posted on November 10, 2006 09:10:19 AM new
South Dakotans Reject Abortion Measure
: South Dakotans Reject Abortion Measure
By CHET BROKAW, The Associated Press
Nov 8, 2006 12:27 AM (2 days ago)
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. - South Dakota voters on Tuesday rejected the toughest abortion law in the land - a measure that would have outlawed the procedure under almost any circumstances.
The Legislature passed the law last winter in an attempt to prompt a challenge aimed at getting the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.
Instead of filing a lawsuit, opponents gathered petition signatures to put the measure on the general election ballot for a statewide vote.
posted on November 10, 2006 11:36:17 AM new
Update
From the Assoc. Press -
But by 51 percent to 49 percent, Arizonans voted down Proposition 107, which would have amended the state's Constitution to ban same-sex marriage.
The deciding aspect may have been the broad reach of the measure.
Same-sex marriage already was illegal under state law, but not as part of the Constitution.
Proposition 107 would have barred government entities - such as the state, cities, counties, universities and school districts - from recognizing any relationship similar to marriage, such as civil unions or domestic partnerships, in providing benefits to their employees.
While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation:
What would a Democrat president have done at that point? Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack.
Ann Coulter
posted on November 10, 2006 11:42:16 AM new
Glad Linda approves of writing hate and discrimination into the constitution.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on November 10, 2006 11:50:54 AM new
Marriage rights go beyond the ballot
By Linda Dorcena Forry | November 9, 2006
IN 2000, the same year that my white husband and I, a black woman, exchanged vows in a Dorchester church, voters in Alabama were asked to go to the polls to take a law off the books that once made interracial marriage a crime. For much of our nation's history, such anti miscegenation statutes were the law of the land, not only in the deep South, but throughout the United States.
The people of Alabama, a state with a horrific history of racial division, voted to remove that shameful, centuries-old law that punished men and women for "race mixing." But the vote was closer than expected in 21st century America. A stunning 40 percent of the voting public in Alabama wanted to keep the ban on interracial marriage intact. Whole counties voted to keep a racist law that would have jailed men and women of different races for the "crime" of marrying.
I shudder to think, with all of the progress that we've made, what would have been the message to the nation had Alabama instead cast the majority vote to maintain a law that many of us would look upon today as being an infringement upon our civil rights.
If my husband and I had married in Alabama in 2000, for example, would that law, if it had been supported by the majority, order the dissolution and condemnation of our marriage by the "will of the people"?
Would our love, united by the sacred bonds of matrimony, together with our hopes and dreams of spending a life together as a loving family be instead another cross to bear? And what about our children -- would they be ostracized, penalized because their parents sought to make their lives better through the benefits of marriage?
In 2004, when Massachusetts faced a legal challenge of whether or not same-sex couples should be allowed to marry, we got it right. Marriage equality is written into our Constitution where it belongs and should remain.
As we contemplate a vote at today's constitutional convention on whether a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage should appear on the 2008 ballot, I draw the parallel between my own story and that of my many gay and lesbian constituents. I understand in a personal way my neighbors' desire to have the same protections and status that the rest of us can enjoy, particularly the universal instinct to give our children every opportunity to succeed and prosper.
To those who would argue that the people should decide this issue by vote, I also value and defend the right to vote. Generations of my African-American brothers and sisters in the United States -- and my own ancestors in Haiti -- died for the right to vote. However, I know too that there are some issues that should never be decided by a majority. The abolition of slavery and the right for women and blacks to vote are but a few examples.
The fact is that the ballot question in Alabama six years ago was rather meaningless. The Supreme Court of the United States struck down laws banning interracial marriage in 1967, the summer of the Impossible Dream for the Red Sox.
That was also the year of the impossible dream for millions of Americans like my husband and me. Were it not for that Supreme Court, God knows what would have become of us. Would we, as a society, be "ready" yet or would we have missed the cut?
Or would we miss the window of collective acceptability in the eyes of "the people."
Those of us who oppose this ballot question that would in essence write discrimination into our Constitution rally around a fundamental principle, one that the founders of this Commonwealth made sure to enshrine in the blueprint of this state and in the DNA of this nation. It is not the business of the majority to dictate or define or obliterate the civil rights of others.
America's greatness is not confined to the ballot box. It is in our continued efforts to respect and uphold the civil rights of all of our citizens. Today, we can put an end to this ugly ballot question. The majority should not be allowed to define the civil rights of the minority on the issue of marriage equality.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
----------------------------------
The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
[ edited by logansdad on Nov 10, 2006 11:53 AM ]
posted on November 10, 2006 11:57:43 AM new
The voters of Arizona overwhelmingly defeated Prop. 107, which would have defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman only.
