The phrase "...life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." is from the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution.
The first amendment argument is better, but still not exactly cut and dry. There are more than one religion that oppose gay marriage, it's not exactly a 'favoring one religion over another issue". It does seem to be a religious idea with no secular purpose though... but if that's not enough to overturn it, is this a not everyone is gonna be happy situation?

Jinx - Can I just answer "Yes" to your last question or get a mulligan perhaps?

I'm being lazy, I'm gonna let a lawyer speak for me:

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/amar/20090102.html

...also bein too lazy to copy/paste.

from that link:
*bold mine

Thats what I was talking about blue. With Pelosi's changes this will not exist.

Its pretty clear that both parties like to use "debate" and revision, amendments to muck up, super fast track without time to review, deregulate and pork up essential legislation. Pelosi has been a keen study of the other side of the aisle. She's got power and I'm glad to see her use her strength. She is there to govern and frankly, we need it. Time to help right the ship or get out of the way.

Theory is not practice.

Just humor me a minute, so I can see more clearly what page you're on.

Would you please spell out to me what you think the actual proposed changes to the House Rules are? Not from the biased site that you quoted, but what they really are.

(Hint: They're not "Pelosi's changes" per se)

Pelosi Erases Gingrich's Long-Standing Fairness Rules
by Connie Hair (more by this author)
Posted 01/05/2009 ET
Updated 01/05/2009 ET


House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to re-write House rules today to ensure that the Republican minority is unable to have any influence on legislation. Pelosi’s proposals are so draconian, and will so polarize the Capitol, that any thought President-elect Obama has of bipartisan cooperation will be rendered impossible before he even takes office.

Pelosi’s rule changes -- which may be voted on today -- will reverse the fairness rules that were written around Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America.”

In reaction, the House Republican leadership is sending a letter today to Pelosi to object to changes to House Rules this week that would bar Republicans from offering alternative bills, amendments to Democrat bills or even the guarantee of open debate accessible by motions to recommit for any piece of legislation during the entire 111th Congress. These procedural abuses, as outlined in the below letter obtained by HUMAN EVENTS, would also include the repeal of six-year limit for committee chairmen and other House Rules reform measures enacted in 1995 as part of the Contract with America.

After decades of Democrat control of the House of Representatives, gross abuses to the legislative process and several high-profile scandals contributed to an overwhelming Republican House Congressional landslide victory in 1994. Reforms to the House Rules as part of the Contract with America were designed to open up to public scrutiny what had become under this decades-long Democrat majority a dangerously secretive House legislative process. The Republican reform of the way the House did business included opening committee meetings to the public and media, making Congress actually subject to federal law, term limits for committee chairmen ending decades-long committee fiefdoms, truth in budgeting, elimination of the committee proxy vote, authorization of a House audit, specific requirements for blanket rules waivers, and guarantees to the then-Democrat minority party to offer amendments to pieces of legislation.

Pelosi’s proposed repeal of decades-long House accountability reforms exposes a tyrannical Democrat leadership poised to assemble legislation in secret, then goose-step it through Congress by the elimination of debate and amendment procedures as part of America’s governing legislative process.


Below is the text of the letter on which the House Republican leadership has signed off.

January 5, 2009

The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
Speaker of the House
H-232, U.S. Capitol
Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Madame Speaker,

We hope you and your family had a joyful holiday season, and as we begin a new year and a new Congress, we look forward to working with you, our colleagues on both sides of the aisle, and President-elect Obama in tackling the many challenges facing our nation.

President Obama has pledged to lead a government that is open and transparent. With that in mind, we are deeply troubled by media reports indicating that the Democratic leadership is poised to repeal reforms put in place in 1995 that were intended to help restore Americans’ trust and confidence in the People’s House. Specifically, these reports note that the Majority, as part of its rules package governing the new Congress, will end six-year term limits for Committee chairs and further restrict the opportunity for all members to offer alternative legislation. This does not represent change; it is reverting back to the undemocratic one-party rule and backroom deals that the American people rejected more than a decade ago. And it has grave implications for the American people and their freedom, coming at a time when an unprecedented expansion of federal power and spending is being hastily planned by a single party behind closed doors. Republicans will vigorously oppose repealing these reforms if they are brought to a vote on the House floor.

