allow me to vent, or think out loud or whatever. i hope i'm not beating this topic to death, but it's driving me nuts.

i see the whole thing as wrong. let's start at the beginning. gay marriage is considered wrong because it's "immoral". why? well because that's what it says in the bible. the bible....riight. so it's a religious thing then. okay, this is what is setting me off. what is the first amendment to the constitution you ask. freedom of religion. that's right. the main misconception i see here is that many people believe that the founding fathers were all of a christian belief. not so. ask yourself, what three letter word is not in the constitution. the answer would be god. many of the founding fathers did not adhere to the christian, catholic, or puritan belief. know what that eye is on the back of the dollar bill. an ancient symbol for the all seeing deity. so i feel that the proposed amendment is being based on a religious belief. i don't believe gay marriage to be immoral. that's also probably because i don't hold the idea that the bible is well, a bible. there is suppose to be a separation of church and state. the lines have been so blurred over the last decade that i think people forget that from time to time.

so that's what i think. seriously, if i'm way off track here, someone please enlighten me, as i'm continuously periled by this. so support my ideas, or your own. either way i’d like to hash this out and come out with some sort of understanding as to why people are readily accepting that this is ok.

side note: running this through word, word seemed to think that christian needed to be capitalized, but catholic and puritan did not. that’s odd


~b

i'm not ignoring you, bails--i just haven't had the emotional umph to give my response to this the appropriate passion...

i'll be back when i do.

more gay ammendment grist for the political mill:

DAVENPORT, Iowa (Aug. 24) - Vice President Dick Cheney, whose daughter Mary is a lesbian, spoke supportively about gay relationships on Tuesday, saying "freedom means freedom for everyone."

At a campaign rally in this Mississippi River town, Cheney was asked about his stand on gay marriage - an issue for which his boss, President Bush, has pushed for a constitutional amendment to ban such unions.

"Lynne and I have a gay daughter, so it's an issue our family is very familiar with," Cheney said. "With the respect to the question of relationships, my general view is freedom means freedom for everyone ... People ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to.

"The question that comes up with the issue of marriage is what kind of official sanction or approval is going to be granted by government? Historically, that's been a relationship that has been handled by the states. The states have made that fundamental decision of what constitutes a marriage," he said.

Bush backs a constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage, a move Cheney says was prompted by various judicial rulings, including the action in Massachusetts that made gay marriage legal.

"I think his perception was that the courts, in effect, were beginning to change, without allowing the people to be involved," Cheney said. "The courts were making the judgment for the entire country."

Last month, Lynne Cheney said states should have the final say over the legal status of personal relationships, a comment that came just days before the Senate failed to back the ban.

Cheney said the amendment did not have the votes to pass, but he also said the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which President Clinton signed into law in 1996, may be enough.

"Most states have addressed this and there is on the books the federal statute, the Defense of Marriage Act, passed in 1996, and to date, it has not been successfully challenged in the courts and may be sufficient to resolve the issue," the vice president said.

The Cheneys have two daughters, both of whom are working on the campaign. Mary Cheney is director of vice presidential operations for the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign. She held a public role as her father's assistant in the 2000 campaign and helped the GOP recruit gay voters during the 2002 midterm elections.

During the 2000 campaign, vice presidential candidate Dick Cheney took the position that states should decide legal issues about personal relationships and that people should be free to enter relationships of their choosing.

Addressing Bush's position on the amendment, Cheney said, "at this point, save my own preference, as I have stated, but the president makes policy for the administration. He's made it clear that he does, in fact, support a constitutional amendment on this issue."

Sens. John Kerry of Massachusetts and John Edwards of North Carolina, oppose the amendment. The Democratic candidates also oppose gay marriage, but defend a gay couple's rights to the same legal protections as those conferred in marriage.

Steven Fisher, spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, a gay and lesbian advocacy group, said Cheney's remarks show a stark difference with Bush's efforts "to put discrimination in the Constitution."

