Two recent legal court rulings may increase the likelihood that the issue of same-sex “marriage” will ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
On June 5, the Alliance Defense Fund, a coalition of Christian attorneys, asked the Supreme Court to review the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s decision to not reconsider a February ruling by a federal three-judge panel that struck down Proposition 8.
In 2008, 52% of Californians voted to approve Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment that legally defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman. In 2010, a U.S. District Court judge in San Francisco said the law was unconstitutional, a ruling that was later backed by the three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit. The parties have 90 days to ask the Supreme Court to intervene.
The circuit’s refusal to review Proposition 8 occurred just days after a May 31 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Massachusetts, which said the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional because the law discriminates against same-sex couples by not granting them access to federal benefits.
Meanwhile, during the World Meeting of Families in Milan, which was held June 1-3, Pope Benedict XVI called on legislators to ensure that “the legislation and activities of state institutions” are always at the service of individuals. This begins, he said, with the right to life, but should also include upholding the “specific identity of the family founded on marriage between a man and a woman.”
In the U.S., the DOMA case "could get up to the Supreme Court,” said Doug NeJaime, an associate law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. "In fact, the First Circuit, in its opinion, was basically asking the Supreme Court to answer the question."
President Barack Obama, in February 2011, instructed the Department of Justice to not defend legal challenges to Section 3 of DOMA when applied to "legally married same-sex couples." Section 3 defines marriage for federal purposes as between a man and a woman.
NeJaime said he believes both the Proposition 8 and DOMA cases are limited in scope and that neither case would force a national blanket sanctioning of same-sex “marriage” in the manner that Roe v. Wade made legalized abortion the law of the land in 1973.
The central issue in the DOMA case is whether the federal government can legally withhold benefits from same-sex couples who are legally “married” in some states. The First Circuit Court did not address Section 2 of DOMA, a provision that says no state or territory is obligated to legally recognize a same-sex “marriage” performed in another jurisdiction.
“It wouldn’t lead to any new same-sex ‘marriages,’” said NeJaime, who suggested that DOMA’s Section 2 is “superfluous.”
“States have already been dealing with this question,” NeJaime said.
While the Proposition 8 case was originally trumpeted by supporters of same-sex “marriage” as a national referendum on the issue, the federal courts have since narrowed the case to specific arguments over California state law.
The Ninth Circuit’s three-judge panel voted 2-1 to strike down Proposition 8 as unconstitutional because it violated the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses. However, the judges said they were only speaking about the California law and that other states would have to decide the same-sex “marriage” issue for themselves.
“The likely implications from both cases are actually quite limited,” said NeJaime, who added that it remains to be seen whether the Supreme Court will decide to take up the question of same-sex “marriage.”
“This is definitely a big issue with national significance,” NeJaime said.
A ‘Universal Good’
People on both sides of the issue say two cases are milestones on the path to deciding whether same-sex “marriage” will be nationally recognized.
Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a nonprofit that advocates for homosexual rights, said in a prepared statement that the Ninth Circuit’s refusal to take up the Proposition 8 case “is another significant step on a path that we all know leads to equality.”
“With [the Prop. 8] announcement, we are one step closer to ensuring that gay and lesbian Californians — and, one day, our entire community nationwide — are able to join the institution of marriage and have their love and commitment respected equally,” Solmonese said.
Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, which advocates for natural/traditional marriage, said the appeals courts have made it highly likely that the Supreme Court will have to step in and determine whether there is a rational basis for defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
“It is clear that the U.S. Supreme Court is going to have to resolve this issue once and for all,” Brown concluded.
The Alliance Defense Fund, which is part of the legal team for ProtectMarriage.com, the umbrella organization defending Proposition 8, said its case is about proving that marriage is a universal good that has been honored by diverse cultures and faiths in Western civilization.
“The ProtectMarriage.com legal team looks forward to standing before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the people’s right to preserve the fundamental building block of civilization, especially since the dissent accompanying [Tuesday’s] decision strongly supports our arguments,” said ADF senior counsel Brian Raum.
