Mass. Supreme Court says "No" to Civil Unions. - Page 5

Ah yes, it's that durned hommasexshulls with there durned agenda agin. They're in cahoots with the Jews to destroy all that's decent. David Geffen, Elton John and Rosie O'Dennell are taking names- I hope you dialed in from a safe house.


Try substituting "pork barrel politics" for "Equal Rights"


"Pandering to sexual devaints"?

Are you really such a stupid bigot or do you just play one on the internet?

Mods- I know I said I'd be nice, but I find this personally offensive.

You should probably just report the post with a decent explanation.

I didn't just elude to it. I addressed it quite clearly.

Quote from....me.


It is pretty easy to see how this would occur.

Nick

I consider activist to be anything that has to "read" into the law that which cannot be plainly understood and applied by all those who previously read and understood that law.

I apply it to both liberal and conservative courts depending upon the issue.

As for the MA court, you are correct that they can rule as they wish, but the federal government does have right to govern inter-state relationships. You are correct that they could just assert their right to do as they wish much like Wallace stood in the doorway denying education to a young lady. But it doesn't bode well for the long view.

Nick

Can you provide a source for that 2-5% figure? Also, could you clarify whether it is supposed to represent the gay population of the US, the 'activist' gay population of the US, or everyone in the US who believes that same-sex marriages should be legal and available?



I fail to see how individuals stating that they want equal treatment under the law constitutes sophistry. Are you implying that no gay person really wants to get married to the one they love? While some may indeed decry marriage, so do many hetrosexual people. Your statement suggests that you believe 'gays' (as a uniform, cohesive group) are only actually doing this in order to destroy marriage.



But this is what courts are supposed to do when asked to interpret a point of law. When Bush refers to 'activist' courts the implication is that they are choosing to interpret the law in the way that they do due to some ulterior motive.

I see 'activist' judges as those who are reading into the law what is plainly not there. In Canada, our Charter of Rights and Freedoms outlawed discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, colour, religion, sex, age and physical disability.

A few years ago, the courts decided that "sexual orientation" should be "read into" the Charter. Homosexuals did not just appear suddenly on the planet after the mid-80's, when the Charter was adopted. If Parliament had wished to add that phrase, it would have.

That is a clear case of judicial activism. The Left, of course, is happy to have courts side with them when they can't push an agenda through the proper way, through the legislature.

But there are very good reasons why the branches of government are separated. Legislatures make law, the Judiciary enforces it.

Judges are now dictating important things like social policy. While conservatives scream about this, the North American Left is willing to go along with it because their ideals seem to be compatible.

And because they've never seen how badly this can go wrong.

At heart, a lot of the anti-gay stuff seems to come from this (to me) really odd notion that homosexuality is a deliberate afront to "morality". In other words, a certain class of person, not unlike drug users and bohemians and draft-dodgers, choose this distasteful "lifestyle" as a calculated slap to the face of the god fearing and upright citizenry.

Moreover, the thinking seems to go that Americans are so easily misled from the path of rightousness that unless the fags are kept at least nominally at bay the society as a whole will quickly degenerate into a kind of Mardi Gras from Hell, with perverse bacchanalia erupting on every street corner and bestiality written into the pledge of allegiance.

So on the one hand gays are cynical agents of Satan who use "civil rights" as a smoke screen for their strenuous efforts to debase the country; and on the other, there is something so appealing about the generalized licentiousness that gays are purported to embody that allowing them full citizenship will open the flood gates of dog sex and necrophilia that we apparently are barely suppressing our yearning for.

Because at the end of the day homosexuality, as othereness, is about sex, and sex is America's bete noir, a shadow that stretches from our puritan founders and their hatred of the body right through to our hyper commodified present, with its frantic marketing of bodies as a cure for mortality. I think that in the popular imagination "gay people" are at the intersection of these, sin and pleasure, obedience to god and unfettered deisre. I think that when people argue against full equality for gays there is a way that they are saying: "If I am going to live a joyless life then I'll be damned if some flamer is going to just go around just doing whatever he wants.

Maybe it is becaus eI started late but I have yet to see a good defense about making marriage a secure institutions.

