Perhaps you should reread my post.

1. That is not one man's opinion. It was the opinion of the unanimous Supreme Court.

2. Since the Supreme Court has the final say on interpreting United States' law, it actually IS law.

3. It is not up to the voters to decide who can marry. The case I cited is evidence of this. The court ruled that, despite a state law to the contrary, interracial couples COULD marry. The voters did not vote on this. This was the interpretation of the constitution.

4. The California Supreme Court was ruling on a proposition, not necessarily on the legality of gay marriage as it deals with constitutional issues.

Please read this carefully, if you don't understand some of the concepts I can explain them, but this is pretty basic constitutional law.

As far as there is no right to marry in the U.S., Supreme Court precedence disagrees with your opinion. In loving v Virginia a unanimous court ruled that marriage could not be denied because of race. This is the exact same thing that is going on right now, except replace race with sexuality. The court held that:

"Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State."

So while marriage is not explicitly mentioned by the constitution, the court has considered marriage to covered by the 4th amendment the constitution (life ...liberty). This is pretty basic stuff here.

Yeah, that doesn't really make sense or is not relevant to this conversation.

There are certain rights that are guaranteed by the constitution. Relevant to this discussion is the 14th amendment which guaranteed equal protection under the law. Not affording gays the same rights that are afforded to straight couples who are able to mary seems a pretty clear violation of the 14th amendment.

In these circumstances, the California court was probably right in this judgement. Nevertheless, this was a lame decision for both sides of the argument. On the one hand, those marriages that did take place are still valid in the eye of the law, but on the other, no new marriages take place.

This decision does nothing to address the legitmate 14th amendment claims made by gay rights activists. In my view, the broader issue at hand is indeed a 14th amendment issue and as such needs to be addressed by the Supreme Court.

Wow, there is a lot here!

I do not believe in astrology. This article by astronomer Phil Plait sums up my reasoning fairly well: http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/astrology.html

As far as ghosts, UFOs, Poltergeist's etc.; I was very interested in these when I was younger but there is no solid evidence for them. The evidence that does exist does not meet the rigorous standards of science. Accordingly, it is difficult to believe. Certainly, I do think people truly believe that they are having some very strange things happen to them. Take UFO abductions for example. I think a lot of these cases can be explained away by the effects sleep paralysis.

In addition to this, I think a lot of proponents to these sorts of things operate under the philosophy of "I want to believe." This never made sense to me. To me, this is saying that these people are only searching for evidence that would prove them correct, not vice versa. It take objectivity out of it, which for me, is very problematic.

It is crazy really. I have been trying to wrap my head around religion v science debate lately. I recall a book I had to read in undergrad for a history of science: "When Science and Christianity Meet." The central thesis of the book was that, despite claims to the contrary, science and religion are not inevitably opposed to each other. Rather, we must look at each incident in which science and religion clash and examine the nuances of these incidents. From this examination, it should become apparent that the ostensible clash between science and religion results from personality and egos rather than the claim that science and religion cannot be roconciled.

I am starting to rethink the position of that book as these types of incidents are becoming more common. But now I fear that I am just rambling.

By the way, thanks for the warm welcome!

If I had kids, I don't think I could handle them being in a school like that. It really is an assault on reason. What did you do in response?

Hello Deke,

I don't think you have a solid idea as to how science is supposed to work. I think a lot of people mistakenly take the position that evolution does not occur because science has not provided the evidence. This is not what science is supposed to do. One of the major tenants of science is skepticism. Scientists will make observations (e.g. Darwin's observations leading up to "his" theory) and then form an explanation of these observations (i.e. facts), which is theory. It is the scientist's job to disprove theories by making hypotheses and then testing these hypotheses in controlled conditions. The fact that evolution has stood the test of time (i.e. it has not been able to be disproved for over 150 years) is why it has such high standing today.

It is not the job of the scientist to prove something. Rather, it is his or her job to disprove a theory. That is how science works and this is why "facts" are seen differently in the scientfic world than in everday use. "Facts," generally speaking, within the scientific community are unremarkable.