California Supreme Court to Hear Challenges to Same-Sex-Marriage Ban

Rights, Government 101, Courts and Religion

There is confusion about rights, religion, and the CA Supreme Court's job. RLP posts “please help me understand your definition of a RIGHT.” Most commonly discussed are the rights afforded to marriages sanctioned by the State and Federal gov’ts. E.g., wedded spouses have the right to receive Social Security benefits of their late husband/wife. A domestic partnership (DP) or civil union is not afforded that same right.

Chris posts "People say that the GLBT comm. has the same legal rights in California because of domestic partnerships", but that is a common misconception. Because of the Federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), DPs anywhere are *not* afforded equal legal rights. After DOMA passed in 1996, the US Gov't Acctg Office (GAO) reported 1,049 federal rights that *were not* granted to DPs as compared married couples. A 2004 revised list put that number at 1,138 (see www.gao.gov/products/OGC-97-16 & ...products/GAO-04-353R). The lists include many Federal social programs; Veteran’s and Federal Civilian & Military benefits; employment, commerce, and crime & family violence law, and more. Do not believe that DPs have the same legal standing. They do not.

Paul posts “the [CA] constituion [sic] never gave Gays the right to marry. Prop 8 corrects the amendment back to what it was before the courts wanted to change the Constitution.” Paul, courts do not change the constitution. They interpret it. The CA Supreme Court does not “want” to change the constitution; in fact, they cannot. Their duty is to interpret it as written & amended and to rule on the constitutionality of laws & amendments. To state that Prop 8 “corrects” constitution is ludicrous. Prop 8 *amends* the document, and the court will rule if it does so in a constitutional way.

RLP also posts “The issue in CA is whether a state can define marriage.” Wrong! The issue is whether a simple majority vote of CA citizens can define marriage **in such a way as to exclude individuals based on their gender**.

Due to separation of Church and State, virtually all religion-based arguments have no weight here. They *do* have real social meaning, but the courts are based in law, not religion. To see it otherwise dangerously invites a religion-based government (like many in the Middle East, where the US fights wars allegedly to bring Democracy to the region). With marriage, the line between Church and State is very blurry. The fundamental issue is that the institution of marriage has legal, social, AND religious meanings. The courts’ job is to isolate the legal meanings. Society as a whole must deal with the social and religious aspects.

The social and cultural recognition of my marriage is deep and profound. Yet I would gladly call it a Civil Union if all State and Federal laws were equal for civil unions and marriages. Then marriages could be a religious ceremony performed by clergy, and the State would sanction civil unions, as is done in many other countries.

Happy Holidays to all!

John of NY

NO calling it gay marriage is not marriage. Again it comes to down to seperate but equal. ITS NOT CONSTITUTIONAL!!!! PERIOD!

There is no such thing as BORN GAY!!!!

"Born gay" is an attempt projected by the GLBT community in an effort to justify their attachment. This attempt not only lacks validity, but also fails to be logically entailed by its premise, the very same which is in turn not true. With all due respect, I really feel obligated to implore my brothers and sisters in GLBT group to challenge your beliefs, to determine whether they are warranted, and whether they have good reasons for holding them. If their reasons for believing that they are "BORN GAY" are not as good as the reasons for not believing that they are "BORN GAY", then they might need to either come up with better reasons for believing so or to accept that "BORN GAY" is not true! IT'S A RUMOUR!!!!!

As in the words of Barack Obama,"Our destiny is not written for us.Our destiny is written by us". So let us ask ourselves; how are we writing it? Think about our descendants; what will they be thinking about us if GAY is the picture we want to bequeath them???

Gay Marriage

Here is my question, how come every time I meet a gay couple, one of them is more "masculine" and the other is more "feminine". How come I never meet a gay couple where both of them are "catchers" or both of them "pitchers". And believe me, I have many gay couples in my life. This is kind of ironic right? In my opinion I see this happening because a true relationship is between a man and a woman, or as between two people who complement each other. Sometimes people like to say "Opposites attract", and I find that to be so true. I like to date a girl that is neat, because I am messy, and together we get the best of both worlds.

