Why can't they just give all the same legal rights as a marriage has to civil unions? That way the church still gets to preserve the sanctity of marriage, and gays can have the civil rights that they deserve. That's all they really want anyways. I don't think gays care what the church thinks, as long as they can have equal rights.
I hear what you say kickycan, the problem is that "they" didn't want to deal with "it". "They" thought they had "it" won by concentrating on "marriage", because the American people would back "them".
Now the gay's have attacked on the home front. Very hard, very aggressive and right at the heart - plus, winning. Now "they" are trying to change the lingo because "they" are losing
Scrat, joint filing of taxes alone is an economic right married people enjoy that single people do not. The state has to issue you a license to get this economic benefit/protection that the law will recognize for you.
Sift through the 1,000 plus other laws, and you will find many economic benefits all through them. Either you aren't that bright concerning legal terms and definitions, never mind constitutional ones, or else you are deliberately ignoring the facts to create a partisan position. Good luck with that.
Angie, you aren't missing the point, nor stating it badly. It's pretty clear. If government lets some Americans into the marriage club for those 1049 laws, the 14th amendment states that it needs to be available to all Americans who want to be married. Sure, who would have thought gays would just stand up and say we aren't taking this anymore....but then, they thought the Sambos were too pacified to dare dream about being free. Or that whites would naturally shun entering into marriage with blacks.
What alarms me the most here is the willingness of Americans to deny their own Constitution as invalid or vague or something. Is prejudice so strong that it will throw away freedom? Should I be looking for a cave to live in?
If the states weren't issuing licenses for marriage, this would not even be an issue. They would be surrounding the churches not city halls.
And if a church will let them get married, but the State will not issue the license, then that violates the First Amendment. The government's lack of foresight here is who is to blame for all of this. The harder they insist they are right, the worse they are going to look.
Good times comin' on down the hill, and so what if it is Ben and Jerry or Jack and Jill? Since when has the government has the power to discriminate against you because of the way you choose to live? Provided you are not murdering people and burning down villages, etc...
Too much of the country only knows one amendment - the 2nd. And that gives them the right to say who gets what - they have one protector; the Republican party. Whatever it wants it gets, as long as it don't touch the 2nd amendment and knows who "true" americans are. All the rest can just go to hell anyway..........
kickycan wrote:Why can't they just give all the same legal rights as a marriage has to civil unions? That way the church still gets to preserve the sanctity of marriage, and gays can have the civil rights that they deserve. That's all they really want anyways. I don't think gays care what the church thinks, as long as they can have equal rights.
Exactly. The argument that it can't be called something else and carry the same rights is absurd on its face. I'm called a "man" and my wife is called a "woman" and we are both afforded the same rights under state and federal law.
What amuses me most about all of this is that an ultraneocon like Bush sought to create a wedge issue to avoid his lousy record as a leader...and he tumbled into a civil rights movement, even urged it on by saying rights should be banned...all to soothe his ultraright Christian buddies who must be absolutely horrified at what is developing as a result?
It has to be the biggest ooops of the Bush Administration, hell, of any administration in a long time.
Bush created the earthquake that is creating the tidal wave, and talk about standing there with your mouth wide open instead of fleeing for the hills...
Bush has painted himself into being the first anti-Constitutional president ever. No matter how you slice it, it spells DOOM for Bush.
And amen to that. He did it to himself. You can't blame half the country for this one. Bush is the one that got up on the podium and started banging out his hatred against other Americans. He has no one but himself to blame. He had a huge, huge chance here to really look like a unifying leader, but instead he tried to divide us to divert attention away from worse things.
Oft evil will shalt evil marr: JRR Tolkien
Umbagog, This administration is doing an excellent job of turning voters away from their party and presidential election in November. The education secretary called the teacher's union a "terrorist group," and I saw an article in today's San Jose Mercury News that shows a poll that gays and lesbians are not voting for Bush in November - even if they are registered republicans. Another interesting piece of tidbit is the use of "isolationism" by Bush in his speech in Ohio recently, speaking about international trade. However, this president has the "best" record of isolating this country from the rest of the world like no other president.
