Bush is trying to ban gay marriages nation-wide.... wow.

double post

It never will be right but should they get half the benefits of us just because of this?

Originally posted by QuDDus
I mean just because you decide you wanna be different means all of sudden you should be given certain rights.

Who said they decided anything?

[SirMystiq]

Originally posted by QuDDus
If you wanna be gay that is your life. But don\'t go trying to change shit to fit your lives. If marriage was meant for a man and women then that is what it is meant for.

Be gay live together and be happy but don\'t be trying to change shit so everybody has to conform to your life style.

That is what pisses me off about the gays. They want this and that.

Being gay is something that you choose to do plain and simple. I don\'t have a problem with your choice just keep it too yourself and don\'t try and force me to except it.

YOU TELL EM BOY!!!  
And America is for the WHITE people!!!
Africa is for the BLACK!!!
Mexico is for the MEXICANS!!!

Those damn minorities are just like the gays, always wanting more rights.

[Living-In-Clip]

Originally posted by QuDDus
 
I mean just because you decide you wanna be different means all of sudden you should be given certain rights.

Unlike womens rights, african american rights or such. This is totally different. This you choosing to have sex with the same sex so now everyone must accept it?  I don\'t have a problem with them having sex just don\'t try and change laws to make it right in everyones eyes.

Hypothetical question: Purely hypothetical , what if, we discover that homosexuality is indeed a disorder due to a chemical imbalance in the brain / hormones? Should we continue to make it illegal and punish them for something that they was born with?  I ask this, because your whole arguement is that they choose to be different - what if they are born different? There are quite a few studies that have came dangerously close to proving this . If that\'s the case, then we as a supposed civilized soceity, cannot punish them for a "birth defect". Can we?

Also whatever happened to seperating the church from the state? Marriage is a religious ceremony. However, to play devil\'s advocate, if you get married you share benefits and many other goverment based items. Insurance, benefits, life insurance and so on. So, while marriage is a religious ceremony, it also has ties to the state aspect. Being married does carry goverment benefits - so that\'s an issue.

That\'s just two points. As for my actual opinion, I have no problem with it. Do I think we need to amend the consitituion? No. I say leave it up to the states to decide for each state. You say people aren\'t ready for homosexuality to become mainstream (sorry, it already is, otherwise \'Queer eye for the Straight Guy\' wouldn\'t be a hit). Well, the best way to tell is let the people vote. That\'s what democracy is, let the people decide what they are ready for. Let the heterosexual\'s vote, let the homosexual\'s vote in each state.  Let each state decide, I\'m sure some state\'s won\'t allow it (Kentucky for example) and I\'m sure some will (Cali, for example).

 Then again, when was the last time the American people got to make the decision? This effects everyone, therefor everyone should have an effect on the outcome.  

Oh yeah and I still want an answer to my first question!

Just my two cents.
/ /

[SirMystiq]

Today I had to write a sarcastic and Ironic essay for a discussion and the topic was ...gay marriages...

     I was glad to hear that our President has decided to amend the Constituion and ban gay marriages. This not only proves his intelligence, but also his honesty and great leadership. Usually the Constitution is amended in order to protect the American Citizens rights. But this is one of the few times that it\'s necessary, there is no other way to stop the evil creatures from imposing their homosexuality on us by getting married. The institution of marriage will be hurt, and to those who claim that the divorce rate is at it\'s highest have no clue of what is going on. In fact, why stop there? We should just ban all the people who look, feel and love differently.
     We should ban inter-racial marriages also. It\'s equally disguisting to see a black man marry a white woman as a man marrying another man. It\'s not normal for this to happen. We should also ban marriages of elderly couples because they will die soon anywyas.
     Bush should ban the black, Hispanic, and Asian\'s rights. There is no space for people different that us and we shouln\'t accept it. We shouln\'t allow women or gays to serve in our army, it doesn\'t matter how patriotic they are. If they are not like Mr. Bush and the majority of us, they shouln\'t be American in the first place.
     Mr. Bush has done a great deal for this country, even if he did lie. He is right now trying to amend the Constitution because of his religious values, which are honest and Christian like, which the Constitution it self bans.
     It\'s pure coincedence that his proposal is around the time of re-election. Let the poor be poor, and the ones that aren\'t like us should be banned, that is Mr. Bush\'s and the Republican way. The way America should be.


....Yup, got full credit for it!! And I took some ideas from "A Modest Proposal" by Mr. Swift...Let\'s all eat babies!!

[Living-In-Clip]

No offense, bud, but if you got full credit for that essay there is something severely wrong with the American school system.

Originally posted by Living-In-Clip
No offense, bud, but if you got full credit for that essay there is something severely wrong with the American school system.

Anyway, sort of OT on the subject... Our founding fathers meant for the US Constitution to be ammended/examined/updated every 20-50 years as they knew that the future would make certain ammendments obsolete and there would be a need to create new ammendments.  For example - The 2nd and 3rd Ammendments are outdated and should be removed IMO.  We no longer need a standing "militia" - we have our armed services.  Back when this was written the US had no standing army.  

On the other side of the issue, new issues arise that need to be addressed by the Constitution.  Some people think of the Constitution as this sacred document that shouldn\'t be touched and if that was the case, why did our founding fathers design it so that it could be ammended?

[SirMystiq]

Well It was for a discussion and we only had 15 minutes to come up with something...

Originally posted by GigaShadow
Anyway, sort of OT on the subject... Our founding fathers meant for the US Constitution to be ammended/examined/updated every 20-50 years as they knew that the future would make certain ammendments obsolete and there would be a need to create new ammendments.  For example - The 2nd and 3rd Ammendments are outdated and should be removed IMO.  We no longer need a standing "militia" - we have our armed services.  Back when this was written the US had no standing army.  

