Boy shuns Pledge of Allegiance for Gay Rights

StoryBasically, a smart kid (skipped the 4th grade), has decided that he will not stand and recite the pledge of allegiance in school until gay people can get married.Will Phillips says that he cannot recite "liberty and justice for all" while there is obviously not liberty and justice for all.At first I thought this was more parents getting their kid to forward their own ideals. But I don't think that anymore after listening to this kid. He obviously is old enough to think for himself and represent his own ideals.Personally, I hope this "trend" catches on and kids across the nation band together to refuse to stand for the pledge of allegiance until there actually is liberty and justice for all. It's sad that I have to refer to "standing up for liberty and justice for all" as a fad or trend...It doesn't matter if "marriage" is defined as being between a man and a woman. If so, then in order to have liberty for all, that definition must change. The facts are that gay couples do not have the following liberties:-having BOTH of them be recognized as legal guardians of their children in all states
-having all other rights of one parent being passed onto the other parent in case of death/sickness/whatever
-being allowed to visit their chosen partner in hospitals
-being allowed to serve in the military without having to hide anything about their personal lives
-not being treated as 'lesser' or 'unequal' to anyone who actually is "married"Basically, they should be allowed to get married and have the right to adopt without needing to create some silly "the same but different" terminology.Edited by Stile, : Added "for Gay Rights" to title to make it more clear

Very smart, yes.I was expecting a bit more traffic on this topic being all political and gay rights and all.Perhaps I should have gone with my first instinct and just placed this in the News forum. Ah well, sometimes you just miss

This is exactly what everyone means when they say "Gays should have the right to marry."This stipulation you're talking about already exists. Allowing gays to marry wouldn't alter such a stiuplation.In order to get into the case you're saying you want to avoid, allowing gays to marry would have to follow with a stipulation that all current priests would be forced to marry gays within their churches.No one is proposing such a strange and unneccessary ruling.No one wants or even cares about such a ridiculous breach of the priests' religious right.People just want gays to be able to get married.

The problem is that you're not even looking at your own numbers right.Let's take your 85% efficiency rating. This is because male-female couples will produce 100 children, yet only be willing (or possibly "able") to take care of 85, correct?
Leaving 15 to be taken care of by "the system."But if we apply the same logic to gay couples we see that gay couples produce zero children, yet they are willing (and able) to take care of some of the children that enter "the system."This doesn't give gay couples an efficiency rating of 0% the way you're looking at your numbers. This gives gay couples an efficiency rating of infinite (however many they take care of divided by 0). Which is way, way over 100%.The realistic projection is the absolute opposite of what you're trying to claim "may" take place.Children do not have a right to be taken care of by their biological parents.
Children have a right to be taken care of by loving parents. Biological parents just get first dibs, that's all.As soon as a biological parents does not love their child (abuses them, ignores them... whatever), that child has the right to be taken away from those idiot parents and raised by loving caregivers. This is how the system works. This is how things are. This is reality.If you do not agree, please provide a single example where you think a child should have a right to unloving biological parents over loving caregivers. Please be advised that if you do come up with an example.. you're advocating child abuse.If you are unable to do this (and I hope you aren't, I don't want to think that you advocate child abuse), it is obvious that the priority is loving caregivers. Biological parents just get the first crack at it, that's all.

But those advocating gay adoption rights are not advocating that children should be removed from their biological parents, they are simply advocating that abused/neglected children should be placed in loving family environments.So what is it you disagree with?

No. They will be allowed to fight for the adoption of a child produced by one half of the couple.Like what happens with straight couples who do the same thing.Couple A - Male A and Female A
Couple B - Male B and Female BIf Male A and Female B have a child, isn't this the exact same scenario you're describing?That is:
Male A has his own family.
Female B has her own family.The answer is that neither has "the right to adopt" the child.
The answer is that both have "the right to fight for" adoption of the child.This is what custody of children is all about. This happens everyday and is worked out all the time.Gay couples wouldn't suddenly get "the right to adopt" the child in this situation, they would only get "the right to fight for" adoption of the child, the same as everyone else gets.You seriously thought that if we had two males as a couple, and one of them had a baby with a female... that the two males would get to adopt the child without any say-so from the female? Really??Absolutely no one is advocating such a ridiculous system. The system is already in place and in use for dealing with such situations.If there is a custody battle, then it is determined the way all current custody battles are determined. Through the existing court system which investigates and decides which biological parent would provide the better environment.

