Locobot

Actually this was quite clearly stated multiple times throughout the campaign. If you had watched the debates and paid attention you would know this. Stop trying to hide behind your own ignorance.

Locobot

I think he was being sarcastic, or at least I hope so.

Flyguy

Kerry did say that he wants the states to handle gay marriage. He said in in the second or the first debate. Either no one listened or the only heard what they want to hear from Bush.

Seer666

No, he was pretty clear in that if you listened to him speak. That was one of the FEW things I liked about him. Very few.

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Fourtyrulz

Since when was it the government's position to enforce moral codes? In America, aka Land of the Free, ideally there should never be legislation that would hinder anyones freedoms. If you choose to love a man, as long as you never hurt anyone, what business is it of the governments? Especially since it is a religious idea in the first place!

Aside from that - Just because the majority voted does not AT ALL make the majority morals more right than anyone elses.

Booboo

Fortunately, whatever the founding fathers beleived in, I think they realized (at least I think so) that religion severely hinders progress as a society and is something that should be kept in homes/churches and out of politics. The majority if not all previous wars could in someway shape or form be identified as having a religious motive (probably not entirely true but I think religion most definately played roles in wars past). There are just too many things to disagree on when it comes to religion.

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flstf

The majority are quite often passing laws that that control the activities of minorities. The only recourse minorities have is chalenge them in the courts and have them found unconstitutional. Unfortunately the founding fathers did not include marriage in the constitution, unless "pursuit of happiness" or something can apply.

I'm convinced that the government would have already taken all the guns if the right to own them wasn't specifically stated.

I know this may sound trivial to some. I am a motorcyle enthusiest and there is a battle going on in most states to pass or repeal helmet laws. About half the states currently have helmet laws. Since a majority do not ride bikes it is easy to convince them to pass these laws. After all it is for our own good that we wear them isn't it? Just because something is a good idea does not mean we have to pass a law. I am waiting for them to pass a law that restaurants cannot serve food high in fat content, LOL,

Most Christians probably believe gay marriage is a bad idea. They (we) do not need so many laws restricting our freedom. I wish the constitution would not allow these laws restricting our behavior just because the majority thinks the activity is bad for us. Hopefully some day we can live and let live and always err to the side of personal freedom.

mused76

Nobody is limiting freedom in the bedroom but they are attempting to stop marriage between the same sex. Same sex marriages, in my *opinion*, are not justified and only show self-love due to the fact that gay marriages are based on falling in love for the same sex - the same being whether it male or female. Marriage is sacred and meant to be between a male and a female in my opinion and in the Catholic church's opinion. The purpose of marriage: love and pro-create. This is all besides the point.

My main point in beginning this thread was to state that the majority spoke out and won. This isn't just Bush or the "government" stopping rights. The government is made up of American citizens who voted on gay marriage bans this election and have voted on other issues in the past. And the majority, at whatever time it was, voted in presidents who were either for or against issues.

The minority does have rights. They have rights to protest, to leave the country, to get petitions, to lead marches to the state capitals, etc. They don't have these rights in many countries or just recently received them in areas such as Iraq. The minority has rights so please do not say they don't. Whether or not the majority agrees is another thing.

mused76

Nobody is limiting freedom in the bedroom but they are attempting to stop marriage between the same sex. Same sex marriages, in my *opinion*, are not justified and only show self-love due to the fact that gay marriages are based on falling in love for the same sex - the same being whether it male or female. Marriage is sacred and meant to be between a male and a female in my opinion and in the Catholic church's opinion. The purpose of marriage: love and pro-create. This is all besides the point.

My main point in beginning this thread was to state that the majority spoke out and won. This isn't just Bush or the "government" stopping rights. The government is made up of American citizens who voted on gay marriage bans this election and have voted on other issues in the past. And the majority, at whatever time it was, voted in presidents who were either for or against issues.

The minority does have rights. They have rights to protest, to leave the country, to get petitions, to lead marches to the state capitals, etc. They don't have these rights in many countries or just recently received them in areas such as Iraq. The minority has rights so please do not say they don't. Whether or not the majority agrees is another thing.

Willravel

People were fed lies, and Kerry still almost won.

RAGEAngel9

Yeah marriage is sacred. So let me know when divorce is illegal. Also those marry a millionare reality shows are illegal too (Ok this is wish would actually happen). Marriage is already not that sacred in our county as a legal institution.

