Gay Marriages in California Are Safe, Gay Marriage Not So Much

Observers are predicting that the California Supreme Court will uphold Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot initiative that amended the state constitution to ban gay marriage, by a 5-to-23 vote. At the same time, the court seems likely to rule that same-sex marriages performed before the initiative remain valid. The court, which in a 4-to-3 decision last year ruled that an earlier gay marriage ban was unconstitutional, heard oral arguments in the case yesterday. Although I think the government should treat gay and straight couples equally, the predicted decision seems legally correct to me. The issue before the court is whether Proposition 8 merely amends the constitution, which can be done by a popular vote, or fundamentally revises it, which requires either a two-thirds vote of the legislature or a constitutional convention.

Last week I discussed a proposed compromise on gay marriage involving federal recognition of civil unions. The week before, I noted that Utah's governor had come out in favor of civil unions for gay couples. In December I urged both sides in this debate to recognize the distinction between public and private discrimination. Other Reason coverage of gay marriage here.

Comments

[Grandpa Whithers]

"At the same time, the court seems likely to rule that same-sex marriages performed before the initiative remain valid."

Grandqueered in?

[FrBunny]

So first things first: did Winkler get in before the cutoff?

[Juanita Classics?]

Juanita | June 30, 2008, 3:28pm | #

Fireworks are dangerous, that is why they are illegal. They are unsafe for children to play with. America is a free country and that includes the freedom not to be harmed ban dangerous illegal fireworks. The purveyors of illegal fireworks and those that possess them need to be rounded up by the police for some good 'ole fashioned SEVERE PUNISHMENT.

J

[kilroy]

Marriage is has become a legal trap. There should be no reason anyone of any gender combination should get special rights/privileges for coupling up. If there weren't bogus economic and social incentives given to married people would anyone care that gays couldn't marry?

The whole thing is bullshit.

[Gilbert Martin]

"The issue before the court is whether Proposition 8 merely amends the constitution, which can be done by a popular vote, or fundamentally revises it, which requires either a two-thirds vote of the legislature or a constitutional convention."

And just what is the distinction between a "mere amendment" and a "fundamental revision"?

I don't know anything about the specific language of the California constitution but I doubt that anyone could seriously claim that a gay marriage ban enacted any fundamental change
in of rights of individuals and power of government written into the pre-existing language as that language was understood by those who originally ratified the document.

[Tony]

The main problem here is the ease with which Californians can amend their constitution. There have been rumblings of a constitutional convention in that state. I think it's long overdue.

I support gay marriage rights but I almost think tactically a ruling in favor of Prop 8 here is better in the long run. God knows the whining and moaning and shouts to hang the judges we'd all be subjected to if they rule the other way.

[Nemo]

kilroy, even if no one admits it, gay marriage is at its root about normality. Recognition of gay marriage is legal-and by implication societywide-acceptance of the existence of GLB people. The financial advantages are very much secondary.

[ChicagoTom]

The arguments presented by Ken Starr (who argued in favor of Prop 8) were rather "interesting" :

The people "have the raw power to define rights," he told the court while arguing in favor of invalidating over 18,000 marriages.

"The right of the people is inalienable to change their constitution through the amendment process," said Starr. "The people are sovereign and they can do very unwise things, and things that tug at the equality principle."

Chief Justice Ronald George posed a hypothetical: what if the majority demanded the right to free speech be revoked?

"After much banter back and forth, Starr says they do," reported Advocate.com. The Los Angeles Times reported similarly on Starr's alarming response.

"So, what Starr is saying is that if the people had stripped all civil rights from gays and lesbians, he would argue to uphold that," opined the blog GayWired.

[ChicagoTom]

Oops forgot to post a link to the orginal source in the above post.

[Hayekian Dreamer]

I think clearly the expected decision in California is the right one, you can't simply overturn something like prop 8 without it causing a massive backlash. Give it a few years and try to amend the constitution again, ideally when a black candidate is not running for national office and attracting huge numbers of disproportionately anti-gay black voters to the polls.

