I know that many of you religious types think that sexuality is a choice. It is not. I'm not arguing that it's a genetic hardwire into a person's consciousness, but I defy you to find a person who has consciously decided that they like people of their own gender. Most gays are that way in the same way that we are straight: it's part of our identity that we do not consciously shape.

Sexuality is, in most cases, part of a person's permanent identity just as height and pigmentation are. More and more evangelicals are looking at the last 20 years of research (including twin studies) and are agreeing that choice is not the issue that makes gays gay.

So you choose to condemn gays for how they behave? That's only valid if gays have another choice...which all the research says they really don't. I don't want to ascribe rights to this group of people because of how they behave, I want to ascribe rights to this group of people because they are human and they deserve them just like you do.

Finally, domestic partnerships are clearly inferior to marriage in legal, cultural and spiritual terms. The legal differences are relatively minor for most people, but the cultural and spiritual differences are huge. Consider this: a guy and a girl who are roommates can form a domestic partnership in order to secure health insurance. You're putting gays who want to spend the rest of their lives with each other in the same category as those people who, clearly, do not deserve it? You are cracked if you think domestic partnership is the same as marriage.

Marriage is truly more than a legal partnership as are domestic partners. Marriage is the only designation for the union between two people that carries the weight of love. By voting for 8 you did not just deny marriage to gays, you denied the spiritual value of marriage to all of us.

My mistake. I did not realize you are pointing your questions towards me. Now that you have let me respond.

Gay marriage versus traditional marriage is hardly the point of conflict. The homosexual agenda which seeks to normalize abnormal behavior in our society is a problem. People who accept the idea of traditional marriage well indeed teach those values to their children. When those people along who have a different set of values, homosexuals in this case, you should expect that people will most likely seek to protect their value system. But in our state and in others, if homosexual marriages are approved and they will be taught as normal to our children in our schools. We will not have control over the value system that is being dumped on our children by the state or the teachers who work for the state. This entire situation was made much worse by the unfortunate statements of the Superintendent of public instruction. His comments on television indicated that he was upset that people suggested marriage would be taught in schools. On television he said that was not true. But on his website he indicated that marriage was taught in 96% of the school districts in the state.

Here is the answer you were looking for. People are opposed to gay marriage because they do not want those values to be taught to their own children. That does not seem unreasonable.

I remain disappointed in the California teachers union and their puppet the Superintendent of public instruction. It used to be that the teachers union and the Superintendent were advocates for all students. They have now surrendered that position and simply become a political entity that seeks its own gain. They have demonstrated they do not care about their students but they do care about themselves. I hope this answers your question.

Wow Imao,
It is sure nice to meet someonesmarter than God. Good luck with that.

I DO have homosexual neighbors in my neighborhood! Nice, quiet dependable trustworthy people, too - they water my plants and feed my fish whenever I'm out for the weekend. And they are - gasp! - raising some very nice polite children as well.

So much for the so-called "gay lifestyle" nonsense - my neighbors simply have "local mom lifestyles".

An arguement could be made that religious views are as deviant as any other. Frankly, I have some real concerns about the many televangelists whose primary goal seems to be to ask old people for money.

But it isn't about my religious views despite your judgement of my judgementalism. I simply want to have some say in how my kids are educated and I feel I am losing that task to the government. You can assume what you want but I know what I believe. Thanks

Iam, you bring up some interesting points but your arguments are just as flawed as the ones you are trying to refute. We do not know the "source" of homosexuality inside the individual; most likely it is some complex combination of genetics, culture and family influence. Do your research on this subject before making judgements that form the basis of your whole argument.

Whatever the sources of gayness are, most gay people do not choose their sexuality---a torrent of social, psycological and genetic pressures moves them to find love with members of their own gender. Many gays have as little control over their sexual preference as you do over yours and I do over mine. Can they deny themselves the love they seek? Sure, but why should they have to?

You are correct to say that race has greater roots in genetics, but you are also forgetting that the implications of race that have caused African Americans and other groups to be discriminated against are NOT genetic. Bigotry is purely social and pyschological in nature. Many of us would say that your identification of gays as deviants is bigotry of the same ilk---learned and destructive.

Second, you are comparing gays to pedophiles? You miss a major point: legal gay interactions occur between two consenting individuals who harm no one (except maybe themselves if it gets too rough :-;). Pedophilia is the exploitation of of a young person who is susceptible to coercion and force that they may not understand. Totally different.

Third: let's be clear about what students will learn about gay marriage in school. They will learn that it exists and they will learn that it is legal. That's it. No one is arguing that students should take a weeklong course is homosexuality. No one is arguing that students should be challenged to accept homosexuality. There is no way that what students learn at school can in any way turn them gay or overcome what they learn at home, in church and on the playground. If the kid is straight, he's going to stay straight despite his knowledge that gay people are allowed to get married by the government.

Finally, you need to strongly reflect on your notion that gays impose their lifestyle on the rest of us. Gays are not imposing anything on you or I or any other straight person. They're not even asking that you condone their lifestyle in any way. All they're asking for is to have the same freedoms that all liberty-loving American citizens should enjoy and defend.