Ernie : The ruling is ludicrous. Indeed, just about all pro-homosexual legislation is irrational. Yes, the article is excellent, very informative. But it misses the fundamental point-- which opponents of same sex marriage also habitually miss, albeit for different reasons. The debate is currently framed as legal rights vs religious bigotry. And the judge's ruling, not even alluded to in the article, overtly ( overtly ) condemns ( condemns ) the Bible for its 'homophobia.' That word was not used, but that is the exact effect. So the judge is saying that Christian morals are unconstitutional. The corollary is that the Bible ( or 20 books in the Bible, all the passages where the issue is discussed, which all condemn homosexuality ) is antithetical to the Constitution as articulated in the 14th Amendment. Which is preposterous on the face of it. Except that the Rubicon is directly ahead of us and, if Kagan is confirmed as Supreme Court Justice, and we all know who nominated her, there is a real chance that this travesty of a decision might become the law of the land. Our professedly "Christian" president would then be in the position of criminalizing Christianity. Hopefully this is crystal clear. In the process the outcome could also be criminalization of all normative forms of Judaism as well. Denial mode, making excuses for Obama or rationalizing it all away, would be completely unjustifiable. BHO has set the stage and now the drama has begun. I have work to do, in addition to other work still undone, but by God it will be carried out to the best of my ability. This is a war against religion, launched by the hard core Left and by the homosexual population of the country. It is a war we cannot afford to lose, it is a war we absolutely must win. Everything else is more important ? You --anyone-- cannot be bothered to study the subject and make yourself genuinely informed ? Actually, not to do so would be a major moral failure. To simply read the standard crap that the MSM refers to, BTW, would not constitute becoming informed, for all that such literature does is to propagandize for homosexual activist views. I'm talking about serious psychoanalytic studies, sociological studies by competent researchers rather than homosexuals, neurological studies by honest brain researchers, and all of that. Reading the usual fare that the schools dish out, or human rights commissions dish out, is just about completely worthless. But , to return to the point, the most effective grounds for overturning this ruling, and ALL other similar rulings, is NOT legalistic argument. . It is empirically establishing the fact that homosexuality is a mental illness, and that it is absurd to give "rights" to the mentally diseased to indulge in or promote their grievous sickness. About this, there is an abundance of hard data, which you know I have collected and have already written about extensively. With more to come, a lot more. There can be an adjunct argument, homosexuality is a form of immorality that is antithetical to all legitimate standards of conduct which the Constitution assumes or expresses overtly. And the argument can also be made that the judge's ruling, in one fell swoop, not only guts the Bible, which he seems to hate, but also constitutes a direct attack on the morality of various Buddhist sacred texts, of various Hindu scriptures, etc, of Mormon doctrinal statements, and also of the Qur'an. As much as the Qur'an usually disgusts me, one thing to say on its behalf is that it also takes an uncompromising stand in opposition to homosexuality in any form. What I believe will happen on the Right is more of the same, more appeal to Christian faith and its precepts as the only legitimate counter to the ruling, a tactic that simply cannot win in any high court. That is, the Right is stupid on this issue, morbidly stupid. This also is disgusting, and I know from experience that people on the Right, speaking of everyone who might be called a leader --about which I hope I am dead wrong-- refuse to listen to anyone else except other Rightists. Their short-sightedness is suicidal and just about inevitable. OK, if I must be a solitary voice "crying in the wilderness," at least for now, that is exactly what I am prepared to do . For the simple reason that it has always been this way and why should it be any different now ? To sum it up, today's ruling is Satanic. Not that it is possible to use this word in making a legal case that can be taken into court, but to express my honest sentiments as forcefully as possible. Billy Rojas =========================================================== In a message dated 8/4/2010 5:03:03 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected] writes:
