GOP leader makes conservative pitch for No on 8 (same-sex marriage ban)

Source: Sacramento Bee

Former Republican Rep. Tom Campbell, who briefly served as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget director and is fundraising for a potential run for governor in 2010, has written an op-ed urging Republicans to vote against Proposition 8, the gay marriage ban.

... Campbell makes a limited government plea to conservatives for opposing the measure.

"Republicans believe deeply that government should be limited," he writes. "Government has no business making distinctions between people based on their personal lives."

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/latest/story/1341099.html

Government should keep its nose out of what happens to be a religous ceremony.

Left to those devices African-Americans would still be sitting at the back of the bus, Miscegenation laws would still be on the books and women would not have the right to vote.

...that Hispanics (my ethnic group) and African Americans specially are some of the most homophobic demographics.

Sigh.

Getting married in a church is a religious ceremony.

And is entirely up to the particular church as to whether to participate.

I'm glad this Repulican sees the distinction.

A civil ceremony guarantees the couples civil rights and privileges as being married.

A religious ceremony simply puts the church's stamp of approval on the couple being wed.

Big difference.

:toast:

with the notion that government should stay out of marriage because it's a religious ceremony. Marriage in our society is first and foremost a legal compact. Everything from tax benefits, inheritance, to hospital visitation are altered through marriage. Marriage, whether of a heterosexual or homosexual couple, can take place in a courthouse and has absolutely nothing to do with religion. That being said, I do support complete marriage equality being granted to any and all consenting adults. I suppose that I'd even be an example of the dangerous "slippery slope" mentality who believes that three adults should be allowed to be married to each other.

n/t

he's one of the good guys on that side of the aisle

I voted for him one year when he ran against DiFi for Senate

This was late 80s when he was in Congress from the Palo Alto area.

"I view myself as a fiscal conservative. I'm a social moderate. I believe a woman should control her own body. I don't care if somebody is gay or straight. Therefore I'm a moderate because of the present social issues that are part of our society."

Source: SF Chronicle interview 01/21/07
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/01/21/BUGE7NL9IF1.DTL

wingnuts.

It's a contract, a civil issue, and should be treated the same way all civil rights are treated. Equally. Period.

If you really want "marriage" to be a religious issue, get married in your damn church! But don't register that marriage with the state, because then it becomes a CIVIL issue, wherein your rights are defined by CIVIL law, voted on/in by your lawmakers. You vote for those lawmakers, they represent what you want to make as law. They CANNOT, by the U.S. Constitution, decide the issue based on religious issues!

I've never been able to understand why people who feel so strongly about "one man and one woman" crap can expect to be upheld by Constituional law. Not if they employ a little bit of the gray matter between their ears. Oh, wait, we're talking about Republicans.......... who SAY they want government off their backs, and they will BY GOD legislate it that way.......... :evilgrin: