You are surrounded by terrible people. Find some decent people to be your friends, the ones you have obviously garbage.
Where do you suggest that he or she finds these magical wonder-people? I have a SHITLOAD of offline friends, co-workers, former co-workers, and acquaintences, and only 3 of them (my girlfriend, my brother, and one of my gay friends), excluding me, are against the gay marriage ban.
Everyone else I know - including other gay people :eek: - is either for it or has no opinion.
One of the biggest Bush supporters I know is gay. I don’t get it, I don’t agree with it, but you can’t really hide from it. With a voice 60 million strong, “get new friends” is not really a viable option.
Please move to Massachusetts. Should it come to a vote for a state constitutional amendment, you’ll help us defeat it and send the message that our court was right about what “equal rights” means and wasn’t “legislating from the bench”.
It’s a beautiful state with plenty of history and cultural flavor. The MA SC took a pre-emptive strike on bigotry and isn’t going to flip-flop based on the rest of the states’ opinions. We have republican governors for any gays who don’t like democrats.
Come one, come all. The water is warm[sup]*[/sup].
*[sub]Water not warm January through December. Void where prohibited. No purchase necessary.[/sub]
Last night my significant other, Steve, and I stayed up and watched the tallies roll in. This election held a lot in its arms for the country, the world, and selfishly us. Eleven states decided to make legislation to prevent gays from marrying. Thirty-five years after the Stonewall Rebellion, it demonstrates a nation unable to give basic civil rights to a minority. Democracy should be more that two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner. Yet unfortunately, Steve and I have found a delicious mint sauce spread on our lives.
So, between duck, deer and turkey season, I gotta keep track of gay season too?
What do I wear? What caliber of gun is permitted? What’s the habitat of the “free-range fag?” Do I use calls, or lures?
More importantly, where do I find the cookbook with recipes for gay people? I looked online, but this was all I could find.
What a fucking week. My partner and I split this week after 2 years together, and plans for marriage. I was at work yesterday at the SF Chronicle and everyone around me was saying “Don’t worry–Kerry’s going to win!” I just wanted to hide somewhere and stop hurting–then this. At 7pm after trying unsuccessfully to ignore the election results on TV, I tried to take him out for dinner at Red Grill in the Castro but instead he got angry over something stupid and little that I don’t even recall and we turned around and went home. He packed up his things and left to go sleep somewhere else. I was feeling so hurt by our breakup, by the election, by getting rejected by 10 states that I seriously considered suicide. I was in such despair that the world doesn’t want me, doesn’t want Gay/Lesbian/Bi/Trans people, that they’d prefer us not exist, not validate what love we find. I called in sick today and didn’t get up until 11am, when I turned on the TV and watched Kerry’s concession speech.
I don’t have much strength right now; I’m still so raw. But dammit I’m not going to let the conservatives hurt more people. I don’t want anyone to feel the depth of hurt that I feel right now.
The fact that the Republicans aren’t the only people in the United States who have a beef with homosexuals is something we shouldn’t forget. Even amongst Democrats there are plenty who are either indifferent or openly hostile towards homosexual unions. Kerry wasn’t exactly warming up to the idea of gay marriage.
The same place they’ve been going for the past 20 years or so. At no other time have issues facing homosexuals been discussed openly. The only reason we’re seeing these bans now is because progress has been made. When I graduated from high school in 1994 nobody was seriously considering homosexual marraige on a national level. Ok, if they were they were pretty silent. I didn’t hear much of a peep about it until 1996 and that peep grows louder each year.
Marc
I think the gay marriage issue jumped on many people, especially those who thought the issue was solved with civil unions.
I wonder if the shock of many gay dopers is because of unrealistic expectations. A lot of them live in areas where homosexuals are bit more accepted, no doubt most of the people they know accept them for who they are, and homosexuals have become a bit more visible in the media these days beyond the tawdry tabloid tales of the past. Is it possible that optimism blinded some to the truth that there are still a lot of Americans who don’t like homosexuals?
Marc
Considering that it is the 21st century already, can you blame them for hoping that people wouldn’t act like it’s the 18th?
Despite what the country is or is not ready for, I will continue to fight in whatever limited way I can (since I’m only on the outside looking in)… I would classify myself as a Unitarian, so that definitely takes care of being in a “gay-friendly church.” I don’t know if after I get my (legitimate – ha! what a laugh) divorce, if I’ll ever marry again, but if I did do so, I’d like to find a way that it protests the oppression of others; mixed, homosexual, transgendered, poly, all. I certainly wouldn’t mind a simple ceremony only if it shows support for those who need it but are denied their rights. I just don’t think that’s very much.
See, Kobaltblu, what you wrote is why I hate, hate, hate this crap. And I’m just a bystander who only feels y’all’s pain peripherally. I can’t believe there are people in the world who think it’s ok to deprive anyone of the love they have for another. Especially, when they are so strident and it DOES NOT AFFECT THEM! Gah!! Like I said above, I will continue to help the cause any way possible. It’s for everyone and our future doesn’t deserve to be shuttled back into the closet and ruled by hatred, fear and prejudice.
