Government Drops Defense Of Anti-gay-marriage Law

See the full article here.


This is a step in the right direction. The Constitution was designed to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority, and the only real argument against allowing two consenting adults of the same sex to engage in a civil contract is religious indignation. There is nothing in the Constitution that allows for discrimination based purely on religious outrage.

I do find myself dissapointed alot

This is good news, hopefully they dont just stop here and continue to push for the repeal of this law.

What in the hell? What's so hard to comprehend about this? I just... I don't understand the fear in it all. Some people are homosexual. They have intercourse. This is natural. In doing so, you accept the fact that they are in fact homosexuals.

What I don't understand is why is this so hard to "grapple" with? Why can't they get married? They're already having sex. Why does it matter if they want to have a ceremony and be allowed the same rights as other married heterosexual couples? What's the big goddamn deal, here? It's not like if you give them marriage that they'll cavort in the streets and bump uglies in broad daylight in front of the whole neighborhood or anything.

Can someone with a Conservative point of view please explain to me what the big *** deal is?

Religion, it drives peoples lives. Stupid thing really :<

Perhaps cause some of the breaks were liking due to it being assumed that the guy works and when he marrys a girl all she does is add to the cost of living so they need more help. Plus the chance of unexpected children...

Also traditionally marraige has been defined as something between man and a woman. And has religious connotations. I mean ***most actual weddings are still in churches regardless of the peoples religious beliefs

Are we stuck in the 50s?

My ex-husband and I were married in the County Clerk's office, and I made sure that there was no mention of a god in the ceremony.

Furthermore, we had already decided to have no kids, which, we didn't.

So for anyone who says marriage is a purely religious ceremony, and that only those who can procreate should be allowed to marry, I ask quite simply: Would you consider our marriage to be invalid?

The IRS sure didn't...

Don't want to and can't aren't the same thing.

Naw in the 50s people would physically come after you in force for even bringing up this subject..

Then again in some ways we are still farther back. In some states it's illegal to swear. In one state it's illegal for people of the opposite sex that aren't related to live with together (in a weird way favoring same sex couples lol). Sodomy is illegal in several states which technically makes 2 guys having sex illegal in and of itself. In one state it is perfectly legal for husbands to beat their wives on the steps of the courthouse on Sundays. Illegal to work on sundays... etc etc

I assume you're referring to the procreation point.

Most gays are actually quite capable of procreating, just not with each other.

Some straight women are incapable of bearing a child, and some straight men are incapable of impregnating a woman. Are their marriages invalid for these reasons?

Some conservatives would probably think so. Actually infertility is cause for a fault divorce. Clearly it's her/his fault things didn't work out.

Though they might cling to the there might be a remote chance that there could still be a pregnancy barring complete removal of ovaries or testicles

I'm not sure that removing religion from the picture is necessarily the right way to go. I mean, there are gay Christian couples who want to have their wedding in a church and have their union recognized before God. Of course, some (unfortunately very large) sections of the American Christian community find this blasphemous, but frankly, they're wrong: they got their theology all screwed up (and yes I'd be willing to argue that with anyone who thinks otherwise -- looking at you, Starr.)

We just need to depose straight couples of their hegemonic control of marriage. This isn't a clubhouse in a tree. It's people's lives we're talking about. Hell, my piano teacher's instructor is a gay man who happens to live just down the street from me. He and his partner have lived in that house for over 15 years, have decorated it heavily and made it uniquely theirs, and they may want to be married. If they do, they should have that choice. It shouldn't be within the power of people who disapprove of their lifestyle to effectively come into their home and tell them how to live. That's what this is really about: abuse of power.

I hope Obama actually carries through with this and we see some policies enacted before his term ends. (I doubt he'll get re-elected, sadly.)

It's sad when people can marry other species and inanimate objects but they can't be married to someone who happens to have the same genitalia as they do. The human race makes me lol.

so Obama is "grappling" with his personal views on gay marriage?








is there something we should know about our new president?

I don't think having the government step in a legislating religion is a path you really want to go down. People have fought a long time to keep them seperate, not to have them step in at your convenience when it fits into your agenda.

Keep marrige (religious) and unions (secular) sperate in title but identical in practice and for the most part people will be happy. Have the government start legislating beliefs and you will have many more people pissed off then just the loud mouth religious folks.

