talked to death. You must also know that there is a very strong counter to your argument.
(Sigh)
But there is no proof that anyone is born gay. Does that tip you off to something?
If you ask any burglar he will tell you that he just couldn’t help it. Did you ever stop to think that they are saying that in order to justify a certain behavior? By the way, simply because someone says he was gay since childhood that does not clear up the part about how they got that way to begin with. There’s far more to it I suspect than what you or I may think.
Maybe we should extend benefits to mothers and sons who live together? Maybe we should extend benefits to polygamists? Maybe we should extend benefits to a man and his dog. Maybe we should extend benefits to a whole host of odd relationships?
Then again maybe not.
[quote]I know someone who had a partner who died of cancer and he could not visit his partner in the hospital, because the “next of kin,” his parents, denied him, because they believe homosexuality is a sin.
After the partner died, the parents contested the will and WON, taking away everything willed to my friend. The court basically said their partnership did not exist. I’m sure that if it had been a heterosexual couple, the courts would not have decided how they did.[/quote]
A will, any will can be contested regardless of the relationship between the parties. Poor argument.
And therein lies the problem. Do you understand the statistics on “committed gay relationships”? They are abysmal. In fact there’s almost no such thing statistically speaking.
I’d post some statistics on this to back up my argument, but as a long time lurker you must have seen the data before and have chosen to ignore it because you have friends that are gay and life is wonderful la dee da.
[quote]ZEB wrote:
But there is no proof that anyone is born gay. Does that tip you off to something?
[/quote]
That you cannot prove a negative?
Well, yes, I cannot prove that God does not exist.
You cannot prove that the Flying Spaghetti Monster does not exist.
He cannot prove that people are not born gay.
Oh, the things we cannot prove…