Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment debate--all day in the Senate (on NOW)

[Khephra]

CSPAN 2.

Hatch is up now. I can't stand to listen to him, so no notes from me yet.

[kayell]

1. He's is talking about how an amendment is needed because

DOMAs constitutionality is being challenged, and because it will sooner or later be turned over.

In other words, it's not a problem that DOMA is unconstitutional, it's a problem that they can't decide what laws they can make without those pesky 1st 10 amendments.

[Khephra]

3. Thanks!

I'm having too good of a day to have it ruined by Hatch this early in the morning. I'll start listening as soon as the Democrats start to speak.

[kayell]

6. This is really nauseating, I hope someone else can post a lot too

because my ability to listen to this is limited.

[kayell]

2. Oh, and we are apparently going to have to do away with traditional

marriage if they don't pass this amendment.

[lovedems]

4. OH NO!

You mean if they don't pass this amendment my 10 year marriage with my husband will have to be done away with??????? What will I tell my 4 kids??????

I don't know if I should laugh out loud at the stupidity of that statement or scream in anger.

[kayell]

11. Hey, Orrin just said something about courts compelling gay marriage!

It's worse than you think. After the federally mandated divorce you will be forced to marry - ME.

bwahahaha


wait....4 kids?.....aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhahhhhhhhhhhh

[lovedems]

16. OMG! Activist judges?

What the world must be coming to in Orrin's eyes. I guess gay marriage (and calico cats) are a bigger threat to our nation then terrorists. Again, should I laugh out loud or scream in anger?

Yep...4 kids. My hubby and I have been happily married for 10 years and have 4 boys (8,7,6,and 4). I want them to be able to marry whoever they hell they want to marry!

I say let the bigots keep talking. They are only showing their own intolerance and stupidity. Especially after the big TO DO Ridge put on yesterday. At least we will know where their priorities were when the terrorists attack again.

[GiovanniC]

8. Good

Government shouldn't be in the marriage business. Government should be in the civil union business. Regardless of gender/sexuality. These unions would confer what is traditionally thought of as benefits of marriage... insurance benefits, hospital visitation, tax benefits, et cetera.

Churches should be in the marriage business. If they want to discriminate and not let homosexuals get married... fine. But if they do... fine also.

Religion is the main argument for passing these anti-gay-marriage laws and amendments. But religion should not be the basis for a law.

The People should not be denied any right whatsoever unless a good argument can be made against it. That sort of argument has not not been made with regard to this issue.

[kayell]

5. Shock! "The constitution is what the supreme court says it is to these

people!" So what is the SCOTUS job - only selecting pResidents?

"courts jobs is to interpret laws that WE pass."

[kayell]

7. Ranting about the SCOTUS decision to allow gays privacy in the bedroom

ooo

[Warren DeMontague]

21. I Know, what an egregious notion---

that consenting adults have a right to privacy.

"Next thing you know they'll say we can't arrest people for selling vibrators in Texas."

[AussieInCA]

9. what a joke - this is what they are working on..

meanwhile we are hearing about the complete systemwide failure of the CIA... "the point team on foreign policy"


Yep, those republicans...keeping you safe from those gay marriage terra-rists.

[Warren DeMontague]

22. Well, they have enough intelligence, apparently,

to know that Osama Bin Laden is personally targeting the November Elections, most probably in battleground states like Ohio.

"That's all you need concern yourself with, citizen. We'll handle the sodomites."

[Neecy]

10. This is so repulsive

The Republicans have declared war on the world, and now they're turning on their fellow Americans.

You would think that a *responsible* government, especially in view of the dire warnings we received yesterday, would try to unite us as a people, not spread hatred against Americans on the floor of the Senate.

[bear425]

12. Church of Latter Day Saints

Hatch's faith... says they are for the FMA. Therefore, Hatch is for it. Whatever happened to separation of church and state? Go Cheney yourself Hatch.

[kayell]

13. OMG, apparently gay marriage causes a rise in illegitimate births!

I'm trying to imagine how that works exactly.

[nostamj]

14. he's actually trying to tie gay marriages

to increases in out-of-wedlock children?

is * writing his speeches now?

