Massachusetts Marriage Ban Defeated

[Gil Hamilton]

Isn't it enlightening to know that ever since the last apostle died, Christianity's basically been in denial?

Actually, I think they think that the Apostles are still alive and kicking. No, for real, dead serious.

[VT-16]

Of course, the tried-and-true "moving the goal post" tactic.

[Stravo]

I saw these folks standing in one demonstration and they were holding up signs - "Let the People Vote" A rather neat little trick, making the other side look undemocratic for making the law happen outside of direct popular voting but I wonder how the Civil Rights movement would have unfolded if popular voting were allowed in the Deep South on the question of whether to grant them any rights at all. Sometimes the people can't be trusted to do the right thing. More to the point a minority should not be held under the tyranny of a majority especially when it comes to their civil rights. After the Civil Rights movement you would think people would grasp that but they certainly don't. That's sad to me.

What's worse is the antigay marriage people aboslutely refuse to see this in light of Civil Rights. "What about stopping black from marrying whites or hell marrying at all?" "That's different." "Why?" "Because these are gays." "And?"

The circular logic stuns me. Its so blatantly obvious that the parallels fit hand to glove and the other side of the argument just plugs up their ears "Lalalal gays are not like black lalalala"

I wonder how many anti-gay rights people would have voted for civil rights for blacks if it came up on the ballot. I have a sneaking suspicion not many.

[Darth Raptor]

If they really gave a fuck about democracy, they wouldn't have pushed for a federal ban.

[Davis 51]

What's worse is the antigay marriage people aboslutely refuse to see this in light of Civil Rights. "What about stopping black from marrying whites or hell marrying at all?" "That's different." "Why?" "Because these are gays." "And?"

The circular logic stuns me. Its so blatantly obvious that the parallels fit hand to glove and the other side of the argument just plugs up their ears "Lalalal gays are not like black lalalala"

I once debated a guy with that same mindset. He was a sniveling "conservative atheist" who didn't "agree" with homosexuality, because it was "not natural." After he tried to dismiss my remarks because I flamed him (on a place where flaming is unpunished,) I told him he should GTFO of the kitchen if he can't take the heat. When I said being gay is no different from being black, hispanic, or asian, he said "Hey man, are you saying that being black or asian is the same thing as being "gay"? Now who's the hateful racist bigoted pig that needs to "get the fuck out of the kitchen?" Who needs help? Not I!"

He asked me to provide evidence that gay people do not choose to be gay. I pointed him to the APA's web site, he dismissed them all, saying "
I am not spouting bigoted remarks dude! All I said is that I disagree with and don't like the actions of -one- group of people. I haven't been refuting any "evidence" because very little "evidence" was given! The opinions of one group of psychologists hardly constitutes these piles of hard evidence you claim to have!"

I pointed out that the APA represents all professional psychology in America and Canada. He never responded.

[Knife]

I usually identify myself as 'conservative' Mostly due to my goverment spending ideas. Any way; no one has explained to me this idea of 'gays destroy marrage' at all.

Best anyone has done is said; God said so. Which to me, isn't any where good enough. Conservative/=religeous.

I might not feel comfortable amongst a bunch of gay guys makeing a point of it, but even I don't see why it affects either me or my marriage.

[Justforfun000]

I pointed out that the APA represents all professional psychology in America and Canada. He never responded.

What an asshole. Not natural? Oh so I suppose all the animals that are doing this are also completely "unnatural" too.

[Darth Wong]

I pointed out that the APA represents all professional psychology in America and Canada. He never responded.

What an asshole. Not natural? Oh so I suppose all the animals that are doing this are also completely "unnatural" too.

People like him are what happens when social conformism is not recognized for what it is. Even in his own mind. He just knows that certain things "feel" right and other things "feel" wrong, and then he slaps ad hoc pseudo-reasoning on top of those gut reactions.

[Darth Servo]

Isn't it enlightening to know that ever since the last apostle died, Christianity's basically been in denial?

Actually, I think they think that the Apostles are still alive and kicking. No, for real, dead serious.

Indeed, some read precisely that from John 21: 22-24 although it doesn't actualy say it.

Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me.

Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die: yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?

This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true.

[Davis 51]

I pointed out that the APA represents all professional psychology in America and Canada. He never responded.

What an asshole. Not natural? Oh so I suppose all the animals that are doing this are also completely "unnatural" too.

His claim was that very few don't choose to be gay. Also, those that don't choose have their brains "broken" (humans and animals), and we should get them "help."

[Justforfun000]

His claim was that very few don't choose to be gay. Also, those that don't choose have their brains "broken" (humans and animals), and we should get them "help."

Choose? Not only is he an asshole, he's an even bigger idiot! Can't these brain-dead fucks see how stupid it is to claim someone would "choose" to be gay? Oh yes, at the ripe old age of two I decided that a man's body was my thing and that's why I climbed into a bed to deliberately explore my uncle's. (I actually remember this vividly by the way. One of my earliest memories.)

That's why when I was 7 years old and has no idea what the word faggot meant that when it was explained to me I got scared as hell when I realized that I could fit that description as I knew I could like boys "that way".

That's why at 10 years old I remember trying to convince another guy that Playgirl was more interesting to look at because unlike a woman with just hair between their legs, a man had something THERE to look at. (God that's embarrassing in retrospect. lol)

That's why as a 23 year old adult I had a girlfriend for a year and a half and every time we attempted to have sex I would start sweating, panicking and have to stop because it felt completely "wrong" to me.

That's why I can look at a hot man and before even mentally formulating an OPINION, I can get a "schwing" reaction from down below just by the shape of his arm, or maybe a well turned calf.

Yeah all of these things were deliberate "choice". He got me.

fucking idiot!

[Justforfun000]

Oh and one other important thing to say back to him. We have people that are eminently qualified to making distinctions of who needs help and who does not. We call them DOCTORS and SCIENTISTS. While they may not always be right, and they can go off the rails on many things (circumcision is a great example), they tend to get to the truth of the matter eventually and considering there is NO major medical organization worth it's salt that in any way holds the position now that homosexuality is unnatural of intrinsically harmful, that's as clear and unambiguous a position as we're ever going to find. The debate is over. The fundies lost. Get the fuck over it and shove your bigotry up your ass. If you're not going to use it for anything else, you may as well make it useful and store your fucked up attitudes up there with the rest of your shit.

[Crossroads Inc.]

I love that as well the whole "Gays choose it" Usually when I bring up "So matt shepered Choose to get himself beaten to death for being gay?" They never really have an answer, just more of the "its not natural"

[CaptJodan]

I love that as well the whole "Gays choose it" Usually when I bring up "So matt shepered Choose to get himself beaten to death for being gay?" They never really have an answer, just more of the "its not natural"

The answer they may not say but they most likely feel is that Matt chose to be gay, and paid the consequences for that choice. I suppose Davis' friend might even feel he's better off dead.

I can't understand the "unnatural" argument anyway. We see this behavior in the animal kingdom, we've seen it in humanity (even openly practiced) throughout its entire existence. Is left-handedness unnatural as well because we live in a predominately right handed society? I don't understand how people draw that conclusion. I can (sadly) understand the religious motivation more than I can understand the "it's just unnatural" motivation.

As for choice, I really can't help but wonder about people like that. It's like the recent Colbert episode when he interviewed one of the arabic translators who was forced out of the military by DADT. When asked if he had to choose to be heterosexual, Colbert responded that every morning he made the choice to be heterosexual (obviously saterically). I'm beginning to wonder if people like this actually have to do this every morning. It seems utterly ridiculous, but I really can't think of any other explanation.

[Darth Wong]

I can't understand the "unnatural" argument anyway. We see this behavior in the animal kingdom, we've seen it in humanity (even openly practiced) throughout its entire existence. Is left-handedness unnatural as well because we live in a predominately right handed society? I don't understand how people draw that conclusion. I can (sadly) understand the religious motivation more than I can understand the "it's just unnatural" motivation.

They don't really even care what the word "unnatural" means or whether they're using it correctly. It's just code-speak for "that just ain't right", which in turn is redneck-speak for "it violates the social norms to which I have become accustomed, and which give me comfort in a scary, scary world which I mostly do not understand because I don't read books".