I do expect it to come back again however, the measure was poorly written.
____________________________________________
Grow your own Dope. Plant a Republican.
posted on November 10, 2006 01:14:32 PM new
Kudos to South Dakota. Even if it was a pinhead that brought it up on these boards. I have always disagreed with the anti-choice movement. They call themselves pro-life when in reality they are a violent group of (you fill in the blank).
.
.
.
"Unfortunately there are levels of Stupid that just can't be cured!!" The new Demomoron motto.
posted on November 10, 2006 04:03:22 PM new
LOL! Gee, it sure didn't take linda long to change the subject!
I think it has to do with her jellyfish spine.....can't admit how SHE insulted our brave troops and can't admit that "MOST Americans" in S.Dakota don't agree with her and the rest of the anti-women's rights groups.
But now we are getting a bigger cast for the new movie, "The Sour Grapes of Wrath".
posted on November 10, 2006 04:09:55 PM new
Linda find gays a bigger threat than killing of fetuses.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on November 10, 2006 08:18:35 PM new
107 lost Linda, perhaps by a narrow margin, perhaps not. It's YOU that ought to keep up. How funny that at first you said you didn't know how it turned out, and then how quickly you knew the actual numbers. Just couldn't admit to yourself and those here that it had lost huh? It lost. It'll be back again of course, but it lost.
____________________________________________
Grow your own Dope. Plant a Republican.
posted on November 10, 2006 09:46:49 PM new107 lost Linda, perhaps by a narrow margin, perhaps not. It's YOU that ought to keep up. How funny that at first you said you didn't know how it turned out, and then how quickly you knew the actual numbers. Just couldn't admit to yourself and those here that it had lost huh? It lost. It'll be back again of course, but it lost.
Linda follows every Gay marriage ammendment like her life depends on it. God forbid, one state actually allows gay marriage. If that happens the world will come to an end. Oh wait we do have a state that allows it and the world has not ceased to be.
I guess Linda does not want to marry her lesbian lover
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on November 11, 2006 05:27:25 AM new
Arizona already has a law banning gay marriage logans, this bit of sleaze called 107 was just a sneaky way to put the screws to ALL forms of domestic partnership, gay and hetero. Fortunately the voters saw through it.
____________________________________________
Grow your own Dope. Plant a Republican.
posted on November 11, 2006 05:39:06 AM new
Here profe, let me help you out. I already KNEW what I was talking about...and as soon as I had typed I didn't know how the AZ vote went...I looked it up.
What SOME fail to realize is that different states are passing DIFFERENT laws in regards to gay marriage. They're not all the same.
Some states are only passing/defining the term 'marriage', making it between ONE man and ONE woman.
Other states have voted to BAN gay marriages.
Other states have voted to change their State constitutions to ban gay marriage.
Some states have voted to ban gay marriage AND 'civil unions'.
It's NOT all 'cut and dry'.
AZ was voting to change their constitution. THAT didn't pass. But gays in AZ haven't been allowed to marry EVER...nor can they now.
While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation:
What would a Democrat president have done at that point? Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack.
Ann Coulter
posted on November 11, 2006 09:12:38 AM new
Well, I see that Cathy Cowfarm is back to posting crap. But then again, she is living in a Republican district. It must rip at her insides like a beaver in the forest.
.
.
.
"Unfortunately there are levels of Stupid that just can't be cured!!" The new Demomoron motto.
posted on November 11, 2006 10:21:40 AM new
Is gay marriage a threat to marriage?
Published November 5, 2006
It used to be thought that women had no business voting, but when women got the vote, men didn't suddenly decide their once-exclusive prerogative was worthless. Blacks were once barred from owning property. When the laws changed, whites didn't suddenly give up buying in favor of renting.
Admitting an excluded group to an institution doesn't necessarily weaken the institution. When the subject is matrimony, however, self-styled defenders of marriage say that if it isn't restricted, it will promptly wither and die. They think allowing gays to wed would soon cause heterosexuals to abandon marriage, start propagating offspring out of wedlock and slide into degeneracy.
American treatment of homosexuality has come a long way. Though many people view it as a sin, it's no longer a crime. Gays and lesbians can live their lives openly now.
Changes such as these were unimaginable 50 years ago, but they haven't led to a collapse of the social order. Yet we are told that allowing homosexuals to join in legally sanctioned unions will reduce Western civilization to a smoking ruin.
That's one of the chief rationales for efforts to block same-sex marriage. On Tuesday, eight states are offering ballot initiatives against it, and most if not all are expected to pass.
Supporters of these bans warn that redefining marriage to include same-sex couples would damage it beyond repair. Maggie Gallagher, head of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, writes that gay marriage would grossly shortchange the needs of children "in order to further adult interests in sexual freedom."
