^ To Z: dead on. When they talk about “defending the family”, they’re really just saying – “Come on guys, I mean if we couldn’t chose to be straight, there’d be no one left to marry our big haired girls!”

“I’m referring to the intolerance, the hate seething in the words, faces and actions of those who didn’t get their way in a democratic election, and who proclaim loudly that they will get their way, no matter what the electorate wants!”- Dood, Palin rallies are so yesterday.

Thankfully people of the US have never followed such misguided advice. If they had there never would have been any social progress, not to mention a country called “The United States” in the first place. If US history teaches us anything, and it does, it’s that social progress in the US is only achievable through acts of violence and property destruction. If people want to see gays achieve equal rights they’d better be willing to step up their efforts. Power concedes nothing without demand, and so far that hasn’t been much of a demand.

I think the biggest problem is that few people want to discuss the real issues. If people have a right to associate and live as they wish (and I very strongly believe they do), why aren’t the anti-Prop 8 groups making that case. All I hear is a the monogomous gay relationship needs to be approved. What’s so sacrosanct about monogamy? Either speak out in favor allowing people to live their lives as they think best, or don’t be surprised when people don’t understand why a change needs to be made.

Let me make something clear here. I’m for Gay Marriage. I would have voted against the proposition if I live in CA. I deplore violence against Gays. Nevertheless, when I read about Gay groups invading churches, surrounding people and screaming at them, and so forth, my reaction is “Do you WANT to see a National Referendum against Gay Marriage? Because this is the way to get one!”

At some level, if you are going to operate in a Democracy (or any semi-democratic system) it no longer matters WHO IS RIGHT. There are things you don’t do if you want the Democracy to vote your way, for all sorts of nasty reasons – essentially the same reasons you don’t run as an Orange candidate in Dublin.

You lost the last referendum? Acting the ass in public WILL NOT HELP, OK? Picket outside a church? No problem (probably). But don’t attack people. Don’t do anything that could be made to look like attacking people. In a contest of public popularity you absolutely cannot afford to be perceived as a bunch of jerks, not matter how right you may be.

*sigh*

Having been persecuted in the past does not change this. Being persecuted NOW does not change this. No, it ain’t fair. Deal with it, unless feeling morally superior is more important to you than achieving your political goals.

If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what a people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must pay for all they get. If we ever get free from all the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and, if needs be, by our lives, and the lives of others.
-Frederick Douglass

“I would truly like to understand what difference Prop 8 made in CA besides semantics. I’m not aware of any if there are.”

Well, there’s a difference of semantics between Black and Nigger. Yet I doubt anyone would say that, because they’re just words, the choice is non-important. It is.

If you believe Prop 8 and gay marriage are only about words, you are wrong. The forces at play are clear; gays and homophobes. To say that it is all for nothing, that gays are stupid and needlessly provoking is to ignore the history of anti-gay violence, even to this day.

I find Schofield’s comment particularly disgusting in that regard.

Yikes. That’s the worst abuse of the slippery slope argument I’ve seen in awhile (though it never takes long). I’ll bet this will go down as the most embarassing episode in Boone’s career since he butchered Little Richard’s “Tooty Fruity.” Ugh.

If the Supreme Court in my state of Ohio said that gay marriage was legal, I believe this would result in a real status change for gay couples. I think that there are rights and allowances accorded to married couples that aren’t given to unmarried couples, such as tax allowances, insurance, medical, legal and property rights. But I don’t think that such a difference existed in CA before, or does now for that matter.

I would truly like to understand what difference Prop 8 made in CA besides semantics. I’m not aware of any if there are.

Once group of swine sets off a boar swine from the other side, and sooner or later Hell goes for a stroll with its sleeves rolled up. When that happens, the Gays are going to get the worst of it.

The absolute idiocy involved is mindboggling.

I don’t think the state has the right to restrict the acts and contracts between any consenting adults (as long as they don’t violate the rights of others). But what did Prop 8 really do? From what I’ve read gay couples already have rights in CA that haven’t been rescinded by Prop 8, such as equal treatment under the law with regard to insurance, taxation, and other rights normally accorded to married couples. Other than not getting to say they are married, did they really lose any real right?