With that said, from a libertarian perspective I still fail to see why making a distinction between a civil union and a marriage is necessary unless you believe the government should have the right to single out and stigmatize a group of people by using a term solely created to deny them the institution of marriage. I say we don't have a paralllel system of terminology, pick civil union or marriage and call all legally recognized relationships between two unrelated people one or the other.

[Slappy McFacepalm]

It's a bit premature to use a headline like "Gay Marriages in California Are Safe, Gay Marriage Not So Much" for an article which begins "[o]bservers are predicting..."

Remember "Dewey Defeats Truman?" Heh.

Thanks, whoever, for the Juanita Classics. Once again proving Poe's law.

[R C Dean]

Although I think the government should treat gay and straight couples equally, the predicted decision seems legally correct to me.

Me, too.

And just what is the distinction between a "mere amendment" and a "fundamental revision"?

From the SCOC's perspective, any change that a majority of its members oppose is a fundamental revision, but any change that a majority supports is a mere amendment.

YMMV.

[Gilbert Martin]

"From the SCOC's perspective, any change that a majority of its members oppose is a fundamental revision, but any change that a majority supports is a mere amendment."

Heh, yeah - in the same vein they use in cases challenging the Constitutionality of some law passed by the legislature: If the judges happens to like the law, it's "Constitutional" and if not, then it isn't.

[Episiarch]

So first things first: did Winkler get in before the cutoff?

Chicks are always the worst hazers.

Stay strong, Fonz! As strong as your weak, womanly body can be!

[Gilbert Martin]

"The people "have the raw power to define rights," he told the court while arguing in favor of invalidating over 18,000 marriages."

Technically speaking, getting a goverment issued marriage license isn't a "right" in the first place any more than getting a government issued driver's licence is.

[kilroy]

Nemo, I disagree. If marriage and family favouritism wasn't built into our socio-economic system I doubt they would really care that much.

[Hayekian Dreamer]

Gilbert Martin - Indeed, the more interesting question is whether the government has the right to give a particular benefit to SOME people but not others based purely on an immutable trait such as gender. Even if you reject the notion of rights being given to marriage at all you can't ignore that those rights do exist and are given to only some people based purely on an arbitrary distinction.

[Dewey, Cheatem and Howe, Attor]

We're 100% for gay marriage.

[Tulpa]

Not to worry, it won't be long before we have 18,000 gay divorces to bring things back to where they should have been anyway.

[Gilbert Martin]

Dreamer, I don't much care about the gay marriange issue itself much one way or another.

The world won't come to an end - if gay marriage is sanctioned by government - or if it's not.

What I do care about is judicial activism subverting the rule of law - at the state or federal level.

And that means upholding the federal and state Constitutions according to the actual text of what was ratified as per the common understanding of what those words meant by those who ratified it at the time they ratified it.

No one could argue with a straight face that, on that basis, there is anything in either the federal or California Constitutons that ennumerates a "right" to gay marriage.

When women were given the vote, it was done the hard way (and the right way) via the Constitutional amendment process. Since that time, factions that want to force major social changes on society don't want to do the hard work of going through the legislative process and convincing enough of the population to support it. Instead they want to make stuff up and claim it's in the Constitution as a means to cram it down on a society that they know couldn't get to voluntarily approve of it without them doing a lot more convincing work and taking a lot more time.

That isn't the rule of law.

[Hayekian Dreamer]

I completely agree with you about doing it the "hard" way, note my post above supporting the probable ruling of the California Supreme Court. I think on the merits gay marriage could win in the courts, but I think doing it that way is contrary to the give and take and process of Democracy. However, as a separate argument, it's ALSO true that as much as doing it through the legislative process is my preferred method and will lead to a more lasting acceptance of it's adoption, I think that some of the current laws arbitrary distinctions are on their face discriminatory. I favor democratic debate and discussion as to the need for the arbitrary distinctions, I favor discussions as to the purpose of creating a brand new never before needed institution such as civil unions rather than just opening civil marriage to same sex couples.

