I should have been clearer, I meant at the judicial level and intellectual discussions (not that those necessary correlate!). Although I personally try to reason the issue as a 'simple' legal issue, I get passionate about it because of the emotional appeal; the story of your mothers in law for example just made me smile!

I can't really pinpoint why (i don't have any close gay friends), but I feel very strongly about the SSM issue, so much that I finally decided to apply for US citizenship (after 14 yrs as a legal resident) so I could make my vote count. If it comes through in time, I might be able to vote in Nov!

Hence, God's somewhat racist foreign policy.

"They'll cause you to go after false Gods"

(I hope this isn't too much; put on the thick skin please)

Sure. But you haven't given much indication it COULD work or that it is a supported idea. In contrast to my idea which HAS worked in numerous countries from which the US can follow their example.

Not just Canada and most of europe, 6 states in the US have already switched to legalization, polling is steadily on the rise of legalization and I am pretty confident that this will spread considerably and pretty quickly by the standards of social reform with the possible quick finish of a supreme court ruling. i don't see any reason why this is not possible in the US, or why your solution IS possible.

As for "unforeseen issues"...well it is legal in so many other countries these issues should be seen by now. Are you just randomly speculating?



I hadn't realized I was imposing something on religious people! My goodness! They can have WHATEVER definition of marriage they like and hold it as dear. Now they can object to the governments terminology of legal marriages just they can object to governments giving civil unions and just as I object to governments denying marriages. But in what sense am I IMPOSING something?




But they would anyways! Right now, government is in marriage. We can either extent that to gays or not. And we can end the involvement in marriage or not. These are mutually exclusive. Why is your position NOT "let the gays have the same legal rights if it is up for vote now, and then later I can redefine the word from mariage to civil unions"?


We both want the legal institution extended to everyone. You just to call it something else. So if a bill was available that extended the institution to everyone...you think this is going backwards? That doesn't make any sense. The practical consequences - if you were the swing voter per chance - would be that harmful discrimination would continue to occur and there would be no benefit. Government would still be in the business of marriage, but asymmetrically in a discriminatory way. How is that acceptable?



Wat. I have no idea why you think this answers the question. I don't even know what you are trying to imply.


Details are only important if they are relevant to the argument, as someone who thinks carefully and thoughtfully would know. I have no idea why you think the specific details of the civil union in this thought experiment are relevant.



Are you REALLY not prepared to acknowledge that gays are harmed by not even being allowed civil unions?

Power to you mate, we need more like you

What do you mean, more than that? Most of the civil union bills are for an institution very close to marriage - with a different name and sounds pretty much exactly like what you are advocating. But there is huge opposition to that idea and that is WITHOUT stripping every single married christian of the term for their legal status they have held their entire lives just to be able to make things equal for the gays.

I don't quite know whether it is a lack of political awareness or something, but the idea that there are people in this country (and many of them) who are actively aiming to restrict any form of legal recognition for gay couples - even when it is NOT marriage - seems troubling to you.

All religious people get to keep the word? Or just the ones with the 'right' definition of marriage?


btw, I'm married, I did not get married in a church, I have a civil marriage and I NEVER get confused as to whether I had a religious marriage or not. Do religious people get confused as to which type of marriage they have?

Ya think.

They will never quite understand. Because they ARE SMARTER. They are THE INTELLECTUAL ELITE. All Christians ARE STUPID. All Christians ARE BIGOTED.

They will never outright say it. But every single sentence of every single post insuates it, exposes their own biases.

Years ago, as a young Christian, I was at a party at my friend mark's house. There was an openly gay man there who I went to school with and talked to at parties and such. I believed in traditional marriage and was a christian and everybody knew it.

Two aquaintences of mine showed up and started trouble with this guy. He left. They went to follow him out the door with every intention of beating him to a pulp -- because he was gay. They were both pretty tough dudes. Not sure I could've hung with either one of them in a fight (especially comprimised by budweiser, as I was.)

I stood at the door and told them that if they wanted to beat him up, they had to get past me first. There was no f'n way I was letting that go down while being sidelined on a couch with a beer in my hand, like every other person there that night (Who-- btw-- openly despised my profession of faith, and sounded like many of you.)

They backed off. No fisticuffs insued. I survived the night without a black eye or internal bleeding.

But puke-master and many, many others here have me pigeon-holed as an "anti-gay" christian. I believe that gays should be locked up in a pen and electrocuted, apparently. Most Christians do.

I'm not human.

No sensibility.

Just not as smart as they are, apparantly. Because knowledge + intellectual capacity = sensibility. Of course. It's a common, modern secular creed.

I beg to differ.

You go ahead and attach your ballz to an ideology and I'll attach it to my heart, my soul. You sit on the couch and scream at the screen and we'll keep feeding the hungry.

"Shallow" is being nice.

How about "anti-christian?"

I might have missed it, but is this the reason you want the government to switch from marriage to civil unions? Just to not confuse the religious? Or is there an actually good reason for keeping the institution but changing its name?

So then what's your reasoning behind this?

doggg didn't think a gay man should be beaten. He's a saint.

The argument that it COULD work is the grounded in what I've been laying out. It removes the religious objection, which is really the primary objection that exists in the US.

Ultimately, history will do whatever it does. I don't think that the Supreme Court will want to be holding the bag on this one. The era of that type of ruling is probably passed.

It's not random speculation, though it is speculation. I think you are underestimating the level of religious push-back that is brewing. The political climate is already bubbling with lots of emotion (see Tea Party and response to the Affordable Care Act) and there's already a lot of political divisiveness, and I think that if this gets shoved through it's not going to be pretty.

But I could be wrong.

Here's what you said:

You're basically saying that even if there's legal resolution, you're still not happy, and you want to "resolve the discriminatory symbolism" of the word. How is this not trying to impose something on religious people?

Because it's another step in the wrong direction. Later, it will be harder to do something compared to now to fix the underlying problem.

Long term gains vs. short term gains.

That's because you haven't let go of your own definition of marriage as being about love and commitment. Since this is a disagreement about definitions, and since you're not willing to let go of that, you're never going to see it as anything different.

See my response to asfasdf about the construction of the legal contract. The structures matter.

Correct. I'm going to wait for some sort of information or structure to what you are thinking that a civil union includes. I'm basically trying to make you actually deal in some form of detail rather than playing the blanket "harmful/immoral/disgusting/blah blah blah" game that you're playing. I'd be more inclined to answer if you simply left all that excessive rhetoric behind completely.

I didn't even know what doggg's views on gay marriage were....so I don't know how I had him pigeon-holed.

That is great, btw, that you stood up to homophobia, I hope I would do the same in that situation.

The reason is to allow religious freedom to remain fully intact while advancing a positive social agenda. I don't think the religious viewpoint will yield on its definition of marriage, and since religious freedoms are so highly valued by significant portions of the population, I think that it's not difficult to respect that while still accomplishing the desired outcome.

Probably because you believe that "for traditional marriage" implies "against gay marriage" implies "homophobic." And that he's "for traditional marriage."

When you started this thread, I thought you were going to flip this and drop the hammer that pro gay, immigration, affirmative action; basically all these un-Godly ideas, are all discriminating against us and ruining our country. That all these ideas extract value from our ....account.

But no, you actually are trying to make a way for them. Hmm. Not gonna work imo.