Because legal education (the thing most lacking in this so-called debate) has gone begging and can not be put on a bumper sticker I respond in three parts. 

Part one.

“The Proposition 8 campaign was particularly well funded on both sides .... That said, we never thought 2010 was the best time for a new vote on Proposition 8.

Please lay most of the blame at the doorstep of so-called gay activists who have squandered most of their resources and acted more like toothless sycophantic lap dogs than watchdogs.  Gay activists have been piping vapid bumper sticker slogans and doing nothing to educate our community. Equality California in particular has proven itself a rather pathetic excuse for an activist group and its inability to even muster sufficient signatures to repeal Prop 8 put the final nail on its coffin. It is a totally ineffective public relations group that has caused a great deal of harm. How did we get here in the first place?

First, because EQCA, boasting of millions of dollars in its coffers and thousands of foot soldiers was utterly asleep at the switch and busy preaching to the choir in the Castro and not getting out and talking the fight to our adversaries. Silly cocktail party activists.

Second it engaged in inconsistent pleading to the public. On the one hand it went door to door asking people to repeal Prop 8 (you DO get to vote on it) but on the other hand it worked to overturn Prop 8 on the grounds of it being unconstitutional (you do NOT get to vote on it). When you beg people to vote on an issue and then, behind their backs, argue inconsistently that they don’t even have that right to start with we have a word for that – it’s called ‘deceit.’  People, especially educated people see through that deceit and resent us for it.

Third, EQCA was, like many activist groups, first adamantly against San Francisco trial in Perry v. Schwarzenegger which is the only really effective remedy - federal court. The irony is that the vast majority of gay rights organizations were utterly chicken shit and railed against this trial.  They preferred to stick with the tired old red-herring of ‘state’s rights’ and majority rule rubbish which are utterly self-contradictory.  Loving v.  Virginia stands for the proposition that Marriage is not a ‘states rights’‘issue.  OBVIOUSLY if it were the high court would have deferred to the Virginia Jim Crow law.  No-brainer.  Where have you seen any gay activists address that second year law school issue?

Why do our own activists insult us with this preposterous bull? This is no more a ‘States Rights” issue than a Negro water fountain or a Jim Crow Railroad car. And it really irks me that gay activists even go for that despicable tainted bait that should not fool a second year law student.  They will get a lot more financial support from educated gays if they stop insulting our intelligence and stop trying to exploit legal ignorance.  They should be EDUCATING the community not engaging in disingenuous intellectual rubbish and pandering to classic ‘state’s rights’ segregationist claptrap.  Shame on them!

But when they realized that if we win in Perry they will all be made to look utterly ridiculous toothless sycophantic lap-dogs they all suddenly ‘evolved” (that’s the euphemism for flip-flop) and decided to support Boies et. al. 

By attacking the Perry trial and abjuring the ONLY valid and sure-fire legal remedy (resolve it ALL in one fell swoop!), gay activists betray the very constitutional bedrock at issue: the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and the word “person.” It really is that simple.  The smoke and mirrors and pandering of my own “leadership” disgusts me.  Cut to the chase.  Lead, follow or get the hell out of our way.

Part 2:

Fourth, every step of the way EQCA has squandered its assets and discredited itself by wanting it both ways.  Again, marriage is no more a states’ rights issue than a Jim Crow railroad car. Authority?  Again, Loving v. Virginian! My god do these people even bother to READ the precedent they banter about? OBVIOUSLY if marriage were a matter of state’s rights the High Court in Loving would not have struck down Virginia’s invidious marriage laws. So… HOW many children have been left behind?  Where are the advocates?

When so-called activists began adopting our adversaries’ arguments (states’ rights) and dignified that specious argument they conceded precious ground. By refusing to take a stand, by wanting it both ways, by engaging in deceit, by inconsistent pleading, and by flip-flopping on this trial, by squandering it’s assets in preaching to the choir, LGBT activists have damaged their own credibility.

Finally, by utterly lacking the courage to take the fight where it belongs (to the steps of the churches that trash the First Amendment) EQCA and other activist groups have again discredited themselves. They seem to think that smoke and mirrors can hide the fact that this is more about the First than the Fourteenth Amendment.  Who are our adversaries? What is their argument?  Another no-rainer.  The primary opponents of marriage equality are the churches who want to deny rights solely for religious reasons.  So what part of the First Amendment don’t our activists get and why are they so gutless to take on the real issue?

