Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] Obama's Gay Marriage Flip Flop

[Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Tue, 1 Jul 2008, Vern Green wrote:

>> If Obama were to be perfectly consistent in his positions, where should 
>> he stand now?  In favor of civil unions, but California is not heading 
>> that way -- they are going either for marriage with full legal 
>> protections, or for no legal protection at all.
>
> Where are you getting this?  I happen to know for fact that is not true. 
> The constitutional amendment merely says this:
>
> SECTION I. Title
>
> This measure shall be known and may be cited as the "California Marriage 
> Protection Act."
>
> SECTION 2. Article I. Section 7.5 is added to the California 
> Constitution. to read:
>
> Sec. 7.5. Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized 
> in California.
>
> That says nothing about Civil Unions being changed in one slightest bit. 
> So if Obama supports civil unions, then he should be supporting this 
> Constitutional Amendment

Maybe I misunderstood California law.  I was assuming that California was 
allowing gay marriage but that they did not have civil unions for 
homosexuals that gave them the same legal protections as marriage.  So I 
was assuming that if the marriage option were removed, they would have to 
draft another law to allow civil unions.  Is that not how things are in 
California?  If it is how things are, then I think I had it right above.


>> This is not inconsistent with wanting states to decide gay marriage 
>> issues.  If he wants states to decide, that means he opposes a national 
>> ban on gay marriage.  It does not mean that he won't tell states what 
>> he would like to see them doing.  What he'd like to see is civil unions 
>> -- less divisive, full legal protection.
>
> But that is not what he is supporting. Civil Unions are already allowed in
> California  and the ballot measure in November will not change that.

But are the rights in civil unions the same as the rights in marriage?


> So again, why doesn't he just say what he believes in? The only thing 
> that the civil union law does not give is the way people file taxes. If 
> there is a benefit from filing jointly, which I personally believe there 
> is no benefit to and why it is not included, then gay civil unions 
> partners do not get it. I personally believe that if there was some 
> benefit to filing joint taxes, then that provision would have made it 
> into the Civil Unions legislation, since it does not, or at least did 
> not when it was passed, then it was left out. Everything else is 
> legalized.

If you have that right, then he has a lot less reason to oppose the 
amendment, but he does feel that it is a hateful and bigoted maneuver.  He 
also definitely opposes such an amendment to the constitution.


> If Obama wanted to be consist and did not want to pander to gays in this 
> state, he would simply say, "I support civil unions, however I would 
> like California to make civil unions equal to marriage in everyway." He 
> cannot say that though, since his base would get upset with him, so he 
> has to drum up some ridiculous statement that he opposes the 
> Constitutional Amendment on the grounds that it is not "equal" to a 
> marriage in every way.

I don't think gay marriage is a big deal except among homosexuals and they 
will vote for him anyway.  Only about 2.5% of people are homosexual.


>> I think he makes a lot of sense.
>
> In this, he really does not, if he is saying that this amendment will 
> ban civil unions for gays as well, then he makes absolutely no sense at 
> all. If he is picking nits over the ability to file joint tax returns as 
> the basis for his disapproval, then he is barely making any sense at all 
> and would look a lot better if he just stood to his original stance.

You are probably right.  This one is going to come up again and again. 
Gay marriage is not popular with the majority of Americans so the 
Reublicans will be talking about it a lot.  It will be interesting to see 
what Obama says.

Mike

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