I agree. The path to same sex marriage is a forest, and it's "christian" opponents have forgotten where they entered.

Obviously this set of circumstances upsets the previous poster (Steven). When it should affirm the strength of the constitution. So long as the California govt accepts gay tax dollars they'll need to provide equal services. If he thinks this is dismaying wait until it goes nation wide :)

I am personally undecided on whether or not I want my religious group to permit same-sex marriages. One thing I am clear on, however, is that this is at best a religious decision and should have no bearing on the laws of the land. I am more than happy to support equal marriage at a civil level, giving all the rights and privileges of marriage to any two people who are willing to commit to each other, regardless of their sex.

Perhaps the people in the state are willing to oppose the upcoming amendment proposal because it is the right thing to do.

Steven..America is going down the drain? are you kidding? have you been paying attention? if you havent already noticed, this country has been a shit show for a long time, no thanks to your religion. The gay marriage legalization is a step in the right direction for this country. Its 2008. God has been dead for a long time. Nobody even cares. Take all your jesus freaks and move to texas. You can practice your wonderful christain ways there...although i'm sure its only a matter of time before texas, and the rest of the country follow suit and leagalize homo marriage. Next thing you know, we'll be adopting your kids!!! Shudder to think! But don't worry, you are one of God's chosen children! lucky for you right? When the rapture comes, I guess you'll be all set huh? Don't bother trying to save me, I'll be at the gay bar with the rest of my fellow sinners...getting drunk, and laughing...at you.

Homosexual marriage? LOL. You guys have to ruin everything. You never gave a rats ass before about marriage-ooops; HEALTH BENEFITS.

Victor Williams said: "Don't bother trying to save me, I'll be at the gay bar with the rest of my fellow sinners...getting drunk, and laughing...at you."

Dude, my brother (8 years older than me) was gay. I knew like a hundred of his friends. Great guys. All dead. Thank you very much for perpetuating the myth of the homosexual life as a good and acceptable thing so that more millions can die of aids and live the broken lie that is the "Gay" life.

You won't be at the bar laughing, trust me. You'll be on a deathbed, alone, with dementia, in a hospital full of overworked uncaring staff that views you as one more stiff on a skiff.

i am just glad i won't be called a bride or groom we can just be a letter either A or B.

nice going california! another reason AMERICA is going down the drain!

Whoa there, Joe and MarkD, I'm not sure how you concluded that I'm opposed to same sex marriage or a Christian, but neither is the case.
I'm glad that same sex marriage is legal, confident it will stay that way, and ready to move on to the next fight to expand civil rights and fight the fundamentalists. Sorry if I wasn't more clear.

hey don, "dude", whens the last time you got laid? your brother is dead because nobody educated him about safe sex. not because he was gay. funny, im gay, but youre the faggot.

hey don, just keep preaching your hate. you sound pathetic and rediculous. WE LOVE BEING GAY! i wouldnt trade it for anything. and im healthy, happlily married with a loving family. you probably dont have any of that. pity party for don! times are a changing douchebag. get used to it, or step aside

I can't believe some straight people have a problem with gay marriage. Gay people are completely normal. Actually, all of the gays and lesbians I know are extremely nice and accepting of my heterosexual lifestyle. maybe you should meet some. seriously, we are fighting about gay marriage? GET OVER IT.

HAHAHAHA. Wow. Don is NUTS!!!!!

There is nothing wrong with Gay Marriage. Gay people are just like Straight people. Black people are just like White people, and Women are just like Men. We are all people. When my generation finally starts to run this country, we'll fix everything that the boomers screwed up.

LEGALIZE GAY MARRIAGE EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! people like don are soooo old school. It makes me sad that people are filled with such hate. Don, go bury your nose in the bible or something.

Gay people are cool.

FUCK YOU DON, IF I WANT HEALTH BENEFITS THAN SO WHAT? YOURE NOT BETTER THAN ME BECAUSE YOU STICK YOUR DICK IN A PUSSY, BUT YOU SEEM TO THINK YOU ARE. WE ARE EQUAL.

I think marriage is for everyone, and i'm only 14. I came to that judgement by myself. The older generation are the ones who have a problem with it. There are gay kids at my school, and its fine.

THE HOMOSEXUAL LIFE IS A GOOD AN ACCEPTABLE THING! Trust me, I live it

I hope you're right and the battle is basically over in California - though I suspect it may be a bit more uphill than you perceive. Nonetheless, I know many people who have changed their mind on this issue in the past several years. I know that I do not care to belong to an institution that is inherently discriminatory. My husband and I may opt for divorce should the ammendment pass... In a protest for equality.

Hate? Fuck you too I loved my brother and his friends. THEY DIED BECAUSE OF THAT FUCKED UP LIFESTYLE. Marriage is for a MAN and a WOMAN. That's what it IS and has ALWAYS BEEN.

I stand by my position-I've watched enough men die from the homosexual lifestyle. Everyone that doesn't agree with a BEHAVIOR doesn't HATE the individuals that engage in it. So fuck you.

ryan:

Hahahaha. dick. What a lame ass girlie man fucking ad hominem attack.

Few "gay" relationships last longer than two years, with many homosexual men reporting hundreds of lifetime partners. Source: Pollack, M. " Male Homosexuality," in Western Sexuality: Practice and Precept in Past and Present Times, ed. P. Aries and A.Bejin, pp. 40-61, cited by Joseph Nicolosi in Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality (Northvale, N.J., Jason Aronsons Inc., 1991), pp.124-25.

