posted June 03, 2006 04:25 PM            

George W is the most morally corrupt person in the news right now, where does he get off saying stuff like this?
Instead of gay bashing
He should ban Cocaine and drunk driving, something he can relate to. (oh yeah, its already been banned)
He's turning into Anita Bryant
Hillary's going to WIN
Jwhop

posted June 04, 2006 04:53 PM            

Since they did and since US law requires other states to honor contracts and other forms of agreements from different states, it now appears there will be an amendment put forward on the issue of gay marriage.

States around the country have had referendums on their ballots banning gay marriage, which were passed overwhelmingly by the people but then were overturned by a federal court.

The people of the United States do not want the federal courts overruling them on social issues and an amendment to the Constitution would take the matter out of the hands of the federal judiciary.

lalalinda

Charmed woman marries cobra in India Fri Jun 2, 7:43 AM ET

BHUBANESWAR, India (AFP)

A woman who fell in love with a snake has married the reptile at a traditional Hindu wedding celebrated by 2,000 guests in India's Orissa state, reports said.

Bimbala Das wore a silk saree for the ceremony Wednesday at Atala village near the Orissa state capital Bhubaneswar.

Priests chanted mantras to seal the union, but the snake failed to come out of a nearby ant hill where it lives, the Press Trust of India (PTI) said on Friday.

A brass replica snake stood in for the hesitant groom.

"Though snakes cannot speak nor understand, we communicate in a peculiar way," Das, 30, told the agency.

"Whenever I put milk near the ant hill where the cobra lives, it always comes out to drink.

"I always get to see it every time I go near the ant hill. It has never harmed me," she added.

Villagers welcomed the wedding in the belief it would bring good fortune and laid on a feast for the big day.

Snakes and particularly the King Cobra are venerated in India as religious symbols worn by Lord Shiva, the god of destruction.

Das, from a lower caste, converted to the animal-loving vegetarian Vaishnav sect whose local elders gave her permission to marry the cobra, the world's largest venomous snake that can grow up to five metres.

"I am happy," said her mother Dyuti Bhoi, who has two other daughters and two sons to marry off.

"Bimbala was ill," Bhoi told local OTV channel. "We had no money to treat her. Then she started offering milk to the snake ... she was cured. That made her fall in love."

Das has moved into a hut built close to the ant hill since the wedding.

Earlier this year, a tribal girl was married off to a dog on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar.

posted June 04, 2006 05:22 PM              

quote:

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If the state of Massachusetts, home of the dud duo..Senators Kennedy and Kerry, where else, hadn't passed a gay marriage law in their state legislature, it wouldn't be necessary to have an amendment stating a marriage is between a man and a woman.--jwhop

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Christianity Today, Week of June 17

Christian Conservatives Split on Federal Marriage Amendment
Law would protect marriage from courts, but legislatures could still extend marital benefits to same-sex unions.

By Todd Hertz | posted 06/20/2002

The Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA), which would define marriage in the Constitution as "only of the union of a man and a woman," was introduced into the House on May 15. The bill is supported by a diverse bipartisan coalition of organizations and politicians. Backers of the FMA cross racial, cultural, and religious lines with support coming from Jews, Christians, Muslims as well as liberals and conservatives. The bill is sponsored in the House by three Democrats and three Republicans.

However, conservative Christian groups are split on whether to endorse it. Several pro-family organizations such as Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America have expressed dissatisfaction with the FMA, while backers include the Southern Baptist Convention, Focus on the Family, several Catholic dioceses, and the Traditional Values Coalition.

The two-sentence amendment (H.J. 93), drafted last year by the Alliance for Marriage, states that marriage is an exclusively male-female union. If the amendment becomes law, it would restrict state legislatures from using the word marriage to describe same-sex relationships. It would also disable courts from recognizing any same-sex marriage or determining the allocation of marital benefits.

No state currently recognizes same-sex unions as "marriage." Vermont recognizes same-sex "civil unions," while others allow gay and lesbian person to benefit from a partner's insurance. Under the FMA, the authority to decide on marital benefits would remain with each state.

Many conservative groups favor a constitutional amendment defining marriage but say the FMA's definition is too weak. They complain that the amendment still allows state legislatures to extend marital privileges to same-sex relationships and recognize homosexual unions.

"We feel if you are going to go to the trouble to try to amend the U.S. Constitution, which is a very difficult task, that you pass an amendment that would preclude same-sex marriage or any of what we call 'counterfeit marriage' for same-sex couples," said Peter Sprigg, senior director of culture studies for Family Research Council. "It doesn't really protect the institution of marriage from actions of state legislatures that might dilute it."

Targeting the courts
FMA supporters say that an amendment granting complete protection from the state legislatures would never make it into the Constitution.

"[Groups not supporting FMA] say that marriage is so important that it needs to be preserved across the board. We agree, but that's not going to happen politically," says Tom Minnery, Focus on the Family vice president of public policy. "A marriage amendment that prohibits the people of the state from acting would never get wide enough support to pass Congress and be ratified in the states."

Instead, the Alliance for Marriage drafted the FMA to focus on stopping the courts from determining marital status or benefits.

In 1996, the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) defined marriage as being between one man and one woman in the eyes of the federal government and protected states from being forced to recognize policies of other states regarding same-sex couples.

