At least Prop 8 passed..

AmentsChick

There's alot of talk about religion but it isn't only the religious who are for Prop 8. My dad (an atheist) is blatantly hateful towards gays. He told me that marriage is between a man and a woman...blah blah blah. He then told me that if gays are legally allowed to marry, what's next? In his words, "people will be open to marry horses, sheep etc". His view on this is totally irrational, but then again so is this issue in the first place.

mammasan

AmentsChick wrote:

This is EXACTLY my problem. Why shouldn't they marry the person of their choice?? This to me is the bottom line on this issue.

They most certain should have the right, I agree, but I think people are getting hung up on a name. As long as the rights are equally between hetro and homosexual couple what does it matter if we call it a marriage or a civil union. Marriage are for religious ceremonies and civil unions are for government issued certificates.

meistereder

mammasan wrote:

They most certain should have the right, I agree, but I think people are getting hung up on a name. As long as the rights are equally between hetro and homosexual couple what does it matter if we call it a marriage or a civil union. Marriage are for religious ceremonies and civil unions are for government issued certificates.

But for straight people, governments issue marriage certificates. See the issue now? It's "separate but equal."

jimed14

AmentsChick wrote:

There's alot of talk about religion but it isn't only the religious who are for Prop 8. My dad (an atheist) is blatantly hateful towards gays. He told me that marriage is between a man and a woman...blah blah blah. He then told me that if gays are legally allowed to marry, what's next? In his words, "people will be open to marry horses, sheep etc". His view on this is totally irrational, but then again so is this issue in the first place.

again, this is really why I think this is not just a religious thing, it's also a generational thing ... if you give this 5 - 10 years, the amount of younger, more tolerant voters will increase in both number and percentage.

It's only a matter of time.

AmentsChick

jimed14 wrote:

again, this is really why I think this is not just a religious thing, it's also a generational thing ... if you give this 5 - 10 years, the amount of younger, more tolerant voters will increase in both number and percentage.

It's only a matter of time.

Agreed! At least I'd hope so. But I can't help but think that many of the people standing on street corners holding "YES ON PROP 8" signs are the same people who might've marched for equal rights in the 60s?!

mammasan

meistereder wrote:

But for straight people, governments issue marriage certificates. See the issue now? It's "separate but equal."

No for straight people government issues civil union certificates just as homosexuals.

mammasan

jimed14 wrote:

again, this is really why I think this is not just a religious thing, it's also a generational thing ... if you give this 5 - 10 years, the amount of younger, more tolerant voters will increase in both number and percentage.

It's only a matter of time.

Well according the demographic results from the Prop 8 vote it is also a cultural issue. The measure mainly passed because of the large Black and Hispanic turn out for Obama. I can't speak personally for the black community, even though studies show that there is a high level of homophobia in their community, but from personal experience the hispanic community old and young have a very negative view towards homosexuals.

meistereder

mammasan wrote:

No for straight people government issues civil union certificates just as homosexuals.

You say what now? You're saying the term "marriage license" no longer exists and when you file for a divorce, you are dissolving a civil union? Are you saying that the government never asks for marital status, but rather whether one has entered into a civil union? Are you saying that the term marriage is never used in a legal sense anymore?

Because if that is what you are saying, I disagree.

If you're straight, you get married. If you are gay, you get a civil union. How am I wrong on that?

mammasan

meistereder wrote:

You say what now? You're saying the term "marriage license" no longer exists and when you file for a divorce, you are dissolving a civil union? Are you saying that the government never asks for marital status, but rather whether one has entered into a civil union? Are you saying that the term marriage is never used in a legal sense anymore?

Because if that is what you are saying, I disagree.

If you're straight, you get married. If you are gay, you get a civil union. How am I wrong on that?

That is the way it should be. Government has no place getting involved in marriage except for tax purposes. Hence government should not hand out marriage certificates but certificates of civil union because that is what it basically is.

jimed14

mammasan wrote:

Well according the demographic results from the Prop 8 vote it is also a cultural issue. The measure mainly passed because of the large Black and Hispanic turn out for Obama. I can't speak personally for the black community, even though studies show that there is a high level of homophobia in their community, but from personal experience the hispanic community old and young have a very negative view towards homosexuals.

