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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dayuhan who wrote (13357)	10/21/2003 10:20:01 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793570

I think the reason gay women are not as active in the gay marriage push is that the main impetus for gay marriage is AIDS. Gay women don't get AIDS. A gay couple can legally contract for almost every benefit which can be acquired via marriage. They can own property together. They can inherit from each other. They can act as guardian for the other in the event of disability. The ONLY social benefits they can't get via contract are ones which are given by third parties. The only ones I can think of are participation in group health insurance policies, and retirement benefits. Given that retirement benefits are going the way of the dinosaur, but AIDS shows no signs of going away, I think it's AIDS. I suppose that if I were gay, it would rankle that heterosexuals can get health insurance as a benefit of marriage but I can't. As a married heterosexual with a chronic disease, my husband's health benefits are greatly appreciated. Interesting to see how few gay people have actually gotten married in jurisdictions which have legalized it.

To: Dayuhan who wrote (13357)	10/23/2003 2:11:00 PM
From: Neeka	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793570

I didn't say or mean that government could never sanction same sex marriage, but to ignore that there is a large segment of society who won't ever agree, and that they are entitled to disagree with such a sanction is unrealistic. We can fall back on the same analogy we almost always use. There are millions of individuals who do not believe that Roe v Wade was a correct decision even though our government says that it is. The government can certainly decide to make abortion legal, and the government can tell individuals which laws they will obey, but the government can never require that you or I or anyone else accept that abortion is right. If government were to go ahead and make laws legalizing same sex marriage it would essentially be speaking for society as a whole. As in Roe v Wade, to disagree would be considered outside the norm and therefore worthy of condemnation. Taking the above analogy into consideration, I have heard it said that anyone who disagrees with the government sanctioning of abortion makes them "irresponsible" or "uncompassionate." I assume the same adjectives would be used to describe people who would never sanction same sex marriage, yet I know for a fact that people on the opposite sides of these issues are very compassionate, responsible individuals. What business does the government have to tell two people that they cannot enter into a contractual agreement because they belong to the same gender? Same sex marriage proponents would have the government get involved and I think the argument they make is that they want the "right" to a contractual agreement. But it can be asked; what business is it of government to get involved in this issue? How that got into a discussion of homosexual marriage is completely beyond me. Do you think that the repression of women that prevails in conservative cultures with strong fundamentalist elements in the Middle East (and elsewhere) is part of a homosexual conspiracy to repress women? No, I don't believe it is. As stated in my earlier post.....I was wondering if anyone had a clue as to why women aren't seen participating in public in the various pictures coming out of Iraq.....or the Middle East on whole. I was also wondering if homosexuality played any kind of role. Thank you for attempting to answer. The United States Government is only permitted to enforce laws passed by the United States Congress and signed into law by an elected President. To the best of my knowledge, no “law of procreation” fits these criteria. I agree. I think it is widely accepted that the law of procreation is a universal law that is only manipulated by man. I personally think it is time for government to define marriage, and I think you will probably disagree with much of my post Steven, but let me remind you that we are all on this journey together, and like family we will have our disagreements. Some of us know more than others and some of us are willing to admit it. We all know that thanks to the wise words of our founders it cannot be argued that we don't at least have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. M