Bravo, Massachusetts...

... for striking a blow for for gay equality with this ruling today.

'Separate but equal' rarely is.

Hear hear. Bravo.

I'm not too crazy about the legalese...

but as a Massachusetts resident with gay friends and relatives, I'm heartened to see progress. There's a certain societal decency in allowing two people who love each other to have the protection of a legal marriage.

Let's hope for the best.

=Sinclair

All I see is a new windfall for divorce lawyers.

Whether you agree or disagree, two things are certain. Its just getting started, and since its an election year, expect lots of turbulence.

Jesus, your president is ON SO MUCH GOD DAMN CRACK!
It shocks and appalls me how incredibly BACKWARDS that guy is about homosexuality. My best friends IRL and in SL happen to be gay. I have no problem with that. I have a much bigger problem with the sort of IDIOTIC MORALISM that seems to be popular in america. I say ammend the constitution to keep GIGANTIC ASSHOLES like your president and the so-called "christian right", as far away from politics as possible.

Another bush to beat. Another hot topic to spur the history of mankind onward, or in this case to repeat itself from a offset situation similar in the mid 1900s.

I hope gay marriages are allowed at some point. Why? Because its just a form of exclusion. Its like saying "black people should not be allowed to be married".

Personaly I see it as unconstitutional, and also a form of mixing religion with government.

And ugh at Bush.

Eggy how is Portugal these days? Lol. Heck Canada looks nice too.

Well that's why they call for a seperation of church and state.

But like everything else in life, it gets intermingled.

Life is funny like that.

Well.... here's my opinion on the subject:

Reguarding 'Legal Marrage':
Marrage is a RELIGIOUS PRACTICE.

Meaning, that it should not be subject to debate be United States politicans. Marrage, say it with me now, "IS A RELIGIOUS PRACTICE."

Didn't our founding fathers support the seperation of church and state? We didn't want the bloody massacres happening in the United States that occured in Europe due to the STRONG interference of religion in the matters of government.

I believe any reference to marrage in US laws should be replaced.

Reguarding 'Marrage' as a celebration:
Really, from the start of this 'Marrage should be kept pure' crap the media and politics were spewing, I abhorred any changes to the practice of Marrage by the government, its just not right, since its a religious practice.

I think, rather, the government should seperate Religous Marrage and Legal Marrage, and rename the latter to something more suitable to the entire population... Civil Joint?

And any governmental functions should only apply to people with Civil Joints. One example being the tax excemptions/additions currently entitled to Married couples, should completely apply to Civil Joints.

On another note...
I agree with Eggy

==Chris

Excellent points Christopher.

I like your ideas and agree with them. Of course same sexes could be a Civil Joint right?

The government shouldn't give benefits for "marriage" exactly because of the points you bring up. Rename it and keep it seperate from religion and bam, it doesn't break any constitution and since its not religious in any way religious people against same sex marriages wouldn't have a problem, cuse its not a marriage its a Civil Joint. Marriages wouldn't be totaly out though as I'm sure they'll still hold importance for religions. And it wont solve the problem if a same sex couple want a religious marriage, but it will solve the problem governmental wise and reciving benefits and state recognition.

However I doubt that will ever happen sadly.

Comparing marriages to religion these days is about as good as gay priests in religion. Both are no longer what they use to be. As far as gays are concerned, they have as much rights as the next person. And as was mentioned a few posts up, is no different than what the blacks went through. They deserve as much rights as the next person. Its not right to limit them on the marriage aspect.

Now for waving some gasoline around the thread...

I wonder if any gay priests ever preached about Sodom and Gamorrah (sp) at all. Always been curious about that one.

Right, I completely agree. However, I believe that the problem with marrage today and homosexuals, is that a great many governmental laws/functions/etc have sections where they seperate and treat differently legally married couples and single people. Seperating religious marrage and legal marrage, and making legal marrage applicable to all persons over the age of 18 (or whatever age your able to be married, haven't really studied into it), would completely destroy the seperation, and bring more equality.