You haven't seen Bushspeak and spin go into action - they'll explain it away by reminding you Bush is dumb and he went out there without his advisors and got going and couldn't stop and you just shouldn't believe it anyway cause everyone knows Bush is a true blue American and patriot and Kerry isn't - he's just a rich guy without a plan who doesn't know anything and is, well, just wrong.
Good spin, maybe I should work for Bush
Didn't he win the debate against Gore using that "dumb guy" routine? He made it through the debate without drooling on himself! What a great victory!
Umbagog - "ultraneocon"??? Jesus, must you torture the language like that?
Bush didn't create this issue, unless you think he has the Massachusetts Supreme Court on his payroll. Sure, I think he's fumbled it a bit and is backed into a corner to play to his constituency, but I'm curious what rights you claim he's trying to ban. Writing the EXISTING DEFINITION of the word "marriage" into the Constitution may not be the best idea in the world, but I'm hard-pressed to see what
rights it denies anyone. (Aside from the "right" to call their union a "marriage", of course, but I'm writing specifically of legal rights.) Bush specifically stated that he respects the right of states to create same-gender civil unions and give those unions whatever rights the states deem appropriate. (Or did you miss that?)
I think Bush has definitely stepped in some poo here, but I agree with Scrat. He didn't create this.
Still think Bush is trying to Constitutionalize discrimination, that is more than poo.............. That is hog industrial size holding ponds
And, I'm sure he went beyond his controllers.
Granted, the republicans have been good at attacking and lying and avoiding real issues for a long time now, but I think they peaked sometime ago, and that Clinton damaged them beyond repair. You can't hear people screaming red-faced mad for years without getting a biased feeling for their authority. The more vicious Bush gets, the more I think it will backfire in his face this time. There just aren't that many rich white men in America if Bush alienates all the other groups like he is doing.
I guarantee you, the first time the word BAN came out of Bush's mouth, he lost every single gay vote in this country. And if the 1 in ten idea is actually true, then out of 100,000,000 voters, with one word he lost 10 million votes.
Once people get around to understanding the 14th amendment once again, since it is in fact the MINORITY amendment, dealing with freed slaves specifically if not stated as such...Bush will lose every minority vote in the country once they realize he is attacking the 14th Amendment, the amendment that set them free in the first place.
Women are already floating hot-air balloon giant pink signs in front of the Whitehouse, so I doubt many women will be voting for Bush either. Laura offers them nothing to do so.
It's 47/45 in the polls, and that is a dead heat, per NBC this day, by Tim Russert.
I can't see how Bush is going to win. But I wonder, concerning the gay marriage issue, I can see how some see it as distasteful to disrupt a long standing tradition such as marriage, but I'd like to remind you that they felt the same way about slavery. Some guys would argue that there isn't much difference between the two institutions, and from what I've seen here and there, I 'd have to agree.
I wonder how nasty the partisan hacking will get? Will they finally expose themselves for the power-hungry, bloodsucking anti-American traitors and anti-Constitutional traitors they are so hell bent as they are to be able to get rich and screw anyone standing in the way? They are stupid enough to do this, and it wouldn't be the first party stabbing itself in the back for that matter either.
What I wonder is if they do indeed go beserk and discredit themselves forever, will it cause a giant shift of red to blue, as had happened with FDR?
The situations are somewhat similar...republican mismanagement of the economy, bad economic downturn, war brewing, Hoover doing nothing, people getting angry...failed foreign policy and quagmire creation ( Latin American Dollar Diplomacy ).
Still, the 47/45 still says it all though. We remain divided and stuck in a schism over political ideology and the course of the future for all of us. I suggest that the people get over this pretty damn fast, or else we will be slitting our own throats economically in a big way, and real quick like too.
