I for one am extremely happy that it was overturned. My opinion is that everyone has the right to love whomever they want, and that basic legal rights should not be denied you if you don't fit a particular "status quo" (one that's completely arrogant by the way)

Although I'm Roman Catholic I find myself to think extremely liberally. I think it's ridiculous when people say Gays aren't allowed to marry. Who is anyone to deny someone this right? It's stupid and ignorant if you ask me.

I've constantly had fights with my father about this because he's extremely old fashioned and believes marriage is a sacred act only allowed between a man and a woman. Although he believes Gays are allowed basic rights, he vehemently excludes that one; which constantly drives me insane.

All in all I am completely for the new legislation and I can't wait to see the changes that are made. Everyone on this Earth should be equal, despite gender roles. Go Cali!

Of course this is only my opinion =]

I am bisexual. I make no secret of this in my local real life or in my online social life. Kami and Karena and many of the members of this site were extremely supportive of me when I decided to come out nigh on just over three years ago, a fact I am grateful for to this very day.

I also don't live in California. (Probably a good thing. Me and heat don't mesh well.)

I ALSO am a pastor's kid. My family is conservative and largely Republican, whereas I'm rather centrist politically. And I went to a liberal college until I had to take a sabbatical. So I've pretty much heard, and been, every side of the story.

One thing I have to say right off the bat is that not all straight couples have kids. Kids aren't for everyone. If we were imposing bans on gay marriage due to the fact that (as my brother jokes) "Two men can't make a baby!", then straight couples that don't plan to have kids should not be allowed to marry either. Neither should sterile people. Egad. So if your viewpoint is like mine, the sheer stupidity of this is readily apparent.

Now, for me personally, I don't know that I would necessarily get married to a guy. This is really an unknown right now. If I wanted to spend the rest of my life with a guy, I don't know yet whether I'd want to insist on being called "marriage" or whether I'd be content with it being called something else, or whether I really wouldn't care. Again, I just don't know yet. But, again, I do understand most sides of that issue.

The thing that gets me is that it should all really be about love. From a Biblical standpoint (and yes I've heard every side of both sides of that too, mostly from my dad's side of the family but thank you anyway) as far as I understand it, a relationship that is built on love, real honest love, transcends the boundaries of gender identity. Yes, marriage was originally designed to be between a man and woman, I personally don't see the point in denying that if you're bringing the Bible into the conversation. And yes, we were told to "be fruitful and multiply." But times change, society changes, and the underlying principles of the moral laws have to be re-translated into the societal set of the current day and age.

[/Taedrant]

I stopped following this debate about forever and a day ago, mostly because I thought it had died.

I personally am more worried about bigger fish to fry, and hope we can spend more time resolving larger issues, such as illegal immigration, our national debt, or whatnot, but bleh.

I was for prop 8 for a variety of reasons, but there's no reason to defend a dead cause at this point. Call me whatever you like, but that's where I stand on these things. I could go on a huge tangent and bitch a whole bunch about "rights" that liberals think they have/deserve and what-not, but this isn't the subject to do it in. I suppose if someone wants to start a political thread...

*ahem*
anyways, that was off-topic. regardless of this overturning, I still am one to view marriage as a union between one man and one woman. Granted, since I am in no government position, this will not likely impact the country or the world in any ways, but hey, that's just my opinion here. feel free to bite me over it, and I'll be more than happy to listen to what you have to say if you convey it well enough.

apart from that though, I have nothing against people who are lez, straight, gay, or whatnot. [provided that I am left out of it]. I'm not going to try and force my religion on other people [hell, even as a Mormon, those guys in suits who knock on your door don't even try to force their religion on you. They just want to share it, but even when/if they do, they still leave the acceptance or declination of it up to you.]

so yep. ZOMG Tenoko's a Mormon, yo. that may or may not explain a few things. Either way, as I was saying before yet another minor tangent, just as I'm not going to force any of my beliefs onto anyone else, I expect the same respect. If I want to give the finger to liberals, they better damn well accept that I'm gonna give the finger to their ideas. Am I going to try and make them change their stances on things? nope. Let me keep my ways, and you can keep yours.