Not even calling legal marrage 'marrage' anymore would clarify its seperation from the religious functions.

If homosexuals wish to have marrage celebrations, so be it, there's hardly a problem with inviting friends and family to a church for a formal celebration where a person dressed in black gives a ring to another person dressed in white, who stand in front of a priest for a couple hours. I say hardly, in that, well... you need to get that church to allow you to perform the ceremony, which is a completely different matter.

Reguarding gay priests, um, isnt that really up to the religion?

==Chris

I hope priests and churches and temples etc. can decide what marriages they will bless and whatnot, that's none of my business. But any progression in the "fight" for equal rights in relationships is a good one by my standards. My guy and I have decided that we won't ever be "married," in the sense that we'll have a church involved and all that, but for sake of legalities and benefits it's certainly a reward that we'd want in on. Of course, I'm not big on celebrating the couples' world, either, so if it ever happens no one will ever hear about it.

Eggy, I have to tell you, there are places in the US where married straight couples could also be imprisoned for having unconventional relations in their own bed. I'm not certain about things in Europe, but most homosexuals here in the US have (usually thanks to their families, friends and classmates) certain personality disorders that tend to preclude what are generally considered normal, healthy longterm relationships. A lot of your more successful long term relationships (like mine) between men are pretty much based on liking the same restaurants, wearing the same size clothing and co-dependancy. I also have to say that I can only think of maybe two or three legally married couples that I have known in the last thirty years or so that I would call truly happy with each other after five years of marriage. A legal framework beyond the rights of survivorship, inheritance and the usual legal and medical powers of attorney are usually going to be no more than a hindrance. It would be much better to end the tax-time discrimination in favor of people who have a stupid piece of paper saying that they paid sixty bucks and are married, and also force all of the individual states to allow anyone who wants to adopt or even parent a child to do it, assuming they are capable of being a decent parent, rather than keeping adoption legally impossible because of sexual preference while allowing poor abusive drug-adicted heterosexuals to not only keep their children but even have as many more as they like.

What I don't understand is why the christian right feels so damn threatened by marriage or legal unions or whatever you want to call them between homosexuals. I keep hearing that the institution of marriage is "under attack." I so don't get that. Like someone is going to go force a christian to marry someone of the same sex? I think what they really mean is that their ability to cram their beliefs and morality down other people's throats is being threatened... to which I say, halleluiah!

I think you hit the nail on the head there. When prop 22 hit ballots here awhile back there was a lot of misinformation floating around. Like the govt was going to dictate to them who they had to wed and thereby interfereing with their churches.

Speaking on Marriaga as it first began, if it was today what it started as, no woman in her right mind would get married today. Women were esentally sold off as property.

Getting "marriage" is more about getting the "stuff" that comes with the peice of paper. Marriage means you can be with and speak for a partner in the hospital. It means if a partner dies you arent kicked out of your own house. It means your kids are your kids and you dont have to spend thousands adopting your parnters child and HOPE the courts continue to recognize you as a family. Some insurance companies wont put a second person on your insurance if you arent related or, yes, married. Then there is survivor benefits, getting health care coverage under your partners plan (its cheaper to cover one family under one plan than singles under different plans). I can go on and on but I'll stop there.

If ticks me off when people start talking about how gay people want special rights. That makes it sound like they want something no one else has. Truth is all they want is what other people get that they cant.

BRAVO Massachusetts!

Along the same vein, I always wondered why the churches have such a huge stink over gay marriages when there's pretty much no malarky with atheistic marriages. Wouldn't not believing in God constitute a threat to the institution of marriage? I don't see any huge, sweeping proposals to make it illegal for atheists to marry. (As far as what the church itself wants to do... well, that's pretty much up to them.)

In any case, trying to ban gay marriage is pretty asinine. It's just another way for people to discriminate against something they don't understand. You'd think we would learn after, I dunno... fighting for gender equality... fighting for racial equality... Silly, silly people. Don't worry, in another 20 years we'll be doing the same damn thing again for transgender/transexual equality, since that's not even really being touched yet.

