Same-Sex Marriage Likely Headed to Courts in California

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Dan of CA>>> Science is getting closer,closer???????????? Well have they found the missing link yet??? Well until they do, which will probably be bogus, could please stop saying that being gay was hereditary!!! Your color is not , who you choose to spend your time with is. Was I born Straight??????? Heterophobics..... gesh I tell ya..................

faith of TN 1:24PM December 26, 2008

To OH,
I agree completely, why all this fuss? Just give us our rights, and stop whining. Gay marriage WILL be the law, so why fight something that is inevitable? Waste of time and Mormon money....
To Mr. Looney,
You are absolutely INCORRECT about your race not being a choice and sexual orientation being a choice. Scientists are getting closer and closer to determining that sexual orientation is EXACTLY the same as race, and gender. In other words, we are either born straight, gay or bisexual (the transgender part is what I'm not clear on, but my gut tells me that indeed there are males born in female's bodies, and vice versa). Why would anyone choose the host of problems that a gay person faces EVERY day of their lives? A choice? I don't think so... Would you choose discrimination over being treated as everyone else is treated? In some states we can lose our jobs, be forbidden from seeing our partners in the hospital, forbidden from adopting children, and in 48 states forbidden from marrying the person we love. If this is not the VERY SAME struggle for equality that blacks fought, what is it? Of course a person's race and gender are more obviously observed, and thus they make easier targets of discriminator practices, but this doesn't lessen in any way the fact that gays face the SAME issues that blacks faced in your struggle (I guess you forgot Anita Bryant's witch hunt that attempted to deny gay people housing and jobs?). Don't forget that 70 percent of Americans were against interracial marriage when the court threw out the ban on it just a few decades ago. So, the ignorant majority has no business taking away rights from the powerless minority, and this is what the bill of rights is for and what the courts are for.
How DARE you say that homosexuality is a choice. It's every bit as much a part of our make-up as our skin color, and I think this will be proven and the bible believers will be shown to be the bigots that they are....

Dan of CA 2:43AM December 24, 2008

the gay marriage debate = fiddling.
the economy, two foreign wars, mortgage crisis = Rome burning.
enough said.

of OH 5:53PM December 23, 2008

I am a black man in Tennessee. The biggest problem I have is when a man or woman make a decision and then call themselves minorities. I have no choice as to the color of my skin. A gay person chooses to force their decision on everyone. I could care less who someone sleeps with but to compare my races struggles with their choices sickens me.
P.S. I have already heard all the jokes about my name

Tom Looney of TN 3:29PM December 07, 2008

CB of NC, I'm never gonna make you see. You're in complete denial.
This absolutely IS comparable to the "separate but equal" approach we tried to take in the 60s. You can choose to deny it but its invalidity is then only in your mind.
Same with the "definition of marriage." Your words are spoken truly like someone on the oppressor side. I'll tell ya: history is going to show you to be just like oppressors past: wrong.
And I simply do not believe you when you claim it's all about the word "marriage." Like so many other people you confuse legal marriage with the religious ritual. They are two different things. The sooner you grasp that the better of we all are.
Legal marriage most certainly is a civil right. There are tax an legal implications. And a legal marriage means nothing in the eyes of God. It's a contract between people, sanctioned by their government.
Religious marriage most certainly is NOT a civil right. All of your statements on "marriage" apply to the religious ritual, but they do not apply to the legal contract. Secular society is not a religion, and city hall is not a church.
To answer your question, I'm not fighting to call legal marriage a "civl union" for heterosexuals because that is YOUR solution not mine. YOU are the one who has a problem with simply enforcing equality now. Why should I push for a more complicated solution just to appease your bigotry?
Seems to madden you to be called a bigot, I suppose that's because no one wants to think they actually are one. But you define your own self that way by embracing discriminatory attitudes and justifying them.
History will show us.
Really: why on earth do you care if two men or two women in love get a marriage license at city hall? It has nothing to do with you, so I really can't understand why you'd possibly care.

Mike C. of CA 12:57PM November 26, 2008

Yo, "Mike of CA"...I'm gonna stop posting on this. You seem to have too many personal issues. And you wish to ascribe to me what are, in fact, elements of your own psychological makeup. I'm not a practicioner of sex with other males, , I never had any sexual encounters with other males, I don't have any hidden agendas, I was raised by a regular mom and dad (nine children), wasn't beaten, never lacked for love and attention, am completely and irrevocably attracted to females, and will never never understand how a fellow male DOESN'T feel that force of attraction.
And yeah, I won't change my feelings on this. I simply find the thought of males cavorting with males disgusting. It's gross and wrong, in every sense of the word. I think guys who do like it have mental problems. You should all feel ashamed of yourselves. I think you know how unlucky you are, how very unlucky to have interpreted your earliest sexual feelings in the way that you apparently have instead of simply trying to pick up girls like the rest of us. Maybe you weren't, um, up to the challenge and instead of licking your wounds and trying again `til you got it right...like most guys do...no, you figured, "awww hell, us guys are such horny f**ks it'll probably be easier to let another pathetic loser male touch me like that...and we can both act like that's what we REALLY liek to do." I'm so much luckier than you are...it's obscene. So...I'm done with this. It ain't fair. I'm with the 95% of the world who is "normal". So my opinions are biased. Maybe one day the magic of being attracted to the opposite sex will touch you, maybe you will finally understand what all the hoo fa roo is about when it comes to liking girls. I wish you the best.

brooklyn boy of NY 9:42AM November 26, 2008

Which brings me to the only valid point you made in any of your tirades; perhaps, the document that heterosexual couples receive at the courthouse should also be a ‘civil union’ document. So why not take up that banner? Go out and try to get secular ‘marriage’ licenses for heterosexual couples changed to ‘civil union’ licenses if you still feel somehow slighted by your equal rights. It’d get you to the same place, probably faster, and without the opposition of the so called ‘religious right’.
So, while you can continue on your shallow crusade here against friend and foe alike, I won’t be here to enjoy it. But your attitude and it’s repercussions is exactly what I meant by ‘digging in their heels;’ and I know that you think the 39 year old movement for gay rights has ‘bigger heels’ but 1,376 years of fighting in Jerusalem suggests that you don’t hold a candle to your ‘religious zealots.’

