MARRIAGE EQUALITY NATIONWIDE

[Anima]

But who holds the power is determined by the majority.  That is a representative democracy.  

Unfortunately representative democracy in the US doesn't always work that way. In the 2000 presidential election Al Gore won the popular vote by 500,000 and lost the election. In 2012 House republican candidates received fewer total votes than their democrat opponents yet won 54% of the seats.

In any case a majority does not give you the right to discriminate against minorities. White males currently hold 65% of all elected seats in the US, but they are only 31% of the population. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you are a white male. If so how would you feel if the rest of the population got together and started passing laws that didn't let white males participate in activities such as voting when everyone else was allowed to do so.

Actually I am a brown skinned native american member of the Ysleta Pueblo del Sur or Tigua tribe and registered Democrat. So I am familiar with oppressed minority experience and stereotyping. I am also sufficiently brown skinned as to be followed around the store and pulled over for being suspected as an illegal immigrant in the great state of Arizona where I live (and have been on more than one occasion). As I have said in a previous thread, I will not determine my understanding of law, biology, sociology, or teleology on my subjective sentiment.

Even with all of that I would not be so quick to depart from democracy. While I do not disagree with your statistics (though would contend your Gore example is the exception not the rule. I voted for Gore too) it is more a representation of people voting and gerrymandering of districts by those who did vote. While I would argue voting should be mandatory and punishable by increasing fines; and that voting and the districts of voting should be conducted and determined by the post office. I would once again not be so quick to say our democracy is not representative of the people or comprised of the people. Polls and online forums are poor substitutes for engaging in the political process which is our civic duty.

And by definition of ethics (particular ethical utility) a majority does give you the right to discriminate against minorities. Particularly minorities which represent a harm to the society which is comprised of a given majority. It makes no sense to say the majority is to be beholden unto the minority. By that argument the majority should abide by the determination of the group of nuts, and the group of nuts should abide by the determination of a single crack pot.

To paraphrase CS Lewis (I expect the ad hominem attacks to follow):

"Either the day must come when the majority prevails and all the minorities are no longer able to infect it: or else for ever and ever the minority can destroy in the majority the happiness they reject for themselves. I know it has a grand sound to say ye'll accept no system which leaves even a single minority outside. But watch that sophistry or ye'll make a Dog in a Manger the tyrant of the universe."

Do we still not realize that equality is not fair and fairness is not equal. If you treat all things the same regardless of their condition all you do is harm the superior and inferior. The reality is there is a difference. Some people and conduct is better and some is worse.