So, I'm not arguing for the Court to intervene, I'm arguing that society needs to take a long hard look at what decisions we're making and whether they're ultimately the right way to go. Those discussions could take place in a court room, they certainly have before and I have little doubt they will again, but I think bringing them up outside of the courtroom shouldn't suggest I'm supporting using judicial fiat to impose my views on a populace.

[juris imprudent]

by a 5-to-3 vote

Uh Jacob there are only seven justices on the CA SC, where did the extra vote come from?

[VinceP1974]

I think there's two issues

1 - How to enact such change
2 - The case for Gay Marriage itself

First. IMHO this is not an issue for the courts. This is an issue for the American people to decide on. The people of this country retain teh soverign right to have their representatives enact into law via the State Govts the policies that they so choose.

No one is excluded from marrying a member of the opposite sex.

The reason the State gives recongnition to Marriage is because it is the traditional insitution by which human beings create children and raise them. This is something non-hetereosexual relationships cannot do normally.

Marriage is thousands of years old and never in no society have there been homosexual marriage. Marriage is not for us to redefine, marriage is what it is.

It is simply too-bad that insecure Leftists cannot get society to give them all a hug. Civil Unions are entirely appropiate and they should be grateful that enough people support them.

The Courts in this country are absolutely abusing their authority when they create Homosexual Marriage law.
Courts are to follow the law or render specific acts invalid. But they cannot create new law.
Well, they shouldn't anyway.

As for the merits of gay marriage itself. I'm gay and I oppose gay marriage. I dont think the life-long monogamous relationship model is one that works with gay people.

You see, one of the things that marriage does is create a social expectation that married men won't go sleeping around on their wives, impreganating multiple women and create babies everywhere. This destroys every family this man involves himself.. all the wives, mistresses , and their children. Thus the man has to restrained and have to go so far as to obligate him to make an oath to God that he won't do that.

What is the consequence if a gay guy cheats on his whatever... nothing other than perhaps STD. Other than disease, sex has no consequence for gay guys.

You dont need State recognition of marriage in order to have a monogamous gay releationship so those up for that challenege could have always lived this way.

The vast number of gay relationships that i know that span more than a decade almost all involve non-monogamy.

If disease-control is being cited as a motivation FOR gay marriage, I will disagree. I believe it's nearly impossible for gay guy to never cheat on his bf. Sure many are able to remain faithful but just as many if not more are not able.

Gay men look to the man-woman relationship model and say "Hmm. if he sleeps around on me that means he doesnt want me"

But that's not neccesarily true because homo-sex has far far far fewer risks of destroying relationships / creating children then straight-sex.

So the calculation to cheat is different.

But if one is under the strict rules of Marriage, cheating means the end of the relationship.. this forces people to lie. Instead of being honest with one another about the temptations to sleep around, this unrealistic Marriage model forces them to lie about it. And with lies come wrong assumptions and those wrong assumptions can lead to disease.

======

Plus there's one other thing. This is obscure. But I believe the major national security issue facing Northern countries will be population decline by mid-century. We should be doing all we can to ensure a positive population growth and that this is achieved through nuclear families.

This is going to mean that people in that status will be favored in law. I think you'll see the eventual reimposition of ilegality over all abortion. Perhaps even birth control restrictions.

What happens in Europe in the coming decades will be key and will serve as a warning for us in America.

[Michael Ejercito]

I support gay marriage rights but I almost think tactically a ruling in favor of Prop 8 here is better in the long run. God knows the whining and moaning and shouts to hang the judges we'd all be subjected to if they rule the other way.

Fortunately, the case law is against the petitioners.

In every discussion I have read on this issue, not one person cited case law favoring the hypothesis that Prop. 8 is a revision.

