Oh look, another bigot comparing gays and lesbians to animals.
More simply put: if you think GWB is personally “fanatical” on this issue, I think you’re simply wrong. I’ve seen NO evidence that he spends any substantial portion of his time worrying about homosexuality, other than as a political problem. If his base were Rockefeller Republicans (such as those he’s met throughout his life as a Yalie and the son of privilege), I have no doubt he’d feel comfortable doing and saying absolutely nothing; in the WASP world where he grew up, not only is an urbane inidifference to personal peccadillos de rigeur, there’s a long tradition (as in English public schools) of “youthful experimentation” that makes it uncouth to call to much attention to sodomy or any evils that the fire and brimstone lower class may associate with it. The man did not go to Bob Jones, and even his midlife conversion was to what as far as I can tell is a more suburban, touchy-feely Methodism than to the more rigid variety of Methodist or Southern Baptist.
Fanatical? One of the biggest criticisms is that the guy doesn’t feel strongly about anything. His daughters hang out in PR and fashion circles, presumably with his approval. If dad were a raving “fanatic” on this subject, would they be attending the “wedding” of their “eyebrow waxer” (I think I got this right) on Fire Island, in the middle of a campaign year, given that they’ve volunteered to do anything they can to help his campaign?
Bush has a constituency that overwhelmingly does not approve of “gay marriage.” He can either ignore his base and sabotage his election prospects, or give his base his token support by opposing further expansion of rights never before recognized. Neither course indicates a personal fanaticism that I just don’t see, based on the facts.
You know, I really didn’t think the principles of logical analogy required spelling out, but I’ve been wrong before.
For animals, just to walk you through it step by step, read “people.” For “cats” read “a first particular sex of people.” For dogs, read “a second particular set of people.” Complete allegory/analogy.
You’ve just sweepingly demonstrated the utter bigotry of Aesop, that swine. No, wait a minute, that’s even more bigoted! I meant . . .
If I dumped friends because we disagree on something I would be friendless… or bored out of my mind from hanging around with clones. I don’t agree with them on this issue and several others but for the most part our core values match. We’ve held each other’s hands through bad times, and celebrated the good times together. Sometimes you have to agree to disagree and move on to the next topic.
oh, and I’m a she.
Well, you do have Salem! That’s a big plus. Don’t you have cold winters? BRRRRRR!!! I’ll think about it. (were you even talking to me?)
I agree, er, except the part about me being a she! 
Yes, you have been misled. So far, Texas, Kansas, and Florida have all determined that a post-op is legally the same gender they were assigned at birth. Only New Jersey has affirmed the right of a post-op to marry as a member of their reassigned sex. In the other 46 states, it’s still a crapshoot.
Fear not, friend. John Mace is wrong. State judges are required to swear ( or affirm ) to uphold the Constitution of the United States and not just their own state constitution. ( See Article 6 ). Just because the federal courts refuse to hear a challenge to the bans they can still be overturned by state judges. Perhaps by applying the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
Text of the “Federal Marriage Amendment”
Read the second sentence carefully. It has to do with judicial interpretations (“shall be construed to require”) of existing statutes. While the amendment does prohibit same-sex “marriages” anywhere in the United States, it does not prohibit individual states from passing laws to allow same-sex civil unions (“or the legal incidents thereof”).
A gay rights organization gives its 100% rating to someone who not only opposes gay marriage, but has said he would support an amendment to the Massachusetts constitution to prohibit it?
Must be some of them self-hatin’ gays at the HRC!
Actually, the immediately post-war years were pretty good for the freed slaves. It wasn’t til about 10 years later that Jim Crow really got going. Part of that, of course, was that the carpet baggers were intentionally using the black to punish the former rebels, rather than supporting equality for its own sake. I believe it was with the election of Ruther’fraud’ Hayes that the southern states really got into finding legislative means to oppress the former slaves.
It doesn’t prevent a state from passing such law, but it prevents any court in any state from enforcing such a law, because it prevents a state court from construing the law of the state so as to protect any rights granted under that law that would preserve an incident of marriage to a same sex relationship. No court can enforce a law without first construing it, even when the law is plainly clear.
The Republicans who drafted that amendment know this; they have consistently lied about what “construe” means in order to leave the false impression that the Republican FMA does not eviscerate same-sex partner rights lock, stock, and barrel. It would defeat Vermont’s civil union law. It would destroy same-sex domestic partnership benefits in San Francisco, Chicago, and many other cities. It might even prevent a gay man from leaving his estate to his partner, depending on how far one takes “incidents of marriage”.
Don’t listen to the Republican lies. Read the plain language of the proposed amendment in light of what the words actually mean, and not what the spin doctors tell you.
This is your interpretation opinion, just as I have an interpretation and opinion; some legal scholars agree with yours (feel free to reference them), some legal scholars agree with my interpretation. And some legal scholars have opinions that differ from both of us. But let us not confuse our opinion with fact.
In the end, it would be for the courts to decide the meaning of the wording.
True, 2sense. But a state court that overturns a state amendment on federal grounds leaves itself open for appeal to the federal system.
The Massachusetts Supreme Court’s decision was unappealable because they are the final authority on the meaning of state law in Massachusetts. Had they based their decision on the federal 14th Amendment, their decision could have been overturned (or affirmed) by the US Supreme Court.
The Court has no binding precedent on this issue, but their dicta in Lawrence explictly said that their rationale did not extend to permitting same-sex marriage, and most Court observers agree that the current Court would not be receptive to finding a right to same-sex marriage in the federal Constitution.
If I had been assigned to draft this amendment, I might have included a clause that said, “Congress has the power to define ‘incidents of marriage’.” That would allow a detailed definition to be crafted.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t the dicta in Lawrence suggest only that the substantive due process rationale does not extend to permitting same-sex marriage? It would seem to me that any finding for same-sex marriage would be based on equal protection, not due process, as was the case in Massachusetts, Vermont, Hawaii, and Alaska, and that there’s nothing in Lawrence that would forestall an equal protection argument.
This is, of course, not to say that the current SCOTUS is particularly likely to rule that the Constitution mandates same-sex marriage based on equal protection, but merely that there’s a coherent position on that side of the issue.
So what you’re saying is that the proposed amendment would still leave the issue up in the air for those activist judges to decide? 
From the majority opinion in Lawrence v. Texas:
Obviously, the courts have the ability to interpret any wording in any legislation or constitutional amendment. Not just this one. But, in my opinion, the wording is not ambiguous. So, no, I do not think the proposed amendment (which, by the way, I strongly oppose) would leave the issue up in the air.
Treating gays as second class citizens, and barring them from the basic right of marriage, even with “civil unions” thrown in as a consolation prize, is wrong. The courts long ago threw out “separate but equal” arguments when it came to race.
All of the cases you mention above were decided on state law grounds; that is, they are intepretations of that state’s constitutional protections of equal protection. Massachusetts and Hawaii explicitly adopted equal-rights amendments during the Seventies, and those amendments, which explicitly mandate equal treatment on the basis of gender, were the basis of the successful equal protection claims for same-sex marriage. (I don’t know what the situation is in Alaska and Vermont, as I haven’t researched the issue in those states.) The federal constitution has no comparable language, and it’s going to be much harder (read: essentially impossible) to rest an equal protection claim in the relatively weaker protection given by the Fourteenth Amendment. The only way that’s going to happen, IMO, is if we see a marked change in the political/philosophical composition of the Supreme Court, and with the recent election results I don’t see that happening for at least another twenty or thirty years.