Fine then. Stop whining when you lose national elections.
I see where this is heading, after reading only some of the posts. Gays don’t need or deserve equal job protections, any recognition whatsoever of what may be a lifelong relationship, any right to transfer property (except through legalistic folderol that might be overruled anyway), or in some states even the ability to have their S.O. visit them in the hospital. All because you don’t understand it(?). Open your eyes, look around, and then try thinking about that. Is it because you don’t understand, or because you choose not to?
First, to characterize Kerry’s mention of ol’ Muff-Divin’ Mary as a “political weapon” is nothing more than buying into the Republican spin machine’s manufactured “outrage” over it. John Edwards a week earlier also mentioned MDM and Papa Cheney thanked him for his comments. Mama “Closet Case?” Cheney’s dudgeon remained conspicuously not-high. Suddenly, a week later, when instead of calling Baby Bush a dumbass to his face for being over a half-century old and not knowing that people don’t consciously choose their sexual orientation, Kerry suggested that Baby Bush ask a lesbian that he presumably has met. Because the Republican spin machine could not find anything else they deemed worthy of warping beyond recognition in that debate (“global test” anyone?), suddenly Papa Cheney is outraged - outraged I tell you! - that someone dared mention that his big old lesbian daughter, who has made her living her entire adult life being a professional lesbian, is in fact a big old lesbian and might be able to enlighten Baby Bush on the matter. Mama “CC?” Cheney is equally horrified that Kerry mentioned her lesbian daughter’s lesbianism, despite remaining utterly and resolutely silent in the face of Alan Keyes calling MDM a “selfish hedonist.” Now, to any rational human being (i.e. a non-hardcore Neocon), calling a lesbian a “selfish hedonist” is a tad worse of an insult than calling her a “lesbian.” But there was no political hay to be made from carpetbombing the carpetbagger, so Keyes’ vicious comment gets a pass from the “concerned” “family” of MDM while Kerry’s neutral mention not only gets him eviscerated by dumbasses but consumes entirely too much time for a week afterward.
In other words, SUCKERS! People spent a week yammering about Kerry’s grave “insult” to MDM and the entire Cheney klan instead of taking about things of any substance. Score another one for the Republican spin machine.
Second, I would like to see cites for this supposed rush of support for MDM from the bloated gasbags, excuse me, Christian spokespersons, like Falwell and Dobson. In Googling “Mary Cheney Falwell” I find a number of references to Falwell’s calling MDM “errant” for being a lesbian (perhaps if MDM had hired a whore to assume lewd poses while MDM masturbated, as Falwell did, he could relate to her better). Googling “Mary Cheney Dobson” turns up a few scattered references to Dobson acting upset that MDM was “outed” during the debate. He apparently either missed the fact that MDM has been a professional lesbian since graduating college and was a founding member of the GOP’s sham-gay Republican Unity Coalition or is so incredibly rock-stupid that he thinks that calling someone who’s been out of the closet for over a decade a lesbian constitutes “outing.”
Either way, neither Falwell nor Dobson can reasonably be characterized as having “rushed to Mary’s defense” and even if their feeble efforts could be so construed, they too were silent in the face of Keyes’ selfish hedonist attack on MDM and all other gay people. If they were so bloody interested in defending MDM, why the silence at the convention? It’s not like Falwell wasn’t there; he gave the fucking opening invocation.
A brother and sister in this instance could not marry, so your “brothers can’t marry and that’s discrimination!” argument is complete bullshit.
As for the two straight men living together, were SSM to be legalized they would be free to marry each other if they so chose. There is no “gays-only” restriction on SSM. So again, your argument is unfettered bullshit.
The SSM marriage has got to switch tactics. They are always accused of secretly trying to subvert traditional marriage, maybe it’s time to actually secretly subvert marriage. The dems should completely drop it, loudly say they believe it is a state matter. Maybe hint that traditions should be respected.
Once in power they should do an income tax law reshuffle and slip in a provision for setting up binding financial unions that include living will provisions and fed gov benefits. Just keep “life partner”, “civil union”, or any mention of sex out of the language.
Call it “economic partnership” or something.
How do you know this? Do you have some sort of anecdotal proof that gays don’t understand their orientation well? If your belief doesn’t come from personal experience, can you provide a cite for this odd assertion?
