Poll: Do You Support Obama's Order Extending Benefits to Gay Partners?

GOD IS AGINST GAYS

I don't think gay people should have gay rights we didn't have this problem when bush was in there why know it is in the BIBLE you are not to have sex with the same sex obama is going aginst god you should rethink your issues and think about the children that is going to see this go on in the steets and our military, everyone should be alowed to serve there country but if it has to be gays in the military they should be segragrated iam sorry if iam stepping on anyones toes but thats how i feel i have children i dont want them to think it is ok for men to be with men or weman with weman god didn't intend for it to be this way.

Vote Mitt Romney 2012 for economic-ideological superiority

In 2012 we must vote for Governor Mitt Romney to become our President starting on January 20, 2013 , because of his superior economic intelligence and conservative right wing philosophy . First Governor Mitt Romney is economically smarter than Barak Obama. Secondly Governor Mitt Romney's superior rightwing conservative philosophy is shown in that he is pro God and Christianity, pro life, pro marriage; pro guns-second amendment, pro low taxes, pro low government spending; pro small government, pro unintrusive government, pro traditional and Judeo Christian values; pro Bible reading and prayer in our public schools, pro Christians schools and private education , pro private and free enterprise; pro military spending, anti arms agreements with Russia, pro creation; pro nuclear, pro conservative supreme court judges, pro American sovereignty; pro capitalism, anti communist, anti socialist; conservative on immigration, and pro constitution. Barack Obama is of the inferior liberal and left wing ideology in that he is against every thing that Governor Mitt Romney is for and Barack Obama is for every thing that Governors Mitt Romney is against

John Warren

If you want to see what rule by Al Qaeda would look like...

...Look no further than the theocratic remarks of those who wish to ban gay marriage. Their worship for the nonexistent has lead them away from the path of tolerance, freedom, and abundance that America would otherwise have.

Instead of having a deep respect for America's "Founding Fathers" and America's escape from theocracy, (to the extent of their limited knowledge --as Deists-- in a pre-Darwin scientific era), these "conservatives" wish to escape to the comfort of unreason. Ayn Rand, Leonard Peikoff, and Christopher Hitchens have all repeatedly destroyed the argument that the creators of Western civilization were "Christians" with Christian values. Those who advanced the cause of individual liberty did so by freeing themselves and the government of the rule by churches. They believed in a god that was obviously disinterested in human affairs. Their belief is technically defined as "Deism".

It's the most positive incarnation of religion possible. It places 100% of the responsibility for knowledge, growth, production, and practicality on the individual.

Arguments that we are "a Christian nation", and are thus somehow duty-bound to follow the self-contradictory scribblings of primitive civilizations is idiotic.

I have a right to be free from government-enforced religious intolerance. So do the gays. We all have a right to be free from government intervention in (or support of) any kind in marriage. Sadly, this argument is not the one that Conservatives claim as their own.

If they did, I wouldn't be able to call them out as the hypocrites they obviously are.

The Libertarian Party is the party of diversity, emergent order, property rights, tolerance, freedom, life, love, and evolution. There is no indication that equality under the law for homosexuals interferes with any of these American values. In fact, such equality under the law supports and affirms those values.

As comedian Louis CK said: "Gay marriage is the one thing that doesn't effect straight people!"

As Hayek pointed out, "Conservatives" lack a meaningful philosophy of any kind. They want to return to the past, without defining what it is that they appreciate about the past. As we've lost American freedom, many people half-heartedly wish to regain it. Unfortunately, they do not wish to define what they seek. As such, they wish to return to a past with more freedom in some ways, and less in other ways.

"Conservatives" lack a philosophical heirarchy. They argue that homosexuals are a bad influence on "our" kids.

I can name a worse influence, though: A man so cowardly that he wants his taxes to interfere with another person's private life, using government force. A man so cowardly that he puts this unlawful interference above regaining his lawful right to defend his own family (gun rights). A man so cowardly, he teaches his kids Tertullian's values above John Locke's values. That's the real un-American influence: ...The American idiot.

Jake Witmer

First, I am a libertarian, and it sickens me that the government is involved in any kind of marriage. Marriage is a personal and private choice, often involving religion, and it should not be subsidized or impaired in any way. The government should be 100% neutral, and should not extend one single benefit to any individual, whether they are married or not. ...That's what should be.

