Bush wants a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages

I really don't get why people are so pissed off about gay marriage.

Thoughts?

If people are against gay marriage that makes them bigots in my book. Arnold, Bush... Bigots. If you make fun of gay people your a bigot, but if you tell them they are not allowed the same rights as a man/woman couple, how is that any different than making fun of them.

The church is slightly different, if they want to say no gay people allowed, fine. And if the church eventually dissapears because of their views then well, they did it to themselves.

But for goverment, why is acceptable to be openly protest gay marriage? Come to Canada and get more freedom than you're allowed in the US folks!

I listened to some commentary but forgot who it was. Basically the person said the reason why people are so against it is because by allowing gay marriage, you are allowing gay people to have sex. I thought this was interesting since back in the day, people actually waited to have sex until they were married. So maybe in their minds, the sanctity of marriage is tainted somehow?
Anyway, I think the legalization of gay marriage will come in my lifetime. I mean, it was only some decades ago women finally got to vote.

Also, I was wondering, which is the one true God? And should I use Macs or Windows?

I've heard some OLD people that say it opens the door for lots of other things that are simply not acceptable today, but might be someday if the trend continues. I think that's the silliest argument I've heard yet.

LOL Weds!

Seriously, I saw a quote attributed to Bush where he was saying that he was for the amendment agin' gay marriage because it was necessary to stop judges from tainting the sanctity of the Constitution. It was in a Yahoo! news article - I didn't read it all the way through. (not if I want to keep my cool)

What I wanna know is, WHERE in the Constitution does it talk about marriage?

I was having a RL discussion about this with a friend who said one of his cow-orkers (in a pretty provincial town) raised the question of "Why should this be allowed?" His (unspoken) thought upon hearing this was that the question itself held all kinds of implicit presumtions and the proper response would have been "why shouldn't it be allowed?".

My response, although this is coming from an apathetic, pacifistic, anarchistic, libertarian was "why is it any of my business?". Then again I've probably not been properly brainwashed.

Every form of bigotry seems to have its roots firmly planted in one of three things... religion, nationalism, or racism. Anyone whose membership in some group, belief system, ethnicity, race, political party, etc, is more important to them than their membership in the family of mankind is pretty much gauranteed to be a bigot in some way or another. Not that those things should never be important to people, but far too often they end up just being cheap excuses to feel superior and to impose their will on others. It's human nature I guess. Here's hoping we evolve beyond it some day.

I don't know but it just seems silly that Britney Spears can go to Vegas and get married for fun while some 80+ year old couple have been waiting their whole lives to get married.

Bush and Ahnuld are for anything that will divert attention from the piss-poor (Bush) and hopeless (Ahnuld) jobs they are doing in office.

A constitutional ban will not end homosexuality, and making it legal in all 50 states will not destroy the institution of marriage. Its a big issue because the conservatives want to make it one.

The amendment is supposed to protect the sanctity of marriage and allow civil unions. Do not be fooled. The verbage I heard on NPR today (in a nutshell) says marriage or anything resembling it are reserved ONLY for a man and a woman.

This breaks a long tradition of allowing states to decide issues like this (which is why age of consent and divorce laws differ by state).

This is quickly becoming something far larger than the right to marry. To have in the US Constitution that homosexuality is wrong is putting the seal of approval on hate crimes and anything that is "against" gays.

I predict mass protests. I guess Arnold knew something when he made this quote yesterday:

"All of a sudden we see riots, we see protests, we see people clashing,'' the Republican governor said in the televised interview. "The next thing we know, there is injured or there is dead people. We don't want it to get to that extent.''

The problem, here, is so complicated.

I am gay and I have zero zilch nadda a desire to be married. Marriage, despite rants and ravings saying otherwise, has a direct relationship with religion. A civil union is a wonderful idea, however it lacks all the benefits of "marriage."

Why? Why why why why why?

Marriage = Religion, Legal Benefits
Civil Unions = Minimal Legal Benefits

The problem with this, that I have, is the fact that not everyone who are coupled "for life" are married, but in a sense, by loose definition, every "life couple" is taking part in a civil union.

Can start a wild feud with this one:

The solution, which is far out of reach at the moment, is not to fight for "gay marriage" but to create "civil union" as the standard. Marriage is religious. You hold your wedding in a chapel or temple and somehow the government responds to that. Civil unions make most sense as a legal treaty between two persons. Bring the amendment down, allow civil unions for all, and leave marriage as the choice of the churches and temples as personally I believe it should be. Marriage should never have been a government regulated concept from the start, but as we all know, religion was once the ruler of the world, still is the ruler of the world, and slowly that monarchy is losing its strength. Time for change, people, time for change.

I hear ya Daemioth. Frankly I don't care what they call it so long as the exact same legal benefits are afforded those who wish to engage in this kind of legal relationship. Some people want the religious aspect however I do not feel that most care so long as their family and property are protected.

Funny how the relgion your born into so often happens to become the one true religion, eh?

I've said this a million times, so it's obviously worthy of repitition: WHO THE FARK CARES IF THEY WANT TO HAVE SAME SEX MARRAIGES? You're worried they'll go to hell? If that's your concern, why don't you just go ahead and LET THEM GO TO HELL.

You know, in a few hundred thousand years, we'll all be like dingos: all the breeds just mixed into one, probably dark tan breed of people. Just one race. Will they're still be prejiduce? You bet your ass there will.

If you went to a planet where 97% of society was attracted to members of the same sex, and you, along with 3% of society was attracted to members of the oppisite sex. Does this make you inferior? Does it make you less human? Does your personal sexual prefrance make you less eligable to recieve the BASIC RIGHTS OF NATURAL LAW any more than your preferance of ice cream flavor should? And it CERTAINLY shouldn't deter from your right to practice the religion you choose without a problem.

