The comparison of gay marriage to interracial marriage is a perfect example of how you would get different answers on the same issues, depending on how you frame the questions.

If you think of gay marriage as re-defining a marriage, then of course it's not the same as banning men and women of different races to marry each other.

But if you think of gay marriage as the "same" marriage as before, just between two people of same sex, then you would think of it as "just like" overturning interracial marriage ban.

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Which is why Proposition 22 was potent in the debate: It frames the issue in a way that precludes comparison to interracial marriage.

Nonetheless, the California Supreme Court didn't start its analysis from Prop 22. Which, when reading the opinion, I saw it as the first sign Prop 22 would be overturned.

Lets’ not pass up the opportunity to knock our worthless Republican Governor. A few years ago he “misspoke” on the tonight show when he said he didn’t have any problems with supporting gay marriage. He clarified himself the next day by saying that he supports the “will of the people”- their vote on prop 22.

I don’t see where the “will of the people” has changed. But now the Supreme Court ruling gives Arnold an opportunity to feel more at easy when he goes to Hollywood parties or Democrat gatherings by selling out the Republican Party (again) and 2/3 of the electorate.

Oh well we always knew he billed himself as a social moderate and fiscal conservative – yesh…

He will go down as the worst California governor in the last 30 years – a bigger taxer and spender than Gray Davis. When he leaves office state spending will have increased 50% under his stewardship and I will have to pay a new tax for using a personal trainer.

Matt/Jubal,

This is ridiculous. Studies show that Christians divorce more often than everyone else. Moreover, another study showed that divorce rates were HIGHER in red states versus blue states.

You want to know who is undermining marriage? Not gays. It is straight men who dump their wives in order to "upgrade."

How many times has Newt Gingrich remarried - each time marrying another trollop from his office?

What about Rudy Giuliani, who so angered his kids when he dumped his wife that his own daughter backed Barack Obama for President instead of Giuliani.

Locally, I bet if you were to ask folks at the next OC GOP Central Committee if they have ever been divorced or have cheated on their spouses, and they were compelled to tell the truth, a majority would have to admit that THEY have undermined marriage.

And last but not least, conservatives cry about how gay marriage will affect the children, but how many Catholic priests have buggered little kids in the last twenty years? We're talking about THOUSANDS of children deprived of their innocence by men of the cloth. It is just disgusting.

If gay people want to get married, why not just let them do so? Why are they such a threat to you?

Art:

All of which is completely beside the point.

Marriage is, by its nature, design, function and history going back millennium, between a man and a woman.

Once you redefine civil marriage as something else, there is no logical barrier to extending it to polygamists. The argument to be raised against that have all been raised against gay "marriage" -- and dismissed by those who favor redefining marriage.

so matt,

you personally are able to marry the woman you love because the country change it's laws regarding marriage in the 60s 70s.

but when it comes to others you slam the door shut. When it affects you, you are for change (not very conservative) but when others want to settle down and get married, no way.

This is just too overwhelming to me and there is so much that can be said. I guess what will finaly be said is that just like the rest of Americans we will have civil rights and we will have freedoms. There is no way that a country that was founded on freedom, who fought a war within itself to free a people, can continue in this manner and follow its charter. There is just no way and be what it professes to be. And if they do then we need to bring all our troops home becasue we have no right to ask our children to die for others freedoms when we will not allow freedoms to our people.

I can not imagine that this country or the lawmakers of this country can allow this to happen. There is no way I can believe that we will go over and fight a war on forgin soil, with young men and women we all know and love fighting and dieing for a freedom of another nation when we wont even allow our own citizens to be free. What is this country the Regime of the Christian Dictator. How can Americans go to sleep at night knowing that they are hypocrites in that they will fight for someone else but deny their own people freedom. it is beyond me to comprehend.