First I'd like to see the facts of when the church decided to care about marriage. I thought I had heard at some point that the church didn't really regard Marriage as anything special religiously until some time in the early past when it became worth the church's time to care. Now I'm not sure so if anybody knows anything feel free to pull a link up for me : )

Second, has anybody seen the divorce rates for marriages now a days!? It's amazing! It's in the nieghborhood of 30-40 percent I think. Now how the hell is that maintaing the "sanctity of marriage?" If people are so concerned with that why aren't their limitations in place to not allow divorce?? And honest to God what can gays possibly do to marriage that is going to hurt you?? Are you that afraid to be committed to marriage now that gays can too???? Is that frightening? This is not where the government should be sticking it's hand in for simple reason. When people get married they recieve tax breaks and other things(Or so I thought). So by not allowing gays to marry they would be discriminating against them wouldn't they??

I'm a homosexual, and have been since the day I was born, in 1977. So clearly your statement that gays didn't "appear on the planet until after the mid-80s" (notice the lack of an apostrophe) is clearly bigotted nonsense.


Legislatures make law. The EXECUTIVE BRANCH enforces law. The Judicial branch interprets the law. Civics 101.

Kirk

Wow.

When I respond to some of your points, please understand that I am not positioning myself as any sort of authority on Christianity. My views are my own, based on my trying to live a life based on teachings of Jesus, and early and often failing to do so.

Allegation #1 - Gays are Christian Mission One.
I've attended church pretty much all my life, and pretty much all the churches I've attended would be considered pretty Evangelical by those on this board.

In all that time, the number of sermons I've heard that centred directly on the "evils" of homosexuality could be counted on one hand. On the other hand, when discussing faith and ethics with non-believers, whether in person or on messageboards, the topic is never far from the mind. (Case in point: I'm pretty sure a "Born Again" Christian did not start this thread. )

Christians have a worldview that differs markedly from the secular mindset. But I have noticed that when discussing a specific social issue, a lot of non-Christians generally imply that Christians spend way more time concentrating on issue X because of some nefarious agenda to control the population.

It's natural that non-Christians only think of the work of the Church when it collides with their worldview, but it's important to remember that churches in North America do more in society than issue press releases on court judgements.

Churches work to alleviate suffering, share food and clothing, offer counsel marriages in trouble, advocate for third world AIDS and debt relief, reach out to troubled kids and more AS A MATTER OF COURSE. In the more "Christian" phases of American history that you allude to, the nation saw the birth of organizations like the Red Cross, YMCA, Salvation Army and many others.

From your post, it sounds like you equate the Christian life with televangelist crusades. Don't believe everything you see on tv

Christians take their cues on social policy and from their understand of scripture and a legacy of faith built up over the last two thousand years. Contrary to chu's previous post, Christians do believe they have seen the type of societal breakdown happening in America before, and have always challenged it. Christians weren't thrown to the Lions in the Coliseum because the Romans didn't like our sense of fashion.

Allegation #2 - The Christian Life is "joyless."
I've heard this before and it just doesn't hold water. Many Christians get involved with at least one Ministry, and while everybody has hard days, the rewards for helping out society don't mesh with an always angry disposition. If all you do is read papers about how this denomination X is opposed to proposed policy Y, I think you have a mistaken impression of how most Christians spend their time.

The best anecdote I can think of is a few years ago when I was at a rally called a March for Jesus. Churches from all sorts of denominations came together in Toronto (and other NA cities) simply to express their faith.

All the major newspapers covered it, and I talked to a Toronto newspaper reporter who was covering it and she just kept commenting over and over about how happy everyone was. She had the same disposition toward Christians as you do (all fear & hate, no fun...) and expected to see placards denouncing all kinds of social policies. She ended up doing one of the nicest pieces of news on the Church I have ever seen in print.

In short, it's one thing to disagree with people's opinions. It's another to demean their lives because they disagree with you.

My phrasing was bad so I think you missed my point. It happens on messageboards.

I meant to say that homosexuals did NOT just appear out of nowhere after the Charter was introduced.

