Bron,
Easy answer. They were given Billion$ in incentive by those Southern States, whose “right to work laws” precluded unions.
Secondly, they could then make the “made in America” claim.
As a libertarian what do you think of “right to work laws?”
Shouldn’t workers have the right to organize to maximize their earning potential?

On this Thread,
As far as gay people go I worked in close contact with them for my entire career and many were in my social life. They are just people, some good, some bad, some in between, but human none the less. They deserve the same rights I do and having legal fictions like power of attorney still gets them challenged at hospitals when a mate is dying and her/his homophobic family, that made their own family member a cast off for most of their life, bars them. I’ve seen it happen.

By the way for those macho men out there who are so repelled by having a gay person come on to them….you’re worried about your own sexuality. I’ve been come on to more than a few times in a nice way and I was flattered that they thought I was hot, even though I wasn’t interested or stimulated. This fear of gay people is totally stupid and unjustified by even certain people’s religious texts. Those that would argue that it opens the way for bestiality, child sex, or plural marriages are just as stupid and craven as Rick Santorum. The one good thing about Prop * for me is that I’ve been in favor of gay rights for most of my life, this ridiculous vote, made me fully understand how this issue is just as important as any other civil rights issue.

You wrote: One problem with your friend working at the church is that they have just as much right to choose who will be teaching their children. I personally would not have a problem if she was a good teacher and cared about my childs learning.

Me: so you have no problem with a Lesbian spending 5 hrs a day in classroom educating your kid, you just don’t want her having children of her own that she can rear in a home like yours with two loving, married, parent???

You: Cant gays get powers of attorneys for hospital and other issues? Although civil unions would be the ideal.

Me: Why would they want to if marriage can solve jumping through those legal hoops? I’m no expert on powers of attorney but are they really as comprehensive as the rights and responsibilities I have and largely take for granted as a straight, married mother?

You: If a straight couple had issues gay couple jumps to front of line. Again I am saying all things being equal.

Me: all things being equal means there is no front of the line. if a straight couple is unsuitable and a gay couple is not then what we are talking about is adoption that considers the best interests of this child and here you are still focusing on adoption when most gay/lesbian parents have children where one partner is the biological parent. marriage allows both to be considered equally as parents.

You: I pretty much take all people as people whatever their origin or religion. We all bleed red and have a common ancestor in the maternal lineage if you believe the science.

me: sounds pretty but really? its a cover up for conservative talking points. If we all bleed red shouldn’t we all have access to everything the other has? if we are really all related then your gay and lesbian relatives are not so very proud of you

One problem with your friend working at the church is that they have just as much right to choose who will be teaching their children. I personally would not have a problem if she was a good teacher and cared about my childs learning.

Cant gays get powers of attorneys for hospital and other issues? Although civil unions would be the ideal.

If a straight couple had issues gay couple jumps to front of line. Again I am saying all things being equal.

I pretty much take all people as people whatever their origin or religion. We all bleed red and have a common ancestor in the maternal lineage if you believe the science.

That is all I have to say.

You wrote:
If I were gay I would not work at a church school. It would be like being black at a KKK school. You would have to wear the white sheet all the time.

Me: you get to work where you get to work. This school pays well — much better than the local public schools and its a really good school with a waiting list about a mile long. My friend is a dedicated educator. But there is a whole part of her life that is a fiction and if the school were ever to find out she is lesbian she would be fired on the spot regardless of her ability and the fact that the kids and parents love her.
Imagine that you had to pass for something you are not.
I am a Jew. There was a time, and I’m not proud of this, when I passed because I was working in a place where there were a few Jew haters. I hid behind the fact that being white and having a pretty generic name got me a job I really wanted and was really good at. I listened to anti Jewish stuff every day. And a day came when I came out. You cannot imagine the commotion that this caused.

You: Personally I think your sexual orientation is neither here nor there, as a citizen of the US you should have whatever rights are afforded you by the constitution.

