And then of course, sometimes Daniel or Gabriel toss in an article and I’m really confused! :)

Such a special moment. I’m glad you could all share it with me!

Well I hope they don’t think this means the cameras are going away now. God…I wish I’d been there…

I hope the ACLU steps into this. As an amateur photographer myself, and part-time photographer for my local gay paper (Baltimore OUTLoud), I’m alarmed at how often photographers are being arrested these days for perfectly legal acts of photography.

So the idea would be something like silencedbynom.whateverhost.com, where if you post something on NOM’s Facebook page you also post it there, so unbiased observers can see what they’re ignoring and so the comments can become the subject of meaningful discussion.

A lot of the time, I work out the truth by debate, argument. Light comes from heat.

The key question, ‘quo warranto?’, ‘by what authority?’ was asked of wendy, who wanted to tell everyone what to think. The same question applies to anyone who claims to know the mind of god, on any matter, including marriage. It cannot be done, and there is no reason to suppose NOM are an exception to this.

Since their argument is purely religious, to legislate in their favour is a perversion of the Virginia Statute, plain and simple, which states that we don’t make laws based on the bible or any other superstitous text. No vote needed.

Also, there are fun storm clouds on the horizon for Maggie and she has to get working. Rhode Island is apparently going to elect a pro-marriage governor in November, which means there could well be a bill passed as early as next spring.

The state Senate Republicans in New York are in serious trouble this fall election. If they only lose three seats that will be a good result for them, but it could be six or seven. And Democrats control redistricting- the 2002 gerrymander that keeps Republican numbers unusually high isn’t going to survive into 2012. The anti-marriage side is going to run out of votes either in 2011 or 2013. Cuomo- who is going to get elected governor- is pro-marriage and probably wants an accomplishment his first year.

Then there’s California’s probable referendum in 2012. That’s not Maggie’s kuleana- the LDS will run their game out of their own groups and HQs in Utah- but she’ll probably get called in to rally Catholics.

As for Lou…he’s making the perpetual pre-Enlightenment conservative discovery that people on the liberal/liberalizing side are real people with serious and complex lives and many thoughts and activities mostly intelligent and understandable. All of which they can keep rather coherent and focussed without authority and dogma to tell them how to do it. People who stick together on interests even though they disagree with each other on almost everything at some time or another.

Lou…we consider each other real people *first*, our disagreements though loud and colorful rarely cause us to dismiss one another as impossibly, as insane or barbarians. Your world and the world of NOM doesn’t quite work that way, we know. In part because it does have rather a lot of barbarians and the insane in it.

We’re sort of the good Italian family, Lou- lots of drama and imperfection that the neighbors can see and hear even in the best of times, but we stick together in hard times and turn those of us who do harm outside the family over to the police. And we throw parties with awesome food and some great-looking people to which all good people are invited. Your side is the other kind of Italian family, where no one’s allowed to talk and everyone who survives the violent final bustup then moves to different cities and tries to forget everything that happened.

I’m guilty myself in this instance, but I will say that a good rule of thumb that has served me well so far is that life is too short to argue with professional bus drivers.

How often are you right? I think that Jim and I write in very different styles.

I understand deleting when it’s just a troll being nasty but when someone talks seriously about a subject, why do you delete only when it doesn’t uphold your view?

Recently someone posted what I’d call a disturbing trend toward provoking violence against gays. The use of Romans 1:32 is increasingly cited by anti-marriage partisans as a “solution” for gays and lesbians. Setting aside that it’s central message concerns idolatry, people citing do so in the context of advocating death. I saw someone do that thing on the NOM-One Man/Woman site and was pretty shocked when it was just left hanging there as if it was a form of gentle Christian charity. When I responded to the post to object to that kind of “support” ***my*** comment was deleted and the citation from Romans 1:32 stayed.

From that action, I can only conclude that NOM **AGREES** with that person. Why so, Louis? Is your frustration so great these days that it permits calls for death cloaked in biblical authority?