Amendment # 28 to ban Gay marriage!

I agree, and I'm leaning to the opinion that the government ought to get out of the marriage business altogether. Let the government confer civil unions and the churches confer marriage. So long as there is no legal distinction between unions and marriages I couldn't care less what the churches want to do. The government should not distinguish between gays and straights in granting civil unions. The churches can distinguish all they want in granting marriage.

I don't either, I'm gay. I just think that if the word "marriage" is so damned sacred, then fine let's keep it sacred. Is government sacred? If so then perhaps the government has a role to play in deciding what qualifies as a sacred marriage. If not, I should think that would be better left to the churches, which seem to think they themselves are the best judges of what is and is not sacred.In other words, I see this ultimately as a question of church or state. Is the U.S. one big church, as medieval governments were? If it is then I think it perfectly appropriate that the U.S. government make the final decision as to what is and is not sacred in all matters. But if the U.S. is a state, apart from the church, then what business does it have sanctifying anything? It should simply grant the civil unions for all couples and let the churches decide which ones deserve the sacred title of "marriage".

I promise I won't bash you, lb. You partly answered your own question: tax benefits. There's also insurance considerations, survivor benefits, etc.But the most important thing is (again as you yourself mention) parity with the straight community. We're tired of being treated as second-class citizens. We're tired of having our lifestyle condemned by politically powerful morons who believe a book written thousands of years ago by only marginally civilized men is an acceptable standard by which to measure rightousness in all things. We're tired of hearing from these morons that our unions are not sacred because they don't conform to their interpretation of that same stupid book.This is simply a matter of fairness. The morons are no more valuable citizens of this nation than we are and we insist on being treated with equal dignity, if not by them then at least by the government that we, statistically, pay more to support.

That's still an issue, but not quite so much as it used to be. More and more companies are extending health benefits to partners of gay employees.

I don't know how else to explain it to you, Lizard. I respect the fact that you aren't gay and can't understand this first-hand, but having a right is important, even if you never choose to exercise that right. Most gays will probably never marry anyone, but then most uneducated people will probably never vote. That doesn't mean they don't deserve the right to vote.I think your complaints about the general state of marriage in American society would make an interesting topic, but they really should have no bearing on whether or not a right should be denied to a specific group of people.Although I don't believe you intended it I take mild offense at your use of the word 'apathy'. You seem to be equating it with 'tolerance', and I don't think they're the same thing.

Holmes asks:

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...please nobody think I am against gay marriage.

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I don't, and I absolutely believe that if the government is going to confer the title of 'marriage' it should do so without regard to the sex of the partners. I just wonder what it is about the word 'marriage' that is so important to people. I suspect that for most, even those who would deny it, it is precisely because the word 'marriage' implies a type of blessing.If this isn't true, then please explain to me just what it is about that word that is so critically important. If there is no legal difference in a civil union and a marriage, then why is it so crucial for the state to perform 'marriages' rather than just 'unions'?If the word does imply some sort of blessing then why on earth do we want the government granting such blessings to anyone?I seriously doubt that my point of view on this will become popular, so in practical terms I also fully support gay marriage.I'm not sure I agree with you when you seem to imply that changing the laws to accomodate gay marriage will require a lot of work. It shouldn't take a major effort and besides I think most of us gays pay enough in taxes to warrant the expense. The language of these laws is not such that their logic fails if 'man and woman' were simply replaced with 'the two individuals seeking union' or 'spouse and spouse' or something like that.

Rrhain writes:

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Even in the US, the average same-sex relationship lasts longer than the average mixed-sex relationship.

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I was reading back over this thread and realized I had somehow missed this. Sorry to bring it up at this late point, but...Where do you come by data to support this? I ask because I've not noticed this at all. In fact, my experience points in the opposite direction, so much so that I've even used this bit of conventional wisdom (a phrase I don't like because it seems oxymoronic) to argue in favor of gay marriage. I've said that one reason gay relationships don't usually last very long is that there's no way to codify the union and make it a contract. A contract can only be broken at considerable emotional and financial expense. In my opinion, it is these expenses that have saved some straight marriages. If one were to consider an affair, one might decide against it when one considers the potential pain and expense. Such motives for restraint don't exist when there is no legal contract.I've seen a lot of marriages and divorces as well as gay unions and disunions over the years, and the straight people I've known have had a better track record at making these things work than the gays. Is my experience misleading me?

This is an interesting survey, but I don't see any reference to heterosexual relationships so I still wonder where the data that show them to be typically shorter than gay relationships comes from. Before reading your earlier post I would have guessed that lesbian relationships last the longest, then straight relationships with gay male relationships lasting the shortest of any.I wonder if perhaps your information is correct for the nation as a whole while my perception might be correct for the Deep South. If so, there must be something about the gay experience here that is drastically different elsewhere. That something may have to do with the religious environment here; I wonder. It's an interesting question.At any rate, there's one more thing about this survey that I'd like to know: how is 'relationship' defined? I see also that the the survey uses the phrase 'major relationship' in a couple places. How would that be defined? From the statement that "relationships averaged nearly six years in length for all couples" I gather that there must be some standard to be met before a new couple can be said to have a 'relationship'. Do you know what that standard is?