REQUEST

where is your outrage?

Kaveh,
thanks for pointing out that Elizabeth and I share a bond, which can't be broken by anything, including the passage of Prop.8. It turns out that you have some 6th sense after all!
Also, thank you for not pretending to know how it feels to be a 2nd class citizen while paying 1st class taxes. I hope there will be no proposition on ballot to take your rights away, because it is then and only then that you would know how it feels.
Let's unite against the religious rights, not against minority groups. Let's remember that the Mormon church funded $30 of the $40 spent to pass Prop. 8. Show some outrage on that :) Remember it was because of these religious rights that many of us left Iran!

Mali

What fails to hold water is the idea that Prop 8 is an example of "tyranny of the majority". If that were the case, then similar arguments could be made for this recently concluded election and all that have preceded it.

Today, this country simply will not vote in favor of eliminating judicial review, racial segregation in schools, nor will they vote to make oral and/or anal sex a criminal act again. This nation will not return to the days of slavery, and women will continue to be able to terminate their pregnancies if they choose. I'm no fortune teller, nor am I able to predict the future. But let's be honest. Those days are indeed gone forever. "whether you like it or not!" (in my best Gavin Newsom growl)  :-) 

The role of the judiciary is to interpret the law, not to legislate. Even if Tuesday's results were reversed and Prop 8 failed, the four judges overstepped their bounds.

Thank you for the correction that it was the Attorney General's office that issued the statement. It must be noted also that Prop 8 says nothing about the marriages that have already taken place, including yours. It is also lacking in any language concerning retroactive nullification.

I know that this issue affects you deeply, but I wouldn't even dare to suggest that I know exactly how you feel. No matter what the law says, you and Elizabeth have each other and are one, and neither the existence or the absence of a document signed and stamped by a city or county clerk changes that. That bond is something that no one can ever legislate.

All the best to you both.

response to my friend kaveh

Kaveh,
First, your statement that my argument about "tyranny of the majority" does not hold water is not a logical one. If you have evidence to refute my argument, please present it, not holding water does not tell me anything.

Second, you predict that if all the cases that I cited, where the Judicial power was needed to protect rights of minorities from the will of the majority will pass by the people if put to vote today. If I had your future telling skills, I would not waste my time blogging my friend! It turns out not only you know all about the past and how things always were in the past, you are able to predict future with certainty. Wow!!

Third, the highest court of the United States of America, the U.S. Supreme Court opined that "Separate But Equal Is Not Equal," but why should we listen to the justices on the Supreme Court? It appears that you are asking us to subscribe your theory and forgo the highest court's opinion. Let's see??? I will go with their opinion, civil union is not marriage, therefore separate but equal is not equal.

Fourth, again you are utilizing your future telling skills by predicting that my marriage will stay valid. Attorney General, Jerry Brown (not the Governor) in a press release said that he would defend the 18,000 marriages as legal, but if you read the language of Prop. 8, it says, "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." Which is in conflict with the existence of the 18,000 same-sex marriages. Again, I will go with what I read, not with what you say. Further, I am working so that all same-sex couples' civil rights is protected under the law, not just mine!

Lastly, I do not know who is hiding behind Salvador Dali's face, but I do know you are more decent than propagating misinformation. Please help us gain our civil rights. As you know once the rights can be taken away against one group, it is only matter of time before another proposition is written to take rights away from another group. Just because oppressing of one group is legal, it doesn't mean it is right. History if full of examples of that.
Wishing you a heart filled with love.

Mali

With all respect, the issues you are raising concerning the "tyranny of the majority" just don't hold water.

If these cases you mention were to be put to a popular vote today, as Prop 8 had been, there is no doubt that each and every one of those rulings would be upheld by the electorate, including Roe v. Wade. The overwhelming majority of the country agree with the courts' rulings in these cases.

This is the state law concerning domestic partnerships:

//www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=fam&group=00001-01000&file=297-297.5

Mali khanoum, you haven't lost anything. On top of it, the Governor declared that all of the marriage licenses issued prior to Tuesday's vote will remain valid.

Your "I do" has not been undone.

All the best.

Response

It looks like while I was busy with No on Prop. 8 activities, some postings appeared on the Iranian.com blog. Thank you to the supporters for expressing your support and to the few that wrote less than kind postings, I must say, I was ashamed to read your postings, much less be able to respond to them. However, I do feel compelled to respond to some of the postings.

