It's pretty much a certainty that the enough petition signatures will be gathered to put the issue to a vote. However, if a successful Constitutional case is made, it "may" not go to a public vote. Here are my general thoughts on the topic:
1. It's extremely hypocritical for people who rail about keeping gov't out of their lives (in a "don't tread on me" sort of way) to then argue that "they want" gov't (as long as it's in someone else's life). The domestic partnership law still denies partners of many things that other married couples enjoy like the ability to file married filling jointly as one example. Others argue that a state ruling doesn't change that so it doesn't relate. What? Obviously it will be easier to address at the federal level after more and more states pass these laws. Eventually it will be the case so let's just get there already.
2. Irt the arguments I've heard that marriage is about encouraging "reproduction of the species": A hundred yrs ago this was more of a valid point because sex, let alone having children, out of wedlock was condemned such that most people took many dates before even holding hands or kissing. Until "relatively" recently, not many children were being born without a marriage to kick things off. A decline in the marriage rate (down from 72% in 1960 to 51% in 2010) shows this has been changing. In many ways we'd be better off going more in that direction (i.e. slowing down a bit) but if we take a realistic view of things (TV shows glamorizing teen pregnancy, celebrities having kids & remaining unmarried, increased sexuality in TV & movies, etc.) it's obvious that's not going to happen.
3. Irt comments about religious beliefs: Allowing same sex marriages at the state/federal level doesn't impact churches in the least so introducing particular religious beliefs to the argument simply distracts from the underlying issue of equality.
We have a long time tradition of freedom to practice your religion but not freedom to force your religion’s beliefs on those who don’t subscribe to them. Furthermore, a given church/religion doesn't have to recognize the marriage or do the service if it doesn't want to. Therefore, if someone wants to be legally (state/federal) recognized as being married, they should be allowed to do so without people unleashing such furor.
4. All that being said, I also believe there's a DNA issue that influences people being homosexual. By no means does that mean I'm saying homosexuals are bad people (in the same way people predisposed to other genetic issues aren't bad people). I believe the feelings come just as natural as those felt by heterosexuals (due to the DNA coding that impacts how people feel).
I think we're less than a generation from isolating the area of DNA that leads to homosexual feelings and being able to "treat" it. When that occurs, the dilemma will become do we address the DNA issue (like we'll be able to do to other DNA issues) while someone is a baby, or would that be seen as making decisions for someone who may not want "to be changed" (which is a tricky concept). The trickiness will be that if we know the feelings of not wanting to be changed will exist later in life (due to the very genetic coding issue to be treated), then would it make sense to "wait" till they were older (16 for example) to "ask" them what we already know their DNA will be telling them feels natural. On the other hand that same person would say heterosexual feelings felt natural (at the same example age) "if" a DNA treatment (causing heterosexual feelings to dominate) had been administered to him/her when they were a baby. It will be interesting for sure.
