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When, as most everyone expects, Gov. Neil Abercrombie signs into law same-sex marriage here in the coming days, it may almost seem like a routine event. Hawaii is poised to be among 16 states to approve gay marriage.

It was the first judicial expression of an idea that soon caught fire across the country and the world.

The ruling prompted a national backlash, with Congress barring federal recognition of same-sex marriage and dozens of states amending their constitutions to define marriage as between a man and a woman, and it was even overruled by Hawaii’s voters. But it also opened a huge new front for the gay rights movement, laying the groundwork for scores of legal and political battles ever since.

So when it became clear this week in a raucous special session of the State Legislature that same-sex marriage would finally come to Hawaii, it was the closing of a circle.

“I’ve got what we Hawaiians call chicken skin — goose bumps,” said Daniel R. Foley, now a state judge. As a private lawyer in Honolulu in 1990, he took on the case of same-sex couples seeking marriage licenses after national rights groups had declined it as far-fetched.

On Friday, hundreds of gleeful advocates of same-sex marriage waved rainbow flags at the Capitol while hundreds of opponents shouted “Let the people decide” and sang “God Bless America.” Friday night, after a day of emotional debate, the House of Representatives passed the bill to expand marriage rights, making its final adoption next week a near certainty as it heads to the Senate before being signed by the governor.

The 1993 Hawaii ruling spurred advocacy groups to make marriage equality a prime goal. It energized campaigns that would bring the country’s first civil unions in Vermont in 2000 and the country’s first same-sex marriage vows in Massachusetts only nine years ago.



Mary L. Bonauto, another legal advocate for same-sex marriage, said that “Hawaii really encouraged people on the marriage issue; it showed that a court can get it.”

Today, more than 30 lawsuits in at least 20 states are testing marriage restrictions in what Ms. Bonauto, a project director of Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, in Boston, called an “explosion in litigation.” They include challenges to state amendments barring same-sex marriage in Nevada and Virginia, demands that Texas grant divorces to same-sex couples married elsewhere and a suit to be decided soon in New Mexico arguing that same-sex marriages are permitted by state law.

For Steven H. Levinson, the State Supreme Court justice who wrote the 1993 opinion in Baehr v. Lewin, it is a moment of reckoning. He looks back on his failure to grasp the forces that were unleashed.

The few previous suits pushing for same-sex marriage in other states “had been laughed out of court,” Mr. Levinson recalled. “I soon realized that this opinion was going to be major.”

“But I was naïve about how the Baehr decision would be received,” he said between meetings this week at the State Capitol, where in retirement he has helped campaign for the long-elusive legislative victory.

The counterattack was more powerful than he could have imagined. In Washington, the specter of Hawaii spurred the 1996 passage of the Defense of Marriage Act, which barred federal recognition of same-sex marriage and allowed states to ignore such marriages from states that allowed them.

To allow a full airing of views, the Legislature said any citizen could comment. In what some called a “public filibuster,” religious opponents mobilized, accounting for most of the more than 1,000 people who testified for two minutes each, during 55 hours of hearings over five days this week.

Both sides claimed to represent the true “aloha spirit.” Some ethnic Hawaiians tearfully said the bill would destroy their culture, and the opponents’ television and radio ads described as endangered the Hawaiian heritage of “ohana,” or family, of “mothers and fathers caring for each other and their keiki,” or children.

But ethnic historians noted that the pre-European island culture did not have marriage in the modern sense and accepted homosexuality. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/09/us/gay-marriage-battle-nears-end-in-
hawaii-the-first-front-line.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0

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Originally posted by AURaptor:
I don't want to be forced to marry a gay man !

DAMMIT !

Seriously though, all I'm saying is what I've said all along. Gays should be able to be with who they want to be, LEGALLY, in the open, and all should be right w/ the world.

LOVE is a beautiful thing. It really is.

But change the definition of marriage, it's nothing but a matter of time before polygamy is part of our society,and why not ? Who are we to decide what's best for 2, 3, 6 people ?

Get pissed at me all you want, but you know this to be true.

If that's what everyone wants, then fine. Just be honest about it, and don't HATE on that which seems " ridiculous " now.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

Resident USA Freedom Fundie

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Originally posted by AURaptor:
But change the definition of marriage, it's nothing but a matter of time before polygamy is part of our society,and why not ? Who are we to decide what's best for 2, 3, 6 people ?

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Originally posted by m52nickerson:

Second, slippery slope arguments are for people who have no real argument.

I do not fear God, I fear the ignorance of man.

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Originally posted by AURaptor:
Tell that to this guy...

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Originally posted by m52nickerson:

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Originally posted by AURaptor:
Tell that to this guy...

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I would, but he is dead. Funny that you a self proclaimed atheist would post that video in response.

I do not fear God, I fear the ignorance of man.

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Originally posted by AURaptor:
He saw the natural progression ( pardon the use of that word ) of how society slides when the foundations of it are mocked, attacked and vilified.

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Originally posted by m52nickerson:

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Originally posted by AURaptor:
He saw the natural progression ( pardon the use of that word ) of how society slides when the foundations of it are mocked, attacked and vilified.

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Gay marriage does none of this. Letting same sex couples marry does not in anyway effect traditional marriage. So, he and you are wrong.

I do not fear God, I fear the ignorance of man.

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Originally posted by AURaptor:
Watch the video again. Clearly, you missed much.

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Originally posted by AURaptor:
I don't answer to sock puppets.

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Originally posted by AURaptor:
I don't answer to sock puppets.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

Resident USA Freedom Fundie

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Originally posted by ElvisChrist:

In a sense, this site has never been anything but sockpuppets talking to sockpuppets.

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Originally posted by AURaptor:

I have but 1 name/handle/tag, what ever, under which I post here. Same can't be said for everyone, now can it ?

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Originally posted by AURaptor:
I don't answer to sock puppets.

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Maybe when you get bored with your gay crusade, you can fight for other things that the other 90% of oppressed people care about.

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
When shit gets "really weird", you can just keep going with it.

I read a statistic recently that said that more than 6% of married men have swallowed cum at one time or another. More than 50% of them had swallowed their own cum, and continue to do so on a daily basis while trapped in a state of orgasmic bliss.


My challenge to you Niki, and to other women here.....

Do what you can to make sure this isn't a plague that spreads.

There's nothing you can do about not being as young and hot as Starletts today.

Don't matter to the men. If they talk to their co-workers about what a bitch you are and how much they hate spending a second of their time with you, they'd sooner F--K a brick wall for an 18 year old Disney princess like Selena Gomez than have sex with you.

Ball's in your court....

While you hide your pussy away the mice play....

Do you even know what your husband is doing when you're out with your friends?

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I love the idea "of how society slides when the foundations of it are mocked, attacked and vilified". We've "slid" right away from slavery, women as chattel, only landowning white males being able to vote, divorce being impossible, monarchy, religious persecution, child labor, indentured servants, debtor's prisons, serfdom (should I go on?), …really gone to shit, hasn't it? Damn, life sure was better back in the Middle Ages!

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Originally posted by AURaptor:
I always answer honest questions. You not liking my answers doesn't mean I've not given my answer.

Name calling & childish ad hominem attacks aren't exactly conducive to honest, open exchange & dialogue .



Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

Resident USA Freedom Fundie

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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And again, what do you care if 2, 3, or 6 people want to get married?

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Okay rappy, do you have an answer for the question? You've had a few days to think about it by now.

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Originally posted by AURaptor:
Marriage is defined ,as it has been for thousands of years,

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Originally posted by Niki2:

Again, and again, and again: Marriage has NOT been defined for thousands of years as one man and one woman. I debunked that thoroughly, with cites, so Rap can go on parroting it until the cows come home but that does not make it true, period.

Romans had same-sex marriage; Greeks did; many other countries did and do all throughout history. T H A T I S F A C T.

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Originally posted by AURaptor:
Greeks and Romans, huh? And look what happened to them!

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Originally posted by AURaptor:Save for rare, unique anomalies, where YOU claim such same sex unions existed, the overwhelming vast majority of marriages have been , for 1000's of years, man + woman. Well predating the fables of The Bible.

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