Mr. Obama did express his opposition to Calfornia’s proposition 8, according to several sources I have seen, including this article in the Sacramento bee. Also according to this page (ontheissues.org) he has voted NO on a (federal) constitutional ban of same-sex marriage.
With that being said, I wish that our new president-elect would come out firmly on the side of Gay Marriage. But, like you, I understand the calculation that prevents him from doing so. Yesterday’s results in California are a good example.
I’m probably not going to be able to say this as well as I wish, but…
We’re making progress, y’know? Ten years ago - five years ago - nobody would’ve thought that same-sex marriage would even be considered, at all. That it would ever be legal, even briefly. And the fact that people feel a need to now make laws about it, is actually progress against bigotry. Before it wouldn’t be considered at all, it wasn’t even conceivable. Yes, they’re repressing people, and they know they’re doing it. Which is progress from repressing people and not realizing it.
I truly believe that gay marriage will be legal within our lifetimes. People are saying fifty years - I’m going to say twenty and maybe ten. And many of the people who voted for these bans are going to be ashamed of themselves.
I was struck today by the realization the conservatives like an individualist approach to economic matters, but a community approach to social matters, and are willing to legislate the latter.
Liberals have a individual approach to social matters, and a community approach to economic matters, and are willing to legislate the latter.
Sorry, carry on. (BTW, boo on removing rights and creating second class citizens.)
Article One, Section 10 of the Constitution forbids the states from passing ex post facto laws (laws that retroactively make something illegal), which IMHO (IANA Constituional scholar) is why laws typically say “illegal after January 1st of the new year” and the like. Conveniently for this discussion, the same Section forbids the states from passing any law “impairing the Obligation of Contracts,” the so-called “inviolability of contracts” clause.
I’d think that any attempt to declare null-and-void a legally contracted gay marriage after the fact would constitute an act of war against the United States. A flagrant breaking of the Constitution and an attack on Americans’ trights and Federal prerogatives, right?
And the President has sworn to uphold the Constitution, right? And he is sympathetic to gay rights? And he is the most heavily armed man in the world?
But the other side thinks God requires them to press ahead, right?
Ex post facto prohibition applies only to crimes- you can’t be penalized for paying last year’s tax rate last year, but you can certainly be penalized for adhering to last year’s building code this year (unless you’re grandfathered in).
A law, by itself, cannot void a contract- but a judge can. I’m not sure about this - nobody is- but I suspect nothing will change for these people one of them applies for a state income tax provision for married couples or something like that.
This could very well be the case for some people. Unfortunately, there are voters who are genuinely terrified at the idea of gay marriage.
I remember a few years ago when my mother burst into tears during a discussion about gay marriage. I asked her why she was so opposed to it, and she said “because they want to turn my marriage into a joke!” No matter how many times I explained that she and my dad were the only ones with control over her marriage, she insisted that “the gays” were trying to make a fool of her. It never occurred to my mother that two men or two women might genuinely love one another and want to spend their lives together.
You know what else gets me? They ask your mother how she feels. Oooh, how do you feel? Oh, guess we can’t do that!
Did they ask your mother how she felt about what we’re spending on Iraq or the economic bailout? Didn’t think so. You, your mother, and the rest of us are idiots and the government lets us decide issues that are meaningless to the guys who are playing with trillions of dollars to make themselves richer. “Let them bicker over marriage. Meanwhile, let’s wage an oil war without the stupid people’s permission.”
You know, all this marriage bullshit could be avoided if the lawmakers were willing to define a separate category called “Civil Union” or something like that, defined as a “union” between same-sex couples which carries all the rights, privileges, and tax benefits of marriage! Has anyone even proposed this compromise?? I know some conservative fundie Xtians who claim such a “Union” already exists, but they’re liars.
As long as you understand that if Obama did openly support Gay Marriage during the campaign, he would not now be President Elect. It would have been incalculably stupid for him to do so and the states that put gay marriage on the ballots in 2004 did a lot to sabotage Kerry’s campaign. Sometimes this was done by well-meaning liberals and sometimes it was done as a ploy by the Republicans to ensure that Theo-cratic voters would come out in force against the Democratic candidates. I had the chance to see the Fundy emails that were sailing around at that point. They were scary but effective.
It sucks and it is stupid but the reality of bigotry says that the steps are small. Hey we still can’t even get pot legalized yet and there isn’t even a religious or racist reason to keep pot smokers repressed and on the wrong side of the law.
What would be the point ? This is all about stomping on same sex couples; the bigots would never tolerate separate but equal. If such a thing is even doable, which I find highly unlikely; history shows what separate but equal is really like. Civil Unions are about creating an inferior pseudo version of marriage that can be used to lock people in as second class citizens.
Great idea. And while we’re at it let’s get the lawmakers so set up some special schools just for niggers! :rolleyes: Hell, give’em their own bathrooms too.
I want to on the bus I’m going to sit the fucking back.
The weirdest thing to me is that in Arkansas, long the butt of jokes and regarded as a socially barbarically conservative backwater (like Alabama), only 5% more voters voted against gay marriage than in California, considered one of the most tolerant (and, by some, “enlightened”) states.
I’ve heard several times today that Prop 8 not only bans marriage, but all marriage-like institutions… ie civil unions and domestic partnerships. I haven’t been able to find anything like that in the text of the proposition though… is there anyone that knows for sure one way or the other?
At this point I would take this ‘separate but equal’ compromise. It’s better then the neither separate nor equal we basically have now. (Yes, I know that domestic partnerships in CA are basically marriage but that doesn’t mean shit at the federal level or out of the state)
The major problem is that the far right and many prop 8 supporters don’t want us to have separate drinking fountains or sit in the back of the bus. They just don’t want to give us a drinking fountain at all and want us off the bus entirely.
We aren’t “domestic partners”. We are married. Just like you and your opposite-sex spouse are not “domestic partners”. If it’s so equal, let’s switch, 'kay? You really shouldn’t have a problem with it.
How about this? For everybody, gay and straight, “marriages” happen in churches. They can be dissolved only by the death of one party. No divorce. Ever. Civil unions, for everybody, gay and straight, are secular matters. Sound good? Why or why not?
ETA: I almost forgot: if you are Married, you must produce offspring. If you cannot or will not, your “marriage” becomes a civil union.
I’m with you in the sadness, but I’m not getting any solace out of the spending.
Seriously, they call themselves churches and instead of spending millions feeding the hungry or caring for the sick, they choose to spend it to make sure other people who love each other can’t get married?
