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Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. (JN 8:32)
klm68's Comments
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Flagged as inappropriate. show dp wrote "Medical forensics has shown that traces of sexual activity can be traced several years later. The guys in the girl and the girls in the guy. So, what does that say about anal sex? That's just disgusting." I have no idea what you're referring to, but if sexual activity could be traced years later, there would probably be a lot more rape convictions. As for the anal sex... you do know that some heterosexuals do that, too, right? And you do know that a lot of gay people don't do that, right? In any case, that you find it disgusting is no reason to deny equal civil rights to people. Do you think that gay people who -don't- do anal sex (including, one would assume, most lesbians) should be allowed to have equal rights? hide
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believer wrote "if indeed there are states that don't allows couples who are not married to have the same legal rights and benefits as a married heterosexual couples"
"IF"? There's no "if" in the matter. In 29 states it's perfectly legal to discriminate against gay people, both individuals or couples. In 37 states it's legal to discriminate against a person based on their gender identity or gender expression (i.e., that guy who's more feminine than you think a guy should be, or that woman who is *too butch*, whether they are in fact gay or transgendered or not).
Discrimination in housing, employment, access to credit (mortgages, auto loans, etc.), and public accommodation occur regularly to queer people, just as it does for people of color, minorities, immigrants, poor people, and so on.
Have you ever heard of the "gay panic" defense? When a queer person is assaulted or murdered, it's common for the perpetrator to declare that, well, the victim was gay (or trans) and the perpetrator thought that the victim was making sexual advances towards him (the perp is almost always a guy), and, well, who wouldn't beat up a queer that they thought was coming on to them? That defense has often been successful and getting the perp off or getting a lower sentence.
Middle-class white heterosexuals (especially males) don't have these experiences. For decades now, various people (including women) have been asserting that their lives are as valuable as anyone else's, and they should be entitled to the same rights as anyone else.
That includes queer people. Get used to it. -
GMG - thanks. "These people" is simply short for "these people that you're discussing with", or "these people who think that same sex couples shouldn't have the same civil rights that other-sex couples have", or "these people who say these things" or whatever. Nothing nefarious.
And while I have your metaphorical ear... you said to Mike "You are wrong in saying that this issue doesn’t change anything for me. At its very base, it would teach our children that these kinds of relationships are normal and acceptable, and that is just not the case."
Would your marriage somehow be diminished if you lived in Massachusetts or Vermont or Connecticut or Iowa (or the Netherlands or Spain or Belgium or South Africa)? Aren't there other things that are generally accepted by society that you disapprove of, and that you teach your children are wrong? Why is this any different?
You may feel accountable to your Lord as you understand him, but I don't think I'm accountable to your Lord as you understand him, even if you think I am. -
believer - what really matters in many situations isn't what's true or right or good, it's what someone thinks. And because of religious tradition and much effort, campaigning, expenditures, etc., many people have it in their heads that a same-sex partner isn't a "real" partner the way that a spouse is.
I don't see any reason to doubt that these things happen regularly. Lots of things that middle-class English-speaking heterosexual white people never have to deal happen all the time to poor people, immigrants, people of color, queer people, etc. Many of these things are hard to document because there are no statistics kept, because it's completely legal.
For example, in more than 25 states it's still legal to fire someone or refuse them housing if they're gay. In 37 states it's still legal to discriminate based on gender identity or expression. Even prohibited forms of discrimination (race, ethnicity, national origin) happen all the time. Middle-class heterosexual English-speaking white people have the privilege of being unaware of all that.
So, yes, I'm sure it still happens. You could probably find some examples online pretty easily if you were interested.
GMG - it's easy to say in an online chat that people can just go get those legal documents and contracts and hire lawyers for all that stuff, when it isn't your time and money that's being spent on it. Why should you be entitled to force other people to jump through hoops to get rights you already have? And those contracts are challenged and sometimes defeated in ways that never happen to recognized other-sex relationships (after all, marriage is traditionally about property and legal obligations anyway).
So tell me, what does a person in a same-sex couple do to get their partner and their partner's children covered under their health insurance policy, when their state doesn't recognize their relationship? -
GMG - my dictionary defines "civil" as "relating to the concerns of ordinary citizens, as distinct from military or ecclesiastical matters."
