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| Witchvox Chapter: Wren's Nest News | Chapter Page Views: 54,944,712 |
 Gay Leaders Blame TV Ads, Obama For Loss In Maine Author: Lisa Leff and David Crary, AP Source: Google Title: GAY LEADERS BLAME TV ADS, OBAMA FOR LOSS IN MAINE Stunned and angry, national gay rights leaders Wednesday blamed scare-mongering ads — and President Barack Obama's lack of engagement — for a bitter election setback in Maine that could alter the dynamics for both sides in the gay-marriage debate. Conservatives, in contrast, celebrated Maine voters' rejection of a law that would have allowed gay couples to wed, depicting it as a warning shot that should deter politicians in other states from pushing for same-sex marriage. "Every time the citizens have voted on marriage, they have always sided with natural marriage," said Mathew Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, a Florida-based Christian legal group. "Maine dramatically illustrates the will of the people, and politicians should wake up and listen." | |
| Community Thoughts: There are 20 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| Recent Study | Nov 6th. at 11:21:30 pm EST |
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NightLad (Toronto, Ontario) - Email Me I thought some of you might be interested in this article from the Washington Post. It comments on a study on same-gender and mix-gender marriages. The results were interesting; because of the same-sex couples that identified as married they were strikingly similar to their heterosexual counterparts. From the article: "Same-sex couples who identify as married are similar to straight spouses in terms of age and income, and nearly one-third of them are raising children, according to Census data released Monday that provides a demographic snapshot of gay families in America." Read more here: [Web LINK] This is the study the report was based on: [Web LINK] |
| The President | Nov 6th. at 9:49:42 pm EST |
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Zodiac (Waverly, Nebraska) - Email Me Has stated that he supports traditional marriage. I look forward to reading stories about the people who claim to promote "tolerance" harrassing and bullying the people who helped defeat Gay Unions in Maine. |
| A Great Woman Once Said... | Nov 6th. at 6:02:45 pm EST |
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NightLad (Toronto, Ontario) - Email Me "Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood. This sets the stage for further repression and violence that spread all too easily to victimize the next minority group." - Coretta Scott King, wife of Martin Luther King Jr. Maybe someday enough people in America will listen. |
| ... | Nov 6th. at 2:04:30 am EST |
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Draken (Bronx, New York) - Email Me - Web As I said before, a lot of gay marriage opponents are very much in the closet. Just look at Larry Craig and Ted Haggard. And don't expect Barack Hussein Obama al-Honolulu to deviate from the patterns of Chimpy McFlightsuit and Slick Willy Clinton (can't you tell I just LUUUUUUUUV the puppet leaders?) at all. Do the legwork for yourself if you honestly think Barry represents "change." |
| Marriage Isn't About Love. | Nov 5th. at 11:21:04 pm EST |
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Medea (Somewhere, Massachusetts) - Email Me It's a business deal. It's about "traditional values" which translates to male hedgemony. (I'm not a big fan of marriage, but that's only from personal experience with the beast. ) It SHOULD be about love. But it isn't. That's why there's so much fuss, I'd say, especially from the fundumbmental-ists. But this poor dead horse has been beaten until it's bones are cracked. I say give gay people the same legal rights to be miserable that straight people have. Or maybe, their marriages will be better. Because theirs really are about love. |
| Same Old Comment | Nov 5th. at 5:51:34 pm EST |
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Shadowbear (Hillsboro, Oregon) - Email Me Marriage is a religious ceremony which the government has no business interfering with. You get married in your church/temple'circle etc. using the ceremony and restrictions of your belief system. The government has a legitimate interest in inheritance, support of dependents who might become charges on the state, responsibility for financial affairs and property ownership. All of these are things that can be dealt with in court and therefore the government needs to know how it is "supposed" to go or chaos will take over. Nowhere is marriage mentioned here - if 2 or more people (whether or not they are sexual partners) wish to form a partnership for the purpose of combining their personal efforts for the common good - such as buying a house, owning a bigger tv and generally living the better life that combining incomes allows - there should not be any discussion of "marriage" in the filing of such a document with the courts. There is marriage and then there is the civil partnership which has everything to do with property and money responsibilities and NOTHING to do with religion or the ceremony of marriage. Solves the problem, allows all religious groups to view marriage as they choose and keeps the goverment's legitimate interest in property and responsibility in the clear. |
| Enough Already! | Nov 5th. at 2:31:38 pm EST |
