No problem. You’d do the same for me the next time I post something I wouldn’t if I were listening to my better judgment. 
What snub?
Update: the textbook publishers caved. The children of Texas, and the nation, will now be spared from the psychological damage that would be inflicted by referring to “individuals who marry” as opposed to “husbands and wives.”
Never expect integrity from an organization that wants to make a profit.
Let me rephrase that. Never expect integrity from an organization that exists to make a profit.
I’m sorry, I didn’t see those posts. Please be assured no slight was intended. Sure, I’m always up for reconciliation.
Then it is settled. Our slate is clean. Thank you, Gobear.
Well, one of the ideas behind this whole Christianity business is to be able to respond to an attack not by elevating the attack, but with humility and compassion and a true desire to help the other person. So I can’t argue with that. Accepted, and I want to apologize for my language.
This thread isn’t about me, but I feel obliged to respond to the rest of it; hopefully it’s relevant: While I sincerely appreciate the sentiment behind your advice, I don’t agree with you because I think you’ve misinterpreted some of my other posts. I don’t feel I’ve been looking for validation, but looking for communication. I’m not too keen on the idea of “tolerance;” I don’t want people just “putting up” with my existence. Not because I seek validation, but because that’s a very tenuous position to have. If they believe I’m a sinner but have the right to sin, how long until they decide my rights only go so far? That they don’t want sinners raising children, for example? If they believe that my religion is evil, or it’s based on lies and self-delusion, how long until they decide to chip away at my right to practice it? I don’t want “tolerance,” I want understanding.
I was a self-loathing gay man for many years. I’m not happy about it, but I got over it. So I can come on here and say, “I think I understand where you’re coming from. Here’s how I got over it, so you can get over it, too.” I wrestled with my faith for many years, until I got comfortable with it. So now I can say, “Here’s how I’m able to reconcile my faith with everything else. Listen to me, and maybe you can understand how you can reconcile the two as well.”
The downside to that is that it leaves me open for someone to come in, push my buttons, and set me off, and that’s unfortunate. But the possibility that somebody can actually relate to what I’m saying and really get it makes it worthwhile. I know I listened to years of people saying, “every homosexual has the right to live his life as he sees fit” and “we’re not going to go away” and “deal with it!” and none of it helped. Before I was comfortable with it for myself, I had to meet someone who was willing to talk openly about his own experiences, what he went through, what he still has to deal with, and why he’s comfortable with himself. And then I could say, “Now I get it. That’s something I can relate to; I’ve had many of those same thoughts myself. I can see how this doesn’t have to be such a problem for me.”
Yelling at each other doesn’t help. Neither does being so sure of your convictions that you’re unwilling to listen to what other people are trying to tell you. That’s not confidence, it’s arrogance. I sure as hell don’t have all the answers. But what I can do is say, “here’s as much as I’ve figured out so far; listen to me and see for yourself what you can make of it.”
Don’t leave just yet. Your wisdom several months ago, from one “black sheep christian” to another helped me resolve many conflicts regarding my faith and the issue of homosexuality.
But that’s not the surprising part, I’d already been 90% there for years. What you also did was help me couch this in terms that started family members rethinking their ideas on homosexuality and their faith.
My sister and I both left the church in our early twenties because of the ridiculous and archaic doctines of the church, and that was LONG before the gay marriage issue had even been uttered out loud in public. We didn’t leave because these beliefs were old, we left because they led to the types of conflict we’re seeing here, and we didn’t feel that they (the doctrines) accurately reflected the teachings of Jesus, or what was even in the bible. But many of our loved ones are still firmly ensconsed in “the church”.
Look folks, this issue, for those people that are still in the baptist/bible belt grip isn’t the be all and end all of who they are. It’s just ONE facet of who they are, albeit a strong one. Demonizing them and making this into a bloody war isn’t going to sway them. Like any other kind of conflict, if you meet it by insulting the opposition and fighting them with insults and hatred back at them, you’ll just make it worse, not better.
These people, for the most part, are not against SSM because they hate gay people, but because to condone this by voting for it would mean that they were going against God according to their interpretations of the bible (this is why it’s ULTRA important to start with separation of church and state). And no matter how they feel about gay people on the outside, that is a heartbreaking conflict to face when you don’t know how (not every christian has got a Sol Grundy nearby to help out here).
I don’t know how many millions voted the gay marriage issue down in those ten states, but for those of you that live in one of those states, that means that nearly every OTHER person you know or meet on the street voted no. Do you honestly believe in your hearts that every single last one of those folks are hard hearted gay haters?