I dunno, what’s anyone’s purpose in nature? Hell, I’m straight and am about to end an 11 year marriage without ever having had children. Furthermore, I don’t ever want to. Does that mean then that I don’t have a purpose and as such shouldn’t be allowed to remarry if I so wish and find a willing partner? Or should I intentionally conform to the idea that a sanctified union is the strict, sole property of those who can propagate the species into continuing? Otherwise, I don’t even understand what you’re driving at here and I see that someone else has already debunked the ‘animal’ aspect of homosexuality, so I’ll just stop there and hope you can clarify your argument in a way that takes facts across the board into account.
Why would this be an “imponderable”? Do you also wonder why certain little girls turn out to be tomboys? Are a perfectly heterosexual male is into ballet? Why does another individual excel at sports while one does not? Well, I would think that it has a great deal to do with their environment and how they were nutured growing up. And, whenever I’ve belonged to some club or such (drama, softball, whatever), the members usually partook of activities, modes of dress, behaviors that reflected them as a whole, identified their group mentality and helped to form a bond. I would imagine this approach holds true to most areas of life. Don’t most, but not all, soccer moms fit a stereotype to some degree? What about yuppies, cooks, surfer dudes, dime store Santas, SAHMS and Wiccan priestesses?
It has a lot to do with culture and unity. It also is because humans can choose to be/do/act whatever way they hell please. That alone makes it perfectly sensible to me. I’m not sure about you. Care to elaborate then?
But this logic, marriage should only be extended to couples who are ready, willing, and able to fulfill their procreative duties. But AFAIK, marriage has never in the history of the world been so based. It is a dangerous thing to talk about the “natural purposes” of humankind, since the likely natural purpose of women is to have six children by the age of twenty and then probably die in childbirth, while the natural purpose of men is to toil at dangerous, backbreaking subsistence labor until dying (at an equally early age) from accident, war, or disease.
Modern life has little to do with the natural state of mankind. Unless you think it’s our natural state to stare at a glowing electronic box while porking down ho-hos? In our modern world, the institution of marriage – idealized by the romanticism of the 19th century – is supposed to be about love. We do not say couples who don’t plan to have kids cannot be married. We do not say that marriages should be arranged. We do not say that marriage should be entered into without deep regard and affection for your partners. (“Therefore, this covenant is not entered into lightly or unadvisedly, but reverently,
discreetly, advisedly and soberly in the fear of God.”) If a gay couple is willing to sign up for that, why not let them? Respectfully, if you’re going to argue against it, you’ll have to do a heck of a lot better than ancient Sumeria.
Maybe we should allow civil unions and only allow people to marry after they’ve had at least one kid together.
I have a feeling no one will salute at that flagpole though. 
This is the thing that baffles me. Is it so very alien to you that being plonkingly informed that the gender of the people to whom I make love is a sin and I’m going to hell because of it, does NOT make me think you exactly like me?
I’m sorry. The gender of another person does not make me a reprobate. That is not a point of view I accept, nor can I believe in the supposed sympathy of those who hold it. That another person’s being male makes me a sinner is not a belief that someone who loves me can hold.
If you loved me, you would not believe that my identity was sinful.
It’s already happening, as you know. Forget Canada and the Netherlands – freaking Spain, 99% Catholic, home of Opus Dei, which not thirty years ago was a fascist dictatorship, elected a prime minister this year who in his first speech promised us equal marriage, and introduced a bill in the Cortes to legalize it. It’s expected to become law by January.
Back to Roseworm. You asked some questions that make it seem to me as though part of the reason you disapprove of us is because you don’t understand us. Not to understand us isn’t shameful; we are a minority group, and society frequently denies people access to information about us.
Other people in this thread have reacted to these questions sharply, because in the context in which you asked them, they seemed like insults. However, I will assume that you meant them as questions. Many people on this board have told me that, after reading threads that answered their questions about the Queer community, they understood why acceptance and civil rights is such a pressing issue, and came to support them. So, a sample answer:
You will find that straight men and women vary greatly as to how butch and femme they are. The reason is the same for gay men and lesbians: because people are different; they talk and behave differently from one another; they have different personalities and enjoy different things. That is one of the things that makes the world interesting.
