Judge overturns Prop 8!

[Alereth]

Actually, I'd say that would restore my faith in the country a little more, since we're supposed to be all that "of the people" jazz -- how more "of the people" does it get than us chatting about political issues?

With "the people" being in office, representing "the other people" so to speak. We need the right people, and for every one sensible person in the country, there are 5 idiots who don't know how to vote, or who choose randomly.

Everyone makes a big deal out of people not voting, saying how they should. I disagree, and believe that people who either don't know what they are talking about or honestly don't care should not vote.

 

[Valandil]

Everyone makes a big deal out of people not voting, saying how they should. I disagree, and believe that people who either don't know what they are talking about or honestly don't care should not vote.

Agreed. Picking random candidates on a ballot is the equivalent of closing your eyes and throwing darts at pieces of paper on a bulletin board, except that your choices have a very legitimate possibility of affecting hundreds, thousands, even millions of people. To me, it's socially and politically irresponsible. Although slightly better, but still extremely dangerous, is the voter who only skims the issues/candidates and makes a choice based on virtually no substantial information, or the voter who thinks it's a great idea to get all of his/her information about an issue/candidate from only one source or multiple sources with identical points of view. You would NEVER write a research paper with that kind of approach, so what justifies that kind of rationalization when you're making decisions about something that affects not only your life, but the lives of many others for 4-6+ years to come? I do not buy the argument about "not having the time" the be at least moderately informed on voting issues. You usually have at least 3 months, sometimes as many as 12, to educate yourself about voting issues. If you only spent 2 hours/week (less than 20 min/day) during that time doing a little research, you would have at least 24 hours worth of effort on which to base your decision. Going back to the research paper analogy, that's more than enough time to come up with a "B" on a 10-page paper.

 

[Celvantes]

Good for the judicial process in California, but this whole issue about "finally forcing the Supreme Court to deal with gay marriage" is bollocks.

It drives me bonkers when people bring this up on the national stage. This. Is. A. State. Issue.

Until such a time when marriage licenses are issued by the federal government, the highest ruling power on the issue of gay marriage are the individual states. Even if it does make it up to the Supreme Court, it'll take them about 10 seconds to cite the 10th Amendment and kick it back to the decision of the respective state's Supreme Court.

 

[Lukas]

Good for the judicial process in California, but this whole issue about "finally forcing the Supreme Court to deal with gay marriage" is bollocks.

It drives me bonkers when people bring this up on the national stage. This. Is. A. State. Issue.

Until such a time when marriage licenses are issued by the federal government, the highest ruling power on the issue of gay marriage are the individual states. Even if it does make it up to the Supreme Court, it'll take them about 10 seconds to cite the 10th Amendment and kick it back to the decision of the respective state's Supreme Court.

Except that DOMA was a federal Act which defined marriage for ALL the states. By that logic, it too undermines the State's powers to define marriage and should be scrapped - so I guess we agree? Not to mention that if a same-sex couple were to wed in California, DOMA assures that their marriage does not need to be recognised in any other state, which is actually a violation of the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the US Constitution.

The state of California has already decided that denying gay people the right to marry violates their state constitution. The ONLY reason this case is going to the Supreme Court is because the crazies dont' like it and are seeking appeal. No appeal = no Supreme Court.

If however, SCOTUS rejects the appeal and in turn sets a very important precedent here, then I don't see a huge problem with states being forced to examine whether or not their marriage laws are unlawful.

 

[Rips]

If prop 8 is indeed in violation of the federal constitution, then it's not a state issue at all, it's a federal one.

I say just throw it to the SCOTUS. What I like about putting it through the highest court is that there is no grey area. It's the highest authority. They and only they can claim whether it's a right or not. If it is, it should be there. If they say no, then it's not. I have 100% faith in the SCOTUS regardless of the issue at hand and I believe that DOMA will certainly be over turned, especially the part with federal benefits.