Prop 8 is to get a ruling today

[KSig RC]

Originally Posted by BluPhire

Not every conversation or comment is meant to be taken as part of the whole, just opinions on that said thing.

This seems quite contrary to your previous stance, but I actually somewhat agree.

With that being said, okay yes other countries are ahead of putting a law on the book. Whoop di friggin do. What does that mean? Because they are first that means they are ahead.

It means the countries put said law on the books before the good ol' US of A - additionally, there was a subtext that others wish the US would catch up and put a similar law on the books.

In terms of "what does it mean" it means two things, and only two things:

1 - The law is on the books.
2 - It would not be unprecedented for the US to enact national legislation, as other nations already have.

Is everybody's mentality in respect to this topic so surface that all they need is a law on book to slap five and say we made it?

Of course not.

Homosexuality is really the last bastion of legal discrimination left in the United States - that is to say, while discrimination exists for other minorities, legislation to discriminate against one group really only exists for gays and lesbians. For that reason, it's important to remove the legal barriers - that's really a "first" step of sorts.

Until the legal barriers are removed, you're fighting uphill against the mechanism of law - and equality in the eyes of the law is not true equality, but the latter cannot exist without the former. Cannot. By definition.

If that is the case, then yes per the surface my comment is QED and done, but what does it say about those who look at surface.

Is it truly about doing it first or doing it best? Heck some have listed other countries in respect to civil unions for one, marriage for others. Is that a win against the US? Is it just enough to put it on the books. Heck the 15th Amendment was ratified on February 3, 1870, yet we still had to have the Voting Rights Act in '65. Hey but the US was able to get the 15th Amendment on the books, let's pat ourselves on the back sip a latte and order a Turkey Burger, we fought the good fight.

I think I've addressed this fully (see above), but positive steps are still positive steps, and there appears to be no long-term downside to eliminating anti-gay-marriage legislation.

It's going to take literally thousands of similar small victories, but that doesn't mean each victory isn't important, right?

So rather than assuming everybody is taking down the banners and starting to clean up because, gosh, all the work is done here, maybe you should take the Occam's Razor approach and take the statements as they were explicitly said: other countries got there ahead of us.