Now, let's take a look at what IS, and how we get to what _should be_. First, there can be no "separate but equal". This was decided when Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) was overturned by Brown v. Board of Education (1954).

As Rosa Parks illustrated with her organized boycott of a state-subsidized government monopoly, the government is incapable of eliminating bias without external checks on its ability to pander to the voting (and often bigoted) majority.

The "objection" to gay marriage is simply that: pure bigotry.

And now for a criticism of my own "camp". The Libertarian Party recently ran a Republican who had not repudiated his former bigotry (authorship of the Defense of Marriage Act, several drug warrior bills, etc...) as such. He apologized for it, and flip-flopped back and forth with statements about why it wasn't really bigotry (with respect to anti-drug bigotry and anti-gay bigotry). He told Hannity that "States have rights" (they don't, only individuals have rights).

Libertarians will never eliminate government's special treatment of marriage as long as gays and straights are treated differently. Until that point, it will be a polarizing issue for mainstream politicians. Mainstream politicians love polarizing issues, because it keeps the public's attention diverted away from the single underlying issue they ALL ("Democrats" and "Republicans" alike) wish to avoid: individual rights.

Moreover, Libertarians will never have a chance of winning office if they are not a unified front. Libertarians cannot be a unified front unless they run candidates for office who are actual libertarians (philosophical, "small-L" libertarians).

If straights have government recognition of their marriages, then gays should have the same thing.

Ultimately, marriages should have to be rigidly legally defined, all of them with prenuptual agreements, since so many of them are 100% unstable, and end up as "crash and burn" situations. Marriage is simply a contract.

100% of the confusion about marriage comes from irrational superstitution; the mixing of government with religion. There is currently no expectation of logic from either married party, and the public schools, parents, and religious institutions would love to keep it that way. The courts are clogged with marriage disputes from poorly-defined marriage contracts. Judges are free to play favorites, and lawyers are laughing all the way to the bank.

Let's stop allowing the D and R mainstream to "divide and conquer" us on this issue, and support equality under the law.

The deluded arrogance and tyrrany of the self-righteous....

never ceases to amaze and amuse me. I am a gay man, I live in SC, a decidedly non-gay friendly state. And I am happily MARRIED to my partner. We are deeply in love, committed and devoted to each other. We run our own successful businesses together (a hair salon/portrait studio/art gallery), we have wedding rings on our fingers, exchanged at a wedding ceremony performed by an ordained minister. Every year we celebrate our anniversary with a honeymoon vacation. We're off to Australia for our 11th in Sept. And we spend our days relishing our good fortune at finding someone special to grow old with...

Do you really think anything you say, or do, or believe, or vote on has any power to take that from us?

You are grossly mistaken if you do. We ARE a family unit. We ARE spouses. And no one but my husband and I has any power (not to mention right) to define us as such, by what we know and feel in our own two hearts.

Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

We are Americans and we have what our great nation promises us in great abundance.

What the argument really comes down to, is not are we married/not married...we could care less what you think.

It's really about whether or not our union will be respected and honored by our countrymen, in regards to legal matters.

-Can my spouse receive a portion of my employment benefits?

-If he is in an accident and hospitalized, will I be dubbed "not a family member" and refused visiting rights?

-If I or my partner pass away, will the widower be in for a terrible legal battle over the rights to our possessions and assets, that will likely result in the loss of all or most of what we built together?

-Will we be deemed unfit to parent based on the gender of our spouse?

These are really the only "significant" ways (although if you ask me they are very weak and petty, even if rather cruel issues) that the narrow-minded, self-righteous & egomaniacal, can attempt to get back at us for attaining a flourishing, fulfilling, and meaningful happiness, via a slightly different situation from the typical cookie cutter mold, that they expect everyone to conform to.

In the end, a good lawyer and a meticulous last will and testament, along with other pertinent documents, settles much. We have to work a little harder, pay a little more for good benefit coverage. I know several family units with gay parents. Patience and determination, children are entirely possible for us, if/when we decide we are ready. Contrary to popular biased opinions, children of gay parented families, statistically, show no significant differences in development and health from those with strait parents, provided that you are getting your information from objective sources that aren't pushing propaganda.