"President Bush is feeling the heat. The administration has been using gay Americans to drive a wedge into the electorate. There are millions of American families who have gay family members and friends, who are offended by the president's use of discrimination," Fisher said.

good info, thanks zoomy. very interesting read. i'm looking foward to your comments on the topic.
oh, and nice name.

~b

quote:

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Originally posted by bailey:
...and nice name.

~b

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thank you. on more than one level...

Ok...soooo... the topic is gay marriage not misuse of the Bible to abuse a segment of the population ,right..??

I am neither gay nor religious...so I have no personal reasons to be deciding one way or the other...
tho I am always in favor of allowing people any right or freedom that does not have a negative impact on others.

I think leaving this to the states is absolutely assinine.. but everything anyone does in the Bush adminstation is ...so why stop now..???

I do think settling for all the benefits of marriage but by another name..'domestic union' or what ever is the way to go... for now ..
& heres why...

Much progress has been made on equalizing human rights in america in the last 50 years..more wouldnt hurt,except...
& its a big & dangerous exception...pushing too hard WILL result in a backlash..its started already...America has gone very politically conservative since 1980.

Lets give the knuckle-draggin religious right morons a bit of time to catch their horrified breath..
Let the older ones die off & the ones who have grown up with a more openly gay environment...will realise gay unions are not the apocalypse coming to pass..

the future will be brighter than if gays & liberals demand all right now & cause an itch only a reactionary religious salve can cure,no?

i tend to agree, BB. but i'm one of those bad queers that doesn't sport rainbows or march in pride parades...

Bush & Co. are using this as a political ploy to polarize the religious right. abortion, too. the GOP platform presented at the RNC yesterday included proposed Constitutional ammendments banning both gay marriage & abortion. CONSTITUTIONAL freakin' AMMENDMENTS. i guess that's what galls me most. that they'd deign to not only change one of the more perfect systems ever created but do so for the first time ever (well..if you don't count Prohibition, which they perpetrated on us, too. heh--didn't last did it?), to a regressive rather than progressive end. it brings to mind an impetutous, spoiled little child who changes the rules of the game when he can't win fairly. in the end, i believe it will all amount to tantrum and foot-stomping because there is no way in hell either ammendment will be ratified by 2/3 of Congress & 3/4 of the States. (remember W's daddy's desire for an ammendment banning flag-burnng...? )

quote:

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(remember W's daddy's desire for an ammendment banning flag-burnng...? )

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From todays headlines:
Bush: 'We will win' terror war

By Edwin Chen
Los Angelestimes Staff Writer

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- President Bush forcefully declared today that the war on terrorism was winnable, telling veterans: "If America shows weakness and uncertainty, the world will drift toward tragedy. This will not happen on my watch."

Bush's emphasis on defeating terrorism came only a day after he said on national television, in an interview on NBC's program "Today," that the war could not be won, touching off a firestorm of partisan controversy.

"This is a different kind of war," he told thousands of American Legion members here this morning. "We may never sit down at a peace table. But make no mistake about it. We're winning, and we will win. We will win by staying on the offensive."

The president's appearance here was a campaign event, paid for by the Bush-Cheney campaign organization; when he addressed the same convention a year ago, the speech was considered an official presidential event, for which the federal government paid the costs.

Bush's Democratic rival, Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, is to address the convention Wednesday.

It was the second time this month that the two men have made dueling appearances at the same convention, separated by a day. They spoke to a convention of minority journalists in Washington in early August.

In his remarks here, Bush touted his support for veterans benefits as well as for a constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration. He was accompanied by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who was a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War and Bush's most persistent rival for the Republican presidential nomination four years ago. (Cont.)

Looks like that flag desicration thing is still popular with the Bushes.

I want to reply to the question here as well. As with most of these politically divisive issues the numbers here work for the right- and tend to get them riled up which might get them out to vote.

I wish they would not use the Bible and make it apear that all Christians are against gay rights. You can't legislate religion- though there are those who would try- like the Taliban.