Please, explain, in what sense is not having access to health insurance under your partner's policy, or not being able to pick up from school the child you're raising with your partner, or being blocked from visiting your partner in the hospital, or being tossed out of the house you shared for decades, or.... you already know.
And even if you choose to persist in the fantasy and arrogance that "those people" can simply try to guess which of the hundreds of rights and privileges granted automatically to married couples might be of concern to them, and find lawyers who can handle all these issues, and can handle the ignorant, bigoted person at the school or hospital who decides to become the one-person bulwark defending the "sanctity of marriage" and... and... and all the hoops you expect people to jump through just because you choose not to acknowledge that their lives and their relationships and their children are as valid as yours, because none of that will prevent some long-lost nephew from Schenectady from showing up and declaring himself kin and....
You know all this already. So, please, explain, why isn't this a matter of civil rights? -
believer - you illustrate precisely the problem. You say you agree with my earlier statement 110%, but then you nit-pick the details of precisely which rights had been legally conceded to these couples on exactly which dates.... This isn't, or shouldn't be, argument by anecdote. Do you think that none of this happens to Washington state domestic partners, whether in their home state or another state, since RCW 26.60 was updated on 21 April 2007? Do you, really?
Mike - (I'm sure you understand) these people think of themselves as "normal" and, therefore, they assume that their rights will never be up for a popular vote. And if their rights are up for a vote, the voters would be people just like them, and they'd all vote to give themselves the rights that they already have. I guess it's a comforting feeling. -
cindy444 - the quote
"You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do."
is from Anne Lamott.
It's one that often comes to my mind as I read these pages. -
believer wrote "klm, it is you who are wrong in this matter since several states have indeed passed Domestic Partnership Laws that prevent the very situations you cited and hopefully all states will follow suit."
No, believer, you don't understand. The two couples whose stories I posted were registered domestic partners in the state of Washington. They *already were* partners under the sort of laws that you think will solve the problem. Got that? They *already were* protected by the "strong domestic partner laws" that you erroneously imagine will solve all problems.
One of the cases occurred out of state (in Florida), but having all the documents, including the children's birth certificates and adoption papers *didn't matter*. The dying person's partner was told "you're not family" and "you're not in a gay friendly state" (of course the hospital now denies it).
The other case occurred in Washington state, where they were registered as domestic partners under the laws of that state. The hospital was just a few miles from their home. The woman drowned in the basement of her own home that she shared with her partner of nine years. Get this, again - *they were already registered as domestic partners under precisely the kind of laws that you think will protect them*.
The laws are inadequate. You might not like it, but it's true.
Ultimately, it doesn't matter whether you call it a domestic partnership, a civil union, a marriage, or something else. What's *really* necessary is for all people to understand that committed same-sex couples are no different than other-sex couples, that they love each other - and their children - in the same way that anyone feels about their partner and their children. And, their relationships, and their lives, deserve exactly the same level and kind of respect that anyone's relationship deserves. -
philomath - correct, I know nothing about you. I'm reading nothing into your words that you don't state quite clearly. All I know is that you repeatedly assert that some people should not be entitled to the same civil rights that you take for granted. If I'm wrong here, and in fact you believe that same-sex couples are equally and fully entitled to the same rights as all other couples, please correct me.
So please, quote me. Is describing someone's explicitly stated views "denigrating" them? Inquiring minds want to know. Please explain. I try to avoid criticizing individuals. It's not about you. But anyone who is offended if I point out their discriminatory statements should stay out of this discussion.
In the meantime, please stop playing weasel word games and saying that it's arrogant and hysterical that I care about the rights of other people. Yes, other people. The only way this issue affects me directly is that I want everyone to have equal rights. You've already asserted that allowing equal rights to others would be "imposing" their views on you. Now it's arrogant and hysterical. What next?
Meanwhile, please, someone respond to my questions of Wed 11:01 p.m. What does God's outrage at seeing the wrong appendage inserted into the improper orifice have to do with denying civil rights to partners, parents, and their children? -
rydak asked "would you be okay if gay couples had all the same rights as straights couples but not the same definition?"
That they should have exactly the same rights, fully and automatically, that heterosexual couples have is just absolute minimum rock-bottom human decency. Better than nothing. But as we've seen, having the same rights on paper doesn't ensure that they'll have the same rights in practice.