Frankly, the best solution(meanign should piss off the fewest people) is to get rid of marriage in the US as a legal thing and just implement civil unions for and any adults ( and I'm not limiting the number to 2 either, although the current tax code may need some fixing first). Marriage can then stilll exist as a religious thing and that may church and state are once again seperate(at least on this issue).
I see no problems with this solution, but it is only my perspective. Any one that can point out flaws in my idea, please post.

maypo

You are aware that Muslims consider us to be godless heathens and that their morality includes death for adultery, beating your wife and many less than savory concepts. Maybe they can be the majority someday and impose their views on you.
Ouch, gays are hurting me by entering into a monogamous relationship, I can only tolerate gays when they engage in hot, anonymous sex with numerous partners. Freedom really doesn't enter into your concept of America, does it?

jonjon42

these examples violate the rights of other people and that is why they are not allowed. just my 2 cents

you are beginning to sound alot like Alan Keyes....Anyway, you are looking at people in groups. You should look at the individual. Amanda loves Susan...and they wish to spend the rest of their lives together. Why should it matter that they both female. Go tell them in their faces that they are not good enough people to get married. That is what you are doing basically. You are calling them inferior. I think once you go out and get to know some of these people your thoughts will change. To marry for procreation is an old concept, but I believe we have progressed past that at this point. Not every marriage produces kids. I know people who will be unable to have children..should they be barred from mariage?

I'm sorry if my spelling is off and my post is a little disjointed...I'm a bit drunk.

Love is all you need.....

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A damn dirty hippie without the dirty part....

smooth

actually, they violate capitalist principles.

that is, personal rights are prerequisites for capitalist ideology.

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filtherton

Marriage is defined by the church, right? So goevernment shouldn't have anything to say about who can or cannot get married because it is a religious issue, right? What if i told you that there are at least a few denominations of mainstream christianity consider a gay marriage just as sacred as a straight one? Who's religious freedom is more worthy of constitutional protection?

Anyways, back to your main point. The majority spoke, but just between you and me and the internet, if the majority was amalgamated into a single person that person couldn't locate arizona on a map of the u.s.. Besides, the real majority made a brilliant use of negative space in its statement on election day. Roughly 40% of registered voters didn't vote at all. Bush only got about 30% of the eligible vote.

mrbuck12000

This idea is from a buddy of mine, and i got a kick out it:
put any personal beleifs aside about your belief in god and for a minute and just assume that there's no God. If that's the case (and science gets closer to proving it every year), 4,000,0000 people just decided the fate of the world based upon a figment of their imaginations. I give them an 'A' for creativity that for sure!!

mrb

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smooth

I usually refer to it as a figment of one's unreality.

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"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

cbr9racr

Well said (original poster). The dems just don't get that they are too far OUTSIDE the beliefs of the "common man".

GMontag

Same sex marriages don't *have* to be justified. That's the whole point of the utilitarian principle (which is what our whole philosophy of law is based on). There has to be justification to deny freedoms (i.e. harm to others), not to allow them.

As you readily admit, that is an opinion that is based solely on religious considerations, and therefore has no place dictating public policy. We have this little thing called "separation of church and state" in this country, no matter how much the religious right wants to deny it.

So what? Rights and freedoms are not something that are subject to public opinion. Do you think that if the majority of people in this country thought it would be a good idea to reinstitute slavery, that it would be right to do so? That is certainly an extreme example, but a valid one nonetheless. Rights are guaranteed, and should not be able to be voted out of existence.

The fact is that the majority is denying rights to the minority. That simply is not acceptable, regardless of how the majority feels about it.

Unright

Yes, we have the right to challenge authority to explain and defend their actions. That is why were so vehement to get the "moral majority" to defend it's decision, but we mostly get stone-walled.

Banning gay marriage (or defining marriage as between a man and a woman) does nothing to stop homosexuality and serves only as a way to deny gay couples the right to tax benefits provided by the government for married couples. If your defense is that marriages are the church's domain. Then call gay couples "Civic Unions" or "Common-Law Marriage".

I don't know what to make of the "Self-Love" argument you made. It's love between to seperate individual people who just happen to be the same gender. Are you insinuating that the church has the right the define emotion? To validate what is love and what isn't? Please eloborate.

martinguerre

*nods...

Honestly, i'm scared about becoming an illegal person in the next few years. Until a few days ago, the primary reason to be concerned was if i could be ordained in the denomination of my choice. Now, it is if my life will be legislated and ruled against until i cannot be a legal citizen of the United States.

Lawrence V. Texas was only 6-3....and i can only imagine the decision by which my right to be in the relationship of my choosing will only become more embattled with time. It's a very scary thing to have one's country turn upon you...

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guy44

I can't believe we are even having this discussion. This country is so bigoted, its just painful. The GLBT community should be as entitled to its rights as white christian males, black women, whatever. That anyone should be excluded is despicable. It makes me truly sad to be American.

Allowing gay marriage forces religious institutions into nothing. They do not have to marry a gay couple. It cannot possibly affect anyone else except those getting married. What's so bad about that?

And as for civil unions: seperate but equal is bigoted, sure as straight up oppression. Let everyone have the same freedoms, please.

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Mr Zen

Its very easy when you are in the majority to say, "Well, majority rules so there..." The problem is that when you start telling people what they can and can't do, your country begins to drift further and further to the extreme end of the spectrum. In your case, this would mean a drift towards facism. And we all know how that worked out in the past. Today gays can't marry, what'll it be like tommarrow? Will we be feeding them to the lions? The following passage is something you need to think about. Writen by a fellow living in Nazi Germany in 1945.


