Morality/Same Sex marriage/God

Morality:

Some state that morality comes from God. I believe that morality, as the book "The Moral Animal" argues so well, has its origins in natural selection.Members of a species that have some degree of cooperation are more likely to survive than ones that don't. The reason we are moral is to reduce harm to us and others and ensure our happiness.Morality that doesn't have that purpose is arbitrary. Right/wrongness don't have a basis in a belief in God. Morality has to supersede a God or it is just the whims of that God. It must be based on real needs of intelligent beings, such as us. Morality is to recognize the suffering of others.
The idea that without a belief in God in a society there would be moral anarchy and chaos is disproven by the fact that the rate of crime by nonbelievers or atheists in society is, in fact, below the rate of the general population. There are very few (but some) atheists in our nation's prisons, and few arrested have been atheists at the time they committed their crimes. If one convinces a Christian there is no God, would that person commit crimes tomorrow? No, because a Christian or an atheist feet empathy towards one fellow person which is the very basis of morality.Now, maybe Vidal, Dawkins and even I might be out of step with the majority but weren't Galileo and Copernicus also out of step for their time with the majority?

Same Sex Marriage:

It is also true that in the 1950 South most Southerners opposed integration, and the majority of Americans in 1850 opposed women's right to vote. In Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education, it took the Supreme Court to uphold the rights of the minority to attend good, integrated schools.If the 14th Amendment and its' "Equal Protection Clause" did not protect gays from being discriminated against, then it does not protect atheists from marrying Jews, Catholics from marrying Baptists or blacks from marrying whites because that wasn't the intent of the writers of the 14th amendment originally.Do we want to take such a narrow view of the law and allow the states, if they so wish, to determine who can marry? Do we want to be able to say to the short that they can't vote, to the skinny that they can't run for office?
All would be allowable by the majority to implement with a limited view of "equal protection."Unless there is an inherent harm in allowing equal protection, such as allowing brothers to marry sisters, which would increase the number of birth defects, there is no reason to deny gays the right to marry. AIDS would decrease under more stable gay relationships, another plus in its favor.Our nation and government is made for all citizens: Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, atheists, men, women, gays, whites, blacks, etc., and should not just reflect just the beliefs of those who wish to implement their religious beliefs into law when there is no secular reason for that implementation.Our nation is a history of progress and an extension of rights and liberties, since its beginning women, non-property owning men, blacks have gained the right to vote.Blacks and whites have gained the right to marry each other. Let's continue that progress forward and not hinder it.

God:

If God was removed from our currency, Pledge of Allegiance and the 10 Commandments from all public buildings and areas, it would not interfere in the least with the right and ability of Christians to practice their religion. They can still insert God when they say the Pledge, they still can obey the commandments in full. I fully honor their right to do so.The problem is when the government gets into the issue of God, it creates complications. It serves to further the belief that a certain God exists, especially to the young. Now that might be fine with certain Christian parents, but the parents of Jews, Hindus, atheists/agnostics and, indeed, certain Christian parents might not wish for the state/government to further a certain view of God or even Christianity.
Of the 10 Commandments, only three have anything to do with modern law: prohibitions on murder, theft and bearing false witness (or in modern terms, perjury). The first four prohibit actually worship of a God other than the Judeo-Christian God. These prohibitions on worshiping other Gods or graven images or honoring the Sabbath or not taking God's name in vain aren't suggestions but commands.James Madison viewed it is imperative to keep religion and state separate: "The Civil government...functions with complete success...by the total separation of the Church from the State," in a letter to Gene Garman. The Treaty of Tripoli states, "The Government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion." This was a treaty ratified while John Adams was president, ratified by many of the same men who just a decade earlier supported the creation of the Constitution.What are the effects of the 10 Commandments in a public school? Well, it gives the impression to the child that they aren't free to worship another God; after all, isn't the school commanding them to worship this specific God, and how? Even if that impression is wrong, it still persists and will continue to do so along as it is on that wall.How can one possibly state that the 10 Commandments will leave a positive impression for children when it comes to the moral values it imparts, but it won't confuse the child by statements on the practice of worship? Yes, let us teach moral values in schools, but religion isn't necessary to do so.Theft, murder, etc., are wrong because they harm others. We don't need an ancient document to give that knowledge to our children. If some Christians - on their own, and not through the power of the state - want to put up a copy of the 10 Commandments in a courthouse, fine - do it during a time where the government allows all citizens to put in different documents, not just ones that are pro-Judeo-Christian.I, myself, would put a copy of Thomas Paine's "Age of Reason," which was a great inspiration for our concept of natural rights and liberty.