[Hayekian Dreamer]

VinceP1974 -
The reason the State gives recongnition to Marriage is because it is the traditional insitution by which human beings create children and raise them. This is something non-hetereosexual relationships cannot do normally.

While I actually agree with your first point, that the issue is not best served in the courts, this is where you start to put up straw men and make flat out incorrect assertions. It's true that gay couples cannot procreate, but considering that gay couples in almost every state have the right to adopt children does society not have some responsibility to give gay couples, whom they allow to raise children the same tools they're willing to give every other couple? What is the point of protecting heterosexual couples because they can reproduce, (whether or not they actually choose to do so) but refusing the same protection for gay couples that actually ARE raising children?

As for the case for gay marriage, it is the same as for heterosexual marriage: The protection of children, because according to the 2000 census approximately 1 million children are being raised by gay couples. It's a straw man that gay couples are not capable of monogamy and are not inclined to raise children.

[TrickyVic]

Does CA have an equal rights amendment? If so would amending the Constitution to allow something that violates the equal rights amendment be a revision?

[Straight Ex-Medic]

From WHY I SUPPORT GAY MARRIAGE
(AN EX-PARAMEDIC'S VIEW) (url link above):

Once upon a time in the 1980s, I was privileged to cross over into that other "world" often enough to see that good marriages, capable of surviving the ultimate test of the slow and painful death of one partner, can and do exist among gays.

(So why not let the law recognize their bond? Are there, like, not enough marriage licenses to go around?)

[Michael Ejercito]

\

If so would amending the Constitution to allow something that violates the equal rights amendment be a revision?

No, it would be an amendment.

[brotherben]

whoa now just wait a minuet. Did vince really say that homosexuality is a national security issue because they aren't creating more people to counter the menace of teh peops what be hatin on us??
OH MY FUCKING GOD! I've been married to a woman for 22 years but that ,my friend, is the dumbest shit I have ever heard.

[Hayekian Dreamer]

brotherben - Yeah, that was just so far out there I thought I'd let that particular insanity speak for itself. Perhaps he should read the reason article from the August/September 2006 issue, Fear of a Brown Planet, that kind of scare mongering should really be beneath most people (aside from the fact it's blatantly racist)

[prolefeed]

If there weren't bogus economic and social incentives given to married people would anyone care that gays couldn't marry?

Gays already can marry, in every state and city in the union. It's the government recognition, or lack thereof, that's causing all the bitter feeling.

And, yes, from hanging around Mormons for several years, and listening to the often rancorous debate here in Hawaii over the legislation to enact civil unions, I can assure you that millions of people in this country care deeply about who can get married, whether or not the government is involved.

[brotherben]

[brotherben]

I feel really guilty now. We decided to stop having kiddies after we had 2. Economic reasons mainly. Now I find out that I am helping the brown menace because I didn't knock up the wife 15 or 20 times. Doom on me.

not to mention that by vince's figuring, me bein on the down low would be just fine.

[polo]

Redtube

[ed]

The court, which in a 4-to-3 decision last year ruled that an earlier gay marriage ban was unconstitutional, heard oral arguments in the case yesterday

Let me know when they get to the anal arguments. That's what really matters to Christian Defenders of All-Holy and Mighty Matrimony.

[VinceP1974]

>brotherben: whoa now just wait a minuet. Did vince really say that homosexuality is a national security issue because they aren't creating more people to counter the menace of teh peops what be hatin on us??

No. I called population growth rates to be a national security issue.

Do you disagree? There's no need for you to jump into hysterical hyperbole land.

Folks like you are why vitally important topics in this country cannot be talked about...

I'm not adhering to your politically correct "don't come close to offending me" bullshit.

If you're not aware of the demographic catastrophe facing the West, then you should apply your snark to yourself for your ignorance.

[Rabscuttle]

Vince, maybe we should let more people immigrate (legally) into this country then if we're facing such a demographic catastrophe.