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Wiyan Wanagi (Fountain Valley, California) - Email Me I don't recall President Obama making any campaign promises that he was the "great white hope" for this country, come to fix every evil perpetrated on the people of this country or to save us from ourselves!? Those "evils" have been going on for the last 200+ years - not just the last eight! The reason these crimes against humanity are allowed to happen is - why? Because "humans" (and that includes Us) haven't evolved enough to understand that concepts such as "Equality", "Justice", "Diversity",and "Fairness" are neutral words that apply to the "Collective whole" - not just to their particular group. We're still in the Infant Stage of Development, and nothing will really change until we make a concerted effort to move forward. (** "We" being roughly 95% of the population - relax, 5%ers, I realize there are "some" of us who have evolved!) Stop blaming the Obama Administration for not stepping up and fixing all our problems - he's a "Human", not a "God"! (He's also a "Politician") If you need someone to blame - look within yourselves, your group, etc. - then accept the responsibility for your failures, and move forward. |
| I Have A Dream | Nov 5th. at 11:55:28 am EST |
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karrie9 (Kenosha, Wisconsin) - Email Me - Web In addition to the contents of my previous comment... Although the civil rights **movement** for racial civil rights had so many years leading up to it, the I Have a Dream and civil rights movers and shakers of that time were so effective because they focused on the paradigm of equality, defined equality, and demonstrated it's excellence on many fronts in the face of adversity, ugliness, and even death. That was the fierce focus needed. |
| Who Gets The White Dress? | Nov 5th. at 10:46:25 am EST |
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Ahr-Ohn (Bridgeport, Connecticut) - Email Me I support Natural Marriage, with or without the Oathing. My understanding, is that the Gay Marriage Proponents hit that campaign with much better funding, but that the electorate simply didn't sustain the effort. Laws are to codify what's morally enforceable, and Gay Marriage just hasn't been hammered out so. In this atheistic age, reproductive unions are being celebrated, with public support, where neither member is obedient to a member of the Roman Catholic Church, and indeed, there is no requirement that the Gods of the mothers and fathers of the brides and grooms first express their Blessings on such alliances. White Dresses used to mean something other than Gross Mendacity. Physicians are called Doctor, who are really Doctrinaires of Medicine, awarded Monopoly for purposes of Tax Collection and Social Control. The Style of Proffessional is being extended to people who know nothing of the Gods of their Ministries. We have Representatives Of Congress presenting themselves as electable as Representatives To Congress. I don't know the precise meaning of Marriage but, without a womb and a testicle, what corporation is being celebrated by Law? If some other jurisdiction began to ordain unions of Guardians and Handmaidens, where the Handmaiden had to be distinct from Man at the Rib, how should your jurisdiction receive such a couple? Arawn Graalrd |
| The Power Of Focus, Accountability, Definitions | Nov 5th. at 10:08:39 am EST |
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karrie9 (Kenosha, Wisconsin) - Email Me - Web Where the energy goes, the focus flows, ensuring more energy is spent on it. It's true. So accountability, ethical/intellectual stamina, imagination, definitions and multi-disciplined examinations (as opposed to religionism, propaganda, and dualism) serve as a better focus, collectively. Not only that but they need a rather **fierce** focus. So counter prejudice and lies but... An atmosphere of sin and blame best suits what religious paradigm and we know what happens if you don't challenge the given frame of reality! It's an automatic loose to that pardigm, by default. Accountability. Every adult is accountable for their cognitive state of affairs, including the state of their emotional, political, religious/spiritual, and social stuff, all things that religionism and dualism seriously handicap/retard. Sad but true. It is better to teach people how to think and to teach them accountability, not unwittingly imply that the buck stops with TV ads or Obama. What happened in Maine had more to do abusive faith-based identity wars that took many unwittingly parties along for the ride. Definitions. Most could not define equality (the removal of the institutions of prejudice) nor did they understand that institutionalized prejudice always affects more than the target minority and it always ushers in more abuses than prejudice -- affects entire societies and systems that seem to have nothing to do with civil rights, and why? More than creedist prejudice is taught from all corners, What's also taught are the ways of abuse and cognitive dissonance of all sorts...dysfunction. That tends to domino insidiously. Power Paradigms. Besides not being able to define equality, they're also not familiar with their own vote for the meta power paradigm of abuse that seeks to get power by taking it away from others at their expense and suffering. Getting power by taking it from others becomes so habitual that they **will** fall for the lies that they'll loose their rights to their prejudiced beliefs/ways...and same sex marriage will be taught in schools. They won't hear you when you point out that: Equality is about the removal of the institutions of prejudice yet religions and others retain the right to remain prejudiced, they just can't be prejudiced in any way that involves government because, should there be conflict and some