Constitutional Ammendment on Gay Marriage - Will We Embarass Ourselves?

That's some BS. Having multiple spouces elsewhere as the norm would be in 3rd world countries where there is no rights of a married couple. And it is no where in the same ball park as two people getting married. Polygamy does not face the same discrimination as homosexuality anyway in general. A guy making kids with a dozen women is not the same as a guy marrying those dozen women either. As I see it, opposition to gay marriages is largely religious based thus has no right to be a congressional decision.

I think you're batting at a lot of things that has no weight in the issue.

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Originally posted by Katidyd
That's some BS. Having multiple spouces elsewhere as the norm would be in 3rd world countries where there is no rights of a married couple. And it is no where in the same ball park as two people getting married. Polygamy does not face the same discrimination as homosexuality anyway in general. A guy making kids with a dozen women is not the same as a guy marrying those dozen women either. As I see it, opposition to gay marriages is largely religious based thus has no right to be a congressional decision.

I think you're batting at a lot of things that has no weight in the issue.

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I think you just ignored the issues I made very clear and then cast an aspersion against religion in general. To repeat, multiple spouses in the sense of having multiple men having children with one woman or multiple women having one man's children is already well established in THIS country, but is inadequately addressed by the law. Plus, you actually repeated one of my points as if I were opposed to it. the fact is, for whatever reason, women who have more than one male are disparaged just as much if not more than any gay couple. You yourself seem to hold those sorts of relationships in contempt as you seem to find them utterly less palatable than homosexuality, despite the fact that there are a great deal more people dealing with those situations than there are homosexuals needing to get married so they can hurry off and adopt unwanted children.

Believe it or not, you -may- not be able to trace every single societal problem to the evil "religious" people trying to control all our lives.

Exemplify a "well established (norm) in THIS country" by naming some names of multiple spouces who are legally married under the law

I was not ignoreing the issue, you have thrown several things in the same boat that are unrelated. The issue is homosexual couples wanting the same legal rights and benifits as heterosexual couples. The magic words are "same legal rights and benifits". As to the evils of religous people, well, reference the bible where gay couples live happily ever after in society. For that matter, in any religion.

Polygamy is illegal so I dont know how you thought it was an established norm in this country (http://www.polygamyinfo.com/law.htm) or how it becomes my contempt for relationships. This is an article about the economics of marriage, it even comes with diagrams! http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academ...y_Chap_21.html

I am not saying polygamy is well established as a legal norm here. I am saying it is a well established norm for people to have children from more than one man or woman, and that this presents as much if not more of a problem to this country than same sex couples and marriage. I hear continually that marriage is about love. As I mentioned above, it is not. People don't get financial benefits from marriage because they are in love. It is all predicated on the idea that they will create a family unit which is fundamental to society. Ther undermining of old marriage customs with such things as no fault divorce and the fact that lots of women end up without any guarantee anymore that the time they spend in child bearing and child rearing is counted as worthwhile and guaranteeing any protection from being simply divorced and hung out to dry worries me a lot more than giving tax breaks and work benefits to people who in fact are no more likely to be truly "in love" than any straight couple. The whole thing is more about words and politics than about equality. In fact, for gay couples to be able to have marriage benefits then makes straight people who room together long term unfairly discriminated against. None of which ever gets brought up.

They are related issues to me. If you don't see the relation, or think such issues are less important than gays marriage, then that is your opinion. I think it is time to take a long hard look at family law in this country though and not degrade it even further with hasty actions during an election year for a lot of political dancing and prancing that can only serve to undermine serious debate about this or any other issue.

Now that makes a lot more sense!

It's a great political gimmick though, it worked in Reagan's favor too did it not?

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Originally posted by Lokrian
In fact, for gay couples to be able to have marriage benefits then makes straight people who room together long term unfairly discriminated against.

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I'm not sure I'm following you here. Couldn't the straight couple (like the hypothetical gay couple here) just get married if they wanted the benefits of marriage? Where does the discrimination come in?

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I think it is time to take a long hard look at family law in this country though and not degrade it even further with hasty actions during an election year for a lot of political dancing and prancing that can only serve to undermine serious debate about this or any other issue.

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I'd agree that election years (particularly presidential election years) are always a bad time for important issues to suddenly find themselves thrust into the political limelight. But I don't really see the connection to family law? Most if not all of what is wrong with the family structure in America is not related to who can marry who, unless we want to get into a discussion about whether or not people should provide some sort of certification demonstrating that they are not abusive and/or irresponsible assholes. And, to be honest, for most people, even those who divorce, the family works just fine. Gay people are already getting married and having families. They just aren't usually getting the same sorts of legal protections and recognitions that straight people with state-issued licenses are getting. To argue that we should sort out family law first before considering whether or not we want gay marriage is tantamount to telling people who want to marry same-sex partners that they will need to wait until we first fix an institution that (a) isn't so broken as to warrant not giving more people opportunity to enjoy it's legal benefits, and (b) will probably never be entirely fixed anyways.

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Originally posted by Lokrian
In fact, for gay couples to be able to have marriage benefits then makes straight people who room together long term unfairly discriminated against.

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This statement doesn't make any sense to me. We're not talking about homosexual common-law arrangements versus non-homosexual common-law arrangements and their associated benefits.

I'm not really going to get involved in this topic too heavily because these tired topics usually just end up pissing me off. But I guess I am curious... I thought that the seperation of church and state was something pretty major in the USA. If there -is- actually a separation of church and state, I wonder what secular reasons there are against this. Maybe it's gross, and yuck...and it disgusts you, and perverted and all of these things. Well, then don't be gay. Problem solved.

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Originally posted by karahd
Well, then don't be gay. Problem solved.

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They tried that with the South Park dog and it didn't work. You know... Sparky! Don't be gay! :p

What I love is that the religious wrong frequently bashes homosexuals on the basis that their lifestyle is unstable. Letting people get married is a major step TOWARDS stability.

One of the reason the black community is in such bad shape is because of the break down of the family. The overwhelming majority of black children are born to a single mom. Please don't make me look up the statistic, but it is something around 75% or higher.

If you are truly concerned that homosexuality makes for an unstable lifestyle, then let them marry.

Furthermore, I find it hard to believe that homosexuals could make any more a mockery of marriage than Hollywood has been doing for the last 20-30 years. Britney Spears getting married as a "joke" is far more damaging to the institution.

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Originally posted by Aristotle


Furthermore, I find it hard to believe that homosexuals could make any more a mockery of marriage than Hollywood has been doing for the last 20-30 years. Britney Spears getting married as a "joke" is far more damaging to the institution.

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That's more or less the point. the whole institution is in a shambles precisely because of the flippant attitude people have now towards what it really means to be a family, to have children, or to take responsibility for their life and behavior just in general.

Traditionally, we just don't give people tax breaks and legal benefits just because they have a specific sexual practice or living arrangements.

And the "religious wrong". There's another tell tale hint about what all this is really about.