They Want Us To Tolerate The Intolerable

The way I look at it is this- get rid of the institution of marriage in the United States as we know it.

Every couple (heterosexual or homosexual couples) gets a legal civil union which gives everybody the same legal benefits (next of kin, inheritance, tax benefits, etc) and have the *marriage* bit be the religious ceremony if the couple so chooses to have one.

I also think you’re overreacting to the inflammatory statements being said. My guess is that those individuals are upset and angry and are venting- I seriously, seriously doubt any of them would risk looking like a violent jack*** and therefore trounce any semblance of equality being shown towards them. I say all sorts of inflammatory crap like that when I’m pissed off, but I never even truly consider acting upon those impulses. My guess is that those individuals are the same.

No, MK, what I’m trying to do is separate the marriage crap so we don’t have people kvetching about the “sanctity of marriage!” Instead- the church can give out its religious ceremonies as it sees fit (”marriage”) but everybody can have a legal ceremony to get the legal benefits and what not.

Another solution would be to abolish any state control over marriage- no more marriage licenses and no more tax breaks for married couples (even for heterosexual couples), and no more next-of-kin benefits through being legally married, no more insurance benefits for employee’s partners (regardless of gender of said partner- even heterosexual couples). Have it just be a religious ceremony.

It’s about E-Q-U-A-L-I-T-Y. That’s all. Otherwise you have just made a second class of people. Congrats.

“Please explain how you can have complete Equality.”

Well, I would say if people weren’t selfish pr*cks and would do things for the greater good of the population as opposed for their own self interest- communism. Communism works in THEORY, but because humans are selfish and only truly work for their own self-interest, it will never work in reality.

Sadly, we will never have true equality due to many factors- but that doesn’t mean we should intentionally place bigotry into a state’s constitution.

“I know that Equality sounds good and should be the way things are done, but that isn’t reality.”

I know it’s not reality. Obviously.

“Look at the animal world. In most mammel species there is a hierarchy within a pack group. Humans are Pack Animals. There must be someone in charge which means there will be someone not in charge. You will have the Alpha and the runt. It’s called a fact of life.”

Yeah…so why should we make laws that *make* it less equal? Why should we legislate inequality and CHOOSE inequality? Animals don’t intentionally go about making an individual an alpha or a runt- it happens. I understand there are hierarchies- but WHY should there be? We’re humans- we’re *better* than animals right? Hell- according to SOME people, we’re NOT animals because we were made specially by God, right?

“In your version, where does it stop? If you take away marriage and all legal rights of marriage what will happen? Who will be next? How is it equality for the over 80% of Christians who believe in the santity of marriage and want the benefits for such a committment?”

That wasn’t my initial plan, Valerie. My version would be EVERYBODY gets a legal “marriage” (we’ll call it a civil union/civil partnership) so that homosexual and heterosexual couples are able to get the legal benefits of “marriage” (civil union/civil partnership). The Marriage (the sacrament of Matrimony) can still be a church-thing and would only be recognized as such- a religious ceremony. It will have NO legal standing. That way- churches don’t *have* to perform ceremonies for couples that do not fit their religion (kind of why a Catholic church does not officiate a Jewish wedding).

My other option was taking “getting rid of government intervention” to the extreme. Conservatives (not saying you) are always saying government should get out of people’s lives and should be smaller. I would consider sanctioning certain relationships legally (the governmental institution of marriage) being something that ought to be OUTSIDE the realm of government control. However- I don’t like that idea because I would consider it a bigger, more drastic change than having all couples get a legal “marriage” (civil union/civil partnership) and having the Marriage be the religious ceremony. Does that make sense?

“There will always be a second class of people. Once again, its nature. Where the true test is is how is that class treated? The mentally disabled will always be second class no matter how hard we try it not to be - does that mean we should treat them the way they did 100 years ago? No - we learned from that.”

Sure- there will always be a second class of people, but should we *seriously* try to make it that way? Should we really legislate inequality? For the record- I consider affirmative action legislation of inequality.

“So, are the homosexuals truley a second class? I don’t think so. Before forcing people to give up their belief’s on what marriage is there should be more work on acceptance.”

I think in the case of taxation purposes- yeah, they are. They never get the option to get a “marriage” tax break, they never get the option of automatically having their partner have inheritance rights, visitation rights, medical proxy rights/next-of-kin rights, etc. Homosexual couples do NOT have these rights because they are NOT allowed to get legal partnerships.

“To be honest, the homosexual community has done far more damage to itself than what we’ve done by banning gay marriage. Look at the groups I linked to in the post. Open displays of public indecency - bondage - sadomasichism - how are we supposed to look at that and say “yea, I want that in my backyard.” For some, the only exposure to anything homosexual is the media.”

I totally agree with this, actually. It’s annoying partially because the idiot media focuses on the outlandish idiots instead of people like Darren Hayes:

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=140713037&blogID=447985819

However, I do think they need to knock off the bondage crap and try not to look like idiots (I would say the same to straight couples that act like morons as well). Leave the bondage and sadomasichism in the bedroom where it belongs, it does not need to be paraded in front of people (I *really* don’t need to know about people’s furry fetish…seriously).

I apologize for being rude/disrespectful…this issue just frustrates me (and I’m sure it frustrates y’all). :-/

BTW Rae,

I’m so danged happy to see you here. What the heck went on at Jill’s last week?

“You arent’ being rude nor disrespectful! This is a debate and an emotional topic - if we didn’t do this nothing in society would be solved.”

^_^ I thought I was being condescending so I felt it right to apologize (especially after I read an article on CNN about how most people are rude!).

“Trust me - I am totally mixed over this. I was a “fag hag” in college - meaning most of my guy friends were gay. I love my gay men! Love them!”

