Do we need a 50-state strategy

I’m thinking we need a Charlton Heston—“You can pry my homo marriage from my cold, dead hands” etc.

I find it hard to believe that these jackasses even live in Massachusetts.  For goodness sake.

Didn’t these Republitards notice that all of the abortion restriction and the crazy fertilized egg is a person ballot issues got whacked by the voters?

Seems like the panty-sniffing brigade is getting smaller.  All they have left are the bedroom peepers.

i still don’t understand why they CARE who marries whom. leave everyone alone and let them happy!

that really is the gist of it, in my head… they lie and they insinuate. the attack on marriage (for that is what it is, attacking any marriage that doesn’t strictly follow far-right ideology) is the latest step in trying to turn our country into an official theocracy.

i think that is what i would use as my first strategy; the far right continues to attempt to define CIVIL law by RELIGIOUS language. unfortunatly, people don’t study history, so the majority don’t understand the slope we stand on. there are times when i hate being american. this, this is one.

Didn’t these guys learn anything on Tuesday?  The Republican party can survive only if it becomes a secular party once again. Forget the Palin-fundi whack job wing of the party. Go back to the Ron Paul, Barry Goldwater principles.

Mike Pence: I didn’t vote for him.

The Indiana representative cited the ballot measures against gay marriage that passed on Election Day as evidence of the continuing presence of conservative values.

And I’m citing the failure of the anti-choice ballot measures as evidence of the continued cluelessness of the Indiana representative.

Do we need a 50-state strategy...

No, a boycott of Massachusetts should do the trick.

But seriously, I think an education campaign of national scope is a good idea, just because otherwise the Fundies are going to pick off or prevent marriage rights state by state. I don’t know how that would be organized, or what the content would be, but a large scale sounds like the right way to do it.

Mike Pence is the man about whom this was written: “The man is a fool, who deserves to be laughed at. He’s almost stupid enough to work in cable television.”

“We’re much encouraged by the results in California, and there’s no doubt in our minds, had we been on the ballot Tuesday, our measure would have won,” said Kris Mineau, president of the Massachusetts White Institute, which opposes black citizenship. (...) “Neither state has allowed citizens to vote on the definition of personhood.”

I wonder how they’d react to someone saying this?

The porpoise of marriage is the creation of snowflake children.  Any marriage that does not create snowflakes should be dismembered by law.  All recreational abortions are an abdominalation and are frowned upon by the christianist G*d (not sure how the other gods feel about this) and therefore is the law of this Jesusloving land.  I am not really against gay marriage per say, just against gays in general.  You won’t make me gay unless you can pry my cold dead hands off of my heterosexual penis, and I mean it.

Seriously.
RiM.
Comment bot.
Prove me wrong.

Any marriage that does not create snowflakes should be dismembered by law.

You’re contradicting yourself, RiM. On the one hand, you want children, and on the other, you say the parties to the marriage should be frigid.

*ba-dum ching!*

Um, it sure didn’t mobilize the base this year, so why would it on the next cycle?  It seemed like it worked out well for them ten years ago, but it’s stopped working.  A ballot initiative doesn’t get anyone into office, it just pisses people off.  I don’t mind if they keep trying the same strategies that they lost with this year.

You’re contradicting yourself, RiM. On the one hand, you want children, and on the other, you say the parties to the marriage should be frigid.

...Conservatives see no contradiction! Ya see, you get a sheet with a hole in the middle…

Ya see, you get a sheet with a hole in the middle..

Nuh-uh.  Yer sheet needs two eyeholes, oh and a mouth hole to stick the beer into.

I’m thinking we need a Charlton Heston—“You can pry my homo marriage from my cold, dead hands” etc.

I’m thinking George Takei.

As a person from the ‘fake’ Virginia: There is a need for a 50 state strategy. Because every state ban that passes is another law that is going to have to be over turned. And that 50 state strategy may want to concentrate on the federal level. DOMA needs to go- and from there, the un constitutionality of the various amendments goes down.

And I hate to say this, but there needs to be a lot of secular arguments for gay marriage- or at least not banning it. My own parents are early boomers. And not liking gay people particularily is the only prejudice they are allowed to have. From growing up in the segregated south in the 50’s to today, they have come a long way- but the gays seem to be a step to far.

That said: They value equality, justice, and not paying for stupid legal shit.  They may not love the gays. But they dont’ want their tax dollars going to make anyones life miserable, or a court fight over the whole thing.

There is a need for a 50 state strategy. Because every state ban that passes is another law that is going to have to be over turned. And that 50 state strategy may want to concentrate on the federal level. DOMA needs to go- and from there, the un constitutionality of the various amendments goes down.

