Prop 8 Ruled Unconstitutional
 

A U.S. appeals court rules Prop. 8 unconstitutional

Fucking finally.

Edit:

Also, FCKH8!
http://s18.postimage.org/lh0tsmu8l/fckh8.jpg

Hopefully it will spread across the nation.

Woohoo!

Me too. There's absolutely no reason why gays shouldn't be allowed to marry. There's supposed to be a separation of church and state, but all of the arguments against gay marriage I've heard have been religious. I just hope people come to their senses.

It's no different than how women and black people were treated 50 years ago. Funny how plain that is to see for people on MB, yet the ignorant people in our society are too blinded by their hatred to see the connection.

**** religion. Religion seems to foster more hate than good.

Given the actual text of the decision (which is extremely narrow), it seems unlikely.

Is same sex marriage even mentioned in the bible? I don't understand where the foundation of their hate for gay marriage comes from. It seems like it's just some personal belief that religious people have, and because they are religious, they justify it as a religious belief. But it's not just religious people that don't like gay marriage. There are plenty of non religious people who are just flat out hateful towards things that are different from themselves.

Let's look at how voting on Prop 8 broke down by major ethnic groups:

http://citizenchris.typepad.com/phot..._8_by_race.jpg
link

So, most Black Americans deny this connection. Further, let's keep in mind:

link

...which is huge.

And then the court goes against popular will, in a judgment which is not being derided solely among conservatives;

LINK


So, Black Americans deny there is a relationship between Gay Marriage and the Civil Rights Movement, turn out in massive numbers and help defeat Gay Marriage, and then the Appeals Court makes their involvement in this defeat irrelevant.

...and you want to sell this is as a victory for civil rights? Really?

You want to use this as a springboard for your bull**** right wing rhetoric? Really?

People who were denied civil rights now have them in California. Therefore it's a victory for civil rights. Pretty simple really.

I assume this will be overturned. I kind of agree with HHB on this, they went through the democratic process and voted and lost. Not saying its right, but thats why they voted in the first place.

I don't think equality is negotiable. I bet you could find places that would overturn the rights of black Americans if those places were offered a vote as well.

Civil rights are not something that should be up for the popular vote though, that's the thing. It's what the founding fathers were referring to when they talked about "the tyranny of the mob".

So simple that I couldn't of put it any better.

Black people aren't the designated spokesmen for civil rights. It's really all about the victims, and lots of people only care if their own race, gender, religion or whatever is being violated of its civil rights.

So Conan married his two employees in New York for nothing? He could've just waited a few months.

I agree its an unfortunate platform. My only grievance is that the voting process doesn't seem to be respected anymore.

"Do ye not know that unrighteous persons shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not err: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor those who make women of themselves, nor who abuse themselves with men,"
1 Corinthians 6:9

There's nothing holy about the democratic process. We have a Constitution for just that purpose: to guard against the tyranny of the majority. Hooray for the 9th Circuit.

Yea, Janszoon really summed it up with:

Even barring the sanctity of the constitution, human rights don't have to be written on a founding document to validate them. The basic rights that this "majority" enjoys should be available to everyone and not stamped out because it doesn't align with the beliefs of whoever puts the most votes in the box.
When it comes to something like who a person loves and wants to spend the rest of their life with, and being able to reap the benefits of that decision, such a decision should not rest on a democratic process. The fact that there was ever a democratic process to decide such a thing is just as appalling as the outcome of its votes.

Thanks for that. I guess gays "make women of themselves". That's a funny way to put it. Damn bible.

How then would anyone know what they are? http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...de_999/hmm.gif

I might think I have a right to a ham sandwich, but demonstrating how I came by that right is what matters.

Not sure if serious...
Pardoning the wildly irrelevant and asinine comparison of human rights to the right of eating a ham sandwich, if you think human rights are solely defined by whether they were written on a document or not, then I am truly amazed.

While I'll give you (or anyone else, assuming you were just picking at a statement out of context of the point it was in) the fact that marital status and the material benefits it brings are more of a legality matter than a human rights mater, the implication of a recognized union that is not discriminated on based solely on whether or not that union is comprised of a male and female is CERTAINLY obvious and should not be referred to in a document.

Any prerequisite not based on personal morality, should you appeal to their nature, whether standardized or assumed, is met in the case of same-sex marriage. It's not hurting anyone if same-sex couples marry, and simultaneously, they would enjoy the same benefits that we afford traditional married couples not being discriminated against because of their choice of partner.

I think what he meant is that if it is not written into law, these civil rights could easily be denied to the victim because the oppressor (for lack of a better word) would play by the classic fallacy: "but you didn't say not to".

Indeed. I just mean to say that it's not the summation of all possible rights, which was what I thought he was implying.

