I have always been a supporter of human rights for all. And that does mean all… including gays. I mean really, who the hell am I to tell someone else what to be attracted to sexually? Who made me God? … which leads me to God… is it so much to ask, really, truly, to leave him out of it when discussing basic human rights that are codified in law for all citizens of a country? You do live in America (or Canada as the case may be for me) right? Separation of powers and all… or did you skip school that day?
With that preamble, on to my question after the flip.
Soooo….
What exactly does two women or men being married have to do with my marriage of 11 years? How exactly will this undermine my fantastic relationship with my husband?
Seriously, I want an answer because this has been a flippant non-argument used by opponents of two people who happen to be of the same sex enjoying the same rights and status as me and mine.
Shouldn’t I be more concerned with some other woman coming along and having an affair with my man? Isn’t that much more logical? Or is it that by legalizing gay marriage all of a sudden my husband & I would turn gay? Or that more of our kids would be “indoctrinated”? That makes no sense, you either are or you aren’t (or you’re a bit of both, but whole other story) so I really don’t get it. Somebody help me out here please.
Or is it that if gay marriage was legal all those “closet” homosexuals will all of a sudden come out and reduce the dating pool? Is that it? No… it couldn’t be.
Hmmm… so that leaves religion.
I’m not going to engage in a religious debate because it is a personal thing. Yup. That’s right. My religion is personal and none of the business of the State. The State takes care of making sure we are all equal and free & we take care of our own lives and those of our family and neighbours. And if you choose not to accept homosexuality because of your religion then that’s fine. If you want to write about it, or go on talk radio.. totally cool too. Freedom of speech and all.
But…
You have no right to impose your religious views into my life or the lives of others. Marriage is not something that one religion owns (nor those of non-religious belief). Therefore, no one religion or group of people can declare that “marriage is sacred”. Nope. It’s timehonored for sure, but sacred… by which religion? People were getting married back in the day in non-Christian or Muslim countries as well…
Long story short… answer the question please. No one has yet and I’ve asked quite a bit over the years.
Feel free to disagree… Freedom of speech and all…
😉
[cross posted at Daily Kos]
I support marriage for all simply because it’s the right thing to do. I really don’t care what my religion has to say about it (Judaism).
The marriage argument is, of course, completely bogus but it exists because a non-religious argument is needed. A religious argument against SSM is fine for denying SSM within a particular religion but it completely useless as a reason to deny civil marriage to same-sex couples.
The problem for those who oppose SSM is that there is no rational argument against it so the only appeal they can make is to tradition. Of course, that actually doesn’t work that well since the current state of marriage is a fairly recent phenomenon.
I might be gay, and if I am I want all the gay people to be available. 🙂
The minute same-sex marriage is legal, we’re all going to dump our husbands and become lesbians. Imagine how much that thought threatens guys who aren’t great in bed, don’t help around the house, and don’t pay their wives much attention.
I’m actually opposed to state-defined marriage. I’d rather see civil unions for everyone, where civil unions define family, not sexual relationships.
I have gay friends who are raising children together. They have to fill out a huge sheaf of paperwork to have something approaching a marriage, and there are plenty of gaps. I also have polyamorous friends who share their lives, and they suffer from the same lack of legal rights and protections.
I can also imagine situations where people who are not in a sexual relationship might want to band together as a family.
I’ll try…
Latent homosexuality
what happened in Massachusetts? All heterosexual marriages spontaneously dissolved. Only gays and lesbians are married here now. Luckily our home seems to have been immune, good thing too, I really love my husband and the kids would miss him terribly if we split.