Gay marriage is going to happen. As a Con, I can also say it should happen. Constitutionally, I can see no valid argument for denying gay couples equal rights under the law. In the absence of an amendment to the constitution defining marriage as between a man and a woman, it seems obvious denying the rights of gays to "marry" is obvious.

It seems to me what those who are not supportive of gay marriage cringe about is the religious aspect of marriage. Frankly, few are comfortable with the idea of two men walking down the aisle of a church. But we must remember to separate the religous ceremony from the legal aspect of marriage. By law, exchanging vows in Catholic ceremony for example, does not make you married legally. It is the filing of the Certificate of Marriage with the state that makes your marriage legal and, thus, married. Government can't nor should it force traditional faiths to perform gay weddings. But, constitutionally, we are going to have to recognize gay marriage in some form.

With respect to Pot, I am now on board with llegalizing weed. The pros far outweigh the cons. The War on drugs has failed miserably when it comes to pot. We are spending billions for nothing in return. Drug cartels are becoming more and more bloodthirsty and our criminal justice system is not able to handle this at all. I know the arguments against this. I am a 46 year old lawyer. I smoked weed occasionally in college. I didn't turn to harder drugs and have no desire now to smoke weed even if it was legal. I don't think anyone who wants to get high has a difficult time finding weed. Nor do I think too many folks who are not now inclined to light up would suddenly feel compelled to do so if it was made legal.

i have to respect and admire your thought process.

if the right and left could come together on common sense issues like these i believe it would bode well for the country.

I agree with your assessment.

Refusal of the rights of gays to marry is unconstitutional. No state should be able to keep them from marrying and no state should deny them the same benefits they give a married heterosexual couple. That said, separation of church and state makes it clear the state cannot force any church to marry a couple against the wishes of the church--and note that to my knowledge no gay couple is asking for this. These are two different issues--being legally married in the eyes of the state is a whole different request than being married in the eyes of the church. Some churches can and do marry gay couples--other never will. It is not the business of the state to intrude upon the rulings of a church.

Strangely pot is a similar issue. Alcohol and cigarettes both are legal and are faced with piles of medical and social examples of their problematic natures. I cannot find a single fault with marajuana not present with alchol and tobacco--from abuse and misuse to social and domestic distress resulting (alcohol surpasses pot here big tome btw). If the rationale for making pot illegal is medical and social we need to either make alcohol and cigarettes illegal OR legalize pot. You cannot maintain this dichotomy without some means of showing a difference.

Real,

I could not agree more on the helath issues surrounding tobacco and alcohol as compared to pot. I just don't know if any politician has the stones to make this point. I personally am leaning toward legalization of all drugs with heavy regulation. I don't see that happening. Legalizing pot, if successful, could be the first step to getting a handle on this issue.

If we legalize pot, we can regulate it much like alcohol; available in state run stores to those 18 and over. Those who think that minors will be turned onto weed more freely don't understand that legalization won't have anything to do with it, not if it is restricted to adults only.

Another worry over legalization is rampant use in the work place. Employers will maintain the right to prohibit weed from the workplace, just as it does with alcohol.

There will be no big changes, other than shit canning - once and for all - the draconian and useless enforcement of a law that had no moral substance in the first place.

Constitutionally, I can see no valid argument for denying gay couples equal rights under the law. In the absence of an amendment to the constitution defining marriage as between a man and a woman, it seems obvious denying the rights of gays to "marry" is obvious.

The Constitution is silent on this issue- so there is no right for it or against it. Gay marriage contributes very little to society at large and it seems that there may be some long term social damage down the road. Like single parents and divorce often are excellent predictors to a child's failure in life (teen pregnancy, drug addition, alcoholism, crime).

Other than offically legitimizing homosexuality gay marriage doesn't do anything a good legal document doesn't do. Likewise if you remove the religious element then why not have civil unions?

Gunsmoke,

Heterosexual marriages are at 50% divorce rates so how could you claim gay marriage is any more unstable than a "normal" hetero marriage? In fact one could argue the challenges gays face would improve their chances of sticking together. Your argument is predicated on stereotypes of gays not being in monogomous relationships when in fact historically they are as likely as heteros to be in monogomous relationships as they mature, just like heterosexuals. Well known gays like Elton John, George Takai, and Ellen Degenerous have all had long time "spouses" while the heterosexual marriages of Brittany Spears, Billy Joel, and Bruce Springsteen all ended badly and in extremely short amounts of time.