Me: sexual orientation is central to one’s being. Could you,would you, sacrifice your sexuality? Who we are in an intimate relationship is definitely here and there. Who we love and how we express that love is the core question. If straight people have the ability to pair bond legally so should gay people. Not because they are gay but because they are citizens.
Women’s suffrage was about the same thing. Civil rights was about the same thing. The right to live in any neighborhood that you choose is about the same thing. After WW2 my dad could not get into medical school. Not because he wasn’t bright enough but because of quotas. There were neighborhoods that were in good school districts but were restricted. One might ask,why would you want to live somewhere where you are not wanted? The larger question is what makes you unwanted? being black? Jewish? Irish? Catholic? Gay?

You: People are people whatever their proclivities or race. It is a small mind indeed that would disalow a persons natural rights on as specious an argument as sexual orientation or skin pigmentation.

Me: and yet separate but equal is being applied to gay couples the way it was applied to people of color just a generation ago. I remember when a white person who married a black person could be arrested and even if they were not, their lives were made unbearably difficult in certain communities. People are people but when laws are created that make some second class citizens, or 3/5 of a human or completely inhuman forced to wear a yellow star or pink triangle or submit to physical ownership that’s racist. I’m not accusing you of racism. I would like you to consider what your life might be like if you had everything you have today but were gay and could not enjoy the same access to things that straight folks take for granted.

You: I dont think I ever said that a gay couple should not be allowed to adopt children, I just said that if I was an agent at an adoption agency I would consider heterosexual couples to have first priority all things being equal.

Me: that is biased. Gay couples don’t just adopt. They procreate much the same way straight couples do. Gay men impregnate female donors and women have artificial insemination and carry fetuses to term,giving birth the exact same way I did. Gay couples being relegated to second place is just about the same as being prohibited from adoption.

What gay marriage affords these couples is the right for both parents to be considered parents without one having to adopt the child of the other partner. It gives them all the rights and responsibilities that you and I enjoy and oftentimes take for granted. LIke being able to make medical decisions. My squeeze used to travel for work. Imagine my kid is sick and I can’t take her to the doctor because I’m not the legal parent. Or go to parent teacher conference or be her legal guardian if my partner dies. This notion of first choice and being moved to the head of the line is based on your particular bias that a gay couple is not as ideal or suitable as a straight couple. This is what I like to call In The Perfect World. In yor Perfect World,all parents would be mommies and daddies, who are loving and motivated by goodness. Something like 1 in 5 children in this country are born into homes that are much less than perfect, into backbreaking gut-wrenching poverty with little access to decent schools and medical care. 1 in 10 will be homeless at sometime in their lives. Imagine a loving gay couple who could provide and love and nurture, but because they are gay they go to the back of the wait list? what does this say about our basic humanity?
We all have areas of bias based on how we regard people of color or people from other countries or gender or ability or something. Something that makes us stare and get itchy. I admit to having my areas of bias and when I am aware of it I try to consider just what it is that makes me feel uncomfortable.

You: I hope your hubby finds a job soon, I have been there and done that and it is not pleasant.

Me: thank you.

I’ve been reading the opinion, and it seems to me that the court has effectively granted exactly that. The opinions are very clear that in the view of the court the *only* thing that Prop 8 accomplishes is to reserve the *name* “marriage” to opposite-sex unions, and that the substance of the Marriage Cases decision is untouched.

It’s easy, it seems to this non-lawyer, to read the opinion as expressly inviting an action to forbid the state to use the term “marriage” to make any civil distinction *at all*.

Here’s an example of the opinion language: “Nor does Proposition 8 fundamentally alter the meaning and substance of state constitutional equal protection principles as articulated in that opinion. Instead, the measure carves out a narrow and limited exception to these state constitutional rights, reserving the official designation of the term “marriage” for the union of opposite-sex couples as a matter of state constitutional law, but leaving undisturbed all of the other extremely significant substantive aspects of a same-sex couple’s state constitutional right to establish an officially recognized and protected family relationship and the guarantee of equal protection of the laws.”

They’re not being subtle about it at all. If the state reserves any substantive right or privilege to marriage, Prop 8 says (according to the opinion) that the state may no longer use the term “marriage” in connection that right or privilege.

I’m not disputing the fact that many of us would like to have the term “marriage” back. But in the meantime, the state of affairs in California is profoundly different than it was before Marriage Cases, and Prop 8 has not touched the substance of that difference–or so says the court.