As you know, after Republicans gained the majority in the House in 1995, our chamber adopted rules to limit the terms of all committee chairs to three terms in order to reward new ideas, innovation, and merit rather than the strict longevity that determined chairmanships in the past. This reform was intended to help restore the faith and trust of the American people in their government – a theme central to President-elect Obama’s campaign last year. He promoted a message of “change,” but Madame Speaker, abolishing term limit reform is the opposite of “change.” Instead, it will entrench a handful of Members of the House in positions of permanent power, with little regard for its impact on the American people.

The American people also stand to pay a price if the Majority further shuts down free and open debate on the House floor by refusing to allow all members the opportunity to offer substantive alternatives to important legislation -- the same opportunities that Republicans guaranteed to Democrats as motions to recommit during their 12 years in the Minority. The Majority’s record in the last Congress was the worst in history when it came to having a free and open debate on the issues.

This proposed change also would prevent Members from exposing and offering proposals to eliminate tax increases hidden by the Democratic Majority in larger pieces of legislation. This is not the kind of openness and transparency that President-elect Obama promised. This change would deprive tens of millions of Americans the opportunity to have a voice in the most important policy decisions facing our country.

Madame Speaker, we urge you to reconsider the decision to repeal these reforms, which could come up for a vote as early as tomorrow. Just as a new year brings fresh feelings of optimism and renewal for the American people, so too should a new Congress. Changing the House rules in the manner highlighted by recent media reports would have the opposite effect: further breaching the trust between our nation’s elected representatives and the men and women who send them to Washington to serve their interests and protect their freedom.

Sincerely,

Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), Republican Leader
Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), Republican Whip
Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), Conference Chairman
Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.), Policy Committee Chairman
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wyo.), Conference Vice-Chair
Rep. John Carter (R-Texas), Conference Secretary
Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas), NRCC Chairman
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Chief Deputy Whip
Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.), Rules Committee Ranking Republican

(Click here for a pdf copy of the letter with signatures.)

http://www.humanevents.com/article.p...t=yes&id=30143

Let's just have a little talk with the terrorists.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009...ama-gaza-hamas

By talking to them we can tell them the recourse to their actions and maybe, just maybe, offer them a friggin carrot to STOP KILLING PEOPLE. Perhaps then Israel could do the same. WTF? It certainly can't hurt. Could things really get much worse over there? I know its a long shot, but can it really hurt?

Agreed, they are the duly elect reps of the Palestinians so it's not elevating their status... see what they have to say.

Honestly, I really think had we all (the western powers) recognised them from the start (as the duly elected reps) and talked to them sooner, then the situation would not now be as bad as it is. I think we missed the boat on that one. There was a point, just after the elections, when we could possibly have turned the situation in a more peaceful direction.

I have mixed opinions on this. Its not really "us" they need to be talking/dealing with, its Israel. I recognize that we can, and should, exert our influence to achieve a more peaceable outcome for all involved,but it really comes down to them.

"If we could just sit down and talk and get over our differences!" The very idea that one might do that is a Western concept, not shared with Arabic culture.

The thing that's hard to remember, and almost impossible to come to grips with, is that they don’t think the same way we do.

Yes, follow that link... required reading, from an American anthropologist who spent years in Eastern Europe and then a year with the Saudis.

It's amazing, because the dominant lesson for us Westerners, for the last few generations, is people are all the same. We can't possibly imagine that, when Israelis bomb innocent Palestinian children, that is exactly what the mothers and fathers of those children want to have happen. We imagine they value their children in the same ways we do. We can't accept the notion in our heads that the father teaches the children that the greatest glory is if they die with him when he is bombed from above. We really can't accept that this is what he actually believes.

The goal of our negotiations will be for them to become more Western. Not outright, not obviously; we will depend on things like cause and effect, ideas of Western honor, things they don't believe in and don't value. We can't see that because we are Western. And so, when we sit down with them and negotiate with them from our Western point of view, the negotiations will necessary fail because of things we just can't understand.