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Gay Marriage discussion

Buddy Bradley said:
http://metro.co.uk/2013/06/05/baroness-knight-gay-men-are-very-good-at-things-like-antiques-3830393/
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‘This bill is supposed to be all about equality. The trouble is people can’t be made to ensure equality because frankly a rather higher authority than any of us has already decreed that we’re all different and thank God for it. Some are lazier, more clever, more tall, more short, some are blind, while others can see, and you can’t change those things by a parliamentary law.’
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Whu...? :confused:

"You can't have this thing because we're all different, but we can have this thing because some of us are more different than others"
 
buscador said:
Oh, I don't know, they seem to find such amusing bigots at times; the flustered christian woman yesterday complaining about us gays attempting cultural dominance has quite inspired me. Even the bigots seem to be caricatures of themselves.
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There was a comment in my local paper by someone who got very flustered about gay people being "everywhere you look these days" it was a long and heartfelt rant about how they shouldn't be so in-your-face, and his final word, no lie, was that they need to "go back to where they came from".

Gayland?
 
Poot said:
There was a comment in my local paper by someone who got very flustered about gay people being "everywhere you look these days" it was a long and heartfelt rant about how they shouldn't be so in-your-face, and his final word, no lie, was that they need to "go back to where they came from".

Gayland?
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The West End maybe? IIUC they're all very theatrical.
 
Poot said:
There was a comment in my local paper by someone who got very flustered about gay people being "everywhere you look these days" it was a long and heartfelt rant about how they shouldn't be so in-your-face, and his final word, no lie, was that they need to "go back to where they came from".

Gayland?
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Ancient Greece or 1970s' television, presumably. Well, I'm sorry, but in this mafia we obey the laws of temporal mechanics
 
Poot said:
There was a comment in my local paper by someone who got very flustered about gay people being "everywhere you look these days" it was a long and heartfelt rant about how they shouldn't be so in-your-face, and his final word, no lie, was that they need to "go back to where they came from".

Gayland?
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Presumably our mothers vaginas. :D
 
Poot said:
There was a comment in my local paper by someone who got very flustered about gay people being "everywhere you look these days" it was a long and heartfelt rant about how they shouldn't be so in-your-face, and his final word, no lie, was that they need to "go back to where they came from".

Gayland?
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I don't think they want me back in Widnes!

Presumably we were everywhere he looked before - he just didn't recognise us. We were trying to blend in, whispering in Polari and trying to avoid arrest.
 
I'm more pleased about this than I thought I'd be. Yes, civil partnership gave almost all the same rights as marriage, but it wasn't marriage, and it does feel nice to know I can now marry the partner of my choosing. In theory, anyway.

As to actual differences - well, for binational couples it does actually make a difference. A British friend of mine is civilly partnered/married to an American. They got married in one of the American states where marriage is legal. But because same-sex marriage wasn't recognised here, her relationship wasn't recognised as a marriage in her partner's home state (not the one they got married in - complicated, I know), making it more difficult for them to live there if they choose to, which they might well do because her partner has a child with an American. Now it's fully recognised as marriage that's one obstacle removed from their path.

And it is fully recognised as a marriage now. That law came into effect last week: same-sex marriages conducted abroad are already recognised as marriages here, with no conversion necessary.

More significantly, for pensions civil partnerships that are converted to marriages were not equal at all. Some of the people getting civil partnerships were pretty old and this really did affect them. From here:

For civil partners, public sector schemes are dated back to 1988. For private sector schemes, it need only be backdated to the Civil Partnership Act 2004.

But for married couples, a surviving partner is entitled to a pension based on the number of years their spouse paid into the pension fund.
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This will change when civil partnerships are converted to marriage. I'm really not sure how this would affect people who are already civilly partnered and are also already drawing a pension based on the old, unfair rules. Will there be backdating?

I doubt it would affect many people, but I've met at least one personally, a man who got a civil partnership and then his partner died (they were both pretty old). He would only have been entitled to a lower rate of pension; if he's still alive now, will he be due a huge rebate?

