It can’t have all the benefits and drawbacks without also having the same name.

But the thing is, we already do. Gays refer to themselves as married, even though the state doesn’t recognize it. Our families treat us like married couples, too. Well, the happy families, anyway.
Just the other day my partner and I were having a playful disagreement at a friend’s house and she said, “Don’t get a divorce!”

While the legal hasn’t caught up, the social is progressing forward. People still refer to Tammy as Melissa Etheridge’s wife. The next generation is going to grow up with gay folks openly refering to their partners as husband, wife, spouse and won’t know until their older that what the law says. But after growing up with Aunt Selma and Aunt Christy being a couple accepted by the family as being just like anyone else, they’re not likely to understand or accept a government that tells it differently.

We’ll win. It just might take a few more years.

Enjoy the Philippines. I live in a Filipino neighborhood and they are truly lovely people.

It’s so sad about the abject poverty, of course, but I guess those who prefer living where a church can “keep homosexual marriage other assorted irredularities off the books” can overlook such things.

If you can’t win in the bluest state on a day when Obama wins, with an amendment written by Jerry Brown, when are you going to win in a straight-out vote?! But just wait: POTUS and SCOTUS will ride to your extra-legal rescue!

I have no official association here, just to make that clear.

But I look at it this way with regard to some posters here (and kind of how I interact in my own life). . .

Some I view as nothing more than web trolls. (I try to ignore them.)

Some I view as anti-gay and close-minded and nothing said will change that. (I’ll confront their blatant lies for the benefit of others, but don’t really try to change their mind.)

Others are anti-gay but there is at least a glimmer of hope as their willing to dialogue and consider different perspectives. (We’ll bounce conversational points back and forth.)

I pick and choose who and when I’ll rebut.

If nothing else, reading the comments of other supporters and participating myself it helps me to refine my own thinking and arguments.

Perhaps this will help you understand the unique nature of BoxTurtle.

See this for the Mission and Principles of the site: http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/About/Principles.htm

We are especially interested in serving:
1. Those who are questioning their sexuality and are concerned about some of the misinformation that they are hearing.
2. Those who are friends or relatives of someone who is gay or lesbian, and are seeking accurate and reliable information about the issues facing them.
3. Those who support equal rights for gays and lesbians and seek accurate, reliable information on which to base their arguments.
4. Those who oppose equal rights for gays and lesbians, but wish to avoid the pitfalls of the massive misinformation coming from all sides of the issues – from gay-rights opponents as well as gay-rights advocates.

In pursuit of this Mission, BoxTurtle has even opened up participation to individuals such as Glen T Stanton of Focus on the Family for public debate between he and Patrick M. Chapman regarding anthropological claims FoF had made regarding SSM, just to use this as an example.

Onlike FocusOntheFamily, BoxTurtle doesn’t allow discussion only between people in the choir.

Ah, yes, this anemic argument. Being appointed by a Republican does not a conservative justice make. The four in the majority engaged in transparent judicial activism and their decision was leftist. As Byron White wrote in Moore v. City of East Cleveland:

The Judiciary, including this Court, is the most vulnerable and comes nearest to illegitimacy when it deals with judge-made constitutional law having little or no cognizable roots in the language or even the design of the Constitution.

“The principal they applied in finding that gay people are entitle to the same rights as straight people dates back to the founding of our nation.”

Pull the other leg. The CA Constitution and the US Constitution must be read in the socio-historical context in which they were written and amended; no “right” to gay “marriage” is contained therein.

I wonder about something sometimes.

If marriage is such an important word, why has it been left in the certifiably shakey hands of government? Why is it STILL there? Those offended by gay marriage in CA, or MA, or CT….why you trying to change marriage back instead of taking it away? Seriously, if the government has proven itself incapable of protecting and taking care of such an important and “sanctified” institution, why not take it away from them altogether?

This is the compromise that would be perfectly acceptable to me. Let’s take a a couple thousand bottles of white out and apply a swipe over every instance of the word “marriage” in our legal and legislative documents. Then write in “Civil Union”.

IF the objection is truly over the word, “Marriage” then this seems logical. One side wants equality, the other side seems to not want the word marriage to take on an additional meaning. Since creating a seperate institution is patently unfair, then let’s just remove the word “Marriage” altogether from our legal and government system?

Civil unions for gays, civil unions for straights. You can call yourself married or not, but as far as the government is concerned “marriage” doesn’t mean anything to them.