I’m not sure what rights are conferred by civil unions in Denmark, but in the US the problem is that the rights are **not **the same as marriage. Civil unions aren’t recognized federally so tax benefits, social security, and other federal benefits aren’t available to partners. The unions generally aren’t recognized in other states, so if you move you lose whatever rights you did have, while marriage is recognized not only everywhere within the country but internationally as well. The unions aren’t treated as a marriage where adoption is concerned, etc., etc. Here is a summary by factcheck.org which describes some of the issues: http://www.factcheck.org/what_is_a_civil_union.html
Massachusetts Supreme Court Chief Justice Margaret Marshall explained, in an advisory ruling about a “civil unions” bill:
Then perhaps, an easier and less provocative approach would be to work for broadening the rights of civil unions instead of forcing through that it must absolutely also be called marriage. If all that, legally, separates the two in the end is the name, then surely civil unions would be fine.
She sounds more like a politician than an appointed expert hired to uphold the existing law. But if the legal content of civil unions were almost identical as that of marriage there would be no cause for talking of second-class status. At least in a juridical context, which is what I assume she is concerned about.
HA! You should do a search for some older threads in which this was advocated by me at length. Bottom line: it’s not about “rights”, after all. It’s about appropriating the word marriage as to erase any distinction between SS couples and OS couples. It’s about They don’t care as much about rights as they do the badge of marriage for the power it has—history, nature, and the special value the institution affords society be damned.
FYI: I advocate every pro-gay rights their position there is, including gay adoption. The only point of contention for me is the use of the word “marriage”, and I can’t count the number of times I’ve been called a homophobe or bigot. Good luck to you. I have no desire to go through the same dance again.
Marriage isn’t about producing children no matter how often you repeat such an insult to every couple who doesn’t want or can’t have children.
“Nuclear families” aren’t more “natural” than homosexual couples. Less, if anything; for most of history the extended family was the norm. You are just indulging in the common right wing fantasy that 1950s America was the beginning of human traditions.
No it isn’t. We are using up irreplaceable resources to maintain the population we have now, and wishing hard isn’t going to make more appear.
You may think that no-fault divorce is a bad thing, I don’t. Turning a disintegrating marriage into a war where one person has to find or manufacture evidence against the other person in order to escape is twisted.
No it isn’t. SSM doesn’t threaten traditional marriage; if anything it strengthens it. The one and only reason for opposition to SSM is a hatred of homosexuals. It is a position of pure evil, of malice for the sake of malice, lacking in any redeeming characteristic whatsoever. Just like its spiritual predecessor, opposition to mixed race marriage.
It’s called a “conspiracy theory”. Why don’t you claim that the Jews are out to destroy marriage while you are at it? “Thinking reasoning and fair”? Suuuure.
According to you, because you are looking for an excuse to persecute people. Society has no more interest in the “natural” production of children than the “artificial” production of them. And the use of “artificial” methods is quite common among married couples, you know.
Besides, we have too many people not too few; society doesn’t have any interest in the faster production of children, just the opposite.
Except that will never happen any more than the “separate but equal” of segregation was equal. Persecution is the point of civil unions.
Caving in to the bigots never works out well.
You have entirely missed my point. I do not deny that there is a point at which generally women no longer conceive. My point is that is NOT IMPOSSIBLE for a post menopausal woman to naturally conceive. It has happened before, and there is no one who can tell with certainty that it cannot happen in any particular couple. You can say with certainty that gays cannot conceive as a gay couple.
And gays have every right to marry the opposite sex, have children, and obtain the protections that society offers for that relationship.
I really cannot believe you argued in favor of gay couples marrying because gay individuals can have heterosexual sex. It’s like arguing against drunk driving laws because sober people don’t have as many accidents.
This has aleady been done in several states.
I have a question for you, I’m in a “traditional” marriage. I’ve been with my wife for 21 years. We have three kids, all conceived and born in wedlock. My marriage is as vanilla as it gets.
We have a gay couple living next door to us. How is my marriage going to suffer if those guys are allowed federal marriage benefits? Please be advised that religious answers have no legal validity and no persuasive power to me whatsoever since I regard all religion as empirically baseless superstition.
The question, again, is how will it hurt MY marriage if my next door neighbors are allowed to get married.
It is impossible for a woman who has had a hysterectomy to conceive. Should women who have had hystercomies be allowed to get married?
This is a bullshit angle anyway since gay couples DO have children, so pretending you care about the children doesn’t work.
There sis no difference at all to the children, and to your contrived justification for federal marriage benefits. Couples with kids are couples with kids. If you really care about the kids, you should care about ALL the kids. Obviously you don’t.
Does adoption count as an “original family?”
Should hetero couples who decide they don’t want kids be afforded marriage benefits?
I don’t know what you mean by “social agenda” or how you determine if that agenda exists. Aren’t hetero couples who offer to adopt children of pregnant women to keep them from having abortions doing so as part of a “social agenda?”
Proof I am interested in persecuting people, please.
