The Blue Board

me to .....for now

I understand that, but I still don't really care. If a guy wants to marry and screw a goat I don't care. The only issue I see is abuse benefits, but I know a man and a woman that do it. I just don't really care either way so I tend to go with the side that has less government involved with it.

I dig what you're saying, I really do. But, IMHO, I don't think changing such a unique and important institution, so that a few folks can enjoy the tax breaks, is a legitimate reason to change it. And, as it is with all other important institutions, changing the definition of marriage will change the way marriage is viewed in our country. For better or for worse, it will change things. It's not as cut and dry as, "it doesn't affect you so why are you worried about it." As far as marriage and Christianity, you're right. Since Christianity has only been around for 2,000 years it isn't the creator of marriage. However, and since you invoked religion, the Biblical God created marriage and has made it clear what marriage is. You may disagree and that's fine. But, I have every right to believe what I do without being called the names that the OP espoused.

That just seems backwards. Currently, laws exist that recognize a man and woman living together for an extended period of time as being married. So you are saying that these laws should automatically recognize Male/Male and Female/Female living together as marriage until someone disputes it? That is quite a jump. I'm glad the law doesn't work that way.

I agree with this part of your statement 100%. No one, not you, nor I, nor good, nor the government has any right to define marriage for another person. That is a personal choice none of us can interfere with. If two people decide they're married, then no one else can tell them they're not based on any of their personal beliefs. Just because the government decided it has a right to issue some worthless marriage license, doesn't mean that the license means anything.

If your concern is insurance, then go appeal to the insurance companies to extend insurance to gay couples. The government won't stop them and you shouldn't try to sneak in the back door and get the government to redefine something just to force them to do it. I'm no expert on the history of insurance, but I'd be surprised if it got extended to spouses by government order. Most likely, insurance companies decided to do this own their own and would be willing to do it for gay couples too.

If your concern is tax breaks, appeal to the government to extend tax breaks to gay couples. They aren't bound to only giving those breaks to people they deem to be married anyway. That's just some arbitrary way they've decided to pass them out.

I've got a feeling, though, that this isn't what this is about at all. I would bet that this gay marriage thing is just an excuse to whine.It is something to make noise over. It is something to judge others over and point fingers over. Otherwise, you'd have taken the logical, simple route and did the things I mentioned above to actually extend the benefits to gay couples rather than spend years fighting over some meaningless piece of paper...while they go without these benefits. At least you enjoyed it and got to condemn a few folks along the way though.

For all of you anti-gay marriage folks, why do you want to give the government the right to define marriage? Do you think that God intended for you to go to the Court House and get permission before being married? No. In his eyes, and the bible is clear on this, a couple became married when a woman left her home and moved in with the man, an act you now condemn as "shacking up" because the people didn't go through the proper channels of asking the government's permission.

Every side is wrong in this argument. The real answer is to tell the government to get out of the marriage business altogether rather than begging it do abuse its limited power by defining it for us. Go that route, and everyone wins.

Why would you want pics of him as a 10 year old? Strong Sandusky IMO.

you are unfamiliar with board rules,

although thread is gay thread its disturbing that you would assume someone wants to see male pics when quoted post mentions hot female cousin

Then apparently you aren't listening very well. How about the argument that a marriage brings with it certain legal status changes. Like having a default power of attorney when it comes to health issues, not having to have both parents formally adopt a child so if one parent the dies the other isn't screwed out of raising their child, or the multitude of tax, inheritance, and ownership issues that most married couples don't have to worry about. By granting these rights to certain people based on who they want to share those rights with, but denying those rights to another person because they want to share it with a different type of person, is I feel, completely wrong and unconstitutional. That's the greatest argument for legalizng homosexual marriage.

You could blow up this whole debate by just taking away all rights of marriage from everybody, but I'm guessing those of us in the present legal marriages wouldn't like that taken from them...

Being gay is as much a choice as being another race.

You can't choose to be another race,so...

We're really not about to have the "is homosexuality a choice?" discussion AGAIN are we?

For the record: it's not.

Glad you got that on record. I had my doubts until just now.