gdp's Comments

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Fri, 19 Dec 2008 23:30:42 +0000

Administrator - you keep deleting my post. Is it because I named my org? At least I'm not complaining about Rick Warren and I'm trying to answer your question....

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Fri, 19 Dec 2008 23:19:42 +0000

Government could provide better support to the movement I support, if it would listen to our case and engage us in a dialog. In general, government would serve us better if it listened TO us instead of prescribing answers FOR us. It should also facilitate the consideration of ideas based on merit, not just popularity - some of the best ideas come from small groups and even individuals - electricity was not invented by a committee. When Hall and Herault changed the world, they weren't even aware of each other, and neither put his idea to a vote. The Obama campaign has built an incredible collection of spectacularly good ideas. My favorite is this one - http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/fat...The new Administration would do well to mine the campaign's database for good ideas, and acknowledge the people who thought them up.

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Fri, 19 Dec 2008 22:54:47 +0000

Mark, you could be a devoted husband with 15 years invested in your marital relationship, plus 12, 10 and 8 years invested as devoted father to your kids. Your wife can file a lawsuit and ask a judge to divorce you for no reason except "I have more 'fun' with my wealthier boyfriend". If she asks for sole custody, and if you can't prove that she's a drug addict or has abused the kids, she'll get sole custody, up to 65% of your future take-home pay, her pick of the assets you two have built up. You'll get stuck with a rent payment on a new house, the shirt on your back, BOTH legal bills, and 4 days a month with your kids. You'll be told to consider yourself "lucky" if she complies with the visitation schedule and lets you see your family. GLBTQ people can HAVE marriage - as it is now, what "no-fault" divorce and greedy lawyers have made it - is the dumbest thing I'll never do again!

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Fri, 19 Dec 2008 22:33:07 +0000

(con't..) State governments can help this effort by inverting the practice of awarding sole custody and monetary support to plaintiffs in NO-FAULT divorces, so that the petition for NFD is interpreted NOT as a demand to marginalize the other parent, but instead as a request for permission to leave the family and pay support. This would remove the opportunity for plaintiffs to use the justice system to secure an unfair advantage over their spouse, it would reward the parent who tries harder to maintain family integrity and it would motivate spouses with abuse evidence to present that evidence and cooperate with prosecutors. State governments can help this effort by recognizing that each parent's relationship to their children exists independent of their relationship with any spouse, and then using JURIES to decide questions of parental rights and responsibilities on the merits of any evidence against an accused parent.

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Fri, 19 Dec 2008 04:43:15 +0000

...the exception that proves the rule.. in the Yoplait commercials, the little French looking woman and the spunky Black woman... Friends? or "Friends with benefits"?

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Fri, 19 Dec 2008 04:21:04 +0000

Actually, the Bible says "Before you were formed in your mother's womb, I knew you" - God knew everything about David Grant before he was conceived - everything he would do, all the choices he would make - and God allowed him to be born. Are you more righteous than God? Your bible also says "he among you who is without sin, should cast the first stone" - and I'd ask all the Rick Warren critics here to consider that one too. Your Bible also says "Judge not, lest ye be judged". Tolerance. Personally, homosex creeps me out. I thank God that I'm free to abstain from it. Beyond that, it's none of my business, and I've got too many of my own problems to waste time "having a problem with" other people's sex lives. If God disapproves, HE can smite those who offend Him, he surely doesn't need my "help".

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Fri, 19 Dec 2008 03:32:06 +0000

He has definitely changed how national election campaigns are organized and funded. I don't know whether he has changed the mechanism by which policy is generated - the big question is whether Obama will actually be guided by the opinions stated on forums like this, or does he have a staff of "gatekeepers" to cherry-pick ideas here which agree with the established agenda, or will the new Administration even read any of this? This whole site could be a source of tremendous wisdom and insight for Obama, or it could be a slick tool of crowd control. So far, the agenda published here is exactly the same as on the campaign website a year ago, despite millions of "MyBO" bloggers contributing their very best ideas. Surely one of these ideas was so spectacularly good that it will inspire Obama to revise his position on an issue as soon as he reads it. Will he ever read it?

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Fri, 19 Dec 2008 02:47:08 +0000

Frederick Douglass was the first Black man to receive a vote at a major party Presidential nominating convention. The party was GOP.

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Fri, 19 Dec 2008 01:59:57 +0000

In the days of the writing of the Constitution, marriage was ONLY a church service, each marital union was established in a church, marriage was ....... an "establishment of religion". Congress (hehe) "shall make no law..."

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Fri, 19 Dec 2008 01:50:00 +0000

Kimi- I think you could change almost anybody's mind on anything. If you're not a moderator here, you should be - I've definitely enjoyed your perspective on my issue! ;)

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Fri, 19 Dec 2008 01:36:14 +0000

And when gays have the right to marry, I'll still have no access to any of those benefits - government will continue to give preferential treatment to people based on their relationship status. This is a gross abuse of government authority in all situations except one - parents do have a fundamental right to maintain relationships with their children, and the parent-child relationship is deserving of special treatment by government. I have no "right to marry", because I'm butt-ugly and have no right to compel anyone to marry me. I have no "right to marry" because no woman I've met has been willing to marry me once she learns of my insistence on equal protection of my fundamental parental rights w/r/t any children we might produce. I was married, involuntarily divorced, and I now choose not to remarry (I won't be fooled again!) - and government discriminates against me by not offering me the benefits it gives married people.

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Fri, 19 Dec 2008 01:13:19 +0000

Teri, it wasn't always that way. It used to be that marriage was ONLY a church service, a community's way of recognzing a couple's mutual promises. Then, government decided it had a "public health" interest in marriage, and it created the "marriage license" as a certificate that a couple had submitted to the blood testing that the government was doing "for the public health". After about a generation of DNA sampling, government seems to have lost interest in collecting blood, but still enjoys collecting the marriage license fee. I will never again submit my relationships to government authority. If I can't find a preacher willing to perform a church-only marriage, I will not marry.

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Fri, 19 Dec 2008 00:39:27 +0000

Brandon, give us the name of your org. And a link to a website. Thanks!

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Fri, 19 Dec 2008 00:34:25 +0000

Please, if you disagree with the comment above this one, tell me why at http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/fat...

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Fri, 19 Dec 2008 00:14:58 +0000

Brandon - I'd like to see what you've written on the bailout. Would you post it as a reply to my blog about the mortgage crisis? http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/fat...

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Fri, 19 Dec 2008 00:04:58 +0000

Why does government get involved with ANYONE's personal relationships? Give marriage back to the churches, and if you're a member of a community that can't find a church to marry you, get with your community and start a church that will!

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Thu, 18 Dec 2008 23:31:17 +0000

Also take a look at www.glennsacks.com

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Thu, 18 Dec 2008 23:27:01 +0000

Juvenile court definitely has its problems too (we've been discussing no-fault divorces here...) I hate to see news stories where one parent is claimed to have perpetrated while the other was at work, but BOTH are before the JC, BOTH facing loss of parental rights for what ONE is alleged to have done.

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Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:59:55 +0000

Agreed - the way to "save marriage" is to STOP REWARDING no-fault divorce.

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Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:56:11 +0000

Agreed. My whole point here is that SO MANY of the absent fathers are gone because they were FORCED OUT by judges and laws which unfairly marginalize and exclude good fathers every day in this nation.