Because when black people got the vote, they also got the right to kill people legally, duh.
First off… do you think members of a gay couple are going to describe themselves as “united” in casual conversation? No, they’re going to say they’re married. I’m willing to bet a fair number of gay couples would want to have their civil unions in churches with all the traditional trappings of a wedding, too. Groups that are against gay marriage aren’t soothed by civil unions because they know it will be the same in practice. Give it a few years and people are going to wonder what the point is of having both Civil Unions and Marriages, since they’re both pretty much the same thing.
Civil unions are potentially worse that just allowing gay marriage, since, as I mentioned before, it might attract heterosexual couples interested in a secular legal equivalent of marriage. It might attract heterosexual couples that just don’t agree with all the historical or religious baggage that goes with marriage… though they still view it as a spiritual thing. Thus when the time rolls around when people go “Wait, why do we have two of these?”, Civil Union is the more inclusive option… and so Marriage gets written off as a type of Civil Union.
Really, the threat isn’t to families, society, or anything like that… it just allows brick and mortar religions to be marginalized or ignored. As it stands, they still get to thumb their noses as the non-believers when they file for the paperwork.
There is no “secular legal equivalent” of marriage. Unless I’ve missed something and you can’t just run out and find a Justice of the Peace anymore…
Well then, knowing that I shall go out and get a blood transfusion from one of my African American friends.
:click:
LOCK AND LOAD, HONKIES!
Speaking as a Person in Black, with a grey car, I prefer being a gay man in stealth mode whos cane distracts from his flamboyance using the Americans with Disabilities Act to deflect public condemnation.
Yes. You missed the fact that 1010011010 was refering to a possible consequence of allowing official Civil Unions for hets instead of marriage. But even without that fact, you can still get a license and get married by a judge without involvement of a preacher or other religious cleric.
Actually, just about anyone can register online to become a priest and perform the ceremonies, under a variety of churches.
The whole marriage thing is just a hang up on a word that people hide behind.
Which is fine, OK. It sucks not being recognized as a person, but people can live well enough. What scares the piss out of me is the ammendment AGAINST it, which is absurd.
I have a question for our esteemed governor, who seems to be leading the anti-gay charge lately: Why is this state such a cesspool of murder, suicide, constipation, and fleas? Is it because gay marriage is now legal here, or because of he who sits in the governor’s mansion?
Bet he doesn’t have a clear answer for that.
I once read, on these very boards, an explanation of why gay marriage is bad. If we allow it, then we will be morally bankrupt, which will make God mad, which will make him smite us. All of us. That’s why it’s my business. If you go off being all fabulous, God might come after me for tolerating it. Hey, happened in Sodom and Gomorrah, could happen here. We got a little taste of it on 9/11. Those weren’t terrorists. That was God smiting us because of gays. And liberals.
That’s the thinking, anyway. Yes, stupid, superstitious, magical, irrational thinking, but thinking none the less.
Hey, the smiting thing has gotten a lot of good milage in the past. As Bill Cosby said, “Read your Bible”. In it you’ll find prophets who wonder aloud “How is it, that we, the Chosen People of God, get our asses handed to us by the Babylonians, and wind up here in Babylon, where we sat us down by her waters and wept? Could it be their relatively advanced culture? Their superior military might? The cunning strategies of their generals? Oh, no, no, no. It’s because you deviants and infidels insist on woshipping those Baals and Astartes and acting like a bunch of whores. God is punishing you! He sent the Babylonians to smite your sorry hides, so shape up, or there’s a bigger can o’ whoopass waiting!”
The only argument I can possibly think of is thatif gay marriages are allowed then wouldn’t it be discriminatory of religous insitutions to say no to them? And many religions seem to think God doesn’t approve of gays, so by forcing them to perform gay marriages they are trampelling on their rights?
Doesn’t make much sense though, but hey either does God.
If a Catholic Church doesn’t have to let a Jewish couple wed there, I don’t see why barring gay couples should be a problem.
There seem to be two main reasons to get married here, and they’re at war with each other:
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Personal, religious, spiritual bonding. Got nothin’ to do with money, health benefits, retirement funds, medical rights, adoption, whatever.
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Impersonal, law-driven stuff like benefits, inheritance, home ownership, etc.
The majority of the arguments I’ve heard vs. any kind of gay marriage is that they aren’t supposed to do it because God Said So, which is also a variation on We’ve Always Done It This Way. As I understand it, in spite of the fact that people fear this will destroy us all, same-sex couples are currently able to do this, and they are currently doing this.
