If you live in California, and can vote... on this forum you're already probably on my side. If you know someone else who can vote in California, please share this with them. That is all.

Every single person I know in California is already both against Prop. 8 and political enough to go out and vote.

Why is the measure even up for a vote? Can you put anything you want in a constitution? Could you put it up for a vote to amend a constitution to say "Pie is awesome"?

I know a depressingly large number of people who are for it, simply because they're told to be and the concept scares them a bit.

FUD for the win? People are scared of what they don't understand. Except that they don't even TRY to understand...

Edit: The google ads brought up this pile of excrement...

Every time the issue of gay marriage comes up, I can't help but wonder about what had happened to the separation of church and state. Why are these religions trying to control government recognition of marriages? I think religions should lose their tax-exempt status once they start getting too involved in the political process.

Separation of Church and State is defined as "The state cannot tell the church what to do. Vice versa is a-okay, tho', because this country was founded on good Christian morals!™"

(as if that has anything to do with it)

Did these people know what tolerance and acceptance mean?

What do you think?

Shit like this is one of the reasons my family gave up on organized religion. It getting into the government just makes it worse.

The ONLY point that I'll agree with in their arguments is that churches should never be forced to perform same-sex marriages. If they don't want to, fine. If NONE of them want to, that's fine too. That's what civil ceremonies are for.

It's not a religious debate, it's a legal one.

Churches have the right to refuse anyone's marriage.

Sometimes I think it would be easier if marriage stopped being a legal term in this country and became merely a religious ceremony with no extra benefits and the actual legal contract we call marriage today would just be civil unions both for straight and same sex couples.

That's how Germany (and I think a lot of European nations) handle it. The Civil ceremony is required for everyone, and the church wedding is just a social event.

I can dig it.

I realize that it's a legal issue and not a religious one, and my intention was not to change the subject. I just find it irritating that people who want to ban gay marriage say that it's to protect their religious beliefs, when that should be irrelevant to the issue. I think civil unions are the way things should go, since it will make religious people stop complaining about mocking their religious ceremonies.

Something that I think would be interesting is having the government not recognize any marriages at all. It does not matter if you are gay or straight, you will have the same rights as two single individuals living together. What do the rest of you think?

Edit: Looks like more posts came up while I was proofreading mine. Anyway, Alphawolf55's comment about dropping "marriage" as the legal term is similar to what I was trying to say in my first paragraph.

Edit 2: Editting spelling

I think marriage is an avatar of pointlessness infesting relevance, and it shows with how people are still wasting so much time and energy debating over the damn thing. It's a ceremony. A religious ceremony. And I don't believe the government should hold debate over it, or even recognize it, as that encourages union of church and state.

The religions can keep their little ceremonies if they want, but I seriously think any political recognition or award of the event and any debate of its definition is one of the most outstanding farces in government today.

While the term of marriage is an institution of the Church, the actual functions of marriage which is suppose to help create families is arguably important.

Seriously? I only see marriage as red tape disguised as red string. You don't need a marriage license to practice monogamy and have kids. Or maybe the more accurate statement would be "You shouldn't".

You don't but there's also the idea of taxes, estate, medical that benefit greatly from some sort of common rules.

In Florida, we have in our state constitution an amendment that forces farmers to keep their pregnant pigs in a certain level of care, because there was a big stink for a while about the conditions on pig farms and I guess something was getting muddled up with making it a regular law. So instead it's part of our constitution, like voted for and accepted and put to paper. You can look it up.

Well the Constitution is suppose to be alterable.

I don't understand how same-sex marriage interferes with religious beliefs. Marriage was a government thing first; it was about POLITICAL unions. You know, back in the time of kings when this whole marriage concept came about.

And I would love to ask these same assholes if DIVORCE is against thier religious beliefs.

Because at the heart of it neither of these things is about religion;
they're about individual choice. Something Americans are apparently terrified of, giving people the power to make thier own descisions and own minds up about things.

edit: Trudeau famously said it best.
"The government has no place in the nation's bedrooms!"

