Gay Marrage

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I'm a little curious here1/ If your a "mod , please don't say "hasn't there been a whole thread on this subject ?"2/If you are are opposed to same sex unions, can you let me know what sort of detrimental effect these unions would have on your lives?3/If you are in my position, am I doing the right thing....in that if I was straight ,I may have not got married anyway?Do I really need to make a political statement?I've got a bit inspired by.....This StoryAnd....On June 19th 2006 I married my boyfriend of two years, Richard, in a Civil Partnership ceremony in London.I can honestly say it was the happiest day of my life.I feel lucky to live in an era where my relationship can be considered legally legitimate and I commend the UK Government for embracing this very basic Civil Liberty.I'm proud of who I am, and after what felt like an eternity, I'm finally in a place where my heart is secure and content. And I can finally make sense of all of the searching.I still maintain the belief that families and relationships are not commodities to be sold off for public consumption. In this regard, I am and will continue to be a public person with a private life. I have always written songs about human relationships and our journey in life. I've never felt the need to differentiate or speak to a specific part of society. This hasn't changed. I will continue to write songs for everybody and hope that the feelings and thoughts I sing about are universal. Today, as I get on a plane to return to London, my head will be filled with all the future possibilities that I hope to explore musically. To the people who buy my records, come to my shows and demonstrate on a daily basis their love and support for me and what I do: thank you.Your overwhelming message to me lately seems to be that you are just glad that I am happy. For this, I am eternally grateful. To my Mum, Dad, Sister and Brother - thanks for always being so cool and loving me unconditionally.With love and respect alwaysDarren HayesSo....What ya'all reckon?

Sorry......
URL for 1st item will need a cut'n'paste for whole link

We can not discuss this with out making a political statement.So to answer Ill have to make some politics...>>2/If you are are opposed to same sex unions, can you let me know what sort of detrimental effect these unions would have on your lives?I have my left nut riding ona bet that noone can turn in a single legitimat concern. It only affects the two gay fpeople who get married. Who the fuck has the right to tell someone else who they ca be happy with? So long as some guy sint after me to sex him up or marry him, its none of my business who the hell he marries, its noone elses either, aside form whom ever it is he ends up with.3/If you are in my position, am I doing the right thing....in that if I was straight ,I may have not got married anyway?Lots of straight people dont get married, I bet if it were all made nice and legal there would be alot of gay people who didnt get married either.

I lived in the Boston area a few years ago when same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts. Before that, civil unions were made legal in Vermont. So far, the Earth hasn't opened up and swallowed those places, and God keeps visiting his wrath (in the form of hurricanes) on the conservative South, which is hostile toward legally recognizing homosexual unions.In my opinion, the government shouldn't be involved in the intuition called marriage. They should sanction civil unions, which would confer the legal rights currently enjoyed by married people. If people want a religious (or whatever) marriage ceremony, that's fine. But the religious and legal aspects need to be disentangled.It's ridiculous that a same-sex couple that's been together for 40 years still can't have all the rights of a married couple, even after signing a big pile of papers to simulate what a marriage license automatically confers.

I think what I really want is equality under the laws of the land. I met a guy in Sydney a couple of years back who'd been with the b/f for like 13 yrs, and he lost the family home when the will was contested

Not at least allowing civil unions between same-sex partners is cruel and pointless. Some people in the U.S. think that gay marriage "threatens the family", but I've never seen a sensible argument in support of that idea. In the U.S., it is largely the fundamentalist political wing that obstructs progressive ideas like same sex marriages or unions. Unfortunately, that political wing has outsize political power, since they care a lot about their pet issues, and the folks in opposition are not as dedicated.

Nicely said Steve, the irony being how far our prime minister is up your presidents arse hahaSorry......I keep forgetting John Howard is on the bottom

It takes Blair and Howard to make a Bush sandwich.

Does that make Rumsfield and Chaney a side dish?

Hope I didn;t start it guys, but if you live with this every day of your whole damn life, the jokes get a bit thin after a while

Cheney has a lesbian daughter, and is not in favor of a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage (just such a thing recently missed by a hair's breadth passing the U.S. Senate by the required two-thirds margin).