Ninth Circuit Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain wrote a blistering appeal in which he said the appeals court had declared that “animus must have been the only conceivable motivation for a sovereign state to have remained committed to a definition of marriage that has existed for millennia.”
“We should not have so roundly trumped California’s democratic process without at least discussing the unparalleled decision as en banc court,” O’Scannlain wrote.
Attorney Charles Cooper, a lead counsel with the Cooper & Kirk law firm in Washington, D.C., is a member of the legal team defending Proposition 8. He said the Supreme Court has “made it perfectly clear that marriage is constitutional as a matter of state public policy.”
“The lower court opinions were little more than an attack on the character and judgment of millions of Californians, and those decisions essentially ignored all relevant Supreme Court and appellate court precedents,” Cooper said. “We are hopeful and confident that the Supreme Court will review the Ninth Circuit’s decision.”
Register correspondent Brian Fraga writes from El Paso, Texas.
Benjamin Wiker: Benedict XVI: Doctor of the Church
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These court decisions may be defeats for people who think law-abiding, taxpaying Gay couples do not deserve the same legal benefits and Straight couples ... but these are NOT “defeats for marriage.”
For people who are Straight (i.e. heterosexual), absolutely NOTHING is happening to the institution of marriage. Nothing is changing or being “redefined.” Most people are and always will be Straight, and they will continue to date, get engaged, marry, and build lives and families together as they always have. None of that is going to change when Gay couples are allowed to do the same.
It continues to amaze me that people argue with a straight face for a gay couple arrangement to be called marriage when the definition of marriage is already defined as between a man and a woman - for thousands of year yet. I don’t believe that judges have the authority to define marriage - only the people via legislation can do that. It would seem to me that the SCOTUS would have to use the recognized definition of marriage in deciding a case where not considering “gay marriage” is claimed to be discriminatory. As for equality, any person, even a gay person can marry a person of the opposite sex - that’s what marriage entails (among other important attributes). You gay activists need to follow the constitution and persuade the people that “gay marriage” deserves consideration for redefining marriage. (then we will have to consider what to call marriage between a man and a woman and modify the appropriate legislation and laws to reflect the original intent, won’t we.)
“a definition of marriage that has existed for millennia”
Excluding same-sex couples from marriage is actually a recent phenomenon, something that, I believe, Maryland initiated in 1973. While the practice of marriage has been common only among different-sex couples, that doesn’t mean marriage was defined to exclude same-sex couples.
This judge errs in making such a statement. It would be like saying voting was defined as a process only males could participate in. That’s not how voting is defined, but it is how it has been practiced until fairly recently. There’s a big difference in how something is defined, and how it is practiced.
Why is the word “marriage” continually in scare quotes? It’s not as if same sex couples can’t already legally marry in several states.
All other arguments against marriage equality are simply red-herrings with no legal weight. The conclusion is simple: the constitution guarantees equal protection and due process to everyone, gay and straight. Marriage is a civil institution; gay couples are entitled to participate in this civil institution via equal protection and due process. The courts at every level have found this to be true.
A defeat for marriage?
Since when is the State’s desire and interest in seeing two people establishing a committed, faithful relationship a defeat for marriage?
To anyone who thinks that the issue of the definition of marriage is only between heterosexual couples and homosexual couples simply has not been paying much attention.
Several years ago, and within about a two week period, NPR had two programs, both about polyamory. In one of the programs, a woman attorney said very clearly that polyamory was the next battlefield, that the battle was already started, and they would be following the processes and legal battles that homosexuals have made which have led up to the issue of homosexual marriage. This is not some -pie-in-the sky, off in the future idle speculation. It is happening right now; but too many people are so focused on the issue of homosexual marriage that they don’t see what is coming.
I wish we can hear more support for marriage from the pulpit. I have heard ZERO from the pulpit on the Holy Sacrament of Marriage. I do not see or hear any kind of leadership from Bishops, Priests, or Nuns - ZERO NADA.