This is what I was wanting to say, but wasn’t able. Thank you.

And I hate to say this, but there needs to be a lot of secular arguments for gay marriage- or at least not banning it.

There are.  In fact, most of the arguments against banning it are secular - the only ones using religion are the “GAWD SEZ FAGS IS EBIL AND GAWD GAEV ONLY US GOOD STRAITS MARRIJ” assholes.

I live in Massachusetts, and I think you are worrying too much.

First and foremost, Kris Mineau is very much a fringe figure in Massachusetts politics.  Her organization has almost no influence and is pretty much a joke these days.

Second, NONE of the leaders in state government want this, including the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, President of the Senate, Speaker of the House, and Secretary of State.  We also have an overwhelmingly Democratic legislature plus a handful of pro-equal marriage Republicans.  This would never even make it to a full vote.

Third, referenda in Massachusetts require a long, complicated, and very precise process:  a certain number of signatures, all of which must be certified; two “yea” votes in two successive years by a two-thirds majority of the legislature; and then a referendum in the first statewide election after the second successful two-thirds vote in the legislature.  Failure at any stage means that the process must begin again at the beginning, with a new signature drive, two successive votes, etc.

At the earliest, this would not make it to the ballot before 2012, if it could get enough signatures and then two successive votes in a legislature that is over 80% Democrat.  By then gay marriage will have been legal for over eight years and will seem even more normal than it is today, four years after the first marriages since the Goodridge decision.

In short: 

Don’t worry about Massachusetts.  Concentrate on other states with a less convulated referendum process.  They need the time and money far more than we do.

And I hate to say this, but there needs to be a lot of secular arguments for gay marriage- or at least not banning it.

There are a huge number of secular arguments. A few:
1. Banning it discriminates against religions that allow it in favor of religions that do not
2. It is unconstitutional to restrict whom a person can marry based on race, following Loving v. Virginia, which cited the Fourteenth Amendment. This amendment has also been cited in sex discrimination caselaw; why should marriage be restricted based on the sex of the parties?
3. Allowing same-sex couples to marry reinforces strong families and the raising of children, many of whom would otherwise be in foster care. Also, in many same-sex couples, one partner will adopt the biological child of the other; if this is not allowed, if the biological parent dies, the child will be taken away from its only parent.
4. There’s no secular reason to ban it.

(That list of secular arguments obviously leaves out that a ban discriminates against gay people, which is also true and about which I feel strongly, but sexual orientation isn’t a protected class in most states, so I try to avoid that when using legal arguments.)

I’m thinking Ellen Degeneres, actually, Maureen.  Think about it:  She’s in millions of homes.  She’s really well-liked and public reaction to her marriage has been overwhelmingly positive.  Granted, the last two things can be said about George Takei, but Degeneres is more relevant.

I find it hard to believe that these jackasses even live in Massachusetts.  For goodness sake.

If there’s one thing we do well in Massachusetts, it’s generating crazy wingnuts. It must be the sense of being particularly besieged in a super liberal stronghold. Seriously, everyone I’ve ever met who I take seriously thinks that these people are wacko. And weirdly obsessed with this issue. Seriously, it’s been over five years now. Even people who were initially against it have all pretty much stopped caring. After all, it hasn’t changed their lives, the sky hasn’t rained fire, there hasn’t been a plague of locusts. Hell, a lot of people have probably forgotten that it’s legal.

It’s as old as the internet, probably older, but it applies here quite well.  The old adage, “Is this the hill you want to die on?”

I hope, boy do I hope, that the rethugs think the makeover they need is more aggressive intolerance and bigotry.  Go for it!

It may suck for us in the short term but in the long term, it’s puts more and more these bastards, fuckwits and dishonest shills out of business.  Keep pushing replitards, we’re counting on you!

It seems that same-sex marriage is much more attractive to feminists than men. Massachusetts has been permitting same-sex marriages since 2003, and is the only state with enough historical data to study. 80% of same-sex marriages in Massachusetts involve females, and only 20% involve males. This is precisely what a social and economic cost/benefit analysis predicts: men get little or nothing out of marrying each other.

But women and Feminism will get a lot of benefits.

In the mid-1980’s feminists launched “gay marriage” as a victim-class attempt to feminize marriage entirely. Female-female marriage places feminists in full Supremacist control of the nuclear family and child-rearing. Their idea is to leave men with no constitutional rights to be a part of legitimate society, and to render them nothing more than servant to the established child support (nee welfare) state. “Gay marriage” victimology always expands into “same-sex” marriage when N.O.W. shows up to impose their agenda on unwitting courts or legislatures, because N.O.W. has always been out to accomplish much more than permitting lesbians to marry each other.

