Defective Arguments
I have been arguing the question of gay marriage and other civil rights for the LBGT community for a number of years and, latest exchange on the blog included, have yet to find a single logic based argument presented against any of these rights.
It is not uncommon for folks, such as anonymous did, to take a "we just see it differently" approach. Frankly this is unacceptable when these questions still hang out there.
This country is not (supposed to be) a theocracy. As such, legislation should not be thwarted for religious reasons. So I open the floor up now. Do any of you out there have any logical arguments against such legislation? Arguments that don't involve your bible or generic, sweeping and unbased concepts such as breaking with tradition or unfounded scare tactics such as it opening the door to polygamy and beastiality?
Who out there has a logical reason to stand against these legislations? And if you don't, what the hell are you doing not fighting to get them in place?
Just a quick, deep question about life, or something close to it.
It is not uncommon for folks, such as anonymous did, to take a "we just see it differently" approach. Frankly this is unacceptable when these questions still hang out there.
This country is not (supposed to be) a theocracy. As such, legislation should not be thwarted for religious reasons. So I open the floor up now. Do any of you out there have any logical arguments against such legislation? Arguments that don't involve your bible or generic, sweeping and unbased concepts such as breaking with tradition or unfounded scare tactics such as it opening the door to polygamy and beastiality?
Who out there has a logical reason to stand against these legislations? And if you don't, what the hell are you doing not fighting to get them in place?
Just a quick, deep question about life, or something close to it.
Labels: civil rights, gay marriage, homosexuality
posted by Wanderer at 7:41 PM
27 Comments:
What's wrong with polygamy?
I'm not in any way worried about an epidemic of bestiality, but I have to ask....
Logically speaking, if you legally redefine marriage to include two people of the same gender, is there any reason why you could not also expand it further in the future to include any two sentient beings? I don't think there is.
Anonymous -
Could you logically preclude it in the future? Not if you can say with certainty that both parties agree to it. You know of any scientific evidence that I am unaware of that indicates a dog, cat, horse can comprehend the magnitude of a permanent cooperative relationship of this sort and that it can be conclusively determined that they agree?
More importantly, even if this could be done, in what way does the one open the door to the other? I don't recall women being given the right to vote opening the door for a horse to do the same.
MC - I didn't specifically take a stance against it, I just said that the one doesn't open the door to the other.
However, a case can be made that the legalizing of polygamy could open a myriad of legal headaches, particularly in the divorce department. It could also become problematic to insurance companies who have to cover one wealthy man's 400 wives on his family plan.
These are logical, practical arguments from a non-theological argument. Not ones that could be applied to the same sex question.
I know the animal marriage thing sounds crazy, but 10 years ago I bet the average person would have laughed if you mentioned the possibility of gay marriage.
I read an article a year or so ago (I wish I could remember the source, but I don't) about a man who claimed to be married to his dog and was fighting to have their marriage legally recognized. Someone's reaction, in the article, was: "There's something wrong with the relationship when you have to keep your wife on a choke chain." Although, I'm sure there are plenty of married people who go in for that sort of thing...
Also, I don't think you ever argued against the logic of my basic premise in the last round of comments: it just doesn't make sense to call two different things by the same name. You dismissed that as a trivial argument, but to a writer precision of language is important. (An example of "seeing things differently" which is not theologically based).
I don't think it makes sense for the gay rights movement to say out of one side of its mouth "Honor diversity" and out of the other "We're exactly the same as you".
The analogies between the gay rights movement and the black civil rights movement are surface likenesses at best. This is a case where "separate but equal" would be totally appropriate.
Anonymous - "The analogies between the gay rights movement and the black civil rights movement are surface likenesses at best. This is a case where 'separate but equal' would be totally appropriate."
Except if you read your history and the rulings, separate but equal never is. As for surface likenesses, people be beaten and or killed for who they are, shunned by the community, treated as a different class of people? Didn't these things happen during the black civil rights movement?
"I know the animal marriage thing sounds crazy, but 10 years ago I bet the average person would have laughed if you mentioned the possibility of gay marriage."
