lagilman | a-ranting we shall go...

Specifically, on the attempt to introduce a move to rewrite the Constitution
to ban gay marriages.

The _Constitution_. It took a bunch of pretty-much-univerally-agreed-to-be
brilliant people a while to come up with it in the first place. Amending
it is not a thing to be done lightly. And IMGDO such amendments should
be done to PROTECT, not to discriminate.

(did we not learn a damn thing from Prohibition?)

Marriage* is a civil agreement two people enter into, stating that the parties
have certain rights and obligations to each other, and shall be viewed by
the State in a certain fashion. On the legal level (which is all the goverment
should be worrying itself over, ideally), there is nothing in that agreement
which has anything to do with gender, or indeed any physical attributes
at all.

The supporters of this are trying to re-legislate morality, just as they
have been doing with the abortion issue -- "this is what we say you can
and cannot do with your body". And in doing so, they're attempting to bring
their particular brand and belief of religion into the government, at the
expense and to the detriment of others.

I'm willing to pay higher taxes to maintain my standard of living, if it's
needful -- economies, like everything else, cycle through good times and
bad times. But I refuse to pay higher taxes to support a government that
attempts to rewrite the basic premise of the land to "One Nation, under
MY God and morality, not yours."

Nobody is born a radical. They're pushed to it. And right now I'm feeling
decidedly pushed.

* whatever a particular religious organization wants to do/believe is between
them and their members, so long as said members are free to change allegiances
if they choose to. Civil marriage and religious marriage are two distinct
entities, and if you don't want the religious part you don't have to have
it -- it's not something the government has any manadate over. Which is
as it should be.