# Question for those who are against gay rights **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 2, 2003, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-are-against-gay-rights/199074 "2003-09-02T04:40:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-are-against-gay-rights/199074/41 "2003-09-02T16:56:14Z")
So zamboni, are you just arguing legal minutiae for practice and attention, or is this really an issue that you have strong opinions on? If there were a referendum tomorrow, would you vote Yes or No on allowing gay marriage? Bricker? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-are-against-gay-rights/199074/42 "2003-09-02T17:05:58Z")
I’d urge you to change the referendum question. As posed, I’d vote ‘no’. However, I’d vote ‘yes’ on a proposal to allow civil unions that were the legal and functional equivalent of marriage. But I do believe that ‘marriage’ is a word that defines a relationship between a man and a woman. I’d oppose extending the the definition of word, even though I completely support extending each and every legal right and recognition that flows from a marriage to a same-sex union. - Rick ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-are-against-gay-rights/199074/43 "2003-09-02T17:09:42Z")
And if you ask what or why I’m arguing, I started out by pointing out the OP’s flaw of _argumentum ad misercordiam_, and just kind of went from there. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-are-against-gay-rights/199074/44 "2003-09-02T17:10:37Z")
Separate but equal. ---
**Author:** ![zamboniracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e9a140/32.png) [@zamboniracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zamboniracer)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-are-against-gay-rights/199074/45 "2003-09-02T17:12:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by lissener \* > \*\*You’d have an idea if you read Polycarp’s more carefully reasoned response. > > Sorry, zam, but you lost me with the outrageous “Gay marriage isn’t necessary, only the awareness among gays to exercise the power and opportunities already available.” > > Separate but equal, huh, zam? \*\* Nothing at all separate or unequal about the statutes with regard to the matters I wrote about, lissener. The statutes apply to all and do not make second class citizens out of those who are smart enough to avail themselves of them. This isn’t a Rosa Parks type situation. Mrs. Parks couldn’t change her race and so was barred from the public bus by law until she rebelled, which is in stark contrast to the matter at issue here, where there is nothing whatsoever in law preventing homosexuals from taking advantage of the statutes I mentioned the same way that straights can and do do so. Further, I did read Polycarp’s posts. In fact, I quoted him in part above. I didn’t cite the rest of that post of Polycarp’s because it was addressed to Bricker and I felt confident Bricker could and would be by to address those issues and/or “cute” stories Polycarp raised. ---
**Author:** ![Joe\_Random](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Joe\_Random](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joe_Random)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-are-against-gay-rights/199074/46 "2003-09-02T17:16:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bricker \* > **I’d oppose extending the the definition of word, even though I completely support extending each and every legal right and recognition that flows from a marriage to a same-sex union.** However, “marriage” is typically understood to be based on those legal rights (consider atheists getting married, where there are no religious overtones), and I’d argue that the sexes of the people involved are secondary. The only reason that marriage has typically been used to refer to different-sex unions is because same sex unions were so exceedingly rare and frowned upon in the past that they were (as far as I can tell) never official, and thus never _needed_ a name. I say that there is no valid reason to _not_ use the term “marriage” to refer to a same-sex union. Are the relative sexes of the parties involved that important to the definition of marriage? All of this “gays should use a different word” smacks of a fallacious “argument from tradition” tactic to me. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-are-against-gay-rights/199074/47 "2003-09-02T17:19:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by zamboniracer \* > \*\*. . . Mrs. Parks couldn’t change her race and so was barred from the public bus by law until she rebelled, which is in stark contrast to the matter at issue here, where there is nothing whatsoever in law preventing homosexuals from taking advantage of the statutes I mentioned the same way that straights can and do do so. . . \*\* So . . . if Alabama had passed a law saying that black people could ride like white people if they filled out these forms in triplicate and stood in the proper line to ensure the proper filing of said forms, while abstaining from all folding, spindling, and mutilating activities, you’d be OK with that? And how would you vote on such a referendum, in my question above? