Comeuppance isn’t what Rove needs (although it’s fun and should be continued).

It’s a war crimes trial, water torture, and capital punishment without nerve deadeners and while having the US Constitution read at 130 decibels 24/7 up until the execution.

I’d have no problem with calling same-gender ‘marriage’ a ‘civil union’…IF opposite-gender ‘marriages’ are also called ‘civil unions’.

Who’s kidding whom here? If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, what’s the point in calling it a ‘goose’? Separate, but Equal doesn’t cut it. These Democrats who try to slither out of taking a principled stand on the issue are just blowing smoke when they say they believe in EQUAL rights for same-gender couples and then try to convince the LGBTQ community that ‘Marriage’ and ‘Civil Union’ mean the same thing are really speaking to the homophobic community by differentiating between “real” marriage and some kind of “make-believe” partnership.

EQUAL rights means EQUAL rights…not SIMILAR rights. People like Clinton and Obama need to be challenged on their hypocrisy. The only candidates who advocated for GENUINELY Equal rights were Kucinich and Gravel.

Note the phrase, “But it was not this way from the beginning.” where Christ alludes to his previous remarks on the Creator’s intent.

bitblt believes what Christ says here is the authority on marriage.” Comment by bitblt — February 12, 2008 @ 3:32 pm

Bitbit claims to follow the words of Christ when Bitbit complains about same-sex marriage.

Bitbit ignores the words of Christ that don’t support Bitbit’s prejudice. How can Bitbit claim taht Christ is the authority of marriage, but then refuse to follow the dictates of that authority? Bitbit seems to be intentionally blind to Bitbit’s obvious hypocrisy.

Bitbit has proven that Bitbit is a pick & choose “c”hrisitan when it comes to which words of the Bible that Bitbit decides are important.

As for you claim that outlawing re-marriage after a divorce would impose a “theocracy”, that is exactly what is currently happening.

When extremists use some portions of religious texts to suppress same-sex marriage but refuse to follow the other religious texts that outlaw their own behaviour, this makes them one thing, and one thing only: hypocrites.

The truth will set you free, but first it’s going to tick you off.

It’s not marriage. Close, but not exact. It’s also not recognized by different states, as is marriage.

There are important practical and legal implications. Try making a life/death decision on behalf of your CU partner in a state that doesn’t recognize it if you need an example.

FOr those commenters who think ‘marriage’ is a religious term, please tell me why the state issues marriage licences? Why churches don’t adjudicate divorces and property divisions?

It is foremost a civil institution, and as such, should be available to all citizens. Separate but equal is so Jim Crow.

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”… Bill Clinton’s “solution” to gays in the military, supported by Hillary Clinton.

Hillary’s current answer to these betrayals of the gay/lesbian community?? “It was the right thing to do at the time”.

Over time, both in Europe and the US, the religious elements of marriage and the civil aspects of marriage became fused (except in Massachusetts Iwhich is partly why we have gay marriage in that state, but that’s another story).

A study in 2005 by the GAO reported to the Senate that to make civil unions and marriage identical from a legal standpoint would require revisions (and votes) on over 2,000 pieces of federal legislation alone. One simple “statute” to make the two identical from a legal perspective would not work, according to the GAO. So civil unions would remain less than legally identical to marriage.

Beyond that, what it a church was willing to marry two people of the same sex? How would the state handle that without recognizing marriage as between two people, regardless of sex?

The only answer if marriage for all couples, gay or straight. And it wouldn’t be the first time in Western history that a society recognized “gay” marriage; it goes all the way back to Rome (but that’s yet another story).

The U.S. Govt has discriminated against it’s own people before as our history shows. But in the gay marriage issue, it is a religious war using the “State” to carry out the war.

The Constitution, 1st Amendment, grants religious freedom to practice whatever faith you prefer, even Atheism.

This nation WAS NOT founded on Christian pricinciples. Get your historical facts correct. The Founding fathers, who were of DIFFERENT religious faiths, forsaw what a Tyranny of a Majority or a Minority could do to it’s citizens and wrote the 1st Amendment.

This student was correct and a true American and the real heart of what America is supposed to be in asking this question. Rove is not a Patriotic American.

So, if homosexuals cannot bond, Civilly, I could give a crap about a church sanctioning my vows, I will stand out in the open and ALLOW God to officiate, not revealed religion, then why do the Religious Zealots and self righteous TAKE OUR TAX DOLLARS?????

If homosexuals are denied CERTAIN rights under the Constitution, then WHY DO WE HAVE TO PAY TAXES that have a way of being funneled to religious organizations which is a Constitutional violation of the “Separation of Church and State” clauses.

This student is far more intellignet than Rove or his bigoted “good ‘ole white boy” mentality who run America.

Religion in this world, all faiths, have destroyed the “Eden” that the one true God has planted the seeds of life upon. History merely repeats itself with religious wars and control of the masses.

