i knew a born-again baptist (probably holding the same beliefs as your friend) who told me the exact same thing. that it doesn't matter if you live your life according to the teachings of jesus if you never accept jesus as your personal savior blah blah blah. in other words, if you don't believe in jesus, it doesn't matter if you do good in the world or not because you'll automatically go straight to hell whether you believe in the christian afterlife or not

anyway, i find it interesting that what originally started as a diversionary issue has become such a big civil rights discussion. i have to agree with some of the analysis on the supreme court decision: whether or not the supreme court strikes down the marriage bans at this stage of the game, it will be difficult to get the nation to accept the decision because there is such strong division on the issue.

i don't understand the rationale behind the opposition except that they hate homosexuality for some reason, and legitimizing it by allowing gay marriage is basically shaking their belief structure to the core. i also think that because it's such a strongly divisive issue right now, that the opposition is going to rationalize any fringe issue to deny gay marriage and make it such a scary thing to people who might be on the fence about it....