Society in our country has fallen into the trap of letting traditional religious prejudices and conservative victorian attitudes influence the execution of our constitution and the law. Church and State are supposed to be separate according to our constitution! It's time the courts supported our constitution in this important gay, lesbian, and minority issue. Discriminating against gay and lesbian couples is no different from banning different races from marrying. It's no different than discriminating against a black or jewish person because of the color of their skin or their religion. Most gays and lesbians are BORN loving the same sex and we want an intimate marriage relationship that we don't need to hide from anyone. Like everyone else, we want to shout to the world that we love our partner. We want all the rights and privileges and economic percs that straight married people get. We want to adopt children, we want to have children. Since we cannot change our sexual preference at will, nor do most of us want to, we do not want to be treated like second class citizens by the law. Most gay and lesbian couples want to be monogamous and commited, and want the law to support that commitment to each other. And if this means that there will be a legal snowball effect, allowing gays to be in the military with all the spousal benefits, so much the better! Why should we have to file a hundred legal documents instead of simply displaying our marriage certificate? If it means that your family can have military family benefits, have military medical care, or live with you on a military base... well, IT'S ABOUT HIGH TIME!! If it makes family health insurance easier without all the obstacles, so much the better. If it means that in a hospital with your partner in critical condition, and you have the sole decision how to manage their medical care instead of long alienated parents... SO MUCH THE BETTER!!! Full marriage rights, full civil rights, nothing else will do!!! If it means that lesbian and gay youth can finally lead a normal adolescence without hiding their true self and suffering serious emotional harm, SO MUCH THE BETTER!!! If it means a lesbian couple's children can hold their head up in school and speak the truth proudly, so much the better! If it means a married gay couple in Small Town USA can walk the streets of their home town holding hands, so much the better! If it means that you don't have to live in a metropolitan area like San Francisco to be comfortable living in your ideal average community, SO... MUCH... THE... BETTER! The snowball effect is limitless, these points we have mentioned are only the glorious tip of the iceberg that we dream about. The guilt imposed upon us, the oppression... it is horrible and ridiculous. Our community deserves the same civil rights that straight people have, thereby not making our lives more difficult, but instead placing us at the same level of advantage that the mainstream has. Separate is Not Equal!!! The Bush Administration is showing their true conservative republican agenda: Legislate Rightwing Religious Beliefs. Instead of spending time solving real problems, Bush & cronies are spending negative time & energy trying to constitutionalize discrimination. It's a good thing that it is extremely difficult to pass an amendment to the constitution. The ERA amendment didn't pass, amendments take years for states to ratify if ever, and the courts can always declare anything unconstitutional anyway! Good luck bush in promoting your negative hate campaign against me and my family, you will be remembered for your controversial neverending war in Iraq, your shameless conservative hate mongering, your ignorance in just about everything, your mistreatment of the environment, your outright preferential treatment of big business and rich people, and driving us into an economic Depression that you simply haven't named. Bush has done so much to divide this country that he has more than negated what he did to unite it after 911. And he's not done! He will really be getting obnoxious until the end of his term, which I'd have to assume will be the end of his presidency, trying to push through everything he can on his hateful agenda. He has truly outdone his father in harming this nation in every way. If he would simply expend all this wasted energy on creating jobs, think how much he could have accomplished. Weigh in on these critically important issues at our Politics message board, DykeNet.net Politics Forum.