The advocates of gay marriage have to answer some doubts
1 Whether man or woman can marry an animal specially domesticated dog or cat or pig or horse.
2 Whether marriage between members of the same family for example brother sister or son and widowed mother etc should be legal
3 Whether polygamy and poliandry should be legalised
If the answer is negative, what are the reasons based on which the negative answer is given
Oh, God said there would be days like this. How much more can the Democrats do to destroy our culture and our country?! Common sense and natural law don’t exist in the liberals’ minds. Liberals want to covet everything to make them feel normal even terminology that has existed since the beginning of time. Heterosexuals have evolved with a system of relationship from the beginning of time that is understood in every language and culture regardless of how advanced or primitive. That system is called “family” and is brought about in a way that society considers legitimate by the word “marriage.” Marriage is not something defined by love. If it were, my wife would be married to her dog who she shows more love for than me because she really loves dogs and they love her. She can’t leave a room without her dog getting up and following behind her. He even knows when she is coming home sooner than I do and starts yelping and running around in excited anticipation of seeing her again. It would be insane to call that love - marriage. There is a whole lot more to marriage than “love.”
But liberals don’t care about decency, common sense, natural law, history, they want what they want and are going to covet it because that is what they want to feel normal. Just being homosexual is not enough; and being married homosexuals won’t make them feel any more normal. But they don’t care about others, just themselves. That’s not very charitable of them to destroy the institution of marriage for the sake of trying to feel normal.
Acceptance of gay “marriage” is a threat to marriage and the family, because once the government recognizes it, schools will be teaching it as normal. Actually, many schools already do this. Students are then questionning their parents teaching and the teaching of the Church, in many cases, before they are fully grounded in the teachings of The Church. As gay couples cannot have children on their own, this jeopardizes the souls of children who would otherwise be brought up with true Christian morals and religious beliefs. Parents and The Church who express their deeply held religious beliefs would then be fined for what the secular world will call “hate speech”. Freedom of Religion and Freedom of speech will no longer be allowed. Of course, practicing Christians,and Catholics in particular, will be targeted because the traditional family and The Church are all that stand in the way of the secular world’s agenda, which is contrary to God’s Law in many instances.
“Traditional” marriage was arranged by the parents, and the woman was sold from her family to her husband’s family.
Whatever the state decides to call marriage, the Catholic Church will be fine. Especially given the strong protections for religious freedom provided by the U.S. Constitution.
Do you really not see how the definition of marriage is changed by so called “gay marriage”? “Gay marriage” makes marriage about sex: If two people have sex they required state to recognize it and give them special rights. Marriage between man and woman is about children: Man and woman can have children and that why we give them special status. Of course man and woman have sex too, but it is not why they have special rights. I do not understand why I should give tax breaks for people who have sex, but I understand that it is beneficial for me if other people have children.
And so called “gay marriage” changes other definitions: for example adoption. Now adoption is a way to find families for children who do not have parents, or whose parents cannot or do not want take care of them. In “gay marriage” logic adoption is to find children for families who cannot have children because of biology. Now adoption services are checking families it they are OK to adopt children. In “gay marriage” states agencies afraid to say that gay couple is not OK because agency may be sued for discrimination and loose license.
And what about other things like education, employer provided health insurance etc.
So supporters of “gay marriage”: please do not talk that there is no change. There will be fundamental change in society.
@JD
“Whatever the state decides to call marriage, the Catholic Church will be fine. Especially given the strong protections for religious freedom provided by the U.S. Constitution.”
LOL. “Especially given the strong protections for religious freedom provided by the U.S. Constitution.”
What planet have you come from? That Constitution you say will protect the Catholic Church has already been obliterated by the dicatorial decisions this Democrat President and his administration have made. One of those decisions has forced 49 separate Catholic dioceses, colleges, institutions and organizations to have to file the lawsuit against the federal government, the largest lawsuit ever, for the government’s violations of the “religious freedom” you claim protects the Church. The Church may or may not win their lawsuits, 12 in total, and even if they do win, they still will have had to spend millions of dollars to protect their Constitutional First Amendment rights, while this Democrat dictator won’t have to pay anything for his defense, the taxpayers will pay for it. And if Obama gets re-elected President, God forbid, he will be able to stack the court with more atheistic justices in the next four years who will reverse any pro-freedom of religion decisions the current court may render.
