Fringe views need a platform because they're right ALOT.

The point I'm making is that everyone has a different idea of what those core values are.

But more importantly, when you actually read the arguments put forward in the cases, it takes the courts a very big legal stretch to side with the non-gay-marriage arguments, as they're almost uniformly non-legal and unconstitutional religious and traditionalist arguments.

Yes, a majority of Americans apparently now support gay marriage! Yay! But 43% remain against it. Of course, reasonable people could disagree about exactly what constitutes a "fringe view." But I doubt many would say that the term covers views held by 43% of the population.

So, yeah, maybe the ballot was confusing, and maybe that was six whole years ago. But I'd say it is, nonetheless, a generally pretty accurate indicator of people's views on the subject.

There are decent people who have old school views. They are just slow to adjust due to upbringing or religion.

Of course, but the norms in society do shift, things that were once seen as deviant standards from the norm, may become accepted for a wide range of reasoning, society and what it expects of its members continually evolves, and has for millennia. I disagree that this is trying to vilify any thought, society has largely shifted, especially in coastal regions on this topic. It is accepted among many in metropolitan, young, urban areas that gay marriage and the rights of gays to couple and be recognized is a civil rights issue. Calling out someone who opposes that, are for many people the same as calling out someone who would presume that interracial marriage is wrong, or that segregation should still exist.

I believe everything starts to collapse when I try to use my beliefs to rally against another individual. Do you really believe that? The nature of the marketplace of ideas, and how society shifts, is essentially exactly this. Beliefs are pursued through elections, advocacy, legal systems, exposure to people. 50 years ago it was unthinkable that gay’s would be accepted and have a protected right in some states to marry, 100 years ago it was unthinkable that blacks and whites would attend the same school together and just about 150 years ago, a war was fought to end slavery. These all come about because beliefs are rallied against other individuals in position of influence and power and a side wins.

I have the belief that our founding fathers knew America would be a melting pot of religions, cultures, and beliefs and that is why they established state's rights to accommodate the beautiful array of citizens of which would make the United States of America. I’ve studied this period in American history a great deal, and I don’t think I’m making a leap to suggest that I do not believe this to be the case at all. The founding fathers in reviewing many of their writings, federalist papers and more, do not seem to anticipate anything but a society rooted in the landed aristocracy they knew and were a part of. The application of the rights in the Bill of Rights was slowly but surely expanded to all people and then slowly but surely enshrined to the states. Consider the text of the 14th amendment, to come after the Civil War and finally settle the issue of who a citizen is, the 15th protecting the right to vote for blacks, the 19th to only come after World War I giving women the right to vote, and the 26th passed in 1971 allowing 18 year olds to vote.

If we’re going to credit the founding fathers with anything its a system that places branches of government at odds with each-other, and that does tend to evolve with society, and not be locked into a set of rules understood as necessary in 1789, although there are plenty who would disagree as well.

If we continue to push one set of beliefs how different are we than North Korea, Iran, etc? Because we aren’t jailing people, we aren’t executing people, we aren’t using the power of law to say you may not speak about an issue. But society and people can decide not to support a position any longer.

This slippery slope has existed always and predates America, imo.

Edit: sorry for any grammatical, formatting errors wrote this from mobile and quickly.

I fully support gay marriage and I personally think Brendan is on the wrong side of this issue, but I also fully support the right of people to hold their own opinions, even when other people find them unpopular. If they weren't allowed to hold unpopular opinions, then pretty much all the social progress we made in the last century - racial equality, feminism, gay rights, etc. - would never have happened.

If you're saying it's government and culture (and many religions) that are against gay people marrying, I agree with that.

Ideally, these rights could be assigned piecemeal between any two individuals, with non-exclusion (i.e., polyamory is allowed.) Perhaps my spouse isn't the best at difficult decisions, and I'd prefer my stable son to be able to make difficult medical decisions, like whether I should be kept on life support. Perhaps I would like to file taxes jointly with my roommate for two years, if we shared household expenses.

In no way is granting gay marriage some kind of rights equalization, but an expansion of an already unfair system, so I oppose it, just as if white people could own black people, but not vice versa, I would not be in favor of allowing black people to own white people, and would oppose any such measure, while being in favor of real equalization by abolishing the system of anybody owning anybody.

Go to any of the thousands of rural communities in the United States, especially in the midwest, and you will find many people who will strongly stand by their opinion that gay marriage should not be legal.

Just because you believe that gay rights are as fundamental as women's suffrage does not mean that, as a political issue, gay rights are as decided nationwide as women's suffrage.

I was such a big advocate for the push to legalize gay marriage because the government has absolutely no business telling people who they can and can't marry, and the legal distinction caused ridiculous ripple effects in everything from healthcare to taxes for anyone that wasn't allowed to marry their partner.

At this point I guess the political debate would be that the government can, in fact, tell us who we're allowed to marry?

I thought the parent comment suggested that the opinions of those who cannot separate out their beliefs from themselves, so when you question their opinions, they feel you are attacking them personally, are less respectable.

Know how much gay people marrying each other affects your life, if you're not gay and have no plans to marry someone of the same sex?

Zero. It doesn't affect you. Whether gay people marry one another doesn't affect a lot of the people who oppose gay marriage, because it's an entirely private matter.

Apply the same for a lot of other issues.

If you're a business owner, and enjoy the benefits the law gives to business owners, then you play by a slightly different set of rules; you don't get maximal freedom to choose your customers, you have limits in some general ways once you open a business to the public. That set of rules changes from time to time.