May 26, 2008
Does Obama Support Gay Marriage?
National Review Online: The Senator's Response To Calif. Supreme Court Decision Is Telling
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Barack Obama might be the first major candidate for president to support same-sex marriage, says National Review Online. (AP)
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Play CBS Video
Video
California Okays Same Sex Marriage
California's highest court struck down the state's ban on gay marriage last week. CBS News Analyst Andrew Cohen weighs in on the decision.
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Video
A Victory For Gays In Calif.
California's highest court has overturned a ban on gay marriage, paving the way for it to become the second state where gays and lesbians can wed. John Blackstone reports.
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Photo Essay
Gay Pride Worldwide
All over the world, parades celebrate gay pride.
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Photo Essay
Married In Massachusetts
Couples exchange vows in the nation's first state-sanctioned same-sex weddings.
Barack Obama might be the first major candidate for president to support same-sex marriage.
He won’t say as much. His definition of a “new politics” is capacious enough to allow for pose and slipperiness (as long as he’s the one engaged in them). But his stance on a California supreme-court decision that ripped away any middle ground on the issue makes him operationally pro-gay marriage.
In California, a domestic-partnership law gives gay couples, in the words of the decision, “virtually all of the legal rights and responsibilities accorded married couples under California law.” But that’s not enough. Marriage must be redefined to include same-sex relationships. Any arrangement short of this is comparable to segregation: famously progressive California as Bull Connor’s Alabama.
In a carefully hedged statement, Obama said he “respects the decision of the California Supreme Court.” He respects a decision that disregarded the will of the people in California, as expressed by a 2000 referendum that defined marriage as between a man and a woman; he respects a decision that excoriated his own position of support for civil unions and (theoretical) opposition to same-sex marriage; he respects a decision that rejects the sort of political compromise he extols. It’s like a professed abolitionist in 1857 saying he “respects” the Dred Scott ruling.
Obama’s tone noticeably differed from John Kerry’s in 2004. Kerry criticized the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling in favor of same-sex marriage and said he’d support a constitutional amendment banning it. In contrast, Obama patted the California court on the head and said nothing about a proposed referendum in the fall to amend the California constitution to overrule the court. Obama makes Kerry look like a staunch cultural conservative.
If the California decision goes into effect in 30 days - as is usually the practice - thousands of gay couples will get married no matter what the public decides. California doesn’t have a statute like the one in Massachusetts that prevents people from coming there from out of state for same-sex marriages. Many of the newlyweds will be from elsewhere. They will return home, the seedbed for lawsuits to have their marriages recognized by their states.
What’s to stand in its way? Obama opposes a federal constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman. He opposes the federal Defense of Marriage Act that prevents states from having to recognize same-sex marriages from other states. And he supports activist judges of the sort who find the California court’s reasoning congenial.
Obama is a soft-toned cultural warrior, wrapped in the blandishments of change and bipartisanship. Roe v. Wade was a crucial catalyst for America’s ongoing kulturkampf; it imposed a policy of abortion-on-demand on the nation, stoking a ferocious backlash. The Supreme Court and its liberal cheerleaders who thought it could force their preferred social change faster than the democratic process were the cultural aggressors.
So it is now. States around the country are giving legal standing to same-sex unions, but the California court insists the change is not fast or far-reaching enough. The court argued again and again that withholding the word “marriage” from gay unions denies them “equal dignity and respect.” The court thus demands moral approval for these unions, and does what open-minded people everywhere are supposed to abhor: impose its morality on people who disagree.
If opposition to same-sex marriage is equivalent to bigotry, religious groups that oppose it are purveyors of discrimination and deserve to be treated as such under the law. Down this road is a significant challenge to religious freedom. Roe eventually discredited blatant judicial activism, but the California decision serves to revive it. If it stands, it will again legitimize judges governing by fiat.
That will bail out evasive liberal politicians who fear being forthright about their views and hope merely to step out of the way while judges impose them. For the cause of self-government, it’s a disaster.
By Rich Lowry
Reprinted with permission from National Review Online.




