If that's the worst Barack ever calls a woman in public, you should be glad (a little thoughtless, a little too familiar, but at least it was friendly).

Ref: John McCain (aka "Grampa McInsane") calling his trophy wife a "cunt".

But I guess, since your candidate is losing/has lost the nomination (and her loss is primarily due to HER ineptitude-- sorry, but it's true), you will now spend every waking moment parsing Barack's every utterance, scripted or not, for sexism.

Is playing "Gotcha!" making your Murano glass-fragile ego feel any better? IS IT ACCOMPLISHING ANYTHING?

How about stopping this nonsense and getting on with the important work at hand: Making sure McCain's only way to get into the White House is at the invitation of the Democratic occupant?

Thanks for letting us LGBT progressives know just how second-class we really are. It's good to know that, if the Reich Wing decides to recriminalize homosexuality, you'll be there to help them. Will you be sending the National Guard to round us faggots and dykes up into the prison camps, or should we just take ourselves there?

I bet you're still pissed at the Lovings for wanting to be married even though it violated Virginia's miscegenation laws. I mean, TRADITIONAL marriage in the 1960s was between people of the same race, and we can't break tradition. The Lovings vs. Virginia decision must have ushered in Nixon in your eyes.

Read the decision. It's amazingly clear and unambigious. Separate versus equal is against the US Constitution. It's against the California Constitution. The November amendment initiative will have to outlaw same-sex marriage AND simultaneously strike down the Equal Protection Clause of the California Constitution to be valid-- otherwise it will be 100% unconstitutional. The Reich-Wingers wouldn't DARE strike down the Equal Protection Clause.

The Red States have blown their wad on this issue.

If they have their little Defense of Marriage acts in place, their marriages are safe. They don't have to wait in line with TEH GAYS for their marriage licenses. And when the marriage ends, as odds say it will, in divorce (after all, the highest rates of divorce outside of Nevada are in Red States), they won't be in line with TEH GAYS to get the Divorce Decree.

What are Californians going to do: Emigrate to the Red States and force the citizens to marry someone of their own gender?!

We should be going to the Red States and forcing them to return all the Federal tax money WE Blur Staters are pouring into THEIR states, and getting NOTHING in return other than grief and stupidity.

..." Blur staters". Well, after a few Sierra Nevadas, it DOES get a bit blurry.

Which reminds me: I'm going to celebrate with my partner/now fiancé tonight! I asked and he said YES!!!

The upcoming amendment initiative will be immediately struck down as unconstitutional because of one simple but irrefutable fact:

The decision under discussion explicitly bases itself on the Equal Protection Clause of the California Constitution. The proposed constitutional amendment explicitly violates the Equal Protection Clause; to correct that, the amendment would have to at least partially strike down the Equal Protection Clause, which is, to put it mildly, unlikely.

I don't think Ah-nuld is so cynical that he's playing this as a Republican wedge issue. I think he truly is socially progressive on this issue and will fight to kill the amendment initiative.

Oh, and this Mary is an Obama supporter. Not all of us support the harpy in the pantsuit.

For someone who is a professor of ethics, you don't seem to see that what the Court has done IS ethical and right based upon sound Constitutional principles.

It seems kind of odd, doesn't it?!

I wrote in a fit of pique-- and wrote intemperately. And for that I apologize. Of course you never said such a thing.

But complaining about the timing, or how this plays into the hands of the Reich-Wingers, gets me very angry.

If someone isn't willing to say "fuck political expediency" and fight for EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL, how can he or she call themselves "progressive"?

The Equal Protection Clause enshrines concepts that are considered fundamental to the California Constitution. The proposed amendment initiative would be struck down as its application would violate that fundamental centerpiece of the Constitution.

As for the ridicule of the Red States: Oh, boo-hoo, the disapproval of people in Cobb County, Georgia is so important to me. I've seen the light! I'm going to renounce my homosexuality and go bang me a Hooters waitress, as JEE-SUS! truly intended, for so it is written in the Gospel According to Bubba.

And before anyone gets all indignant, I was born in Louisiana. My redneck cred is rock-solid. And I'm gay as a pink Prada clutch full of Pride Festival beer garden tickets and Judy Garland CDs.

The numbers in California are moving in the direction of equality for all. The pro- and anti-equality forces are roughly equal in the most recent polls.

The thing here is that those whose panties are most in a bunch are confusing the LEGAL meaning of "marriage" (rights, responsibilities, tax filings) with the RELIGIOUS (two queers walking down the aisle, holding hands and then KISSING, ewwwwwwww!!!!).

We don't do anything with the latter. Do we Catholics push our way into synagogues and force the rabbis to perform Catholic wedding ceremonies? If the churches don't want to perform same-sex wedding ceremonies, fine. We'll pay the JoP for the marriage license and have our own little party. And the churches and synagogues don't have to take our money and marry us.