I also want to know what their religious beliefs have to do with people who aren't them.

I also want to know why, if most of these people protesting about it are Christian, they do not follow tolerance and 'hate the sin, not the sinner'.
"Judge not lest ye be judged."

I hate all these assholes in organized religion who claim they follow Christ but take his name in VAIN and DO THE OPPOSITE OF HIS TEACHINGS.

Um it's not just Christians, there are members from Islam, Judaism and even people who athiest as well.

Also most christians aren't against divorce, it's mostly just the ones who are Catholic.

Alot of times it's because it's how they were raised, while we may be right the fact of the matter is, if we had grew up when they did we might not be as different, plus technology has increased information flow to help educate people better.

Some think it's a slipperly slope argument that legalizing like will lead to other things like polygamy and stuff which in the ways marriage work in the US wouldn't be useful. (Though still a weak argument because the two are barely comparable)

Some think it would costs us money. (This has been proven false and in fact the Federal deficit would be lowered by 100 million a year if gay marriage was legalized in all 50 states and the Federal Government recogonized it, though it it did costs extra it wouldn't matter becase if those same individuals were straight they wouldn't object)

Some think that marriage is ultimately for families and due to the same sex couples being incapable of producing off spring they shouldn't get the same benefits. (Which doesn't seem to account for the fact that sterile individuals can get married)

I'm not saying they're right, I disagree with their belief with every fiber of my being, I disagree with any belief that limits the ability of people to make choices that only affect themselves especially when it comes to the expression of lovel While outrage is justified it's doesn't help being angry at them won't change things (though I don't entirely disagree with shaming them). Only by educating them and countering all their arguments can conversion ever be possible. Also wouldn't hurt to show them that trying to turn their religion into the government is very shortsighted since it assumes their religion is always the majority, and thus its in their best interest to maintain the seperation as most as possible.

Though I'd also say the LGBT rights movement in some ways isn't proactive enough, it seems like we're always on the defense, always trying to defeat their initatives and never go on the offense and try to educate people, we try to educate the general mass but we never try directly with individuals and we never try with the people that actually oppose us.

I saw a letter to the editor-type article in the newspaper recently (just outside of Los Angeles), about how if gay marriage were legalized then the human race would go extinct.

...

It was several hundred words long. Yes, chew on that for a little while...

Don't forget "leave to Caesar that which is his and to Me that which is Mine".
And until the Roman Empire fell, marriage was strictly a civil matter, taken up by the Church only due to lack of other authority.
Thus, marriage falls under the "leave to Caesar" half of the statement.
page'd, and I am not surprised. Newspapers always go for "balance", golden mean falacy and all that.
As for educating the individual, the only real way I see is getting it taught in schools that its how you're born, not a choice. And that, true as it is, is never going to fly. Enemies will pull the "its not certain!" BS card every time.

Was it so bad it's good, or so bad it's horrible?

It was pretty horrible because the author was dead serious.

Funny in a way, but you could tell that he meant every word.

edit: As for the 'golden mean' thing, I would note that this letter was considerably longer than any other letter by a factor of at least 3. I forget what the other letters that day were about, tho'.

Still I always like Mike from Shortpacked's view on the matter.

Mike's view that unless ostracized gays will remove themselves from the gene pool and die out? Do you know what I blame for my gay-ness? All the advertising that portrayed women as desirable. And I don't see how a useless 'gay' gene would survive long, but a gene that makes one more attracted to a particular gender would be useful half of the time.

It's absolutely ridiculous. Brittney Spears's sham 2-day marriage does more damage to the integrity of the institution than letting more people get married do.

I believe we're all in agreement, though.

EDIT: As to an alterable Constitution and the ridiculous pro-pig-life amendment in FZ's Florida Constitution...

Yes, the Constitution is supposed to be a changing thing that can adapt to the times. It shouldn't be bogged down with an esoteric amendment that really should be a law.

Do you also think it should be legal for churches to refuse to perform marriages between interracial couples?

Yes, but those are still marriages, not civil unions. It's important to still allow the same rights for all unless you think that "separate but equal" is still okay.