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See all 62 CommentsThe way many people whine, marriage is pointless in the first place. :-S
Posted by darrren12000
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Viewership and ratings would be my main guess. When not parading mostly naked in public (or flashing their parts), they say it''s nobody''s business and want to be left alone. Conflicting viewpoints indeed... can''t wait for June to end.
http://www.youtube.com/user/larrysinclair0926
If you don''t like gay marriage, don''t have one. Do you honestly think you have to ''morally approve'' of gay marriage because of the CA court?
If they said *** had ''moral approval'' NOT to jump off a cliff, would you believe they were telling YOU to jump off a cliff?
Cuz, you know, I might be able to get them to say that..
It worked in 2000. It worked in 2004. Who''s to say it won''t work again?
You.
First off, heterosexual couples that get hitched by a judge with the power vested in him/her by whichever state, are considered "Married" Atheists can get married. Satanists can get married. "Marriage" is not just a religious sanction. It is also a title held by those that are wanting the same legal rights as those that are religious. That said, the churches should not be forced to marry homosexual couples, as that would be against their religious beliefs. That is something else that no one is pointing out. The ruling is not stating that churches must wed homosexual couples, only that the government (who can wed couples as well) must give equal rights to homosexual couples.
I suppose one could argue that a lot of people got married believing that marriage was between a man and a woman. Well, if that is the only reason someone got hitched to a member of the opposite ***, then they did it for the wrong reasons. If Bob and Jerry getting married makes you feel less love towards your spouse, then you have emotional issues that you need to deal with.
GET THE ISRAELI AND SAUDI LOBBIEST OUT OF AMERICAN GOVERNMENT!
AMERICA STAND UP OR SHUT UP!
How refreshing to wath the Libertarian debate this weekend where ALL the candidates said essentially "GET THE GOVT OUT OF OUR BEDROOMS".
But this isn''t 2004. People are losing their jobs. They are losing their houses. They are paying over $4 a gallon for gas. They won''t have the luxury to get indignant over this issue the same way they did a few years ago. It won''t work this time.
But keep trying you clueless maggots at the NRO. It''s not like you can tout the record of the politicians you have supported as a case for people to vote your way this fall.
Viewership and ratings would be my main guess. When not parading mostly naked in public (or flashing their parts), they say it''''s nobody''''s business and want to be left alone. Conflicting viewpoints indeed... can''''t wait for June to end.
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Posted by hypnotoad72 at 06:03 PM : May 26, 2008
CBS CENSOR: S#X IS NOT A DIRTY WORD!!!
Obama should elicit the same repsonse that the Libertarians do: Govt. has no business looking up pants legs and skirts to make sure that marriage follows some religious tenet.
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Posted by Nearl4511 at 10:37 PM : May 26, 2008
"This is also not something the Federal Government should be involved in, let the states handle it!
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Posted by marleneo2 at 10:40 PM : May 26, 2008
We NEED activist judges - like we needed the Founding Fathers who created the Bill of Rights, and who understood that some things need to be beyond popular vote - fundamental rights.
The right to have your life and family treated with equal respect is one of those fundamental rights. They should NEVER be voted on. If you did, the bigot majority might wish to send all African-Americans back to Africa, or Jews to the Middle East, or whatever today''s fashion in bigotry is.
Our Founding Fathers and our best judges understand their responsibility to buck the tides of popular thought and ensure the rights of citizens. That''s something you don''t give a *** about, unless it''s your rights. You''d let religionists impose their morality on the rights of others.
God bless those judges for being smarter and having more integrity than you do. And for understanding that you don''t vote on rights.
What happened to the 10th Amendment? We ignore it a lot these days.
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people".
Surely fire will rain from the sky and we all shall perish.
Another red-herring fear mongering Republican non-issue. When are they going to focus on things that REALLY MATTER to people. I''ll tell you when, NEVER, because have the wrong stance on every issue that does matter.
Why talk about gas prices when you can talk about homos? Don''t talk about veterans benefits, accuse the opposition of being non-patriotic. Never allow the subject of home values or food prices to come up when it''s so easy to get the bogey man of al-Qaeda into any discussion.
They fooled us twice with these politics of fear, we can only hope that enough of us have smartened up this time.
Have you ever met anyone gay ? Have you taken the time to get to know anyone gay ? I used to be antigay, fortunately i opened my mind and have met a lot of interesting people who are gay. They are openly accepted here in Thailand for the way they are. Many go on to have the complete *** changes. Calling names doesn''t get you anywhere on a website, it causes people to lose respect for whatever your opinion might be.