“Seriously, everyone I’ve ever met who I take seriously thinks that these people are wacko. ”

Just cuz everyone you know or have met agrees with you, doesn’t mean much.  There are literally millions of wingnuts, but you don’t see them much around where I live either.

Doesn’t mean they can’t fuck things up.  They did in CA.

*must not feed troll must not...*

It seems that same-sex marriage is much more attractive to feminists than men.

They’re not mutually exclusive.

This is precisely what a social and economic cost/benefit analysis predicts: men get little or nothing out of marrying each other.

Putting aside the 80% of women whom you don’t care about because you’re a disgusting misogynist, why is it that those 20% of men are expendable?

Their idea is to leave men with no constitutional rights to be a part of legitimate society, and to render them nothing more than servant to the established child support (nee welfare) state.

In what world does that make sense? And how does someone else’s same-sex marriage take away your rights? Even more, how would a same-sex marriage between two women affect a man in any way, rather than an opposite-sex marriage doing this?

Shorter Fash: “FEMINAZIS WANNA TURN MEN INTA WIMMINZ!”

Ya-a-a-a-a-awn.  Old trolling is old.

RiM is alright.  As long as he puts in an earnest effort to get funnier.

But Jesus General is more consistent…

“But women and Feminism will get a lot of benefits.”

You DO know there isn’t an actual “Feminism Inc.”, right?

It may suck for us in the short term but in the long term, it’s puts more and more these bastards, fuckwits and dishonest shills out of business.

SHHHHHH!!!! They might not figure it out on their own......shhhh.....

“Gay marriage” victimology always expands into “same-sex” marriage

Ah, I think I’ve figured out what Fashist was trying to say here.

“Gay” can be used to refer to lesbians as well; “gay women” is a synonym I see often. “Same-sex marriage” isn’t used because “gay marriage” excludes lesbians; it’s because you don’t have to be gay to get a “gay marriage,” so “same-sex marriage” is more accurate.

Oh, also:

N.O.W. has always been out to accomplish much more than permitting lesbians to marry each other.

Well, yeah.

Nora, examples for your parents:

Couple has a civil union, one ends up in the hospital, their right to visit denied and they have to go to court. Happens all the time.

Closeted person divorces, has joint custody of kid. Later finds new partner, who functions as step-parent/ 3rd parent to child. Biological parents taking kid on birthday outing, unofficial stepparent has to work that day. Car crashes. Both bioparents dead or unconscious, “step-parent” comes to sign forms to get kid medical treatment, but has no legal standing.

If Massachusetts is so solid, maybe a 49-state strategy and not a 50-state strategy makes sense. However, I very much agree that we need as good a marketing campaign (if not better) than the “yes on 8” forces managed in California.  I still don’t know what went wrong in the “no on 8” campaign (link anyone?) but we have to fix it and move forward nation-wide.  (And stop looking for “allies” where we damn sure won’t find them)

Obama won because the electorate hated Bush, Obama was a better campaigner and he spent 8 times as much money.  McCain is white, old and ugly and Obama is multi-racial, young and beautiful.  If the shoe were on the other foot the other party would have won.

Neither the social conservatism of the Right nor the various positions of the Left determined the outcome.  Just look at the votes on same-sex marriage.

I’d love it if elections were decided on issues, but they’re decided on the campaign quality, on money, and on the external situation (incumbency, military situation).

Apologies for a somewhat random comment, but it needs to be noted that the religious tend to be wound real tight around marriage because they regard it as a sacrament - hands off, you so forth and so on. Half the weddings I’ve attended had a strong religious component: look out, God is here.

This is where they’re coming from. We’re the sort of people to pick up a form from the court house and hold whatever ceremony tickles our fancy, but it would appear that most Californians aspire to approval from a higher authority than friends or family.

It’s not obvious how to get from here to there. I could argue that the Sky Fairy blesses all unions, because I can often keep a straight face, but I can’t show that the approval of family friends and neighbors, or merely the mutual consent of the couple in question, is divinely sanctioned.

God’s the problem, not just the gay.

It’s not obvious how to get from here to there.

Simple. Destroy religion.

How? Universal healthcare. With a major source of fear and uncertainty gone, religion too will lose steam.

In the early 1960s, the churchgoing rate in Canada was higher than in the US, and climbing steadily. Today, the Christian church in Canada is, to put it bluntly, moribund, with nominal 20% weekly attendance rates that turn out to be closer to 10% if you count cars in the church parking lots. However, gay marriage is doing fine.

Single-payer health insurance was instituted in Canada in 1964.

A coincidence? Perhaps. But perhaps not.

Shorter Fash: I always wanted the wimminz in the home raising children, but they went and did it without me! WAAAAAAAAAH!

