The Same People

If you are str8, ask yourself this question...Do you choose to be attracted to the opposite sex? Or is it innately a part of who you are? The answer is...NO, you do not make that choice. Your sexuality is not something you make a choice about. It is who you are. Why would it be different for gay people? Your sexuality is not a choice. Why would someone make the choice to make their life more difficult. Who does that? Educated people understand this rationale.

The Gold Standard: One man and one woman freely and totally committed to each other as companions for life. That's marriage in it's pure, unadulterated (pun intended) form.

She nailed so many points that I dont know which to remark on. She is right about the young generation- the 15 to 30 yr olds really dont care if gays marry. They've watched their parents and those of their freinds, divorce. Is that "sanctity of marriage"? (And you can't blame the gays for the 55% divorce rate.) Whether or not you agree, the slight majority cannot discriminate against the minority; discrimination wasn't right against women and blacks in the 40's, 50's and 60's and its remains wrong today. Personally can't wait to see what the Bible clan does once gay marriage is legal: feed the hungry? shelter the homeless? adopt unwanted babies? I think that's more in line with God's wishes. (Or maybe they'll finally deal with their own repressed sexual feelings!) If you don't like gay marriage --don't have one.

Has anyone speaking about the history of marriage actually looked into the glorious history of marriage? Here are a few points:
1) Marriage was first a union when two families decided their children would be married. Resistance was met with disowning or violence.
2) Marriage then became a tool to seal property deals and the woman was just another piece of property.
3) Still along the lines of women being property, in the European middle ages, if a woman was rape, the person that raped her had the option of paying for his crime or marrying her. She still didn't get a choice.
4) People like to bring up marriage as part of religion, but where is it said that it is? For the longest time (since the beginning of man) marriage has been a civil/social not religion union. If you doubt this, where is the rules on HOW to get married in your books of faith? Not that part about "Obey your husband", but the part that says what should happen in a wedding to make it legit for God.

Some say that without comsumation, a marriage can't happen. That's not in the good book either, but if that's the case, was Mary ever married if she never consumated?

Marriage evolves for the better and history has proven that. This is just another better step in treating all consenting ADULTS with the same RIGHTS as any other consenting Adult.

For those of you idiots that say this is the first step to man on beast marriage ... how can a animal consent and then say their vows as required by law?

I???m sorry to learn that traditional marriage is so frail, so weak and ill as to be genuinely threatened by gay marriage. How did it become so terribly puny? Could it be because heterosexuals have abused it, dragged it roughshod through court rooms, secret bedrooms and generations of conscious neglect? Because they took it for granted and starved it to death? Perhaps.

I???m sorry to learn that traditional marriage is so frail, so weak and ill as to be genuinely threatened by gay marriage. How did it become so terribly puny? Could it be because heterosexuals have abused it, dragged it roughshod through court rooms, secret bedrooms and generations of conscious neglect? Because they took it for granted and starved it to death? Perhaps.

The only real answer in this debate is for all religious ceremonies to be named marriage and all legal ceremonies to be named civil union. Individual religions can make their own rules and people will join the church of their preference. But, gender should play no role in a civil union and all existing marriages should be reclassified as civil unions. Church and State are separate entities and must remain so in the USA.

I just have a few questions.... What does God have to do with this? Even if A God has something to do with what should and should not be, what makes you believe that this God has to be YOUR God.

Marriage was crap from the beginnings. It was when groups of parents forced their kids to be together and not give them any choice. Then it became a means to close property deals.

Finally it evolved, in English middle ages, to something so nice that if you raped a girl, you didn't have to go to jail if you married her. Oh and she still had no choice on the matter.

It took some time for marriage to get to where it is now, but that doesn't mean that it can't continue to evolve into something better.

One last thing ... marriage was created by civil laws and not created by religious ones. Civil laws that specifically define what marriage is and has been updated over time. Where in your books of your Gods does it define marriage other than "Women need to do what he says".

Does it say how the ceremony should take place? Does it say how long the marriage should be for? Or do you just assume thing and ignore what you don't like as common with people of faith?

Whether you believe it or not, she is spot on. The vast majority of the younger generation (15 to 30 yr olds) really dont care if gays marry. Most of their parents, and those of their friends, have divorced. There hasn't been a "sanctity of marriage" for 20 years. (And the gays had nothing to do with it!) And just because a small vocal group says uses the Bible (to hide their own mixed up sexual disires) to preach discrimination, it doesn't change the fact that discrimination is wrong. It was wrong against blacks and against women, and its wrong against gays, regardless of what the small majority think. Anna makes so many great points, I go on for an hour. I just wonder when gay marriage gets legalized, what will the so called christian's do? Help the hungry? Feed the homeless? Preach peace? Wow- the world will be a better place when they really hunker down and do gods work.

i've been pining for one of those KitchenAid mixers for years! :-)
For a long while now, my partner and I have been giving away fabulous wedding gifts to our marrying straight friends...and at last, we are going to join the (small) ranks of legally bound gay couples here in Massachusetts. Yay!
We've been together for over 7 years, love each other tremendously, are functional, tax-paying members of society who contribute to our community & intend to raise a well-respected family together.
Now I just need to think of some other wonderful gift ideas besides that mixer...