to our gay friends on DU and in Georgia,

[ulysses]

my apologies for the fucking fools with whom we have to live down here.

[Kipepeo]

1. This will be overturned on the Federal level eventually

Equality keeps on truckin, despite the efforts of backwards assholes.

[specter]

2. Our apologies as well

From Alabama

But hey its Alabama what do ya expect we have Roy Moore here

[Not Me]

3. An earlier editorial from the Atlanta Journal Constitution

said it all.

I am violating snippet rules, because the original article is no longer available online. Mods: do your think if necessary.

January 30, 2004

Homosexual marriage ban protects hate, not families

The Georgia Senate is considering a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would bar marriage between gay people; sadly, the bill is all but guaranteed to pass.

However, as our senators vote and debate the issue, they should at least have the decency to be honest about what they're doing.

This is not about protecting marriage or family. Talk of protecting marriage is merely an excuse, a politically convenient disguise for the real agenda behind this proposal, which is to bash gay people. In fact, those who are advocating this amendment are behaving just like those despicable bullies on the playground who try to make themselves popular by picking on the weak and the unpopular.

And for a while, they'll succeed. This proposal will undoubtedly boost the political prospects of those who are pushing it.

But only for a while.

This bill is really about hate. It is about discrimination. It is about providing a respectable vehicle for people to advocate hate and discrimination against a minority group while denying that they hate and discriminate. It's a familiar trick in these parts. Back in the '50s and '60s, people who wanted to defend racism, but who did not want to be seen as defending racism, did so by claiming to be defending states' rights.

But they were defending hate, and spreading hate, and, in their hearts, they knew it. So did the people who supported them.

This is the same thing.

The very idea that gay people are trying to tear down marriage is nonsense; heterosexual people are doing quite fine on their own in that regard and hardly need the assistance of others. Gay people have not caused the divorce rate to soar. Gay people haven't caused the rise in single-parent families. To make gay people the scapegoat for the problems that plague modern marriage is absurd on its face.

In fact, to the degree that gay Americans wish to join in marriage, it ought to be seen as an endorsement of the institution, as a recognition that the civilizing merits and rich emotional rewards of marriage appeal not just to people of all cultures, races and ages, but to people of all sexual preference as well.

The interest of gay Americans in getting married is a celebration, a validation of marriage. It is not a threat.

Ten, 20, 30 years from now, we're going to have to go back into the Georgia Constitution to pull this hateful language out. And some of the very politicians who today will vote in favor of that language will no doubt be there when it is repealed, sheepishly trying to explain how it wasn't really about hate and discrimination, how back then they were just worried about protecting marriage and the family.

And you know what? Nobody will believe them. Nor should they.

[Spider Jerusalem]

4. And mine, as well.

I voted against the stupid fucking amendment, and regret that the idiocy quotient in this state is so goddamned high.

[Cannikin]

5. I'm certain it will happen here in Arkansas also. Ours even voids C.U.s.

I'm movin to a blue state soon.

[Kipepeo]

6. Most of them do

and also are so vague as to invalidate any legal contract or domestic partnership agreement between any couple that's not married, gay or straight.

It stretches a lot further than just "gay marriage." Wait until the straight couples start getting their health coverage for domestic partners rejected...maybe that will make a dent with some of the homophobes.

[Gildor Inglorion]

7. Same here in darkest Mississippi...

they'd probably vote the death penalty for us gays if someone got it on the ballot.

[BootinUp]

8. I join you in that statement.

We have a lot of work to do down here. :(