“Don’t really want to rile the entire conservative community but isn’t strange that conservatives go ballistic when it is suggested that mortgage interest they deduct on their homes should be eliminated. I just can’t resists this. If conservatives are to lazy to work hard enough to pay the interest on their home loan themselves instead of depending on the government to do it for them, then they shouldn’t be allowed to own a home. LOL”

That is actually a good point about mortgage interest deductions and there is talk in the conservative community to do away with it. It probably is somehow artificialy effecting the interest rates. Whenever government uses tax breaks you know there has to be some sort of negative effect somewhere else.

If I were gay I would not work at a church school. It would be like being black at a KKK school. You would have to wear the white sheet all the time.

Personally I think your sexual orientation is neither here nor there, as a citizen of the US you should have whatever rights are afforded you by the constitution.

People are people whatever their proclivities or race. It is a small mind indeed that would disalow a persons natural rights on as specious an argument as sexual orientation or skin pigmentation.

**The real truth is that you don’t know any gay couples rearing children, do you? If you did, I think you’d have a different opinion.**

I dont think I ever said that a gay couple should not be allowed to adopt children, I just said that if I was an agent at an adoption agency I would consider heterosexual couples to have first priority all things being equal.

I hope your hubby finds a job soon, I have been there and done that and it is not pleasant.

Yep.

The one common problem was an absent parent and a parent that did not function well or parents that lived together that did not function either. These are some of the hardest cases to deal with. You want to put a band aide on all of the problems that they have.

The point that I am trying to make is anyone can be a sperm donor or seed producer, it takes a special person that you can call, Mom or Dad.

Don’t know enough about the car industry to tell you, but I’d imagine it’s probably a matter of infrastructure\skilled work force and the fact that they’d still have some of the cost for importing the cars. It doesn’t really matter, what I’m saying is that unless the company just moves their “headquarters” to a tax shelter (which would save them money unless they don’t pay ANY taxes in the U.S.), the reason for the moves is much more likely to be labor.

You wrote: good thoughts, thank you. And GWLSM great line by the way-”What it did give me was a healthy sense of autonomy and some really interesting stuff to talk about in therapy.”

Please don’t think I am anti-gay, I am not and my thoughts on this have nothing to do with gay or straight. I don’t think 2 straight women or 2 straight men could do as well as a female/male combination. Three men and a baby not withstanding.

Any way as usual a lot to think about

Thanks. Let me ask you this: how can you possibly think of yourself as not being anti-gay if you would deny a gay person the exact same rights that you have? This has everything to do with gay and straight. straight people carry a certain bag of privilege for no other reason than we are straight. Just like white people do because they are white, and we really don’t spend much time thinking about it. I have a friend, an elementary school teacher, who has a framed photograph of a guy friend of hers on her desk because she is afraid to have a photo of her partner of 23 years. She avoids social stuff among the other teachers and while she is not closeted anywhere else, she is at her job. And she thinks she needs to be because she teaches kindergarden in a church school. how is this not discrimination?
Ho wis it not discriminatory to deny people who laugh and love and plan exactly as you do the right to marry and procreate and live their lives out loud exactly as you do?

The real truth is that you don’t know any gay couples rearing children, do you? If you did, I think you’d have a different opinion.
you seem like a compassionate person.

You wrote: As a believer in low taxes as a spur for economic growth, I think you are wrong about conservatives on this issue.

Me: Oh yeah?

You: I may be unusual in my beliefs on this subject, but I don’t disagree that some level of taxation is necessary to provide for infrastructure, defense or public safety. The question is how much? Why do the companies go offshore in the first place? To avoid paying taxes or to avoid paying taxes that are too high? There is a limit to the amount of taxes that a business or an individual can pay both financially and psychologically.

Me: How much? As much as it takes. I want safe highways and bridges and public access to libraries that are open on weekends. Our public schools should be palaces that compete for the best teachers who should make moe than the average garbage collector. Our communities should be safe from crime. And where do our tax dollars go? to the ever expanding and largely ineffective TSA administration. You have no idea the stuff I’ve been able to get on airplanes, but I get frisked, publicly and intimately every time I fly.
Companies go off shore to avoid taxes. By establishing headquarters in the Cayman Islands they avoid the 35% tax rate. In real dollars you probably pay more in taxes than the multi-billion dollar corporations in your state who file their incorporation papers overseas. Those profits do not go to pay workers or to make the workplace safer. They go into the pockets of the corporate elite.