The fact that it sounds crazy isn't the issue. The fact is that the one doesn't lead to the other. You look to my arguments in response to your first statement and you will see the logical reason why the one doesn't act as a gateway to the other. And as I said, no human right has ever been automatically conferred to other species, so I don't see why the concern that this one would be.
"Also, I don't think you ever argued against the logic of my basic premise in the last round of comments: it just doesn't make sense to call two different things by the same name."
I am sorry. I thought I did. Here goes. They aren't two different things. It is the entire damn point of my argument. I am sorry you missed it. I hope that cleared things up a little.
Seriously, but not much more friendly, this isn't a logic based argument either. This is the same kind of straw man bull shit which is why I discounted it the first time. Jim and Jane get married. They can't have the kids that they want of their own, so they adopt three. They raise a loving family, watch the kids grow, share their celebrations and their pains and grow old together watching their kids thrive and blessed to have been able to share all of the experience with the one they love the most. Now take Jim's name out and write Joanne. Same story. Samy relationship. Same everything except for what they actually do in the bedroom. We have never regulated sexual positions in regards to the marriage question in the past so why start now just because they don't take the "insert tab a into slot b" approach?"
"I don't think it makes sense for the gay rights movement to say out of one side of its mouth "Honor diversity" and out of the other "We're exactly the same as you".
And they don't. Are you even aware that you are spewing baseless propaganda or is it just ingrained? I mean on the one hand you seem intelligent, and on the other you spew crap like this which is exactly what this post said was the only ammunition. A generic sweeping statement that on its own means nothing. A sound byte with no substance. What homosexual do you know who says they are exactly the same as you? Trust me, every one of the ones I know knows they are different on that particular subject.
Now if you take the "exactly" part out then I will say they are the same as us. Us as a whole, the entire diverse group that we are. If you consider the citizens of this country are two genders, thousands of racial combinations, many religions, many different social and sexual leanings. Each person is a unique individual. The part where they are like us is that what makes them unique is no more appropriate to pass laws against than what makes you are I unique. (Assuming you don't have unique qualities that pose a threat to the public.)
So again, at square one. A straw man or two, some propaganda. Just the slightest hint of logical argument in the two different things by the same name argument (logically, I believe, dismissed), but at least it was a logic based argument.
Still at square one though. Any other takers? Or anyone want to give it another go?
My audience has gotten kind of small in my absence, I know, so any and all of you who wish to pass this challenge on, please do. I truly don't think there is any logical argument to be found out there, and sadly I am beginning to realize that my opponents aren't even able to realize that what they are saying has no logical merit. Somehow it seems less monumental when you are combating liars than combating a country of sheep who can't be bothered to think through their own initial reactions or the crap that someone else gives them that sounds good on the surface.
"They aren't two different things. It is the entire damn point of my argument."
I think this is why we can't see the logic in each other's arguments. If I remember back to my high school math classes, you have to start your logic problem with assumptions that you accept to be true or false. We aren't starting from a common understanding of the issue, so we can't reason together.
I'm sorry that no one else is interested in this topic. It would be good to get some other viewpoints.
Just to close, I don't know why you assume that I'm regurgitating propaganda I've been fed by the media. I think you are expressing the mainstream media opinion. I would like to accept it, because it's easier to just give people what they want and be perceived as a nice person rather than a jerk, Unfortunately, my own mind won't let me go along with it. I'm sure my viewpoints are formed out of many ingredients that I would find it hard to disentangle, but I know propaganda is not a significant one.
If propaganda isn't a single one, then this only admits that your brain is creating positions not based on logic. Again I point out that you have given no basis to lead one to see a base for your arguments. So you either don't have it or willfully choose not to use it. The latter makes no sense to me.
Start with something known to be true? Go for it. You say they are two different things, I say they aren't. I explained, logically, my position for why I take this stance. You have not logically founded your comment, you just state they are different. You start with these opinions and try to build your house on them. I am presenting realities.
