Posted on 10/28/2008 6:33:09 PM PDT by nickcarraway
If Prop. 8 wins, Newsom will be scapegoated. But the recriminations should focus on Ronald George.
I voted against Proposition 8, just as I voted against Proposition 22 in 2000, on equality-under-the-law grounds. I hope the anti-gay-marriage constitutional amendment fails on Tuesday.
But I'm increasingly beginning to suspect it will pass. Backers have mounted a shrewdly framed TV ad campaign that doesn't have the harsh edge many expected from die-hard opponents of gay marriage. Its focus on the possibility that school kids might be taught about gay marriage has touched a chord among parents. (No, I don't think this claim is preposterous, given how our legal and education communities work. I just don't find the prospect particularly scary.)
Prop. 8's odds have also been greatly increased by vast donations pouring in from the country from cultural and religious conservatives who see the fight as pivotal to preventing gay marriage becoming the norm around the nation and even the world. Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, told The New York Times that Prop. 8 was "more important than the presidential election."
So the stakes are high -- and the recriminations will be intense if Prop. 8 succeeds. I think San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom will be haunted forever by his braying, arrogant soundbite after the May state Supreme Court ruling declaring gay marriage legal in California: "The door's wide-open now. It's gonna happen, whether you like it or not!" It was off-the-charts smart for the pro-8 forces to replay the clip over and over in their ads.
For my money, though, any recriminations should focus on California Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald George. This state was gradually moving toward a gay-marriage consensus. But it just wasn't there yet when George, in his own way, declared it's gonna happen, whether you like it or not.
I found George's legal reasoning to be sound and persuasive. But given his past moderation and unadventurousness, his decisive vote to impose gay marriage on California was deeply uncharacteristic. It may well have been principled. Yet given George's history, it looks far more like posturing for the history books than anything else.
There's a lot of that going on around at the highest levels of state government. The guy at the top of the executive branch (Arnold Schwarzenegger) hunted for global acclaim by signing sweeping, unprecedented climate-change legislation and by pushing a sweeping, unprecedented (and plainly illegal) health insurance mandate. The guy who used to be the most powerful leader of the legislative branch (Fabian Nunez) hunted for the same acclaim by working with Arnold on both his crusades.
This spring, it was the guy at the top of the state judicial branch's chance to bask in global acclaim -- and Ron George jumped at the opportunity. But he may have hurt the cause of gay marriage far more than he helped it.
I will let readers of the thread judge that for themselves; assertion is not logical argument
I said that the exercise of a right by some may be a sin to others.
As far as I can tell, I have not used the word "sin"; why must you?
You can call pervert or sinner all you want. The point is it’s their right.
Again, you are the one repeating the word sin; I have not used it once, nor used any religious argument whatsoever. If you feel a compulsion to bash religions, do it in response to someone else's actual words, not mine.
Just as you have the right to call it what you want. Since they didn't’t harm or force you, what right do you have to call for a restriction of the behavior.
You haven't been paying attention, have you? They harm or force anyone who wants to control what their children learn about perversions and when. If Massachusetts is an example, parents will be subject to criminal prosecution if they oppose their small children's indoctrination about an aberration of nature. I call that harm. Homosexuality, by definition, does not embrace restraint or reason.
Shall we outlaw all things you or the majority consider sins or immoral.
You seem to have a serious hangup with sin. I empathize. It must be quite a burden. I have no such worry. Nothing is being outlawed, except perhaps the attempt to not only hijack our children, but also our language. At the risk of repeating myself...
Many thousands of years of tradition, based on as many years of societal experience worldwide, was undone in a few decades.
The notion that this perversion is a civil right was born and enshrined in the lifetime of most living Americans. It began quietly enough, as a tentative plea for tolerance, nothing more. The word right was totally, and importantly, absent from all the discussions and debates of the early movement. Justifiably so, as the movement was doomed to oblivion, if anything beyond modest and silent tolerance had been the expressed goal.
And here we are now. Not content with "don't ask don't tell" as a form of formal tolerance, the perverts have overreached into not only perverting themselves, our schools and society, but our language as well. They must have the word "marriage", too. Do they honestly believe that the rules of nature and biology, and 7000 years of tradition can be so easily cancelled?
You keep bringing up whether or not people are born gay. I have said nothing on the subject and it is not related to my argument. I don't know why you repeatedly bring it up?
