# Please Don't Divorce Us **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 28, 2008, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-dont-divorce-us/478892 "2008-12-28T00:25:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jali](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ecae2f/32.png) [@jali](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jali)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2008, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-dont-divorce-us/478892/1 "2008-12-28T00:25:19Z")
This moved me to tears. I found the link on Plime.[http://www.flickr.com/photos/couragecampaign/sets/72157611501972510/show/](http://www.flickr.com/photos/couragecampaign/sets/72157611501972510/show/) ---
**Author:** ![Shayna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shayna/32/17976_2.png) [@Shayna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shayna)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2008, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-dont-divorce-us/478892/2 "2008-12-28T00:58:01Z")
Thanks for sharing that slideshow, **jali** , it really is quite moving. I would like to challenge everyone who cares about equal rights for all Americans to step up to the plate and become part of the grassroots movement to make it happen. Our incoming President is asking us for our feedback, and is seeking to coordinate volunteer efforts all across the country on the issues that matter most to us, including LGBT rights. Please respond to [this survey](http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/pesurvpage1), even if you didn’t participate in his campaign, and offer to volunteer _now_. > [@](#): > > What issues would you be most interested in volunteering or organizing around? (Check all that apply): > > Accountability & Openness in Government > Agriculture & Farming > Budget & Taxes > **Civil Liberties & Privacy** > Civil Rights & Voting Rights > Crime > Defense & National Security > Divisive Politics & Partisanship > Economy > Education > Election Reform & Campaign Finance > Energy & Transportation > Environment & Global Warming > Ethics & Corruption > Foreign Policy > Healthcare > Immigration > Jobs & Trade > **LGBT Issues** > Poverty > Reproductive Rights > Retirement Security > Rural Community Issues > Urban Community Issues > Veterans Affairs > War in Iraq > Other It wasn’t just a campaign slogan; together, **yes we can**! ---
**Author:** ![DiosaBellissima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@DiosaBellissima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiosaBellissima)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2008, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-dont-divorce-us/478892/3 "2008-12-28T01:27:37Z")
Wow, that made me tear up and I didn’t expect that to happen. Poignant and beautiful. ---
**Author:** ![ShermanAter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@ShermanAter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShermanAter)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2008, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-dont-divorce-us/478892/4 "2008-12-28T01:39:00Z")
> [@DiosaBellissima](#): > > Wow, that made me tear up and I didn’t expect that to happen. Poignant and beautiful. Me, too. Thanks for sharing that jali. ---
**Author:** ![NinjaChick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@NinjaChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinjaChick)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2008, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-dont-divorce-us/478892/5 "2008-12-28T02:22:26Z")
Clearly this is part of the homosexual agenda, with the adorable kids and puppies and Christmas decorations and families and whatnot. _sigh_ ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2008, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-dont-divorce-us/478892/6 "2008-12-28T02:50:41Z")
Won’t anyone think of the kids?! They’re clearly miserable and those… _people_… and their… _despicable_… lifestyles amount to nothing less than child abuse! Just look at 'em! :rolleyes: Thank you for sharing that, **jali**. Touching. Reassuring, almost; sometimes it seems like there’s still a shred of humanity left in the country. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2008, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-dont-divorce-us/478892/7 "2008-12-28T03:27:59Z")
Seems a pretty good campaign. However, I’ve two objections : -I don’t like children making statements on behalf of adults, like a 5 yo or even a toddler holding a “don’t divorce my moms” sign. -I don’t like the use of the word “please”. It sounds like begging, and these people shouldn’t be begging. I note several people removed this word, and a couple even wrote “you will not divorce us”. “Don’t divorce us” seems a good enough slogan to me. Anecdotally, this post seems to have won a vote in favour of adoption by gay couples, following the question: “What can you possibly be writing on the net at 4 am?” ---
**Author:** ![joyfool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@joyfool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joyfool)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2008, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-dont-divorce-us/478892/8 "2008-12-28T03:43:47Z")
Thanks for that **jali**. It has me crying like a baby and if abolishing my own marriage would in some way help to make marriage happen for everyone, then I’d gladly sign up to do so. I just can’t wait until we’re looking _back_ at history and this prejudice is a foregone conclusion. It just won’t happen fast enough. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2008, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-dont-divorce-us/478892/9 "2008-12-28T03:57:39Z")
