Marriage Supporters Introduce New Argument to Stop Amendment

True, through the Bible, God does speak of man laying with man and woman laying with woman as being an abomination and, naturally, He would not support marriage between a man with another man and a woman with another woman but God doesn't appear to support or oppose marriage at all. He just basically says that marriage is for those who cannot remain abstinent from sex (this is my humble interpretation of I Corinthians 7: 1-16). But that is neither here nor there. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

John amazingly writes: "You seem to be facing a lot of lightning caused wildfires. Ancients believed lightning came from divine origins. It all boils down to righeousness and wickedness. " Funny, John, that all those wildfires are from the CONSERVATIVE portions of our state, and the liberal areas are mostly untouched. So what does that suggest to you, John? Is your god (note the SMALL g - used with derision) so achingly pathetic and powerless he's lost his aim? Or is he striking the conservative section down because they're so conservative? Considering that all the flooding going on (your mythical god used floods, too, if I'm not mistaken) in all those RED states - I guess my conjecture is proven true: your god hates conservatives!

One has to what a homophobe like Pat is doing trolling Gay message boards... What I'd like to see happen is for us to start hunting our enemies down, and then destroying their lives. Find out every nasty little thing about them (like Scientology does) and then using it to ensure that they could never raise their verminous little heads in public ever again. These people will never quit. Even if they gave us a federal Constitutional ammendment guaranteeing us full equality and anti-discrimination protections, these people would STILL be attacking us every chance they have. Playing nice with them hasn't EVER gotten us anywhere but worse off than we were before. Maybe if there was some cost to them fighting us - they'd quit - cowards that they are.

(Continued from below) Also, as God later allows for multiple marriages and concubinage (there was no problem with Jacob having two wives AND a pair of concubines; Solomon also got to have roughly 1000 wives and concubines), the Bible provides a very weak foundation for the standard right-wing marriage argument. Further, the modern notion of marriage only came into being approximately 1000 years ago. When it did, it was almost exclusively for royalty and other nobles who had property and large amounts of other wealth so that marriage was much closer to a modern-day business merger rather than any sense of love and companionship. (In fact, both spouses were free to carry out discreet romantic and/or sexual trysts with other people. Women were usually more restricted during their childbearing years but as long as they provided a legitimate heir by their husbands, many of the Ladies would carry on with as much or as little discretion as the Lords.)

It must be hard to be Pat. Pat, the Bible does NOT state categorically and without exception that marriage is "between one man and one woman". Go on, take a few minutes and find ANY passage that comes close to confirming that definition. Shoot, I'll be generous, take a few DAYS to do it. You will NOT find any such passage. The closest passage comes in Genesis 2:24 ("Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh."--KJV) but that is, somewhat interestingly, the SECOND creation story (the one in which Eve was created from Adam's rib). The FIRST creation story (from Genesis 1) makes no such contention, noting that "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." (Gen 1:27--KJV) BUT, the problem with both stories is that neither actually uses the m-word (the terms husband and wife are used, but not "marriage").

Living in Massachusetts here, we find it amazing that instead of passing laws through the legislature, and getting a certain number of votes pro and against, that the citizens in Californis get to CHANGE THE STATE CONSTITUTION by a simple referendum, thus taking away the rights of the legislature to make law. If the laws that the legislature makes are illegal, or unconstitutional. one would certainly hope the Court would step in and overturn those illegal laws. We thought the "Law and Order" crowd would be more pro-legislature, as they always claim to be. Maybe going down this road is EASIER for them to get their way. We hope the Court dissallows this referendum as unconstitutional.

How hard is it to understand that equal rights is for everyone Pat. You are not special or better than anyone else. Nor are any of your followers. At what point in your beliefs does it say that you become "god" and are allowed to judge others? Separation of church and state, it's a protection for us all.

John: Even if one were to assume the existence of an absolute truth, who are you to judge or decide what that truth is? What proof of divine mandate do you possess that entitles you to codify your particular religious beliefs into secular law, to the detriment of others? This is exactly why religion has no place in the foundations of democratic government. Once people start to make the argument that everybody must abide by certain rules simply because "God says so," then one can justify any form of discrimination. After all, we've heard the very same arguments against same-sex marriage before, only then it was against interracial marriage. And let's not forget whites used the Bible as justification for slavery. It's so easy for evangelical Christians to look back on those arguments and distance themselves from the racism of those views, but it is the height of self-righteous conceit to say that, THIS TIME, you've got it right about gays and lesbians, when history says otherwise.

The focal point is what is truth? Maybe there is a God and maybe there are many gods or maybe there is none. If there is a God and you choose not believe in Him or her, you still are subject to that God whether you like it or not. God can be one who is like a Santa Claus or like a mean ogre or pleased with some things and mad at other things. Being divine, that God has power that man does not possess. You seem to be facing a lot of lightning caused wildfires. Ancients believed lightning came from divine origins. It all boils down to righeousness and wickedness. Which is which? And is there a divine being that loves righteousness and hates wickedness?

Well, Pat, that's nice for you that you believe your god has such rules. I assume you'll abide by them and not marry someone of your same sex. The god that other people believe in does support everyone's human right to marry the person they love. Of course many other people don't believe in any god at all, so your argument is moot. Why? Because the United States is not a theocracy, it is a Republic based on a secular constitution (in which the word god is nowhere to be found). So our laws--marriage or otherwise--must be based on what our state and federal constitutions say, not what some people believe their god(s) would want. You should thank your god for that. I'll thank the wisdom of our Founding Fathers.