SOME good election news: Fla. Marriage Amendment Winning by Large Margin

[RiversideGator]

Sad day as far as that ammendment is concerned.

I suppose people voted for a while to keep black and white people from marrying each other too.

For the same reasons.

So people choose to be black or white?

Times change.  This kind of namby pamby ignorance will fade away.

I think we are all pretty sure what is involved in homosexual behavior.  It is aberrant and will not be enshrined into law as equivalent to marriage between a man and a woman.

[RiversideGator]

So I won't be getting gay married...but I'll be getting a Democratic President and both houses of Congress. A wonderful consolation prize. 

Did you have wedding plans?   

[Driven1]

oh you bigot RSG!!!! 

[RiversideGator]

Why are you posting off-topic quotes of yourself from another thread?

[Driven1]

I for one, will not respond to it at all today,

just making sure you know big guy that re-posting the same thing over and over actually IS a response.  

[Driven1]

Not totally blue: Fla. bans gay marriage
BY JESSICA GRESKO
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
MIAMI -- Florida may have turned blue on Election Day, but voters in nearly every county voiced resounding agreement on one conservative measure: Marriage should be defined in the state's constitution as between a man and a woman.

The amendment banning gay marriage was part of a disappointing Election Day for gay rights advocates. Similar measures passed in Arizona as well as California, where same-sex marriage had been legal after a Supreme Court ruling earlier this year.

Same-sex marriage was banned in Florida law even before Tuesday's election, but Floridians voted to enshrine a definition of marriage in the state's constitution, where supporters said it would be even more secure.

Democrat Barack Obama may have won the state's prized 27 electoral votes, but a vote for Obama didn't translate to a vote against the amendment. Black voters overwhelmingly supported Obama and Hispanic voters favored him, but both groups - approximately a quarter of Florida voters - also approved the amendment by significant margins.

"They vote for a candidate but don't necessarily vote for a more liberal position," said Matt Corrigan, a University of North Florida political science professor.

Derek Newton, campaign manager for the group that opposed the amendment, said he believed the presidential race drew a lot of new or infrequent voters that were not educated about Amendment 2 and who voted for it rather than skip the question.

"Florida is a Southern state, which makes it naturally more conservative," said Newton, campaign manager for Florida Red and Blue's "SayNo2" campaign. "We just have a harder hill to climb."

All but eight of Florida's 67 counties voted to pass Amendment 2 by more than the required 60 percent. Counties in populous South Florida - Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Broward - didn't give the amendment the 60 percent it needed to pass. Neither did voters in Alachua County, home to the University of Florida. Those voters, however, were outnumbered those in other counties including the Panhandle, where counties supported the amendment by margains of 70 and 80 percent or more.

Only Monroe County - which includes the Florida Keys - gave the amendment less than 50 percent support.

That Florida passed Amendment 2 is not a shock; though the 60 percent support required to pass is high, voters across the country have almost universally approved similar amendments when given the chance. Thirty states have now asked voters whether they wanted to put a definition of marriage in their constitution. Only one, Arizona, has ever rejected that amendment - and reversed course on Tuesday.

Still, Floridians voiced more approval than in other states. Sixty-two percent approved the measure, far higher than in Arizona and California where voters also passed marriage amendments. The Arizona and California amendments only required 50 percent approval to pass and did with approximately 56 and 52 percent.

John Stemberger, the state chairman of Yes2Marriage.org which had backed the amendment, also cited support from black, Hispanic and religious communities. He said that if Florida had a 50 percent threshold that a lot less "blood, sweat and tears" would have had to go into passing it.

"We're just amazed and grateful at the response," he said. "When you strengthen marriage and family you are solving so many other problems in society."

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/758471.html

[Bewler]

So people choose to be black or white?

So people choose to be gay?

[brainstormer]

Not totally blue: Fla. bans gay marriage
BY JESSICA GRESKO
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
MIAMI -- Florida may have turned blue on Election Day, but voters in nearly every county voiced resounding agreement on one conservative measure: Marriage should be defined in the state's constitution as between a man and a woman...

...John Stemberger, the state chairman of Yes2Marriage.org which had backed the amendment, also cited support from black, Hispanic and religious communities. He said that if Florida had a 50 percent threshold that a lot less "blood, sweat and tears" would have had to go into passing it.

"We're just amazed and grateful at the response," he said. "When you strengthen marriage and family you are solving so many other problems in society."

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/758471.html

Well congrats to Stemberger and his group!  I totally feel like so many other problems have been solved, now that we have made sure gays can't get married.  This should really decrease the divorce rate and I'm guessing all of the dead beat dads are just running back to their families and making society better.   
If Yes2Marriage wasn't just a feel good group, they would actually focus on the real issues that are destroying America's families.  But that would require a lot of "blood, sweat and tears," wouldn't it?  That would require becoming involved in the prisons and creating prison to home transition training.  Providing parenting training and support for families who are struggling.  Counseling and immense resources into adoption programs and other groups that work with Child Services.  Creating communities like Hope Meadows in Rantoul, Illinois that put foster children with loving parents and seniors who mentor them (recently featured on NBC Nightly News.)  It would require a huge push for school based mentoring programs and dropout prevention.  The list goes on and on.  I guess when the task of truly strengthening the American family looms too immense, it is easier to find things like marriage amendments to put your money and resources into.  I deal with broken families and children on a daily basis.  All the neglected 6 year old boy wants is someone to say "I love you," and give him a hug.  He just wants to know someone cares about his well being.  He wants to know he will be safe.  He wants a parent who will make sure he gets to school every day so he can continue learning.  Trust me, kids could care less if that person was gay or straight, male or female, black or white.  So amendment supporters, pat yourselves on the back, the American family is on the mend and all because of you!

