its been a while...so why not this?

[jon_ster]

most of my friends are liberal and i hate being attacked for thinking differently. it gets really annoying after a while.  i never really give them a hard time so why can't it be chill.  the past few months ive pretty much been in the shadows of this election. i wanted to be more into it but every time politics came up i was too afraid. all because

Comments

[beauty_is_now]

in June the California Supreme Court overturned the last ban on gay marriage.

prop 8 takes that away.

beyond that, though, it "takes away" rights in the same sense that not allowing women to vote prior to the Suffrage movement "took away" their right to vote. they never really had it, exactly. but they should have.

so yes, gays have not always had the right to marry, and thus this measure is not necessarily "taking away" rights, per say. but it's DENYING rights. and as of June, it's also taking away.

it's unconstitutional. our Supreme Court ruled it so. and yet people pushed hard enough to put it back on the ballet.

what makes you think it ISN'T taking away rights?

[jon_ster]

but what about the people that didnt want it in the first place. my understanding of 8 is that the supreme court legalized gay marrige then people of california didnt want it so we had to vote protecting the definition of marrige as man and woman and it passed. but it isnt taking away the domestic partnerships and domestic partnerships have all the rights given to a married couple

people just want to protect the definition and i dont believe that it intendsto take away anything

[beauty_is_now]

first of all, domestic partnerships do not have all the same rights given to a married couple. it's true they have many. but not all.

and second of all, who gives a shit about semantics unless there is some bigger message behind it? again, back to my very first point. separation of church and state. let the church decide whether or not to acknowledge a marriage. government should not play any part in that definition. there are many churches that do in fact acknowledge gay marriage. and many that obviously do not. that's between you, and your church, and God. NOT government.

by solidifying your religiously-based definition of marriage within the scope of government, you're contradicting that separation of church and state.that's why my biggest argument against prop 8 isn't that gay people should be allowed to marry, or that this is even discrimination (i totally believe it is, as i expressed earlier). but i think the most important argument is that it completely contradicts what we stand for as a nation. even with

[compose_4_me]

being a little less harsh than the one above me ;), here is what really happened