Same Sex Marriage Opinions Wanted

[NomoBreaks]

I guess anyone may reply, but...

Attention Gay Persons:

I want you to be happy. I want justice for you. I believe in equality.

Frankly, I have grown weary of the debate. I wish there were no debate. I would be happy to mind my own business and let you mind yours.

Please educate me. Even as a New Yorker, where gay folks are generally ignored as equally as any other person, a consensus is difficult to determine.

So tell me. What is it you want?

How can we as a nation resolve this issue so gays don't have to stand in the rain at City Hall screaming for justice and I don't have to get annoyed by the huge traffic jam it causes?

What is the true nature of the conflict?

The media would have me believe that gays are unwilling to compromise and only full and equal status using the word marriage would satisfy them.

Is that true?

Is not the battle about civil rights?

If gays could get full and equal treatment regarding taxes, insurance benefits, medical issue rights, etc. and everything married hetero couples get, would they be willing to concede to a different nomenclature?

Personally, I think that true love is a tough thing to find in the world. Anyone lucky enough to find love should be allowed to express it freely without judgement of the source or gender of those involved.

Your thoughts are most welcomed. If you are gay but secretly, you may respond by PM.

Thanks.

[bertha katzenengel]

1. I'm gay. Out of the closet since age 30 (now 42).

What do I want? Full equality. Nothing more nor less.

How to resolve it? See first answer. It's very simple. Remove all roadblocks to our receiving marriage licenses. Not civil union licenses. MARRIAGE. AT all city halls across the country.

What is the true nature of the conflict? This is subjective, but I'd say it's 1. Homophobia (not fear of gays but MISUNDERSTANDING of the fact that we are NO DIFFERENT from straights), 2. the religious right's closed minds.

Unwilling to compromise? Absolutely and without discussion. Only full marriage rights = EQUALITY. Separate but equal is NOT equal -- nor is it constitutional.

Yes. The battle is completely about civil rights.

No, I will not concede to calling it anything but marriage, for two reasons: 1. It IS a marriage, and 2. there is no reason to call it anything else.

Love IS a hard thing to find. Being gay doesn't mean we don't find it at all. Being gay doesn't mean we don't want to make it permanent. Being gay does not mean we are incapable of saying "til death do us part."

[Warpy]

10. The point is the specific nature of the marriage contract

and that's what it is once you strip away the hearts and flowers and religious baggage: a contract that appoints another person as a family member, superseding all blood ties.

That carries with it a lot of things that can't be handled by the contract law we have outside of marriage, like visitation rights in the hospital (which are accorded to anyone the highest level blood relation OR SPOUSE has allowed) and claiming a loved one's body for burial.

These are not small rights, as any nurse who has cared for a gay patient with a homophobic family can tell you (Our Johnny would have settled down with a nice girl if it hadn't been for THAT MAN--true statement). I have put my job on the line many times by calling a partner and sneaking him in outside visiting hours.

THAT is why gays want marriage, or a reasonable alternative that carries the same rights and privileges.

I honestly don't care who gets married, as long as it's not me, and find the current debate about it using exactly the same language as the Jim Crow south used against interracial marriage. I know. I was there.

[Misunderestimator]

15. Well put, Bertha.

:thumbsup: :hi:

[tofubo]

20. one of the best obervations about the subject i've read

http://kinkylibrarian.blogspot.com/2005/04/what-daniel-did.html

it's a good article, too long to reprint here, just go and read

[Misunderestimator]

21. Daniel (the author of that) posted on DU yesterday about it:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=221x10125#10245

[freestyle]

24. Thanks Bertha. We want EQUALITY! n/t

[Liberal Veteran]

2. We want exactly the same things heterosexuals want.

No more, no less.

[cheezus]

5. you want to have intercourse with people of the opposite sex?

sorry. i couldn't help myself

again. sorry

[Siyahamba]

3. Civil Unions won't work

Not since states have started adding to their constitutions that benefits of marriage are only for married couples, excluding all "similar unions."

[Beetwasher]

4. You're A New Yorker and You Find Consensus Here Difficult To Determine?

Are you sure you're a New Yorker? :shrug:

I've yet to meet a single New Yorker who is AGAINST gay marriage. Just about anyone I know says "It's none of my fucking business who anyone marries, why shouldn't gays be just as miserable as anyone else"

[BOSSHOG]

6. "True Nature of the conflict?"

