[Chefelf]

A group of right wing idiots--America's Pro-Family Online Activism Organization--decided that they were going to make an online poll to show America that the vast majority of Americans are against gay marriage. However, people are signing the poll and showing that America, while populated largely by idiots, is not as closed-minded and right wing as the Republicans would like to believe.

Click on one of the following links to vote in the poll and show these amazing fools that you support gay marriage.

http://www.marriagepoll.com

http://www.afa.net/p...arriagepoll.asp

Jesus Christ! It's nearly 2004 and people are still upset about gay marriage? Judging on their stance on gay marriage they must also believe that the Sun is a giant got holding up a lantern during the day so that we can see and that leeches are the cure for a fever.

[Ninja Duck]

I would, but I'd rather they didn't get their grubby fat corporate paws on my email address. I entered my name as "Im Not", and my email address as "bloody@telling.you", and then figured they were bluffing about deleting votes without valid addresses. But they weren't.

[civilian_number_two]

Jesus Christ! It's nearly 2004 and people are still upset about gay marriage? Judging on their stance on gay marriage they must also believe that the Sun is a giant goat holding up a lantern during the day so that we can see and that leeches are the cure for a fever.

I don't get this one. Honestly. I've had numerous conversations with all sorts of people with different backgrounds and various levels of education, and it makes no sense to me. Noone minds much that we have all the money in the world. It's no big deal that whenever we want to change the policies of foreign countries we can bomb and invade them, but if other nations want to change one another's policies than they are terrorists. It's hardly shocking to anyone that the AIDS epidemic in Africa could be managed on about six billion US dollars a year, about what the US is spending every six weeks in Iraq. Forget the very obvious truth that if the US were to direct its foreign policy spending in world-positive ways it would not be the subject of terror attacks, no matter what the Crusaders would have you believe. To criticize the west for hording al of the resources of the world and to question priorities of foreign policy would be unpatriotic and even unChristian.

But if gay people are allowed to marry, then the institution of marriage will crumble. With it, the western world. The Romans did not resist gay unions, and look what happened to them. QED

[Chefelf]

As I rode the New York Subway yesterday and had to listen to the fiftieth heart-wrenching homeless person speech of the week I couldn't help but imagine how many homeless people could receive basic shelter and food for $87 billion.

I know that might be a simplistic way of viewing it but they're there every day. All they want is a quarter or a piece of food and the only way to get it is to hang out in the subway and appeal to the compassion of the average man.

$87 billion. Think about it.

[Jordan]

CHANGE OF CONTENT ( i do not want the hassel )

[civilian_number_two]

$87 billion. Think about it.

MMMM.. lots of DVDs, amazing home theatre, hell, chain of state-of-the-art stadium-style movie theatres, run by my rules, my own film studio ....

Sorry. No, you're right. It is simplistic to look at one area of wasteful government spending and to imagine how the money would be spent better otherwise. Of course we all do it. But as it has often been pointed out, the gap between the outrageously wealthy and the dead poor has increased all out of proportion with common sense. The general argument is that if we didn't let people become billionaires, the economy would collapse because they'd all refuse to work anymore and it would be just like the most ludicrous chapters of ATLAS SHRUGGED.

It's nonsense, of course, because it was a period of bloated plutocrats that preceded the Great Depression, and in an airy-fairy way it is wrong to allow a wealthy subclass make decisions for the government that do not favour the majority of the people. And there's noone alive who would say "if I can only be a millionaire, and not a billionaire, then I might as well quit working altogether and become a janitor." These huys know that the system is terribly lopsided, and that they are getting an amazing ride.

Tax the rich. Redistribute the wealth. Leave the wealthy people wealthy, but not insanely so, and provide medical care and shelter for the poorest of Americans. That's the whole point of a government, right? To care for the people? And before anyone gets all "don't you be all socialist here boy" on me, remember the US is not the libertarian anarchy that conservatives would have you believe. Once a governemt takes tax money from its people, and uses that money to provide any sort of social service, then the government is a socialist one. And taxation without representation is bad.

[Jordan]

Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely. When you get as big as the government you tend to forget about the "lesser" people in society.

I feel sorry for american youth period. I dont know how any of you can afford to get an education. There is no way I could hold down a job and do school at the same time.

I always believed the only way to save capitalism from communisim was to introduce social benefits. Since communisim is no longer a threat, social reforms are no longer needed. Its like equilibrium in a sense, Canada is losing it's social benefits aswell.

[civilian_number_two]

I'm right wing , I dont support gay marriage, and I'm a Christian. Does this mean I'm hated here? Everyone is clearly a liberal but me.

I for one don't hate you. And for all my liberal tough talk, I prefer balanced budgets to anything else in government, so in a technical sense I am probably pretty conservative. But we have a multi-party system in Canada, so the lines are less solid.

The opposition to gay marriage I just don't get. To say gay people should not be allowed to marry is like refusing to let blacks marry. Marriage does not cost the state anything, weddings are good for the economy (and taxable), and the only advantage to being married for the couple is that each member gains legal rights that they would not otherwise have, not being family. Like taking a body away in the case of death. Like being able to speak of a dead or incapacitated person's wishes, regarding things like organ donation, or DNR. Like being able to commit a person declared mentally ill.

