California Voters Sharply Divided Over the Prop 8 Same-Sex Marriage Ban

WOW!

You guys are so suprising. What ignorant bigoted idiots! Here's a suggestion to all the adults who believe in a magical sky god who looks like some white guy's grandfather. Heaven is the reward for your belief in this god of gods, right? If I tell you a way to fast track your way to heaven, WILL YOU GO THERE IMMEDIATELY SO THE REST OF THE ADULTS ON THIS PLANET WHO CAN THINK CRITICALLY ABOUT REALITY WILL BE ABLE TO PROMOTE HUMANUTY WITHOUT THE IMPEDIMENT OF YOUR FANTASY OF A CHILD'S MIND.

Here's some more food for thought for you brainwashed homophobes: OF THE PLACES ON EARTH THAT DO ALLOW GAY MARRIAGE NOT ONE OF THEM HAS REPORTED (1.)A RISE IN HIV INFECTION, (2.)A RISE IN INCESTUOUS PREGNANCY RATES, (3.)MORE HETEROSEXUAL DIVORCES, (4.)HETEROSEXUAL OR HOMOSEXUAL MARRIAGES THAT HAVE ENDED BECAUSE OF DIVINE INTERVENTION VIA PUFF OF SMOKE OF SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION, (5.)INCREASED DEATH, (6.)MORE REQUESTS FOR INDIVIDUALS TO MARRY ANY ANIMAL OF THEIR LIKING, (7.)etc., which means that the god you dpoke of ISN'T HERE AND NEVER WAS!

Did you see where I was going with the previous paragraph. None of the things you betterosexuals are afraid of are happening in the "wake" of gay marriage, so what are you guys really so afraid of. That your school children will be taught in school that homosexuality is ok? The American Psychiatric Association already tells the whole USA that Homosexuality is a non-pathological human variant, like have green eyes or skin color-an immuteable characteristic. We know what you are afraid of regarding your kids: THAT THEY WILL REALIZE THEIR PARENTS ARE INSECURE BIGOTS IGNORANT OF THE WORLD THEY HAVE BEEN CONVINCED THEY SHOULD FEAR. You fear that, like racists after segregration was made law, you will one day have to look at yourself in the mirror and admitt that you ARE homophobic, ignorant, bigoted, brainwashed idiots that time forgot.

Which is harder to do? Tell yourself that you know homosexuals pose no threat to yourself or anybody else you know and stop demonizing them out of fear and ignorance, or continue to promote discriminatory sentiments that we know do NOT come from loving expressions of concern for reality and future safety of others.

Everyone on this planet needs food, love, water, shelter. Why is it then that the only one of those four words that bears the "meaning" stamp is the one so many people who claim the love market, in "god's name", can not seem to intrinsically promote without strings attatched to what they are comfortable with.

how gay was Jesus?

old testament scripture whether jewish or christian says of a certain male "a man of sorrows,and a friend of grief".

Jesus of Nazareth claimed this passage as portraying Himself.

He personally expressed his view that "God created them male and female,therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one,therefore whom God has joined together let no one put asunder".So how gay was Jesus whether in his lifestyle or personal beliefs?

whether we believe in Him as God incarnated in human form or as the sacrifice atoning for all sinners or just a good person who died and his corpse was never found,it is very clear what he taught about marriage and those who were candidates for it,namely one male and one female,not this modern word "partners" which is a nondescript term paving the way for what is now the obvious pathway mankind is determining to pursue.where is the love in sticking your finger up someone elses nose? and this subject is not about noses or fingers.Think about it please.

You can't base a marriage on a sex-act!

You can't base a marriage on a sex-act! Marriage is a union in holy matrimony, and a sharing of love, honor, fidelity, commitment and responsibility between a man and a woman, period! Anything else is just sex, irregardless of whether it is between 2 men or two women. If you want to be gay because it's fun or gets a rise out of everyone else or whatever, fine, go do it elsewhere and more power to you. But not around me. I am straight as an arrow, and always will be. Just don't try to force your homosexuality on me or my society openly and flaunt it in front of my family, or force our schools to teach it to my children. You want straight people to keep our noses out of your "business", fine; but quit trying to make it our business byt wearing on your sleeve. If you want to say whatever you wish without regard for everyone else (or at lesast the majority), fine. Well, here's my "freedom of speech", also...SHUT UP!

Farewell.

I repeat, "there will be no words that dissuade you".

