“It’s beyond stupid. Sexual identity and orientation is biologically determined.”

Oh really? Care to provide some proof of that assertion?

Look, I’ll keep an open mind. I am aware of recent scientific studies that seem to suggest a biological component, but the science is far, far from settled on this issue.

Civilr rights as they are commonly defined are not subject to votes.

Therefore, if Marriage was a “civil right” it would never have been the subject of a vote by the people.

Your over-reaching at #56! I never said that.

Ralph,

Well, it’s pretty obvious that judges can’t WRITE legislation! Any 5th grader know this.
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And yet you keep repeating the stupid meme that they legislate from the bench. Better get a fifth grader to explain it all to you.

The term “legislating from the bench” has always referred to over-reaching by the judicial branch. When judges make interpretations that clearly intrude into areas that are the purview of the legislative branch, they are in effect legislating from the bench.
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So in other words they are interpreting the Constitutuions WHICH IS THEIR FUNCTION and when you disagree. YOU call it legislating from the bench which you already aknowleged is basically stupid. Good job. When they agree with YOU they are doing their job and when they DISAGREE with you then you just criticise them by using a meme which is ignorant. Ralph is right. You just call it legislating from the bench because YOU DISAGREE. We arent going to do away with the court system and just ask YOU what society ought to do.

Judges are human and they can’t help being influenced by their own prejudices, moral beliefs, political leanings, etc. Most of them do a great job in discharging their judicial duties, but some are clearly out of bounds in their interpretations of existing law and legal precedent.
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And you got your degree in constitutional law WHERE again? Oh you dont have one? Imagine my suprise. You can show yourself out in disgrace. It isnt YOUR job to decide the courts are doing something WRONG just because they disagree with you.

Just look at the U.S. Supreme Cour’t decision that allowed the taking of private property! Thank you judge Souter!
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A good example. I completely disagree with this ruling. Yet I didnt start demonizing the court and make up some stupid meme about legislating from the bench as if the country ought to do away with the Courts and let ME decide what the law should be. Trust me NO ONE IN THIER RIGHT MIND thinks YOU ought to be the one to make the calls either.

Race is an immutable characteristic. It can’t be equated to a person’s sexual orientation
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REALLY? Then you can PROVE that sexual orientation is NOR an immutable characterisic inherent in ones nature? Cough that proof up. Since the rightwing has been desperately looking for JUST such proof you will become a Wingnut hero. Good luck with that.

The people of California have spoken.
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We dont vote on Rights if the PEOPLE of Mississippi could SPEAK miscegenation law would most likely still on the books.

Rights spoken of in the consitution are protected by the courts. Laws CANNOT be made that conflict with the Constitution. IF the courts say the 14th amendment applies then no initiative can over rule it. We get you are a moron and dont really EVER know what you are talking about but dont you get tired of embarassing yourself by constantly parading your ignorance around in such a public manner?

Go check the other thread…
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Actually NO Timmeh you stupid twit. You have made statements of FACT like saying marriage ISNT a right. Of course you are flat out WRONG as you so often are but even someone as stupid as you OUGHT to know the difference between a fact and an opinion. You really arent very good at this Timmeh. Party because you are a moron and partly because you are brainwashed

Got news for you homosexual activists – it WASN’T the Mormon church that got Prop 8 passed in California!!!

You can thank all the Obama voters. Blacks and Hispanics voted in very high numbers this election. After they pulled that lever for Obama, they voted their CONSERVATIVE social convictions AGAINST re-defining marriage!
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Got news for YOU Timmeh MORON exit polls showed that NEW VOTERS were against prop 8 by about 65% so your little fantasy doesnt really hold also it lost by about ten percentage points LESS than a similar amendment just four years ago. You will eventually lose this argument based on your bigotry and in your case BONE IGNORANCE.

