California ROCKS! Same Sex Marriage Legal!

Misty · Post by **Misty** » Wed May 21, 2008 4:29 pm

Danubus wrote:All I see are a lot of confused little kids growing up asking their moms and dads why Bob and John are holding hands and kissing each other in public.

Love is a pretty easy concept to understand. Even children understand it. The smart, well-loved ones do, anyway.

Mikayla · Post by **Mikayla** » Wed May 21, 2008 4:52 pm

Kids learn and understand and accept quickly. Kids aren't the problem - the problem is the parents who already have their prejudices well developed, and the biggest risk those parents run is having their kids grow up without the same prejudices. Which, in this case, would be a good thing - a little more love, and a lot less hate in the world would do us some good.

HATEFACE · Post by **HATEFACE** » Wed May 21, 2008 4:55 pm

Cassiel wrote:
Danubus wrote:All I see are a lot of confused little kids growing up asking their moms and dads why Bob and John are holding hands and kissing each other in public.
Just tell your daughter whatever you'd tell her if she asked why Bob and Jill were kissing "in public", Dan. For instance, that they're in love.

Danubus wrote:Whats really scary is if we ever get to a point where gay marriage is legal country wide your going to see a really bad backlash toward the gay community from the white extremists and hate mongers.
I reckon if you asked the possible victims of this supposed surge in hate crime, they'd take the ability to get married and the risk. The US has a decent record of prosecuting the white extremists and hate-mongers for breaking the law - witness the consecutive life sentences given to the murderers of Matthew Shephard.

"Whi-multi-racial extremists"(Sorry, many types of people oppose gay marriage, it's only fair.) and "hate-monters" will not be the only ones who contribute to the forseeable rise in violence. It takes two to tango fellas.

One of the most problematic things about the social change it is that people who are opposed will just mask their hatred for it. Parents will teach their children and so on and so forth. Advocating a system where gay marriage is changed nation wide will spark backlash against it and there will be an uproar until it dies down. Sorta like letting a fire just die out on its own. If you want to put it out for good you need to throw water on it. People are stubbern and slow to change but that doesn't mean change doesn't or won't take place. While civil disobediance is a great way to make change, often used when all other avenues for social progress have been exhausted, it can have a dire reverse effect when they become violent and innocent people are harmed. As Mulu aptly puts it, "Forcing people to be good doesn't really make them good." but unlike god, government is quite real. Don't you think it would be better to change people's minds instead of imprisioning more people in an already crowded prison system? Maybe you're okay with violence so long as you get yours?

Oh, FYI. Don't get some bigoted retard to be your "voice" so that he/she/both can "speak for all of you." it can have the opposite effect as well. - sincerely, PD

Danubus, just tell your daughter that they're transfering the devil through each other by contact. That should get rid of the popular belief of, "Gaseous form possesion."

Vaelahr · Post by **Vaelahr** » Thu May 22, 2008 9:08 pm

Cassiel wrote:I was an usher at a friend's civil ceremony in the UK, and by some distance the most memorable thing the priest who conducted that service said was:

"If the church can bless a ship - and it can - why should it not bless two people who are in love?"

Aw, that's so sweet. Reminds me of a saying we have here in the States regarding love and coming of age.; "If there's grass on the field, play ball!"

Or as I like to say, "If there's grass on the field, [moderated for foul language]"

Misty wrote:Love is a pretty easy concept to understand. Even children understand it. The smart, well-loved ones do, anyway.

[moderated: personal attack]

Danubus wrote:All I see are a lot of confused little kids growing up asking their moms and dads why Bob and John are holding hands and kissing each other in public.

Well, I'm very careful what kind of language I use with my young daughter. So when she asks why Bob and John are kissing and holding hands, I just say, "Well sweety, John's getting ready to [moderated for foul language]"

JaydeMoon · Post by **JaydeMoon** » Thu May 22, 2008 9:24 pm

WOW! You DO win!

Avaz · Post by **Avaz** » Thu May 22, 2008 9:55 pm

This sentence is here so Helios can quote it and add his own lovely brand of commentary on it.

Cassiel · Post by **Cassiel** » Fri May 23, 2008 7:14 am

Vaelahr: you are Benny Hill and I claim my five pounds.

Who is Benny Hill? He's the funniest dead person I know - in fact, his humour has been improved by his demise.

dergon darkhelm · Post by **dergon darkhelm** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 10:27 pm

Did ya get it done today?!