Thanks **jali**. I cried too. ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Cymbeline](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_cymbeline/32/9244_2.png) [@Green\_Cymbeline](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Cymbeline)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2008, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-dont-divorce-us/478892/10 "2008-12-28T08:53:20Z")
Yes I saw that yesterday and was so touched by all those loving couples and beautiful families. So much love in those photos!! What a great way to illustrate the stupidity of the anti-gay marriage agenda. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2008, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-dont-divorce-us/478892/11 "2008-12-28T11:14:13Z")
21st century, and the USA still does not respect basic human rights. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2008, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-dont-divorce-us/478892/12 "2008-12-28T11:35:26Z")
I honestly think it’s getting time to abolish marriage altogether. Yes, I know it’s pretty much woven into the fabric of our law and society and would pose significant hurdles in restructuring tax laws as well as various census and useful organizational procedures for verification and such. I realize it can provide a good landmark for when you want to have kids, or invest in a house, and proposal can be “the big it” that people feel emotionally secure with one another or whatnot. I also don’t particularly care, not anymore. Marriage has gotten to be this rotten little club of exclusivity with everyone crying to [del]mommy[/del] the government about [del]whether or not Jimmy should be able to play too[/del] or [dwl]whether or not I should get more toys[/del] trying to milk more benefits out of it, and it’s getting sickening and tiring. And like the children everyone is acting like over it, I think we should do what parents do when kids don’t share… take away the toys altogether, or in this case, just remove marriage. I mean people can still get married, a significant portion of the population belongs to organizations very HAPPY to bind your soul to the someone else for all eternity (though this may or may not require an additional binding to the deity, avatar, or prophet of your choice, free of charge first), but in this day and age with high divorce rates and all this petty whinging I think we’ve outgrown it as a society. [But then what would the database engineers do all day?](http://qntm.org/?gay) Woah, sorry, don’t know what dark corner of my mind THAT rant was stored in. Anyway, touching slideshow and I agree (or rather… disagree? Is dissolving gay marriage in several states a step towards or away from my goal? Considering I’m for equality… _flips a coin_ okay, coin says slideshow is right). ---
**Author:** ![tumbleddown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@tumbleddown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tumbleddown)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2008, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-dont-divorce-us/478892/13 "2008-12-28T13:15:52Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Seems a pretty good campaign. However, I’ve two objections : > > -I don’t like children making statements on behalf of adults, like a 5 yo or even a toddler holding a “don’t divorce my moms” sign. The headline on the Yes on 8 website is “Restoring Marriage & Protecting Californian Children.” Every single campaign to disallow (or in California’s case, destroy) same-sex marriage has used similar language and rationale, that allowing loving adults to have legal protection for their relationships was somehow bad for kids, that even _knowing_ that some adults are bonded with other adults of the same-sex was bad for children. The children of same-sex couples never seem to factor into these discussions. They’re the unspoken of collateral damage of a culture war they have no say in because they are, for the most part, too young to vote. And when you bring these kids, the adoptees, and the kids born via surrogates and sperm donors, or from previous hetero relationships who are all happy in their nuclear, supportive, two parent homes, into the discussion with the anti-marriagers, they have no good answers. And it’s quite clear that some of them think that gay people should not have the right to adopt, or reproduce with assistance, or keep custody of their kids. They think that on general principle. _They don’t care about the actual, living, real kids that their political positions are affecting in significant ways_. So when it comes down to it, we need to see **more** kids involved in this, not fewer. We need to see **all** the kids whose parents’ marriages are under attack. We need to see **all** the kids whose parents didn’t get a chance to marry and now never may. We need to hear their voices. We need to hear them say that if people are interested in “protecting” them then they won’t tamper with their parents’ right to form the legal bond which offers them actual, real