Do you think that all of them (yeah, I’m sure there were some, but ALL???) went into those booths thinking “that’ll show 'em, next we can hunt them down with pitchforks”? Can you not realize that conflict must have been the impetus behind a lot of those no votes? And that to turn those to yes votes next time, hatred and demonization ain’t gonna cut it?
Yeah, it’s stupid and doesn’t make sense to a non-believer, that’s not the point though, the point is, DO YOU WANT TO CHANGE IT??? Well? Do you???
You are, some of you anyway, going about in a way that’s guaranteed to stretch out the battle 100 times longer than it needs to be. And if that’s what you want, so be it I guess, but if what you REALLY want is the rights to couplehood that you say you want, there’s a better way to get there.
Kind and steady assistance from the likes of Sol Grundy, like me he KNOWS these people, what they’re like and what they’re facing and he knows what it will take. But it takes time and patience. Like assurance that this is a separate issue from their church lives, that this is legal and governmental, and does not come into their churches (unless of course they so desire). In these people’s minds, you’re asking them to betray the strongest belief in their life and in turn, you’re asking them to go to hell. That fear needs to be allayed, whether you believe they deserve it or not, little change can occur til it is.
So many gay people are imagining that it’s some freight train out of control hatred of gays.
You know? If it were really “just” homophobia or homohatred, your job would be a cake walk compared to what you’re really up against. Their behaviours regarding those beliefs are handed down from generations before them, it takes time and tolerance on YOUR side too to change these things. It’s not a matter of just “oh they’re all idiots, they HAVE to ‘get it’ NOW”. Yeah, that always works whenever society is working on changing deeply held beliefs (sarcasm).
Do you really honestly want CHANGE? Or do you just want to be right? You can’t have it both ways, human nature doesn’t work like that.
You give those people a faith, AND face-saving way to slowly start understanding that this doesn’t mean betraying their faith, such as civil unions and so on, you start NOT with cramming it down their throats, and instead working to separate church and state (which I strongly believe needs to be done for far more reasons than this), and then with baby steps toward gay marriage, and you’re likely to see those changes. Keep on with the hatred right back, and the “you’re all redneck, trailer-trash, homophobic-morons” type insults and sentiments and it will just prolong this whole thing.
Which is it? Right or wrong, the change is up to you ALSO, not just “them”, and it’s up to you as to the manner in which you begin to make that change, and if you want to be effective, you’ll stop your side of the hatred.
While I’m glad to hear that my posts have made at least a little bit of difference, I have to point out that we’ve come to different conclusions here, and I can’t agree with you entirely.
The people who voted for these bans were wrong. If they voted according to their traditional values, or because their church believes that “homosexuality is gross” is one of the fundamental tenets of Christianity, then they were wrong. They don’t need a gentle cajoling around to our side of the picture, they need to be told that they were wrong, and that it is unacceptable.
Telling two people in love to accept a civil union is wrong. It’s not a compromise, because the “other side” isn’t conceding anything. It’s nothing more than a lie, perpetrated at the expense of homosexual couples who are truly in love, asking them to demean that love so as not to make other people uncomfortable. Civil unions are not appropriate for gay couples in love, because they’re not “friends” or “partners,” they are in love, and that’s every bit as valid as heterosexual love.
I don’t want baby steps, because it’s much too late in American history to be taking baby steps towards equal rights. We’re not moving towards a separation of church and state – we have a separation of church and state, and anyone who violates that has fucked up and needs to be corrected. Immediately. If someone voted for a ban on gay marriage because he’s just not quite entirely comfortable with the whole homosexuality thing just yet, I shouldn’t have to just say “yeah, man, I know the feeling,” sit and wait until he gets comfortable with it – he’s fucked up, it’s affected me, and that’s his problem, not mine. It took me over a decade before I was able to “get comfortable” with homosexuality, and I had an immediate investment in it. I sure as hell am not going to wait another ten years for everyone else to come around, just for my benefit.
When I say that I want gays and straights, Christians and atheists, to understand each other, I don’t mean that everybody gets a free pass. I don’t mean that homosexuals should have to sacrifice their rights, or to sit and wait patiently and complicitly until others get comfortable with them. I just mean that until you make an effort to understand what other people are saying, you’re just going to keep moving backwards and make no progress at all.