You have to admit the truth. You have been supporting a bisexual candidate.
Dismissed!!
Nothing to see here - move along.....
up the right wingnut talking points,
conservatives are evil , just a new form of NAZI
conservatives are hypocrits
Infectious Diseases are a plight of homosexuals.
At least 8 new sexually transmitted germs were identified between 1980 and 1997. Dr. Max Essex, chair of the Harvard AIDS Institute, warned Congress in 1992 that "AIDS has already led to other kinds of dangerous epidemics. .
The typical sexual practices of homosexuals are a medical horror story - imagine exchanging saliva, feces, *** and/or blood with dozens of different men each year. Imagine drinking urine, ingesting feces and experiencing rectal trauma on a regular basis.
In the mid-20th century, male homosexuals constituted about 8% of men afflicted with anal cancer; by the mid-1980s, this figure had risen to 72%.
During 1982-1989, MSM constituted less than 10% of individuals with hepatitis-A. But between Nov 1998 and May 1999, 66% of the men had hepatitis-A in Columbus, Ohio, in New York City, 50% in San Francisco, 56% etc, but in San Francisco, 4.6% had hepatitis-C and 81% had hepatitis-B infection. (7) Hepatitis-B appears to be transmitted 8.6-fold more efficiently than HIV-1 among homosexual men, according to a study
During the 1990s, syphilis levels were fairly low, but by 1996 68% of syphilis patients were MSM, among whom 66% were also HIV-positive.
It hardly needs mentioning who gets rectal gonorrhoea. Homosexuals also get gonorrhoea in the *** (urethral gonorrhoea) and mouth (pharyngeal gonorrhoea).
During the period 1994-1999, in Denmark, the incidence of gonorrhoea among MSM was 30 times that among heterosexual men. Parasitic intestinal infections are common among homosexuals; they result from the consumption of faecal material via rimming and other sexual practices (see here). Rimming is a practice where they use the tongue around the ***.
A 2003 U.S. report mentioned the emergence of a multi-drug-resistant bacterial skin infection among homosexual men .
References:
S. D. Wexner, J. W. Milsom, T. H. Dailey, Dis Colon *** 30, 942 (Dec, 1987).
M. Frisch et al., N Engl J Med 337, 1350 (Nov 6, 1997).
M. Frisch, E. Smith, A. Grulich, C. Johansen, Am J Epidemiol 157, 966 (Jun 1, 2003).
J. P. Cobb, W. P. Schecter, T. Russell, Dis Colon *** 33, 135 (Feb, 1990).
MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 41, 155 (1992).
S. M. Cotter et al., J Infect Dis 187, 1235 (Apr 15, 2003).
D. H. Osmond et al., J Infect Dis 167, 66 (Jan, 1993).
L. A. Kingsley et al., Jama 264, 230 (Jul 11, 1990).
S. W. Dooley et al., Jama 267, 2632 (May 20, 1992).
MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 50, 117 (2001).
L. A. Williams et al., Am J Public Health 89, 1093 (Jul, 1999).
AIDS Patient Care STDS 17, 669 (Dec, 2003).
A. M. Halsos, K. Edgardh, Int J STD AIDS 13, 370 (Jun, 2002).
J. S. Fennema, I. Cairo, J. Spaargaren, N. H. Dukers, R. A. Coutinho, Ned Tijdschr Geneeskd 146, 633 (Mar 30, 2002).
A. McMillan, H. Young, A. Moyes, Int J STD AIDS 11, 284 (May, 2000).
W. M. Janda, M. Bohnoff, J. A. Morello, S. A. Lerner, Jama 244, 2060 (Nov 7, 1980).
T. Berglund, H. Fredlund, J. Giesecke, *** Transm Dis 28, 111 (Feb, 2001).
J. D. Johansen, E. Smith, Acta Derm Venereol 82, 365 (2002).
MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 53, 335 (Apr 30, 2004).
A. Torre, D. Kershenobich, Ann Hepatol 1, 45 (Jan-Mar, 2002).
C. Gaudreau, S. Michaud, Clin Infect Dis 37, 131 (Jul 1, 2003).
and many more
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