I’ll deal with this in a couple of points. -The government’s interest is not in marriage but in a certain legal relationship between two individuals. The government started calling these rights and responsibilities “marriage rights” because they originally were granted to people who were married by the traditional meaning of the word. Later governments rightly decided that these rights should be extended to people who weren’t married by the traditional definition, i.e., people who were married by a JP or who were married by common law, but governments did not stop using the word marriage for these rights. This new use of the word marriage began to change the meaning of the word as far as the government was concerned, but of course it didn’t change the meaning for most religious and traditional groups who continued to use the as it is defined by their traditions. One word, but now two quite different meanings, and to make a long story short this has led us to a situation where, for example, the polls show that most people in California favour in equal rights, but they voted down Prop. 8. Imo this happened because many people who favour equal rights see "gay marriage" as an attempt to redefine a word which is a key part of their longstanding religious and cultural traditions. Equal does not mean the same, and for most people who belong to these traditions a marriage means a certain kind of relationship between a man and a woman. It is the government that is in error here for its loose use of the word marriage which created the two meanings, and it should correct that error by discontinuing its use. -In my experience there aren’t many same sex couples who want to be married in the way that most religious and cultural traditions define the term, but there are some. For these people, once the government drops its use of the term marriage, the issue becomes one for them to take up with their religious and cultural tradition of choice. This becomes an issue within the tradition, then, and it leaves the government out of it. Note that in this scenario the government granting “couples rights” to same and different sex couples equally has no bearing on the issue of marriage. For the same sex couples who wish to be married their battles with their religious or cultural traditions will vary greatly. There are churches that will marry same sex couples and if a couple is willing to belong to such a group then there will be no battle at all. If they wish to be married in a very conservative Christian church, otoh, they’ll obviously have much more of a battle, but either way the government won’t be involved and their legal rights will be the same.
this young woman has more balls than Sam, who does not particularly care whether gays and lesbians ever have the right to marry in the state of his domicile. <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/dCFFxidhcy0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/dCFFxidhcy0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
basso, you have no standing on this issue. You believe a President who supports making it illegal for gays to marry in the US part of the nation's governing document is the same as someone who opposes that belief. That was one of the most idiotic things you've ever posted on this board, and that's saying something. Please stop pretending like you care about gay rights. You clearly don't.