Parliament obviously knew that gays existed and deliberately chose not to include the category. Thus a judge "reading" the category in between the lines is making up laws, and properly labelled as "activist."

It should be noted that homosexuality was back in the early 80s still classified as a personality disorder both in the US diagnostics and statistics manual (DSM-III) and the international code for diseases (ICD-9). A lot of research has since shown that it is rather a different expression of love and sexual attraction.

Therefore, parliament should be required to rethink equal rights issues concerning gays in light of newer scientific results instead of dragging its feet.

Besides, Apartheid (and "equal but separate") racist politicians obviously knew that blacks are as human as whites - this did not hinder them to pass inhuman laws that were rightly knocked down by the supreme court.

What state laws wouldn't fall under this description though? What you're asking for is impossible, that all states agree on all laws. That's silly. You're saying Massachusetts doesn't have the right to make their own laws.

How does this ruling directly effect the ability of other states to outlaw, codify in law, or ignore same sex marriages?

But this is the job of the courts, to interpret the law, correct? Congress writes laws that are so overreaching sometimes the courts HAVE to make a decision. Often times it's done on purpose so something, anything, can get passed even if it's ultimately meaningless because it's so ill defined that the courts will ultimately strike it down.

The state asked the courts to figure out what the law meant because it wasn't clear.

Your definition is impossible though. Let's look at the bill of rights as an example. Pursuit of happiness. What does that entail? The courts HAVE to decide because the law makers weren't explicit, and they're not explicit for a reason. They do it so future generations can apply new ideas to old laws.

You have the right to free speech. But, does that include the internet? I mean, obviously the founding fathers didn't know about the internet so they couldn't include the idea that you have the right to free speech on the internet but the courts have to read that into the law.

That's not activism.

Well, that's a tough call. When Parliament wrote the Charter, was their intent actually to exclude anything not included on the list? Or were they trying to list everything they could think of to be all inclusive?

What's the intent of the Charter? Is the intent of the Charter really to allow us to discriminate based on someone's tattoos?

Thanks for the detailed post.

One question I have is, should religious folk push their agenda through law? I mean, from a personal standpoint, forcing someone to follow the ideals of Christianity doesn't make them a Christian anyway. So why would you support going that route of 'mass marketing' instead of on a more individual level? If you could, would you really want the bible to rule America instead of the Constitution?

Secondly, should the secular world disregard the separation of church and state, or do we all just kind of have to ignore it sometimes? If the most valid arguments against this really are religious, don't you agree that the separation of church and state takes precedence?

Obviously all state laws don't have to agree. However there are laws that do have to agree. Massachussetts could not start printing their own money again as they did once upon a time when they were a colony.

Finally there are many state laws that wouldn't fall under this catagory. Many forms of taxation wouldn't affect surrounding states. If Massachussetts wanted to mandate certain foods not be sold or be prepared a certain way within the state borders, that wouldn't affect other states.

I would say that a much easier criteria would be, any law where you have previous agreements with the other 50 states to reciprically recognize and enforce that law should probably give you a bit of pause before you go changing it.

It isn't so much that Massachussetts doesn't have the right to rule as they want, but rather they are putting all their previous agreements about other states being willing to recognize their marriages at risk.


Well I addressed this before, but I will again. The legal dealings of these married homosexuals will not just end the second they leave Massachussetts. Additionally, while we might want to believe that they would just remain married forever, that simply isn't always the case.

The easiest example is simply the filing of divorce. How can states grant a divorce for a marriage they don't recognize?

There are dozens of issues like this. If I earned a million dollars while married, the income and possessions bought with it would be considered to be held jointly. If I were a homosexual married couple outside of Massachussetts, would this be so? The partner in that union could be in for a rude awakening. Of course it is possible to write a legal agreement outside of marriage to hold all income and property in joint fashion. However if were assumed because they were married in Massachussetts, it would be a false assumption because in other states there would be no agreement or marriage.

Nick

Non-sequitor. Massachussets is constitutionally barred from printing their own currency. They are not, and should not be, Constitutionally barred from writing their own marriage laws.