I also read somewhere that ♦we each have different types of inadequacies that are fulfilled by members of the opposite sex better than members of the same sex. It appears to me that many gay couples play the role of members of the opposite sex - one guy is masculine tough macho, while the other is a clean freak, organized...etc

Also, what if instead of redefining marriage, we created a separate license actually called "Gay Marriage". Would that be acceptable to gay people? I bet you not, they want it all. But that is the only thing I would allow, because that way I could tell my kid - "they get married differently than we do", the same way I will tell my kid "they go to a different church on sundays, it doesn't mean they are bad people, they just do things differently than us". I see gay marriage as imposing that value on my children when they are growing up - imagine your kid had to read the bible in 1st grade? Yeah... that's right, I don't think anybody would like that other than religious people

But if my kid hears "they get married to men, but we are different, we get married to women," my kid will get confused

also, are identical twins both gay? Or does one of them become gay after time? Like their personalities - how they develop differently over time?

gladiator of CA

gladiator of CA. Ditto to your last comment, you couldn't have said it better.

About time i said something...

Ok so yes it has been voted on twice both times banning gay marriage. Yes traditional marriage says its between a man and a women. And yes the newer versions of the bible do not agree with the homosexual lifestyle. BUT to deny someone equal rights is WRONG! People say that the GLBT comm. has the same legal rights in california because of domestic partnerships. This may be true BUT Brown Vs. Board of Edu. stated that seperate BUT equal is NOT constitutional. This means the even though marriage and domestic partnerships are equal, because they are seperate it is NOT constitutional. We do not base laws off of religion here. It's a crime to murder and steal because you take away someones legal property not because the Bible says it's wrong. The Bible says that weed is a gift to the people of the world for them to use with free will (Gen 1:12) yet it is ILLEGAL. To allow Gays to not get married is LEGALLY WRONG. Another thing is people say they have voted twice now let it be. Well back in 1967 a ban on interracial marriage was overturned by the Supreme Court even though the people had already voted and did not want this to occur. The reason being, it's the Supreme Courts job to protect the minority when a majority does not agree with it. Blacks were a minority and were looked down upon.Just as the supreme court stood up for the minority then they did with the GLBT comm. in California and I hope they will do so again. Its kinda sad to see all these things about hate from BOTH sides. I have expressed my views and I have yet to use anything to attack anybody. It's kinda sad to see grown adults fighting with such language when an 18 year old (ME) is showing more maturity on a subject.

Homophobic

Where did this word come from? I don't know anyone that is not Gay who is (scared) of the gay community.

Why does the gay community use this word to describe those who do not agree with their lifestyle and their beliefs?

Should I call all homosexuals HETEROPHOBIC?????

Believe me when I say, the last thing that people should be categorized that are streight when it comes to how they feel about the gay community is Fearful.

You may say, well, homophobic people are people who fear gays because they don't understand them.

Well, let me see if I understand you before you make that claim. people who are gay, lust after the same sex, is there something else that I am missing?

If you are a male, you feel that you are a female trapped in a woman's body, so you want to be with a male. The problems I have with this are as follows:

I have never seen a woman act like a homosexual man. A homosexual man acts completely different than a normal woman does.

If you are a woman trapped in a man's body, why do you lust after other men who feel that they are also women trapped in men's bodies? It would seem to me that if I felt that I was a woman who is trapped in a man's body, I would look for a man that acts like a man, not a man that acts like a woman, maybe someone can explain this to me.

Last but not least, if both men feel that they are women trapped in men's bodies, why does one have to fulfill the role of a man behind closed doors??

I have the same problems with the lesbian community, in reverse.

God Loves the sinner, but He hates the sin.

Rediculous

I am against gay marriage entirely. Anyone that says that it won't lead to the absolute destruction of morality in our country is a liar and an idiot.

I am soo tired of hearing the homosexual community lie about their goals and vision of why they want to be legally married.

We both know that the reason that homosexuals want to be able to be legally married is to introduce their doctrine and beliefs into society.

