Originally Posted by Jaxian

"Go Maryland!!!"

To hear that people's lives are made worse, and that they should be faced with discrimination and unfair treatment is bad enough. But to hear others cheer at the announcement is a sure sign that something is seriously wrong with the way people think.

I cheer that gay people aren't allowed to "marry". I don't cheer bans on "civil unions". I've never said differently.

fxashun, you know that banning gay marriage makes life worse for gay people.

No it doesn't. Refusing to accept anything short of "marriage" makes life worse.

You know they will be looked down upon by others.

That'll happen any way. Short people are looked down upon by tall people, poor people are looked down upon by rich people. It's inevitable.

You know people will be denied health insurance, and may even die because of this decision. You know loved ones will miss out on seeing each other in the hospital.

And that's why I support Civil unions.

You know children will go parentless.

In a homosexual relationship, that's a given. No "natural" genetic parents are possible homosexually.



Yet still you cheer, for reasons all your own. You cheer knowing that people are hurt, and knowing that people's lives will be a little bit tougher.

Yup.

And perhaps you can understand my confusion, since you seem to be an otherwise good person. So forgive me for asking: do you care at all about the wellbeing of gay people and their children?

Originally Posted by fxashun

I cheer that gay people aren't allowed to "marry". I don't cheer bans on "civil unions". I've never said differently.

Originally Posted by Jaxian

This law bans both civil unions and marriage, with no chance for civil unions to ever be legal. And you are cheering it. Have I missed something?

The decision specifically said maybe the legislature should look at allowing some form of recognition for the gay union.
"our opinion should by no means be read to imply that the General Assembly may not grant and recognize for homosexual persons civil unions or the right to marry a person of the same sex," he said."

For whom?

Who is doing the refusing?

That doesn't mean our government should encourage it. Our government doesn't create special names for tall people's rights, and our government doesn't create special names for rich people's rights.

But we do disallow things that we as society would rather not be a part of. If a gay person wants to have the totally unnatural and illogical homosexual union to be recognized, then since that is a relationship unlike the heterosexual union, it should have a separate name. Just like adoption isn't the same as a woman having a baby naturally. They aren't the same.

Tall people and short people both have the same rights and recognition from our government. Rich people and poor people both have the same rights and recognition from our government. Yet for some reason, you want our government to recognize a straight couple's union as "marriage", but recognize a gay couple's union as a "civil union". Why?

For the same reason there is a man's restroom and a woman's restroom. They are different entities.

I was referring to the fact that gay couples will not be allowed to adopt, thanks to this ruling.

Well, that's a separate issue even if it may be grouped in with this.

In response to what you just wrote, gay couples can have children via a variety of methods, including surrogate parenting and artificial insemination. Obviously both members of the gay couple could not be biologically related to the child, but there is no evidence that this is any worse for that child, and frankly, how people decide to raise their children is none of your business so long as they aren't hurting the child.

But no male is gonna have a child with another male. And even if "legally" a child may have "same gender parents", not a single living organism reproduces homosexually. There are a lot of laws that aren't my business, that doesn't mean I can't voice my opinion.

Why do you care? What does anybody gain from giving gay people a different name for their rights? Who is affected? Let's think about it for a moment. I can think of three reasons that you might care about this:

First, maybe you have some religious belief about what "marriage" means, and maybe that belief doesn't include gay couples. But that is only YOUR religious belief; a gay person might believe differently. Our laws should not choose one belief or another: our laws should respect everyone's beliefs equally. So if our laws recognize that you are married according to your own beliefs, then our laws should recognize that a gay couple is married according to their own beliefs.

Nope, that's not it. I'm not very religious.

Second, maybe you believe that the term marriage carries some significance in our society, and that straight couples will be looked on with greater preference if our government denies gay couples that term. If this is the case, then yours is truly a malicious goal: one which seeks to coerce people to look down upon gay couples, not through their own thinking process, but through the special terminology used to describe straight couples.

Nope, not entirely as you modified the "significance in our society". While I agree with that phrase, you modified it sufficiently after that to suit your agenda. So I can't agree with the whole paragraph.

Third, it may be that you're stubborn. Maybe you see gay people as pushy, and you simply don't like seeing gay people get their way. In this case, you hope that gay people will lose, simply because you don't like them. Deep inside, you resent gay people, and you want them to get their just deserts. If this is the case, then you seriously need to lose that resentment and see the situation objectively. You should treat people fairly, instead of acting out of spite.

Actually, that's actually becoming a bit of it. "Gay marriage" had an amendment in my state that got passed and I missed the whole damn thing. I didn't even care about it until I started reading about it online.

I hope I am correct in one of these three guesses. But maybe you have some different reason for giving gay people a different name for their rights than straight people? If so, let me know what that reason is.

Originally Posted by fxashun

Originally Posted by gonefishin

why? there isn't one word in history that I can think of that hasn't changed somewhat. existing words often come to mean something different, or new definitions are tacked onto old ones. that is why the word "order" has 28 definitions. Or at least it did when I was in school (writing that definition 10 times was our punishment, lol)

Originally Posted by mytmouse57

I'm short and poor. Guess I'm S.O.L.