Now wait just a moment, John...

"By what right do people ride rough shod over other people's sincerely held beliefs screaming ME ME ME!" (?).

Are you speaking of the gay rights movement riding roughshod over the beliefs of religious and/or homophobics?

So let's analyze this: Gay people are expected to accept less than full civil equality because their body chemistry/biological makeup causes them to love in a way that runs contrary to others' "deeply held religious beliefs"? I have to respectfully point out again that religion, however deeply held, is not dictated by physiognomy but by tradition, history, and familial indoctrination. A person's religious beliefs may govern their OWN actions and the way they live their lives, but at least in the US (I can't speak for Scotland) the idea is that each citizen is accorded rights regardless of their belief or lack thereof.

So (and I feel like I'm stating this question for the umpteenth time), what gives those with deeply held beliefs the privilege of riding roughshod over the civil rights of gay people? And yet again, whether one believes in God, Allah, Buddha, the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal, or no higher power at all, how can the marriage of two people who love each other--gay, straight, bi, whatever--possibly weaken or affect his/her own? Good Lord, pretty soon I'm going to be turning to Bill Clinton for a straight answer to that question, because nobody else will give me one. *rolling eyes*

The whole "Gay marriage tramples on the beliefs of the religious" argument makes me furious, I'll admit, because the assumption is that the equality (not to mention happiness and well-being) of gay people is somehow subordinate to the faithful's/homophobic's right to treat them like second-class citizens. Golden Rule, my ass.

Molly