Secondly, the right to marry isnt based on the ability of a marriage to contribute to anything other than your happiness or persuit of it. If it makes you happy to married, then great, but it isnt required that you marry at all nor that you maintain a short or a long term marriage. Sure, society often judges character based on it, but that has nothing at all to do with the constitution. At the end of the day, there is nothing there to allow the law to keep anyone from marrying anyone else thus laws made to prevent gay marriage are by nature not constitutional and the first challenge such laws face in supreme court it will be shot down as unconstitutional.

Your one and only argument will be that states have had elections where the majority ruled against gay marriage--but remember that the constitution exists mainly to protect the minority from the tyrrany of the majority. What rationale can you come up with to support keeping gays from marrying knowing whatever you say must apply equally to heterosexuals?

Heterosexual marriages are at 50% divorce rates so how could you claim gay marriage is any more unstable than a "normal" hetero marriage? Your argument is predicated on stereotypes of gays not being in monogomous relationships when in fact historically they are as likely as heteros to be in monogomous relationships as they mature, just like heterosexuals.

I would say both are bad, but gay marriage would be less damaging (2 parents are better than one) if gay stayed married at a substantially higher rate. The problem is that there is no reason to think gay marriage will not have a divorce rate that is the same at regular marriage so any benefit would be a wash. Dealing with divorced gay parents seems to be a little harder for kids deal with. (Yea that's my dad with his new boyfriend???) In addition how do you work out custody when one parent is the biological one. I guess the non-bio parent would have to adopt- then you have to deal with all that. The first gay marriage in the US was followed by the first gay divorce. There is no reason to think gay marriage will do any better than reg marriage so there really is no benefit.

the right to marry isnt based on the ability of a marriage to contribute to anything other than your happiness or persuit of it.

Says who? Lets logically extend this out to incest and polygamy. If society has no say then why are those practices banned? If societal harm is removed from the equation then lets promote polygamy as well. Can you make a case for why incest marriage is wrong and gay marriage is acceptable? If you can bridge that gap then gay marriage will be on it's way to victory. Go!

there is nothing there to allow the law to keep anyone from marrying anyone else thus laws made to prevent gay marriage are by nature not constitutional and the first challenge such laws face in supreme court it will be shot down as unconstitutional.

The 10th amendment says otherwise. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. The only way it gets to the SC is if follows the tract of abortion "rights" which really do not exist. The right to privacy was a stretch and to get abortion from privacy is really a stretch and is generally seen as sloppy work by the SC. I doubt gay marriage will follow.

What rationale can you come up with to support keeping gays from marrying knowing whatever you say must apply equally to heterosexuals?

Gay marriage will hurt society by destroying the traditional family unit just as divorce did, just as polygamy would, just as incest marriage would.

Gunsmoke---

A USA the way you would have it would be a social engineering experiment not unlike Nazi Germany. Telling people who they can and cannot marry, no doubt passing anti-sodomy laws and other archane and puritanical bullshit. Sort of like Texas. Ignorance actually considering itself to be intelligent and right.

So lets look at your comments here:

I pointed out that HALF of all of your so called OK marriages end in divorce--you said:

I would say both are bad, but gay marriage would be less damaging (2 parents are better than one) if gay stayed married at a substantially higher rate. The problem is that there is no reason to think gay marriage will not have a divorce rate that is the same at regular marriage so any benefit would be a wash.

###### Do you have the stats? I am willing to assume they are the same as hetero--and more importantly if those stats show them to be BETTER in long term stability then what? I dont anticipate you would then encourage gay marriage......

Dealing with divorced gay parents seems to be a little harder for kids deal with. (Yea that's my dad with his new boyfriend???)

##### If Dad is gay then why not? I know plenty of kids who have an issue with dads new girlfriend and the reasons are the same.

In addition how do you work out custody when one parent is the biological one. I guess the non-bio parent would have to adopt- then you have to deal with all that.

##### Decided long ago--its just like hetero marriage. Generally the bio parent gets the kid because of the simple fact that he/she is the bio parent BUT usually just as in a hetero break up, the other parent gets visitation rights and sometimes even joint custody. As with any other marriage, the judge has to consider many things, but NONE of these things would be the parents sexual orientation--even hetero parents arent having sex in front of their kids so why would it matter.

