National Protect Marriage Week

Walking down pennsylvania Ave today I saw a large van barreling on in my direction. Large speakers on the top blared the sounds of an angry man screaming about Marriage, morals and the evil that is gay people (:eyes:). Ok, not terribly unusual for DC where all the assorted whack-jobs come to get attention for their various projects and pet issues. As the van passed I looked up and caught the side which besseched that people write to their representatives about National Protect Marriage Week.

"What," I thought to myself "does Marriage need protection from?" At a time when upwards of 50% of marriage's end in divorce it would seem marriage is in trouble. But what is it in trouble from well, the Man in the Van had one answer. 'We must protect the sacred sacrement of Marriage from those heathen and sinful gays!' A snort escaped at that moment at the thought of the stupidity of his reasoning. Yes those durn gays are out to take a venerable Murikan institution, the cornerstone of our society, and make it bad. But really, what damage can Gay's do to marriage? Who deserves to be married more, The Drunk couple who met 45 minutes ago in Vegas and can barely remember the other person's name or the nice Lesbian couple down the street who have been together for 8 years, with 2 adopted kids and who love each other deeply? I'm opting for the latter

Well if its not gays it must be the gentleman's other rallying point. Those durn feminazis right? Let's roll back to the good old days of the 1950s where women could be abused and had no rights. When Women were housewives and Men were the kings of the domain. But you see, when you give people equal rights, they demand to be treated like equals, so instead of a woman living out 50 years of hell they can start over and escape the abuse.

Not Women, Not Gays and Lesbians. What then could it be? Despite the inane ramblings of Bill Frist and his fellow conservatives the problem with Marriage isn't about who gets married but why they feel the need to get married and the ease with which its accomplished (aside from the endless planning) The cultural norm and social construct that is Marriage is indeed critical to preserving human societies. It is (in most cases) the ideal way to raise a child and pass on values. But to say it is for everyone isn't necessarily the truth. The expectation that EVERYONE needs to be married and have kids is an old social more, that isn't as necessary with a population exceeding 6 Billion and rising rapidly. As I mentioned earlier,
nearly any man and woman in the US can get married at nearly any time they want, relatively cheaply and quickly. The force put on by culture about when and why and to whom is to blame.

The problem with national protect marriage week is that it isn't about the danger to marriage at all. It's just another sad attempt by the GOP to ram its cultural attacks against minorites down everyone's throat. Sad, they missed the boat again. Sad, their arrogance wrecks millions of lives.

You really want to protect marriage? Let people who want it have it, and make it harder for those who don't to get it.

:thumbsup:

What I don't get is do they really think that if they legalized gay marriage, that suddenly people are going to grab a same-sex partner. It makes no sense at all.

It's homophobia, the same reason they believe that being around a gay person means they will try to be converted to homosexuality. Most homosexuals will tell you that its genetic therefore they don't even believe that they can convert you (nor would they even want to if they could). Their thinking is so archaic

Thanks :hi:

:kick:

leave some of these dudes alone without their wives' help for a few days, along with a few whiny brats, and let's hear them yak about the sanctity of marriage. :)

Get people revved up about a "moral" issue, so we're talking about that during the campaigns instead of about the real well-being of the nation. I thought it was going to be abortion, but it looks like the superficial issues of the coming election will be gay marriage and the pledge/God in the public arena topics. Nice, superficial stuff that gets people all emotional and helps divide us into the "moral, godly, America-lovers" and the tolerant, nasty LIBERALS. Issues that lots of people feel are either/or. Issues that can be represented as the pro-God vs. anti-God or pro-homosexuality vs. anti-homosexuality choices. Let's not talk about wars, the economy, or the spectacular failures and lies of the current administration -- let's talk about gays and God. And, sadly, many people will fall for this superficial game.

These are real and solid issues that have to be adressed. Ask many gay people and I don't think they'd agree it was superficial. As for God, one of the biggest threats to our nation is, I believe, the growing influence of evangelical and fundamentalist Christians in our goverment and the sway in policy they have.

These may not be winning issues, or issues you want to talk about, but they are far from superficial

She's a fundamentalist but relishes a good debate. We never change each-other's minds but we certainly see their points better at the end.

Anyway, we talked about this topic today and she seems to be under the impression that if gay marriage was made OK that suddenly no one would hook up with the opposite sex any more, the family would erode and people would stop procreating. I tried to convince here of the problem with that theory, but she kept moving on to different arguments.

Her last one was about thinking of the children, that they shouldn't grown up thinking homosexuality was acceptable. And the problem with that is what?

Even after our discussion today, I still don't understand the point of this need to control other people's lives.