Re question perham / 6721 Because homosexual partnerships and marraiges are not legitimate in the eyes of society( deviant) and therfore not legitimate in regards to health insurance or other benefits. The NC amendment does not seem to discriminate between homosexual or hetrosexual partnerships in this regard. The bigotry shown towards people of faith in previous posts seems to be much more pervasive than any bigotry relating to homosexuals in previous posts. I do not agree with hospital visitation restrictions as this would seem to infringe on freedom of association.
It would appear the NC electorate did not want to pay the benefits for partnerships the people deemed not legitimate. (homosexual & hetrosexual) Not sure how to address the religous bigotry you seem to try to inject in each post as I don't know how it applies here.
Benefits for marriage, such as taxes, health benefits, etc were designed to reward a stable marriage. Studies have shown that, in a functioning, stable marriage, that both the parents and their children tend to perform better in various aspects of their lives and provide more back into society. Adults tend to be stable and efficient workers in the workplace, children perform better in school, grow up better behaved. People live longer, take fewer dangerous risks, have lower depression rates and higher happiness rates, and are healthier in general. While this is "in general", we recognize there are exceptions. On the other side of the coin, gay partners tend to be more promiscuous, and tend to be far less monogamous. While there may be a few exceptions where partners truly are committed to each other, the greater majority of these partnerships tend to be less stable. A properly functioning marriage is a great benefit to society as a whole. The real shame of the matter is that current culture has made it acceptable for people to divorce or re-marry. To me, divorce is an excuse to not working out your issues. There is no such thing as "irreconcilable differences" or whatever babble lawyers throw out as reasoning for divorces. It's too easy to say "I give up". You harm both yourselves in the midst of the proceedings, and you harm your children, who don't understand why Mom and Dad can't work things out and more often than not, needlessly carry burdens on themselves. Marriage was designed to last for life. This is why conservatives and evangelicals support hetero-sexual marriage and unions. While they/we are not perfect ourselves, we recognize success rates are higher in this norm. If these views makes you believe me/us to be bigoted or ignorant, i think you need to reevaluate your definition of those words, rather than resort to name calling when someone disagrees with you.
Since gays have, for the most part, not been able to marry, and where they can marry, it's been very recently, your argument has little to no relevance to permanent unions between gays, aka marriage. You might as well talk about heteros dating. Of course there are promiscuous gays, but we're talking about the subset who wish to marry. Why make that more difficult? All the data you cited (ok, not data and not cited...) speak of strengthening the family. Gay families deserve the same support.
There is usually a post so breathtaking in its, well, let's say wrongness, that it commands special review. Here is today's such post:
Based on your boasts and self congratulatory posts, you think Gay Marriage is a Political Issue and split between the right and left. Righties are against it and Lefties are for it? If you believe it is a partisian issue then how did Gay Marriage in 2008 get defeated by 600,000 votes, yet Obama won the election by 3,000,000 in California. How do you explain that from the left point of view? I believe you said that the Mormon money bought the election. That would be 3.6 million votes. Is that really your explanation? So I am to then to believe by your logic that the Mormon religion can swing that many votes, tells me that Obama is in real trouble. Your reasoning has no substance, please try again. 3.6 Million swing in votes? Gay Marriage is not a Partisian issue. The guy that sits next to me, African American Harvard Graduate, even said that it is not a political issue for him, he said as soon as gays stop trying to make it a Civil Rights issue and prove they are born that way, he will consider it, other than that, if put in front of him, he will vote against. I have given you an election from a liberal state, a statement from a life long democrat/liberal, is Gay Marriage a partisian issue or a liberal agenda item trying to divide this country?
I think for some including myself that it comes down to a thought that I often have when thinking about this. Do I think my marriage with my wife and my children and our houehold environemnt is the same as a gay couples relationship/household. I imagine some will say the children part of it is irrelevant and I would understand the point, but thats not how I see it. It would be interesting to get a historical perspective of why the govt is in the business of marriage but at least a large part (Im assumiing this, could be wrong) of it is to promote the reproduction of children and sustain the future of the country (anyone seen European birth rates lately). Then after that thought I move onto my next thought. Is my love for my wife any better/different then the love a gay couple has, and the answer is no. So as a result I'm for civil unions with virtually the same or possibly exacftly the same benefits as maririage. I suppose you can bark at me for dragging the family aspect into this but I think that is were a good deal of the resistance comes from when trying to formally recognize marriage and gay marriage as the same. A ban on civll unions does baffle me.
Personally, I could care less. Put it on a ballot and make me choose, gay couples are not going to like the outcome. I believe regardless of party affiliation, that is the way a large number of voters feel. I don't care what you do in the bedroom, don't flaunt it in front of me. I don't flaunt my sex life in front of you, show me the same respect.
Scripture doesn't have anything against gay women. But by all means, let's let a 2,000 book written by middle easterners drive our mores today.
I think it really important to protect minority rights. Maybe being gay is a sin, but if it is it's about as tempting to most hetrosexuals as a peanut butter and balogna sandwich. Prohibition of civil unions is about as close to sticking a finger in the eye of gay people as I can imagine. I honestly don't know why God made people gay. It's certainly His business how he chooses to judge them. Personally, I'm not anxious to cause them more misery.
BBB raises an interesting point, because I think that for many, it's at the core. There are plenty of lifestyle choice that I may not approve, but that doesn't mean I have the right to force that person not to engage in that behavior to the extent that it doesn't impact me. From a legislative POV, I think that goes to the whole shift of "freedom of worship" versus "freedom of religion." This has been designed so that once the conversation is shifted to "worship", a church or religious group no longer has a right to object or abstain from something based on religious beliefs. This means for example that religious hospitals must abort children, religious adoption agencies may not screen applicants based on any moral or religious component, and individuals may not make choices in their secular life that could be seen as discriminatory against another group even when it involves use of their own personal property or engaging in their own private activities. Speaking for myself, my main concern involves keeping the government from forcing my church to abide by its idea of fairness or non-discrimination or any other area where it disagrees with how the church functions, and also keeping government from making its role one of advocacy for any lifestyle or culture, or somehow punishing a group that refuses to "celebrate" a specific lifestyle. Society should get to make those determinations, not the state. His post may have referred to public behavior, in which case I would say that gay couples should abide by the same societal rules as straight couples: for example, the front steps of the courthouse are only explicit PDA areas in the closing scenes of romantic comedies. In real life, most people don't want to see that.
