I wish I possessed the positivity that Janis and others have shown here. But I wish more that I could say exactly what I feel.

That two people were not allowed to be married because they were gay has seemed ridiculous to me for a very long time.
That anybody does not know that slavery continued on in America in one form or another for some 80 years after Lincoln ended it,
is typically American.

Banning the Confederate Flag or the 'N" word is a solution to what exactly?

There is a quote by Winston Churchill that goes something like this.
"You can always depend on America doing the right thing, after they've tried everything else first."
Well, Supreme Court justices, believe me America is not done 'trying everything else'. It never is.

Shaun, Really, what would be the use of trying to give a religious argument against gay marriage when it is so patently clear that neither you or others who take the position that Judeo-Christianity teachings are fiction and flights of fancy and pure fantasy? Anyone who would attempt such a thing would be automatically labeled a Homophobe. You know it and I know it. Many of the people who take the it's OK side of gay marriage know the Bible well enough to catch the language that goes opposite of gay marriage. That is one reason they don't accept the Bible as authoritative. It's God telling someone no unconditionally.

But here's the thing. God has always said no to all sin and He does not differentiate between gayness or lying or stealing or any other thing that we are taught by our parents not to do or by nature itself. Ad hominem is merely a way to push morality out of the way, so how would you or could you ever be convinced otherwise, even if the world's foremost authority on the Scripture in the world would visit and tell you why in detail that your position was wrong? You wouldn't. What some do or seek to do is to prove millions and millions of Christians are wrong. It is the only way to invalidate a Christian's position if a Christian has indeed taken that position. Millions have. The issue therefore, is not gay marriage or otherwise. It is the direct attempt to silence people who believe in God, hence God too must be silenced. It is an argument you make that you care not the answer for. The answer has always been in front of all of us. Some accept it, others don't.

Even when I reference two full chapters of the book of Matthew stating Christ's position on any subject, the other side doesn't care. Christians are taught to give, forgive, and love. You can't even accept that. All your side wants to do is judge and silence dissent. I don't accept that. God and Christ said you would be this way, so why should I or any other Christian be shocked that you are just the way He said you'd be? I'm not.

It is much easier for me to make the political argument here instead of the religious one. That argument is that the Supreme Court can't make law, they can only interpret law that congress passes when it is challenged. You may disagree, but do you discount the US Constitution too?

No, the Supreme Court cannot make law, but it's up to the Supreme Court to interpret the Constitution, including its guarantee of liberty and equal protection, which is all that it did. And it's absurd to say that anyone is trying to "silence people who believe in God," because disagreeing with someone is not the same thing as trying to "silence" them. Would it be accurate to say that people who oppose gay marriage are trying to "silence" those who support it? It's the same old right wing canard to cry out "censorship" when their views are not accepted.

As you point out, though, there are many prohibitions that "God" decreed apart from those involving sexual orientation, so my question for you is why Christians aren't rising up and demanding laws to prohibit tattoos? And on the subject of marriage, why does our "traditional" marriage allow people to get divorced? And do you go to a church in which women are not permitted to speak, as per Corinthians 14:34? And do you oppose football because the ball is made of pig skin? Is it an offense to Christians that it's legal to manufacture textiles that mix two kinds of fabric?

It seems to me that Christians who make a particular fuss about gay issues while ignoring other prohibitions that don't involve sexuality are picking and choosing based on their own subjective preferences, i.e., that there is more going on in their dirty little minds than piety. There's a special pleasure that goes along with denying others sexual freedom that just can't be gotten from denying others the right to mix cotton and wool in their sweaters.

Hi Ian,

For what it's worth, I think Charlie's correct to point out that he is not the only one here expressing his beliefs. Humanism takes an ethical position and so entails value judgements, beliefs about what's right and wrong; these beliefs are not founded on the results of scientific experimentation, or derived from logic, though it does tend to value reason and scientific method highly.

