If it was about redefining marriage they would have sent a petition to MErriam Webster's Dictionary. It is most definitely about equal rights.
couldn't read 15 pages since last tuesday, but this fight is far from over. i think it will be the beginning of a new civil rights movement.
because Prop 8 was funded largely by the Latter Day Saints, with most of the funds for a California ballot amendment coming FROM OUT OF STATE according to your and your religous views. quite frankly, after you have stated this opinion, I don't give a crap about your religious freedoms. your idea of tolerance is completely twisted. as long as hate is tolerated, than this country will continue to discriminate against those with lesser equal rights than you.
I think reforming it to church/priest grants a marriage but JP/courts can give you a civil union(and a marriage would still need a civil union certificate from the government) is a good compromise. You change what the government calls marriage but dont interfere with religious institution of said marriage. Rights are all equal under the government.
It is good to see basso's election loss has not taught him the error of his self-pwning ways.... http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/ Prop 8 Myths Writes Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee: Now, it's true that if new voters had voted against Prop 8 at the same rates that they voted for Obama, the measure probably would have failed. But that does not mean that the new voters were harmful on balance -- they were helpful on balance. If California's electorate had been the same as it was in 2004, Prop 8 would have passed by a wider margin. Furthermore, it would be premature to say that new Latino and black voters were responsible for Prop 8's passage. Latinos aged 18-29 (not strictly the same as 'new' voters, but the closest available proxy) voted against Prop 8 by a 59-41 margin. These figures are not available for young black voters, but it would surprise me if their votes weren't fairly close to the 50-50 mark. At the end of the day, Prop 8's passage was more a generational matter than a racial one. If nobody over the age of 65 had voted, Prop 8 would have failed by a point or two. It appears that the generational splits may be larger within minority communities than among whites, although the data on this is sketchy. The good news for supporters of marriage equity is that -- and there's no polite way to put this -- the older voters aren't going to be around for all that much longer, and they'll gradually be cycled out and replaced by younger voters who grew up in a more tolerant era. Everyone knew going in that Prop 8 was going to be a photo finish -- California might be just progressive enough and 2008 might be just soon enough for the voters to affirm marriage equity. Or, it might fall just short, which is what happened. But two or four or six or eight years from now, it will get across the finish line.
I keep hearing this used to attack the passage of Prop 8, but I don't get it. In the end, Prop 8 was passed by the people of California. The beef should be with the electorate, not the people who ran campaign ads.
sure but it seems kind of weird doesn't it that a group that has a rich history of abuse of the 'traditional definition of marriage' attempts to ban marriage for a segment of the population? also how would you like it if canada funded measures in the US? obviously im not necessarily equating another state with another country, but i feel like its understandable why some people would react to a group from out of state funding this proposition to the tune of millions of dollars.
Government should be out of the Marriage business . .PERIOD!! The concept of a MARRIAGE LICENSE is like Mixing Church and State why does the government get to say who can and cannot marry Esp if it is between consenting adults Heterosexual, Polygamy, bigamy, Homosexual Marriage etc That ain't the government's business ANY GOVERNMENT BENEFIT WHATSOEVER FOR MARRIAGE COUPLES IS DISCRIMINATORY TOWARD NON-MARRIED FolkS!! Get the Government out of the Marriage Business PERIOD Being Marriage is about folx and their church/community/whatever not the GUB MENT!! Rocket River . . .no special nothing for being married. . . if you need stuff like who gets what etc. . a will is a contract .. get contracts for all that stuff .. . CONTRACTs. . . not MARRIAGES
I guess so They don't fund the proposition, they fund ads for it. If some activists in Canada want to start running an anti-death penalty promotion in the United States, be my guest! Again, ultimately it's up to the voters to decide what they believe. Who cares if the people putting ads in front of them are their neighbors or people from another state?
Mormons have been in california before it even was a state. There are lots of mormons ALL OVER the west and especially in California (not as many as in utah, but still a ton) I hardly see how that can be considered out of state funding.
You do realize that you've just ensured basso will never post in this thread again, right? Though oddly enough he did keep posting in the ACORN thread even though he ignored any attempts to engage in either discussion or debate on what he was posting, and proceeded to ignore the relevant facts.
