A Republican Truism: When in Trouble, Attack the Gays

The thing is that Bush plans on doing nothing about the marriage issue. He talks a good game but isn't writing any legislation about it. Bush has been literally dictating to the Congress all of these years and he hasn't don't one thing about gay marriage. He just uses it to scare people.

I stand with the President on most of the issues.

Bush is des[perate and attcking Judges for granting everyone the rights ensure by the US constitution is just an example. He is trying to scare the populus into keeping the Republicans in power. A leader who rules by fear is traditional call an autocratic ruler and not an elected democratic official.
Kepp in mind Bush will not stand by what he says. he says anything to maintain his power grab but will not follow through. he is only saying what he thinks will get him his goal. It is a very sad day when Americans will stand by a proven liar and manipulative autocrat. But then again look at his base extremist right wingers.

The right to marry the person they want to.

The right not to be fired because they are gay.

The right to adopt.

Road King. Me thinks you a bit of a homophobe. That being said, those people who are secure in their own sexuality normally do not have problems with other people's sexuality. That is why it turns out it is the Bible thumpin' right wingers that are the biggest perverts and tend to be hindin' in the closets.

I like the comedian who said that he believed in gay marriage, because gays should have to be as miserable as the rest of us. :-)

The right to openly serve in the military.

Protection against housing discrimination.

Wow where to start. Does no one in this country understand that the marrage issue has nothing to do with gays and marrage. Since the dawn of time marrage between man and woman has been given sanctity for simple base reasons. Male Female relationships guaranteed the survival of the species and a family unit that could stand together and work together against the elements in a hostile invironment. The deffinition of marrage is basic to all civilizations and important to preserve for those that wish to perpetuate themselfs. Morality not withstanding if one wants to marry his dog that action is totaly unrelated to redefining a legal deffinition for the union. A frog is not a bird just because you want to call it that.

There were native american tribes that had married couples of same gender and I'm sure if we do some historical research we can find other cultures/civilizations that had same gender marriage, There are whole books on the subject. In these cultures same gender marriage did not stop "survival of the species"

Kennith-
I guess I should have said since recorded time.

Miranda-
find me a reference where marrage is defined legally as same gender union.
you have missed the point entirely.

This is complete crap. If it was just for spiritual reasons then you would just have to do it through your spiritual institution. In order for this species to survive we need less children to be born. So that logic does not follow.
Really legal marriage is about certain protections and rights. The right to see your spouse and make legal decisions when they are in the hospital. It also includes the rights to property and to be on your spouses insurance. Not to mention being able to adopt children. I feel denying these rights to fellow Americans is selfish, shortsighted and downright hateful!

Capt. Seaweed:

So folks that can't procreate shouldn't be allowed to marry?

How many of the 1049 benefits of marriage have to do with child-rearing and facing a hostile environment?

John Boswell has written a book: Same Sex Unions in Premodern Europe that posits/demonstrates religious ceremonies for same sex couples.

Marriage, ofr a long time wasn't about fighting against the environment, it was about property, position, and money; it was about treating women as property.

I would say that there are a number of people who are quite capable of perpetuating themselves outside the arena or marriage.

The argument just doesn't hold water on so many levels.

Hey, Capt. Your statements prove just how bigoted and hateful you are.

John and Christine,

It isn't any wonder why neither of you can put up a convincing argument for your position. Neither of you undestand English. To wit;

John ; how can you possible conclude that my statements have anything to do with procreation being the determinate factor in being allowed to get married. IN FACT if you even had a simple command of the English language you would know that none of what I have written is about whether or not any group should be excluded from that rite. <-NOTE SPELLING

Christine, Get yourself to the Webster pages of the book called Dictionary, look up the words "bigoted " and "hateful" then quote any of my above statements that fit that deffinition and explain to the viewing public how they do so.

You two need to mellow down and "listen"--read-- what is written and try to not let your bias color you understanding of the written word. Don't fill in the blanks in your thought process with your vitriolic statements of what you think I may have meant when I didn't address any of the points you might like me to comment on.. Try having a dialogue instead of a stone throwing session.

"Male Female relationships guaranteed the survival of the species and a family unit that could stand together and work together against the elements in a hostile invironment. The deffinition of marrage is basic to all civilizations and important to preserve for those that wish to perpetuate themselfs."

These were the phrases to which I was referring. Aside from the ladies in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's _Herland_, I'm not familiar with parthenogenesis being a viable option for people to "perpetuate themselfs [sic]." Hence the jump to procreation.

If I missed the more subtle parts of your argument, I'm sorry. Could explain further your "deffinition [sic]" of "marrage [sic]" and why extending it to include same-sex couples is comparable to marrying a dog?

If the debate about marriage is not about gays and not about procreation, then what is it about? I'm just not connecting with that point, I guess, or understanding exactly what it is you are trying to say with it. If you could spell it out a bit more clearly, I'd be glad to read it. No stones involved.

Very good discussion here. Marriage equality will happen one day because it is the right thing to do.