If I let it, this will go on forever, but I will content myself with responding with a few particulars and then I must bid you adieu. Huge difference between charientism and profanity which I do not have the inclination to explain why they have no business being compared to one another. It is altogether unsurprising to see you estimate me as coming up intellectually short. To think otherwise you would have to reconsider your ways. I repeat, "there will be no words that dissuade you". I hope and wish there were, but they do not exist on earth. The greatest orators words denouncing your practice would fall on deaf ears. You may have heard, having ears they hear not, and having eyes they see not. I can assure you, you might not like the answer if you honestly asked you if that applied to you.

As far as unsupported arguments, I'm not sure how much more supported I can get other than knowing about the thousands of people who have renounced the lie of homosexuality because of the misery it brings. Or how much more than there is not a single shred of evidence supporting a gay gene or anything other than learned quacks speculating that this may be. It is nothing of the sort. I'm going to overlook your crude humor (that again originates from a mind incapable of virtue), and your childish play on a pseudonym. If you attack a pseudonym in such a manner, no telling what you might do with the real person.

In response to your last question, truth of any matter benefits humanity, and those who bravely uphold it in the face of the withering, repeated, and tireless assaults of darkness always have, continue to, and always will benefit humanity. No one is going to change their lifestyle, marry someone of the opposite sex, and have children to carry on their legacy because of your viewpoint and life. The end result of your choice is death. Complete and unending. It is pathetic, sad, and tragic. But you yourself are the maker of yourself. You have the freedom to create or destroy yourself. Just don't ask the rest of us to help your destructive choices.

Thank you for all those who have read this, and I welcome observations. Thank you also for all those who have bravely upheld the sanctity of marriage between man and a woman in the teeth of savage, vicious, and profane attacks from homosexuals and their deluded supporters.

Not Worthy

"Subwarrior" -- not yet worthy of full warrior status.

I don't criticize you, sir. I pity you. Every word you type demonstrates the "implacability" you would attribute to me and others here. While smirking at the profanity of other posters you are free enough with the easy charientisms. Though you attempt an intellectual tone, you fall short. No doubt in several areas. Your thoughts are calcified; your arguments unsupported, and your view rigid (a word probably not often atributed to you).

It is not homosexuals who are impervious to reason. It is religion. Religion is by its very nature irrational. It is, as they say, "a leap of faith," not subject to rational examination or scientific consideration. And now I understand you. You're merely another exerebrose religious fanatic. You are the one living in deception.

What do -you- do to benefit mankind and humanity besides hide behind a pseudonym at a computer and try to seduce others into your twisted world?

Alas Babylon!

Storm Christopher,

Recommend putting down the Bertrand Russell research and picking up a book of common sense. Anyone will do, it doesn't have to be anything particular. So what if Bertrand Russell had malfunctioning marriages. He was an atheist, are you surprised? Steve's main point was even an athiest with multiple failed marriages acknowledges marriage is between a man and a woman. As for your twaddle about holding your head up high, you can only deceive yourself for so long. You have done an excellent job of worshipping your God (your God is merely your own pleasure), and have wonderfully succeeded at deceiving yourself. There will be no words that will dissuade you. Your punishment is you get to be you. You were beautiful, but this choice terribly degrades you. Of course you will assert that you are perfectly happy, and a moral paragon of virtue. Since your choice is a lie in itself, I would expect nothing different to leave your lips.

One of the punishments for homosexuality is implacability. That means you are impervious to reason of any sort, which attempts to dissuade you from the practice of your depraved lust. And, as we can see, homosexuals can be quite implacable. They implacably parade their riotous, immoral living everywhere, and, not happy with the freedom to do their vile deeds in private, they openly demand the recognition of it publicly. When denied they resort to all manner of savagery, and of course will automatically criticize any critic of them as being gay themselves. So absolutely lacking in reason, and now it is easy to see why this behavior is so strongly condemned in major religions. Ancient Jews didn't have the patience we have today, and they just said, "Put them to death". While I don't believe in this method at all, or any violence, I see why this behavior is so roundly condemned, and how it so lamentably deprives it's practitioners to even rationally think anymore. What a terrible punishment.

For those of you who condemn religion, I would say, how many people do you know who confess, "I became an athiest , and now I love my wife/husband better, I no longer abuse alcohol and drugs, my life is now meaningful, I have relationships with my kids, and, above all else, I have inner peace and serenity". I know, many of you are perfect and already have these virtues, but may I ask you, how often you examine yourself, really seriously question your life, what you do and why you do it. How many daily sit down and look at their lives? Or how many busily do nothing of the sort, and go from day to day, full of busyness, but never knowing themselves. Many are caught up in video games, tv watching, alcohol drinking, drug smoking, pleasure seeking and it is only at the sunset of their life that they realize it was all in vain. This life is not about our own selfish desires, but what we may do to benefit humanity and mankind.

