reply to post by Clearskies

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Oh I disagree. People in a relationship with all the same strengths and weaknesses leads to more problems than you realize. It is much easier to see another person's faults if they are your faults as well. People with different personalities get to adapt to one another rather than dealing with twice the issues that you had to deal with before.

I am not saying similar people don't fall in love. It happens all the time, but as the adage says "opposites attract". Just like two magnets, the same poles repel each other, where as the opposite poles attract. Just like the magnets, if you have strengths where your lover has weaknesses and you have weaknesses that your lover does not, then you can find a middle ground with each other, compensating with love where difficulties lie.

I would not be able to interact with a lover exactly like me, I have to put up with myself enough as it is, I have no patience for another me. Oh no.

If the only rights engendered by marriage are property rights, adoption rights and survival (was that intended as a pun?) rights, Why is there so much resistance to allowing homosexuals to be considered married under the law, as, and in the fullness of the term, are straight couples?


Obviously, as most in our society can recognize but ill-define, the contract known as "Marriage" carries some additional cache, some unique "gravitas" within the context of our culture.

Obvious also, to proponents and detractors of same-sex marriage, is the recognition that, within our society, rightly or wrongly, Only those who are allowed to marry (whether they choose to marry or not) are considered to be fully-fledged and endowed members of our society.

As primative and "tribal" as it may be, to be accepted as a true citizen of this society, one must, under the strictures of the laws established by the society, be allowed to enter into the contract the society has defined as a "Marriage"; not a "Union", not a "Partnership", nor any other "alternative" contrivance.

Only a marriage bestows the appropriate status and recognition within the society.

Marriage=Normal. Normal=Equal.


And so I turn your first question back to you:

If marriage is just a "a bunch of rights" already granted to homosexuals, why should "marriage" itself be denied them?

What is so special about marriage that it should be denied to same-sex couples?

Of course, you realize that your answer is the basis of this ruling.



With regard to your question about child custody; why would there be any significant (or insignificant) issue over custody not already present and accounted for in a hetero- couple?

The decisions would, I hope, be made on the basis of what is best for the child involved. As it should be when the couple involved is male/female.

I certainly hope that you are not trying to imply that, simply because the parents are homosexual, neither parent is fit to be a custodian for the child!


If your concern for the children of same-sex marriages is founded on the premise that they will encounter scorn and ostracization by their peers; I fear that you may have a point. At least in the short term.

When divorce was less common in our society, the children of divorced parents were often made to "bear the shame of their parents failings".

I dare posit that those times have changed!

Bi-racial children have, and still do, face difficulties from thier less sophisticated peers from time to time. Would you have argued for the continued prohibition of inter-racial marriages based on this consideration?

Children are not born to discriminate. Prejudice is a carefully taught behavior.

We, as parents, teachers, and role-models for our children must learn not to teach prejudice anymore.


Perhaps as the number of same-sex married couples increases, we will learn to accept them as we have learned to accept other folks differnet from ourselves.

reply to post by GideonHM

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Gideon,
Why would a heterosexual man force himself into a relationship with a Gay man? It just doesn't make sense. Also, when I mentioned the Ancient Greeks, they never thought of the tutor/student relationship ("Pais" in Greek) as anything other than positive.

And I don't know why you're so offended. If you're gay or bi, welcome to the family. If you're not, relax. Besides you're arguing from the standpoint that homosexuality is can be choice. I'm not. I believe it is a genetic predisposition. Your argument works from the "choice" position. It doesn't from a "genetic" position. I don't even believe it's possible to adapt on the genetic level in such a short time as you have suggested. What you're talking about is Physical Adaptation. Which brings me to my point. If our sexualities are determined by genetics, we can do everything we want to fight it but it won't change. And yes, we'd love for you to come to PRIDE. We don't care if you're gay or straight or green. And I'm very glad that you agree that this ultimately is about discrimination.

[edit on 18/5/08 by WickedStar]

reply to post by weedwhacker

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Please that same old white robes garbage? Being a sexual deviant is not anything like being black....................

Gays was the world to accept their insanity because they know they are wrong. Always screaming "look at me" trying to make themselves feel better due to acceptance from others.

Homosexuals are an abomination.............

reply to post by nataylor

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ahhh no having blue eyes in an offspring denotes having an offspring. Truely being born homosexual there should be little chance to reproduce. Since the abomination has been around so long, genetically it must be a mental disorder..........or aquired............real gentic homosexuality would have died out without reproduction.............

reply to post by WickedStar

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I drive an SUV the size of Iowa and my money goes to my grandchildren. The rock you claim for me is Jesus. He can cure you of your disease, repent.....................I will pray for you.............

Homosexuality is still an abomination, but repent and be saved........

I must also agree with an arlier poster that was angered over the unconsitutionality of the court makng law from the bench.

It should be ignored as the "court" has no basis for such a rule.........in fact the entire court should be impeached and removed..........

The courts CAN NOT make law................

I would like to ask what it is that gays have gained by this decision, other than the "right" to say they are married?

What have they gained that cannot be achieved by a civil union approach?

I have an answer, but I want to hear it from the membership.

reply to post by jsobecky

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The only thing "gained" here is a sign of the end times.........

"marrying and giving in marriage" just as the days of noah and sodom..

reply to post by Bhadhidar

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I had posted another set of questions before I saw this response.



I will give that question right back to you:

If property rights, etc., can be achieved via civil unions, why are gays so adamant in their desire to be called "married"?




As it should be, since it is a deep committment, not only to each other, but to any offspring of the relationship. The laws have been written to recognize this.




Incorrect. Unmarried people are also considered full members. As are widowed or divorced.




It is a term. A descriptor. A designation with boundaries. A definition in the dictionary.

You can call a glass of water a soda all you want, but that doesn't make it so.



