Marraige is About LOVE. Not Gender.

[UnwrittenDead]

In this country, like many other countries, there is a terrible stigma attached to the idea of homosexuality. But this country was built on the ideas of visionaries who wanted to escape tyranny, it was built to shun small minds. The right to vote is not reserved for any specific type of person, neither is the right to belong to any religion. Why should the right to marry whomever one loves be reserved for only heterosexual couples? Why is it that a man and a woman who cannot stand each other are able to wed whenever they get the urge, but a man and a man who have loved each other for decades are forced to be without that right that the man and woman exploit so flippantly? If this is truly the land of the free, truly the home of the brave, then anyone (no matter sexual orientation) should be able to get married. Not just a commitment ceremony that loosely mimics and affords most of the same privileges as a marriage, but a full blown, honest to goodness marriage.
Emilia and her longtime girlfriend Erika are very much in love. One day, ready to take their love to the next level, Emilia asks Erika to marry her. Erika, of course, says "yes". They spend months upon months planning the wedding of their dreams. With only a few weeks left, they go to the court house to apply for their marriage liscense. They are excited and giggling nervously as they climb the stairs leading to the entrance. They make their way inside and obtain the appropriate forms. Emilia and Erika take their time to fill it out, careful not to make any errors that would delay their progress. After dropping off their request, the two women make their way home.
As the wedding day grows closer and closer, the brides to be begin to feel antsy wondering where their certificate is. After weeks of anticipation, they decide to make the journey to the court house once more. Upon request, they are able to meet with the judge that would not grant them their liscense. He informs them that because they are two women, they are not allowed to wed. The two women, outraged and defeated, leave the court house and make their way home. How is what happened to Emilia and Erika fair? How is it okay that their love was not respected enough for their union to be made official?
As a nation, we have come a long way in the fight against discrimination. Here, in a time not so long ago, there was a great lack of tolerance. Yes, sexism, for the most part, has been eliminated. Racism as well, for the most part, has been abolished; however, one thing that still lacks acceptance is homosexuality. People want to deny these men and women some of the simplest of rights entitled to American citizens. How can someone say that two people do not have the right to wed simply because of their gender? The only thing that gives these bigots these ludicrous ideas of entitlement is ignorance.
Here in the United States, a man and a woman, as long as they are both over the age of eighteen, are able to be married whenever they want. If a man and woman meet one night in Las Vegas and, in a drunken stupor, decide to stumble to the chapel for a quickie wedding, they can. However, if two women live together for years upon years in a committed relationship they are not allowed to be married. I repeat, not ALLOWED! If a man and woman hate each other, i mean literally hate each other, so much that they cannot even stand to be in the same room, if they want to get married because it would bring more money or keep public happy or some other absolutely ridiculous reason, they can. Yet a gay couple who enjoy each other and want to spend the rest of their lives in marital bliss cannot. How is that fair?
This country was built on a constitution that was established so that personal freedoms would be respected and untainted. The fourteenth amendment of the United States Constitution reads, "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States". If this is true then the ban against gay marriage is unconstitutional. If Americans are ready to just disregard a document that has been respected for hundreds of years, then there is something incredibly wrong here! The constitution has been upheld and respected for so long, how can we just turn our backs on it now? There is no way that a ban on gay marriage can be defended! It clearly states that the government cannot make any law that would violate our rights as an American citizen, not allowing gay marriage is a clear and deliberate defying of our Constitution.
Gay people have been beaten, demeaned, and bullied for too long. We as a nation say that we will fix it, that we will not tolerate this behavior. Yet we tell them they can't join in the oldest of traditions, making their love official. There is no way, shape, or form that makes that okay. It is not acceptable, and I will not stop until every single person on this planet can marry the one they love.

[Guest]

As much as I appreciate your dedication in writing this post, I have to disagree completely.

 

The biggest danger homosexual civil marriage presents is the enshrining into law the notion that sexual love, regardless of its fecundity, is the sole criterion for marriage. If the state must recognize a marriage of two men simply because they love one another, upon what basis can it deny marital recognition to a group of two men and three women, for example, or a sterile brother and sister who claim to love each other? Homosexual activists protest that they only want all couples treated equally. But why is sexual love between two people more worthy of state sanction than love between three, or five? When the purpose of marriage is procreation, the answer is obvious. If sexual love becomes the primary purpose, the restriction of marriage to couples loses its logical basis, leading to marital chaos.