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-are-against-gay-rights/199074/48 "2003-09-02T17:27:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Joe Random \* > I say that there is no valid reason to _not_ use the term “marriage” to refer to a same-sex union. Are the relative sexes of the parties involved that important to the definition of marriage? All of this “gays should use a different word” smacks of a fallacious “argument from tradition” tactic to me. You’re right - it IS an argument from tradition. However, if anything, I’d suggest that we remove the civil government from the marriage business altogether - let them issue civil unions for gay and straight couples - and reserve ‘marriage’ for the religious institutions that wish to use them. All words have definitions that come from “tradition”. I agree the tradition is not sufficient reason to continue a functional practice, but I don’t agree that a word may be redefined at will. If marriage is religious and not secular, remove ‘marriage’ from the realm of secular. That way, traditionalists such as I are happy, and no one is the victim of invidious distinctions. - Rick ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-are-against-gay-rights/199074/49 "2003-09-02T17:39:48Z")
Nobody’s suggesting that words be redefined “at will.” By throwing that silly phrase in _at will,_ Bricker, you dismiss all the cultural change and discussion that’s taken place around this issue. Was _citizen_ redefined “at will” when slavery ended? ---
**Author:** ![zamboniracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e9a140/32.png) [@zamboniracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zamboniracer)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-are-against-gay-rights/199074/50 "2003-09-02T17:43:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by lissener \* > \*\*So zamboni, are you just arguing legal minutiae for practice and attention, or is this really an issue that you have strong opinions on? If there were a referendum tomorrow, would you vote Yes or No on allowing gay marriage? > > Bricker? \*\* Bricker as usual beat me to the punch, but I think you pose a fair question lisssener. Unlike Bricker, I am against civil unions. I think they are unnecessary, for the reasons I set forth above. Further, on the grounds that I am a cheapskate, I think it is an unwarranted drain on the public treasury to extend public benefits (ie married filing joint tax benefits, ERISA, health care to partners, etc.) to gay couples. As far as I’m concerned, gay partners should each obtain their own benefits rather than sponging off their partner’s or, more accurately, their partner’s employer. There is no natural impediment to a gay partner obaining his own benefits, in contrast to that of a so-called nuclear family with husband/wife/and 1.7 kids, where the wife stays at home and raises the kids and has no access to benefits. I don’t see how a gay’s partner is prevented from obtaining his own benefits, so as I taxpayer I don’t want to subsidize such benefits. Gays aren’t paying for my health or retirement benefits, as a self-employed divorced male with kids paying child support, so way should I pay for theirs? Let 'em get jobs that can support themselves, that’s what I say. Having said that, I would be in favor of separating employment from health benefits altogether, and adopting a universal health care Canadian style system. Under such a system gays would be entitled to benefits the same as straights. Until we do that though, and everybody gets health care, then I say let the gay partners each be responsible for their own health benefits without dipping into the public treasury. Gay couples aren’t doing me (or the public at large) any financial favors, so why should I do them a favor? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Ryan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7feea3/32.png) [@The\_Ryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Ryan)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-are-against-gay-rights/199074/51 "2003-09-02T17:48:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Siege \* > I’m not sure how this is separate from gay marriage. As I understand things, under current laws, marriage creates a legal standing for two people, most notably making them each others’ next of kin. The only other way I know of to voluntarily make someone your next of kin is to adopt them. It seems quite separate to me. Everyone, gay or straight, has the right to choose who is their next of kin. I can understand why the State has rules for determining the default next of kin, but why should biology trump a person’s express wishes? > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Homebrew \* > Florida, in particular, BANS such adoptions. In fact that state bans adoption by gay people entirely, even for kids without any parents. I’d like a cite for that. Perhaps you meant to say something like “Florida bans adoptions by anything other than a married couple”. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Annie-Xmas \* > Furthermore, while she and her partner had bought a house together and started a business together AND she was the sole beneficiary in her will, the children’s fathers contested the will and got all the inheritance. How does this will contestation work? Does it involve claiming that there is some legal flaw in the will, or does it simply consist of saying “let’s just ignore that”? How does a former boyfriend have any standing? > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Polycarp \* > My wife’s sole child, given up for adoption before we re-met and married, was fathered by a man who beat her while she was pregnant. I will undoubtedly never meet the girl who would have been my only stepdaughter and the only child of either of our bodies (thanks to that beating causing polycystic ovaries). That he has any claim on that child thanks to his sperm having induced a pregnancy is something I vehemently refute. Presumably, since the child was adopted, the father gave up his rights. That in not the case in the OP’s hypothetical. > [@](#): > > On the other hand, I can refute your comment with the wisdom of a (then) _five-year-old_ whom I’m proud to claim honorary grandparent status of. Well, it was a question, not a comment. I don’t see how your response constitutes a refutation beyond simply expressing your opinion that Alice should get custody. What are you saying, anyway? That custody issues should be decided on the basis of whom the child considers to be their parent? ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-are-against-gay-rights/199074/52 "2003-09-02T18:12:51Z")
You only address healthcare, zam, and sidestep all the other issues. Please address my hypothetical solution to the Rosa Parks situation, and assuming that your answer will be “no,” please explain how the two situations are different. And from your last post, in which you failed to answer my “yes or no” question with a “yes” or a “no,” can I take it that, if a referendum were to come before you tomorrow, that asked you to decide whether to confer existing marital rights to all couples, irrespective of gender, you would say “no”? If so, can you explain the different treatment you would be voting for? As it is, all you’ve said, again, is “But they wouldn’t be starving if they’d all planted beans”: instead of addressing the existing system, you describe your “ideal” system in which such questions would be moot. All right then, but how about _this_ system, where the question is decidedly unmoot? Should _existing_ rights be equally available across genders? Yes or No? ---
**Author:** ![Homebrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Homebrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homebrew)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-are-against-gay-rights/199074/53 "2003-09-02T18:47:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by The Ryan \* > \*\*I’d like a cite for that. Perhaps you meant to say something like “Florida bans adoptions by anything other than a married couple”. \*\* Perhaps I meant exactly what I said. [Cite](http://www.hrc.org/familynet/chapter.asp?article=745) > [@](#): > > Florida is the only state that bans gay and lesbian individuals and couples from adopting. Utah and Mississippi have laws that ban adoption by same-sex couples but not gay and lesbian individuals. From the relevant passage in the Florida code: > [@](#): > > "[N]o person eligible to adopt under this statute may adopt if that person is a homosexual. > [@](#): > > If the latter, I agree that it’s possible - but so highly unlikely that it really doesn’t merit serious discussion. In fact, it’s so unlikely that to even think that a [significant effort to block the confirmation of a Judge](http://www.gaypasg.org/Press%20Clippings/February%202003/Attempt%20To%20Block%20Lesbian%20Judge%20Fails.htm) because she’s a lesbian is absurd. ---
**Author:** ![zamboniracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e9a140/32.png) [@zamboniracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zamboniracer)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-are-against-gay-rights/199074/54 "2003-09-02T19:05:42Z")
Lissener, you’re clever. Not correct and not accurate, but certainly clever. I wrote above in part, " I am against civil unions. I think they are unnecessary, for the reasons I set forth above. Further, on the grounds that I am a cheapskate, I think it is an unwarranted drain on the public treasury to extend public benefits (ie married filing joint tax benefits, ERISA, health care to partners, etc.) to gay couples." Those are my words, and yet you inaccurately said I only addressed health care. Perhaps you do not understand my use of the term, “etc.” there. As for your faulty analogy, “they wouldn’t be starving if they’d already planted beans”, let me say that it is neither my fault personally nor society’s fault nor the government’s fault if the gay couples find themselves stymied. What you’re saying is that we should change the laws to recognize gay civil unions and put them on the same footing as marriages simply because some gay couples are too lazy, stupid, poor or ignorant to circumvent such easily solved problems. Well, that’s too bad for them, but it is hardly a reason to base a huge public policy change on. The difference is that a person can find himself homeless and hungry through no fault of his or her own. Those people deserve to be fed. People in a so-called long-term committed gay partnership has no one to blame but themselves if they have failed to plan for the future and use existing laws about wills, trusts, living wills, joint accounts, powers of attorney, etc., to their own advantage. Remember the fable from childhood about the ant and the grasshopper? To me, gays that fail to plan are grasshoppers and I cannot work up much sympathy for them. Call me coldhearted, and I know you will, but that’s the way it is. ---
