SPLIT--> California's Proposition 8 on Same-Sex Marriage

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Now the yes-on-8 bigots are comparing gays to hitler: (from yes-on-8 rally yesterday)

Yes, Hitler hated gay people too, and I'm sure no one wants to be like Hitler.

Whenever you invoke Hitler, you never when it'll swing around and bite you in the ass.

Between 1939 and 1945, the SS, assisted by collaborationist governments and recruits from occupied countries, systematically killed somewhere between 11 and 14 million people, including about six million Jews,[119][120] in concentration camps, ghettos and mass executions, or through less systematic methods elsewhere. In addition to those gassed to death, many also died as a result of starvation and disease while working as slave labourers (sometimes benefiting private German companies). Along with Jews, non-Jewish Poles (over three million), communists or political opponents, members of resistance groups, homosexuals, Roma, the physically handicapped and mentally retarded, Soviet prisoners of war (possibly as many as three million), Jehovah's Witnesses, Adventists and Neopagans, trade unionists, and psychiatric patients were killed. One of the biggest centres of mass-killing was the extermination camp complex of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Hitler never visited the concentration camps and did not speak publicly about the killing in precise terms.
 
^ from the above:

For all of my boss' advice, it's witnessing the love she gives her kids that is a constant reminder of what it means to have your priorities in the right place. Her two daughters are in the office all the time. Even with a high-power position, she rarely misses a parent-teacher night or a school auction. Her office has a floor to ceiling cork board with all of her daughters' artwork and photographs. I've been to her house -- like mine, it has been taken over with the kids' toys, save for a tiny office reserved for the parents' stuff. My wife and I and our kids see their family at the Sunday morning farmers market, at a local pancake place, at swim lessons. Save for gender, our lives are virtually the same.

Occasionally, when straight parents get together, the subject of gay marriage or more over, gay parenting, comes up. For those of us who know same gender parents, the reaction is almost unanimous: gays and lesbians tend to make amazing parents. Maybe it's their acute sensitivity. Maybe it's because it is so much harder for gay and lesbians to become parents, so they work at it more. Maybe it's because they know they will face increased scrutiny and opposition as parents. Maybe it's genetics or a worldview, or maybe it's because of the heart-wrenching prospect that the same group behind the Prop 8 measure, if empowered, will some day try to take their children away.

As the Los Angeles Times wrote in its eloquent essay in opposition to Prop 8:

"Supporters of Proposition 8 insist that the measure is in no way intended to diminish the rights of gays and lesbians, but instead means to encourage ideal households for the raising of children."

Underneath the pro Prop 8 argument is a belief that gays and lesbians, simply by virtue of their sexual orientation, make bad parents. If only that were true, then we straight Dads would have it so easy.

I think moderate straight men and women might be able to rationalize, as both the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates have, that the word "marriage" should be exclusively reserved for a man and a woman. While certainly discriminatory, it is an accepted and often widely embraced political mantra. It is easy to conflate Prop 8 with that political talking point. But the fact is the proposition is far more dangerous. This proposition would be the grease to a very, very slippery slope. If successful, Prop 8 will embolden a radical agenda (mostly funded from outside California) which will not only take aim at Adam and Steve, but their children.

For many straight, well-intentioned parents of all political affiliations, Prop 8 may conjure up stereotypical images of carefree gay and lesbian couples running off to City Hall in leather chaps, who could be similarly served by civil unions, and separate but equal laws. Those parents may believe, "You know, marriage should be reserved for a man and a woman." Setting aside the arguments of civil rights, basic fairness and equality, I would ask those parents to think carefully about when those same gender husbands and wives become mothers and fathers. Since children have been the focus of so many of those frightening television ads supporting Prop 8, I ask you, "What about the children?"
 
BTW - the first thing I do every morning is to (piss) log onto this board with the hope that the last post in this thread is "This argument is fucking retarded. Lets just treat the gays like people. Who wants breakfast?"

Anyone? Anyone?
 
BTW - the first thing I do every morning is to (piss) log onto this board with the hope that the last post in this thread is "This argument is fucking retarded. Lets just treat the gays like people. Who wants breakfast?"

Anyone? Anyone?




gays aren't real people.

5,000 years of history and biology tells us this.
 
I was at my daughter's soccer practice and the mom of one of the other players said, "You know, I'm really worried about this Prop 8 thing" and her argument was about bringing "it" into the schools and that Marriage should be between a man and a woman and I said, "But who says? I mean, I know in the Bible that's how it's written, but the bible was written be MEN (and by men I mean people) and that may have been true at the time, but what's to say that it was RIGHT?" Every word or law that we live our lives by is written by people. And people make mistakes.

