More good news for those looking to close the deal in North Carolina:
"Our final marriage amendment poll finds it leading by a 55-39 margin, little change from a week ago when it was ahead 55-41. The final yes percentage will likely be somewhere in the 57-59% range depending on how the undecideds break." -- Public Policy Polling
47 Comments
Go NC!
WOOT!
GO NC!
Make sure everyone has a ride to the polls
Looks like the good people of NC are too smart to be taken in by the opposition's propaganda campaign.
Go NC !
LOL!!!!!!! if your marriage is threatened by two dudes getting married, you didn't have much of a marriage to begin with!
Chad:
No threat in NC, that's for sure
Looks like we'll win this thing by 20!!
Rick the fact that it could threaten man-lady marriage anywhere shows fragile your own marriages must be in the first place
The only thing this amendment does is ensure that gay men and women continue to live in a nation that is less safe, less secure, less free, and ultimately less accepting of them.
It does absolutely nothing to strengthen straight couples and their families.
Creighton:
Given the fact that 32 (I figure you won't quibble if I go ahead and put NC in the win column here and now) states disagree with you, I would humbly suggest you find another argument.
Rick, I am telling you that the 32 states number of irreverent. History will show that people like you do not get to define my family, my relationship, my household.
Your side is defending something that doesn't need defending. When gay couples marry, 'marriage' is not destroyed or corrupted. Straight married couples still enjoy marriage. Their marriages are as sound before as they were after. Straight men and women still pursue and will marry someone they love of the opposite gender. Babies will be born. Families will be raised.
All you're doing is inspiring legal harm against a group of people (one including myself) that does not harm you in any way, shape, or form.
"Looks like the good people of NC are too smart to be taken in by the opposition's propaganda campaign."
This theory is certainly not supported by the Public Policy Poll that NOM touts. According to this poll, 53% of North Carolina voters don't know what this amendment does.
Another example of NOM's shameless dishonesty (let me put on my surprised face). They insist on referring to it as the "Marriage Amendment" even though we all know Amendment One (the objective title for it that NOM calls misleading...seriously) bans marriage AND civil unions for North Carolina's gay and lesbian citizens (people who, unlike NOM, actually live and raise their families in NC). Why are you trying to hard to conceal this fact NOM? Is it because you know that the PPP poll shows that when people know what the amendment actually does, they oppose it by nearly a 2 to 1 margin?
B73:
Polls don;t matter.
Elections matter.
Your side outspent us 2-1, and we are supposed to believe the North Carolinian electorate doesn't understand what the amendment does?
Please.
Rick at 7:52pm: "Polls don't matter"
Rick at 4:05pm in response to "Final PPP Poll: NC Marriage Amendment Winning by 16 Points!": "Woot. Go NC"
LOL!
Rick, You get it right? It's the SAME poll! You dope.
Cut and pasted directly from the above-linked article:
"In some sense North Carolinians are voting against their own beliefs. 53% of voters in the state support either gay marriage or civil unions, yet a majority also support the amendment that would ban both. The reason for that disconnect is even with just 24 hours until election day only 46% of voters realize the proposal bans both gay marriage and civil unions. Those informed voters oppose the amendment by a 61-37 margin but there may not be enough time left to get the rest of the electorate up to speed."
B73:
The difference between us, is that we employ polls to their proper end; that is, as a basis for gauging the likely effect of various presentations of our case.
We never confuse polls with elections.
We win elections.
You win polls.
But this time we win both
Rick, and what is it that you "won" exactly? Despite the outcome of this election, life for present and future married, straight couples remains unchanged. In your favor, the only thing this election ensured is that gay couples, their households, and their families are left without even the most basic of protections.
Creighton:
Glad to see you acknowledge the outcome a day before the results
What we won is the establishment of a secure firewall against the subversion of the will of the people of North Carolina against a self-appointed posse of social engineers determined to impose upon them their own radically false worldview concerning the nature of marriage.
Next, MN.
Because of all the state amendments enshrining discrimination, the US Supreme Court will have no choice but intervene, and reinstate American legal principles, such as equal treatment. I'll bet the religionists didn't really think this through!
Oops. It would seem I've been banned from commenting again.
