I know I’ve asked this before, but I’m still curious. Can anyone explain to me how two people, willing to commit their lives to one another, willing to say, “I’m with you until the day I die.” are offensive or harmful to others?
Can you please tell me how gay people harm you or your family? I don’t understand it. If you can leave the Bible out of the conversation, I’d appreciate it. If you can’t, press on and give me your point of view. I’m seeking to understand here. I’m not getting it.
I guess I am old fashion. “don’t do it in the street and fright the horses” has usually been the way I looked it. I feel that it is morally wrong, but what you do in your home with a consenting adult is your business. I don’t want to see overt sexual activity, either gay or straight, in public places. I am honest enough to admit that seeing a man and women “making out” would not bother me as much seeing two men. As I said I am old fashion.
My suggestion. Do away with marriage laws all together. Let the various churches handle marriage in any way they want. Marriage legally is a joke anyway. “Till death do us part” has little meaning in our society.
Ok time to climb down from my soap box.
Comment by Jim C — 20080617 @ 1403
Yeah, I’m not thrilled when any couple crosses the line with public displays of affection either, gay or straight. I’ll be the first to tell someone “Get a room.”
And I’m with you when it comes to marriage laws as well. The state only got involved when they realized they could get some money out of it as far as I can tell. Here in Idaho, we still have common law marriages. If you say you’re married, and you’ve been together for seven years, you’re married.
What kills me is that gay couples have no legal rights after one or the other has passed away. It’s not hard enough that they lost their partner, now the deceased’s family can walk in and take all of their stuff that they built together. And if there are kids? They can lose them as well.
Comment by Timmer — 20080618 @ 0039
It is not unreasonable for the State to encourage the raising of children in families, by giving tax breaks, simplifying paperwork, and the like. To the extent that marriage means anything, it is about the making and raising of children, something that every self-sustaining government must take an interest in. It is not practical (or desirable) for the government to review every child to determine how much their parents should be rewarded, but it is possible to give useful general support with marriage subsidies. (IMHO divorce rates don’t refute this. Marriage subsidies DO help keep an extra parent around for the first few years of the kid’s life, a time when extra social contact is uniquely valuable.)
To put a simple lifestyle choice on the same footing, with the same subsidies and benefits, is corrosive to those interests. It must either take money away from other needs, or the taxpayer must be held up at gunpoint for more money, while at the same time trivializing the real purpose of the laws. Proponents of government-subsidized homosexuality cannot plausibly pretend surprise that taxpayers might object to money being frittered away for their private gratification.
In any event, the ostensible reasons in support of gay marriage are probably a smokescreen. I do not mind if San Francisco and its provinces legalize gay marriage. However their experiment works out, we will all learn valuable lessons in due course, and any people harmed can simply drive over to Sacramento and harass the legislature into making some changes. The real reason gay marriage is being popularized is to set the stage for it being litigated in the Supreme Court, so that one more aspect of American life can be regimented in a single winner-takes-all contest. The statists want to bring to family law what they brought to drug law and race relations. The prospect of child custody cases being decided by a National Family Law Administration is chilling.
Comment by Daniel Newby — 20080618 @ 0128
I keep hearing people talk about the “rights’ of surviving partners. Isn’t that what wills are for? Can’t you list who you chose on your insurance forms? So there is some legal paper work to fill out, isn’t a marriage license also legal paperwork?
Comment by Jim C — 20080618 @ 0902
Jim — As the laws now stand, if your gay partner is in a coma, and their family chooses to pull the plug, you cannot stop them. You are not a family member, and have no legal rights to make decisions for your partner.
Yes, this can be alleviated by a medical Power of Attorney, but I read somewhere that (forget where/when) that those are not required to be honored.
What I don’t understand is why they can’t just have a civil union. Why does it have to be called a “marriage?”
What’s the distinction between the two?
Comment by AProudVeteran — 20080618 @ 1038
Married couples have legal and financial advantages in many areas.
If everyone gets an advantage, it’s not an advantage. The more people who get an advantage, the less it’s an advantage. No group that gets an advantage wants to see it diluted.
You really couldn’t figure this out? You never saw interest-group politics before?
Comment by Bob Hawkins — 20080618 @ 1926
Daniel Newby gave the best explanation of the situation so far, so please allow me to elaborate.
1.) The State did not “get involved with marriage to make a buck.” The State was there first. Marriage pre-dates the very idea that Curch and State are seperate entities, which is why (in most places) clergy perform a ceremony licensed by the State.
2.) Marriage is not a partnership for the enjoyment of the parties, but a corporation for the production and raising of productive citizens. That is, those who don’t need financial support and don’t suck up resources via the justice system.
3.) Civil Unions are actually the worst possible answer, giving all the legal advantages of married life without and of the religious baggage. Mr. Newby explained the results of that.
4.) Even in states where it is not officially sanctioned, numerous churches are willing to wed gay couples, giving them the forma and a nice piece of paper to show their friends.
What we are looking at here, really, is the abolition of marriage as such, and it’s replacement with limited duration domestic partnership contracts. Offsprig will be a clause.
Comment by mojrim — 20080620 @ 1038