You: For example Maryland passed an extra tax on millionaires not much an additional 3-6% for state taxes, they thought they were going to raise an additional 100 million dollars. They had around 3,000 millionaires last year and this year they have 2,000. Many moved out of the state and some probably just declined due to the economy. But the point is a large number said no to new taxes and the state lost. Why wouldn’t the state of Maryland try to cut spending, you do it I do it.

Me: what would you folks in Maryland like to do without? If the corporate loopholes were closed to all corporations then business would stay where they are and learn to be more fiscally responsible. Why should the government be blamed for financial irresponsibility and not big business? The only solution to cost savings that companies seem to rely on with any regularity is workforce reduction. This means that 1000 workers do the work of 5000 and that formerly high paying jobs get sent to India and China so that CEO’s can continue to make 200-500% more than the average employee.
As for me, cutting spending? my husband was on the wrong end of a workforce reduction and we have not had an income for the past 7 months. You can ask me anything about cutting spending.I am an expert now.

You: Why cant governments cut spending, they spend money on marketing orange juice or studying the mating habits of kangaroo rats. Programs like these along with farm subsidies and other government give a ways are a waste of our tax dollars.

Me: that stuff like studies of orange juice marketing comes from congress. your elected representatives load appropriations bills with it.

You: I want my tax dollars spent on things like defense and infrastructure and police and fire. Things that promote industry and protect lives and property. I don’t care about a kangaroo rat or marketing OJ or rich farmers getting paid to not plant peanuts. Cut these types of programs and reduce our taxes so we can have some real economic growth.

Me: then vote with your feet. follow up with your congressional reps and your senators and your state reps and ask them how they vote on bills and the kinds of things that they attach to bills in order to bring dollars to your state and your district.

“I want my tax dollars spent on things like defense and infrastructure and police and fire. Things that promote industry and protect lives and property. I don’t care about a kangaroo rat or marketing OJ or rich farmers getting paid to not plant peanuts. Cut these types of programs and reduce our taxes so we can have some real economic growth.”

Don’t really want to rile the entire conservative community but isn’t strange that conservatives go ballistic when it is suggested that mortgage interest they deduct on their homes should be eliminated. I just can’t resists this. If conservatives are to lazy to work hard enough to pay the interest on their home loan themselves instead of depending on the government to do it for them, then they shouldn’t be allowed to own a home. LOL

Then why dont they produce cars in Mexico for sale in the US?

Because the cost of importing the number of cars they sell here would be higher then the cost of setting up a new plant and hiring Americans. Also there’s probably not that much of a difference in wages between Germans\Japanese\American workers. There is however a HUGE difference between America and Chinese\Mexican\etc. workers.

I think it is all of the above, but then why do Japanese and German automakers open plants in the south?

Eventually with a world economy things will work out in the wash. The Germans will produce high quality cameras, the French wine, the English oh well, Chile- produce, and so forth. Hopefully the governments will stick to free trade and put up no barriers.

I believe I can answer the “why do corporations leave” question, with one of my own. Which is a larger part of a companies expenses, Labor or Taxes?

LOL! I stand corrected.

**The big difference, and I think I’m preaching to the choir, between the Democrats and Republicans is that the D’s understand that taxes are necessary to keep the country open for business. Schools, roads, water, sewers, public health.. all these things and more are looked at by the Republicans as some pork-barrel buffet instead of basic parts of infrastructure.
The way I see it if the corporations were finally forced to pay taxes that they have been dodging by establishing headquarters in the Cayman Islands we’d have plenty of $$ for schools and roads and water and health care.**

As a believer in low taxes as a spur for economic growth, I think you are wrong about conservatives on this issue. I may be unusual in my beliefs on this subject, but I don’t disagree that some level of taxation is necessary to provide for infrastructure, defense or public safety. The question is how much? Why do the companies go offshore in the first place? To avoid paying taxes or to avoid paying taxes that are too high? There is a limit to the amount of taxes that a business or an individual can pay both financially and psychologically.