You act like this doesn't happen now, with civil unions from Vermont. The states can just continue to do with Massachusetts gay marriages as they do with Vermont civil unions: legally ignore them. The DOMA gives them the right to do this, and I don't see this or any near future Supreme Court overturning that law.


Perhaps, since you would likely have to go to Massachussetts in order to dissolve your marriage (or perhaps Vermont or California, if they choose to recognize Massachusetts gay marriages as valid under the legal constructs of their own domestic partnership/civil union laws).

Your concerns have played out already regarding civil unions, and the system has held up. Your concerns are absurd and invalid.

In truth, it's all just rooted in your well-documented mysoginy and hatred of gays. You're just trying to gussy it up with flaccid legal "reasoning."

Kirk

Obviously the feds enforce their standards in a lot of different manners. I'm sure if Massachussetts decided to recognize marriages between 13 year olds, no one would declare the federal government wouldn't have a role. Additionally the fed also has a Constitutionally defined role of governing legal matters between states. Marriages cross state boundries and so do their legal obligations.

I've posted examples already where this is coming up. I posted a specific example where a homosexual woman, who had adopted a child. She then engaged in a very long term homosexual relationship. She then had some sort of religious conversion and became straight and seperated from her significant other. The partner sued for custody over a girl she had no legal claim to and because of the odd-ball judge was not only awarded partial custody, but the judge ordered the mother not to discuss her religious beliefs with her daughter. We all know that infringing on private religious beliefs in the domain of your home is about is against the first amendment as you can get, but again when words and laws mean nothing, that is what starts happening.

Likewise, just because you can't "see" it happening doesn't mean it won't or isn't now.

A few links for those with blinders on....

Conn. couple seeks to dissolve union

Another

ACLU FAQ

Note the following...


I don't know about you, but when I see it in the frequently asked questions along with an e-mail, phone number and a solicitation, then I "see" it happening.


Perhaps you don't consider the fact that both Massachussetts and Vermont have one year residency requirements and they will not begin to grant you a divorce until you are a resident. That means one of the two married partners has to go live in the state for a year or two in order to get a divorce.

Again the system won't hold up to this, and hasn't held up to this. Very few people want to spend one to two years getting a divorce and have to move to do so.

Here's a few more instances where the "system" isn't holding up.

Mountain Pride

Washington Times


You can let name calling and personal attacks substitute for reality since you don't wish to truly look into the matter. However I have posted incidences from many different sources and many different parts of the country to show that the legal issues and suing to resolve them is indeed taking place.

Nick

I am sorry Frank, but this is just wrong. The wording of s. 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is as follows:


Section 15 sets out a general right against discrimination, and then particularizes certain grounds. Reading the very general opening words of the section, the courts very quickly and quite reasonably found that the list was not intended to be exhaustive.

Further, this was not an ad hoc decision based on a narrow gay rights agenda, but is in accordance with constitutional intepretation principles that have developed for years, including the "living tree" doctrine and the principle that human rights are not to be construed narrowly.

These principles have been used to find any number of rights that most people would hold near and dear. Why, then, do some people have such problem with gay rights. How do such rights diminish, in any way, their own life?

As I have posted recently in another thread, Jesus did not spend His time denouncing sex or particlar sexual practices. Why do some Christian churches continue to do this? As a Christian, I find this troubling. I believe that this is not part of the Christian faith, but is a prudish overlay based an entirely secularly-based discomfort with sex.

I would. The Federal government has no role, no role whatsoever, in marriage.


Again, sky not falling, civil unions many years old.


Not possible. No one ever "becomes straight." They can be brainwashed by hate cults into going back into the closet, but sexuality never changes, not in any cases. They are just self-loathing gays. Pathetic, really.


The partner in question had been a mother to the daughter in question for years, had helped financially, spiritually and emotionally to raise her. What would be "justice" for you, to have all of that connection ripped away, to the harm of both the woman and the child?


So if a married het couple have kids, and divorce, and the mother then joins a religion that teaches that all men are vomitous, evil filth, you would have no problem with her teaching her daughter that daddy is scum?


Yes, I'm well aware of these cases. However, notice that these cases are not forcing any of these states to recognize these relationships. There is no reason to think that Massachusetts gay marriages will be handled any differently.

