Again, I gotta ask, A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT? REALLY?

[quade 4]

WTF?

What country did I just wake up in?

What business is it of the government?

We couldn't get a Constitutional Amendment guaranteeing equal rights for women, but for some reason GWB thinks he can get Congress to draft and 2/3rds of the state to ratify a Constitutional Amendment defining marriage as ONLY being between a man and a woman?

OK, I'm just in freekin' shock here and rambling but WTF?

Does he have any idea of how stupid this makes our country look?

If he's trying something this assholeish at the beginning of his election campaign, WTF will he do in his first year after being re-elected?

To me, this only proves he thinks he's far more important than he really is.

He's got to go.

Edited to add:

In case ya missed it, GWB just made a live TV statement from the White House calling for an amendment. Since this JUST happened, it hasn't moved anywhere on the wires yet and I can't link a source (not even the White House), but rest assured, he said it and it will be THE top news story on every station tonight.

This just in:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/02/24/elec04.prez.bush.marriage/index.html

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[skymama 37]

Yeah, he did it, I just saw it.

In my opinion, there are way more important issues than this that he could be focusing on.

She is Da Man, and you better not mess with Da Man,
because she will lay some keepdown on you faster than, well, really fast. ~Billvon

[Jayruss 0]

Well this is what it will lead too

__________________________________________________
"Beware how you take away hope from another human being."
-Oliver Wendell Holmes

[winsor 236]

His old man was big on a Constitutional Amendment having something or another to do with the flag. I thought that was stupid then, and I think this is stupid now.

I can't bring myself to believe that anyone is dumb enough to care all that much one way or another. As long as everything is voluntary and above the age of consent, what difference does it make?

Why does it seem that anyone running for office in this country is a national embarrassment? Is it that nobody with the tiniest bit of integrity would be caught dead with their name listed amongst the others on the ballot?

I keep wishing I could say "it's only a movie...."


Blue skies,

Winsor

[turtlespeed 226]

I think he is leaning more to the definition of the word. As opposed to Civil Union.

Would you want the contract or the agreement that you entered into changed because someone else with a different lifestyle decided that it would be fun to do that?

I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama
BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun

[rehmwa 2]

Sounds like a waste of time to me. Now he's $pending too much, like a Democrat, and pushing a time consuming social issues (like either extreme). But you might say this is in response to the tantrum from the gay community. If so, I still consider it a waste of government time. Although it is nice to see someone take a stand even if the winds aren't blowing that way (too bad this is now one of his examples though). Likely we'll see Kerry take both sides over the next couple months depending on who he's talking to.

Again, if we (the collective 'we') would just keep it out of politics and just handle this via private contracts, it would be a dead issue. Either way, I'd prefer he just ignore it as a nuisance issue.

Yet the best the other party can pull out their collective asses is John Kerry.

Unfortuneately, there's no check mark (our punch chad) on the ballot box for "none of the above".

{{Of course if there was a punch chad for that, it would be recounted and put towards Al Gore.}}

Sorry, some of that was distinctly troll like, but I really do think this is a non-issue on the national level....

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[mr2mk1g 10]

He's a religious zealot - what do you expect?

[BikerBabe 0]

oh boy. TS, I have something ofr you to read. read it all before you judge, please.:

This is from a recent rally in Tucson.

The rally was the kick-off to a new coalition of community members who are 1) fighting to defeat Federal Marriage Amendment and 2) building a grassroots movement of Arizonans to secure the Freedom to Marry for same-sex couples in Arizona.

Quote

FREEDOM TO MARRY SPEECH
Kelly Frieders

I was a little surprised when I was asked to speak today, because, well, I have some confessions to make.

Confession 1: I’m straight.

Yep. I like men. I’ve been happily married to one for 11 years now. I’m a stay-home mom to our three lovely children. Triplets. (I like to sneak that in there whenever I can to impress people. And in this case, I want you all thinking warm fuzzy thoughts when I make my other confessions. So keep thinking: “Triplet mom. Awwww.”)

Confession 2: I’m a Christian.

Yes, I believe in the same God as Jerry Falwell. In theory, anyway. I love the Bible, though I usually prefer it as daily reading and not as a weapon to bludgeon people with.

