I agree with the above, picket a symbol of authority. There are many things out there that need to be protested. I have never understood the purpose of shutting down the streets.

The only people they are inconveniencing are the hard working people who are on there way home from trying to scratch out less and less of a living from the same oppressive system that the protestors think they are trying to change.

It's a very important 1%!

FISA warrantless wiretaps
Gardner- Yes https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/112-2012/h...
Udall - No https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/112-2012/s...
Obama - Yes

S 990
Patriot Act Extension
Gardner - Yes https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/112-2011/h...
Udall - No (even on cloture) https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/112-2011/s...
Obama - Yes

CISPA #1
hr 3523
Gardner - Yes https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/112-2012/h...
CISPA #2
hr 624
Gardner - Yes http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2013/roll117.xml https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/113-2013/h...
CISA http://tiag.net/senate-committee-advances-cisa-cy...
Udall - No
-Obama has said he will veto CISPA 1 and 2 but not CISA

These are the direct votes. There are many indirect or time related votes that show the same picture.

Regardless of all other positions, we have lost a stalwart defender of the privacy of American citizens. Udall was one of the few voices who spoke out against the growing encroachment of big government spying (and corporate spying). Unfortunately, this is one area where Gardner looked and voted a lot more like Obama. I worry about the loss of this important voice.

In this area, Thank you Mark for your courage!!

I am so glad I supported this. It hasn't been the nightmare we were told for decades it would be. Ok, we have some idiots buying legally and selling to minors. You will always have youth wanting to buy and idiots trying to sell. Still beats the alternative, criminal syndicates selling to both adults and minors. Think about the 350k in county taxes, that is only a small percentage of money taken from criminal syndicates. This has been a good thing.

If it were last week, what would I say to Robin Williams? What if he were not famous? Homeless?

Everyone you meet, every minute of your life, is dealing with things that you have no way of understanding.

Thank you Robin! You gave me pleasure and laughter. I'm sorry you suffered behind a veil of laughter.

Go back and read them. A good 10 to 15 percent of the studies are based upon a moral maxim.

I didn't say gay marriages are bad for kids. I said the one decent study showed that kids with a mother and father figure in their life have a tendency for healthier relationships. There are many other factors to rasing a child.

There are currently 90,000 gay marriages in the US. And, there are currently 800,000 divorces annually. Divorces have some negative tendencies for children. If you were truly concerned about the welfare of children, you should be focusing more on banning divorce.

I'm not going to get into why I think the studies based upon morality and scripture are bad science. I will say, your interpretation of scripture is different than mine. Why should laws only reflect your interpretation?

The studies that talk about stigmatization are circular. There is an easy solution; stop stigmatizing same sex relationships.

The majority of the rest of the studies take conjectural leaps from fact statements to conclusions with no empirical support. For example, the study that children of same sex couples have spent more time in a foster home does not prove that gay marriages cause foster children. This can easily be explained by the fact that more same sex couples adopt children, and more adopted children come from foster homes. Any conclusion needs empirical proofs.

The one study that I thought had a slight bit of credence was the study that children, which have relationships with both a mother and father figure, have healthier relationships. However, this is not the slam dunk against same sex parents that the blogger tries to make it. One of the studies also states that children that have opposite sex siblings have healthier relationships. Should we make families with single sex children illegal? What's really absurd is the blogger tries to discount the importance of a loving family. There is no comparison. It would still be healthier for a foster child to go to a *loving* single parent or same sex couple than no parent.

Love is the most important factor and whether a family looks like "Leave it to Beaver" has no bearing on anything. But, now I am back to my original point and our different interpretations of scripture.

I really don't understand the point you are trying to make. You are asking me why all marriage bans aren't being challenged right now. However, you say in other posts that Hall should slow down and respect the process. And, I'm being honest, I don't see what you are getting at.

What does the research say about their grammar, IQ, or clarity of thought?

I actually manipulated dancing_badger into asking me about Texas cases so I could provide that exact case. And, then I manipulated you into thinking I was making that case look more encompassing without saying such a thing.