All it would mean is that they’d have to come up with some plausible excuse for terminating your “at will” employment and they’re in the clear (even if their “real” reason was anti-gay sentiment).

My experience is that unless you have a clear and documented case of anti-whatever behavior, those equal protection employment laws rarely have much teeth in them.

What was voted on and passed by 61%
Has to be recomposed and needs our endorsement
As world history’s sacred institution
Must be placed in our state’s constitution

Though we feel for those in sexual exclusion
To embrace their union as marriage is delusion
For our children we cannot define this as mainstream
Though gays want acceptance and higher esteem

We’ve given them all the rights of marriage
And, sadly they still fight on and dare edge
To infringe on what God has ordained
And, for their small numbers society’s more pained

But, what of our creator- who said, “Thou shalt not”?
And of our founding father’s and of all that they fought?
We’ve commandments for how we should live
And, we can’t grant things that aren’t ours to give

I feel for those of gay circumstance
I know they want romance and an equal chance
I’ve counseled them for the antibody test
And, I know that their feelings are hard to rest

Please do not call this bigotry or hate
For I am concerned about our futures fate
Let’s focus on family and build its foundation
For there lies the future of our good nation

Let’s not redefine marriage or tear it apart
But, pray for it with every depth of our heart
And unite and fight for the noblest cause
For the purest of standards of our God’s laws

Lance says the state has an interest in PROMOTING heterosexual marriage, and the state has a prerogative to do so. Nobody nowhere is BANNING homosexual marriage, just simply not PROMOTING it. Marriage is not and never was a right in any sense of the word, it is a contract with a specific definition of being between man and woman.

One more time, the state has an interest in promoting heterosexual marriage. There are many reasons this is beneficial. I will list all the reasons I can think of, and whether or not that reason can be applied to same sex unions.

Two parent child rearing: good for children, maybe mother and father is better than two mothers, maybe not. I believe it is, but for the sake of argument we’ll leave this as an unknown and say “sure, this benefit can come from SSM”

Procreation: statistically married people produce more children then unmarried people, and BONUS! the children produced AUTOMATICALLY have a home with two parents. This is a HUGE plus!!! It saves money in adoption services, it saves children the headache of not having homes, it saves the world from social problems arising from children in unstable homes. We’re talking procreation here, not simply providing an environment for rearing children. That was covered previously. This is concerning the actual making of children, and whether or not the have an automatic stable home upon being made. So obviously it is a huge win anytime a child is born INTO a married home. Thus encouraging heterosexual marriages increases the incidence of such births and this is a GOOD THING. Applies to SSM? No way.

Taming of men: this one sounds a little crazy, but really, it works. You become more responsible when you have a family to think of. Applies to SSM? *maybe* but there’s no evidence that it does, thus no reason for the state to consider it.

The homosexuals advocating for gay marriage feel that the only way they can feel normal, in the crowd, and just as accepted as heterosexual couples is to have their unions called marriages, and upon having this victory they will all feel warm and fuzzy and all discrimination will cease and everyone will say “oh your gay, how’s your spouse, that’s so great!” Well guess what, it won’t happen that way. Forcing people to call your unions marriage won’t make them any more or less accepting of you. Well, it might make them less accepting actually because they might feel you’ve fouled their precious institution.

Anyway, enough about motives, the point is the state DOES NOT HAVE TO encourage gay marriage, and more importantly, WHAT GIVES THE STATE OR ANYONE ELSE THE RIGHT TO REDEFINE MARRIAGE or any other word for that matter?

The state doesn’t ban gay marriage, it simply says “no we’re not going to redefine a word to make a minority feel good about themselves.” The state doesn’t ban gay marriage, it simply says “look, these people enter into what they call marriage, we think this is a good idea so we will put our stamp of approval on it.” That is ALL the state does, plus maybe some tax breaks and such. The state is not required to take such actions unilaterally as was already demonstrated by the food stamps example. The state has no interest in encouraging gay marriage, so why should it expend extra resources into “condoning” something which it does not have to, and which has no return value for the state? If the state wants to do all this, and grant marriage to homosexuals, then as lance said, go for it. Four men have no business striking down that law which was perfectly fine, as demonstrated the state was well within it’s constitutional power to draw the line on who it will grant marriage license to. The line drawn was rational and reasonable. It wishes to condone only those relationships which help it.