[VinceP1974]

I think the State encouraging nuclear families and protecting Marriage as it is now, is important for the long-term stability of the nation.

This doesn't mean I'm anti-that , but that I recognize that there is some profound nature to the current arrangement, that to disturb it any more than it already is, will have negative consequences.

The below interview touches on a number of ways that the population losing its religion results in degradation and increasing risk of Islamic domination.

I'm certainly not advocating any change in the American principle of not mixing church and state, but I do believe there are some areas, such as marriage, where a pragmatic recognition has to be made.

I know this is a Libertarian site and most folks are Anti-Religion. I respect that.. everyone's viewpoint is their prerogative and as Americans we hold our views with pride.

But just think ... I dont think there has been any major long-term civilization that was secular and free of religion. Do we have any objective knowledge as to what a lack of religion in a society will bring to a society that was once religious?

The only examples I can think of are Communist states,and they don't seem like good example to follow.

This is an excerpt from the interview

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/relrpt/stories/s1603430.htm

Stephen Crittenden: Finally Niall, I want to turn to the issue of the decline of Christian religious faith in the West. You make the point that it's not just a question of the decline of population, there's also this decline of religious faith. And at one point you write, 'Why have Britons lost their historic faith? To be frank, I have no idea, but I do know it matters'.

Niall Ferguson: Yes, it's one of the least studies and most important questions for modern historians, why organised Christianity, both in terms of observance and in terms of faith, sail off a cliff in Europe sometime in the 1970s, 1980s. And the explanations that have been offered for this phenomenon so far are relatively weak and unconvincing. What's clear is it's got nothing to do with economic development because it hasn't happened in the United States, where Christianity is alive and well in what is a modern, secular society in so many ways. So we have a real puzzle here: why is Christianity dying out in its traditional core heartland, what used to be called Christendom, why are Europeans becoming godless? And it's such an important question because it makes Europe quite vulnerable (I hesitate to use your term 'decadent') but it makes it vulnerable to penetration by -

Stephen Crittenden: I thought it was your term?

Niall Ferguson: I mean to me this is one of the reasons why it's quite easy for radical Islamists to make inroads in Western Europe because there isn't in a sense, any religious resistance there. In a secular society where nobody believes in anything terribly much except the next shopping spree, it's really quite easy to recruit people to radical, monotheistic positions. It's just that the monotheism that's making the running at the moment is Islam, rather than Christianity.

Stephen Crittenden: Some people would argue that all of this de-Christianisation in Europe has created a moral vacuum. I wonder however, whether the majority of people in the population aren't basically pretty conservative, and whether those Christian values have seeped into the DNA of the culture and that on the whole those values have - we hear lots of alarm bells and alarmist talk - but basically those values are still reasonably intact.

Niall Ferguson: Well of course it's hard to measure that kind of thing. Clearly religious values cannot become part of the human DNA, that is a metaphor but it doesn't have any biological reality. What one does see in urban Europe, and it's really quite striking, is a level of low intensity criminality that wasn't there before. Social order is not in great shape in the typical West European city, and it's really quite a striking contrast, when you go to oh, I don't know, San Antonio, Texas.

Stephen Crittenden: And as an economic historian, is your sense that the reasons for that are not economic? That they really are, if you like, civilisational?

Niall Ferguson: I think there's no question there's a connection between religion and economic and social behaviour. Max Weber was not the first person to make an argument about the relationship between Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. I think more recent work, for example Robert Barrow, my colleague here at Harvard, has done some very interesting work on the relationship between religious belief, religious observance and social order and economic behaviour, and it's actually quite striking, there do seem to be some important correlations here. I myself, although I was not brought up in a religious household, and I suppose if I were pressed, would have to admit to being a kind of incurable atheist, I'm nevertheless strongly convinced that religion performs important social functions in the transmission say, of ethical values between generations, and that a society that does away with it, that ceases to engage in any kind of formal religious instruction, is a society that's likely to be less good at maintaining social order than one which maintains a measure of religious faith and observance. And that is based purely on historical observation. The experiments with atheism as the basis for political order, say in the Soviet Union after the Bolshevik Revolution, did not produce happy results. So I think one really does away with Christianity, or indeed one does away with God at one's peril. Human beings do seem to behave better when they have some sense of moral authority in the world, and indeed some kind of formal system for inculcating good ethical behaviour.

