newsobserver.com projects - What Hagan said on gay marriage - Comments

Re: What Hagan said on gay marriage

jjsmith2 — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 11:08:19 -0400

Why should gay couples not have access to that legal remedy?

Because you touch yourself.

Re: What Hagan said on gay marriage

profbam — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 10:56:20 -0400

The gay marriage thing is a diversion by Republicans to keep the weak-brained from observing the disappearance of their cash into the bank vaults of the wealthy few.

Can a heterosexual atheist couple obtain a marriage license from the state? Will that marriage, without the aid or blessing of a mythical being that they do not believe in, establish the same contractual relationship recognized by the state as a marriage with high mass at the cathedral? The answer to both is "yes."

This is the confusion of folks. Marriage as a religious institution and marriage as a secular contract are conflated. The state cannot order the Catholic Church to hold gay marriages and it cannot stop the Methodists or Unitarians from holding such marriages. The license from the state is a cheap secular contract that establishes a complex and very important legal relationship between two people that is impossible to duplicate otherwise. Why should gay couples not have access to that legal remedy?

What Hagan said on gay marriage

ryanteaguebeckwith — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 10:20:53 -0400

Kay Hagan said she does not think gay marriage should be constitutionally banned.

In a profile that ran in the Greensboro News-Record on May 29, 2005, the Democratic Senate candidate said that she did not see the need for an amendment to the state constitution banning gay marriage:

Same-sex unions: "In my everyday life, it just doesn't come up. I think it's a very polarizing issue, and in North Carolina we have a law saying marriage is between a man and a woman. I don't think there's a need for a (state) constitutional amendment."

In recent years, Senate Republicans have unsuccessfully proposed amending the state constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman.