How a gay friend helped change my mind about same-sex unions - Analysis, Opinion - Independent.ie

If gay couples want to get married, for Christ's sake, let them. Gay marriage is going to happen someday so let them get on with it.

[Dasein9]

The Article wrote:

By the way, I am as sick of gay rights marches and activists as the next 'normal' heterosexual. But surely the way to make them go away is to give them the same rights as everyone else and that includes the right to marry.

Okay! I can live with the opposition's poor reasoning in this case.

[CDMelton]

Brook wrote:

Homosexual "marriage" is a cruel lie with no real basis in homosexual life.
No one in these fora has been able to document any country on earth where any sigificant percent of homosexuals has "married."
No law could ever turn any homosexual relationshit into a marriage!
No homosexual relationshit shares the reasons for government involvement in real marriage!
There is no just reason to disenfranchise Americans on the definition of marriage.

No one is going to take you seriously as long as you continue to post under so many different names. Come up with one screen name, post a profile, and then maybe your "no significant percentage" bullshit will sound less like the rantings of a cowardly bully.
And seriously, relationshit? A deliberate typo is the kind of argument you have? Come on. At least try a little harder than that.

[Robin Hood]

Brook wrote:

There is no just reason to disenfranchise Americans on the definition of marriage.

Oh yes there is a reason and here it is click
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04353r.pdf

[Reneescandi]

I had a committment ceremony and it was great. So I eleive that marriage is a state of mind the paper just gives you sometning material to hang onto. So let's give it a break.

[Resist Ignorance]

Brook = Wil (in drag)

Don't feed the trolls!

[nhjeff]

Reneescandi wrote:

I had a committment ceremony and it was great. So I eleive that marriage is a state of mind the paper just gives you sometning material to hang onto. So let's give it a break.

I too had a commitment ceremony 14 years ago, and I share your enthusiasm for the process. But I would like to ask how your commitment ceremony would help you in any of the following situations:

1) You partner is in a car accident and the hospital will not admit you to see her. Instead, they call her brother (who boycotted your ceremony) and follow his directions.

2) You die unexpectedly leaving your partner with the mortgage on your jointly owned home and no replacement income. Then along comes the state and Uncle Sam asking for their share of your estate. Your partner sells your home and moves into an apartment.

3) And then a homophobic judge agrees with the cousin you never met that he has a higher claim to your estate than your partner. There goes all the belongings you collected together along with the equity in the house.

Your partner will still treasure they day you two took your vows. But your ghost may be rattling a few chains over the unfairness of the world you left behind.

[LuLu Ford]

Resist Ignorance wrote:

Brook = Wil (in drag)
Don't feed the trolls!

Keep reporting the trolls. Yes your are right, do not respond to them.

Here is a link to report them, especially when they start threads to promote anti-gay religious hate groups such as NARTH and Exodus International. Be sure to include the permalink. Just click and paste using the copy link and send to Topix management.

http://www.topix.net/ext/feedback...

[LuLu Ford]

CDMelton wrote:

<quoted text>
No one is going to take you seriously as long as you continue to post under so many different names. Come up with one screen name, post a profile, and then maybe your "no significant percentage" bullshit will sound less like the rantings of a cowardly bully.
And seriously, relationshit? A deliberate typo is the kind of argument you have? Come on. At least try a little harder than that.

You are quite correct. He is not interested in carrying on any type of meaningful dialog. His is a person with a compulsive disorder and only wishes to broadcast his delusions. Most people are interested in some kind of interaction but, not this one. He seeks only to trade insults most of which he receives are very negative. Perhaps he is a masochist, who knows, he has yet to carry on any meaningful conversation.

[rdg1234]

The first reply in this thread comes from an individual or collective of individuals (?) who have *zero* interest in any meaningful dialogue and autistically repeat the same nonsense you see in that post.

For some time, the individual in question was replying to other posters -- for, perhaps, over a year -- before a long, long process of realizing that he would get nowhere.

Now, he simply assaults the boards with posts which are, apparently, being reported, as he's been booted from the board several times.

[Roberto]

"If gay couples want to get married, for Christ's sake, let them. Gay marriage is going to happen someday so let them get on with it."

Sure! Let them marry. In fact, they do already. But there is no reason to grant them the state's support for relationships that have no interest, really, for the state.

Is it going to happen one day anyway, so why not? Well, we are all going to die one day anyway, so why not just get on with it and die now?