 

Just because it gives you the sads doesn't make it wrong. You can spin this ever-so-tragic story in hopes of coercing individuals into joining your logic-less Utopian view, but back here in reality there are other factors which need to be fully considered and explored before adopting any such change into law.

Edited March 8, 2013 by Mochi

[brokendreamsandbrokenlies]

 I think no matter the gender people should be aloud to marry whom they like or love and i will stand firm in my belifes but others are of course intitled to their opinion.

[UnwrittenDead]

I see your view Mochi but I, as you did with my post, must disagree. Your argument on letting homosexuals marry leading to marrital chaos and having more than just two people marry is invalid on the fact that multiple people being allowed to marry is already legal. That my dear is called Polygamy. You see, every which way you put it, homosexuals are the ones that get the brunt end, the worst deal, or however you choose to word it. A man is allowed to marry a woman, a woman allowed to marry a man, A man is allowed to marry five women at once if he so please, a woman five men, and yes other combinations of the such. I have met in person a Married group which consisted of two men and three women. Now if ALL THAT nonsense is legal then pardon me for completely not understanding that a man and a man, or woman and woman cannot marry. It seems absurd to just limit the couple marraige to a man and woman when they have absolutely no care in the world to two men marrying each other and three women. PLEASE if there IS logic to that then I bid you explain.

[UnwrittenDead]

Also, something I forgot to mention in my above post, You talked of nothing but "sexual love" and I fail to see where in my post I was talking of just sexual love. I do believe if you just want to be with someone to have sex with them you won't have to, or even want to, marry. I speak of true love, where you want to let it be known that you deeply care for the soul of the person you're with by the sign of contracted marraige.

As much as I appreciate your dedication in writing this post, I have to disagree completely.

 

The biggest danger homosexual civil marriage presents is the enshrining into law the notion that sexual love, regardless of its fecundity, is the sole criterion for marriage. If the state must recognize a marriage of two men simply because they love one another, upon what basis can it deny marital recognition to a group of two men and three women, for example, or a sterile brother and sister who claim to love each other? Homosexual activists protest that they only want all couples treated equally. But why is sexual love between two people more worthy of state sanction than love between three, or five? When the purpose of marriage is procreation, the answer is obvious. If sexual love becomes the primary purpose, the restriction of marriage to couples loses its logical basis, leading to marital chaos.

 

Just because it gives you the sads doesn't make it wrong. You can spin this ever-so-tragic story in hopes of coercing individuals into joining your logic-less Utopian view, but back here in reality there are other factors which need to be fully considered and explored before adopting any such change into law.

[Guest]

Also, something I forgot to mention in my above post, You talked of nothing but "sexual love" and I fail to see where in my post I was talking of just sexual love. I do believe if you just want to be with someone to have sex with them you won't have to, or even want to, marry. I speak of true love, where you want to let it be known that you deeply care for the soul of the person you're with by the sign of contracted marraige.

 

 

Again, I appreciate your in depth response. Also, let me apologize for this shitty tone I took earlier - I was slightly drunk at the time of posting >:

 

The only exception I take with your posting is your causality. For instance, are you able to provide me with any factual, logic-tested reason as to WHY our public policy should be changed to adopt a minority secular ideology? Why should we force our populace to accept something that it clearly doesn't want (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8)?

 

As for the sexual love point I made -- It was a direct refutation to your original post - in fact your closing points:

 

 

We as a nation say that we will fix it, that we will not tolerate this behavior. Yet we tell them they can't join in the oldest of traditions, making their love official. There is no way, shape, or form that makes that okay. It is not acceptable, and I will not stop until every single person on this planet can marry the one they love.

 

Again, it's a nice lofty idea. But, the only qualification and justification for the allowance of homosexual couples to marry, in your opinion it would seem, is the sexual love they share. To me, as described above; that is not a viable reason to tread on a tradition which has been in place and respected for mellennia by both men and women.
And, if accepted as loosely as you've described would open up the floodgates for pedo-sexuals, zoo-sexuals, pan-sexuals, beer-sexuals, and whatever other-sexual orientation someone can come up with to be legally married in the eyes of the state. So what does this mean? You're going to have to come up with a better excuse to change public policy and the foundational definition of marriage.

