BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 11:43 PM

..and the road to eternal spirituality, is to have your dick stuck in some guy's poop!

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Don Firth
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 11:41 PM

Minored in Philosphy in college, GfS, with several classes in formal Logic. The thing is, I do have an open mind. But it's not so open that my brain has dropped out.

####

One thing that no one seems to have touched on here (especially not those who are opposed to same-sex marriage) is that SSM would encourage permanent and stable relationships, thereby reducing promiscuity, which, in turn, would cut down on the spread of AIDS/HIV.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 10:19 PM

OBviously the only solution is for the gay and lesbian and transsexual community to start a nation-wide church -- the Holy Order of Transcendent Genderosity or some such--- s that they can be sheltered from this kind of bigotry.


;>)


A

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 10:17 PM

It's like boxing the draperies.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 09:22 PM

There you go again....(its called 'deflection')

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Don Firth
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 08:42 PM

That's quite good, GfS. I suggest that you watch it.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 08:34 PM

Here, Don, and Don....this is from another thread, running concurrently:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T69TOuqaqXI&feature=player_embedded

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: akenaton
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 08:03 PM

KB...Although the use of hard drugs is illegal, addicts in the UK are legally treated with a herion substitute (methadone).

They are still refused the "basic human rights" offered to homosexuals.
Don Firth...as you no doubt know. Although the virus can be transmitted by hetero and homosexual sex, it has always been first diagnosed in the homosexual community in every country.
It also affects more homosexuals in the community in real percentage terms.
This has never been satisfactorally explained.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Don Firth
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 07:20 PM

Stats schmatz. Your "common sense" is a bit off.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 07:04 PM

I was going to ask you.'What the fuck are you talking about?'...but never mind...your rant makes it obvious, that even you don't know!

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 06:46 PM

""Which chosen amendments are you talking about? The second??...Protecting our borders?? Limitations on the executive branch??...LIFE, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?? Habeus Corpus??...Limiting the Federal government's powers???...Yes Don, Does the Constitution mean anything...or not???""

No, you insufferable ass, as you well know from reading my posts (assuming you CAN read with comprehension), the bit about all being equal under the LAW.

A simple answer will suffice.......Can you manage YES, or NO?

Our democracy differs somewhat from the one YOU have developed from it.

We don't have a wrtten constitution, and as a rule we don't find we need one, but we DO seem to be rather better at being tolerant, and certainly streets ahead in the way we treat our poorest and most vulnerable citizens.

Perhaps when you grew up and flew the nest, you should have retained some of the finer aspects of the real democracy you left behind.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 06:06 PM

"I think your stats are a bit off, GfS."--Don

I didn't post any stats.....just common sense. I think you addressed the wrong post.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: KB in Iowa
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 05:26 PM

An update on the situation here in Iowa. It is still not a topic of discussion in the workaday world. There have been letters to the editor and a couple of protests at the statehouse but nothing earth shattering.

The Republicans in the Legislature tried to force a ballot initiative for next fall but they were blocked. The Dems hold a majority in both houses and insisted on following the rules. The Rebups cried foul but would have done the same thing if the shoe were on the other foot. The Repubs were trying an end run around the rules and failed. Doesn't mean the issue is settled once and for all, just means it will play out the way the law is written.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Don Firth
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 04:48 PM

Fact check:

Aids/HIV is a mainly a sexually transmitted disease, although it can be transmitted other ways as well. It is not limited to homosexual relations. As many have learned the hard way, the virus is also transmitted by heterosexual intercourse.

I think your stats are a bit off, GfS.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: KB in Iowa
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 04:11 PM

Many of what the "liberals" call basic human rights are refused to those in society, who although not criminals engage in behaviour which is dangerous or destructive....example... hard drug addicts.

Hard drugs are illegal Ake, not the best example.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 01:04 PM

From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 05:46 AM
It's very simple!!   Does the Constitution of the United States mean anything or not.
If the answer is NO, then what is your so-called democracy worth?

Which chosen amendments are you talking about? The second??...Protecting our borders?? Limitations on the executive branch??...LIFE, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?? Habeus Corpus??...Limiting the Federal government's powers???...Yes Don, Does the Constitution mean anything...or not???
,Interesting you ask..'...then what is YOUR so-called democracy worth? Isn't it 'yours' too??...or do you read from a different ideology??
Do you obey ALL the laws, equally??..or pick and choose the 'convenient' ones???..then start pointing fingers?..(Better throw away your stash!)
So Ake's assertion may be truer than you allude to.
By the way, a 'straight' beats two jacks, and two queens, goose of hearts high!