Let the shortsighted idiots who get married, then move back to a Gay-Hating state try to sue for divorce. They'll get nowhere with it.


Those cases will go nowhere.


Yup. So don't be shortsighted when you get your gay marriage done. If you're willing to make the commitment, you had better be willing to move if you decide you can't handle it any longer.

It's inconvenient, but that's part and parcel of getting married in a good, progressive state and then moving back to whatever backwards, gay-hating hellhole you're originally from.


And yet, in four years, no other state has been forced to recognize civil unions from Vermont.


Yes, this has been tricky for the gay-hating states, but it's not causing them to be required to recognize the marriages/unions. And there's no reason to think it will.

After awhile, gays who want to get married will stop returning to their backwards states and stay in the progressive ones, I believe.


This is by far the most important political issue of my life. I have read scores of books on the subject and followed every news article I can on the topic. You could never come up with any fact about gay marriage that I have not already been exposed to, considered and integrated into my position.


People sue about everything. But what is not happening, and what there is no danger of having happen, is a lawsuit that goes to the SCOTUS and creates a national gay marriage system. There is zero chance of that. It will not happen.

Kirk

As was pointed out in the original thread on this case, the Judge actually ordered the mother to:


Not quite the same as not discussing her religious beliefs...just those aspects of her beliefs that would teach the child that her other guardian was sinful and immoral.

Yes but if you recall the order was so broad the mother could have been held in contempt and sent to jail for anything considered "homophobic." The ruling was so broad that it basically considere being a Christian to equal homophobic which meant sharing none of the religion.

Take your own example, Christianity teaches that all people are sinful and immoral. Thus teaching that the partner is as well is "homophobic."

Nick

Please understand: I am not trying to characterize "christians" per se. I grew up in a christian household and know that many people of faith are mostly focused on a right relationship with God that includes love and service as a vital expression of same.

What I was trying to convey ( and I realize my thoughts may seem somewhat amorphous in a thread on the legal ramifications of a court decision) is what, in my opinion, underlies the ongoing efforts to keep gays from full participation in the normative life in America. After all, if there wasn't some kind of prejudice this thread wouldn't be necessary.

That is, by focusing narrowly on matters of state vs. federal rights, et al, it starts to obscure the real visceral passions that fuel the notion that homosexuality is an illness, or a sin, or a license to flout all decency, or a conspiracy to bring down the republic.

So when I say that our puritanical forbears continue to loom large in our national psyche I mean the larger debate is surely shaped, in part, but a powerful if unacknowledged streak of rage at the idea that any group of people should be allowed to have sex outside of "God's plan", since the whole arena of sex in America is so fraught.

Think for a moment about the firestorm around a glimpse of Janet Jackson's breast if you doubt that.

Not quite. The issue here was not 'teaching that all people are sinful and immoral.' It was specifically teaching that the other guardian's homosexuality is sinful and immoral. Nor did the ruling equate all Christian belief with homophobia. The problem was with the teachings of certain Christian groups (Promise Keepers, Focus on the Family) embraced by the mother's church.

Well the fourteenth amendment, and history disagree with you.


I see. Diversity = she better believe that gay is what you say or no way. Nice ridicule there. Is it hate speech since she is a woman, formerly gay, and you are an oppressive white male?


I assure you if this partner were a man, even one she had been married to for years, the law would do this and call it "justice."

Move aways, lack of visitation rights, and a lack of regard for prior parenting are well known in family courts if you happen to be a man. I would love to see homosexual rights groups come out for father's rights. If you think it is sad to have this happen to a non-spousal, non-legal guardian, just imagine how much worse it is when it is your own child from birth and you supposedly had legal rights.


This already does happen. They join a civil religion called "use the family courts to screw over and lie about men."

Those courts do think of men as only vomitous, evil filth. File a domestic abuse claim and it is treated as guilty even if proven innocent and has a mandatory arrest clause. Watch men get tossed in jail without a criminal trial for not earning enough money as they act as indentured servients to arbitrary court orders that assume the woman a child and the man a criminal.