Well, I don't have a ton of data points, but, in my girlfriend's family (hispanic) ... the kids all voted against prop 8 .... mom voted yes ...

we can debate it back and forth, but, only time will tell.

meistereder

mammasan wrote:

That is the way it should be. Government has no place getting involved in marriage except for tax purposes. Hence government should not hand out marriage certificates but certificates of civil union because that is what it basically is.

Oh, OK. You're saying how it SHOULD be. Fine. I misunderstood.

mammasan

jimed14 wrote:

Well, I don't have a ton of data points, but, in my girlfriend's family (hispanic) ... the kids all voted against prop 8 .... mom voted yes ...

we can debate it back and forth, but, only time will tell.

I don't have much data point except for the stats coming our of California and the opinions of my own family.

jimed14

mammasan wrote:

I don't have much data point except for the stats coming our of California and the opinions of my own family.

I've heard ~75% of blacks and ~55% of hispanics voted Yes on 8 ... but, the one thing I'm not sure about, what is that as a total number of votes? That may be enough to get you from 30% to 52% voting yes ... or from 49% to 52% voting yes ... not sure which is closer to the truth.

I also heard ~85% of republicans and 35% of democrats voted Yes ...

Percentages are all well and good, but, are kind of meaningless without total numbers next to them.

AmentsChick

jimed14 wrote:

I've heard ~75% of blacks and ~55% of hispanics voted Yes on 8 ... but, the one thing I'm not sure about, what is that as a total number of votes? That may be enough to get you from 30% to 52% voting yes ... or from 49% to 52% voting yes ... not sure which is closer to the truth.

I also heard ~85% of republicans and 35% of democrats voted Yes ...

Percentages are all well and good, but, are kind of meaningless without total numbers next to them.

I found this:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27584685/

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 6 - Any notion that Tuesday's election represented a liberal juggernaut must overcome a detail from the voting booths of California: The same voters who turned out strongest for Barack Obama also drove a stake through the heart of same-sex marriage.

Seven in 10 African Americans who went to the polls voted yes on Proposition 8, the ballot measure overruling a state Supreme Court judgment that legalized same-sex marriage and brought 18,000 gay and lesbian couples to Golden State courthouses in the past six months.

Similar measures passed easily in Florida and Arizona. It was closer in California, but no ethnic group anywhere rejected the sanctioning of same-sex unions as emphatically as the state's black voters, according to exit polls. Fifty-three percent of Latinos also backed Proposition 8, overcoming the bare majority of white Californians who voted to let the court ruling stand.

The outcome that placed two pillars of the Democratic coalition -- minorities and gays -- at opposite ends of an emotional issue sparked street protests in Los Angeles and a candlelight vigil in San Francisco. To gay rights advocates, the issue was one of civil rights. Attorney General Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown Jr. reworded the ballot language to state that a yes vote was a vote to "eliminate the rights of same-sex couples to marry."

That appeal ran head-on into a well-funded and well-framed advertising campaign in favor of the ban -- and the deeply ingrained religious beliefs of an African American community that largely declined to see the issue through a prism of equality.

"I think it's mainly because of the way we were brought up in the church; we don't agree with it," said Jasmine Jones, 25, who is black. "I'm not really the type that I wanted to stop people's rights. But I still have my beliefs, and if I can vote my beliefs that's what I'm going to do.

"God doesn't approve it, so I don't approve it. And I approve of Him."

The overwhelming rejection of same-sex marriage by black voters was surprising and disappointing to gay rights advocates who had hoped that African Americans would empathize with their struggle.

"I wasn't surprised by the Latinos," said Steve Smith, senior consultant for No on 8. "Basically, Latinos and the Anglo population were fairly close. The outlier of the proposition was African Americans. Many are churchgoing; many had ministers tell them to vote."

Indeed, Proposition 8 promoters worked closely with black churches across the state, encouraging ministers to deliver sermons in favor of the ban.

"What the church does is give that perspective that this is a sacred issue as well as a social issue," said Derek McCoy, African American outreach director for the Protect Marriage Campaign. "The reason I feel they came out so strong on the issue is one, for them, it's not a civil rights issue, it's a marriage issue. It's about marriage being between a man and a woman and it doesn't cut into the civil rights issue, about equality.

"The gay community was never considered a third of a person."

Black residents agreed with that reasoning in interviews at a Culver City mall on Thursday. David Blannon, 73, who opposed the measure, said his wife summed up her yes vote in one sentence: " 'As far as I'm concerned, that's not something I read in the Bible.' And let it go at that," he said.

