Huckabee all the way.

Dude, CHUCK NORRIS was standing right behind him at Mike's little victory speach at the Iowa caucus.

That and all these little quizes always say he's the candidate I relate to most.

Obama seems more respectable than anyone though, so... depending on how things go I MAY actually end up voting for Barack instead.

The reason why I disagree with this position is because you're going to be voting for a person rather than the message behind the person. While it's true that you will want the person to represent your country to be a likable man, it's much more important that this man is actually going to do things that will make your country better. And the question is whether Huckabee will be this person.

I suggest you read up on his positions. You'll see that even though he appears to be a warm and likable man, he might not actually represent your ideology. Republicans generally want to benefit rich and upper-class people at the cost of middle- and lower-class people. They also want to restrict the rights of minorities and slow down the natural course of progression. If you consider yourself to be part of the lower- or middle-class, you most definitely do not benefit from voting for Huckabee.

And I'll be honest, I hate the idea of gay marriage.  Those two words shouldn't even be in the same sentence, let alone right next to eachother in the sentence.  I know there are bigger issues than that but I don't like it at all and the Republicans will make sure all that nonsense goes away.

That might be true, but what you must consider here is whether you take your right to marry for granted. You're not gay, so you probably do. How would you feel if you were stripped of this right? In reality, you must accept that gay people are human beings too, just like you. To disagree with that is to discriminate.

I'm not surprised to see that there are people who really believe that gay people should not be allowed to marry. Discrimination, just like racism, is very alive, despite how we're seeing a black presidential candidate gain significant momentum for the first time in history.

If history taught us anything, it's that discrimination ultimately leads to loss of life, which in turn reveals how useless it really is to treat another specific group of human beings differently. This is something we're reminded of time and again. Think of Kenia, think of Rwanda, think of Darfur, think of South Africa, but also of Germany and Turkey and Bosnia. I don't think I'm exaggerating by referring to these events, because they were instigated by the same way of thinking: that some people are lesser than others, and that they deserve to be treated with less respect than others for that reason.

EDIT: some extra food for thought: even if the person elected will constitutionally define marriage as a bond between a male and a female, gay marriage is still going to become possible at some point. The only difference is that it will be a bit further into the future.

Why is that? The reason is because mankind naturally progresses all the time through its ability to realize that things can be better and act upon that knowledge. Ultimately, all of mankind would benefit from there not being any discrimination, as people are able to contribute to society in the most efficient way if they're fully happy, and able to work at the best of their ability and spend money at the best of their ability. Discrimination hampers this, and it's for this reason that it will ultimately be fought against. It could be today, or it could be tomorrow. It's due to there being a general benefit to all people that has caused discrimination to ultimately globally decrease everywhere.

This is why the racial discrimination of black people was abolished in America. Of course, racism will probably never truly go away, but it's likely that current modern governments are going to keep going by the ideology of equality among people.

What I'm saying is that not allowing gay people to marry prevents natural progression. Maybe you realize that it is, but just don't know the consequences. It's important to know that with no progression, there's no modernity.

DADA, I agree with your post, pretty thoughtful, except the problem in your post is that the "human naturally progresses" concept is an idealist/liberal paradigm, and not everyone thinks this way. Realists have a more pesimistic paradigm in which humans always fall in a cycle that always ends with destruction.

I didn't even know about that, to be honest. The idea of natural progression towards the best possible circumstances with the resources that are available seems to make much more sense than anything else. Isn't it in the nature of the human being to advance? Then what have we been doing since our inception? Why were the slaves freed and the homosexuals given acceptance? And why was racial discrimination of black people abolished in the United States and elsewhere? This is progression, isn't it? And all these things have two things in common: they're difficult to revert, and they were beneficial to society as a whole. I can't think of how you could argue against this.

Anyway, maybe I'm just missing the point completely here. What's the name of the other theory? Because I'd like to go read up on how they explain themselves.

EDIT: by the way, let's not debate this here, I don't really know anything about this. I thought there was probably an accepted theory about this, but I didn't even know for sure. This is just something that seemed to make sense to me, but I haven't actually researched it. But I'd like to, so if you can help me do that, that'd be great.

the main actors of our world as we can see nowadays with these wars and the conflict with iran, do not share this paradigm.

Well, I do believe that human beings will always be waging war with one another. That's not the point. What I'm talking about here is not even on the individualistic level. It's a subconscious direction that all of a society goes towards.

It may be so that Huckabee becomes the next president. When that happens, gay people won't be able to marry, for one thing. But in the future, perhaps the next president or maybe a generation further down, they will be given that right. And then it might be taken away, but eventually they'll end up having it and keeping it.

Sorry if it seemed like I just hated gay people for a second, I just don't believe it's beneficial on a progressive scale for them to ever be allowed to marry.

Alright, I'm sorry you don't think that it is.

A marriage isn't a marriage until some kind of authority says that it is. It just so happens that in America, this authority has said that gay people can't marry. I find this unfair and unnecessary. Not allowing gay people to marry is a form of discrimination, as it excludes people on ethnic grounds over which they have no control. And I'm strongly against this kind of discrimination, no matter what the case.