**Author:** ![Chicago\_Faucet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chicago_faucet/32/13910_2.png) [@Chicago\_Faucet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chicago_Faucet)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-are-against-gay-rights/199074/55 "2003-09-02T19:16:29Z")
I’ve been following this debate from the beginning, and all of the other debates of this nature, and I must say that I’m siding with Bricker on this one. I was kind of wishy washy on the subject up until now, but Bricker has swayed me. In my view, this debate has always had four different sides to it: religious acceptance versus political acceptance, and equal rights versus traditional marriage. I easily flopped back and forth with every new proposed scenario. If I was president (or applicable person with due power), not only would I be the first Atheist Libertarian president, but I would follow Bricker’s lead and give (or propose) all homosexuals full legal “joining” or “uniting” power over each other with a one stop document, but I would fall short of calling it a marriage or calling the couple “married”. As much as I hate to, one still has to consider respect for the religious institutions that invented the concept of marriage. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-are-against-gay-rights/199074/56 "2003-09-02T19:18:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by lissener \* > \*\*Separate but equal. \*\* I would urge you to read [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=179805) thread that I did a few months back. Seems most of the gays who responded were not all that worried about being “separate but equal.” As far as to whom the child goes in the OP’s example (I believe he was said to be 12, right?), I was 12 when I decided that I didn’t want to live with my mother and her husband anymore. All I did was say it, and it was so. I admit that probably quite a bit went on behind the scenes, but I highly doubt that if a 12 year old stood before a judge and said, “I want to live with so-and-so,” that the judge wouldn’t just say, “Alrighty then.” ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-are-against-gay-rights/199074/57 "2003-09-02T19:25:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by lissener \* > \*\*Separate but equal. \*\* I would urge you to read [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=179805) thread that I did a few months back. Seems most of the gays who responded were not all that worried about being “separate but equal.” As far as to whom the child goes in the OP’s example (I believe he was said to be 12, right?), I was 12 when I decided that I didn’t want to live with my mother and her husband anymore. All I did was say it, and it was so. I admit that probably quite a bit went on behind the scenes, but I highly doubt that if a 12 year old stood before a judge and said, “I want to live with so-and-so,” that the judge wouldn’t just say, “Alrighty then.” ---
**Author:** ![Joe\_Random](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Joe\_Random](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joe_Random)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-are-against-gay-rights/199074/58 "2003-09-02T19:31:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Chicago Faucet \* > \*\*As much as I hate to, one still has to consider respect for the religious institutions that invented the concept of marriage. \*\* By that logic, you should also favor denying atheists the right to be married. Also, it’s not like any of the current religions invented marriage. Sure, the English word “marriage” was probably first used by a modern religion, but the word is just a name for a concept, not the concept itself, and since same-sex unions closely match the _concept_, then they should be allowed the use of the word as well. And besides, marriage isn’t a purely religious concept anymore, and need not even be performed by a priest/rabbi/minister/shaman/etc. If such an nonreligious activity as being pronounced married in Vegas by a guy dressed like Elvis – who was given such authority by the _government_, mind you – can still be called a marriage, then why deny same-sex couples the use of the word? Or, to sum up my post: Marriage is no longer a solely controlled by religious institutions, so religious attitudes need not be followed when determining whether or not to label a specific union “marriage”. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-are-against-gay-rights/199074/59 "2003-09-02T19:45:56Z")
Zamboni, you still fail to answer the question. Do you favor disparate legal treatment of same-sex versus opposite sex marriages, in today’s system? Putting aside all ideal systems, but simply answering the question: Should the rights conferred upon hetero unions be _available_ or _unavailable_ to same-sex unions? ---
**Author:** ![Chicago\_Faucet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chicago_faucet/32/13910_2.png) [@Chicago\_Faucet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chicago_Faucet)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-are-against-gay-rights/199074/60 "2003-09-02T20:09:05Z")
Maybe we should switch gears and think of this from a different view. An orphan who reaches age 18 without being adopted is released from the orphange. How does this orphan set up the legal relationships in his/her life? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-are-against-gay-rights/199074.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-are-against-gay-rights/199074.md?page=4)