They are getting somewhere with it. You are shortsighted to say it is getting no where just because it is still working through the court systems of various states.


Yes, well something tells me that not all homosexual people, just like all other people don't think it right that a state not yield to their every wish and whim. I'm sure there are a number of homosexuals who would disagree with you and declare that not being allowed to divorce where they desire is an infringement on their rights.


Actually two of the examples I mentioned did grant divorces that were then overturned and are now making their way up through the courts. I don't call that going no where.


Well we will have to disagree on that issue. I consider cases working their way through the courts, even if it takes a number of years, to be putting on a path to require they recognize homosexual unions.

As for gays and backwards states vs. progressive ones. I'll assume you are leaving Texas soon for California. Let me know when and I'll hold one of my apartments for you while you get settled.

You do have good credit right?


Well reading and applying are two entirely different things. I could read a hundred books on basketball and still apply it very poorly. You seem to often resort to caricatures in many instances and flat out insults in others when people disagree with your conclusions. It is a very common fallacy to say that if someone knows what you know, they will do what you do or even conclude what you conclude.


Yes people are mentioning Constitutional amendments because it has a zero chance of happeneing.

Nick

We can go back to that thread and address it if you like. Lets not derail this thread. I addressed this freedom of speech issue quite well in that thread.

Nick

Agreed...

Jurisprudential history has established repeatedly that marriage is the domain of the several states, not the Federal government. If you are married in State A, which allows married people to do X, and then you move to State B, which does not, your freedom to do X does not follow with you. You can apply that logic broadly to the question of homosexual marriage, where the X in question is the legal recognition of the marriage.


What the hell does diversity have to do with anything?

Sexual orientation does not change.


And here we go again, right into the heart of "victimized straight male" syndrome.


Sure, count me in. I don't particularly like kids, but I don't think any father should be denied access to his children. However, the primary guardian, likewise, should not be barred from moving for reasons of employment, etc.


One would think this would make you more sympathetic to the plight of gays. One would obviously think wrong.


No, they're not. All the cases have been overturned by higher state courts, if they get that far, and no state supreme court has even come close to deciding in favor of the gays.

There is no threat of judicially nationalized gay marriage at this time, or in the near future, in the United States.

When these things happen, you can see them coming from miles away (like Lawrence). The Court is careful to not get too far out ahead of the bulk of the American population. Jurisprudence was my least favorite of my political science courses, but I was very good at it, and we discussed this issue at length.


No doubt. Won't change anything, though.


Those supreme courts, if it gets to that level, will not find in favor of the gay plaintiffs.


As soon as I can. Hopefully summer 2005. Though I prefer cold weather, and may go to Massachusetts.


I... think so? Money makes my head hurt, I can't understand that stuff.


And you don't?

And I don't care about people disagreeing with me. It's when they think I'm either an abomination/sinner or don't deserve equal rights to marriage/protection that I rightfully recognize them as bigots.


In this case it is not a fallacy. There is only one enlightened, intelligent, respectable position that a person can take on these issues. All other positions are rank bigotry and absolute evil.


Bush and his clan are mentioning an amendment because they are bigotted, hateful pustules who think that beating up on gays will get them votes in November.

The amendment will never pass, anyway.

Kirk

For all of the arguing that goes on about being born gay or not, genetic predisposition, upbringing, deliberate choice, etc... I don't even see why it matters.

So what if someone decided, for whatever reason, to have gay sex once, twice, or make a lifestyle out it? What overriding public interest is there in controlling gay sex that trumps individual freedom and privacy?

The problem with this being...? (We get to have perverse hetero bacchanalia too, right?)

One nation, under Rover? \

tmp, dmz and anyone else who can read: If you're all so offended, take it out in a chat or somewhere else. NO more personal attacks, I don't care what your position is, and how important it is to you.

Now kiss and make up.

I suggest you do a little reading on the case history on interracial marriage.


According to you, one homosexual. However there are other current and former homosexuals who disagree. One voice is not a chorus or even a consensus.


You assumed the victimization was occuring because she was gay. All I did is show a non-gay group that it occurs to as well.


Except for if she want to move to one of those backwards non-progressive states where the courts won't recognize the marriage with her former spouse or the custodial rights she might have... right?

