Idaho donates $400K to pass gay marriage ban

Source: Associated Press

Campaign finance reports show Idaho residents contributed more than $400,000 to a Web site-based campaign in support of banning gay marriage in California.

... The Idaho donations were collected in a span of less than two weeks, beginning on Oct. 27 and ending on Election Day, and a bulk of the money came from the eastern region of the state.

The wife of Frank VanderSloot, president and CEO the Melaleuca Inc. healthcare products company, donated $100,000 and Idaho Falls businessman Kreg Davis donated $15,000 to the ProtectMarriage.com campaign.

Davis said his uncle is gay and lives in California with a partner.

"I want them to be treated with respect and dignity," Davis told the Post Register. "I want them to have equal rights and equal pay. At the same time, I believe children should be raised by a mom and a dad."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/11/09/state/n172743S91.DTL

NT!

Passed a couple years ago.

of gay friends (I'm a theater actor—go figure) and I pretty much hate "church people" now too, because they have gone out of their way to hurt my friends. In fact, over the last eight years, whenever I hear the word "Christian" now, I feel my face scrunch up into the same expression that it used to when I heard "brussels sprouts" when I was seven. I hear "Christian" and I think "mean, vindictive, smug, self-satisfied, arrogant, cruel..." You get the picture. Yes, I know all Christians are not like that. But the decent ones sure have made themselves pretty fucking scarce lately. Admit it, the mean breed of Christian has become the public face of Christianity in America.

I saw a great bumper sticker recently that said "Stop using Jesus as an excuse to be a narrow-minded bigoted asshole."

Very recently I had a conversation with a very devout Christian who left the church entirely because of the intense peer pressure to conform and become Republican. She said it was nearly impossible to express any view that wasn't the standard Neo-Con one. She also said that she endured years and years of that because just couldn't bring herself to leave the church.

I guess basically nearly the entirety of white American Christian churches became Neo-Con in belief.

She pointed out something very interesting. While these white American Christian churches have an all-out war against gays and spend a lot of money on that war, they do NOT have a war against adultery, which is not only throughout the Old and New Testaments, but also is one of the 10 Commandments. What more important war to have but against adultery, and they don't. Interesting, huh?

And I love that bumper sticker!

In 1980, they were all hard core Democrat backing Jimmy Carter, but, one by one they fell under the spell of Pat Robertson, Falwell and their ilk and they all became hard core Republicans by 1984. Every one of them went from Jesus Loves Me to Jesus Hates You and I despise what Jesus did to my family.

he was into psychics and astrology.

"protecting marriage", why these legislators don't outlaw adultery? Surely that would do more to protect marriage than preventing people who love each other from marrying would? I suspect it would make it harder for them to continue porking their mistresses if they passed such a law, lest it become a liability if they were caught in a felony adultery while trying to run for reelection...

they're not.

The Republic Party talks the Jesus talk but they walk the Ayn (AS IN MINE) Rand Walk!

maybe they're giving them all a bad name
:shrug:

because they also want to ban domestic partnerships, civil unions, cohabitation, and if they have their way, gay people altogether.

Pretending it's only over the word marriage is just a trick.

And when they take away all the rights of gay people, they're coming after yours.

the churches don't want to see any sort of equality for homosexuals, but the way they motivate people to vote against this is by capitalizing on the blurry line between civil and religious marriage.
Unblur that line and their support falls through the floorboards.

Most of the people I've talked to who are against gay marriage will also say "of course gay people should have equal rights.. but marriage is between a man an a woman"
They vote against gay marriage because it's seen as an incursion of the state into a religious institution.
And until it's called something other than 'marriage' the churches will successfully get a LOT of people to oppose it based on religious reasons.
Their support will disappear when it's not called 'marriage'

To be clear, I'm not calling for civil unions in addition to marriage.
I think the fight should be to get govt to issue civil union licenses rather than marriage licenses on the basis that govt. has no right to assume the role of the church.
Let the churches marry or not marry whoever they want.
After that the issue moves from being one of equal rights to one of religious freedom (for churches that want to marry homosexuals)

Arguing against freedom of religion will be more of an uphill battle than fighting to get people to accept something their religion tells them is wrong.

It might be a good first step.

but disagree with the people who say the churches just object to the word marriage. Once they get over that hurdle, they will come after the rest of our rights. This isn't about a word. This is about their hunger for control and their hatred of anyone who isn't them.

If they manage to marginalize the gays and lesbians, then they'll start with another group.

So, pretending that if we just give the word "marriage" (which I'm hearing a lot from some gay people) that they will back off just isn't true.

In fact, one of the early drafts of Proposition 8, wanted to base marriage rights on DNA tests to determine the number of chromosomes someone had.

This is war -- not a semantic squabble.

I've long advocated what most other civilized countries do -- anyone who wants to get married has to enter a civil union. The civil union grants all your tax benefits, property rights, everything. At that point, you are married. Then, those who want can go to churches, mosques, whatever and get whatever they get. That, however, has nothing to do with any civil benefits -- merely religious. Priests, rabbis, imams, ministers should not be able to determine my tax status, property rights, inheritance.

But, they will fight that to. They want to destroy gay people. The idea that it's about the word "marriage" is just wrong.

I don't think this would magically make churches accept homosexuals because it's no longer called marriage.
But it's all about equal rights - not church acceptance.
If everybody gets the same rights I don't care what it's legally called.

Many of the people who are dead set on the word 'marriage' are more interested in tilting at religion than the real issue - otherwise the word used wouldn't matter.
Moving away from the religiously charged term 'marriage' makes sense if you believe in separation of church and state.

It's a secular word -- and the breakdown in the separation of church and state allowed clergy to participate in marriage. Then, they thought the word was theirs.

