Massachusetts and marrage
 

Some self absorbed political apointies in Massachusetts have said its ok for same sex marrages.
I would say a few things to this,
1. Let the people of any state decide what a state does thats this conterversial, Put it to the voters.
2. If a state wants to have (through its voters) same sex marrages, then let voters of other states decide if there state would honor that marrage.
Example; if a same sex couple got married in Massachusetts and wanted to move to Florida, and the voters in Florida voted not to honor same sex maraages, then the same sex marrage from Massachusetts wouldn't be good in florida. Massachusetts can keep there (insert adjative hear) in Massachusetts.

Just because some judge or govenor of a state wants to marry his sister doesn't mean Florida should have to honor it.

Just my opinon

Ron

That's ok, they're all moving to Texas! They only move to Florida if they are ready to die, you know like old New Yorkers.

Ron,

There will be a binding referendum on the ballot in 2006 regarding the Gay Marriage issue here in MA. They couldn't call a special election so we have to wait until then.

One thing that bothers me is that some cities and towns are giving marriage liscenses to gay couples even though they're not MA residents, which is against the law. The gays are arguing that they shouldn't be restricted like that. Why not?! They want equality under the law so they should have to abide by those laws. Giving them preferential treatment is NOT equality.

I was afraid of this
 

I enjoy watching NECN daily. The New England Cable New channel spent most of yesterday and a little today showing one gay or lesbian couple after another sucking face.
Those sorts of public displays of affection are very annoying. Listening to guys saying, ?Oh my Gawd it?s so wonderful, I?m going to cry?, is a bit too much for me too. One of the men getting his license to marry was a minister, don?t know what church, but why did he have to wear the ?uniform??

Dan is right, we will have an election 2006 and I?d bet the married gays will have their status changed to Civil Unions. That will result in many, many years of very expensive law suits, just what Taxachusetts needs.

Ron, yesterday they said that 35 states are all ready in the process of defining marriage as a union between a man and woman. I hate to make this analogy because it?s not valid but it will probably be like the 1820-60s when there were slave states and non-slave states and it was an issue of contention. The ones who will truly benefit from all this are lawyers. I wonder how many gay lawyers were involved in the Massachusetts Monkey Show?

Stay healthy, I need an aspirin,
Andy

Andy,
 

I have wanting to go back to Massachusettes for a visit. Stomp around Devens, Ayer, Leominister, Fitchburg, Worchester and of course Concord and Lexington, The Berkshires. But, I'm afraid that if I meet Andy and Revwardoc I won't be able to give you guys a hug without some gay shedding a tear and remarking how beautiful. I'll just have to bring my wife along and hold her hand at all times just to feel secure.

America certainly isn't the country we were raised in. The actions in Massachusetts and Oregon are so different from the rural farming community and farm on which I was raised over fifty years ago. I have a hard time coming to grips with it.

With all these new "rights" I wonder just how low America will descend before she collapses from within morally.

Keith

The End of Marriage in Scandinavia
The "conservative case" for same-sex marriage collapses.
by Stanley Kurtz
02/02/2004, Volume 009, Issue 20

MARRIAGE IS SLOWLY DYING IN SCANDINAVIA. A majority of children in Sweden and Norway are born out of wedlock. Sixty percent of first-born children in Denmark have unmarried parents. Not coincidentally, these countries have had something close to full gay marriage for a decade or more. Same-sex marriage has locked in and reinforced an existing Scandinavian trend toward the separation of marriage and parenthood. The Nordic family pattern--including gay marriage--is spreading across Europe. And by looking closely at it we can answer the key empirical question underlying the gay marriage debate. Will same-sex marriage undermine the institution of marriage? It already has.

More precisely, it has further undermined the institution. The separation of marriage from parenthood was increasing; gay marriage has widened the separation. Out-of-wedlock birthrates were rising; gay marriage has added to the factors pushing those rates higher. Instead of encouraging a society-wide return to marriage, Scandinavian gay marriage has driven home the message that marriage itself is outdated, and that virtually any family form, including out-of-wedlock parenthood, is acceptable .

