Funk Brothers: The 14th Amendment does not apply to GLBT, but to people of different races. When that amendment was drafted, it reflected the post Civil War era for freed African Americans.

And when the 2nd Amendment was written, it applied to muskets.

Ablejack: generalDisdain: FTFA:
"Just... abolish legal marriage for everyone, and let the people who want to get married according to their faith do so.

I've always kinda liked this idea although implementing it could be a problem. The cat is long outta the bag. Do you grandfather the tax breaks, citizenship statuses, etc. for already legally married couples and deny any new couples that opportunity? Or simply and immediately revoke all marriage benefits across the board.

Kind of simple, actually. Just change all legal marriages to legal civil unions, and allow any two consenting adults to have a civil union (which is legally identical to the old marriage). We can allow for more than two consenting adults, if we want, but that would require changes in the tax law, and probably some crafty tax lawyers to figure it out.

Meanwhile, all marriages will be done through your religion of choice. A person can get married through their church and have a civil union through the state at the same time. This allows for everyone to be treated the same under the law and allows religious folk to keep their religious sanctity (and remember, some religions allow gay marriage). And as a bonus, it separates church and state a little more.

generalDisdain: Just f*cking abolish legal marriage for everyone, and let the people who want to get married according to their faith do so.

The religious aspect of marriage isn't marriage.

A marriage contract is a property sharing agreement between two people with build in provisions for offspring first and foremost.

That some guy in a dress mumbled some words in a funny looking building at some point is nice and all but it's hardly important

*blink*

bhcompy: NowhereMon: This is a big deal.

Not really. Regardless of what happens, gay marriage rights in CA remain the exact same. The only difference is whether it will be called "marriage" or "domestic partnership", because the laws underneath both are the exact same.

Yeah I could see how that wouldn't be a big deal.

To you.

Did you ever hear of "Liberty and Justice, FOR ALL"? Or is that just lip service? You farkin commie bastards.

Dear SCOTUS,

Please uphold that law.
As a totally, totally straight and secure California male, I am terrified of becoming a lustful cockmonster.

Thank you

generalDisdain: FTFA: This is it.

No it f*cking isn't, and neither was CA Prop 22. Blah, blah SCOTUS...

Just f*cking abolish legal marriage for everyone, and let the people who want to get married according to their faith do so.

that bathwater is too dirty, better throw out the baby as well...

This is bad news for.... NOBODY!

No one will lose rights, or be negatively effected in any way, and that's precisely why this law will be over turned.

James F. Campbell: I think a number of people would be surprised to find out that marriage is not a religious institution.

If they are, it's because they either don't know their history and anthropology, or they don't understand how to read a Venn diagram.

James F. Campbell: Account created: 2012-05-25 06:01:19

Ah. Never mind. Bye.

Translation: I saw from Z-clipped's other posts that he's not just talking out of his ass, and I got nothin'. Better high-tail it.

James F. Campbell: Religious farktards want to deny gay people the right to marry based on RELIGIOUS SCRIPTURE, because (so they say) marriage is a RELIGIOUS CEREMONY. They also want the government to RECOGNIZE and SUBSIDIZE marriage, despite the fact that if it is (AS THEY SAY) a RELIGIOUS CEREMONY, government subsidy of it VIOLATES THE ESTABLISHMENT CLAUSE. In short, these religious cumstains want to have their cake and eat it, too.
What part of that is too big to fit into your tiny head?

You've got to be kidding. "Marriage is a religious institution because bigoted ignorant religious people say it is?" That's your iron-clad line of reasoning? Do you know what "begging the question" means?

James F. Campbell: [If marriage is not a religious institution,] Then why can't gay people atheists get married?

For fark's sake.

Smackledorfer: Perhaps you should consider the reality that marriage in our modern society is two things at once: a religious thing and a civil thing. You can have either one, or both.

You can, but it's more technically correct to say that religious weddings are simply a form of civil wedding.

Smackledorfer: I can be married by a priest without telling the government.

You can, but if you then represent that you're married for any legal purpose, you're breaking the law, because all marriage is civil marriage in the US. The government has allowed clergy to officiate weddings for the sake of some religious traditions, but without a marriage license signed by a state official, you are not legally married. In fact, in many states, literally anyone can officiate a wedding. But that officiant's signature is no more important that the witnesses' and it's meaningless without the proper endorsement from the city or state.

James F. Campbell: SO WHAT?!

SO the cadre of people who argue for the separation of marriages and civil unions along religious lines ("the government shouldn't be the marriage business!") are arguing ignorance from misguided premises. The church doesn't, nor has it ever, owned the concept of marriage. The class of weddings that take place in churches are a subset of civil marriage in this country, not the other way around.