Please, let them the GOP tie this anchor around its neck. Short-term thinkers as always, they look at CA and think “hey, we beat those sissies—that’s the way to go!” They’ll change their minds again once they see the backlash from “those sissies” and their supporters.

One way or another, though, the GOP is going to split, and these coversations are precursor. I still think the issue that’s going to do it is the “immigration issue” (actually it’s a labour issue, but the Know-Nothings require some bigotry and xenophobia thrown in the mix). The cheap-labour neoCons will take one side, and the Know-Nothings will go after the “browns stealin’ our jobs” with the same bone-headed zeal they went after the “fags stealin’ our marriages.”

The bonus: wealthy and educated fiscal conservatives (at least the ones I know) are disgusted with both factions at this point. They won’t go over to the Dems, but if they vote at all they’ll start looking at the candidate rather than the party.

Neither the social conservatism of the Right nor the various positions of the Left determined the outcome.  Just look at the votes on same-sex marriage.

Yes, please, look at the votes on same-sex marriage.  Look at that CA vote.  52% to 48%.  What a mandate!  From a state that amends its constitution EVERY election cycle.

In CA, unbigoted people need to put up a prop to repeal Prop 8 every cycle until it’s done.  Considering how close the vote was, and how confusing the vote was (vote “yes” to ban, vote “no” to allow) Prop 8 could very well be repealed in 2 years.

But you go, GOP!  Push harder to the right and embrace your social fundie whackjobs!  That’s your “base”; you can’t disown them and win, so you have to cater to them and ...still lose.

More relevant to the post, can someone--fundy whackjob even--explain to me how hetero-only marriage and forced gestation solve any problems?  And why are they necessarily related to limited government (when it seems that both measures are an increase of government intrusion into people’s lives) and the free market? 

I mean, really, what’s the connection?

And why would anyone continue to believe that the GOP is the party of limited government?  Government has increased in size dramatically under GOP since Reagan, and while sometimes they cut taxes, they do NOT cut spending.  They run deficits that ruin the economy and enable their own defeat to “tax and spend” liberals who tax and spend, just like the GOP, but also balance the budget by paying for the spending with today’s dollars (which are always worth more than tomorrow’s) instead of with our children and grandchildren’s dollars.

Hey Bad Jim:

Your assessment is exactly why I advocate for a system in which the state only recognizes civil unions for all (het and gay) and we willingly concede marriage as a sacrament to the purview of religion.  (Think birth certificate/baptism or coroner death cert/funeral.)

As Mnemosyne pointed out, Marriage- the Civil Contract has been so conflated with the wedding, that setting up a separate gay only CU is discriminatory.  But as Gracchus and I have said, trying to wrest marriage back to it’s original meaning is too time consuming and just makes the right hang on tighter -so, let them have the word, we’ll take the rights.

it needs to be noted that the religious tend to be wound real tight around marriage because they regard it as a sacrament - hands off, you so forth and so on. Half the weddings I’ve attended had a strong religious component: look out, God is here.

Mine did.  Full-on High Nuptial Mass.  I put it together (yes, I’m female, and therefore unworthy, but as is typical in American Roman Catholicism, the women actually do everything except say the Mass).  It was lovely.

But…

Catholicism is hardly consistent within the US, much less the world.  My friends had to lie about living together or else their parish priest would have refused to marry them.  Chicago has special pre-cana classes for people who are “older, living together, or have children”.  Different rules, but nominally the same faith.

Well, to bring it back to point, it is enshrined in federal law that we cannot discriminate on basis of creed.  Yet...the Catholic Church will not grant Jews the marriage sacrament.  They won’t grant the sacrament to their fellow Christians, say Protestants..  They won’t even allow Catholics to marry each other outside!

How is this possible when federal law prohibits discrimination based on creed?

B/c anyone can marry anyone in a civil ceremony, which is the only place the government concerns itself with.  The Catholic Church, and all other faiths, are free to decide the rules for obtaining a sacrament.  A High Nuptial Mass is not required, it just gives ‘extra grace’.

No faith is forced to abandon their principals.

So why the fuss over same-sex marriage?  No faith will be required to offer it.  No faith will be required to abandon it.  Marriage in a church is just a doubleplusgood bonus added onto a civil legal arrangement.

And that basic civil legal arrangement has no business enshrining any particular religious beliefs over other particular religious beliefs.

“This is precisely what a social and economic cost/benefit analysis predicts: men get little or nothing out of marrying each other. But women and Feminism will get a lot of benefits.”