1) Civil Union v. Marriage: Some bloggers seem to profess to know more about Civil Unions and the law than the Justices of the California Supreme Court. According to the California Constitution, the California Supreme Court, as the Final Arbitrator of the Constitution, in in re Marriage Cases, held that: " (1) Gay men and Lesbians are commonly subject to biased treatment that has no basis upon their ability to be a contributing member of society. Therefore, sexual orientation, like race, religion, or gender, is a suspect class for purposes of the Equal Protection Clause of the California Constitution. This suspect classification requires that the highest level of scrutiny be applied to laws potentially infringing upon the rights of these persons.
(2) Under the above standard the statutory denial of marriage licenses to same-sex couples are unconstitutional." For a complete reading, please see, //www.courtinfo.ca.gov/courts/supreme/highpro...

Following the U.S. Supreme Court precedent, Brown v. Board of Education, the California Supreme Court determined that the doctrine of "Separate But Equal" (from the 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537) is not equal. Therefore, civil union is not equal to marriage. They further reasoned that the word marriage as the definition of the marriage is clear in statutes and family codes whereas the definition of “civil union” is not.

2) Marriage evolved to protect offspring and that it has "always" been between a man and a woman: The blogger doesn't offer any evidence for the assertion that marriage has evolved to protect offspring and has always been between a man and a woman. It is just an assumption, albeit a convenient one. While the majority of modern societies have granted marriage certificate to members of opposite-sex couple, same-sex coupling has been documented through out history and physical anthropology proves that exists in almost all animal kingdom. Consider reading Evolution's Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People, by Stanford Professor, Joan Roghgarden.
Before the emergence of modern societies, tribes and smaller societies have protected offspring by ways other than issuing marriage certificate to opposite-sex couples and often offspring were raised by paternal or maternal families rather than the couple who co-produced them.

3) “Judicial activism,” or as it is more correctly called, the Judicial Power: Our founders were concerned about the "Tyranny of the Majority" and that is why they put the legal system in place to protect the minorities’ rights from the majority’s will. Throughout the U.S history, there are many example of when the judicial activism was necessary to protect the minorities’ rights. To name a few:
Marbury v. Madison, 1803, forming the basis for the exercise of judicial review in the United States.
Brown v. Board of Education, 1954. which overturned earlier rulings going back to Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, by declaring that state laws that established separate public schools for black and white students denied black children equal educational opportunities.
Roe v. Wade, 1973. the Roe decision, found most laws against abortion in the United States violated a constitutional right to privacy under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The decision overturned all state and federal laws outlawing or restricting abortion that were inconsistent with its holdings.
Lawrence v. Texas, 2003. In the 6-3 ruling, the justices struck down the sodomy law in Texas.
Roper v. Simmons, 2005. The U.S. Supreme Court held that it is unconstitutional to impose capital punishment for crimes committed while under the age of 18.

In these instances, if the judges were not brave enough to protect the minorities’ rights against the majorities’ will, we would not be living in the greatest country on earth (as far as I am concerned) today. If you don’t believe that the United States of America is still the greatest country on earth just look at the lines of immigrants who are doing everything they can to get in. One reason among others is that many people around the world want to live in the U. S is that this country affords legal protection to all its citizens.

To those that are gleeful and celebrating the loss of our civil rights, I leave you with a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King: “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice.”

Khanoum, where did I go wrong with you?

The vote for the IRI was under the black cloud of those thugs who were executing people daily. Freest election in Iranian history? Look at your basis for comparison!!

Human rights are not being violated here. This is an issue of legal definition. Again, same-sex couples have every legal right to enter into registered domestic partnerships which afford them the same benefits.

Licenses of any kind are not rights. A license is a privilege that is granted based upon meeting certain specific requirements. Driver's licenses, professional licenses, business licenses. A marriage license is no different.

Based upon your rationale, anyone has the right to be married to anyone they choose. Blood relatives don't have the right to be married, and neither do those who are under the age of consent. They're human beings as well, are they not? Do you advocate changing that, in the interest of human rights?

Human sexuality is how people experience and express themselves. Behaviors are what we are talking about, whether they are learned behaviors or behaviors that people are born with. A person's race or sex is not a behavior. 