Personally I'm against the amendment. It ventures way too far into personal lives.

ilike BB's coment that if we wait for the oldergen to die off we might have a chance to create a more fair society. However, there are those coming up that pose just as much of a threat. We have two here in PA- Santorum and Fitzpatric- the latter hasn't been elected to congress yet (my one vote may help here).

Fact is, we can't let our guard down but we also have to be realistic. The amendment isn't that much of a threat yet, but it could bring out more voters for Bush, so IMO it is best not to play it up too much in the media.

Does that sound like a new kind of homo-phobic! Sorry Politics is such a difficult way to get things done.

okay, round two. i'm waaay tired, so i'll try to follow a train of thought.

the issue here kinda was religion in government. a little. like nanzar said, it's not that big of a deal now. but it could be...what i want to know is why is there no red flag being raised. i personally think it's outrageous. and again, i'm not trying to stereotype all christians....my mom is one of those bible banging gals and she loves me to death. but from dubbyas view, i think it is on a religious context that he wants this amendment to pass. it's discriminatory to say the least. but i know, we are progressing as a nation. hopefully for the better. as for the actual amendment, ya know, i don't want to get married, that's something you do in a church. but i do want the same tax breaks and recognition for my spouse in the emergency room as every other person. civil union, whatever, i only think that's fair. okay, must sleep. i await responses. my precious.

oh, and for flag-burning banning (that was hard to say), i'm against it. if they have the right to do it, it just lets me know who's ass to kick later.

sleepily yours
~b

From todays headlines:
Bush: 'We will win' terror war

which is rich, considering the day before he said the 'war on terror' "was unwinnable". of course when he does that it's "clarification" and when Kerry changed his mind on the war as the administration's misinformation was exposed, he's a "waffler."

personnally i can't believe any thinking person with a conscience could support Bush...

the war on terrorism, is unwinnable. there will always be terrorism of somekind, somewhere. the war in iraq is winnable. two different subjects here. personally, i believe the reporter above, spun the story for his liking. the quotes don't line up with what he's trying to sell. just my opinion. i'm not necessarily supporting bush, but i'm voting for him. i do not trust kerry, especially in the middle of a war. nu uh. he comes off as having his own agenda, his, not the people's. me no likey.



~b

so, i'm driving along in the car, thinking of my last post and realize what an idiot i sounded like. lol. i know bush has his own agenda as well. all i was trying to say was that kerry seems way shadier to me. again just my opinion. i never said i was right, or that i have a conscience either.

neurotically yours,
~b

so as a soldier, you'd trust the oil-man (read: major business interests in Middle East), former reservist (read: war avoider) more than a decorated, battle-tested officer who enlisted and volunteered for combat missions? sure, Kerry's rich like Bush--with his wife they're even richer--but he has never shown anything but a willingness and a devotion not only to serve, but to do so with a sense of civic duty to those other than the prvileged. i truly believe Kerry is more about service than amassing power--he could weild plenty of that outside of politics. but i believe it's all about the power with Bush. i wish i could cite the quote, but i actually heard him say something along the lines of, "i'm the President. i don't have to answer questions about what i do." (uh...you do, too. just ask Bill CLinton...). he exudes an undeserved arrogance that i find truly disturbing in a man of his postion.


bailey, i love ya, kid. but if you believe your signature, you're making a grave mistake by voting for Bush. you realize, you've just become my project...

quote:

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Originally posted by wrong on so many levels...:
...if you believe your signature, you're making a grave mistake by voting for Bush.

---

Word.

i suppose, after clinton, no one really seems arrogant...lol. so here's the thing, i see kerry as a double-talker. i've seen a lot of doublespeak from him and his campaign. and i understand that he served, willingly. but what about his years after he returned from vietnam? he was a very active war protestor. that makes me a little sketchy. here's the other thing, through all his misgivings, through all his blunders, bush cares. he truly has compassion. compassion for the nation and compassion for the human race. i'm not saying he's a textbook definition of compassion, but it's there. more than i've seen since regan was in office. clinton didn't have, and i don't see kerry as having it. when some people get to that 7th layer of politics, they're nerve ending for the human race go numb. i see kerry, and clinton, as ones who have lost that. that makes me uneasy.

a project...will you take me to show and tell? actually, i'm quite intrigued by the fact you want to sway me. i'm stubborn, and so are you, so it should be a wonderful conversation. i truly look foward to it.

