[SteveA]

forceful deterance of violent/non-peaceful interactions between people - this almost makes sense - however; it would require more reliance on the government funded Dial-A-Prayer better known as 911. It also opens the door to taking away the RIGHT TO BARE ARMS.

I don't see this as being true. Bearing arms in itself isn't violent or non-peaceful. If someone were to raid someone else and take these arms, that attempt at disarmament in itself would be ab aggressive act.

Also, I did state that force can be tolerated in deterance of violence or other non-peaceful interactions between people (for example, theft). That implies people would have an ability to use force, which could easily be seen as including 2nd Amendment rights.

I see it as primarily an issue of deterring initiations of aggression. Two people could be carrying rifles and there's nothing wrong with that unless one person decides to take a shot at the other.

Whether or not one person desires to have government save money for them doesn't seem to give that person any right to speak for someone else in this. - WHEN has government EVER SAVED? If they were doing what they were supposed to have done - we would not have a Medicare and Social Security crisis! Baby Boomers would have had those accounts nicely filled up!

True, the money isn't even saved, and government representatives have even said as much. The money is taken and spent and they simply take more or print up more as desired. People running a private bank like that would end up in prison.

doesn't seem to give that person any right to speak for someone else in this. I agree marriage is similar. - This type of comment tends to refer to GAY RIGHTS - where are the rights for those who see those rights as being something kids do NOT need to be taught? It is all about SCREW MY RIGHTS to raise my children with focus and goals that are not tarnished with lewd acceptance to behavior that is being publicly pranced in open society.

You're making assumptions I never stated. What we currently have is a STRAIGHT legal priveledge situation. A 60 year old man and woman could get married with legal benefits, yet a 60 year old male/male "couple" would be denied this.

Don't misunderstand me. I know exactly what marriage is about, and it happens to be 90% or more NOT be about legal priveledges. Legal marriage isn't the same thing as a private marriage. Government shouldn't be in the business of marriage from how I see things. You could remove legal marriage and still be able to deal with legal issues around private marriages without the extra fluff.

The problem is that people are pushing for gay couples to have the same legal benefits that straight couples have. The mistake is that neither should have any special legal benefits simply for filing a piece of paper. The laws should simply regard individual issues that might need to be addressed (for example - what commitment has each parent made toward supporting their children, what premarital arrangements were made that might need to be enforced, or does the citizenship status of someone need to be modified in recognition of a personal relationship?)

Marriage should be a private/social/religious institution and not something with a definition and legal requirements imposed by legislators. If t would be easy enough for people who wanted to have something relatively standardized for a marriage contract sign something like a rental agreement for an apartment. The terms would be relatively straightforward and shouldn't be up to legislative whim and volumes of family law books to define.

I'd love to see a serious overhaul of (at least the federal) government - YES! I agree 100%! Three things that need to be done (in my opinion): We need to STOP Lobbyists from supporting politician advertising that lies to Americans who vote for them - WE vote for politicians to represent us not the lobbyists. Then there is the Amendment Game in the Senate and Congress that tack on special interest actions to get these otherwise useful bills past. I do think the government needs to create some sort of a regulation like advertisers have (truth in advertising) for themselves and the News Media.

Sounds like some good ideas. Simply finding a way to actually get the federal government to truly amend the constitution (which includes getting the approval of state legislators) before assuming it has new powers would be a great thing as well. It requires a very large majority of governmental bodies, including state legislators to add new powers to the federal government, yet it continues to grow despite having never amended the constitution in longer than I can remember.