For example Maryland passed an extra tax on millionaires not much an additional 3-6% for state taxes, they thought they were going to raise an additional 100 million dollars. They had around 3,000 millionaires last year and this year they have 2,000. Many moved out of the state and some probably just declined due to the economy. But the point is a large number said no to new taxes and the state lost. Why wouldn’t the state of Maryland try to cut spending, you do it I do it. Why cant governments cut spending, they spend money on marketing orange juice or studying the mating habits of kangaroo rats. Programs like these along with farm subsidies and other government give a ways are a waste of our tax dollars.

I want my tax dollars spent on things like defense and infrastructure and police and fire. Things that promote industry and protect lives and property. I don’t care about a kangaroo rat or marketing OJ or rich farmers getting paid to not plant peanuts. Cut these types of programs and reduce our taxes so we can have some real economic growth.

You’ve reached a new high in low when you say Tom Selleck, Ted Danson and Steve Guttengerg aren’t good parents. I’ll stipulate Steve hasn’t really done any quality work since those Bibles and the Police Academy, but an ex-PI and bartender/ex-pitcher would make fine parents no matter Guttenberg’s failings.

good thoughts, thank you. And GWLSM great line by the way-”What it did give me was a healthy sense of autonomy and some really interesting stuff to talk about in therapy.”

Please don’t think I am anti-gay, I am not and my thoughts on this have nothing to do with gay or straight. I don’t think 2 straight women or 2 straight men could do as well as a female/male combination. Three men and a baby not withstanding.

Any way as usual a lot to think about.

“Also, wouldn’t the individual be the elemental unit in a society?”

you are correct, would it be better to say the family unit is a microcosim of or a basis for society?

In progression- the individual, the family, the community, the state, the national government. The family is the elemental social unit of society. Thanks for expanding my thought.

You wrote: You paint such a bleak, but no doubt true picture. While I guess it has become true for many states since the no-tax mania has been sold to the public, there is so much great about California that it is a pity that people lose track of their own best interests. However, living in Florida as I do, where the political climate is even woollier, I guess the effectiveness of evil PR trumps people’s self interest every time.

the economic picture is pretty bleak but that does not take away from the amazing natural beauty in CA…

Our biggest problem and it will be a national one sooner that we all want to consider is water. Southern California is naturally a desert and was never meant to support millions of households with clean drinking water.
They say, you know who they are, that in the next several decades water will replace oil as the commodity we will be going to war over.
desalination should have been accomplished decades ago.

The big difference, and I think I’m preaching to the choir, between the Democrats and Republicans is that the D’s understand that taxes are necessary to keep the country open for business. Schools, roads, water, sewers, public health.. all these things and more are looked at by the Republicans as some pork-barrel buffet instead of basic parts of infrastructure.
The way I see it if the corporations were finally forced to pay taxes that they have been dodging by establishing headquarters in the Cayman Islands we’d have plenty of $$ for schools and roads and water and health care.

“Another case of asking the courts to ignore the voting booth in favor of a particular outcome.”

Tom,
Do you mean say like in 2,000 when a Republican Supreme Court Majority voted to elect a President, that lost the popular vote and was about to lose the Florida vote, that his brother the governor was trying to steal for him? If that is your example then I agree with you

*********************************************
Correction or clarification. Did you mean elect? or Select? Remember Dan Rather, called it early and said Gore won, then about 15 later it was too close to call. Then low and behold, Dan retired or went away? Hmm, did Dick have him fired?

You wrote: This verdict was not unexpected. The fact that it had to be adjudicated at all is the disgusting thing. California, with its public initiative laws is a case study in how not to run a government. The State is now on the verge of bankruptcy because they need 2/3 vote to pass a budget in the legislature.
This came about because of a popular public initiative and had ensured fiscal chaos ever since. Governor Davis was recalled for his inability to deal with the budget. He was replaced by an over-the-hill movie star known for his muscle man competitions and his total inability to act. Much of this came about through public initiative. It is a shame that a great state, with generally good people, is crippled by a constitutional setup, put in by fools or con men. I’m not sure of the history.

