Lets all put our hands together for the people of Maine! They came out to the polls and voted in favor of bigotry, intolerance and hatred.

Without these wonderful people who came out to oppress their neighbors, gays might actually have been able to enjoy equal rights as Americans.

Lets all give another big round of applause for these Patriots who stood up for ignorance and intolerance, they are true blue americans!

They stand with their fellow Americans in CA (and FL where domestic partnership recognition was shot down...hurts straight people too)! I really hope we start to see more legal gay marriage across the country, crossing my fingers it happens in DC soon (would love to be able to see my friend be able to get married in my city).

eyeswideshut you need to calm down. This is the second insulting post I've seen from you. If you don't agree with the decision in Maine, state your opinion and explain it. There is no need for sarcasm and disrespect.

Respect other people's opinions whether you agree with them or not. It's common courtesy.

Personally, I think gay marriage should be up to the states as it is now. The national government has not constitutional right to regulate a social matter such as gay marriage. If the majority of Maine citizens don't want gay marriage, then Maine shouldn't allow gay marriage. In addition, just because you don't agree with the majority of the people in Maine doesn't mean they're idiots.

Yeah, you're right. I should calm down and quit doing what i have been doing on this site for over a year and a half now. Maybe since you have only been plaguing this site for six days you should go check out the rest of my posts. I am not nice to stupid people, and am not going to change. Telling me to calm down will do you no good. My IP was temp banned last summer for being too mean to someone, guess what, I'm back!

Or you could quit whining because I'm being mean, that might work too!


And yes, they are idiots.

backstroke48,

Gay marriage is really more than just a "social matter." This is about civil rights.

Nobody should be denied based on sexuality.

I don't see how allowing bigotry to win out is ever okay. If there is injustice, people SHOULD speak out against it.

What is injustice?
How do you gage it?
What gave you the gage?

My boyfriend and his whole family is from Maine...so believe me I've ripped on those "maniacs" in so many ways.

However, despite what polls say, I think it might be a bit harsh to blame such civil rights issues on one state.

I feel like that's saying "the south was for slavery, and is totally responsible for prejudism in the world today-the north has no part of it!" Not true. Of course the north was anti-slavery when the was an issue-but prejudism still exists here. It exists everywhere. And so does bigotry, intolerance and hatred.

Maybe Maine stood out in the polls, but you've also got to take into account that there are still parts of Maine that don't even have phone lines!! That fact alone can cause a misrepresentation in polls-no phone, no internet (i know, hard to believe, but my boyfriends' relatives live like that!)

So, bigotry, intolerance, hatred-it's horrible, and unacceptable, but I do not think it is appropriate to just hate on Maine for these things, merely because of a poll. I think that's just another stereotype, now illustrated by a poll that was probably flawed or some way inaccurate. If you can list sources-multiple, credible sources-that supports such findings, then I will reconsider my opinion. But these things happen everywhere, it's not just Maine, and it's not fair to portray it as just occurring in Maine or to say Maine is the sole cause of our current civil rights issues.

Jessyness,

I believe Eyeswideshut was referring to Maine's vote to reject same-sex marriage.

"(Portland, Maine) Wednesday–The vote tally in Maine today, while not complete and not official, suggests an effort to repeal the state’s newly passed marriage equality law has succeeded."
http://www.365gay.com/news/maine-rejects-gay-marriage-law/

"Yet gay rights supporters suffered a crushing loss when voters decided to repeal Maine’s new law allowing gay men and lesbians to wed, setting back a movement that had made remarkable progress nationally this year. "
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/us/05marriage.html

"Supporters of gay marriage ... received a stinging rebuke when voters in Maine repealed a state measure that had granted marriage rights to same-sex couples."

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/11/voters-opposed-new-gay-marriage-ballot-measure-timesusc-poll-finds.html

It wasn't just a poll to gauge people's opinions. It was on the ballot, and people voted against gay rights.

Also, although I mentioned gay rights as being an issue of civil rights in my post, please do not think that I attribute all injustices related to civil rights on Maine alone. I was simply replying to backstroke48's post, who claimed that gay marriage is a "social matter." It is not just a "social matter." The scope is actually much larger. This is about civil rights because a group of people is being discriminated against.

So it's not JUST about Maine. It's just that Maine voted this way, which is why the topic was brought up.

"Instead, it[Maine] became the 31st state to block same-sex marriage through a public referendum."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/us/05marriage.html

This quote tells me that there's a lot of work to be done for gay rights, not just in Maine, but across the nation.

Claire,

Are you asking what injustice is or why I think this particular act is an act of injustice?

I'll answer both.