[VinceP1974]

>Vince, maybe we should let more people immigrate (legally) into this country then if we're facing such a demographic catastrophe.

I'm not so sure a massive immigration policy is a good idea. It will change the culture of the country at a time when we're in danger of losing our Constitutional principles. Our American concept of Rights. Individualism. Limited Govt, etc.

[ed]

I dont think there has been any major long-term civilization that was secular and free of religion

Give it some time, Vince. Humans have been around for 100,000 years or so, and not until 6000-10,000 years ago did they have the means and wherewithal to start creating civilizations. Freedom from religion is the single most important achievement of civilized man.

[Mad Max]

'Give it a few years and try to amend the constitution again, ideally when a black candidate is not running for national office and attracting huge numbers of disproportionately anti-gay black voters to the polls.'

Or find a way around that annoying Fifteenth Amendment, so that those ignorant colored voters won't be cluttering up the voting with their superstitious prejudices.

Vince,

Excellent point about the demographic crisis and the decline of Christianity in its traditional heartland. And immigration is not necessarily a cure for the crisis (while it might be helpful to have people in this country who are Americans by choice). Where I may not agree with your emphasis is in the following quote:

'Other than disease, sex has no consequence for gay guys.'

That sounds kind of like, 'other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?'

[brotherben]

Vince, hysterical hyperbole is what i do best, I guess.

I don't disagree with with the idea that a Godless society is destined to failure. However, I believe that if the miilions of people in the U.S. that claim to be christians actually lived as such, the country wouldn't be spiraling downward. You can legislate some moral actions, but you can't legislate morality. Repentance and Faith in Jesus as Saviour is what people need, not more laws.
If the christians of this nation want change to occur, it has to start with them. The eternal soul of every person on earth is at stake. Instead of fighting for laws to keep people from same sex marriage, or abortion, or buying beer on Sunday, maybe spend the energy and time in prayer and fasting. Seek God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself.

The country has fallen farther into spiritual disrepair because christians are more worried about how a person lives their life than how they will spend there eternity.

If christians in america were 10% as diligent in their faith as muslims in the middle east are, america would be a very different place.

[Mad Max]

brotherben,

Fair enough so far as it goes, except as follows: If those of us in America's Christian majority actually had a spiritual renewal among America's Christian majority, then indeed we would be doing a better job at loving our neighbors as ourselves, including our unborn neighbors. Loving our neighbor doesn't mean standing by with arms folded as our neighbors are brutally murdered, while issuing pieties about how, while we're of course 'personally opposed' to murder, we would not presume to interfere with the activities of the murderers.

Abortion is the most morally urgent issue which where a spiritual renewal would have public-policy implications. There are other issues, though. On the issue of marriage, a spiritual renewal would make it much less likely that the government would dare to rewrite the definition of marriage with laws about unilateral divorce on demand and gay marriage.

[brotherben]

Max, agreed. Spiritual renewal, imo, won't come from the government. For example: slavery was outlawed in the seceeded south well over a hundred years ago but the hatred of blacks is still around. I am not advocating for slavery. I am saying that very little was done spiritually to get whites to see the sinfulness of that hate. Changing the sinner changes behaviour, not the other way around.

[brotherben]

As a christian, a person also excercises personal responsibility. They give charitably. They are lawful. They in fact require less governance. The government has less burden to help the poor due to increased charity from christians. Less burden for law enforcement. Less burden for drug enforcement. Lower health care costs. etc. Christianity, imo, fits very well with libertarian thought.