That's how stupid and defeatist that reasoning is.

[CDMelton]

Roberto wrote:

"If gay couples want to get married, for Christ's sake, let them. Gay marriage is going to happen someday so let them get on with it."
Sure! Let them marry. In fact, they do already. But there is no reason to grant them the state's support for relationships that have no interest, really, for the state.
Is it going to happen one day anyway, so why not? Well, we are all going to die one day anyway, so why not just get on with it and die now?
That's how stupid and defeatist that reasoning is.

Explain how 2 drunks in Vegas have an interest for the state, and two men in Seattle, together for years, married in Canada already, and raising a son, don't. Explain to me how any couple has an interest for the state. Outlawing, and keeping outlawed, marriage for some people and not others is either blatant discrimination based on perceived sexual practices, or it's the government taking a religious stance and foisting it on the public, both of which are deplorable. There's no reason, aside from religion or the ick factor, to grant government approval of some people but not others. And as for the ick factor, if they could get their minds out of private bedrooms they'd be a lot better off, and they can't know anyway.

[BowTiedGuy]

I was working fulltime and going to college at night until I graduated last year, so I was always the most overdressed member of my class since I'm in suits and bow ties daily (work in banking). Made life more interesting too, since one friend of mine from school was a bit of a nut and loved my "buttoned-up and formal" look or, as she later called it, my "about to be wed" look.
She ran a group at our college and last year talked me into being in a "mock wedding," for lack of a better term. Thing was, the group was the gay-straight alliance, or something like that, and the mock wedding was the highlight of their "Gay Wedding Day" event. When she talked me into being in it I had no idea how HUGE this was going to be. Figured it would be some goofy little thing. Our wedding, as it turned out, was held in an actual church near the campus and performed by a lady minister. My groom was a guy who was a member of the gay-straight alliance. She had us both wear navy blue suits (since we both had them and it was cheaper than tuxes), with very starched (how I wear them) white shirts, and navy blue bow ties (with a little bit of a print), and of course matching white rose and baby's breath boutonnierres. I was nervous as hell, naturally, being a groom about to be wed. Getting dressed that morning, getting all buttoned up and tying a perfect bow tie, was a surreal experience. After I'd gotten to the church, I was stashed away in a sitting room for about an hour before the wedding. They finally came and brought me out, then brought my groom to me and had him take my left arm in his right, then made sure our bow ties and collars were all perfect and all that. When they opened the doors into the main church, there's the minister waiting for us down at the end of the aisle and the place was PACKED. Probably a couple hundred people. Next thing I know the organist was blaring out The Wedding March and there I am walking very slowly down the aisle with my groom on my arm, both of us all stiff and buttoned-up and formal in our suits and bow ties and being wed in front of a church-full of people. It couldn't have been more real. As soon as The Wedding March started playing, feeling his arm in mine, and we started walking down the aisle, it may as well have been for real as far as I was concerned. We really were two grooms being wed. I remember thinking, "This is my wedding. I'm a groom and I'm being wed to my groom."
On top of that, my sister knows this friend of mine, so naturally she found out about the wedding, and naturally she told my mother, who said, "I have GOT to see this!" So among those in attendance as I was being wed to my groom was my mother, sister, and a couple of aunts and cousins, and a neighbor. Everyone got all dressed up for the occasion, and the way my mother was you'd have thought it was a real wedding. It was our wedding. Hell of a way to "come out," at my wedding. First guy I ever kissed was my groom AFTER we were pronounced wed!

[Beka]

Brook wrote:

There is no just reason to disenfranchise Americans on the definition of marriage.

Darling, that happened a long time ago. Over 40% of marriages end in divorce, marriage can be carried out without religious involvement, only relying on the states recognition, and you can get a quickie in Vegas and annul it ten hours later.

I never quite understand this argument, that gay marriage is going to undermine the ideal of what marriage is; somehow threaten heterosexual couples in their happiness and commitment.

Is a heterosexual couple who is entirely white threatened by a biracial couple? Does a marriage between two people of different ages make your marriage of two peers any less valid? Any less loving?

How can the commitment of two people-- how can their love for each other and the dedication they bring to their Other-- do anything but bolster the sanctity of marriage?

Americans have been disenfranchised, but not by gay marriage; we came much too late to the party. And if the worst thing that a gay marriage does is provide an example of two people in love, in a marriage, together and committed to each other, who happen to be of the same sex: how can that be anything but a prime example of how marriage can still work, how people can still be faithful to each other, and how two people who love each other can be the most wonderful thing in the world?