Thank you for remembering this is about the material benefits of state recognized marriage.

In regards to the underlined; if that's you're line of argument, why offer anyone benefits for being married? Not being married doesn't harm anyone else, so why should those who are not married pay higher taxes, be burdened with unfavorable loan rates, unfavorable car insurance rates, etc.?

The arguments that justified these unfavorable conditions were primarily related to (1) increased reproductive rates of married couples, & (2) the improved outcomes of children from married couples. But do these arguments still make sense if you're going to extend marriage benefits to same sex couples?

Of course those arguments don't make sense in context with whether same sex couples are going to be fulfilling the purpose of (1), but if that was a necessary prerequisite at this point, then it seems to me there would be laws that actually require there be a pay-in to that original reasoning from each couple gaining the material benefits. Since that's obviously not the case, then it stands to reason that the system isn't being harmed by those that don't.

As to whether there should be material benefits at all, regardless of the situation, that's another topic. But, as it stands, there are... and as long as there are people marrying into those benefits with no prerequisites that would contribute to the reasoning behind them other than a statistical likelihood that is more than well off as it stands, considering the world is still full of heterosexuals and also full of people capable of raising a child whether it's theirs or not, then I don't see why a prerequisite of gender needs to be present if based solely on statistics.

Anyway, I don't think the issue (to people wanting to become married to a same-sex partner, and those that support it) is as much about material benefits as it is about acceptance and recognition as wed couples with the same status that other couples enjoy. I could be wrong, but it seems to me more of a societal issue that's being contested, rather than one of hard numbers.

.

Be amazed then, o pompous arbiter of asininity. Your entire argument is bluster. http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...e_999/haha.gif

.

*asininity

I'm not going to call anybody asinine but the truth is that there are no such things as universal rights. Those clearly don't exist because if they did, they would be universally recognized and none are.

Common decency is a slightly different idea but its one that also obviously doesn't exist among us. Try to define it and anybody will find opposition from human peers. That opposition will be based on emotions or statistical analyses or a combo of both.

We living humans make up rights as we go and assign them where and when we feel like it. Individually and collectively.

In fact, the concept of "rights" is entirely subjective. Even if objective standards exist, humans have proved themselves to be incapable of agreeing on what they are.

All we will ever have to work with are politics and polemics and the outcome of collective decisions based on those will never be certain or permanent. Sad but true for everybody.

That's good.

Christ, I obviously need to refrain from either drinking or posting in this subforum. I believe in everything I said, but it has little to do with the specific topic of Proposition 8's constitutionality. Sorry folks.

You addressed a subtopic that was being discussed, and you did it well. Right on point, I thought.

Could you please clarify the underlined?

I don't think that's very plausible, sorry; 41 states have outlawed gay marriage, of the six where it's legal not once has it been legalized through popular referendum.

So, then, what? Are people presuming they're going to sue and legislate unpopular legislation unto the American masses and thereby warm the cockles of the heart? Apologies for the sarcasm, but I've difficultly believing that's what they intend.

I'm not drunk enough to deal with you right now, rabbit boy. Give me another couple hours.

If you look at the voting demographics, hardly anyone under the age of 35 believes that homosexuals don't deserve the same rights as everyone else. In that sense, I think this gay marriage "issue" has already been settled. But it sure would be nice if we could avoid making the current generation suffer while we wait for the oldsters to die off.

It does not matter. Most people dislike gay marriage. It is not that hard to figure that out. I mean seriously, people pretty much said that they value traditional marriage. For example in Minnesota, they are trying to legalize gay marriage but the problem is that most people don't want gay marriage. So Gay Marriage is just a fantasy. It will never legalize in all 5o states.

[Citation needed]

LINK


Other points:

1) In the context of the USA, overall opinions - even when divided by age, race, gender or what have you - are deceptive because of the manner power is divided between State & Federal authorities as well as the rural communities continued power in the Senate. Even if, say, 60% of Americans approved of same-sex marriage, the results would be negligble until a majority of rural America feels the same.

2) America's fastest growing demographic groups are the same demographic groups which are most likely to oppose same sex marriage; consequently, it's reasonable to expect support for same sex marriage to decline as the relative number of whites, asians, and jews declines.

Well people, I am a traditionalist. I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. Gay Marriage is a fantasy. Believe me, it will never approve in all 50 states. Maybe Nine states but not all 50 states. If you want gay marriage, go to New York. It is a good place for this to get married.

But most Americans refuse to recognize gay marriage. Californina, 53 percent of Americans supported Proposition 8. So it is pretty clear that most Americans do not support Gay Marriage.

Gay Marriage will never be approved in all 50 states. That can only be a fanatasy.

So you only want to pass laws when they're popular with the majority now?
Hell if they passed tax laws by popularity your country would be skint in less than 24 hours.