Rick,
When gay couples marry, nothing is imposed on you. You don't suddenly have to get divorced from a woman and marry a man.
Jim:
I counterpredict.
SCOTUS- the court of last resort, and hence not given to lightly overturning 5000 years of human history, the expressed will of the people in 32 (counting our blowout victory in NC tomorrow) elections, and indeed biology itself, will slap down the disgraceful judicial show-trial MC Vaughn Walker.
Then it will be morning.
Rick,
What "5000 years of human history"? You mean in late ancient Rome, where the word 'marriage' originates and was monogamous and gender neutral... or Jewish/Christian history, where familial unions involved the purchasing of a wife (or multiple wives)?
Creighton:
Tere are relatively few things upon which humanity has agreed, across all ages, all nations, peoples, tongues, cultures, religions......
One of them is that marriage refers to the union of the two genders of our species in stable, long term relationships, as the foundation of the family.
If ever you wonder why you keep losing elections, despite the advantages of cash, of media, of Hollywood, of politicians, of judges........
There is your answer.
Rick, I wouldn't stand to close to that firewall. We all saw how easy it was to burn through the paper thin one in California.
Rick - If the court was going to make man-woman marriage illegal, then your "overturning 5000 years of history" characterization might have merit. But we both know that just baseless rhetoric. You try to come across as confident but your absurd hyperbole suggests otherwise.
To the contrary. Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid and recognized in California
As far as 5000 years of history is concerned, I merely reiterate:
if you want to know why you cannot win an election, there is your answer.
We simply aren't going to drink the marriage corruption Kool-Aid.
There it is......
"One of them is that marriage refers to the union of the two genders of our species in stable, long term relationships, as the foundation of the family."
And I will agree with that. Marriage also refers to the union of two individuals despite gender in a stable, long term relationship as an additional foundation of a different type of family.
You see what I did there? It's called sharing.
"Marriage also refers to the union of two individuals despite gender in a stable, long term relationship as an additional foundation of a different type of family."
>> Nope. This reduces marriage to a different kind of relationship. Called "friendship with cohabitation and benefits".
Marriage also refers to the union of two individuals despite gender in a stable, long term relationship as an additional foundation of a different type of family.
"You see what I did there?"
>> Sure do. It's called "propaganda by redefinition of words".
But thanks for sharing!
Rick,
Since it doesn't transform what marriage means to society, how people approach marriage, and why people get married, it doesn't reduce it to anything.
Like others on here, you're pointing to an effect without a cause. There is no transformation. There is no reduction. There are only more couples getting married all for, more or less, the same reasons.
Creighton:
We are going to have to agree to disagree.
As I have said, we will certainly talk past each other, since we represent two fundamentally irreconcilable world views, only one of which can prevail.
Please consider the realities.
Marriage is not going to be surrendered, and the Supreme Court will not impose it.
I commend to your consideration the possibility of devoting your energies to other possible avenues for the advancement of your legitimate concerns.
All the best.
Rick,
Wait 10 to 15 years. I promise you that you'll see a different picture. One where gay couples do, in fact, get married and have said marriages legally recognized in all states and by the federal government. I promise you that society will continue for the better. It will become a place where gay couples can walk down the street holding hands without fear of attack
Creighton:
Free beer tomorrow....:-)
Over and out.
Rick, Marriage discrimination is still being practiced in CA only because the desperate bigotry lobby is dragging Prop 8 through a slow and painful death while their lawyers make a few more bucks off them. In case you forgot, Prop 8 lost in court. And Walker's ruling will most certainly withstand appeal. This process will be repeated until every discriminatory same-sex marriage ban in America is overturned and you and your un-American religionists agenda can take your rightful place on the wrong side of history.
B73:
Better check that crystal ball of yours.
Tomorrow will provide an excellent opportunity for recalibration.
Rick,
You seem to think one or two more states is going to make the world if difference. In the grand scheme, it won't. Your antiquated, callous, and spiteful ideas will be put to rest in upcoming years. Your side consists of very old people and a very small number of younger folks who believe it is their right/privilege to force others to abide by precepts of their religion.
One thing history has always shown us is that religious persecution of the minority by the majority never endures.