Avoiding the knee jerk on this one, a number of points. (Speaking as a man in Illinois who got married in California in September):

First and most important, even if what you say is precisely true, so friggin what? The marriage equality movement is not about gay men getting to marry each other. It is about all same sex couples getting to marry each other. Even if 100% of all same-sex marriages are two women, how does that in any way invalidate the concept? The tone of your post is “See, men don’t want to marry each other! So much for the equality BS!”

If same-sex marriage only benefits women, (which I dispute), but is equally open to men (who then don’t choose it), so what?

Second, never forget about any of these statistics, but far, far more especially any statistics whatsoever to do with gay people - your statistics are ONLY about what the people who are reported are doing, and may or may not have any relation to what the entire gay population is doing. All the statistics about people in same-sex marriages are about the people in the same-sex marriages. And those are people who, for the most part, have created their lives in a world where same-sex marriage was not an option, and in many cases, where even coming out was not an option.

I suspect that even in Massachusetts, while no doubt infinitely better than other places in the country, the ability to be out and open still skews toward the better educated and the more financially stable, especially with age. And marriage is a pretty blatant way of being out.

Rather than saying “marriage benefits women more, so men don’t want it” it is worth at least considering that the benefits to women already in committed relationships outweigh the (real or perceived) negatives enough that more women than men have chosen to take advantage of them.

The question is really less about who gets married right at first when it gets opened to an entire population who has never had access than what the statistics look like in 10 or 20 years when a generation that has been raised with it as a reality are eligible to join.

Sure, so gay men who were raised as perverts in secret, who had to hide from their parents and were lucky not to get thrown out of the house if they came out, who grew up with no visible gay people in society or on TV didn’t rush to get married. Go figure. But what happens when gay men are raised by parents who are as likely to expect them to get married and give them grandkids get to their early 20’s? We don’t know.

As an aside, this is a bizarre place to get any support for an “only feminists would be interested in this” argument.

More relevant to the post, can someone--fundy whackjob even--explain to me how hetero-only marriage and forced gestation solve any problems?  And why are they necessarily related to limited government (when it seems that both measures are an increase of government intrusion into people’s lives) and the free market?

I mean, really, what’s the connection?

In order to make a start on that question, you have to start delving into the dark and demon-haunted mind of the typical Know-Nothing.

A lot of it goes to the “immigration” issue mentioned above. Right-wing nationalists in Europe have been obsessing over declining “native-born” (i.e. white) birthrates, and homophobia and anti-feminism dovetail both nicely with this obsession. I’m sure that thought process (to use a generous term) will go the same way as the population ages in the U.S.

As to “limited government,” these tunnel-vision types really equate the term with lower taxes, period-endstop. And most of these peasants actually hate the idea of a free international market to the degree that they will also gladly accept some form of crony capitalism at home.

It’s the same combination of ignorance, short-term thinking, and fear that have made them such easy marks for the priests and the neoCons.

I dare to hope that they’re shooting themselves in the foot by using the explicitly religious word “sanctity”.  It makes a response on the grounds of separation of church and state easy and obvious.

It could probably be more carefully worded, but something like “The state can’t bestow sanctity on marriages, and if you’re Christian, you should be the first to admit only God can do that.  The state should concern itself with fairness, and leave definitions of sanctity up to individuals and their faith communities.”

Lymis, the even weirder implication Fash makes is that because lesbians are allowed to marry each other, soon ALL women will be marrying each other! In his view, women must be bullied and threatened into heterosexual relationships; they certainly can’t be expected to enjoy marriage to a man, much less enter into it of their own free will.

As we see time and time again, these guys have a far lower opinion of men than any feminist I’ve ever met.

I think one good strategy would be associating supporters of these anti gay marriage amendments to extremist loons like Fred Phelps.

“Well, to bring it back to point, it is enshrined in federal law that we cannot discriminate on basis of creed.  Yet...the Catholic Church will not grant Jews the marriage sacrament.  They won’t grant the sacrament to their fellow Christians, say Protestants..  They won’t even allow Catholics to marry each other outside!

How is this possible when federal law prohibits discrimination based on creed?”

Because the Catholic Church doesn’t perform marriages, they perform weddings, which are solely religious ceremonies. If you never get the piece of paper from the state, you’re not married, no matter how fire-and-brimstone your wedding was.
Similarly, you can be married without ever having had a wedding.

I wonder what the wingnuts would do if we launched a marriage-disestablishment campaign. Sure, get married in a church, but if you want to get the family health insurance rate or file a joint tax return or get any of the other thousands of secular benefits of marriage, go down to the courthouse and get hitched by a civil official. No more religious ceremony with civil effects. Call it “Render unto Caesar.”

Threads like this are a real trainwreck for me, I can’t look away, but I can’t stand what I’m reading.