As I said in my previous post here - “Common sense…doesn’t exist in the liberals’ mind.
Kindergarteners are already being introduced to homosexuality in public schools in states where gay “marriage” is legalized. Teachers don’t have to ask permission to tell students that their parents don’t know what they’re talking about. We don’t live in one of those states and my middle schooler frequently talks to me about teachers of unrelated subjects trying to teach the students that homosexuality is totally normal, arguing with individuals who were taught otherwise,saying they are bigots and says several classmates are “bi” or “homo”.
Increasing numbers of children who would normally dismiss a feeling, however brief, of attraction towards a friend of the same sex are told to embrace the feeling. This is not acceptable. The legalization of marriage for same sex couples is seen by liberals, including those teaching our children, as the total acceptance of those acts and permission to spread “awareness” to children of every age including “how to” books with way too many details in middle school libraries. Ask at your local public middle schools.
Our Constitutional Amendment (the “rule of Universally-beneficial law”) should read:
“The family being a cornerstone of this nation; Congress shall make no law for the benefit of any group of persons whose benefit proves unavailable or undesirable to all citizens; whereby the rights of the several states, localities, and religious organizations shall not be infringed; Marriage is defined as a union between one man and one woman.”
True marriage (we all have a mother and a father) is universally beneficial. If the left attacks it they simply prove to be pandering to a special interest. Hey, this fixes the HHS birth-control/abortion mandate also!!
Also, marriage is not an issue of individual rights; marriage is not an act of a single individual; 14th amendment does not apply (even if the 14th amendment wasn’t limited to race, as it was constructed).
Being a public (not private) act, “privacy” precedent, even injustices such as Roe v. Wade, do not restrict a statutory definition of marriage. Rather 1st amendment religious freedom of the individual requires statutory protection (as discriminatory malice reveals itself) of individual’s conscious in the public square.
Folks of good will, we have the opportunity to strengthen our foundation, roll back abortion, and hem government back as America was founded; where the “little guy (in the back pew in church)” is protected from inane endless special interests and federal diktats; and enshrine deeper our government of, for, and by the people. Let’s not be bullied.
Thank you.
“That Constitution you say will protect the Catholic Church has already been obliterated by the dicatorial decisions this Democrat President and his administration have made. One of those decisions has forced 49 separate Catholic dioceses, colleges, institutions and organizations to have to file the lawsuit against the federal government, the largest lawsuit ever, for the government’s violations of the “religious freedom” you claim protects the Church. The Church may or may not win their lawsuits, 12 in total, and even if they do win, they still will have had to spend millions of dollars to protect their Constitutional First Amendment rights, while this Democrat dictator won’t have to pay anything for his defense, the taxpayers will pay for it.”
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It’s exactly this hysterical attitude that I can’t stand.
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The Church WILL win their lawsuits, if the courts don’t strike down Obamacare in full before that. I guarantee it. The HHS Mandate will NEVER go into effect. That is why we have a court system. The Constitution is just fine, thank you very much. Obama’s last attempt at regulating churches through labor law was struck down 9-0 (Hosanna Tabor v. EEOC). The HHS Mandate doesn’t stand a chance.
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The Church survived tyrants from Nero and Diocletian to Hitler and Stalin. It will survive Obama. (But Obama’s Presidency will not survive November.)
DOMA is unconstitutional because it violates the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution. Marriages valid in one state, but not recognized in another is a legal mess. From a legal perspective, the case is only indirectly related to gay marriage.
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Put a Marriage Amendment in the Constitution or strike down DOMA. These are the only valid legal choices.
Since when have people married because they want to have children? People marry because they have an attraction for each other based (believe it or not) on sexual factors, empathy and yes, LOVE. Children are sometimes the result, but sometimes not. If couples really care for each other they won’t divorce because of the inability (or unwillingness) of either party to produce a child. If they do it is because the marriage was faulty to begin with, since adoption is always possible. Procreation is not (or shouldn’t be) the only goal of human beings. We are not rats, you know.. The obsession with the “sanctity of marriage” is just that, an obsession. The church didn’t proclaim it a sacrament till a thousand years after Christ; before that it was an agreement based on mostly dreary practical purposes..
