Prop 8
Pretty much every domestic news podcast I've listened to in the last couple days is responding to all the flap about prop 8 being overturned in California. I listen to the debate and the interviewees on both sides and it pretty much goes like this...
(Pro gay marriage) We deserve the rights to the same benefits of marriage as straight people
(Anti gay marriage) We want marriage to be between one man and one woman to preserve it as a holy union.
And here's what I don't get. Do homosexuals who want to be married really care if it's called married? Or is it just the shortest path to what they want? Either way, I think it's a valid argument. Not sure how legitimate it will prove to be in the courts, but I think they're close. I guess what I want to know is whether a compromise would work? Something equal to marriage but not marriage. As a humanitarian, I think that gay people DO deserve equal treatment from the government as straight people, though. If two people are committed to each other, live together, pay the bills together, contribute to the community just as much (or as little) as their straight neighbors, and are partners of that sort til death do they part, why shouldn't they get the same tax breaks and insurance plans and whatever else as if they were married to someone of the opposite sex?
What really gets me, though, is how the anti-gay activists keep talking about how they want to preserve marriage, yada yada yada, but I don't really see a lot of movemetn towards keeping traditional marriage sacred to they men and women already married. I lifted a reference from divorcereform.org claiming that "The number of divorced people in the population more than quadrupled from 4.3 million in 1970 to 18.3 million in 1996, according to a Census Bureau report." Since in 1996 gay marriage was illegal all across the country, yet marriage was apparantly not very important to the people getting married, we can't blame THAT on gays and lesbians. Looks to me like the institute of marriage is in plenty bad shape already, and maybe what it really needs is some people who WANT to be married to each other.
On the other hand, these people who are jealously guarding their marriage-club are starting to appear as though their anti-gay arguments are just thinly veiled attempts to coerce the government into punishing people who are doing things that they don't approve, usually on account of their religion, it seems to me. And that's where we have to draw the line. I don't want someone's religious idealogy playing that large a part in the government that I pay taxes to. People should not be persecuted, discriminated against, or punished by a government representing a belief system at odds with the way any large portion of American citizens conduct themselves. Period.
(Pro gay marriage) We deserve the rights to the same benefits of marriage as straight people
(Anti gay marriage) We want marriage to be between one man and one woman to preserve it as a holy union.
And here's what I don't get. Do homosexuals who want to be married really care if it's called married? Or is it just the shortest path to what they want? Either way, I think it's a valid argument. Not sure how legitimate it will prove to be in the courts, but I think they're close. I guess what I want to know is whether a compromise would work? Something equal to marriage but not marriage. As a humanitarian, I think that gay people DO deserve equal treatment from the government as straight people, though. If two people are committed to each other, live together, pay the bills together, contribute to the community just as much (or as little) as their straight neighbors, and are partners of that sort til death do they part, why shouldn't they get the same tax breaks and insurance plans and whatever else as if they were married to someone of the opposite sex?
What really gets me, though, is how the anti-gay activists keep talking about how they want to preserve marriage, yada yada yada, but I don't really see a lot of movemetn towards keeping traditional marriage sacred to they men and women already married. I lifted a reference from divorcereform.org claiming that "The number of divorced people in the population more than quadrupled from 4.3 million in 1970 to 18.3 million in 1996, according to a Census Bureau report." Since in 1996 gay marriage was illegal all across the country, yet marriage was apparantly not very important to the people getting married, we can't blame THAT on gays and lesbians. Looks to me like the institute of marriage is in plenty bad shape already, and maybe what it really needs is some people who WANT to be married to each other.
On the other hand, these people who are jealously guarding their marriage-club are starting to appear as though their anti-gay arguments are just thinly veiled attempts to coerce the government into punishing people who are doing things that they don't approve, usually on account of their religion, it seems to me. And that's where we have to draw the line. I don't want someone's religious idealogy playing that large a part in the government that I pay taxes to. People should not be persecuted, discriminated against, or punished by a government representing a belief system at odds with the way any large portion of American citizens conduct themselves. Period.
Why do people always use religion when they are for or against something that they can't back up with facts? I am skeptical of people who use the Bible (or Koran, or whatever) as their source when, throughout history more people have been killed in the name of religion. Besides, why shouldn't gays be entitled to be miserable like the rest of us who have experienced marriage?
Reply to this