But here’s my really deep dark confession. And just remember, I have triplets. Warm fuzzy thoughts.

Confession 3: I’m a Republican.

Yeah, I know. But before you boo me off the podium, you might be curious as to what a straight, married, stay-home mom, Christian Republican is doing here.

Well, as a married woman, I am a firm advocate of the institution of marriage. Before we got married, my husband and I spent a lot of time in pre-marital counseling to prepare for marriage. And I’ll confess, we also spent a lot of time planning our wedding. My husband’s brother-in-law once said that Ben Hur was a smaller production than our wedding.

But what we didn’t spend any time at all thinking about were the legal issues. I vaguely remember getting a license, having it signed by the minister, and filing it with the county, and that was that. I never thought twice about it because I never HAD to.

I have two lesbian friends who are engaged. One of them is from New Zealand and is having trouble getting a green card to come here, so they will be forced to live in New Zealand instead, even though they both want to be here. But if one of them were a man, a green card would be automatic when they married. I am infuriated that this kind of discrimination is not only acceptable, but deemed necessary to “protect marriage.” How on earth could supporting people who want to make a lifetime commitment harm marriage? People who choose to make permanent, binding commitments to each other despite the fact that they're told it means nothing in the eyes of the law, in a culture where the divorce rate is so high and commitment is taken so lightly (cough-BRITANY-cough) sounds like a shot in the arm for marriage if you ask me.

As a Christian, I’m here because my faith DEMANDS that I speak out against injustice.
To follow Jesus, who never said a word in anger to anyone but the religious elite that liked to think themselves better than everyone else, who never said a single word at all about homosexuality, who wondered who among us could cast the first stone and why we were so concerned with specks in our brothers’ and sisters’ eyes when there are logs in our own, to follow this Jesus I MUST not be silent when one group of people is being marginalized or ostracized or told they’re beneath the rest of us because they’re different.

And yes, I’m even here as a Republican, because an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that seeks to dictate to the private lives of individuals and the legal decisions of the states is not CONSERVATIVE, and laws that discriminate and create second-class citizens are not COMPASSIONATE. Yes, I’m a Republican, but I know when this November comes, I will not be voting for anyone who thinks discrimination is a good conservative value.

Thank you for letting me speak and God bless all of you who are working so hard to make a lifelong commitment when the law says you can’t. Thank you for reminding me how precious marriage is and to not take mine for granted.

She pretty much sums it up. That's the kind of Christian I hope to be.

Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

[nacmacfeegle 0]

"I really do think this is a non-issue on the national level.... "

But it IS a source of much mirth at an international level.....

--------------------

He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

[PhillyKev 0]

Quote

If he's trying something this assholeish at the beginning of his election campaign, WTF will he do in his first year after being re-elected?

To me, this only proves he thinks he's far more important than he really is.

He's got to go.

Just imagine if he does get re-elected and hits lame duck status. The potential for him ramming his personal, ludicrous agenda down the throat of the nation scares the living piss out of me.

[CrazyThomas 0]

Quote

WTF?

What country did I just wake up in?

What business is it of the government?

We couldn't get a Constitutional Amendment guaranteeing equal rights for women, but for some reason GWB thinks he can get Congress to draft and 2/3rds of the state ro ratify a Constitutional Amendment defining marriage as ONLY being between a man and a woman?

Well, this is the USA, and the general support idea is what the majority favors.
I could try and draw parallels to making marijuana illegal, but allowing and taxing alcohol and cigarettes, but I won't.
I'll just say that even though this amendment shocks you, it may seem very fitting to some people.
Think of all the "Old Fashioned" people who do not understand the "GAY" concept, and who still live their lives thinking that gay people are only out in California. That fact may shock you also.
Not everyone is enlightened and enriched to so much diverse culture, and other people are just not tolerant of other culture.
We'll see where the majority sides with this one. If the amendment passes, would you be willing to concede that the majority of americans favor this concept?


Thomas

[rehmwa 2]

Quote

"I really do think this is a non-issue on the national level.... "

But it IS a source of much mirth at an international level.....