So now you are saying that those blacks and Mexicans who have religious beliefs have a closed mind and closed hearts? Well, aren't these the same people who are "poor and disenfranchised" and fare poorly under Republican administrations? You are soooo trying to have it both ways. I wholeheartedly believe it's wrong of them to have such high teenage pregnancy rates and babies born out of wedlock, things are are against their religious instruction. To me, it's cultural suicide. But you want them to exchange that belief for another belief which is also against their religious instruction. Why? It fits into your view of social justice, therefore it must be valid, whereas if it doesnt fit that view, it's dictatorial and oppressive. Wow.

5.3 million peole voted to pass Prop 8 and you call that a dictatorship of the majority? Then what do you call the presidential vote?

sadaffff

Just FYI:

//news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/glouces...

yes it does happen in nature and it's always happened since the beginning of time,unless you think the flamingoes learned that behavior by watching gay couples in Massachusetts!
a lot of different species do engage in same gender sex by the way.

If you knew anything about the history of sexuality, you would have known that in not too ancient times, there were no restrictions on incest and a lot of fathers married their own daughters, even brothers and sister married too. Is that also a form of holy matrimony because it's something that was done for centuries and between one man and one woman? 

An open mind is a beautiful thing 

IRANdokht

Kaveh kaveh kaveh where do I start! :0)

you said It's an insult to my intelligence to compare an open and transparent vote in the U.S. to an orchestrated, manipulated and corrupt process in a country run by a bunch of akhoonds.

The vote for IRI was before the IRI was established and probably the freest election Iran has ever seen in its history: I guess you had to be there to know that bit ;-)

you said Human sexuality has nothing to do with a person's race, or whether they are male or female. Comparing the civil rights struggles of blacks in this country or women's suffrage to the rights of same-sex couples to marry is absurd and utter nonsense.

Human sexuality is being used to differentiate between human beings' rights: that's a human rights violation! The civil rights struggles that you remember from the past were also faced with the same adament opposition as you feel against this one!

you said why were there only 18,000 same sex marriage licenses issued? That indicates that the issue of marriage isn't even that important even to gays to begin with.

Just because there aren't many who WANT to get married, doesn't mean you're allowed to take the RIGHT of getting married away from them! (btw: what kind of logic was that???)

you said some the 61% of voters who voted for Obama have closed minds and hearts? That's very presumptuous. South of Monterey, Santa Barbara is the only county that voted "no". Even super liberal L.A. County voted "yes" on 8....

Super Liberal LA county???  LOL  you're funny! LA county is home to the highest number of immigrants with high religious beliefs (which explains the "closed mind and closed heart comment I made previously)The mexicans and the blacks voted for Obama and yes on 8 to preserve their religious beliefs and what they call family values (nevermind the rate of teenage pregnancy in those same groups)There is also a high number of Iranians and Chinese Americans in LA county who vote republican and they also voted yes.

I hope I explained my views a little better now. The people who think their own way of living is right and nobody else's is, don't see the beauty in equal rights. I call them closed-minded. Sometimes it's their religious views that allows them the arrogance, sometimes it's their racism and ignorance, sometimes it's selfishness and lack of empathy and compassion.

Whatever the reason is that does not allow a person to tolerate others who do not think like they do, and choose to take away their freedoms and rights, keeps them on the wrong side of these discussions. It's up to them to decide how they should improve themselves and show decency and respect to others.

In a "Democracy" the majority rules and respects the rights of the minority.

If the majority wants to force their religious views on others, then it's the dictatorship of the majority, not a democracy. Therefore, changing the constitutional law by the vote of the majority is not always democratic, especially when it takes away a minority's rights.

IRANdokht

AW

My glove compartment and the rest of the car are in the shop.

I was racing Majid and the engine on the AMC Pacer caught fire....again.

DAMNIT....that's the sixth time this week. Once, JUST ONCE, I'd like to make it from the 405/5 junction to Culver Drive without the fire department as my pit crew.

Then there is nothing more to discuss.

Obviously the word comes from God's mouth to your ears.  I simply can't believe that anyone can be so obtuse as to make such absolute statements.  Since you seem to be so adamant about human nature, you might want to check out these two articles and see what the philosophers say about human nature.  Emotions, feelings and instinct are exactly what HAVE changed since the beginning of time.  Whether from necessity or simply progressive thinking.  And maybe you weren't addressing me specifically but I never referred to anyone as backward or a hatemonger.  I have no interest in arguing a point a view with someone who considers their "truth" as THE truth.  If you subscribe to the theories you've presented, then it follows that you believe women should be barefoot and pregnant.  It's a matter of affording respect for EVERY individual, not just those you approve.

