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My spouse and I have been together since 1979. We never thought about marriage or even that it mattered, but in 2008 right after we got married legally, he had a major bleedout on his brain that required emergancy hospitalization and surgury. Even though we had been married for almost a year, the hospital gave us a bad time, insisting on the presence of one of his sisters or a relative, they said they did not know how to deal with our marriage because of Prop 8. We realized that our durable power of attorney and domestic partnership papers had little clout and if he had died back then in 2008, I would have had an enormous tax bill for every single item we owned together, for the federal government due to DOMA did not recognize our marriage. We did not need marriage to affirm our relationship or love, we needed it for the protections that all committed couples should be allowed. Before we got married, we were as committed to each other as any other legally committed couple.
I knew two unmarried hetero 30-ish couples who each, in the same year, were in really bad traffic accidents. In each case, one member of the couple had severe brain damage. And in each case, the parents of the brain-damaged person, who did not approve of their child's life, saw the brain injury as a chance to control their child and override their child's choices.
That was the last year I ever put down marriage as an institution.
Many people still see marriage as a religious institution and not a government.
This is really antiquated.
You can have a marriage take on religious meaning in a religious institution if you so choose, but today many heterosexual couples get married without any involvement of any church or anything of the sort - and people like you still recognize their legal relationship status as "married", simply because one has a penis and the other a vagina.
Now take the same situation with two men and two women, and suddenly you feel the need to defend it as a religious institution. No one is saying that some Catholic church has to start marrying gays, but if heterosexuals can be married secularly with a certificate from city hall and a private ceremony, then there is no reason that gays can't do the same.
It isn't about churches, it is about equal access to the civil marriage benefits and protections. No church is required for any of that.
Have you ever asked yourself why we demanded our government provide "civil marriage benefits and protections?"We did not do it because we thought cohabitation between two adults was vital to the future of society, and we encourage more of it, or because love is swell and we really need to encourage more couples to love each other while engaged in a monogamous sexual relationship.
Have you ever asked yourself why we demanded our government provide "civil marriage benefits and protections?"We did not do it because we thought cohabitation between two adults was vital to the future of society, and we encourage more of it, or because love is swell and we really need to encourage more couples to love each other while engaged in a monogamous sexual relationship.
Then what is the reason, oh wise one?
To promote strong stable families? Same sex couples have families too.
Have you ever asked yourself why we demanded our government provide "civil marriage benefits and protections?"We did not do it because we thought cohabitation between two adults was vital to the future of society, and we encourage more of it, or because love is swell and we really need to encourage more couples to love each other while engaged in a monogamous sexual relationship.
What do you think those full 1049 benefits, rights and protections are about? Please do not mention any children, for not one single right out of those rights granted with a civil marriage license pertain to children or reproduction, which is moot anyway, for gays do also have children and straights are known to not have children and procreating is not required of or for marriage.
You think most gay couples are Jewish? What are YOU basing that on? Liberals are even bigger hypocrites. And people won't suddenly accept gay marriage just because it might be legal. People in Alberta, Canada still oppose it despite it being legal there.
Where on Earth did you get me saying most gay couples are Jewish?
And no, people won't accept gay marriage just because it's legal. They'll accept it because they have family and friends who are gay and want to see them marry the person they love, or they think it's the right thing to do.
At least there was one Circuit judge (Whichever is in charge of Michigan, Ohio, etc) who kept their states laws banning gay marriage.
And he's likely going to be overturned. He didn't follow the law. His legal arguments had no merit and have already been strike down by every other court. There is no valid legal argument against gay marriage. "I don't like it, because I'm a hateful bigot!" is not a valid legal argument, which is the only argument you guys have.
Have you ever asked yourself why we demanded our government provide "civil marriage benefits and protections?"We did not do it because we thought cohabitation between two adults was vital to the future of society, and we encourage more of it, or because love is swell and we really need to encourage more couples to love each other while engaged in a monogamous sexual relationship.
Marriage became a civil institution in Europe, because Protestants objected to the Catholic Church daring to call it a sacrament in the 16th Century. Civil marriage became a requirement in Western Europe. In England it was known as Common law marriage. The Puritans who came to America from England were content with common law marriage, and thus brought civil marriage to the United States where it has remained for all of our history.
Marriage did not become a government institution for the benefit of the family. It was a politically motivated decision by Martin Luther and the Protestants against the Catholic Church. Now, in recent years the government has added numerous benefits that do help families, but that's not why it was passed over to secular authorities.
Where on Earth did you get me saying most gay couples are Jewish?
And no, people won't accept gay marriage just because it's legal. They'll accept it because they have family and friends who are gay and want to see them marry the person they love, or they think it's the right thing to do.
That is how my mom came to accept interracial marriage, my ex sister in law that my Mom loved dearly remarried a black man and had a beautiful daughter that my mom babysat for. Sometime about then my Mom stopped being against interracial marriage, prior to that she used to state that if any of us kids married a black person, that she would disown us. This was around 1975. She is my gay older brother's first attempt at having a straight marriage. He has been married twice to women, maybe the next one will be to his boyfriend he lives with now.
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