Draw two concentric circles. The inner one is state sanctioned religious marriage. The outer one is all state-sanctioned marriage. (Non-state sanctioned marriage is meaningless for this discussion) The outer circle has existed as long as marriage has existed. The inner one has grown and shrunk from era to era and society to society. In a few cases (of theocracy), they have merged into one circle, because the definition of "government" has merged with "religion". Arguing for the definition you're espousing is a) cherry-picking historical examples for your premise, and b) basically stating that you think we live (or should live) in a theocracy. Both are waaaaay off base.

I don't know how to make this any clearer for you. Here, have an analogy:

Lots of churches have bake sales. You might even call it a tradition. That doesn't mean that churches invented bake sales, nor does it mean that if I have a bake sale, I'm participating in a religious ceremony. Also, by having a baked goods/porn magazines sale, I am not profaning or de-legitimizing you farking church's bake sale. It DOES mean that if either of us want to open a bakery and sell to the public, we need a state-sanctioned license to do so or we're technically breaking the law, because it's the state that defines what can operate as a bakery. The problem is, a lot of numbskulls come from a small town where the only place that had bake sales were churches, so they assume that's the way it is everywhere, and they assume that churches must have been the reason bake sales came about in the first place. OMG bake sales are a religious institution!

bhcompy: Smackledorfer: bhcompy: whidbey: There is no difference.

Yes, there is. The right to own guns is not granted by "human rights", neither is marriage, which is completely a societal concept.

Everything regarding rights is social.

You've got the right to eat or be eaten as far as natural rights go.

Would you admit that in 2011 california civil union was not equal to marriage?

The only difference for many years has been a minor barrier of entry(cohabitation). The US Census estimates that about 5-6 million of the 160 million married people in the US do not cohabitate while married, or between 3 and 4%, and estimates place the gay population at about 3-4% of Americans(UCLA Williams Institute study) and only a percentage of that are adults looking to marry(about half, if you project it against total population numbers) so you're looking at slightly over 100,000 of 311,000,000 people(3 tenthousandths of a percent) that might have that specific situation. You're talking about a very minor part of a very minor population in the US. Yea, that's not "equal" because of a very rare circumstance(and that circumstance is entry, rather than being denied a right granted by marriage), but, seriously, that's grasping for straws. There's a far bigger inequality problem dealing with government sanctioned discrimination against men(Selective Service), if you really want to start talking about straw grasping

I think you are either dishonestly moving the goalposts or hold a very odd definition of 'equal'.

You talk to the gay rights movement like they are pointlessly overreaching over a word, as though civil union means marriage. Then you ignore that civil unions have changed significantly since prop 8. If you were honest with youre argument you would at least be saying that at the time of prop 8 they were unequal or something like that, but you won't even do that much. I can see why you wouldn't mind though.. It isn't your rights at stake...

Unequal is unequal. Gay marriage is right, civil union is wrong. Period.

If Mitt Romney believes that corporations are people, shouldn't he believe corporations must be allowed to marry? If so, will his opposition to gay marriage drive him to support assigning genders to corporations so that only corporations of opposite genders can marry? Would he allow interracial marriages between corporations and humans so long as they are not of the same gender?

/this must be asked at the debates!

James F. Campbell: Abolish marriage as a government-recognized institution

You can get married in a church, but that marriage will have no legal force whatsoever.

badLogic: FeedTheCollapse: generalDisdain: FTFA: This is it.

No it f*cking isn't, and neither was CA Prop 22. Blah, blah SCOTUS...

Just f*cking abolish legal marriage for everyone, and let the people who want to get married according to their faith do so.

that bathwater is too dirty, better throw out the baby as well...

What business does the State have in sanctioning religious ceremonies? If it is, they why aren't Jewish kids allowed to smoke & drink after their bar/bat-mitsava?


as a married atheist, it is a surprise to me that marriage is a religious ceremony.

whidbey: And we won. Twice. First in District Court in 2010, and then at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2012

I'm sorry, but it's amazing to me that the bigots would continue to keep appealing this case. What do they expect a higher court to rule that could possibly be different?

On the up-side, taking it to the Supremes could lead to a blanket decision covering all this laws/amendments as Roe v. Wade did.

Empty Matchbook: What most of the arguments are about is procreation, so as many have pointed out: they should be against infertile people marrying if they're against gay marriage.

/actually about being grossed out
//and legislating icky feelings

That argument doesn't even make sense.
Gay people have children all the time through lots of different means.

It's of course correct that a gay couple can't share a biological child together, but having both parents be biologically related to the child has pretty much never been a requirement for defining a family in all of human history. Surrogacy, sperm donation, and adoption have been around in various forms since the dawn of civilization.