//www.answers.com/topic/human-nature

//serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/2956

Kaveh... it appears that there is a difference between what you and IRANdokht are discussing.  I don't think that you are opposed to same-sex relationships per se.  It appears that your argument is about the legal ramifications of Prop 8.  I can't speak about that... I don't know enough about legislation.  I do think that there are various propositions that are correct in theory but not in principle.  That for whatever reason, some portion of the bill is not advantageous and therefore the entire proposition must be denied until particular wording can be changed.  I have no problem with that reasoning.  So maybe your argument is against certain portions of the bill and not the bill itself. 

If that ain't the case, then me and ID are going to have to open that can of whup ass you keep in your glove compartment. :-)

IRANdokht

Get serious, will you please?

You are comparing the vote on gay marriage to voting for the IRI? I would call that comparison a stretch, but that would be one of the greatest understatements of the century. It's an insult to my intelligence to compare an open and transparent vote in the U.S. to an orchestrated, manipulated and corrupt process in a country run by a bunch of akhoonds.

Human sexuality has nothing to do with a person's race, or whether they are male or female. Comparing the civil rights struggles of blacks in this country or women's suffrage to the rights of same-sex couples to marry is absurd and utter nonsense.

There is not a damn thing that is preventing same-sex couples from being together. There are 36.5 million people in the state of California. If you follow the conventional belief that roughly 10% of the people are gay, then why were there only 18,000 same sex marriage licenses issued? That indicates that the issue of marriage isn't even that important even to gays to begin with. California voted for Obama by a 24% margin, yet they STILL voted for marriage to be between a man and a woman. So you're suggesting that some the 61% of voters who voted for Obama have closed minds and hearts? That's very presumptuous. South of Monterey, Santa Barbara is the only county that voted "no". Even super liberal L.A. County voted "yes" on 8.

Do you know who some of these people who voted "yes" are? Blacks and Hispanics. Are you suggesting they're closed minded as you're suggesting about me?

Florida had same-sex marriage on the ballot too. They voted for Obama, and they voted against same-sex marriage, 69% to 31%. So by your logic, Blacks, Cubans and older Jewish people in Florida are closed-minded.

I guess Mexicans, Cubans, Blacks and Jews have had it soooo easy here and have never been discriminated against, so they have no understanding or appreciation for human rights and civil liberties.

Arizona voted on the issue as well. I guess the hot desert sun makes them narrow minded too.

As a matter of fact, if a same-sex couple were to ever wish to terminate their domestic partnership, they don't have to file for a legal separation and wait six months for the divorce to be finalized like married heterosexual couples do. In this respect, same-sex couples have a tremendous advantage.

As much as you try to paint me as closed-minded, you can't. The fact is that same-sex couples can register as legal domestic partners, and have the same legal protections afforded to heterosexual couples. It is a legal binding contract, as is marriage. Marriage can be ended in divorce, and the domestic partnership can be terminated as well.

The other thing you have to remember is that it was four judges who made the decision to allow same-sex marriages. That's called legislating from the bench. Allowing that to happen sets a dangerous precedent, whatever the issue.

Marriage is between a man

Marriage is between a man and a woman, period. Nothing can change that. As I said , if you allow gay marriage, why not allow marriage between a man and two women? seriously, why not? Yes, marriage is before God even if you marry in a courthouse , a marriage is before God or your higher course of authority because you are taking vows. Human nature just doesn't change, a human is a human. A human is the same human that lived 2000 years ago, no difference. People's clothes, level of intelligence, housing , etc. definitely changes but the emotions, feelings, and natural instincts of humans stays the same over generations. Nature dictates marriage and foundation of a family between a man and a woman, male and a female. The whole nature follows as such, you never see any family of species with parent A and parent B . It is always a father and a mother. Now change is good, as you can see we even had women rulers and scientists thousands of years ago, this has nothing to do with change, gay marriage is going against the rules of nature. Everyone is entitled to his/her opinion but you can not accuse others that have different opinion than you "backward" or "hatemongers" .

