Opinion: Marriage act may fall

DEAR CAL THOMAS:

The morality of Gay marriage is comparable to the morality of Straight marriage: It is morally and ethically preferable to encourage people toward monogamy and commitment, rather than relegating them to lives of loneliness and possibly promiscuity.

Studies have repeatedly shown that the benefits are substantial:

1: Married couples typically contribute more and take less from society.

2: Married couples support and care for each other financially, physically and emotionally and often contribute more to the economy and savings.

3: Individuals who are married are less likely to receive government entitlements.

4: Individuals who are married statistically consume less health care services, and often give more to churches and charities.

5: Married couples are better able to provide care and security for children.

So what sense does it make to exclude law-abiding, taxpaying Gay couples from this place at the table? Why is it, for example, that Straight couples are encouraged to date, get engaged, marry and build lives together in the context of monogamy and commitment, and that this is a GOOD thing … yet for Gay couples to do exactly the same is somehow a BAD thing? To me this seems like a very poor value judgment.

As Judge Vaughn Walker said in the decision on California's Prop. 8 Case: "Permitting same-sex couples to marry will not affect the number of opposite-sex couples who marry, divorce, cohabit, have children outside of marriage or otherwise affect the stability of opposite-sex marriages." It was a view shared by the courts in the Golinski case against DOMA, where a Bush appointee in the Northern District of California concurred: "The exclusion of same-sex couples from the federal definition of marriage does nothing to encourage or strengthen opposite-sex marriages."

March 16, 2013 at 10:09 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

House gives preliminary OK to bill that supporters say preserves religious freedom, but opponents say allows discrimination

QUESTION: Will an evangelical Christian business owner be able to fire a Jewish or Muslim or Atheist employee because he has "religious freedom" to do so?

June 22, 2012 at 7:19 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Same Sex "Marriage" Is Biologically Impossible

DEAR REASONMCLUCUS:

You're confusing the legal institution of civil marriage with the biological act of sex.

Couples do not need to marry to make babies, nor is the ability or even desire to make babies a prerequisite for obtaining a marriage license.

The the reason couples choose to marry is to make a solemn declaration before friends and family members that they wish to make a commitment to one another’s happiness, health, and well-being, to the exclusion of all others. Those friends and family members will subsequently act as a force of encouragement for that couple to hold fast to their vows.

THAT’S what makes marriage a good thing, whether the couple in question is Straight OR Gay

May 16, 2012 at 8:01 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

March numbers

The fact that thousands of anti-abortion people march on Washington every January isn't really news. Special interest groups march on Washington all the time. Sorry about your luck.

February 9, 2008 at 7:12 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Anti-gay marriage question kept off ballot

It may be popular amongst social conservatives to reserve marriage for heterosexual persons only, but popularity does not automatically equate with constitutionality. There is really no justification for denying Gay couples the same rights that Straight couples have enjoyed throughout history. As law-abiding, taxpaying Gay Americans, we pay our fair share into the system of financial and legal benefits that marriage confers; it is time that we truly had a place at the table.

President Calvin Coolidge said it best:

"We do not submit the precious rights of the people to the hazard of a prejudiced and irresponsible political determination, but preserve and protect them by an independent and impartial judicial determination. We do not expose the rights of the weak to the danger of being overcome in the public forum by popular uproar, but protect them in the sanctity of the courtroom, where the still, small voice will not fail to be heard. Any attempt to change this method of procedure is an attempt to put the people again in jeopardy of the impositions and the tyrannies from which the first Continental Congress sought to deliver them. The only position that Americans can take is that they are against all despotism whether it emanate from a monarch, from a parliament, or from a mob."

June 15, 2007 at 9:14 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Rights issue

Here in West Virginia we have hate crimes laws and civil rights laws that protect people based on their actual or perceived race, religion, and national origin. They do not protect people based on sexual orientation. Gay people here in the state can and do get fired from their jobs for no other reason than the fact that the boss does want Gay people working for him, and they have no legal recourse. The state's Human Rights Commission doesn't even have the power to investigate such cases.

April 28, 2007 at 9:27 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Godless coins

It bears noting that the phrase "In God We Trust" has not always been on our coins. It actually wasn't added until the Civil War Era.

And if you look closely, both the phrases "In God We Trust" and "E Pluribus Unum" are printed on the edge of the new dollar coins. The words are still there. Why should the size of the lettering matter?

And anyway, what business does our secular government have in declaring WHICH God we should trust? This isn't a theocracy. YET.

March 13, 2007 at 7:27 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Energy choices

Bisky writes: "Polishbear, every forest except for the western softwood forest is being replenished faster than it is being removed."

EXCUSE ME? Are you not aware of how fast the rainforests of South America are being cleared for grazing cattle (which are great methane factories, by the way)?

Forests being replenished with WHAT, exactly? Soy beans and sugar cane? Are you getting your talking points from Georgia Pacific?

March 12, 2007 at 7:52 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Hypocritical act

WAR IS PEACE.
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY.
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
FOX IS NEWS.

March 12, 2007 at 7:47 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Energy choices

DEAR IMASTINKER:

While there may have been some pretty wild speculation about climate change back in the 1970s, as I remember well, we have a lot of tools at our disposal today that we didn't have back then: Satellites that monitor our Earth in a wide variety of different ways (different wavelengths of light, for instance), supercomputers and computer models that take into consideration all the variables (even arcane aspects such as ocean salinity), and thousands of automated weather stations all over the world feeding us constant data (temperature, pressure, humidity, wind speed and direction). Our knowledge of Earth's climate is many orders of magnitude better than it was back in the 1970s, and it's getting better all the time.

Yes, there will undoubtedly be economic consequences if we undertake efforts to combat Global Warming now ... but I strongly suspect the economic consequences of FAILING to act will be far, far greater, and I don't think Jesus is going to come descending out of the sky to make it all better.

CHUCK ANZIULEWICZ

March 9, 2007 at 9:50 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )