Also, the Attorney General’s lackluster representation did not help the State.

Although not in the linked article, one of the most conservative justices was not present and there was a lower court judge as a replacement. Remember, it was a 4-3 decision.

http://www.ctlawtribune.com/getarticle.aspx?ID=31882

Right, because Massachusetts marriages are doing so poorly — oh wait, they STILL have the lowest divorce rate!

“Massachusetts has yet to become, as former governor Mitt Romney predicted, the “Las Vegas of same-sex marriage.” Gay marriage rates leveled off at about 1,500 a year – about 4 percent of all state marriages – in 2006 and 2007. The divorce rate in Massachusetts has remained the same – and the lowest in the country.”
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/11/17/5_years_later_views_shift_subtly_on_gay_marriage/?page=1

And if Phil Zuckerman is to believed, all this change and dropping of morality laws might actually make the party better:

“And it simply isn’t true. If God punishes societies that violate his commandments and rewards those that do, this just isn’t apparent by looking at the state of the world today. The sociological fact is that the most irreligious nations right now are among the most successful, humane, moral, and free, while the most religious nations tend to be among the most destitute, chaotic, crime-ridden, and undemocratic.”

“From economic prosperity to low crime rates, from equality between men and women to excellent child welfare, from life expectancy to low rates of H.I.V., the relatively godless (or at least God-indifferent) nations of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Holland suggest that secularity – and acceptance of gay marriage, specifically — doesn’t bring down the wrath of God at all.”

“Where is the best place to be a mother and raise children? According to the latest Save the Children Report, it is relatively godless Sweden. The worst? Extremely Godful Niger. How about murder rates? Highly religious Columbia leads the globe, while highly secular Japan is near the bottom.”

“It is the more godless democracies – and especially those that allow for gays and lesbians to wed — that are faring the best, while it is the more God-worshipping and homosexual-condemning nations that are faring the worst.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/phil-zuckerman/the-religious-support-beh_b_145180.html

So the scare tactics of societal collapse are just completely off the mark.

You prefer to relegate gays to an inferior status undeserving of equal protection before the law. That is bigotry, and for all your words, it still boils down to bigotry. You can try as you like, but you aren’t going to convince any of the gay people on this forum that we are inferior and undeserving of equal protection before the law.

Couple has sex in bathroom as crowd cheered them on and their significant others watched Minnesota-Iowa game

Seems to me that the “sanctity” of marriage is threatened MORE by straight people than it will EVER be by gays.

Especially if you consider that straight people outnumber gay people by at least 10 to 1, perhaps more.

And also keep in mind that not all gay people want to get married in the first place. Many of them are quite happy being single and non-committed.

So, gay people that are “monogamy” minded are an even smaller minority in our own “minority” gay community!

So really. Where is the BIG threat that “monogamy” minded gays pose to non-religious, “civil” marriage?

The bigots of this world are so busy attempting to protect “marriage” from a small, gay sub-minority that they forgot to turn around and look at how they (straight people) themselves are treating this institution.

They believe that admitting gays will be the straw that breaks their camel’s back. And it will be the end of the world as they know it.

And then Dr. Gay Evil will sit back in his Prada leather chair and laugh fiendishly as he watches the institution of marriage crumble on his big plasma TV in his super, secret hideaway on a far away island. Mission accomplished, gays! We have finally destroyed marriage! We have destroyed civilization as we know it! Now our next target is to take over the world!!!! Muah ha ha ha ha ha

Doesn’t that just sound ridiculous?

Well, that’s just how you people sound when you tell us we can’t get a “civil”, legal, non-religious marriage just because our genitals match.

Were the CASC justices to declare that a procedural error was made in the passage of Prop 8 (amendment Vs. revision) resulting in the matter requiring the full legislative/voter procedure to be followed, the measure would probably not make it to the ballot for a second shot at approval. That would have the same effect even if the court didn’t outright strike it down. If left to stand, “all hell will break loose” anyway. Those that sought to deny marriage to same-sex couples have become ensnared in a trap of their own making by mixing politics with religion:

“Because it tends to the decrease and reproach of religion whatever, and is of the utmost danger to society, to make it a party in political disputes.” (Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1791)
~~

