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Gay marriage is essential to equal civil rights for all
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First, to start with, all the benefits which you mention, Aaron, are given to married couples for a reason, that reason being that the vast majority of married couples will at some point bear the responsibilities of raising children. The vast majority of gay couples (a few like yourself excepted) will never bear such burdens.
Second, as for gay marriage and immigration: Marriage immigration and family reunification already is fraught with enough fraud without making gay couples eligible, too. (And does anyone ever wonder why the vast majority of international married couples always seem to want to settle in Spouse #1's country of the US, rather than in Spouse #2's country of India or Pakistan?)
Third, second, you and various gay organizations seem to have a knack for going about things backwards. Normally you try to convince people to do something democratically before you resort to legal strongarm tactics. Having failed to impose gay marriage via judical tyranny, only now do you resort to the court of public sympathy.
Fourth, how many gay couples are actually denied hospital visitation? I mean, really?
- ANOTHER condescending, self-righteous leftie who seems to know the thoughts and motives of everyone he or she disagrees with.
I love these people who NEVER bother to ask an opponent what their true concerns are. Rather, they just shove words in their mouth, then point a bitter finger of ridicule.
"Gay marriage is not an attempt to undermine families. It's only purpose is to grant equal civil rights to all."
- Oh I see. So attempts to undermine free speech and freedom of religion is simply a way of granting civil rights for ALL? And save your "We aren't trying to force our lifestyle on anyone" CRAP, cause we've already heard the lies.
Gay rights groups in other countries, such as Canada, Sweden and Denmark, have SUCCESSFULLY lobbied to make any negative speech aimed at gays and lesbians, EVEN when it comes from the CHURCH, a "hate speech" crime, punishable by fines and imprisonment.
Go ahead and keeping spinning this into some "civil rights" issue, but the true motives of the gay rights movement WILL BE EXPOSED.
1. What scientist, theologian or politician ever said that heterosexuals would turn gay if same-sex marriage became legal?
ANSWER - NONE! This straw man point has been made up by gay supporters as a smoke screen to hide behind their true reasons for legalizing same-sex marriage. Oh, and constantly screaming "HOMOPHOBIC" to anyone who disagrees with them works the same way.
2. Why was nothing mentioned in this letter about the numerous individuals in countries like Canada, who face possible jail time for simply expression and opposing opinion about the gay lifestyle?
ANSWER - Because it's only a matter of time before the emperor's new clothes will be revealed.
I invite everyone to Google the name Stephen Boisson sometime. It's only a matter of time before what happened to him will happen to anyone in the U.S. who dares to oppose the gay rights movement.
All these years, all this talk about "hate crimes" and "fairness doctrine" and "equality" is nothing but a way of controlling speech and thought.
If you think I'm just being paranoid, WAIT AND SEE!
Both the writer and the people who've responded thus far want the same thing (I assume). And that was enough to churn up a firestorm of negativity from the anti-gay marriage side.
There should be no special rights to those that can reproduce- government shouldn't discriminate. Benefits should be given to partners of the same sex, or taken away from everyone!
Our Constitution prevents dictatorships, dictatorships of an individual, and dictatorships of a majority. It's the second kind a lot of people don't recognize. They don't recognize it because they think we are a pure democracy. We're a liberal democracy, one that guarantees equal civil rights, not just what the majority dictates.
Rant all you want. It's your right. But ultimately, things like homosexual marriage will work themselves out, one state at a time. That's the way it should work itself out. That's our system of governance by design.
Unfortunately for the letter writer, results don't come in realtime. But it's better overall for these things to work out slowly.
Instead of warring over gay marriage and getting nowhere, let's do something we can all agree on:
simplify the tax system so that nobody receives special perks and everyone pays a uniform fair share. TAKE MARRIAGE OUT OF POLITICS AND VICE VERSA!
Make marriage a personal matter between consenting parties, regardless of relationship configuration.
Does anyone agree, or are we all content to stay at each others' throats and sling mud? If the same amount of energy had been put into the tax crusade as has been put forth by the opposing camps in the gay marriage war, we'd have abolished the IRS by now.
We obsess over other people's personal lives and ignore the lunacy that governs us all. The only difference between us and so-called "less civilised countries split by warring parties" is that we rarely shed blood over this kind of stuff, we just waste a lot of ink and oxygen. It's time to grow up and work on fixing things for EVERYONE. That isn't good advice exclusively for the Middle East, folks.
If you want to keep gays from marriage inside the Temple, that's fine.
Using 12th century logic inside your house is fine.
Go ahead and use it in your churchs also.
Nobody cares.
Try to trample on the "God" given rights to all American citizens and use out-dated religious text to change laws, and you will never win.
It is heartening to read that more people are begining to see the non-issue of gay marriage for what it really is in their lives: irrelevant. People come up with all sorts of ludicrous reasons to remain opposed to granting full equality to gay people from the erroneous "they can't have children" to absurdities that "God forbids it."
And the idea that giving gay people society's acknowledgement in their relationships somehow unleashing a Gay Agenda to turn everyone gay is the silliest thing printed in this forum since the drive to legitimize creationism in the form of "intelligent design".
Only in the Deseret News do you find these issues being kept alive with week after week of people writing how opposed they are to these non-issues and giving the same tired refrain of worn-out talking points that have long since been discarded by many others.
The religious argument is the weakest of all, yet it will fall eventually.
The religious argument is the strongest argument of all.
In a godless world, nothing matters. Might makes right. Loud voices triumph over reason. Clever advertising and packaging hide sub-standard goods foisted on the public.
Only religion gives a valid reason for conduct. That is not surprising when the author of good and honorable conduct is considered.
The idea that any group of people, anywhere in the world, for any reason, would announce that their viewpoint is all that matters and that anyone who disagrees had better learn to like it, is prone to fail. There is no group on this entire earth who has the ability to determine, with their own little finite abilities, what is right and what is wrong. Sure they can look at the obvious, but only an infinite mind that understands all law, not just the laws recognized by mankind, can determine whether one course of action will lead to happiness or whether that course of action will lead to destruction.
That infinite mind has already spoken on the subject of homosexual activity. His voice is being shouted down by the homosexual activists. His is the only voice that matters.