Homosexuality and Gay Marriage

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BLooDBLaZe said:

OMG!


I'LL BE UP THERE THIS WEEKEND THEN!

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dot dot dot

 

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EmpNovA said:

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BLooDBLaZe said:

OMG!


I'LL BE UP THERE THIS WEEKEND THEN!

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dot dot dot

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You want some too? You're invited, sexy /versus/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

this thread has gotten way too gay u guys r fags

 

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Dandy_J said:

this thread has gotten way too gay u guys r fags

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Hey buddy...dont forget about what happened at the last 'gathering' /versus/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

Oh yeah! Everyone in this thread will *love* Columbus gatherings!

(Shit I am on Kat's comp, haha)

 

Big step forward in California.

Judge says ban on gay marriage is discriminatory.

What makes this even better to me is that he's a Catholic Republican.


I didn't know about the second story until a few minutes ago. I have trouble believing it because it's just so fucking COOL. Something is going RIGHT in the world for once.

Just astounding.



Here are the stories in case the links go away...


<font color="white">Judge's gay marriage ruling poises Calif for constitutional fight



By LISA LEFF


The Associated Press


SAN FRANCISCO


California may have always defined marriage to be a union between a man and a woman, but tradition and time do not make those laws constitutional, a judge ruled in overturning the state's ban on gay marriage.

Opening the way for the nation's most populous state to follow Massachusetts in allowing same-sex couples to wed, San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer ruled Monday that while withholding marriage licenses from gays and lesbians has been the status quo, it constitutes discrimination the state can no longer justify.

"The state's protracted denial of equal protection cannot be justified simply because such constitutional violation has become traditional," Kramer wrote. "Simply put, same-sex marriage cannot be prohibited solely because California has always done so before."

Ushering out a social norm long considered sacred won't happen right away, however. Kramer's decision is stayed automatically for 60 days to allow time for appeals, and conservative groups that oppose same-sex marriages promised a vigorous fight to uphold California's one woman-one man marriage laws.

"For a single judge to rule there is no conceivable purpose for preserving marriage as one man and one woman is mind-boggling," said Liberty Counsel President Mathew Staver, whose group represents the Campaign for California Families, one of two organizations that joined the state's attorney general's office in defending California's existing laws.

"This decision will be gasoline on the fire of the pro-marriage movement in California as well as the rest of the country," Staver said.

Supporters of same-sex marriage said they are prepared for a lengthy appeal process, but described Kramer's ruling as an unqualified victory. They compared it to the 1948 state Supreme Court decision that made California the first state to legalize interracial marriage.

"Today's ruling is an important step toward a more fair and just California that rejects discrimination and affirms family values for all California families," San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera said.

Kramer's decision came in a pair of lawsuits seeking to overturn California's statutory ban on gay marriage. They were brought by the city of San Francisco and a dozen same-sex couples last March, after the California Supreme Court halted the four-week marriage spree Mayor Gavin Newsom initiated when he directed city officials to issue marriage licenses to gays and lesbians in defiance of state law.

Jeanne Rizzo, 58, and Pali Cooper, 49, one of the first couples to be denied the chance to marry after the Supreme Court ruling last year, said they were "basking" in Monday's decision.

"We know we have many steps ahead of us, but we have the opportunity to go from here standing in dignity not defense. ... It is always better to do that," Rizzo said.

The couples, represented by the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union, had argued that denying marriage to same-sex couples violated their civil rights. That includes the right to equal protection under the law and to be free of gender-based discrimination.

Attorney General Bill Lockyer pointed to the state's domestic partners law, the strongest in the nation outside of Vermont's civil unions, as evidence that California does not discriminate against gays. Kramer rejected that argument, however, citing Brown vs. Board of Education, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down segregated schools.

"The idea that marriage-like rights without marriage is adequate smacks of a concept long rejected by the courts separate but equal," the judge wrote.

Two groups opposed to gay marriage rights, The Campaign for California Families and the Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund, argued that the state has a legitimate interest in restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples as a way of encouraging procreation.

Kramer disagreed.

"One does not have to be married in order to procreate, nor does one have to procreate in order to be married," he wrote. "Thus, no legitimate state interest to justify the preclusion of same-sex marriage can be found."

Kramer struck down not only the state's one man-one woman marriage law but also a 2000 voter initiative that prevented California from recognizing same-sex marriages performed elsewhere. Both laws violate the civil rights of gays and lesbians because they "implicate the basic human right to marry a person of one's choice," he wrote.