“Fuck all those idiot Christians and tell them to stay the hell out of my business,” is a stupid thing to say, and it doesn’t accomplish anything. But “tell them to stay the hell out of my business” is valid, and it’s the necessary first step.
And since I’m posting anyway, I’ll include this bit I forgot earlier:
But that’s the thing, your opinions should and do mean something to me. And not just because if I reject your opinion on my religion that means I also have to reject your opinion on my hotness, which I sure as hell am not going to do. But because if I can just forget about what gets posted on these boards and not care about anyone else’s opinions, why am I even bothering to post at all? The only opinions that mean nothing to me are from the people who’ve shown me no respect or proven that they’re not willing to listen.
If you recognize my username at all, it’s just faintly. Although I’ve been hanging around here for years (under a different name before the Great Outage), I’ve lurked more than posted as I try not to post unless I have something to the point and substantive to say.
At this moment, however, I’ve decided to come out of the closet, in spite of the fact that this is in the Pit. Not the gay closet. The religion closet. I will try to keep it as short as possible.
My conclusions first so that you don’t have to read the whole post if you want to start flaming immediately: Individual faith and spirituality–that quiet voice inside you that speaks directly to your soul–is the strongest, greatest, best force that we have. It’s what makes us human; it’s what makes us aspire to be more than animals driven by instinct. Religious organizations, however, of whatever label, are among the greatest evils of the world and a scourge upon the soul.
The current ‘creeping theocracy’ is the effect of religious organizations maintaining themselves and trying to increase their power. Those who truly “know God,” by whatever name, are not to blame. Dogma and power games are to blame.
For those who might be the least bit interested, how did I come to these conclusions?
First, my parents were rural charismatic fundamentalists–the impolite term is “holy-rollers” and I feel I’ve earned the right to use it–and tried to foist that on me. It didn’t take. By the time of my early teens, I was a rabid, bitter atheist and alienated from my family. In school, I studied psychology and then philosophy and then, after a time, I sold or gave away everything I owned in order to become a Peripatetic Philosopher.
For some years, I traveled around the U.S. and Canada, owning only what I could carry in a backpack, doing odd jobs as necessary to feed myself. During that time, I talked incessantly with everyone I come across, learned from them, and examined my own soul at great length. I didn’t live in a cave in the Himalayas…but I did live al fresco for a while in the Oregon woods and communed with my share of rattlesnakes. Does that count?
During these years, the anger and pain of my upbringing faded and I slipped away from bitterness and deeply into philosophy. I’ve always been an advocate of rationality and scientific method but I gradually became aware that these were, just barely, not quite enough to justify existence. ‘The pot cannot hold itself.’ I gradually slipped into a more theistic frame of mind, but at the same time, with my training in psychology, looked more calmly at church organizations and structures…and was appalled.
BTW, eventually I realized that I was not a philosopher but a hobo. It’s the same thing without pretensions.
OK. Organizations have rules. Organizations have hierarchies. Those not at the bottom of the hierarchy have a pretty good living at stake if those rules are not enforced. “Thou shalt tithe!” is not one the Ten Commandments but is, in my opinion, inherent in the others.
In addition, a strong psychological tool to make you feel good about yourself is to have others agree with you…especially if, deep down inside, you have niggling doubts. “How could I possibly be wrong if all these other people feel the same way?” This is the basis for zealotry, mob action, and our current situation in the U.S.
For example, John Calvin, one of the major figures in the Protestant Reformation, made a statement with which I agree wholeheartedly: “Each man stands alone before God.” However, he then founded a religious community run by strict rules with himself at the top of hierarchy and, a few years later, had his own stepson burned alive for transgressing one of those rules. (This is stated in William Manchester’s “A World Lit Only By Fire” but I have been unable to find an online citation. Perhaps someone else can.) This is the kind of madness which religious organizations, by their ineradicable nature, foster.
On the other hand, there was once a religious movement which tried to encourage individual spirituality and faith and attempted to dispense entirely with organizations and hierarchies. It spread solely by those who were adherents traveling and talking with others, sharing their love and faith, and asking nothing of those who listened. These were the Catharists of southwest France in the 12th and 13th Centuries. There were many attested who obtained a degree of sainthood much equivalent to the Buddhist concept of nirvana. Of course, the Christian Church saw them as a threat to their hegemony and fought bloodily for years to wipe them out. They eventually succeeded. Google “Albigensian Crusade.”
