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Now you're getting Wiggy with it

Great column!!! At least CA can fix this in Nov. As Abraham Lincoln said,\"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.\" Turns out that WI voters were
aware of the potential of an activist court and shut the \"door\" tight...Or as G.W.Bush put it, “You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on.\" We were not fooled!!!
JMW'DAD | 05.23.08 - 10:08 am | #

$\"Gravatar\"$ Since you put your foot in it a lot http://wigdersonlibrarypub.blogs...7-for-2007.html I especially like the Doyle prediction. I will do a prediction.

The Assembly and Senate will be Democratic the next two years and will take up the constitutional amendment next year and the following.

The referendum in 2010 will see a demographic shift in the electorate caused by the Obama campaign voter registration effort and the repeal will pass by a thin margin.
vic | 05.23.08 - 1:48 pm | #

$\"Gravatar\"$ The ballot inititve to amdend the CA State Constution has no chance of passing. Even GOP state legislators think it is a ridiculous idea. It has very little supoort and the proponents keep turning in signatures of people who don't actaully live in CA.
DaveinSF | Homepage | 05.23.08 - 3:42 pm | #

$\"Gravatar\"$ Just as you are thankful that WI need not \"fear\" the horror that my good friends Jody and Dennis, (who after years of buidling life, a thriving small business and a family together,) can now make a public and legally binding affirmation of their relationship.

Likewise, now thanks to our state Supreme Court they don’t have to fear that California “will be forced to recognize” Wisconsin's bigotry.

Although, You clearly are right when you say WI does have much better cheese.
DaveinSF | Homepage | 05.23.08 - 4:10 pm | #

$\"Gravatar\"$ Come to San Francisco....spend some time here with gay couples who want to get married.....spend time in a small city densely populated with many diverse cultures, ethnicities and races...You may come away to find that we gat along here due to tolerance and compassion....come back to Milwaukee and wonder why you live in such a racially segegated city....I left Milwaukee in 1981 and made SF my home.....it saddens me to see how Milwaukee is but a hollow shell....meanwhile continue your theological debates on gay marriage whilst you live in a city of intolerance and segregation
Anonymous | 05.24.08 - 4:21 am | #

$\"Gravatar\"$ I find it curious that you used the term \"unprecedented\" to describe the California Supreme Court's decision. In fact, this decision was based squarely upon precedent. The court followed its previous decision, striking down a law which prohibited persons from marrying persons of another race. Just as the court found that earlier law infringed upon a person's constitutional right to marry, the court found that this current law did the same. So, while you can disagree with this decision, you can hardly call it unprecedented.
MFD | 05.24.08 - 3:55 pm | #

$\"Gravatar\"$ Don't forget that there's at least one case in Wisconsin challenging the constitutionality of the constitutional amendment!
Simon Dodd | Homepage | 05.25.08 - 12:02 am | #

$\"Gravatar\"$ Always amusing to see snide and arrogant Californians trying to sell/donate their pseudosophisitication to us rubes here in the midwest.
quietman | 05.25.08 - 9:23 am | #

$\"Gravatar\"$ Anon,
On thing for sure, our teen pregnancy rate would go down.

\"whilst you live in a city of intolerance and segregation\"
Steve Edlund | 05.25.08 - 5:51 pm | #

$\"Gravatar\"$ Anon, apparently you didn't learn any geography while living in Wisconsin. I happily live to the west of 124th street.

MFD, the ruling is unprecedented in that no prior court found this right to same-sex marraige before. And where the previous ruling did not alter the definition of marriage, this ruling does, and opens the court to further revisions of the definition. Polygamy, polyandry, incest, plural marriage with minors...
james wigderson | Homepage | 05.25.08 - 7:42 pm | #

$\"Gravatar\"$ ....the right to marry your cousin's german shepherd and obtain health benefits.....
quietman | 05.26.08 - 10:51 am | #

$\"Gravatar\"$ BS!
Tim | Homepage | 05.26.08 - 12:07 pm | #

$\"Gravatar\"$ Hey there quietman

Find me German Shepherd who is

1) Over 18 Yrs age

2) Can read, fill out then sign an application for marriage license.