I pointed out speculation and never tried to present that as proof. it would have been dishonest to say so, and that is fairness. I do have a suspicion that gays have been working on a social agenda for a long time. If you have any real evidence Jews are systematically working to destroy marriage, I’d like to see it. I have no cause for suspicion that Jews are trying to destroy marriage.
heterosexual families are LESS NATURAL THAN gay families? That is so ridiculous I am not even going to address it. Pure fantasy.
I think learning to get along in a relationship that you pledged for life is more constructive than throwing in the towel. Most people are engaged in an entirely fictitious quest for their soulmate. When a year goes by and they change their mind, rather than taking their vows seriously, they just do it all over again. Its irresponsible and we should go back to requiring proof. There are plenty of people who are adept at detecting false evidence, and if its a problem, we should seek better judges rather than letting the standard sink.
I’d appreciate it if you desist with the ad hominem that I am a bigot. I read the stickies for this forum before posting and felt some relief that I wouldn’t be bullied by gay supporters with ad hominems if I speak my views. Call me a bigot again and I will see that the moderator is aware of your very weak and insulting argument technique. Please address the argument not me personally, or pretend to know my motivations. You are also prohibited from speculating on my motives. When you sate I am only interested in persecuting people you imply that I am lying by saying I purposefully mislead die to my alleged hatred. “Hater! Bigot! Homophobe!” is not a valid argument.
It causes me to dismiss whatever you say, and unless you apologize I am going to ignore you in the future.
I posted here at The Straight Dope specifically because that sort of immature behavior is prohibited.
You built a strawman. I never said i disapprove of artificial means of conception. I said I disapprove of gays who adopt children not for the children’s best interest but for the social agenda of normailizing homosexual unions. Please stick to what I said rather than claiming I said something I didn’t.
When you disprove your own strawman, you are only arguing with yourself, you do realize?
Those couples arguably do so to save the child’s life. I refer to gay activists who publish articles urging gay couples to adopt for the purpose of normalizing the gay lifestyle, rather than adoptions for the child’s best interest.
Adopting to save the child’s life is world’s apart from adopting in order to prove you are normal.
Forbidding them to marry IS persecuting them. And it’s a historically common form of persecution at that.
Just as you have no cause to think homosexuals are - except for your desire to demonize them.
A variety of heterosexual family than is mainly common due to modern industrial society, yes.
People have stayed in marriages where both partners hated each other for decades. Why is dedicating your life to living in hatred like that more constructive than a divorce?
Ah, you can’t defend your beliefs so you wave the mods at me. And I’ve carefully avoided calling you any such thing. And it’s amusing for you to claim that you aren’t prejudiced against homosexuals right after speculating that they have some weird motiveless plot against marriage.
In other words, you think that you can post whatever kind of homophobic beliefs you like and the mods will prevent you from being argued against.
Please go back to my original statement rather than a partial clarification.
If you do you will see that I originally decried artificially producing a child for the purpose of proving the legitimacy of gay unions. Children should not be pawns for a purpose other than rearing the child. I conceded that gays who happen to have children for reasons other than this are worthy of benefits for raising the child.
It is very clear that having the children in mind is the whole underlying basis of practically everything I have said.
As usual, you go go way too far, and invalidate your own point. Marriage isn’t about producing children? Not at all?
:rolleyes: Oh, brother. Evidently it needs to be pointed out that nuclear families and extended families are not mutually exclusive. In fact, the norm is the nuclear family sits at the heart of the extended family. Do you really not know this?
Can’t you dial up the "hate:homophobe:bigot: ratio. If not, I’m going to have to ask for a refund. Oh, and where can I buy your comic book?
As if that is likely to happen. Maybe you can find a loony or two that would take on that kind of burden for such a reason, but the problem there is that they are loony, not homosexual. And homosexuals have children without “artificial” means all the time you know.
No it isn’t. Using “for the children” as an excuse to harass and oppress people is such a common right wing tactic that it’s a cliche.
Of course not. Let’s see you argue for the dissolution of marriages of couples that can’t have or don’t want children, if marriage is about children.
Once again please go back to the original statement I sought to clarify.
This is tiresome, Diogenes.
I conceded earlier that there is a circumstance, where the reproductive organs are entirely missing. You act as though I didn’t say that.
The whole point about the issue of whether gays are entitled to marriage because some straights don’t have children is one of privacy. In order to deny marriageon the basis of lack of children to be conceived to any heterosexual couple you’d have to pry in their biology, and even if you do violate their privacy with such an inquiry, there is no guarantee. Except in the case of organs missing.
The “BullShit” is the claim that gay couples can have children together, as in two men engaging in anal intercourse is known to produce children. I really wanna see the proof, and I expect something better than that Arnold Schwarzenegger movie where he played a pregnant man. Maybe you watched that a few too many times, I dunno where you get your ideas.
As I said, please stop cherry picking one-liners and look at everything I have said in context. Continue with this fallacious argument tactic and I will have to ignore your posts if you can’t debate legitimately. I shouldn’t have to repeat every word of every previous post in each post.
Thanks a bunch for keeping that in mind!