If gay people are allowed to marry, they won't find some way to take advantage of the system. Straight people haven't figured anything out in more than 200 years, and there's some pretty smart straight people out there.

There is a legal separation in the US between Churhc and State.

So on what grounds do you oppose gay marriages?

[Jordan]

I don't think it's a health life style. If the government wants to support it fine, but I m not gonna like it, thats all.

I feel that the highest exp​ression of love can only be felt between man and women. I also think the ideal role models for kids are a man and women in the house hold.

People argue that if they love each other then let them be. Well I see it more of a sexual fetish then a true exp​ression of love.

I think it will be interesting to see how these marriages work out, give it ten years or so and then we can see how successful they are.

I m already in debate with this subject at LandE. I m not gonna talk about it here any more

[Ninja Duck]

Expecting the government to control lifestyles always seemed silly to me. Look at Clinton. The government's not in a good position to tell people what they can or can't do with their lives.

[Despondent]

we were chatting last night on a subject such as this and topic of hillary being president came up, what to call bill what not.

I'd be happy with "first john"

[barend]

marrage, in the traditional hetro style, is just a ceremony that (a.) gives the couple a public forum to try an justify their existance by saying: "look someone actually loves me" and (b.) give the girl an official and legal right to take half your stuff when she inevitably leaves!

the institute of marrage is a joke, so i don't know why everyone takes it so seriously. it should not be limmited to any group, or denied to any group. if people believe that it's that important to 'proove' their love through a shallow (but expensive) guesture, then let them have it!

i'm just curious about gay divorce...
who gets the dosh? (the least masculin one i guess).

[civilian_number_two]

I don't think it's a health life style. If the government wants to support it fine, but I m not gonna like it, thats all.

I feel that the highest exp​ression of love can only be felt between man and women. I also think the ideal role models for kids are a man and women in the house hold.

People argue that if they love each other then let them be. Well I see it more of a sexual fetish then a true exp​ression of love.

I think it will be interesting to see how these marriages work out, give it ten years or so and then we can see how successful they are.

I m already in debate with this subject at LandE. I m not gonna talk about it here any more

Jordan,

"I don't think it's a health life style. If the government wants to support it fine, but I m not gonna like it, thats all. "

There are numerous unhealthy lifestyles, and we allow all of those (naturally curious what you think is unhealthy about non-promiscuous, permanent-single-partner homosexual *marriage*). I don't think it's appropriate in a "free society" to try to restrict lifestyles that we don't approve of with the bogus justification that it's in the restricted person's best interests. But I like that you are willing to pretend you are worried about homosexuals' health. This is a classic paternalist argument. If you are following the tradition of all such arguments, then by the end you will be subtly (or not so subtly) wishing ill on the people you pretend to care about.

"I feel that the highest exp​ression of love can only be felt between man and women. I also think the ideal role models for kids are a man and women in the house hold. "

As for role models, and for the upbringing of the children, that is the same argument used when it was once illegal for white people to marry black people. That is the company you're keeping with that argument, the "Will you raise your children to be black or to be white? Christian or Jewish? Don't you think it will be hard on them when their friends tease them?" It's all two-faced bigotry masked as kind paternalism. If the goal was to keep people in families with a male and a female parent, the government ought to outlaw divorce. Biut frankly, the ideal role models for children are intelligent older people who work for a living and treat their friends andf family with respect and love. And you can't guarantee that with heterosexuality any more than with homosexuality.

"I think it will be interesting to see how these marriages work out, give it ten years or so and then we can see how successful they are."

And I'm sure many of the marriages will not work out. There have been numerous unmarried homosexuals who have kept life partners in secret until the day they died, so I am also sure than many of the marriages will work out just as well as heterosexual ones. [for anyone keeping score, This is the "I hope you kill yourself" part of the argument. "That's unhealthy and unsafe! I am really worried about you! Well, I sure wouldn't try it; there's got to be something wrong with you! Fine, go ahead, but don't come crying to me! Well, I hope you kill yourself!"]

Here in BC, marrigae are now legal, but they've yet to update the divorce act. Couples are lining up to get married. So the first homosexual divorce can't be far off. It's sure to make the papers.

But barend, there are numerous effects of being married besides providing for divorce. Being legally a member of someone's family when before you were not gets you past several beurocratic roadblocks, not the least of which include being allowed to take the body whe the person dies, or to have signing authority in special circumstances or visitation rights whern the other is sick or in jail. There are also minor details, such as being allowed to adopt the other's children, so that you can answer "yes" to the "are you this child's parent?" question when you try to take the child on a plane or across a border. Straight step-parents are allowed this, and it's because they married someone to gain the right. These are considerations frequently ignored by the Christian naysayers, who somehow have got it in their heads that by wanting to get married, gay people hope to make fun of the institution of marriage. I don't see how, but that's the defensive version of the argument. "These aren't the values on which our coountry was founded! They're trying to force a lifestyle upon us! [???] This is ... cultural TERRORISM!"

[Ninja Duck]

I keep forgetting to mention, gay marriage is actually good for the world. You know. Solving the problem of overpopulation without killing.