W00t for Project Runway, yes? :-p

“BTW - I have a cousin who is gay and he has been with the same man for over 30 years. The heterosexuals in the family are getting divorced but the homosexual couple is going strong. And remember - this man has survived living a homosexual lifestyle in a Polish Catholic family! Talk about guts!”

Indeed. As far as I know, we have nobody “out” in my family, though we’ve had a few divorces and my uncle “lived in sin” with another woman after he divorced. She stayed with him until he passed away. My grandparents didn’t even care that they weren’t married (even though they’re pretty strict Catholics) because they were just glad their son had somebody who loved him while he was sick and dying.

“All that said - when will it stop. After we accept all couples under civil unions how can it be considered equality to say no to the 3 people union. the 4 people union? There is a woman in Europe that “married” a dolphin! seriously - I posted on it. Would it be against equality to say she can’t marry the dolphin?
Everything starts as equality, but then it goes down a slippery slope and at some point we have to say no.
We just have to decide if we even go down that slope.”

First, slippery slopes are fallacious thinking. Gay marriage has been around in MA for awhile…and according to Amanda, nobody has been demanding to marry their dog. Same with Canada and Britain. The chick with the dolphin [fetish] is what I would consider- an outlier. Was she an animal rights activist trying to make a point?

The whole “bestiality” component of the slippery slope argument IS rather pointless because the big issue here is CONSENT. Dogs, cats, fish, dolphins, horses, etc cannot give legal consent. This is why children cannot marry each other or adults cannot marry children (unless they’re of a certain age in certain states and the parents give permission for their child to be married), because children cannot give consent- and in those cases where a minor DOES marry- the parents give consent FOR the child.

I honestly do not have problems with polyamorous relationships as long as everybody in the relationship is treated fairly and they all consent to the relationship.

Rae,

So should heterosexual couples that CHOOSE not to have children (not because they can’t due to sterility/infertility but because they DO NOT WANT children) lose their tax break because they are not encouraging a family?

We’re not talking exceptions here. We’re talking norms. The norm is that couples have children. We are encouraging that. Seriously, imagine a society without the family unit.

I am not really in favor of eliminating Marriage, but instead making a BETTER distinction between LEGAL “marriage”/partnerships and the religious Marriage. The word “marriage” is what people are having trouble with because it had religious connotations. That’s why I say we have a better distinction between the two by having everybody LEGALLY get the civil union/partnership and then if they are part of a religion that allows for it- get the religious blessing- Marriage. That’s what I’m trying to get across. Because it IS about religion, that’s why same-sex couples cannot “marry” in most states of the US.

That would be fine if that was really what is wanted. But it isn’t. I don’t know too many people that have a problem with civil unions. But you’ll notice that the gay community isn’t happy with that. They continue to press for marriage. This is because their real desire is not legal rights, but to be recoginized as in an equally valid relationship. They want the world to accept their relationships as “normal”. While I understand that they are normal if you are in one, we believe in an objective truth. To us, a homosexual union is not morally “right”. Therefore, to call it marriage is to commit a sacrilege.

I’m telling you. They don’t want rights. They want their marriage to be validated. They want it to be viewed as equal/the same as a heterosexual marriage. If they really only wanted legal rights, then they would be fighting for same sex unions, which would be accepted. But they aren’t. They insist on calling it marriage. Which makes us look like intolerant loons. Which is unfair. We are simply protecting something that has always existed, and is sacrosanct to us.

Also Rae,

Think about this. Val’s cousins…the ones that have been together forever, are not married. They aren’t out there (at least I don’t think so) insisting that we call what they have a marriage. They are focused on each other. In a relationship. They aren’t grandstanding.

It’s the sexual act that is wrong. You talked earlier about Folsom Street Fair and Gay Pride Parades…These people are flaunting what we (Catholics) view as deviant behavior and are asking us to give them our blessing…literally. These in your face gays are the ones screaming for gay marriage. Gays like Vals cousins are busy living their lives and don’t need our approval. Do you see what I’m saying? There’s really two groups. It’s the group screaming for Marriage that is the same group flaunting their behavior. The “silent” gays don’t have an argument. I think they would be fine with civil unions. But it’s the squeaky wheel that is screaming to be validated. They are more interested in thumbing their noses at Christians than in marriage, and are using marriage as a way to do that.

Gay couples that are simply living their lives are not the ones that have an issue with the Catholic Church. And make no mistake, that’s who they view as the enemy.
You have only to look at the Folsom Street pictures to know that Christianity is their reall enemy.

Rae -

There is no winner or loser in debates like this. Only information passed back and forth.

This is a very difficult subject with many facets. If you read the gay blogs or sites you will see that there is more focus on making a point than gaining “rights”. The point they need to make is they are not wrong.

We may never agree on what the definition of perverted is but many would agree that pedophilia and bestiality are perverted. On what basis do we make this agreement? Is there any objective standard of right or wrong? Is there anything called truth? Is there anything that is still true when the majority votes against it? Does the majority always know what is best?

These are hard questions. If your answer is that truth is determined by a vote and that the majority always knows what is best then there is nothing to argue about. We must go wherever the majority leads. To me this can only lead to chaos and to a troubled life for my children and grandchildren.

Our founding fathers wrote and spoke about their fear of a democracy because they understood that people will often agree to pursue foolishness and self destructive behavior. The avoided establishing a democracy for this reason and crafted a republic. They felt that a republic would slow the errosion of the basic truths that they were building upon - underatanding that once the people “voted” out these basic principles that the country would cease to exist as we know it. And they believed it would get worse not better.

Yes, it is a tough question but we must engage it with all the wisdom that history has left us to see the consequences of our decisions.

Al,

Excellent post. We see it happening now, right in front of our eyes. Thanks!