THERE IS NO SUCH FUCKING THING!
I’d just like to point out that this is wrong. All throughout history, plenty of cultures have recognized formal same sex unions. Does this fact cause your whole arguement to fall apart?
I do not think that means what you think it means.
In other words, not all homosexuals have the same lifestyle.
WE ARE IN MAINSTREAM AMERICA. Maybe not in the worthless hick states, but we are everywhere in civilized America. We are in your churches, we teach in your schools, we work in your buildings, we even serve in your homophobic armed forces. We are part of mainstream America, and we deserve to be treated as such.
But because you hate us, you won’t.
So we should jsut give up and die alone in our hospital rooms because the people we love cannot be with us?
We should just accept that we won’t be able to make medical or financial decisions for each other?
We should just give up trying to get second parent custody rights for our kids?
We should give up trying to co-own property and pass it on at the time of death?
We should just give up on being able to keep our private conversations private in a court of law?
In other words, we should just give up on trying to lead a stable, normal life. Because you’re too much of a bigoted troglodyte to see that our relationships provide anything worthwhile to the community. Because you’re an idiot evangelical (like all evangelicals) who thinks that we should be ostracized for not being just like you.
We will win. We will marry. Within 50 years. It may be called “civil unions” when it comes, but it will come. The younger generations are on our side by huge margins. Once all you bigoted old shits die, we’re a-okay.
Whoa. I knew this was likely to get hot. Where to begin…
To Weirddave:
I confess (as I hinted in my post) that I do not have a vast knowledge of marriage customs in other times and places. The same-sex unions you referred to…Where they given the same “weight” as a formal hetero marriage? In any case, we are primarily concerned with the current attitudes of Middle Americans. They are unlikely to be swayed by any foreign, historical precedent.
To spectrum and Lute Skywatcher:
I am just a knuckle-dragging hetero and I confess that I do not understand homosexuality very well.
But nobody understands homosexuality very well - not even homosexuals.
What is Nature’s purpose for homosexuals? Why do some gays seem more (or less) gay than others? Why are some Lesbians “butch” and others are “fem”? There are so many imponderables…
Nature’s purpose? Ha, good one.
I live with a lesbian who prefers women because of the way she was raised. Nature has nothing to do with her orientation.
Yes, they were given the same weight as heterosexual marriage. I agree with you that this fact won’t sway many people. However, you brought it up, so I addressed it. The fact that it won’t sway many people also means that it’s not a very good prop to support your opposition to gay marriage. Can we agree that this particular one has no merit and move on to the others?
I just want to weigh in here with an international perspective.
The Swedish Church (Lutheran and about as protestant as you can get) gives official blessings to gay couple and are about to change their rules to be able to perform marriages of gay couples.
And using history (a skewed version at that) to justify something now is plain stupid. Or do you wish for everyone to be Catholic and listen to all church services in Latin again? This is now and what was is important, but we really don’t have to do it exactly as every generation before us.
Then again, from the conservative POV, that might be something to strive for.
No, they’re not. But given time, things can change. We’ve gotten rid of slavery. We’ve given women suffrage. I believe that one day we will recognize same-sex marriage.
It already exists in Belgium and the Netherlands. Civil unions with most or all of the rights of marriage exist in Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Norway and Sweden—many of which have strong religious backgrounds.
I think it can and will happen in the US, but it’ll take baby steps. First we’ll get to recognize gay domestic partnerships then eventually marriages. Bush even went on record a week ago to say “I don’t think we should deny people rights to a civil union, a legal arrangement, if that’s what a state chooses to do so,” pissing off some of the more conservative right. [rul=“MSN | Outlook, Office, Skype, Bing, Breaking News, and Latest Videos”]Cite.
So, while I very much dislike Bush, if he can say something like this, I think that gay marriage in the US is eventually possible, and absolutely worth the fight.
Brutus: How is it going to look if show up for my next shooting match with a big rainbow sticker on my M1A?
Oh, you’re saying you’re afraid to show up at a shooting match with a rainbow sticker on your M1A? Pussy. 
Roseworm: To begin with, marriage is an ancient institution. As early as the Sumerian civilization, a vast body of laws existed to protect and regulate marriage. As far as I know, no provision was ever made in any marriage law anywhere to cover same-sex couples. […] The simple fact is, marriage was never about love. Arranged marriages were often the norm.
Roseworm: I confess (as I hinted in my post) that I do not have a vast knowledge of marriage customs in other times and places. […] In any case, we are primarily concerned with the current attitudes of Middle Americans. They are unlikely to be swayed by any foreign, historical precedent.
Dude, you are shooting for the “King of Backpedaling” title in this forum. You spend half your previous post explaining why marriage should be defined by its “foreign, historical precedents”, and then when your claim is shot down, you argue that it was irrelevant anyway.
Then that just shows their umoveable idiocy. “Marriage is a historical tradition!” (Shown examples of gay unions in Western/European past) “No! I refuse to accept that! Fags are gross!”
Knuckle draggers. No other fucking term for them. Knuckle draggers.
Then do not spread ignorance by speaking of it. Contrary to your bullshit, homosexuality is pretty well understood. It is a harmless condition. It is not a mental illness. It is not abnormal. It is not chosen. It is not dangerous.
Every self aware gay person is an expert on homosexuality.