Of course when confronted with that, the bigots then jump to the baseless and irrelevant claim that a child needs a father and a mother. Evidence suggests that children do better in general when they have two parents, but there's nothing to suggest that the sexes of the parents have any real impact. But regardless, this line of argument is generally pointless, because the alternatives are simply worse. If you think a child is psychologically better off in an orphanage or a foster home than in a real home you're nuts. If you think it's better that a child not be conceived than to be raised by gay parents then you're even more nuts.

You're right that it's about legislating "icky feelings", but I don't think that "being grossed out" is the feeling being used. I think this is a desperate attempt to force a poorly rationalized sense of order on a world that can often be too complex and anxiety inducing to take in.

That's more or less the active function of religion and superstition. People have a need to go about their daily lives, but don't have time to consider all the ways in which they might be ignorant about the world around them. So they subscribe to a simplified, working model for understanding the world that's already been tried and tested by others that came before them. Those simplified models often involve magic, supernatural forces and deities when needed to cover the gaps in understanding and knowledge. Sure, these working models may be incomplete but anyone that runs counter to them can just be cast aside as deviant, evil, or immoral. And when the working model crushes these people with dehumanization and denial of rights, the devout can rejoice in having their faith validated by the "natural order" of the world.

We should let a bunch of immoral 20 somethings dictate what the definition of marriage is in 2012.

Rich Cream: LouDobbsAwaaaay: Rich Cream: LouDobbsAwaaaay: And when the 2nd Amendment was written, it applied to muskets arms.

Arms being ... muskets. Oh, and knives. So you can also have knives.


So you're saying the most sophisticated weapon available at the time of the French Revolution was a musket?

I'm saying that if the 14th amendment can only apply to races because sexual preference wasn't part of the conversation, then the 2nd amendment cannot be applied to weapons that couldn't have existed to be part of that conversation. Pretty simple, really. Anything less is a double-standard.

gluestickralph: I absolutely LOVE prop 8. Why? Do I care a rats arse either way about gay marriage? Nope. It's your choice if you want to marry a turtle or a sheep or a man or a fish I really don't care if you leave me alone. I love prop 8 because it came to pass in Cali. Land of the self righteous insanely smug out of touch with reality california native. "We are the best most awesome progressive free thinkers in the WORLD!" Annddd the majority population of your state hates teh gays. Sweet delicious amusement is mine thanks to prop 8.

This is a stupid thing to say.

whitman00:

Best case- they hear it and vote 9-0 to overturn sending a clear message all these state amendments will be stuck down. Religious bigots will use their unlimited funds and patience to keep trying with another prop, chipping away year after year.

Second best case- they decline to hear it. Sends almost as clear a message and strikes the law down. Religious bigots will use their unlimited funds and patience to keep trying with another prop, chipping away year after year.

Worst case- Bigotry is validated by the US Supreme Court. Religious bigots will use their unlimited funds and patience to start marginalizing a different class of people not exactly like them.

Why would anybody want to get married?

Best case- they hear it and vote 9-0 to overturn sending a clear message all these state amendments will be stuck down.
Will not happen because 2 of the justices get $$$ and support from right wing groups. Their money will trump common sense.

Second best case- they decline to hear it. Sends almost as clear a message and strikes the law down.

Worst case- Bigotry is validated by the US Supreme Court.

generalDisdain: FTFA:
"Just... abolish legal marriage for everyone, and let the people who want to get married according to their faith do so.

I've always kinda liked this idea although implementing it could be a problem. The cat is long outta the bag. Do you grandfather the tax breaks, citizenship statuses, etc. for already legally married couples and deny any new couples that opportunity? Or simply and immediately revoke all marriage benefits across the board.
But the real rub is not the marriage itself. Legal marriage is not so much about marriage as it is about divorce. If all couples are legally just essentially "dating", how do you negotiate a fair break-up? Say one spouse works while the other is in medical school or the like. Or one gives up a career altogether for whatever reason, that person is screwed if the other just up and leaves. And jeez how about all their "stuff"? Law suits would be rampant and where do you draw the line? Say you've dated someone for a year, would it be reasonable to sue them for the car you've borrowed occasionally or the house you lived in?

A normal SCOTUS would say frkkit and let the lower court invalidation of Prop h8 stand. But the Activist Judges^tm that we have now might be horny to make same gender marriage illegal for everyone forever.

First in District Court in 2010, and then at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2012

Don't mean sheet. They are usually overruled.

MaudlinMutantMollusk: Lorelle: Prop H8 needs to go.

You know what else needs to go?

/the zealot religious cult that bankrolled it

Which one? The Church of Latter-Day Saints? The Salvation Army?

This is good news.