And yay Massachusetts!

Shhhh! Don't give them any ideas!

Well yeah, I had heard about that, but those laws arent enforced very often. Still, your legislators need to lay off the crack pipe. It is not up to the government to decide what people should do with their intimate life, in the comfort of their homes.


Well I dont know anything about personality disorders, but my RL gay friend, coincidentally also named David, tells me that its hard to find a decent guy because most gays he's met are shallow one-night-standers with an apparent pedophilic slant. Even though he is my age, he looks like a real macho man, and he says younger-looking partners are the most sought-after.
Therefore he is a bit sad, lonely and depressed now and then, but overall i consider him one of the most level-headed, mentally balanced and intelligent people I ever met.


And what are "successful" long term heterosexual relationships based upon?
IMHO, for any two minimally compatible people, the success of a relationship depends on how much you two want to make it work. It's all about patience, endurance, how much you are willing to sacrifice for the good of the whole.


You mean gays or people in general? These days sucessful heterosexual marriages are increasingly getting scarcer, I wouldnt be surprised if homosexual marriages were the same.

I think the issue is less about if a person is coupled with same or opposite sex and more about the media and the need for instant gratification.

Married couples who stayed together for years upon years started slowly back in the day. My grandparents as an example "courted" for years before they got married. The were together decades. Now people date for a few weeks or months have sex within days and marry often way too quickly.

The media doesnt help (although it is improving with imperfect families like shown in "Malcom in the middle" having kids growing up reading "Happily Ever After" stories and seeing families like the "Brady Bunch" on TV where people dont have to do the work of a relationship. Its all buttoned up in neat half hours and everything is solved without discomfort or voice raising.

People need to know work is involved, much as Eggy has said, and that is what makes things last.

But then there I go off on a tangent again....

I disagree that marriage is only a religious custom. Actually, I think of it as more of a method of social control than a religious custom. It's only been relatively recently in history that people got married because of the notion of "romantic love" and "religious duty." In fact, marriage has always been more about money, property, and the ability to control both than it has been about religious devotion -- the ability to control women's sexuality means control over money (what self-respecting ancient Greek farmer, for instance, wanted to give an inheritence to a child who belongs to another man? He didn't. Marriage allowed that ancient Greek farmer to have a kind of legal control over who his wife slept with, thus insuring his property went to his own children).

It does the same for men in a society where monogamy is expected -- insures that women that their men won't be running around fathering children with other women, thus taking resources away from her household. Ok, no, it doesn't always happen this way in practice, but that's where religion comes into marriage -- it creates a system whereby someone using their sexuality outside of marriage can be controlled via guilt, thus the conflation between what is really a social contract and religion.

Marriage, as we understand in the U.S., is an old patriarchial custom. That's what the religious right is freaking out about -- it's not so much about "gays" but about that old social structure falling apart -- a social structure which benefits them in the same way its benefitted people for centuries -- insures the power structure stays in place and allows for heterosexual men to remain in control of that power.

Marriage just isn't the same in every culture. There are cultures where women marry more than one man, cultures where men marry more than one woman, cultures where married couples don't live in the same household . . . and in all these cultures, marriage means something different and has different expectations and connotations. Marriage exists in almost every culture, but Christianity does not. Depending on the culture, marriage may or may not have a religious focus. That, to me, proves that what is happening here is a debate about social control rather than religion or morality or anything else.

Good on Mass. for spurring on the creation of a new social system! We need new ones every few thousand years .

Zana

I like those

If marriage were a religious religious practice and not a civil one, you couldn't get married in a courthouse.

Weddings are religious celebrations, or secular celebrations, depending on the ceremony. Marriage is a civil contract, with enforceable clauses and penalties for failure to live up to them.

Oh, and Yeah MASS! for recognizing the right of all people to enter into this civil contract with the person of their choice!