OBAMA said,

"I believe marriage is a union between a man and a woman. Now, for me as a Christian, it is also a sacred union. God is in the mix."

Obama says he does not support completely equal rights for gay people and his supporters here in Calf voted against equality, especilly his Black and Latino supporters.

Doesn't anyone think the time has come for a movement to get government out of the matrimony business? I think most of us would be horrified by the idea of government baptizing us, but we fight tooth and nail for the "privilege" or "right" of having the government marry us.

I learned that marriage is a sacrament, a consecration of a love between two people. It's something that should be in the domain of religion and private belief, not the government. Let the government provide civil unions to all, period.

Rather than seeking to expand the state's role in our personal lives, we should be seeking to reduce it.

Can it be as simple as this, the government would recognize and sanction the union of two adults, with legal and mental capacity to consent to join in a monogamous union obligating to each other legal rights and responsibilities and thus availing themselves to federal and state protection, accommodation and regulation, i.e., a civil union.

By its very definition, marriage (a union of a man and a woman), is an under inclusive legal term for use in a society that strives to ensure due process and equal protection to all similarly situated persons under the law. The term civil union most accurately describes the socio/political construct of a state sanctioned union. It is all inclusive in that it can pertain to both heterosexual and homosexual couples.

After two days of altering between soul-crushing numbness and sadness, today I spilled over into anger. I saw an elderly woman and her daughter trying to get a wheelchair into a car and having a lot of trouble. I was ready to help them but saw their Yes on 8 bumpersticker and cursed at them instead. That made me take a deep breath, step back, and think about how I want to handle this. I don't want to see my family's rights taken away, but I also don't want to become a monster so full of anger I draw pleasure from cursing at an elderly woman.

Then, I thought about the advantage of time. As wrong and unjust as it may seem, we wont' get to marriage just like that. That is just the political reality. It could go to the U.S. Supreme Court, but, in the Court's current form, we'd lose.

However, President Obama is going to have to extend some type of olive branch to the GLBT community. We've seen too many Democrats come around for our votes at election time, but then ignore us afterward.

A good start would be what I call the "Human Dignity Provisions"

a) health insurance benefits provided to an individual are not taxed, regardless of whom they are for.

b) Hospital visitation rights are granted to people in committed relationships. This would be an *easy* political point to make. Anyone who fought against allowing people who had lived togthter for 20, 30 or 40 years not to see each other in the hospital would be percieved as a mean person, and rightly so. This seem *very* safe politically.

c) In the unfortunate event one partner dies, the other shall determine what arrangements are made for burial, cremation etc.

Next, add some inheritance rights, and a few other rights here or there. Finally, add a full Federal Civil Union that would have all of the same features of "marriage", but just wouldn't be marriage. Deal with a couple weeks of screaming and political blowback, then come out with some new plan that everyone moves onto and talks about.

Within five years of that happening, business would complain about the burden of having to maintain two parallel systems for Federal Civil Unions that also have different rules in other cities and states. A few more years would go by and maintaining these two separate systems would be so work that they would be merged into one. Effectively, everyone would get a civil union from their state, with their church giving them a "marraige" if they met the requirements of that church. The "marriage" would have no more benefits than a civil union, beyond those the church which performed it chose to give.

If Prop 8 had FAILED by a margin of 1%, you'd all be braying and squeeing that it showed what brilliance and common sense and highly evolved consciousness the voters of California all had. However, when you LOSE, they are "stupid and religious" and the only response is to whistle in the dark and hope President-Elect Obama is stupid enough to throw away the good will and hopefullness of his "honeymoon phase" of a new administration to focus on YOUR PERSONAL PECADILLOS and ignore, oh, let's say the economy, jobs, health care, TWO FOREIGN WARS, tanking stock market...did I miss anything? Oh, none of that's important until we get GAY MARRIAGE in all 50 states. (Let's conveniently forget that 41 OTHER STATES have already banned gay marriage by a vote of the actual citizens as opposed to having it forced on them by judicial fiat as is the case in every single situation where gay marriage exists, including Massachusetts, Canada, Spain, etc.) Obviously as usual, the people are too stoooopid to know what is good for them.

I seem to recall a couple of articles on Salon saying that "polls" showed Prop 8 was going to lose big time, because you know all those young voters who are so wildly in favor of gay marriage. I'd google it and post a link, but it's 2AM and I'm just not in the mood. Go do it yourself.

You lost. As usual. Shut up and accept it. Every single time a gay marriage issue in on the ballot, even in liberal blue states like California and Oregon, people re-affirm their desire to keep marriage just the way it is.

As far you delusional nutjobs who apparently LITERALLY BELIEVE that anyone is going to do away with marriage entirely as a legal concept and just have "civil unions for everyone" -- I suggest you get a reality check by going to the local bookstore or anyplace that sells a lot of magazines, and check out the dozens of publications ENTIRELY DEVOTED TO MARRIAGE (bridal magazines, etc.): you seriously think anyone is going to give this up? You think there is a future somewhere when people will publish a magazine called "Civil Union" or "Domestic Partner!" and anyone will buy it?

You know, maybe you can also convince people to dress only in dark blue Maoist pajamas all the time. And ride bicycles to work (even in Midwestern blizzards). And eat nothing but Soylent Green. I mean, you know -- maybe it will happen!

For the record, though it's now quite boring to have to repeat: Marriage was not invented by the Catholic Church (or any church) in the 1950s. Marriage was not "invented" by ANY religion. Religion has co-opted marriage, but MARRIAGE is the oldest human institution and existed for milennia before there was anything like conventional religion.

Human beings have been getting married pretty much since they could walk upright. And yet no human culture or society has EVER had anything like gay marriage. It's always perfectly clear, even to the most primitive cave dweller or hunter-gatherer, that MARRIAGE is a relationship between a MAN AND A WOMAN. There are many, many other kinds of relationships in the world and many of them are indeed very valid and very important, and worthy of respect. However, that does not make them "marriages".

Let's face it: if even the kooky nutjobs of California can recognize this, all your panting and ranting has not accomplished very much.

Frankly, I think Obama is just plain too smart to hand conservatives a nice big bloody chunk of sharkbait just this minute. I could be wrong, but I just don't see it.

Nice try, you guys. Remember, if WE had lost in California, we'd be sucking it up and taking our loss with some dignity. Why don't YOU try and do the SAME?