Mikayla · Post by **Mikayla** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 10:56 pm

I did not get married today, no. My girlfriend and I are going to wait and do a more traditional wedding, meaning with invitations, and guest lists, and a rehearsal dinner, and all that good stuff.

I DID however, go over to City Hall (its across the park from where I work) to see some of the married couples, including my friends Jon and Stewart (who were pictured on CNN's front page for while and who are pictured on New York Times .com's site) get married - Jon and Stewart were plaintiffs in the Supremem Court case that led to this decision! And so it was great to see them get married! Yay!

But as for my wedding .. my wedding will be less about politics and more about .. well .. me and Melinda and our families.

Aitana · Post by **Aitana** » Wed Jun 18, 2008 8:39 am

Good for you two. Its sweet, and you deserve the best wedding you both can and want to have. *hugs*

BlakOrkz · Post by **BlakOrkz** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 5:30 am

Vaelahr wrote:why isn’t it discriminatory to Mormons and Muslims to require that it remain between two people?

As a "Mormon", I would just like to point out that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is in no way related to the FLDS polygamous sects that broke away from the religion over a hundred years ago. It is very much like comparing two strands of Protestantism; there are similarities, but they are distinct and separate groups. (If this was clarified later on in the thread, sorry for the redundancy.)

Mrs. Romney joked during this year's political process: "The biggest difference between Mitt Romney and the other candidates is that Mitt has only had one wife."

For more information: http://www.newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom ... -confusion

Congratulations to Mikayla! I wish you the best.

As for my opinion:
I really am getting tired of the blanket "religious-right conspiracy" and the "close-minded religious zealotry" in the same way that I despise people who blanket stereotype left-leaning people as baby-killers, drug-users et al. I find that the intolerance on both sides of the legitimate views of others is proof that the human race has not progressed too much since the Middle Ages.

I am an extremely religious person. It may be easy for some to take misinformed views on what religious people believe, politically, because they assume that religions force public policy down people's throats. I, at least, have never experienced such a thing in the LDS religion. I believe firmly in the separation of church and state. I don't care, politically, if you believe what I believe or not; so long as you afford me the same rights.

I personally support Constitutional recognition of homosexual relationships.
But wait... you're a Mormon, Republican, right-wing religious zealot who is obviously close-minded and wants to kill Arabs.
Wrong, stop stereotyping people.

I feel, despite my religious views of the subject, that secular government has no right to define what should be allowed using a biased ideological taint. In that I include the view that marriage is between a man and a woman (something I support theologically, but would never enforce on someone who doesn't happen to believe what I do), however, in the same manner, I would be loathe to tell a young Catholic that he can't pray or read the Bible at school; as that clearly shows a bias for those who believe in atheism.

There are some religious views that do carry over into Constitutional issues for me, for example:
I don't think abortion is right, not just because of religion, but because of what abortion is. I can honestly say that I would be pro-life regardless of my creed.

However, I feel that homosexuals should have the same rights as heterosexuals under the Constitution.

The only issue I have with this event is the overturning of the people's will. I was in California in 2000 when Proposition 22 was passed into California State Law. It added a clause to California Family Code 300(formerly California Civil Code section 4100) changing it from:

a personal relation arising out of a civil context, to which consent of the parties making that contract is necessary

to

a personal relation arising out of a civil contract between a man and a woman, to which the consent of the parties capable of making that contract is necessary

Prop. 22 passed with 4,618,673 votes versus 2,909,370 against, or 61.3% of the vote.

For a judiciary to overthrow something like that is highly controversial to me, because I can see it being manipulated by clever-tongued lawyers in the future. When activist judges feel that they can legislate from the bench is when the checks and balances designed in our Constitution fails. This will be on the ballot in California, where it will barely fail an attempt to alter the CA Constitution.

My religious views find me completely neutral in this issue. I know what I believe. I refuse to force that on anyone. Have a wonderful marriage. Hopefully it will be a happy and faithful one for the rest of your lives.

Please (everyone) stop judging people because of their religions, whether it be secularism or Christianity.

Religion can be defined as: "something one believes in and follows devotedly; a point or matter of ethics or conscience". Separation of religion and state has as much to do with keeping religion OUT of daily life as keeping it IN daily life. It should be left to the person, who shall not infringe the rights of another (a la banning gay marriage on religion grounds AND banning public prayer on atheist grounds).

Forgive the lengthy spiel, but I just wanted to clarify that not all religious people are "close-minded", gun totting maniacs.