Oh wait.. ... that would never come up and if it did, the former spouse just better take it right?


One would think I live in a state that represents my views. California offers a full array of domestic partnership rights but doesn't call it marriage. I've advocated civil unions for both homosexual and heterosexual couples who wish to avoid the religious and paternal baggage some associate with the word marriage.


Well, I'm sure that your view was echoed before Massachussetts decided as they did as well. As I recall, they decided in "favor of the gays" as you put it.


Seems like it did in Vermont, California and Massachussetts.


Which is why they will then attack it at the federal level using the equal protection clause.


San Francisco has some balmy weather, and I don't just say that stereotypically. It is really a very enchanting city that I have visited several times. The cost of living is insane there though.

As for preferring cold weather..are you insane man?


You can request free credit checks from all reporting agencies. Believe it or not the most common things I see ruining credit scores are... joining health clubs and you stop paying, Blockbuster late fees, bouncing a check, and leaving bills for unpaid utilities. If you have paid on time, avoided those and have never had some huge medical bill charged off, you should be in the 625-675 range.


Nope.


Might need to check that definition..

One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.

So far you seem to be intolerant of those who support civil unions, those who claim they were homosexuals and changed, and pretty much all the Democratic presidential candidates since even Dean signed the civil union bill as he was uncomfortable calling it marriage.

Seems your so partial to your own homosexual politics that you act bigoted toward even the large majority of people who agree with you 90% of the time like myself.


I see and of course you possess this one "truth." Likewise, how can something be "evil" without a religious connotation? From an evolution perspective we are all just worm food. How can worm food be good or evil?


And since Clinton signed DOMA does that mean he is part of Bush's evil clan? What about the two-thirds of Democrats in both the house and Senate who voted for it?

I think your views are limiting your perceptions a bit.

Nick

"plainly undertandin" is a kind of 'reading into' . . . there is no such thing as an un-interpreted fact

Loving v. Virginia didn't occur until the vast majority of all states had adopted interracial marriage as a legal right, and the public had come around. It was not a ruling forced upon 47 states by way of legal interracial marriages in 3 of them.

When we reach the point when 40 or so states have, on their own, adopted legalized gay marriage, then the chances of a SCOTUS ruling nationalizing things will be within the realm of possibility. We are decades off from that. It may not even happen in my lifetime.


No, according to the American Psychological Association, the Americal Psychaitric Association, the American Medical Assocation and, oh yeah, ever gay person who hasn't been brainwashed by one of those gay-hating Jesus cults.


Then you have a quagmire, and there would be little that the wronged partner could do. That would be sad, but eventually gay marriage will find itself even into the fundamentalist-encrusted corners of this nation. Not anytime soon, perhaps not in the next 50 years.

However, I stand by my statement: the states in question will not be driven by their state courts to legalize gay marriage because of gay couples who are married from other states. And the SCOTUS will not climb decades out ahead of the country on this issue, either.


Yet, here you are in this thread, arguing against gay equality.


Jesus! This isn't even the same issue. We're discussing whether gay married folks from one state will force another state to recognize their marriage. The situation in Massachusetts was totally different and completely proper, if lamentably dogmatic.


In Vermont and Massachusetts the state supreme courts found that their Constitutions did not allow heterosexuals to have access to a marital institution and for gays to not have that same access. That's the proper role of a court. California's gay benefits system has been, to my knowledge, entirely legislature-driven.

That's not what we're discussing here, and I'd thank you not to conflate the issues. The issue we're discussing is whether gay married folks moving between states will force all states to accept gay marriages. That's a wholly different situation, and not one I think is any sort of a real "risk."


And fail, because there is no national consensus on the issue and the Court will not walk that far ahead of the general population. It never has.


I would never live in San Francisco. Yuck.


No. But as you can see from my picture, I am very ugly, and therefore do better the more of me I can keep covered. :-)


Yeah, I've done that. I had some problems with a checking account when I was in college in Kansas, which I believe I've gotten all cleared up (never let your parents talk you into leaving your bank in Dallas when you move to Kansas).