Sadafffff

How is it sad? Why would a "word" makes such a difference to you?  Your comment about holy matrimony being between and man and woman is the WHOLE POINT.  Who determined that with such authority?  Back to what I said before... what happened in "ancient times" is irrelevant today!  As far as human nature... it is one thing that CONSTANTLY changes!  And the next statement... are you suggesting that marriage is sanctioned only if it's "before" God"?

I know that change is difficult to adjust to for many people.  But you have to realize that it's CHANGE that got us to where we are today!!!!

If you allow gay marriage

If you allow gay marriage just because they love each other and have sex, can you also argue on the same ground that a marriage between a man and two or three women is also ok? I am just trying to say that a marriage is a holy matrimony between a man and a woman. It has always been like that since the ancient times, mind you, progress is good, but human nature just doesn't change. As Kaveh mentioned, for gays, a civil union should be good enough. If someone has gay urges, it doesn't necessarily mean they should act on it or later demand to be married while marriage is a sacred act before God between a man and a woman. It is not just the marriage thing, you know in Massachusetts, they don't put the title husband and wife on marriage certificates anymore, they put party A and party B or in your child's birth certificate in Massachusetts, they no longer put father and mother, they put parent A and parent B . Isn't that sad?

Kaveh

Millions of people have voted for an Islamic Republic regime in Iran.   Does that make it righteous then?

When the blacks were mistreated, a lot of people reacted the way you do now. When women were fighting to have a vote and equal rights, a lot of men did what you are doing now: justified the inequality and injustices. They also thought that the blacks had their own water fountains and their own seats in the bus etc...  no need to give them more...  I think people who are against equal treatment of gays are the ones who have a hard time with other human rights progresses that have been made too, they just know not to admit to those publicly.

Stop justifying this totally absurd ban on marriage for a group of human beings!  Open your mind and your heart: the next generation including your own kids will thank you for it!

IRANdokht

Kaveh - the masses can be wrong

I think gay rights are the new civil rights. It's very uncomfortable and will be for a long time. But it's just not right. They should have the right. God made them gay and whether or not millions of voters agree, I think it's fundamentally wrong. It is a human rights issue too. Those judges were right to grant them the marriages because they are on the right side of history. 

Religion is so entrenched (yay i didn't use a cuss word) in this country's conscience that it makes me sad.  

This isn't drug trafficking or something that should be debated to this extent. It's marriage and using a loophole is ok, considering 90% of the other crap the government is doing. So sad. 

Civil domestic partnerships

do afford the same rights as marriage. Estates, trusts, wills, all of the civil legal matters that are addressed and covered under marriage are covered under a domestic partnership. A domestic partnership legitimizes an intimate personal relationship.

Civil law recognized man-woman marriage because marriage originally solemnized intimate personal relationships on a religious basis. You know, "dearly beloved, we are gathered here before God, to witness the union of Zelda and Pubert in holy matrimony", blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Since religious teachings don't recognize same-sex intimate unions, civil law legitimized it in its place.

So, you see, progress has been made. There has been change.

"since time began...."

All righty then... so "that's the way it's always been" means there is no progessive thinking allowed?  Haven't we achieved anything in these thousands of years of walking upright?  Tolerance is one thing that comes to mind.  Equality... that's a good thing too. 

"Judge not lest thee be judged".  Oh my!!! I just quoted from the bible... my Mom would be soooooo proud of me.  I usually just quote from Ultimate Book of Bathroom Etiquette and Humor.

Also... I'm not sure that civil domestic partnerships DO afford the same rights as marriage.  I'm not certain so I'll do some research. The bottom line simply comes down to having the same rights as anyone else.  Regardless of your personal feelings of same sex relationships, can you honestly deny them their rights?

Since When is Change Always Good?

Change can be good, but change can also have detrimental effects. Iranians of all people should know that.

Let go of past values? Why don't you let go of everything else that makes you what you are too? Values are what guide us and sustain us. Values make up our character as individuals.

Values have nothing to do with whether a person is gay or straight. There are plenty of gay people with good values and straight people with crappy values, and it has NOTHING to do with sexual preferences.

The laws of this country already hold everyone equal. Laws and propositions that afford special protections for a select group while disregarding the rights of the rest is real inequality.

Four judges telling 36 million Californians that their vote to define what marriage means is worthless is inequality.

The issue has been voted on by the people....TWICE!!

