Homosexual Marriage; Why not?

[Perd Hapley]

Why?

[wingnutx]

Personal experience, I guess.

[Lonnie Wilson]

Regardless, I think some people in here don't like the idea of the government being in the marriage business in the first place.

You wanna get married?  Go into a church that will accept you (who, btw, can discriminate against you for any reason) and get married.

You want legal recognition of your relationship for the purposes of being next of kin, and so on?  Get a civil union, and that applies to everyone.

[Winston Smith]

I'm with lonnie wilson here.

Private entities should be able to discriminate for whatever reasons they want to. Public entities should not.

[Perd Hapley]

Discriminate between races or religions?  No.

Discriminate between the sexes?  Of course government should do that in some cases - marriage is one of those cases.

[Winston Smith]

You're probably right about institutional sex discrimation, but I'd like to hear your reasoning.

[Art Eatman]

If my religion sez homsexuality is anathema, the discrimination against gay marriage is built in to the deal.  It's automatic.  The preacher either stays true to his faith or he does not.

What chaps me about this whole issue is that it's a dictionary thing:  "Marriage" is the union between a man and a woman, with a primary purpose being a sanctified procreation--the avoidance of bastardy, nine months later.  (For those who can connect events as far apart as nine months.)

I'm hostile in part because during my teen years I was a walking target for every Chickenhawk running loose.  Pretty-boy and baby-face, I couldn't go to a movie or wait for a bus without some sumbitch hitting on me.  "Consenting adults" is a hypocritical joke.  "No thanks." was a waste of breath.  I got tired of running and/or hiding or looking for a cop.  I finally got big enough and learned enough self-defense fighting to deal with the sorry MFs.   It was many a year before I got past wanting to give twelve-gauge enemas.

I'm not much on churches.  Howsomever, I pretty much subscribe to the religious idea of anathema.  

Y'know, I've gotten pretty good at ignoring gay behavior, politicians' utterances, conspiracy theorists and liberal views of economics, but it's certainly regrettable that such is necessary in order to maintain sanity.

Art

[Guest]

LOL.

Sounds exactly like my experience except it was men hitting on me, too, not lesbians.

So, does that make it gays that are the problem, or men?

[Art Eatman]

Generalizin', I'd say that almost all men are more agressive than almost all women.  Biological hard-wire.   Gay men are more likely to be on-the-street agressive than gay women, from my own observations of people in general.  (Dunno about behaviors within a gay bar or night club, though.)

 I had a serious altercation with a gay WAC sergeant in an NCO club, at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, decades ago.  I was doing well with a cute WAC private--I thought--until the sergeant threatened to kick my manly ass.  Her mistake.  I was just back from Korea, and my tolerance level for idiots was between Slim and None--and Slim had just left town.

Hey, men can be problems.  So can women.  Overall, it's a wash, with the problems being different in kind but not necessarily in degree.

, Art

[Guest]

I guess the same could be said for gays then, huh?

[Guest]

Homosexual marriage impacts all of society.  Same goes for abortion, smoking, speeding, druges, being a litter bug, excessive and wasteful use of water, spitting inside a mall, etc. etc. etc.  Just about everyting each of us does has an impact of some amount on society in general.

Allowing homosexuals to "marry", adopt children, etc will accelerate the demise of America.  It is that simple.  But the main reason it should not be allowed is that it is WRONG.  I may or may not be able to express "why" well enough to satisfy anyone, but it is WRONG just the same.

(Is it too much to ask that you avoid needless pejoratives in your posts? OV)

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Allowing fags to "marry", adopt children, etc will accelerate the demise of America.  It is that simple.  But the main reason it should not be allowed is that it is WRONG.  I may or may not be able to express "why" well enough to satisfy anyone, but it is WRONG just the same.

I don't necessarily disagree with you, but around here you can't just assert something and expect to be taken seriously.  You gotta back it up.  Even if you think you can't express why well enough to satisfy any of us, you ought to at least give it a try.

[Guest]

Edited because I shouldn't be making fun of people even if I think they deserve it.

[Sindawe]

Regardless, I think some people in here don't like the idea of the government being in the marriage business in the first place.

You wanna get married?  Go into a church that will accept you (who, btw, can discriminate against you for any reason) and get married.

You want legal recognition of your relationship for the purposes of being next of kin, and so on?  Get a civil union, and that applies to everyone.

Same viewpoint here.  Governments only job with regards to formalized relationships is as a disinterested record keeper.

[Art Eatman]

I dunno, Barbara; making fun of people is as old as people.  

My problem is that a college roommate and his father and uncle used to buy rundown bars in Manhattan, renovate, and restart the business.  Mostly gay bars.  My roommate would MC for bands or comedians.  I learned a bunch of gay jokes from him.  

Same for my Jewish roommates; bunches of Jewish jokes.  Then, working in Detroit for a year at the Chevy Test Lab, I learned a bunch of Polack jokes.  Back to Austin, and it's Aggie jokes.  Living on the Tex-Mex border, it's Pepito jokes.  As a Certified Old Fart, I know lots of OF jokes.  Growing up in the south, there's lots of jokes about blacks.

And a ton of jokes about women.

A pox on political correctness!

IOW, anybody who goes to mouthing off with jokes against white guys oughta make sure I ain't around.

BUT:  The key to it all is that the jokes be based on obvious known characteristics, and not hostile in nature.  Poking fun at group foibles can be fun and need not be taken as insulting.

Art

[Winston Smith]

You're wrong, Steve.

But I won't explain why.

But you're wrong.

[Perd Hapley]

Steve, I'm more or less on your side here, but you need to edit the "f-word" out of your post.  Just call them homosexuals - that's what they are.  FWIW, I don't think they like that word either - euphemisms like gay seem to be preferred.  There's no need to use disparaging terms, and it makes you sound like Fred Phelps.  You're not a member of Westboro, are you?

[Perd Hapley]

 Governments only job with regards to formalized relationships is as a disinterested record keeper.

That doesn't say much - somebody's got to decide what a marriage or civil union is, before any records can be kept.

[Art Eatman]

fistful, this all started with live-together gays who worried about such things as property ownership, survivor's rights, and retirement fund rights if the working partner dies.  That's quite easily "civil union" stuff, which takes care of the primary concerns.

It also gets around my gripe about misuse of the word "marriage", as to the historical usage.  And, I note, the gripes of church folks.

Art

[Bemidjiblade]

I can't believe that this topic has me posting here again, but here we go...

My dollar after taxes (2 cents for those of you in Cass Lake):

Tolerance is not equal to approval.

I believe that people have the moral right to decide what they're going to do with their sexual orientation, providing they are not actively harming themselves or others.  A homosexual should have every right to engage in homosexual activity if that's what they want to do, assuming the following:
Right time (partner not unconscious or passed out etc)
Right person (Of age, consenting adult who is not being threatened or coerced)
Right Place (No PDA, which is not an anti-homosexual thing, straights who act like animals in heat gross me out just as much) and this is my biggest peeve w/ "pride" parades
Right circumstances

But I absolutely refuse to give my approval to the same actions, and that is equally my own right.
If I have a say in a society, like, say, a representative republic (civics anyone?) then I have the same right to express myself and have my voice heard as anyone else.

Even IF my beliefs are born of religious belief, that makes them no less valid than an athiests, and no more so, as far as a representative government should be concerned.

So I will support people's right to choose how they act on their desires, but I will not condone it.  As such, I will not extend the implicit approval in legalizing gay marriage.