[Oe List ...] enter the Terminator

Sun May 18 13:15:25 EDT 2008

The day after Democratic Sen. John Kerry lost his presidential bid in 2004, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein (former mayor of San Francisco) said the effort to advance gay marriage "has been too much, too fast, too soon." Sounds like sour grapes to me. Her comment blames California's gay marriage legislation (twice vetoed by the Guv) as the wedge issue that got Bush reelected.
  It's now obvious that, though she's still popular, she's out of the mainstream.Maybe she can't even agree that gay marriage is a civil right under the California constitution! So I guess there are even extreme right wing Democrats.

  Marshall

Marsha Hahn <mhahn013 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
        v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}  o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}  w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}  .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}        st1\:*{behavior:url(#default#ieooui) }                Marshall,

  Thank you for sharing the article and your own thoughts about the political repercussions of the California Supreme Court’s ruling. I see gay marriage and all that it represents a vital civil rights issue for our times.  Schwarzenegger’s positioning of his argument in this article struck me as mapping a path that other moderate social conservatives might potentially be able to follow.  People who are entrenched in opposition to gay marriage need some kind of acceptable “agree to disagree” way forward.  It will take a long time, I imagine, for many to get beyond the fear-based anti-gay worldview.  But I am encouraged by young people, who are far more likely than my own generation to think about their gay brothers and sisters as just part of the normal mix of folks.  Old fears die hard, but this too shall pass.  God bless the California Supreme Court for helping us to keep moving in the right direction.

  Marsha Hahn

---------------------------------

  From: oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of W. J.
Sent: Saturday, May 17, 2008 1:16 AM
To: oe at wedgeblade.net
Subject: [Oe List ...] enter the Terminator

    Potentially the most interesting political development in California may be Gov. Schwarzenegger's opposition to the constitutional amendment ballot initiative. I'm no great fan of the Guv, but if he puts his fundraising where his mouth is, we'll see a moderate Republican using his personal prestige and raising lots of $$ to defeat a right-wing Republican political juggernaut, and thus potentially adversely affecting the California vote for John McBush.

    Pinch me--I must be dreaming.

    But read http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/16/BASD10NVAI.DTL&tsp=1

    Marshall

darrell walker <darrell66 at earthlink.net> wrote:

      Marshall, et al,

        A further political note on the California Supreme Court decision on gay marriage.  Six of the seven justices on the Supreme Court are Republicans.  Of the four-justice majority, three were Republicans.  The six Republicans split evenly on the decision.  Also Governor Schwarzenegger will oppose the constitutional amendment in the fall.  All of which is to say, in spite of appearances to the contrary at times, not all California Republicans are the blithering idiots they appear to be elsewhere.  I say that in defense of the thirty-five years I spent as a Republican before waking up in the gutter during the Reagan era and becoming a Democrat.

        Darrell Walker in  Lincoln, CA, outside of Sacramento

      ----- Original Message ----- 

    From: W. J. 

    To: oe at wedgeblade.net ; dialogue at wedgeblade.net 

    Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2008 8:55 PM

    Subject: [Dialogue] cultural quake hits California;national backlash expected

    Today, in the midst of a tropical heatwave in northern California, our state's Supreme Court declared that to deny marriage to any couple is to brand them as second class citizens. In a month, for the first time ever, fully ten percent of US citizens will be able to marry whomever they choose.

    Starting tomorrow, Californians expect every rich right-wing bigot in the country to join in the coming political fray by raising multiple millions of U$D for the right-wing organizations that have put an amendment on the November ballot to roll back the court decision and enshrine discrimination in the state constitution.

    Bottom line is, it ain't over till it's over. Today's court decision will provoke a major call to arms by the vast right-wing conspiracy, hopefully their last gasp before they're buried in a Democratic landslide in November.

    The backlash from this decision may have a huge impact on national politics. The money that will flow to California to support the amendment may shift the outcome of the presidential election. If the amendment prevails, California will go to Senator John McBush, and that means that Barack will be history like Kerry, Gore, and Dukakis. Which may give Hillary another shot in 2012.

    On a more personal note: some of my friends were plaintiffs in this case, and one of them is a child of an interracial couple whose marriage was made legal by a decision of the California Supreme Court in 1948.

    Finally, I am grateful that for the first time, I will be able to conduct legal marriage ceremonies for same-gender couples in California as a United Methodist clergyman. If anyone chooses to bring a complaint to my bishop, I'll be very happy to participate in a church trial. 

    The United Methodist Discipline prohibits clergy from conducting 'ceremonies of homosexual union,' but it does not prohibit clergy from officiating at (some) legal marriages permitted by the state. To do so would place the church in a position of discriminating against a minority of its members whom the state allows to marry.

    Marshall Jones

---------------------------------

  _______________________________________________
Dialogue mailing list
Dialogue at wedgeblade.net
http://wedgeblade.net/mailman/listinfo/dialogue_wedgeblade.net

  _______________________________________________
Dialogue mailing list
Dialogue at wedgeblade.net
http://wedgeblade.net/mailman/listinfo/dialogue_wedgeblade.net

_______________________________________________
OE mailing list
OE at wedgeblade.net
http://wedgeblade.net/mailman/listinfo/oe_wedgeblade.net

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://wedgeblade.net/pipermail/oe_wedgeblade.net/attachments/20080518/1d150fb4/attachment.html 