Expression of Gratitude

Thank you Keystone kid and Steve Roisman. Oh, and thank you for the profane, and childish babble from Dave & Jerry. I no sooner mention intellectual weakness is behind anyone's believing the fabulous contention that homosexuality is not a choice, and you come and immediately prove the point. By the way, "when a man uses profanity to support an argument, it indicates either the man or the argument is weak, probably both", and "profanity is the attempt of a lazy and feeble mind to express itself forcefully". Both authors are appreciated but anonymous. I am not surprised at your having to appeal to such base analogies. It perfectly demonstrates what is in the mind of one who endorses this morally debauched choice.

Bertrand Russell Would Be On -Our- Side

Funny that you'd quote Bertrand Russell. That would be the Bertrand Russell who received the Nobel Prize "for writings concerned with the FREEDOM OF THE INDIVIDUAL in society," right? Bertrand Russell, the mathmatician and philosopher who was an atheist, a pacifist, an advocate of birth control and free love? Bertrand Russell the Darwinist and anti-war activist?

Bertrand Russell would be on the side of gay rights movement.

And you probably wouldn't want to use Bertrand Russell as a paragon of traditional values, either. Lets see, he was married four times. While married to his first wife, Alice Smith, he sailed off to Russia and had an affair Dora Black. When Dora was six months pregnant, he divorced Alys and married Dora.

While married to Dora, he had a notorious affair with Vivien Elliot, who was the wife of poet T.S. Elliot. Also with at least two other women, one a popular actress of the day named Constance Malleon.

After divorcing Dora Black, he married Patricia Spence. Patricia Spence, meanwhile, maintained an affair with another man with whom she eventually had two children while still married to Russell. (That "free love" thing, see.)

So eventually, Russell and Spence divorced and Russell married yet again to Edith Finch.

It's always wise to know a little bit about the person you're quoting when you're trying to prop up this argument or that. Bertrand Russell was a radical and an advocate for social reform. He disdained the common moralism of his time and placed himself outside it. Note, I said "moralism," not "morality."

If Bertrand Russell were alive today, he be laughing at the arguments for so-called "Traditional Marriage." He had four - and none of them were traditional in any manner. Indeed, Russell would most likely be marching in the streets with us.

Re "Gay" marriage

Frienship is one thing marriage is another aspect of life....Bertrand Russell said that it is only necessary to get married is because you want to bring children into the world period....

Light in darkness

Thank you William & Mart. Mart, that is the exact truth, but unfortunately since many people on this site do not understand their choices cloud their understanding, they will look at it as false.

Who does not understand that if you engage in a behavior, you become the behavior and it's consequences? For every action there is a reaction. For every thought, there is an action, for every action there is a habit, for every habit there is a character, and for every character there is a destiny. Because weak willed people refuse to be accountable for their own actions, and have not been true (as Shakespeare said "be true to thine ownself and thou canst be false to no man") to their selves they are now in a battle with the rest of humanity who have been true to themselves. This absurd question of whether one chose heterosexuality is pure poppycock, and is the result of a mind dangerously clouded by a multitude of immoral deeds.

Can anyone tell me the definition of sophism? It is because so many people in our society today only know what they see on TV or hear on the radio that this is a question at all. What an ignorant society. Sophists lived thousands of years ago, and were masters of taking truth and twisting it into a hopeless mass of tangled arguments, until when you were done listening to their arguments you believed a lie. That is being deluded, and that is what a dangerously large percentage of tv watching, non-book reading, non virtue practicing, immediate-pleasure indulging members of society today, are! You have people honestly asserting that because the gay gene has not been found yet, that is cause to believe it exists. Excuse me? You obviously have forgotten the very science that you claim backs you. Science demands proof and your proof is as legitimate as ET. That doesn't matter to some.

Then Jerry pipes in with his sentimental nonsense. You honestly favor keeping kids deluded about this matter. Your ridiculous assertion that societies unacceptance of the practice leads to suicide??? Uh, no. Every right choice is it's own reward. If this were right and virtuous the person choosing it would be happy no matter the opposition of others. Have you heard of courage? Do you know what it means? Probably not, so let me elaborate. Courage is having the attitude of facing and dealing with anything recognized as dangerous, difficult, or painful instead of withdrawing from it. Suicide is cowardice (no we are not in feudal Japan). So we have a problem. If this is such a good behavior, why is it leading to such cowardice. Now reason tells us, the action itself must make the individuals conscience (do you know what that is) distraught if they commit suicide, for a quiet conscience sleeps in thunder.

But the height of it, is you have the gall and audacity to sit in your intellectual ignorance and throw charges of stupid at the truth.