Did you understand my comment as to why it doesn't matter? If you chose your religion, you have that right. If you're naturally born you have other rights. The nature, nurture issue is not related to what I am saying.
In order to recognize the right of people to pursue happiness then Cal may have to change. But given the court decision, it is you who are advocating the change. Gay people are getting married everyday in Cal. You want to stop that.
Doesn't matter the number of votes. Rights are not subject to the vote of the majority. I think that's what the moderate to conservative Cal court was trying to tell you and what USSC decisions have indicated for 200 years. Civics 101.
The 'rights' you refer to do not exist, have never existed, and can never exist.
The State Supreme Court created a “right” where one never existed, like the USSC did with Roe v Wade. The civil marriage license was not intended to sanctify the love between 2 people but to protect spouses and children from abandonment and to insure their inheritance rights. Gays want their love to be recognized as normal and they want the power of the state to enforce that notion, to teach school kids that they are normal and to silence those who think that they are, indeed, sick!
I might actually enjoy that, if you are equally prepared to accept the parallel list of things which were disgusting and unacceptable in most cultures through most of history, and have not changed that status to this day.
I'd start with...
Murder
Robbery
Rape
Burglary
Perjury
Bigamy
Cannibalism
Slander...
This could be a fun game.
No problem. I’m sure that are plenty here in the (former) Motor City that would see nothing odd about a government “carfare” program picking up the tab for a new set of wheels...
Seriously, Jenny is an intellectually honest liberal.
Whoa... Observation of the Higgs boson must be days away...
I made no statement about the morality of gay marriage. So, you don't know my opinion one way or the other. Based upon that, your allegation that I am using moral equivalency is false.
You really don't see the sin analogy. There are homosexuals in the society,some kiss and hold hands in public. You can hide your children from that depending on where you live and what your daily routine is. If that's true, you can hide them from gay marriage. If it's not true, they're already infected by the presence of the perverts.
We restrict someone's right to happiness by marrying because you consider it a perversion. You're free to call what somebody does a percersion, but on what basis are you requiring the government to prvevent them from being married? So you don't have to think about it?
I don't think we have anywhere else to go, you and I. Your use of the word pervert to deny someone the right to marry indicates the kind of thinking that someone espousing liberty cannot penetrate.
I'll not address you again if you pursue silly questions. I have other people who want to have an adult discussion.
Well we can’t have sick people trying to pursue happiness now can we? Definitely outta be a law!
The right to pursue happiness never existed? Wow, what country are you posting from? I think I see your problem.
The only rights that can be recognized under the law are those recognized by law. There iss no law recognizing the right to pursue happinness, much less the right to be happy.
I will not vote for a constitutional amendment to restrict people's rights. It is the responsibililty of those who would restrict rights to justify it.
The arguments on this thread, notwithstanding some of the very ignorant and silly comments, are not persuavive or serious enough to change the state constitution.
I think the yes side will win on Tuesday and the Newsom ad will have a lot of weight on the yes vote but restricting rights of others is not something to clebrate or be proud of. And voting for against something on the basis of Newsome,is giving up the responsibility to decide on the issues.
Have fun!
Break out the Civics 101 textbooks and re-read them, and also the classic treatises on the Social Contract.
Rights, by consent of the majority, are in fact subject to the vote of the majority, whether you like it or not.
In your gay universe, the ultimate authority, or right, would otherwise be wielded by the biggest, the meanest, the ones with the tanks and automatic weapons, or access to them. Who would argue with them?
You might also consider that the USSC has ruled in contradiction to itself on several occasions over the same 200 years.
Even the ultimate authority on "rights", can't seem to get it right long term.
Simon LeVay, a scientist who also happens to be gay made an interesting observation about the emphasis on the biology of homosexuality. He noted, "...people who think that gays and lesbians are born that way are also more likely to support gay rights" (1996, p. 282)
Now remember, Simon LeVay is a scientist who also happens to be gay. The problem is, there is no scientific evidence to support the "born that way" theory, but gay activists and others have done a great job pushing an idea that simply has no basis in science.
Now, since gay marriage will be on the California ballot then shouldn't voters have all the available information before they vote?
Also, there is a growing ex-gay population. That is a fact that people have to deal with. Two people who were very involved in gay magazines have walked away from the homosexual life. One is Michael Glatze who was co-founder of the magazine Young Gay America. The other is Charlene Cothran who is the publisher of Venus Magazine, a magazine that used to cater to gays but Cothran now uses the magazine to help homosexuals "walk out of homosexuality today." Thousands of others have also walked out of homosexuality.
