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Gakked from GryphonRhi:
"Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?" - Ernest Gaines
We would like to know who really believes in gay rights on LiveJournal. There is no bribe of a miracle or anything like that. If you believe in gay rights, then repost this.
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I am totally confounded by those who feel threatened by the idea of Gay Rights, particularly the issue of whether or not to allow same-sex marriages.
They talk about same-sex couples as a Threat To The Sanctity of Marriage, while completely ignoring things like the Hollywood marriages which often don't make it to their first anniversary. Where was their moral outrage over Brittany Spears' 55-hour marriage? That's not a marriage, that's a weekend fling! Surely this is a greater Threat To The Sanctity of Marriage than the idea of a couple with identical plumbing arrangements?
The part that I really don't understand is that most people seem to be willing to allow same-sex couples to have the same rights and responsibilities as 2-gender couples, provided they do not use the label of "marriage" -- call it a Civil Union, and they're fine with it, but call it marriage and they balk. So their objection isn't to the relationship, it is to the name by which that relationship is known.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that same-sex marriages are legalized, but only under the label of Civil Unions. There is no case law concerning Civil Unions in any state in the Union. Therefore, every case that comes up must be handled without the benefit of precedence, and each law concerning any aspect of marriage must be re-written to include Civil Unions.
Just have the law which creates Civil Unions worded so as to make it apply to all laws applicable to marriages, you say?
Good luck with that.
Even if you could find a suitable wording, this still does not relieve the burden on our already-overworked court system. Until each of those marriage-applicable laws has been successfully defended before a court with it's new Civil Union considerations, the Civil Union laws still do not have the weight of precedence supporting them -- and in our legal system, precedence will make or break over 90% of the cases.
What is being proposed is the creation of a legal entity known as a civil union, in order to recognize the rights and responsibilities of same-sex couples in a relationship previously recognized only for 2-gender couples under the name of marriage -- a separate and distinct legal status, but equal to those of married status.
In other words, what is being proposed is illegal, according to our own US Supreme Court.
In 1896, the US Supreme Court decided in the Plessy v. Ferguson case that "separate but equal" was an acceptable philosophy. As evidence of the weight of precedent, that decision stood for almost 60 years. It was not until the 1954 case of Brown v. Board of Education that they overturned that ruling, realizing that separate is not and cannot ever be equal.
Here are exerpts from the opinion of the court on that case, written by Chief Justice Warren (provided by Findlaw.com):
The plaintiffs contend that [they] are not "equal" and cannot be made "equal," and that hence they are deprived of the equal protection of the laws.
We conclude that ... the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place.
We have now announced that such segregation is a denial of the equal protection of the laws.
In Brown v. Board of Education and Plessy v. Ferguson, the issue was racial segregation in education. The parallels are indisputable -- enforcing separate legal status upon a group of people based upon something intrinsic to their being, whether it be race, sex, or sexual orientation, is a violation of that people's rights and of the principles upon which this country prides itself:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Thomas, John, Benjamin, and the rest -- I'm sorry. We seem to have lost the dream you helped make real, and precious few seem interested in recovering it.
May our children forgive us.
"Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?" - Ernest Gaines
We would like to know who really believes in gay rights on LiveJournal. There is no bribe of a miracle or anything like that. If you believe in gay rights, then repost this.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am totally confounded by those who feel threatened by the idea of Gay Rights, particularly the issue of whether or not to allow same-sex marriages.
They talk about same-sex couples as a Threat To The Sanctity of Marriage, while completely ignoring things like the Hollywood marriages which often don't make it to their first anniversary. Where was their moral outrage over Brittany Spears' 55-hour marriage? That's not a marriage, that's a weekend fling! Surely this is a greater Threat To The Sanctity of Marriage than the idea of a couple with identical plumbing arrangements?
The part that I really don't understand is that most people seem to be willing to allow same-sex couples to have the same rights and responsibilities as 2-gender couples, provided they do not use the label of "marriage" -- call it a Civil Union, and they're fine with it, but call it marriage and they balk. So their objection isn't to the relationship, it is to the name by which that relationship is known.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that same-sex marriages are legalized, but only under the label of Civil Unions. There is no case law concerning Civil Unions in any state in the Union. Therefore, every case that comes up must be handled without the benefit of precedence, and each law concerning any aspect of marriage must be re-written to include Civil Unions.
Just have the law which creates Civil Unions worded so as to make it apply to all laws applicable to marriages, you say?
Good luck with that.
Even if you could find a suitable wording, this still does not relieve the burden on our already-overworked court system. Until each of those marriage-applicable laws has been successfully defended before a court with it's new Civil Union considerations, the Civil Union laws still do not have the weight of precedence supporting them -- and in our legal system, precedence will make or break over 90% of the cases.
What is being proposed is the creation of a legal entity known as a civil union, in order to recognize the rights and responsibilities of same-sex couples in a relationship previously recognized only for 2-gender couples under the name of marriage -- a separate and distinct legal status, but equal to those of married status.
In other words, what is being proposed is illegal, according to our own US Supreme Court.
In 1896, the US Supreme Court decided in the Plessy v. Ferguson case that "separate but equal" was an acceptable philosophy. As evidence of the weight of precedent, that decision stood for almost 60 years. It was not until the 1954 case of Brown v. Board of Education that they overturned that ruling, realizing that separate is not and cannot ever be equal.
Here are exerpts from the opinion of the court on that case, written by Chief Justice Warren (provided by Findlaw.com):
The plaintiffs contend that [they] are not "equal" and cannot be made "equal," and that hence they are deprived of the equal protection of the laws.
We conclude that ... the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place.
We have now announced that such segregation is a denial of the equal protection of the laws.
In Brown v. Board of Education and Plessy v. Ferguson, the issue was racial segregation in education. The parallels are indisputable -- enforcing separate legal status upon a group of people based upon something intrinsic to their being, whether it be race, sex, or sexual orientation, is a violation of that people's rights and of the principles upon which this country prides itself:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Thomas, John, Benjamin, and the rest -- I'm sorry. We seem to have lost the dream you helped make real, and precious few seem interested in recovering it.
May our children forgive us.
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And yes, either we have equal rights for all our citizens, or we don't. At the moment, we clearly do not -- which I find unacceptable.
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To me america is this country that stands up and says "We are the good guys, we believe in liberty, equality and the brotherhood of man." So whenever it doesn't I feel cheated and angry. And I'm not a US citizen. In fact I will probably never be a citizen cause they wouldn't let me in, people who want to become citizens have their opinions held against them during the process, opinions on marraige for example.