Did you know Obama is a heavy smoker?

He decided to quit to run for Pres.

Maybe he will ban smoking bans.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/06/obama-admits-sm.html

Yeah, KFC, you got it completely backwards on the Colorado vote.  73% voted down an amendment to declare that life begins at conception.

Road Trip!!!

Not everyone sees things the same way. You may not understand it but then people don't always have to or never will. In order to understand it you would have to be willing to accept it and since by your comments you don't seem to accept that the majority see marriage as a union between a man and a woman, you will never understand it.

I agree marriage should be between a man and a woman, but if the majority see it otherwise, so be it. I believe in peoples right to choose the majority vote; I also believe that everyone will eventually have to live with the consequences of their choices (good or bad).

I don't really think it's SPECIAL when the same right would be extended to you.  You'd then be free to marry a woman, too, if you felt so inclined, Tova.  I wouldn't use the word special - I'd use the word broadened - since it would apply to all.

And don't take this as a sign I think we SHOULD extend those rights - I'm just saying I think it's disingenuous to say 'special', as it applies that said right would only be extended to a subset of the population.

Special as defined by dictionary.com..."distinguished or different from what is ordinary or usual."

To me its a special right for a lifestyle group.  I wouldn't have the same right to marry a woman because I am not socially or biologically capable.  If homosexuality can be proven scientifically then broadening the definition of marriage would be the appropriate term imo. Until then its just a special interest group.

Ok El-D I'm back.  So what wrong with legalizing homosexual marriage?

Lots.  Marriage is defined by God and nature and a wise society will protect marriage as it was intended.  Marriage is the way our culture promotes monogamy and assures every child he has a mother and a father.  Children need a loving mother and father.  A wealth of research over the past so many years has proven this.  The most loving mom in the world cannot teach her little boy how to be a man.  The most loving man cannot teach a little girl how to be a woman. 

A gay man cannot teach his son how to love a woman nor can a lesbian teach her daughter how to love a man or know what to look for in a husband.  How do two dads help a girl when it comes to womanly things?  Unlike a mom they cannot share with her their first experience in what she's going thru.  Children need the loving daily influence of oth male and female parents to become whom they are meant to be. 

Can you imagine children of homosexual divorce go thru?  It's hard enough with a mom and a dad but what about the kid who finds himself with four moms or four dads?  Or more? 

Children do better with a mom and dad and will suffer with homosexual marriage.  Can you imagine if we continue along this track how many millions of motherless/fatherless children will be out there? 

Any two people who love each other and are committed to each other isn't the problem here.  People outside of marriage commit themselves to one another all the time for various reasons.  We don't necessarily have to call it marriage.  There are many kinds of loving commitments that are not definied as marriage.  Friends are committed to each other, a parent is committed to a child, a neighbor commited to another neighbor, grandparents are commited to their grandchildren.  All of them require a commitment but none of those commitments is called marriage. 

As far as this not being good for society look at the past.  There have been periods in history when homosexuality flourished for a time.....Sodom and Gomorrah, ancient Greece and the Roman Empire are all examples.  None of these civilizations survived.  I believe we are following suit. 

Those countries (like Netherlands and Belgium) who actually legalized "gay marriage" and gave it equal status with traditional marriage impacted families in a negative way.  The impact of this is no longer speculative.  Just look at Norway, Denmark and Sweden whose leaders embraced homosexual marriages in the 90's.  The consequences for traditional familes has been devasting.  The institution of marriage in those countries is rapidly dying with many young couples living together or choosing to remain single.  In some areas of Norway 80% of firstborn children were conceived out of marriage as are 60% of subsequent births. 

The institution of marriage represents the very foundation of human social order.  Everything valuable sits on that base.  Institutions, governments, religious fervor, and the welfare of children are all dependant on its stability.  When it is undermined the entire superstructure begins to crumble.  Just look at what's happened to our culture in the last 35 years thanks to liberal lawmakers, the entertainment industry, the radical feminists etc.  Many of our social problems can be traced to these beginnings. 

Marriage has always been the bedrock of culture in every continent.  Right now what I believe we're seeing all over the globe is an assault on the family.  Marriage is in the crosshairs and it will prove in the long run to be devastating. 

From a Christian POV  (for those who adher to such a value system) homosexuality is called sin.  Sin always seems pleasant at the first.  That's why we get so enticed.  It seems right and good initially and only later we realized we'd been had. 

It has been.  Not only do other species (specifically chimpanzes) engage in homosexual behavior it has also been shown on various brain scans that there is a marked difference between a heterosexuals brain and a homosexuals brain regard attraction.  I don't have specific links to provide to you but the studies have been done.

Then at one time it was "special" to have interracial marriages, aren't they legal today?  Why then should it be different between homosexual couples?

Slavery wasn't the full cornerstone which is why I included indentured servents which was widely used in the North and if you ask me was just as bad as slavery.

How is the man/woman relationship a foundation of any state or our country?  Aren't "all men created equal" shouldn't that extend to whom they love?  Religion is irrelevant as the bill of rights grants us the freedom to practice whatever religion we wish, or to practice no religion.  Our tax system is always changing so again that is irrelevant.  As for social structure I once again refer you to the times of slavery and segregation.  Just because something is the status quo doesn't make it right.

Again we are talking about a legal definition of marriage not a religious one.  Religion has no place in law or government.  If the definition of marriage is broadened to encompass homosexuals that wouldn't mean that any given religion would be forced to marry those couples.  Just like today if a Catholic church didn't want to marry a couple because one of them isn't Catholic that is completely within their rights as a church no one would force them to marry homosexual couples.  As for marriage in nature, as far as I'm aware no other species get married, some mate for life if you want to call that marriage fine but equally there are species that have homosexual relationships therefore it is perfectly natural whether you agree with it or not is an entirely different issue.