Gay marriage opponents were particularly upset by Kramer's decision to nullify Proposition 22, the ballot measure that was approved by 61 percent of voters. The measure declared that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."

"The practical effect is the disregard of close to two-thirds of the people of California who used the initiative process to ensure that marriage would remain between one man and one woman," said Robert Tyler, an attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund, which represented the Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Monday's ruling is the latest development in a national debate on the legality and morality of same-sex marriage that has been raging since 2003, when the highest court in Massachusetts decided that denying gay couples the right to wed was unconstitutional in that state.

Kramer is the fourth trial court judge since August to decide that the right to marry and its attendant benefits must be extended to same-sex couples. Just as many judges have gone the other way recently, however, refusing to accept the argument that keeping gays and lesbians from marrying violates their civil rights. All the cases are on appeal.

Assemblyman Ray Haynes, R-Murietta, predicted the judge's ruling would spur efforts to amend the state Constitution to ban gay nuptials, as was done in 13 other states last year. Haynes has introduced a bill to place such a constitutional amendment on the November ballot, but if the Democrat-controlled Legislature defeats it, he said gay marriage opponents would accomplish the task themselves by petition.

"This ruling demonstrates absolutely what we have to do, which is to amend the Constitution so that we can take the question out of the hands of any judge anywhere at any time," he said.

The case is Judicial Council Coordination Proceeding, No. 4365, Marriage Cases.

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AP Legal Affairs Writer David Kravets contributed to this story.

Published: Tuesday, March 15, 2005 00:05 PST</font>






and the second one....


<font color="white">Judge in gay marriage case is a Catholic Republican appointee



By DAVID KRAVETS


The Associated Press


SAN FRANCISCO


Supporters of same-sex marriage found an ally in San Francisco Judge Richard Kramer a Catholic Republican appointed to the bench by a former GOP governor.

"We're certainly feeling the judge's decision is right," said San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, whose city's lawsuit prompted Kramer's ruling Monday that gays and lesbians have the right to marry in California, despite a law and a voter-approved measure declaring marriage to be the exclusive realm of heterosexuals.

Opponents of gay marriage immediately declared that 57-year-old Kramer is a judicial activist whose decision was "ludicrous" and "nonsense."

"We knew Judge Kramer was under tremendous political pressure to redefine marriage, but we were hopeful he would recognize the limited role of the judiciary," said Robert Tyler, an Alliance Defense Fund attorney trying to uphold California's traditional marriage laws. "We do not believe it is appropriate for judges in this setting to overturn the will of the people."

With a 27-page stroke of the pen, Kramer did just that. "The parade of horrible social ills envisioned by the opponents of same-sex marriage is not a necessary result from recognizing that there is a fundamental right to choose who one wants to marry," he wrote in the decision, which won't be enforced for 60 days, to give opponents time to appeal.

Lawyers who have practiced before Kramer said the 1972 graduate of the University of Southern California Law Center is among the top judges in San Francisco, and is unswayed by public opinion.

"I think he does what he thinks is right," said Robert Stumpf Jr., who settled a class-action for $6.7 million before Kramer last year while representing Wells Fargo.

The bank was accused of illegally selling customers' financial information. Stumpf said Kramer steered negotiations between the bank and plaintiffs attorneys for a year. "His proposal was legally sound and practical," he said.

Gov. Pete Wilson appointed Kramer in December 1996, when Kramer was specializing in bank litigation.

Kramer had made a name for himself in the legal world in 1992, when he successfully defended Bank of America in a class-action lawsuit in which the bank was accused of illegally freezing credit-card interest rates around 20 percent between 1982 and 1986. First Interstate and Wells Fargo, also plaintiffs in that case, had settled for a combined $55 million, but Kramer the lawyer took the case to trial and prevailed.

Nancy Hersh, a San Francisco-based class-action lawyer, said Kramer "listens carefully to both sides. His reasoning is excellent and he has great attention to detail."

"He's not irrational or unreasonable," added Hersh, whose plaintiffs sued Imperial Premium Finance. The Sherman Oaks insurer agreed to provide 30,000 customers with $35 coupons to be used to pay their premiums after Kramer ruled the company was illegally holding onto customer refunds.

Kramer declined to be interviewed for this story. But he gave a sense of how dedicated he is as a jurist in a 1999 interview with the San Francisco Daily Journal, a legal trade publication.

