What does this mean? If gay marriage is legalized, then any church or religious organization that doesn’t agree with same-sex marriage will likely come under intense pressure to either change their views or go silent. Tax-exempt status for faith-based organizations that fail to agree with same-sex marriage will be at risk.

I just don’t see how this follows. Gay marriage has been in Mass. for several years now. Have you heard of any church that has been forced to perform a ceremony? Or take a more likely example. A law that prevented the marriage of two divorcees (or one divorcee to someone never married) would never pass judicial scrutiny. However the Catholic Church can and does refuse to perform such ceremonies (absent an annullment). I have never heard of the church’s tax exempt status being threatened for such a stance, nor of any real controversy with respect to it. I do not see how gay marriage would be any different.

However, I would support specific language in any marriage law granting absolute protection to any church that refuses to perform them.

Feel the power of the rainbow-colored fist:

Hey, hey, hey! You don’t know where that fist has been.

I guess the “no duh” factor is that this is a complicated issue…one that isnt solved in the courts or at the dinner table, and most likely will never be solved to anyone’s satisfaction. Prop 8 is upheld…gay rights will lose. Prop 8 is overturned, and the will of the majority will be overturned. So who’s right?

Well…that depends on who you ask.

Personally, I dislike the fact we have to legislate morality, but, it also has its place. I personally don’t care what two people do in their bedroom, as long as they’re doing it in the privacy of their home and aren’t hurting anyone else in the process. I also personally disagree with homosexuality. As i’ve said in other threads on this topic, its the same reason i hate asparagus and the Ice Capades…there’s just things people naturally dislike, no matter how many times you try to convince them otherwise.

But for folks who are religious, is there no compromise? For those who support gay rights, is there no middle ground where everyone can sit at the table, and agree to disagree? Is there no way where someone can get some of what they want, instead of having to ram their ideology down the others throat? Why are civil unions a bad idea? The “institution” of marriage is not just a christian philosophy, and they’ve never had the corner market on morality. If all gay couples are looking for are tax breaks and better health benefits (which seems to have come up on this thread, and topic, multiple times), why could those things not individually be addressed? Could insurance companies issue policies based on this change, without having some law forcing them to do so? To me, that seems like something the free market itself could tackle, without having some proposition to mandate action (or inaction, perhaps, depending on the case).

I know there’s more to it that this, and i can promise someone is going to take issue with how i see this, but thats fine. I just think each side is trying to push an agenda. Maybe we should figure out how to find common, middle ground and stop trying to force the other side to do something it finds blatently abhorant.

just my 2 cents, and i’m going back to sleep.

How could anybody with half a brain be surprised with this outcome?

If the purpose of this initiative was to bait the California AG and Supreme Court into thumbing their collective nose at the people, then I say well played.

If the purposed of this initiative was to actually outlaw gay marriage, then people were spinning their wheels from the git-go.

Let’s be clear, folks and call a spade a spade. It’s never about rights, it’s about getting a bigger piece of the pie.

Then in this case, a mother-to-be can decide whether to keep the child or exercise her right to an abortion. It would make for an interesting scenerio though…Either this fetus would be aborted or the abortion industry would be forbidden to carry out abortions against fetuses carrying the “gay gene”.

The ironic thing is that there would be the biggest group of pro-lifers since the religious right in the ’80s.

GSP
“This is Sparta!”