You may think that you see femme gay men more often than non-femme gay men, and butch lesbians more often than non-butch lesbians. There are a few reasons for that. For one thing, it may be that you see many, many gay people during your day that you don’t realize are gay, because to your eye they don’t “act gay.” Conversely, if you see a straight man who is femme, or a straight woman who is butch, you may read them as a gay man or lesbian erroneously. In other words, the stereotype is reconfirmed because non-conforming data points are ignored.
Another reason that may account for any real excess of femme men and butch women in the Queer community is that we have to question so many things and reject so much harmful social pressure when we come out, and one of the things that is put into question is how we ought to act in relation to our gender. For that reason, a man who finds it’s more natural for him to be femme, such as myself, may have a more ready opportunity when he comes out to reject the social programming that tells men it’s wrong to be femme. Also, within the Queer community, there is more tolerance for non-conformity to gender stereotypes than there is in the society at large.
If you are interested in learning more about gays and lesbians, here are some threads that many people have said have been helpful to them:
Ask the Gay Guy!
Ask the Gay Guy! II
Ask the Gay Guy! III
Ask the Gay Guy! IV
What is gay-bashing like?
And this sort of thinking is why I will have to break out my dancin’ shoes again in 2006.
And that sort of thinking annoys me,. If you honestly think that the 2008 GOP candidate will be a superior president, then vote for him. But if you do so just to tweak the nose of a pipsqueak like **Spectrum, then you’re no better than he is.
Nature has no purposes.
Doesn’t it seem apparent that the “gay lifestyle” is nowhere NEAR what middle America thought it was?
If I have this right, the imagined (yes, by crikey, I know most people aren’t like this; one of the most painfully beautiful and committed relationships I know is between two men who love each other dearly) lifestyle of a gay person involves cruising around and having loads and loads of unprotected promiscuous sex.
So why do they want to get married? Isn’t it possible that for gays just as for everyone else, there’s a deep desire to bind yourself to a person for all time?
The “it’s always been this way” argument, even if it wasn’t fallacious, is irrelevant. The comparison of gay marriage to miscegenation is pretty darn apt, if you ask me. Which you didn’t, but I’m telling you anyway. 
Seriously, though, how does it hurt anyone for two consenting, non-related adults to bind themselves to one another, for better or worse, for richer or poorer?
Lord, trying to discuss this subject is like trying to play a piano (blindfolded) with mousetraps on the keyboard.
To Jodi, faithfool and others:
You have pointed out that gays are different from each other for the same reasons that heteros are different from each other. I will accept this. Perhaps I have been subconsciously looking for stereotypes that do not exist.
I am aware that, among married hetero couples, some may not desire children and others may not be able to procreate (due to infertlity). Nevertheless, I stand by my initial statement (slightly amended here in brackets):
[In America today] the unwritten assumption about marriage - unwritten because it is so fundamental as to be taken for granted - is that the couple is [potentially and theoretically] a *breeding unit * - a man and a unit.
To Otto:
The outrage over John Kerry’s remark about Mary Cheney was not “manufactured.” Those who were watching focus groups of undecided voters during the third debate reported that the reaction to Kerry’s remark was negative and instantaneous. It was universally perceived as a very low blow. On FOX, Mort Kondracke was so angry he almost spun out of his chair. Because he understood exactly what Kerry was trying to do. Under the guise of a compassionate remark, Kerry was sending a crude, hateful message to the electorate: “By the way, in case any of you right-wing, gay-bashing, knuckle-dragging trogs out there are unaware of this, your vice president’s daughter is queer. Y’all might wanna think on that, huh?”
Need I point out that this is screaming hypocrisy? It is true that during the VP debate, John Edwards initially raised the “Mary issue.” Cheney’s response was polite but somewhat curt. If you watch the transcript, it is clear that the moderator (I forget her name), detecting a low blow, was half-expecting Cheney to bite Edwards’s head off.
To **matt_mcl ** and spectrum:
I am not very religious and I do not subscribe to the “Hate the sin; love the sinner” notion (although I do not see anything inherently evil about it). But American Evangelicals do subscribe to it and you must keep that in mind if you want to have any meaningful dialogue with them.
