Should same sex marriage be a voting issue or a legal issue?

[The Notorious P.I.G]

I am no fan of legislating from the bench. However, if it were left up to the States Blacks would still not be allowed to vote in many of them, interracial marriage would be illegal in many others.

Should we allow a measure to be put up for a vote when the political winds barely favor its passage? isn't that the tyranny of the majority?
Nobama... hello, Brown V board of Education...

Many rights were recognized for Blacks via executive order, desegregation of the military.

there are hudreds of things that happened because they were RIGHT not because they were Popular... please pick up a history book
Let's play, did you just seriously compare same sex marriage to public beastiality? Perhaps you shoulnd't be allowed to vote...

 

[☑ Nobody '08]

I don't believe that the masses have any right to control the individual, and i don't think it's fair to let the rights of a minority be determined by a majority-- It is a tyranny of the masses.

That goes for homosexuality, incest, pedophilia and as was mentioned above bestiality.. These were actually practiced by many civilizations throughout history with no noticeably detrimental effect, they were also banned and suppressed by many civilizations with no noticeably benificial effects. As long as it's not harming anyone than there's no reason there should be any laws regarding it. The mere fact that something is offensive to some people doesn't mean it should be illegal. I don't care how offensive it is, it comes down to minding ones own business.

Most laws relating to sexuality are entirely dependent on morality instead of rationality. Take for example, the comstock law which banned sending porn, nudity or contraceptives across state lines (we now know that society would have existed without such a law or a morality). Take also the miscegenation laws which were in effect in most states up until the 70s, and now the act of punishing someone for the act of miscegenation would be immoral yet many people suffered under laws forbidding what turns out had no detrimental effect whatsoever other than that it was immoral and offensive so obviously morality and law have no place together.

 

[Da_webwalker]

What we are talking about with same sex marriage is a question of morality, so yes I do believe that any subject that speaks to the issue of the morality of our government polices the voice of the people should be hears and heeded...

The civil rights of African American is just that an issue of the civil rights of a group of American citizens...

The sanctity of the institution of marriage is whats at stake in the issue of same sex marriage as well as the moral positioning of our government in defining what America truly stands for...

 

[Lucifer Hussein Satan]

But there's a lot of tyranny of the majority. We should either have it or not have it. Why do I get to tell some loser he's not allowed to pay for sex? It doesn't affect me. Why do I get to tell some college kid he's not allowed to have a beer or a joint? I don't drink or smoke but if someone else wants to, it doesn't affect me. Ironically, San Franciso is on the leading edge of nanny government - they tell you what you're allowed to eat, what shopping bags you're allowed to use, etc... etc...., but then when a different majority tries to limit THEIR lifestyles, THEN they take to the streets with the rhetoric of John Stuart Mill????

Everyone's a libertarian when it comes to his own liberty.

 

[kozzm0]

Neither, it is a language issue, plain and simple. Both sides have their noses buried way too deep to notice.

As long as the English language has included the word "marriage," it has meant a heterosexual relationship usually aimed at rearing children if possible. That's not a judgement, it's the common usage of the word. What a word means is determined entirely by its common usage. It's so-called "definition" comes not from the king or the dictionary but from the ways in which all speakers of the language use it.

A non-common usage has no business being treated as a legal definition, for obvious reasons. Government can't speak a different language than the people governed.

Advocates of same-sex marriage have been trying to force the lawmakers and courts to use a different language than common English, for years now. Their religious, christian opponents have equally foolishly responded by trying to make government declare the "definition" of a word. As if language were subject to government! lol. (It's not. Study up on linguistics if you refuse to believe it).

Now there are laws in many states essentially declaring that the word marriage means only one man and one woman. All those stories about the sultan and his 80 wives, then, you will have to revise them to the sultan, his one wive and 79 mistresses. They've created a new defense for polygamy, since making this "definition" basically means polygamy doesn't even exist.

No matter what happens in this silly tug of war between gays and Jesus-freaks, neither of them will win. The public at large will still use marriage as it has always been used, for centuries.