Quote Originally Posted by Koga No Goshi View Post
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The right to visit your life partner injured, ill, or dying in the hospital, IS a basic human right. It just isn't respected for certain kinds of couples.

Regarding wedge issues, Don, I agree it takes two to tango. However, I don't think an argument of recognize rights vs. do not recognize rights are just two equally valid extremes. Not in a democracy. There are some elements of the movement that will not settle for less than inclusion into the Federal legal entity of marriage because separate but equal has never proven equal in the United States, and there is no legal basis upon which to separate out two separate marriage contracts, one for gays and one for straights, except to appease religious people who want to hold onto the validation that straight marriage is better, superior or preferred, and gay marriage immoral or secondary or begrudgingly allowed.

I have listened to the arguments from the anti-gay marriage side. There are a couple categories. People who believe the scare tactics that churches are going to be legally forced for the first time in history to perform ceremonies they do not wish to. This one has no basis in reality, it is a scare tactic. The other are people who either, out of personal disgust for homosexuality, or religiously-motivated disgust for homosexual activity as "immoral", feel that any recognition of gay people, who most certainly are here and among us whether people like it or not, is an "endorsement" of gay "values" or "morals." (And those are never made explicit, except occasionally you get people like Rhyfe detailing it as something ridiculous like gay people out to indoctrinate and convert or brainwash young people into being gay, which is an extremely ignorant claim for which there is no evidence.)

I have laid out the rights and what I consider to be basic human dignity issues that convince me that gay marriage is not only acceptable but necessary. People focus so much on the tax issue, I'm sure that would help a lot of gay couples out there but I am sure if you did a survey that is not the reason most of them want it. Most of them want formal equality, for one, They want their right to make medical decisions, visit in the hospital, and share and have equal ownership over property to be unchallengeable by outsiders for two. It is not up to you or anyone else to, on a case by case basis, "decide" upon the death or divorce of a couple, who should be entitled to something, everything, or nothing. It's frankly not your business nor your right. Nor if your lesbian sister died one day should you be able to step in and lay claim on half the house she and her life partner lived in. Yet, today, legally, there is frequently room, depending on the state in question, to do exactly that. And it has been done, not just over property, but even over rights to children and pets as well.

On the other hand, you have people comparing it to marrying a toaster or dog, or the first step in a Gay Normandy to brainwash via gay activism everyone into accepting gay values-- whatever those may be. Or saying that gay rights is a "made up non-issue" from a bunch of fettishists and as soon as they shut up about it we can get back to something that "really matters."

So... with your pardon, excuse me for not saying yes this is just a gray area issue where the arguments on both sides are valid.

In other words, anybody that doesn't agree with you 110% must be off their rocker. Thank you for making my point for me. For starters, I've said, repeatedly, on this issue, I actually agree with you, that legal marriage, if it's to be granted at all, must be granted to everyone. My point was on the absurdity of the absolutism of our politics in the US, and I was building from Strike's mention of abortion. I give up....