Homosexual Marriage defeated by WIDE Margins

Perhaps....

I don't know.....

The financial aspects did enter into many conversations I had with people -- perhaps because I am a business owner who strongly opposed the amendment in Oregon.

But truly it was those "for the children" windbags that made me want to start ranting.

I'm not gay. In fact, my 15 year traditional marriage anniversary is tomorrow. But I have lived the same "for the children" problems that many gay families face and honest to God, cross my heart and hope to die, it breaks my heart that people belive this amendment is moral in any shape or form.

Baldimo wrote
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What is your question? Are you implying that because they are a majority they can impose their religious beliefs upon the rest of us. The majority of this nation is Christian should they by way of majority impose their religious beliefs?. What helped make this nation great was the concept of separation of church and state. Bush and the religious right are trying to negate that principle.

All I feel is pity for people whose thinking is so shallow that it leads them to believe this amendment is moral.

Did you ever stop to think that some people's morality isn't based on religion? Looking at the winning margin in the states which chose to protect marriage do you really think the "religious right" has that many people and or supporters? I'm not of the religious right, due to my being an agnostic or a deist (depending on your definition). I base it on science and homosexuality doesn't stand up to a scientific test in any manner.

Does that make gays any less capable of feeling strong emotion for another human being?

This whole thing is absurd! Seperation of church and state! It is a moral issue for most people. And the majority has once again run over the minority. I don't agree with lots of things people do but I don't vote a ban on that activity. Ignorance and fear has prevailed!

Kristie - NO ONE has suggested the the ACTIVITY be banned. In my opinion, this has NOTHING to do with religious beliefs.

ANY 2 people (Home or Hetro sexual) who enter into any relationship whereby property rights, financial rights are shared should enjoy the same financial benefits that married couples do.

In my opinion, this homosexual marriage issues revolves around the financial/property rights that currently are not available to ANY home or hetro sexual couple.

No one needs the States approval to live together, acquire property together, provide financia support together.

What surprised me was Ohio including civil unions as unconstitutional.

I would support civil unions for ANY couple. Yet I would support a ban on same sex marriage.

I think Kristie is missing the point.

Michigan did too. And my point is that this isn't financial. Ask nearly any ban supporter and they will tell you that it is about the scanctity of marriage or the state of morality in the country or....blah blah blah...if you are against it for financial reasons you are in the minority. And if you believe that it is purely financial, YOU are missing the point.

The Gay marriage ban was on the Ohio ballot and passed despite opposition from business groups, the Republican Party establishment and both US Senators. Ohio business felt that it would put business at a disadvantage in attracting quality people with special and needed skills. Financial considerations are not the source of approval for this measure.

"Ohio business felt that it would put business at a disadvantage in attracting quality people with special and needed skills."

That seems outrageous; people won't move to or will move out of Ohio?

I am in a commited interracial relationship (now a marriage). It wasn't that long ago that interracial marriages were prohibited by law.

If a state discriminated against my chosen relationship, you better believe I take my skills elsewhere.

Just a question: Who put homosexual marriage in the agenda?

IMHO, it's obvious it was going to hurt the Democrats.

me too ebrown....squinney is part of the human race.....

It seems (unfortunately) that this may be a long battle. The ban on gay marriage seems to mirror what went on in U.S. history in regard to interracial marriages.

Laws prohibiting interracial marriage (known as miscegenation laws) are considered America's longest-lasting form of legal race discrimination--lasting far longer than slavery or school segregation. Miscegenation laws were in effect for nearly three centuries, from 1664 until 1967, when the U.S. Supreme Court finally declared them unconstitutional in the Loving decision.

The first law against interracial marriage was passed in Maryland in 1664. By the time of the Civil War, these laws covered most of the south, much of the mid-West, and were beginning to appear in western states.

In the late 1870s, legislators, policymakers, and, above all, judges began to marshal the arguments they needed to justify the reinstatement--and subsequent expansion--of miscegenation law.

Here are four of the arguments they used:
1) First, judges claimed that marriage belonged under the control of the states rather than the federal government.
2) Second, they began to define and label all interracial relationships (even longstanding, deeply committed ones) as illicit sex rather than marriage.
3) Third, they insisted that interracial marriage was contrary to God's will, and
4) Fourth, they declared, over and over again, that interracial marriage was somehow "unnatural."
On this fourth point--the supposed "unnaturality" of interracial marriage--judges formed a virtual chorus. Here, for example, is the declaration that the Supreme Court of Virginia used to invalidate a marriage between a black man and a white woman in 1878:
The purity of public morals," the court declared, "the moral and physical development of both races….require that they should be kept distinct and separate… that connections and alliances so unnatural that God and nature seem to forbid them, should be prohibited by positive law, and be subject to no evasion.
The fifth, and final, argument judges would use to justify miscegenation law was undoubtedly the most important; it used these claims that interracial marriage was unnatural and immoral to find a way around the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of "equal protection under the laws." The judges insisted that because miscegenation laws punished both the black and white partners to an interracial marriage, they affected blacks and whites "equally." This argument, which is usually called the equal application claim, was hammered out in state supreme courts in the late 1870s, endorsed by the United States Supreme Court in 1882, and would be repeated by judges for the next 85 years.

Don't these arguments sound very similar to agruments against gay marriages? Fortunately now interracial marriages are no longer illegal. And hopefully gay marriages will not have to wait so long to be legal.

You are right linkat but it is SO FRUSTRATING waiting! I am not a gay women. I am married to a man, however I still have to use my voice to help those who's voices are not so loud yet. I had hoped that Michigan would come through for me but alas, they are not ready to accept everyone. Gotta be white and straight to live a happy life in Michigan.

It is hard Kristie and one would think we could learn from our past, but I guess we are destined to continue making the same mistakes. The best thing is to show support even that I am sure helps those that are giving the same rights. Kind of ironic that we are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and celebrating the fact that as a result women can vote and many people can now be free when we prevent these same freedoms in our own country toward our own citizens.

I love your quote!

Thanks...it's in honor of my frustration at the ignorance and fear that still exists in this country, and how it effects real people.

Let's not forget that in Ohio, it is also illegal to get a fish drunk. Somehow that puts the vote against gay marriage in perspective to me.

Wow....that makes a lot of things make sense....

and yet once drunk it's not illeagal to f*#k a pig....go figure......

For Kristie, as you are a married woman living in Michigan, don't try cutting your own hair witout hubby's permission. According to Michigan law, a man legally owns his wife's hair.