Re: Should Civil Unions Be Legalized?
Leo Lakio: ok, this is part of my argument *g* and I heard you say you support your gay friends in the battle to get married if they want to so this is not me attacking you but just exploring the conversation further. Also, this is not about making everyone get married but about the right to choose whether to get married. You have the freedom to choose not to get married because other people already fought to establish that it's a constitutional right for you to be allowed to marry someone of another race but no one is required to get married and certainly unmarried people can live happy lives. But the quality of life question comes in when one considers what is your quality of life if the majority deems you to be less than what they are and believes it is correct to treat you so?
In the US, our constitutional rights are essentially our fundamental human rights. Why did we ban interracial marriages to begin with? Because it was the then prevailing belief that people of other races, and particularly african americans, were either not fully human (http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5116) or were "less than" other people, primarily caucasians. The banning of marriages itself was a literal reinforcement that people of minority races were not entitled to fair and equal treatment and was not an isolated incidence of discrimination because it was the result of a prevailing attitude that discrimination based on race was not just acceptable but correct. Bible quotations were used to justify it and all. Similarly with same sex marriage. It's a concrete manifestation of a belief that it is not just acceptable but it is correct to treat homosexuals as not equal to heterosexuals. It's not just marriages but things like Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
Leo Lakio: ok, this is part of my argument *g* and I heard you say you support your gay friends in the battle to get married if they want to so this is not me attacking you but just exploring the conversation further. Also, this is not about making everyone get married but about the right to choose whether to get married. You have the freedom to choose not to get married because other people already fought to establish that it's a constitutional right for you to be allowed to marry someone of another race but no one is required to get married and certainly unmarried people can live happy lives. But the quality of life question comes in when one considers what is your quality of life if the majority deems you to be less than what they are and believes it is correct to treat you so?
In the US, our constitutional rights are essentially our fundamental human rights. Why did we ban interracial marriages to begin with? Because it was the then prevailing belief that people of other races, and particularly african americans, were either not fully human (http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5116) or were "less than" other people, primarily caucasians. The banning of marriages itself was a literal reinforcement that people of minority races were not entitled to fair and equal treatment and was not an isolated incidence of discrimination because it was the result of a prevailing attitude that discrimination based on race was not just acceptable but correct. Bible quotations were used to justify it and all. Similarly with same sex marriage. It's a concrete manifestation of a belief that it is not just acceptable but it is correct to treat homosexuals as not equal to heterosexuals. It's not just marriages but things like Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
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