Dude not only would gay people be allowed to marry but we could also solve social security and medicare problems.
had some friends over this weekend, indian dude and his chinese wife, and another dude that works on the street, all major O! supporters, and politically aware. most of the evening was spent discussing kids, and good wine, fo which much was consumed. eventually, however, the conversation turned to the election. I mentioned Dr. King's famous words about being color and character, and how proud we could all be that we know live in a country where neither attribute matters... ...mentioned ACORN as well, and neither of them had ever heard of it. i explained, they seemed vaguely aware, but it's clear that this issue never broke into the larger voter consciousness, which is a shame- it'll force it's way out soon enough. my son's school is next to the NYC offices of the LDS church- big protest there tomorrow, since the best way to protest the passing of Prop 8 in Cali is to picket an office in NYC...no word on whether they'll protest at the islamic cultural center on RSD. i guessing those guys weren't too supportive of gay marriage either. i was going to write "sanguine" instead of supportive, but, given Islam's record on things gay, that's probably a poor bloody choice of words...
Here's how I see this issue. I think I'm largely agreeing with a few other people in this thread, but it looks like ours is a minority POV at this point. I think that equal rights for same sex couples would have majority approval in California, but that the obstacle in this case was the word marriage, and for me the disconnect over that word is a bit complicated to sort out. If a new religious group wanted to start an annual religious fast, for example, and they wanted to call Ramadan, I think very few people would believe that they should have the right to do that. Likewise if another group wanted to start wearing skull caps as part of a religious practice, and they wanted to call them yarmulkes, I think most people would object. These words belong to certain faiths and cultures, I think most would say, and other groups should not be able to co-opt these terms. I think a large number people feel the very same way about the word marriage, but clearly there is another large group that sees this particular word in a different light. I think that for many the word marriage has taken on a more more secular and generic meaning. I think these people tend to see the word more as a term that belongs to the state now and not to the faiths and traditions where it originated, and further I think they believe that the state should be prepared to make changes to address the needs of all of its citizens. I agree with them on this second point, but I differ with them on the first. I think that, because our society has been historically largely Christian, the word marriage has has crept into common language in a way that has made it seem more secular and generic for many people. This does not mean, however, that it means these things to the millennia old faiths and traditions from whence it came. For these people the word does not belong to the state, and I suspect that even the thought that it could belong to the state would not enter the minds of most of them. To them it belongs to their faith and traditions, and they feel that no one should be able to take it away from them, even if they do support equal rights for same sex couples. I suspect that they feel that giving equal rights to same sex couples should not mean taking something away from them and their faith traditions. The way out of this, it seems to me, is to curb the loose use of the word marriage and to essentially return it to the religious and cultural groups who have held it as a central part of their faith and traditions for literally thousands of years. For the secular concept of a union between two people I think we should now call a civil union, or some equivalent term, and this would apply to same sex and different sex couples. Note that there are branches of some of these faiths who will marry same sex couples, so it would even be possible for same sex couples to be married, but in this scenario the debate about what constitutes marriage remains between the branches of these faiths, and the government stays out of it. To sum up, I think the key to this issue revolves around use of the word marriage, and the fact that it currently means significantly different things to different groups of people. It's also worth noting that groups like the Catholic church, for example, whose use of even the specific English word goes back centuries, and for whom marriage is one of their seven sacred sacraments, certainly would not change their definition of the word because of any California statute. It's also worth remembering that they have a right to their terms and traditions just like any other religious or cultural group has. Also note that by giving the term marriage back to the traditions that originated it you are not taking any rights away from anyone else. A civil union is no better or worse than a marriage in the eyes of the state. In fact the state would likely only recognize civil unions.
that depends, basso. did the islamic cultural center encourage its California voters to spend millions of dollars and vote against prop 8? whatever happened to Separation of Church and State? the IRS should revoke their tax- free status since they are involved in the political process of passing state constitution amendments.
I would expect you to mention ACORN to them and then to run out the door and jump into the nearest cab when they asked you to provide actual examples of voter fraud rather than voter registration frauds perpetrated against ACORN.
you do realize separation of church and state refers to the idea of an official state sponsored religion and not general morality issues that have been held by virtually every single major religion on the planet since the dawn of time? that sounds like a great way to regulate religion. Make all morality issues political issues and then tell any or all churches they can't speak up about them without being punished. :rolleyes
Of course it didn't - this was the massive failure of the GOP (as well as its bobblehead posters that kept simply repeating GOP talking points). No one cared about Ayers or ACORN or any of that other stuff. They wanted an actual plan to deal with the economy and their health care struggles. Those are the things McCain - and people like you - refused to ever discuss. He just never understood the electorate or it's mood. He ran his campaign like it was still year 2000. ACORN was just such a stupid issue, regardless. It wasn't voter fraud - it was voter registration fraud, which has no impact on total votes. And it wasn't fraud designed to benefit a candidate, it was fraud by a bunch of low paid workers trying to meet quotas. Mickey Mouse was never going to vote - he was just going to be registered so some no-name ACORN worker could get paid.
