Belkira the Tulip wrote:
I did...? I don't recall obsessing about a ceremony.
Yup:
Belkira the Tulip wrote:
Why wouldn't you couple the ceremony with the marriage benefits? It is part and parcel to what a marriage is.
That in response to a part of my post that didn't even mention the marriage ceremony itself. You specifically said that the marriage
ceremony should be "coupled" to the marriage benefits. I interpreted that as you saying that you can't have a ceremony without having a marriage license. If you meant something else, by all means clarify your position.
gbaji wrote:
I actually used the cable company as an example because, just today, we had a client living with her boyfriend, who's name is on the account but not "primary," who needs a note from her and a copy of her driver's license in order to go to ComCast and pick up a new digital cable box. He's over 50 years old, but he needs a @#%^ing note from his girlfriend before he can take care of this.
If they were married, it wouldn't be an issue.
Neither would it be if she held a contract which granted each other power to make financial decisions. Which is *exactly* why a marriage grants that power. Your example would work if and only if the couple in question had such a contract and the cable company refused to acknowledge it. In which case, they'd have grounds to sue the cable company, just as a married couple could.
Do you have any clue how many things married couples have to go through to make sure that the businesses they have existing contracts with include their spouses? Its no different. They don't just let you claim you are married to someone and pick up their property you know...
gbaji wrote:
Ah, so maybe these homosexual couples should't be allowed to enter into a loan...?
Where did I say that? I said that they care about it. You know why? Because the government has special loan programs which people with marriage licenses can qualify for. That's one of the benefits I was talking about.
gbaji wrote:
Because it's unfair to subject one group to this while the other group can simply get married? It's a matter of not being made to feel like a second class citizen. I can tell you're fine with them being labeled as such, but I'm not, and I can't imagine most of them are very happy with it, either.
You're kidding. Once the contract is written up, gay couples (and anyone else for that matter) can just "get married" too. You're being silly and stubborn on this point.
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They shouldn't have to. Nor should they have to defend their rights to idiots like you.
Except that there's no denial of rights going on here. I started out this discussion talking about how the problem with this issue is one side that insists on framing the issue incorrectly. That's what you are doing, btw.
It is because you insist on equating a marriage contract with a marriage license that you can't imagine another better way of resolving this issue. IMO, that's a false assumption. There is no law saying you must have a marriage license to enter into a marriage contract. None. As was pointed out in a previous thread. A gay couple did exactly that. They wrote their own contract which included everything in the existing contract you must agree to when obtaining a marriage license. It is just as valid and just as legal.
There is nothing standing in the way of every single gay couple in this country getting married tomorrow, except their own unwillingness to solve this problem using the legal tools already available to them. For a fraction of the amount of time and money already spent on this issue, their problems could have been solved. You yourself have been a victim of this, but instead of realizing it and acting to change it, you've continuing to blindly move forward supporting the very "cause" which has screwed you over.
Gay couples are not special unique snowflakes. The laws of this country apply to them the same as it applies to anyone else. If they wish as a group to define a set of contracts to define their relationships, there is nothing except themselves standing in their way. There are no laws preventing them from getting what they want.
You sit there and insist that gay people should not have to go through the hoops of writing a standard marriage contract and then using it (just like everyone else who needs a legal contract btw), yet choose instead to go through massively more hoops to pursue a different course. Why should gay couples have to go through decades of fighting to change state and federal laws in order to obtain something they could get without changing a single law and for a fraction of the price and time?
If someone told me that instead of just going to the store and buying a cake, I instead had to spend decades supporting a political cause in order to force the government to bake one for me, I'd tell them to **** off. I would at a minimum realize that they were just using me for their own purposes. Why more people can't see this, I don't understand...
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Civil rights and stopping discrimination is rarely easy, but it's always worth it.
There is no civil rights violation here though. That's the problem. Just because someone tells you you must support their cause to get what you want, doesn't mean that it's true. Think for yourself.