Glad to hear it.

@Aussieboi:

Well, that and astablishing Freedom of Speech and the 13th-15th Ammendments stoppping slavery and making sure all those born in America would be an American citizen (though now certain Republicans want to cahllenge THAT! http://www.myfoxphoenix.com/dpp/news/immigration/republicans-target-14th-amendment-08052010) and finally granting women suffrage...taking away our booze and giving it back...Brown v. Bord of Adeucation...Roe v. Wade...

They're busy--they just take a long time to get ir right, like those examples. ;)

I believe he was meaning modern times?
and it's establishing, not astablishing

typo point taken :)

Though technically, Prop. 8 did not actually ban gay marriage; it just prevented California's government from recognizing gay marriage. Nothing was stopping anybody from doing gay weddings or living together as a couple.
Obiwan, what are your thoughts on that? (no seriously, I'd like to know--this aspect of things always confused me a bit)

Unless I'm mistaken, it makes a huge difference.

Without CA recognizing the marriages, Gay couples couldn't visit each other in the hospital if they were in critical condition, only one of them could legal adopt a child, and taxes were very different.

Don't get too excited over this. The judge might still stay the ruling in after a hearing next week. That means that California could still not do gay marriage for the duration of the appeals process. Also, the opinions on the judge's opinion that I've read say that the rational test he used wasn't the most persuasive one, so it could easily be overturned on appeal. If this judge is overturned it's unlikely the Supreme Court would hear the case since it's a way to toxic and political issue for them to want to pick up unless they absolutely have to. Even if the ruling is upheld on appeal there's no sure thing that the Supreme Court will side with gay marriage, and then gays could lose marriage everywhere. Or explicitly say that states could decide for themselves. Or enact full gay marriage all over. Or something anything.

All these people who invest so much of their lives in this cause should take pause and look at what this specific case is really about. As of right now all that's happened is a federal judge has negated the results of a popular referendum, which everyone should see as a troubling precedent regardless of what you think of gay marriage.

I'm inclined to agree with abgemacht...I mean, if the state doesn't recognize gay marriage, then logically there cannot BE gay marriage, either performed or recognized, as it would either not recognize old marriages (or actually I think there was a provision for that, a grandfather clause if you will, but still) and cannot have new marriages if the procedure/idea is not recognized as constitutional.legal.

I actually have a question for any defenders of Pro 8, not a confrontational question, I just want to know because frankly *I* am confused over this point:

First, where in the Bible are the passages that denounce this, I'm sure there likely are some that can be read to that effect, this movement is too large for there not to be; whether those passages are corrupted or their interpretations are up for debate, but that's exactly what I'd like--where does the basis of your argument come from, ie, where in your religious text (assuming you oppose gay marriage on a Judeo-Christian/religious basis, if not...then what basis do you have, why are you against it?)

And secondly, I hear plenty from the Anti-8 side about how this will "destroy the sanctity of marriage" or "go against our core values."

What makes marriage sacred beyond love, does the man/woman rule supercede the love aspect, ie, two not-in-love people, a man and a woman, can get married, but two homosexuual people cannot? Even God's decrees are generally ranked to some degree in terms of importance, ie, the Ten Commandments being generally more important than the "don't eat pork" rule.

So I ask--is the sanctity of marriage MORE about the love, or the joining of men and women, and if it's the latter, why that over love?



I also feel I should clarify something about where I'm coming from--I do NOT, myself, believe in the concept of love on the whole. I'm sure it exists, but I believe that it is so INCREDIBLY RARE that perhaps out of the millions of marriages in the USA alone, I'd wager off the top of my head 999/1000 of those marriages are not truly what I'd consider love. Love is when two people not only care deeply for each other, but they also complement each other, fitting like a glove while pushing mightliy like a hand; I am of the firm opinion, both in theory and from experience watching plenty of sentimental friends love and stay and even get engaged or love and break up, that the only true soulmate is that which is your mirror and opposite; to pull out the philosophy (because what's an obiwanobiwan response without that?) I am staunchly opposed to Plato's idea of "likes with likes" in terms of marriages, against the idea "whoever makes you happy" and instead support the Aristotilean and Nietzschean ideas of strength from adversity, the way Aristotle in "Politics" teaches that a strong society isn't made up of likes with likes, like Plato taught, but rather opposing kinds of people shoring up each others weaknesses, or, to use Nietzsche's brilliant concept from "Thus Spoke Zarathustra," that your friend/lover should be both a fierce friend and enemy, a sort of cracked mirror, wherein you can see yourself and relate, but also someone that you'll oppose and bring you further towards your greater potential in life, as, like Aristotlte, he believes that people together as opposites shore up each other's weaknesses, and make the strengths all the better, so respect is huge for Nietzsche.