@JD
“It’s exactly this hysterical attitude that I can’t stand.”
The largest lawsuit against the federal government ever and ABC, CBS, NBC don’t even report it on their evening news?
Once there was a time in this country when murdering an unborn baby was a crime. Now it is legal, made possible by the U.S. Supreme Court and kept possible by the Democrat Party elected officials in the White House and in the U.S. Senate. 52,000,000 murdered human beings later, that court has not reversed its decision. You “guarantee” the court is going to strike down Obamcare? You “guarantee” the court is going to rule in favor of the Church? Federal courts are mandating the definition of “marriage” between one man and one woman is illegal even after California voters passed it as an amendment to its constitution! And I’m “hysterical?” YOU BET!
How many of you have heard prayers in Mass for the First Amendment being upheld in our Catholic lawsuits? I go to two different Catholic church’s for Mass, one conservative and one whose pastor “doesn’t worry about aborted babies - their in heaven” giving him reason to still remain and vote for the pro-abortion party. In neither church have I heard prayers for the success the Church’s lawsuits.
Thirty-eight years ago, murdering of unborn babies was made legal. It has not been able to be overturn, yet, because of Democrats. This month the Supreme Court will rule on Obamacare which will lead to and allow euthanasia, while reducing the quality of healthcare to all. That’s going to affect me and I’m concerned that I am being put into this predicament. I’m concerned that the Supreme Court is also going to made to define what “marriage” is. If the right to life is not legal, what makes you think “religious” freedom and the historic legal meaning of the word “marriage” will survive?
@david traversa
“The obsession with the ‘sanctity of marriage’ is just that, an obsession. The church didn’t proclaim it a sacrament till a thousand years after Christ; before that it was an agreement based on mostly dreary practical purposes.”
I think the bible was written long before Christ’s birth and there was something in it about God’s making of man and a female that man called “wo-man.” In that act by God, he was saying that He, God, was not sufficient for man, that man needed a helpmate. Now the creator of life, created man and “woman” and told them to procreate, and they found out how and it was good.
You know, something else about what God created, I’m referring to all those other animals, their made up of male and females, and some how those animals get together and procreate too..
Why didn’t God just make men to be able to have off-springs on their own without the need for “woman?” Why didn’t he do that with the animals? Do your think God intended that the multiplying of species was to be through this natural arrangement of male and female, and the “institution” of marriage was a natural establishment of that natural arrangement?
So why don’t homosexuals get another name for their arrangement instead of trying to take the one historically preserved from the beginning of time in all cultures around the world between heterosexuals?
+JMJ
@david traversa
“The church didn’t proclaim it a sacrament till a thousand years after Christ; before that it was an agreement based on mostly dreary practical purposes..”
Where is the evidence that the Church never proclaimed marriage a sacrament until a thousand years after Christ? Christ blessed marriage by his teachings and his presence at the Wedding at Cana; Christians and Jews have always seen marriage as sacred (and between one man and one woman) since the Garden of Eden. Just look at early Christian writings, and the Church Fathers; the early Church considered marriage a sacrament. This is not a disputed fact; even some liberal sources, including the occasionally infamous wikipedia, record this as true.
The Church has always upheld the sanctity of marriage, and not because of an “obsession”, but because marriage is holy. Do you really want marriage not to be holy? To be a dreary contract entered by anyone freely and dispensed of at any time, with no attached reverence or holiness? Myself, I’d much rather have the Church’s definition of marriage—gives me something special to really look forward to during my single years, and to remind me not to give myself away early.
DOMA should only have been used as a stepping stone measure to promote a Constitutional Amendment. Once again, those promoting God’s agenda dropped the ball, and allowed another agenda to take the upper hand.
People get married for lots of reasons, all of which apply equally to gay and straight couples. All the reasons that marriage can be good for society apply equally to marriages of gay and straight couples. Children might be part of the families formed by marriage, but are not required for people to get married.