Churches are now allowed to conduct gay weddings too, if the religion (not just the indivual church) allows it. So that means the Catholic church won't, and the CofE by law is not allowed to even if it wants to, which is weird, but some other churches can now do it. This matters to some people.

elbows said:
Great article. I don't think she got married though, since I don't think its yet possible to convert a civil partnership to a marriage.
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Yeah, it was just a renewal of their vows. It'll take another month or so for civil partnerships to be able to be converted to marriage (which will happen by signing a form, not by having another official ceremony), but actual gay marriages can already happen.
 
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frogwoman said:
I was a bit annoyed to see the BBC giving so much publicity to homophobic opinions in its website :hmm:
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I thought it was good to let a rabidly anti-gay marriage person air her views on question time, not only did it give the panel and the audience a chance to comprehensively shout her down but it gave us the chance to see the pained, tortured expression on her face as people spoke about things like love, commitment and equality. Goes to show there's no rational reason to oppose gay marriage, and that those who do are just bigots.
 
I have a bit of difficulty regarding gay marriage.

Whereas I absolutely endorse the fundamental equivalence of all people, regardless of creed, colour or sexual orientation, I do believe that marriage is the union of a man and a woman.

I do not see the institution of gay marriage as undermining, or diminishing heterosexual marriage, how could it, it is a different thing.

A lot of thought has gone into this post, a lot of soul searching. It is not a 'knee jerk' reaction, it is a thorough audit of my view, with regard to the equality of human beings, their sexuality, and my understanding of the institution of marriage.

I've been rehearsing this for a long time before I decided to post.

Regardless of how I feel personally, it would not be just to deny any person the right to marry someone they love. Love is universal, not bound by by gender, and to separate human beings by sexuality is wrong. One cannot deny the right to marry because of gender, to do so is indicative of a view that some people are somewhat less than other people.

Gay men have gone, in my lifetime, from being imprisoned for having sex with another man, to being able to marry. A long and hard fought journey. I'm not a gay man, and am not going to insult gay men by saying that I know what they have gone through, I don't. As a heterosexual man, I have never encountered the prejudice and downright hatred that gay men have endured.

As I said at the beginning, I have a bit of difficulty in accepting gay marriage; it is brand new and a wee bit strange. I dare say that this time next year, it will be something that I don't give a second thought to, it will just be an ordinary part of life. For sixty one years of my life, men and women married, now men and men and women and women can marry. Life isn't static, and as times change, so must you.
 
I came out as a very young teenager when the age of consent was 21, an automatic sexual outlaw. :D In the early years I felt some of my straight friends viewed my relationships a little less seriously than their own, and although I have no plans to marry my partner I feel the marriage equality law has gone some way towards alleviating those feelings. It's also worth remembering this wouldn't have happened without the massive support from hetrosexuals - although it breaks my heart it took a tory PM to push it through.
 
Sasaferrato said:
I have a bit of difficulty regarding gay marriage.

Whereas I absolutely endorse the fundamental equivalence of all people, regardless of creed, colour or sexual orientation, I do believe that marriage is the union of a man and a woman.

I do not see the institution of gay marriage as undermining, or diminishing heterosexual marriage, how could it, it is a different thing.

A lot of thought has gone into this post, a lot of soul searching. It is not a 'knee jerk' reaction, it is a thorough audit of my view, with regard to the equality of human beings, their sexuality, and my understanding of the institution of marriage.

I've been rehearsing this for a long time before I decided to post.

Regardless of how I feel personally, it would not be just to deny any person the right to marry someone they love. Love is universal, not bound by by gender, and to separate human beings by sexuality is wrong. One cannot deny the right to marry because of gender, to do so is indicative of a view that some people are somewhat less than other people.

Gay men have gone, in my lifetime, from being imprisoned for having sex with another man, to being able to marry. A long and hard fought journey. I'm not a gay man, and am not going to insult gay men by saying that I know what they have gone through, I don't. As a heterosexual man, I have never encountered the prejudice and downright hatred that gay men have endured.