US right wing Christianists != all religious people

I’m a member of a progressive Christian church who would have voted no on 8 had I been in California, whose church would have voted (at least a very large majority of it) no on 8 had the congregation lived in California. And yet in every conversation I hear it starts with being angry (with justification) at the Mormons and the Catholic church who funneled money into the state to get this vile piece of legislation passed, and almost immediately turns to how all religions are the absolute root of all things evil. How is this different than the comments a few posts back saying that prop 8 passing is all the fault of those damn niggers irrespective of how black people actually voted?

(Also, while they aren’t in the majority, there are other religions in America that deserve better than to be lumped in with the Christianist right)

Threads like this are a real trainwreck for me, I can’t look away, but I can’t stand what I’m reading.

US right wing Christianists != all religious people

I agree. We atheists want to increase our power and partitipation in US politics, but I don’t think that wide-angle attacks on religious people are either a good strategy, or an appropriate way to comport ourselves. I think we should take an attitude of tolerance.

I find it sort of wierd to always be the one to say that.

I get so tired of the un-American Nazi tendencies of the misogynistic, homophobic Christofascists.  Tax their damned churches and start giving atheism equal time by reinstituting the fairness doctrine.

Last night I watched the Tim Robbins film “Cradle will Rock” Red baiting and homo bashing are and have always been the tools of fascists.

Why is anybody surprised if a majority of same-sex marriages in MA are female, and why would it matter in the slightest?  It’s probably just a reflection of social programming.  Girls are taught from a very young age that their wedding day is the most important day of their lives.  Boys are taught that their wedding day is the dreaded end of their independence and freedom.  No matter how preposterous, gay women were once little girls subjected to the same propaganda, and gay men were once little boys who heard the same crap.  It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if some of that was retained and reflected in same-sex marriage choices.

libdevil - that makes some sense. Also, lesbian couples might be more likely to have children, making the legal protections of marriage more important to them.

I’ve seen countless people give different versions of the same idea all around the internet lately - in short, separate civil and religious marriage. Every couple, regardless of sex, would get a civil marriage first. Since it’s not tied to religion, anyone trying to oppose it would have a hard time coming up with an argument that didn’t immediately broadcast “I’m a bigot, don’t listen to me.” Then, if the couple so chooses, they could have a religious, or “traditional” marriage, and individual religious establishments could feel free to discriminate to their hearts’ content, because there is no legal meaning attached to it, only religious. There’s no logic to the idea that gay marriage would tear apart religion and “traditional marriage”, but giving the bigots that cookie might distract them from the part where religious gay folks can have their religious wedding at the liberal church/temple/whathaveyou around the corner. I think this would give gay marriage the best chance of getting through nationally, because it applies to First and Fourteenth amendment rights, and that, of course, would fall under federal jurisdiction. Like Rebecca said, there is no secular argument against it, so what could they come up with to not let gay people have a civil marriage like all the straight folks are having (that is, something not blatantly nonsense that would fail, I know they’ll think of something)?

The thing is, I just don’t know how to go about pushing for something like this. Legislation, Supreme Court, would it have to start grassroots? I’m envisioning Constitutional Marriage Act. I don’t know anything about actual government procedures that I didn’t learn from 9th grade civics class a good 8 years ago now, so anyone know if there’s anywhere we could go with this idea?

Threads like this are a real trainwreck for me, I can’t look away, but I can’t stand what I’m reading.

Not much of a trainwreck yet. I only see one comment (bad Jim @03:59) and a follow-up (sunsin @06:25) that touch very mildly on the idea that religion as a whole is the core problem here. And the follow-up makes a very interesting point about how universal healthcare might make Americans less likely to turn to the Invisible Bearded Sky Man™ at one of the few true moments of existential crisis they’re likely to experience in their lives.

Also, while they aren’t in the majority, there are other religions in America that deserve better than to be lumped in with the Christianist right.

Guess you’ll have to step up your game to Bill Donohue/Catholic league levels of media whoredom, Church of LDS levels of public prostelitysing, and Islamic fundie levels of exceptionalist victomology (AKA “I want my wife to wear a veil on her driving license photo"), then.  Or just combine them all into one big nation-destroying machine, as the Xtian fantasists do. Unfortunately, that’s the obnoxious reality of who gets to define the term “religion” in mainstream American discourse.

While I have mild disdain for the those who believe in supernatural entities and magic, and somewhat greater disdain for the organised religions that exploit those beliefs, I have no real problem with the continued existence of American religious denominations like the Quakers, UCC, non-Orthodox Judaism, non-fundie Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc., etc.; they generally keep their religion to themselves per the spirit of the Establishment Clause, and I’m more than happy to humour their superstitious views since they humour my godless ones. I’d say most athiests, except for extremist showboats like Hitchens, would take a similar view.