I have heard very few people arguing that same-sex couples shouldn’t be able to do the second type. The closest I came to an argument against it is that if you’re part of a gay couple and you want to marry your boyfriend because his company has good benefits and you don’t, you should instead find a single woman at his company with a sense of humor and marry her. :dubious:
Some of my best friends and family members are gay, and I’d like them to be happier. I’m all for people being able to formalize their religious/spiritual bond any way that makes sense to them so long as it doesn’t hurt anybody or frighten the horses, and I’m all for people in a co-dependent living relationship receiving benefits and insurance and stuff like that. The laws currently exist for people to do these things. Is the big issue with gay couples that they shouldn’t have to take the extra steps in having two completely separate forms of union?
The problem is the religious marital paradigm is imprinted on the legal definition of marriage, at least in theory if not writ explicitly. “Marriage” has always been understood since before time (so the reasoning goes) as a union between man and woman. I mean, it’s codified in pretty much every religious tradition anybody in Washington ever heard of, so who are they to argue, right? I have a feeling when the Founding Fathers wrote the Bill of Rights and all that, the concept of wedded gays and lesbians never occurred to them; or if it did, they sure as hell weren’t going to bring it up. As a result, our national Constitution is silent on the subject, and most state Constitutions are as well. A few of the latter do define (or are being amended to define) “marriage” as male+female, but depending on how one interprets the US Constitution, they may or may not violate civil rights.
I’m sure this will invite an instant flurry of minutae about Constitutional Law, but I think the academic subtleties really are beside the point. Marriage, for a long time, is understood as between a man and woman. One hardly needed a definition, since common sense would tell you all you need to know.
Well, common sense is changing, and our legal system is ill-equipped to deal with the situation in any clearly-defined way. I think those who argue the marriage laws we have were meant to refer to heterosexual unions, even if they don’t explicitly say that, are absolutely correct. If other interpretations can be found, it’s because unforseen loopholes weren’t closed. We may thank our lucky stars now that other interpretations can be found, but I highly doubt that is by design.
Folks, using rational thought is almost useless here. You have to accept certain baseline conditions to make any sense of the situation, and work from there. Assume marriage is for heterosexuals, and then seek change, because those are arguably the “rules”. Assuming marriage is for everybody is naive and highly revisionist. It’s not wrong or immoral, but it is likely to be a gross misunderstanding of the reality, vis legality. The fact is, the laws must change for everyone to be assured fair treatment. They could change to assure that never happens, which is the eventuality every political strategist seeking approval of gay marriage must keep in mind.
I’ve heard the slippery slope argument as well as various arguments that fall under the header “it’s just not right.”
I’ve also heard that marriage would lose its respectibility or gravitas if open to gays. Something about how marriage is supposed to be a sacred institution, shrined in history and tradition. Messing with it would be disastrous, blah blah blah. Unfortuanately, I can’t really say what they use to support this argument. Every time I’ve tried to have a debate with the folks saying this (usually by my asking how a gay couple would make marriage less respectible than many heterosexual couples do), I get told “well, you’re not married so you can’t understand how important it is to protect this institution.”
But why do they need to “support” the argument? They are saying they consider it a sacred institution, and they do not want to share it with just anyone. How would you feel if, for example, your alma mater started selling diplomas for money?
Of course that’s a faulty analogy, since a diploma is something you earn while marriage is a right. Nevertheless that seems to be the emotional connection some people are trying to make.
(Needless to say I do not share such feelings. I’m all for legalizing gay marriage.)
Hmmm… We had a JotP. <goes to look at the certificate of marriage> Nope. Still says “Holy Bonds of Matrimony”. So much for that theory.
For a rational summary of the arguments against gay marriage, you may want to take a look at this article from the liberal “Working For Change” site.
The article, “The non-fanatic case against gay marriage”, raises these objections, and describes the arguments briefly:
- The contract law model.
- Promoting homosexuality.
- Undermining “family values.”
- Assimilation.
I was leafing through the magazine Christianity Today at the library and in the back, there was a column on this by a Charles Colson.
He claims gay marriage will cause lots more crime, because there will be lots more juvenile delinquents BECAUSE in Norway, whe they legalized ssm, straight couples suddenly and massively starting just living together and ot marrying (because it didn’t mean so much when gays were also allowed to :rolleyes: )
SO there were lots of children born out of wedlock and they were criminals.
There you have it.
A theory by one brilliant mind! :dubious: 
It is a slippery slope. If you allow gay people to get married, they will. And when other gay people see that they’re marrying, they’ll want to too. Then, when you and your buddies sit around talking about how evil and promiscuous gay men are, and how the damn faggots never settle down like real men do- they just scamper about screwing anyone- you’ll get all confused because some of them are now in long term committed relationships just like regular people. People don’t like having their prejudiced “evidence” taken from them. :dubious:
Er… FTR, I meant “you” in the hypothetical sense, not “You, MaddyStrut.” :smack: