Senate will debate marriage being between a man and a woman

[MaineDem]

...when they return on Tuesday.

Is it just me? Am I the only one who can't understand how this has become the Number 1 most important issue in the USA? Might there not be some other issues more worthy of their time and efforts? I don't know, like maybe, healthcare, or veterans' benefits, or war attrocities even?

Silly me.

[AtomicKitten]

1. It's time for the dog-and-pony show.

[Greeby]

5. Or dog-and-box turtle show

:evilgrin:

[Warpy]

12. Undoubtedly debate will be protracted and in full

Foghorn Leghorn mode as our fine and orotund officials try to make points with the CSPAN watchers back home, and not a single one will stand up and say "This is STUPID. We need to tackle the war/the economy/corruption/scandals/healthcare instead of this BALONEY!"

That's my prediction.

[Chipper Chat]

23. Joe Biden did today on Meet the Press.

He said it was "beyond him" why congress would waste their time om this issue. Timmy just grinned and didn't reply.

[chelsea0011]

2. Election year hate-a-group time.

[blondeatlast]

19. "Election year hate-a-group time." LOL!

At the rate they are going (gays, Mexicans, anyone who questions our dealings in Iraq) they are gonna run out pretty soon.

When they begin to turn on each other, I'll pop the popcorn!

[savemefromdumbya]

3. marriage is just a kind of contract

that's all

[The Magistrate]

4. If They Are Going To Debate It, Ma'am

There ought to be a special rule that any member of the body who is divorced must sit silent throughout....

[MaineDem]

8. Excellent point! n/t

[mzteris]

18. or anyone who ever cheated on their wife....

hell - I bet 95% of them would be sitting silent, eh?

[blondeatlast]

20. YES--and for all you talk show junkies who are able to call live--

PLEASE make that point!

:applause:

[Gatchaman]

6. As a straight male who has seen half of his friends divorced

this is the dumbest goddamn thing in the world to be arguing over.

[tridim]

7. The Senate should be ashamed of themselves.

But they're not.

[blondeatlast]

21. Is that even possible?

IF i think about it too much, my head hurts.

[gully]

9. Indeed an attempt to rally the bigots and the rest of us play along.

:eyes: Unfortunately it's been an effective straw-man.

[stellanoir]

10. Still wondering

who's gonna decide which man and which woman get to revel in utter domestic bliss while the rest of us pine away longingly.

[Catchawave]

11. No, it's not just you....

I am sooooo verklempt too :hi:

[xchrom]

13. imagine my anticiaption! the senate is going to discuss gay marriage.

or marriage inequality or whatever you want to call it -- you can't image how excited i am to hear what trent lott will have to say about it.

:crazy:

i'm not that thrilled to hear what the democats are going to say either.

a bunch of the straight people droning on and on about protecting -- or not -- marriage from gay folk.

whatever.

[meow2u3]

14. I don't think Santorum and Hatch would go along with that

Santorum would like to marry his dog; Hatch could use a couple extra wives :evilgrin:

[adriennui]

15. no, it isn't just you

i'm furious with this pornographic process which we call government.

i'm very curious to see the debates. and i'll be especially curious to see how my NY senators express themselves.

[BlueManDude]

16. We're governed by Idiots. n/t

[madfloridian]

17. Maybe we need know which Democrat said this...if anyone did.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1200740,00.html

"A constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage is scheduled for a vote in the Senate this week, and congressional Democrats are mostly downplaying the issue, saying the country has bigger problems to worry about. Dean, however, issued a proclamation saluting Pride Month for "lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals" and lionizing the early gay advocates who stood up for themselves in June 1969 at the Stonewall Inn. On Friday and Saturday, gay-rights messages took up much of the valuable real estate of the Democratic National Committee's home page, which warned Republicans, "Don't Trample on LGBT Americans for Partisan Gain." "Wow!" exclaimed a shocked House Democratic official. "That's way off our message."

I am proud the DNC had those posted there, they are still there. Dean met and spoke to the Stonewall Democrats yesterday also.

I hope this is Time being divisive, but I fear some of our Democrats might sell out on this.

Here are the articles mentioned at the DNC.
http://www.democrats.org/

[Stinky The Clown]

22. "Senate to engage in pointless masturbation upon their Tuesday return"

That should have been your thread title. :)

You're right. This is a huge, pointless, monumental waste of time.

[yellowcanine]

24. Look on the bright side. This should yield some good Ricky quotes.

You know little Ricky will say something that is memorable for its sheer stupidity and cluelessness. I can hardly wait.

[Telly Savalas]

25. They must have forgotten that some baseball players still take steroids.

[LibDemAlways]

33. Or that one in about a million

cruise ship passengers falls overboard.

[Joe Bacon]

26. Wait a second, they are arguing this on "6/6/6"??????

Now isn't that interesting...:think:

[ruggerson]

27. Human Rights are important

what we should be focusing on is that they are on the WRONG side of human rights, not quantifying (dismissively) human rights on the pecking order of importance.

[Telly Savalas]

29. The point is that their wrong side is irrelevant to society's well-being

There's a big difference between:

"We should be able torture prisoners so as to obtain infomation which can prevent terrorist attacks which could kill thousands of Americans."

and

"We should ban same-sex marriage so I when I sit in my recliner in the evening watching reruns of "the Jeffersons" I can have the comfort of knowing that some complete strangers who live down the street don't have the same rights I do because they're gay."

Both statements are on the wrong side of human rights, but the first one is at least based on some notion of betterment of the public good. The second one is just plain fucking dumb.

Of course we should not give an inch on this issue. In fact, I strongly believe that any elected Democrat who doesn't support full equal rights for the GLBT community should resign immediately. But at the same time, there's nothing wrong with pointing out that anybody who thinks same-sex marriage is a problem is simply delusional.

[ruggerson]

30. Of course

I may have misread the OP, but it is an argument that I hear frequently at DU. The Republicans are wasting our time with this issue.

Well, for tens of millions of gay Americans, this is hardly a waste of time and this is indeed an important issue.

This is 2006 for chrissakes and these fuckers are trying to pass a constitutional amendment to set up a permanent Jim Crow caste system when it comes to marriage and family rights.

What Democrats should do, instead of saying that we have better things to waste our time on than this issue, is to express righteous and thoughtful outrage that these bigots would attempt to turn millions of Americans into second class citizenry.

[MaineDem]

31. The idea of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage is wrong

My thought is that they shouldn't even be discussing this.

Of course, equal rights should be debated but I fear that's not what the Senate is about to discuss. They're going about this in a hateful and discriminatory manner.

I never intented, in the OP, to insinuate that the issue of gay marriage itself is not worthy of debate. I was looking at it more that they were going to push the opposite - the one man one woman definition - to the point of excluding same sex couples and that a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage is not something they should be doing - now or ever.

I understand your feelings and I'm sorry if the OP was thought to be dismissive of the rights of gay couples. I never ever intended that.

[LostInAnomie]

28. The Dems shouldn't even show up.

They should ignore this pointless RW masturbation for the election year ploy that it is. They should just show up for the vote, vote it down, and go on without even giving it notice.

[Vinca]

32. I was going to suggest a mass email campaign, but your idea

is better. Ignore the whole debate. I wish that's what our senators would do.