YOu pretty much summed it up correctly. Prop 13, was the landmark legislation in the 1970′s that rolled back property taxes. that, plus the 2/3 vote thing pretty much set the stage for future fiscal insolvency. CA is a big state with huge population centers an agriculture/tech based economy and growing underclass. Our schools were once the envy of the nation.
We cannot agree on labor, immigration, health care. There is a severe shortage of nurses bottlenecked at the education level that makes it nearly impossible to enter nursing programs because funding for community colleges, once a jewel in our educational crown, is cut back. We are facing public school closures, the shortening of our school year and teacher firings. The lack of health care means that ER’s are the public health clinics for the uninsured and underinsured. It costs about $450/hr to be seen in the ER for a minor illness or injury,slightly less for urgent care centers, if you can get in. The UC system and state universities have cut back on freshman enrollment 5 years in a row and have had to cut back on course offerings, making a 4-year degree program now a 5 year plan and that’s if you don’t change your major.

I have no idea who our next governor will be although Carly Fiorina, the failed CEO of Hewlett-Packard has been threatening to run. That’s all we need. I can’t think of anything worse — well maybe I could but that would ruin my whole day.

You wrote: here in lies my point a dad will teach the son to leave the seat up!
Seriously though as a child of a single parent house (mother only) I speak with some authority on this subject and I dont think children are capably raised by one parent of either sex.

Me: I have enormous respect for single parents. When my kid was very young my husband was a marketeer, a road warrior, gone for part of every week 10 months of the year and it wasn’t easy being a part-time wife and mostly single mom.

You: Something gets missed in the childs upbringing, I know it did in mine. Now is it harmful, in my case I dont think it was (although I am very conservative probably from having to do everything on my own so some may disagree on it being harmful). 2 parents of the same sex may offer everything a child needs, I dont know never having had 2 of any combination. But my intuition tells me that it would be the same feeling of missing something. I havent really sat down and thought about this in depth so these thoughts are very basic at best.

Me: I think we all apply our own upbringing to our ideas about how others should rear their children based on what we got and what we missed out on getting as kids. I had two parents and still pretty much raised myself and my younger sibs. My parents were wildly social and were more interested in their social calendar than anything going on in our young lives preferring to leave the details to the help. Having parents of any composition who are actively engaged in child rearing is much more meaningful than the gender of the parents.

You: Not having a father left a void in my life, I assume that not having a mother leaves a void in someones life too. An effeminate father is not a mother nor is a masculine woman a father. Is it harmful probably not as long as the chilren are loved and cared for, is it optimal probably not.

Me: I think that you are applying stereotypes to gay/lesbian families that are based on your particular experience and political point of view. I think I’d rather have had gay or lesbian parents who were there to make sure I had breakfast and did my homework then the hetero parents I had who did neither. I am not speaking of abuse or neglect … just pointing out that coming from what appeared to be the ideal 50′s family was not so ideal under the surface. What it did give me was a healthy sense of autonomy and some really interesting stuff to talk about in therapy.

You: If I was an adoption agent I would try and place chidren with male/female parents and then move on from there with single parents being the bottom of the list. So I dont disagree with 2 mommies or 2 daddies but they would be my second tier candidates all things being equal. Single parents either male or female would be at the bottom. My opinions on this are heavily influenced by my own experiences.

Me: the use of language like ‘second tier” is exactly what the argument is about. 2nd tier, 2nd class, not good enough, not the first choice, all seem highly discriminatory to me, and with all due respect for you say nothing about the ability or commitment that loving, capable gay/lesbian parents can bring to a family when compared to some of the horrific things we all know can happen in hetero families when children are not loved, not cared for, abused or neglected.

The truth is that no child can choose his/her parents. you get what you get and when we look back as adults our ideas of family are influenced by myriad components, some ideal and optimal and some sorely lacking.
in defense of my parents, still married after 64 years and who still come first with each other, they did not do the best that they could. They did what they wanted to do and when I became a parent i decided to be a very different kind of parent. I think my husband and I have done a decent job but if I were a lesbian I still think I’d be the same sort of parent and still be able to raise decent, hard-working kids, with the love of learning, good manners and a secure sense of self.

Tom,
Do you mean say like in 2,000 when a Republican Supreme Court Majority voted to elect a President, that lost the popular vote and was about to lose the Florida vote, that his brother the governor was trying to steal for him? If that is your example then I agree with you.