"Marriage is a religious institution" is one of those lies made up in order to allow discrimination. It wasn't even religious in medieval Christian Europe, the peak of Church domination over the populous, so even if you want to ignore all the history of other-religious or non-religious marriage, marriage as a Christian institution only has a couple centuries at most of tradition.

A married couple in Western society is treated differently by laws in several different ways than unmarried people, some reasons to account for the inherent difficulties in how life works then and some for social engineering purposes. It's easy to say "disinstitutionalise marriage" until you realise it actually has big consequences outside of the ceremony.

Yeah, you can stop right there.

Well I meant more as a way to sell gay marriage off.

"Don't think of it as treating people differently then you as equals but of it as a xanatos gambit to rid the world of their kind!"

I love how people say it's not an equal rights issue because hey everyone has the same rights they can marry someone of the same sex! But by that same logic, banning interacial marriage would be okay because everyone has the right to marry someone of the same race!

Also some people say that being gay is not genetic and it's a choice, yet even if it was a choice (which it's not), if the equal rights clause only applied to the traits we were born with, then religion would gain no protection.

Also I agree with you MFD, just explaining how this might be a Constitution matter granted I don't think the constitution was ever meant to TAKE away rights rather then give them.

But here's the question ultimately it seems we all agree that the institution of marriage or civil unions or whatever should be equal between straight and same sex couples. Right now 25% of people support gay marriage, 41% support civil unions, 33% support neither. The two sides of the left are gaining by 1% a year while the group on the right is losing 1% per year. So really, should we take action if so what?

Should we merely wait ten to twenty years when if things continue the opposition group will be the vast minority then push for legisilation change?

Should we make the initative now to educate the masses and get more on our side and win through democratic process.

Should we try to fight for a Supreme Court victory that effectively makes the states that don't want to comply, comply?

If we push for legalizing it through the democratic process, should we fight for gay marriage or fight for changing marriage to a church status and give everyone civil unions?

I don't see how thats the same thing.
unless we're arguing the "poeple are born gay" thing.

Yes. A thousand times yes. I also think they should have the right to demand you convert before they do the ceremony, and generally be as big an ass about it as you want. I mean, noone's forcing Muslims to marry Xtians and vice versa, but noone's stopping interreligious couples from getting the marriage certificate from a judge, and finding a more tolerant church, or renting a secular park for the ceremony.

Churches don't control marriage, the state does. And I'd rather the state only give civil unions as binding as any legal contract and let churches marry whomever the hell they want (as binding as any religious vow).

Oh dear.

*cough* Moving along...

We didn't wait for democracy to catch up for the last two rounds of civil rights (and odds are we'd STILL be waiting for the last round; Alabama barely struck down its obsolete anti-miscegenation laws in the '90s, and that was after three decades of integration). I don't see any need to wait for it to happen this time when we could help these people now.

Why only allow them to have civil unions? Secular marriage is widespread both now and in history; conceding that to the bigots seems harmfully conciliatory.

Actually Jogurt I'm with them if the church wants to refuse interacial marriage let them.

Also if marriage stopped being a legal term and civil union was the now all inclusive full beneficial legal term for straight and same sex couples it wouldn't be seperate but equal since the government is letting everyone within both groups to get a legal partnership with the same name with all the same rights.

Also while I admit the language I used was misleading with the states part, when I said use more democratic channels I didn't mean just state legalization, I meant including Federal one too, like having the Federal government require the equal treatment and recognization of same sex marriages. What's the last two rounds of civil rights? The black power movement and womens suffrage or do you mean the abortion movement? Since some would say that the judicial action of the Supreme Court of Roe v. Wade helped the movement in the short term but in alot of ways hurt the movement in the long run granted the justification of judicial action to legalizing abortions and gay marriage aren't really comparable, since gay marriages Constitutionally speaking are far more backed and has far more supporters.

