Why was that a big deal?

Of course gay marriage didn't make Massachusetts a seething portal to hell - it was already one thanks to the Kennedys (Mary Jo Kopechne is unavailable for comment).

We live in a Republic. If the majority of voters in a state do not want gays to marry, and the leaders that have been elected by these voters agree (and draft legislation to that point), than that is their right. If you don't like it, either vote new people into office, or move to another state. And for chort's sake, keep it out of the courts.

Roger, I usually don't say much to you about your posts, and I actually try very hard to not get agitated by them, but you're so heavy-handed when it comes to this subject. We all know you live in San Fran, that you're fairly typical of the city's liberal residents, and you like to flog the poor gay-rights horse to death and back again. Is it really necessary to bring this up again and again? You're not a bad writer, and there is a myriad of other things to blog about.

I feel better now that that's off my chest.

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I agree with the Goddess. Roger, keep in mind that you have always lived in a city that is anything but mainstream US. You are guilty of the same intolerance you accuse others of - intolerance to people different from YOUR neighbors. I've heard nothing to convince me that the people in San Francisco are objectively superior to anyone else.

And I also agree that it would be terrific if you could come up with an engaging topic other than gays, early sex, or vaccinations.

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Very good points, SKL and Goddess. What is particularly bothersome about this post (and others that have come before) is that it is entirely unrelated to parenting. Sure, the writer adds some gratuitous sentence about kids, but the parenting connection is tangential at best and nonexistent at worst. If one wants to whine incessantly for homosexuality, fine. Really, I don't care. What I do care about is when that whining is masqueraded as a legitimate parenting topic.

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This post is about parenting--it is about the values we're teaching our children; our children's rights to love and marry whomever they choose; and about children whose parents have to jump through expensive, ridiculous legal hoops to make certain their families are protected in the event of the death of the "bio" parent.

Anna says in her comment "If the majority of voters in a state do not want gays to marry..." Well, what if the majority of voters did not want Christians, or African Americans, or mixed race couples, or people born on February 29 to marry? You've have essentially said "if the majority of voters wish to deny an entire segment of our population a right/privilege, then it's okay."

Kudos, Roger. Shame on the rest of you.

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I think Representative Seaborn Roddenbery said it best about banning marriage when he said in 1912, "It is abhorrent and repugnant to the very principles of...government. It is subversive of social peace... Let us uproot and exterminate now this debasing, ultra-demoralizing, un-American and inhuman leprosy."

Except, wait, he was talking about interracial marriage, not gay marriage.

It is fascinating how the same religious and "defend the institution of marriage" arguments were used back then for not wanting whites and non-whites to marry as are used today for gay marriage. Rep. Roddenbery's amendment to have interracial marriage banned at a national level never passed, but it spurred around half the country to enact their own laws banning it, kinda like all those "Defense of Marriage" Acts we see popping up around the country today. It took until 1948 for states to start repealing those bans and a Supreme Court decision in 1967 (only 41 years ago) to force the remaining 16 states to drop the law banning interracial marriage.


Gosh darn it "the goddess anna," why can't the Supreme Court get it through its thick skull that we live in a Republic and if those states want to prevent a black man marrying a white woman, it is up to them to determine right and wrong.

Sure thing "SKL," those city-folk are always pushing their stupid "tolerance" on the rest of the country. I agree they are the ones being intolerant that a state can't decide that a white woman and a Native American should not marry.


Try this little activity when you get a chance. Find an old person, somebody in their 70s or older, as they'd need to have been an adult while interracial marriage was still banned in a large chuck of the country. Ask them exactly what was wrong with people who had different skin colors falling in love with each other and marrying, maybe even raising a family together. I have no idea what they will say, but memorize it. It is not necessary for you to agree with it, racism is abhorrent and trying to understand the logic will give you a headache.

Now, when you are old, possibly in a nursing home, if you are lucky, maybe your grandchild will ask why it was soooooooo wrong for gay people to be married or even, gasp, raise a family way back in 2008. They will ask why you even cared what other people did with their lives and exactly how that had anything to do with your marriage. All you have to do is recall what that old person you spoke to said and just repeat it. Except, you know, replace the word "colored" with "gay."

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I am no so sure that is the older generation that's most worried about same sex folks getting married. Around me it seems to be those who are about my age, and I am a long way from being called old. Of course the massive size of the baby boomer generation is what is interfering with that.... Anyway, it just seem to matter to most of the folks I know who are over 50.

I think the best thing coming from this discussion (barring the first 3 commenters) is really what we value about marriage, what marriage is really. Is it monogamy? Pooling of resources? Having children and raising them together? Because I know a lot of heterosexual couples who are married, are not monogamous, do not really pool resources, and don't have kids. Is marriage important to society or is it a religious institution, perhaps it's based in biology? It's been a conversation me and my 70+ year parents have been having. We don't know. But we have been thinking about it. Sometimes it feels as if marriage is merely an institution used to harness males to a biologically spawned reproduction strategy (one that I think is the most successful in terms of progeny success), in which case sometimes it would seem to me that gay couples wouldn't want it anymore. Well, nor would many males....

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Personally I think that "marriage" should be purely a religious matter and that the government should only concern itself with civil unions. Grant civil unions and rights to both same-sex and man/woman partnerships, and then if they want to further solidify it with their church or synagogue etc. then those religious institutions can decide for themselves who can "marry" within their rules.

I think this discussion belongs within the parenting realm as it often leads into a discussion about gay parenting rights. We know several lesbian families within our daughter's school and in our neighborhood, and I cannot see a single reason why both mothers cannot have the same civil rights as married parents.

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ok people we all know that there is a financial agenda in all of this. it is all about taxes and keeping a particular population of people from receiving a marrige tax break. they stamp "morals" on the top of it and of course the christian right has to stick their big fat noses in it. but if it was really about creating a moral household for our youth then all married couples that receive domestic abuse charges should have to be denied the right to marrige, forced into divorce, and never be allowed to marry again.

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The last time I checked America was a democracy, not a republic. You're lucky you were born here, or you'd never pass the citizenship test.

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