Incorrect, as I pointed out above. Mother Therese was a full member of society.




As I mentioned in my other post, I think I know the answer to that question. Only, it needs to be answered from the perspective of the gays, not the heteros.

What is so special about marriage that makes gays want it so much?

And a final question: What do you bring to society's table that two single people do not bring?

reply to post by WickedStar

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No problem. I have not a clue as to why a heterosexual person would 'force' themselves to do that, but extreme trauma such as rape can. Both genders.

Also the adaptation I am referring to takes YEARS starting during critical sexual development, hence why I mentioned 16.

And thank you.

reply to post by jsobecky

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They have achieved the right to be considered a 'suspect class' that the Californian Supreme Court has singled out of a background population as being especially vulnerable to discrimination and achieved the knowledge that the Californian Supreme Court does in fact discriminate against same-sex couples in Domestic Partnerships vis-a-vis marriage. It's grand to know that the Californian Supreme Court crystallizes and details in exquisite detail, as part of its majority judgement, its own actual direct discrimination, not just a 'risk' of discrimination, to make the perception of discrimination go away for those same-sex couples who want to get 'married'. Too bad for those left behind in Domestic Partnerships which were sold as having the same 'gravitas' as marriage who can now know that they've been turned into "second class citizens" by the Cali SC as a consequence, and aren't really the inheritors of a raft of legal rights and obligations equivalent to a spousal relationship, and worthy of co-equal protection in their own right without having to deny or make disappear their sexual orientation to fit a cookie-cutter traditional marriage template to receive 'respect' and 'dignity'.

You obviously have no understanding of genetics. Two brown eyed people can have a child with blue eyes. Even if that blue eyed person never reproduced, there would still be people with blue eyes around because people with brown eyes carry the recessive blue-eyed trait. Please read up on genetics, you need this information.

reply to post by WickedStar

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Careful, WickedStar, "marriage" is not a "right" granted, per se , under the Constitution of either the US or California.

The California ruling merely recognized the right of all citizens to be treated "Equally under the Law"; therefore, if the Law "allows" heterosexual couples to marry, the Law must "allow" homosexual couples to marry.

Posters such as "TKainZero" would have us believe that in making this observation, the justices of the Supreme Court have somehow created a "new" law.

In fact they have merely determined that an interpetation of the already established law, the law from which all other mandates arise, was erroneous in that it contradicted the the established, fundamental law of the land: the state Constitution.


By claiming marriage as a right, you, rhetorically at least, set yourself up to be bashed by those who would myopically claim that "Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that marriage is a Right. Gays are trying to get something more than straights, they want 'special rights', yadda, yadda, yadda..."


It may seem a minor point, but major decisions have turned on such minor points in the past. Many find this issue to be of suffucient importantance, the "stakes" high enough, to aggressively sieze any advantage they can to ensure the status quo.



Those who would seek to advance against such opposition must be vigilant in their speech and actions so as to deny the opposition Any "foot-hold" that might lead to an advantage.

But in quoting Me, you answer your own question:




And, in fact, go on to make the case!




"The laws have been written to recognize this (deep commitment)."





Are you being purposefully obtuse here?

The qualification, as stated, is "Allowed to Marry":


-Unmarried people, if they are hetereosexual, are, generally, allowed to marry (A homosexual would be unlikely to enter into "a deep commitment", as defined as and by a "marriage", with a person of the opposite gender.).

-To be widowed, one must have been married at the time of the death of the spouse.

-Divorced people, obviously have been married, lest how would they come to be divorced?






And by such things are our lives governed and made manifest!


You, yourself, have already stated the recognized fact that in our society, our culture, and our law, "Marriage" has been established as status apart from all others. You, yourself, have argued the appropriateness of such regard based, at least in part, on the "deep commitment" the term marriage engenders.

If our word for a glass of water was, in fact "soda", then "a glass of water" would not satisfy a request for a "soda"!

It is what it is. You (all) have made it so. You have stated so.





Mother Therese was a nun, an assumedly heteosexual woman who could (ie.: would have been allowed to) have entered into a hetereosexual marriage had she so desired.

In point of fact, as a nun, Mother Therese was considered to have been "A Bride of Christ", and therefore, it could be argued that she was in fact "Married". A marriage not only acknowledged, but revered, by a large portion of the our society.





I hope you are addressing this rather impertinent question, facetiously, to married hetereosexuals reading these posts. That you are trying, impishly, to bring into question the vaulted status of marriage in a modern society.


I would certainly hope that you are Not expecting anyone, gay or straight, who, by mere virtue of being born into this society, has an expectation of fair and just treament under the law, to petition for those rights based on their presumed value to the society.

It is amazing how far some will go to defend an abomination.

The issue was NOT the actual eye color, it was the point of passing a REAL genetic marker through actual reproduction. If gay was a gene, there would be no further reproduction.

Last time I did check, it takes two of a different sex to reproduce, without manmade help. If gay were really a gene, how could two of the same sex reproduce?

Gay is a choice............

Actually the current scientific focus is on brain chemicals.

But - the interesting thing about Science is "you can only base facts on what you know today". I can only imagine what they will discover "tomorrow".

. . . and you base your personal belief on what? NO! Not even gonna go there.

reply to post by heliosprime

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Actually, recent studies are NOT leaning your way.

Here, I think you might benefit from this article:



SRC: www.environmentalgraffiti.com...

And no, it's most likely not a choice, even though it could be to some people.

Oh, and by calling it an 'abomination', you are strengthening the values of Atheists and pushing people further away from God. I'll assume that was your intention, and in that case, I'm with you. The world needs less religion right now and more humanitarians who view people as equals. Not prejudicial, hateful people.

[edit on 5/18/2008 by bigbert81]