Even if we don't go through total democratic means, I think before judicial action it might be important to have a good majority on our side, since I believe that the majority of America sided with the Civil Rights Movement and Womens Suffrage, if you don't have the majority supporting it in some way, it'll just be fought for the next 20 years, look at California right now maybe Prop 8 will prove that there just isn't support to overturn such a thing, I just feel we need the support of the basic majority of this country to make true change last.

Edit: Fact of the matter is unless when Obama becomes President he finds a way to make the Supreme Court have the numbers needed to make such a ruling (which I doubt will happen), chances we still have 8 more years till true judicial action is possible we might as well use that time to increase our numbers.

Yes. I think a church should have the right to refuse to perform any marriage it doesn't want to, because you can always find someone willing to marry you.

I'm just making sure the people who are okay with nonenforcement on the churches are being consistent.

That's great, but many people like the word and concept of marriage and there's no reason to deny it to them. You don't even have to force churches to do it; just make sure they can swing by the town office and the mayor's aide will sign the papers and bam, you're married. Not civilly unified or any of that segregationalist garbage.

Not until a few decades after segregation was struck down by law, actually. Much of the purpose of all the action in the '60s and '70s was to change public opinion so as to allow people to actually exercise their rights without fear of retribution. So there's no real reason to not just end this discrimination now legally before worrying about letting public opinion catch up.

In all fairness, interracial couples have other venues where their wedding is legitimate.

If it could be marriage that would be great but the fact is 25% of people support gay marriage, 33% are against it, but 41% are for Civil Unions. The 41% group both helps and hurts us, they help us by not being for banning it outright but they won't legalize marriage either, you said it yourself if we can help people sooner shouldn't we? We could stick to our guns and fight for the term marriage itself which might end up working but could take quite some time, we could let the Civil Union people win for now and continue the fight further to push the cause or we could merely change a single word that would let us ensure the equality of everyone while having the majority support, plus it would take away some of the opposition about marriage itself being an institute of religion.

I would prefer gay marriages outright being accepted, and I know we should never compromise on the ideas of equality (or at least never compromise with the intention of letting the fight die there, you gotta allow for small step victories) we would probably be achieving the same goals in the end (legal equality), while having the same function and purpose as before, hell people could still get married even since the Churches could give it to someone plus there's religions that will do same-sex ceremonies thus both can have them, it just won't come with any special rights and the churches won't be forced to perform them.

Edit: Plus it's not really anything like segregation if both groups all have the same exact rights, the same term, and no real restrictions on either group.


I'm not saying you're wrong and I'm not saying this is the absolute path we should take but the fact is, the movement needs to start getting the offensive, it needs to stop being on the defense and acting like if the supporters mind their own business everything will be fine and we only need to fight the bans. We need to get a real national strategy in place, this can't be a battle that can be won state by state (well actually if the movement specifically tries to get support from Well Off states like California, NY, NH and the rest of New England it could help as an example of how it doesn't hurt a state). We need a combination of grassroot initative with National coordination.

Also about the segregation I was always under the opinion vast majority of the northeast and huge parts of the west supported it already, and it was only opposed mostly by the South that lacked a majority of the nation.

The problem with the plan of "everyone can get civil unions and marriage is just some thing you can do with your church" (well, aside from the fact that it gives ground to the Dominionists) is that, well, let's take an example.

Let's say you're with your partner and you want to get married like a real couple. Turns out all the churches in your area are of the Southern Baptist variety and you're too poor to take a trip far enough to find a place. Well, fuck!

A more workable alternative is "everyone can get civil unions, and marriage is something your cat can preside over if you if you want; we don't give a fuck." The problem is that people are still going to throw fits over this for various reasons, but it's certainly better than the first thing I described and probably a lot easier than what we all actually want.

PS MFD, I don't get what you're saying.

Find a minister that's not actually part of a church then.

For example, my uncle is a mechanic. He's also a licensed minister who performs marriages in his spare time. He's also a tattooist and a body piercer, so you can go to him to get married, have him fix your car, and get a tattoo of your partner/wife/husband/whatever's name all in the same day.

There are plenty of other ministers like him all over. Granted, they probably don't have such, ah... diverse jobs, but that's not the point.