~b

who exactly is the benficiary of Bush's "compassion"? even those who have gained the most from Saddam being deposed, i'm thinking the Iraqi Olympic soccer team for example, want no part of being a poster child for the Bush's so-called compassion. and where is his compassion his own damn people. anybody could have stood under a flag next to a fireman at Ground Zero and seemed genuiuinely compassionate. but where is his compassion for small business owners who have to make their employee chip in for the minimal health insurance we provide, or for that matter, for the poeple who can't afford health insurance at all? where is his compassion for the people whose jobs are being sent to Mexico & India? where is his compassion for loving gay couples who (IMO foolishly--but that's a whole nuther debate...) choose to legally wed? where is his compassion for the families of & the people with AIDS (he promised a billion $ 2 state-of-the-unions ago & to my knowledge, not a penny has yet to be alocated or spent), Alzheimer's (elimnated federal funding for stemcell research--based on his religious leanings...), Parkinson's (see last parenthetical statement), diabetes (ditto) and spinal injury (you get the picture...)? i don't see him so much a compassionate as self-righteous.

i was never any big Kerry fan before this election, and i still think almost anyone but Bush would do better. but the more i've learned about John Kerry the more i appreciate & trust him. i've often said that there are no "civil servants" any more, just politicians (with some exceptions--Jimmy Carter spring to mind...a civil servant and a true statesman). don't get me wrong, Kerry is definitely a politian, but everything i learn about him leads me to believe he is by far the truer humantiarian. as Senator, he's been a long-standing advocate for labor related issues and he sits on Senate commitees over-seeing issues of inner city crime and education that in no way benefit him politcially wihtin his own constituency, i also think his war record and his protest thereof stand as example of his compasiion. i would hope you'd be strong-stomached & bold-willed enough to expose attrocities you encountered in a wartime scenario, or to speak out against an obviously unnecessary (i defy you to tell me how the Vietnam War was a necessary action...) futile ongoing military action that daily takes the lives of your fellow soldiers in the name of possibly saivng their lives.

Bsuh has never been a success (well...we wasn't actually unsuccessfulat owning the baseball team his daddy's friends bought for him...) anythign he's done prior to becoming Governor of Texas, and the jury is decidely hung as to whether or not he was successful at that. it depends on if you think rolling back restriction on air & water polution to benefit business is a good thing, and whether or not you plan to send your children to public school. as President he's taken the greatest world-wide goodwill this contry has ever known and turned it into equal levels of anger & resentment, given rich people tax breaks (i'm still waiting to get trinkled down on...), failed to complete the mission in a justified action in Afghanistan is getting more people killed daily in Iraqi, where we should not be in the first place.

so how do you reconcile the blatent conflict of interest that exists when you have Bush, Cheney waging a war from which they (and theirs...) will benefit directly from fionancially?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: zoom,

well good lord, ya gotta give me a minute to get my research together. no promises on when i'll have a response, got friends coming in this weekend . i'm so happy to have someone debate this with me. i long for knowledgeable, intelligent, well thought debate. i'm printing this out, and will be diligently working a response.

~b

quote:

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Originally posted by bailey:
...i'm so happy to have someone debate this with me. i long for knowledgeable, intelligent, well thought debate....~b

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lol. well...you got me instead.

This has nothing to do with gay marriage but that pyramid on the back of the dollar bill is Masonic, not Christian. Freemasonry isn't a religion (George Washington was a Freemason so that's probably how it ended up on the dollar since his face is on the front). I'm not sure how much God comes into play there and when the "In God We Trust" came in (personally I find it quaint because not every American does the God thing).

As for gay marriage, I'm all for anyone getting married, no matter what combination the couple, trio, quad, commune, small city.