I fear that what has happened in the world over the last century is a reaction by both individuals and religious organizations to the growing secularization and liberalization of political attitudes. Individuals begin doubting their claimed dogma and react by clutching those dogma and shouting louder, “No, I can’t be wrong! You must be wrong and I want you to follow my rules!” Religious organizations see their own influence and control threatened and react by pushing political agendas designed to protect themselves.
In the Islamic world, certain individuals who see their beliefs threatened by Western science and culture react by becoming terrorists. In the U.S., some individuals, unhappily a majority, react by attempting to ban the beliefs of those who don’t agree with them.
I foresee the trend continuing and reaching a violent climax within the next 50 years as a series of ‘holy wars’. I rather hope there will then be a swing to the other side, that of individual faith and tolerance, if civilization survives…but it won’t be pleasant in the meantime.
GoBear, I share your pain and I cry with you. And I agree with you that the current movement against SSM must be fought tooth and nail. But, to use the words of Gandhi, should we fight to punish or should we should we fight to change things? We are all weak in many ways, we are all frightened in many ways, and sometimes those weaknesses and fears lead to hateful actions. To attack someone aggressively merely fortifies their fears and intensifies their hate.
The SSM bans are a tragedy, yes. However, the way to fight them is by bringing those who voted for them to understand that they don’t have to be frightened. Talk to them, reach out to them, show a spiritual love and tolerance for them. Show real religion by example. Certainly, this is an uphill battle and I understand you aren’t in the mood for it at the moment…but it is the only way short of annihilating them violently, which I am not willing to do.
BTW, I am no longer an atheist…but my religion is strictly mine, individual and idiosyncratic and has no name…other than perhaps ‘autarchy’. I simply have a gut faith that, no matter what happens, I will be able to stay happy and loving, healthy and whole. This faith is totally unprovable and unsupportable so it does indeed qualify as a religion…just stripped of most extraneous dogma. It’s not much but it gets me through the night without feeling the need to burn anyone at the stake.
Usually. 
I understand, but don’t shoot the messenger. My post was not intended as a defense, but an explanation.
As in, this is what is happening, here is your, where your is gay people in search of SSM, quickest, easiest solution.
Telling them they’re wrong in whatever way is fine and can be done along WITH finding a workable solution for both sides. Going into two year old tantrums and calling the entire opposition “breeders” (not you, not anyone here that I’ve seen, but a large number of gay people do do this), and attributing the vote to "redneckedness, braindead choices, “Red states” and all the other crap that’s getting spewed about isn’t going to work.
Do people want to do that to vent and try and make themselves feel better in some way? I’m sure, and of COURSE that’s what the pit is for, but it’s going to work against them in trying to change things.
No one, least of all me, is telling anyone to accept that. My point was:
What do you want? If what you want is to be able to have the same choices and legal protections as a married couple, to be able to have “companion insurance” through your job (Lots of AK companies do, at least all of the ones I’ve worked for, don’t the ones in the states have companion insurance and benefits?), to be able to have your partner benefit in the event of your death, the same way a spouse would etc, to be able to declare you legal commitment to you partner, then a civil union is a START. Please note I didn’t say it would have to end there.
BUT, if what you want is to force every man, woman and child on the other side to accept that they’re wrong, and to admit it by condoning, voting for and instantly changing their complete and lifelong beliefs, then IF you want that to happen, it will need to be done as I outlined. IF you want the quickest solution.
If it is MORE important for them to be proven wrong and to make them admit it and magically change and embrace SSM, then be prepared for a long drawn out battle.
Well, if you think I was advocating that, then you misunderstood me. If a gay person, or someone like me for instance who has loved ones still anti SSM, is to have someone like that discuss the SSM issue, I am NOT condoning simply sitting there and agreeing with them or saying “I know how you feel”. What I was saying is that the person NOT attack them as is so common here in the pit.
They may not all come to the SDMB, but they know what the sentimient is, and the “you bunch of rural, toothless, inbred, redneck hicks,blahblahblah” is as it’s quite prevelant in entertainment and pop culture.
There IS a way that falls between biting your tongue and spewing hate language back.
Think of this in just a plain ole “human nature” way. Drop the issue of homosexuality. Whenever a person comes to another person “on the attack” so to speak and is just in the “you’re WRONG, just WRONG what’s WRONG with you???” mode. Well, it’s NOT going to work. The person being attacked and told they’re wrong is going to rebel, fight harder.
If that’s what you’re going for, prolonging the fight that is, then by all means attack them with how wrong they are. You grew up with these people, I grew up with these people. You know how deeprooted the beliefs are regarding 'what the bible says is wrong" and so on.