In doing the things that they are doing Americans are no better than the ones we are fighting against in those forgin countries, it is ok if you are African American, Mexican, Cuban , hanidcap,Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, female or male to live where you want, noone can stop you. You have the right to work were you want, no one can stop you, you have the right to worship in anyway you want, no one can stop you, because you are protected, there are laws out there for you. No one can beat you up or fire you, or refuse you housing, because there are discrimination laws, and Liberty forbid that you do such a thing cause the laws of Liberty and Justice for all will come down on your head, unless you do it to a gay, lesbian or Transgender person cause we are less than citizens of this Nation we are less than human just as all those before us who have now got the protection of the law were at one time, before someone stood up and fought, bled, and many many died for.

BUT those laws stop and are thrown out the window if you are gay or lesbian or transgender. Just as the laws stop in Isreal if you are not a Jew, or in Iraq because you are a Sunni, or in North Korea, because you are South Korean. The "Christian Taliban" says so because marriage is biblical, and the judges can not say that we have a right to freedom and marriage because being biblical it is between one man and one women so that they can go forth and prolificate. Well guess what in the Bible it was also allowed for one man to have many wives, at the same time, the law had better change against polygamy because Abraham did it, he had three wives. And they had better not press charges against anyone who has their lovers spouse killed so that they can be with said lover, Cause King David the Favorite of God did that with Gods blessings, after he watched Bathshebia bathe. So if this Christian Taliban wants to use the bible to make the Laws of this country they better use it to write them all. Oh but wait that would be against said CONSTITUTION, am I wrong but wasn't I taught there was a separation in Church and State, and is not marriage a Legal contract not a religious contract, or is there something we here in Texas don't know about cause Washington and the lawmakers seem to have forgotten that in the last 8 years.

Come on people how can you say this is a free nation when the people who make it to landfall (Dry foot law) have more rights and lawmaker support than your own citizens. The same said citizens who increase the countries economy by working and spending money. The same said citizens who see to it that their taxes are paid, and whos taxes go to providing the lifestyle that law makers are accustomed too, or that pay the welfare benefits for the forginers who come over and are given freedoms, cause America is the land of the Free ( but only if you fall into the criteria of what they say allows you to be free). The taxpayers who are denied their civil rights but lose their sons and loved ones in a war to provide others with the rights we are denied.

This weekend for Memorial Day our family will be going to place flowers on the grave of a very special young man, a young man we all loved very much and miss daily. Thomas was 3 months short of being 21, and he was killed in Iraq last Spetember, he was killed by an IED in the greenzone outside the Market, in Mosul, he was killed because he wore an American Uniform and was sent to protect or establish the freedoms of a people in a forgin country. I do not resent helping these people establish freedom, what I do resent is that a country that will support this sacrifice can not offer the same thing to its own people FREEDOM to be who they are and live as they please in peace. It is the lawmakers, the dictators of this country who can stop this, yet they want to add a Constitutional Amendment that says "one Man one Woman" what have we become but a country run by hypocrites.

I know that what I say above is contraversial and offensive to a lot of people and some people will be offended by it, but I am offended and if there is one right that I do have as a Lesbian American it is the RIGHT TO FREEDOM OF SPEECH. Well I realize this but it also made me realize that these are very important issues to my heart, to who I am. So if I offended anyone I want to say I am sorry for offending you. But, I will not say I am sorry for my views as a matter of fact, I want to point out a few more things here.

Last night my partner read what I had written When she finished we had a long conversation, I thought it was going to be about the fact I brought up the War, when
we had decided that I would be a lot less vocal about that subject.
Well was I wrong, we talked about the fact that she realized how badly
I wanted to marry her and how much it would mean to us if when we get
the honor and privilage of getting married it was becasue we had fought
for that honor and privilage. How it would mean to us that our family of five children would be reconized as a true family. See we may not be a traditional family but what a family we are. How much more does something mean to a person when they have to work for it and do not aquire it off the sweat and blood of someone else.

This made me think, I know several people who are not from America and my daughter and her Husband are stationed in Germany, he returns to "the Sand' in January to fight yet again for some strangers freedoms. I got to thinking about conversations with these people from England, Canada, and with my daughter about German laws. Itmade me think about how the mainstream American acts and thinks everything is there
DUE, it is owed to them because they were born into it, born American.
As Americans we do not realize that someone somewhere in our past
fought bled and oftentimes died for the right we have today. These
rights were not always our rights, and as such these things that we
feel are our DUE, that are owed to us are actualy privilages, and
honors.