Now, it will come as a shock to heterosexual couples that marriage can further sexual freedom, but never mind that. As it happens, sodomy laws have been struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. Gays are already at liberty to have commitment-free trysts with members of Congress, evangelical pastors and anyone else they choose. Unfettered sex is already abundantly available to gays who want it.
What same-sex marriage offers, by contrast, is a safe harbor for those who prefer responsible monogamy to free love. It's not a rejection of the values of traditional marriage--it's an affirmation.
Gallagher and others say conventional marriage serves to reconcile "the erotic, social, sexual and financial needs of men and women with the needs of their partner and their children." Funny--that's also what gay marriage does. It provides a durable framework in which two people can commit themselves to an exclusive sexual relationship while assuring a stable environment for their children.
Gallagher insists that youngsters are better off in a home with both a mother and a father, but thanks in part to liberal divorce laws--which conservatives are not mobilizing to repeal--many children already are deprived of the model family.
Some kids already are being brought up by same-sex partners. Conservatives think children of straight couples are better off if their parents are married. So how can children of gay couples be better off if their parents are not?
The argument that gay marriage will increase family instability by pushing heterosexuals away from marriage is ingenious but unfounded. In this realm, as Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. said, a page of history is worth a volume of logic. Some European countries have allowed gays to enter into registered partnerships (which closely resemble marriage) for years, and the results are reassuring.
M.V. Lee Badgett, an economist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, looked at the data from Scandinavia and the Netherlands and found, "Divorce rates have not risen since the passage of partnership laws, and marriage rates have remained stable or actually increased." It's true that out-of-wedlock births have increased, but they were increasing long before this change, and, Badgett reports, they increased just as fast in the countries that don't sanction same-sex unions.
William Eskridge Jr. and Darren Spedale document the same patterns in their new book, "Gay Marriage: For Better or For Worse?" And they note that "children in Denmark and Sweden [and the Netherlands] are much more likely to be raised by their parents than American children." If banning gay marriage is supposed to help American kids, it isn't working.
There are lots of things that could be done in this country to encourage marriage, prevent divorce and improve the well-being of children. Keeping same-sex couples from the altar is not one of them.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
"What same-sex marriage offers, by contrast, is a safe harbor for those who prefer responsible monogamy to free love."
And of course, it said: "It's true that out-of-wedlock births have increased".....
BUT failed to mention that in DOING SO....this caused many, many more to seek out GOVERNMENT WELFARE to support these children THEY couldn't support alone.
THEY became MORE of a burden on SOCIETY - DEPENDENT on their taxpayers to support THEM.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation:
What would a Democrat president have done at that point? Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack.
Ann Coulter
[ edited by Linda_K on Nov 11, 2006 10:46 AM ]
posted on November 12, 2006 09:49:05 AM newGive it up....gay marriage has LOST in all but ONE state now.
Wow, you think I am just going to cut and run because gay marriage is only allowed in one state. This will not stop people for standing up and fighting for what they believe in.
You have not given one reason that is not based on hate and discrimination for why gay marriage should not be allowed. You say it is because of tradition but yet marriage over the past 2000 years has been redefined numerous times - the only constant that was has been one man, one woman for most of that time.
If the USSC court made inter-racial marriages legal, I see a time where they will step in and allow same sex marriages legal.
It is people like you Linda that want to run peoples lives. Tell them what they can and can not do with the bodies and personal choices. Well you and your people do not control others despite what you may think or want. People are free to do what they and with whom.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on November 12, 2006 02:48:42 PM new
Because you don't like the reasons I've given, over and over and over again....doesn't mean you weren't given reasons.
And on the gay marriage issue going to the USSC....it just did...not that long ago...and THEY sent it back to the state that was hoping they'd address it.
Even the 9th circuit court...THE most liberal of all....voted against them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation:
What would a Democrat president have done at that point? Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack.
Ann Coulter
[ edited by Linda_K on Nov 12, 2006 02:56 PM ]
posted on November 12, 2006 08:18:22 PM new
Well I didn't have to go far to find a thread linda derailed in the second post....proving AGAIN what a liar she is...
posted on November 12, 2006 08:31:44 PM new
No stretch to call you on all your laughable double standards.
You're no different that kaira....who 99% of her posts aren't on topic either....but that hasn't bothered any of you liberals. Never does.
Don't think others are blind to how most liberals only hold the opposing side to these laughable standards you whine about all the time...but don't feel they/you have to do the same.
It's funny to read. Talk about being juvenile.....LOL
While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation:
What would a Democrat president have done at that point? Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack.
Ann Coulter