I don’t think you get many fewer existential crises with universal healthcare. On average, half of the people you love will still die in your lifetime. You do get fewer financial crises though.

The thing is, I just don’t know how to go about pushing for something like this. Legislation, Supreme Court, would it have to start grassroots?

Marriage and Civil Unions are generally considered the purview of the several states (except when it might conflict with the Constitution), so the effort to differentiate marriage from (let me make this crystal clear: non-separate-but-equal) state-recognised Civil Unions has to happen on a state-by-state level.

Now that Prop 8 has inserted Nuremburg-Law-Lite discriminatory language into its state constitution, California is a good place to start. The process should follow this basic course: 1) clearly define the package of legal rights and privileges currently granted by a “marriage” license; 2) transfer that package to a new contractual license called Civil Union; 3) ensure clearly that the license is available to any two (or more) consenting adult citizens.

(I’d also add a requirement that provisions for dissolution of the contract (what we now call a pre-nup) as chosen by the non-state parties be included in the license)

At that point, the Proposition 8 language becomes embarrassing but legally meaningless. And California, as a high-population trendsetter, will probably be followed in short order by Mass, NY, and other states. I don’t see similar things happening in states like Mississippi and Alabama, nor do I see them recognising out-of-state Civil Unions without a fight. But the state level is where this happens so we have to choose our battles.

I don’t think you get many fewer existential crises with universal healthcare. On average, half of the people you love will still die in your lifetime. You do get fewer financial crises though.

I’m talking about the major personal existential crises most Americans who aren’t wealthy (or in the military) regularly come into contact with—when you’re faced with death because your insurance company won’t cover a procedure, the financial and existential realm come crashing together and you’re in the proverbial foxhole.

Also, when you can take yourself and your children to a family doctor on a regular basis without having to depend on your employer to pay for it, basic maintenance means you can catch crises before they become existential.

You lost already....get over it!!  GEEZ!!!  move on to something else....world hunger.....world peace.....a longer lasting lightbulb......something!!

Gracchus - I’m not trying to minimise the awfulness of being unable to afford healthcare. I am massively grateful that I live in the UK; the terrifying medical system in the US was one of my biggest motivations for moving back here.

I’m just suggesting that it’s partly the practical help that church communities can offer, rather than religious consolation, that sends people to church in times of medical crisis. Any effect of universal healthcare on religion could be due to a reduction in financial desperation, rather than a reduction in existential despair. As you point out, though, the two are so horribly intertwined in many cases that it’d be hard to separate them - and besides, the effect is only postulated - and besides, it’s not the topic of this thread - so I’d probably better shut up.

I’m a member of a progressive Christian church who would have voted no on 8 had I been in California, whose church would have voted (at least a very large majority of it) no on 8 had the congregation lived in California.
Then Prop 8 infringes on your church’s right to perform weddings, and by extension your freedom of religion.

I’d be pissed off if I were you.

Then Prop 8 infringes on your church’s right to perform weddings, and by extension your freedom of religion.

The progressive Xtian church can still perform the ceremony.  Prop 8 has no power over religious rites/traditions.  It’s just that when the same couple, presumably married in this progressive church, files a request for a marriage license with the CA state government, it will now be illegal for the state to provide it.

A comment by cookie!

Ran out of people to taser, huh?

“Ran out of people to taser, huh?”

...probably.  But I bet he was one of those who went to his local gunshops on November 5th and helped clean them out in preparation for the coming Obama Marxist Apocalypse…

I wonder if we’re going to see a jump in people building bunkers/fallout shelters too...?

cookie, take your guns and your bad attitude and weld yourself into that bunker.  We’re much better off with you in there…

What is needed is Federal preemption; i.e., an amendment to Title VII Civil Rights, “No person shall be denied XXX because of sexula preference.” End of story.  The Feds are going to have their hands full for a couple of years but I think it’s a slam dunk for the second term.  In the mean time, redo some of the state ban referendums.

Vitter
Fossella
Craig
Gingrich
Barr

‘nuff said!

You lost already....get over it!!  GEEZ!!!  move on to something else....

I’m putting that in a macro to use against any and all complaints re President Obama over the next eight years.

I have no real problem with the continued existence of American religious denominations like the Quakers, UCC, non-Orthodox Judaism, non-fundie Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc., etc.; they generally keep their religion to themselves per the spirit of the Establishment Clause

Very few people would. Even showboats like Bitchins’ are not asking to ban religion.

I was merely pointing out that when one major source of fear and uncertainty is eased, religion moves from a central part of society to a boutique choice. And at that point, many if not most people either use it as a trivial decoration or ignore it entirely. To be deeply religious in such a society is not to become an outcast; it’s to be mildly eccentric in a way that has very little staying power. We can tolerate things like the woman who demands to have her driver’s license photo taken in a veil, because it’s 99% certain that her daughters will not follow her.

