If I have to put up with civil unions, then I want them to be marriages in all but name – and open only to those who should be allowed to be married, but because of bigotted scum like you, cannot be.
A civil union that ANY two people can join into is not a social institution that implies a commitment to love, fidelity and unification of existence. It is nothing like marriage. It’s a god damn business arrangement. Fuck that, and fuck you for so denigrating my relationship as to say that THAT is the only level of recognition from the state that it deserves.
That’s why I don’t like civil unions in the long run: they’re not marriages, they won’t be accorded the respect of marriages, and they don’t make the same social and religious statement as a marriage. Thus they are, if opened as broadly as gay haters like you would see fit, a slap in the face and a denigration of the decency, morality and acceptability of gay relationships.
It doesn’t surprise me that you would agree with a fuckhead monster like the felon Chuckyboy Colson.
You do realize that his addition to the amendment, were the Hate Amendment to be made law, would undo every civil union in the country? Not that you care.
It’s clear that you don’t want us to be able to build “real” families. Only second rate families clearly delineated as second class by writ and structure of law.
What, you want us to sit in the back of buses, too?
American family life has already been heavily tinked with by straight people. Rising divorce rates, single-parent households, uchildren born to unmarried couples–that’s all y’all’s doing.
That’s the but I fail to grasp. How is it an add-on? If you’re saying the same vows, with the same benefits and responsiblities, then really are you’re doing is having the exact same institution with two people of the same gender, a trifiling difference, really. Creating the Jim Crow “civil union” would be the real add-on, IMO.
More to the point, what self-respecting gay man would have sex with Jack Klugman or Tony Randall?
I understand your POV, but to echo Brown vs. Topeka, I think that marriage
for gay people should be instituted with all deliberate speed. Civil unions are simply a stop-gap measure that will not satisfy either side.
You might want to reread that bit, partner. That tripe specifically prohibits the government from offering any of the benefits etc of marriage to “non-marital” relationships.
Sepctrum, would please chill? You insane frothings do nothing to help advance the discussion. Mr. Moto is not necessarily an ardent supporter of gay rights, but he is far from being a gay-hater. Your childish insistence that people are either good or evil vis-a-vis their level of support for gay rights spoils the mature, amicable tone this conversation shows every sign of taking. I quite agree that bigoted jagoffs like Pete Knight deserve every drop of venom you can muster, but doing the same thing to folks on the fence only serves to drive them into the arms of the true bigots.
To be honest, though, I won’t say you make us gay people look bad because, quite frankly, next to you I look like Mohandas freakin’ Gandhi!
He just spit in our face. Hocked up some phlegm and spit it right on us, declaring our relationships no more true or valid or marriage like than the god damn Golden Girls! That is a direct, hateful and intentional denigration of me, my boyfriend, our love and our lives, and I will not stand by and take that. Not from some smarmy little shit who would so much as THINK about saying anything about Chucky Colson other than “it’s too bad he’s not dead yet.”
Plus, this is the Pit, and there’s a required percentage of swearing.
There’s a big difference, to me, between these two positions:
(a) I believe that Marriage is between a Man and a Woman. While I believe that Gays should be able to enter into civil unions, I oppose gay marriage
(b) I believe that in an ideal world, gays should have the same freedom to marry that straight folks do, I believe that in our current, real, world, due to logistical and political considerations, I believe that the best way to increase the freedoms of, and improve the quality of life enjoyed by, gay people in the US, is to support civil union legislation instead of gay marriage legislation.
It’s not quite clear to me which of these Mr Moto is closer to… and if it’s (b), I have no problem with that whatsoever.
I’ve seen some good debates break out here in the Pit.
Please understand. I think anytime two people find love, and commit to sharing their lives together, it is a thing of value, and something to be encouraged.
because of them.
I’m glad you’ve found a relationship like this. And I’d like to do something in the near term to allow for the formation of a legal household for you and your boyfriend, Spectrum, if you choose to do so.
However, I’m realistic about what the American people can accept right now. I also worry that tinkering around with family law might cause some unintended consequences. As gobear has pointed out, we’ve had plenty of them already, and American families aren’t in great shape
Besides, why put down the Golden Girls. They may be your strongest allies. Dorothy could have a union with Rose, and Sophia could sign one with Blanche. There’s already a legal mother-daughter relationship between Dorothy and Sophia, so that group would be legally inseparable.
Gay activists have insisted, along with others, for years that the nature of the American family has been changing. Enlist some of these changed families into your army, to lobby for civil unions, and the drumbeat may be impossible to ignore.
I have to take issue with this, for a variety of reasons:
(1) There’s a big difference between being glad that someone is dead because, now that they’re dead, they will no longer be able to promote their hateful agenda, and being glad that someone has suffered because they were evil and they deserved it*. I’m certainly glad that Ted Bundy is dead, because there’s now no possibility that he’ll ever escape from prison and kill again. Am I also glad that he’s dead because death sucks and he deserved it? Well, maybe, but that’s a very different kind of “glad”, one which is much less defensible and absolute.
(2) There’s also a big difference between someone growing up in a totalitarian society in which they’re inculcated from birth with the idea that homosexuality is evil, and someone growing up in the US where, even if they had homophobic parents and peers, they at least had access to a free marketplace of ideas, and had some possibility of realizing the moral bankruptcy of their position. (This doesn’t mean that I think it’s “ok” for someone to have evil beliefs just because they were raised that way. I just find it less bad and more forgivable)
(3) Much of the outrage about the torture of the Iraqi prisoners, needless to say, is not that we think they were great guys and can’t stand to think that they suffered… (and let’s be blunt, they definitely suffered, but what they suffered was rather minor league on the Grand Scale of Human Misery). The outrage is because it was the US who was inflicting the suffering, and we should be above that.
