Roll call vote: Same-sex marriage ban amendment

Punish these people who voted for this bill. Even if you don’t live in their districts, make sure you boycott businesses in their districts until their constituents vote them out. And make sure the business owners understand why they aren’t getting your business. This means restaurants, grocery stores, shops, gas stations, professional services, whatever.

This vote was cowardly and small and good people need to stand up against it.

Let Love Rule!

The comments are amazing. This is not about “equal rights” This is not about what people do “in their bedrooms”. This is not about “rights being denied” (it is already against the law in Minnesota for goodness sake!!!)

This is not about “Jim Crow”. This is not even about “love”. And this is not about “freedom”.

Society has given special rights to married couples for thousands of years. It is the smallest unit of ‘government’ in which a people procreate. To say this institution is only between a man and a woman denies no one any “rights”, any “freedoms”, and is NOT in any way comparable to civil rights for minorities. This is a behavior, not a skin color.

In Minnesota right now, gays are free to do whatever they want. Love whomever they want. Do whatever they want in their own bedrooms. But do not make society as a whole puts it’s endorsement on their behavior by granting this special classification of marriage.

Gays have all the freedoms they the rest of us have. This is not about “rights” but about acceptance. God says homosexuality is sexual immorality. Don’t make Minnesota call gay marriage “right” when God calls it wrong.

I would also like to follow up T’s response to Jeff and address the involvment of God on this issue. We are debating a public, social issue. At most our civic access to ecconomic, medical, estate and insurance bennifits alloted to heterosexual married couples. The legal rights awarded by the state and national governments to married couples. This is not and should not be a debate over who’s god is correct. Or what one group of people feel is their “God’s Will” for everyone. It is a topic of being able to enter into a legally binding contract with all the benifits and expectations afforded to most of our society.

It is for this exact reason our forefathers had the forethought to create the separation of church and state into our way of government. To prevent the opression of our people by any group in the name of one god or religious theology. We live in an extremely diverse country with many views, beliefs and thoughts. The country all of our ancestors crossed the seas to find. A country with many freedoms. One of which is religious freedom. That is to have the freedom to practice whatever faith one chooses. It is also to have the freedom of opression from any group on another in the name of religion.

How far have we progressed if we still allow the religious views of one group to oppress or restrict the views and rights of others? Have we become the societies our forefather’s worked so hard to get away from? Or are we better than that? A nation where all are viewed as equal regardless. Which, I might add, is the current view of most of those countries that our ancestors came from. How ironic.

T.

Granting those provisions to man/woman married couples is not bigotry to gays. And the parallels to Crow are obscene.

Chad.

The founders that you refered would be absolutely shocked and horrified that we were even discussing giving marrital status to homosexuals! To invoke their name for your cause is indefensible.

Laws based on the Word of God is our history, not “oppression”.

And the founders, our constitution, nor any laws afford the “separation of church and state” you mention. Rather, it is that government shall not establish a religion nor prevent the free exercise thereof.

Just last year a pastor in Briton was ARRESTED for preaching that homosexuality is a sin according to God’s Word. A Canadian pastor was arrested a few years back for same. Soon it will be here. So much for the “freedom” you mention!

The 1st amendment was to protect religion FROM government oppression. Defining marriage as between a man and a woman, while Biblically based, oppresses no one. The “benefits” T. mentions in the previous post can be entered into by any 2 people contractually if desired (except for joint tax returns). They are not denied to gays. They are privledges given to a man/women marriage by a society that values a man and a women coming together in a life-long relationship to procreate and raise children. Something gay couples are physically incapable of doing.

(I find it amazing that I have to teach history and biology to the educated.)

Jeff – if procreation is so important, how about we create a litmus test for getting married. If you can procreate, then you can get married. We should test both men and women before they are married just to make sure. If you cannot (or choose not to) have children, then marriage should be denied to you. Oh, infertile couples should divorce immediately since they are not meeting the test to be married. Maybe we should also test to make sure they are a good genetic match. We wouldn’t want any undesirable characteristics creeping into the mix. Smacks of some other type of social engineering someone in Germany thought was a good idea last century. All sarcasm aside, do you really believe that? Or is it just a convenient argument to support your prejudice?

There are only 132 Legislators listed. Where are the missing 2?

Jeff said:

“The “benefits” T. mentions in the previous post can be entered into by any 2 people contractually if desired (except for joint tax returns). They are not denied to gays. They are privledges given to a man/women marriage by a society that values a man and a women coming together in a life-long relationship to procreate and raise children.”

The values of society evolve over time. Indeed, if modern society did not place value on long-term homosexual relationships, this issue would not even have come up.

Nancy,

It feels hated-filled because it is an outfront assault to my family. My experience dictates my response, logic aside.

I find it very interesting how the privileged (the groups who already enjoy the rights and beifits of our society) can so easily say this is not hateful. If there was an once of empathy, you would see how hateful this amendment and these opinions are.

If we are to go by the biblical definition of marriage then a man is entitled to several wives, a number of concubines and to have sex with the servants.

That about it?

To all of those who keep insisting that this amendment is to “protect the children” and the “sanctity of the family”, I expect you to put your money where your mouth is. I expect you to propose amendments stating that children born to single parents, children in families where a parent has passed away and children in divorced families be immediately placed in protective custody because they no longer have both a mother and father and are obviously not being raised in a proper home. To the righteous ones who are honest enough to say they support it because they are Christian and that’s what the Bible says, I expect you to propose legislation outlawing sex for pleasure, childless marriages and an end to judges presiding over marriages that take place outside the church (and a bill that dissolves all existing ones).

What was that? You say that’s absurd? Then just be honest and stop making excuses for your bigotry. Stop and think about how this does absolutely nothing to protect children, unless your real intention is to protect them from “those gays”. I feel bad for the kids who are discovering that they are attracted to the same sex and will live in fear of reprisal from others kids who were taught by this batch of lawmakers that it’s ok to discriminate and bully those who are different phyically, emotionally or sexually. Or the ones who were adopted by a same-sex couple and are on the verge of legally being told that their parents aren’t fit to raise a child.

And to those of you who are all for this amendment and were shocked and distrubed by the level of emotion shown by the pro-gay marriage activists at the Capital…really? How dare all of those tax-paying gay and lesbian citizens, their families and friends be upset when the governing body of their state wants to legally classify them as second-class citizens and deny them the right to hold their partner’s hand while they are dying in a hospital! How dare they be angry with your method of enacting your bigotry in a way that will prevent those darn “activist” judges from overturning the existing law.

Again, really???