Top Senator Backs Amendment Banning Gay Marriage

Now, I don't mean to avocate incest here, but doesn't outlawing it (when consensual and adult, of course) smack of eugenics? Can we pass laws that people with who carry alleles for genetic diseases cannot have children? There'd be no Arlo Guthrie. Can we pass laws that the mentally challenged (or whatever you want to say) can't have children? If so, where do we draw the line? Pedro Guerrero was acquitted of drug charges because he apparently has an IQ of 70 and wasn't able to comprehend the situation; do we then make it illegal for him to have children?

Just thinking out loud here.

I voted "no" on the poll. The Constitution is wisely mute on the issue of what constitutes a marriage. It should remain mute on the issue.

Perhaps it would be better altogether if marriage were purely a religious sacrament, and the government's recognition of (or lack thereof) a separate thing. (A license for civil union, rather than for marriage...) I suspect a lot of those who oppose same sex marriage oppose the notion that their own church might be forced to allow, sanctify and perform such marriages. (If a church, synagog, etc. chooses to do so, that's fine with me.)

OMG i agree with Scrat, however this is an excellent opportunity to note the immense importance of separation of church and state. if the christians fear the state telling them they must accept gay marriage into their churches then they might recognise the flip side of that same coin which is that non-christians have the same fear of the state/chruch interfering in our lives.

Which I believe is another compelling argument for getting government out of the marriage business. (He said in--yes--complete agreement with the Esteemed Gentleman from Colorado.) :wink:

Whoa, I think I agree with Scrat, too, though I'm not sure about splitting the difference between "marriage" and "civil union." If a particular denomination or church recognizes gay marriage, then such a ceremony should be acknowledged as such.

I'm against the notion that the gov't should be involved in the "marriage as sacrament" issue, and this is the area Frist has waded into.

I don't think the government should ever be in the marriage business. The captain of a ship can preform a marriage. Why can't your tour guide leader through Disney World preform the "marriage"?

Get the government out of the business of marriage. It has no business being there at all -- and if it wants to be in that field -- it certainly has no right to pick and choose who shall and who shall not be allowed to marry among consenting adults.

Oh absolutely! It should be acknowledged as such by that church and anyone who chooses to recognize it. I just think that if the government uses a different term ("civil union" is just one option) it better defines the separation between the religiously sanctified joining and the government recognized joining.

Nice to find an area of agreement. (Heck, it was bound to happen eventually!)

I thought they could, BillW. I performed lots of marriage ceremonies when I worked night audit in a motel. Divorces were quick, easy, and inexpensive, too, but they were usually handled by the morning shift.

Rent by the hour, pay for it a week later!

Dude Wal-Mart Is So Goddamn Gay
============= SF GATE MORNING FIX =============
July 7, 2003 -- Shelley Duvall is 54 today
By Mark Morford: [email protected]
http://sfgate.com/columnists/morford/a/
"Lube up, lean into the fire, and laugh"
~~ nil desperandum ~~

== THE MEDIA SKEW ==
Fertile weeds from the savage garden of the SF Gate newswires

== Dude Wal-Mart Is So Goddamn Gay ==

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the nation's largest private employer and one of
the most culturally debilitating, soul-sucking vortexes of all that is creative and divine and good in this world, will now include gays and lesbians in its antidiscrimination policy, gosh how sweet of them.

Company spokesman Tom Williams said the policy will not affect benefits, which Wal-Mart does not offer to unmarried partners of any orientation, and pretty much doesn't offer to tens of thousands of its part-time help as it crams anti-union ideologies down their throats and underpays everyone and is one of the scariest ugliest most frighteningly overlit places to work in the known universe ever.

But he said sexual orientation will be added to the company's existing diversity-awareness training programs for employees, not the slightest bit because they give a damn about gays, but mostly because they are terrified of getting their proto-Christian censorship-happy asses sued to high heaven by the "homosexual agenda," and if you think for one brief moment that Wal-Mart is taking this moderate and barely useful action out of the goodness of its tolerant pro-gay heart, I've got some cheap-ass porcelain monkey bookends and a giant tin of year-old caramel popcorn to sell you, cheap.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2003/07/02/national0542EDT0461.DTL&nl=fix