On the other side of the issue, new issues arise that need to be addressed by the Constitution.  Some people think of the Constitution as this sacred document that shouldn\'t be touched and if that was the case, why did our founding fathers design it so that it could be ammended?

They also in designing it made it very hard to ammend, in such a way that it wouldn\'t be changed to reflect passing trends and popular opinions of the times, but rather to address universal issues that wouldn\'t or shouldn\'t shift over time.  

Another things that the founding fathers talked about, by the way, was tyranny of the majority.  They were afraid the majority would use the democratic system to infringe on the rights of minority groups.  That is exactly what I see happening here.  Even if the majority is opposed to granting gay people the equal right to marriage, that doesn\'t make it right.  You could go back in time in our nation and find times when people thought allowing an interracial couple to marry was equally offensive.  The fact is, things change, and the trend is towards homosexuality becoming more and more accepted.  That is pretty clear just from looking at its increasing role in popular culture.  That\'s why in the same way, a constitutional amendment, in my opinion, is completely unneccesary, and is just overkill and inappropriate.  Of course, I don\'t think such an amendment would ever pass anyway.

I think the answer to this question should be simple.  The government should grant civil unions to homosexuals.  These would give the same rights that any heterosexual married couple has now.  At the same time, the government should only grant civil unions to heterosexual couples as well.  Marriage is a religious issue.  Let a church marry two people.  The government needs only to acknowledge that they are together for the sake of the various benefits that go along with marriage, so why should they do more than that for either kind of couple?  Marriage could then be performed by an appropriate person not related to the government.

Originally posted by shockwaves
They also in designing it made it very hard to ammend, in such a way that it wouldn\'t be changed to reflect passing trends and popular opinions of the times, but rather to address universal issues that wouldn\'t or shouldn\'t shift over time.  

Another things that the founding fathers talked about, by the way, was tyranny of the majority.  They were afraid the majority would use the democratic system to infringe on the rights of minority groups.  That is exactly what I see happening here.  Even if the majority is opposed to granting gay people the equal right to marriage, that doesn\'t make it right.  You could go back in time in our nation and find times when people thought allowing an interracial couple to marry was equally offensive.  The fact is, things change, and the trend is towards homosexuality becoming more and more accepted.  That is pretty clear just from looking at its increasing role in popular culture.  That\'s why in the same way, a constitutional amendment, in my opinion, is completely unneccesary, and is just overkill and inappropriate.  Of course, I don\'t think such an amendment would ever pass anyway.

It is all in the interpretation of the Constitution - which the Supreme Court has in its power.  They proclaimed themselves the only entity that shall be allowed to interpret it.  This happened back in the early 1800\'s so there is really no use in arguing who is as fault for that.  In essence the Supreme Court made themselves the most powerful branch of government seeing as they can rule something unconstitutional even if it isn\'t.  The other two branches don\'t have that luxury.

The acceptance of homosexuality is debatable.  The media, I am not referring to the news, but rather the entertainment industry portrays it as acceptable when in fact most of America disapproves of it.

I do agree with you that they should be given Civil Unions and you are right marriage is mostly a religious ceremony.  What happened to seperation of church and state - as I said in another post let\'s not kid ourselves.  Yesterday the courts ruled that Roman Catholic charities have to cover birth control in the health insurance they give to their employees.  I don\'t agree with the Catholic stance on birth control, but who do the California Supreme Court Justices think they are by telling a religious organization what it can and can not do?

True, although I never said it was unconstitutional.  I think it very well could be.  I just think that such action would be against what the intentions of those who set up the constitution, and basically wouldn\'t be an appropriate ammendment.

And can ammendments be declared unconstitutional?  I thought the whole point was that they were changing the constitution and thus altering what is and what isn\'t unconstitutional.

As for the acceptance of homosexuality...it prolly is debatable.  However, over the course of the past 30 or 40 years, I think it\'s very safe to say that it\'s much more out in the open.  There is less danger with being openly gay than there used to be, and it\'s not as much of a taboo subject anymore.

And as for the seperation of church and state, I think what the state can or should be able to impose on religious organizations is a completely different story.  I just think that in this case the problem is solved if they take themselve out of the religious and moral aspect of the issue, and let that be decided by the individual religious groups.  That doesn\'t seem like a government issue to me.

Originally posted by shockwaves
True, although I never said it was unconstitutional.  I think it very well could be.  I just think that such action would be against what the intentions of those who set up the constitution, and basically wouldn\'t be an appropriate ammendment.

And can ammendments be declared unconstitutional?  I thought the whole point was that they were changing the constitution and thus altering what is and what isn\'t unconstitutional.

See my original post again - I added some things...

Anyway the 18th amendment was repealed by the 21st amendment (Prohibition), but that was primarily the legislative branch.

Clarification -

One of the Supreme Court’s most important responsibilities is to decide cases that raise questions of constitutional interpretation. The Court decides if a law or government action violates the Constitution. This is known as judicial review and enables the Court to invalidate both federal and state laws when they conflict with the Constitution. Since the Supreme Court stands as the ultimate authority in constitutional interpretation, its decisions can be changed only by another Supreme Court decision or by a constitutional amendment.

Does anyone else see anything wrong with this?

Yeah, I saw.  I editted my post too

Well, I think the intended check on that was that if the Supreme Court is able to interpret something in a way that it wasn\'t meant to be, and the legislative branch disagrees with this, they can ammend the constitution to take out any room for interpretation.  Also, can supreme court justices be taken out of office?

The Supreme court may have the last say on things, but they express the view of the president and past presidents.  Who do you think put them there.  Plus they have to be approved by congress.  It\'s not like any joe schmoe can waltz in there and say things are unconstitutional.