50% of homosexual men over the age of 30, and 75% of homosexual men over the age of forty, experienced no relationships that lasted more than one year. Source: M. T. Saghir and E. Robins, Male and Female Homosexuality: A Comprehensive Investigation

Men's Health magazine reported in June that (heterosexual) men, on average, have 12.4 sex partners (in a lifetime), and have sex 1.5 times per week. These numbers may seem low to many gay men, who generally exercise greater sexual freedom than their heterosexual counterparts. But for a person who is sexually compulsive these numbers may seem shockingly low. Frequent sexual encounters may be accompanied by feelings or guilt and minor consequences. Ken (a gay man) suffers from Sexual Addiction, "It's just so much easier to have anonymous sex with someone I don't know. There is this buildup of excitement and a sexual rush, hoping the other guy will notice me...want me. After we connect, I just lose myself in the sex. It's really not about knowing the guy. I rarely even want to know his name. When it's over, I can simply walk away, " said Ken. Among the problems caused by sexual addiction in "gay" men is one of the most common of contracting frequent and/or multiple sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) ( i.e., HIV, syphilis, chlamydia, gonorrhea, etc.). Source: Shaun Bourget, M.A., M.F.T., " Sexual Addition: On a Road to Nowhere," GayHealth.com; July 26,2000.

The Myth of Safe Sex
26 percent of New York City adults have genital herpes, compared to about 19 percent nationwide.

I happened across this today and thought I'd blog it because just recently I had to endure a discussion where a number of adults were bobbing their heads up and down about the "safety" of sexual promiscuity if one took sensible precautions. I always struggle in situations like this, because while I don't want to be a jerk, I think its unbelievable irresponsible to promulgate socially-acceptable lies like the global-warming hoax and of course "safe sex".

Promiscuity is safe the way cliff-diving into unknown waters is safe--not.

Hidden in these statistics according to a six year study done in the late nineties are some sobering realities.

83% of homosexual men had genital herpes a decade ago.

78% of prostitutes had genital herpes.

A Kentucky study of college-aged young adults saw a 10% per year rise in seropositivity (anti-bodies present) between the ages of 18 and 24-- the "sexually active" years.

Seropositivity climbed 30% overall in the 1990s (even before Bill Clinton's intern problem...) with the rise in popularity of oral-genital contact. Interestingly, 35% of young women who claimed to be virgins had engaged in oral-genital contact.

While its common to hear arguments about the ineffectiveness of the war on drugs--usually from people who would like to engage in drug use without the legal hassles--you never hear precisely the same argument applied to public policy promoting "safe sex".

In 2000, there were 9.1 million new cases of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among 15-24 year olds. Apparently they don't call it Californication for nothing, because in 2005, the estimate for California alone was 1.1 million new STIs.

http://worstgenerationseed.blogspot.com/2005/03/condoms-safe-sex-myth.html

One of the most wide-spread myths about “safe sex” is that pregnancy rates and STD infection will be dramatically reduced if condoms are used. But common sense and statistics tell us otherwise.

Condoms are inherently untrustworthy and have been proven to fail. The FDA allows as many as one in 250 to be defective. Condoms will break 8% of the time and slip off 7% of the time. In addition to that, many of those who use condoms do not take the time necessary to properly put it on. Even if condoms are properly put on, it is significant to note that condoms provide virtually no protection from STDs. Of course you won’t hear this reality being shared in public schools or even among the media.

http://home.messiah.edu/~chase/h/articles/regenera/index.htm

All men have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Hating Gays is the sin of pride. Hating sin is altogether different.

From the blogpost: "Simply put, homosexuality doesn't freak out young people like it does old people, who may know very few lesbians or gay men."

You could say the same sort of thing about divorce, unwed cohabition, nonmarital childbearing, abortion, and so forth.

Today's 'young generation' is no wiser than previous 'young generations', just a little more subdued by the pervasive attack on the social institution of marriage. The campaign for the SSM merger, in the guise of a false claim of 'equal rights', is yet another attack.

The marriage issue is not homo versu hetero. But it is about pressing identity politics -- of the gay kind -- into marriage law. It was wrong when that was done in the name of racist identity politics and it is wrong with this anti-marriage push by gay activists.

The SSM merger has not been justified by anything that the pro-SSM has said -- in the courts, in the legislature, and not on the campaign trail re Prop 8. The pro-SSM side lacks substance so it depends on false equivalencies.

The core of marriage is 1) integration of the sexes, 2) contingency for responsible procreation, and 3) these combined as a coherent whole (i.e. as a foundational social institution).

The all-male or the all-female arrangement is sex segregative, cannot provide for responsible procreation, and is not a foundational social institution.

So the pro-SSM side still owes society a debt on this one: what is the core -- the essentials or the nature of -- the relationship type that you have in mind when you talk of 'marriage'?

What are the definitive legal requirements, if any? How does society draw lines around it, to distinguish it from non-marriage, or is it to be blurred with other nonmarital arrangements?

Who is excluded from eligibility? Or is it a free-for-all?

Go back to the basics. What is the core and on what basis would society show preferential treatment for that core?

SSMers talk more of protective status than preferential status, yet marital status is a preferential status. So are you hoping to knock marriage down a few notches? Or are you hoping to elevate just that kind of nonmarital arrangement which is 'gay identified'?

I anticipate that your response will be very gaycentric and all about identity politics rather than equality and justice. But you may prove otherwise.