Try to keep hatred out of our Constitution.

at the current time the following rights and protections are being denied a segment of our population"

• equal protection under the law.
• the right to equal access to healthcare.
• the right to equal inheritance.
• the right to adopt children.
• the right to visitation and decisionmaking based on partnership considerations (for example:wishes regarding DNR and others).
• the right to equal protection in spousal abuse situations.

There are many more. The GAO Report listed in the OP documents over 1000 specific Federal Statutes that are dependant on marital status. There are many more State, Local and contractual limitations than even those.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Oh. Then your point's irrelevant.At best, if they are motivated by hate, but expressing it through something entirely unhateful, then they're doing a real crap job at hating. This is, essentially, the same saying that the act of reserving a water fountain for white people does not constitute hatred towards those who cannot use the water fountain. And I call bullshit on it.While a person may not be frothing at the mouth and screaming at whoever tries to use that water fountain, (although this thread alone would indicate that they often do,) the act of excluding somoene puts them in a position of inferiority and dehumanization. It is exercising power and degredation over another person for no other reason than to be a douchebag.If that's not a hateful action, I have no clue what is. That's not what you said originally. You said there were those on both sides who are motivated by hate.Why would someone's hatred motivate them to promote gay marriage?

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"We had survived to turn on the History Channel
And ask our esteemed panel, Why are we alive? And here's how they replied:
You're what happens when two substances collide
And by all accounts you really should have died."
-Andrew Bird

I said nothing about anyone holding a monopoly on morality. You apparently believe that if homosexuals can't marry, then they are second class citizens. I realize someone said married people have "rights" that the unmarried don't have, but you don't seem concerned about heterosexual single people being second class citizens. I have a lot of trouble seeing how withholding marriage from homosexuals makes them second class citizens.Now, if you want to class those who call homosexuals names and publicly demean them as those who hate them, then that's fine. Call it that. But this is not about insulting homosexuals, this is about a legislative battle over the definition of marriage. I'm probably just wasting my breath, but I wish that name-calling wasn't the standard mode of battle for legislative conflicts.

BUT, those heterosexual people can choose to marry if they would like.And the rights are designed for couples, which obviously doesn't apply to a single person.I would agree that screaming and talking about hate is counter productive.This is really much ado about nothing if you ask me.Gay marriage wouldn't change anyone's life in the slightest unless they were a gay person who wanted to marry

Now you're talking about reason, which clearly has nothing to do with such issues. The religious right wants to maintain as much control of the government as possible. They've had it good for a long time here in North America. They don't want to lose it.Of course, once homosexual marriages are allowed, then they've lost, anyway. I'm not sure what they've lost and what harm it's going to do them, but they'll have lost.

Truthlover, you nailed it....This is a definite POTM

perhaps not. but legislating based on a religion that calls for the death of the group being legislated against is another story.*as far as i know* singles can adopt. but they can't have had a relationship change in the last year or something. Edited by brennakimi, : added **ed material. just in case someone wants to jump on me for being ill-informed.

No, it's not. There is no comparison between marriage and a water fountain. Everyone has to drink. Being married is nothing but an adjective or legal definition. No one has to marry, and if no one was legally married, nothing would change in this world but taxes. We've had a couple marriages at our village where we forgot to go get the couples legally married, because it's nothing but a piece of paper that we use for taxes.If taxes are the problem, then the tax laws can be changed without homosexuals marrying. No it's not. Everyone has to drink. Marriage traditionally means a lifetime relationship between a male and a female. Shoot, in ancient tradition, it pretty much meant the male owned the female. Thank God it's been redefined since then.You're wanting, and so are many others, to redefine it again. Accusing those who don't want to redefine it with you of hatred seems wrong to me. Saying that people are being demeaned or discriminated against because they can't have their relationship legally called marriage seems ridiculous to me. I do think there are those on both sides motivated by hate (or at least by fear that looks like hate). I don't think the act of promoting or being against same sex marriages is hatred one way or the other. I do think the name calling, the language used in the political debate, and the actions of protestors on both sides are fueled by hate (or fear that looks a lot like it).

And they can have their own, lovely, blacks-only water fountain just two feet away. Hurray, they can drink!Of course, even that, under these terms, is being generous. After all, while everyone has to drink, nobody has to drink from a public water fountain. Yes, we can create a delightful separate, yet equal system.See above, re: water fountains. Others can. They can't.If that doesn't add up to discrimination in your eyes, I think we're at an impasse. Yes, you said that already. And while I agree that hatred can be (and often is) a motivation for name-calling, I still don't get how it would be a motivation for promoting gay marriage.