3) Can Say \"I do\"

Then your argument might be wortht taking seriously. But as reality stands, your point is as ridiculous now as it was when it was put forward as a rational against inter-racial marriage 50 yrs ago. You might want to adjust your wardrobe, your white sheet is showing.
daveinSF | Homepage | 05.27.08 - 2:58 pm | #

$\"Gravatar\"$ Why is it ridiculous? When the traditional, historic understanding of marriage is disconnected from its context by a couple of judges, why limit it? Your abiilty to marry your dog is no less traditional than what you cry for, and at the end of the day, the result is the same. You have a ceremony that changes nothing.
quietman | 05.27.08 - 4:35 pm | #

$\"Gravatar\"$ Quietman - the difference is that an animal can't consent, in anything but a constructive sense, and marriage without consent isn't any kind of marriage. I do agree with your general point that once you abandon the role of tradition in giving content to marriage, it's hard to identify a stopping point. The slippery slop leads to polygamy, however, not marrying one's pet.
Simon | Homepage | 05.27.08 - 9:11 pm | #

$\"Gravatar\"$ Wiggy,

Since the California Supreme Court based its decision upon the California Constitution, no other high court in the country could have reached that conclusion first.

But, speaking more broadly, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court was actually the first high court in the US to strike down a law prohibiting same-sex marriage, back in 2004.

As to your other point, of course the CA Sup Ct's earlier decision allowing blacks to marry whites \"altered the definition of marriage\" -- what was previously a civil contract into which two adults of the same race and opposite genders could enter, was suddenly a civil contract into which two adults of any race and opposite genders could enter.

And now the CA Sup Ct has further altered the definition of marriage -- what was previously a civil contract into which two adults of opposite genders could enter, was suddenly a civil contract into which two adults of any sexes could enter.

That's the way the law works -- slowly and laboriously making sure that our statutes don't violate our constitutions.

Finally, as to your contention that allowing two adults of the same sex to marry will invariably lead to marriages involving infants, animals and large crowds of people, that's what we in the law biz call a classic \"slippery slope\" argument.

But the decision allowing same-sex marriage is not a step onto that slippery slope. All it says is that the valuable civil right to marry the adult person you love, which was previously extended only to heterosexual adults, must now be extended to homosexual adults as well.

And, just as heterosexual adults are not allowed to marry children, animals or multitudes of other adults, neither are those rights extended to homosexual adults.

And I have yet to hear a cogent explanation of why allowing two gay fellows in San Francisco get married will somehow weaken the marriage of a straight couple in Waukesha.

Perhaps you could give it a try?
MFD | 05.28.08 - 12:58 am | #

$\"Gravatar\"$ Let's cut the crap.

The gay agenda here is to obtain benefits, health insurance, life insurance, SSI etc. for a high risk lifestyle that the majority of society sees as immoral.

Ain't gonna happen.

End of story.
Anonymous | 05.28.08 - 6:44 am | #

$\"Gravatar\"$ Anonymous,

You're right, in the same way that opposite-sex marriage is at least partially to obtain benefits, health insurance, life insurance, SSI, etc., for your spouse.

As for high risk, who do you think will be having more serial sexual relationships -- a single gay guy, or a married gay guy? If the heterosexual model is any indication, the married guy may eventually be lucky to have any sex at all...

As for society's view of immorality, how do you explain the fact that Wisconsin -- and I imagine the majority of states -- have made it illegal to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation?

Sounds like you may not be in the majority, after all...
MFD | 05.28.08 - 11:41 am | #

$\"Gravatar\"$ MFD,

Several rambling points,

It's not the person's sexual orientation, it's the actions of the orientation such as sodomy which are view by the majority as immoral. You can be gay and abstain from sexual relations.

Gays can get employee benefits as singles so long as they are productive members of society and an employer provides them...even if you co-habitate

Why continue to make a farce of the institution of marriage? Are you saying that heterosexuals are the abnormal condition of human interaction?

Not every government institution agrees with sexual orientation being acceptable, i.e. don't ask, don't tell.

Yes, I am in the majority; that being outside of San Francisco.
Anonymous | 05.28.08 - 9:28 pm | #

$\"Gravatar\"$ Anon,

So I assume you have strictly avoided sodomy (commonly defined as genital-anal or genital-oral contact) throughout your entire lifetime?

And if your response is \"That's none of your damned business!\", then I think you're beginning to get the point that gays have been trying to make...

And do you really think that VP Cheney's daughter Mary would make a bigger farce of marriage than Britney Spears already has?
MFD | 05.29.08 - 10:19 am | #

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