People who hate in the name of Jesus Christ. I served in the Navy for 24 years supporting and defending the Constitution, not the bible. Nowhere in that document does it define marriage or ban people of the same sex from getting married. Why else would religious zealots need to amend it? I've got 50 years on this earth, 31 of them happily married and never have I seen or heard or read where a homosexual wants anything more from the constitution than what I have. The wants of homosexuals is not the problem, the hate from those who say they are christian is the problem.

[Rockholm]

23. Thank you BOSSHOG.

Great Post.

[Skittles]

32. isn't BOSSHOG a sweetie pie?

his wife is so freaking lucky :)

[progressiveboston]

7. The answer is quite simple

We want to be treated like any heterosexual citizen in this country with the exact same rights, and responsibilities. Civil Unions are a step in the right direction, however, they do not confer the rights that marriage does at least on a Federal level. Civil Unions also are a convenient loop hole for the Evil Galactic Empire in Washington to ignore those relationships, and civil unions are not transferable from state to state like a marriage is.

Anything less than full equal rights is unacceptable.

Now if the government was to get out of the marriage benefits altogether and issue civil unions to all citizens with the same rights and responsibilities as marriage, and left marriage to the churches, I'd be open to that.

[sandnsea]

12. It'll have to be that way

Some sort of Partnering License. Who performs the partnering ceremony will have to be left open. The government can't tell churches who to marry. My daughter actually preferred the idea of a partnering license because she wasn't sure she liked the whole religious marriage thing anyway. She ended up with a minister, but told him to keep the prayer stuff short! Damned liberal heretics!

[MuseRider]

8. Not gay but work on these issues

and I would say there should be no compromise. Equal is equal and that is simply all there is to it. To call it something else it to say it is different even if it is the same legally it still sets the community up as second class citizens. I follow the lead of the people this directly affects and they are absolute about this.

Equal rights. EQUAL rights. Why should anyone ever have to compromise on this?

[MsUnderstood]

9. I want to not have to beg for equality

When my partner of 13 years changed jobs in October, I paid $1000 for COBRA benefits. We could afford it; she was getting a pay raise and I didn't want to make waves at my job (that I have had for 5 years as an out lesbian).

When my partner lost her job in February, I had to go to my boss, my Hr Admin, and my General Manager with hat in hand, pride in the trash can, and beg them to grant domestic partnership benefits so I could give her health insurance.

In California, the laws changed in Jan 1 so that INSURANCES were required to provide DP benefits to companies (but companies were not required to pass those benefits on-that happens next year).

You are gonna hear lots of stories just like mine--where we live a normal life until something bad happens and then our relationship comes up to make our life harder.

I want people to recognize that the choice that is being made is not by me--being gay is something I have always been--it is by the prejudices of our society who think they are better because the have a different relationship that is more common (but not more normal).

Legally and Politically? I don't care if you call it marrage, domestic partnership, civil union, fish and chips, but give me the same rights as you have. Let me file my taxes with my partner, let me make choices for her when needed, let me get Social security benefits, let me have the 1400 rights that you get and I'll sit down and go back to being normal.

Because my relationship is more normal, stable, happy than many straight couples around us. The only diffrence is the privledges the straights enjoy and I don't.

[MadHound]

11. Hell, I'm straight, and I can tell you the answer.

To be allowed the full rights and privleges that any other person in this country receives. The right to marry whoever they want, the right to hold any job they want(including the military), the right to be free from discrimination in this country, the right to live without fear, the right to real justice if their rights are violated. They want they same things that you and I and everybody else in this country wants, to be themselves and not be persecuted for it. They want to be first class citizens in the land of the free. Real simple, eh?

[Behind the Aegis]

13. All good points

I think the above posts are what we are looking for: equal rights, no more, no less!

We want: federal rights, our marriage to be recognized from state to state, SS benefits (should Shrub not destroy that program), and the other "perks" that come with a legally recognized relationship. Personally, I don't care what it is called, as long as I get the same rights and benefits.

[UdoKier]

14. Favor gay marriage in principal, but place it as a low priority.

Unbelievable progress has been made in gay rights and acceptance in only the last 25 years.

In that same period, the working class and much of the middle class has been decimated, and the media has become the exclusive mouthpiece of giant corporations.

