The scale and intensity of what happened during WWII under the Nazi's isn't anywhere near something like this. A few people most citizens never heard of might get their hand slapped but I'm not expecting much of anything to come of this. If someone does go to trial, it'll be full of running in legal circles with eventually some settlement that ends up as a corner story on page 3 of the NYTimes.

I'm not saying I agree with it but a few people in the bureaucracy that did something illegal isn't going to capture headlines that a major scandal or even Obama's dog does. Most people simply do not care or didn't care we were torturing people in the first place. We can go around and around about the ethics of something like this but in the end, I don't think it has enough momentum to ever become anything substantial not to mention if there is even any legal path for this type of thing. It would be nice and I am surprised and happy Obama did this, but I think it's just not in the cards.

I want to know more about that quiz. I wonder what the correct answer is. I assume, due to Palin's non-answers in the debate with Biden, that she would use them because she has no clue about them at all. Of course context matters, but I'm really intrigued by this type of quiz that they gave and wonder what the "correct" answers really were.

but marriage as the best way to establish an enduring relationship between adults to best protect the interests of children and, to some degree, women. Marriage established a mechanism for the training and upbringing of children and provided for the disposition of familial assets in ways that protected the property rights of those who had a share in creating the assets in the first place.

Over two millennia society has concluded that the best way to do that is a sanctioned relationship between a man and a woman. And conservatives, as a general rule, have an interest in conserving those traditions.

However, history is not so supportive of this argument - specifically protecting the interests of women. If "enduring" relationships were the norm, then why does the society have such high divorce rates? How do homosexual relationships compare? Furthermore, are there unbiased studies that actually determine that upbringing of children by a gay couple is harmful to children over a heterosexual one? What about the creation of assets? How does a opposite sex couple make this an issue in protecting those assets over a homosexual one? I remain unconvinced that this is the "best way".

Second, there is the consideration of what we might call "the sacred," the truths that come from faith. Our social order -- and our civil code -- comes primarily from our religious institutions. For those for whom the sacred is of paramount importance, the acceptance of gay marriage into the social order, which would be greatly advanced by the imprimatur of state approval, should not be encouraged. These folks, regardless of what faith they profess, whether Jewish, Muslim, Protestant, Catholic or Pentecostal, are likely to be more intense in their opposition to gay marriage than other conservatives.

However, religious institutions have been forced to change consistently over time to adhere to our liberal society that supports civil liberties. To simply state the argument like "it's been like this forever" glosses over the many historical connections to civil liberties and civil rights where our institutions had to adapt. I agree that this society is heavily based on religious tenants, but that does not mean that they should not adapt to new changes in society. Was inter-racial marriage an issue in the 1900's? What about a woman's place in society? Did those social practices violate "sacred" truths? I believe that they did and by no means is this an exhaustive list.

I have yet to see a convincing argument that the effort to force gay marriage on the nation is effectively divorced from the effort to force people to change their views on homosexuality.

A convincing argument is that we are creating a subset of citizens in the country that are not eligible to the same rights as others. The civil rights era immediately comes to mind. Of course this is not the same thing, if it were then there would be no debate because the issue would be settled by precedent. However, the argument is still valid. American history is full of stories where we segment populations that are "different" than "us" by some "moral" or "logical" argument. Yet in each case, these segmentation's violated the rights of citizens guaranteed by the constitution and people *were* forced to change their views on that particular segment of society - Women, Slavery, Japanese, Jim Crow, and now Homosexuals. In Democrat's minds these groups are no different.

Wingnut, to your credit you have given the most logical explanation that I have seen to date on this issue from the conservative standpoint. I clearly find flaws in that logic however, I'm hopeful that you will find places of agreement and places of debate on this issue, which you then communicate to your party faithful so we can have a better dialogue. Right now there seems to be no connection either way and as a result, we back into corners while painting each side as either bigots or people that want to destroy religion as we know it. I don't believe either are correct nor are they healthy positions to take on the issue.