And finally, HOW DARE YOU tell me what constitutional amendments I can or should vote for! I will vote for any constitutional amendment that retains the traditional definition of marriage, and there ain’t nothing you can do about it!

Oh, by the way, the “church” of affirmation puts plenty of clout behind the SSM side, so why should not the LDS church put clout behind it’s position??

I was terminated as an employee of a bank in Utah 4 years ago, because I wanted to attend the funeral of my partner’s parents. Because we weren’t “legally married”, my company denied me any bereavement or vacation time. They also told me they would not have hired me if they knew I was gay, and told me I had 2 weeks to find another job. Discrimination from sexual orientation is not protected in Utah, and has been brought to the state capital many many times, and is always shot down with the same “special interest group does not deserve special rights”. That is why I moved to california, for my partner and for my family to have the same rights as any other family and to get away from laws being written or shot down because of a religious belief. There are over 100,000 gay coupled families now in Cali and I consider it an honor to stand with them.

Adieu.

-Justin

Your church is asking its members to donate money and time to pass a law that effects millions of Californians, most of which are not mormon. Your statement that your church “is not enforcing belief on others” is crap and you know it. Its using its power to sway decisions, since we’ve already seen it do before, and is actively holding disciplinary counsels for those who speak out against it and believe everyone should have an opportunity to be married.

When you have a gay son, daughter, brother, or sister, maybe you’ll wake up to the reality of the situation.

I leave with the parting words of Henry Stuart Matis, that gay mormon returned missionary who shot himself in front of his LDS church building in California because of the church’s involvement in Prop 22 (and after hearing a letter read from the pulpit):

“I implore [you] to re-assess [your] homophobic feelings. Seek to understand first before you make comments. We have the same needs as you. We desire to love and be loved. We desire to live our lives with happiness. We are not a threat to you or your families. We are your sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, neighbors, co-workers and friends, and most importantly, we are all children of God.”

Henry Stuart Matis
Mar 2 1967 – Feb 29 2000

Once again, I don’t think you are following my argument. As for proof, several Supreme Court decisions have recognized that procreation is the government’s main interest when sanctioning marriages. Moreover, I’ve adequately dealt with your litany of marginal examples in my main essay.

And where did I ever say that the board is religion free? I said that my essay was purposely devoid of religious content. If you’ll note, my essay was written in response to Dr. Jeffrey Nielsen’s contention that no principles argument against same sex marriage exists that isn’t based in tradition, religion or morality. My essay specifically shows that such an argument does exist, and I’d like to thank you for proving my point that the only opposition to my argument is based in emotionalism and a vague sense of something not being “fair.”

Finally, your silliest comment: “when a church tells its followers to enforce a belief on others who are not of the same faith, it is wrong. I stand by that, and so does your Articles Of Faith: let all men the same privelidge to worship how, where, or what they may.”

My Church is not enforcing belief on others. It is simply taking a stand on a political question which it believes has major ramifications for society. And BTW, how is that my church is “forcing belief on others” but you don’t see that the 4 judges of the California Supreme Court who mandated recognition of same sex marriage in California are not “forcing belief on others” when the citizens of California less than five years ago voted overwhelmingly to not recognize same sex marriages? It’s okay for four, non-elected judges to “enforce belief” but it’s not okay for a Church to ask its members to support a democratically inspired amendment to the constitution? Your emotionalism has blinded you to your own hypocrisy.

Finally, you said: “If my God does not discrimiate against gays/blacks/women, then allow me that freedom to live in a society that allows it without enforcing your own ideals. Don’t shove your religion in my lap. That’s yours to live by, not mine.”

This vote and my views have nothing to do with worship. They are strictly political. I’m sorry if your counter arguments are so weak that you are forced into such lame responses.

Lance

If marriage is a legally binding contract for two people, traditionally between a man and women (or multiple.. Muslims can have more than one), and having it called “marriage” means something spiritually and is legally binding to the person, who are we to say that it cannot be extended to those beyond what we have considered to be traditional? Who would it harm and how?

If this is really all about pro-creation, we had a sociology class about this, and interviewed teens and adults who grew up in gay families, and saw no difference emotionally, physically, sexually or socially.

Good point Justin, and I hope your children don’t endure much by the way of mean schoolkids as they grow up. One of our interviewees went through quite an ordeal through high school. But she’s 32 now, and a high school counselor at a Jr High in Tempe Arizona, which I think is pretty amazing.