I'm more urgently concerned that we save working people from wage slavery or even homelessness, if we are ever to have any hope of a base of voters who would even care about gay rights in the first place.

In other words, I think that people who are poor and powerless are more likely to either not vote, or to be receptive the GOP propaganda bullshit.

[readmoreoften]

30. Try being poor or working class and gay

or gay and a person of color. Not all GLBT people are wealthy and male like they are on TV. Most gay people are like most straight people, struggling with economic issues. You can't separate working class rights from rights for GLBT people. 40% of the homeless children in NY are GLBT.

Your comment "Unbelievable progress has been made in gay rights and acceptance in only the last 25 years" is unfortunately written in a passive verb tense, as if it just 'happened.' GLBT people and organizations like PFLAG are directly (and pretty much ONLY) responsible for any progress made. It didn't just happen. It was fought for and earned by us. The whole idea that straight progressives fight for us is an extrememly recent phenomenon.

If you stop thinking about GLBT people as Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and start thinking in terms of Sakia Gunn being stabbed to death in Newark for being a 17 year old lesbian, or Rawshawn Brazill being dismembered and having pieces of his body found along the A subway line, or even HIV+ homeless gay veterans, or trans people who can't even get a job because their papers don't match their physical appearance. Or because City Hall has been 'reviewing' the driver's licenses of transpeople. This is why GLBT people are still screaming in front of city hall and blocking traffic. (Sorry for the inconvenience.)

Marriage is one way that all Americans (including working class Americans) delegate authority in their lives. It is a rite of passage that gives you the I'm-A-Grown-Up lapel pin so that the mommy and daddy you were born with (but might not get along with) don't get to make all your adult decisions. Marriage is a form of legal protection.

I think that "Marriage" has become a buzz word for admitting that GLBT people have rights AT ALL. There are other protections even more important to me. ENDA (the employment non-discrimination act) is one. There are many. I support them all.

[Lexingtonian]

16. What you're missing is

a real picture of the people who think it's absolutely important to oppose gay marriage. Until you've seen the Phelps clan or the like on the streets and personally heard the anti side's most 'respectible' leaders talk it's easy to imagine (and the media bias provides the images) that it's a debate between slightly whacky people, of which the gay community is substantially more wierd and disruptive and unaesthetic.

The more involvement you get with the issue and the people and the debate, the more you get a picture of the barbarism and ugliness that really defines the 'conservatives' and 'traditionalists' who are the anti activists. The veneer and benefit of the doubt you give them just gets ripped up by these people; on the one hand they're horribly pathetic in their Kmart and Sears clothing, chubbiness, bad hair, Bible thumping, and misspelled signage. But their hatred just burns through and is horrifying, their alignment with power and prejudice and vanity against justice and charity and reason just becomes more obscene every time you encounter it. They may not really hate gay people so much, it's the way the world isn't what they imagine and desire it to be and the way it offends their vanity that is frightening- these are people who are willing to destroy society because they hate the way it is and is changing, ruining the privilege structure of society they feel they need very badly to favor otherwise identity-lacking and distinctionless folk like themselves. There's a real Heart Of Darkness moment, a real horrifying but probably inevitable discovery that these people have no actual morality, no inner limits that are genuine, are abominably twisted human beings who don't believe in inherent human dignity in the least, that lies at the end of the road of figuring out who they really are.

This isn't- to me- a fight about technicalities of what is and isn't marriage, or finicky vain theories about social sanction and convenience and terminology. In the end a true marriage is not created by or contingent on the pretenses or approval or disapproval of people, it is something that the couple creates or discovers or permits between them that amounts to greater completion of their lives. The pieces of paper and ceremonies and pious words involved do not change the inherent truth of the situation- either such a relationship exists, or it doesn't. The rest is, to be blunt and crude, property arrangements. The anti-ssm people reject the possibility that gay people have the sovereignty of spirit and competence to discern what constitutes marriage while people like themselves, ironically, do. They even argue, via the fact that gay couples cannot procreate with each other (yet), that one property aspect of the marriage agreement exceeds in importance all spiritual aspects. The claim the anti side represents is, in crudest form, that gay people functionally have no souls. (In fact, all the evidence amounts to that they believe that gay people are possessed by demons.) While it has to be admitted that there are immoralistic and sociopathic gay people, and perhaps a larger proportion than in society at large due to the rejection-defined social environment in which gay people have had live, the existence of even a single gay couple that isn't so means- in the eyes of civilized people- that the group cannot be barred.

