Now that Proposition 8 has passed (dammit)...

Inspired by this discussion.

Also – for the record – I am a straight, married mother of 3 children.

I think the majority of the LGBT community, at least the people I know could care less about the word and are more concerned with the rights anyway, I think it’s the scared little heteros that are creating and perpetuating the problem.

Protest.

I go to all the LGBT rallies and functions in Washington, DC. I recommend doing the same.

I’m with you. Make the governmental term something generic, such as “civil union” and let marriage be privatized, as it were. Religious institutions and various other communities can have their own way(s) of doing it. Heck, anarchists would be able to get married without any qualms. Maybe this is just me at my most libertarian.

Like I said in another question, I really don’t want to get married till they can. That is my form of protesting. I have faith it will be legal one day, hopefully soon…

hmm. asmonet, you say to protest and go to LGBT rallies. What about my position—I just don’t like for the government to control marriage. It looks like for most (if not all) of you, this is an LGBT issue. For me, it has more to do with the limits of government. I see how it affects the issue of gay marriage, but that’s not where I’m coming from.

Absolutely not. The religious right, or religion in general, does not own the word “marriage”. The word, the ceremony, and the idea itself far predates organized religion. You must stand up against ALL forms of discrimination, not bend and compromise to allow it to co-exist.

The controversy is the connotion of “separate, but equal” treatment of human beings; one can’t be gay and married because they are somehow less-deserving of it than heterosexuals. Reminds me of another era of shame.

This is a disgusting, discriminatory concept, a true no-brainer.
As someone once said, gay people deserve to be just as miserable as everyone else…:^D

I’m with August. When it comes down to brass tacks, all marriages are simply legal contracts anyway. if you don’t believe me, sit in on divorce court proceedings.

Shall we march on Washington? Actually, I’ll start with Phoenix, especially after the stupid-fest yesterday

Maverick, in principle I agree with you completely. They should not be able to claim that marriage belongs to religion…it doesn’t. However, in practice, if we ALL disown the word marriage, we could maybe get around this whole problem quicker. What word we use is less important than the fact that we ALL use it.

Brown v Board of Ed ruled tha separate is inherently unequal

Yes, and it is. What I’m proposing wouldn’t be separate, though. My (legal) marriage wouldn’t be called marriage anymore. No legal contract would be. See the second to last paragraph in my question, above.

You could call it monkey dancing or green eggs and ham, whatever you want. I won’t tell you what my husband I called our marriage, that was very silly but if government recognizes a specific relationship it needs to officially be called the same thing. Basically gay and hetero relationships are the same.

That’s what I’m saying Galileo…it would be called the same thing. The word marriage would no longer be used to define the government sanctioned life partnership contract of anyone. In other words, if you get “married” in a church/synagogue/mosque, the government would not recognize that at all. It would simply be a religious ceremony, like a baptism or bar mitzvah. Everyone, regardless of orientation, would have to do something completely different in order for the legal rights/privileges/responsibilities to be conferred upon their relationship. Whether it be a ceremony (like becoming a citizen), or just filling out a contract.

“If the damn word “marriage” is so freaking important to the religious right, why don’t we just let them have it?”

Because the word “marriage” is important to US! The struggle for gay marriage was never really about marriage per se. If it were, the struggle would have been over when we won domestic partnerships. Marriage and the right to serve openly in the military are the last two legal barriers to the legitimation of homosexuality in our society. As long as we are forced to accept an invidious legal distinction—i.e., anything less than full marriage as traditionally conceived—we are consigned by law to a form of second-class citizenship.

Frankly, I can not imagine a more fruitless, impractical, and counter-productive project than a minority trying to persuade anyone at all to give up “marriage,” with all its solemnity and the legitimating power of tradition in favor of a generic “civil union.” If we had the cultural wherewithal to institute new usages on this scale, we wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with.

I propose to let the religious right have it in another way:

If Christians are willing to deny me the dignity of being treated as an equal by forcing me to accept a lesser form of marriage on the basis of their beliefs, then I am no longer willing to respect the legitimacy of their beliefs.

Christians have demonstrated by their recent actions that they are willing to use the power of the state to marginalize and shame homosexuals. In so doing, they have demonstrated that their true aim is to turn this country into a theocracy. They have shown their complete lack of regard for the separation of Church and State—and their contempt for the values of a democratic society—equality, tolerance, privacy, freedom of conscience, and respect for human rights. In this respect, Christians have demonstrated that they are both immoral and un-American.

Accordingly, I commit myself to denouncing anti-gay Christians as both unChristian and as enemies of our democratic society. I commit myself to exposing them as fascists, unworthy of our nation’s tolerance and respect. I commit myself to exposing their hostility to science, reason and reality. I commit myself to exposing their intellectual dishonesty, and the immorality of their irrational, divisive, superstitious, irresponsible and ridiculous beliefs. I further commit myself to driving them out of politics, defunding their political organizations, debunking their propaganda, publicizing their scandals, and generally protesting any public display or expression of their beliefs.