The least inflammatory analysis I could find on today's ruling... -- Ernie P. P.S. I for one expect Sarah Palin to jump on this issue with both feet, even if one ends up in her mouth :) _http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/08/will-gay-marriage-yet-again-become.h tml_ (http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/08/will-gay-marriage-yet-again-become.html) 8.04.2010 In a ruling that had been widely anticipated, Judge Vaughn Walker of the Federal District Court in San Francisco _today decided_ (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/05/us/05prop.html?hp) that California's Proposition 8 -- which was narrowly approved by the state's voters in 2008 and amended the state's constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman -- violated the U.S. Constitution on both due process and equal protection grounds, thereby striking it. The decision is eventually expected to be appealed up to the U.S. Supreme Court, where its fate will probably be in the hands of Justice Anthony Kennedy. One of the distinct features of the 2010 campaign to date has been a relative lack of discussion around gay marriage. There are a variety of reasons for this -- there are no marriage ballot initiatives before the voters this year, for instance, and the country has a whole host of other, more tangible problems to deal with. But can we expect this to change with Judge Walker's ruling today? The issue is certainly unlikely to be pushed into the spotlight by Democrats. Most polls still show at least a plurality of Americans opposed to gay marriage, although the _margin is narrowing_ (http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/04/gay-marriage-by-numbers.html) . More important, perhaps, is that the fact that President Obama is at least nominally opposed to gay marriage, as were the other two leading Democratic candidates for the Presidency in 2008, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. As I _wrote_ (http://twitter.com/fivethirtyeight/status/20335099499) on Twitter, this is a fact that may come to seem remarkable with the passage of time, as most Democrats support same-sex marriage. Nevertheless, given the White House's sluggish pace in working to overturn Don't Ask Don't Tell, a doctrine which is overwhelmingly unpopular, we are exceptionally unlikely to see a change of attitude on a related issue where the polling still cuts against them. So it will come down, therefore, to what conservatives want to do with the issue: particularly two groups of conservatives, which we might loosely think of as the Tea Party and the Republican Establishment. Although polling has shown that large majorities of Tea Party identifiers, like most Republicans and conservatives, are opposed to gay marriage, it has _largely avoided discussion of the issue_ (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/us/politics/13tea.html) . The extent to which this has been a deliberate strategic choice is unclear, as the Tea Party is unusually decentralized. Nevertheless, it is arguably quite smart. The Tea Party has been successful, in part, because it feels fresh and new to many voters, distinguishing itself from Bush-era establishment conservatism and sometimes taking on the auspices of libertarianism. Were the Tea Party to come out strongly against gay marriage, or take explicit positions on other social issues like abortion and marijuana legalization, it would become indistinguishable from movement conservativism circa 2004, and would risk undermining the differentiation in its brand. For the Republican Establishment, the calculus is somewhat different. They make no bones about being emphatically opposed to gay marriage. But a focus on the issue might look petty in comparison to weightier ones like unemployment, the deficit and health care, all of which are providing them with considerable momentum on their own. However, the ruling today is potentially a game-changer in that it will allow both groups to frame the issue as one of judicial activism, rather than "family values". This line of attack makes for cogent soundbytes, and it will arguably be quite salient to voters, as Walker overturned a referendum passed by the majority of California's voters a mere 21 months ago. The less equivocal among the Republican Establishment may try to bolster their case by pointing to the fact that _Walker himself is gay_ (http://www.metroweekly.com/news/?ak=5094) . The fact that the issue is now almost certain to come before the Supreme Court also renders it less abstract than usual. Were Barack Obama to have the opportunity to replace a conservative Justice with a liberal one, or an incoming Republican President in 2013 the reverse, that would probably be decisive for the issue, perhaps for many decades. My best guess is that the Tea Party will largely continue to shirk the issue, but that the Republican Establishment will be fairly happy to engage it. The real battle, however, may come in 2012, when the _Supreme Court could be about ready to take up the case_ (http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/08/04/prop.8.next/) . The leading indicator may be the reactions of the major Presidential hopefuls. For instance, will Sarah Palin produce a tweet or Facebook post containing the the phrases "activist judge" or "judicial activism" within the next 24 hours? It may depend on which type of conservatives -- the tea-partiers, or the movement conservatives of the Republican Establishment -- that she ultimately wants to affiliate herself with. -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: _http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism_ (http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism) Radical Centrism website and blog: _http://RadicalCentrism.org_ (http://radicalcentrism.org/) -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