seek to deny others rights and privileges (and civil rights involve both) , then their rights and privileges end where the others' begin. They won't listen to you that they should differentiate the two following: Candidate and issue based votes? Majority vote is a correct practice. Faith-based or civil rights based votes? Majority vote tumbles into the territories of tyranny of the majority, creedism, theocracy, heterosexualism, and other problems. When you point out that: Nobody has the right to enshrine their religious beliefs and the resulting heterosexism into civil law and it doesn't help that even many of the spiritual-but-not-religious are going along for the ride, not quite aware that voting against gay marriage is essential a vote for crypto-theocracy, theocracy being one of the most dangerous things in the world whose abusive battles for power and control know no end because once a religion thinks it's in charge, then the factions/denominations battle for domination and sometimes it's straight out bloody war and sometimes those battles are more insideous, more widely recognized and challenged when too many tipping points and red flags already came and went. They may come counter with the likes of: Oh! I see... But the opposition has a right to enshrine their beliefs and resulting homosexuality into civil law? ...The people have spoken in 31 states now. Activist judges cant save it antmore. People are fed up with the name calling and degradation of our society and have spoken. Or: Speals about "natural marriage"... Or The "fact" that you can't have a moral compass if it doesn't come from their God and church, theirs is a fight for morality but you're immoral/amoral if you're on the wrong side of their Forces of Good™ vs. The Forces of Evil™ or God vs. Godless dualism. Therefore...prejudice becomes moral. Neat trick, huh? Or The argument that marriage is either a right or a privilege and if it's a privilege, then fighting for same-sex marriage can't be part of the civil right movement. (That's a false dilemma -- civil rights involves both rights and privileges.) They continue to see diversity as a weakness and can't better answer what are our greatest resources are. [Web LINK] When you say: It's not prejudice to point out prejudice, it's not abuse to point out abuse, it's not intolerance to point out intolerance and other captain obvious things, they may either ignore you or go for more circular arguments, and points already covered as if there were never understood...because they won't understand. It's their beliefs, social and/or religious indoctrination, that they will defend just as much as you may want to defend equality and civil rights. They will say: It's not prejudiced to stand against immorality, they will conflate homosexuality with pedophilia and beastiality, and just about every other trick in the book. Mucho circular arguments keep the energy and focus in their court, and you know what happens then. Civil rights took a beating in Maine because accountability, definitions and multi-disciplined examinations, as opposed to religionism, propaganda, and dualism, serve as a better focus, collectively, and they need a rather **fierce** focus. Yes, the lies, disinformation, prejudice, and tyranny of the majority have to be countered but the above needs an even greater focus. That's why I wrote pages like: [Web LINK] [Web LINK] [Web LINK] Finally, it's also hard to be heard because propaganda is about the length most people will tolerate unless they get to abuse and confuse. |
| Ok....about To Be Very Blunt Here... | Nov 5th. at 9:44:16 am EST |
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Hindustaniwarrior (Kansas City, Missouri) - Email Me If you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgener, or allied with such, and the gay rights/marriage issue comes up to a vote, and you decide not to vote, blame yourself and shut up if the measure doesn't pass. Unlike the electoral college, every vote counts in these elections. The reason the religious right has so much influence in this country is because the churches use their church busses and TAKE people to the polls.they get on their pulpits weeks in advance saying "vote, vote, vote!" We need to quit herding cats and come united on these types of things if our voice is to be heard. |
| Equal Rights Violates Rights | Nov 5th. at 9:04:32 am EST |
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Terry (Irvington, Virginia) - Email Me "Natural Marriage", the notion that defective and abusive laws can undo the fundamental rights violations in retaining artifacts of marriage as a chattel property trade, backed by government pretending it's no longer theocratic. There's a fundamental abuse in many applications of "equal rights" law, when that law is applied to situations that fundamentally violate other rights. This is often true of tax code that favors corporate churches and their supporters, and forces many pagans to violate core beliefs that churches should not be corporate business organizations, or whose practice is solitary or small group and cannot jump the hoops of public entities without being changed in ways law is not entitled to coerce or penalize. Merely protecting "equal rights" to be something one is not or rejects being fails important tests of religious freedom and privacy, that in many cases call for government to either fix other more pervasive areas of regulation, or avoid regulating many issues entirely. Such is the case with marriage laws, by their very existence, when that process gives special status to binary couples (regardless of sexes) , or when it requires state