[ed]

Not to intervene in Bible class, entertaining as it is, but the continent was much improved when the Europeans started moving in. Immigration isn't always a bad thing. Where would we be if the Italians and Jews and Germans and Mexicans hadn't brought all their delicious food with them? I'll tell you where: eating greasy, overcooked, bloody English crap, that's where.

[Mad Max]

brotherben,

Certainly.

[Rabscuttle]

Give it a few years and try to amend the constitution again, ideally when a black candidate is not running for national office and attracting huge numbers of disproportionately anti-gay black voters to the polls.

And they say black voters aren't taken for granted by liberals. They're expected to vote for whatever candidate the Dems put up for election, but when it comes to the issues the white elite Dems disagree with them on, they're expected to stay home and keep their mouths shut.

As bad as the treatment pro-lifers get from the GOP is, it appears that blacks are even more disrespected by the party most of them support.

[Rabscuttle]

Or find a way around that annoying Fifteenth Amendment, so that those ignorant colored voters won't be cluttering up the voting with their superstitious prejudices.

Imagine the gnashing of teeth on the left if some enterprising soul puts an abortion ban on the ballot when Obama runs again in 2012, and those "disproportionately pro-life" blacks dare to vote for something that hasn't been approved by the Dem elites.

[brotherben]

Rabscuttle, are you saying that prop 8 was timed to coincide with a black candidate for potus, with the assumption that there would be a historically high nunmber a black voters? With foreknowledge that those voters would vote anti-gay? Or that it simply turned out to be bad timing, and the liberal dems are disappointed?

[Rabscuttle]

The second one, brother, since the machinery to get it on the ballot was already in motion long before Obama was the nominee. But since it's already virtually certain that he'll be running in 2012, perhaps the pro-life forces can use that fact to our advantage. It would run counter to the usual pro-life strategy of fighting against each other at worst, and at best just screaming loudly in the hopes that someone will listen, but maybe we should try working smarter not harder for once.

[brotherben]

That would make for a very interesting election. And a major fecal storm in the courts, if passed.

[VM]

let's just stick dickhead2 and vince on the same starship and send them to omega 7. mel gibson wanna be is the pilot.

i guess the lengthening pump didn't work for you, there, bud, huh?

twaddlenock.

[Rabscuttle]

If doing God's will makes me a dickhead, let me be e^dickhead, or even better dickhead^dickhead with dickhead >> 1.

[Rabscuttle]

I thought the Mouth of Sauron/gorilla poacher in Ace Ventura 2 was the pilot in Mad Max, anyway.

[ed]

If doing God's will makes me a dickhead, let me be a dickhead

You stole that from Martin Luther, didn't you.

[Rabscuttle]

You misquoted me -- and I don't steal anything from a guy who split Christendom in two just so he could have his vows revoked so he could get his rocks off with a comely nun.

[brotherben]

I'm sorry, which dickhead am I?

[Rabscuttle]

brotherben, I have a history with VM from the days when both of us went by different names.

[VinceP1974]

Like I said earlier. i'm gay. I make no claims to being a model Christian.. but I realize that a society needs to uphold some value system.. even if its hypocritical.

I'm with Camile Paglia in that idea... maintaining that there is ideal public morality even if one does not fully abide by it.

I haven't studied this at all. but I presume this is how society was in the past. People are people , so I dont think their behavior-when-no-one-looking has changed radically... but giving up the values wholesale and not passing them to the youth... well maybe you can get by with two generations like that, but as the people with the values die off... then the newer generations will encounter them even less in addition to not being taught them.. and in three generations you are completely cut off from your traditions. And when I say values i'm not restricting them to morality , sex, etc.. even national civic values. Like adherance and respect of the Consitituion, the Flag, the Founders, the principles of America.