Gay marriage is, as I see it, simply one of the present 3 or 4 principal fronts in American society in the war about privilege and deprivation, between barbarism and civilization- between the primacy of power/privilege and the primacy of justice and human dignity.

That's why it matters.

[libertypirate]

17. I am willing to sacrifice my marriage so that people can be happy...

Let religion have their word "Marriage". I don't need to be selfish about a word; it's just a stupid word. It doesn't define or even relate the meaning of my wife, it's a generic label, let them have it.

I was married via a civil union ceremony not at a church, but at a historic landmark. It was a beautiful day and I don't need a God or my country telling me or any other American the value of individual love. Love is a sacred emotion that we should all respect, I am not even religious and I know that if you don't respect love you don't respect Jesus. Especially love that you refuse to even try to understand.

Besides it won't stop people from telling others they are married.

[Misunderestimator]

18. You seem to concentrate on the importance of the word "marriage" in a way

that makes me cringe. Who on earth is saying that the word is important? Marriage is what it is, and with it come all the rights and privileges that we don't get without it. Therefore, marriage should be a privilege for everyone, gay or straight, or a privilege for no one. Has nothing to do with a word at all.

[FlaGranny]

19. I'm certainly not gay

as a FlaGranny, but what is it about full and equal rights that doesn't make sense to people? Every single person, in every single country, in the whole wide world, should have full and equal rights in every way. If that were the case, these silly discussions would be moot. The only problem, as I see it, is that the world is full of people who think that the rights of others are only legitimate if they agree with their own privately-held beliefs. "You have full freedom as long as you do as I say." Hmmmm.

[Rockholm]

22. Sending my taxes in today was hard.

My Massachusetts return was done as married. My federal return was sent in as single. Separate and NOT EQUAL. End of story.

[Warren DeMontague]

25. I'm straight, but I would wager that not being tied to a fence in Wyoming

would be a good start.

Our gay friends have just as much right to the joys (and misery- ouch! -just kidding, honey) of marriage as we straight folk do. I don't see what the problem is. If a same-sex couple wants to get married, it's not my business, unless they choose to invite me and tell me where they're registered.

I think this overweening idea- in this country- that we have to be in everyone ELSE'S business- and have this NEED to tell other adults how to live their lives- is one of the biggest mental illnesses (along with fear, greed, vapid celebrity worship, and an inability to critically think) affecting the collective American mind. For sure, the religious right are the worst offenders, but I see the behavior mirrored by anti-drug crusaders, anti-porn crusaders, anti-meat eating crusaders (and no, I'm not talking about fighting for more humane and ecologically responsible farming and animal use), anti-fill in the blank crusaders, pretty much everyone who wants to micro-manage the lives and personal choices of their fellow citizens.

For example, I think SUVs and Hummers are obnoxious, I don't think the government should be giving tax breaks for them, I do think the auto industry does have a responsibility to meet better fuel efficiency standards... but I don't think anyone should pass a LAW saying what people can waste their money on-- just don't expect me to shed a whole lotta tears for you at the pump when gas hits $4 a gallon.

I know, "personal liberty"- that's so passe.

[NomoBreaks]

26. REVISED 04/15 with additional comments

Revised with additional comments.

Attention Gay Persons:

I want you to be happy. I want justice for you. I believe in equality.
(and have always defended everyone's right to equality)

Frankly, I have grown weary of the debate. I wish there were no debate. I would be happy to mind my own business and let you mind yours.
(a good policy on many issues I think)

Please educate me. Even as a New Yorker, where gay folks are generally ignored as equally as any other person, a consensus is difficult to determine.
(on either side)

So tell me. What is it you want?
(I'm not pigeonholing, I'm asking)

How can we as a nation
(I never said anything about civil unions and states rights I said as a nation)
resolve this issue so gays don't have to stand in the rain at City Hall screaming for justice and I don't have to get annoyed by the huge traffic jam it causes?

What is the true nature of the conflict?
(economic or social or both?)

The media would have me believe that gays are unwilling to compromise and only full and equal status using the word marriage would satisfy them.

Is that true?
(apparently)

Is not the battle about civil rights?
(The gay rights issue is relatively young as compared to many others. Years, decades, even centuries younger. Give it time.)

