I am loathe to talk politics in this blog, but Bill, you’re wrong when you say:

It [the proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage] does not “ban gay marriage” or “take away rights” from gays, as critics charge, because gay marriage has never been legal in Tennessee. Nor does the proposed amendment discriminate – if voters approve the amendment, all Tennessee residents of adult age will have the same right they currently have: to be married to one person of the opposite gender.

You assume an invalid definition of rights. Rights are not conferred by law. Rights exist before law. Law protects rights. Or at least it’s supposed to.

Under Bill’s definition of a “right,” Cubans have no right to free speech because free speech has never been legal in Castro’s Cuba. This is patently false. Individual Cubans have the right to speak freely because they own their minds and own the thoughts in them. Their ownership of those ideas, gives them the right to express themselves freely. Just like your ownership of your house gives you the right to knock down a wall and put in a new den. Castro’s regime denies Cubans this right to free speech, but the right still exists.

Under his definition of a “right,” Iraqis during Hussein’s regime had no right to their own lives, since they never had. Hey, Iraqi individuals had the same rights as every other Iraqi, right? So what if Iraqi individuals couldn’t choose whom they wanted to love, how they wanted to live, what they wanted to worship, right? That stuff had never been legal anyway.

Homosexuals have the right to define their consensual, adult relationships in any way that they choose, but they are being denied that right by the state of Tennessee.

I could go on, but I think I’ve said everything that I could here and here.