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"We had survived to turn on the History Channel
And ask our esteemed panel, Why are we alive? And here's how they replied:
You're what happens when two substances collide
And by all accounts you really should have died."
-Andrew Bird

Well, at face value, there's nothing about Christianity that should call for the death of those being legislated against. On the other hand, Christians with governmental authority do have a history of using the death penalty against homosexuals.I'd be frightened of Christians with governmental authority if I was someone who upset them. Oh, come to think about it, since Christians have called government agencies to tell them lies about me, published false stories about me on the internet, testified lies about me in court, and, in fact, misused a position of governmental authority against dear friends of mine, I guess I am someone who ought to be frightened if Christians get governmental authority.I agree with what you say above, but I can't agree that defining marriage as between a man and wife is hatred. It's just not.

I'm by no means a Constitution authority, but my impression is that the existing amendments are all about granting rights. The prominent attempt otherwise in the past, was the later repealed amendment prohibiting alcohol. We know how that one worked out. Now the Christian right is pushing a new prohibition amendment.I don't think the marriage amendment has any chance of making it though the rigorous process that is the route to becoming part of the U.S. Constitution. You will not even come close to getting the required number of states to ratify it.As a side discussion, I wonder what happens if an amendment is ratified to become part of the U.S. Constitution, and it conflicts with a pre-exiting part of the Constitution (ie. Bill of Rights). I presume the later law overrides the earlier law.Perhaps the Congressional/Presidential passing of the marriage amendment might work out to be a good thing. Send it out to the states for ratification consideration. I think the resulting uproar will be a serious blow to the Christian right, and the neo-con movement in general.Moose-----"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." - John Kenneth Galbraith

We were at an impasse when we started. I only hoped that maybe it would settle down to a more friendly impasse. It doesn't. Marriage is just a word. Gosh, you're determined to make sure that I said this, whether I did or not. I will give you this, because this I did mean:Some involved in the fight to promote same sex marriage are involved in it because they are part of the homosexual/anti-homosexual battle. If emotions weren't involved, they wouldn't be involved, either.There are political sides. People on those political sides get involved in political battles, because they are part of the battle, whether or not the issure really matters to them. For most, it's just a battle. For those who protest and march, many go over the edge, it becomes life to them and the emotions are extreme and unreasonable. On both sides.

This is a good point, I think. In fact, the constitution is not really a document of law, but it defines government rather than establishing law. It gives congress the right to establish law, but it doesn't really establish law itself.The amendments do establish some law in order to preserve rights, which seems to me a justifiable reason for putting laws into a document that is not meant to be a set of laws. Preventing behaviors is supposed to be in the laws, not in the constitution, because it ought to be easy to change such limits on freedom if we decide we made a mistake earlier.I wrote this off the top of my head in response to your rather fascinating post, so I apologize in advance if it turns out to be stupid.

but there is a comparison. everyone has to drink to live. and everyone has a right to the pursuit of happiness. for some that includes marriage. by only allowing certain people to call themselves married and more importantly only allowing certain people the rights and privileges that marriage brings, you have significantly inhibited their rights and thus their "equal protection".there is more on the line than taxes. let's go with *drumroll* immigration.we allow people who fall in love and marry people from other countries to bring these people home (to this country) to live with them. we allow these 'love immigrants' to become citizens. however. this privilege currently only extends to people who fall in love with exotics of the opposite sex because we only recognize opposite-sex marriages. what if i went to some other country and met the most amazing woman ever. what if she was an upright and responsible citizen, had a high iq and good genes and a skill-set to rival donald trump (just in case anyone wants another excuse to exclude her). what if i wanted to invite her home with me? i couldn't marry her and get a green card for her because i just happen to have the same genitals that she does.further, let's discuss end of life wishes. say i've lived with my imaginary girlfriend for 60 years. we're more than common law married, our friends, doctors, lawyers, etc have known of our relationship for the whole time, but we could never marry. my family opposes my choice of companion, though and when i die (or worse, go into a vegitative state), my family presumes to make my medical decisions even though my girlfriend, my friends, my doctors, and my lawyers have known my wishes (but, say, i forgot to make a will or maybe my family decides that my will is wrong or some crazy thing). say my family has more and better lawyers than i. my family has a funeral for me and buries me (say i wanted to be cremated) and prevents my girlfriend from attending. then, to make everything worse, my family claims my estate which i promised to my girlfriend. (this was in the news recently with two gentlemen.)do you not see that there is more here than taxes?

Well no, it's also a standard of legal treatment. Jar posted a fairly complete list of everything marriage entails further up the thread, if you'd care to take a gander. Some, maybe many, of those who promote it are also motivated by hate.You may not have meant it how it came off, but you did say it. Well, good thing you're around to tell them what really matters to them.

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"We had survived to turn on the History Channel
And ask our esteemed panel, Why are we alive? And here's how they replied:
You're what happens when two substances collide
And by all accounts you really should have died."
-Andrew Bird