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 05:46 AM

"My responce would be that most of the "liberals" are unthinking fools!"

So the fact that you object to being stereotyped entitles you to stereotype one half of the population as unthinking fools, and a somewhat smaller group as being akin to drug addicts, and the mentally ill?

Nice to know that we are dealing with such a model of balanced impartiality.

It's very simple!!   Does the Constitution of the United States mean anything or not.

If the answer to that is YES, then gays ARE discriminated against, and the removal of such discrimination cannot be seen as making special concessions.

If the answer is NO, then what is your so-called democracy worth?

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: akenaton
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 03:23 AM

Well, the reason I got so involved in this thread, is not homosexuality v heterosexuality, which as Little hawk has pointed out are facts of life....no discussion required there!

What I find really interesting is the "rights issue" and the current "liberal" view that everyone is entitled to the same "human rights".

Some here say that legality is the key, but I would remind everyone that laws are made by politicians, often in their interests rather than the interests of society.I have seen many laws reversed as it has become apparent that they were ill conceived....drug control legislation being an obvious example.

Many of what the "liberals" call basic human rights are refused to those in society, who although not criminals engage in behaviour which is dangerous or destructive....example... hard drug addicts.
"Basic human rights" are also witheld from people with psychiatric problems, they also are not criminals.

The statistics state that the practice of homosexuality is in general very destructive....much lower life expectancy, the still unexplained link to Aids/Hiv and high number of psychiatric conditions.

Given these statistics, what makes those who practice homosexuality more deserving of "rights" than the deprived members of the other catagories quoted?

I resent the implication by many here (including some friends) that I am an unthinking bigot.
My responce would be that most of the "liberals" are unthinking fools!

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 01:16 AM

Liar!

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 12:43 AM

I stop paying any attention after this statement;
"when it is in fact 'somewhat deviant'.."

Asshole.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 12:03 AM

Uh-Uh..He discarded the wild Duck..I think he has a goose up his sleeve!

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Don Firth
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 11:14 PM

Duck!!

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 11:10 PM

I'll see your Swan and raise you a Frilly Bustard.

Or was that Amos's swan?

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Don Firth
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 11:05 PM

I'll trade you ten Russell Meanses for one Sherman Alexie.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 10:08 PM

Uppity?? Who? Freddie or Amos??....think that would happen????

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 07:01 PM

And "his place", by the way, would be the same as Sidney Poitier's place...the best darn seat I could offer him in the house. I admire people of great accomplishment.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 06:52 PM

Really? Well, how would he do that, Amos? Tell me.

If I was to meet Freddie Mercury (assuming he was alive now) I would figure to talk about music or something...not hear a monologue from him on gay rights. After all, I've always been inclined to give people their gay rights anyway, so why would I need to hear any such monologue?

I'm betting he'd choose to talk about music. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 06:30 PM

That's fine, LH, as long as he knows his place and doesn't get uppity.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 06:24 PM

LOL!!! I had never suspected that Amos was involved in that way. My goodness, the things one discovers about one's friends!

GfS - No, I haven't met Russel Means. I had a lot of dealings with Rolling Thunder and various associates of his out in Nevada, have met Wallace Black Elk and various people from out that way, Brook Medicine Eagle (of whom I have a very good opinion, by the way), and a number of people in Ontario such as Art Solomon and Bobby Woods. I did get royally tired of the whole scene eventually, although I still have a great respect for traditional values and the Medicine Way.

I like it when people can become larger than their specific cultural, racial or national identity. If they are able and willing to do that, they can become extraordinary human beings. If so, their love will shine to the whole human race, not to just a part of it. That's what Jesus did. That's what Buddha did. That's the salvation of the world.

By the way, I was just watching some videos of Freddie Mercury singing in the band Queen... My God, what a beautiful voice and what a beautiful looking person! I couldn't care less whether he was gay or bisexual or whatever else he was at the time, that lad could sure sing!

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 06:21 PM

Mwahahaha.