Injustice is when something is unfair, unjust, or inequitable. It happens when people's rights are violated. It happens when people are treated unfairly, which I think clearly happens when people act on their bigotry, hatred, and intolerance.

This particular act (the vote against gay marriage) is an injustice because it establishes that gay couples are not entitled to the same marriage rights that straight people are. I see this as wholly unfair, and don't know of a good reason that these rights should be denied, do you?

How do I gauge it?
Well, I just defined injustice and explained how this act fits that definition. But taking gauge to mean measure, I'm thinking maybe you want to know how severe of an injustice this is, or at least, my opinion of how severe of an injustice this is.
It would seem a little arbitrary to me to assign an abstract value, like a letter grade, number, or anything else to serve as a measure of how severe of an injustice it is to deny a group of people their rights. I think it would be enough to say that it is an injustice to discriminate against a group of people.

What gave me the gauge?
My brain and my heart.

love2learn,
Thanks for your reply. You bring up a good point.
I actually am pro gay marriage. I also agree that it is a civil rights issue. My point in saying that is was a social matter is that the national government doesn't have the right to regulate it based on the current Constitution. If the federal government wants to say gay marriage is legal, I think they need to make an amendment.
You might say that if the Civil Rights Act was constitutional, why wouldn't a gay marriage law be legal? The answer in my opinion lies in the justification of the Civil Rights Act.
The constitution only expands federal power in a few clauses. One of them is the Commerce Clause, which states that the federal government has the right to regulate any interstate commerce. However, in the Supreme Court case Gibbons v Ogden (1824), the court of John Marshall took a very general view of the Commerce Clause. He basically said that if a matter had any affect at all on interstate commerce, the federal government can regulate it.
The Civil Rights Act was just because if, for example, an African American was denied employment due to his/her race, the economy was affected.
My question is how Gay Rights is a commerce issue. I honestly don't think it is, and any link that someone comes up with is probably going to be a stretch (although if you can think of one I will consider it). I believe in the Constitution because it is the absolute foundation of our government and it cannot be contradicted. If gay marriage is to be legalized nationally as a civil rights issue, it needs to be in the form of an amendment, just like the 14th, 15th, and 16th amendment.

If an amendment is impractical the problem needs to be approached a different way. We’d have to amend the way people see the issue. That would require a movement and a leader, just like the Civil Rights Movement. Before that time, the injustice towards blacks was not recognized by congress or the majority of American people as a civil rights issue. But after the movement it certainly was, and action was taken.

I hope this clears up my position on the issue, and my reason for saying that gay marriage is a social issue. I meant that purely in constitutional terms.
As for you, eyeswideshut, if you find that taking an angry, disrespectful, insulting, and immature approach works better to prove your point, go right ahead. I'll stick to presenting facts to back up my points.
Thanks for listening,
backstroke48

Eventually this will not stand. Progression is one thing that has been constant in U.S. history as far as civil rights are concerned.

Unfortunately I can't tell exactly when all people will be given equal protection of civil rights, but I do believe that it will happen.

Claire,

I think there's a whole forum in those three little questions you asked. I think Love did a fantastic job of explaining her take on it. (Way to go, girl!) How about you? I'd really like to hear your take on injustice...

B-stroke:
About Eyes... Errr... You're just gonna have to get used to him. Sure, sometimes he goes a little overboard, but he's pretty entertaining, in a warped sort of way. The standard internet caveat applies: Don't get offended by a total stranger. (Is it lame to drop a coolface reference here?)

As far as gay marriage goes:

I think that there is plenty of room for compromise here. I don't think it's right to call a gay union merely a civil union, but I can also understand why the religious folks get mad when the term "marriage" is applied. Maybe we could coin a new word?

After all, it's not sexist to call a female waiter a waitress, so by the same logic, maybe there could be a nonderogatory term for a gay union that would imply that the union was between two men or two women? (And, I don't think that terms like "life partner" cut it, either...)

I bring this up, not to be hateful, or to say that gays don't deserve the same rights. Quite to the contrary. I think that, whatever it's called, gay unions should have the same protections as those for hetero couples.

It's just that with the shifting family structures, it's very hard to differentiate based on context. Fast forward 50 years, when most of the rights issues are ironed out, and you're going to see some really confusing situations.

Trying to be PC is hard enough now, when you have to use articles such as he/she and other wierd constructs. Maybe it's only gonna get worse. And imagine wading through the linguistical nightmare of step father/ step sister/ half brother/ half sister on my father's side, etc., without linguistical structures that connote the nature of the union?

That just leads to confusion, hurt feelings, and bad blood.

-Just a thought.