Quote:
Originally Posted by Deckard
349 - do you consider straight marriage a civil right?
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Based on his (her?) previous posts in this thread, my impression is that no, marriage is not a civil rights issue to 349.... And honestly, I'd say that the ball is in your court 349....to effectively explain how marriage
isn't a civil right since it seems you're the only person here who's floated that idea in the first place. Clearly, it
is hard for the majority of us to grasp how it could be viewed as anything but, so it could be helpful for you to clarify.
And 349..., the point isn't whether or not there
should be Elvis weddings, it's that there
are Elvis weddings, not to mention a laundry list of other issues out there that legitimately undercut the "sanctity" of marriage far, far more than same sex marriage ever could. And yet the people who are most vocally opposed to same sex marriage seem conspicuously silent about those other issues - presumably simply because they're issues between straight couples, so it's okay. They can stomach two drunk people who just met getting married by Elvis in a chapel attached to a casino, but a gay couple that's been together for years who are looking to legally and socially declare their lifelong commitment to each other is going to tear this institution apart! It's illogical, it's irrational, and it highlights exactly how this crusade against same sex marriage is primarily motivated by some measure of homophobia and/or bigotry.
When it gets right down to it, I just don't see what the big fear is about gay people. Okay, so they're sexually attracted to their own gender while the majority of us are sexually attracted to the opposite gender. So what? Do we ask straight couples to justify what they do in the bedroom, or strip them of their rights because they happen to enjoy a little booty lovin' from time to time? Of course not. Or at least not any more. So why does homosexual activity justify such draconian methods?
Or is it maybe because gay people are in the minority? Well, less than 10% of the U.S. population is left-handed, a similar percentage to the number of people who are gay in this country, so should we strip rights away from left-handed people? Are they damaging the sanctity of writing by using their left hands to do it? Or the sanctity of baseball by stepping up to the left side of the plate instead of the right? I mean, obviously they're genetically wired to be different than the rest of us, just like gay people, so why not stop those damn lefties from destroying all that's precious to us? The only difference I can see is that we haven't been socially conditioned to discriminate against left-handed folks like we have with homosexuals - although, I have heard from numerous lefties over a certain age that back in school, their teachers used to force them to write with their right hands. Anyway, this discrimination against gays truly disgusts me.
And at the heart of the issue, I still have yet to hear a single reasonably and logically sound argument against same sex marriage from anyone.