So all your ranting about a great conspiracy against fathers and men should be taken as being entirely serious?!?!


I was using the colloquial definition of bigot as one who is prejudiced in a negative way to people who are not like him/her due to unchangable demographic traits (race, age, gender, sexual orientation).


I would prefer civil unions to gay marriage in the Massachusetts situation, as I have in this thread.


Because they are dangerous, brainwashed liars who support anti-gay hate cults.


I do, as does anyone who supports equality. Equality is always an inherent good.


Anything that harms other people is evil. You don't have to believe in God (though I do) in order to recognize the difference between good and evil, and that both exist.


Clinton was a slimy political creature who should have been thrown out of office for perjury. I have no real respect for him. And very little for the Democrats who voted for the DOMA _but the DOMA is and was a rather toothless law, and won't prevent the natural spread of gay marriage on a state by state basis.

The Constitutional Amendment that has been proposed, on the other hand, is one of the most evil laws ever proposed, and I hope very much that every child of every person in this country who supports it grows up to be either sterile, or gay.

Kirk

What kind of crap is that to say? I believe that social factor play immensly huge role in peoples self image including their sexuality. Are you saying I am "gay hating" or anything like that?

You play yourself into a corner if you say that if someone believes that sexual orientation isn´t something you are born with then they must be "gay-haters". To say that sexuality is social is NOT the same as to say that people should change their sexuality since they can. They are two completly different things. One is science and one is morals. You can´t deduct moral from science.

I have too often seen the "I was born with my sexuality so you can´t force me to change". That argument is fighting the wrong battle. Noone should change what isn´t hurting anyone else, no matter if they are able to change that or not. We could all change religion but should anyone force anyone else to do it just becuase its possible? And what would you do if it was actually shown that sexuality is social? Then you just lost your main argument!

Even more. By saying that sexuality is something you was born with suddenly disqualify people who are uncertain about theirs, those who actually believe they changed over time and wasn´t suffering from "false consiousness". Way to go. But then again, they are just "brainwashed by one of those gay-hating Jesus cults." What a deepfelt acceptance of your fellow human beings...

I want to write a lot more on the subject but I found this that explains my feeling towards this subject very well. Please read

http://vered.rose.utoronto.ca/people/spike/dv/qbc/

Thank you! That's what I was going for earlier, but you put it very nicely and succinctly here.

Sexuality is not a choice. To claim that it is is a lie, and a hateful, evil lie that causes immeasurable harm to millions of innocent gay people every day.


I know that sexuality is not social, because I could never change my sexuality, even back when I wanted to. Nor could any of the gay people I know. Every gay person, with few exceptions, fights their orientation at first. If sexuality could be changed, there would be almost no gay people.


The lesbian and she is still a lesbian the original comment was about WAS PULLED INTO ONE OF THOSE SAVE-THE-GAYS JESUS CULTS. She was brainwashed. They do that to millions of people, forcing them back into the closet. What those cults do should be hate crimes.

There are people who can choose between loving men or women, they are called bisexuals. They are a small minority of non-heterosexuals. For everyone else, sexuality is hardwired. So say the AMA, the APA, the other APA and the consensus testimony of gays everywhere.

I've read the "Queer By Choice" stuff before. They're probably bisexuals. Lucky them. Doesn't mean that I could ever be straight, or that my friends could ever be straight, even if we tried, even if we wanted to be.

Because we've all tried, it cannot be done.

Kirk

Kirkland: Do you know the difference between something being of choice and being social? I could never choose to eat a dog. NEVER. but its still social.

Why are you trying to put everyone into small little square boxes? Either you are homo or hetero or bi because all you know has it that way. Along comes someone who isn´t feeling their sexuality is that way and somehow they are brainwashed or doesn´t know what they are. Thats totalitarian thinking. "You are something no matter if you realise it or not and if you don´t realise that I are gonne come and point it out for you"

What about this: You believe you are hardwired the way you are and others believe they are not hardwired but have changed sexuality (NOT by choice). Why DO you have to insist that what they feel are wrong?

Whats the difference in you saying that what people believe about themselves are wrong and someone saying you are wrong in believing you are gay?