The haters don't realize their battle is already lost.

Once gay marriage is endorsed by law, gay sex education will be in our schools, gay issues will be front and center in our media and gay politicians will make the rules (go, Barney Frank!).

Gay. It's the new power in town. You have to get used to it, "whether you like it or not", to quite Gavin Newsom!

The majority doesn't matter if you are well organized and well capitalized.

Accept it or get out of the way.

Laurel is up to her usual ham handed bloviation on this subject. Check this:

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/04/poll-new-york-state-favors-legalizing-gay-marriage.php

Though I'm sure she'll come up with some anecdotal nonsense about "some people" she knows in upstate to argue that poll numbers are lies, and that the majority (of course) support her position.

I'll be happy in old age looking back at this time and laughing at all the bull that was spread about this by conservatives and their fellow travelers.

Here's an anecdote of my own. Last year my half-black brother got married to his white girlfriend. There was one (one!) uncle of hers who wouldn't come to their wedding because she was "marrying a black man". Everybody else thought he was an a-hole loser. Fourty years ago the happy couple would have probably had to elope for fear of the family's reaction. Now, the one (one!) old douchebag who didn't attend for racist reasons is considered the outcast, the backwards idiot. All barely two generations since the end of anti-micegenation laws.

This is the future that people of Laurel's ilk have to look forward to, if they don't re-evaluate their attitudes. And rightly so.

You will lose! There will be equal marriage for gays - or should I say equal rights for two citizens to enter into a legal contract that allows them state and federal tax benefits and automatic rights to protect their loved ones and children.

Is it fun to look in the mirror and think "Those gays aren't equal to me - i hate them and want them to be treated as second class citizens. They are not equal to MY relationship. I'm terrified of their relationship being called the same word as mine." What's that like? What's it like to think "I don't want those gays to be able to have automatic rights to visit their partner in the hospital." etc, etc, etc.

Bottom line. Ultimatley, you'll lose.

Sucks for you and all who think like you! Look closer in that mirror of yours, maybe you'll finally see what a shitty person you are. Though I doubt it.

Thanks, Laurel1962, for reminding me.

Here's to ad hoc polyamorous arrangements of anybody and everybody.

I think it's also called freedom.

Wasn't there a poll recently that showed that a majority of New Yorkers were in favor of same-sex marriage?

Opponents of marriage equality take it as a matter of faith that the majority of any state would support their position, but experience has shown and is showing that there is a big chunk in the middle what rapidly swings to the side of equality once they see that for one thing, civilization doesn't end and also that their peers aren't afraid to come out and support it. This happened in Massachusetts, it's happening in the rest of New England, and soon it will be happening, if it hasn't already, in New York and Iowa.

They also start attending some same-sex weddings, which is a major ah-ha! moment for a lot of straight people who hadn't necessarily thought much about it before.

Among young people, support for marriage equality is overwhelming. In twenty years, there will be little opposition left. Change like this can come quickly once a community takes a courageous stand. I once saw a poll from 1959 that said that 95% of whites were opposed to interracial marriage. How much attitudes had changed by 1979! And opposition to same-sex marriage is nowhere near 95% today.

Luckily, we live in a Constitutional Republic where we are governed by the Constitution not by the majority. It was setup this way to protect miniorities FROM the majority. The majority is not always correct. The majority would have upheld laws against inter-racial marriage, but those laws were unconstitutional. Someday, Laurel you may not be in the majority and will thank your luck stars that the majority does not rule (or at least should not rule) in this country.

What do you base your objection to gay marriage on? A few lines in the bible? The bible also says that women who dress in clothes that pertainth to a man are an abomination. It says that eating shell fish is an abomination. It says that working on the sabbith is a sin. Do you suport laws to discriminate against women who wear pants, or people that work on sundays or people eating at Red Lobster?

Why do you hate our gay brothers and sisters?

Why the oppression, why the hate?

Feminism is all the answer you need to hear.

Vagina = Love = Inclusion

Marriage (from the Old English "myrigge" n. - enslavement of women) is getting an overhaul.

No longer the concentration camp of the soul (to quote Betty Friedan), it is a free and open institution that lets in all who wish, as long as they are not oppressive to the traditional victim classes.

The end of the nuclear family is to be celebrated, and is part of the crumbling of patriarchal structures that have led to the destruction of Gaia, endless wars and other atrocities.

Praise the Goddess, a New Age is dawning.

Do you even know anything? NY State, has some of the biggest rednecks in the world. Downstate is not all of NYS. Never was. Never will be. They even TALK southern up round Halfmoon and points north.

Hopefully state senators like Ruben Diaz won't encourage New York to defy geography and mutate into a "flyover state." Imagine the horror if Iowa is actually more progressive than we are!

Why? Because they are clearly NOT representing the wishes of their constituents, but instead pushing a minority-interest social agenda. Undoubtedly there is a lot of big money behind this, just as in California there was considerably more money spent FIGHTING Prop 8 than there was supporting it ($38mill vs. $30mill).

Governor Paterson has approval ratings so low they make Dubya look like he was a popular and successful president. This is a last gasp effort by a failed politician to exploit what he can, while he can, on his way down. Paterson and the deceitful Assemblymen will eventually face the wrath of the voting public; of that I feel confident.

As far as Russia -- well it's a tragically sad day when a corrupt, ex-communist country has a more sensible legal code than most of the United States. I think it is time that WE adopt a family code that is so sensible and simple, that it can call specifically for the CONSENT of ONE MAN and ONE WOMAN to create a marriage, and not an ad hoc polyamorous arrangement of anybody and everybody.

If Governor Paterson was a decent or competent man (or effective governor), he would be instituting exactly that -- not forcing gay marriage on his state.