NJ court grants gay couples equal marriage rights

[JWBear]

I'm surprised no one has brought this up yet.
(http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-10-26T012250Z_01_EIC567928_RTRUKOC_0_US-RIGHTS-GAYS1.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsArt-L3-Top+NewsNews-2)

[innerSpaceman]

Too bad this came down just before the election.

We don't need anything that wakes the neanderthals from their slumber long enough to get the polls. Bad enough that Karl Rove is personally calling every Evangelical in the nation and begging them to give the GOP one more chance. This kind of thing inspires what Karl Rove can only dream of. Bah.


Oh, but props to the New Jersey Supreme Court. Not that I expect anything less from courts, whose business is justice and not politics.

[Motorboat Cruiser]

Too bad this came down just before the election.

We don't need anything that wakes the neanderthals from their slumber long enough to get the polls. Bad enough that Karl Rove is personally calling every Evangelical in the nation and begging them to give the GOP one more chance. This kind of thing inspires what Karl Rove can only dream of. Bah.


My thoughts exactly. Good decision but the timing really sucks.

[wendybeth]

I dunno- my UIL (Uncle in law) just sent us a 'what will happen if the Libs take office!' end-of-the-world type e-mail, and homo marriage is right at the top of the list! :rolleyes: (Never mind that his niece is gay and we are all libs, the right-wing bastard). Anyway, at least we can say this happened on the GOP's watch.

[scaeagles]

I find this very interesting, really.

If same sex marriage is the goal, and this is the type of ruling that is encouraging, then why worry about the timing? Seriously.

I believe it is attitudes like that which lead to the hidden "gay agenda" cries. Same sex marriage is a goal. However, moving toward the goal prior to an election being considered bad timing says a lot, mostly that the "agenda" really is something that proponents want to stay hidden, or at least in the political shadows.

In AZ, there is a ballot proposition which would change the AZ Constitution to include some sort of definition of marriage as between one man and one woman. There are TV ads currently running against it. In these ads, there are pictures of young couples, old couples, white couples, black couples.....but not one same sex couple. Why?

It is not my goal to debate same sex marriage, only the approach to stopping amendments or promoting same sex marriage.

[innerSpaceman]

The rabid emotional anti-reaction to fag marriage is used as a bludgeon to rile the ultra-facist-conservative vote. It's a horror to me that every advance in my civil rights causes a backlash that not only rolls back those rights, but results in electoral defeat for all sorts of progressive and good causes and candidates.


Frankly, as a fag myself, I don't think gay marriage is important enough in comparison to all the good people with potential good policies that are defeated in the pogrom that follows every homosexual civil rights advance.


If, for illustrative example, one happily married lesbian couple means Michael J. Fox will die from no stem-cell Parkinson's cure ... then I'd rather gays stay in the back of the bus for the greater good.

[Nephythys]

Can someone please explain to me how gay marriage would have diddly effect on anyone else's marriage- anyone?

[innerSpaceman]

Yes, Nephy ... can you please ask "your people" and get back to us on that? :D

[Alex]

Can someone please explain to me how gay marriage would have diddly effect on anyone else's marriage- anyone?

I can't, as it wouldn't. Which is why it should be allowed*.

The problem with these court cases, as I see it, is that they rarely say gay marriage must be allowed but rather that there isn't sufficient reason under current law and constitution for prohibiting it. They all say the legislatures must settle the question. If the population isn't quite ready to go with gay marriage yet, most states are going to constitutionalize the one man/one woman definition. And once it gets into the constitution it will be much harder to get it back out.

I strongly support gay marriage, but I think it would be much better achieved through the legislative process (though it will be slow) than the judicial. However, once the issue is before the court, I believe they have been reaching the correct conclusions. But the plaintiffs may not like the ultimate result.

*With the standard caveat that government shouldn't be in the business of sanctioning marriage at all but if it is, there is no basis other than traditional morality for limiting it to one man and one woman. Any combination of people, in any number or relationship, so long as they are all consenting, should be able to get from the government the benefits and protections of marriage.

[Motorboat Cruiser]

As much as I would like to see gay marriage one day become a reality in this country, I also realize that it isn't what is most important at the moment. We have more serious problems that need to be dealt with immediately and none of those are going to be fixed as long as this administration retains the complete control that it currently holds.

Currently, there are a great deal of conservatives that are beginning to understand that we are bogged down in an unwinnable war that is costing billions of dollars. They see the need for changing the course, so to speak (which is why the phrase "staying the course" has suddenly become quite unfashionable). However, scare the base with all this talk of gay marriage becoming a reality, and they just might put those other feelings aside for a while. If that happens and the republicans win, gay rights are a moot point anyway. So is any hope of fixing the problems caused by this administration.

Sometimes you have to put what is important to you on hold for a while for the greater good. I would be willing to wait 10 years for gay marriage to be a reality, if it meant that we could stop seeing our soldiers die at a rate of 100 a month in a war that is spiraling out of control, bring some fiscal responsibility back to Washington, and use some of those billions to try to fight diseases that kill far more Americans than any terrorist attack ever has.

That's not hiding anything. It's prioritizing.

[Isaac]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v686/zapppop/sunrise.jpg