The Massachusetts SC &Gavin Newsom set back gay rights for years [View All]

The Massachusetts ruling was a bad idea.

Here's why. The Supreme Court should never have told the state that what is normally a religious institution, should be implemented for all. If the state had declared that the status should be equal rights and benefits similar to that of Vermont it would have had less of an impact nationwide.

Do I personally have a problem with gay marriage? Hell no. I think gays and lesbians should have all the same rights as heterosecual c couples. I also don't have any personal definition of marriage defining it between just a man and a woman.

As for Newsom, I don't know much about him, but his whole thing seemed like a stunt. The timing was not good.

We knew Rove had these issues out there. Many of the state ballot initiatives regarding gay marriage were in response to the Massachusetts SC ruling. Since the decision had been left up to the states, people freaked out that "judicial activist judges" would redifine marriage. Personally I'm surprised it got so many people to the polls. I myself agree with a person at TNR that said before the election it seemed like background noise and that the issue had died down to some extent.

Unfortunately I was wrong. Homophobia is much more mainstream than I would have imagined.

The democratic party should not give up its support for equal rights for gays and lesbians. We were right to reject the gay marriage amendment that Bush proposed.

However at the same time, gay marriage itself is in the near term absolutely impossible. Civil unions may be workable, but even that is a longshot in many states. While the ruling in MA may have been good for gay and lesbian couples in that state, it may be argued that it caused a backlash in many other states. For example, the initiative passed in the state of MI is one of the most restrictive - and it may ban civil unions as well.

The issue has seemingly bothered so many in what is part of the democratic base as well. I was speaking to a friend of mine that lives in Detroit. He's African American and voted straight democratic. He despises Bush.

However, when it came to Proposal 2, he just said "Yeah I voted for it. Fuck those f@ggots" Unfortunately this is probably the attitude of many new Hispanic immigrants as well. Many are strong Catholics and are socially conservative and Kerry got a lower % of them than Gore did. My guess is that gay marriage has had a bigger impact than all the years we've been dealing with abortion.

The sad thing is it didn't even surprise me. This was probably view of so many. The sad thing is my state probably had the second lowest % for passing the initiative (~60%, second to probably Oregon, where it also passed), compared to as high as 80% for Mississippi.