rifledropper wrote:

The straight answer to 'why is gay marriage only legal in 6 states?' is... Politics.

If it were truly up to the people, it would have never even been an issue. It would have just happened. The issue has been misused for political reasons, much like the topic of abortion has.

Martin, this is a simplification of American elections:

Most of the voters in the U.S.A. are biased and make up their minds before the candidates are even announced. It's not half and half though, as there are more people that go out and vote that vote for the national liberal candidate. So to represent the entire population(to include those who don't vote), the vote is looked at as a sample...the ROUGH outcome is what we call this the electorial college

What happens to the election is that if you are a republican and you live in a democratic state...your vote doesn't count! And vice versa. This is why you hear that Al Gore beat George Bush in the "popular vote"...more people voted for Gore, but it doesn't matter.

Now only a handful of states count; called swing states. These are the few states that still have a balanced amount of Conservatives vs Liberals living there. Among these citizens, most already have their political bias and know who they will vote for before the election. These are the people that pay attention to social and economical issues year round, and are generally speaking, educated on the matter. "Pro-life"; "2nd ammendment rights"; "pro-choice"; "workers rights"; are just a few simplifications of how we explain these informed voters.

Now we get to the meat of the election; those who decide the fate of the rest of the country....the dreaded undecided voters!! GENERALLY these are the least informed voters...they wait to see which candidate 'STRIKES' them...which candidate presents himself better.. who is polite... who seems strong... these are the people that the candidates spend BILLIONS of dollars on television ads trying to reach. If you can imagine the kind of person that would be swayed politically by a TELEVISION COMMERCIAL...then you can imagine the intellectual capacity of these people.

There you have it! the American political machine in a nut shell...and why nothing in America makes sense

I agree with pretty much all of what you said Impos, but the electoral college is only used for Presidential elections, this gay marriage stuff is state level legislation.

I think the reason why gay marriage is not legalised in most states is because of christianity. Let me be clear in advance. This is not an attack on christainity. I am however really concerned with the fact that this religion is very present in the American government. A good example of this is the presidential inauguration. The last words 4 word of the oath spoken by the new president are: So help me God. I believe this shouldn't be in an oath given by the president of a country that has many more religions than just christianity.
But I'm afraid as long as nearly the entire political system is occupied by christians nothing is gonna change for the better for the gay society. (80% of Americas are christian, so if you ever do something as a politician that is frowned upon by christians it's just political suicide)

So what your saying 9dragon is you believe in separation of church and state? I have to disagree there but the topic isn't about religion so I won't go any further. I agree with Impos as well that's how it works.

Sorry but i dont think you should make decistions on something that isent even proved that it happend. And i feel sorry for you impos for living with such people xD. But just let me say that the bibel say:

Treat your next one as you self want to be treated

Which mean that if they cant get married, why should we?

We thought 200 years ago that we could make slaves of all black people. Now we just look back on it and are ashammed, and i hope we will do the same according to this in 200 years, or even earlier

martin3746 wrote:
Sorry but i dont think you shouldent make decistions on something that isent even proved that it happend. And i feel sorry for you impos for living with such people xD. But just let me say that the bibel say:

Treat your next one as you self want to be treated

Which mean that if they cant get married, why should we?

We thought 200 years ago that we could make slaves of all black people. Now we just look back on it and are ashammed, and i hope we will do the same according to this in 200 years, or even earlier

You think our gay rights are bad... We've got one of our two major political parties trying to move women's rights back by decades. They want to do the following:

-Redefine rape to include much less incidents(so that you can't get an abortion...even when you're raped.)
-force invasive procedures(to guilt and humiliate you into keeping unwanted pregnancy)
-overturn Roe VS. Wade (to outright ban abortion)
-limit contraception for women & eliminate publicly funded women's health services (which will only affect the poor btw)

...and these are MAJOR issues for this party, not just underlying goals!

The other party is bearly better(if not WORSE) on civil rights. We've got something like 10x more illegal government surveillance of citizens under Obama(V.S. GEORGE W BUSH!), including illegal wire tapping of our own citizens. We've got unmanned drones flying over major cities in ALLIED COUNTRIES 24/7, blowing up any men they feel like (and then RETURNING to kill FIRST RESPONDERS). All of our secret prisons remain open. We're detaining people (including our own citizens!) INDEFINITELY, WITHOUT TRIAL, FOR ANY REASON. We're even starting to RFID chip our children to make sure they goto school, and eat healthy foods. All of the big banks and crooked politicians that triggered the financial meltdown walked away with no criminal charges or accountablity(and they're all RICH(ER) for it)....

...And these two parties are virtually identical on economical issues so we're not expecting some radical restoration in that area. The only slight difference is that Obama actually wants to make businesses pay for the government infrastructure that they profit off of(so don't expect any social progress, they're going to reem our society for all it's worth..they don't even want to contribute what they take)....where as Romney wants to(flat out) steal from the poor,.. and give to the rich

o_o

But it's good that you're interested in all this, Martin. Most Americans can't even claim that.

Ok thx for the info and that is horrible. Hope Obama wins, always have hoped that

And just a throw-in martin when you bring up something like this you can't expect to get the answer you want all the time. You have to be open minded and willing to listen to other peoples view points and you can't take it personal. It is great that you are taking n interest in this not because it's America and we're "number one" but just in world politics in general. And about gay marriage I haven't seen one question in the debates about gay marriage it's like a political no no to bring it up in front of people, for the reason that if they populace get's an answer they don't like then people will freak out.

Sorry if you dident notice but ive been listening, just wana get out my point. But that religion affect so much and that some people just get angry cause of a question in politics is just what i worry about

Saw something that made me think of this thread...