officiants and in so doing coerces in most but not all states clergy to act as government agents, but as government agents to engage in religious and other banned discrimination. To the extent state agents officiate marriages, they should be required to serve everyone, or be subject to personal liability just like the Louisiana Justice of the Peace who recently found himself subject to Federal civil rights suit even after resigning as a state government agent. To separate clergy from those legal obligations can best be done by eliminating any requirement for officiants at all, and isolate any religious ceremonies from legal status. The historic reasons for clergy officiants were local theocracies in most early states, now banned, and illiterate citizens who couldn't do simple paperwork clergy were educated to handle. In today's society, that level of illiteracy is grounds to hold such persons incapable of being treated as legal adults in our society, and as such incompetent to contract in any form absent review and approval by a Probate judge or similar magistrate. As to binary civil domestic partnerships, which is all "legal marriages" have ever legally been since the 14th Amendment crushed the last vestiges of state theocracies, that's a cop out that persons of now unapproved sexes are certainly entitled to from an equal protections legal view, and that regardless of whether a majority has hissy fits and needs to grow the fvck up and get over broken cult dogma, or if the majority in some states approve. However, when that binary couples policy is based on archaic religious and ethnic cultural models everyone else is entitled to not have made their only favored option in law, or when it enables economic and other policies that discriminate against singles, poly's, or other chosen family or non-family domestic partnership geometries, the binary limit itself is wrong. Equal protections for more binary privilege classes aggravates rather than fixes the underlying issue. The needed fix there has substantial complexity, due to the thousands of state and Federal regulated issues of labor, tax, insurance, education, health, and too many other prongs of entanglement in personal relationships that now exist linked to marriage laws. A level playing field regardless of relational status or chosen family partnership geometry requires a broad review of public policies for areas the government doesn't belong regulating at all, and across the rest, doing some tough work identifying how it might be possible to legally endorse civil domestic partnership laws while not denying singles equal protections of law. That would likely mean restricting such partnerships to a range of conditions for mutual legal agency, but eliminating most social services (outside Constitutional Duties and Powers, including state programs with Federal supports) , while addressing complex custody and survivorship issues already done regularly in family courts where a mix of marital and non-marital offspring exist across a range of past partners. "Gay marriage" is an easy excuse for politicians to blow off tackling the serious and complex issues they by law are obligated to review and clean up as to current messes of public policy. A "level playing field" of legal rights and privileges is the minimum valid Constitutional standard, but is very messy to define, never mind implement. Eliminating marriage, at least as a legal issue, is a simple starting point towards cleaning up legal defects, rather than tweak them to merely be defective in different ways. |
| ???? | Nov 5th. at 12:46:21 am EST |
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Gina (Sacramento, California) - Email Me Yes, he is opposed to gay marriage but in favor of civil unions. I don't agree with him, but at least he's not George Bush and the whole "no marriage or union, they are damned to hell" crowd. Now. How do we battle the ads, the ideas? There's where we're supposed to be discussing. BTW: I may not be gay, but I'll be danged if someone tells me who to marry. Yes, I married a couple or three times and I'm sure folks were not happy with my choices each time, but it was MY choice. Dangit! Besides..so when do they say that free will actually can kick in? |
| Oooh I Forgot To Include. | Nov 5th. at 12:08:04 am EST |
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Roy Linford Adams (Buxton, Maine) - Email Me A theological poke at the bumper stickers that read "Marriage = 1 Man + 1 Woman". I have some rebuttle sticker ideas. "Moses = 1 Man + 2 Women" "Abraham = 1 Man + 3 Women" "Esau = 1 Man + 4 Women" "David = 1 Man + 7 Women" (The number just keeps going people) "Rehoboam = 1 Man + 18 Women" (Holy crap! Now that's a playah) "Ruth = 1 Woman + 1 Woman" "Lot = 1 Man + 2 Daughters" (WTF?) "Marriage = Rape + 50 shekels" (You better believe it bro) "1 Man + 12 More Men = Jesus" (Booya!) |
| IF..... | Nov 4th. at 9:12:01 pm EST |
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huckster (Dunnellon, Florida) - Email Me These creatures of the religious reich actually wanted to do something for marriage then they should make divorce illegal. They had eight years with Bush in office and a republican legislature and could not get it done. They couldn't even make abortion illegal either. Maybe (hopefully) somebody will find a way to force marriages to be annulled if no children are born or adopted within say 3-5 years after the wedding. This is because they (the religious reich) say marriage is for procreation. So No Child = No Marriage then. Matter settled. "nuff said Bright Blessing To All |
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