That's really a hell of a disappointment. I thought that it would never pass in California.

me neither. I thought California was better than that. :(

This is why I keep saying that the secular definition of "marriage" shouldn't include that word for anybody. If two people want to form a union under a civil domestic contract and want to call it a marriage between the, then fine, but let's not confuse the religious terminology with the secular. The state should allow a person to enter into civil union contract with as many people as he or she wants, of any gender they want without the need for government approval (i.e. abolish marriage licenses). I think we should remember that civil unions are a joint ownership and responsibility contract (with no sex implied), who is anybody to judge. It's not like people didn't have sex without getting married before.

If you get rid of marriage for heterosexuals and allow both heterosexuals, homosexuals, and polygamists to joint civil unions, I think everybody will be happy.

It's a good point, but I never thought of marriage as a religious kind of thing. A lot of people nowadays marry without being in the same religion or even being a part of a religion. It's best that marriage is kept separate from religion. Besides, marriage is an evolving thing. Back then, it was mainly for property gaining purposes. Now it's for love. :)

Plus, I cant imagine saying I'm "civil unioned" to my partner. P:

I don't buy the argument that marriage, in the legal sense, if intended for love. In fact, the chief complaint from homosexuals is the lack of privileges and rights they have as compared to married homosexual couples. They claim they desire to get married for no other reason other then for the legal benefits, because the love, sex and faithfulness (or lack thereof) are parts of the relationship that neither require ceremony nor government approval to be enjoyed. The whole issue about gay marriage for gay has and always will be about civil rights, and not semantics. For those who appose gay marriage, the issue was never about suppressing civil rights, but about protecting traditional semantics.

Just because you don't see marriage as a religious institution doesn't mean that it isn't one. Years of tradition from many cultures and religions dictate that it is, in fact, a religious institution. If you change the definition of marriage as you propose, you will have taken something away from many peoples' cultural traditions. It is time for secular government to get rid of terms such as this. It's the only way to keep from having favoritism towards any particular group, give everybody equal civil liberty and avoid mocking the beliefs of various traditional peoples. I think you will find this to be true if you look at the big picture.

How about referring to your relationship as a "domestic partnership" or just a "partnership". Then again, it's supposed to be a free country, so you could call it a marriage anyway, even though the law would view it as a civil union.

That's a good point. I don't know about other gays. They might claim that. We all have our own reasons to get married, but in some way I still think it's about love. The reason I'd wanna get married is because i want to share those benefits with my boyfriend so that we can be with each other till the very end. We wanna be there for each other in the hospital, when we make financial decisions, etc. There's only so much you can do when you're only in a civil union or not, which is why I wanna get married with my boyfriend.

The whole thing about the marriage traditions is very true, but it isn't simple to get rid of it and just replace it like that. If only it were that easy, then we'd have real equality. Realistically, we just have to fight with what we have for real equality and that's marriage.

Even if we call it domestic partnership, how would you say it? "We're domestically partershipped to each other."? Calling a domestic partnership or civil union a marriage is blindly ignoring the fact that it isn't a marriage and that it's not equal.

If you want to get married for love, why do you need a license? Why even need the government's consent at all? In fact, why should anybody, for that matter?

Well, you say this is about love, but then you go into reasons that are matters of finance and legality. Sure, those are valid reasons to get married, but those aren't reasons for love because they are purely practical.

Your mixing two completely different ideas here. Now, if you want to argue that this is still about love and you should be able to marry the ones you love, then you've just killed my ability to defend domestic partnerships. Because now the religious right can use the slippery slope argument and say that people should then also be able to marry their animals for love (and trust me, the zoophiles will do this). Even though I'm okay with people having relations with animals, I'm totally against people marrying animals. Why? Because marriage is a legal contract! You can't enter a contract when you lack the mental capacity understand even the most basic of legal terms. If love is all it takes for marriage, then our argument is basically fucked.

I seriously can't believe that you want to take on what is a very heterosexual term, anyway. This would be like Nancy Pelosi demanding to be called "Chairman" instead of "The Chair" or "Madam Chair". For you, this has nothing to do with love. It may feel that way to you because you love your partner and don't have the same rights as heteroseuxals, but this is really a semantics issue when you strip away the emotion. And what's so wrong with heterosexuals and homoseuxals both calling themselves partners or referring to themselves as "partnered". (BTW, you don't have to use the same long winded terminology you suggest; just replace "married" with "partnered"). If everybody contracted couple is a domestic partner in the eyes of the law, how is that unequal? What I'm advocating is very similar to the removal of sexist language in the law. Only, we would be removing hetero-centric language and replacing it with neutral language so that everybody is happy. This way we can bring equal legal protection and also avoid the white vs. color water fountain parallel. Why can't it be so simple as to replace the legal definitions? All it takes is a law to pass. Clearly using the courts to legislate for you isn't working, so you need compromise.

Once more, I get the impression from some gay marriage advocates that the real motivation for claiming the title of marriage, as apposed to abolishing it, stems more from a desire to rub the noses of bigoted Christians into their own filth. I'm not saying that is applies to you, but it is something I have observed. This means that the motivation for some has moved on from motivations from a desire for equality, to a hatred of those with antiquated belief systems. It feels to much like revenge, which will do nothing but cause more ire between the two groups who fight on this issue. We don't need more demonizing. What we need is peace. And lets not lull ourselves into think that "if we could just get the other side to see things our way, we will have peace." Forget that hogwash, because the other side will never see things exactly the same way as you see them. Compromise is MANDATORY if you want equality.

Trust me, I'm on your side, but their are realities we have to deal with and most of them are people who lead a totally different lifestyle then you. It is best to compromise in such a way that everybody has equal freedom and nobody's feelings get hurt. Rather then fight with our fellow citizens, we should come to the table and talk about ways we can compromise that make everybody happy. Is it so hard to extend the olive branch and get back to the values of democracy and understanding apposing view points? We don't need all this pointless propaganda about how stupid and ignorant Christians are or how filthy and short lived homosexuals are. Like the sign says, "Say NO to hate".

ugghh tl;dr, but i read it anyways.

I don't really know where you're going with this anymore. >__> I don't even know why we're still arguing. I agreed with you when u said that we should just take away marriage and replace it with domestic partnerships, then we'd have real equality and such, but realistically, that won't happen. A lot of people dont want to share their marriage with homosexuals, nor would they wanna give it up. So replacing marriage is pretty much out of the question.

About marrying for love, I'm saying that the reason we'd want to get married is because we love. We wouldn't get married just for legal benifits (unless we're just trying to take advantage of its benefits). So the reason I want to marry my boyfriend is due to the fact that I love him. I'm not saying I want to marry to love him, which is what it sounds like you think i'm saying. I want to marry because I love him.

I see what you mean now. I'm sort who sees ideas like "marriage" as formalities. Growing up in an environment where formalities and rituals had more meanings then a person's deeds has definitely skewed my world view. I've also been told that I am a very rational and linear thinker to the extreme. I'm almost a borderline anti-dogmatist at times, and have more often viewed myself as a machine then a living animal.

Without a personal practical use, placing a value on a abstract concept is extremely hard for me. Forgive me, but I find it difficult to empathize with people in general, not just you and your situation. Perhaps this means that I am a law abiding borderline sociopath, I'm not sure. But this is why I have focused so much on the practical issues of law and civil liberty. These are concepts I can logically work with. "Love" is considerably more difficult to place a value on, however, this is not to say that I am incapable of the emotion.

I know that many people cannot help but cling to their silly dogmas about religion, emotion and cultural custom and that these values often come into conflict between groups. Secularization is the only logical choice, and I am glad you agree. It is, however, unfortunate that this is an impossible dream for you, but perhaps someday it won't be if people can learn to think rationally.

I wish you and your significant other the best.

Im just happy i live in Canada, i hope they allow Gay marriage there soon!

I sure hope so too. If not, we're definitely moving up to Canada.

Yeah, I'm quite upset about that. It seemed like there was a bit of hope for us in the U.S., but then we basically got slapped in the face. My mom was even shocked that Prop 8 passed. Someone in my class was happy about the whole thing and started to laugh. Thankfully, one of my friends was there to stop his face from meeting the desk. I just don't understand the world anymore. v_v

All this time, I was thinking prop 8 wasn't gonna pass because this is California. I was expecting better. :/

Someone was laughing about the passing of Prop 8? That bastard. D:<

Despite the fact I'd been supporting McCain, I've throughly irritated that prop 8 was passed. I voted no and encouraged others to do so also but apparently it wasn't good enough :/

I think we were so focused on the west coast that we weren't encouraging the other districts to not vote No. According to this map chart thingie, counties where majority said No were along the west coast. Other counties on the east side of Cali, voted Yes by a landslide.

Is that talking pixel slot still open? D:

yup still open :)