*Edit* I would be interested in seeing if the same lawyers (and those of the mindset, such as I) that argue that homosexuals should be allowed to live how they want would support Christians, Muslims and other religious people in their quest to practice religion how they see fit, regardless of the objections of others. It is in such introspection and realization that all men are equal under heaven (or under the Constitution) that is the true definition of liberty.

If I can be tolerant about homosexuality, can others be tolerant of religion, race, ethnicity, etc? If not, this is hopefully just one piece of the Civil-Rights puzzle that needs to be solved.

BlakOrkz · Post by **BlakOrkz** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 6:18 am

Cassiel wrote:What does Leviticus have to say?
Yeah what does it say about being gay?
To lie with men is an abomination
like cursing your parents
trimming your beard
planting wheat and barley in the same furrow
eating pork
wearing polyester
and masturbation.
And what did Jesus have to say?
Yeah what did he say about being gay?
Well - nothing.

Not to hijack the thread, but I did find this remark rather interesting. I don't mean to get into theology in this thread, therefore debate about scriptural meaning would be best left to other places.

Jesus taught that he did not come to destroy the Law, but rather to fulfill it and add to it by giving what is commonly referred to as "the gospel". It includes the famous teachings found in the New Testament. It changed the focus of religious practice from "Thou shalt not kill" to a higher level: "whosoever is angry with his brother... shall be in danger of judgement" and that it simply wasn't enough to avoid adultery, but that "whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." (Matthew 5:21-22;27-28) By raising the bar, many of the menial tasks of the Judaic law were done away with, such as how many steps one could take on the Sabbath, trimming beards, etc. Religion became less of what you do, but who you are.

Jesus gave a charge to His apostles to teach His gospel to everyone. According to the Bible, Jesus communicated with His apostles even after His death, resurrection and ascension to heaven. One of the apostles that was eventually called was Paul, who wrote a large portion of what we have today as the New Testament. One could be pretty well assured that Paul wouldn't teach something contrary to Christ's teachings.

Paul taught in various spots in the New Testament (Romans 1:27, 1 Corinthians 6:9, 1 Timothy 1:10, and Jude 1:7 come to mind) that homosexuality was still against the commandments.

For example, in Romans 1:27: "And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error ehich was meet."

Like I hinted in the above post, religious views being forced on people is un-Christian and un-Democratic, however Christians who claim that such a teaching is non-Biblical or un-Christian have a serious identity crisis, as it is hard to reconcile the divinity of the Bible with throwing pieces of it out at will. I usually find that those who claim the Bible says nothing about X or Y, usually haven't read the Bible and are making an honest mistake.

Hopefully this clarified something for someone, somewhere.

dergon darkhelm · Post by **dergon darkhelm** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 11:47 am

BlakOrkz wrote:
The only issue I have with this event is the overturning of the people's will. I was in California in 2000 when Proposition 22 was passed into California State Law. It added a clause to California Family Code 300(formerly California Civil Code section 4100) changing it from:
a personal relation arising out of a civil context, to which consent of the parties making that contract is necessary
to
a personal relation arising out of a civil contract between a man and a woman, to which the consent of the parties capable of making that contract is necessary

Hey BlackOrkz! Long time no see!

Get in game!

As for the "courts shouldn't overturn the will of the people" argument I couldn't disagree more strongly.

Having a majority of voters is not the equivalent of mob rule. It is never legal or just to pass into law discriminatory or illegal legislation regarless of the majority of the folk that favor it.

One of the roles of the court is to be a check and balance against such sways in popular opinion.

The labelling of judges who excercise their proper authority, and duty, to do this as "activist" (as if that is somehow a bad word

...that's another rant) looks to negate the appropriate authority meant to be given to the judicial branch of our government.

Magonushi · Post by **Magonushi** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 4:34 pm

I thought Judges only had the power to overturn laws when they were deemed unconstitutional. Was there a Californian amendment that was ruled as being breached? I'm all for unconstitutional laws getting the smack down, but if there is no constitutional backing a judge shouldn't have the power to destroy a law (or create one by inference) by their own whim.

For the record I support gay marriage and it's disgusting that people are so unsympathetic towards their fellow countrymen. Still I don't think that justifies breaching the legal process.

MorbidKate · Post by **MorbidKate** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 8:39 pm

I personally think it's great of Danubus to support gay marriage via his hawt new avatar of Olivia Munn & Morgan Webb

You go girl!

Kate