And the national level -

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[PhillyKev 0]

Quote

Would you want the contract or the agreement that you entered into changed because someone else with a different lifestyle decided that it would be fun to do that?

What is changing about the contract that you entered into with your wife? If gays get married, does your wife suddenly grow a penis? I just don't get what possible effect it has on you or anyone else other than to offend your sensibilities.

[Deuce 1]

I tend to agree with BikerBabe, but this one of those red-state, blue-state things that the blue state people don't understand.

And the condesenscion of the blue states toward the red states is responsible for the increasing polarization of this country.

Look at the attitudes in this forum: the question regarding why people are opposed to gay marriage is not asked sincerely, the questioner is not interested in the reasoning of the opposition, but asks the question in a way that demeans the opposition without ever listening to the answer.

Not you in particular, Q. But this is the tone of the national stage.

"Hey you idiots, what the fuck are you thinking?!" is really not a question. It is being asked from both sides of the debate.

And that is why we are not getting anywhere.

[lawrocket 3]

Yes, I think there is something better to do than this. If gays want to get married, let them do it, and let the individual states do the deciding. Of course, not all states should have to accept other states' views.

It also does not appear to me that this move for an amendment will work.

On another note, I agree with the procedure that GWB is using. If one looks at the US Constitution, as presently written, nothing about gay mariages is mentioned. In my right-wing opinion, the Amendment process itself demonstrates that the Constitution is not a "living, breathing" document in which changes to the clear language of it can be found due to societal change. If something is not protected in the US Constitution, then it is not protected.

I like the Amendment process. It is long and difficult to add new rights or prohibitions. The way it should be.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[AndyMan 7]

I too, am flabergasted that he went forward with this.

If it does somehow become sub-zero in hades, and this actually goes through, allow me to make a prediction: It will be the shortest lived constitutional amendment, ever.

It will last even shorter then the prohibition of alcohol, which only lasted 10 years, IIRC.

_Am

__

You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

[rehmwa 2]

Quote

If gays get married, does your wife suddenly grow a penis?

I really can't do justice to mocking just this one sentence.
I mean, it can take so many directions I feel like my head is going to explode.

Where's Turtlespeed when you need him?

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[quade 4]

Quote

We'll see where the majority sides with this one. If the amendment passes, would you be willing to concede that the majority of americans favor this concept?

A society is not judged by how it treats the majority of its members, but rather by how it treats the minority.

In some instances, the majority opinion is simply wrong.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[quade 4]

jp, I love ya like a brother -- you know that.

Quote

"Hey you idiots, what the fuck are you thinking?!" is really not a question. It is being asked from both sides of the debate.

Ok, let's have a debate -- mono y mono.

Please tell me why this makes sense?

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[Harksaw 0]

Man, I wish people would do something like "mind your own business"

Anyone know how allowing gay marriage will negatively affect ANYONE in any way whatsoever?

I heard on the radio the other day some person talking about how allowing gay marriage would "take away our freedoms" Can anyone explain that bit to me?

People are different. If that offends you, the problem is with YOU.

__________________________________________________
I started skydiving for the money and the chicks. Oh, wait.

[turtlespeed 226]

Quote

Quote

If gays get married, does your wife suddenly grow a penis?

I really can't do justice to mocking just this one sentence.
I mean, it can take so many directions I feel like my head is going to explode.

Where's Turtlespeed when you need him?

Naw, just Balls. Being married, she already owns the prick!

I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama
BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun

[fudd 0]

Quote

WTF?

What country did I just wake up in?

ROTFLOL
This is just hillarious.
Ahh...how wonderful. The land off the free (straight people)

There are only 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary, and those who don't.

[newsstand 0]

What is really fun is that heterosexuals seem to be moving away from marriage and homsexuals, in the US anyway, want to embrace it.

---

For better or worse, America's a nation of singletons
Married couples become minority as marriage issues heat up

By Rick Montgomery

KNIGHT RIDDER NEWS SERVICE

Sunday, February 22, 2004

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- "Politics does not make strange bedfellows," Groucho Marx once declared. "Marriage does."

