Politics, safely ignore unless you're gay and voting replublican

Weren't all the GayOPs* voting for Ron Paul, anyway?

* - Are they still called "Log Cabin Republicans"? That was the Big High School Joke of 1996.

For Quuxum only:

WWJBPD?

Unfortunately, neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton nor John Edwards have a substantively better record on gay rights. Edwards and Obama have been rather vocal in their "Uh, I don't really like queers" and Clinton remains hands-off on the issue. They all suck.

I should find out what Ron Paul's stance on the issue was. I have a suspicion he was the only person in the primaries who would actually defend gay rights (because individual rights are old-school conservatism).

I think "substantially better" is a pretty relative term. McCain has all but said outright that gays are an abomination.
As for Obama (via wikipedia)
Obama voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment which would have defined marriage as between one man and one woman, but has said he personally believes that marriage is defined as a religious bond between a man and a woman. He supports civil unions that would carry equal legal standing to that of marriage for same-sex couples, but believes that decisions about the title of marriage should be left to the states.[174][175][176] He has called for the repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act.[177]

Obama stated on March 15, 2007, that "I do not agree...that homosexuality is immoral."[178] During the July 23, 2007 CNN/YouTube debate, Obama further stated that "... we've got to make sure that everybody is equal under the law. And the civil unions that I proposed would be equivalent in terms of making sure that all the rights that are conferred by the state are equal for same-sex couples as well as for heterosexual couples."[179]Obama supports expanding the protections afforded by hate crimes statutes to cover crimes committed against individuals because of sexual orientation or gender identity. He has also stated his opposition to the United States' military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. [180]

Versus McCain (who, doesn't even have a LGBT page on his website) (emphasis mine)
In 2004, McCain voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment, arguing that each state should be able to choose whether to recognize same-sex marriage.[229][230] He supported the failed 2006 Arizona initiative to ban gay marriage, [231] and supports a similar initiative in California that will be on that state's November 2008 ballot.[232]

In December 2007, McCain said he supported the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, citing reports from military leaders that "this policy ought to be continued because it's working."[233]

When asked if he supported civil unions of homosexuals, McCain said: "I do not."[234] Still, on the Ellen Degeneres Show on May 22, 2008, McCain said that people ought to be able to enter "legal agreements ... particularly in the case of insurance and other areas", but that the "unique status of marriage" should be retained between a man and a woman."[235]

In July 2008, McCain told the New York Times that "I think that we’ve proven that both parents are important in the success of a family so, no I don’t believe in gay adoption."[236] Two days later, McCain's Director of Commications said "McCain could have been clearer in the interview in stating that his position on gay adoption is that it is a state issue, just as he made it clear in the interview that marriage is a state issue."[237]

So given that, like every other election, the third-party doesn't have a chance, I'd much rather have the lesser of the evils.

Also... Obama's stance is pretty realistic. He said he doesn't personally (due to his religious beliefs) think that there should be gay marriage but believes that (because America isn't a Christian country) that rights and privileges of marriage are a right for all Americans. Yes I know that's "seperate but equal" but it's a stepping stone in the right direction. America has never embraced sweeping change without a haphazard intermediary. I'd much rather vote for someone that at least thinks that we deserve something than vote for someone that really doesn't even give a shit.

As for Ron Paul - he's got the right theoretical idea - it should be a state issue- the problem is, in practice, it should not be a state issue, because think about what's going to happen when a member gay couple visiting from Massachusetts has a stroke in Alabama, where the state decided that gays have no rights. Things like marriage, that consist of a whole bunch of legal variables, need to be enforced federally, or else nothing will get done.

No, according to the Constitution, it must be a state issue. This is a continuing problem that surrounds the Federal government. Any power not explicitly granted to the Congress and the President by the Constitution (such as enacting legislation governing marriage, but there's a long list of other things that have violated this principle) lies in the hands of the people.

Personally, I don't like the fact that our empire operates as 50-odd mostly autonomous nations, but as that is how it is organized, that is how it should be governed.

