BS: Why you don't like gay marriage

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: GUEST,fred miller
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 12:38 PM

No Kathy Bates is a very good actress who you'd probably know from other movies, more recently remembered for a hot tub scene in About Schmidt. But in Misery she was a demented fan of a writer, with an odd cutesy manner. It was a Steven King story, like the Secret Window, or whatever the newer one is called. I don't quite get the comparison, Mister Man.

One of the arguments against particular gay rights laws and protections is that gays are disproportionately successful, anyway, tend to make more money by and large, and hold positions of responsibility. I don't know where those numbers come from, or how one counts gays in a population except by self-declaration, again. But gay people I know fit that general outline.

Lesbians are probably at the lowest risk for stds, I think. A lot of objections seem to focus disproportionate attention on gay men. Maybe because men are more trouble in general. It's harder to pick names for baby boys because some stupid guy you knew ruined every good name.

Marriage itself is a separate question, since it's not all about kids. But monitoring kids is a big and complicated part. The law respects blood, and tends to reflect biases. Without marriage a gay couple might adopt in one name, and if that parent dies, the other has no custody claim. In a good situation, that would be awful.

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 01:29 PM

Nice to see people back on track in this thread.

Bagpuss, you made some excellent points, all in which I agree.

I've often thought it absurd that there are no regulations covering who can actually PRODUCE children! Seriously, considering what a responsibility it is (or should be) one would think some kind of perparation would be in order.

Heck! We have to pass a test to get a driver's license, is raising children easier???

But of course that isn't going to happen, is it? People would scream bloody murder if they thought their natural rights were being tampered with.

Yet the adoption procedure (even for ANIMALS) is stringent on many counts. It has to be shown that the family is monetarily secure and psychologically sound.

That indeed makes much sense to me, but-isn't there a real Irony about this?

Daylia, I admire your willingness to see beyond your bounds in this thread. You've taken it well for the most part and come out, I hope if not wiser, still willing to look around, listen and learn. Would that we all could do that more often!

..xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 02:42 PM

Daylia does not have an "odd cutesy manner". Not in the least. She sometimes clowns around though, in a very jocular fashion. The printed word is not adequate to convey it.

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: GUEST,fred miller
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 08:06 PM

Well I hope I wasn't taken as characterizing Daylia that way--I don't get the comparison to the Misery character, is what I meant. And I hope my earlier attempts at mock-feud weren't taken seriously either--I had the impression that Daylia WAS clowning, and tried to go with it.

I did the classes with my wife, read books, tried to be prepared, but still felt like a criminal abducting a baby when we went home with our first. Second one, well, we had given up thinking by then.

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 08:39 PM

When I read the posts, I hear them in the voice as I imagine it would sound. Doesn't everyone? Sometimes just the style of writing istantly makes me think of x y or z. And I hear them read the post.this is looking weird, but honestly isn't.

Anyway, Daylias posts on this thread all made me think of Kathy Bates' voice in Misery. Again something to do with the way she adds little rhetorical questions onto the ends of sentences. If you are familiar with the character just re read one of daylia's posts and imagine? I can almost feel the snow falling.

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 09:12 PM

Boy. That is truly horrifying. I have a fairly good idea of what the movie "Misery" might be like...due to some amusing parodies I've seen of it here and there...and that character Kathy Bates played is so unlike daylia that it's...it's...

It's like comparing George Bush Jr to Meryl Streep or Richard Nixon to Robert E. Lee...or something along that line.

It just doesn't compute. :-) No flippin' resemblance whatsoever.

I begin to dread, Guest, how you are imagining my voice sounding... :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 09:20 PM

LH I am not saying their characters have any similarities. I really do just mean that daylias writing puts Kathy Bates voice in my head.It could just as easily have been Mary Poppins, but wasn't. It doesn't imply anything...honest.

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 09:35 PM

Okay, I understand. :-) No problem. It must be weird, though.

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 09:41 PM

I thought everyone did it? So when you read a post from someone that you don't know..who's voice do you hear? Your own or one that you imagine that person has? You've got me worried now.

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: Peace
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 09:44 PM

I hear LOTS of voices. I will tell you what they say if one of them tells me it's OK..

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 09:45 PM

Thanks that's consoling :)

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 09:49 PM

Well, here's what happens. I don't hear their voice...I get their words mentally, that's all, and a feeling about their personality...BUT...I usually see a face and general appearance! After awhile I get so curious that I try and find out what they really look like (assuming there are photos of them on the site)...and they almost NEVER look anything like the mental picture I had of them.