There is no difference between the marriage of an infertile couple and the marriage of a homosexual couple except for sexual positioning. Since there is no single accepted formula for appropriate sexual activity amongst married homosexuals (and no legislated standing) this singular issue can't hold in legislative argument.
Again I present facts. Again I wait for the bullshit to slow down enough for someone on the other side to attempt to do the same.
This isn't going to go anywhere as long as you are the only one determining the validity of an argument (serving as both prosecutor and judge, so to speak). I'm never going to convince you that I'm right, and you're never going to convince me that you're right. So I'm just going to stop and hope someone else weighs in.
Sorry, spoke too soon again.
Before I go, let me say on the question of "gay rights" vs. "civil rights": gay people did not endure 300 years of slavery in this country, during which time their legal status was commensurate with that of animals or other property. Nor did they endure another 100 years of systematic legal oppression from their former owners.
In terms of legal precedent, I think the struggle for legal recognition of gay couples has more in common with Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972.
As Title IX has been enforced, high schools and colleges have had to ensure that girls and boys are offered the same opportunities to participate in sports and other activities. It has not been enforced to mean that they have to play on the same teams, just that the school has to provide equal rights and equal funding for both boys' and girls' teams.
I have not labeled myself as the only valid determiner of what is right or wrong. Have you in fact missed the entire point of this post? I have called for logical argument. Fact based statements. You say there is a difference, I have asked for you to label what that difference is. You either can't or refuse to do so.
This is not something that can be an agree to disagree situation. Not with the prejudices and actual tangible damages at stake. If you look through even my conversations here, I am a very lax and tolerant person in regards to different views in a lot of areas. I can't be here. People are being hurt. There is a line, there is a battle, and as such there are enemies.
You say you are going to stop debating. I say you haven't started. I will maintain you have no position, nor do your comrades in bigotry and oppression until one of you can actual present one.
As for your civil rights issue, they have been bound "in the closet" for centuries. The only difference is you can't hide skin color. They also have not been enslaved. They have been treated as non-human. Through the years they have rather been abused and or killed. I am sure you see this as preferable to bondage.
You have the capability of using a working mind. So use it. Come up with a basis for your bullshit. Something that can actually be quantified and seen as I have been doing all along. If we keep it on quantifiable terms, one of us must be right. If you refuse as you have to use quantifiable terms, it doesn't look like it is you.
"You say they are two different things, I say they aren't. I explained, logically, my position for why I take this stance. You have not logically founded your comment, you just state they are different."
I stated some reality based reasons a long time ago, and I don't see that you've actually made a good case for your side.
The laws of our state have always accepted that marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman. They are based on that premise because until recently there was no question of it being otherwise. Marriage, defined in that way, was a long-standing tradition before either the state of New York or the United States were incorporated as governments. If you want someone else's word for it, check out some legal texts. For instance, the intro to the Matrimonial and Family Law section of McKinney's New York Forms. If you know any lawyers, or have access to a law library, you'll find it there.
You dismissed any argument based on tradition as "defective". Well, tradition is just another way of saying "precedent", and that's what our legal system is all about. This is why I don't see it as totally impossible that gay marriage could lead to interspecies marriage, although of course I don't think it's very likely. The obstacle comes in the area of precedent rather than logic. We have laws about the qualifications a party must possess to be capable of entering into a contractual relationship, such as age and mental health. But those qualifications are not immutable, any more than the qualification that currently states that marriage requires one male partner and one female partner.
You are asserting that there is absolutely no difference between a gay couple and a straight couple because both can raise children together, whether or not they can conceive them. Well, there are plenty of other household arrangements out there which involve love and familial care. What about two siblings who never marry and share a home into old age? What about a divorced child who moves back in with an elderly parent and together they provide a home for the grandchildren? What about a collective of friends who want to own land and raise their children together? All these relationships are important and I believe they should be eligible for legal protections, to a varying degree. But we don't call them marriage because they don't fit the definition that our society has been working with from time immemorial.
