Breaking: Obama supports gay marriage

It's a difference in degree, not in kind.

 

In what way - exactly - does it differ?

 

First it is a lifestyle choice, you don't choose to have black skin, you can choose to be gay.

Some are born with it, most are not and the fact that every single medical authority has spent billions and searched high and low for some genetic link and have yet to find it makes it pretty reasonable to accept the idea that maybe they haven't found one because there isn't one.

Further, nobody would or does know your gay until you tell them you are gay, which I find an insult to my intelligence whenever we're supposed to go apeshit and applaud the courage because some celebrity "comes out". Who gives a fuck?

You can't hide being black, you cant blend in, you cant go about every day life without people knowing you are black.

Second, gays were not enslaved, gays were not brought to this country and murdered in mass, gays have every single fucking civil right of every other American - including the right to get married - and gays don't have their own drinking fountains, they don't have their own bathrooms, they aren't routinely targeted by police because of the color of their skin and they are some of the economically well off people groups on the planet - so they haven't been placed at the bottom of the barrel and made to stay there by a lot of very real and racist forces beyond their control.

They've been able to live their lives for the most part - I know, I know, but, but
"Matthew Shepard got hung ---" - and in many ways their persecution is a result of their own perceptions of what people really think.

I can't tell you how many friends I've had who "came out" and told me that they were more than pleasantly surprised to find out that the overwhelming majority of people in their lives don't give a fuck and treat them the same as when they thought they were straight.

So again, it is an insult to black folks in this country to try and compare the fact that in some states gay people can't marry each other to the long, in some way mostly losing battles against segregation, murder and economic persecution.

The history of the two people groups is not even remotely similar, no matter how many times gay people try and beat that drum in order to further their cause.

 

"Nobody would ... know" someone is gay when two people of the same gender apply for a license to marry?

Neat trick.

 

I disagree, but that was well stated and very fair.

 

Yes, that is EXACTLY what white Southerners said in the '60s, when I was a kid. Awful lot of "why do we have to do this now?" and "don't rush us.'

 

I do want to point out - I am not insensitive to why it is frustrating for gay people and why this injustice needs to be corrected immediately in every state without all of these silly right-wing appeasing stipulations like "well you can call it a civil union but not a marriage" - I just draw the line when I hear people comparing it to the struggle of black folks in this country because the history of violence, injustice and economic persecution with regards to that people group is disgusting.

 

I have trouble coming to grips with the idea that who you have sex with is the driving issue in one's life. I have trouble coming to grips with the idea that the rights of the fetus is the driving issue in one's life.

Understand, it's not that I think they're wrong in their stance. It's a matter of degree. There's a whole lot of things out there to swing your fist about.

But, yes, it's easy for me to say. (It's also easy for me to say it's sunny out, but you get the idea.)

 

Low budget as in the kind that you find in the back room of the video store?

 

FWIW, the proof text the Christian right is much more prone to cite these days regarding homosexuality is Romans 1:26-27 (presented for informational purposes):

26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Of course, Paul has some other great hits, such as declaring women shouldn't wear make-up or speak in church.

As a Christian who has no problem with gay marriage but lives in a deeply conservative community, the shitstorm is just beginning here. I look forward to seeing our editorial page over the next few weeks, as we have several regular letter-writers who are a doozy. According to one woman, Rush Limbaugh "has never stated a skewed opinion on any subject" and that if rumors the local AM station may drop him prove true, she will start an effort to boycott this "potentially Marxist radio station." Another one celebrated Pride Week at the local university (which may or may not have been timed to coincide with Holy Week) by mailing us a multi-page article on the health risks of gay sex.

Those are the black-helicopter knuckledragger types, but even in my own hometown, I had to watch my pastor preach an entire sermon to reassure the congregation (and this is a United Methodist church north of the Mason-Dixon line) that she would never perform a same-sex marriage.

Religion at its best is a wonderful force for good. At its worst, it's people using holy authority to tell other people who they can't have sex with. So, as much as I believe demographics will tilt the issue, the intermingling of sexuality, rural community and religion will ensure that there are pockets of passionately opposed people out there for generations.

PS: I have never heard of "My Two Dads." I have heard of Step by Step, where Staci Keenan played Dana, the bitchy, smart stepsister.

 

As a person who is married, some days I suppose I could come up with some cynical reasons as to why Gay people are better off without it, however, here is my question - have you ever heard one legitimate and good reason why christian people oppose gay marriage so vehemently?

Because I have not.