When I found out what Spaw actually looks like, for instance, it was such a shock that I just sort of wandered around for several days bumping into walls and babbling incoherently. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: Peace
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 09:51 PM

. . . an LOTS of voices from the console, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 09:56 PM

For instance, GUEST, I am picturing you as a man, maybe mid-thirties, average height and figure, fairly short sandy-colored hair and horn-rimmed glasses, fair skin, very conventional appearance and clothing, agreeable expression.

You look like an office clerk or an accountant or something.

Am I way off?

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 09:58 PM

Aha I think that's ok then. I hear them but don't see them, you see them but don't hear them.

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 10:00 PM

Yeah. It's quite intriguing, actually.

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 10:06 PM

LH you are right with the age. And I hope I have an agreeable expression! But you have uncannily described my next door neighbour.we could be onto something here.

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 10:32 PM

Wow. That's spooky. Does his wife have curly, dark hair?

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 10:39 PM

No wife. Short haired black cat. I am off to bed assured of my sanity. Thankyou LH.

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: GUEST,fred miller
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 01:24 AM

I've looked up people on National Public Radio for this reason. None of them are correct. I KNOW Terri Gross is blonde, long blonde, found her haircut early in life and stuck with it. Also, plays guitar, because of how she laughed at mention of a Mel Bay book.
But only Sylvia Pojoli looks exactly like she sounds.

Sometimes it's fun to listen to songs in languages you don't speak and decide what they're about.

And gays should have important and basic civil rights under law, whether it makes us think of butt-fucking or not. Has nobody ever tried it?

   From way back, I'm still trying to think of who these vociferous self-important gay spokespeople are, the ones who compare to over-the-top agenda-ists from other minority groups. I heard the point, got it, thought I got it, but, um, I don't know who or where they are. Ellen Degeneres--is she like the gay Don King, or what? The most in-your-face person I can think of isn't entirely gay, but just dabbling. Who are we talking about? Where? What?

What I don't like about gay marriage: Barbie doll meets Gore Vidal.

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 07:05 PM

Anybody else besides me read the threads in reverse chronological order? Surprisingly, the conversational arguments still make sense.

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 08:00 PM

!od yeht dna ,did I ,seY

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: Peace
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 09:31 PM

I've always read history books that way.

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: GUEST,fred miller
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 12:08 AM

I always post that way. I figure the last thing I'll want to say, work back, and only start posting when I'm done.

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: Peace
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 02:41 AM

So, Fred, you actually start shortly after you finish, right? LOL

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: GUEST,*daylia*
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 08:53 AM

I've often thought it absurd that there are no regulations covering who can actually PRODUCE children! Seriously, considering what a responsibility it is (or should be) one would think some kind of perparation would be in order.

Heck! We have to pass a test to get a driver's license, is raising children easier???

But of course that isn't going to happen, is it? People would scream bloody murder if they thought their natural rights were being tampered with.

Yet the adoption procedure (even for ANIMALS) is stringent on many counts. It has to be shown that the family is monetarily secure and psychologically sound.

That indeed makes much sense to me, but-isn't there a real Irony about this?


Ellenpoly, thank you. It's a relief to see that someone on this thread really understands where my concerns were coming from. I mustn't have done such a bad job trying to express myself after all.

Bagpuss is right - it's not adoptive parents (gay or straight) who present the greatest risk to kids. At least they are publicly screened!

It's the people who put their own urges and wants ahead of the best interests of any kids they produce. The ones who'd use a baby as a meal ticket, or to boost their self-esteem. Those children get even less protection than the abandoned animals at the Humane Society. Everyone around them "minds their own business" until the worst happens - and by then the damage has already been done.

That's how the baby I knew died. Her landlady - a friend of mine - had suspected that she wasn't being cared for properly and had tried, tactfully, to make helpful suggestions and offer assistance a couple times. It's child-mother just ignored her. And while my friend was humming and hawing, struggling with the social "norm" of MYOB when it comes to other people and their families, getting up the nerve to call the Children's Aid - the baby died.

Oh, by the way I was looking through the journals I kept at the time, and that baby was not 4 but 11 weeks old when it died. I remembered it as younger, it was so very tiny - and I just wanted to clear that up.

A couple weeks ago, my 20yr old friend had introduced me to two of his teenage "street-sisters", and told me later they'd offered themselves as surrogate moms (for a fee of course) whenever he and his partner wanted a kid. He said he had a couple other street buddies back in Toronto willing to do the same thing.

