so very cool and a step towards a more postive future for america

Nice! Finally my home state did what needed to be done in the first place.

San Fran is going to be one big party of buttsecks xD

like ti wasnt before?

Even more so now

Awsomeness times ifinate

FUCK YEA <3 *wags tail excotedl

>:DYAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Great, now that the gays can get married the Nazi's are going to rise up and start riding in on the backs of dinosaurs to retake the earth.

Only if the King of Insurance ok's it! :P

It is great news and I good step towards full equality in the US :)

Fuck yeah, my man and I can walk the streets now and feel confortable.

YaaaaaaaaaaY :D

hooray california...but then again, you silly silly californians! Why would you approve it to begin with if you're just gonna reverse it. Oh You!!!

It's about time too, it makes no sense that this is still even an issue. While presenting their cases, the opposition admited they had no valid argument against gay marraige, the only thing they had to fight with basically amounted to, "We just don't think it's right." Their case should have just been thrown out right there. If this does make it to the Supreme Court, I can only hope that they are just as sensible. :/

Also, I have to say that I'm suprised that Prop 8 went into effect in the first place. I don't live in California, but it was my understanding that it had more than quite a few gay residents and was also one of the most liberal states in the US. Am I wrong?

You're right, but with the Mormons and NOM pumping in a sh*t-load of money to advertising their side, it swayed the "Undecideds" of the electorate for a 52-48 very close margin victory.

I personally don't think it was a big enough margin to justify taking away civil rights from anyone.

I'm amused that the group's name is NOM, lol.

Still angers me that this whole fight on their side boiled down to just NOW admitting that there was no valid argument in court against it, essentially meaning there was no valid reason to be against it in the first place. Doesn't matter when you have a popular work of fiction on your side I suppose, along with a bunch of followers who are proud and more than happy to place faith before thought. v.v

If it gets to the Supreme Court they'll probably refuse to hear it since it's not a federal matter at this point. They could take it on and rule in favor of it which would make it legal in every state but that's so politically risky I don't see the court doing it.

Very true, you can always trust politics to look out for #1 these days. :/

Guess I know where I'm gonna try to move to after college! XD

it is a great day for our equality, but we still have a long way to go. This decision is just one step in a long process that will eventually make it to the Supreme Court. And it won't make it there for at least another 2 or three years=/

This just in: I finally released the breath I'd been holding since yesterday when I heard the decision was about to be released.
...
I mean, DAMN.

"You know what bugs me most about Prop 8 and the other anti-gay-marriage initiatives? It's not even that people feel that gay couples shouldn't get married; it's that they feel the issue is worth spending millions of dollars on. Really? How many people could the Church of LDS have fed? How many homes could they have built? How many surgeries could they have paid for?

No matter how strongly you oppose gay marriage, how can you pretend that fighting against other people getting married is an ethical use of your resources, when there's so much suffering to be alleviated?"

The church, as an institution, has been a pillar of social power since the dark ages. They're used to rallying people around their causes and getting their agenda passed. Their history has revolved around the influence of Kings and Governments and that kind of habit is hard to give up.

They always feel threatened when the government does something AGAINST the religious teachings and go on heavy campaigns to counter it. This is so typical of them it's not even funny. I agree they wasted money and could have been much better humanitarians. They feel if their institution is knocked down a peg it could lose its influence in the people.

This is a broad, over-generalized assumption on the church's underlining motives given history and the observation of their motives. Their statement: "Church should remain separate from the government" is hypocrisy when they pass laws to limit such liberties.

Ah the church, such wonderful history and debate topics.

In my own opinion (for whatever it counts for) it really shouldn't even be a debate. Separation of church and state should mean that marriage, which happens to be a church and/or religious ceremony, should really have nothing to do with the government. It's only real purpose is taxation and record keeping, which can just as easily be filed, just like eloping is anyway. If you want a marriage, go to the church. If you want to combine financials, go to the government.

But marriage is considered to be a right of the people, and there's various laws on the books that keep discrimination out of marriage, such as making it legal for interracial couples. Yes, the term marriage is a word coined by the church but it means so much more in society and government that you simply cannot relegate it to merely a secular definition.

I don't mean to belittle the concept of marriage as we know it romantically, it's an event even I imagine myself in when the fancy strikes me. My point is that the church has almost inseparably ingrained into the concept. Key point is that stereotypically even a pastor/priest/holy (wo)man of your choosing hosts and even must sign the the marriage certificate. If you examine many of the supporters against same sex marriage, easily most (I can't just quote a number) of their arguments will be religious or spiritually backed. To be fair though, I can't quote resources or numbers immediately. However, I believe Wanda Sykes has the right idea here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IHdaJOZe7E