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Politics : Polite Political Discussion- is it Possible? An Experiment. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: maceng2 who wrote (1060)	8/20/2006 3:01:39 PM
From: Ron	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1695

The situations in the U.S. and the U.K are very different and its hard to compare them. Massachusetts is the only state in the U.S. that allows gay marriage. Also differences in the way we finance health care makes a big difference. Some of the major (if low-key) opponents of gay marriage in this country are large employers who do not want to pay the extra medical insurance premiums for gay married partners. They are required to offer spouses coverage under their group medical insurance plans in most states. As it stands now, at most American companies, only hetero married couples are covered by group insurance. No gay partners need apply. Some companies do offer coverage to gay partners but they are usually those with headquarters in other, more liberal countries, such as Glaxo SmithKline, for example. Statistically the percentage of gay people in the general population is rather small. I think its a tempest in a tea pot and mostly used as a club to get the attention of fundamentalist conservatives by right wing strategists. en.wikipedia.org

To: maceng2 who wrote (1060)	8/20/2006 3:09:10 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1695

In the US it's only legal in one state. There is no likelihood of droves of people stampeding for other forms of marriages. There aren't even that many gay people who want to get married. What are they? Between 6-10% of the population, right? So maybe you need a backlash in the UK. Although I can't say I thought Scotland was very progressive when it came to alternate lifestyles. But in the US we're still having the original "lash" at gays and others- I don't think we can honestly move on to the backlash yet. I think it's quite reasonable to let people have whatever state marriages they want. For those people who really crave the ability to discriminate, let them marry in churches. Then they can have that dollop of exclusivity that some people obviously need. Churches can discriminate all they want- they aren't supported by the government.