But I also wanted to say how very sorry I am for your pain. Not just about the election and the results of the bans. I can’t imagine how devastating that has to be in the most base sense. As I told my family who would have voted for it had it been on the ballot here, I’d complain just as loudly if they took away heterosexual marriage. I do see that as a core HUMAN right, across the board. However, the heartbreak of a relationship ending has to be one of the worst things in the world to survive. I just recently went through one myself and it’s almost done me in. So, I ache for you very, very much. Hang in there. Time will heal, it’s just pretty damn slow. Good vibes are being thought for you though. {{{hugs}}}
Again, not as a gay person, I got temporarily lost in the hope that things would improve by reading so much online last night. Initially (and all along), I felt there wasn’t a snow balls’ chance in hell that we would not put Bush back in office. I hoped against that, but I know way too many people who have no clue about anything other than a very limited world view (for example: my aunt called today to ask how electoral votes work) -and- they vote religiously if they feel threatened, to think that there was even a slim chance of anything else.
But after leaving the polls yesterday and there was so much optimism, the almost ‘foregone conclusion’ kind, that I was swayed. I went to bed praying today would be different than I’d feared. When I was greeted by the sad news, I realized that I had indeed been insulated by the views I share with other like minded individuals online, rather than the majority of folks I meet IRL. Therefore, I do see where this could have blindsided some. It did me, even if it was just right at the end. I certainly understand how much worse it would be for those directly on the front line, fighting for the very essence of their existence and how utterly baffling it is that anyone could wish them ill, dislike them on something intrinsic and prevent them living a normal life like everyone else.
I can believe that Bush got re-elected. I cannot believe that a majority (no matter how small) of the voters legislated hate in the form of those bans. Saying that it makes me lose more of my faith in humanity doesn’t even begin to come close.
Well, I’m not exactly a “Bush supporter”, but I can find more in him to support than I can in Kerry. But I’ll tell you the truth: if Kerry had, at any point, come out as being in favor of SSM, that may have swayed me to vote for Kerry. One of the things that I dislike, intensely, about Bush, is his stance on SSM. But Kerry’s isn’t any better.
In and ideal world, both Kerry and Bush would have come out in favor of SSM, and one of them still would have gotten elected, and all of us could be happier now.
However, as someone else (I’m too lazy to look it up) has already said, it’s a positive step that it was being voted on at all. This means it’s in the forefront of many minds. IMHO, SSM is inevitable. It’s just taking a little longer to get there than I had hoped. As a straight person, I figure the best I can do is to raise my children to see how silly it is to deny this basic right to a large segment of the population.
I second this sentiment. My wife & I have been privileged to have been invited to a marriage between two of my wife’s co-workers & I have witnessed many more as I work in a Town Hall. The sky isn’t falling, people go on with their lives. These people are make wonderful contributions to the community & I am proud to live in a state that welcomes them.
I voted for Bush and support gay marriage. But I think a perfectly reasonable compromise would be civil unions with all the benefits of marriage. I think gays who want their union to be called “marriage” are being unreasonable and those who don’t support civil unions for gays as bigots.
Just don’t try it in Michigan. The amendment that passed here includes verbiage that “would permanently ban civil unions and domestic partnerships between men and women and for same-gender couples. In fact, it would prohibit ANY legal recognition of unmarried partners, gay or straight, which means that benefits currently provided to those partners – like health care or retirement benefits – would be taken away” (source).
Why is this unreasonable?
I’m not KidCharlemagne, but I’d describe it as “poor tactics”, which is close enough to “unreasonable”. The case is better pressed for civil unions, as long as the rights granted are equivalent to marriage.
This avoids the problems of morons thinking marriage is under threat, or that their precious churches will be forced to marry gays and lesbians (neither of which was ever true).
Once they happen, everyone will describe partners united by civil unions as “married”, anyway. For me, when we get civil unions in the UK (which is on the cards), I’d describe my partner as my husband and refer to our “marriage”, regardless of the semantics. So will most who know us.
Transsexualism is still classified as a “mental disorder” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (as was homosexuality, till fairly recently).
We can marry in some states (and countries), not in others—much like gays. But in a divorce action, we are always ruled against, whether or not the spouse knew from the beginning.
I’m deeply saddened and disappointed that so many states have chosen to write discrimination into the fabric of their community. And that several have chosen to do it in such a way as to deny other avenues, as well. At the same time, I think that “civil union” is just a homonym for “marriage” anyway, and to try to insist otherwise is a bit disingenuous. But I am saddened.
Keep fighting, all - tho’ I’m hetero, I’ll keep fighting with you.
For the reasons that Jervoise cited below yours. They are only being unreasonable if they don’t accept civil unions that grant the same rights as marriage because they believe they are entitled to the use of the word “marriage.” I think civil unions are a perfectly acceptable compromise for reasonable people on both sides of the argument. I personally would support calling gay unions “marriage” but I understand how others might not.