Prop 8 found to be unconstitutional...struck down!

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j1akey said:
Let’s see, the country is in massive debt, the economy sucks, we’ve allowed multinational corporations to basically run the government, we’ve been fighting two wars for the better part of a decade, our infrastructure is collapsing right out from under us and jobs keep getting shipped over seas and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Not may people get all up in arms over ALL this yet now that gays can get married in California, this, THIS is where you need to make a stand… /facepalm
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How true. There was no political activity or debate during World War II on silly things like moral issues, or taxes, or whether to put a stopsign on the corner. Everyone was too busy with the war. Certainly there weren’t any important court cases or legislation or public debate during Vietnam or the Great Depression. or any of the dozens of times the country has had problems.

Now that you made us all aware that multinationals have taken over the government, I’m sure we’ll all stop whatever we were doing, drop whatever causes we may have, and simply hold our breath until they go away. No school board meetings, no court cases over moral issues. We’ll just wait until the multinationals go away and the economy improves.
 
nguirado said:
I don’t know if anybody’s pointed this out, but homosexuals can marry somebody of the opposite sex already. They have the exact same rights.
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While it’s not “moronic” for the reasons the koolaid gang believes, it is totally redundant to say “marry somebody of the opposite sex”. The fact that even the people on the side of good are starting to acquiesce this false distinction just shows how successful all the efforts of cultural brainwashing have been. It didn’t even take that long either.
 
In due deference to the position of the Catholic Church, I would like to make the following observations:
  1. The Catholic Church, as well as other churches, do not make the rules. Ours is a secular republic, founded upon belief in God, but largely established on enlightenment principles by secular Protestants and Anglicans.
  2. Defenders of the Catholic position with regard to homosexual marriage, including “experts” on Catholic Answers Live, often decry arguments based on “rights”. Yet it was these very “rights” that afforded the Catholic Church a foothold in an otherwise hostile Protestant nation. Protected by the right of freedom of religion, the Roman Catholic Church has flourished in the United States. If rights are good for the Church, they should be good for the people, all people.
  3. Despite the comments made on Catholic Answers Live from time to time, our government is designed with checks and balances. Interpretation of our constitution is not made in a plebiscite, just as Catholic doctrine and principles are not decided by the believers. Catholic commentators should be well aware of that. This is not to put our government and constitution on the same level as religious belief, of course.
  4. Has anyone really read the decision? I haven’t yet, but I will read it tomorrow. Does it make sense, and is it in tune with the spirit of our constitution?
  5. My comments here do not, in any way, change my originally stated belief that approval of homosexuality is not in line with the strict morality that Christ preached, especially with regard to marriage.
  6. Can we all cool down a bit? This is not the end of the world.
 
Ever see that silly movie (any movie with Swayze is silly by definition) Red Dawn? Where basically you look out the window one day and see that morality-hating, church burning atheist drones have suddenly taken over the USA?

Silly as the movie was, it is a good metaphor for what has actually happened in the USA. We used to be a Christian nation. We used to stand for justice and upright behavior. We used to be a nation of virtue and godliness. Now, those things are ridiculed. Godlessness, vice and perversion are openly celebrated. Communists and frothing haters of God are dictating opinion and policy. Our military men are treated with disrespect. The Christian religion itself is soon to be all but outlawed.

But the Communists did not do it with guns. They did it with Penthouse magazine. They taught everyone to set morality aside. Because the Christian religion and our natural morality are deeply offensive to them… they seek to destroy the Church and stamp out all reverence to God. Then what they worship can be established.

The next American Civil War will probably be over before most people even realize that it started. This time I’m afraid that the upright may not prevail. As the new Abolitionists, Catholics bear the special burden of vigilance. We have to be the conscience of those who must save the Republic.
  • He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
    He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:
    Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
    Our God is marching on. *
 
The argument that so-called homosexual marriage “isn’t hurting anyone else” is a Lie from The Liar. Sin and Evil, no matter who or where, hurts every one, every time.

Satan is very busy recruiting people to do its bidding little by little and now has millions swinging away with pickaxes in a vain and futile attempt to destroy Christ’s Church.

Everyone has “something”, whatever it is, and Satan knows what it is and tries to exploit it calling it “choice”, “love”, “freedom”, “rights” – for the length of our natural lives. No one “gets away” with anything. God knows.

The difference between now and then? More and more people are jumping into the cesspool and what was a bad odor is now starting to reek. Little do they know that which they unite and fight for in misguided “pride” will, in fact, be the hate and prejudice they so despise. So it goes with The Liar, The Deceiver, The Murderer From The Beginning.
 
I suspect I will be attacked from all sides for saying this but I am relieved that the judge in California had the bravery to stand up for the civil rights of our gay population. I personally do not believe that two people of the same gender can be “married” in the way God intends – but I do believe that the “state” should recognize same sex commitment in the same legal way as it does a legal commitment between males and females. Marriage is a “faith-based” term and it should be left to the “faith-based” organizations to recognize them.

I have gay friends, who I know to be faithful, committed individuals. They work hard, pay their taxes and do all things that society asks – except they do not practice in their own privacy what others deem as acceptable sexuality. I can’t say that I necessarily understand it – but I do believe they do not have the ability to chose not to be gay. It is inborn in them. I love them, accept them and pray for them.
 
Originally Posted by Usbek de Perse
Defenders of the Catholic position with regard to homosexual marriage, including “experts” on Catholic Answers Live, often decry arguments based on “rights”.
exoflare said:
Could you expand on this?
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Well, to the best of my recollection, during the original Prop 8 campaign, a standard tactic was to question the logic of people saying they had a “right” to marriage, by saying that it is not all about rights.

