GeekNerd

The City Attorneys of Los Angeles and San Francisco are motioning on the Revision vs Amendment grounds.

Six couples are suing.

SFGov: Office of the City Attorney: News Release: 2008-11-05
http://www.contracostatimes.com/cali...nclick_check=1

Baelor

Why is the government marrying people? It has no right to be involved in my relationship with others.

GeekNerd

@17

It's defended on the claim that marriage is of benefit to society. This assumption is not necessarily true, and (in the Caribbean and Switzerland) marriage rates are falling since it just isn't relevant anymore. A related assumption concerns nuclear families as basic social units, which is not merely atavistic but parochially insensitive to ethnic diversity.

Apart from the defense (which may or may not be concerned with how it got into law in the first place), marriage in law is likely (this is just an inference) a Judeo-Christian relic. It was certainly a ritually dense tradition for the rich and powerful a few hundred years ago in Aristochristocratic Europe, and with Japan's race to purge itself of the old cultures (to embrace European machinary) a kinda ersatz Judeoform rooted in Asia.

Cali Trumpet

I came from a conservative background in San Diego, and now am in a quite liberal area in Santa Cruz. Of course it was a nice victory with Obama, but bittersweet.

Prop 8 is far more important on the No side to some people than it is for people on the Yes side. If you were gay, would you like the opportunity to get married one day? Being queer is a psychological thing, not a choice. Just like a guy like me is attracted to girls, another guy named Michael could be attracted to someone named Chris. What right do we have to say that Michael and Chris cannot get married? Sure it is no big deal right? I mean they can still be "partners." ...So what do they live life for? Anyone will tell you that getting married is one of the gifts of a successful life. It is quite sad, in my honest opinion, that more than half of California just sees gay people as another species, tainted with corruption. Gay people are just like you or me, and your best friend could be gay and you might not even know it. If you voted yes on proposition 8, how can you look a queer man into the eyes. The gay community does not ask for much, just equal rights so they can live their lives like any other married couple.

Although the OP had a fairly immature post, he seems to be heavily affected by the proposition outcome. Like I said, I think people who are pro prop 8 do not see it as a very important measure... they just rather leave marriage as it is (defined as a man and a woman). The anti-prop 8 people though, were fighting for a larger cause, and do not know what to think or what to do now that they see that even California cannot reach common sense.

screwitlah

There's a reason why laws shouldn't ever be made through a show of hands - and this is one clear and sobering example why. This is an unfortunate instance of blatantly allowing prejudice to encroach on people's rights and into the law through popular vote.

Mr Payne

I don't know about that. My Mormon friend seemed to think it is very important. The amount of time & money he devoted to that cause demonstrated as much.

wink

Laws against gay marriage remind me of the laws against interracial marriage that existed decades ago (laws that most people would find outdated and prejudiced today). Yet people fail to see the parallel, and they use the same logic to push through discriminatory and unjustified legislation as they did back then.

kirklandwaterboy

another reason they don't see the parallel is because they view homosexuals not as a minority group, but homosexuality in general as some sort of "moral perversion." hence the large number of black voters who voted yes despite a certain movement that occurred back in the late 60s...

GeekNerd

"moral perversion"...
~ Seaborn Roddenbery, D-GA (on Interracial Marriage) (defending proposed Constitutional Amendment) (1912)

shravas

I've brought that up before, but people claimed that the two issues are "entirely different." I'm not sure how.

Tanstripe

"I'd also say that denying gays the right to marriage is unconstitutional based on the fact that..." ~ Aerospace

I don't wish to cause much ruckus; I simply want to voice an inquiry:
Has the American public overridden what is right with what is constitutional?

TheBlackLantern

i come from a politically liberal but socially conservative family. i am for prop 8. every dictionary in the world defines marriage as something between a man and a woman, not between two people of the same sex. if gays want to get married and get a license validating their union, they should have every right to do so but not marriage because marriage i believe along with many others is something between a man and a woman. if they want to call it gayrriage i have no problem with it. also, who says the right to "marry" is a fundamental right for everyone? that is up to debate. instead of the right to "marry" they should just what i call, "garry". now let me say this, i am not a hater. in fact, i have a good gay friend so don't judge me. i am also afraid of the consequences of what is going to happen if gay marriage were allowed here. in canada, ministers or priests who refuse to wed gay couples have been sued by gay couples and now they legally have to wed gay couples.

jaimeastorga2000

Pretty much. Average Americans have almost as much faith on their constitution as on their bible (and have understood or taken the time to read both equally well). Quite the recipe for dogmatic thinking.

ari102791

America has a lot of problems. I don't see how a temporary ban on gay marriage in one state is so much worse than other problems in america.

Jarn

Maybe I'm being too optomistic, but I don't think that it would fly in my home state of Minnesota...