But Kesha Young, 32, called religious arguments a cover for persistent prejudices rooted elsewhere. Taboos against homosexuality are exceptionally strong in Africa, McCoy acknowledged.

"I'm going to tell you something about the black race: We love to pass judgment. I think that's just a smoke screen about the church thing," said Young, a licensed vocational nurse.

Anthony Maurice-White, 31, who is gay, said he learned early in life to keep his sexual orientation to himself around fellow blacks as a matter of routine. "Closed minds," he said in the mall parking lot. "And they're afraid of change."

His friend Ike Young, 21, nodded agreement. "I'm straight, but I think a lot of people are bi-curious but they're afraid of what family members will think of them," he said.

The Latino vote for the ban also appears rooted in culture.

"It's our tradition," said Flor Guardado, 38, who voted yes. "In Latino Central American culture, the gays aren't accepted."

Guardado said that in her native Honduras, she would not tell her mother if she had a lesbian friend. "If I had a lesbian friend, they'd think I was a lesbian, too," she said.

But in Los Angeles, where she owns a hair salon, a different kind of diplomacy obtains. All eight of her employees are gay. When they asked how she voted, she tells them it's a secret.

"I'm sorry for the gay people. They have feelings," said the mother of two. "Legally, I don't want that for the children. They will be confused and think it's okay. They might think they're gay, too."

Television commercials supporting the ban skirted the issue of rights, and instead declared that schools would treat same-sex marriage as normal. Even opponents acknowledged the ads as powerful and positioned to influence minority voters, whose children account for a disproportionate share of the public school population.

Pablo Correa said his mind was made up by a TV spot in which a young girl comes home from school and tells her mother she learned how a prince could marry a prince.

"Before, I didn't know about Proposition 8. When I saw the commercial, it opened my mind," said Correa, 42, standing in his beauty supply story in Boyle Heights, in heavily Latino East Los Angeles.

"I don't discriminate against people," he said, with a wave at the rows of lipstick and makeup. "I have a lot of customers who are homosexuals, transsexuals and bisexuals. I'm not against these people."


He added: "But I'm a traditionalist. I come from a traditional family. People can do whatever they want in their own life, but I have to protect my family."

Still, strategists for neither major party saw the outcome on Proposition 8 as an opening for Republicans to corral minority voters who share a socially conservative agenda.

"I think it's unclear that the social conservatism would trump economics," said Arnold Steinberg, a Republican strategist in Los Angeles. "Certainly with Latino voters there have been opportunities to market themselves on a socially conservative level. But the Republican Party has been too bumbling and

norm

mammasan wrote:

besides government really has no right to get involved in marriage.

...

AmentsChick

cutback wrote:

...

no need to shout.

norm

AmentsChick wrote:

no need to shout.

actually in this case there is a need

AmentsChick

cutback wrote:

actually in this case there is a need

Hmm...true...you got me there.

decides2dream

mammasan wrote:

No for straight people government issues civil union certificates just as homosexuals.

no.
i specifically have a 'marriage license' at home. not a civil union certificate.


oh i see now reading down further...you say it 'should be' that way...and while i respect your right to hold that opinion, i disagree. i have a marriage license, i think even without a religious ceremony i should have the right to have a marriage. it IS just a term, but that's also the point. why should anyone get to determine something that has existed, such as legal marriages...now all of suden can't be. why? b/c religious institutions use the term marriage? maybe if it's only a term, they should change their own terminolgy...or, simply accept the current situation of the difference beteen a legal marriage and a religious one. again, i do not believe we should bend to the will of groups, religious or otherwise, to dictate what are acceptable terms.


as to marriage and goverment, again...a difference of opinion. i DO believe the government has the right to be in the business of marriage. i do NOT see why the word should only be used for religious unions, WHO designated that it was first and foremost a religious term? and right now, we HAVE legal marriage...so why should we do away with it to appease religious groups? so then, i do personally believe that gays have every right to fight for MARRIAGE. it's their CHOICE to fight for what they want. obviously, if you disagree...so be it.....but i happen to agree with their stance. me, i do CARE what it it is called...b/c for me, it's the principle. the religious should NOT get to decide what kinds of unions are marriages.

mammasan

decides2dream wrote:

no.
i specifically have a 'marriage license' at home. not a civil union certificate.

That still doesn't change the fact that government has no right involving itself in marriage.