Probably the same purpose as homosexuality in all the other forms of animal life that display it (which are too numerous to count). The most common theory is population control: it’s useful to have members of a group who are able bodied but who do not fight for reproductive resources. They can gather and hunt just as well, but they don’t compete for breeding partners, nor do they add to the population.
Again with the stereotyping. Jesus.
Could be.
What, you think “Why do some gays seem more (or less) gay than others?” is stereotyping but “Why are some Lesbians ‘butch’ and others are ‘fem’?” isn’t?
I disagree with the notion that marriage will never be a right for gays. It will happen one day. We will look back on this time in the same light as we do now with the era of Jim Crow. Unless you thought Jim Crow laws were a *good * idea. Gay couples should be able to marry just as hetero couples. I think there should be no distinction.
If civil unions are truly a precursor to same-sex marriages, so be it. Baby steps and all that jazz. I can understand wanting to take a by-any-means-necessary approach, but I think the Rev. King way is the better way to go.
To Gaspode:
I am not very religious, but I was raised in a Catholic family. Since you mention it, I think it would be very nice if the Catholic Church returned to the Latin Mass. Sometimes the traditional is best.
To spectrum:
I am not a homophobe. I do not hate gays. I am trying to feel my way through a very touchy subject. You do not need to fly in my face and scratch my eyes out over every point in my posts. Especially you should not put hateful words in my mouth.
My main point is this: Regardless of my own feelings about gay marriage, it is not going to fly in the current political environment. Traditional values are in the ascendancy as a political issue, and Americans have made it clear that they are not ready for gay marriage. If you try to force the issue, you will be asking for too much too soon, and it will generate a back-lash.
Now that I think about it, I have another objection to gay marriage.
Suppose you have two straight men living together for economic reasons. In the old days, they called that “batchin’ it.” Suppose you have two brothers living together. For whatever reason, they never got married and they are stuck with each other. In both cases, the male couples are living in a domestic and financial relationship which is identical to that of a gay male couple. But they cannot claim the benefits of a civil union or a gay marriage. This is discrimination, plain and simple.
It is. I just grabbed the first part, wasn’t intending to imply that I agreed with the second. Sorry.
A room-mate situation is not equal to that of a marriage. I can not see that this is a valid argument, Roseworm.
Uh, because that would be, I dunno, incest, maybe?
Bullpucky.
Before my wife and I got married, we lived together. Would you argue that we were being discriminated against because we didn’t then enjoy the benefits that we do after we’ve made our contractual commitment?
Submitted too fast:
Putting the whole love-n-sex issue aside, roomates are different from spouses in that spouses have made a public, legal, contractual commitment to be a couple for presumably the remainder of their lives. Marriage confers certain rights and responsibilities upon each spouse far beyond those that are afforded to mere roommates.
No, of course you’re not a homophobe. You just think that gay couples don’t deserve the exact same access to marriage as every straight couple has without question, because you believe that there’s nothing more to marriage than fucking and making babies. And because that’s all you see of value in marriage, then that’s all anyone is allowed to see in marriage. And supporters of same-sex marriage – not just gay people – should just shut up because they’re upsetting everyone and creating a back-lash [sic].
Oh, oh – wait. That bit I said earlier, apparently I was wrong. You are a homophobe. Remember, you don’t have to be pointing and yelling “faggot” and “smear the queer” to be a homophobe. All you have to do is suggest that homosexuals are so significantly different that they don’t deserve the exact same treatment as every other person in the United States, because they’re homosexuals, and because it makes people uncomfortable that they’re different.
Sheesh. I understand homosexuality just fine, thanks. All these “imponderables” that you’re having to deal with? Guess what, buddy – those are your problems. Until you can explain what the fuck all any of that has to do with the equal right to marriage, then you can sit back and ponder on it all you want, but don’t try to institute it as public policy. Don’t for one second expect any homosexual to have to prove himself “worthy” in your eyes before you’ll deign to grant him equality.
You ask about “how does it work” and “why do they act all gay” and you talk about “sin” and you say that you know what the purpose of marriage is and that’s the same purpose for everyone’s marriage. And then you claim you’re not a homophobe. And you act all surprised, as if you’re saying absolutely nothing offensive at all and you can’t understand why everyone is getting so hot under the collar! Oh dear! The homos are all defensive and hysterical! That’s another mark against them and their silly “gay marriage” campaign!
That is bullshit, plain and simple, and fortunately, that shit doesn’t fly here. It doesn’t even make sense, for starters – they can’t get married, so gay couples shouldn’t be able to get married? What the hell? And what if you have a straight man and a straight woman who are living together out of convenience? Does that mean heterosexual marriages should be abolished?
The offensive part of your “argument,” and why you’ve got all these oversensitive homos wanting to “scratch your eyes out” over your harmless words, is that you say that your examples are in a relationship identical to that of a gay couple. They’re not, and damn you for saying that they are. A gay couple is in love with each other. Yes, it happens. Just like plenty of straight couples. And yes, even though they can’t make a baby. It boggles the mind! And yet, this gay couple can and does watch as hetero couple after hetero couple goes to an office, fills out a form, and has their marriage recognized by the state and society, every single day. Without having to prove that they’re capable of conceiving children. Without having to prove that they even want to have children. But just because they want it. But the sign at the door says “No Gays Welcome.”
See, you seem to be confused. That is discrimination, not the nonsense you tried to describe.