Barack doesn't support gay marriage, but he does support gay couples receiving the same rights and benefits as hetero couples. Basically, marriage without the word.

Religious nuts have co-opted the word. I don't think that's a wall you're going to successfully assail anytime soon. Time to look at different strategies.

I suggest making the word 'marriage' an insult.
"I wanted to join the Marines, but they found out my parents were married."

My point was not that Obama is the gay saviour, but rather that - when you go down the line of all the issues, Obama is clearly leaning to the left. I believe that when you have a popular President - or really person in any leadership position that leans a certain way, if people like them enough, sometimes they begin to re-examine their own takes on the issues to see if it really is so bad.

Bzalthek is also correct that Obama does not directly support gay marriage, but he supports giving the same rights. And indeed it surrounds the word itself.

The thing is, he has a policy that at least leans in the direction of advancing their civil rights. He wants to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell. He wants to allow gays/lesbians the ability to adopt(Hrmmm, Arkansas measure anyone?!). He wants to include sexual orientation/identity on the list against discrimination for employment. He wants to pass the Matthew Shepard Act, which includes sexual orientation reasoning on the list for hate crimes.

And hell.. that combined with the innumerable problems our next President will face... it's pretty easy to see why someone would try to look at the bigger picture while at the same time supporting a cause that would go *backwards* with McCain as President. It's all but impossible to fight for gay rights if our country goes to shit.

Ok, Venen.

Have fun with your belief that Obama will do anything regarding equal rights.

While I share some of your cynicism (the whole Clinton thing along with Bush's whole "compassionate conservatism" really soured me on the idea that any politician would actually do something on the issue), there IS reason to have a slim shred of hope. The sheer fact he mentioned us in his acceptance speech may seem tiny to some, huge to others. But there are also his own words along the trail that ring with a little more truth than just "promises" do...

Obama's own words: "If we're honest with ourselves, we' ll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King's vision of a beloved community. We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them. The scourge of anti-Semitism has, at times, revealed itself in our community. For too long, some of us have seen immigrants as competitors for jobs instead of companions in the fight for opportunity."

So I remain skeptical, but hopeful. If that makes any sense.

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It's not that I know or think he will do anything. It's a situation where you have one guy who has a 10 percent chance of doing something about it, and another who has a 0 percent chance of doing something.

People who, you know, actually vote on the issues might care about something like that =)

I saw that when it aired, and my respect for Gov. Schwarzenegger went up quite a bit because of it. Assuming he still holds the same feelings as he did before (morally opposed to same-sex marriage), I give him huge credit for being able to realize that personal distaste should not get in the way of equal rights (once the courts said that it was an equal rights issue).

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Yea, I give Arnold credit if that's his stance. Sadly I think there are a lot of people that simply do not understand the difference between morally opposing something, and affording a people their equal rights. Even if you disagree with the concept and you think what gay people are doing is morally wrong, freedom of choice is supposedly an important concept amongst the religious. Many of the religious folks that I talk to proclaim that God gave us freedom so that we could make our own choices, for better or for worse. That choice is for individuals to decide, and cannot be made for them.

That is how I have been discussing this with my wife. She is very religious and she is anti-gay. I have been "working" with her to try to have her see what the problem is with these measures. She bought the "churches can not refuse a gay couple from marriage" claim from the yes on 8 people.

I think I have her understanding that gay couples should have the same rights that we do. She has stated that as long as the state does not force churches to perform whatever ceremony then that is fine with her.

They couldn't when it was legal. No churches will EVER be 'forced' to do such things any more than a non-believer could demand that a church do things for them.

More importantly though...your wife should be pretty pissed off. She was manipulated and lied to.

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Is it just me, or does Keith Olberman seem to get genuinely emotional about the issue a little bit there?

I don't really watch him, so I don't have a good sense of whether that is his normal way of speaking, or if it was genuine emotion he was holding back.

I don't watch him but yes that was my impression. I know one person who has voiced that they believe it's feigned and wondered whether or not he practices getting choked up in the mirror.

Real or feigned though, what he says is IMO an absolute truth. The only real criticism I have is his closing quote, but it's because I know the source. I also know WHY he finds it apropos, but I think the trial it's from sorta kills all other interpretations for most people.

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The idea that a pastor or church or denomination could be forced to marry gay people is a pretty insidious falsehood.

Under 1st amendment church/state protections, it simply wouldn't happen. Currently any church can refuse to marry any couple for any reason. Orthodox rabbis will not marry a Jew and a Gentile. The Catholic Church will not marry divorced people. Protestant ministers will often put successful completion of pre-marriage counseling as a condition of presiding at a wedding, and will refuse to marry a couple they don't feel is ready or doing it for the right reasons.

There are long established precedents for churches making decisions about who they want to marry that is completely separate from the civil contract of marriage. The gender of the couple would be immaterial.

There is only case I know of that the Yes on 8 type folks have been able to cite (and explain in the worst possible light). Apparently a NJ Methodist church owns a gazebo that is on a separate piece of property from the church itself and therefore isn't innately tax-exempt (if my understanding is correct). In order to gain an exemption from their municipality, they agreed to allow it to be used as public space, and have for years.

I guess a lesbian couple wanted to use the gazebo for their commitment ceremony, and the church objected, and ended up losing their tax-exempt status on the property due to violating the state's antidiscrimination laws regarding public access.

I'm at work, so I don't have time to look up the details. That's what I remember off the top of my head.

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Hope is the new black.