Brand new here and really angered by...

[ohpuhleez 0]

Yep, MacMadame, you hit it on the head!

It's Google Ad Sense, so geared to SoCal board members...interesting since Google is anti-8. Maybe the proceeds can be donated?

[Great2BThin 5]

I haven't seen any political ads on here. After today they should all be gone. I am really tired of the commercials on TV that I've started recording everything I watch so I can fast forward through them.

[MacMadame 81]

interesting since Google is anti-8. Maybe the proceeds can be donated?

Maybe heads will roll at Google. That would be even better.

[gadgetlady 4]

I've been searching on the internet for about the past hour as to how to repeal a California constitutional amendment (just for my own edification). I can't find a definitive answer anywhere. Does anyone know the answer to this? It is a simple majority to repeal or does it require more once the amendment is in the constitution?

[MrsFlipFlops 2]

I'm shocked that a judge would OVERRULE the people in gay marriage, and that Califonians accepted it! Clearly CA people didn't want gay marriage when they voted, then judges overruled it... and as we're seeing today (although the numbers are too close to call just quite yet) clearly there is STILL a LARGE group of people who oppose gay marriage. I believe in the true and original definition of marriage between a man and a woman.

Edited November 5, 2008 by MrsFlipFlops
.

[ReadySteadyGo 8]

I'm shocked that a judge would OVERRULE the people in gay marriage, and that Califonians accepted it! Clearly CA people didn't want gay marriage when they voted, then judges overruled it... and as we're seeing today (although the numbers are too close to call just quite yet) clearly there is STILL a LARGE group of people who oppose gay marriage. I believe in the true and original definition of marriage between a man and a woman.

It was overruled because it was unconstitutional, according to the california constitution to ban anyone from marriage. That is why is was overturned. It isn't the vote that bothers anyone. Voting is fine. It's that the proposition was started out of state, funded primarily out of state, and has used extremely misleading, and sometimes out right lies in their commericals, ads, and signs.

Keep shouting to the roof tops. I really don't care what you believe, but you know what...If someone was trying to take your rights away, I would be standing in the street fighting against it whether I agreed with you or not. I certainly wouldn't support something that did that. And I certainly wouldn't vote for it.

Ten years ago people were saying the same thing about interracial marriage. That it was against God, that They races should only marry their own. The thing is that didn't feel the need to make a law BANNING it. I don't have a problem with not marrying in a church, I DO HAVE A PROBLEM WITH PEOPLE TAKING MY RIGHTS AS A HUMAN BEING AWAY!!! I don't even want to get married, but I don't want someone telling me I can't because of their own out dated beliefs. I think that it is cruel.

But the thing is if you are going to spread the discrimination, at least be honest about it. The people who started this proposition (from out of state in the mormon church) could care less about free speech, justice, or voting. They just wanted to force their beliefs on others. They have done this with lies and propaganda. Vote, by all means, but let the people know what they are really voting for.

[ReadySteadyGo 8]

I've been searching on the internet for about the past hour as to how to repeal a California constitutional amendment (just for my own edification). I can't find a definitive answer anywhere. Does anyone know the answer to this? It is a simple majority to repeal or does it require more once the amendment is in the constitution?

In california, from my understanding, you just need a majority. It's a very easy constitution to change, and I am sure that if it passes again, they will revote in five years with different results...or the same. But 8 years ago it was a much larger quanity against, and this year it was really close. We, as a country, are learning tolerance. Some people are just slow learners.

[green 6]

Gay marriage is legal up here in Canada. Most churches, but not all, will not marry same sex couples and they do have that freedom to refuse. Same sex couples do have the same rights as any other couple to a civil marriage. And why should they not?

[ReadySteadyGo 8]

I believe that is how it should be.

Noone should be denied rights.

I don't think that any church should be forced to marry anyone they do not believe should be married.

[MacMadame 81]

Gay marriage is legal up here in Canada. Most churches, but not all, will not marry same sex couples and they do have that freedom to refuse. Same sex couples do have the same rights as any other couple to a civil marriage. And why should they not?

Exactly... why shouldn't two consenting adults have the right to have their union recognized by the state?

The Yes on 8 campaign was ridiculous. Lie after lie. Protect our children so they don't have to learn about homosexuality in the schools! They are taking away our rights to free speech! Protect traditional marriage! Gays don't need marriage because they have the Domestic Partner Act.

To which I say:

1) There is nothing in Prop 8 that prohibits schools from teaching about homosexuality. I hope they start doing it tomorrow.

2) Having people do things you don't approve of does not violate your right to free speech. If you want to shout to the rooftops that homosexuality is a sin, nothing was stopping you before Prop 8 from doing so.

3) How does forbidding some people from marrying protect traditional marriage? Was there some danger that traditional marriages would be outlawed? No. I bet the divorce rate completely falls now! I know my marriage got stronger the second the results were announced. Only NOT.