It's really sad and pitiful how people are so afraid of differences, and think they are entitled to enforcing their will on others, in a desperate attempt to smother diversity & preserve the comfortable shallows of their preconceptions.

Rob

" If they marry, and can adopt, then that's one less parentless child in an orphanage and the chain of happiness continues."

You just stepped in it. All the arguments here for gay marriage is that it is somehow a harmless thing that does not affect anyone. Nothing could be further from the truth. The victims of Gay marriage are the children. Even if being gay was something you were born to be, which it isn't, the children adopted and raised by a gay couple are clearly swayed to be gay themselves. Not to mention the torture that they must endure from others from having 2 dads or moms.

So you think that we shouldn't stop something from happening that doesn't affect us? What happens to our society when its building block, the family unit, becomes so re defined that it really doesn't mean or represent anything? When the family becomes whatever anybody wants then it becomes nothing at all.

As for all this tithing nonsense someone has bumped their heads one too many times.

Holy books say marriage is just to produce kids

If one of a pair of lovers is sterile, or past menopause, should the couple be allowed to marry? Clerics oppose birth control because they need ongoing generations of tithers. They harass homosexuals because they want big families whose members will pay tithes all their lives. I just visited sites of extremist ban-abortionists. One of them has Joe Scheidler saying conversion is the way to have doctors stop doing abortions, and not murder like that of Dr Tiller. When ;people convert, they start paying tithes to a different batch of clerics. Or they start tithing. Visit Prolife Blogs.com and Bible Blogger and their connections. You will find all of them working to create pools of tithers and increase their numbers. The bossy Genesis command to "Be fruitful and cover the earth" has been enforccd by civil governments. So we have global warming and population invasion of remote regions. Tithe collectors have done tremendous harm ever since gods were invented to justify tithing. I wonder whether Families With Dependent Children are tithing a tenth of the tax funds they receive?

NO TO P. JONS

When people attack homo marriage by saying people would want to marry pets or children or be polygamous, that trivializes important discussions. Mormons had polygamy --later banned by the US government. While it lasted, old men impregnated girls. There was a lot of profitable free labor from wives and children and the father tithed part of it to the church. The small breeding pool threatened to create physical and mental flaws from incest. Texts about abnormal psychology describe parapniliac behavior. It includes pedophilia--sexual desire for children, and bestiality as sexual desire for animals. Other paraphilias include sadism, masochism, etc. In the crucifixion, I see paraphilia of being pleased to see a victim suffer and masochism in pretending the viewer is the victim. When people are exposed to the crucifix at church and in bedrooms, what does it do to them? Please do not trivialize this important subject of homosexual marriage.

Some say homosexuality is evil. See Isaiah 7:45

How many tithers actually read the Bible? Isaiah 7:45 says:

"I form the light, and create darkness: make peace , and create evil: I the Lord do all these things."

How unfair it is, that so many homosexuals, atheists and people of other faiths suffer because holy books are still respected and taught to children. There is so much money in publishing religious literature-- books believers must buy, and hymnals, courses of study, Sunday School texts, missals, etc. Also, see catalogs that sell huge amounts of candles, oil, incense, kneelers, bell ringers, altar furnishings, costumes with lace, satin and fur, medals, jewelry and marks of rank, etc. Paid preaching is a very old profession. it makes so many low-skill jobs, that it is not likely to fade away rapidly. As as realtor, I sold a house after the husband let it approach foreclosure by his purchases of religious books. The wife and children were homeless and the bedroom was stacked with stuff he bought through a persuasive TV preacher.

Dependency on tithe income causes harm and wars.

Let's imagine our income is from tithes for preaching. Will we be willing to throw our nation into debt so that the tithes from one batch of clerics will come to us, if our armies beat theirs? Early Christians converted Jews and got their tithes. With the sword, Islam converted Christians and took their tithes. Christian Bush attacked Iraq

and how many Muslims died and stopped tithing to Allah? The Cold War destroyed the USSR that made churches pay their own way. I try to direct attention to the immense VALUE of money that goes to clerics for their work of preaching. Those church paychecks shape clerical attitudes. For their religious income, some clerics bash gays, force women to produce tithers and ban suicide and stemcell research.