Bisexuality isn’t a ‘choice’, just as heterosexual or homosexual attraction isn’t a choice.

Some bisexuals choose to express either their heterosexual or homosexual side, but that’s repression, not ‘choosing’ who they are attracted to.

@Loretta ~ Read the comment above yours that talks about the Centurion who pleaded with Christ to save his lover, whom Christ then healed. When you tell your gay friends that you profess to love you don’t think they deserve the right to marry, what do they say?

@PhotoJack ~ Wish I could have marched with you! The celebration here in the desert was smaller, but still joyful.

And at those who think gay marriages will result in tons of divorces, please know that I prepared the very first petition for a domestic dissolution in my area. The Court Clerk called me to make sure that I knew that I’d used the domestic partner forms. She told me they’d never processed one before even the supervisors where unsure what to do. Since that day about three years ago, I’ve done maybe three more. Yet I’ve lost count of how many hetro divorces I’ve done. I had about five come in within the last two weeks. Who’s messing with idea of “holy matrimony” now?

The most important reason I cannot move myself to violate anyone else’s civil rights is related to growing up under segregation in this country for the first 18 years of my life. Against overwhelming odds I graduated from high school and college, and worked and earned two graduate degrees, so I have a particular empathy with anyone whose rights are being infringed upon. I just don’t have it in my heart to put someone else through what my parents, my siblings, and I went through for no reason at all, except the small-mindedness of a group of people who feel a sense of entitlement they think allows them to dictate the way others live.

I believe these words are true. Racism, Ageism, sexism, all set the stage to separate; deny equality under the law.

Rhetorically; why is it that when ARIZONA passes a law that is deemed racist, a boycott ensues. But when CALIFORNIA DENIES GAYS THE SAME RIGHTS as straights (marriage) there is not a word of a boycott, etc???

Political pawns & Hypocrites! Religion HAS to be a choice as faith depends on it.
Pretty tough to find an easy answer isn’t it?

I admire you for your Christian belief, however, I do not believe that you nor anyone else have the God-given right deny other people their rights just because the way they live goes against your religious belief.

Now for the question: How does gay people getting legally married bring harm to anyone else? Please be honest when you answer.

One one hand: “I DON’T WANT BIG GUBMINT IN MY BUSINESS!!! GET YOUR GUBMINT HANDS OFF MY MEDICARE!!!”

On the other: “WE NEED LAWS TO KEEP GAYS FROM GETTING MARRIED!! WE NEED A STRONG MILITARY!!! WE NEED TO MILITARIZE THE BORDER!! BAN THE GROUND ZERO MOSQUE!!! BAN ABORTION!!! LOCK UP DRUG USERS!!!

http://www.metroweekly.com/news/?ak=5094

My question, and I suspect tk’s as well (?), has nothing to do with homosexuality, nor with a gay judge’s ability to render a solid decision according to legal precedent and available statutes. It has to do rather with my own extreme and growing cynicism about “facts” presented by the Right, secular and religious alike.

A virulent dismantling of snopes.com I recently received — most of the allegations were false and/or irrelevant — concluded with these words (paraphrased): “We can believe whatever we want to believe!” That is a pretty good working definition of psychosis, IMHO, and the level of nonsense in the diatribe didn’t help the feeling any. (The diatribe, BTW, recommend a different, religiously-based site for sifting through rumors and “urban legends” — the owner and manager of which has stated disagreement with the letter and support for snopes.com)

The more email forwards and other unsolicited stuff I get from the right, the more unsettled, frankly, I become. So *much* of what comes out from that community seems to be made up.

So, joining with tk here, *is* Judge Walker gay? If he is, glory to God for the gift of a good and decent man. If not, what the hell is driving the Right toward collective and community psychosis?

I think there is plenty of cause to include a discussion of proposition 8 in the hatewatch blog. For one thing, as the trial record demonstrated readily, there is no rational reason to deny gays and lesbians the right to marry. It was a discriminatory proposition passed purely on irrational ideas about gays and lesbians. Proposition 8 was ‘defended’ on the idea that same-sex couples, being unable to have children, are inferior to opposite-sex couples (including childless and infertile couples) and so do not deserve protection. This may, as you note, not qualify as hatred, but rather ignorance, however this is hardly the whole story.

The procreation arguements were not extensively used to get proposition 8 passed in the first place. Campaign advertising, such as the infamous ‘Gathering Storm’ ad, basically claimed that same-sex marriage was a threat to either parenting, children, society or marriage in general. Claiming that gays and lesbians are a threat to children or to society is certainly designed to make people hate, fear, or at the very least dislike gays and lesbians. And that merits inclusion in this blog.

Voting away the constitutional rights of a group of people out of dislike of that group of people is, for that matter, likely hateful no matter how ‘democratic’ it is. Democracy alone does not prevent an action from being bigoted or hateful, it just means that it is a popular form of hate.

As a final point, your assertion about civil unions is less meaningful when we look at cases such as the debates and conflict over civil unions in places like Hawaii, where the same groups and religious organizations that fought so hard to pass proposition 8 fought just as hard to prevent the recognition of civil unions. It doesn’t matter what we call it or how inferior the unions are, these people oppose any recognition of same-sex couples under any name. They may claim to support civil unions as long as they aren’t actual marriage, but that’s only until the LGBT community stops demanding marriage and starts demanding these alternatives.

Sorry.