[nostamj]

15. he's actually trying to tie gay marriages

to increases in out-of-wedlock children?

is * writing his speeches now?

[Mel]

17. Senator Leahy is up

I'm recording this so I can speed through the Republicans when I start to bust a blood vessel. I started in the middle of Hatch so if anyone needs any info. let me know.

[Khephra]

18. Thanks!

Unfortunately, the movers just got here, so I won't be around for a bit to help. I will be back soon though.

[Warren DeMontague]

25. I think I just Xeroxed A Mirror...

Or broke something in my mind...by trying to figure out how not letting people get married leads to more kids with unmarried parents?

That's the bizzaro world of GOP "Science" for ya, where a 300% increase in CO2 Levels is good for the planet's climate. Where Dinosaurs are 2,000 year-old "missionary lizards"... Aaaaaargh. Make it stop.

[Cats Against Frist]

19. So when I'm watching these Gopper people speak

people -- if you can call them people, and not shape-shifting reptilians -- I try to pretend that I'm one of their devotees, and that I agree with them. It leaves me with a sick/ick feeling, for sure. Like I have to forget everything I ever learned since I was eight years old. Like I have to forget world travel, my poli sci degree, my critical theory study, and revert into this infantile shell of constructs and absolutes -- and fear of everything different from what I am.

They're not defending marriage. They're not saving children. They are trying to push a constructed, dogmatic and idealistic agenda that seeks to reinforce the fact that people who are not "just like them," are deserving of the liberties of having the law laid equally at the feet of free people.

If this passes, it is a terrible, terrible transgression of civil liberties, the Constitution, and one (more) step toward totalitarianism, religious rule and the end of plurality and egalitarianism.

[Warren DeMontague]

20. You mean to say...

that before the poli sci degree, the world travel and the "critical theory study" you thought that gay people didn't deserve the same rights as everyone else?

Funny, basic equality for everyone always just seemed like a simple no-brainer to this hippie, college dropout.

[Cats Against Frist]

23. Actually, yes, because I wasn't a hippie, and my parents weren't hippies

that's what it took. When I was 19 years old, I thought all gays should be rounded up and stuck on an island. By the time I was 22, I got fired from a Hallmark store for telling people to "remember the poor at Christmas."

What happened in that time? I took my first nonwestern politics class. They had me at "Allende." Soon after, I took political philosophy, women's politics, Race, Ethnicity and Inequality, Latin American Politics, Middle East Politics, Asian Politics.

Took a couple summers, saw a few places. Started writing, got into critical theory -- which made me even question, of course, my own modernist foundations.

You're lucky. You're a lucky person. Maybe I would have figured it out, had I not been exposed to the things to which I was exposed. Maybe I wouldn't have.

I'm not, AT ALL, trying to say that I have all the answers because of my studies, or that, there are, in fact -- any answers...

That's just the path that I took, that made me a "liberal." I am quite sure that there are many.

[Warren DeMontague]

24. Wow.

"Rounded up & Stuck on an island"!

Glad you made it. Well, I didn't start out as a hippie, myself, but for a kid growing up in the 70s in the midwest, I always had some kind of sympathy for the underdog.. It may have had something to do with getting my ass kicked at age 7 by older kids after answering "Atheist" (and then explaining what that meant) when asked "So, what religion are you?".. I had some of the requisite homophobia for a midwestern hetero male teen of that era, to be sure, but I had pretty much worked through it by the time I was 18. (Which was good, because by the time I moved to the Bay Area I probably would have been uncomfortable :o ..) I think, or I like to think, I've always been pretty live and let live on people's personal choices. But, to be sure, many of my life experiences opened my eyes-- and mind-- in new directions.

