http://www.avert.org/usastaty.htm

Prop 6 was a piece of anti-gay legislation that would have had an aggregational effect; It would affect multiple communities in unique ways that would provide ample opportunity for litigation and all the potential costs that bears.

There is precedent for this qualified approach to protecting minority rights through emphasizing the aggregated role of money in discrete acts of discrimination. The challenges to Civil Rights legislation in the Supreme Court led to opinions outlining this route to civil protection under the law. Katzenbach v. McClung, for example, highlighted the explicit connection between protected class rights and articles of interstate commerce, the inclusion of the latter coming before the former. In essence, the campaign against Proposition 6 was successful not because of any universal humanist argument embraced by the Californian conservative hegemony, but because the issue was framed in ways that were ideologically appropriate to potential supporters of the ballot measure, emphasizing the financial implications of discrimination, rather than the human cost.

As for how I feel about the ‘medicine and morality’ comment, bearing in mind that by 1987 people knew that there was a high probability that it was a blood transmitted disease, and haemophiliac children were dying of AIDS, to use a ‘value neutral’ arguement to justify a muted governmental response to the crisis is hardly displaying compassion or leadership on the issue. If reagan was trying to repudiate only intravenous drug users and promiscuous gay men, then he was intentionally misrepresenting the science of the diesease as it was known at that point.

thegayconservative, to defend homosexuality by saying it is not a disease is not compassion towards gay people. It merely reflects the notion that the legislation was flawed and prone to litigation.

OIC. So, in a time when many thought it was a disease, saying that it wasn’t was just a CYA instead of sincerity. Of course we all know that Republicans are all racist, sexist, bigot homophobes, based not on any reality, but on emotion instead.

(correct me if I’m wrong, but this sounds like a wholesale repudiation of homosexuality to me. Dont want AIDS, dont be gay!)

The key words, there, are to me. It’s what you want to believe, therefore it is and it can’t be anything else.

You don’t have any links to those numbers you cite, do you?

On the responce to the AIDS crisis:
On April 2, 1987, Reagan said: “How [information about AIDS] is used must be up to schools and parents, not government. But let’s be honest with ourselves, AIDS information can not be what some call ‘value neutral.’ After all, when it comes to preventing AIDS, don’t medicine and morality teach the same lessons.” (correct me if I’m wrong, but this sounds like a wholesale repudiation of homosexuality to me. Dont want AIDS, dont be gay!)

When Rock Hudson, a friend and colleague of the Reagans, was diagnosed with AIDS and died in 1985 (one of the 20,740 cases reported that year), Reagan did not speak out as president. When family friend William F. Buckley, in a March 18, 1986, New York Times opinion article, called for mandatory testing for HIV and said that HIV-positive gay men should have this information forcibly tattooed on their buttocks (and IV-drug users on their arms) Reagan said nothing. In 1986, when Surgeon General C. Everett Koop released a report calling for AIDS education in schools, Secretary of Education William Bennett and Gary Bauer, Reagan’s domestic policy adviser, did everything possible to undercut and prevent funding for Koop’s too-little-too-late initiative. Reagan, again, said and did nothing. By the end of 1986, 37,061 AIDS cases had been reported; 16,301 people had died.

And on the issue of funding, which the national review article you supplied makes a big point of highlighting its apparent compassion:

When doctors at the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health asked for more funding for their work on AIDS, they were routinely denied it. Between June 1981 and May 1982 the CDC spent less than $1 million on AIDS and $9 million on Legionnaire’s Disease. At that point more than 1,000 of the 2,000 reported AIDS cases resulted in death; there were fewer than 50 deaths from Legionnaire’s Disease. This drastic lack of funding would continue through the Reagan years.

from actupny.org

Prove it. Anything from hate groups like “Focus on the Family” or their ilk will be instantly dismissed.

How about the more virulent hate group, The New York Times?

Here

Here

and here.

In reality the current divorce rate is about 33% and falling.

And Im not very familiar with Focus on the Family, but why are they a “hate group”?

I am straight and married and I voted for prop 8, not because I have anything against gays, but because I thought the judicial fiat overturning the original referendum sucked.
I suspect many may have voted yes on 8 for this reason, not homophobia. I did not vote in that referendum as I was in Hawaii but probably would have supported at least civil unions for anyone. Aloha

Prove it. Anything from hate groups like “Focus on the Family” or their ilk will be instantly dismissed.

And I respect marriage a lot more than 50% of heterosexuals.

The 50% thing is a complete and utter myth.

I mean, you know, like, why didn’t the leaders of “No on 8″ enlist Ward Connerly in their campaign?

I was perplexed when I first read this. You said Ward Connerly and I was thinking of Bernie Ward. Yeesh!

Shouldn’t be BWI, I suppose.

I’d be very doubtful of any genuine compassion on his part towards the plights and priorities of the gay community. His response to the AIDS crisis is testimony to that.

http://www.nationalreview.com/murdock/murdock200312030913.asp

Reagan used both a September 24, 1978, statement and a syndicated newspaper column to campaign against the initiative.

“Whatever else it is,” Reagan wrote, “homosexuality is not a contagious disease like the measles. Prevailing scientific opinion is that an individual’s sexuality is determined at a very early age and that a child’s teachers do not really influence this.” He also argued: “Since the measure does not restrict itself to the classroom, every aspect of a teacher’s personal life could presumably come under suspicion. What constitutes ‘advocacy’ of homosexuality? Would public opposition to Proposition 6 by a teacher — should it pass — be considered advocacy?”

And I respect marriage a lot more than 50% of heterosexuals. Of course, if one gay divorce means gay marriage is a failure, then so is hetero “marriage”.

#5: Republicans may be cowards, but so are a great many Democrats, especially President Dunham.

“Individuality’s fine as long as we do it together.” – Maj. Frank Burns (M*A*S*H)”

What a great reference.

Indeed. Ward Connerly gets a lot of heat from the left because he vigorously opposes racial quotas but they are deaf, dumb and blind to the fact that he supports same-sex unions. One would think that in a campaign focused on a single issue like this that they would bring together just about everyone they could regardless of whether they agreed with them on other matters.

Feh.

AMEN! I just got this really well worded email from 2 friends of mine who traveled across country to Vermont to get married. Families flew up, friends flew up. It was all bucolic and love, tears and vows, old-fashioned romance that could endure the ages. That was 2 years ago. In the email, they say they’ve “grown apart” and will now pursue thier lives separately. WHAT?!?!?! These two were the portrait ready poster couple for the gay marriage movement. Did they go to counciling? No, they don’t need to. Are they going to Vermont for an anullment? No. Did they not see this coming? No, just happened. What about your vows? Things change. WHAT?!?!?!

I am so furious I could spit. AND they say that I am not a real friend because all their REAL friends support them, and I am the wet rag who obviously doesn’t love, respect and support them.

Yeah, and I’m the self-hating gay guy. Excuse me while I sneeze, BULLSHIT!!!

Sorry, so called gay community. Get your act together. Show some respect for marriage or come up with something else.

Freedom means nothing without equality!

On the contrary: Equality means nothing because, or to the extent, it involves denying people freedom.

Ronald Reagan was courageous.

Well, alright, there’s one little, tiny clue. We must be grateful for the small things!