So get off it.
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You are FAR to stupid to be telling anyone else what to do. Let me put it in terms someone of your limited intellectual skills might understand

Timmeh is moron. Timmeh not get to tell anyone what to do. Timmeh stupid, no ones boss. Timmeh can bite my bag

As usual Timmy you just parade your ignorance. I long for the day when people as stupid as you were ashamed of their ignorance instead you are proud of it.

It’s so typical of the left and right in the Marxist playbook that the FIRST thing you do to those who disagree is DEMONIZE them and cast their legitimate argumentsin terms of hatred and “bigotry.”
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Actually it is legitimate to cast arguments against bigotry AS bigotry. I have yet to hear a single argument against gay marriage that wasnt either about reproduction which is a non sequitur or a rerun of the arguments in support of miscegentation laws.

THEN you don’t have to argue the merits! Cowards. Thye left in this countr are ALWAYS cowardly in their speech.
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No its just that the right in this country are always such MORONS when they speak you are a perfect example. You are stupid Tim you never know what you are talking about so you spew your ignorance in our direction based on the delusional fantasies you have made up in your head and whatever your Limborg master TOLD you to think

MARRIAGE has NEVER been a “right.” It is a social institution that only society as a whole has a right to define. It is not going to be re-defined by un-elected judges in response to a bunch of activists acting on their own set of grievances.
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Here we go again. Timmeh showing just how ignorant he is in fact marriage IS a fundamental right ACCORDING TO THE SUPREME COURT.

From the Supreme Court decision Loving v Virginia

Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” fundamental to our very existence and survival.

Marriage has been redefined many times. It used to be about property and a man could have as many wives as he wanted in more ancient times in other countries like Asia gay marriage happened Native Americans didnt do marriage per say but they had joining ceremonies that included gay unions. In the US marriage USED to be only between people of the same race. Bottom line here Timmeh you are a complete moron who never knows what you are talking about. You spew your hivemind programming at us like the brainwashed cell of the Limborg you are. YOU being incredibly stupid doesnt make US cowards.

Judges are human and they can’t help being influenced by their own prejudices, moral beliefs, political leanings, etc. Most of them do a great job in discharging their judicial duties, but some are clearly out of bounds in their interpretations of existing law and legal precedent.”

November 16th, 2008 at 12:31 pm

Another is the Dred Scott decision. It took a while for it to be overturned when the majority of Americans realized that the proper moral decision was to outlaw slavery and approve equal rights for all regardless of race.

Eventually, Americans will realize that banning two people from marriage is a similar type of decision and approve eual rights for all, regardless of orientation.

Can’t serve openly in the military. I had to listen to all the straight people shove their sexuality in my face as they talked about who they slept with, who they’ve got the hots for, and the children they squeezed out. Every single day.

Talk about “in your face” sexuality. . .

If straight people had to “keep it to themsleves” as much as they want gay people to “not bring it up” the military would be a very quiet place to work!

Oh come on now. I suppose you can flip your sexual orientation at will.

This is something the right wing folks try and postulate all the time. The implication is that ‘we’re better because we chose not to flip our sexual orientation, while homosexuals are weak and wrong and sick because they don’t’.

It’s beyond stupid. Sexual identity and orientation is biologically determined.

Now religious belief and church going and bible thumping on the other hand is a CHOSEN LIFESTYLE.

Nonsense. You have to look at the age demographics to fully see what segment of the voting population made the proposition pass. It was OLDER votes who made this possible.

Nate Silver over at http://www.fivethirtyeight.com dispells this nonsense Tim was spouting.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/prop-8-myths.html

“But the notion that Prop 8 passed because of the Obama turnout surge is silly. Exit polls suggest that first-time voters — the vast majority of whom were driven to turn out by Obama (he won 83 percent [!] of their votes) — voted against Prop 8 by a 62-38 margin. More experienced voters voted for the measure 56-44, however, providing for its passage.”

Tim Vaculik Says:

Got news for you homosexual activists – it WASN’T the Mormon church that got Prop 8 passed in California!!!

You can thank all the Obama voters. Blacks and Hispanics voted in very high numbers this election. After they pulled that lever for Obama, they voted their CONSERVATIVE social convictions AGAINST re-defining marriage!