What I propose to do to them is, essentially, what they are trying to do to me; namely, render them politically impotent and invisible in society. I welcome anyone who cares to join with me in this endeavor.

@Augustlan: I understand your proposal, but I think it’s what most anti-gay-marriage folks are afraid of; we’re going to lessen the defination of marriage and reduce theirs to just a civil union in the eyes of the law.

I want a marriage, a wedding, in a church, with my Christian family forced to approve, and a law that says God has to like it. ;)

Ok…you guys certainly know better than I what is appropriate here, and I defer to you. I’m just almost sickened to be associated with something (marriage) you can’t have!

If I was alive during the Holocaust, I would totally have worn a Star of David/yellow armband!

I agree with you in theory, august. The religious version of marriage is very different than the legal version. There are heavy moral connotations associated with the word “marriage” that don’t belong on the government side of things. God knows that I’m all for the complete separation of church and state.

But, as breedmitch said, anti-gay-marriage peeps would not want the word marriage messed with. And there are some in the LGBT community that would like to be included in the exact same way. Let’s work our way up to equality before breaking things down.

@ Monty – I am a catholic christian, albeit not your typical one and I wont get into that. I am a straight married guy with two kids. I was blessed to have one of my closest friends, who is gay, be an usher at my wedding.

I always have, do and always will openly and unabashedly support your right to be married.

Just letting you know there are some of us out here.

My wife agrees with me to.

I am sorry there are so many out there who think their time and money is better spent trying to tell others how to live their lives. People who actual donate their time and money to saying two people in love cannot be married instead of helping people eat, or cloth themselves, or find shelter, or healthcare.

@BriL,
I have no problem with Christians who follow Christ’s example and respect the dignity of their fellow man. My ire is directed toward Born Again, the politcized true believers, and Mormons (who gave $23 million to pass Prop 8).

Kind of funny that Mormons are passing judgement on marriage laws, huh?

I mean, WTF?

Yes… but sexual expression is a very very touchy subject in the Mormon community (ooh, that pun actually wasn’t intended).

My .02 is to offer some perspective. And before I do, I want to say I’m a straight man who partied in the Castro in SF last night, and booed at the potential passing of Prop 8. (It’s only the potential passing, since the official tally of the 3–4 million remaining absentee and provisional ballots is due out 12/13, I heard today.)

When I was growing up (not too long ago – I’m 28), people got made fun of and beat up for being gay. Remember Matthew Shepard? Remember how agonizing it used to be for many people to “come out of the closet”? Geez, I rarely even hear that term anymore.

We are rapidly moving away from the time when sexual preference matters. I just want to remind us of how far we’ve come, and how quickly. Didn’t it used to be that propositions like this related to gay marriage got shot down by percentages like 60–40, or 70–30? If this prop gets passed at 52–48, that tells me we are getting very close to tipping over the edge. The edge of sanity and basic acceptance.

So many of my friends have been expressing their shock and dismay in us Californians for not shooting down Prop 8. What I love about that is how normal homosexuality has become. How basic the assumption is that we shouldn’t discriminate against gay folk. How normal it is to be gay. It wasn’t like that just 10 years ago. So much societal homophobia has faded.

We are in the process of tipping. Old fogies are dying. McCain didn’t get elected. The tide is turning. And it will really turn very soon. Of course, as a straight man, all of this is much much easier for me to say – it’s not me that is being discriminated against. If it were me, maybe I’d be feeling like MontyZuma.

My main point is that we are moving fast. We just elected a black president of the United States. Ignorance is losing. Acceptance is gaining. We are close to the tipping point.

Thank God…or whoever!

@albie: I see your point as well and in private matters, I don’t believe in the government getting in the way either, but the LGBT stuff usually is in support of other issues as well or just plain pride. I’m kinda with you actually. It shouldn’t matter to anyone but the people involved, a generic government form and legal right should have nothing to do with the ceremony and how each person chooses to express that right.

@ Monty – I can’t believe the money spent.

I will repeat my rant from another thread.

I can’t believe that there are people out there who look at the problems in the world and say “homeless, hungry, healthcare, illiterate children, drugs, two loving people of the same sex who want to make a life long commitment in marriage” and then decide the best thing they can donate their time and money to is the last point and actually go out of their way to do it.

Paradoxically, it was the high black turnout that allowed this to pass. According to exit polls, Blacks voting for Obama voted 70% in favor of Prop 8, whereas whites only voted 46% in favor. You would think that black people of all people would be sensitive to civil rights, but no.

Although Obama urged defeat of Prop 8 in robo calls just before the election, Biden said during the VP debates that his ticket did not support gay marriage.

I hope this isn’t a harbinger of things to come.

I just stumbled upon this blog post. I just thought it was interesting that someone else was saying exactly what augustlan was saying. Assuming that you didn’t write it, augustlan?

Nope, it wasn’t me. I wish it had been, as it was far simpler to understand than what I wrote! Clear and well said.