The first gay marriage in the US was followed by the first gay divorce. There is no reason to think gay marriage will do any better than reg marriage so there really is no benefit.

##### No benefit for who? Gays have the right to marry just as heteros have the right to marry.Again so long as heteros can marry there is no justification for keeping gays from marrying. In fact your only reason is your irrational fear of gays who are as normal as you and me except in who they are attracted to. They have jobs, they pay taxes, they have friends and family--they contribute every bit as much to our society as anyone else.

the right to marry isnt based on the ability of a marriage to contribute to anything other than your happiness or persuit of it.

Says who?

##### The constitution. Nowhere does it mention marriage either way (you said this yourself). In fact you could be permanantly single if you so desire. Yet even gays generally do settle down eventually BY THEIR CHOICE. Companionship is a lot more important than sex long term.

" Lets logically extend this out to incest and polygamy."

##### Except that there is no logic to that. Where is marriage and incest coupled? Where is polygamy protected (or excluded) in the constitution? It isnt. Incest is generally against the law on the grounds of biological incompatibility--incest is a known leading cause of retardation and hemofelia among other issues--most ancient societies eventually formally outlawed incest. As for Polygamy, it is generally against the law but the main reason there is because of tax purposes and worse, because even today most polygamous relationships have only one "official" wife with spiritual marriages for the rest and thus their kids with non-official wives become kids with single parents and then they collect welfare--Utah is experiencing a lot of turmoil over this--the reality is that polygamy is working in many places for the people involved but also that welfare fraud is rampant too because hey, a lot of those kids dont officially have two parents and certainly the child support issue would be insane.

If society has no say then why are those practices banned? If societal harm is removed from the equation then lets promote polygamy as well.

##### I just showed you that these were banned WITH REASONS. YOU are the one with a case to make here--what reason to ban gay marriage? If your reasons are entirely based on the Bible you will lose. If your reasons are based on myths about gays you are again going to lose. If TWO gays want to marry there is absolutely no issue society should have with it. As George Takai (Sulu on Star Trek) explained, before they were married he and his spouse were living together for more than 20 years in a monogomous relationship--banning their marriage was simply hate--they got married to recognize a union that already was ongoing--they just wanted it to be official, recognized, and enjoy the same protections and and rights that other married people have--they are not asking for special treatment or special rights--just the same things married men and women have.

Can you make a case for why incest marriage is wrong and gay marriage is acceptable? If you can bridge that gap then gay marriage will be on it's way to victory. Go!

##### I already made the case and again as far as I am concerned denial of the right to marriage for gays is unconstitutional since other Americans have the right and since the SJC has clearly named sexual orientation as a protected group of minorities who often are denied rights and have crimes perpetrated against them simply for being this minority. Note that in certain states, inter-racial marriage faced this battle too--no logical reasons could be found and eventually it was legal in all states.

there is nothing there to allow the law to keep anyone from marrying anyone else thus laws made to prevent gay marriage are by nature not constitutional and the first challenge such laws face in supreme court it will be shot down as unconstitutional.

The 10th amendment says otherwise. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. The only way it gets to the SC is if follows the tract of abortion "rights" which really do not exist. The right to privacy was a stretch and to get abortion from privacy is really a stretch and is generally seen as sloppy work by the SC. I doubt gay marriage will follow.

#### Any reasonable lawyer gets the Roe V Wade decision and this would also be out of the governments realm to control because what you do in the bedroom with a consenting adult is your business, not the states. It comes down to this--you give the right to heterosexuals therefore you must give it to homosexuals.

What rationale can you come up with to support keeping gays from marrying knowing whatever you say must apply equally to heterosexuals?

Gay marriage will hurt society by destroying the traditional family unit just as divorce did, just as polygamy would, just as incest marriage would.

####### Then clearly you would have to first get the majority of Americans to see gays as bad for our country, you would have to define a family unit officially (what about adoptive families, 2nd marriages, 3rd marriages, etc) AND you would need to outlaw the number one enemy of marriage-divorce. As our nation was founded with tolerance as a core value I would say that you have a real problem--the last thing our founders wanted to do was tell people how to live, who to love, etc........so good luck with that.