So get off it.

Tim…bulls***. Blacks, while voting 70% in favor of Prop 8, accounted for less than 7% of the vote. The vast, vast majority of the people voting FOR PROP 8 were old white people. Blame the Mormons for their enormous disinformation campaign, not for voting. Blame them for using their $$$ to influence elections. Then, blame old white bigots voting in an idiotic system (50% + 1 person to pass an Amendment, that’s f***ing ludicrous, and begs for Tyranny of the Masses) for the actual vote. Blame California for having an idiotic voting system.

This is a civil rights issue. If this ever makes it before the Supreme Court, as with anti-miscegenation, this will not hold up. Separate but equal is not equal. IF marriage weren’t a secular, government institution with tremendous legal implications, this wouldn’t be jack or s***. However, the MOMENT it became a part of the legal framework, it ceased to be an institution defined by individual churches or groups.

Incidentally, this infringes on the rights of specific CHURCHES, such as the Unitarians, from marrying same-sex members of their congregation. If you cannot see just how wrong-headed, stupid, backwards, and insane the argument is against gay marriage, the SAME EXACT arguments, mind you, that were used to prevent interracial marriage, I don’t know what to tell you. Stop being a bigot, and let the state acknowledge these contracts equally. Let each individual church determine for themselves whether or not they wish to conduct marriages between whichever partners they desire, not what society as a whole desires. If society as a whole were allowed to decide such civil rights issues, Barack Obama’s parents would never have been allowed to marry, along with the parents of millions of other people.

Tim Vaculik Says:
Ralph,

Well, it’s pretty obvious that judges can’t WRITE legislation! Any 5th grader know this.

The term “legislating from the bench” has always referred to over-reaching by the judicial branch. When judges make interpretations that clearly intrude into areas that are the purview of the legislative branch, they are in effect legislating from the bench.

But the California Supreme Court did NOT “intrude into areas that are the purview of the legislative branch”. It reviewed the constitutionality of a state-wide ban on gay marriage, and found it in violation of the provisions contained in the state’s constitution.

That is exactly what a Supreme Court is supposed to do. It reviews laws and determines whether they conform to the constitutional principles that were set up to guide the process. In this case the California Supreme Court decided that the statewide ban on gay marriage violated that guiding document.

Exactly as it’s supposed to work. Nothing intrusive about it at all.

Tim Vaculik Says:
Race is an immutable characteristic. It can’t be equated to a person’s sexual orientation.

You’ did not answer my question, and you’re distracting from the point I’m making.

You said:

The subject of marriage is a question for society. Society has the ultimate say in how it is defined. We express this through our legislative process generally, but when activist judges overstep their rightful authority, we can always amend the Constitution.

Nowhere in there did you include any caveats about “immutable characteristics”. You said quite clearly, The subject of marriage is a question for society. Society has the ultimate say in how it is defined. Thus, based on this principle, a reasonable observer could conclude that it’s perfectly within society’s rights to define marriage as only between a man and a woman of the same race, right? Thus you clearly must believe that Loving v. Virginia was decided in error, and the US Supreme Court, while not technically “legislating from the bench” had the same effect.

(But in any case, it’s good to know that if sexual orientation could be shown to be an “immutable characteristic” your consistency of principle would dictate that you would support gay marriage.)

Well, it’s pretty obvious that judges can’t WRITE legislation! Any 5th grader know this.

The term “legislating from the bench” has always referred to over-reaching by the judicial branch. When judges make interpretations that clearly intrude into areas that are the purview of the legislative branch, they are in effect legislating from the bench.

Judges are human and they can’t help being influenced by their own prejudices, moral beliefs, political leanings, etc. Most of them do a great job in discharging their judicial duties, but some are clearly out of bounds in their interpretations of existing law and legal precedent.

Just look at the U.S. Supreme Cour’t decision that allowed the taking of private property! Thank you judge Souter!