Cobb

Assuming "it" is what I think it is, he said he won't.

I bet Maria is telling him to sign it. He's a lame duck at this point. Might as well go out with a bang and signoff on gay marriage.

White christian countries are trending toward allowing gay marriage. Somebody rattled off 4 or 5 countries where gays can marry. Maybe it's a good thing this country is so diverse, for those opposed to gay marriage. Non-white are probably less likely to be in favor of gay marriage.

This white girl says "DON'T SIGN IT!"

Cobb:

I don't think you've authentically reckoned with the extent to which homosexuality constitutes a seminal (no pun intended) part of Western culture. The confluence of ubiquitous/relativist media, falling birth rates, European women's ongoing exportation of preference (see Princess Di) and the availability of foreign babies suggest that Plato's Republic is not far off. You really should relax a bit. It's only a matter of time. Besides, how could an Austrian, skills honed in the gymnasium, reject such a proposal. He's simply bringing it home. Alexander the Great would have done the same thing. Don't ya think?

Hey Cobb,

Isn't is the duty of government to protect the rights of all of it’s citizens, especially when the rights of a minority are threatened by a majority. When our people struggled for universal suffrage and for civil rights, the government eventually found the moral strength and courage to guarantee certain rights for all its people, against the overwhelming public outcry and civil strife in this country,

Marriage is a matter of civil rights. It is the right of any American couple to have their pledge of love and commitment honored in law. This is not about anything but that: love and commitment. This is not about sex, this is not about polyamory, this is not about pedophilia, or brothers or sisters wanting to be married, or anything else you regularly hear pundits using to malign homosexual couples, to generate fear and misunderstanding and to manipulate the issue of gay marriage for political advantage.

If you believe in defending marriage you must believe in defending marriage for ALL people. California can provide us with a shining example of how marriage can best be defended.

This is not about whether you like gay people or condone their love for each other, it’s not even about whether or not you buy those sketchy anthropological arguments about homosexual marriage never having existed before. It is ALWAYS right to fight for civil rights. ALWAYS. And in thirty years, when we have overcome this bigotry and hatred and manipulation, history will look back on the governor's proposed veto with embarrassment.

Pull yourself out of the ninteenth century.

-Jonah B.

Marriage is marriage and it's not relative. Legally recognized domestic partnership is a reality in California and many states. The overwhelming and substantial majority of benefits available to registered domestic partners are the same as with marrieds, including all the most important including the adoption of children and the disposition of assets upon separation.

I listened on the radio yesterday as some gay dude whined that he had to pay $650 to get registered whereas marrieds would pay $50. Woo, scary. Sure that's discrimination but it doesn't merit Constitutional scrutiny.

Youre corret, this is not about anything you mentioned, it is about the privilege of being considered married by society. Consider yourself underprivileged.

History will show that the Gay Marriage Movement is less about securing rights for homosexuals, which the courts of America have overwhelmingly supported, than an extension of the Culture War typified by attempts to mau mau and shame hets with bogus charges of homophobia.

The Christian Right doesn't get to say Intelligent Design is equal to the Theory of Evolution, and the Gay Left doesn't get to say that Domestic Partnership is equal to Marriage. If it has to come to a Constitutional showdown, sobeit.

Cobb...

you know this is not my issue, but you keep layin' stuff in there that does not make sense. if a gay couple is forced, BY THE STATE, to pay a fee that is 13X the standard fee, this amounts to a form of economic discrimination that if sanctioned, violates all manner of equal protection clauses. if that does not rise to the level of constitutional confrontation, then nothing does.

So call it a poll tax on domestic partnership and take some state agency to court. Suits me fine. That doesn't make homos shacking up marriage.

Cobb,

So “homos shacking up” is like the “theory” of intelligent design, (I guess that would mean “bullshit”), while heterosexual people getting married is as legitimate as scientific theory?

Listen. My goal is not to shame you, but obviously you must hold some preconceptions or fears about gay people that you should be aware of. I simply cannot understand why otherwise intelligent people cannot get their minds wrapped around equality for gay people. You’re right, Domestic Partnership is not Marriage. Who wants a DP? I’m sure you would prefer Marriage to DP? It’s a social stigma. Separate but Equal.

But it isn’t even equal. DP is not consistent from state to state. Nor is Marriage, when gay people can find it, consistently respected or protected. This is screwed up. This should be un-constitutional, if it is not.

Mau Mau. And the Culture War.
Oh, I’ve heard about this “Culture War”. And Mau Maus, gimme a break. If this is a war, how are you being attacked by the “Gay Marriage Movement”? Is anyone asking you to marry a person of the same sex? I really, really don’t care what you think about “homos”, or whether or not you feel shame. I get angry at your arguments to keep a portion of Americans underprivileged, as you put it. Can’t the archetypical American philosophy of “live and let live” be guaranteed in the constitution for all of us?

