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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (195029)	7/19/2004 8:02:52 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1575396

Gay marriage was an issue pushed on to the agenda by the left. I assume when you say "pushed", you mean the gays trying to get married. To an extent, but I mostly mean the judges and local officials who went along. They are the people pushing to change the situation, they are the people who decided to make it an issue at this time. Maybe the judges "went along" as you put it because there is no legal reason to prevent gay marriages. Once that happened the right responded. Why did the right respond? Are they the moral authority on these issues? They have every bit as much right to fight for their agendas and opinions. If its ok for those who support gay marriage to campaign for it at this time then its also ok for those who are against it to campaign against it now. You say the right has a right to fight for their agenda. I understand that concept but the right has a habit of fighting for things that dramatically effect the behaviors of others which have little bearing on their own lives. Frankly, why doesn't the right mind its own business? Really.......and out of the left's "push" came the right's effort to implement a constitutional amendment. That just happened out of thin air without pre thought.....interesting. That statement doesn't make a lot of sense. I don't really understand what you are trying to say. What I am saying is that in the matter of weeks the right went from objecting to gay marriage to starting legislation in order to establish a constitutional amendment. That'a big step in a short period of time. How do we know it wasn't premeditated? The left decided to push for a change, the right decided to oppose this change. Since the left started to effect actual change the right started to make its response more then just verbal and tried to pass laws and constitutional amendments. I find that an extreme response to something that doesn't effect the complainants at all. And their response is a bit unusual....since I believe this constitutional amendment would have been the first to restrict the freedoms of Americans rather than expand them. The above paragraph is a simplification because its not a 100% left/right issue, but most of the supporters of massive and quick change in this area are on the left and most of those seeking to stop it are on the right. "Massive and quick change"? Maybe in your part of the country but in the West, gays have been pushing for the right to marry for years. Personally I don't have a problem with states choosing to allow "domestic partnerships". I have a little problem with legally calling those partnerships marriages. I have a lot of problems with state judges possibly ramming a major social and legal change down the throat of a country esp. when the majority of the country does not support this change at this time. They may not be "ramming it down" your throat for the hell of it. It may be that the law allows gay marriage whether the majority agrees or does not agree. If so, it will not be the first time in this country that the majority do not agree with what the law allows. Its why we have judges! Hitler didn't start out killing. He began by placing restrictions on the people he considered objectionable. To maintain the status quo in regard to gay marriage is not placing a restriction on anyone, except perhaps judges who would change things. Huh? It restricts gays from the rights enjoyed by straight people. There is a definite restriction. And Hitler's thugs did start out killing. Then later a whole series of draconian laws where past, then people where made in to slaves, and then the systematic killing or "objectionable" or "undesirable" people began, none of which is anything like what Bush, or the Republican party is doing at this time, or have done in the past, or shows any sign of doing in the future. In the late twenties, they did not start by killing; that came much later. In the beginning, they simply restricted their lives in a number of ways....both violently and non violently. To the Germans credit, some tried to some him but it was too little too late. ted

To: TimF who wrote (195029)	7/20/2004 2:23:16 PM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1575396

I suppose this was pushed onto the agenda by all the gay liberal's burning flag's at their lawn parties. Measure to Outlaw Flag Burning Advances in Senate By Thomas Ferraro WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A proposed constitutional amendment to outlaw the burning of the American flag won the approval on Tuesday of a Senate Judiciary Committee (news - web sites) split largely along party lines. Raised by some Republicans as a mark of patriotism this election year, the measure passed on a 11-7 vote and was sent to the full Senate for final congressional approval. While the Senate has repeatedly rejected such measures in the past, both sides predict a razor-close vote this time. The Judiciary Committee's vote came a week after a divided Senate blocked a White House-backed bid to amend the Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, another issue Democrats have accused Republicans of pushing merely to rally their conservative base for the November elections. Backers said the proposal is needed to protect a symbol of American democracy. But foes warned the measure would infringe on First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and expression. The amendment was drafted in response to a 1989 Supreme Court decision that struck down a Texas law against flag desecration and a 1990 decision that ruled as unconstitutional a flag protection law passed by Congress. While flag burning had been frequently used as a symbol of protest against the Vietnam War, it has been rare in recent years. "We're hopeful (of passage)," said committee chairman Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican who sponsored the measure with Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the only Democrat who voted for it. FREE SPEECH "I worry about what we are doing here," said Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the Judiciary Committee's ranking Democrat. Leahy noted that President Bush (news - web sites)'s secretary of state, Colin Powell (news - web sites), a retired four-star general, came out against such a measure in 1999. Leahy quoted Powell as saying: "I would not amend that great shield of democracy to hammer a few miscreants. The flag will still be flying proudly long after they have slunk away." Proponents are hopeful a new wave of patriotism in response to the war in Iraq (news - web sites) will help squeeze out needed votes, but foes say they are guardedly hopeful they can again block it. In the past 15 years, a flag amendment has repeatedly sailed through the 435-member House only to fall a short in the 100-member Senate, including by four votes in 2000. "It's desperately close," said Terri Ann Schroeder of the American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites), which opposes the proposal. "But I'm fairly confident we're going to prevail. We'll win." The proposed measure would specifically amend the Constitution to permit Congress to pass a law to protect the flag from desecration. For a proposed constitutional amendment to become law it must be approved by two-thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives and then ratified by 38 of the 50 states. Vice presidential candidate John Edwards (news - web sites), a North Carolina senator, joined six fellow Democrats on the Judiciary Committee in voting against the proposed amendment. He voted by proxy.