I've been trying for 45 minutes to formulate a response to this post. "Demonized" "Marginalized" "attacking" That's what you got out of what I wrote? Wow, man.
Barry, don't worry too much about it. As I tried to say in my post, and perhaps not very effectively, is that you were not by any stretch the problem in that thread, but you had such a nice, concise statement of one of the issues
others had been taking to the extreme that your post jumped out as an easy example to make my point. I
think the bigger issue is understood now, as things seem to be a bit more under control in the thread, so I think it's fine. Sorry for appearing to react so strongly to your specific post. Feel free to respond or PM me if you want to further discuss.
It doesn't just not grant them, it takes them away. People who were in civil unions/domestic partnerships no longer have those benefits and aren't recognized as being together in any way.
No, I get it. That is indeed a HUGE problem. And I'm not trying to say that specifically what this amendment did or how it did it was right. I'm just saying, it's interesting that it tackled the issue much more broadly. Again, I'm not necessarily defending the amendment.
The problem with both issues is (and stop me if you've heard this one ) the whole separation between church and state thing getting ignored.
Yes, and I do not believe that "separation of church and state" is an accurate (or beneficial) way of describing the balance between the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. Nor do I believe complete separation of church and state is desireable. But, again, I think comment did a great job in his post of explaining how "church" and "state" do intersect in very real and practical ways.
though a senator's wife also said that the amendment was necessary in order for the caucasaian race to survive but let's not go there
Wow. Okay, yeah, I see issues. That's just stupid.
So much for progress.
Overall it just annoys me that 61% of the people in my state chose bigotry instead of tolerance
Okay, but now this is where you are crossing the line that I set out above earlier in the thread. It is simply NOT okay to lump all people who may have voted for the amendment into one group and label them "bigoted." Many may have been, and that example of the senator's wife is a good example. But don't just casually throw that label around just because you disagree with the voters.