People know what the words "husband" and "wife" mean. Having the same rights is a minimal condition, but they won't be really equal until people -- everyone -- can use the same words, and mean it, too. And it's appallingly condescending of believer to say that people can call themselves whatever they like. Gee, thanks! You're swell! -
GMG and believer - These issues are *not* taken care of by domestic partner laws. Again, and again, and again - you're wrong. Saying doesn't make it so.
Here's from the New York Times:
"Ms. Pond collapsed from an aneurysm during a Florida vacation, but Ms. Langbehn [Ms Pond's partner of 18 years] and their adopted children, who had all the necessary legal papers documenting their relationship to Ms. Pond, weren’t allowed to visit her as she lay dying in a hospital trauma center."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/health/19well.html
and this is from the Seattle paper:
"[Charlene] Strong was initially denied access to [Kate] Fleming's [her partner of nine years] bedside at Harborview Medical Center, having been told by a social worker she needed the permission of the next of kin.
"Who was this person telling me I couldn't be with Kate after what I'd just gone through?" said Strong in her own voice-over in "For My Wife," which won three awards at the 2008 Seattle Gay & Lesbian Film Festival and is in the market for a distributor.
Strong finally was able to be by Fleming's bedside before she died, but only after Fleming's sister was contacted. A physician interviewed in the film labeled this treatment as discrimination, saying that had Strong been a man, no one would have questioned her right to be by her partner's side."
These women were registered as domestic partners in Washington State, which has some of the strongest domestic partner laws in the country (even stronger, as of yesterday). Pond and Langbehn were in Florida at the time but they had the necessary papers. Kate Fleming drowned in her own basement in the house she shared with Ms Strong, and died in a hospital a few miles from home.
We can be sure that there are many more such examples.
Domestic partner laws don't fix the problem. Having the paperwork doesn't fix the problem. There are hundreds of other rights, privileges and obligations as well. Why are you entitled to force some people to remain as second-class citizens. -
believer wrote "there is absolutely no valid scripture that opposes interracial marriage".
But at the time, there were people who were citing Bible verses to support their assertion that interracial marriage was "unnatural." That, the the argument that God put them on different continents, so clearly we weren't intended to mix.
Thirty or forty years from now, people will be saying the same thing about same-sex marriage that you're saying now about interracial marriage.
Those of you who think same-sex relationships are a vile abomination -- could you please explain exactly what it is that offends God. I ask you for His opinion, because you know God's mind so well.
Then, please explain how depriving people of health insurance, or the right to visit their partner in the hospital, or the right to remain, after one dies, in the home they've shared, or the right to pick up a sick child from school when the other parent isn't available, etc., etc. -- please explain what depriving people of these rights has to do with the "vile abominations" you've illuminated me on in response to my previous question.
And again, believer - in both cases I mentioned where a woman was blocked from visiting her dying partner in the hospital, these couples were registered domestic partners in the state with the strongest domestic partner laws in the country. Domestic partnership doesn't do it - that's an established fact. -
believer wrote "once again you make the false assumption it is Bible-Believing Christians who are opposed to same-sex marriage and the reality it is not!"
Really? Bible-Believing Christians are not opposed to same-sex marriage? I'm sure that's news to a lot of them.
What I meant that you repeat endlessly is your insistence that equal rights can be conferred on same-sex couples and their children via stronger domestic partnership laws. That's demonstrably wrong, and I've already given a couple of examples.
If you or anyone else is tired of hearing me and others defend equal rights, then stop defending discrimination and work for equal rights, or at least don't block them. Until then, I'll push for equality whenever I can. -
believer - yes, you do. You think their civil status should be less than yours, with fewer rights, privileges, and obligations. You can say you don't, but until you're in favor of equal rights, you're in favor of maintaining them as second-class citizens.
Why can't you just "love God" in your own way and leave the rest of us alone? Stay out of matters that don't concern you. Other people having equal rights takes nothing away from you.
And, no, no, no. "Domestic partners" will always be viewed as second-class status. In the examples I mentioned, the domestic partner laws in Washington state, where these women lived, already granted them the rights that they were denied - in one case by a hospital in Florida and in the other by a hospital in Washington, the state in which they were registered domestic partners.
There's nothing to force you to cease your monotonous chant, but repetition doesn't make it any less wrong. -
believer - you can say that you don't want to have gay people continue to be second-class citizens until your face turns purple, but that doesn't change the fact that the legislation you support has exactly that effect.