When I watch videos on the Internet of speeches on college campus by conservatives, the student crowd makes me fearful of the future. The utter indifference to Freedom of Speech, the intolerance of opposing viewpoints. the stupid way in which they consider someone a "racist", their herd mentality, their taking offensive on behalf of other people etc... It's mindnumbing.

So anyway.. the point of this comment and the earlier ones was to support why I am against gay marriage, and why the issue is a little more complex than two gay guys getting married, and also that to be against it doens't mean one is necessarily against gay people

[VinceP1974]

I been following the Demographic thing for most of the decade.

This recent trailer for a docu "Demographic Winter" is pretty good

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG2IZEzUmA0 The full version of hte movie was on google video at one time but someone pulled it down.

They had a Q&A at the Heritage Foundation which was interesting . that's here

http://www.heritage.org/Press/Events/ev021208a.cfm

- If anyone was interested.

[Hayekian Dreamer]

Vince - Again though, you're ignoring the fact that some gay couples are more inclined to start a family than perhaps you are. If society allows gay couples to raise children then there is no reason those children don't deserve every societal support children raised by straight couples receive, and that includes giving their parents the option to be married.

[Mad Max]

Vince,

I sincerely admire your courage in coming out as a gay cultural conservative. Talk about risks - talk about exposing oneself to the attacks of bigoted ignoramuses!

As to the anti-free-speech students you cite, they are certainly very noisy and disruptive, but that doesn't mean they represent the majority of students, and they certainly don't represent the cream of the crop. The main problem is the sympathetic administrators who sometimes waver in their commitment to punishing these hooligans.

[Rabscuttle]

I've lived too long. Gay marriage...it's for the children!

Please explain how their gay parents having a marriage certificate from the state is going to help children. I could see saying that a societal attitude that gay parents are just as good as straight parents might do so, but a marriage certificate doesn't bring that about. Indeed gay marriage will undoubtedly bring about a backlash in some corners if endorsed by the state.

[Rabscuttle]

Mad Max, I'm not so sure about that. Teen and early twenties youth are not so much rebellious as devout in their strict adherence to an alternate conformity. Right now they see our society as being dominated by right wingers (rightly or wrongly) and thus are eager to conform to the leftist zeitgeist.

Of course, it's gone the other way too: look at the happenings at German universities during the Weimar republic for an account of what happens when right-wing ideologies become chic.

[Hayekian Dreamer]

Rabscuttle - Any number of ways. Say that you live in a state where individuals are allowed to adopt, but unmarried couples are not (as is often the case). Then say the adoptive parent dies and the family assumes custody - what rights does the non-adoptive parent have if the family doesn't like them? Isn't it in the best interests of the child to keep him or her with the parent they've known and loved rather than some relatives that don't like his parent?

Or, say that the adoptive parent was killed by a drunk driver and the non-adoptive parent isn't working (not exactly far fetched in this economy). Raising a kid is expensive in the best of times and it wouldn't be unusual to sue the drunk driver for loss of consortium if they were married. Under the current law it's difficult for many gay couples to even have standing under a wrongful death lawsuit, much less that.

Aside from that, you're also completely correct that marriage does tend to give children a greater sense of stability. As Vince pointed out, it suggests monogamy, love, commitment, it's the ultimate affirmation that a kid's parents intend to stay together for life (even though of course a significant number of marriages fail anyway). If he doesn't want to enter into that it's his business but why he'd want to potentially close off options for over one million children raised by gay parents...

[TrickyVic]

"""This doesn't mean I'm anti-that , but that I recognize that there is some profound nature to the current arrangement, that to disturb it any more than it already is, will have negative consequences."""

Wasn't that line of arguement used in favor of slavery, and to not give blacks, and women a right to vote?

Relax, allowing gays to marry won't have near the negative consequences as say, tripling the debt.

[TrickyVic]

"""Please explain how their gay parents having a marriage certificate from the state is going to help children"""

The same could be said about hetrosexual couples. If it's true, then why marry at all?