It's only "protection" if you are the sort of person who absolutely can't stand to think that people do things you don't approve of. So now you are "protected" from having to hear about gay people being married in CA. Big whoop.

4) The Domestic Partner Act doesn't being to confer the rights and priviledges of marriage. Not only that, it is completely worthless if you leave CA. Wouldn't you just love it if you went somewhere else on vacation with your partner of 20 years and your kids, your partner died and the government refused to deal with you because you weren't "next of kin" so you weren't able to get your partner's body back home?

That's the sort of rights that being married and having your union recognized by the state gives you. It's such a basic right and the fact that people want to deny those kinds of basic rights to others just appalls me on every level.

This amendment is completely and utterly about forcing someone's religious beliefs onto the rest of us and nothing else. I'm really ashamed of all the CA who bought the lies of the Prop 8 campaign hook line and sinker. As for the people who are so appalled by homosexuality that they welcome such an amendment, at least admit that your campaign is based on lies instead of being a complete hypocrit about your motives.

[Froggi 4]

I was watching the Style channel yesterday and Whose wedding is it anyway was on. There was this adorable gay couple on there getting married. It was beautiful.

I hope that eventually no matter where you live in the US that you can get married in same sex couples. I think it's horrible to keep them from doing that.

[MrsFlipFlops 2]

Here's what I don't understand though, and perhaps someone can share their views...

In my mind, there is something biologically wrong with being gay/lesbian because if everyone were gay/lesbian, humankind would cease to exist. If nature had intended for same sex people to be together, it would have made it possible for same sex people to reproduce, since we have this internal drive to keep living and what not.

I also do not understand how believing against gay marriage makes me intolerant. I'm not speaking anger against anyone, yet somehow I'm a demon because I have a different view.

Interracial marriage, again, is a MAN with a WOMAN. Capable of reproduction, man and woman.

[MacMadame 81]

The nicest, most moving wedding I ever went to was for my friends Mike & Ken. I was actually crying and I hardly ever do that at weddings. Mostly I just tear up a little, but lots of times I don't even do that.

This is what I mean about personalizing the issue. If you had been at their wedding, even if homosexuality makes you uncomfortable, you would have seen the love and respect and would be indignant that someone wants to take that away from them and make things harder when it comes to raising their daughter. Well, you probably would, especially if you have a heart and an open mind.

[MacMadame 81]

If nature had intended for same sex people to be together, it would have made it possible for same sex people to reproduce, since we have this internal drive to keep living and what not.

It's no different than a hetero couple who choose not to have kids or who are not capable of having kids. Nature understands that not every union leads to offspring and has built in safeguards to make sure enough reproduction happens, but (hopefully) not too much. There are animals in nature who are "gay" after all and there are "adoptions" in nature too.

If you believe that the *only* reason to be married is to have kids, then, to be logically consistent, you need to outlaw any marriage where the people don't have any intention of having kids and all couples where one is infertile must get divorced so the fertile one can have kids with a new, fertile, mate.

Somehow, I suspect that idea is not very palatable to many people. Probably because marriage is about more than having kids. There are benefits to society when long-term couples chose to make their unions more permanent and that's why married people get certain legal rights that single people do not. They get most of these right even if they don't have kids.

But, of course, many gay couples are raising kids so it's not like gay marriage means no kids. They get their kids the same way a lot of straight couples do: kid from a prior (straight) relationship, donor sperm/eggs, adoption, etc.

I also do not understand how believing against gay marriage makes me intolerant.

It's mostly only intolerant if you try to get your views in the Constituation so that it's forced on everyone. If you think homosexuality is wrong or unnatural or whatever, it's no skin off my nose. I don't agree, but it's your business.

But when people make it my business -- by trying to deny others basic human rights that belong to everyone -- well then I'll come out fighting and I consider those people to be intolerant. They can't "live and let live" and accept that their views aren't universal and maybe aren't even right.

[green 6]

Yep, I can get married with no hassles even though I have never, ever wanted children just because I am straight. In fact, the only time I was legally married, the ceremony was performed in a Catholic church. I have a Lesbian friend who has two children; unlike me, she loves children and is very maternal.

Scientists reckon that about 10% of the population are gay and that folks are born with their sexual preferences, be they attracted to their own sex or the opposite sex. Same sex sexual behaviour has been observed among other species; it is not just a human thing.

Given that it is a helluvalot easier to live as a heterosexual, it seems unlikely to me that 10% of the population are going to decide, "uh, I think I want to be homosexual; I really like being the target of bigotry."

It is because one has no more personal control over which sex one will be attracted to than one has over one's sex or skin colour - all these things are a matter of what you were born with - that homosexuals must be granted all the same rights and respect as the rest of us. If straight couples who love each other feel the need to marry, it only makes sense that same sex couples will have the same urge. Why deny them this? Why make them second class citizens? There is no way that a same sex marriage will "harm" or take anything away from a man and woman one.