Frist Endorses Constitutional Amendment To Ban Gay Marriage

goofyfish

goofyfish

Analog By Birth, Digital By Design
Valued Senior Member
For the life of me, I can't understand why anybody else's state of marriage or living together or sodomy or even ice-cream-eating would be any business of Bill Frist's. Just how does someone else's life style affect him?
WASHINGTON -- The Senate majority leader said Sunday he supported a proposed constitutional amendment to ban homosexual marriage in the United States. Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said the Supreme Court's decision last week on gay sex threatens to make the American home a place where criminality is condoned. (Full text here)
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Our government may have been founded by Puritans, but history moves on. If two men want to bump uglies in the name of marital bliss, I guess Frist wants them to do it "dutch" style and go to the Netherlands.
"I very much feel that marriage is a sacrament, and that sacrament should extend and can extend to that legal entity of a union between -- what is traditionally in our Western values has been defined -- as between a man and a woman. So I would support the amendment."
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Well, Billy, if marriage is a "sacrament" maybe the government should get it's hands out of it completely--no more supporting it, recognizing it, or regulating it. There is, after all, a separation of church and state. And given that many religions, and therefore people, don't consider marriage to be a sacrament, but rather a civil contract, this oaf is really talking about HIS religion. Hell, even The Church didn't take over marriage until the middle ages, as it took quite a while to stamp out the older, more civilized, practices of "jumping the broomstick" and so on.

The logical next step would be to outlaw marriage-by-contract (civil marriage) and force those of other (or no) religions to get married in Frist's chosen church -- if they don't want their children to be bastards. Maybe while they're at it, we can put in a ban on racially mixed marriages as well.

This is just one more effort to ensure that the State can have access to the most private part of one's life, to have a way to violate your privacy, and to further strangle the Constitution and the Bill of Rights

:m: Peace.
 
I was just coming on to the forum to post about this exact article. i just read it before coming here.

i like your post, the religious right is very fond of the slippery slope argument and you turned it around nicely.

I would like to point out that homosexual marages are already illigal under the federal governments defence of marage act. but it happened rather quietly, not many people noticed.

the gay rights movement really needs to kick it up a notch. Although peaceful protest alone never gets peoples attention. What we really need to bring the attention of the nation onto gay rights is an armed violent protest group. That way everyone can say "Hey, using violence to protect your rights is WRONG" and the ligitamate peaceful gay rights people can go on TV nodding thier heads and saying "Yes its true, they should be more peaceful... see we are reasonable people, cant we have some rights?"
 
while Canada (Ontario in particular) is slowly turning into Amsterdam, I see that our friends south of the border still have their brains.
 
Is it your intent, then, otheadp, to imply that bringing prejudiced religious views, into politics in order to create a situation where we essentially have mob rule dictating that certain people can not have rights which effect no one but themselves simply because the idea of it makes the masses uncomfortable, is something that takes a particularly large amount of brain power?

The idea that an amendment to the constitution in order to both deny homosexuals the right to marry, on top of denying states the right to recognize marriage (which the proposed amendment also does, if I've read correctly) on top of the already established Defense of Marriage Act, could be proposed in our congress just makes me sick. When people start talking about revoking the rights of others, in situations where having such rights does not impact other people in any way is just pissing on our constitution. It's nothing but thugery and mob-rule, this is not what democracy is supposed to be about, this is not what a free nation is supposed to be about.

Though I very much doubt that this proposed amendment will actually gain any legitimacy, or have any hope of a chance of being enacted, I still can't manage to keep the bile rising in my throat at the very idea of it.

I've got to agree with Spymoose on this one, if the religious right is so intent on screwing over innocent people, then eventually someone is going to have to get violent, it is the only recourse left once those in power have abandoned reason, and turned to such petty bullying.
 
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a marage is a legal entity as well. Gay couples married by churches that alow such things are not legaly recognized. Legal aspects of state recognized marage give things like divorse benifits, factor into custody battles, change how you are taxed, and in the corporate world can change things like insurance coverage. Gay couples who wish to be married are denied all these things.
 