I can't understand why this is such a big issue. It's really quite simple. Gays must be given the right to marry. They must be given equal rights under the law. These "activist judges" are mere interpreting the law properly. No one is forcing churches to perform ceremonies for gays. We're talking about civil marriage. The legal contract, not the sacrament. People are getting two things confused. All gays want to do is get the same allowances that other people have. And this "civil unions" business is a bunch of crap. What next? They get separate water fountains and entrances too? Doesn't this resemble some kind of marital segregation? We straight people have this but you gay people have that. If the "civil unions" provide identical rights why just not call it what it is, a marriage?

It's ridiculous. Gay people are just people. They're living their lives and contributing to society just like straights. Yet they are discriminated against terribly and I can't stand it! There was a case a few years ago about a two boys in a home for mentally retarded children. One boy was 14 or 15 and the other had just turned 18 a few days before. The 18 year old performed consensual oral sex on the younger boy. The younger boy asked him to stop and he did. The staff found out about it and instead of working it out internally they called the police. In Kansas (where this occured) there's what known as the "Romeo and Juliet" law which will allow a lighter sentence if two teenagers are very close in age but one is 18 or 19. But the Romeo and Juliet law only applies to straight couples. So this retarded gay boy was sent to an adult prison for FIVE years. He served most of it while his attorneys appealed to the Kansas Supreme Court. The attorneys claimed discrimination. The prosecutor stated that the government should not sanction homosexuality because it doesn't produce children and contribute to society. The court overturned the ruling and the boy was released.

Gay Rights Now.

Capt, unfortunately you're just incorrect on most of your assertions.

Marriage does NOT guarantee the continuation of the species. Uninhibited promiscuity, otherwise known as screwing and hopefully impregnating as many fertile females as possible, is the way to guarantee the continuation of the species. If anything, marriage impedes that goal. Sheer logic and an elementary understanding of evolution and biology would tell you that.

There have been same sex unions, historically. See the book by the same name ("Same Sex Unions" by John Boswell.) Here's the review of it on Amazon:

"Not since Boswell's Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality (Univ. of Chicago Pr., 1981) have Christians of all creeds confronted a work that makes them look so closely at their notions of the relationship between the church and its gay and lesbian believers. Diligently researched and documented, this immensely scholarly work covers everything from the "paired" saints of Perpetua and Felicitas and Serge and Bacchus to lesbian transvestites in Albania. Examining evidence that the early church celebrated a same-sex nuptial liturgy, Boswell compares both Christian same-sex unions to Christian heterosexual unions and non-Christian same-sex unions to non-Christian heterosexual unions. Appendixes contain, among other things, translations and transcriptions of cited documents. Whether or not minds are changed on the matter will probably fall along sectarian lines, according to current attitudes on homosexuality. However, the work will provoke dialog. A groundbreaking book for academic, public, and theological libraries.
--Lee Arnold, Historical Society of Pennsylvania., Philadelphia"

'Nuff said on that topic.

Marriage is fundamentally a political contract, designed essentially for men to be able to pass their property on to their rightful progeny. In pre-modern Europe, it was a mechanism for forging political alliances. It had no relation to love or the continuation of the species or anything else. It is about protecting a man's property -- which is to say, his wife and children. The notion that a woman is a man's property has only very, very recently been removed from most law regarding marriage -- in THIS country. It's still very present in other countries.

To say that gays have the same rights is just assinine. They are essentially unprotected by civil rights laws at the federal and state level. They can be discriminated against in housing and jobs. They must jump through specific legal hoops to ensure rights that are granted to heterosexuals as a matter of course, such as passing on property to partners, visiting partners in hospitals, making decisions regarding an incapacitated partner, and on and on and on. They cannot adopt children in many states -- indeed, in many, they are in danger of losing their biological children, based solely on their sexual orientation. There is a continuing struggle to have them included in hate crime legislation, this despite the fact that hate crimes against gays have increased in numbers yearly.

The average marriage couple is granted approximately 1500 separate legal benefits as the result of being married. The fact that in all but Massachusetts gays cannot marry (and apparently, the federal government has the right to NOT recognize those marriages, since they have refused to allow Gary Studds' husband to collect his pension) means that, by definition, they are denied those 1500 legal benefits granted to married partners.

The "you can marry a dog" argument is just plain stupid. Granting gays the right to marry simply means that they are given the same rights as EVERY OTHER AMERICAN CITIZEN. If straight people are not allowed to marry dogs, and gay people are not allowed to marry dogs, then there is no discrimination going on. It's just an idiotic argument that tries to completely jump over the point with what the speaker thinks is a witty, witty assertion. Same is true of polygamy: if the state forbids straight people from engaging in polygamous relationships, then denying that right to gays is just an act of equal treatment. But straight people are allowed to marry the person of their choice and are the beneficiaries of all the legal rights and privileges that accrue to such a choice. A gay person is NOT allowed the same option as a straight person, so it's discrimination, pure and simple.

There's a lot of lip-flapping that goes on with this subject that has very little to do with history or fact. And if I hear the "Adam and Steve" chestnut one more time, I'm going to strangle someone.