Young adults discuss California Prop 8, Marriage Amendment

Your concerns are misplaced. I have yet to see any court order any religious organization to marry gay or lesbian couples. What the courts have done is to sanction gay/lesbian marriage. This means the state must recognize such unions under state law, regardless of who performs the ceremony. Call it what you like, marriage or domestic partnership. The fact remains that those who desire to have the state recognize their union has nothing to do with religion. The federal courts have taken no position on this issue. And I don't want the fed gov taking a position on marriage or domestic partnership. It's simply not something the gov has any business regulating one way or the other. No more than it has interfering in freedom of association. I have no use for religion, but I recognize others have a different view. I simply do not want gov taking a position one way or the other regarding anyone's preference regarding religion. I believe the mormons have never and will never preform a gay union

Continued:

Again, we would all do better if Government were back into it's constitutional straightjacket. Then we could have a "live and let live" society.

Churches then who would want to marry gay couples would be free to do so without fear of anyone. Churches who would decide to not marry gay couples should be free to refrain from doing so without threat and prosecution of the US Soviet style courts (As mentioned before, now enforcing planks of the Communist Manifesto.)

One may very much dislike religion, as I take you do, but remember, religion did not go out in search of removing "domestic partnership" status from folks. But, they must stand (now that government is out of its proper restraints where courts now make law, and will do so "respecting the establishment of religion" and "the free exercise thereof,") and resist government officially opening up and broadening the legal term of "marriage" or otherwise become criminalized.

BBBurton,

I think we agree in much of our sentiments on Government. Personally, I believe it a lie and part of the sophisticated smear campaign against Franklin to say he was an adulterer. There are endless and false reports about the founders. The enemies of freedom have always tried to make them look like self serving, hypocrits. The historical record refutes that. David McCullough too would take issue on such things.

Religious Bigotry? Is it bigotry for Government to "make law" concerning "religion" or "the free excercise thereof?" Were the Mormon's Bigots when they were driven outside of the Continental United states, their leaders murdered, the lands stolen, houses burned, many of their people murdered? Was it bigotry of religion that had Johnston's Army sent to the Utah Territory to squelch a "non-existent" Mormon Rebellion? Do you lay this persecution and murder of people upon whose head?

Complex issues.

I take no offense at what the founders personally believed. Jefferson owned slaves, Franklin an adulterer. What would christ say about that? What is important is that they understood that the proper role of gov was subservient to the people. "The gov that governs least governs best." Strictly speaking, whatever moral upbringing we receive should come from our families and friends, and not from the gov. The founders had it right, it was subsequent generations that ensconced the gov as the sole arbitrator of morality, a role the founders never wanted the gov to have, at least at the federal level. That is why a secular gov is better suited to uphold and defend individual liberty and freedom than one dominated by religious bigotry. Why do you think they created a republic as opposed to a democracy? I don't want any gov setting my moral compass. And I wouldn't want anyone to hold office that did. Gov can't legislate morality and not expect unintended consequences. You end up with tyranny.

Awe, what the heck, a few more:

“In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for Divine protection. Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered… do we imagine we no longer need His assistance?”
~Ben Franklin~ [Constitutional Convention, June 28, 1787]

And this blew my College History Textbook writers into the weeds:

“If the freedom of religion ... can ... prevail, the genuine doctrines of Jesus ... will again be restored to their original purity, This reformation will advance with the other improvements of the human mind, but too late for me to witness it.”
~Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson also wrote:

"I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus."

Such quotations brought into History class to combat distortion and revisionism caused my professor to admit the textbook to be propaganda.

A few more of pages of such:

“We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We’ve staked the future of all our political institutions upon our capacity…to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.” (1778 to the General Assembly of the State of Virginia)
~ James Madison ~

Patrick Henry, who Jefferson heard as a young man and felt to be the greatest orator he'd ever heard proclaimed:

“It cannot be emphasized too clearly and too often that this nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religion, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.”
[May 1765 Speech to the House of Burgesses]
~Patrick Henry~

Such quotations cause the "High Priests of Secularism" to begin to froth at the mouth and denounce the founders.

And in terms of "secularism" in terms of government, there is some serious revisionism for you, and the tom foolery of the Soviet School system in the US today has ensured we know nothing of our national origins. Despite what one might wish, here are a few samplings of the US Founding Fathers that trash this notion of "secular government"

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." --October 11, 1798
~John Adams~

Another:

“What students would learn in American schools above all is the religion of Jesus Christ.” (May 12, 1779)
~George Washington~

I think we agree, though differing a bit on how we express it.

I spoke before of getting government back into its constitutional straightjacket, then it would have nothing to do with Marriage. Honestly, most gay men don't want "marriage" as it would be expressed in terms of monogomy with one partner, and most admit as much. A European study reported that men in "gay marriage" situations there on average had sex with 8 other partners per year. So much for "marriage" as it once was revered as a sacred, and holy institution of Religion. Of course, heterosexual folks too don't live near close to the vows that once were prominent a few centuries back, such as that quoted by the Anglican Church, and of which we find quoted in works of great literature.

Massachusetts when it passed gay marriage had newspapers bulging with wedding announcements of gay couples for 3 months, and now, I read, months go by without even a hint of such.

You have got to be kidding?! Sodomy was a crime in virtually every state (Bowers v. Hardwick). The driving force behind all the laws regulating morality can be directly attributed to religious nuts. I'm not talking about crimes against the person or property crimes, just those that criminalize activities between consenting adults. I will not engage you on parental rights as I tend to agree with you on that point. But you need to face up to the fact that it's the moral bigots that have visited upon us all their self rightiousness. And quit being so selective with the bill of rights. How about freedom of association, for example. I suggest you incorporate all of the bill of rights into your thinking and any dialogue you have regarding individual rights. But for the gov regulating marriage there would be no issue for the courts to take up. You want the courts out of religion, then get religion out of the government. A secular government is necessary to individual liberty and freedom.