[jolepp]

WASHINGTON — President Obama on Wednesday ended nearly two years of “evolving” on the issue of same-sex marriage by publicly endorsing it in a television interview, taking a definitive stand on one of the most contentious and politically charged social issues of the day.
...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/us/politics/obama-says-same-sex-marriage-should-be-legal.html

[GibbyTheMole]

And he's 100% right. It's no one else's business who anyone marries / lives with / shags whom, as far as consenting adults are concerned.

[dadipentak]

And he's 100% right. It's no one else's business who anyone marries / lives with / shags whom, as far as consenting adults are concerned.

I'll sign on with that.

[Jasvox]

That is just one of a few things that need to be legalized.

Jason

[MRRiley]

And he's 100% right. It's no one else's business who anyone marries / lives with / shags whom, as far as consenting adults are concerned.

Sounds right to me too...

Here is just one example of how wrong the religious right is... even when it comes to their own doctrinal sources... The House of Rep's Armed Services Committee has naturally (considering the Republican majority) backed measures in the upcoming defense budget that forbid same sex ceremonies of any kind from taking place on any military installation. This, unfortunately is in line with the continued existence of the so called Defense of Marriage Act, since the bases are under federal jurisdiction and the restrictions would apply regardless of the legallity of same sex marriage in the surrounding jurisdiction.

So where am I going with this? House panel votes to ban same-sex marriages on US military bases | Fox News

The committee, on a vote of 37-24, backed an amendment that barred same-sex marriages or "marriage-like" ceremonies on military installations. The panel also endorsed an Akin amendment that said the services should accommodate the rights of conscience of members of the services and chaplains who are morally or religiously opposed to expressions of human sexuality.

In an odd exchange, Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., questioned what would happen if a service member literally interpreted the Old Testament's Leviticus, which considers homosexuality an abomination. Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., disputed her contention that was part of the Bible, saying it was the Old Testament.

Far as I know, Jesus never said word one against gays. In fact he said almost nothing about sex in general. Only a couple of passages written well after Jesus' time even refer to "sodomites" and in both the sodomites are listed as part of groups including adulterers, idolators, thieves, drunks, revelers, etc. Sodomites are given no special weight nor are they called out as particularly damned.

Regardless of this last point, the religious right (wrong) points to those passages as condemning homosexuality... And on their face, they are right. The dogma of most branches of Christianity accept these passages as canon so they can rightfully follow them. However, the religious right's primary argument against homosexuality is in the Old Testament, which despite what Rep Scott thinks, is generally accepted as part of "The Bible." Preachers, evangelistic modern Jesus loving Christian preachers, base countless sermons on it every Sunday and they use it to moralize all the time. Leviticus is a favored source which advocates stoning homosexuals to death (which is the literal interpretation that Rep Sanchez was getting at).

I would address Christian "cherry picking" condemnation of homosexuality while they blithely ignore the fact that according to Leviticus, 1st Corinthians and 1st Timothy, the robbers drunks and revelers are just as damned as sodomites but that point has been beaten to death and their hypocrisy on the subject is both well worn and galling.

No, my beef with Rep Scott is that his two faced dismissal of the OT and Leviticus as not being a viable religious reason for someone to abuse gay service members, is a shining example of his true agenda. He doesn't want 'religious" people to be able to object to homosexuality based on any of their myriad views. He wants "Christian" views to be preeminent and superior to all others. Remember, Jews use the Tanakh (the Torah and other writings many of which are in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible), not the Christian New Testament so a Jew has only the Torah on which to base any condemnation of homosexuality. Muslims have only the Abrahamic teachings as well as Mohammad's commands so they can't rely on Timothy or Corinthians either... Indian religions can't even use the OT...

Of course, I don't believe that any religious person has a right to abuse or attack anyone that does not share their particular views, regardless of whether the target of the abuse is gay, or Irish or Aboriginal or a Satanist. No one has a right to harm someone simply because they hold different views and operate under a different moral compass. Yet the religious right as well as certain other "conservative" (which to the person defining himself as one, means "like I think") religious groups insist the rest of us must adhere to their views and use their compass.

So to Rep Scott and his brethren, I say...Thank you for being concerned for my soul, but mind your own damn business and let me and my gay friends mind ours!

Letting 2 men or 2 women marry each other does not lessen or degrade a religious couple's vows and is no threat to their marriage. A gay man doesn't want to take your wife away from you Rep Scott. Nor does a gay woman want to take Mitt Romney away from his wife. They may want to take the other spouse away, but straight marriages face that risk even today . A fact which is well illustrated by current divorce rates (all attributable to straight marriages).

In the final analysis, the civil status of "Married" has certain legally recognized rights and privileges attached to it and it is these that the religious right and their homophobic sympathizers want a monopoly on. However, it's time that the civil act of marriage become available to all adult citizens, regardless of their gender or sexual orientation.

Mike

[Nesster]

[GeneV]

A religion may prohibit a marriage, and that may for heterosexual marriages (including mine, which mixes religions). Anyone is free to tell me everything I am doing wrong, and I am free to give that whatever value I see fit.

We are talking about law here, not individual morality. Having any two adults of any gender be able to marry and obtain legal benefits is good for everyone. I will go to trial next week over a situation involving what appears to be a same-sex domestic partnership and disposition of property on death. It is bad for my client, who did business with the couple, and for everyone involved that these rights have not been defined and do not follow an established legal path.