Old-fashioned bigoted codger that I am, I found this idea more than a little worrisome, and started posting on this thread a couple days later. And now I see that if I want to help, the best I can do is just to be there for him, no matter what happens - NOT to argue (uselessly) about whether or not he or others in his situation should be "allowed" to carry out plans like these.

...But maybe the friggin' thread could be used to address the friggin' subject. It matters. It's not so easy. Heterosexual marriage and family is up there with the ancient verities, as Faulkner called them. It's a big friggin' deal, after all, isn't it? Here it is knocking at the door. It's not hunger, granted, but it is what it is. The Norm--it's not easy and natural, people work very hard to uphold it, as a value in their lives, and here come very different terms. It matters.

... But I don't come down so hard that I blame people, too much, for reservations.

Fred, you are RIGHT ON. Thanks for being so understanding and posting what you did.

On the other hand, I think the trouble with calling people bigots, is... I don't know, aren't we? to some extent, most of us? A bit? No?

Yes I think we are, Fred. It's called 'cultural conditioning'. Sociologists call it personal bias, and take painstaking measures to compensate for it in their research methods. It's a natural part of what every human being is, how every human being learns.

Oh, and if you're serious about doubting if gays really do engage in anal intercourse, I suggest you simply type the word "gays" in your Google search-bar, and click on "Images".


daylia

PS I'm just gonna hafta look up a Kathy Bates movie now! And hey, maybe adding little rhetorical questions at the end of sentences is a Canadian trait, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 04:44 PM

bloody pufters, there taking over!
theyve even got one in Coronation Street now!
is nothing sacred?

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: LilyFestre
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 04:50 PM

Personally, I am for gay marriage. If two consenting adults love one another and want to get married.....they should be able to! I think it's hard enough to find love in this world and when you find it and it suits you and isn't hurting anyone else, GO FOR IT!

Love is love, period, end of story.

Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 05:10 PM

If yer not f#cking me, I don't care who yer f#cking

But I might ask to watch...

:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 06:40 PM

If it weren't for threads like this one...and the media in general...I doubt that I would ever even think about gay marriage. I neither like nor dislike it. I don't care.

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 07:55 PM

Wait! I thought of something. I dislike gay marriage because by definition it excludes heterosexuals, asexuals, and dwarf rabbits!

That's discrimination.

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 08:09 PM

I agree, i demand the right to be married to a dwarf rabbit [and a goat].
Best wishes.

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: Ebbie
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 08:48 PM

"If I was gay, I wouldn't get in everybody's face about it all the time...and I wouldn't hide it either. I'd just relax about it and be who I was and leave other people alone about it. And that is exactly what I would prefer the religious right to do as well...leave other people alone." Little Hawk

What other process is there, Little Hawk? The change from having no legal rights to full equality under the law tends to create a chaotic period. It took a long time and a great deal of agitation before women in the US (and longer in England) won the simple right to vote. When one reads the history, it comes through very clearly that many people - probably mostly men, but also many women- became tired of the subject and wished it would just go away. It took more than 70 years of in-your-face-activism before the passage of the 19th Amendment, and I'm sure that there was a LOT of shouting and ill will on both sides both before and after those 70 years.

Does nayone today feel the need to argue the merits of it?

And, Little Hawk, you say:
"...quite possibly partly because of natural health reasons (anal intercourse is hard on the body in various ways, and is clearly not a very natural process for a body to undergo...the anus is there to eject waste matter, and that is its sole bodily purpose)." (What about the mouth, Little Hawk? Its only non-arguable function is for the intake of food and the harbo(u)r for speech.)

I would say that accepted and agreed upon uses of anything are not necessarily the final answers. It has sometimes occurred to me that some things- beauty, for instance - are what we say they are. It is the way we are wired. A slightly different wiring might produce the opinion that glistening wet black mud teeming with tiny critters has more aesthetic appeal than a limpid blue sky with puffy white clouds.

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 08:57 PM

Well spoken Ebbie, with words coming out of your fingers, not your mouth. And I thought anuses were for rubbing on roller-coaster seats.

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: Ebbie
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 09:34 PM

That too, Guest. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 02:51 AM

Ebbie - Well, I guess this issue pushes your emotional buttons more than it does mine, maybe. :-) It's virtually a non-issue to me as long as people live and let live. It's sad that some don't.

And I don't agree in the least with your analogy about the uses of the mouth. Having sex with the mouth does not hurt the body. Having sex with anal penetration does hurt the body over a period of time...sometimes very seriously. It is natural to use the mouth to nuzzle, touch, taste, and express affection, as is seen with both animals and human beings very commonly. It is not natural to penetrate anuses with penises, in my opinion, but I do not suggest depriving people of the legal right to do so if they wish to (in private). That's their business, not mine or anyone else's.