Just as gays should be able to seek help with unwanted same-sex attraction, voters should have all the available information before they vote. Most thinking people would agree. But since science doesn't support the born that way theory, informed voters are less likely to support gay rights.
You can try and ignore the science, but informed voters should know the truth.
And since there is no benefit gays get with marriage that they don't already have, redefining marriage for the other 98% of the population is to force acceptance of a changeable behavior that has no basis in science.
What you're doing is literally rewriting language, history, and law by fiat. Marriage is a bonding between two people of the opposite sex. Nature has provided us with two sexes, who pleasantly make up about 50% of the population apiece. People tended to notice this back before Political Correctness brainwashed us into pretending that gender was a sociological construction. It was further noticed that these two sexes are biological counterparts to one another, and that they can produce offspring. And it was additionally noted that children are best brought up by such a pairing, with children learning how to relate to their own sex as well as to the opposite sex by observing their parents.
So we created an institution called marriage to celebrate the sexual bonding of people of the opposite sex. That is a unique bonding, different from the bonding between father and son, between brother and sister, between two close buddies, between any number of other pairings or groupings. PEOPLE OF THE SAME SEX CANNOT ENGAGE IN SUCH A BONDING. And there is no reason to pretend that they can.
This is why your assertion that a “right” to same-sex “marriage” exists unless someone can convince you (an advocate of same-sex “marriage”) that there shouldn't be such a right, is an Orwellian absurdity. It's akin to someone announcing that six year olds are adults, and then demanding that people who think six year olds are minors “prove” it to the satisfaction of those making the contrary claim. Notwithstanding the fact that the entire history of the world indicates that six year olds are indeed children, and there exists no record of any great philosopher, theologian, or legal scholar who claimed otherwise.
All you're doing is announcing that you, nufsed, are smarter than everyone from Aristotle to Jesus Christ to Aquinas to Confucius to Burke to Jefferson to de Toqueville to Holmes and beyond in “discovering” a “happiness right” to same-sex “marriage” that none of them ever imagined before. I guess John Marshall just happened to overlook this during his long tenure on the court. Too bad he didn't have your specially enlightened presence as one of his law clerks to inform him that not only does such a “right” exist, but like the War with Eurasia, it's always existed.
Perhaps that statement by Newsome will play a large factor in voter turnout. California voters: vote "yes" on Proposition 8.
I made no statement about the morality of gay marriage. So, you don't know my opinion one way or the other. Based upon that, your allegation that I am using moral equivalency is false.
Uhhh. Sorry to state the obvious, but I made no statement about "immorality" either. I am not responsible for your inferences. the moral equivalence you constantly suggest is entirely yours.
You really don't see the sin analogy. There are homosexuals in the society,some kiss and hold hands in public. You can hide your children from that depending on where you live and what your daily routine is. If that's true, you can hide them from gay marriage. If it's not true, they're already infected by the presence of the perverts.
I see the sin "anology" as simply a way for you to put words in my mouth. I need no help. That makes the rest of your argument unnecessary and gratuitous.
I certainly should never have the need to protect my children from perverts. Let them keep their diseased habits in the private arena and this thread would never be necessary.
We restrict someone's right to happiness by marrying because you consider it a perversion. You're free to call what somebody does a percersion, but on what basis are you requiring the government to prvevent them from being married? So you don't have to think about it?
The perverts have always been with us. We can all agree on that. The sole reason for this current brouhaha is the sudden change from the "love that dare not speak its name", to the "love that can't shut up."
I don't think we have anywhere else to go, you and I. Your use of the word pervert to deny someone the right to marry indicates the kind of thinking that someone espousing liberty cannot penetrate.
You are right. We speak the same words, but a different language. The "right" to marry is certainly open to discussion, and is not a done deal, to be manipulated by the neurotic, the pathological and the confused.
Espousing liberty is not embracing the "open mind thing" to the extent that your brain falls out.
The "right" to marry was created in the context of men marrying consenting women; any progressive attempt to "bring it up to date" by deviants and perverts is doomed ultimately to fail.
Have a nice evening.
Is that a promise? or simply the rantings of a juvenile delusional mind?
Post in public, and expect public replies. Isn't there a homosexual support group you can visit instead?
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