While he said he sought out a judgeship so that he could spend more time with his wife and daughter, he said he spent his first months as a criminal court judge reading the Penal Code cover to cover and driving through crime-ridden neighborhoods in San Francisco to get a sense of what was happening in the community.

"It's all fascinating to me," he told the Daily Journal. "What you have to do is figure out what the person did and what to do about it. And most of these cases require common sense and humanity."

The case is Marriage Cases, Judicial Council Coordination Proceeding, 4364.

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Editors: David Kravets has been covering state and federal courts for more than a decade.

Published: Tuesday, March 15, 2005 00:06 PST</font>

 

My Stupid Two Cents

I've become a little ambivalent about gay marriage recently. I will carefully parse my keystrokes now. I would hate to transgress and have Big Brother lock this thread.

I feel gay people shouldn't be discriminated against, therefore they should be able to marry whomever they choose.

On top of that, prohibiting gay marriage sort of implicitly condones something vaguely analogous to governmental genital inspections to ensure that persons of the same sex do not marry. I can't get behind that.

The reasons for my ambivalence:

1. The right wing is using this as a rallying cry for those Homophobic simpletons in the Heartland. You can make the argument that the homophobic referenda in Ohio led the high wacko turnout that when combined with other nefarious shenanigans, gave Little Spoily his slim Election Day victory over Kerry.

Gay Marriage might be important, but it is not a cause worth subjecting the world to another four years of the most dangerous leader in the Post War era.

2. The reasons for marriage are unfair in the first place. Ok, people need to get married so they can share health plans and whatnot. Well, why the fuck not just fix our fucking health care system and insure all our citizens like every other fucking country in the civilized world!

3. I scratch my head at the idea of heterosexual marriage. Gay marriage confuses me even more. First the military, then the clergy, now marriage. It seems like gays are in a big hurry to enter into all of our worst institutions.

On a lighter (but very wrong) note, here's a Dialogue Between Skeletor and Beastman on Forging an Inclusive Agenda for the 21st Century.

Also while you're there, check out Frank Zappa an Crossfire. That Conservative Toady gets Owned by the late Mr. Zappa.

 

Re: My Stupid Two Cents

this is an interesting topic. b4 you guys say anything, one of my friends happans to be gay and hes a stand up guy.

well the way i see it, if two ppl of the same sex want to marry, then let them be as long as they dont disturb others.

however, if the couple decide to have a baby (lezzers) or adopt a child, then this is where things start to get blurred. i personally dont think they should be allowed to adopt a child under gay marriage because mainly due to the point that a growing child definitly needs some sort of a mother and father figure. keep in mind im speaking bout children under say 13. if a couple wanted to adopt a child.teenager of like 14-17 i have no qualms about that as the child has already gone thru the most important impressionable stages of life.

again, the main point im making here about gays adopting children is that the child should have a choice about his sexualtiy when he grows up. not something imposed upon him in his youth by 2 gay men in his early years.

and b4 you say 'well then ur imposing heterosexuality on him,' well to that i say that most hetero married couples who have children are less sexually active then gay couples. so the idea of heterosexuality is not force fed into their minds at a young age. (even tho i think it shud be! ) but then again, i could be wrong, hetero couples mite be more sexually active than gays, but thats not the view im getting from the ppl i know.....

 

Re: My Stupid Two Cents

Well kingsouther, you appear to be suggesting that since have two dads or two moms don't equate to the "family unit", then I'd have to conclude that you would be equally against single people (gay or straight) from adopting children - right?

No wait, that's not right.

You have to understand something, all children cope PERFECTLY WELL with their growing environments. I mean, think about it - a child is all grown up, does he say #1, "wow, I didn't have a normal childhood", or #2, does he say, "there was nothing wrong with my childhood and I wouldn't have had it any other way". You know, I'm going to bet - espescially in the cases of gay parents, that #2 is the prevailing answer.

Also, I'm mildly disturbed by your opinions on raising a childhood. I mean, gay people don't raise children any different than straight people, the only difference is that they have a sexual orientation different from the norm - THAT'S IT.

Not only that, but you seem to have many unfounded claims.

First of all, growing up with gay parents won't make you gay - under any circumstance - ever. It won't make you anything else either - for that matter. Your personality is shaped by your environment, but by environment, I don't mean the sexual preference of your parents.

