I think you are failing to look at the issue objectively.
To compare the legality of homosexuality to slavery in America and women's suffrage is demeaning to slavery and suffrage.
For instance, women could clearly say taxation without representation.
Blacks could say far worse about slavery.
You're pissed about a couple government programs that you don't benefit from because you like dudes instead of chicks.
Your tradition argument falls on it's face when exposed to the light of reason.
You told us tradition was paramount, and those are examples of entrenched traditions that were recognized as wrong and overturned. The denial of any kind of rights to any person is always offensive.
Interracial marriage was traditionally illegal too. If the constitution applies to everyone equally, then it must apply to everyone. If the government is going to create special rights and benefits related to legal partnerships it sanctions, a group of minorities cannot be ignored. That's why the courts are going to overturn your tradition, which they will deem arbitrary, meaningless, and opposed to the guarantees for all people enshrined in that constitution that we are slowly but steadily ensuring actually apply to all.
You are not denied any rights. Women have no choice but to be women, blacks have no choice buy to be black, and Bucky argued the other day that homosexuality was a choice.
Now, I'm perfectly willing to accept that it isn't a choice. I realize it is a mental disorder.
There are myriad state and federal rights and benefits that cannot possibly be obtained by gay couples. That's why the courts are going to throw the restrictions down. If nothing was being denied, there would be no legal case. If you read the Utah gay marriage decision, for example, at the very beginning it has three stories of people being denied rights and benefits established by the government because they could not "marry" in Utah.
I'm not Buck and I'm not arguing that homosexuality is a choice. I don't agree. Nor is it a mental disorder, according to the learned folks who define mental disorders.
You are preaching to the choir with me, son. I'm not opposed to gay marriage. I'm also not as intolerant as you seem to be.
You want to force people to accept your way of life. That is thought policing.
No one ever has to accept my way of life. When a straight couple gets married, I certainly don't have to accept their way of life. It has nothing to do with me.
I'm all on a board with homosexual couples being at a disadvantage for numerous reasons. Federal taxation, end of life partner stuff.
If you could fix all of that, come up with a new word for it, and relegate marriage to what it has always been (a religious ceremony between members of the opposite sex) other than forcing others to accept you, what is the difference to you?
I'm all for what gives the most freedom to as many as possible.
Civil-unions do this. They could even replace marriage as far as I'm concerned. Since marriage should be between the couple and god, civil unions are the couple and uncle Sam.
Marriage hasn't always been "a religious ceremony." At this very moment marriage is a legal trigger for rights and benefits in state and federal law. No "marriage," no trigger, no benefits. It has nothing to do with a religious ceremony. You can easily get married without one.
What churches do doesn't matter to me. If they want to recognize gay marriages, great. If not, it's none of my business. This is about the government's recognition of marriage, which is supposed to be separated from religion. You can speak hopefully about marriage being replaced and relegated to a religious ceremony all you like, but so long as it's on the statute books as a trigger for rights and benefits provided by governments, it cannot stand as it is. If you believe in the constitution and you believe in equal rights you cannot possibly have another opinion.
Let me echo your words back to you, because I agree 100% with your sentiment: "I'm all for what gives the most freedom to as many as possible." Allowing the state to recognize same sex partnerships as marriage will give more freedom to more people immediately. You don't need an act of congress and acts in 50 state legislatures (that's what your civil union scheme would require to be practical) to give people what they can be handed immediately. Give them their freedom, don't tell them they need to wait for 51 governments to get around to doing it. Would you stand for that? I doubt it.