[nhjeff]

Nice anecdote! Thanks.

BowTiedGuy wrote:

I was working fulltime and going to college at night until I graduated last year, so I was always the most overdressed member of my class since I'm in suits and bow ties daily (work in banking). Made life more interesting too, since one friend of mine from school was a bit of a nut and loved my "buttoned-up and formal" look or, as she later called it, my "about to be wed" look.
She ran a group at our college and last year talked me into being in a "mock wedding," for lack of a better term. Thing was, the group was the gay-straight alliance, or something like that, and the mock wedding was the highlight of their "Gay Wedding Day" event. When she talked me into being in it I had no idea how HUGE this was going to be. Figured it would be some goofy little thing. Our wedding, as it turned out, was held in an actual church near the campus and performed by a lady minister. My groom was a guy who was a member of the gay-straight alliance. She had us both wear navy blue suits (since we both had them and it was cheaper than tuxes), with very starched (how I wear them) white shirts, and navy blue bow ties (with a little bit of a print), and of course matching white rose and baby's breath boutonnierres. I was nervous as hell, naturally, being a groom about to be wed. Getting dressed that morning, getting all buttoned up and tying a perfect bow tie, was a surreal experience. After I'd gotten to the church, I was stashed away in a sitting room for about an hour before the wedding. They finally came and brought me out, then brought my groom to me and had him take my left arm in his right, then made sure our bow ties and collars were all perfect and all that. When they opened the doors into the main church, there's the minister waiting for us down at the end of the aisle and the place was PACKED. Probably a couple hundred people. Next thing I know the organist was blaring out The Wedding March and there I am walking very slowly down the aisle with my groom on my arm, both of us all stiff and buttoned-up and formal in our suits and bow ties and being wed in front of a church-full of people. It couldn't have been more real. As soon as The Wedding March started playing, feeling his arm in mine, and we started walking down the aisle, it may as well have been for real as far as I was concerned. We really were two grooms being wed. I remember thinking, "This is my wedding. I'm a groom and I'm being wed to my groom."
On top of that, my sister knows this friend of mine, so naturally she found out about the wedding, and naturally she told my mother, who said, "I have GOT to see this!" So among those in attendance as I was being wed to my groom was my mother, sister, and a couple of aunts and cousins, and a neighbor. Everyone got all dressed up for the occasion, and the way my mother was you'd have thought it was a real wedding. It was our wedding. Hell of a way to "come out," at my wedding. First guy I ever kissed was my groom AFTER we were pronounced wed!

[BowTiedGuy]

nhjeff wrote:

Nice anecdote! Thanks.
<quoted text>

Thanks! That was the most romantic - and terrifying - experience of my life! Couldn't beging to tell you how nervous I was! They went ALL out on planning the wedding! Take into consideration too that up to that point I'd only been dating women!

[fuzi]

Roberto wrote:

"If gay couples want to get married, for Christ's sake, let them. Gay marriage is going to happen someday so let them get on with it."
Sure! Let them marry. In fact, they do already. But there is no reason to grant them the state's support for relationships that have no interest, really, for the state.
Is it going to happen one day anyway, so why not? Well, we are all going to die one day anyway, so why not just get on with it and die now?
That's how stupid and defeatist that reasoning is.

So then, if the state has no interest in me, it shouldn't be interested in my tax money, either. Yours is one of the most idiotic and ignorant arguments made on the issue. Come back when you have another brain cell.

[Inquisitarian]

My partner and I have not had a ceremony - we don't feel there's anything it would confirm about our commitment to each other that we don't already know after 7-1/2 years together. Just seem like a lot of needless expense and hassle.

Don't get me wrong - I realize that it's very meaningful to some people - more power to them.

Just doesn't mean anything to us.

[LuLu Ford]

I have been married legally for twenty-four beautiful years to the same wonderful woman.

[nhjeff]

LuLu Ford wrote:

I have been married legally for twenty-four beautiful years to the same wonderful woman.

Congratulations. We're celebrating 20 years together this summer!

[Roberto]

fuzi wrote:

<quoted text>So then, if the state has no interest in me, it shouldn't be interested in my tax money, either. Yours is one of the most idiotic and ignorant arguments made on the issue. Come back when you have another brain cell.

… stupid……idiot…… ignorant…… describes you perfectly!