My marital ox is not being gored, thank you. I must decline your kind invitation.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 05:54 PM

Amos, Are you indicating that your ox and you are having marital problems?..If so, I normally would be the person to see...but I don't do inter species counseling.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 05:51 PM

Well, you skate very gracefully, LH, so perhaps there is no issue. It would seem different if it was your marital ox being gored, of course.\

A

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 05:39 PM

Little Hawk, You wouldn't by any chance know Russell Means, do you? We may have mutual friends, in common.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 05:32 PM

Ah, yes, my friend...but having been involved directly in the championing of Native American values from my teens right through to my mid-50's, I have now seen both sides of the coin. I have seen the utter chauvinism of the many (the complacent White majority) and the utter chauvinism of the few (some of those posturing on the "Good Red Road", stabbing each other in the back while so doing, besotted with their sense of their own moral superiority, and forever finding someone else out there to blame for their eternal sense of "victimhood" instead of taking some personal responsibility and just growing up).

No, I am no longer impressed by professional one-issue martyrs and idealogues who can't shake off their obsession with their own narrow cultural or racial identity stamp and who can't get over their collective past. Uh-uh. It took several decades of idealistic struggle on their behalf, but my patience has run out.

And I do not feel impelled to earn my good "liberal" credentials by always making the appropriate supportive noises for them on cue. I'm liberal, yes, to a considerable degree, but I am not Pavlov's dog.

There is no side in this world, and no group in this world who are always automatically right, just on account of who they are or what was done to them in the past.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 04:03 PM

There'ss nohing special about correcting discrimination. it is the DISallowance that is the special case, and none of this would ever have even been brought to your delicate attentions if there had not been a long and cruel tradition of segregation, suppression, and intolerance established in the culture. Had you not subscribed to the oppression, you would be less fanciful about how burdensome its correction is.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 03:48 PM

GfS - I agree 100% with what you said: "I don't like having it crammed down our throats..and making 'special allowances'..having our noses rubbed in it"

Precisely. Although I have no problem with gays, although I have always believed in equal rights and an equal role for women, although I have always respected Blacks and Native Americans....I DO get absolutely fed up with being subjected to a continual media barrage of guilt-inducing propaganda, bellyaching, noble stereotypes of "victims", and over-the-top lobbying from a few fanatical people who have turned a social minority issue into a personal obsession and who spend their lives persecuting everybody else over it.

It gets to be too much to take after awhile, it gets to be a real pain, and I don't wish to share any unearned guilt for something I never did to anyone.

Now there, I have said what I need to about the 2 sides of this issue, and I think that about does it. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 03:40 PM

The stress may be getting to you, Amos. You made an unusual number of typos in your last post. ;-D

Keep in mind that it won't make a rat's ass of difference in the end what anyone who's bitching on this thread here says about the issue of gay marriage and your stress levels will go way down.

Or do what Chongo does: Down about half a bottle of good Scotch whiskey, getcher sidearm, and go out to the firing range and blast away at some target dummies for an hour or two. Works for me. (grin)

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 03:40 PM

Right. I just don't like having it crammed down our throats..and making 'special allowances'..having our noses rubbed in it, when it is in fact 'somewhat deviant'..and I can't say I've met very many parents who wanted their kids to grow up to be one..have you?.......Then someone will post,'I don't care if they did. its up to them'..the key words, are 'I don't care..'

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 03:35 PM

Unfortunately there is no issue with evolutionary processes in this regard. The "merssing about" is with the basic social contract in this country. That's what your rabid anti-Gay fearmongers are fucking around with, and it is not appreciated, not helpful to the well being of the overall society. It is blindered monkeying about with vectors about which they know shanefully little.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 03:30 PM

I just want to mention that I've barely ever posted on this thread...or even opened it...for one simple reason.

I am completely uninterested in wrangles about homosexual marriage. I simply don't care who marries who or for what reason as long as they are both adults and they can make their own decision about it. If so, it's absolutely none of my business who they want to marry.

As for all the other arcane stuff about whether they should get to adopt kids or whatever.....I'm not interested enough to bother worrying about that either. My reaction is...***yawn***...okay, I think I'll let someone else get worked up about that one.

It's a non-issue to me whether or not homosexuals or lesbians want to marry one another. Total 100% flippin' non-issue.

I agree, though, with what Peace said: "If we discriminate against people based on shit that's none of our business to begin with, then we open the door to discriminate against ANYone in the whole nation."

Right on. If you want to live in freedom, then give it to others as well...as long as they don't hurt anyone else, rob, commit fraud, rape, assault, damage property, engage in slander and other obviously antisocial stuff like that.