Personally, I believe that gay love, sex and marriage is without question just as valid heterosexual love, sex and marriage. Charlie believes it's a sin because it's so written in the Bible. Science isn't going to resolve this one for us.

best,

Matt

I see the U.S. constitution as a living document. It is precious and essential, but it has to be flexible when the times demand it...which is why the gay marriage decision is defensible. A constitution that is utterly inflexible cannot, by definition, be the constitution for a democratic republic.

Well, experience shows us that a huge number of people, including Christians, have indeed been persuaded to alter their view that gay marriage is sinful, but not many people tell us that they used to support gay marriage but no longer do. To me this suggests that it's just a question of educating people and allowing them time to get used to an idea that may well have seemed surprising the first time they heard it.

But in the meantime, the question for now is whether something should be illegal just because some people disapprove of it and have religious convictions that fuel that disagreement, when many people (most, according to polls) regard it as a fundamental liberty and believe it is moral, just, and laudable, and even the pope says he is not qualified to judge people for being gay. Charlie is free to disagree, and no one is silencing him. But for him to rush into a room where two people are getting married and yell "Stop!! This is sin!" would be in rather bad taste. And if I were a gay person about to get married and Charlie told me I was sinning, I'd have two words for him and they wouldn't be "Merry Christmas."

You miss the whole point of the Constitution, Shaun. It is inflexible for a reason. But it gives and provides a way for the law to be changed and codified. It's called a Constitutional Convention. It is a procedure to protect the law already on the books so that the States can determine what the law should be. Is it really so hard for you to get that?

Look, let me explain it this way. Let's say in a few years that all the Supremes get killed in an earthquake. There is a (God-Forbid) Republican President in power. He appoints nothing but strict constitutional conservative judges to the bench and they overturn, gay marriage, abortion, you name it. You are going to be pissed that nine people can ruin so many lives or at least affect them detrimentally. Yes?

The Constitution provides a way to stop this abuse of power.

It isn't a living document. It's a damned close to perfect document bent on order and protection of the minority. If the Constitution were a "Living" document able to be tugged and pulled at by politicians, clergy and radicals, we would devolve into total anarchy, don't you see?

You really should read The Federalist Papers. It gives good, solid, valid reasons why the Framers of the Constitution set it up like they did.

Look at Prohibition, Look at the right to vote, or limits on the Presidential terms. Who wants to see 8 Bill Clinton terms? Or GWB for that matter?

Is the Constitution hard to amend? Yes. That's why its detractors often refer to it like you do— a living document.

But the amendment process is the legal and appropriate way to do this. Let the several states have their say, and if 38 of them agree, it becomes law.

Why place all the power in any one man or any nine men or women?

The Founders had it all figured out. They were right.

If you agree with what was done this week in the Court, you may very well live to see another thing work to your detriment.

I know I'm right about this.

Where are the really smart Constitutional scholars around here? Come on, people.

Gay marriage has never been illegal, if by it you mean two people of the same sex living together, there is no law prohibiting it, don't know about the USA but the law here and in the UK is against buggery, and that is the actual word used. Always has been.
The real issue and it's already happening is gays adopting children. That happens here in Australia and I would say it is fraught with potential problems, but I'm not against it, better to have two gay parents than no parents at all.
I stress I have nothing against gay marriage, I just don't think it should be equated with straight marriage as that is a ritual and state that legitimizes sexual intercourse and procreation. Neither of which (obviously) occur in gay marriage.

You have no understanding at all about the Constitution, Charlie, and certainly not a better understanding than Justice Kennedy, who was hand picked for the Court by Ronald Reagan. When the Constitution says something specific, like the president gets a four-year term, there is no room for interpretation and no basis for interpretations to vary over time. But when the Constitution speaks in general terms, as in "due process," "cruel and unusual," "liberty," "equal protection," etc., the authors of this perfect document were not merely lazy and saying, "We don't want to tell you what these terms mean, since we're in a hurry, but you can just look up what we must have meant if the issue ever arises." No, give them the credit you say you want to give them, and accept that they used open-ended terms because they understood that society's concept of liberty was bound to change over time, and they didn't want to restrict liberty by pretending that their society had already arrived at a perfect understanding of what liberty was and would always remain.

Roger, is that how ya'll looked at Bush v Gore way back in 2000?

I doubt it.