I should have used Feds. The constitution applies to the federal goverment and not corporations.
 
Originally posted by otheadp
while Canada (Ontario in particular) is slowly turning into Amsterdam, I see that our friends south of the border still have their brains.
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Agreed. Would someone please shoot that fucked up Prime Minister we have?
 
Originally posted by SpyMoose
a marage is a legal entity as well. Gay couples married by churches that alow such things are not legaly recognized. Legal aspects of state recognized marage give things like divorse benifits, factor into custody battles, change how you are taxed, and in the corporate world can change things like insurance coverage. Gay couples who wish to be married are denied all these things.
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In my home state(Vermont) gay marriage is not legally recognized, but gay couples can get all the legal benefits of marriage by getting a "civil union". I believe there are other states with similiar laws.
I wonder if the language of this proposed amendment only applies if the name marriage is used or if it would outlaw giving gay people rights in general.

*edit*
Neither this Constitution nor the constitution of any state under state or federal law shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.''
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(italics mine)

I guess its the latter :rolleyes:
 
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I'm confused

The sodomy laws were just overturned on a basis of being unconstitutional right? This means gays can now have their fun and not get in legal trouble for it. Now they are trying to make gay marrige constitutionaly illegal. Those are the facts as I understand them. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Now my immediate train of thought when I heard this went something like: Christains think sex outside of marrige is wrong. Gay sex is legal. Now they want to outlaw marrige. Does this mean they are willing to accept the sex outside of marrige, or will this new ammendment put the sodomy laws back into affect?
Somebody clear this up for me please.
-Belle
 
Baron von Munch:

Originally posted by Munchmausen
Conservatism is fear.
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Yes. People who rail against homosexuality like it was contagious get all uptight and snotty when they are labeled homophobic. They say phobia is fear and fear is not what they feel. They're lying. Fear is often at the root of hatred. If you want to manipulate people into hating something, it's easier if you convince them to be afraid of it first. Politicians and priests all know that and they use it to work us.
 
Re: I'm confused

Originally posted by Belle
I'm confused
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as well you should be. somebody explain when religious people have ever made sense. the church and state have never been separate except to deny those of us who went to private school anything we might possibly need to get an education but that's an entirely different rant. it's time the christian conservatives get their hands out of politics all together. religion has no place in a reasonable society. the worst part is that it supports a single religion. there are plenty of religions that happily support gay marriages and perform the ceremonies. the puritans (pure as they were) left england to get away from an official religion. now they seek to make it the official religion here. it makes becoming a professional sniper sound like a pretty good idea.
 
all we need to do is find another evil that they can scapegoat for the "Delcine of civilization" ... maybe we can get some people on the psudoscience board to help us out here. If we can make the christian right believe that UFOs are threatening "traditional values" then i bet its going to be ET's that cant marry instead of homosexual couples.
 
I'm guessing the power of religion in this country is too strong for the gay movement to succeed in making gay marriage legal.

If they do, well, kudos to them.
 
It'll happen eventualy. We just happen to be hearing so damn much from the religious right lately because they are starting to see that their influence is finally waning in America. They can see their own end comming and just want to make a lot of noise before it's upon them, as if that's going to help their cause.
 
Well, it would be so cool to see marriage counseling books for lesbian marriages :bugeye: :D
 
Originally posted by Zero
Well, it would be so cool to see marriage counseling books for lesbian marriages :bugeye: :D
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Until you turn about 16 and maybe suddenly just stop giggling at the thought of it.

Zero:[while in the self help section of a book store] *Giggle giggle titter snort!* this book is about girlies who like girlies! OMG!
 
Mystech: you're gay.

ok, some more 2-cents:

"marriage" is a religious ceremony/union.
"civil union" is what it is... a civil union with no religion in it.
let gays have their rights re: inheritance, divorce (i'm giggling), alamony (i'm rotf) cause after, the US (and canadian) gov'ts are secular so religion shouldn't play part in it.

but to call it "marriage" ? :eek: :bugeye:
... :mad:
i say "fuck off" to dem gay ppl. let them make up their own millenia-old religious tradition and then change it as they please. thank you very much.
 
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