However I've known some gay and bi people who had mixed feelings. I know one couple who has domestic partner status in a state with DP laws and were wondering what that would do to them should they choose to remain unmarried. Thing is, the DP laws only are for same-sex couples and not for opposite sex couples so let's say I met a man I could stand for more than five minutes, we became long term, moved to California.. well, no DP rights for us because we're opposite sex. My state used to be a common-law marriage state (opposite sex couples only) for many years but that's long been unrecognized so a man and woman living together for six years.

The inequality is on both sides of the pairing fence.

Personally I'd like to see the anti-polygamy laws repealed myself as well. Why limit a marriage to two people?

(edited for a bit of coherence)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Herculena,

I'm still having a bit of trouble warming up to Kerry (I'd personally like to see Obama in the White House myself) but I think he'd at least not be treating the office of president as his own personal LARP as Bush fils has. Dubya should've just been given a Sims White House/Nation/World pack and some video games (wonder if those Playstations ever did arrive, anyone else remember the Playstation for Bush campaign?).

At this point a box of laundry detergent would be better than Dubya and his handlers. Just turning on the television when the RNC was on made me think, what did they pump that man with to keep him from hopping around? He looked seriously heavily medicated, his eyes were glazed and he reminded me of people who got agitated in the psych units who were given shots to quiet them, or those in outpatient MH counseling centers who were on long-acting injectibles who'd get their shots and have that same dose. That may not have been the case at all but just from what I've seen many times in real life and from what I've seen of Bush's on camera behavior in crowd situations it makes me wonder what is going on. (go ahead, call me a conspiracy theorist, feel free. I could be stretching very easily but there's certain things that set off blips on my street-trained personal radar that I can't tell are bogeys or not unless I'm actually in the physical presence of said person).

i swore when he gave his State of the Union address last January they'd double dosed him on Xanax. that and they had him sleep for a week with hypnosis tapes that repeated "NUKE-LEE-ER....NUKE-LEE-ER....NUKE-LEE-ER....A-MER-I-CA....A-MER-I-CA...." you could see the look of concentrated effort come over his face everytime he had to say either word.

XanaX??? That's candy. More like a big ass shot of Haldol or Thorazine. Or a constant feed over time. And then propped Dubya up and used latex to keep his eyes propped open so he could read the TelePrompter.

Personally, I think the whole religious argument is a ruse, because however offensive it is to some, it's less offensive than the real reason -- economics. If gay marriage were legal, look how many more people would be filing for head of household, how many more people would be eligible for survivor benefits from Social Security, etc. The government can't afford it. But it makes better press to pretend there's some high moral ground to stand on rather than admit that it comes down to the same ol' thing -- the almighty dollar.

On another related issue, how many of you would realy care if they legalized gay marriage but called it "civil union" or "domestic partnership" instead, as long as it came with all the same legal rights and privileges as "marriage"? Seems to me a lot of folks are hung up on that word -- "marriage". Personally, I don't give a flip. My partner and I had a civil union in Vermont, which is not recognized where we live (Texas), but even before that, I considered myself "married". I don't really care what they call it. I'd like the rights, not the label. Actually, with the state of marriage (read rate of divorce) these days, I've always thought legal marriage was destined to evolve toward something allowing for, say, an option for a domestic partnership type agreement or a contract marriage where you get a license for say 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, whatever, and when that expires you have to renew it or it expires. Divorce attorneys probably wouldn't like it, but I think it would be more practical.

that was my point. the all-seeing eye of deity is mentioned in freemasonry, but the concept behind the image dates back to the bible. An unfinished pyramid symbolized that the work of nation building is not completed, but the pyramid is not a particularly masonic symbol. the eye in the pyramid, still featured on america's money, was a common symbol of an omniscient deity that dated to renaissance art. in other words, the masons may have adopted the design as a symbol later on and not the other way around. ultimately, what is far more important than what any of the so-called founding fathers personally believed is the larger concept that most of them embraced passionately: the freedom to practice religion, as well as not to.

that's my point, my rant, and my ramble.

zoom, i'm still working on you, but i got something good for ya, i'll post as soon as i get a sec.

~b