But ye. I tend to jump all over political threads, so if any more of these come up, I may go off on politically-related tangents and that sort of thing. I feel inclined to make a thread--

okay, shutting up now.
~Tenoko~

aoo'. I understand that this is more of a legal issue than a religious one. I was mostly just throwing my two cents in on my stance on gay marriage in general.

marriage is a privilege, not a right though. the rights defined in the constitution were life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. nowhere did it ever guarantee equal results.

but again, if I go off on tangents about that, we'd need a whole new political debate thread for that. the main point of this post was originally just to say that I was just stating my stance on gay marriage. my stance on the overturning of prop 8 is "more power to em".

so no hard feelings. =)
~Tenoko~

I am quite glad to see the legislation overturned. Even though I am not in California anymore, I do plan on returning to live there in the future, so I do care about what happens. So yeah, that's about it. Have fun with the nasty divorces!

@ Saiki-ZOMG! I am Roman Catholic too!

I am extremely happy about this decision, and I hope it is upheld through the appeals. I'm actually proud to live in California for once.

@ Kami- I agree that this is definitely legally based and not so much religious. I'm a firm believer in the separation of church and state so I'm totally for your argument.

@shio- ZOMG thats awesome!!!! Haha glad to know I'm not the only one who is lmao

I am thrilled by this. I do not live in California, nor will I ever. I am also straight, so this does not affect me, personally. However, it does affect people I know. A good friend of mine in High School was gay, and I had another friend who was bi. Two friends of mine on here (Kami and Taed) are bi. I've always been a very open minded person, and I'm agnostic, so religious views aren't an issue for me.

As I said, I am thrilled by this. In my opinion, and I've told Kami this before, it's going to happen eventually. Eventually, gays/bis are going to get what they want. It's only a matter of time. This is the first step. There's not telling how long it will take, and certain states (*cough*likemine*cough*texas*cough*) are going to take longer than others, but it's all going to happen it's own sweet time.

As Kami is said, I don't see how the Bible has anything to do this, but there's a lot that would change if we did.

Still getting that issue straightened out, huh? I actually thought it had been legalised in the US a while back - guess it was individual state laws or something.

My stance on this for a long time has been that people wanting to prevent same-sex marriages AND have a free, democratic society aren't fully realizing what they're asking. If you want a country that allows freedom of choice, expression and thought, you have to forgo most cultural restrictions - restricting actions that would harm the people or society is really the only kind of restriction you can justify, and even then you can't strip them of their rights. Anything else is a double-standard.

And to play devil's advocate for a second (bad choice of phrasing, but hey, whatever), consider this - removing the stigma from same-sex marriage will go a long way to preventing the kind of pain, anger and grief that currently surrounds the issue. Consider; nowadays, intimate extra-marital relationships are legal, acceptable, and normalized. This of course conflicts directly with religious morality. And you do still get people who take a very critical view, and will be quite nasty to the people involved. But the days when teenage daughters got turned out of the house and left with nowhere to go are long gone. Nowadays, the family will almost always be a safety net for the girl, act as support, etc (well, they do in New Zealand, anyway). Regardless of your views on the subject, you have to agree that this is far preferable to the ostracism they would have faced in years gone by.

And as for the whole "not really marriage" thing... well, yes, by Christian standards, that's true. But the US hasn't been living by Christian standards for years - decades even. It's kept a lot of the main stuff that is common to societies everywhere (no murder, no stealing, no fraud, etc), but pretty much all of the definitively christian stuff is no longer constitutional law. After all, if you want to follow this through to its logical conclusion, atheists can't really be married either. Insisting that you shouldn't call it marriage unless it's a christian marriage is like insisting that you shouldn't say you're celebrating Christmas unless you're specifically celebrating it in a religious fashion. After all, it IS called "Christ Mass" for a reason. No church service, not really Christmas..... You see how silly this gets?

That is true, but what I was saying is that it doesn't in any way guarantee equal results, because people are different. The only way the government could guarantee that everyone was equal was for them to have full control over every aspect of our lives--and I deem my liberty far more important than this kind of oppression just for "equality"

and see? I told you I'd go off on all sorts of political tangents. lol. :3

but anyways, to get back to my original point--I have nothing against homosexuals themselves, [with one exception]. it's sort of the whole "love the sinner, hate the sin" principle. I've got gay/lez/bi friends, and I'm cool with them, but I'm not going to believe nor support their ways. "It's nothing against the people themselves--it's against what they do."

and so about the thing I hate... it's this whole "tolerance" issue. Now, I deem myself as a "tolerant" person when it comes to homosexuals. I'm not going around trying to drag them down or take away their rights and privileges. Given my choice to vote, I'm going to vote the way I always do. Just because I don't support gay marriage does not make me a racist, a bigot, or a homophobe like some tend to think it does.