RJ:
Hmmm.
So if one o0r two more states won;t matter........
Why are you bothering with them?
OK then.
You go prepare for your historical inevitability.
We'll keep winning elections.
Let's compare notes and see who had the better strategy.
Today NOM wants to stop gays from marrying. Tomorrow they'll be working to force junk science therapy on them under the threat of imprisonment. This is ultimately what the anti-gay Christianists lobby wants. NOM's pal Scott provides proof here that this is how they think it should be: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/scott-lively-defends-his-anti-gay-activism-uganda-while-denying-role-crafting-anti-homosexua
Great comments, Rick.
Rick isn't winning elections. The real definition of marriage is.
B73
The only people shaking their fist in the air and stomping their feet are the ssm crowd. We've all heard the predictions of the ssm crowd before and 99 percent of the time they've all failed. What people might say to a pollster over the phone and how they actually vote in the privacy of the voting booth are two very different things.
You have nothing but talking points and propaganda and that is why your side is constantly losing.
Your side is losing, B73.
Need proof?
Turn on your TV set.
There's an actual, fair and square, American-as-apple-pie *election* going on down in North Carolina today.
Psssssssssst:
You're losing
Rick, how is voting to take other people's rights away considered "fair and square" in your book?
AD:
I thought civil rights weren't up for votes. AD?
So obviously no one's rights are being taken away in this election.
Indeed, the clearly expressed will of the people is being made manifest.
The people have every right to express themselves on this question, don;t they?
Or are you saying that only judges have the right to determine things now?
Respectfully, AD, where in our laws is there a "right" to redefine marriage?
Where in the law are individuals who
*have SSA
*engage in homosexual behavior
*affiliate with the gay political identity
prohibited from acquiring a marriage license? Where in the law are individuals required to publicly divulge their sexual identity, etc.?
No "rights" are being taken away. The vote is on whether or not to maintain the sex-integrated requirement for marriage.
Let's recap your numbers. If 14% percent have it, then all that means is 86% don't. I think that is a landslide against you.
Let's talk facts.
Homsexual activists were going to keep Prop 8 off the ballot in California. They failed.
Homosexual activists were going to defeat Prop 8 at the polls. They failed.
Homosexual activists were going to overturn Prop 8 and have homosexual marriage in California. They failed.
DOMA was going to repealed in Obama's first year. They failed.
The governor and legislature of Maine were going to legislate homosexual marriage into being. They failed.
The governor and legislature of Maryland think they can force ssm in that state against the will of the people there. We'll see just how that crushes and burns come this fall.
You get the point now?
Creighton said: "You mean in late ancient Rome, where the word 'marriage' originates and was monogamous and gender neutral."
Your historical revisionism is hilarious. Likewise your stab at etymological revisionism.
Just consider on bit in your snippet: monogamous, originates with the sense of fertilization; see the Greek for marriage, gamos re gasmos (gametes), the sexual union for mixing gametes -- creating offspring.
The mono part refers to sexual exclusivity between husband and wife. The meaning was not gender neutral. Nor was its meaning extramarital, obviously.
Also consider mater and pater as in matrimony and paternity. Then go to the basic presumptions of Roman law:
See: mater semper certa est; and see pater est, quem nuptiae demonstrant.
Marriage was not gender neutral then nor can it be now.
And, of course, neither is the sex-segregative type of relationship you have in mind. SSM might be sexually exclusive but only in terms of excluding either husband or wife. It is not definitively monogamous in the sense relative to matrimony and paternity.
So even the SSM idea is not gender neutral because it is sex-segregative. Moreover, it is not neutral even in terms of sexual attraction: it is either male attraction only or female attraction only, according to the rhetoric of SSMers who, perhaps inadvertently, acknowledge that the man-woman requirement -- the sex-integrative requirement -- entails both male and female attraction and is thus integrative in that way also, unlike SSM.
Why do SSMers depend so much on revisionism? They need to reshape marriage so as to deny its core meaning and to inject into the hollowed out thing their gay favoritism -- their assertion of the supremacy of gay identity politics. They cannot get to a merger of SSM with marriage except by throwing so much out that their efforts depend on makaing marriage mean less and less and less.