First of all i dont care for marriage full stop, i dont believe you need a bit of paper to prove that you love and are commited to someone.
However i dont want to ban it, If you want to get blessed by a man in a frock they so be it. My point is that we all get the choice to be as misrable as hetrosexual couples. If we change the *Gay* bit to *Black* *Disabled* *Asian* we would not be having this debate.
Why are we hung up on this, is it undlying homophobia? Are homosexuals somehow different to hetros, should they have different rights?
Maybe we should also look at why there are no openly gay footballers in top two leagues in England, Yet most other major sports do have opnely gay stars? Is it a class problem? a football problem?
I dont know the answer, i just want homosexuals to have the same right to be misrable as hetrosexuals.
Is it really to much to ask?
Looked at coldly, marriage is a restriction. It's to stop the father from going away and leaving the children unprovided for. This, of course, is important only in heterosexual marriages. But it shows there is an underlying difference.
ReplyDeleteThat said, if people of any sexual orientation want a ticket saying they're married, let them have it.
Most religions are homophobic. But they should be allowed to be, and their ministers should not be compelled to marry gay couples if they don't want to. Forcing tolerance on people is an intolerant thing to do.
I agree, I can see no reason why gay people should not be allowed to marry and have the same rights as everyone else.
ReplyDeleteBilly, you can call it what you fucking well like, but it isn't fucking marriage. I decide what I choose to call marriage, and it isn't either gays or lesbians pretending to be married.
ReplyDeleteMy view is that gay people should have the same rights (no less, no more) as ordinary people. It should make no difference as if they had ginger hair, dark hair or blonde.
ReplyDeleteSociety takes centuries to evolve. Therefore I counsel care in changing things too fast just to pander to folks. Tachy's first point is central to this.
Make haste slowly or live to regret the pandemonium that will ensue.
I completely agree with Schrodinger. Except, not Gingers.
ReplyDelete--First of all [I] dont care for marriage full stop--, full stop. Me neither, and I have never been married, as no woman in her right mind would want me and those who did want me weren't in their right minds. But the sad fact is, Billy, that marriage, much like the monarchy, is an old venerable institution that people have a hard time seeing being tampered with. A civil union with all the rights, privileges and immunities of marriage is just as good legally, but some people who just want to make a point (or who want to take the piss out of the Bourgeoisie) will not stop at that and want to call it "marriage." Take what you can get, I say.
ReplyDeleteAs to footballers: Most sports players are emotionally stunted in their early teen years (as are a lot of gays, I might add) and it's a subject that causes them a lot of anxiety. Do you have any nephews or nieces who are or were that age? They don't want to think about whether someone they know, love and respect in a friendly or brotherly/sisterly way loves them back in a way they can't handle at that age. I'm sure you never told any one of your friends if you doubted they could handle it. Same difference.
Firstly, fair play to you for biting the bullet and starting your own blog, Billy - it's more than I've been arsed to do!
ReplyDeleteAs to gay marriage, I (along with, I suspect, 90% of the British public) have no problem with homosexuality. If two people love each other and want to share a life then that's fantastic, and all the luck in the world to them. I fully support civil partnerships and equal rights, including inheritance, authority to make medical decisions etc. for gay couples who have decided to form a union between themselves.
However, the cynical pragmatist and lawyer in me sees potentially huge problems with gay marriage. I don't object in the slightest to a gay couple calling their partnership a marriage if it makes them happy - it's their right to do so. However, it is also worth noting where the root of "marriage" comes from - namely religion. It didn't exist before religion.
Leaving aside the gay-hating Muslims for a moment, I personally know many people in the Church of England who have no problem with the idea of gay marriage. Fair play to them. However, I also know many people who (while they wouldn't dream of discriminating against gay people in everyday life) object on a religious basis to the notion of gay marriage due to the scriptures they hold dear. They must remain free to hold their belief too.
My fear is that once gay marriage is brought into law, and one single gay-accomodating church holds a gay wedding, then any other church that doesn't wish to do so will be forced to by the European Court of Human Rights. Indeed, their recent ruling on this matter backs this up.
So, while I am in favour of gay marriage in a civil sense, I do not want other people's beliefs trampled on to accomodate it. If it can take place in registry offices only, then fantastic, but I worry that it is only a matter of time before a gay couple wants to get married in a pretty church (as I hope to), and people of genuine faith are then forced to conduct a ceremony that goes against everything they privately believe in.
Kind of thing.
I see that you retain the old gay prejudice that straight people are miserable breeders. Billy, you're a hypocrite, but I will defend to your death your right to say it.
ReplyDeleteTachybaptus - Adoption and marriage/civil partnerships between people where 1 or both partners are transgender mean that the restriction you speak of only being relevant in heterosexual relationships are relevant in potentially ALL relationships, regardless of gender.
ReplyDeleteThis discussion is ongoing in my native Denmark at the moment too, and one of the bishops of the Danish Church suggested moving the legal part of marriage away from the church and to register offices, (2 other bishops agreed) as a wedding is nothing but a legal action, and not a holy action.
ANother bishop, the Danish Association of Priests, and the Minister for Ecclesiastical Affairs shut down the suggestion with the reasoning that as fewer people go to the church, the church should not remove one of the remaining reasons for people to go to church.
Some of the Danish bishops are working on a special ritual for homosexuals as everyone fully expects the law to be changed soon in Denmark.
@ Tachbaptus:
ReplyDeleteI completely disagree that marriage is a mechanism to stop fathers leaving children unprovided for. Contrary to the myth perpetuated by the feminists and the media, most fathers actually love their children dearly, and try to do what's best for them, regardless of their legal arrangements with the mother.
I don't think you are in conflict with Tachy in the way you may think. Any decent man will love his children. The thing is (excuse me Billy) that many women are attractive to most men and the urge to mate will, if unchecked, run to a man having dozens of children with many women. I speak from long experience and if there were no restrictions, I confess that I would have had many kids by now by a number of women I have admired. The problem in the real world is, who pays for them?
ReplyDeleteTachy's caveat Looked at coldly... is the key to understanding his post which has great depth and subtlety. Without wishing to embarrass him, it displays the mark of the man.