2004 may be the most significant election in the history of the United States of America, at least ideologically, it is as significant as the Election of 1800 was and the Second Revolution in this country under a liberal homestead Jefferson against a conservative hierarchy Adams. We are most definitely looking down the same barrel of the same gun here.
Jefferson won that first battle, and rightly so, even if he didn't have all the answers, at least he understood what the future means. The Adams of the world all want to go back to the past, despite overwhelming evidence of a constantly failing past. They want to repeat the same old mistakes, while the Jeffersons of the world want to at least try new things, that, even if they don't work, will be new mistakes that can be learned from, which is the scientific method in a nutshell. The Adams though, they cling to traditions, and traditions never stand the test of time as much as scientific theories.
Are Americans educated enough to sense danger when it is coming their way? They have been all through the past 200 years or so. But are they still?
We don't have much longer to find out actually. I can only hope that people my age and younger still believe in the future, and will just say no to the past.
Doesn't matter if Bush started the fire or not. He threw a mighty big log on the fire all by himself, as someone suggests here. Of course it was nothing but talk, but the consequences were that for the first time in a long time, people actually listened...which is why I say, oooops. They say to pick your battles wisely, and this is a good example of why.
I think another group that may have negative feelings about Bush are new college grads who are finding it very difficult to find jobs. Factory workers are a toss-up; they showed up at Bush's speech in Ohio where they've lost thousands of jobs.
"Bush specifically stated that he respects the right of states to create same-gender civil unions and give those unions whatever rights the states deem appropriate," Scrat says.
Didn't miss it.
1) the definition of the amendment does not include 14th amendment rights to civil unions.
2) The states can't make up 50 different versions of the rights guaranteed civil unions, because under civil law, all Americans get the same rights.
So you are saying the amendment is to defend status quo that is already discriminitory, and that the states can ignore the 14th amendment and do what they want.
All of this leads to the conundrum. If the states have to give equal rights under civil unions recognized across the nation, and if those equal rights are the same as for married people, as they must be, because a marriage is a civil union...then aren't we just back where we started with some benefitting more than others under law?
You said you aren't against gay marriages, and it appears you mean this only so long as you can continue to hold them at arm's length and make a funny face while you do so. Sure, let em get married, but it doesn't change a thing, is that about the scope of your position?
They think otherwise, and they have the 14th and the 1st amendments backing up their position too. Do you hate the Constitution, Scrat, or do you just not understand it?
I heard on NPR just a few minutes ago, and the announcer said "Bush's constitutional ban on gay marriage." I guess this guy sc.... is gonna have to make it clear to the media that they got it all wrong. Funny, that!
OLD college grads are having trouble finding jobs, and I am one of them. Hell, I had a hard time when I was a new grad too, although I have specific skills that have far less opportunities than on average. Still, I found something then easily enough, but now, I am at my wit's end. I just conducted an interview last Thursday where I have to wait out this week for an answer. I think everything went well, and I know when I flop an interview. I may get that elusive call Friday, but I may not. If not, my time is running out and I have to take burger manufacturing jobs, two or three, and work 80 hours a week, and still not be able to pay my bills.
No safety net, no family to go live with ( not that I would ), and the grim prospects of a summer living in my jeep hiding out from the repo man are not beyond the range of possible for me. Sure, looks are deceiving here, according to my persona offered to the left, and I probably will land on my feet somehow when the opportunity finally arrives....but in all my 42 years, I have never had a hard time finding a job or convincing someone I am the right man for the job, until Bush came along. I was laid off to save on my former republican boss's overhead because his new company was sagging mightily. It wasn't my fault, but the fault of his executive do-nothings. Still, I was low man on the poll, so off I went. All I wanted to do was take the summer off, then get back to work. Now it is March after being laid off mid-June...and I stand on the abyss economically when by rights, I shouldn't be anywhere near it. I've worked hard all my life, and I do the work of two employees usually. I'm being devalued, and I am not happy about it. I want my life back.
Cicerone, could you flesh that post out about Bush and gay marriage? I'll go looking for it, never mind, unless, of course, you feel like it.
