Anti-Gay Marriage Constitutional Amendments?

[burgundy]

What are you trying to argue here?

Read.

[Captain Vegetable]

Nothing to hope for? Wow, just wow. I'm hoping to live in a world without prejudice, something that I'm sure everyone has faced at some point in their lives for some reason.

And if you ever come to live in this utopean society, it sure as Hell won't be because humans just up and decided to stop hating eachother.

[AstroBlue]

A change in the Constitution is a lot different to a change in an Act. That's like comparing blush with breast augmentation.

[Stone]

I don't think "gays molest kids".

Homosexuality has historically been deeply intertwined with pedophilia, which is a reality. It was a reality during ancient greece, and it is a reality now. What replaces the traditional deeply held cultural beliefs that have for the most part prevented heterosexual incest for the past few millenia?

I'm (hopefully obviously) not trying to claim that gay marriage is going to lead to roving platoons of abusive gay fathers, lustfully ransacking orphan houses. However, I do think there is a hell of a lot of ancillary evidence that leads me to believe that gay marriage/adoption isn't something our society needs to promote, some net good that we need to force down our collective throats.

Heterosexual couples who do not want to reproduce have the capability to traditionally reproduce. Heterosexual couples who are infertile could normally reproduce, if not for X. They are equal in capability to heterosexual couples who do want to reproduce. Equal protection - same thing goes for interracial couples.

We are not talking about a civil rights issue, we're talking about an issue involving social mores. In a case like this, the majority should rule. The majority does not approve of defining marriage to include homosexuals, and because of that, marriage should not include homosexuals.

[Captain Vegetable]

A change in the Constitution is a lot different to a change in an Act. That's like comparing blush with breast augmentation.

You are correct! Though to what degree of relevance this idea applies I am still questioning.

I know this, man. But what the Hell does this have to do with anything?

I don't think "gays molest kids".

Homosexuality has historically been deeply intertwined with pedophilia, which is a reality. It was a reality during ancient greece, and it is a reality now. What replaces the traditional deeply held cultural beliefs that have for the most part prevented heterosexual incest for the past few millenia?

Heterosexual couples who do not want to reproduce have the capability to traditionally reproduce. Heterosexual couples who are infertile could normally reproduce, if not for X. They are equal in capability to heterosexual couples who do want to reproduce. Equal protection - same thing goes for interracial couples.

We are not talking about a civil rights issue, we're talking about an issue involving social mores. In a case like this, the majority should rule. The majority does not approve of defining marriage to include homosexuals, and because of that, marriage should not include homosexuals.

[burgundy]

The Defence of Marriage Act

applies only to federal recognition of state marriages.

http://www.cnn.com/US/9609/10/gay.marriage/

The Massachusetts Supreme Court is perfectly justified is deciding that recognition of gay marriages is required under the Massachusetts Constitution.

Anyone know how this act has fared in the courts?

[AstroBlue]

I know this, man. But what the Hell does this have to do with anything?

Well, why do you think Bush is going for a Consitutional ammendment? And not a further ammendment to an act?

[Stone]

Hey, I still think this is bullshit: "In a separate vote, the Senate voted 50-49 against a bill that would have banned employers from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation."

I don't think gay marriage is a right or a necessity. I do think that gay people have the right to be treated equally to others for the purposes of obtaining and keeping a job. Is marriage really more important than changing this aspect of job discrimination law?

It's too bad you can't have selective job discrimination. Gays, men, women, should all be treated equally for the purposes of choosing your company's CEO. We ought to be able, though, to not hire a man at Hooters, or a homosexual as a breast inspector.

[burgundy]

We are not talking about a civil rights issue

is where we fundamentally disagree, and that means everything else you typed is moot to me.

I don't think gay marriage is a right or a necessity. I do think that gay people ought to be treated equally to others for the purposes of obtaining and keeping a job. Is marriage really more important than changing this aspect of job discrimination law?

I agree that the discrimination law is worse, but that doesn't make the marriage law good.

Reasons why gay marriage should be viewed as a right or necessity:

When gay people say that this is a civil rights issue, we are referring to matters like the fact that we cannot make medical decisions for our partners in an emergency. Instead, the hospitals are usually forced by state laws to go to the families who may be estranged from us for decades, who are often hostile to us, and totally ignore our wishes for the treatment of our partners. If that hostile family wishes to exclude us from the hospital room, they may legally do so in nearly all cases. It is even not uncommon for hostile families to make decisions based on their hostility -- with results actually intended to be inimical to the interests of the patient! One couple I know uses the following line in the "sig" lines on their email: "...partners and lovers for 40 years, yet still strangers before the law." Is this fair?
If our partners are arrested, we can be compelled to testify against them or provide evidence against them, which legally married couples are not forced to do. Is this fair?

In many cases, even carefully drawn wills and durable powers of attorney have proven to not be enough if a family wishes to challenge a will, overturn a custody decision, or exclude us from a funeral or deny us the right to visit a partner's grave. As survivors, they can even sieze a real estate property that we may have been buying together for years, quickly sell it at a huge loss and stick us with the remaining debt on a property we no longer own. Is this fair?

These aren't just theoretical issues, either; they happen with surprising frequency. Almost any older gay couple can tell you horror stories of friends who have been victimized in such ways.

These are all civil rights issues that have nothing whatever to do with the ecclesiastical origins of marriage; they are matters that have become enshrined in state laws over the years in many ways that exclude us from the rights that legally married couples enjoy and consider their constitutional right. This is why we say it is very much a civil rights issue; it has nothing to do with who performs the ceremony or whether an announcement is accepted for publication in the local paper. It is not a matter of "special rights" to ask for the same rights that other couples enjoy by law, even by constitutional mandate.

http://www.bidstrup.com/marriage.htm

[Stone]

Reform power of attorney law. Beyond that, the guy doesn't deal with the best reason not to redefine gay marriage: "51%+ of Americans don't want to."