njlauren
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Joined: 10/1/2011
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Interesting thread, but I think I can answer kdsub. Many people have made similar arguments about things like slavery, like the Jim Crowe laws (the GOP, for example, argued that passing the civil rights acts would breed anger and dissent, and we should 'wait for natural evolution' of the issue....course, didn't stop the GOP from using that disenchantment to get the confederacy voting for the GOP, the so called "southern strategy", basically saying 'hey, we didn't end Jim Crow, the democrats did". The GOP base today as a result is what Mencken called the KKK branch of the Democratic party in his day.).
The answer to your question is simply that marriage, the term marriage, is a legal right, and it is ensconced all over the law and in culture as well. Marriage gives automatic rights that don't have to be fought for, if a husband is sick, the wife automatically can make decisions for him; if he dies, she automatically collects his pension, life insurance, any estate (I am talking without a will), and the list goes on. Want to know the reality of DP and civic unions and such? The law saw they are equal, but it doesn't mean it does. Right now, civic unions and DP have no meaning outside the state, and even within, they are weak. Gay partners in NJ find that when one of them gets sick, they have to fight the hospital to make medical decisions, they have to prove they are civic union, and still hospitals refuse to recognize it. If a couple has a civic union in NJ and have kids, and they split up, one of them can move to another state and guess what, custody agreements don't matter.......even if Doma is thrown out (going to be fun watching Scalia and the other Catholic fascists on Scotus argue against heaving it, among other things, DOMA violates states rights, the federal government has zero right to define marriages), I am sure Scalia and Thomas (his ventriloguists dummy) and Roberts and Alito will basically come up with fancy legal language to say "the Pope doesn't approve, so I don't". The problem, which you obviously never looked into, is that much wording uses the word marriage, in silly things like inheriting 401k's, and it is legally binding, and if you have a DP and try to argue your partner's 401k is yours if he dies, they can tell you to go to hell, because the civic union is state law, and this is federal (even without DOMA), and b, the terms don't match. Ask any lawyer what the law often boils down to, and it is specific language, and if the contract says "a married partner is automatically the beneficiary", and they have a DP, guess what, they can say no, and turn the money over to a blood kin.
The other answer to your question is that in society as a whole, marriage is the term people know and respect that a couple has committed to each other. You argue what's in a name, but how many things in your life have name value, names mean something. What you are saying is that 'gay radicals' (which is kind of funny, given that they are fighting for the right of something so old fashioned, weird, isn't it, radicals fighting for the right to be ordinary?) are gunning for marriage to cause problems, but that isn't what it is about, it is the ability to be able to codify the relationship in a way that has meaning to them. Remember, most gays grew up with married parrents, despite what the swamp dwellers think, gays comes from straight parents, and it means the same thing to them that it does to straight people growing up. You are saying they should respect the beliefs of others, but why? What makes the feelings of those who want to claim Marriage is 'theirs' any more valuable then the feelings of the gays who wish to get married
And the whole thing about the term marriage being the problem is quite frankly a crock of bullshit, those who say that realize it is getting harder and harder not to look like a redneck or a gavonne when talking about same sex marriage, so they come up with 'its the term'.....in reality, they don't want gays to have that term, not because they really care about it as such, but because they see that as 'legitimizing' gays, the state saying they are the same, and they want the separate term because they can then sit there and say "they aren't married, they are scum, unlike straights who can be"...they also know that civic unions and DP's and such basically ensconce discrimination, for the reasons I am talking about.
Want proof? Float the idea that the US does what other countries do, and that is get rid of the term marriage completely from the law. Every contract, every law, that grants benefits, would be for a civic union, and everyone who wants those rights has to get the license from the government. Churches could marry people to their hearts content, but it would have no legal recognition (as it never should of)..want to watch how fast it no longer is about the term, all those people claiming it is the term going ballistic? In my solution, marriage is reserved to the religious groups to use as they see fit, it is 'sacred' completely.......but I would bet you a lot of money those saying it is the term would be 95% against doing this.
And in the end, saying it isn't the time is a cop out. When it comes to a basic right, when it comes to a society that claims to be about freedom, it doesn't work. It didn't work with slavery, it wouldn't have died any time soon if the south hadn't forced the hand by seceding and triggering the war, and Jim Crow would have lingered for a long, long time if it wasn't outlawed. At the time of the Loving decision, in 1967, a large majority of Americans thought interracial marriage was a bad idea, and many states still made it illegal (enforced or not), I think it was 75, 80%; a year after the Supreme Court heaved it, 90% thought it was okay..and therein lies the rub. Those claiming it is the term, those outright fighting it, are fighting the same battle, and it isn't about the term marriage, it is them wanting the state to condemn gays, make them second class; and what they fear is shown by the aftermath of the loving decision, if same sex marriage becomes legal, people will shrug, and say "what was the big fuss about?", and suddenly no one will care. In Massachusetts, within a couple of years of the decision, which showed roughly 60-40 were against it legalizing same sex marriage, something like 80% of people there said "what's the big deal",and when the religious droolers tried to ban same sex marriage via a ballot initiaitive, they couldn't get 20% of legislators to support that idea, and it died.....
So when you talk about people's feelings, you are leaving out that their feelings may not be as pure as you think, and that to gain the real rights of marriage, and for many gays to feel like they are truly committed in the eyes of society, the term matters, big time. It is not surprising that some conservatives now see this as a rights issue, they realize that you cannot claim to want freedom, want government off our backs, if you let the religiously stupid to determine rights, you can't be home of the free and land of the brave is there is no freedom for all.
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RE: Gay Marriage is WRONG - 
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