It is good for kids to learn the truth about human sexuality so they will understand their sexuality and realize gay/bi/straight are all equally valid and will no longer be a reason for ridicule and rejection. If I had learned the truth, I could have avoided a lot of confusion and frustration. No one taught me to be gay, in fact I didn’t even know what it meant until college, and yet I was still gay. Parents have a right to their opinion on human sexuality, but they don’t have a right to their own facts. Kids in public schools deserve to know the facts.
Wow, just after I posted here, I read the following and it seemed appropriate to this conversation. Please read it and give it some serious thought. Is a nation that shames some of its citizens into conformity/depression really the type of society we want?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-emily-c-heath/when-pride-is-not-a-sin-overcoming-gay-shame_b_1570616.html
How frustrating it must be that even the Foreign Catholic Church cannot defeat the US Constitution. Live with it or go back to Rome.
Why do gays have to call their union “marriage”,when there is a basic biological difference. Everyone knows that men are from Mars and women are from Venus and that is what gives marriage it’s name. In England the union of two gays is called a “civil union.” If the battle is about money, then give civil union couples the same financial benefits as married couples;include child benefits if they have adopted.
If you throw out the present definition, then there is no valid reason for excluding marriage from including man with many wives,son with widowed mother, brother and sister,sister and sister etc. These people are all adults and are in love. What right has the State to deny them the freedom enjoyed by other Americans?
Lessons learned. Ersatz “DOMA” was foisted on the public by Bill Clinton & fellow Democrats as a smoke and mirrors substitute for an iron clad Constitutional Amendment defining Marriage as the union of one man and one women. Clinton knew then that they could play games with DOMA by “shopping” it to corrupt Courts like the literally and figuratively “pornographic” 9th Circuit et alia.
A real Federal Constitutional Amendment attempt instead of the 3rd string DOMA alternative would have served two purposes it would have alerted the Public as to which Senators were and were not supportive of true Marriage so that they could be voted out of office while also giving us a real shot at a solid defense of Marriage and the Culture.
By substituting DOMA for the real deal our representatives were shielded from scrutiny and were able to side step the issue.
If DOMA fails in the Supreme Court then the Constitutional Amendment should be resurrected again so we can see who does and does not belly up to the bar. Why you ask ??? Because the serially polygamous gay “Marriage” advocates care not a wit about Marriage ... they KNOW that the very hour that the Supreme Court should strike down DOMA they can and will aggressively force “Pol Pot” like gay propaganda programs into every School in every State in the Land. These people play political chess while the good guys keep playing political checkers.
There will never be a US constitutional amendment about marriage. It needs way too much support to ratify and that support is dying and and many others are joining the pro-liberty side. The long-standing lies about GLBT people are fading fast. People no longer believe that we’re out to get your children and trying to ruin society. How can people think that way once they know an upstanding friend or relative who just happens to be gay? The more people who come out and set good examples the less scary we become and people realize how foolish they were to fear us. Maybe that’s the problem, some people don’t want to admit they were wrong about us so they keep up the propaganda. It takes an honorable person to admit you were wrong and apologize.
@miller
“It takes an honorable person to admit you were wrong and apologize.”
Yes it does, so why don’t you and your like minded friends acknowledge the mistake of some homosexuals who want to have society recognize their unions as a “marriage” when from the beginning of time, in all cultures around the globe, marriage was an institution developed and accepted to be between male and female humans whose genders were created to produce offspring, thereby the reason for the institution of marriage to give legality to the offspring?
@miller—Sandusky is the typical homosexual: predatory. The propaganda, in this case, is to dissociate Sandusky from “gay.”
Hi stilbelieve,
Expecting equal treatment and not settling for “separate but equal” is a basic American principle, not a mistake and not something to apologize for. The “legality to the offspring”? In the US it is legal to have offspring w/o being married. People get married for lots of reasons and all of them apply equally to straight and gay couples, including security for children if a couple has some.
From the beginning of time, in all cultures around the globe a mouse was a small rodent, but we now recognize that word to include a computer peripheral device. As you can see, the definition of words tend to include more meanings over time. Why does that bother some people when it comes to marriage? It’s because they think gay people are inferior and don’t want them included in marriage. They won’t admit it so they make up other reasons to hide their prejudice. Fortunately our judicial system sees through the thin veil. The essence of gay and straight relationships is the same so there is no reason to use a different word.