"First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me."

by Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945


Actually, most laws come from the classical liberal ideology (read: the term 'liberal' is used here in its correct form, meaning in the center of the political spectrum. NOT left, or socialist, or communist, as most Americans, for some reason, insist on using it), which follows the idea that your rights end as soon as my rights begin. And this is the problem. If you want to advocate that murder, theft, rape, blackmail, tax evasion, etc. should be against the law, so be it. I'll even accept the pro-life policy, in that it is based on (a flawed opinion, IMO) protecting a "person's" life from someone else's. That is your right. I'll even say that you can scream at the top of your lungs that gay marriage is wrong, and that no one should do it. But never will I support you, or anyone, in the attempt to limit or infringe upon the rights of others, especially when they are not at all doing anything that might affect you.


Zen

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Mr Zen

Yeah, bring on the seperate but equal black women!

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westothemax

Why does letting gay people get married piss off the majority? Or is it that the Democrats are trying to please the minority that pisses off the majority? (By trying to give the minority the same right as the majority, in this case).

edit - I read further down the thread and I think I got it now... so nevermind.

smooth

I'll post this (from alternet) in response:

-- http://alternet.org/election04/20433/

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

aliali

Including polygamists and those who want to marry their cousins? Are there any rules that are constitutional and unbigoted? If so, what are they?

Lebell

Wow, I had no idea!

Got a link to that research?

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"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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Nazggul

That is simply wrong. He stated it in at least 2 of the debates and in several speeches that I saw. Could be you just didn't want to hear it.

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-- Editors

prb

If the Republicans are serious about passing laws to enforce the morality of their Christian base, let them prove it by sponsoring some laws which will really do the job:

You want to defend the "sanctity" of marriage? Let's ban divorce and criminalize adultery.
Let's codify the Ten Commandments and punish those who fail to honor their parents,
fail to keep holy the sabbath, take the Lord's name in vain, or covet their neighbor's
goods.
Let's see that Roe v. Wade is overturned and start executing women and doctors who
participate in abortions.
Let's pass laws that punish witches and heretics.
And, of course, we must outlaw pornography in every shape and form.

I just wish that whoever was reading the Bible to Dubya would hurry up and get to the New Testament.

fibber

"The fact is that the majority is denying rights to the minority. That simply is not acceptable, regardless of how the majority feels about it."

Is marriage a right?
Maybe the economic facets of it are but I doubt it.
If thats the case, then goddamnit I should able to have those economic ties with anyone I please, man, woman, brother, sister, mother, father, friend, enemy, teacher.......

Marriage is a religious institution. As far as the gov't is concerned now, it is a financial institution.
Having the gov't recognize gay marriage is as silly as recognizing straight marriage. Don't even get me started on spousal immunity.

To me this is an economic issue not a moral one.

Sorry, I can't figure out the "quote" box stuff, how does it know who to attribute the quote to? it's magic i tell ya.
-fibbers

flstf

Interesting. Makes you wonder where the line should be drawn. Could lead to some very diverse economic agreements. We would need another name for these couples besides marriage, I think.

fibber

I think you're in luck flstf, that's what I assume the "civil union" is supposed to be.

Now I must admit I don't follow this issue at all in the press, but I vaguely recall hearing Bush says he supports civil unions. Is this right?

If so then I can only assume we've caused nationwide anger over semantics... bonus points?

Obviously the issue has gone beyond that point, I don't want to trivialize what the other posters here are discussing, but I think this should be clearly an economic issue. I posted in another forum that Insurance companies surely don't want this to go though; more beneficiaries = more money = more money taken from either your check or your bosses bottom line for insurance 'cause they're gettin their cut either way. But people want their benefits so if you want to argue for or against it on that ground I certainly couldn't fault you.

I don't know what the economic benefits are for married couples but I would imagine them to be fairly substantial. Pushing for them otherwise would have to equate to some sort of socio-religious reason. If that's the case then tread lightly if you want to argue for it and seperation of church and state in the same breath. Don't forget marriage is a religious institution, we may have given a legal context to it over the years, but I'ld bet more marriages are presided over by some sort of religious figure than a justice of the peace, gay strait or otherwise. If some stat-hound can find some numbers I'ld be much obliged.

I'ld say I'm vaguely against it for the uber-petty reason that I hate people gettin shit that I don't. Marriage benefits, child tax credits, affirmative action, medicaid, Social Security, bugger that, I want 'em too or get rid of 'em. 'course my opinion would change if I was a old, married, perscription drug needing, black woman applying to lawschool with kids.

-fibber

guy44

Gay marriage advocates are not asking for a radical shift in the definition of marriage. Allowing marriage between family members is taboo in many cultures for the genetic diseases that often affect offspring of such unions. Additionally, marriage is the recognize union between two people who (hopefully) love each other. So is gay marriage. It isn't asking for three people to be involved, or animals, or incest, or anything else. Just for the right of two people who love each other to join together in matrimony. Thats it.

To compare gay marriage to polygamy or incest, by the way, reveals a truly abhorrent set of moral values. What happened, forgot bestiality?

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