Remember: Liberals on the whole do not understand Middle America and Evangelical America. That is why they (the Liberals) suffered such a disaster on Tuesday night.
Here is a very important point: Middle America did not vote for the gay marriage bans because they hate gays. The vote was not against gays, but for traditional values. If you persist in taking the attitude, “Wahhhhh! Theyhateus, theyhateus, theyhateus…”, you are going to piss off basically good people whose support you need.
You must deal with political reality. As a political issue, traditional values is in the ascendancy. And the triumph of traditional values in the 2004 election proves that Americans are very protective of the institution of marriage (not that they are so very hateful of gays). If Liberals try to change that institution or destroy it, they will continue to lose election after election. Forget Social Security. Marriage is now the “third rail” of American politics. Touch it and die.
Many have commented on the legal and financial rights of gays. I am under the impression that there are plenty of legal and financial options available to gay couples. Am I wrong? It seems to me that if a gay couple has access to a banker and a lawyer, they can hammer out plenty of contracts and binding agreements, creating a sort of quasi-marriage or “civil union.” I have no possible objection to this and I cannot imagine that anyone else would object to it. I mean, crazy old ladies leave fortunes to their pet cats!
Some have mentioned that a gay may be denied access to a dying partner in the hospital. Is this true? I find the idea appalling. Are we talking about anti-gay bias here? Or just incredible bureaucratic bullshit? Let me say this: I may not support gay marriage but I would be willing to fight my way through hospital security to escort a gay friend to the side of his or her dying partner.
Pick an American Evangelical at random and say, “I am gay. My partner is dying and the hospital will not allow me to be at his/her side. Do you think I should have that right?” The odds are about 100% that that Evangelical will say, “Yes.” Because there is an inherent decency in Middle / Evangelical Americans. And that quality is what you must appeal to if you wish to plead your case for gay marriage.
Also, since over 20% of gay voters went with George W. Bush, it might be a good idea to talk with them and find out what their rationale was.
I want to thank Jodi, Lute Skywatcher, matt_mcl, pulykamell, SolGrundy, UrbanChic and **Weirddave ** for their calm, rational responses.
Microbug and I are married, but we don’t want to have kids. Does this mean we shouldn’t have been able to get married?
What I think we should do- get rid of “marriage” altogether. It’s a religious thing; it shouldn’t be under the mandate of the government anyway. If two people love each other, they can get a civil union. If they’re religious, they can go to their church and get married. Problem solved.
Of course, I think that any two (or more) people who want to formalize their relationship should be able to get a civil union.
Maybe I’m just being to damn logical about all this?
ARGHHH…My statement in post 75 should read:
[In America today] the unwritten assumption about marriage - unwritten because it is so fundamental as to be taken for granted - is that the couple is [potentially and theoretically] a *breeding unit * - a man and a woman.
I am sure the wags will have a lot of fun with my error.
I’ll let the rebuttals to Rosewood stand on their own, as they were apt and thorough. I’ll just deal with the following now.
Obviously. That’s the whole point of my OP. I’m trying to understand; but it doesn’t make sense to me. Union members who understand the value of collective bargaining and are willing to walk picketlines, yet vote Republican are stabbing their own backs. It boggles my mind. Poor working-class people who voted for Bush are contibuting to their own dwindling resources. It doesn’t make sense. And Gay folks who vote for a candidate who explicity opposes the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, who actively supports the Federal Marriage Amendment, who fought for laws that made sodomy a punishable offense and who thinks homosexuality just might be a choice are voting for their own oppression. It defies logic.
Naturally there is an issue in each of these cases that somehow overrides self-interest. I honestly don’t get it. I’d like to. Can anyone explain it?
Oh, I should add: We saw the Oregon “Gay Couple for the Gay Marriage Ban” commercial. Microbug said, “I think we need to see some proof that this is an actual gay couple.”
To Homebrew:
The reason a lot of blue-collar, working-class types vote for Republicans is because they are basically conservative. The average *human being * is basically conservative.
And your typical blue-collar voter is very uncomfortable with a lot of the planks in the Democratic platform - gay rights, affirmative action, pro-abortion…
There is really no mystery about it.