It is only obvious that if this were to pass in california the next group to fight for what they will call (rights) will be those who feel that they have a right to marry a child.

So we will not only have the perverted lifestyle of legallized homosexuality, but legalized pedophilia.

THEY ARE introducing books into schools in massachusetts that condone the homosexual lifestyle, or call it good.

This has happened because they legalized gay marriage there. WE DO NOT want the homosexual community to have a right to force their belief system on our children in our schools.

Walking into the darkness is immorality begins with (ONE) act of compromise.

This compromise will lead to the gauranteed and absolute destruction of all that the majority calls moral in this country, this is why we are so set against it.

This has nothing to do with gays having marital rights and privilages, you already have every right and privilage that a legal marriage allows for.

The gay community knows that if they can manipulate the government into allowing them to be legally married, that there will be no legal remedies to the infiltration of their belief system into society. This is why they are fighting so hard to try and own the word marriage. It has nothing to do with the right to get married, it has everything to do with trying to obtain the right to force society to accept their lifestylce as an acceptable practice in society.

You are lucky that you are living in this time frame today, because if you were an israelite, and you lived under the old testament law, you would have been taken to the end of town and stoned.

I am also so tired of hearing your movement discredit the bible and God, or try to make it sound like God sees your lifestyle as acceptable.

God never (ordained) polygamy. God never (ordained) pedophilia, and God never (ordained) homosexual activity. He has called it all sin.

Whether I believed in God or not, I would not support any law that would jeapordize what is left of the morality of the country, or provide a small percentage of people with an opportunity to infiltrate the minds of my children while being taught in school.

WRONG FOR THINKING I WAS WRONG.

You may be right to argue that not everyone believes in God, and therefore that what God says is wrong is not applicable to all; but is He not the Creator of all? Forget about the theory of D... That which is more than a part contains that part more than which it is.

Let's compare the current conditions: Slavery in the Sudan to the plight of Gay Americans seeking the right to marry in the state of California...

The most disingenuous and disheartening argument that has been made during the PROP 8 debate has been by those who compare obtaining a marriage license in California in 2008 to SLAVERY. So let's compare:

At this very moment, in the SUDAN, Government sponsored; - GOVERNMENT SPONSORED militias’ raid villages in Southern Sudan where they rape and murder men, women and children whose only crime is that they are not Muslim. Men are summarily lined up and killed in front of the children. Those individuals that are not killed are shackled and taken as prisoners to be ransomed back to the families or SOLD to other tribes as SLAVES. Children as young as seven years old have been spotted working as laborers and porters; women slaves are routinely raped and are con-scribed to the militias. This is happening today, in 2008, in the SUDAN.

Here in America, a gay man, and a gay woman woke up on the morning of November 4, 2008 and left their respective homes and went to their local polling stations and voted. They may have then gathered with family and friends and watched the election results where a black man rose to the highest office in the land, where a GAY man was assured that he would retain his chairmanship of the Financial Services committee in the HOUSE of REPRESENTATIVES.

The next morning, that gay man and gay woman, while disappointed with the results of a CITIZEN sponsored proposition in a REPUBLIC democracy, they could meet with others also saddened by the loss of PROP 8 and protest in the streets. Some of those individuals may have even petition the courts to review the constitutionality of the election and the courts will hear that motion and decide accordingly.

There will be no place in America where GOVERNMENT backed agencies summarily round up gays and publicly execute them in the streets. No place in America will you see GOVERNMENT backed agencies force gays into servitude at Mormon or predominantly African American churches.

I guess if you really, really, really try to compare the life of a non-Muslim Sudanese citizen who may have seen members of his family killed and then spends his/her days toiling for those responsible to that of a gay man or gay woman living in California, - you can find that correlation, that shared struggle between those two individuals.

Or, maybe, you will come to realize that making such comparisons is IGNORANT at best, morally irresponsible at worse and you will stop making such comparisons. PROP 8 is about amending the rules to obtain a MARRIAGE license and that is all…