Now most people think that we want to get married becasue we do not
value the institution of Marriage or the Sancitity of Family, and that
we want to make a mockery of that. I am here to say NO!, that is not
true, we value the Sancity of Marriage more than the common American.
Why? Because we can not have it, we can not have a 'valid' family, we are not
given that honor, that privilage. How many of you know of people who
went into Marriage with the idea, "Well if it doesnt work out I can get
Divorced" How many of you have read the articles on "Starter Marriages" marriages that are just like starter cars, or starter homes. You get one learn the basics with it and then trade it in for a better model, bigger and pricier. These are the things being done by the people who have this right and privilage, and they dont even value it. Why do most mainstream Americans have no value, becasue they have never had to want. Take away something from them, or better yet introduce something new that they
cannot have, because they are Mainstream Americans and see how soon they will rally to get it. Yet they deny to the rest of us.

So here is where I am intend to do, I intend to actualy pour my sweat, my blood
into this, not just my money in donations. Just as those before us We have to get our
voice heard. so if I have to send letters on a regular basis to the local
editorial page at the local newspaper that is what I will do.WE have to get our voices out there to make a difference for all of us and so that future generations of LGBT
Americans can be as egotistical as most Americans today, That loving and
marrying your same sex partner is your DUE and is OWED to you. I do hope though that unlike the others who have won these battles for equality and for rights the LGBT community will remember where they come from and none become as egotistical as the rest, but 100 years from now will it matter who bled for your freedom, will it matter what battles were won or who died for these freedoms, no what will be KNOWN is that you have this FREEDOM.

Terri Oran

Actually, to a small -government conservative, the problem isn't that the Government wants to "let" gays marry like everyone else, it's that the government is involved at all. This was (roughly) Barry Goldwater's position.

Matt, you're right, gay marriage is a anathema to the historical concept of marriage. But so is *any* civil marriage. The whole point of "civil marriage " is to allow people to form a contractual obligation outside the purview of a church -- to take the church out of the wedding, literally.

So let's fight the fight good fight and do it right: Let's not only ban gay marriage, let's removed _all_ use of the word "marriage" from government control. Confine the governments roll to the do what is was set-up to do: officiate contracts made by legally competent adults.

Again: the problem isn't that part of the the State Government wants to allow certain people to record a contract. The problem is that STATE SHOULD NOT BE INVOLVED WITH DEFINING MARRIAGE in the first place.

That is what churches are for.

I'd like to ask all those who say that "marriage should only be defined by the church" to tell me that everyone who was married by a Justice of the Peace are not "legally" married. I'd also like to ask the same people say that they are trying to defend the "sanctity of marraige" if they will support legislation to BAN divorce? Wouldn't banning divorce do even more for defending marriage?

Yes marriage is so very sacred that straight people can marry several times, so sacred that they can marry just for a joke, so sacred that they can marry for a month then divorce and remarry the following week. But not sacred enough to ban divorce. Oh no.

The bottom line is that too many people just feel the need to be able to control someone else's life, to feel better than someone else , to be able to bully someone else.

All the "sophisticated" and so called "intellectual" arguments against gay marriage boil down to hate and bigotry. Who are you kidding.

Ummm how many people do u know that want to marry an animal? How many of them do you see in movies, on tv... Ever see them walking together on the street? Ever read about it? Ever here of anyone trying to marry an animal? Every look at someone and say...hmm He looks like an animal lover... OF COURSE NOT. Now... how think how much you have heard / read /seen /etc about there being gay couple? OK ,,,now can u shut up about comparing two people in committed relationships to a person that wants to MARRY an animal, You are hateful and don't even realize it. Just like a racist. I hope this country grow up one day. And why shelter you children from homo-relationships? It is lying to them. We exist, you know it. It is possible that your child is gay. Keep religion out of politics. Love is moral.