[mikemike]

So now the Democrats are the ones starting the culture wars for election years.

[normhead]

If you live in Ontario, this is so old news. We've had legalized same sex marriage for quite a while now. Our society hasn't collapsed into immorality. There are no more gays than there were before. NO one has become gay to take advantage of this law. Society as far as I can tell is much better off. The odd thing I've noticed over the years though, is that many ideologically conservative gays, support the center left parties, they have to, to defend their rights. My guess is the only ones suffering here are the fiscal and non-religious conservatives. There are a lot of powerful gay folk who should be part of their power-base, whom they continually alienate. After all, being gay doesn't make you liberal. It just makes you dependent on liberals to support your rights.

So now the Democrats are the ones starting the culture wars for election years.

You need to real MLK, letter from a Birmingham City jail. For some folks, it's never the right time to give victimized people the same rights everyone else enjoys. For the oppressors, no time is ever the right time, for the oppressed it can't come too soon. During the civl right movement, I was stopped by people and told that the bible proved that blacks were inferior to whites, and that I was an abomination for having mixed race parents. For that type of person, there should still be segregation, the civil rights act should never have been passed. I should still be unable to rent a hotel or motel room in a Holiday Inn or buy a hamburger at a Walmart MacDonalds. For the oppressors, any excuse will do. This isn't about a culture war, though I can see why you might choose to frame it that way. This is about some denying others what they them selves have and cherish. That is not doing to others what they would have others do to you. Imagine if gays got together and started pushing for legislation to ban straight marriage. How would it feel to you if gays were the oppressors and would n't allow hetero marriages? Probably pretty angry . Well, with attitudes like that, they have every right to feel the same way about you, given your predisposition towards in-equality.

[jeffkrol]

If you live in Ontario, this is so old news. We've had legalized same sex marriage for quite a while now. Our society hasn't collapsed into immorality. There are no more gays than there were before. NO one has become gay to take advantage of this law. Society as far as I can tell is much better off. The odd thing I've noticed over the years though, is that many ideologically conservative gays, support the center left parties, they have to, to defend their rights. My guess is the only ones suffering here are the fiscal and non-religious conservatives. There are a lot of powerful gay folk who should be part of their power-base, whom they continually alienate. After all, being gay doesn't make you liberal. It just makes you dependent on liberals to support your rights.

Best to leave your sanity at the border.. not very popular down here...........
We are working on changing that.........

Kleefisch made national news during the Wisconsin gubernatorial race in October 2010 when footage of an interview she had done just weeks after she announced her run was uncovered. The hour-long interview contained footage where she showed concern about changing existing marriage laws and discussed where marriage laws might go if changed.
“ This doesn't just have roots in the Bible. This has roots in fiscal common sense. We can't, at this point, afford to just be handing out money to anyone. This is a slippery slope in addition to that — at what point are we going to okay marrying inanimate objects? Can I marry this table, or this — you know, clock? Can we marry dogs? This is ridiculous. Biblically, again I'm going to go right back to my fundamental Christian beliefs, marriage is between one man and one woman.[9][10] ”

The story became national news[11][12][13] after it was discovered that Kleefisch's uncle Chris Pfauser has been in an openly gay relationship for 18 years, and Pfauser said after hearing the comments that he would vote for his niece's opponent. Kleefisch later apologized for her comments.

The Walker/Kleefisch ticket won the general election on November 2, 2010 and she is the Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin.

and hopefully will be voted out June 5 2012.....................

[GeneV]

So now the Democrats are the ones starting the culture wars for election years.

Not a fair description of how this went down. Biden answered a question from David Gregory, and that started the press frenzy.

[mikemike]

Not a fair description of how this went down. Biden answered a question from David Gregory, and that started the press frenzy.

I am not talking about just this, also the MSNBC/White House press office storyline of Republican's "War on Women." I am starting to see the emergence of a pattern.

RE: Normhead, I support gay people's right to marry who they want to marry, I am just pointing out the hypocrisy of how liberals who usually get livid whenever conservatives try to bring up social issues like this when they feel it is a distraction from some other issue like wars, the economy, or anything else. What role does the president has in enabling gay marriage or Romney would have in blocking it? None. If the president himself wanted to go preside over a gay wedding in a state which disallows it this weekend he could not. This stuff is just an attempt to distract people away from the real issues.

[Wheatfield]

This stuff is just an attempt to distract people away from the real issues.

You don't think the rights of your fellow Americans is a real issue?

[LFLee]

The thing is, more Americans need to go college....



Source: http://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2012/05/25051/

[GeneV]

I am not talking about just this, also the MSNBC/White House press office storyline of Republican's "War on Women." I am starting to see the emergence of a pattern.

You are starting to sound like Fox News.

Republicans favor programs that encourage wealth disparity and transfer money from the middle class to the very wealthy. Democrats call them on it. Fox cries Class Warfare

Republicans campaign relentlessly on policies which set women back 40 years. Democrats call them on it. Fox cries that the Democrats have "manufactured" a war on women.

Now, Republicans campaign on vigorous opposition to equal rights for same sex couples, with one leading candidate making extreme statements about gay Americans and their eventual standard bearer changing his own position. Democrats merely state the opposite opinion. Now Democrats are distracting America? Really?

But there is a pattern here.