People can go to the city hall and get "married" without a clergyman in sight. And, it's not that the civil officials have co-opted the word marriage. It's the other way around.

My biggest concern is that we get into a mode of appeasement. These people can never be appeased. In places where marriage was banned, then they went after civil unions and domestic partnerships. In Arkansas they went after heterosexual people who weren't "married."

This is a much bigger fights and we need to realize that.

You're right that they use the word "marriage" to motivate people, but that's just a temporary thing. They will find something else to motivate them with.

We need to really be looking at the core of the problem, which is the drive of these churches to establish a theocracy -- a Taliban-like rule. That's what we need to be motivating our side with, instead of thinking we can win this thing with a slight semantic change.

For the record, I used to believe the idea that I didn't care what they called it as long as I had the same rights, and was willing to give up on the word "marriage," but I've moved away from that thinking. This is a much more fundamental (pardon the expression) battle. We need to dig in somewhere. Appeasement isn't going to do it.

you're right, they will find whatever reason they want to for denying equality. But they've been unusually successful in getting otherwise fair minded people to agree with them in elections on the subject.

The central message they've been able to effectively enunciate is "Your heterosexual marriage is just different from (and better than) whatever those people have, you need to 'protect' your specialness," has resonated with too many people who really are not that into discrimination based on orientation. That's the message we have to confront and defeat.

The bible?
~250ad

Egyptians?
~1000BC

Babylonians?
~17000BC

Sumerians?
~4000BC

This isn't to say that marriage didn't serve a very practical societal function, but with very few exceptions, it has historically been associated with religion.
Which isn't surprising as religion, historically, is really nothing more than a vehicle for societal structure.

The impetus for people to join in a contract with a life partner to build a home, raise a family, etc. etc. and further his/her group isn't religious ... it's societal.
Calling that marriage very clearly has a religious basis, as do the rituals and myths that were built up around marriage.

support gay marriage. The church I belong to marries gays.

about 1000 of their churches also voted not to support so it was 50/50 with them.

I realize there are churches that do accept gay marriage and I apologize for misspeaking.
My line of logic, turning this into a religious freedom issue, actually relies on that fact.

The only churches I saw in the battle were those on the Yes side. I sure did NOT see any on the NO side!

And when they take away all the rights of gay people, they're coming after yours

Who do you think will be next... people who were married in civil ceremonies? or people married by Elvis Impersonators? or all Vegas weddings? They need to be stopped right now. This isn't going to be easy but it can be done.

I was married at a civil ceremony by an Elvis impersonator in Las Vegas
:scared:

...it was really pretty fun :D

Fuck 'em!

You sanctimonious POS.

In fact, I hope the following conversation ensues:

Kreg Davis: WTF?!

Uncle: Kreg, I want you to have every happiness you helped deny me with your money - the wonderful life we both deserve but you helped take away from me with your donation. At the same time, I think you're a little fucking asshole and I never want to hear from you again.

and Karl would come out here to visit him -- even as he was bashing gay people.

I never heard that before (entirely possible, since it seems sometimes that I live under a rock).

-- his father is dead now I think, but he lived with his partner in Palm Springs. KKKarl used to come to visit him, at the same time he was cozying up to the religious right to gay bash

They're not interested in live and let live- given the chance, they'll use whatever resources they have to push their dysfunctional dogma on people in every other state- and every other country.

by a dad and a mom and a mom and a mom and a mom.........?:9

---how lame must their lives be?

It's one thing to just fill in a blank on a ballot, denying gays the right to marry with a vote. But, funneling your own money to campaign to stop gays from marrying means they are OBSESSED. That means they are obsessed with gay sex, right? I mean, WTF else could it mean?

If I had any money to spend on a cause, it would be for some kindhearted cause, to help animals, children, the hungry or homeless. But I have a lot of things higher on my spending priority list than any cause. Like a nice dinner to share with friends, and some new shoes. I just REALLY don't understand how anyone could care so much about stopping gay marriage that they would throw money at it. Those people have no joy in their own lives, obviously. Maybe they think they do, because they are told that their church's faith gives them joy. In reality, it's all they've got, and they want everyone else to be miserable.

If you want children to be "raised by a mom and a dad," why not focus your energies on a much more pressing cause of kids not having two opposite sex parents -- heterosexual divorce? Could it be because you're still wrapped up in some kind of insecure junior high mind frame? Could it be that you're an insecure asshole? David: I hope your wife leaves you for another woman, and you have to watch your kids be raised by two happy, successful (and unmarried) lesbians.

Turnabout is fair play. Those Biblethumpers should be forced to follow the rulebook like everyone else!

Christian America embraces the cult of the Fetus. They are obsessed with Freddy and Freida Fetus. BUT, once Freddy and Freida pop out, they're on their own and if they starve to death, Christians just shrug their shoulders and utter the tried and true bullshit about God's will.

Even if the mom and dad are the lousiest parents on the planet? Or perhaps don't really want the child. Of are both insane or psychotic or....

How about children being raised by caring individuals of any number and gender?

This myth that moms always love their children or dads know what's best for children has got to end. It may be true a lot of the time, but not always. And the not always kind is a lot more prevalent than you might think at first.

I guess I was supposed to run out and find the first guy in a pair of pants to make sure there was a dad around.
what a crock.

:sarcasm:

Especially in the southern and eastern areas.

It's mostly the Mormons in Idaho who behind this.

Thanks, brentspeak.

it's not like Idaho legislators appropriated money that the governor signed off on to spend in California to promote discrimination. Idaho has a fairly large proportion of Mormons, not as much as Utah, but the number is way more than it is for most of the states.

Equal is Equal OR it's not.

It's just that simple to me.

and lead the country on giving gays equal rights.