protection. They live in reality, they don’t need to be protected from the truth that sometimes men love men and women love women, they need to be protected from bigots and from prejudice and acts of outright aggression which are fixed against _them_ as much as their parents. ---
**Author:** ![Antigen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/848f3c/32.png) [@Antigen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antigen)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2008, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-dont-divorce-us/478892/14 "2008-12-28T13:45:37Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > -I don’t like the use of the word “please”. It sounds like begging, and these people shouldn’t be begging. I note several people removed this word, and a couple even wrote “you will not divorce us”. “Don’t divorce us” seems a good enough slogan to me. I like “No divorce by force” as a catchy line. And it shows this prop 8 bullshit for what it is - forcibly divorcing happily married couples and telling certain families they have no right to exist. Going to tell all these people they can’t be married because it hurts society and the sanctity of marriage? Then dissolve every remarriage in California too, ya damn hypocrites. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2008, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-dont-divorce-us/478892/15 "2008-12-28T14:39:05Z")
A few years ago I attended a legal seminar given by Martha McCarthy, the lawyer who more than anyone else brought same sex marriage to Canada. Up until then, I had supported same sex marriage on a reasoned basis: equal human rights for all. Following her talk about bringing her clients’ case through the legal system, Ms. McCarthy showed us a documentary in which young Toronto school children spoke about their lives as children of same sex parents, how they were treated by their peers, and why they wanted their parents to be able to marry. It was gut wrenching. I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house full of otherwise hard-assed lawyers. That was when I first began to understand the importance of same sex marriage on an emotional level, rather than just on a legal level. ---
**Author:** ![Acid\_Lamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Acid\_Lamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acid_Lamp)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2008, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-dont-divorce-us/478892/16 "2008-12-28T15:14:06Z")
Awesome. I sent that out to several people. Hopefully florida will get with the program as well. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2008, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-dont-divorce-us/478892/17 "2008-12-28T15:25:59Z")
Every time I see something like that slide show I think of my oldest sister who died long before this issue ever made it reality, but who had labored most of her adult life on GLBT issues. I wish she could have seen legal same-sex marriage. ---
**Author:** ![NinjaChick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@NinjaChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinjaChick)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2008, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-dont-divorce-us/478892/18 "2008-12-28T15:29:17Z")
> [@Antigen](#): > > I like “No divorce by force” as a catchy line. And it shows this prop 8 bullshit for what it is - forcibly divorcing happily married couples and telling certain families they have no right to exist. > > Going to tell all these people they can’t be married because it hurts society and the sanctity of marriage? Then dissolve every remarriage in California too, ya damn hypocrites. For real. I’ve never sat down and counted, but I’m pretty sure that I’m in the minority amongst my friends in that my parents are still married to each other. A friend’s father is now on marriage number _five_. “Sanctity of marriage” is just a joke. And hey, if we’re couching it in terms of sanctity, what about the hetero couples who get married by a judge in a non-religious ceremony? Are they okay, or are we going to nullify their vows as well? ---
**Author:** ![mudkicker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d6d6ee/32.png) [@mudkicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mudkicker)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2008, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-dont-divorce-us/478892/19 "2008-12-28T16:02:19Z")
Ffs. Those pictures have pissed me off. Happy families, well looked after kids, threatened because of some fundamentalist fuckwits’ idea of what a ‘real’ family is. Grr. What the fuck is wrong with a bit more love in the world? Lovely campaign though, very touching as others have said. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2008, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-dont-divorce-us/478892/20 "2008-12-28T16:17:29Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > -I don’t like children making statements on behalf of adults, like a 5 yo or even a toddler holding a “don’t divorce my moms” sign. Agreed. Those kids are used purely for emotion. If those marriages are annulled (not divorced) then the couple will be forced to move into separate homes, have weekend visitation, and pay child support, right? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-dont-divorce-us/478892.md?page=2)