You’re tending to forget that the way families were structured through most of human history is different than the system we have now. Is our system better? Probably with some parts, probably not with others.

Also, wouldn’t the individual be the elemental unit in a society?

“She can also teach he son to stand at the toilet and point his wee-wee at the water and to leave the seat down when he is finished.”

There in lies my point a dad will teach the son to leave the seat up!

Seriously though as a child of a single parent house (mother only) I speak with some authority on this subject and I dont think children are capably raised by one parent of either sex. Something gets missed in the childs upbringing, I know it did in mine. Now is it harmful, in my case I dont think it was (although I am very conservative probably from having to do everything on my own so some may disagree on it being harmful). 2 parents of the same sex may offer everything a child needs, I dont know never having had 2 of any combination. But my intuition tells me that it would be the same feeling of missing something. I havent really sat down and thought about this in depth so these thoughts are very basic at best.

Not having a father left a void in my life, I assume that not having a mother leaves a void in someones life too. An effeminate father is not a mother nor is a masculine woman a father. Is it harmful probably not as long as the chilren are loved and cared for, is it optimal probably not.

If I was an adoption agent I would try and place chidren with male/female parents and then move on from there with single parents being the bottom of the list. So I dont disagree with 2 mommies or 2 daddies but they would be my second tier candidates all things being equal. Single parents either male or female would be at the bottom. My opinions on this are heavily influenced by my own experiences.

Good points.

You wrote:
But 2 women or 2 men are not the optimal parents all things being equal. Children need both male and female input (at least in my mind).

What makes you think that children reared in a Lesbian home don’t have sufficient or appropriate male contact? What is so special about a mommy and a daddy that makes kids develop optimally, as you put it?
Mommy can teach her son to throw a ball and to fish as easily as daddy. She can also teach he son to stand at the toilet and point his wee-wee at the water and to leave the seat down when he is finished.
Gay couples can teach their daughters to cook and sew and put on lipstick.

No one questions single parent homes where one parent or the other has died or divorced or abandoned the spouse and children with regard to how appropriate that style of parenting is or what the kids may be missing as long as the single parent is heterosexual.

You Wrote: Enjoy your self-defeating discrimination, California. You earned it the old fashioned way – by letting lobbyists make your decisions for you instead of thinking for yourselves. Sad, really, that the American state with a reputation for being educated and progressive has proven to be Alabama is drag.

CA may be a really really Blue state but the majority of Californians are pretty conservative. LIke everything east of I-5. They bought tons of airtime, out of state lobbyists, carpet-bombing our airwaves, legally, with O Fortuna blasting in the background while actors put the fear of red death in the minds of the vast majority convincing them that
“The Gay” was out to get them and their children.
They lobbied hardest in the African-American and Latino communities where homosexuality is not as acceptable. They went to Black and Latino churches. They rallied the tens of thousands of mega-churchgoers and issued voters guides. They used the bible. They used any means possible and they won.
This time.

Yeah. The Left screwed up. They forgot to mobilize with gay marriage as a civil rights issue. They forgot alot of things. They won’t forget next time and there will be a next time.

You wrote: as a conservative I have mixed emotions on this. Personally I think marriage is between a man and a woman and that family is the elemental unit of society and that children do better with a mother and father because that appears to be the natural order of things.

Me: Marriage, for centuries, was a contractual relationship between families of means. Poor people, without land or money, did not marry, but instead pretty much hooked up for lack of a better term, hoping to improve their prospects through arrangements that might be offered to a son who managed to finda good apprenticeship or a daughter with exceptional beauty, thusly creating that we think of as upward mobility which was very very rare.
Marriages were arranged for the purposes of consolidating wealth and land ownership, not for the purpose of rearing children that would do better or worse because there were parents of two genders in the home. What we recognize as marriage today is a recent invention. when one considers the timeline of modernity, the most common families were blended families, due to shortened life expectancy. Men who lost wives to death in childbirth or to disease had to take other wives who then produced other children, often via her marriage contract, eliminating the children of her predecessor from the line of inheritance. Large families were necessary in the American rural age prior to the Civil War and the flight to cities in the Industrial revolution, because large farms needed many hands in order to function.