As for choice, I really can't help but wonder about people like that. It's like the recent Colbert episode when he interviewed one of the arabic translators who was forced out of the military by DADT. When asked if he had to choose to be heterosexual, Colbert responded that every morning he made the choice to be heterosexual (obviously saterically). I'm beginning to wonder if people like this actually have to do this every morning. It seems utterly ridiculous, but I really can't think of any other explanation.

Some of them certainly do that. It's no secret that there are plenty of self-loathing gays in the conservative movement. Every time one of them gets outed, the rest immediately distance themselves from him, but it keeps happening.

[Imperial Overlord]

It's going to be even harder for those bastards to push through a gay marriage ban next time. The way its working out now the older you are the more likely you are to be homophobic bigot. Five years of those people dying off and younger people becoming old enough to vote is only going to push the numbers more in favor of allowing homosexuals to marry. Especially when everyone sees that the world doesn't magically collapse because they can marry.

[Justforfun000]

It's going to be even harder for those bastards to push through a gay marriage ban next time. The way its working out now the older you are the more likely you are to be homophobic bigot. Five years of those people dying off and younger people becoming old enough to vote is only going to push the numbers more in favor of allowing homosexuals to marry. Especially when everyone sees that the world doesn't magically collapse because they can marry.

While this is true we have one very big opposing factor to this trend. Religion. Bullshit baffles brains, and this where the problem begins in America. If religion keeps rising higher in popularity and particularly fundamentalist bent sects head the trend, then they will be the opposing statistic that keeps kicking against the pricks.

There's a pun in there somewhere..but I think I'll leave it alone.

Anyways, that's my theory. It's the battle between youthful tolerance and willful ignorance by Bible thumpers.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

You think that's bad?

Take a look at this excerpt from a book by self-proclaimed "Jesus-centric psychologist" Leanne Payne, called Crisis in Masculinity:

"I never did more than heavy kissing with a date because I was terrified that if she were stimulated to have sex with me, I would be found out as inadequate." At this point I interrupted the story to explain what I have come to call the "cannibal compulsion," for that was what wwas at work in Richard's homosexual fantasies.

When a man tells me he is experiencing strong desires for another man, I immediately ask him: "What specifically do you admire in this person? Right off the top of your head, what would those things be?"

Invariably, in such cases as Richard's, what they admire in the other man will be their own unaffirmed characteristics, those from which they are separated, can in no way see, and therefore cannot accept as part of their own being. These attributes they have projected onto another person.
After such a sufferer states what it is he admires in the other man, I ask him this question: "Do you know why cannibals eat people?"

As he shakes his head in the negative with varying degrees of astonishment, I proceed to tell him what a missionary once told me: "Cannibals eat only those they admire, and they eat them to get their traits." Those who succeed in feigning insanity or some other equally unadmirable trait do not end up in the pot.

In his fantasies Richard was seeing in his idealized form the part of himself from which he was estranged. For him that part lay in what he perceived as the sexual virility of the athletic type. He was looking at others and loving a lost part of himself, a grieviously unaffirmed masculinity that he therefore could not recognize and accept. Homosexual activity is often merely the twisted way a person tries to take into himself--in the mistaken way of the cannibal--those attributes of his own personality from which he is estranged. It is actually a form of self-love or narcissism.

That's right. Gay male homosexuality is identical to CANNIBALISM according to these psychopathic nutjobs.

[Pint0 Xtreme]

An insight to what may possibly come within the next five years.

Next Battle In Massachusetts: Open Gay Marriage To All
by The Associated Press

Posted: June 15, 2007 - 4:30 pm ET

(Boston, Massachusetts) Fresh off the success of defending gay marriage from its latest attack, advocates say they have one more fight in Massachusetts: Repealing a 1913 law that bars same-sex couples in most other states from coming here to get married.

Some say the law - which says couples cannot be married here unless their unions would be legal in their home states - has its roots in the effort to block interracial marriage, and plan soon to strategize for its repeal.