Most of the research I've seen regarding this doesn't address children of homosexual couples but rather those of single parent households.  I could be wrong but I'm not sure I buy the argument that a mother can't teach her son to be a man and a father can't teach his daughter to be a woman.

Love is not something that can be taught.  I was never taught to love my wife, I just knew how to do it instinctually.  As for a father or mother helping their children thru adolesence my father didn't really help me thru mine he was absent emotionally in part due to the untimely death of my mother.  That said I turned out pretty darn good even with a single parent for most of my life, I would imagine the same could be said for homosexual couples.  Even if marriage is defined as being between a man and woman you can't guarantee that both parents will be around for the entire childhood of their children due to deaths, divorce, etc.  So to me this argument is null and void.

I would imagine they would go thru the exact same experiences as a child with a mom and dad who get divorced.  Divorce sucks what does it matter whether you have a mother and a father or two dads or two moms or whatever.

Again you can't guarantee that every child with a mother and father will always have a mother and father.  Some will lose a parent to early death, or divorce.  It happens, that's life, this argument is null and void as a result.

But none of those commitments carry with them the legally binding rights.  Grandparents can't file their taxes jointly with their grandchildren.  A neighbor may not be allowed in the hospital room of a dieing neighbor.  When homosexual couples are commited to each other much in the same way as a married man and woman shouldn't they be afforded the same rights that a husband and wife have?  What happens if one of the partners dies?  If they don't happen to have a will made out then the surviving partner gets nothing.  In some cases the surviving partner can't even collect the life insurance from the one that died.  How is that right?

No offense but this argument is neither here nor there.  These societies didn't fall because of homosexuality.  Just because they had homosexuals doesn't mean that there was a causal relationship between the homosexuals and their downfall.

So people are choosing not to get married.  That's happening in this country.  The main reason that my wife and I got married was because it made filing taxes easier.  We both love each other and already felt married well before we actually said the vows.  Neither of us felt the need to get marriage other than the fact that it made filing taxes and other legal issues easier to deal with.  I guess I just don't see how legalizing homosexual marriage impacted the statistics that you cited.

Maybe I'm misreading this but it sounds to me that you would rather return to the 40s and 50s where the man went out to work and the woman stayed at home cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the kids.  I'm sorry I don't see our society crumbling because women have moved out of the kitchen, I think our society is stronger because of it.  We had a female running for president for crying out loud.  As for the entertainment industry, it would have no influence over our children if parents (single and otherwise) would do their jobs in educating their kids on the difference between right and wrong, but that is a topic for another thread.  Again it seems like you taking correlations and assigning causal relationships.

I think assault is the wrong term but there is the desire to broaden the definition of the family that I will agree with.  If you are ok with civil unions I don't see what there problem with just calling them all civil unions or all marriages is.

Again I am addressing the idea of marriage from a legal standpoint not a religious one.  Religion has no place in law or government, that's what our founding fathers wanted.  So you can continue to think that homosexuality is a sin, but why can't homosexuals have the same rights as you and I?

All of that said I think I definitely have a better understanding of where you come from and I thank you for taking your time to explain it.  To sum it up it sounds like you define marriage from a religious standing, because the bible says marriage is between a man and a woman it must be so legally.  As I feel that religion has no place in law or government I don't think we will ever see eye to eye on this issue but thank you for explaining your standpoint.

That's important! It will be the most used feature of the Obama universal health plan.

So, people still have good values about what is really love about.

I am glad to hear this news.

This would be a good argument, except you're missing something.  This is not about having a religious reason versus having no reason.  As someone familar with the basic tenets of the Constitution, you would know that it contains provisions intended to prohibit the establishment of a particular religious belief to the detriment of others.  If your argument is really that, from a religious standpoint, gay marriage should be banned, what about the religions that do not find gay marriage problematic?  In that case, you are privileging Christian beliefs-- and moreover not even beliefs held by all Christians-- over others.  That's pretty clearly unconstitutional.

The comparison to theft or murder is misleading, as it subtly implies gay marriage is somehow comprable.  Until you can demonstrate that it is, this is a bad analogy.

If you can't come up with any basis for criminalizing theft or murder than religious reasons, you have a problem.

I'm not sure when people decided that, because someone is in the minority on an issue, they must be wrong.  And further, any arguments they make should be automatically discounted because "the majority has spoken."  Fortunately, democracy is an ongoing process, as some people seem to have forgotten, and discussion and debate between informed citizens is vital to maintaining the health of our country's political system.  If a person believes the majority is wrong on a given issue, they should feel free to speak up and question it, rather than be silenced.

I'm confused.  Didn't you also argue that there were ancient societies in the past that tolerated and accepted homosexuality?

True.  But that doesn't mean is was right.  There were reasons why it was taken off the list.  Frankly, I'll go with the American Psychological Association as a whole on this one, rather than the one individual Spitzer, given that his "recantation" was based on non-random sampling procedures, and was basically discredited by any reliable peer review.

I've studied constitutional history, including the Founders.  I can safely say that there are at least some scholars, conservatives even, who think the opposite.  Personal letters of Jefferson, for instance, reveal that he held Jesus to be not divine but mortal.  So suffice to say, it isn't as self-evident as you make it sound.

Make me the argument that homosexuality is as harmful as murder.  Please.