Stop repeating ad nauseam your mantra about domestic partnership laws. I've already provided a couple of examples in which the "stronger domestic partnerships" that you favor (still second-class status) did not provide people with equal rights in matters concerning the life and death of their partners. More concisely: your idea doesn't work. And anyway, many Christians oppose even that.
It doesn't matter what reasons the voters in California, Maine, and dozens of other states have for denying equal rights to same sex couples. I'm not talking to all those people. I'm talking to you.
philomath - if you find it an imposition that other people might have rights equal to yours, that's your problem. Even where people same-sex couples have equal rights, you're free to continue to stroke your ego by thinking that God loves you best and that God thinks that everyone should be more like you. There's no greater arrogance than that.
There's nothing paradoxical about equal rights. Nor is there anything particularly Christian, either, regardless of your peculiar reading of your favorite translation of the ancient texts from a desert tribe on the other side of the world.
Again - the only thing that you achieve by not allowing other people to have the same rights that you take for granted is that you make it more difficult from them to take care of each other and their children. You can puff up your chests about how Godly you are, but your behavior is cruel and mean.
I almost said thoughtless but that would be wrong - you willingly, deliberately choose to deprive other people of equal rights. -
ID asked, "Is your view that we are obligated to make it easier for people to sin willfully in contradiction to the Bible's teachings?"
It's my view that you should treat others as you would like to be treated. It's my view that there are many religions, and that no one has a right to impose their religious views on anyone else. Your Bible quotations are, or should be, as irrelevant to civil law as the Q'uran or any other religious text is.
Your question makes it clear that your intent is to make other people's lives more difficult. The problem is that by blocking their right to marry or, as some Christians tried in Washington, blocking their civil rights, you don't make it more difficult for them to sin.
Blocking their rights won't turn gay people straight. It will only make it more difficult for them to support each other and to support their children. Do you feel good about that? -
Slacker wrote "I have great concern for my fellow human being, but what I don't have is contempt for God's rules."
So what do you do when the two are in conflict? Where's your sense of justice and fairness toward others?
Your idea of "God's rules" is your particular interpretation of a particular religious text. There are many texts of many other religions, and not all who consider themselves Christians interpret that text the way that you do. You're left with the "my God can beat up your God" approach, and off we go, to religious war. -
believer - it looks like Washington state will pass a referendum that allows such "stronger domestic partner laws" to remain on the books. They were passed by the legislature and signed by the governor this past spring, but a bunch of "Christians" initiated the referendum in an effort to block equal rights.
But strong domestic partner laws don't help when people are in a different state (read about Janice Langbehn and Lisa Pond). Sometimes they don't even help in their home state (read about Kate Fleming and Charlene Strong). In both cases one of them was blocked from seeing their dying partner in the hospital.
Charlene Strong wrote "A social worker prevented me from entering the emergency room, telling me that Washington State did not recognize same-sex partners as next of kin. [...] as if I were a stranger, I had to get the permission of one of Kate's family members to be near her and to make decisions for her care." Fortunately, she was able to reach Kate's sister by phone in Virginia for permission to be at her dying partner's bedside.
But really, believer, it's irrelevant that you happen to think that other people should be content with second or third-class status as "domestic partners" while you arrogate to yourselves the privilege of deciding who can marry and who can't.
Why should you people have any standing in the matter - and please don't give me your argument about God's collective punishment yet again. Understand this: the rest of us don't have to live according to your interpretation of your chosen religious text. -
Slacker wrote "You people still don't get it do you, this isn't about marriage it is about following the commandments that God has laid down" and then wrote "I am not forcing you to do anything..."
Pick. You can have one of these or the other. You are either imposing your view of "God's commandments" on others by trying to make them civil law, or you're not. It can't be both.
This isn't about "having my favorite toy taken away", and by trivializing the matter you should how little concern you have for your fellow human beings. Is that what your God demands of you?
The only way same-sex marriage affects me is that either I get to live in a society that has equal rights and equal respect for all, or I don't. -
id - why should people be tolerant of your interference in their personal lives, when their personal lives have no impact whatsoever on you?
You make it harder for people to visit a sick or injured partner or child in the hospital.
You make it harder for people to stay in the home they shared with a partner for decades, should that partner precede them in death.
You make it harder for a person (and that person's children) to be covered under their partner's health insurance.
Why should anyone tolerate that?
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