Children today do better when they are reared with love and consistently good parenting and that can come from any union of adults who have a commitment to giving their kids the best that they can offer. That said, many couples I know have chosen to remain childless and an astonishing percentage of my childhood friends have never married. Whatever has led to their situation is none of my business — I just want them to be happy and to live the lives that they have chosen for themselves.

You wrote: How do you reconcile that with the natural desire of people to pair and bond, whatever their sexual orientation? And how do you not allow them the same legal privileges as a married man and woman?

Me: easily. Not everyone has that natural desire as you put it. Personally I believe that any couple who chooses to marry should marry and should be permitted to do so without restraint from the government.

YOu wrote: More disturbing is the possibility of a plurality of people able to vote for something that may be unconstitutional and have it upheld. I think the voters in CA did not see far enough into the future and may live to regret their vote on prop 8.

Me: well, yeah. as a CA resident, I was saddened but not surprised by yesterday’s decision. What this does is create two classes of same sex marriage, those 18,000 or so couples who married before Prop 8 and those who did not. Should those who did not be penalized for not rushing to the altar? How does one couple prove that their marriage is valid while another cannot? To answer you directly, does this mean that voters can decide to segregate public toilets and water fountains and schools again? Make prayer in public schools mandatory?
I am not an attorney and have no real background in constitutional law so I have no idea how this will all end and how future litigation will answer these questions but what I do have is hope that marriage is made universally available to any couple who wishes to marry.

“This would be self-evident if theocrats weren’t trying to force their beliefs not just upon individual citizens, but upon the system”

They do seem to want to do that. I am very much opposed to the philosophy of most organized religions, especially the evangelical free church types. Some of the ideas they espouse are spooky (no allusion to the Holy Ghost implied).

That was an excellent analysis. I do think these rulings henge on church-state entwinement and agree that the best way to resolve them is as you state. Eventually, social mores will change as well. Many young people, even fundamentalist young people, do not see being lesbian or gay as the moral crime that the older generations do. I hope this will help the movement for legal equality.

I think on the homosexual side, you’d hear few if any quibbles about over what it’s called, marriage or union. To that side, it’s more about personal, contractual and property rights than about nomenclature. Marriage, after all, as far as the state is ultimately concerned is a contractual relationship not a theocratic relationship. Contracts and obligations is what this whole argument falls to legally once the religious language is dropped. This would be self-evident if theocrats weren’t trying to force their beliefs not just upon individual citizens, but upon the system. Systemic discrimination is the worst kind of discrimination – it’s hateful as well as lazy.

good thougths as always, I am in favor of civil unions and see no conflict with religion (although I am not particulary religious in the common parlance). I would think that civil unions would be an acceptable compromise for all parties involved.

Although the fanatics on both sides would probably disagree.

I have probably commented on this before, but I remain mystified by the widespread misunderstanding of the respective roles of the state and religion on the institution of marriage. The state’s interest relates to the bundle of legal rights and responsibilities created by marriage. Accordingly, each state has adopted by statute and litigation a detailed legal framework through which it issues licenses, maintains records of vital statistics, regulates the acquisition and disposition of assets, provides rules for the custody and support of children and determines the legal consequences of death and dissolution. The role of the state, then, is in the creation and regulation of legal relations arising from civil unions.

The interest of religion in marriage is scriptural and sacramental. Each religious body determines its own eligibility requirements and adopts its own rules and rituals within a specific doctrinal framework. The religious ceremony does not create the legal relationship; it confers a sacramental blessing. Thus the right to terminate the legal relationship remains regardless of the religion’s views on the permissibility of divorce.

Unfortunately, the word “marriage” is used interchangeably to describe separate and distinct relationships. As a result, people of strong religious views treat the interests of the state and religion in marital relationships as indistinguishable. When anyone proposes expanding the class of people whose relationships should receive legal recognition by the state, religion regards the proposal as an attack on the religious institution. In biblical terms, the resulting debate calls to mind the story of the Tower of Babel.

Although they would deny it, and the denial of many would be in good faith, the arguments of opponents of gay marriage (or civil unions between gay persons) are essentially theocratic. The controversy will never be resolved until we recognize and restore to its rightful place the doctrine of separation of church and state.

Pardon, my slip was showing.

Alabama IS a drag, but what I meant was “Alabama in drag.”