As Connecticut Allows Same-Sex Marriage, the Debate Continues in California

i think gays should have the right to marry. and for those who disagree based on religious beliefs, thats fine for you but not everyone may follow that religion or have a religion at all so imposing your beliefs on them is wrong. im not gay, but i hate discrimination, and not allowing gays to marry is wrong and irrational. theres no harm in allowing them to share the same joy heterosexual couples have. people are saying its wrong, but times change. interracial marriages were looked down upon for a long time as well, but look at today. society has changed and whether we want it to or not, it doesnt matter but we still have to accept it. over time, i believe that gay marriages will become legal just like blacks having the right to vote, and women working outside the home. everything changes.

of NH 7:47PM December 11, 2008

I think what Professor Klarman, quoted in this article, does not appreciate is the fury at having something so dear literally taken away. His suggestion to merely sit back and wait two years and try again is woefully inadequate.

I'm not an "activist type" of person, but having finally been granted the right to legally wed the person I love, only to have that right ripped away 6 months later because a majority of my fellow citizens disapproves, well let's just say I have never been this upset about anything in my life.

I used to gladly debate this subject calmly, and teach people, and be patient. Now it's like I've been slapped in the face. I suspect no one can truly understand who has not been denied an equal right themself, or had one taken away. It's a disgusting feeling that leaves me for the first time in my life ashamed of California.

All I want is to marry the person I love. That wouldn't hurt anybody. I'm more determined than ever. We will win. We have love on our side and we will win.

Domenic R. of CA 7:07PM November 17, 2008

I am gay and I am married--regardless of whether my state or my country recognizes, honors, or protects that relationship. My partner and I have been together for 15 years; we married last summer in Canada. Ironically, it wasn't all that important to me until we went through the process this past year of talking to one another about whether or not to take this step. It was one of the most meaningful processes I've ever engaged in. (I was married, by the way, to a man in my 20s, without nearly this kind of forethought.) This time it was serious, deliberate, and significant. Having had this experience has made me a strong advocate of gay marriage: I don't think all gay people should marry (any more than all straight people should). But we should be given the right--if the state is going to be in the business of giving anyone the right. Otherwise, it's discrimination of the worst sort: it's a refusal to honor my capacity for love, commitment, and responsibility.

"Traditional" marriage, as people are talking about it today, goes back perhaps a century or so. Before that, people didn't marry for love. They married to secure property rights & cement relationships among families in a community. Heterosexuals have changed the meaning of marriage. Today, it is a bond of affection and love; as such, there is no reason to deny it to gay and lesbian people.

It is a civil right. It is a human right. It's about dignity. It's about love.

Funny that so soon after the end of apartheid in South Africa, that country understands this very well. Here's an excerpt from their constitutional amendment. I find it very moving, and very persuasive.

The exclusion of same-sex couples from the benefits and responsibilities of marriage was not a small and tangential inconvenience resulting from a few surviving relics of societal prejudice destined to evaporate like the morning dew. It represented a harsh if oblique statement by the law that same-sex couples are outsiders, and that their need for affirmation and protection of their intimate relations as human beings is somehow less than that of heterosexual couples. It signifies that their capacity for love, commitment and accepting responsibility is by definition less worthy of regard than that of heterosexual couples. The intangible damage to same-sex couples is as severe as the material deprivation.

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So far as I'm concerned, no religious group should be forced to perform marriages it doesn't believe in. The Catholic church required my mother, after she converted to Catholicism, to annul her first marriage in order to be married again in the church. I'm all for protecting religious freedom. But it really seems to me that many religious people "cherry-pick" from the Bible in order to support their own prejudice.

History will be on the side of justice and equality in this, as in other civil/human rights issues.

karen of FL 3:33PM November 16, 2008

Love and sex are largely beyond the boundaries of law, but marriage is definitely not. Marriage laws are a fact of history. Civil marriage didn't even exist in Western culture until the Middle Ages when local civil governments were being formed. Before that, marriage was strictly a religious and familial contract.

Laws regulating marriage have to do largely with protection of progeny and regulating inheritance and property rights. Here in the US, Utah was not admitted to the United States until they outlawed polygamy. Other laws regulating marriage include restrictions on age (you've got to be above the age of consent); kinship (you can't marry your 1st cousin or your mother, etc.); species (you can't marry your horse).

To claim that just because two homosexual people love each other, they should be granted equal legal status with two heterosexual, non-related adults is just bogus. It's trying to get the law to create an equality that simply does not exist.

Laura H. of TX 12:56PM November 16, 2008