As a point of fact, eHarmony settled. they were not forced:

eHarmony’s lawyer said it believed the complaint “resulted from an unfair characterization of our business” but settled because “litigation outcomes can be unpredictable.” (http://www.reason.com/blog/show/130192.html)

Even a progressive like myself is surprised that they gave in so easily, but they do charge for their services and perhaps they by settling satisfied the dual goals of preserving the perception of themselves as a “quasi Christian” organization and continuing to operate as a for-profit enterprise.
~~

Those such as yourself feeling that traditional heterosexual marriage is in decline and losing its “sanctity” by virtue of “… sex separated from marriage, sex separated from procreation and no-fault divorce, what is left of marriage. The ideal exists as but a shell, having been [completely] gutted as a legal matter by the courts. I mean, who still believes in chasteness [until] marriage, procreation as a marital duty, and ‘until death do us part’?” cannot blame gay people for that decline. Heterosexual couples, for good or ill, chaffing under the yoke of these “duties” have chosen more often than not to throw it off.

Clearly, you are speaking of a general climate of thought increasingly holding that the legislation of morality is no longer “constitutional”. Gay people alone are not responsible for that, though many of them welcome it.

Finally, the observation “Once gays finally make it to the party, the party will be over.” depends on what party we are speaking of. If the desire of those that seek marriage are convinced of its sacrosanct nature and enter into it for the purpose of publicly, privately, or religiously solemnizing their commitment to each other, why should they care what others do? A true love, gay or straight, does not need societal approval, even if it would be nice to have.
~~

While I have been writing this, Bill has again been busy posting more interesting tidbits I find hard to resist:

Elton John is apparently happy with civil unions.
In the UK apparently, a civil union is identical in legal operation to marriage with the dual exceptions that a church wedding cannot be had in Westminster Abbey and they aren’t called marriages. This was a necessary compromise to get any recognition for gay unions in the UK.

I mean for thousands of years, you find no one suggesting gay marriage.
Apparently your search was not quite as broad as mine. See for instance:
http://www.livescience.com/history/070827_civil_unions.html ,
http://knows.jongo.com/res/article/16556 ,
http://www.lezbeout.com/ancientgaymarriageoftwomalesaints.htm .

The American passion for categorizing has now managed to create [two] nonexistent categories – gay and straight.
Umm, the problem was the creation of protected classes to begin with, forcing each “suspect class” to be enumerated in order for its rights to be protected. What part of “all men” didn’t they want to understand?

Actress-model-singer Lindsay Lohan talked to Harper’s Bazaar on Nov. 11 about her girlfriend, Samantha Ronson. “I think it’s pretty obvious who I’m seeing,” Lohan said. “I think it’s no shock to anyone that it’s been going on for quite some time. … She’s a wonderful person and I love her very much.”

Asked if she is bisexual, Lohan said, “Maybe.” Asked if she is a lesbian, Lohan said, “No.”

“I don’t want to classify myself,” she said. “First of all, you never know what’s going to happen – tomorrow, in a month, a year from now, five years from now. I appreciate people, and it doesn’t matter who they are.”

See http://www.sfbaytimes.com/?sec=article&article_id=9526

I mean, what’s up with this. Now I understand Lindsey Lohan is not exactly a political philosopher but nonetheless, there seems to be a lot of anecdotal evidence that people just “appreciate people, it doesn’t matter who they are” and little scientific evidence to suggest that sexual orientation is fixed.

I’m not gay (surprised huh?) so I depend on the testimony of people who claim to be gay to try to understand this.

What am I supposed to think when I read comments like Gore Vidal’s and Lohan’s?

Elton John is apparently happy with civil unions.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2008-11-12-elton-john_N.htm

“I don’t want to be married. I’m very happy with a civil partnership. If gay people want to get married, or get together, they should have a civil partnership,” John says. “The word ‘marriage,’ I think, puts a lot of people off.

“You get the same equal rights that we do when we have a civil partnership. Heterosexual people get married. We can have civil partnerships.”

Thank you Elton. Like many gays I suspect, he recognizes that gay relationships ARE different. He gets similar benefits to marriage. WTF does he care whether anyone else agrees with his relationship. HE is secure in his relationship and isn’t interested in threatening the historic understanding of marriage because, I assume, he understand that marriage is not rooted in ant-gay bigotry (given that it predates homosexuality by thousands of years) but is in fact a beautiful celebration of the union of each gender.