My point is that rights are what made it possible for the Catholic Church to flourish in an otherwise hostile soil.
 
Rights come from God. The Catholic Church flourishes because God has created it so.
 
Usbek_de_Perse said:
Well, to the best of my recollection, during the original Prop 8 campaign, a standard tactic was to question the logic of people saying they had a “right” to marriage, by saying that it is not all about rights.

My point is that rights are what made it possible for the Catholic Church to flourish in an otherwise hostile soil.
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Yeah but just because certain genuine rights do exist (I don’t think anyone was disputing that anyway :confused:) doesn’t give people a license to call absolutely anything else they want a “right” with no rational basis.
 
And what defines the rational basis for what a right is? Churches aren’t being forced to marry gays people, gays are being married for secular purposes like taxes and to show their commitment to each other, and only by willing ministers. Marriage isn’t a Catholic thing, it was practiced in other regions long before they even heard of Catholicism or Christianity period. Atheists are allowed to get married without a hitch, why doesn’t THAT violate the sanctity of marriage?
 
Certain people have been so busy trying to eradicate God and Jesus from everything because of “rights”, little knowing that what they are eradicating is Truth which is Right.

Certain people are trying to eradicate the very essence of what Truths and Rights they have. It’s moral suicide.
 
What’s interesting here is that I don’t really read many Catholics who argue this from a constitutional perspective.

Keep in mind that in the scope of this decision, bans on same-sex marriage are only because the voters believe that marriage between a man and a woman is superior to marriage between two people of the same gender.

And that’s basically what the position of the Catholic Church is, right? For primarily religious reasons, gay marriage is bad. It’s a sin that has a grave possibility of sending you to hell. It’s a crime against nature and the way God intended the world to be, and so on.

Unfortunately, the judge ruled in this case that that doesn’t form a rational basis for denying the fundamental right of marriage under the constitution.

And there’s a reason those rights exist. They’re protected in the constitution, and they’re very hard to change – and for good reason. As a nation, we don’t want a tyranny of the majority taking away rights from the oppressed minority. That’s against the highest law of the land, and we’ve made it very hard to take away their fundamental rights – like the right to vote, the right to marry, the right to equal protection under the law, the right to reasonable privacy, freedom of religion, and so on.

And you guys should accept that. Accept that you want to restrict a particular subset of the population from a fundamental right that everyone else has – the right to enter into a lawful marriage, with all the rights, privileges, and responsibilities, the right to adopt, and so on – but work to change it where you’re *supposed *to strip people of some of their fundamental rights. There are channels to that, and they can be found in a new constitutional amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
 
Elizabeth502 said:
What happened today is a sacrilege – not to the Catholic Church per se, or to religious people per se (althought that, too), but to children. That arrogant ruling said today that children do not need a mother and a father, that 2 Dads are just fine, or 2 Moms. It gave the State the legal right to deprive children of their natural born civil rights to parents of different genders. How did it do this? By granting a title that implies equal parenting participation to gay couples, relative to heterosexual couples. It said (by implication) that it doesn’t care whether children have natural parents, have parents of different genders, etc.
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You do realize that studies clearly demonstrate that gay parents are just as effective as straight parents, right?
I also have to say I am deeply disappointed in the Prop 8 defense strategy. It was pathetic. They provided no convincing arguments to the court. Shame on them. They failed to articulate eloquently (which they needed to do in this political climate) why the state has a compelling interest in this definition and in this limitation. Either they were in shock, or they were overconfident, and I’m disgusted. Sad day for California and the nation. Sad day for children and the next generation. Really sad.
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You do realize that these guys were *experts *in the field? They were the best of the best. This was a case with hundreds of million of dollars of campaigning riding on it, and NOM pulled out all the stops.

They did their best. But what could they show? That gay couples are bad parents? Well, the evidence doesn’t show that. The evidence demonstrates that gay couples do just as well as straight parents, on average.

Could they show that marriage isn’t a fundamental right? Well, not really, unless they wanted the judge to ignore a number of Supreme Court decisions on marriage, along with legislated law in all fifty states, in the U.S. government, and in the law stretching back centuries that all imply that marriage is a fundamental right.

I mean, on nearly every question the evidence just isn’t in their favor. It’s not their fault.
 
Suudy said:
Peter Kreeft makes a great point in his talk on homosexuality (see here). He observed that homosexuals are the only group that identify, and take pride in, themselves by what they do, rather than who they are. Alcoholics don’t boast of their alcoholism. Thieves don’t brag of their thievery. And if they do, we think them disordered. But homosexuals take pride in their act, and ask (demand?) that we too celebrate it. What other group identifies and celebrates their actions over their nature?
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How about Catholics? Muslims? Firefighters? Athletes? Military service-members?

They all celebrate what they do.

Example: Being Catholic is all about what you do. You go to Church, you believe in Catholicism, you participate in the sacraments, and so on. Being a firefighter is all about what you do – you fight fires. Being an athlete is all about performing on the field. Serving in the military is all about what you do.

The only reason Peter Kreeft decides to point out that gays are the only sinners who seem to revel in their sin is because he thinks that being gay and engaging in homosexual relationships is wrong. If he believed it was okay, he’d have no problem with gay pride than he does pride in being a military service-member, or athlete, or whatever.

And, of course, being gay has a whole different layer on top of everything, seeing as how the “actions” – engaging in romantic and sexual relations with members of the same sex – begin with an internal attraction that is often associated with an identity. Oftentimes the recognition of the attraction and acceptance of the identity precede any kind of actual sexual activity. So, in that way, it’s a bit different than a fire fighter or a Catholic, and it’s not about “actions” at all, except for the action of coming out.
 
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