Religious fanatics hate that, by the way. They thrive on persecution. They go nuts when the most hostile reception they’re likely to get is raised eyebrows and “OOOOOOOkay.....!”

And yet in every conversation I hear it starts with being angry (with justification) at the Mormons and the Catholic church who funneled money into the state to get this vile piece of legislation passed, and almost immediately turns to how all religions are the absolute root of all things evil. How is this different than the comments a few posts back saying that prop 8 passing is all the fault of those damn niggers irrespective of how black people actually voted?

Because race is a trivial factor when it comes to intelligence, judgment, and all other human characteristics. It’s almost literally skin-deep. And you’re born with it; you can’t get away from it, and you’re an idiot if you try.

Religion, on the other hand, is not inborn. No matter how much social conditioning you have, you can still reject it in the way you can’t reject your racial identification. And all religions with a transcendent, omnipotent God are immoral on human terms. Within ten minutes walk of me, there is probably enough suffering and pain to fill a book. Being human, if any of it is my responsibility, or if I know of it and can ease any of it but choose not to, it becomes at least partially my fault. Now these god creatures are supposed to be all-powerful. They could ease all suffering. But they choose not to. If a human behaved that way, I would not have a very good opinion of the morals of that human.

But I can’t judge godz by human standards? Well, human standards are all I have, and all you have too. Once you get the right to posit your own set of non-human standards, you’ve also claimed the right to set down rules that violate human standards, rules like “kill the fags.” It’s nice that you feel benevolent and tolerant towards all, but it’s not enough. With godz, all the bets are off. They, and their “servants,” get to act just as they please, and a look at your morning paper will quickly convince you that if godz are sitting back picking their cosmic noses and observing this without doing much about it, they must be a pretty sick pack of sadists.

As Voltaire said, “God’s only excuse is that he does not exist.”

We can tolerate things like the woman who demands to have her driver’s license photo taken in a veil, because it’s 99% certain that her daughters will not follow her.

I (obviously) agree with you for the most part, but I don’t agree with this line. The state cannot tolerate having the license photo taken in a veil, because doing so defeats the “quick ID” function of the license. So while we would hope her daughters would forsake the veil, they should not do so because mom got her license despite wearing a veil, but because mom was refused a license due despite asking for a religious exception.

On the other side of the line (and there is a line), I disagreed with the French government’s decision (now repealed, I believe) to ban the wearing of the hijab in state-run elementary and secondary schools. Secular state institutions (at least Western ones) can definitely tolerate that as a harmless fashion eccentricity (as long as it doesn’t endanger personal or public safety), and leave the deeper questions of what the hijab symbolises and implies to individuals and other parts of civil society.

The US basically asks one thing of religious citizens: civil and criminal law is our bailiwick, not your church’s, so please refrain from pleading for special exceptions. And yet the Xtian fantasists and, to a lesser extent, the Islamic and Jewish fundies can’t even abide by that.

On the other side of the line (and there is a line), I disagreed with the French government’s decision (now repealed, I believe) to ban the wearing of the hijab in state-run elementary and secondary schools. Secular state institutions (at least Western ones) can definitely tolerate that as a harmless fashion eccentricity (as long as it doesn’t endanger personal or public safety), and leave the deeper questions of what the hijab symbolises and implies to individuals and other parts of civil society.

I agree with Gracchus here, though I’m thinking rather of the Turkish ban on hjiab in universities. We condemn forced veiling, but in the abstract, I think I’d actually say that forced unveiling is worse; essentially, a religious Turkish woman could not get higher education.

Religious fanatics hate that, by the way. They thrive on persecution. They go nuts when the most hostile reception they’re likely to get is raised eyebrows and “OOOOOOOkay.....!”

sunsin on 11/10 at 03:29 PM

SOrry to belabor the point, but another reason to let them have the word marraige and the sactity of it and work towards civil unions for ALL. as the only state recognized union.

Does Mike Pence believe in the sanctity of the word, “Sanctity????” Can he explain how the sanctity of marriage is violated when the “politically incorrect” get married?

Can something be defended as “sacred” by a campaign of lies? There was talk about 4000 years of marriage being One Man and One Woman; in a campaign largely organized by Mormons who little more than a century ago thought marriage was One Man and Many Women. They said it was essential to religious freedom for Catholics to be able to tell Unitarian Universalists who could marry in their churches.

I see little sanctity in using “Marriage” as a political football to get the Republican “values voters” to the polls. It’s just like when they use “Sanctity of Life” to elect warmongers and serial executioners.