CB of NC 8:57PM November 25, 2008

You further show your lack of logic and information in your rant to WillieG; your argument about separate but equal is flawed on two fronts; one, the practice of separate but equal in the sixties was never really the same as the technical concept or theory. The African-American schools were given used equipment from white schools, lesser public facilities, and on and on and on; that’s not equal, and arguments can be debated that the idea was actually never meant to be equal in practice. Two, this isn’t even a matter of separate but equal. This isn’t two items, like water fountains, with the same title said to be equal this is the same one object with two different titles, in the same way that a hurricane and typhoon are the same object with different titles (yes, I despise comparing fundamentally different things like this, but the point remains the same). And, this is one right, not all of them that African-Americans were/are fighting for; many if not most all states and/or municipalities now have laws and protections to include sexual orientation as a basis for discrimination, and the Federal Government isn’t going to be far behind (which is impressive considering the speed at which our behemoth moves).
You’re argument against changing the definition of marriage is also inaccurate. We never changed the definition of ‘marriage’, we never changed the definition of ‘women’ or the definition of ‘white’ or ‘black’ (notice we didn’t strike the word women from the dictionary and call everyone men when they received equal rights, and as evidenced by you and I we are still using the terms black and white under the same definitions as those used during slavery in the United States). BUT, what we did do is to change the rights of those groups to include the same, equal rights that the ‘white men’ enjoyed as established under the constitution. Interracial marriages may have been forbidden under the law, but a black man and a black woman could still be ‘married’. While under the old law women may have been ‘possessed’ by their husbands, but the single women weren’t exactly ‘free’ during that era either. So, I defy you to actually justify your statement that the definition of the word marriage has somehow changed over time; now I’ll be more than happy to instruct you as to how it was hijacked for secular purposes.
Finally, I never asked you to “shut up and step aside because it makes [me] uncomfortable.” It doesn’t. I presented an argument with ‘support’, from the MA Superior Court, in which the state had given IDENTICAL protections to civil unions, yet this was still protested against, so I asked, ”why?” Why would you continue to fight when you had won (not everywhere, but in that state), if not to somehow say “we want more than just equal rights, we want everyone to be forced to accept us even if they disapprove?”

CB of NC 8:56PM November 25, 2008

You can continue to carry the torch on this website if you feel so inclined; however, there are better places to put your obvious desire to be involved.
I have never been an opponent of gay marriage, and all homosexuals should be given, and I would support, the rights that are granted by marriage UNDER ANY OTHER NAME. And yes, I agree that there are plenty of small-minded people that have been more than happy to make themselves known here (or maybe to simply to draw your ire because they think it’s funny).
Instead, you have proceeded to insult me and my ‘beliefs’ as garbage, to the point where I feel willing to go out and vote against any such issue just to spite you, personally. On top of all of this it’s not a BELIEF, it’s a DEFINITION; but it is a definition that is steeped in tradition, religion, and history, whether good or bad. And you can continue to call me names, but it doesn’t change the fact that opinions are just opinions, and that doesn’t make them right or wrong just because the minority or the majority believes them differently. The law is not on your side, the law is exactly against your side, which I believe is the problem. Whether the courts decide to overturn that law remains to be seen.
Moreover, the California Supreme Court is not the “ultimate authority on law and protections and rights”, the people are the ultimate authority. The judicial system interprets the laws as they are presented by the legislative and executive branches. The courts are only allowed to weld that authority because we give them the right to do so, as a people; including your hated 52%. While I’m not advocating the dissolution of our governmental structure, it’s that kind of uninformed rhetoric that infuriates me, especially when I’m the one being called stupid.
Further, the law didn’t kick you in the teeth, you knew exactly what was on the ballot and there was the possibility that you could lose; it was the crash back to earth after you lost your perceived invulnerability, in much the same way that Icarus lost his wings as he flew too close to the sun, on this issue since the courts had already ‘ruled in your favor’ and the idea that this can never fail in California and will be the stepping stone for all states to follow, that kicked you in the teeth. But, if the courts do overturn prop 8 it’s not because “you won and they lost”, it’s not because the “courts believe in the rights of the minority and the people do not”, if the court overturns this proposition as ‘unconstitutional’ it simply means that this new statute somehow conflicts with another one that was made previously; including an amendment put in place, that took the support from the people you call morons and bigots, which said everyone should be equal under the law.

CB of NC 8:55PM November 25, 2008

brooklyn boy of NY - keep the posts coming. You just keep getting dumber with each one.
And you didn't answer me: why are you so obsessed with gay sex? Is it because you're gay and in denial and lashing out at others to mask the hatred you feel toward yourself? Wouldn't be the first time.
You are so funny. Your little opinionated rant makes you sound like a 6-yr-old on a playground.
You can believe whatever you want, dingus. Your personal beliefs are (thank God) not what rules this land. The law is.
I love the idea of you stewing in your own juices as gay rights moves forward. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.....

Mike C. of CA 7:42PM November 25, 2008