Like I said, live and let live.

I am bothered by the more shrill advocates on both sides of this political football (and that's exactly what it is at this point). I'd say they deserve each other.

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 03:44 AM

Pufta's in Coronation Street?? Who is the thespian playing the character jOhn? Is it Larry Grayson?

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 04:09 AM

I thought it was Willie Grand.

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: freda underhill
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 07:34 AM

Like anything else, its a non issue for people who it doesnt effect.

Scenario: Alan and George have lived together in their mansion in Double Bay for thirty years. George dies.

Alan is beside himself, meanwhile, George's siblings, who disowned George years ago because he is gay, decide they want the property. They take Alan to court, argue that he was only a tenant and no longer has rights to the property. the judge who is homophobic agrees, house goes to George's homophobic siblings.

Thats why gay people want marriage, not because theyre all starry eyed, particularly, but because they want to make a legal commitrment to each other, and look after each other the way other people do. in Insurance, property, and other similar areas.

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 07:36 AM

Why not just make a will, and leave marriage to us heterosexuals?

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: freda underhill
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 07:41 AM

because people should have equal rights to benefits in any society.

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 09:06 AM

That's right. They should.

By the way, freda, there are plenty of things that don't affect me which are still significant issues to me, I can assure you. However, the gay marriage controversy just doesn't interest me much.

Still, I keep dropping in on this thread anyway... :-)

And here's something ironical. It is my opinion that the people who most oppose gay marriage are in fact totally unaffected in any material or substantial sense by gay people getting married! Yet they care greatly about this issue. In fact, they are emotionally obsessed with it.

The last thing in the world they are willing to do, it seems, is live and let live.

People who want to force everyone else to be like them are a curse upon the World.

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: DougR
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 02:07 PM

Marriage to me means between a man and a woman. Jeri may well be right, I may feel that way because it is traditional. It has worked for most folks for many years, though, and I see no logical reason to change it.

I favor civil unions for people of the same sex who wish to live together and qualify for the same benifits as married folks have.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: Ebbie
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 02:16 PM

I agree with you, DougR. But I go further. As someone said WAY up top - Blackcatter?- why not have civil union for everyone who wishes to partner up and then those who want to go further have a marriage ceremony performed in their church or mosque or synagogue. Keep the government out of marriage. Make civil union the standard for taxes, health insurance and property issues.

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 02:44 PM

Much of the discussion here mirrors what I see as the common fallacy of those who want to change the law(s) to prohibit gay marriage. The fallacy is that "marriage" means only one thing, and always means the same thing in all contexts.

Many years ago, when I was "counseled" on my pending marriage, my minister explained that:

1. The "marriage" LICENSE is something you should get, to allow the two of you to buy and sell property together, mess up each other's life insurance, and all those other "business" things that the government regulates. You need to get one; but if you want to know about what it does to you, or for you, you need to talk to a lawyer or an accountant.

2. The marriage SACRAMENTS belong to the church, and the SACRAMENT OF MARRIAGE in our church, which you agree to observe, is something the government doesn't control. They can't send you to jail if you violate a sacrament, but OUR CHURCH takes the SACRAMENT of marriage very seriously.

In other words, there's no reason to define a "Civil Marriage License" differently than a "License for Civil Union," because the Marriage License is ONLY a license for "Civil Union" until/unless you participate in the sacrament(s) of your own religion.

Historically, marriage was a "church thing." If you wanted to be "married" you talked to the priest or other appropriate "minister," followed the rules of the church, and the "marriage" was recorded in church records. "Civil Marriage" is a relatively recent invention in many places, and you get a "license to be married" in order to reveal to the rest of the people that you follow "married rules" on the acquiring, owning, and disposing of property.

In simplest form, the CIVIL MARRIAGE is an agreement to grant each other permanent and complete "power of attorney" in matters of secular law, so that property acquired by one is owned jointly by both, and any legal obligation assumed by one is owed by both. Either may make decisions for the other, in any matter affecting life, death or property. Of course, as in anything "legal" the simple becomes extremely complex in practice; but ALL MARRIAGE LICENSES are ONLY a license to form a CIVIL UNION. The "law" does not (at least should not) impose any requirement to observe or not observe religious sacraments, to have or not have sex, to produce or not to produce children. The law is intended to regulate property, so that the rest of the world knows how to deal with the "couple acting as one."