What about the bedfellows of politics and marriage? Against the backdrop of America's ongoing cultural feud, Washington's romance with "the sanctity of marriage" tends to reach hot-and-heavy status with each election cycle.

In 2004, however, the state of marriage is no joking matter. Census data and surveys show an institution in sickness more than in health.

Cohabitation and out-of-wedlock births keep going up. A staggering majority of young Americans view matrimony as an endgame steeped in as much risk as romance. Their parents had viewed it, for better or worse, as a practical starting point for adulthood.

As such, the nation's demographic profile is poised to cross an important line just about election time. Married-couple households, which defined nearly eight of every 10 homes in the 1950s, could slip below the 50 percent mark.

Ward and June Cleaver, welcome to the minority.

Despite reams of research on the benefits of healthy marriages -- married people on the whole live longer and experience less depression than the unmarried do, and their children are less likely to commit crimes than the children of relationships untied -- more Americans are opting out or never getting in.

"We're on the verge of becoming -- at least in the legal sense -- a nation of singletons," reports BusinessWeek.

Now witness another minority, the homosexual community, some of whose members want to get married. To opposing groups, the prospect of giving gay couples the public platter of tax breaks, health-care benefits, child-custody and inheritance rights -- which have been the domain of the legally married -- threatens everything.

"This issue is really the ultimate battle," said Peter Sprigg, director of marriage and family strategy for the Family Research Council, which opposes same-sex marriages.

Galvanized by recent court rulings paving the way for gay marriages in Massachusetts, social conservatives are promising a hard, divisive fight to define marriage -- by amending the Constitution, if necessary -- as the union of one man and one woman.

Passage of constitutional amendments face more obstacles than lawmakers are usually willing to tackle. But for supporters of the so-called Federal Marriage Amendment, lip service won't do.

"This is going to be an issue, much like abortion, where it's a defining thing," said Kristi Hamrick of the conservative group American Values. "You can't take a pass on abortion. You can't take a pass on marriage."

All of which leaves gay rights activists saying they are baffled.

"Here we have a segment of the population looking to embrace marriage," said Mark Shields, a spokesman for the Washington-based Human Rights Campaign, "but being denied it."

A legal status

Today's debate goes far beyond matters of sexual orientation.

It goes to what some critics -- on the political left and the right -- call social engineering: President Bush recently proposed spending $1.5 billion in federal funds to encourage wedded bliss through premarital counseling and educational programs.

It goes to the future of nuclear families.

"All other things being equal, it's better for kids to be raised by two parents instead of one," said Andrew Cherlin, a public policy professor at Johns Hopkins University. "But Americans also believe strongly that the government ought not interfere with other people's personal lives."

It goes to messages in popular culture.

"We're approaching relationships as a consumer issue rather than a covenant issue," said Deborah Smith, a sociology professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

It goes to generational attitudes.

"In the past, marriage was seen as a very important institution in the sense of providing for children," said David Popenoe, director of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University in Piscataway, N.J. "You ask old people today, and they say young people aren't committed enough to see a marriage through."

Some groups are even questioning why states still affix their governmental stamps on such personal relationships.

"Our question would be, what's the government doing in the business of marriage in the first place?" said Roger Pilon of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. "Given the state of marriage today, in light of no-fault divorce, it tends to be little more than a tax status."

In some European nations, where marriage rates have plunged to unprecedented levels, various forms of "marriage lite" have been on the books for more than a decade. Couples in Denmark can opt for registered partnerships; half of the children there are now born out of wedlock. French couples can sign "civil solidarity pacts" that either party may dissolve on three months' notice.

Three U.S. states -- Arkansas, Arizona and Louisiana -- have moved in the opposite direction, enacting "marriage covenant" laws aimed at making divorce less easy. Couples choosing to enter into covenants, at the time they marry or later, agree to relinquish some of the grounds for no-fault divorce and are required to get counseling before calling it quits.

Bush's $1.5 billion proposal for strengthening marriage is slated to be worked into the welfare reauthorization bill. Several states already are dabbling in matchmaking through welfare, offering low-income couples subsidies for premarital counseling.

West Virginia pays a $100 monthly bonus to married welfare recipients.