Secondly, you have this completely unfounded claim that gay couples are *visibly* more sexually active than hetero couples. Not only is this blatantly false, but who cares? What goes on in the bedroom is completely up to the couple, and if they're not having sex in front of their kids, then you shouldn't either.

 

Re: My Stupid Two Cents

yea fair play then i guess. all i can do is to offer a view from a disnterested view point, even if it is a wrong viewpoint in todays society.

my apologies. didnt mean anything by it...........

 

Happy Giraffe

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You have to understand something, all children cope PERFECTLY WELL with their growing environments.

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Yeah. They cope by growing up to be rapists & serial killers & pedophiles & bank robbers & prostitutes & drug fiends & CEO's & virtua fighters.

Honestly, do you think Michael Jackson is just a wacky genetic freak or do you suppose that maybe when he was touring as a child star some combination of that pressure plus his father's overbearing domination and perhaps a little "mishandling" by one of his handlers contributed to his desire to involve his big black penis in the lives of little cancer victims and their siblings?

Above all, I'm postulating here that Michael Jackson's piece de resistance remains virgin territory for the world's finest cosmetic surgeons. Which is too bad.

I read somewhere that this convicted child molestor sued NYC because they wouldn't give him a license to sell balloon animals to children in Central Park.

If you're Michael Jackson, I bet it would be a great boon for your illegal dalliances if your cock were, say, in the shape of a happy giraffe. You could get the boys to paint him yellow and pick the best spots for the spots. It could be tantalizing foreplay. The whole operation could be called "The Safari", which doesn't sound a bit like being assraped by a grown man. Hot.

What were we talking about again?

 

Re: Happy Giraffe

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I bet it would be a great boon for your illegal dalliances if your cock were, say, in the shape of a happy giraffe.


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WTF. That's not even funny. I'm not gay or anything, but when I saw this shit I was disgusted. The thing with Jackson is a serious thing and it should be treated that way. GROW THE FUCK UP! /versus/images/graemlins/mad.gif

 

Re: Happy Giraffe

PH, stop being an irony-deprived, spamming simpleton.

I give your post a frown... /versus/images/graemlins/mad.gif

Nay...two frowns... /versus/images/graemlins/mad.gif /versus/images/graemlins/mad.gif

 

Re: Happy Giraffe

Now that's funny!

And no, Michael Jackson is just naturally f'd up. There are plenty of people who have had abusive childhoods and grow up fine.

And growing up with gay parents is not considered abusive. Besides - there is no such thing as gay child molestors.

 

Re: Happy Giraffe

this is just to clear a term and is no way supposed to be in thie debate, but if the molester is male, and the molestee is a male as well, then isnt that gay child molestation?

 

Re: Happy Giraffe

Nope, I guarantee at LEAST 95% of child molestors are "straight" by definition - in that they prefer the sexual company of women.

Usually in the case of children, gender isn't an issue.

 

Jacko

Goddamnit, straight or gay doesn't have shit to do with it. Don't even tangentially equate gayness with pedophilia. Almost all molesters are men who were sexually abused as children by other men. They grow up and basically reenact the shit from their past. It's a fucked up cycle.

I have no idea how pedophiles skew statisically, but I would be surprised if there were as many female victims as male. I am not including teenage chicks. A 16 year old girl having sex with an adult male is a crime of much less magnitude than an adult male burgling a 9 year old boy.

And I'm sorry, but guilty or innocent, Jacko is a tragic figure. His childhood had everything to do with it, I'd wager. I've even heard that his dad basically pimped him out to other men.

The guy is obviously a miserable fucker. Who else would fucking turn themselves white and undergo so much rhinoplasty that their nose would up and fall off? He's fucking nuts and any parent who would let their child get within ten miles of the guy should have their head examined.

 

Re: Happy Giraffe

are you speaking from personal experience, some bullshit theory you invented in your pre-school children's playground of a mind, or just pure, blissfull ignorance?

 

Re: Happy Giraffe

I thought it was common knowledge that most molesters are sexually deprived straight males who take out their frustration on children.

 

Re: Happy Giraffe

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Not only that, but you seem to have many unfounded claims

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Nope, I guarantee at LEAST 95% of child molestors are "straight" by definition - in that they prefer the sexual company of women.

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I don't know how you can guarantee something like this but even if you can you just let a 5% possibility exist that the person who molests a child could be gay. This goes directly against your assertion that
"there is no such thing as gay child molestors".

GE