To enact a law prohibiting any persons "of a particular kind" from engaging in one kind of civil contract is exactly like the same prohibition for any other kind of contract. While I'm sure that many now agitating for a prohibition against "marriage" of "gays" would find it satisfying, I don't believe that prohibiting "gays" from being a principal in any "Class X Corporation" or "Regulation Y Partnership" would stand as not discriminatory, and the action licensed by the (civil) marriage license is, legally, no different than any other form of civil association.

Any person who has legal standing to make a contract (i.e. who is a person) and who meets the statutory requirements for a given kind of contract (e.g. not a felon, drunk, judged insane, etc.) should be able to make any kind of contract recognized by secular law. In all jurisdictions I know, any (heterosexual) couple can appear before a designated public official, and license a CIVIL MARRIAGE, have that marriage affirmed before an appropriate, usually designated, CIVIL WITNESS and be "legally" married. The church is not involved. (The limitation that only a "heterosexual couple" may form a civil marriage seems irrational, but so is a lot of other state law; and similarly "irrational" restrictions are fairly common.)

A church that choses to do so may restrict who is permitted to receive the ministering of any of their own sacraments and/or rituals, including the sacrament of a "church" marriage. A church may refuse to recognize as "married," for purposes of their own, persons married under civil law until their own sacrmental rituals are performed and the appropriate vows exchanged. Historically, many churches have demanded a "ritual marriage" before accepting a "civil marriage." Some churches, similarly, refuse to recognize a civil dissolution of a marriage under nearly any circumstance. That's something entirely separate, and the law shouldn't care.

A church that demands the intervention of civil law to enforce their sacraments is a failed church, and invites civil intervention in ALL their sacraments. (Isn't "confession" a self-incrimination prohibited by the US Constitution, and isn't therefore the refusal to administer "holy communion" to one who hasn't been to "confession" an unacceptable "discrimination" and shouldn't the "minister" who dispenses ingestibles be subject to state regulation of sanitation and product purity, and be licensed? How many "license fees" can we collect here? How much meddling is invited?)

A person who insists that the "government" must enforce his/her "articles of faith" has very little true faith. For most of the faiths with which I'm familiar, insisting that "all marriages are sacred" implies little knowledge of what one's own faith requires in order that a marriage be "blessed," and/or an appalling lack of comprehension of what's going on in the "real world."

For those who just "don't like ***," I can be more sympathetic. The world is full of people who are stupid and irrational, and who do things I find annoying, foolish, dangerous, and otherwise objectionable; but they are people who have legal standing in my community, and I will grant to them, and defend for them, their right to be stupid and irrational – even to disagree with me, as long as they don't try to force me be like them by advocating laws that prevent me from being stupid and irrational and perhaps even annoying according to my own preferences. (I find over-amped music quite annoying, but enjoy playing my mandolin badly; although I've been told "there ought to be a law…")

Inherent in the agitation for new laws is the foolish belief that passing a law will make something "not happen." The only thing a law can do is define "what it costs to do it." Attempting to "pass a law" to prevent a common behavior that does not substantially threaten the community is for the small-minded. I see no substantial damage to society from permitting people to form, and to have legally (secularly) acknowledged, their own personal associations, even though they may apply different values than mine in their choice of partners. I see great damage to my community in the imposing of "sacredness" in any matter of secular/civil law.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: Peace
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 02:48 PM

JiC: That is a wonderful piece of writing. Good on yer.

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 05:14 PM

Well said, John. It's clearly the person's own definition of the word "marriage" and all that it means that is behind most of the misunderstandings in this particular matter...

That, and the desire to control other people, allied with the fear of that which is unfamiliar.

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: DougR
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 06:53 PM

"Desire to control other people, L.H.?" You mean like issuing a driver's license, a fishing license, setting speed limits, requiring folks to pay taxes? Stuff like that?

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: LadyJean
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 01:05 AM

A lady I know was 46 when she married a 23 year old man. The Catholic church wouldn't marry them. (She'd been divorced twice before.) So they were married in a very high church Episcopal ceremony. She is now 62, and they're still married. They adopted a boy, privately, without an agency. They are not what you would call good parents. But nobody interfered, seriously, with their marriage, or their adoption.
My one and only objection to gay marriage is that my sister has horrible taste in women. You should see the nut casses she takes up with. She stayed with the last one for almost 7 years. At least there wasn't any legal tie between them.
But I don't see why my sister shouldn't have the same right to marry losers that straight women do.

Subject: RE: BS: Why you don't like gay marriage
From: Leadfingers
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 05:52 AM

So who wants SAD Marriage ?? Just to even up the post number by the way !