Welcome to Gaia! ::

The majority of people who voted in California whether to make gay marriage legal or not voted against it. Then a U.S. District Judge - who happens to be a homosexual himself - overturned that constitutional vote by ruling that vote unconstitutional!

Whether you are for or against gay marriage should make no difference in your evaluation of this. Since when is it unconstitutional for Americans to vote on any issue in this country? That's the most important issue here. In California the will of the people was replaced by the will of U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker! What's truly unconstitutional is that this judge overuled the will of the people! The fact that the judge is gay himself makes him suspect. But by the same token, if he were not gay and ruled to not overturn the vote of the people, I suppose gays would be suspicious of him. I would still be upset if the people voted for gay marriage and a judge overturned it because I don't believe any judge should have the right to overrule the majority of the people. This is America, not Nazi Germany! But it's quite complicated and I think this entire issue should be placed before the Supreme Court. Not whether gay marriage should be made legal or not but more importantly "Does a judge have the right to go against the legal vote of the majority of the people?"

Since this was a legal vote by the people of California, should this have gone to court in the first place? My answer is "No".

Is this an indication that our rights in this country are being usurped? My answer is "Yes".

If this is allowed to stand will even more Judges believe they have the right to go against our constitution and override the will of the people? Again, my answer is "Yes".

If allowed to stand, this judge will have set a precedent and it will become a slippery slope where we will see more and more of this occurring on all sorts of issues. That should concern all of us regardless of our sexual preferences!

Well, It wouldn't be possible for one Judge to overturn all the votes in every state, but your point is still well made. With the will of the people being overturned by Judges, it could very well lead to the Supreme Court someday overturning the votes of a major election. It all starts with one little thing and then it snowballs and pretty soon we have no power at all. What happened in California needs to be overturned because if it isn't then what it says to us is we may as well not vote at all because our votes mean nothing!

Aztec Calendar? Sweety, I'm afraid I have to plead ignorance. I know not what you're talking about. sad

Oh no, now we can't use our superior numbers to take away the rights of minorities! I believe in democracy, and I think that voters should have all the power in every aspect but one: other people's rights. How can you say that one group of Americans should be able to oppress another group of Americans simply because they have the majority vote? No, I'm glad prop. 8 got overturned, and this is the one case where I don't care about the majority vote.

Oh yes, I have heard about that. I just needed my memory jogged. Well, we won't know until 2012, will we? I'm not going to lose any sleep over it, that's for sure. biggrin

it will be like y2k nothing will happen.

"Don't propagate fear and irrationality, it makes the rest of us look bad."

Deathcake, whose post are you responding to? If it's mine, I can tell you I am not living in fear. I'm a fighter, not a whiner, and I refuse to bury my head in the sand. In Texas, by the way, I have plenty of power as a voter. Obviously those in California do not.

People who object to gay marriage don't necessarily object to gays. Most have no problem with homosexuals living together. What they object to is them being married in a traditional way that has always been exclusively between a man and a woman. They believe it will be detrimental to family values. Whether they are right or wrong about that I personally can't say, and speaking of "personally", as a Christian I find it to be blasphemous to call a union between homosexuals a "marriage". Now we get into the discussion of faith, which I don't want to argue with anyone, but I must bring it up because that is the main reason many Christians disagree with it. Not all of them though. I know people who allude to themselves as "Christians" but take nothing in the bible literally. Neither do I take everything in the Bible literally... much of the bible is made of allegories to teach with, and I think it's impossible for anyone to decipher the bible in it's entirety. But it is a fact that the Bible states that man shall not lie with man, and from the way that aids was spread amongst the homosexual community I think there was a good reason for that, other than the fact that homosexuals cannot propogate. On the other side of the coin, we heterosexuals are doing a great job of overpopulating the earth. This subjects has many twists and turns to consider and will never be agreed on by all, one way or the other. The bottom line is that I believe that the people's vote should always be the rule, and that it's not up to a judge to decide the validity of the vote but to honor it. That is what our country is all about. There will always be another time for another vote, and I predict that someday homosexuals will have their way, but they are pushing it down the throats of those who object to it far to early.