If people would really think about why they got married, and would answer honestly (love, companionship, raising kids, financial security, etc), they would see that those same reasons apply equally to gay couples.
Hi SteveP,
Funny, you bring up the exact propaganda I mentioned. Reality is that gay men have consensual relationships with other men, we’re not out to get your children. You do realize that most pedophiles prey on girls, right? So if your point was that the presence of child abuse within a group of people is a disqualifier for marriage, then straight people would be the last group allowed to get married.
What’s really sad is that some gay men do marry women against their nature and cause all sorts of trouble for them, their wives, family, and even their communities. If they were fully accepted for who they are, not ridiculed for being gay, and allowed to marry who they are sexually attracted to, so much misery would be avoided.
@miller
“In the US it is legal to have offspring w/o being married”
Throughout history, a child born out of wedlock was called a “!@#$%” which means “an illegitimate child” according to the first definition of the word in Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary.
And the word “gay” is an appropriate word to use to refer to homosexuals because according to that same dictionary - it means “LICENTIOUS”. And “LICENTIOUS” means 1:“lacking legal or moral restraints: esp. disregarding sexual restraints 2 : marked by disregard for strict rules of correctness.”
@miller
“From the beginning of time, in all cultures around the globe a mouse was a small rodent, but we now recognize that word to include a computer peripheral device.”
lol, you are really reaching for straws now. But let’s stay with your “straw.”
What you are saying is that you want this newly created, inanimate computer device named a “mouse” to be recognized by all societies as the same thing as the historical animal mouse. That is exactly the reason why it is so irrational for any homosexual to want society to call their relationship a “marriage.” A computer mouse is not an animal mouse; and a homosexual relationship is not a marriage. Pick another name for it, and get on with your lives. If you want to be married, find a woman.
@miller: Your opinion appears to be ill-informed. Perhaps you are not old enough to have lived through the vaunted “Sexual Revolution,” which as it turns out, was and is revolting. Sandusky is the norm rather than the exception hence creating the need for “gay is good” propaganda.
@miller: If Sandusky was the exception rather than the norm there would have been no need for you to have embarked on your “gay is good” campaign.
Hi stilbelieve and SteveP,
That’s typical, neither of you will address the crux of this issue and instead you make off-topic comments. This issue is about equal treatment and not settling for “separate but equal.” As I said before, those are basic American principles. The essence of marriage does not change by including gay couples. I’d love to read your honest responses to what I suggested previously. I’ll post it again for your convenience.
If people would really think about why they got married, and would answer honestly (love, companionship, raising kids, financial security, etc), they would see that those same reasons apply equally to gay couples.
Everyday, more people are giving up their old prejudices and are seeing that gay people are no different than they are when it comes to the important things in life. Some people will die with their anger at the world because it changed around them, but the wise man will grow to accept change that brings more happiness and love into the world.
@miller
“The essence of marriage does not change by including gay couples. I’d love to read your honest responses to what I suggested previously. I’ll post it again for your convenience.
If people would really think about why they got married, and would answer honestly (love, companionship, raising kids, financial security, etc), they would see that those same reasons apply equally to gay couples.”
I got married because my wife got pregnant.
@miller
“Everyday, more people are giving up their old prejudices and are seeing that gay people are no different than they are when it comes to the important things in life.”
OK, where in the bible does God, who is the most important “thing” in our lives, direct man to lay with man?
@miller: “gay marriage” is nonsense. What you are suggesting is that you have a right to another person’s pension as a wife has access to a husband’s pension. This is no more than a desperate attempt to join the %1. I have no interesting in arguing with you about such an absurd notion.
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The Sandusky trial has pulled the covers off “the nice homosexual” facade. In light of that truth, gay activists will have a far more difficult time reciting the litany of the oppressed-white-American-male-who-happens-to-love-other-men. Perhaps the lesson, for gay activists, in the Sandusky trial is: you can only get away with it for so long.
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