This is why I said it should not be a state issue, not that is isn't a state issue. The argument about this generalizes to inter-state trade agreements; if one state denies the recognition of legal status (such as power of attorney granted by marriage) granted by another state, it's a really short [legal] jump from states denying goods and service exchange (you can even argue that it is a goods and service exchange- Of course, the FTC exists to prevent that from happening, but the point is without federal oversight the reality is that the issue of gay marriage will be miserable. Case in point - the lesbian who died alone from a brain hemorrhage because her partnership wasn't honored by the Florida hospital. Federal intervention would have prevented this, or at least given the widow more ammunition to sue the fuck out of the bigoted fucktards.

I refer you to the full faith and credit clause. Not that it means much of anything anymore, but it's an intriguing idea.

If I'm interpreting what you're saying correctly... the Constitution already demands that every other state recognize any legal marriage that is recognized by the marrying state? Wouldn't it be nice if that was true, but the judicial process is generally slow (with the notable recent exceptions of the Bush v. Gore in 2000 and the two decisions that have finally declared that habeas corpus may never be suspended in the United States).

I just caught this... sorry for the late response. The DOMA basically says that every state is only demanded to recognize "traditional" marriage not homosexual marriage, which is how states like Florida got away with denying a lesbian to see her dying wife and it wasn't blasted all over the news. So yeah, anyone that says that gay marriage isn't a discrimination issue needs to go die.

Things . . . that consist of a whole bunch of legal variables, need to be enforced federally, or else nothing will get done.

Federal government, get things done? LOL

As far as states' rights go, it goes both ways. You want the federal government, being generally more moderate, to stop the red states from going too far, but the more you allow that the more they can also stop blue states. And the federal government is incompetent and slow at doing most things, and tries to interfere with states that get fed up and take action on their own, like California.

Moreover, I feel like popular sovereignty dictates that government should be largely local. It's a complex issue, though, because simple majority rule is a stupid way to run government anyway - the real issue behind why you want federal enforcement is that our system lets the majority silence the minority. So I think a reasonable ideal of government would be that the status of any action under the law should be by the consent of those it affects. So the government has no right to tell you no marriage, or to ban drugs, or to make education anything other than a local issue, but they can do things like issue licenses, zone land, regulate guns and smoking in public areas, etc, and only with due consideration of all who are affected (i.e., "you're outnumbered" would not be a legitimate way to enact legislation, and legislators would have to negotiate - though in serious deadlock situations it might be a last resort).

I wasn't saying I was planning to vote for McCain, but as neither side has done anything to support gay rights, it's not an issue that will be factored into my decision-making process. Obama can "call for" things all he wants, but his record stands as being thoroughly ineffectual and mostly only capable of producing an inversion of the principle of plausible deniability. Thus far, he's made his career on seeming plausibly committed to... practically every cause under the sun, even contradictory ones. Giving "separate but equal" is a response to the issue of gay marriage is, frankly, a lot more insulting than just saying "No."

The problem is that marriage has both a civil and religious definition, and a lot of American political leaders are elected (in part) because of their religious background. It's hard to separate marriage the civil ceremony from marriage the sacrament.

If John McCain's position on gay equality issues isn't very important, consider
this. The three oldest Justices on the Supreme Court are liberals. With McCain
elected President, we would then have a 7-2 conservative imbalance on the court, which could potentially knock gay equality, women's rights, and contitutional protections back into the 19th century. The Republicans are smart on one thing, they nominate people who are relatively young. There is not a person alive today who would live long
enough to see the results of this imbalance overturned, and the difference between Obama and McCain on gay equality is the difference between day and night. With McCain the war against gays continue. With Obama, we make progress. Just listen to what he says, and read his positons on barackobama.com.

Yeah... people also claimed that the current Supreme Court would uphold the right of either the President or the Congress to suspend habeas corpus. In a move that has stunned the judicial community, the current Court has, instead, declared that neither branch and, thus, no one in the United States may suspend that right.

Like I said, I'm not planning to vote for McCain, but if you're going to use Supreme Court politics as a leveraging point, you might want to educate yourself. The justices are not as predictable as some people make them seem to be and they frequently do what they're supposed to do (rule by the Constitution) rather than what people think they do (rule by their politics).