That opposition of forces and people, however, does NOT apply to the sexes.

I've never been in love, and frankly I see the entire practice as, on the whole, inferior to fierce friendship...I've only known really two couples in all the many I've met that actually truly seem fierce and strong and, what do you know, they're opposites--and each time one had a problem the other leapt to the first person's aid, and they ARE stronger together...but yes, in general I look down on the idea of love and those who claim to be "so in love." How many I've ehard claim that, and justa week later...or those that stay married but that's out of FEAR, not LOVE, the chains of potential harm and economic harm.

I'm about as asexual a person as you'll ever meet. ;)

But I'll defend those who ARE in love, TRULY in love, and their right to the equal pursuit of what true love means, the betterment of both parties, any day.

ANYONE has that right, the right to improve themselves though true union, and it's so rare, it's a crime against the human spirit and being to deny those cases where there IS that rare diamond of true love...just because the two are gay or lesbian.

Well, I've done philosophy, so I guess I'd best close with Shakespeare and ask...

Hath not a Gay hands?

@abgemacht
I'm not sure exactly how that works, though in my personal opinion I would think that if the person in critical condition asked for the visit that the hospital would/should grant it, regardless of who it was. But, to tell the truth, I don't know much about hospital policy.

I don't see the adoption thing as big deal because they would all be living under the same roof. The other partner would be a de facto parent. If the legal guardian dies, the will could very easily be made to stipulate that the guardianship passes to the other partner. On top of all that, my father in his previous marriage married a woman who had kids already. He was their practical, socially recognized father, though he never actually got (or tried to get) legal guardianship. And it never seemed to bother him.
Let me know of any holes in that which I may have missed.

Taxes: the whole tax system is incredibly stupid, bureaucratic, and unnecessary. If government did not consist of pork-barrel spending and redundant bureaucracies, the takes would be much, much smaller. That's how it should be. In their proper form, taxes should be small enough that this would not be a significant issue.
The main problem there, it seems to me, is governmental fiscal and monetary policy, rather than how people fall under it. Reform the government's wild spending, and gay marriages are roughly equal to heterosexual ones.

What do you think?

So, I have a question.

Men and women can get married and in some places men and men and women and women can get married.

Why can't a man and a man and a man get married? Or a woman and a woman and a woman? Or 2 women and 1 cup?

At what point can we justify drawing the line and what do we base it off?

obiwanobiwan, that post really smacked of Sioraf as Killens level sophistry. But maybe you weren't on the site yet for that exercise in shouting in the wilderness.

@baum

Unfortunately, that just isn't how it works. There are numerous cases of gay couples being denied visiting rights because they aren't married. There are cases of one of the partners dying alone because their partner isn't allowed in.

Again, this presents a number of legal problems. A legal guardian is *not* the same as a parent. Furthermore, until the parent is gone, the other partner has, really, no rights to the child. In the eyes of the law, you're just a strange man hanging around a kid.

That doesn't change the situation people are currently living in.

Invictus +1

@obiwan:
Your first paragraph gets to the heart of the matter. It assumes that the state MAKES the marriage, rather than just RECOGNIZING a marriage already previously exists. How do you support that premise?

About your comment on the Bible: there aren't all that many references in the Bible to homosexuality (something like 12, I think), but all them are in a negative context.
Also, in relation to my first paragraph, the Bible teaches that God makes a marriage, rather than the state ("...for this reason a man leaves his father and his mother and is joined to his wife, and they are made one body. Therefore, don't let man separate what God has joined" [paraphrased from memory]) That passage also indicates the heterosexual nature of marriage. You can also look at the two passages in each other's contexts. There's more detail of course, but that's the essence of it.

