Henry Payne for April 03, 2013

Gee, this is familiar.“The state’s prohibition of interracial marriage for this reason stands on the same footing as the prohibition of polygamous marriage, or incestuous marriage or the prescription of minimum ages at which people may marry and the prevention of the marriage of people who are mentally incompetent.”- R. D. McIlwaine III, then Virginia’s assistant attorney general, in Loving v. the State of VirginiaOddly enough, McIlwaine did not bring up same sex marriage in 1967. Too risque, I suppose.

State v. Jackson. Missouri (1883): “They cannot possibly have any progeny, and such a fact sufficiently justifies those laws which forbid the intermarriage of blacks and whites.”

Senator James R. Doolittle (D-WI), 1863: “By the laws of Massachusetts intermarriages between these races are forbidden as criminal. Why forbidden? Simply because natural instinct revolts at it as wrong.”

Scott v. Sandford (1857), Chief Justice Taney: “Intermarriages between white persons and negroes or mulattoes were regarded as unnatural and immoral.”

Bob Jones University, (1998!!!): “Although there is no verse in the Bible that dogmatically says that races should not intermarry, the whole plan of God as He has dealt with the races down through the ages indicates that interracial marriage is not best for man.”

From a submitted briefing to the Court on Loving v. Virginia: “I believe that the tendency to classify all persons who oppose [this type of relationship] as ‘prejudiced’ is in itself a prejudice,” a psychologist said. “Nothing of any significance is gained by such a marriage.”

Seeing as how a legal marriage contract requires both individuals to 1) be of age of consent and 2) give legal consent, animals could never enter into a legal marriage. The whole bestiality angle a stupid argument of someone who has no legitimate argument to give.

I don’t care if a guy (or girl) wants to marry an animal.

People (e.g. Catholic priests) who intentionally put themselves in a position to deny their sexual needs are dangerous and clandestine and tend to prey on children.

Watch out Mr. King. The posters of whom you speak may be NRA members.

No? Says who? Surely Biden and Obama are in favor of all types of “marriage” now, even these.

Marriage? You mean matrimony. Big difference. Matrimony is a sacrament. Marriage is legal term.-I don’t see any reason to deny any consenting adults to enter a legally binding contract to become married.

“God’s standard” — whose God? A mass of tissue is NOT a baby — an acorn is not an oak tree. At what point in gestation does an embryo, or zygote, or fetus acquire a soul? How do you know this? What evidence do you have for your opinion? Why does this reject other opinions? Rational thought is in the mind of the thinker, not one who blindly accepts authoritarian morality.

“Dems won’t take ‘no’ for an answer. They will mobilize and attack from within. Look at that poor horse, he needs love, too.”

If you are already sexually intimate with your horse, I strongly advise you to marry him. Make an honest horse of him!

As usual, right wingers lose sight of the real issue with their paranoia. This cartoonist is no exception.

“And the “real issue” is exactly what?”

Giving homosexuals the same right to marry those they love that heterosexuals enjoy.

Many people— I daresay most people—do not choose what to believe. They are born into a family which believes in an ancient scroll, and their scroll is the one that the child is taught. The child is taught that their teaching is the only correct one. This repeats from generation to generation. It is only an accident of birth that most people are Muslim, Jewish, Christian, etc. Therefore what one person thinks is the Supreme Being’s law is different from what another person is equally convinced is the supreme law.

As an example, there was a recent letters-to-the-editor debate in the local paper. One writer noted that Leviticus doesn’t just say homosexuality is an abomination: eating shellfish is also an abomination. Another wrote back that Jesus had a different covenant, and so only homosexuality is an abomination; Red Lobsters can be spared.

First off, Jesus was a Jew. From what I understand, Jesus is considered the son of God. Now, did Jesus tell his disciples to start a new religion? Did Jesus tell his disciples which laws and proscriptions in the Bible could be ignored from that day forward? Wouldn’t that be undermining the word of God?

So, please keep in mind that your idea of “God’s law” varies depending on the family you were raised in and the church/synagogue/mosque to which you were sent on a weekly basis to learn “the truth”.

And that’s the problem with religion: everyone knows that what he/she knows is the Truth. Everyone else is wrong. We know this because God said it. But then God said the same thing to those who hold a different scroll; a different Truth.

But can we be surprised when God tossed Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden for eating from the Tree of Knowledge? What kind of supreme being would be against his creations learning something?

You might as well get use to it. Some day you may even see a human walking hand and “hand” down the side walk with 7 foot tall lizard from another planet.

Poor Orthodox Catholic—permanently pissed, ever since the inquisition was abolished. Calm down dude, or you’re going to have apoplexy. Besides, there will always be minorities for you to hate.

“The long term negative is loss of acceptance or maybe even support from communities with strong feelings about the semantics of marriage.”

If their objections are only to the semantics, there is no basis for redress by law. Get over it. Some no doubt objected to mixed-race marriages on “semantic” grounds. Some no doubt object to the “semantics” of calling a marriage a “marriage” when one or both parties have been divorced. Religious marriage and civil marriage have shared the word “marriage” as long as the word “marriage” has existed. In those places where same-sex marriages are already being performed, they are called “marriages.”

“Enforcement of civil union contracts is routine and exists now. The courts do it everyday.”

Even “civil unions” do not exist in every state, and in those states where they do, they do not provide the same protections as marriages. If a civil union and a marriage do not convey identical rights, then civil unions are not a sufficient substitute. If the DO provide identical rights, then civil unions are redundant.

“Pick either word you like. As, will I.”

If the only difference is semantic, that’s no difference at all. But if there are differences in the rights provided, then the terms are not interchangeable.