I'm very conservative and I believe in a equal rights for all people, gays included. Banning gay marriage is absolutely HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE, and only serves to meet the demands of religious extremists.

I would caution against calling those you disagree with "extremists" simply because they hold beliefs that you do not agree with. We all are protected to believe what whatever we want and we are protected to practice those beliefs as long as they do not harm others.

Inb4 people thinking that gays should not marry is harming them. Protip, it's not. Now if they were to show up to a courthouse etc. and tried to physically block them from getting married/unioned or w/e that would be extremism.

Wait wut!?!

don't forget they can also marry cartoons
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/24/footage-from-the-fir.html

This is just politics.

Deal with it

This sort of thing happens all the time.

While I appreciate the concern for separation of church and state, you don't have to legislate on the basis of religion to make gay marriage -- like, in-a-church-marriage -- legal. I mean, we already have straight marriage legally recognized by each state, but there's no separation of church and state conflict here. In fact, it can be argued that it's unconstitutional for gay marriage to be illegal (and one judge famously did that recently and lifted the ban in California.) The key here is that you aren't actually forcing churches, which are private institutions, to marry any one particular couple. If a church feels that it's against their beliefs to marry a certain couple, they're allowed to deny that: even among straight couples, right now. All the law would change is that churches would be allowed to marry gay couples if they wanted to (and there are churches that want to.) This isn't legislating belief, pundits just like to spin it that way. Marriage isn't and never was a solely religious deal anyways, but the legal parts were just never extended to gay couples.

More than that, though, about the marriage v.s. civil union thing: separate but equal never works. It didn't work for segregation, it didn't work for women, it won't work for gay marriage. As long as gay relationships are conceived differently, they'll be treated differently. That's fine from person to person, but the law is supposed to be blind to those sorts of things.

It seems to be more and argument over semantics than anything else. As opposed to stripping the religious institutions of the "marrige" title I would instead give them exclusive rights to it. Have the state only recognize civil unions for everyone.

Gays receive equal standing under the law and the religious get to keep their "protection of marrige". Also the government doesn't have to change anything but the wording on its own paperwork.

Seems simple enough to me.

Not that I disagree with you, but I'm curious why you think their theology is screwed up?

If the state only recognizes civil unions for everyone, then marriage, legally-speaking, becomes empty: straight couples will have to go get civil unions as well. It wouldn't be a case of straight couples getting married and gay couples getting a civil union, it would be a case of everyone getting civil unions and then straight couples getting married on top of it.

This might seem like an acceptable solution to everyone, but believe it or not, I think it would actually be the people against gay marriage who would begin to complain, when they realized something: since marriage ceremonies no longer carried any legal weight and were merely formal events -- since a wedding would never need to be accompanied by a visit to the courthouse to sign legal documents -- there would be absolutely nothing stopping gay couples from having the same ceremonies and have them mean the same thing.

Personally, I'd be OK with that, because then there truly wouldn't be any double standard. You're talking about entirely separating the religious and legal aspects of marriage. The great illusion being painted right now in politics is that these aspects are already separated: they're not. As it is right now, gay couples can have a ceremony, but it's legally hollow; so in order to maintain their privileged position while appeasing gay couples, those against gay marriage suggested that they settle for civil unions. What you're suggesting would truly level the playing field because, finally, straight marriage ceremonies would carry absolutely no more weight than gay marriage ceremonies, and churches would be free to host any and all they please. (They currently cannot do so because of the legal baggage associated with the process, which specifically excludes gay couples.)

Interesting.

The New Testament is actually pretty gay-friendly. I'm an atheist, so it's all rather irrelevant to me, but it pains me to see Christians quoting Old Testament passages and not having any clue how Jesus' preaching was supposed to be a deliberate departure from Old Testament values.

They should allow gay marriage over there. In Germany anyone can marry I think. It is not really a church thing here. More a government thing. You go to the registry office and marry there. That's it. If you want you can "marry" again in a church after that (Not sure if Gays can do that here tho) if you want it to be traditional. But seriously.. the church shouldn't be able to forbid you if you want to have such a bond with someone. It's 2011..

Edit: Not fair that gays can't have the same rights as a married couple just because the church don't want them to be married. If the church gets to decide who marries then there shouldn't be any different rights for a married couple. It's just the church after all. Church =/= government I thought. You have the right to choose your religion but you don't have the same rights as married couples then. Seems paradox to me