PS I'm not all that excited about gay vs. straight only marriage debate. The sanctity of marriage that people cite doesn't really exist anymore--look at all the divorces, co-habitation, so on.

@abge, 2nd paragraph: but what are the practical consequences of a lack of legal guardianship? That's what I don't grasp. Also, it's true: legal guardianship isn't the same thing as parent-ship. That's why you can have a parent who's not a legal guardian, which was what I was thinking of.

@baum

Well, if we're talking about a minor, a parent has a lot of rights that no one else does. Such as: access to child medical records, access to school records, tons of other stuff I can't think of. If two men are willing to commit to raising a child, why should one of them be denied the legal status?

Australia is MUCH FURTHER advanced than the US in such things thank fuck!!

For a country so proud on human rights, you've a long way tom come on black rights, or gay rights, or civil rights to be exact... And baumhauer... sad but true hey? Why is a straight person more in tune with RIGHTS than anyone else, HOW DARE those over populating freaks say who can love whom, and in what way??

Need a bullet in my opinion(and i am straight)

@abge
I don't know too much about raising children, as I have never done so myself. In accessing records, I would think that I (being a legal guardian) could name people who could also have access to such records. However, I do not know about what the common policies of such record holders are on that subject. I would be in favor of it being possible, as I tend to be in favor of hierarchy, father/mother knows best, and so on.
Let me know if you have other examples.

@Invictus:

I really wish I was in on the criticism/joke...but I have no clue whatsoever what theat thing you mentioned IS, so yes, it's lost on me...explain?

And to respond to abgemacht's response (thanks) to my question:

...So we have some indirect inferences, a few pasages treating homosexuality negatively, and a few other bits...

I must ask that if marriage is so holy, why does it not merit a place of regulation in the mighty Ten Commandments, or at least a chapter?

I mean, there's a whole chapter all about what's OK to eat and what's not OK, was marriage less of a deal for God than making sure we ate dear and not pork?



And besides that...I must ask, along your lines (agreeing) of making marriage vs. recognizing...

Don't we have a seperation between CHURCH and STATE? So a religion saying they won't marry homosexuals is one thing, that's a matter of religion, but a state saying that cannot happen? Or that it won't recognize it if it does?

I think I was the one who responded on that. We have "Do not commit adultery" in the 10 commandments. The other stuff (and there's more than what I listed) helps add detail to that commandment.

There are places listing forbidden practices involving marriage, being quite thorough. (Don't lie with your sister-in-law, don't lie with your step-mother, don't lie with animals, don't divorce someone just so you can marry someone else, etc.)

Most of the gay marriage advocates are, I get the impression, not Christians. But if you don't believe in God's being the knot tier, it does not necessarily follow that the state is therefore the knot tier. Couldn't the folks themselves be the knot tiers? That was my point, not the church being in charge of all marriages (since if a person is not Christian, it does not fall under the church's jurisdiction anyway).

All this, by the way, is not an argument against gay marriage. It was either answering some of your questions or asking some of my own about the movement.

I'm not saying the church or the state should be the knot tiers, just that one shouldn't regulate the other in tying knots (ie, the state regulating who the church can allow to tie the knot, and vice versa.)

Also, how does adultery apply here? I'd think maybe incest/lust would be more along the line of general argument, but doesn't adultery imply you ARE married, and are cheating on a significant other, or something of that nature?

As far as the demographics, I suspect that most anti-8s are Christian, but that's also rather skewed, as most people, still, are Christian (at least out of those who are religious.) Within Christianity...yes, I'm sure a majority opposes gay marriage, but I think there's a distinction to be drawn between "I REALLY oppose gay marriage with all my heart, it's wrong wrong wrong!" and "Well...it just doesn't SEEM right..."

The former are the minority (though only just, perhaps 45/55 or 40/60 against them) but are fiercer in enforcing their ideas, they really are opinionated and really go strongly for what they believe...which is admirable, if not, in this case, set towards a wrongful cause, in my opinion.