By failing to take the fight where it really LGBT activists have failed repeatedly and miserably in every regard except as a pack of utterly ineffective and toothless cocktail party activists who prance about preaching to the choir, running like cowards from both the law and our adversaries and has proven itself of little use except to provide a fund-raising forum for self-congratulatory politicians eager for press coverage in bar rags.

Part three

EQCA has become more a liability than an asset and if the community continues to entrust it with our dollars we’ll all be shipped off in a gay Jim Crow railroad car.  When LGBT activists stop chomping at the tainted bait of ‘states’ rights’ and start railing against efforts to take down Jefferson’s proverbial “wall of separation” they might redeem come of the respect they have lost in their own community. 

Of course their problem is twofold: fear and political correctness run amok.  They are afraid to admit it’s not a states rights issue because that admits the right it right - the only way you can stop it is to amend the U.S. Constitution.  Second gutless fear and political correctness of not questioning one’s religious beliefs and insisting on what is first in our Constitution have made activists look rather foolish.

Marriage is no more a ‘states rights issue than a Jim Crow railroad car and colluding to trash the First Amendment for the purpose denying rights guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment demonstrates that Political Correctness truly is a doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical, liberal minority, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.
Since Scott Tucker so astutely refers to the Nuremberg laws I leave him with the wisdom of the late Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson who was also the chief United States prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials.  Over 70 years ago, i,In West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, he wrote a stinging dissent that is now the law

“The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.”

Marriage equality, not being a ‘states’ rights matter’ can only be addressed in the U.S. Supreme Court.  Activists need to turn up the heat against the churches that trash the First Amendment and they need to secure a fair and just judiciary.  Otherwise they just fiddle while Rome burns.

Joe,
Anybody is at a disadvantage when they are by
themselves, weather they are a homosexual or a heterosexual, a male or a female.
If two individuals are married and happily settled
together, is that not better for the community than
two individuals who are upset for being considered
outsiders, though in actuality they still function as part of the
community? - financially and socially
Nor should politics be able to dictate morality, such
is the reasoning for separation of church as state. It is equally applicable in this situation. Why
should you, or anyone, be allowed to limit another
person or persons’ actions if they are not harmful in
anyway either to yourself or the community?

Y

Marriage is both a “civil” and “personal” act.  As a personal act, I don’t care if two individuals wish to married. 

As a civil act, that is, as an act sanctioned by the community, marriage has to have a reason.  What benefit does a civil community gain from the marriage of two homosexual individuals?  I can see the benefit to the community in the marriage of two heterosexual individuals.  Marriage protects the rights and interests of the female who, as the person expected to be the partner most obligated to the welfare of any children produced by the union, is presumed to need the assistance of the community. 

Neither partner in a homosexual union is at a relative disadvantage and, thus, is not in need of any assistance from the community in the protection of any interest or right.

Why won’t you support it? If civil unions are enough “for you” why isn’t the official act of marriage allowed in your cognitive maps?
Are you married? Why?
I support gay marriage because this society should not deliniate two separate classes of individuals; you do remember the whole “separate but equal” conundrum the SCOTUS gave us, do you not? For me it’s simply a matter of social justice - you probably heard the line before: “Do unto others…”
I should mention, by way of disclaimer, that I am not gay, but I am married. I do support the gay community in their push for marriage; it’s simply the right thing to do.
Having said that, I do hope that the gay community will come forward and help in my efforts to legalize cannabis. Of course, I’ll probably catch some flak for “cross-posting” or being “off topic,” however, when one’s actions do not harm the person or the property of a non-consenting other, then those actions should be tolerated in the “land of the free.” Gay marriage “neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”

The question that got me kicked-off a well-known leftist website was “Why should I support gay marriage?”  This article didn’t answer it.  I still don’t know.

Civil union seems enough to me but Scott Tucker waved-off that arrangement.  Apparently it’s not good enough for the activists.  They demand “marriage.” 

Well, before I can support marriage for gays someone is going to have to do a much better job of explaining to me what it really is and why gays just have to have it.