Gays have always existed, they are often quite talented and creative and even charming people, they have made huge contributions to the arts and to human culture generally, and they don't scare me one bit. Not even slightly. Do they live differently from me in some respects? Yeah. Well, so what if they do?

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 03:24 PM

Suicidal, and proud of it! Let natural selection sort it out...and leave the 'wonderfully enlightened, virtuous politicians' out of it!

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 03:14 PM

ANd let me add, Ake, that I have no particular axe to grind for homosexuality, although I have none to grind against it, either. I have no dog in that fight personally. What I DO have an axe to grin for is this simple statement: We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.

Trying to carve out one of life basic passages, marriage, and restrict it from a certain population legally is, in my mind, the most wrong-headed reversal of that proposition possible. There have been worse, so maybe that's a bit strong, but it is nevertheless unacceptably totalitarian.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 01:41 PM

Passing an editorial from a leading paper, excerpted, is hardly regurgitation, ake, and although it is about public attitudes about homosexuality, I don't see how you think the label propogandfa applies here. In fact your labels is contumacious, argumentative, inaccurate, and counter-productive.

Think clearly first--then write clearly.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: akenaton
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 11:51 AM

Oh God!.....We're back to regurgitated homosexual propaganda from Amos...How boring!

I think Little Hawk had it spot on.... why bother, I suppose nature will sort things out in the end, just as it has always done.
Or maybe society will destroy itself by some other gorier method....the sonner the fuckin' better!

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 11:28 AM

"Far from terrifying anyone, "Gathering Storm" has become, unsurprisingly, an Internet camp classic. On YouTube the original video must compete with countless homemade parodies it has inspired since first turning up some 10 days ago. None may top Stephen Colbert's on Thursday night, in which lightning from "the homo storm" strikes an Arkansas teacher, turning him gay. A "New Jersey pastor" whose church has been "turned into an Abercrombie & Fitch" declares that he likes gay people, "but only as hilarious best friends in TV and movies."

Yet easy to mock as "Gathering Storm" may be, it nonetheless bookmarks a historic turning point in the demise of America's anti-gay movement.

What gives the ad its symbolic significance is not just that it's idiotic but that its release was the only loud protest anywhere in America to the news that same-sex marriage had been legalized in Iowa and Vermont. If it advances any message, it's mainly that homophobic activism is ever more depopulated and isolated as well as brain-dead.

"Gathering Storm" was produced and broadcast — for a claimed $1.5 million — by an outfit called the National Organization for Marriage. This "national organization," formed in 2007, is a fund-raising and propaganda-spewing Web site fronted by the right-wing Princeton University professor Robert George and the columnist Maggie Gallagher, who was famously caught receiving taxpayers' money to promote Bush administration "marriage initiatives." Until last month, half of the six board members (including George) had some past or present affiliation with Princeton's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. (One of them, the son of one of the 12 apostles in the Mormon church hierarchy, recently stepped down.)

Even the anti-Obama "tea parties" flogged by Fox News last week had wider genuine grass-roots support than this so-called national organization. Beyond Princeton, most straight citizens merely shrugged as gay families celebrated in Iowa and Vermont. There was no mass backlash. At ABC and CBS, the Vermont headlines didn't even make the evening news.

On the right, the restrained response was striking. Fox barely mentioned the subject; its rising-star demagogue, Glenn Beck, while still dismissing same-sex marriage, went so far as to "celebrate what happened in Vermont" because "instead of the courts making a decision, the people did." Dr. Laura Schlessinger, the self-help media star once notorious for portraying homosexuality as "a biological error" and a gateway to pedophilia, told CNN's Larry King that she now views committed gay relationships as "a beautiful thing and a healthy thing." In The New York Post, the invariably witty and invariably conservative writer Kyle Smith demolished a Maggie Gallagher screed published in National Review and wondered whether her errant arguments against gay equality were "something else in disguise."

More startling still was the abrupt about-face of the Rev. Rick Warren, the hugely popular megachurch leader whose endorsement last year of Proposition 8, California's same-sex marriage ban, had roiled his appearance at the Obama inaugural. Warren also dropped in on Larry King to declare that he had "never" been and "never will be" an "anti-gay-marriage activist." This was an unmistakable slap at the National Organization for Marriage, which lavished far more money on Proposition 8 than even James Dobson's Focus on the Family.