You are free in America to practice your chosen faith, but the Constitution FORBIDS religious persecution of people who do not believe in the “revealed” God, namely the Christian movement.

The “State” has no power to enfoce a Constitutional Ban on same sex marriage just because a tyranny of the majority(Christians) demands it. If America were all Christian but for a lone Atheist, the Constitution would still guarantee that Atheist freedom from Religious persecution.

Christians “HATE” the Constitution because it interferes with their tryannical agenda. God will judge those by their own criteria.

Finally, the Christian Bible warns it’s readers that they will be “deceived.” Who better to deceive than Evil who controls all the world’s religions, creating battles between civilizations, or jihads. Maybe that is something to ponder.

STOP the insane Religious wars and return to reality. Gays POSE NO THREAT to “religious marriage.” It’s a fear tactic Bushco used to win the White House and then flipped their finger at those cowardly religious who got them elected.

STOP the religious IDOLATRY= Religion and it’s symbols!

Seems like this whole thing is a war of words.
“Oooh, don’t say Marriage! That’s our word”
“Oooh, Civil Unions not that, we want Marriage!”

People not wed in a church consider themselves
as married. I have a Marriage License to prove it.

Gays should have the same chances.
In the scheme of life, it don’t really matter.

The biggest guns establish the law without respect to anything else.

Give that King James a break and get an actual history book or two.

Comment by pete — February 12, 2008 @ 4:14 pm

You must have missed that part about how much influence Judeo-Christian beliefs have had on the U.S.?

Many people believe that without the influence of Christianity and the Bible, there would not be a United States of America.

Checkout the facade of the SCOTUS if you’re interest in what is consider a viable criteria for the establishment of law.

Without accountability to the Creator, the biggest guns establish the rule of law.

Like many others have pointed out, there is no legitimate answer to the intelligent question the young lady asked so, typical of the right-wing when they get on their high horse about something, they obfuscate, confuse, straw-man and joke until people just give up.

If you’re referring to Matthew 19:

8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

bitblt believes these verses and has no trouble believing and teaching these words of Christ.

However, “outlawing re-marriage” in the twenty-first century would seem to imply a theocracy.

I don’t think the U.S. is, or has ever been, a theocracy. It is a nation for a Christian people, but not a theocracy.

Commentators on these verses often say that what Christ means when he uses the phrase, “hearts were hard.” is that some men were killing their wives to get out of the marriage. Likely, if “re-marriage,” under the above conditions, were outlawed some men would start killing their wives to get out of the marriage.

Since “outlawing re-marriage” is highly unlikely, doesn’t it make sense to put marriage back in a position of ultra-respect.

Note the phrase, “But it was not this way from the beginning.” where Christ alludes to his previous remarks on the Creator’s intent.

bitblt believes what Christ says here is the authority on marriage.

Do you believe that DS?

newsflash – this is not the “United States of Jesus” nor should it be

newsflash – fighting dark ages battles over superstitious bs is one sure way to screw everything up, for everyone, for good

can we please move forward from the 60’s, and stop distilling everything down to a simpleton’s battle between “god-fearing patriots” and “dirty hippies” – that stuck record’s getting mighty old – in fact it’s been playing my whole damned life, and all it demonstrates is that Americans, on the whole, are kinda slow.

And until you begin to follow the REST of Jesus’s words, and support outlawing re-marriage after divorce, exactly as Jesus said, YOU are only picking and choosing the verses of the Bible that support your prejudice!

No government on earth can force someone to recognize your ‘pick & choose’ approach to the Bible as consistent!

Comment by NthAvenue — February 12, 2008 @ 1:48 pm

This following is Christ speaking in answer to a question asked about divorce. Here he quotes the Genesis account of God presenting the woman to the man.

Matthew 19

4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female, ‘and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

Believe this interpreter should be considered authoritative – at least for all Christians.

Many conservative Christians consider marriage to be the oldest human institution in existence – older than government and older than religion. And as you can see from the quote, Christ says marriage was the intent of the Creator.

Marriage is a man made ceremony.

A marriage is not made by a ceremony – religious of civil – though a ceremony is often involved.. Notice that Christ doesn’t refer to a ceremony though the New Testament does record that He attended a wedding feast. A marriage is made when a man and a woman declare that they intend to live together as man and wife, and this declaration is often done during a wedding ceremony.

Usually in the Old Testament marriage means the man and woman start having sex, and their exclusive husband and wife relationship is recognized by others. This is one of the reasons that marriage will continue to be a relationship between a man an a woman.

No government on earth can force someone to recognize a same-same relationship as a marriage.

These X-tians need to wake the f8@k up and READ their bibles!

Genesis 2:23-24 – 23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. 25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

And you get “marriage” out of that how? Marriage is a man made ceremony. Anyone could interpret those verses that Adam and Eve where to live together in sin.

Adam stated something and GOD supposedly said, “O.K.”