Again, if it WERE “merely” homophobia? What you’re up against would be easy compared to what is really going on. These people (right or wrong) believe that their very SOULS are at risk if they don’t follow the commandments and tenets set forth in the bible. First, you have to convince them that “noooo, really, you won’t be sinning, it’s okay, you won’t go to hell”. Second, you have to show them WHY they’ve been intrepreting key verses incorrectly re: homosexuality.
If you don’t convince them of why they’re wrong, and if they’re not assured that they’re not betraying their entire faith (not to mention the faith of their entire family for generations before them), then you’re up against a brick wall before you even START trying for SSM.
I already understood what you meant, and agree. And am not in disagreement that that’s what you SHOULD have. Again, my post was pointing out how to GET there. And more importantly how to get there most quickly and easily. Take the race war for a great example, for crying out loud, it’s STILL going on. We’ve made great strides, but there is a hell of a lot of work to do. Do you really think that the gay population can outscream the so-called homophobic redneck morons with “you’re WROOOOOONG” and it’ll change?
Yup, I’m in complete agreement that you have every right to want and to get that. But are the current efforts accomplishing anything? No, in fact, they’re making the problem worse, the insistance on how wrong they are is just making them dig in harder. Again, human nature and psychology. Yes, they’re wrong, but chasing it with behaviour that is guaranteed to make them fight it even harder isn’t helping you any, other than making you feel “in the right”.
And if that’s what is MOST important, have at it. If what you really want is SSM and the other associated rights, starting out by cramming how wrong they are down their throats isn’t going to be the most effective way to win.
I posted my emotions on my journey here and on my family members, and their counterparts so that gay people could see more than just a one-faceted “they’re all EVIL, gaybashing, morons”. And so that IN seeing how many of these people really think (which is not all "oh, let’s hate and kill all gay people), maybe it would help them develop a way to deal with them that was effective. Since God KNOWS what’s been done up to this point hasn’t worked, as the recent vote showed.
I’m telling you, NOT to defend them, but as a person who came from that background and overcame it, what it will take to overcome their fears as well. It is up to you (not YOU you, or course, you as in those in the trenches) to use this information in the most effective way. I’m telling you what that way is. First, civil union, keep it separate from the term marriage with it’s religious connotations. Then, work to change the legal marriage from being one thought of as only ordained by the church, to being a legal union. And so on.
Lastly, I’m sure you know this, even when this happens, it won’t get you what you want, total capitulation by every one of these people admitting that they’re wrong. There will still be those who won’t agree, not matter what the union is called. And most of those will be doing so, NOT in order to hate, but because that is what they believe the scriptures mean.
So (and I’m just stating the obvious based on human history, and human nature in general, NOT defending it), you’re back to do you want the change to HAPPEN, and happen SOONEST? Or do you want to be right?
Satyagrahi, I hope you will come out of the closet more often. You and I sound like soulmates.
I am not a religious person. My mother was a Catholic from Wisconsin. My father was a Baptist from the hills of Pennsylvania. He converted to Catholicism when he married my mother. His sister told him that he would go to Hell for it. She got over it.
My paternal grandmother was the backbone of the local Baptist church. Whenever something needed doing, she was the one who rallied the congregation. A simple farmwife, she spent most of her life in relative poverty and never complained about her lot. Much of her time was devoted to personally caring for the elderly, including her aged mother. She was kindly and goodhearted but fierce in her faith. If she believed something was right, then it was absolutely Right. And if she believed something was wrong, then it was absolutely Wrong. And nothing would shake her from those convictions.
She would have opposed Gay Marriage, not because she had any particular animus against Gays, but because, for her, the notion was simply inconceivable.
And yet, if my grandmother had encountered a gay person, left unconscious and bleeding on the side of the road by a hit-and-run driver, she would have lifted that person unto her crooked back and carried him 20 miles to the nearest hospital, even at the cost of a fatal heart attack.
On foreign affairs, I am a fire-breathing Neocon. Financially, I am very conservative. On social and cultural issues, I am rather liberal. On the whole, I sympathize with gays.
But when you make ugly posts bashing Christians and writing them off as a bunch of sub-human, gay-bashing monsters, you are talking about people like my grandmother. And no words can possibly express how angry that makes me feel.
I am not a religious person and I do not share most of the views of Evangelicals and Fundamentalists. But I grew up with them and I understand them, which is more than I can say for most of the Dope®s on this thread.