Opponents of gay marriage, including the former governor and now Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, have said repealing the law would make Massachusetts the "Las Vegas of gay marriage."

"This radical social experiment will be exported to the other 49 states," Kris Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, said Friday.

A day earlier, lawmakers killed an effort to let voters decide on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. The defeat for gay marriage opponents - after more than three years of debate - makes the successful mounting of a future challenge even more unlikely.

Now attention turns to the state's 1913 law, which, if repealed, would mean gay couples from other states could legally marry in Massachusetts.

The possible impact of the marriages in other states is unknown. Most states prohibit gay marriage, but a Massachusetts certificate could provide the foundation for legal challenges. A court challenge was the basis of Massachusetts legalizing same-sex marriage, after gay couples were denied marriage licenses.

Opponents of the 1913 law say it was originally approved as part of a deal with states that barred interracial marriages and didn't want couples fleeing to Massachusetts to marry. Others say there's little evidence to support that claim.

After gay marriage became legal in May 2004, hundreds of couples from other states came to Massachusetts to wed. But then-Gov. Romney directed municipal clerks not to give licenses to out-of-state couples, citing the 1913 law.

So far, only Rhode Island allows its gay couples to wed in Massachusetts. More than 170 marriages of gay couples from New York who wed in Massachusetts before July 2006 have also been deemed valid, because New York had not explicitly banned same-sex marriages until then.

The courts might not be as helpful to those who want to strike down the 1913 law.

The Supreme Judicial Court, which legalized gay marriage, upheld the 1913 law last year, ruling that Massachusetts "has a significant interest in not meddling in matters in which another state, the one where a couple actually resides, has a paramount interest."

Mineau seconded that sentiment Friday.

"It will open the floodgates for Massachusetts to become the Mecca for same-sex marriage," he said. "Their goal is to strike down the marriage restrictions in every state. Their launching pad will be Massachusetts."

Arline Isaacson, co-chair of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus, said "no one is rushing" to push for the repeal but she's confident it will happen.

"In the short term, we want everyone to rest, breathe and appreciate the incredible victory that took place," she said.

Marc Solomon, campaign director of MassEquality, said he expects to set up meetings with legislative leaders and the governor sometime soon to discuss moving a bill to repeal the law.

The state's top three political leaders - Gov. Deval Patrick, House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi and Senate President Therese Murray - are all strong supporters of gay marriage who indicted they would support repeal of the law.

David Guarino, a spokesman for DiMasi said Friday: "As a strong supporter of gay marriage rights, the Speaker believes the so-called 1913 law is outdated and unfair. He believes it should be repealed."

Senate president believes it is "an antiquated law" and supports its repeal, said Murray spokeswoman Samantha Dallaire. The Senate voted to repeal the law in 2004, but it didn't get further, she said.

Patrick's office declined to comment Friday, but the governor in April said: "I know that the 1913 law has sort of smelly origins. I think it's outdated. If it passes the Legislature and comes to my desk, I'll sign it."

[Vampiress_Miyu]

See, the problem with the lifting of the 1913 law... ( Not that I'm against it, cause believe me... I want that bitch lifted... ) is that when/if people go back to their home states after being wed... There could be some conflict in the communities....

Gah... I hate people sometimes. -_-

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I don't think it's wise to repeal it at this stage, in fact, I think it's terribly foolish. Instead of opening marriage up in MA and basically throwing the issue to a conservative supreme court, which couldn't have a good result, we need to focus on a Redoubt Strategy of making gains in liberal areas and then vigorously defending them from christian counterattack. Bite and Hold, gentlemen, Bite and Hold.

[Vampiress_Miyu]

-snip- we need to focus on a Redoubt Strategy of making gains in liberal areas and then vigorously defending them from christian counterattack. Bite and Hold, gentlemen, Bite and Hold.

I agree. Things in Mass are shaky as it is, and I'd hate to see things get more complicated all over just because of the damn marriage laws and people's stupid homophobic behavior.

[Vendetta]

That's right. Gay male homosexuality is identical to CANNIBALISM according to these psychopathic nutjobs.

Of course. Since they spend so long talking out of their arse, they reckon people eat with them as well.