It’s interesting you think that I’m gay. I was lucky enough to have fallen in love with a woman. We have children, but are still not married. My partner in business lives down the street. She is a woman who has been living with another woman for longer than most of my friends have been married. They have two beautiful children, one born from her womb, the other a child with Down Syndrome and other severe challenges that no adopting parents have ever considered taking home. I can’t think of a more loving home for this child to have fallen into. This relationship should have the legal blessings, common considerations and respect that any good relationship should have.

I wish I could give these women my un-used privilege. After all, this is America, and we should be free to marry whom we want to. If the reality of homophobia didn’t make this freedom difficult for a large number of people, then it wouldn’t have to be a constitutional matter.

I don’t understand what you’re afraid will happen. What is the big scary agenda underlying this struggle for equal rights? It’s also interesting that you think I’m “Left”, as if only a communist could give a shit.

Peace, Jonah B.

Jonah B:

Every so often Cobb has an anti-gay marriage eruption.

I debated him in a couple of threads, mainly here:
http://www.mdcbowen.org/cobb/archives/004377.html

You are going to "win" this debate. Cobb will make arguments approaching and then going over the line of pure nonsense and you will shoot down those arguments. Then Cobb will give up arguing.

But the idea that homosexuals cannot be married is too deep in his psyche to be subject to argumentation.

So after you "win" he'll be back making the same arguments with the same flaws you've already pointed out. And maybe you or maybe someone else or maybe noone will point out the flaws next time.

I have to say you so far in this thread are more well-written than I was.

JB,
I ran out of patience. My apologies.

Gays are underprivileged, but they are not being denied public accomodations. That is precisely why this is not a civil rights issue.

Your understanding that marriage statutes are different in different jurisdictions is precisely one of the points I've been making. This is about community standards and should remain a state issue and not rise to the level of constitutional matters.

If I had my way, I would encourage states to provide a framework for registered domestic partnership that is in just about every way legally equivalent to the standard of common law marriage with regards to property, child custody and adoption. I'd do so without any reference to marriage whatsoever. I would make it separate but equal. That's my standard.

Furthermore I'd have to insert some kind of litmus test for keeping fathers from marrying sons, and various other protections. I'd probably make the age of homosexual consent higher than than for heterosexual consent.

Most importantly I would draw a bright line between Church and State such that churches needn't recognize state marriage nor churches recognize state marriage. I am most concerned that the secular political overproduction of activism for Gay Marriage does not influence traditional definitions of Holy Matrimony.

I understand that the sanctity of marriage is an article of faith. I happen to believe that it is as important as the very idea of the human spirit and core to our civilization. As such, I percieve that the political activism which seeks to suppress this tradition is every bit as corrosive to society as it was when Socialism tried to repress religious freedom. It is taking a legal definition enacted by a vocal minority of zealots and trying to redefine the entire vocabulary of family. I really see 'Gay Marriage' as the penultimate expression of newspeak. Gays are Married = War is Peace = Ignorance is Strength.

I understand and respect gay love and gay pride. It is what it is. An alternative to the standard. Don't ask don't tell is a good idea, because people's sex lives should be private. But marriage is a public expression and a social convention and I resist that being re-engineered by legal charlatans and zealots with the moral figleaf of 'equality' and 'civil rights'.

I am for all anti-discrimination law that adjudicates abuses of homosexuals individuals and couples with regard to public accomodations. I think it is commendable that corporations have extended benefits to domestic partners, and I supported the recent Supreme Court decision, but I do not accept any notion that the loving relationships of same sex couples do or ought to follow the same conventions of married couples.

Understand that I give no weight to 'relationships'. It is my contention that there is Marriage, ie Holy Matrimony, and there is everything else, and everything else is everybody elses business not the State's. The state has a miminum interest in enforcing responsibilities between bonded couples vis a vis domestic tranquility and the rights of children, but the rest is where I go Libertarian. That is yet another reason why I am vehemently opposed to the establishment of standing in this regard.

To the extent that standing of marrieds is granted, it is granted by the culture of the people by convention, and I cede that convention to the Church.

To the extent that gay pride is subversive, I think it is a necessary corrective in the global context. To paraphrase the French, there is very little difference between gays and straights, but vive la difference. Don't submerge it for the sake of rhetorical equality. We're not the same and everybody knows it.

It's not simple and I know it.

For all the legitimate controversy over gay marriage on the merits, this particular bill should have been a no-brainer, and would have been if California Democrats took their oath of office seriously. California voters passed Prop 22 in 2000, and have not seen fit to repeal it since. The California Constitution does not permit the Legislature to amend or repeal initiative statutes, unless the initiatives themselves expressly permit that (they almost never do, and Prop 22 is no exception). Therefore, any effort by the Legislature to enact gay marriage without sending it back to the voters is unconstitutional, and would have easily been struck down by the courts if the Governator had been dumb enough to sign it.

quick comment:

give it to the human race to fuck up the WORLD'S SIMPLEST PUZZLE. Isn't the design of our bodies plain indication of what is natural?