The Obamas' dog had longer legs on cable than the news from Iowa and Vermont. CNN's weekly press critique, "Reliable Sources," inquired why. The gay blogger John Aravosis suggested that many Americans are more worried about their mortgages than their neighbors' private lives. Besides, Aravosis said, there are "only so many news stories you can do showing guys in tuxes."

As the polls attest, the majority of Americans who support civil unions for gay couples has been steadily growing. Younger voters are fine with marriage. Generational changeover will seal the deal. Crunching all the numbers, the poll maven Nate Silver sees same-sex marriage achieving majority support "at some point in the 2010s."

Iowa and Vermont were the tipping point because they struck down the right's two major arguments against marriage equality. The unanimous ruling of the seven-member Iowa Supreme Court proved that the issue is not merely a bicoastal fad. The decision, written by Mark Cady, a Republican appointee, was particularly articulate in explaining that a state's legalization of same-sex marriage has no effect on marriage as practiced by religions. "The only difference," the judge wrote, is that "civil marriage will now take on a new meaning that reflects a more complete understanding of equal protection of the law."..."

From The Bigots' Last Hurrah

By FRANK RICH
Published: April 18, 2009 (NYT)

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 09:50 AM

""In case you forgot, in a Democracy, the majority rules.""


ABSOLUTELY GfS!!........

I didn't forget that for a single moment.

And in the USA, the majority HAS ruled that homosexuality IS LEGAL.......With me so far?

Right then; As individuals acting within the laws set by the MAJORITY, these people are entitled to the same LEGAL rights as any other citizen. Those rights include the right to marry as they see fit, and they are victims of discrimination IN LAW if those rights are abrogated.

It HAS, I say again, NOTHING TO DO WITH POLITICS, but with RIGHTS UNDER THE US CONSTITUTION.

Before you start making ad hominem attacks on other posters, pehaps you should look again at your own attitudes, and prejudices.

150 years ago, people like you would not permit marriages between whites and Indians (as they were then described), and white women who had been intimate with Indians were shot dead by their relatives when they were recovered.

For the first half of the twentieth century, white people and black could not marry.

Now it's homosexuals.

Tell me, who will bear the iniquities of your prejudice in the NEXT fifty years?

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Jeri
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 08:29 AM

"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his
enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes
a precedent that will reach to himself" - Thomas Paine

Or: 'Do unto others...'

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage
From: Peace
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 04:25 AM

Just wanted to say the following.

I think most folks here know I can lose it when it comes to Nazi bastar/ people. I detest all they stand for. I detest their politics, their world view. However, I would speak on behalf of the individual rights of Nazi Americans or Canadians. Not because they are Nazis, BUT because they are individuals. I recall many years back that the ACLU--which I understand at that time was composed of lawyers--a high percentage of whom were Jewish, and that the organization argued on BEHALF of the right of a Nazi group to march in a town in one of the northern states. The ACLU's rationale was that if Nazis could be prevented from marching to seek redress of grievance, then so could any other group be prevented from accessing that right.

Night all.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage
From: Peace
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 03:55 AM

The Constitution limits the rights of government by providing a set of principia that will be binding ON that goverrnment thus protect the rights of the individual. Even when those individuals become part of 'groups' (and I mean that in both senses), they remain first and foremost individuals whose rights are protected BY the Constitution and hence subsequent law formulated by the Legislative organs of government: HR and Senate. I agree with Don wholeheartedly. If we discriminate against people based on shit that's none of our business to begin with, then we open the door to discriminate against ANYone in the whole nation. (This includes Canada, so please don't feel I'm just jumpin' on Yanks. We have a responsibility as a 'free' people to help defend other individuals in our society. Even murderers after being found guilty pretty much HAVE to appeal the decision, even when the guilt is manifest and beyond misinterpretation. IMO, that's a good law. Miranda is a good law. They are meant to protect the individual. When we have no compassion for others around us, we will have taken a giant step towards allowing other doors to discrimination to open. I wish no pissing contest with anyone. I'm just putting my two cents in.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 02:10 AM

I don't recalling anyone arguing that someone else doesn't have the 'right' to be a homosexual...do you?
..and as far as equality goes...umm, do you recall anyone who is happily married to someone of the opposite sex, claiming they unequal to a homosexual??
Cuts both ways, eh?