However, DOMA does not affect what state legislatures or courts can decide in terms of recognizing unions or determining benefits. It protects states but does not limit them. The FMA would add protection against the courts to the strengths of the DOMA. Says Minnery, "So far, the courts have been 100 percent of the problem."

Matt Daniels, executive director of Alliance for Marriage, told CT that the ability for civil courts to affect marriage laws is especially threatening. On May 21 lawyers appealed a Massachusetts court ruling denying marriage to seven same-sex couples. The court had ruled that having and raising children was central to the purpose of marriage.

Lawyers plan to argue in the appeal that civil marriage is a fundamental right, that denying marriage is a violation of equal treatment, and that the state cannot justify exclusion from marriage. If the case is overturned and the couples are given their marriage licenses, Daniels said, it could begin a chain reaction of similar lawsuits across the country.

"Gay groups take the marriage issue out of the hands of the people and to the courts," he says. "This is why we need the Federal Marriage Amendment. If you take it to the people, we win. If you take it to the courts, the gay activists win."

The Massachusetts's Supreme Judicial Court is historically sympathetic to homosexual rights issues, having previously ruled in favor of homosexual groups who sued to march in a St. Patrick's Day parade. The only dissenting judge in the judgment has since retired. (The Supreme Court overturned the ruling.)

"We're going to lose in Massachusetts; it is only a matter of how quickly. The question is whether they can win before we can awaken interest in the amendment," Daniels says.

Minnery said that with the amendment's protection against the courts, threats of same-sex unions and marital benefits will come only from state legislatures. "But that's going to be a very much smaller fight in way fewer states than if the courts were left open to interpret it how they want," he said.

In order for the proposed amendment to become law, it must first be approved by two-thirds of both the House and the Senate and then ratified by three-quarters of the states. The bill has been referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary. Daniels said that an approximate timeline for the bill would see hearings in November or December and a decision in February 2003.

If it does not pass, Minnery says, the only recourse will be to change state constitutions one by one. But either way, conservatives must travel a difficult road to protect the institution of marriage.

"Without an astute political sense of where we are now with this culture, we may not even be able to prevent marriage from being interpreted by the courts," Minnery told CT. "It will be a very difficult fight and a very long fight to get this one through."

Todd Hertz is online assistant editor for Christianity Today.
Copyright © 2002 Christianity Today.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/123/43.0.html

posted June 04, 2006 05:27 PM              

Federal Marriage Amendment
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Marriage_Amendment

The Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) is a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution which would define marriage in the United States as a union of one man and one woman. The FMA also would prevent legislative or judicial extension of marriage-like rights to same-sex couples or other unmarried persons.
Contents

Current Law

The role of states

In the United States, civil marriage is governed by state law. Each state is free to set the conditions for a valid marriage, subject to limits set by the state's own constitution and the US Constitution. In fact, "[T]he State . . . has absolute right to prescribe the conditions upon which the marriage relation between its own citizens shall be created, and the causes for which it may be dissolved." Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U.S. 714, 734-35, 24 L. Ed. 565 (1877) Traditionally, a marriage was considered valid if the requirements of the marriage law of the state where the marriage took place were complied with. (First Restatement of Conflicts on Marriage and Legitimacy s.121 (1934)). However, a state can refuse to recognize a marriage if the marriage violates a strong public policy of the state, even if the marriage was legal in the state where it was performed. States historically exercised this "public policy exception" by refusing to recognize out-of-state polygamous marriages, underage marriages (such as marriages in states with low ages of consent), incestuous marriages (such as uncle-niece marriages, which were legal in some states but not others), and interracial marriages. Following these precedents, nearly all courts that have addressed the issue have held that states with laws against same-sex marriage can refuse to recognize same-sex marriages that were legal where performed.

Same-sex marriage is currently legal in one state. In 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health that the Massachusetts constitution requires the state to permit same-sex marriage. The decision could be reversed by an amendment to the state consitution, but so far no amendment barring same-sex marriage has passed in Massachusetts. Several other states including Vermont, California, and Connecticut allow same-sex couples to enter into civil unions or domestic partnerships that provide all or most of the rights and responsibilities of marriage under state law, but forbid same-sex marriages. More than 20 states have passed state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage, and in some cases, civil unions.

posted June 04, 2006 05:51 PM            

All the more reason for the one man, one woman definition of marriage to be inserted into the Constitution to keep the courts out of the issue.

I agree with what you're saying double trouble gemini but people don't need the sanction of "marriage" to live together and neither do people need the sanction of "marriage" to protect their legal rights to inheritance, pensions, insurance, medical decision rights, visitation rights or any other.

posted June 05, 2006 12:17 AM              

A gay marriage amendment is reactionary just as the prohibition amendment was and unnecessary. In a democracy no amendment that is discrimatory in it's nature should be added to the Constitution. That is writing discrimination into the U.S. Constitution.

Where will it end? Marriage is only for whites and whites will be next. Or marriage is only for those who belong to the same religious affiliation. Only those who have the same IQ can marry. Only blue eyed blonds can marry each other. lol Those all make just about as much sense as an amendment stating that only men and women can marry each other.

Technically, since gay males are not attracted that way to women and gay females are not attracted that way to men then the amendment is discrimatory because we are forcing those people to live in sin ( religiously speaking) by national law.