Old Content (Gay Flagburning)er...

It looks like the Senate will vote next week on the Constitutional amendment next week defining marriage as between a man and a woman. There is no way this thing will get the votes needed. Team Frist is dragging it up anyway, it really is all politics.

I really don't care if the definition of marriage is changed. If a gay or lesbian couple move down the street, it does nothing to affect me or my family. I am absolutely opposed to using the coercive power of government to deny tell law abiding citizens they cannot do something will only affect them.

As someone who believes in federalism, I do not think this should be done at a federal level. If the states are worried about a gay or lesbian couple married in a state not barring same sex marriage moving into one without a ban, that state has the right to amend their constitution to pre-empt this from happening. The jurist Robert Bork supported federalism by once saying something like "thats the beauty of federalism- if a locality passes a stupid law they are the ones forced to live with it". I do support individual states rights to define marriage for themselves. This is basically the Dick Cheney position.

Im not going to call anyone who disagrees with me a bigot. I've gotten into this debate in College (they all make no distinction and I often hear that the 60 million people in America who voted for George W. Bush are a bunch of Archie Bunkers) and I've defended those of you who are opposed to same sex marriage. Bigotry is part of any political coalition, I understand you have legitimate concerns. I don't think this is a 14th amendment issue, if it were we woud be guilty of discrimination if we were to ban beastiality. And I do not liken this to Civil Rights because it does people like my hero Martin Luther King injustice.

However the biggest problem I have with this whole thing is that we are at war, Iran is trying to acquire nuclear weapons, the cost of health care is exploding, we have an oppressive tax code, Social Security is soon to go bankrupt, American jobs are being sold to the lowest bidder, and we are talkiing about gay marriage. America's greatest problem today is not homosexuals. Two summers ago, the Republicans brought this amendment up before we had appropriations set for Homeland Security. There is no excuse for that. I see many of these social issues as distractions from the ones that matter, and I probably would not be so upset if the GOP had been on the ball the past year and a half.

My position on same sex marriage is that I do not see a need to entitle homosexuals to it, or to ban it.