This is not how the situation has been portrayed by prominent gay marriage advocates journalist Andrew Sullivan and Yale law professor William Eskridge Jr. Sullivan and Eskridge have made much of an unpublished study of Danish same-sex registered partnerships by Darren Spedale, an independent researcher with an undergraduate degree who visited Denmark in 1996 on a Fulbright scholarship. In 1989, Denmark had legalized de facto gay marriage (Norway followed in 1993 and Sweden in 1994 ). Drawing on Spedale, Sullivan and Eskridge cite
evidence that since then, marriage has strengthened. Spedale reported that in the six years following the establishment of registered partnerships in Denmark (1990-1996), heterosexual marriage rates climbed by 10 percent, while heterosexual divorce rates declined by 12 percent. Writing in the McGeorge Law Review, Eskridge claimed that Spedale's study had exposed the "hysteria and irresponsibility" of those who predicted gay marriage would undermine marriage. Andrew Sullivan's Spedale-inspired piece was subtitled, "The case against same-sex marriage crumbles."

Yet the half-page statistical analysis of heterosexual marriage in Darren Spedale's unpublished paper doesn't begin to get at the truth about the decline of marriage in Scandinavia during the nineties. Scandinavian marriage is now so weak that statistics on marriage and divorce no longer mean what they used to.

Take divorce. It's true that in Denmark, as elsewhere in Scandinavia, divorce numbers looked better in the nineties. But that's because the pool of married people has been shrinking for some time. You can't divorce without first getting married. Moreover, a closer look at Danish divorce in the post-gay marriage decade reveals disturbing trends. Many Danes have stopped holding off divorce until their kids are grown. And Denmark in the nineties saw a 25 percent increase in cohabiting couples with children. With fewer parents marrying, what used to show up in statistical tables as early divorce is now the unrecorded breakup of a cohabiting couple with children.

What about Spedale's report that the Danish marriage rate increased 10 percent from 1990 to 1996? Again, the news only appears to be good. First, there is no trend. Eurostat's just-released marriage rates for 2001 show declines in Sweden and Denmark (Norway hasn't reported). Second, marriage statistics in societies with very low rates (Sweden registered the lowest marriage rate in recorded history in 1997 ) must be carefully parsed. In his study of the Norwegian family in the nineties, for example, Christer Hyggen shows that a small increase in Norway's marriage rate over the past decade has more to do with the institution's decline than with any renaissance. Much of the increase in Norway's marriage rate is driven by older couples "catching up." These couples belong to the first generation that accepts rearing the first born child out of wedlock. As they bear second children, some finally get married. (And even this tendency to marry at the birth of a second child is weakening.) As for the rest of the increase in the Norwegian marriage rate, it is largely attributable to remarriage among the large number of divorced.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Conten...3/660zypwj.asp

Marrage
 

I don't have a problem with gay and lesbians, I do have a problem with judges and govenors making law, Its not there job,
The issue should be a two vote issue.
One-- do we, as the people of _______ state want same sex marrages?
Two -- do we, as the people of_______state want to honor same sex marrage licens from other states?

If the people say yes to these than thats the way it is, in that state. No problem from me.

I would be willing to bet a bunch the the people from Mass. when confronted with a vote, for or against, will, choose against. We will see.

Ron

Next thing you know, we'll have brothers marrying their sisters, Uncle Billybob will be able to marry his Niece Marybeth. First cousins will be able to marry, who knows, maybe even one of the NAMBLA members will be able to marry an 11 year old boy.
Some farm boy will marry a sheep. Where does it end?

It's not so much as what this will do to the "Institution of Marriage", what will it do to genetics? Same sex marriage has opened the door. The camel has his nose under the edge of the tent.

From a legal standpoint, you're righ Ron, but God help us if we do vote for gay marriages. The next logical step would be that any church that doesn't agree to marry these people, would be breaking the law. In Canada right now, they either have passed or are about to pass a law that makes it illegal to say homosexuality is a sin according to the Bible. They now call that hate speech.

Fire
 

Churches don't have to marry anyone, They decline to marry right now for all kinds of reasons. The catholics are the worst, You have to jump through hoops to get married in a Catholic church.

I got married in Hawaii by a Hawian priest, he did it in Hawian, Didn't understand a word. except I-DO.

Ron