Thoughts on the invalidation of DOMA
I wish I could be sanguine about the future of marriage equality, but judging from the angry pronouncements from the right it looks like hatred and bigotry, like the last lurch of a dying monster in a B-movie will not die.
The opposition to same-sex marriage purports to be about a lot of things: religious freedom (the freedom to hate and discriminate in name of religion), family values (despite rampant divorce, spousal abuse and child abuse among heterosexual couples) and even economic costs in insuring same sex spouses and losing tax revenue if people file as a married couple (as if Republicans really cared about tax revenue!)
What is really at issue is discrimination. The opponents of same-sex marriage want to do anything they can to avoid having to acknowledge that homosexuals are in any way "like them." They want to exclude gay citizens in any way they can from normal citizenship--even normal humanity.
This is why the issue of same-sex marriage is on a par with racial equality. It is an exercise that forces Americans to stop "othering" gay people, and in their own crude parlance, legalization of same-sex marriage is being "crammed down their throats." They prefer to exclude, hate and discriminate, and this is more important to them than any American ideal of equality, protection under the law or human rights.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/27/opinion/the-long-road-to-marriage-equality.html?comments#permid=27
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Vilified as a Holocaust denier, a supporter of terrorism and a backer of Iraqi insurgents, the president of Iran was actually able to make New Yorkers burst into laughter - though he did not intend to.
"In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said at Columbia University last night in response to a question about the recent execution of two gay men there.
"In Iran we do not have this phenomenon," he continued. "I do not know who has told you we have it."
Islamic Shari'ah law is extracted from both the Qur'an and hadiths. Islamic jurisprudence are expansion of the laws contained within them by Islamic jurists. Therefore, they are seen as the laws of Allah. You need only look to the rulings under Shari'ah to see the accepted mainstream interpretation of Islam and its commandments to its followers. Homosexuality under this law, is not only a sin, but a punishable crime against God.
In the case of homosexuality, how it is dealt with differs between the four mainline schools of Sunni jurisprudence today, but what they all agree upon is that homosexuality is worthy of a severe penalty
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