My opinion is that Prop 8 is promoted by people who fear and are repulsed by homosexuality, not people who really care about the sanctity of marriage. They are promoting an agenda and hide behind the words in the Bible. Well, the Bible says a lot more that these people choose to ignore when it comes to issues relating to homosexuality. Where is tolerance? Love of fellow man? I could go on and on.

In any case, I'm a practicing Catholic. I struggle with this issue because I just don't understand how a church (any faith, not just Catholic) can discriminate against people because of who they choose to love. I'm not gay, but wholeheartedly support gay rights because to me if two people love each other, why not let them be together and call it what it is? Marriage.

We have so many harsh realities in life. Why make such a big issue about this?
 
Now the yes-on-8 bigots are comparing gays to hitler: (from yes-on-8 rally yesterday)

"There was another time in history when people, when the bell tolled. And the question was whether or not they were going to hear it. The time was during Nazi Germany with Adolf Hitler. You see he brought crowds of clergy together to assure them that he was going to look after the church.

And one of the members, bold and courageous, Reverend Niemand (sp?) made his way to the front and (inaudible) said "Hitler, we are not concerned about the church. Jesus Christ will take care of the church.

We are concerned about the soul of Germany." Embarrassed and chagrined, his peers quickly shuffled him to the back.

And as they did Adolf Hitler said, "The soul of Germany, you can leave that to me." And they did, and because they did bombs did not only fall upon the nation of Germany, but also upon the church and their testimony to this very day.

Let us not make that mistake folks. Let us hear the bell! Vote on Proposition 8!"

The spelling is correct. Niemand is German for Nobody. A little sick made-up story.
 
Years ago I used to engage in more gay marriage / gay rights debates but I've since found it to be a mostly useless waste of time. And I will be very honest the reason is that I think that people who are opposed to gay marriage are doing it for one of two reasons: religious conviction that this is wrong/sinful or simply thinking that gay sex is icky.

My best male friend is gay, one of my roommates in law school was a lesbian, and I feel really embarrassed on behalf of bigoted people that they just don't get the simplicity of daily existence. As a straight woman, I can't fathom why my gay friends' relationship had any bearing on mine. I will never forget how my lesbian roommate was in a supportive, long term relationship with her partner, while my other, straight, roommate was basically a skanky ho. But hey, I guess she liked dicks so the sanctity of her relationships have to be preserved at all costs.
 
Years ago I used to engage in more gay marriage / gay rights debates but I've since found it to be a mostly useless waste of time. And I will be very honest the reason is that I think that people who are opposed to gay marriage are doing it for one of two reasons: religious conviction that this is wrong/sinful or simply thinking that gay sex is icky.

My best male friend is gay, one of my roommates in law school was a lesbian, and I feel really embarrassed on behalf of bigoted people that they just don't get the simplicity of daily existence. As a straight woman, I can't fathom why my gay friends' relationship had any bearing on mine. I will never forget how my lesbian roommate was in a supportive, long term relationship with her partner, while my other, straight, roommate was basically a skanky ho. But hey, I guess she liked dicks so the sanctity of her relationships have to be preserved at all costs.

I agree, this is my position too. With certain things, like gay marriage, the people against it, will kill themselves before admitting that they've heard your argument and agree with you. Its because when you say 'gay marriage' they go to a little place in their mind where its all perverted and say 'they're going to make their kids GAY!' (why then do we have gay people?) or 'they're going to molest them because they're GAY' which is absolutely fucking bullshit and the last time one of mums friends said this in a flippant way i said some very heated and unkind things and left. (My mum doesn't believe that, but shes one of those people who "don't want to offend" so won't speak up when those people say the most offensive things! :mad: )
 
I know! I don't know why we're so ok on one hand, and then have this load of shit on the other. I'm hoping Rudd will change it around, but im not sure of his line on it. Is he religious?
I have no idea why we still have this law, considering we're not even a fucking religious country and that can be the only reason why you would not allow gay marriage. I mean we've got anti discrimination up the wazoo, and this is the biggest discrimination that is legal. It just irks me terribly.
 
Proposition 8, the California ballot initiative that would eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry in the state, might just pass, according to a new poll.



A survey conducted by an organization opposed to the proposition, Vote No on Prop. 8, indicates that 47 percent of likely voters favor the initiative while 43 percent oppose it.



Currently, California's same-sex couples can marry due to a May state Supreme Court ruling that said it was unlawful for the state to deny marital equality. The poll indicates opponents of Proposition 8 must not become complacent, say organizers.