[jdonaldball]

26. My take on this, as a Catholic: Pro Gay Marriage Laws!!

A Catholic, but not a good one. But I respect the doctrines of various Christian churches enough, to have taken a long hard look at this.
And then I decided:
America is a secular republic, and so, the religious definitions of marriage should, and must, be left to the various religious authorities - outside of politics, outside of the laws of the republic.
And so, then I thought more:
Until very recently, some southern states had laws against "Blacks" marrying "Whites." Whatever the hell that means.
(Where do Thomas Jefferson's children of his slaves fit in there?)
And so then I thought:
Well, in the bad old days, some American states refused to let a CATHOLIC BLACK MARRY A CATHOLIC WHITE!
And such laws were against the Catholic Church's laws of marriage!
Even in the bad old days, the Catholic Church said, that a BLACK CATHOLIC (oh, sorry to shout) CAN marry a WHITE CATHOLIC. But the barbarian laws of some states actually prohibited this - many states prohibited marriage between a Black Catholic Woman and a White Catholic Man (or vice versa) until recently - and so, those laws broke the separation of church and state, for Catholics - because a Catholic of ANY race can marry a Catholic of ANY other race, according to the Vatican.
And so I thought about this more, and thought, hm...
...well, if it is objectionable for the CIVIL laws of marriage to prohibit INTERRACIAL marriages based on religion (and the racist laws of the bad old days, which prohibited Black Catholics from marrying White Catholics, were laws which violated the religion of Catholics, and this was based on old White Protestant racist superstitions, which Catholics DO NOT share!)...
...then, I think, the same principle should apply to same sex marriages.
And so I think, it is up to every religious authority to decide the rules for marriage within its own religion. But this should be separate from the state rules of marriage.
More simply: If homosexual marriages are recognized as a matter of secular, civil law, then this DOES NOT AFFECT anyone's religion of choice! The rest of America remains free to choose their own rules of marriage according to their own religions.
If any state legalizes homosexual marriage, then it does NOT affect the religious definitions of marriage for any Catholics, or Orthodox Jews, or Baptists, or anyone. In America, every religion is free to choose its own definition of marriage - and God forbid that the state should define it for ANY of us too strictly!
But if the state regulates marriage too strictly, for narrow religious reasons, then it will break the boundary between church and state. And all of us religious minorities in America - Catholics, Jews, Witches, Pagans, Atheists - we all rely on that for our survival and our civil liberties. And so do all citizens.
And so - as a member of a minority religion, the Catholics, who have been repressed for many generations in America, I say:
Let there be a wall of fire between the Religion and the State.
And so, legalize homosexual marriages in our secular republic, to keep this firewall between Church and state. Homosexual marriage MUST be legalized, for the sake of ALL of our liberties and our religious freedoms.
QED.
Oh and, good wishes and lots of love to any Gay couples out there, AS LONG AS YOU VOTE FOR KERRY AND EDWARDS! :-)

[newyawker99]

27. Hi jdonaldball!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[geniph]

28. You know one thing that baffles the hell out of me?

How the hell do they verify that a same-sex couple is indeed a same-sex couple? Many states don't even require a blood test before issuing a license (that's a pretty archaic requirement anyway) - if the clerk doesn't notice they're same-sex, who checks?

What I'd love to see is a few people testing this as a civil disobedience thing. Pick a few same-sex couples where one is fairly androgynous, and have the couple check the appropriate 'male' and 'female' boxes on the license application. The license gets issued, the couple is legally married. There's no mechanism set up to verify gender. I mean, how would they do it? Panty raids? DNA testing would be a violation of every privacy statute on the books. What about transgender persons? I'm thinking specifically of two couples of my acquaintance, one of which is two men, but one of those two men was born biologically female. He's quite far through the transition process, but at what point does the law recognize him as male? Can he and his partner marry? After all, he was born a woman and his partner was born a man. The other couple's even more confusing, because it's a man and a woman, but the man was also born a woman. However, to any county clerk issuing licenses, they would appear to be a man and a woman (as they indeed are) and thus legally permitted to marry - but they were both born women. HOW CAN ANYONE IN THEIR RIGHT MIND DENY EITHER OF THESE COUPLES THE SAME RIGHT TO MARRY THAT ANY OTHER COUPLE HAS? Why does it MATTER to anyone else how many or how few penises there are in the mix?

And don't try to use the "marriage is for procreation" canard, either - my husband and I were both "fixed" before we married - should we not have been issued a license, since we cannot breed? What about couples where the woman is post-menopausal? Should we be prohibiting old folks from marrying, since they can't reproduce?

I just do NOT understand the objections to letting committed couples form legal, permanent, societally-recognized bonds. I just don't understand.