"Encouraging people into marriage is a good idea so long as we know those people and their children will have healthy relationships. And when do we ever know that?" Cherlin said. "West Virginia offers just the kind of incentive that drives a woman on welfare into marrying an abusive man because she needs the money."

Why tie?

The latest annual report of Rutgers' National Marriage Project offered "some good news and some bad news" on the matrimony front.

The good news is that for the first time in four decades, the percentage of U.S. children in two-married-parent families rose in 2003, ever so slightly, from 68 percent to 69 percent. Contributing to the uptick are higher-than-average marriage rates among Hispanics, the nation's fastest-growing minority group.

And U.S. divorce rates remain level after peaking two decades ago, largely because more couples are choosing to live together -- and to split up -- without any official knot to tie or untie. The number of cohabiting couples soared 70 percent just in the 1990s, and it continues to climb.

Still, "marriage has enjoyed something of a comeback in popular culture," conclude authors Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead. "From hit movies like 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' to top-rated dating reality shows like 'The Bachelor' to best sellers on sexier marriage, popular attention has turned to the pursuit and pleasures of matrimony."

And that, says their study, is part of the bad news:

"Indeed, though Americans aspire to marriage, they are ever more inclined to see it as an intimate relationship between adults rather than as a necessary social arrangement for children."

A 2001 Gallup Poll bore out that prevailing view, especially among young adults. Nearly 80 percent of American men and women ages 20 to 29 disagreed with the statement that "the main purpose of marriage is having children."

An astonishing 94 percent of unmarried respondents in the same age group agreed that "when you marry, you want your spouse to be your soul mate, first and foremost." And eight in 10 said they believed the special person destined to be their own soul mate is somewhere "out there."

Keeping things neat

While the origins of legal marriage are murky (by some accounts, ancient Mesopotamia drafted the first marriage laws to keep fathers from fleeing), its main function today is to provide order when things go wrong.

Who should care for the kids after a divorce? Whose medical bills are covered when only one spouse can afford insurance? Who gets Social Security and inheritance benefits when somebody dies?

Strictly unromantic stuff.

"Yes, a competent attorney can draw up any agreement" for unmarried couples, said Kansas City lawyer Michael Dailey. But that won't keep the government away when children are caught in a breakup.

"Child custody isn't like passing on the family puppy," Dailey said. "Whether you have a contract or not, the courts are going to get involved and look at the best interests of that child."

Recent polls suggest two-thirds of Americans believe marriage should be restricted to a man and a woman. Citing those surveys, social conservatives argue that gay rights groups are relying on judges to trump the public will. It wouldn't be the first time. Until a Supreme Court ruling in 1967 expressly forbade it, 16 states refused interracial marriages.

Still other polls show a majority of Americans opposed to government encouraging or promoting conventional marriages.

It's a matter of whom you ask and how you ask.

"The issue (gay marriage) matters intensely to some people, but it hasn't resonated at all as a burning issue with the general public," said Carroll Doherty, an editor at the Pew Research Center.

In a Pew poll conducted at the time of the State of the Union address, Americans overall ranked the question of gay marriages next to last in a priority list of national issues, "right down there with space exploration," Doherty noted. But among respondents reporting strong Christian viewpoints, 40 percent considered the marriage issue vital.

"Marriage is a natural institution" as well as a legal one, said Sprigg of the Family Research Council. "It takes the combination of a man and a woman to contribute to the growth of the human race."

"Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening."
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes

[jfields 0]

[Sarcasm on]

It makes total sense.

The wars are going great.
The economy is going gangbusters.
The environment is finally out of danger.
The international community just loves us.

Since we have finished everything else, we need a new project to work on.

[Sarcasm off]

[mr2mk1g 10]

Maybe they can get married so long as they sew a symbol on their cloths so everyone knows they're not really "married" just "bender married"... something highly visible... like maybe a bright yellow star or something.

If people are uncomfortable with that then why don't you just build a lovely summer camp for them in the woods and they could all live there together in peace. There would be great rail links and a lovely communial shower for them on arival with all the free Xyclon B they could want. We should also make sure there are a load of nice big bread ovens. I hear they like bread.

If your offended - read more history.

(I wonder how many times I have to post this)