"Our most recent polling data shows us four points behind," said Geoff Kors, a member of the Vote No on Prop. 8 executive committee. "And unless we raise significant new dollars, we will not be able to compete with the proponents on television."



YouTube - Silly Laws
 

If this Prop passes are these couples in danger of having their marriages annulled?

Is that was this is leading to?

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or does it mean that marriage is one thing and civil unions are another thing,


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but both are equally legal in the State of Calif right now?





<>
 
Somewhat ironic that one of the main organization of bigots funding Prop 8 and the "marriage has always been one woman and one man for 5000 years" not so long ago was endorsing marriage as "one man and as many women as he wanted, regardless of age"
 
If this Prop passes are these couples in danger of having their marriages annulled?

Is that was this is leading to?

or does it mean that marriage is one thing and civil unions are another thing,

but both are equally legal in the State of Calif right now?



it means that the bigotry that would have kept the couples above apart -- as recent as the late 1960s -- is EXACTLY the same as the bigotry that would rip married couples of their rights in California.
 
Somewhat ironic that one of the main organization of bigots funding Prop 8 and the "marriage has always been one woman and one man for 5000 years" not so long ago was endorsing marriage as "one man and as many women as he wanted, regardless of age"



think Jerry Lee Lewis ... or Loretta Lynn.
 
think Jerry Lee Lewis ... or Loretta Lynn.

Well, we live close to Saddleback Church, a big Catholic Church and a big LDS monstrosity, so when it comes to "thinking" we're kind of in a bermuda-triangle of logical thought.

There are LOTS of yes on 8 in your face banner wavers around today, many of them kids. Just more people to wave my middle finger at when they wave at me.....
 
I guess we will just have to leave this one to God. :shrug:

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Prayer in the service of politics

Young members of a communal home are praying and fasting at a San Diego megachurch, part of a statewide vigil in support of Prop. 8.


By Jessica Garrison
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

October 20, 2008

LA MESA, CALIF. — For more than two weeks, Missy Huff has spent her days in a darkened church classroom, praying all day and into the night and subsisting on a pastel-colored regimen of VitaminWater and Jamba Juice smoothies.

But she does not yearn for food.

She is too committed, she says, to the cause of traditional marriage.

"God, we are asking for an awakening," she prayed one recent afternoon, standing before a group of young people who had come together to ask for divine intervention in California's upcoming election.

Next to her, another woman, whose blunt black hair and fashionable clothing would not have been out of place at a Silver Lake club, added her own prayer: "I am asking for rains of revival to open up over California."

Huff and about three dozen others in their 20s and early 30s have spent every waking minute since Sept. 24 at a San Diego County megachurch praying for the passage of Proposition 8, which would amend the California Constitution to define marriage as only between a man and a woman.

They are the fervent, ecstatic center of a statewide prayer vigil and fast that religious leaders say includes thousands of people asking for God's help in passing the measure.

But what distinguishes Huff and many of the young people she prays with at Skyline Church here is that after the election, they will not return to normal life.

Praying and fasting is their job.

They have forsaken traditional lives to live in communal homes -- supported by donations --and pray. All day, every day.

This year, the focus of their prayers is ending gay marriage.

"We believe we pray and God answers," Huff said. And her prayer is simple: "To heal California and establish righteousness."

The praying and fasting have discomfited some religious leaders who oppose Proposition 8.

"I am a person of prayer," said the Rev. Susan Russell, a lesbian and a priest at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena. But she said she does not believe prayer is "a weapon to be used to influence the political process."

That, she said, "takes us down a slippery slope from democracy to theocracy."

The communal home Huff shares with 10 others is on Haight Street in San Francisco, next door to Amoeba Records and a few steps from Golden Gate Park. The Justice House of Prayer San Francisco was established in 2005 by followers of the Rev. Lou Engle.

Huff has been there almost from the beginning.

She grew up in a small town in northeastern Alabama and left high school at 15.

She had a restless intellect, she says, and was ready for more advanced work. Her plan was to attend junior college and then transfer to a four-year institution.

But at 17, she happened to hear Engle speak at a local church.

Engle was starting "houses of prayer" in select cities across the country. The plan, according to his website, was to "call young adults into a lifestyle of radical prayer, fasting and holiness."

Soon after he established the first house in Washington, D.C. -- near the Supreme Court, so young people could pray for the justices to end abortion -- Engle visited Alabama, and Huff went to hear him speak.

"What he said, it gripped my heart," Huff said, "and I just knew this is what I wanted to do."

The next day -- almost as if it were part of God's plan, she said -- a family friend gave her a gift of $200 out of the blue. Then she heard about an acquaintance who was driving that day to D.C. Without hesitating, Huff asked if she could have a spot in the van.

Her parents, she said, "really freaked out."

Huff said she told them she felt called "to see abortion ended in America."

She said her father, a computer programmer, told her he did not agree, that he was pro-choice. Her mother, a middle school teacher, asked what had happened to her plans for college.

But in the end, her mother, who is also a Christian, became convinced she should not stand in her daughter's way. Her father agreed as well.

Huff stayed in D.C. for six months, then moved to the house in San Francisco.

Her housemates include several of the people she is now praying with in San Diego, including Gabrielle Joyner, 28, and her husband, Roger, 31, whose many tattoos include "Pray" and "Fast" on his fingers.

Most days begin about 10 a.m. with a worship service and meeting. House members discuss their dreams and what they feel called to pray about that day.

At noon they break for lunch, then spend the afternoon on administrative and household tasks, such as cooking, returning phone calls and walking their chocolate Labrador retriever, Enoch, in Golden Gate Park.

At 6 p.m. they have a communal dinner, then spend the evening in prayer together.

Sometimes they leave the city, as they have done now for Proposition 8 and as they did this summer when they spent a month praying in front of every abortion clinic they could identify across California.

On Friday nights they often head to the Castro district, the center of the city's gay community, to play guitars and sing and share their views about the love of Jesus.

Some passersby assume they're performing satiric street theater. Others argue with them vociferously.

"I think it's pretty shocking" for people in the Castro, Gabrielle Joyner said.

After the state Supreme Court ruled in May to allow same-sex marriage, evangelical leaders in California, working with their counterparts in the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, began organizing to pass Proposition 8.

They launched a fundraising organization, which has raked in so many contributions that the most recent campaign finance filing crashed the secretary of state's computer.

But they also wanted a spiritual component to their campaign. Central to that is the 40-day fast, leading into what organizers hope will be a huge rally Nov. 1 at San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium. There, Engle will lead 12 hours of prayer for the passage of Proposition 8.

Though some people, including Huff, have given up solid food entirely, others are "fasting" by giving up sweets, shopping, a TV show or some other favorite indulgence. Jim Garlow, the pastor of Skyline Church -- which is hosting the fasters from San Francisco and around the country -- said almost all of his church's 2,500 members have given up something, as have members of other churches up and down the state.

Some afternoons they take a break and drive their van to Jamba Juice.

They debate which flavor is most delicious. Huff's choice is the Protein Berry Workout.

Huff said that although they are cloistered here in the rolling hills of eastern San Diego County, they feel they are doing as much or more for the cause as the political professionals who are plotting strategy, raising money and producing TV ads.

"The political cause would be a lot less effective without people praying," she said. "When they encounter the love of God, that's what changes people's hearts."
 
I pray that somewhere, God is taking really good notes.
 
I don't consider a Jamba Juice diet fasting.

At it's core marriage is simply a legal contract which lends stability to society by making people responsible for each other. Any deeper meaning is added by the individuals involved. Why not ban all secular marriages. I don't expect the Mormon church to allow me to get married it their temple, why should they be concerned with who gets married in a court house.

I live in one of the most conservative towns in so.cal so it's not a good barometer but the yes on 8 campaign has been out in force the past week. I hope there are enough places where the opposite it true to shift the balance

On another note, The Republican presidential nominee is getting surprisingly little outward support here.
 
do people understand just how enormously cruel it will be to strip 16,000 couples of their relationships?

that really is the core of it. cruelty.
 
In my area, there have been people out on the streetcorners for the last 2-3 weeks with NO on 8 signs, and a lot of support it seems by passers by, myself included. There was only 1 corner out of all of them with yes signs, and hardly any drivers honking.

NO on 8!
 
do people understand just how enormously cruel it will be to strip 16,000 couples of their relationships?

that really is the core of it. cruelty.



This is what I can't stop thinking about every time I look out my window and see the Yes on 8 signs in my neighbors' yards and when I drive through my city and see them stuck in planters and on fences. Do they even realize what they are doing? Do they even care?

It bothers me so much that I honestly don't think I can even be friendly to many of my neighbors anymore, knowing they support something that could potentially end 16,000 marriages, using the bullshit excuse of protecting traditional marriage. What a joke. The hypocrisy and sense of superiority makes me want to vomit.
 
do people understand just how enormously cruel it will be to strip 16,000 couples of their relationships?

that really is the core of it. cruelty.
Oh you naive man, how many people will die in the earthquake that God is going to send to San Francisco if we don't undo this abomination of gay marriage?
 
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