Moral Foundations of American Democracy, and Gay Rigts

[SpyMoose]

cruising around cnn.com I noticed, as I often do, the silly topic of their quick poll. Its almost always a little silly, but this time I thought it was down right bizarre.

http://us.f1f.yahoofs.com/bc/3f9741b5_135e5/bc/My+Documents/odonnle.gif?bfqSnPAB01qKHNwH

EDIT: the link no longer seems to work. its a screen capture from cnn.com's quick pole. the topic is "Was Rosie Odonnel Right to marry a woman" and the no's are in a majority of a little under ten points

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but this isn’t a decision for a majority to vote on is it? Think about it in terms of an individual marriage. When was the last time you were asked your opinion on what strangers should get married (not counting shows on FOX which most agree are cultural atrocities) Expand this to the wider issue of gay marriage at large, why should you be allowed to have your vote in who gets married and who doesn’t? Isn’t that between the two of them?

One of the founding principles of American democracy is majority rule with minority rights. If the moral implications of this does not extend to gay marriage, then what DOES it extend to? The president is going to brake up thousands of married families in the name of "defending marriage". What gives the majority the moral authority to break up Rosie O’Donnell’s family?

 

[Mystech]

This is a point I've been making in threads on this subject lately. Especially in the case of Massachusetts, where some of the citizenry are demanding a vote on the court ruling which says that homosexuals must be given the right to marry. What authority does the majority of the citizenry have to say on the issue one way or another? This is about equal rights, and one power which the people of the united states simply don't have is to vote on a majority rules basis whether or not some minority group should be denied their rights, and equal protection under the law; there's simply no provision for it.

Cutting into the fat of the matter, homosexual marriages do not effect heterosexuals, and they certainly don’t effect heterosexual marriages. As such, no heterosexuals opinion on the matter should have sway on the matter one way or another. We’re talking about the people’s right to govern themselves here. In matters where only homosexuals are concerned, let homosexuals decide!

Regarding Rosie O’Donnell herself, as much as I hated her talk show, she sort of became quite a hero. She was big, she was on in homes across the nation, hell she was on in MY home, my sister and mother were big fans. She had a family oriented show, was named "The queen of nice" by some publication or other, and after she made America love her, and she had announced she was leaving the show she mentioned, "Oh yeah by the way I'm gay." I think that got a lot of people thinking about the issue of homosexuals I’m America in a very clever, and positive way. People who may have had some sort of problem with her homosexuality were lured into admiring and appreciating her, and then WAM, paradigm shifting revelation. I have no idea how well it really worked, but I like to think that it may have changed a few minds about homosexual people in general. In other words, yes middle America, it's ok to like them, they're people too!