I am asking those who know more about the US court system. I don't even know much about the Canadian court system, so I'm at a total loss here. Latest Gay Rights In-The-Courts News StoryWhat, exactly does this mean?If the gay-side wins... then Proposition 8 would be immediately repealed (gays would be able to marry in San Franciso)?Regardless of which side wins... how likely is it that things will move to the Supreme Court next? Any ballpark figures on how long that would be?These are the important questions as I see them (from the article):

quote:

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Jennifer Pizer, marriage director for the gay law advocacy group Lambda Legal asks "Can the state reserve the esteemed language and status of marriage just for heterosexual couples, and relegate same-sex couples to a lesser status? Are there any adequate public interests to justify reimposing such a caste system for gay people, especially by a majority vote to take a cherished right from a historically mistreated minority?"

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This is what the article says the Judge will be looking at:

quote:

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Among the questions Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker plans to entertain are whether sexual orientation can be changed, how legalizing gay marriage affects traditional marriages and the effect on children of being raised by two mothers or two fathers.

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I don't, specifically, see how the Judge's focal points come down on the larger issue (Pizer quote). Do I just not speak legaleze very well? Or is this court already not really looking at the important aspects?

I agree completely. I understand. The ban went into effect immediately because it was a vote, which cannot be appealed like a court ruling. So even a court ruling against the ban will not go into effect immediately because it was (obviously) done in the court system and therefore can be appealed. I see. So one more step between here and Supreme Court. I agree that this will most likely (eventually) make it to the Supreme Court for a final ruling.And thanks for the ball-park time-line, it was exactly the sort of thing I was curious about. I see. In a way, the judge may be looking forward and seeing that nailing down some definitions would be helpful for further clarification of the issues. I can also understand how definitive, evidence-based answers to those question will lead to an easier and clearer approach to the "more important" issues I was talking about.Thanks for the answers, and I will be interested in reading the progress and updates of your new thread.

Thanks for the input, I was hoping you would chime in as well. Interesting.Thanks for all the details.The decisions of the higher courts seem to be promising. If everything continues, equal rights may just be "a matter of time" (5 years perhaps). Which sucks for those experiencing the inequality at present... but I suppose this is just the way things must progress within our systems.

Yes, I think this is what everything is leading up to.But, these things take time.Why do they take time? I'm sure there's lots of reasons. But the main one I can see is that these things take time as an attempt to ensure that "non-important" issues don't clutter up the limited time that SCOTUS (or other top courts) have.That is, if the gay rights issues went right to SCOTUS, immediately, because you and I say it's important... then what's to stop Billy Bob's fight for allowing him to own 10 cows instead of only 8 cows on this farm from going right to SCOTUS, immediately, because he says it's "important"?SCOTUS can only do so many court rulings every year. There has to be a system in place to make sure that only those that are "really important" get through.The current system isn't perfect, and (as we see here) it actually slows down some things that should be hurried along. But the system does work to filter out all sorts of un-important things. Which, if they were included, I'm sure gay-rights would be looking somewhere 50-60 years from now instead of maybe 2-5.I'm not defending the current system, I just understand why it needs to be the way it is. Slow sucks. But without everything in place that makes this slow... in reality it would be even slower (so many other "non-important" issues would also suddenly flood into the system).

I'm actually kinda looking forward to reading through the eventual judge's decision (likely 150+ pages) and see how many times the judge has to make up some politically correct way to say "these people are retarded."The Kitzmiller/Dover decision had me laughing pretty good