Try to think how when feel when kindly old ladies like your grandmother would vote to deny us equality, when preacher and Senators compare our relationships to men fucking dogs, when the President doesn’t even know if our sexuality is a choice.
We’ve got a lot more to be pissed at than someone calling a Straight Supremist a bigot.
We UNDERSTAND your and our not online gay friends impatience and anger with this issue.
And in describing these people, we’re NOT trying to say “oh, and therefore it’s all okay that they voted no”. We’re trying to get you to understand that not all however many million people who voted no did so out of “redneck hatred and bigotry no good rotten breeders anyway” mentality.
And that to continue to believe that that IS the sole reason this is happening is to work against yourselves and a more expedient resolution for SSM or partnership laws, or whatever you’re for.
I was watching Ellen DeGeneres on some tvmagazine the other night. She was saying something to the effect of “I don’t care what they call it, as long as we’re given the same protections under the laws that regular couples have”. She went on to talk about people who’d lost a partner in the 9/11 tragedy, and yet who weren’t entitled to the same compensation as widows and widowers, and she said “that’s not fair”.
And she’s right. She gave some very reasoned arguments, they were to the point, BUT gentle, not accusatory, NOT "all those people are EVIL moronic “WRONG”.
Some may be, and yeah, they’re wrong, and yes, it IS unfair. But for the billionth time, IS turning into a screaming banshee and declaring every no voter as the very essence of evil HELPING? Will it change their minds, WILL it get the vote eventually?
Acceptance can NOT be legislated. Making SSM a law, whatEVER it’s called will NOT bring down the barriers. For those who insist that it be change, and changed now, AND that it be called marriage. I’m not sure, but based on a few responses from other posters it seems that that desire is due to it “proving” to the redneck bigots that they’re wrong.
As to how to “allow” the no voters to come to their senses…
You know what? (not just you, Lots of gay people who’ve posted on this), I’ve seen here, and heard from in real life, so many gay people who’ve described their own agonizing journey to acceptance of their own homosexuality. Someone, I think it was Spectrum (not sure, so if I’ve got the wrong poster please forgive the mistake in ID), made me cry with his very descriptive post on his decade long journey.
In it, he described self doubt, agony, horrible sounding attempts to “not be gay” and so on. SolGrundy above describes a similar journey but ends his description with (paraphrased) so NO, I will not allow them slack on this, they’re wrong, they’ve had enough time, etc, they don’t get be “gentled” into it".
I understand the sentiment, but NOT the lack of logic here. I mean, if gay folks THEMSELVES, who ARE on the inside, and ARE gay, have trouble in their own acceptance of their own homosexuality, why is it that they so begrudge (and not just begrudge, but based on posts here outright HATE), the doubt and slow coming to acceptance of those who have their own conflicts with homosexuality?
I stand by my original statement. If it were just that every no voter was a homophobe, the job of changing this would be a cake walk compared to being up against people’s self doubt, fears about their souls, struggle and conflict within themselves, to name a few.
But seems like a majority want to believe that it’s sheer stupidity, and other much less flattering things, and react like banshees trying to outscream the opposition.
And then people wonder why it’s taking so long…
Here is an excellent overview of the Gay Marriage issue, by Catherine Seipp:
http://www.nationalreview.com/seipp/seipp200411110941.asp
And here is a good piece by Jennifer Roback Morse about a big potential problem:
The Seipp article is woefully inadequate at explaining the problems with assuming that naming your partner in your will is all you have to do. Oh, and Will & Grace has “in-your-face gayness”? WTF!? The only way the main characters could have less actual sex is if they were giant Ken dolls with no external male genitalia! It’s a gay minstrel show, designed to make Middle America sure that all those gays are happy and smilin’ with their tiny piece of the equal rights pie.
And the Morse article is just a mess. A straight couple got tagged by the military for frauding the marriage housing regulations so gay people shouldn’t get married? 
First of all, if there are already straight couples contracting marriages of convenience (and there are, obviously), then there’s already a problem there? And yet, other than the far right, nobody is demanding stronger measures against straight couples who don’t really intend to be husband and wife marrying. But those straight marriages-of-convenience are REALLY nice for using to paint the possibility of gay marriage as being rife with that particular fraud.
My score for both articles: 2 thumbs down.
Ash!
Good to see you! I was wondering if you were still alive.
If its any comfort all three voting adults in our household voted against it.
We just have to keep fighting…