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The Other Election Day Story: Gay Marriage Bans
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| Renegade |
| quote: | Same-Sex Bans Fuel Conservative Agenda
By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Measures banning same-sex marriage passed by wide margins in all 11 states that had them on Tuesday's ballot, in what conservative groups described yesterday as a sweeping popular rejection of a Massachusetts court's decision to allow gay marriage in that state.
[...]
Rejoicing over the 11-for-11 sweep, some social conservatives contended that a desire to defend the traditional definition of marriage drew millions of evangelical Christians to the polls and provided President Bush's margin of victory. They pointed to exit polls showing that 22 percent of voters named "moral values" as their top issue, surpassing the 20 percent who cited the economy, 19 percent who chose terrorism and 15 percent who selected the Iraq war.
"The marriage issue was the great iceberg in this election," said Robert Knight, director of the Culture and Family Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington. "Most people saw only the tip and didn't realize the great mass was affecting races all over the country, right up to the presidential contest." |
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...2-2004Nov3.html
It strikes me as profoundly sad that people may have been more motivated to vote for the Republicans through their desire to deny happiness to a minority group than they were by any economic or global issues. I think this says a lot about the intolerent, mean-spirited attitude of the GOP. :(
Thoughts? |
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| JM |
Gays should not be allowed to marry. And the majority of people in those states agree. Change is good, sometimes, but this one is just not acceptable.
>JM< |
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| Renegade |
| quote: | Originally posted by JM
Gays should not be allowed to marry. |
Why not?
(Any answer that refers to "God" is invalid.) |
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| trancaholic |
| quote: | Originally posted by Renegade
Any answer that refers to "God" is invalid. |
Same goes with those that refers to "tradition".
Wrt. the original post: I agree. I also think that it is extremely sad that some people weigh the resistance against gay-marriage higher than the slaughter of 100000 Iraqis, when they decide wether a man is a moral man. |
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| Dave Piazza |
Gays should not be allowed to marry. It is against my religious beliefs. They should have civil rights but not the option of marriage. Marriage is a religious cermony not a civil cermony.
But
Voters should have given priority to economic, education, and foreign policy issues. Voters are stupid. |
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| TruffleShuffle |
| States should determine what happens, but there in no way should be a gay marriage ban. Like civil rights, I bet after awhile enough activism will get gays the right to marriage. |
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| occrider |
| Nobody seems to be able to defend why gays should not be afforded the same rights as heterosexuals such as tax breaks, health insurance, etc. Everybody seems to be obliviously focussing on the title of "marriage" with little to no understanding of what the movement is even about. Personally, I don't even believe in marriage, however, I think that the gay rights movement can accomplish a lot more by focussing on attaining similar rights for gay civil unions as opposed to trying to pass legislation that allows them to "marry". Who cares what you call it, as long as there is equal treatment under the law ... |
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| MisterOpus1 |
I was gonna get to this idea of "values" being depicted in the election, and this was certainly one of the topics I was going to touch on. So I'd like to hear some conservatives be able to defend their stance on being against gay marriage without reference to their religion, if you will.
And BTW, I did find one little tidbit fact somewhat interesting in regards to "values" and the "sanctity of marriage" argument -
The state of Massachussetts has the lowest divorce rate in the country, yet they are allowing gay marriage.
Hmmm, I guess those darn gays aren't really destroying the "sanctity of marriage" after all, are they? |
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| wolverine16 |
| Churches have the right to not allow gays to marry, but there is a such thing as civil marriage. Atheists in this country are legallly married. I'e had relatives who aren't very religious who have been mariedin front of judges before and it means the state recognizes them, but the Catholic Church doesn't recognize their marriage like they do that of my parents. |
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| Zombie0915 |
I don't have a problem with gay marriage, but I think I can see this issue from my comrades' POV
The people who reported that moral values where important to them had more on their minds then just gay marriage when they said that. The voters all want someone in office who has the same ethical beliefs as they do. Weather or not Bush really does have the same morals as most of the country, most voters evidently were convinced that he does. In the end, they all want the man in office to be similar to them, the massive population just doesn't think about issues, they just vote for the team that they want to win.
The gay population is very small, and unfortunately seems disgusting to most straight people. They see same sex couples and something in their hearts tells them that this is wrong. Some motivations for this feeling could be:
An abberation of nature
(weather or not therte are gay animals in the wild, most voters dont research stuff like that)
Creates a large disturbance
They don't want their kids exposed to gay couples
(nobody wants to explain gay people to their kid, much less say that its ok for them to become gay one day)
They don't like the idea of people of the same sex hitting on them, and thus make sure that doing so remains as taboo as possible.
Gay people don't bother me that much, sure I wouldn't enjoy dude's grabbing my ass at parties but that doesn't mean we need to ban them from being together, because its going to happen anyway. |
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| tribu |
I was kind of annoyed that this one passed. In my state, ohio, not only is gay marriage banned (It was also banned before the election), but now any rights afforded to married people can not be given to unmarried people. THis will eventually include things such as joint property ownership, visitation/estate rights, and health benefits. So now, not only do we have an essentially meaningless addendum to our state constitution, but now many unmarried couples, both gay and straight, will be prohibited from the benefits that were granted to them by courts and private institutions.
As far as uneducation on the issue goes (according to local exit polls), over 60% of those who voted for this issue did not realize it had such sweeping consequences. By contrast, over 90% of those who voted against it, knew it did. Shame on the initial supporters who proudly toted the first line (banning gay marriage), while keeping the second line hush hush (unmarried couples can not be granted the same rights as married couples). |
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| wolverine16 |
| quote: | Originally posted by tribu
I was kind of annoyed that this one passed. In my state, ohio, not only is gay marriage banned (It was also banned before the election), but now any rights afforded to married people can not be given to unmarried people. THis will eventually include things such as joint property ownership, visitation/estate rights, and health benefits. So now, not only do we have an essentially meaningless addendum to our state constitution, but now many unmarried couples, both gay and straight, will be prohibited from the benefits that were granted to the mby courts and private institutions.
As far as uneducation on the issue goes (according to local exit polls), over 60% of those who voted for this issue did not realize it had such sweeping consequences. By contrast, over 90% of those who voted against it, knew it did. Shame on the initial supporters who proudly toted the first line (banning gay marriage), while keeping the second line hush hush (unmarried couples can not be granted the same rights as married couples). |
Wow, I had no idea that was the extent of that referendum. That's pretty bad and certainly a step backwards. |
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