If gays (NATIONALLY) could get full and equal treatment regarding taxes, insurance benefits, medical issue rights, etc. and everything married hetero couples get,
(This part was also missed by some)

would they be willing to concede to a different nomenclature?(again, nope)

(I think there is validity in that the all or nothing approach may be too much too quickly. Small steps also lead down the road and this is a big change for society)

Personally, I think that true love is a tough thing to find in the world. Anyone lucky enough to find love should be allowed to express it freely without judgement of the source or gender of those involved.
(somebody rewrote my quote adding violins and flowers and was lauded for their sensitivity. That bummed me out. WTF is up with that? Or am I being too sensitive? :P)

Your thoughts are most welcomed. If you are gay but secretly, you may respond by PM.

Thanks,
NOMO

[UncleSepp]

27. My read on your post

I see this:

"I don't get why gay people can't just take a civil union or something that's like marriage but called something else. I'm all for civil rights as long as I don't have to get stuck in traffic for them to happen."

stated in the form of a question.

I can see that you're sincerely interested, and that you'd probably rather that it was already so that people of whatever sex could love and marry people of whatever sex if they are so lucky as to have found someone to love. That's beautiful. It seems that fighting and struggle makes you uncomfortable, and the way in which some of the fighting and struggle is done makes you inconvenienced.

Next time you're sitting in that traffic jam, think about the people who are denied the rights of marriage. People who can't see their partners of many years in the hospital, can't make medical decisions for them, aren't defined as family in anyone's book. Is that a bigger inconvenience than being stuck in traffic?

Think about every contract you've ever signed or form you've ever filled where marital status is asked. The categories are Single, Married, Separated, Divorced, sometimes Other. Imagine that you are married to a person of the same sex as you. Now imagine having to check the Other box if it exists, or the Single box. Does that make you equally as married as someone who can just check the Married box?

On the other side, imagine you have to give that form to someone else to sign. Are you going to reprint it to include a special word for non marriage marriages? What word would it be? "Civil Union"? How many straight couples will go for a "Civil Union" if it is indeed exactly like marriage but called something else? It may as well say "Gay Union". Does the form also need to include "Separated - from a Gay Union", "Divorced - from a Gay Union"? Imagine every contract containing the word "spouse", for example, a contract to provide insurance services or even a membership at a gym. Will you rewrite all your contracts, if you are an insurance company, to say "Spouse or gay union partner"? If you do, how much will it cost? If you don't, are partners in a gay union really covered under your contract?

Now imagine again that you are filling out the form that says "Marriage Status". Do you want to come out to everyone who looks at that form because you've circled the "Gay Union" word?

Think about those things a bit the next time you're sitting in your car in a traffic jam caused by people fighting for justice. It might give you some perspective on why the word is important, and why the fight is important.

[NomoBreaks]

28. The "Traffic Jam" comment was

perhaps poor use of metaphor.

The allusion is that I wish gays didnt have to fight for such a basic right, and that I didnt have to be involved in it at all, or even that the issue need be an issue whatsoever.

Thanks for noticing I actually care about the happiness of others no matter what it is that makes them happy.

[readmoreoften]

31. civil union/ marriage isn't a semantic issue

The 'sanctity of marriage' laws flourishing across the nation overturn civil unions because they are 'not marriage'. Without the label 'marriage' our unions have no legal teeth and will be overturned.

Oh, and talk about inconvenience! My partner has a neck injury. The doctor wouldn't allow anyone else to pick up her prescription (except for a family member) so I had to take the bus with her across town (with her neck injury) and walk her to the doctor's so she could claim her piece of paper to take to the pharmacy. If I was her spouse, I could get all that done for her and not have to walk around Manhattan with my arm in front of her protectively so that people didn't bump into her and further injure her neck.

That's one example.

[PowerToThePeople]

29. Equal Rights

That is what everyone deserves. If the state give "marriages" then the need to give same sex couples the same option. No further discussion needed.

The "best" solution to this issues would be to have the state step completely out of marriage and only give civil unions. Let the religious people keep marriages at church. But the state would only recognize the state unions.

And if the religious wrong still get up in a stink over this.. well, to quote many right wingers "if you don't like it, leave!"

[Catherine Vincent]

33. "If you are gay but secretly, you may respond by PM."

Then it wouldn't be a secret.:-)