 

Now, I'm not being dense, I'm just testing your brain. It's what I do. Make sure you read to the bottom, I tend to become more human as I go.

 

A few preliminary points:

   1. Polygamy is completely illegal here in the United States and individuals who practice this are not only in violation of the law, but do not receive any marriage benefits from the state.

   2. Californian's voted en mass (along with a few other states) that we were not in support of the idea to force any nonsecular institution to recognize a practice which it deems wrong, sinful, etc. I will concede that other states voted for gay marriage rights, but that isn't necessarily indicative of the moral majority stamping out tyranny either (as many people like to falsely point out).

   3. Marriage is an institution, not a lofty idea to be touted about like a sociological play thing. Just as marriage is not strictly a conjugal union of husband and wife, it most certainly is not a mere social construct. Here in the real world (perpendicular to modern academia) individuals simply cannot have an intelligent discourse by boiling down issues to their most basic elements, as any further argumentation and causality would not be based on the actual issue, but merely a skeleton or shadow of such. It is important to consider the roots from which the idea of marriage bloomed and the static definition which it has taken on over centuries of practice.

   4. The state should not in any way be required to actualize or acknowledge any institution that it deems unworthy of such. We need to consider our founding ideals, that insofar as any reasonable (I use this term loosely) religious institution exists within our sovereign borders, it should not be forced to adopt a public policy which inherently goes against the moral fabric of said religion (example: the Catholic church being forced to pay for birth control. OR in this case, any religious organization losing their tax exemption for refusing to marry a gay couple).

 

 

 

To respond to your opening point of:

 

This country was built on a constitution that was established so that personal freedoms would be respected and untainted. The fourteenth amendment of the United States Constitution reads, "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States". If this is true then the ban against gay marriage is unconstitutional. If Americans are ready to just disregard a document that has been respected for hundreds of years, then there is something incredibly wrong here! The constitution has been upheld and respected for so long, how can we just turn our backs on it now? There is no way that a ban on gay marriage can be defended! It clearly states that the government cannot make any law that would violate our rights as an American citizen, not allowing gay marriage is a clear and deliberate defying of our Constitution.

 

So, you're citing the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment to somehow justify your causality to support homosexual marriage?

 

Let's look at this in a different light:

 

   1. Why are people of different ethnicity protected explicitly by law?

   2. Why do we require additional laws and ruling to ensure a fair wage? Affirmative Action? Or perhaps hate crime laws? (Do you know that whites and members of the military are not considered hate crime victims?

   3. What ever happened to states rights? Maybe this rings a bell:  "Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled."

   3b. How about this: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

   4. Back in 1993, there was an act (RFRA) which was being pushed through SCOTUS. It was struck down with the final note that while the Congress could enforce the Supreme Court's interpretation of a constitutional right, the Congress could not impose its own interpretation on states and localities.

 

So to wrap this one up in a nice pretty bow, this is not a constitutional issue so much as it is a states rights issue. So please spare me the usual 'unconstitutional' nonsense.

 

 

 

Now, cutting through all the bullshit, falsehoods, and strawman arguments - let's get to the heart of the matter.

 

You and I both would like to see these people happy (I'm sure the same can be said for all people). I would love nothing more than for gay couples to feel as included and accepted into the normal social fabric as any other person, however my only disagreement with this whole notion of 'gay marriage' is its application and incorporation into society. This whole affair could be approached in a much more calm, level headed and less intrusive manner... except that doesn't sell airtime. The majority of this gay marriage shit storm (no pun intended) going on currently is due to political whores pumping the cocks of their constituents (again, no pun intended), getting them all riled up for battle with the opposing side rather than trying to actually resolve this conflict of visions.

 

You seem like a nice (and smart) girl and your heart seems to be in the right place. It's refreshing to see that around these parts. If you were in California, I would take you out for a drink (granted, nonalcoholic for you).

Edited March 15, 2013 by Mochi