I look fwd to seeing a response from from my 2 most respected mods on here ...... eddie n angel

and not forgeting radeck1

Darren, i think its wonderful, my closest friends are a female gay couple, and we are planning a handfasting for them, then a civil marriage, which is what i had, even though i was marrying a man i didn't want a religous ceremony. Everyone should be able to marry the person who they love, no matter what gender they are. Its' been too long in coming in my opinion. And congratulations by the way cuddles

im for gay marrage.civil union has resently become allowed here for gay couples and i think they should allow gay marrage cuz its dumb to tell ppl who theyre aloud to love and spend their life with. if i was gay id want to b able 2 marry my partner.

A marriage is a union between a man and a woman. Period. Our government decided to recognize this union that existed thousands of years before this country did. Now some folks think it's OK to change the definition of a marriage? Well...marriage may not mean anything to them, but it does to me and a whole lot of other people. To make a very long story short, you need a left shoe and a right shoe for marriage...not two left or two right shoes. If gay people want to have a civil union that's fine with me...just don't try and call it a marriage because it's not.

Why does it have to be a man and woman?

Ohh you hit the trigger my friend...First off don’t you dare try and compare love to shoes! Love is the most genuine, pure thing in life and you want to compare left shoe and right shoe? Love has no exceptions or rules.How does it affect you in any way if two guys or two women get married? It doesn’t affect your life or your belief in any way. Only people it affects are the two people involved, which should be the only people to worry about the ceremony. If religious people want to say it’s again god, fine believe that if you wish, but let the two people WHO LOVE EACH OTHER worry about that when judgment day comes.As for the definition of marriage, straight people already ruined that so we couldn’t do much worse. One study I read, 50% of marriages now end in divorce and you think straight people are honoring the sanctity of marriage?>If gay people want to have a civil union that's fine with me...just don't try and call it a marriage because it's not.Why not call it marriage? It would be marriage whether it’s called marriage or a union so why not just call it marriage?? Two people who love each other and want to create a family together is marriage. To be honest marriage is just a word, it’s the people in the marriage that makes it worthwhile. Marriage shouldn’t be defined as something between a man and a woman but instead defined as two people who love each other, regardless of gender because THAT is what’s important; two people that love each other. Problem is its people like you that keep this country from moving forward and giving true equality to everyone. Gay people are NOT any different from straight people except the fact they love someone of the same gender. Do you want to be known as a nation that discriminates people on who they love? Criticize people for loving? It’s preposterous. People need to get their heads out of their self righteous asses and start seeing people for WHO they are, not WHAT they are.

Do you mean an Austrian style wedding? With the church and the white dress and all the stuff that just wastes money?

Marriage is more than just love...so much more. If you understood what marriage was in its entirety, you wouldn't even be arguing with me about it...and you'd understand the whole shoe analogy thing too.Marriage is defined as being between man and woman...it encompasses the kind of relationship, the roles and responsibilities, and the creation of family. Gay folks don't have any natural way of creating a family, and a gay couple isn't going to be able to provide the gender-specific role models that a husband/wife team can. What you say is true, there are a lot of straight people who do not honor the sanctity of marriage...but do you really want to go there? It's my understanding that gay men have a harder time sticking to one partner than straight folks (according to stats)...not that I necessarily mean you. Hey...you're the one who brought the straight vs gay issue up, not me.As for equality, there is no such thing as true equality...a man is a man and a woman is a woman. Their brains and bodies function differently. Marriage was designed the way it was in recognition of this by God. Yep...that's right. This government has nothing to do with defining marriage...they just chose to recognize it. Maybe when folks understand that equal rights and equality are not the same thing, perhaps we'll have less jumping up and down over this issue. If you want to focus on having equal rights, that's fine. You have the right to go create your own kind of civil union, have the ceremony any way you want, get the government to recognize it and receive all the tax benefits that go along with it. But it will never be a marriage no matter what you say or do, or what happens down the road...you can't change the meaning of the word "marriage" just to suit your desires. Any attempt to do that will achieve nothing except diminishing for straight folks what a marriage is. Why would you want to do that? Why practicing homosexuals would want a part of something Christian is beyond me, anyway. But as for religious folks saying it's against God, it really isn't because it's not really a marriage...so that's a non-issue.I hope this answers the question as to “why not call it a marriage”.