IranDokht is right - Life is too short to be Republican

They are the most angry stinkbombing types. They see fun and peace and they steam about it. This proposition shouldn't have passed, but Republicans are so nosy and controlling that they had to stop it. There you go. One day we'll all be under the dirt and it's not worth it. These people just want to be married. They're not asking for handouts or anything else. It would not have hurt a soul. How sad.

sadaffff and others like her

Why are you people so resistant to change? Change is good! Change is the way to progress.

If everyone wanted to hold on to "the way things have always been" there'd be no technological advances, no medical discoveries, and no progress whatsoever!

Let go of the past values and rules! 

Let go of your prejudices and open your minds!  

People are equal, whether they're men or women, white or black, short or tall, straight or gay. We all are human beings, we should be considered equal in the eyes of law.

It's so sad to see so many people even at this day and age having such old fashioned cultural and ideological hang-ups. Free your minds!

IRANdokht

Prop 8 Won, But It's Not Over

Now, Gloria Allred wants to sue. What a joke!

Marge, of course mormons and evangelicals were going to fund this. Did you expect gay people and liberals in general to fund it?

If Prop 8 was being sold on the legal technicality aspects, it would have been DOA. So, it was sold on the lowest common denominator. Personal beliefs.

Why I don't agree with Kaveh

It would be great if that was how the opposition to Prop 8 organized itself!!! 

Too bad it was a total anti-gay move. It wasn't founded on a "no legislating from the bench" type of deal. The thing was funded by mormons and evangelicals. That's sad.  So the technicalities that Kaveh's going on about doesn't work. This wasn't about that - this was about something else and you know it. The only problem is, now it's going to get worse and someone will try to find a new way to bring it back. It would have been better for California to just pass this and get it over with. So lame.

Marriage is between a man

Marriage is between a man and a woman. It has always been like that since the time began, that's the way of nature.

Why so hung up on marriage rights ?

What is wrong with "civil union" that covers all the rights under marriage already for you folks ? Why do you insist on "marriage" ? Except to insist on proving to the rest that what you do is as natural as a man and a woman union.
I shouldn't and don't care what you do in the privacy if your home. Civil union was provided to give you all the rights you need. Now, don't try to push your life style as a natural thing to me and call me a bigot if I don't agree. I voted YES already.

The rights are already there

Through civil domestic partnerships, same sex couples in California have the same legal rights as heterosexual married couples. It's Proposition 22.

This negative "fiscal impact" if Prop 8 passes is a bunch of BS. Do you want to know who benefits fiscally from same sex-marriages?

Caterers, and wedding planners.

And who benefits the most? Divorce lawyers, who would have double the prospective business.

Bottom line......judges acted outside the bounds of the bench. It has to be passed by either the legislature or the electorate.

Vote Yes on Prop 8.

I don't care who wants to get married to who! I can care less, but what I care about is judicial activism on the part of judges to overturn democracy and popular vote on its head. This issue was settled by proposition few years back, and majority of Californian voted to prohibit same sex marriage. Remember "marriage" is not equal to equality. Same sex unions are seen as completely equal in the eyes of the law as marriage anyway. All rights, and benefits are granted to them already. This is not to ensure equality, but to change the definition of marriage. Again, I don't care about the definition, but the decision of the Californians were overturned with close margin of 4-3 vote by the California supreme court, calling the prohibition unconstitutional.

If you want to change the definition of the marriage, or to make it legal for same sex couples, you should have gone through a proposition as it happened few years ago. City of San Francisco, or judges should not be able to overturn the popular vote.

Whatever you do, don’t move to Japan

Someone in Japan is collecting signatures for a petition to make it legal for people to marry cartoon characters.

//afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gEnZ28LQeaD-jc...

VOTE a big YES on 8

I already vote so do not try to make me change my mind.

Let's outlaw marriage all together instead of creating another tax class. All these are for tax and other economic benefits. Stop the nonsense and get your act together. To hell with religious people, what I am saying is that marriage tax benefits should be taken away and treat all people as equal singles, or married, gays or not.

Until then, I will vote YES on 8. I am against any all marriages.

A.W.

I consider you far above average intelligence and please don't be humble.
Basically what I am saying is that the marriage institution came about simply because it gave a better chance to human offspring to survive and nothing more. It has nothing to do we love or whatever else you can think off. It was just something that worked well in evolution of our ancestors.