I hate weddings and I probably never want to get married. But I’ve been looking at the pics from same sex weddings here in WA and feeling so warm and fuzzy. Turns out it’s only straight weddings I hate. When I start hating gay weddings too, I’ll know we’ve arrived.
I cannot wait until these weddings are no longer news. That would show that we have successfully expanded the definition of “normal” again.
In Germany, they haven’t been news for a very long time (granted, we didn’t have the divisive battle that is currently being fought in the US, it was hardly a controversial debate), so give it a couple of years at the most. That said, we’re not quite there yet, either, gay couples aren’t completely equal in all respects (hospital rights, tax breaks), so some work does remain.
The debate is going on right now in the UK. Rather bizarrely the issue at the moment is less about protecting same-sex marriage from the Church and more about protecting the Church from same-sex marriage.
It’s going to happen, once the bishops unknot their knickers about the possibility of being forced to conduct them. Looks like 2014, but it’s going to happen.
ETA: Also note that their opposition to SSM is actually hurting the Church of England (and Wales).
It’ll happen even if the bishops don’t unknot their knickers. 100 mostly tory MPs against SSM, in a house of 650 MPs. The Lords can delay it a bit, but they can’t block it.
I just wish we could get on with it, I can’t bear the prospect of two more years of rantings from Ann Widdecombe.
Neither. If I have a belief and it goes unchallenged, it doesn’t requiere much more thought. If it is challenged I think “you sure, dude?” if yes, then I go to a deeper level of reasoning until I’m satisfied.
Basically what everybody does.
Take children away? No. I may think it is wrong, but it is/was legal.
Prevent? Yes.
I’m all for letting people assign visitation rights to whomever they want via a legal document or verbally if they can.
Any rights they legally have? No.
Break up legally formed unions? No.
Icebergs melt, doncha know? They are also slow and avoidable.
Countries with horrible dictators have traffic lights. Does that fact invalidate traffic lights?
Even if I am horribly wrong it is still silly to use the “you’re wrong and you’re gonna lose” argument. I don’t let my opponent define my arguments, you know, Debate 101.
Apparently a simple analogy is too much for many. I shall explain for the last time.
The only two factors that **for me **in the analogy I chose for the reasons **I **decided are:
- It is harmful.
- It is enjoyed.
All other factors, including the regressive nature of taxes on tobaco or cuban cigar bans, are irrelevant for me in the context of that analogy. All other ramificiations are moot points. You may dislike the analogy, but I chose it for the reasons I explained. Expanding it destroys my analogy because it wasn’t designed as the perfect comparison.
Excellent.
Please, would you be able to tell us what is “harmful” in an official, legal recognition of couplehood (with the attendant inheritance, visitation, power of attourney, etc rights) for same sex couples as marriage is now generally reserved for opposite sex couples?
“Smoking is harmful because it is recognized to cause cancer and other diseases; same-sex marriage is harmful because _________.”
Thank you.
Harmful in what way? To whom? How?
Erm no. Sex is way more than just about reproduction for primates, it can and is used for bonding or the unfortunately the opposite (rape to show dominance) for evidence of this please see studies on other primate societies like the Bonobo. If the Bonobo are doing it how more ‘natural’ do you need?
To the OP I think it is great to see but hope in a few years it is out of the news because it is as accepted as inter-racial marriages are today.
Regarding the recent UK moves I find it odd that they think gay couples are going to force churches to marry them. I don’t think, and correct me if I am wrong, that my wife and I could have forced a church to marry us, the church can discriminate on this matter always has. Not that we tried being atheists and all.
I am guessing it makes baby Jesus cry.
I thought it would be obvious. I am against it. However, I do not find it to be a pressing issue.
I remember reading a thread about a nice little advert for something or other, in which it showed gay couples getting married. A couple of people said, “I thought it was nice, but I really wish they hadn’t shown the guys kissing.”
I opened the ad expecting to see full-blown tongue down each other’s throats, but what I got was just sweet little mouth kisses, at the couple’s weddings. At a perfectly normal time, when no one would have even wondered about a straight couple kissing, and actually would have been confused if a straight couple didn’t kiss.
That was rather enlightening to me. That it was OK to show gay couples marrying as long as boys don’t kiss each other, ever, not even sweetly. I presume that’s how the milder opponents of SSM feel…feelings of “ick”.
You can do a simple SDMB search to find the answer to that.
You can do a simple SDMB search to find the answer to that.
As I said, no ick, no eww.
Wait.
I think I see where a failure to communicate is coming in.
You keep saying that SSM is about “enjoyment,” despite also being “harmful.” We have gotten hung up on the “harmful” part.
I am now wondering why you think marriage is about “enjoyment”? Marriage is about shared finances, legal rights and obligations, inheritance rights, and a hell of a lot of other things that you otherwise need a damn good lawyer to draw up individual contracts about (and even then somebody else’s lawyer might challenge any or all of those contracts).
Is marriage, to you, mostly a social recognition that these two folks are having sex? (I do not recall a sexual activity test when we applied for a marriage license, but things may be different in another jurisdiction.)
I wasn’t talking to you, for you, or about you. I know everyone else is jumping your shit in this thread. I am not and really couldn’t care less about your opinion, which you have every right to have.
Despite what you are saying, you have posted in a LOT of marriage threads, gender threads, etc, and made LOTS of posts in some of those threads. It’s not a “simple search” to just cull what your beliefs are from your posting history. So stop being condescending and coy and answer these people’s questions.
It warms my heart, I feel like we are moving forward, yeah us!
I also don’t give much credit to the argument that marriage is only this or that. None of these people objected when marriage was turned into a stunt by the Kardashian’s, when the churches started selling annulments just so they could get remarried, etc.
As long as people are willing to accept, and this is what’s so hard for them after so very long it being the other way, that we live in a democracy. And the anti gay marriage crowd is rapidly becoming a minority. I agree to respect their view as long as they respect the rules of democracy, which they willingly embraced when their view was the enshrined and majority one.
I can kind of understand that they just assumed their way would always be, and that it’s a very difficult thing to accept that such isn’t the case. That’s got to be hard.
They didn’t even make us prove my husband had actually gotten a divorce from his ex-wife, let alone ask us if, when, and how we were doin’ it.
As a long time supporter of gays’ rights (which really I just consider as human rights), I still have to admit that PDAs between two men do make me uncomfortable. My lizard brain, for some reason, does not want to see this, as much as I realize that it’s the natural choice for other people.
I don’t know why this is. It just is. Doesn’t stop me from supporting any two consenting adults (hey, any number of consenting adults! Orgies could be fun! :D) touching each other to their hearts’ content – I just don’t want to see it when it’s male on male.
So I can sort of understand the “ick” factor some people feel. What I cannot accept is the notion that somebody’s (yes even my) “ick factor” should be a reason to enforce other people not enjoying the activity that make them (yes, even me :o) go “ick.” To each their own. I’m sure I’ve done things in public which somebody at some time has considered “icky.” They survived the experience and so can I (and everybody else.)
I have to join other people asking those who are against SSM – where is the harm to you? To use Ají’s smoking analogy – even if one thinks Gay Sex (or just Gay Marriage) is “harmful” in some way to those enjoying it, where is the harm to you (as a member of the public)? (which is the standard used, for example, in banning smoking in confined spaces or DUI.)
Or you could answer the fucking question.