As I said at the beginning, I have a bit of difficulty in accepting gay marriage; it is brand new and a wee bit strange. I dare say that this time next year, it will be something that I don't give a second thought to, it will just be an ordinary part of life. For sixty one years of my life, men and women married, now men and men and women and women can marry. Life isn't static, and as times change, so must you.
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Sas, I'm not sure if you have any children. I find one of the great levellers in this debate is to consider how you would feel if one of your children was gay.
I've always supported absolute equal rights for all. I'm not religious, but take a view of adding an extra 'o' to what I believe in, so whereas you may have a belief and faith in 'God' I believe in 'Good' and in many ways it is the same destination but a different route. This enables me to navigate around my own perceived bigotry towards religion and people of faith. As an atheist I can engage with people of faith because a lot of what we both believe in is the same thing.

My eldest son is gay, that I'm certain of, he is 16 and has yet to reveal his sexuality. I've always felt this he was gay from when he was around the age of 5, which totally dispels any notion of outside influences dictating sexuality, it is a natural concept. I watched my son get bullied by gay taunts at school from he age of 9. It wasn't pleasant, but it got sorted after I metaphorically kicked the head teacher up the arse. A kinder more considerate kid you could not meet, he is the apple of my eye. He is good, it matters not that he is gay. The thought he would not have the same right as you and I to get married I find infuriatingly wrong and yet I'm not even married myself. It is the principle of fighting discriminatory attitudes within society that gels me. You may want to place yourself in my shoes to get inside the thought of a man marrying a man. I'm pretty certain had your life followed the same path as mine, then religious or not you would arrive at the same conclusions. Sticking up for your children is very powerful.
 
Batboy said:
Sas, I'm not sure if you have any children. I find one of the great levellers in this debate is to consider how you would feel if one of your children was gay.
I've always supported absolute equal rights for all. I'm not religious, but take a view of adding an extra 'o' to what I believe in, so whereas you may have a belief and faith in 'God' I believe in 'Good' and in many ways it is the same destination but a different route. This enables me to navigate around my own perceived bigotry towards religion and people of faith. As an atheist I can engage with people of faith because a lot of what we both believe in is the same thing.

My eldest son is gay, that I'm certain of, he is 16 and has yet to reveal his sexuality. I've always felt this he was gay from when he was around the age of 5, which totally dispels any notion of outside influences dictating sexuality, it is a natural concept. I watched my son get bullied by gay taunts at school from he age of 9. It wasn't pleasant, but it got sorted after I metaphorically kicked the head teacher up the arse. A kinder more considerate kid you could not meet, he is the apple of my eye. He is good, it matters not that he is gay. The thought he would not have the same right as you and I to get married I find infuriatingly wrong and yet I'm not even married myself. It is the principle of fighting discriminatory attitudes within society that gels me. You may want to place yourself in my shoes to get inside the thought of a man marrying a man. I'm pretty certain had your life followed the same path as mine, then religious or not you would arrive at the same conclusions. Sticking up for your children is very powerful.
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Absolutely. I have one child, a daughter who is 39 with a son of her own. I have always stuck up for her, and have also kicked a few teachers up the arse.

Yes, had my daughter been gay, it would not have made the slightest difference.

I do view gay marriage as a bit odd, at the moment. It has overturned something that has been in place in the nation for a very long time. As I said earlier though, like any other major change, give it a while, and it will just be an ordinary part of life.
 
Sasaferrato said:
I do view gay marriage as a bit odd, at the moment. It has overturned something that has been in place in the nation for a very long time. As I said earlier though, like any other major change, give it a while, and it will just be an ordinary part of life.
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Sass, I don't mean to be flip, on this issue you've come across as sensitive and supportive towards gay rights, perhaps it'll help if you view it as the local golf club allowing women to become members. It really isn't going change the institution as much as you think.
 
Sasaferrato said:
I do view gay marriage as a bit odd, at the moment. It has overturned something that has been in place in the nation for a very long time. As I said earlier though, like any other major change, give it a while, and it will just be an ordinary part of life.
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There are quite a number of things which given time, no matter how strange or repulsive they may seem now can if given time become just an ordinary part of life. More than some would willingly acknowledge. Free speech is, rightly, a key facilitator of this.
 
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