[RiversideGator]

So people choose to be black or white?

So people choose to be gay?

They may not choose their proclivities but they choose to act on them. 

I wonder if adulterers or polygamists can get such a lobby.

[CMG22]

So people choose to be black or white?

So people choose to be gay?

They may not choose their proclivities but they choose to act on them. 

I wonder if adulterers or polygamists can get such a lobby.

Yes, but we don't legislate (or at least enforce laws) against adulterers.  And as for exercising "proclivities," I take it that you've never masturbated, oh so sanctimonious RSG?  Please, drudge up the argument next about if we allow gay marriage, we'll have to allow people to marry their pets--because we all know that animals are citizens and can enter into legal contracts (and only Mr. Ed can say "I do").

Regardless, the US is a country based on individual freedoms.  So long as my actions do not directly abridge your rights nor cause you any direct and quantifiable damages, I should be able to do as I please.  You make it sound like I choose to love men like someone would choose to play World of Warcraft or go to Star Trek conventions, or watch NASCAR.

If one wants to protect marriage, make divorce illegal before they try to keep me from making it public record that I love someone...

CIVIL ISSUE, NOT MORAL ISSUE!

[RiversideGator]

Sorry but no one has the right to do exactly as the please whenever they want to do so.  Marriage will not be perverted and destroyed.  Leave it alone.

[jaxnative]

Marriage is not a right, it is a priviledge.  It is a SOCIETAL issue and people are drawing on their morals and sense in their decision.

[JeffreyS]

Sorry but no one has the right to do exactly as the please whenever they want to do so.  Marriage will not be perverted and destroyed.  Leave it alone.

Gay people have and do marry in this country yet my marriage doesn't seem perverted or destroyed.  I think your right marriage won't be perverted or destroyed. 

Faith, Hope and Love and the greatest of these is Love. Peace be with you.

[RiversideGator]

Please dont cite the Bible as part of your argument that gay marriage should be legal.  That is false and misleading as the Bible certainly does not condone sodomy.

[RiversideGator]

November 18, 2008
Is Gay the New Black?
By Dennis Prager

"Gay is the new black" is one of the mottos of the movement to redefine marriage to include two people of the same sex.

The likening of the movement for same-sex marriage to the black civil rights struggle is a primary argument of pro same-sex marriage groups. This comparison is a major part of the moral appeal of redefining marriage: Just as there were those who once believed that blacks and whites should not be allowed to be married, the argument goes, there are today equally bigoted individuals who believe that men should not be allowed to marry men and women should not be allowed to marry women.

It is worth noting that the people least impressed with the comparison of the gay struggle to redefine marriage with the black struggle for racial equality are blacks. They voted overwhelmingly for California's Proposition 8 which amends the California Constitution to define marriage as being the union of a man and a woman.

One reason given is that blacks tend to be socially conservative. But another, less verbalized, reason may well be that blacks find the comparison demeaning and insulting. As well they should.

One has to either be ignorant of segregation laws and the routine humiliations experienced by blacks during the era of Jim Crow, or one has to be callous to black suffering, to equate that to a person not being allowed to marry a person of the same sex. They are not in the same moral universe.

There is in fact no comparison between the situation of gays in America in 2008 and the situation of most black Americans prior to the civil rights era. Gays are fully accepted, and as a group happen to constitute one of the wealthiest in American life. Moreover, not being allowed to marry a person of the same sex is not anti-gay; it is pro-marriage as every civilization has defined it. The fact is that states like California already grant people who wish to live and love a member of the same sex virtually every right that marriage bestows except the word "married."

A certain number of gay men will feel better if they can call their partner "husband" and some lesbians will enjoy calling their partner "wife," but society as a whole is not benefitted by such a redefinition of those words. Society as a whole does not benefit by removing, as California did, the words "bride" and "groom" from marriage licenses and substituting "Partner A" and "Partner B."

But hoping that the more radical gays and straights of the gay rights movement will ask "what benefits society?" before "what makes some gays feel better?" is useless.

And so, the movement appropriates the symbols and rhetoric of the black civil rights struggle when that struggle and the movement to redefine marriage have next to nothing in common. How can a seriously moral individual compare forcing a black bus rider to sit in the back of a bus or to give up his seat to a white who demands it, or prohibiting a black human being from drinking from the same water fountain or eating at the same lunch counter as a white human being, or being denied the right to vote, or being prohibited from attending a school with whites, let alone being periodically lynched, to either the general gay condition today or specifically to being given the "right" to redefine marriage for society?

The vast majority of Americans, including those who oppose same-sex marriage, know that the homosexual is created in God's image every bit as much as is the heterosexual; and acknowledge that the gay man or woman has a right to love whom he or she wants and that commitment has the right to be given legal protections.

But radically redefining the most important institution in the life of a civilization; and routinely labeling as the moral equivalent of racists every individual who does not want children regularly asked whether they will marry a boy or a girl when grown up, and who rightly fears that every traditional religious community will be labeled as a hate group -- these are not commensurate with civil rights.

Gay and straight activists who liken their demand to redefine marriage to black suffering under Jim Crow merely cheapen historic black suffering. Most blacks know this but for the sake of their political coalition won't say it. They should. Rosa Parks is in a different moral category than the protestors against Proposition 8.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/11/is_gay_the_new_black.html