Now, maybe if civil unions had the same legal rights as marriages, I would be happy.

Daemioth,

I have to disagree with you. Marriages are commonly tied to religion but you can have a marriage without religion being involved at all. Thus, I feel that gay women and men should be allowed (and I feel are rightly entitled too) marriage. Various religious organizations can opt to bless it or not, it's purely up to them. But, our government should not dictate who can and cannot be married solely based on thier gender.

I find this whole thing funny. If it were any other group besides gay men and women, this would not be an issue.

Imagine the following headline:

"Bush call for Asian-american marriage ban sparks debate"

-or-

"Bush backs ban on 2nd-time marriage"

I think that any adult who wants to marry another adult should be able to, without respect to their gender.

Bashing gays is the one last acceptable form of bigotry, and our president has fully endorsed it.

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It's pretty recent history.

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In 1967, the Supreme Court ruled in Loving v. Virginia that a ban on interracial marriage was unconstitutional. The law was overturned in Virginia and 15 other states (14 had already repealed similar laws). Still, a dozen states had the ban on interracial marriages on their books into the 1970s, though the laws were legally unenforceable.

The most recent was Alabama, which removed the law from its books last November (2001)
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Why restrict civil unions so much? I think civil unions should be between any two or more persons.

It doesn't really matter if Bush wants the ammendment ratified. Once its started on the road to be ratified, its basically out of his hands.

This is how the Constitution is a amended:

A two-thirds majority of both the House and the Senate needs to pass the amendment, which is then sent to the states for ratification. It must be approved by three-fourths - 38 - of the 50 states. Congress normally will set a time limit, typically seven years, for the states to act.

The Constitution allows for a second method of amendment, which has never been used. Two-thirds of the state legislatures would call for a Constitutional Convention where amendments would be proposed, then sent to the states for approval.

The methods whereby states ratify amendments vary. Many state legislatures require approval by "constitutional majorities"— a majority of the membership of the legislature. Some require ratification by the same margin as proposed amendments to their state constitutions; others only require a majority of the legislators present and voting.

At least seven states — Alabama, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois and Kansas — require a "supermajority" vote (search) in one or more chamber by rule, statute or state constitution.

A president can veto neither an amendment proposal nor a ratification.

It also must be said that a majority of the people in the U.S. disapprove of gay marriage. And ultimately it must be up to the people to approve the ammendment.

Exactly what the Right fears, that or people wanting to marry their pets.




That depends entirely on what polls you read and how the poll is worded.

CNN Poll

If you want to protect Marriage as an institution, wouldn't it make a whole lot more sense to do away with no-fault Divorce and to recriminalize Adultery?

When you get right down to it, is there any reason Mormons (or anyone else, for that matter)getting married to as many people as they want? If Marriage is to create a good family environment for raising children, I'd think that having a few working spouses and a few who want to be homemakers would be a best practice for stability.

This is where I have to say: so what?

The issue here, is not whether people in this country 'approve' of it or not, rather is it discriminatory? I'm sure if you asked people whether they 'approved' of interracial or intergenerational marriage, you would be surprised by the answers.

The question around this should be:

What gives person A, a heterosexual, more of a right to the benefits of marriage than person B, a homosexual?

So far, through all of the articles I've read, I have seen not one solid reason. All of the reasons I have seen so far are thin veils attempting to hide thier moral objection to homosexuals.

If you polled people on whether they honestly approved of interracial marriage, or marriage between Christians and Jews, most of them would say no, and most of the reasons they gave you would be the same as the arguments they give against homosexual marriage - that it's probably not the best thing for children. Marriage, for a lot of people, is ALL about children. About giving them a good, safe and stable environment.
When you look at the images that a lot of straight people have of homosexuals, thanks to the popular media you never see the professional couple who live in Buckhead and collect antiques or the Joe Banks covermodel congresional staffers - the outrageous appearance and behavior they see on television coverage of gay pride events and that sort of thing, along with some of the other disturbing things running through their heads like the whole Priest abuse thing, it's no wonder they are a little concerned. It's all an image thing.
Mind you, I've been with the same guy since 1988 and we manage just fine. If given the opportunity to marry, we wouldn't really consider it. BUT. Neither of us has family members who would swoop in and try to cart off the sterling or sell our houses or have the vet put our pets down or take over any legal or medical issues if we bacame incapacitated. That's hardly ever the case, in my experience.

Not wishing to hijack the thread, but I'm puzzled about the differences between marriage and civil unions in America.

In the UK one can have a religious marriage or a civil one. The civil ones take place in a building belonging to the local authority known as a 'register office'. People married in a register office have exactly the same legal rights as those married in a church. It seems to me from reading this thread that the situation is different in the States.

If that is the case (to heave the posting back in the general direction of the thread), it seems to me that perhaps it would be useful to campaign for civil marriages to have the same rights as religious ones. This would at least give gay couples the option of gaining the legal rights they are currently deprived of, and would be a step in the right direction.

There would still remain the step of convincing the churches to marry gay people, but that would, I feel, be more difficult to achieve. Mind you, I've never understood why anybody who was gay would want to have anything to do with most religions anyway. Well, to be quite honest, I can't really understand why anybody would want to have anything to do with most religions.

"You know you have invented your God when he hates the same people you do."

I am straight, and Christian...

But I believe if we let the government make the constitution an ammendable doctrine, it being the basis for all of our civil rights, our human rights, we are opening the door to future ammendments. The right to worship will be removed, the right to smoke has already been made unlawful, and in one contry they can only have so many children per family as a part of population control.

Yes, this violates gays and lesbians human rights, but for those who are not, whose to say we are not next???????????