GOP: Gay Marriage Our Nation's Greatest Threat

According to the GOP, we have a crisis in this country. No it's not economic. It's not a terrorist threat. It's about family values. That is, who will defend this nation against the gay marriage:

http://www.airfarceone.net/frontvsback.html

Updated On: 11/14/08 at 09:23 PM

Ain't no democrats standing up for gay marriage. Civil unions and hospital visitation rights, sure, but few are brave enough to suggest gays actually should have the right marry.

Jesus Christ Superstar what is happening in the world?

Updated On: 1/10/09 at 10:58 PM

well put best12bars, you're abso-f*ckin-lutely right!

Bah. I'm a Republican, but I am pretty disappointed with my party's view on gay marriage. When are we going to learn that America being free for all people means just that?

Bah. I'm a Republican, but I am pretty disappointed with my party's view on gay marriage. When are we going to learn that America being free for all people means just that?

When you and others like you give up clinging to your Republicanism.

---

I know I tend to go against the grain in my thoughts on this, so I just want to preface it by saying that I don't discount anything anyone else is saying. My perspective is clouded by a lot of things, from personal feelings to simple geography. That said...

One battle at a time is fine when you're talking about the election, but when people keep throwing around "gay marriage" it's clear we're all talking about different things. To me, marriage is marriage. Plain and simple. We are talking about a legal status that should have no relevance to a ceremomy done is one's chosen place of worship. If the real is issue is that it's simply semantics, then reclassify all civil marriages as civil unions and let them all be subject to the same rights and restrictions that a heterosexual marriage is.

The continual willingness put to this off as a state issue ignores the facts that full marriage equality will never occur when it's treated as a state by state thing. Great, California marriages will be recognized in New York, but you can't get married there. If a married Californian moves to a state that doesn't recognize it, their marriage is invalidated. Not to mention the fact that it's not federally recognized, doesn't hold provisions for people who want to marry someone from another country, etc.

Jilani, your points are taken, but again, those are state specific, and yeah, it's nice to think about how what's good for California is good for all of us, but is it? Obama may call it divisive and discriminatory, but he's still not pro gay marriage.

Look at all the states that have never granted gay marriage, but have already banned gay marriage or are in the process of attempting to ban it. Where's the focus on those states?

One state a time doesn't cut it for me. Look at how well that works for abortion.

And best, I get your points that it's not worth the risk, but it's never going to be worth the risk. I'd love to be proven wrong there, but I doubt I'll see in my lifetime gay marriage that is the equivalent of heterosexual marriage, which, as I've said above, is simply that a gay marriage is subject to all the rights and restrictions that a heterosexual marriage is.

Continuing to allow people to get away with saying "marriage should be between a man and a woman" is still just a convenient way to use "morals" to make sure there never will be marriage equality for all.

I am personally thrilled for those of you who live in places where you can marry whatever partner you so desire. My roommate from college who lives in San Francisco just married his long time boyfriend and I couldn't be happier for them, except when I consider how worthless that marriage of theirs is should they ever move to almost any other state in the union.

If you believe gay people and their spouses have the right to the same tax breaks, inheritance rights, hospital visitation rights, etc, then it's time to stop letting people cling to their religious notions of "marriage." Until then, we're still just saying that separate but equal is okay (and the "equal" in that phrase doesn't even mean what equal really means).

Updated On: 1/10/09 at 04:39 PM

PRS - of course, I completely agree with the substance of what you're saying, but the fact is that marriage is and always has been mainly a state issue - that's why, for example, some states banned interracial marriage, and others didn't, and the right thing had to happen on a state by state basis for a time before change could be enacted at the federal level. I'm not suggesting the pace of change should be as slow as it was on the interracial marriage issue, but I don't think it will be. I am lucky enough to live in Massachusetts, where we've had marriage equality now for four years, and the majority of the state's residents now don't even give it a second thought. Four years really isn't very long, when you think about how long other civil rights struggles have taken.

If the right side prevails in California, that will be a huge number of residents who will have marriage equality, and if you combine that with the number of people who live in New York and who can hop over to Connecticut and get married, and have their marriages recognized in New York, that's when you start approaching a significant, critical mass of people who live with marriage equality and see that it doesn't cause the sky to fall. Once that happens, that's when you can start thinking about amending federal law, perhaps first to define marriage as being whatever it is defined in the state in which a couple lives.

Unfortunately, legal and social change take time, which I understand can be frustrating. But I'm not sure what realistic alternative you think should be pursued. So far, it seems to me that the combined recent legal and political strategies that have been followed have resulted in significant gains in a relatively short period of time, with more on the horizon (especially if prop 8 fails).

More thoughts.

Nice post, Phyllis, but this thread IS about this election! Which is what my comment was about.

And in this election, you have a nice choice between the Republican Party who is NOT for gay marriage, and the Democratic Party... who is NOT for gay marriage.

There you have it, people!

It's not a "them" vs. "us" issue in this election.

Nobody on the two major tickets has come out in favor of gay marriage.

Nobody.

So... this isn't about "balls" (DIVA) or those mean, nasty Republicans (PJ)...

Unless you're telling me you're both pulling a "Mr. Roxy" and not voting for president at all this year. Is that how you have balls... "not vote" for either one? Or picking a third-party candidate who is so far under the radar that he/she would never even register a blip.

And just how smart would that be? How "ballsy?" Your vote would very likely put McCain and Palin in the White House.

That's not "balls," it's "stupidity."

I say let's put the guy in office that will most likely turn things around for us, instead of the guy that won't. That makes sense... when your choices are a non-supporting "rock" and a non-supporting "hard place."

But NEITHER candidate or party has said that they will support it.

Just a reminder.

---

I wouldn't be so sure this proposition will go down in defeat. That would mean that people in general are actually smart, believe in a Constitution (or actually know what one is..) and that people should be treated equally and not discriminated against. The absolute circus that this has become on a daily basis here in CA tells me otherwise.

I'm turning 50 this week and think I must be going senile because to me anyone with an inkling of intelligence would vote no on this issue just because it legalizes discrimination. But for the past month or so, I pass by these throngs of Prop 8 supporters carrying their signs. Today, I must have passed by 10 groups of yellow-shirted paranoid morons carrying signs reading.."Yes on Prop 8", "Parent Equality", etc. You see the focus of many of the yes for 8 tv commercials threaten these homophobic parents with the horror of their kids being taught about gays and gay marriage in school if this proposition is defeated and voila..groups of 100 parents scattered through town stand in protest..but of WHAT??? What is everyone so afraid of...Do these morons really believe their kids will turn gay if they learn about it in school?? And then they spend their free time holding up signs for something that should have no effect whatsoever on their own marriage or their kids...You just wouldn't believe all the Yes signs that are plastered all over...I got a phone call tonight from someone asking me to vote yes. The amount of money spent on this senseless, bigoted Proposition has to be mindboggling. All I have to say if this Proposition passes, not to mention if a Republican is elected after what this Republican Administration has done to this country, this will prove that this country is full of ignorant, bigoted morons and we will be even more..if that is possible...the laughing stock of the world.

Updated On: 11/3/08 at 01:17 AM

Senators Obama and Biden have made clear their commitment to fighting for equal rights for all Americans whether it's by granting LGBT Americans all the civil rights and benefits available to heterosexual couples

Simple way to do that. Let gay people wed. Any other way is going to awfully tricky to make sure that rights are equal.

Oh, and I take back comparing this to abortion as states isuee. If you live in a state where abortion is restricted/illegal/etc, you have the option to have it taken care of it in another state. When you return home you'll still be not pregnant.