The latter are the sort of people who oppose it mainly because of the cultural issues, rather than the hardcore religious issues; religion might play a factor, but I suspect these people oppose gay marriage more for the reason that it has not generally been socially acceptable, they'be been raised in an environment where homosexualality has been depicted somewhat unfairly and even negatively in public (every time someone uses "gay" or "faggot" as a negative term or, worse, as an insult, I die a bit inside...Hamlet's words of carcasm and irony come to mind, "Evolved indeed," we're so evolved and civilized...and yet we still use what really could be considered slurs against a whole group of people, the way the terms are used) and so now, to change...well, it's troublesome, how do you change and go against what you've been taught is just not done, just wrong? And besides that is the fear factor I'm sure exists, ie, "If I support the gays...will people think I'M one?" And knowing how gays are slandered and mistreated to an extent, this doesn't seem attractive, so a vote of "no gay marriage" is cast on their part not because they think it's just, but just because it's the status quo, it's "just how things are done," and, again, the fear factor of coing agaisnt the crowd.

My point?

The hardcores will die hard.
But make the environment in America not so anti-gay, and that larger group, the latter group, who voted no half to keep an indoctrinated status quo and half out of self-defense of their status as heterosexuals, change via the media the depiction of the gay people, make it known who these people are, ie, they're just like everyone else, and I think that larger Christian demographic will turn around and some will come over to support the gays, to take the "love" in "love+man and a woman=marriage" over "man and a woman" as the most important factor.

It can be done, it should be done, it will be done, I have no dobut.

Fifty years ago, we might have had this discussion about interracial marriage, after all--and how many now oppose THAT?

I am broadly in favour of gay marriage, although it ranks about as low as it's possible to get on the list of issues that will effect my life. What does concern me is how a judge can so easily overturn the will of the people. If the people go out and vote for gay marriage not to be recognized then that should carry more weight than a judge. The people should have ultimate power over the judiciary, not the other way round.

Adultery has nothing to do with same sex marriage idiot. Look up the meaning of the word- and if you are simply hijacking the thread, go make a new one trolls! This thread is about gays not being allowed to marry one another when they should be able to. Otherwise, Blacks, Asians, Hispanics, and non Christians have NO RIGHT to marry either in my opinion!!

Get the drift there?

Not so, Octavious.

That is checks and balances at work--we created a law, but without the judiciary, we could make anything a law and have it be constitutional.

Or, to put it another way, if not for the referee to decide fair from foul in a game of American Football, what's to stop me from scoring on an illegal play, it's still a score, I still get to the endzone...but did I do so legally?

This is a civil rights case, and rights, clearly, are, or were, being violated by Proposition 8, so, really, everyProp 8 supporter and their grandmother could go out and support it--that doesn't change it's not being within the rules, and infringing upon the rights of others.

The judiciary is necessary in this situation, for this very reason, and they made the right call.

The people should indeed be able to make anything law. What is law except for a set of rules agreed upon by a society?

The referee is more of a policeman than a lawmaker. The rules of the game are agreed upon by the teams that play it. If the refs made up their own rules there would be chaos.

The people can make any law, but to do so they have to amend the US Constitution. California's system makes it easy to change their constitution, but the US makes it much more difficult. The US is not a country of majority rules, we try to do things to protect the minority.

I read an analysis that the use of rational whatever was the more lenient standard, and the judge said it failed even that but he believed that the more stringent standard should be used. Ie, he said that it failed the easy test, but should have had to pass the hard test, so it REALLY failed.

Also, I read that the way he wrote the decision, with all the findings of fact, it would be harder to overturn. Can whoever posted up thread that they found analysis that said it was a weak decision send me the link?

@Octavious

Let's say the people of California go out and pass a ballot initiative stating that all Muslims in the state should be expelled from the state or confined to a concentration camp. Should not the justiciary step in there? Point is, minority rights as recognized by the constitution aren't up for a vote.

It's good that gays can marry, but this desicion really shows the government for what it really is. They had the people vote. The people voted to ban gay marriage (bad desicion, but that's not the point). The government disagrees with their desicion, and overturns it. Whatever happened to your precious Democracy (or to be more accurate, Republic)?
This desicion exposes the evil of the government, but people are to wrapped up in the effects of the desicion to realize it.