*There are a few rare situations where I might take pleasure from the suffering of others… for instance, I take a grim satisfaction in Mussolini-on-the-meathook. So if Saddam, who inflicted unspeakable suffering, were to catch a case of unspeakable-pain-disease and died miserably and agonizingly, I can’t say I’d feel any sympathy for him. I might even giggle and tell jokes about it. That doesn’t mean that I think the US should knowingly infect him with such a disease. Karma may be a bitch. But we shouldn’t attempt to help it along. And there’s a big difference between Saddam, who we know was an evil murdering bastard, and Random Iraqi Soldier #2, who almost certainly was sexist and homophobic, but may have been a loving husband and father who was drafted against his will…
I’ve always like Dolly Parton’s take on this when Oprah asked her if she supported gay marriage. Without hesitation, Dolly said, “Hell yeah! Why shouldn’t they have to suffer like the rest of us?”
You just don’t want society to recognize and encourage MY relationship the way it does YOURS. At least, no more than it encourages any stupid friendship or the like. I getcha. Second class is the only class the fags deserve.
So do I. But ONLY if it’s a relationship 100% analogous to marriage in that it is only open to folks professing a ROMANTIC commitment to becoming one person, both symbolically, and in the eyes of the law. A civil union that any two friends can join just for a bevy of benefits is worthless.
No, worse than worthless. It’s a fucking insult. And I’ll remember well those who targetted me with it.
Decent Americans already accept the possibility of gay marriage, or gay marriage under the rubric of civil unions – which is to say real civil unions, not the Buddy System you’re proposing.
My relationship with my SO is signifigantly more meaningful and important and deserving of societal support than my relationship with my best friend. To declare the two legally equal is to dilute and destroy the dignity of my romantic relationship.
So?
Society is durable, and can stand some unintentional consequences. Gay marriage has been available for years in Vermont and many European countries, with no indication of detriment to societal structures due to gay marriage.
Because they are not in a romantic, familial relationship, therefore their need to be legally bound as one is not the same as mine. Society already recognizes their relationships as legitimate friendships. I don’t want society to equate my relationship with mere friendship when it is something much much more; it is at the very least equal to heterosexual marriage.
Spectrum, for your information, gay marriages are not legal in the state of Vermont.
Civil unions are, however, which is what I’m advocating. So your vile personal attacks on me for also advocating them are, therefore, way out of line.
I also don’t understand why opening civil unions up to other people who may require the civil union benefit is so hurtful to you. Some people don’t want to live in a romantic relationship, but still want to live with someone in a household.
It’s a wonderful concept called personal freedom. It’s something I’m trying to expand.
I’m trying to do it mindful of the backlash that just happened in the state of Virginia, where I happen to live. This can happen in states all over America, if the issue of gay marriage is pressed too far. The reality of the situation is that America can accept civil unions, but not gay marriage.
Strident gay activists tell us all on one hand that American society would be happy if gays all disappeared, and on the other that we must all accept gay marriage. They simply can’t have it both ways. If America is so intolerant as to wish gays away, our society we wouldn’t accept gay marriage in a million years.
The reality is that America is coming along, albeit slowly, on gay issues. They’d be doing better except for the Spectrum’s of the world, so consumed by their sexuality that they take their username from the rainbow symbol.
Yes, people keep bleating on and on about this; but show us where he has advocated stripping basic civil rights from anyone based on their inherent characteristics. Show us where he had advocated denying marriage rights to anyone. Show us where he wants to create a second-class for someone.
Show me where I said he was advocating stripping basic civil rights from anyone. I just said that most people would find him more intolerant than his targets.
Yes, but they are “marriage” unions, not this bullshit “my best friend for life!” sorta crap civil unions which you are supporting. Two roommates can’t get a civil union in Vermont – at least, that’s not what they’re for. They’re the gay equivalent for marriage. A straight couple couldn’t get one. They’re not a business arrangement for two best pals. They’re a societal imprimautor conveying legimitacy upon gay (ostensibly) romantic relationships. They are worlds closer to being gay marriage than the horseshit second-class not-a-marriage-they’re-just-good-pals crap you’re trying to push on me.
Because it means there’s no gay equivalent to marriage. It lumps gay unions in with a bunch of other not-marriage relationships. I want a gay equivalent to marriage, like they have in Vermont. Nothing LESS, which is what you’re proposing.
A lifelong romantic relationship is vastly more meaningful than any friendship, and should not be bundled together in the same “strata” of relationship as them. If straight lifelong romantic unions get set apart and above, so too should gay livelong romantic unions. To advocate anything even one iota less is absolute, total, condemnable and hateful bigotry against gays.
Once again, of course the South, where the Klan once ran free, blacks were denied the right to vote and the Southern baptist religion has its tentacles everywhere, is going to be way behind the curve. The South has always been and will always be a retrograde cultural cess pool. I should know, I grew up there, and I will never return for any reason.
Yippee – so long as they’re Vermont gay marriage style civil unions, and not Moto’s Patented “Gay Relationships Are No More Meaningful or Worthy of Recogntion Than That of Two Roommates Who Just Met Ten Minutes Ago” civil unions.
Good grief. No regional bashing, please. I mean, it’s one thing if it’s tongue-in-cheek (I’m quite good at that myself, with my comments about Hooterville), but really.
You’re living in Kansas now. You think that there aren’t many people who couldn’t find something really, really mean to say about the folks who live Kansas? Do you appreciate it?
I’m not the biggest fan of Kansas, but I am not so ignorant as to believe that just because there are some screwed up things that happen there (Fred Phelps, anyone?) that everything about the state or its residents is messed up.