So I see their whole rant about "tolerance" as vastly hypocritical. If straight people like me can be okay with them doing the things they do, then they should be more accepting that not everyone is going to share their views. And again, this is not an attack on the entire homosexual community, as that would be stereotyping. That's just one of the common obstacles I've run into when debating with certain people [not here, and I'm not giving out names]

OH! and on another note, we got a huge LGBT community parading around Temple Square here in Salt Lake City yesterday evening. It was a bit annoying, really, since I'm pretty sure their intent was just to diss the Mormons. But... to each his/her own, I s'pose. It's not like what they did is going to make me all of a sudden support their views.

...

looking back at all the other posts, it kinda makes me look like devil's advocate here. I'm not here to try and make people mad--I'm just here to state my views. It's how I roll.

sooooo... recap.
==I hold nothing against gay people themselves, unless they give me a reason to dislike them [that's how I am with anyone--I never hate a person by default, in other words]
==I do not support gay marriage. I'm not going to go around actively trying to topple gay marriage laws, but given my opportunity to vote, I am going to most likely vote against it. This does not mean that I hate homosexuals--I don't. Again, I don't hate people be default.
==Those who bring up the "tolerance" issue with me are generally hypocrites. I tolerate them, so they need to tolerate me. They don't have to like what I do, but they don't need to tear me down for it. I don't tear them down for doing homosexual activities, so they don't need to tear me down just because I don't agree with their ways.
==I'm not here trying to play devil's advocate or anything. I'm just stating my stance, which is a bit more conservative than your average American. Welcome to reality, where opinions are different.
==I'm not trying to come off rude.This one should have been marginally obvious, since I'm just stating my opinion, and not ripping anyone else's opinion apart in the process. so ye.

It's just how I roll.
~Tenoko~

...maybe I shouldn't comment other than say 'Finally"

so I decided to rummage around a little bit and do a little more research, and came to a conclusion that I do have an enemy in the situation of the overturning of Prop 8.

The thing that angered me about this overturning was that it pretty much was the government giving the finger to the voice of the people. one judge overturned the majority votes of over 7 million voters--and if I recall correctly, this was something that had been voted in favor of twice.

Should the minority get an equal say as the majority? yes and no. ideally, it should be one person, one vote. just because I'm outnumbered does not mean I should get more voting power. Sorry, but that strips away the voice of the majority--but maybe that's just my opinion. if 75% of the people want something [these are hypothetical numbers that may or may not be related to Prop 8], then the 25% of the people that make up the minority should be outvoted 75-25. In other words, the minority should nerve win just because they are the minority.

This would be the same way anywhere, and with any situation though--this is by no means unique to same-sex marriage. The thing that upset me the most about this ruling was that this judge was pretty much able to give the finger to 7 million+ Californians who said "Yes on 8". Does the voice of the people mean nothing anymore?

~Tenoko~

so...if 75% of people voted theoretically to make murder legal...then legislation should pass it? By having prop 8 in place it paves the way for hate crimes in schools towards kids who are gay, because the law has shown that they are against homosexual marriage, they abandon these people to get beaten, arms broken, cut with knives. The homosexuals in southern california high schools after prop 8 was passed suffered more than they did previously and the police wouldn't hear it anymore because they were against homosexuality

what about the millions that voted no? Prop 8 was founded on lies and fear mongering and if people were given the truth, that VERY minor majority would not have been the majority!

51% is still a majority, and it's better to please 51 than 49.

and frankly, not much of what you said was true, let alone unbiased. people are going to get beaten, arms broken, and cut with knives no matter what. there are always going to be hate groups, no matter what is and is not legalized. Now, if the government was doing these things to these people, then maybe I'd see something wrong with it, but believing that marriage is between a man and a woman is just as valid of a stance as the opposite.

and what ABOUT the millions who voted no? apparently they were outnumbered by the millions who voted yes, who just got given the finger by one judge.

The difference between homosexuality and say, racism, is that one is a choice, while the other isn't. I've known straight people who have become gay, and gay people who have become straight. It may not be an easy choice, but it's a choice nonetheless. there are lies and bias on both sides of any debate. that's how it's always been.

EDIT: oh, and about your murder question...there is an obvious difference between things that we know are bad vs things that people don't want. besides, there is no law that will ever universally prevent anything form happening. Those with a strong enough desire to break the law will break it. That's why gun control is a failure of an idea. IT will just stop people form legally getting them--it won't stop them from getting a gun if they want a gun.
~Tenoko~