There's nothing discriminatory about maintaining the traditional definition of marriage. The discrimination comes in when there are certain important rights and benefits that only married people can have access to. So expand those rights to more people. Fine.
The law considers marriage a contractual relationship. There are many other kinds of contractual relationships. In fact, the sheer variety of them is dizzying. Who says marriage should be privileged above any other domestic arrangement?
Altering the concept of marriage in order to achieve purely practical ends seems like bad public policy to me. It might be fastest and most efficient to just say "OK, you're all married now". But quick fix solutions aren't necessarily the best.
Maybe you know some people who are suffering immediate hardship that they wouldn't be suffering if they were married, but I don't. So I hope you will forgive me for taking a more dispassionate stance about this issue. Nothing that you've said has convinced me that my opinions are invalid, just that you feel strongly about yours.
You see, here you give actual foundations to work with. This is what we should have been using in the discussion to begin with. Unfortunately, I haven't the time right at this moment to address what is finally a legitemate conversation on the issue. But I will address it.
I do question why you claim the right to be dispassionate simply because it doesn't immediately touch you. I could write a laundry list of people who would be fucked if that was the criteria for people to care and help. I was thinking more along the lines of decency as human beings, not how close we were to a given closet.
Anonymous, we live in a democracy. That means the government is whatever we, the People, wish it to be.
Beer was illegal once in the United States. Does that mean that tradition, precedent, or stare decisis dictate that we should never have repealed prohibition? It was illegal once for women to reveal the skin below their knees in public. Does that mean we should be arresting women who wear skirts?
No, because we, the People, decided those laws sucked and we changed them.
'The law is what it is', a paraphrasing of the message I got from your comment, is not an argument that holds water in a dmocracy, because we, the People, can change the laws to suit ourselves. That means that when you say it, you're using it as a shield to de-personalize your nti-gay feelings. You oppose gay marriage because you don't want for them to be able to get married, but you also know it would, and does, make you come off as a bigot in saying so, so you try to shift the origin of your belief from yourself to a piece of paper.
So, I don't buy your argument at all.
Beer was illegal briefly because we passed a law making it that way. Then after 10 years of profiteering by the mob, we realized that was a stupid law and took it back.
When was wearing a skirt illegal? If you can give me a source for that, I'd love to see it.
I'm aware that laws change, and frequently for good reason. I was quoting this one for the purpose of showing that marriage is much older than our laws. That was one of the very first points I raised with Steve when he brought this issue up in the comments to the last post. I don't think our legal system has the jurisdiction to decide what marriage means.
Can anyone explain why my preference for promoting and strengthening civil unions rather than changing the definition of marriage makes me a bigot? I just think it's better public policy.
What makes you a bigot is that you consider your public policy to have jursdiction over the lives of real people. You want to tell them what they may or may not do in their own lives, because you object to who they are. If you weren't, you, like myself, wouldn't give a flying shit what the neighbors do. But you see something and you just can't stand that there's people different than you, so your first recourse is to insist that it it's illegal, even though there's no law saying it is and the Constitution clearlyindicates that the People reserve all freedoms not mentioned by acts of legislature.
Our legal system DOES have jurisdiction over the laws we live under. De-mo-cra-cy. Say it with me. No, no, you're pronouncing the De-mo like thee-o, no good at all.
As far as women being arrested for showing their calves and knees, look up indecent exposure, circa 1900. There's more examples than I can shake a stick at. I'll comb through and find some particularly ridiculous ones later.
Before you go acting all offended like you've never heard a hostile or sarcastic tone before, I'm not Wanderer, and hostile is what I am.
MC, it sounds like you're saying democracy is a system of government where none of us gives a shit about anything outside our own personal lives and we let a distant "system" tell us how our society is going to work.
I always thought democracy meant that the people have a voice in deciding how we are governed. When the people don't agree about the best way to do things, then we discuss them.
Your reference to Prohibition is a good example of how things can go wrong when we yield to passionate activism and put a flawed policy into place. We need to look at all the angles calmly and dispassionately before we pass laws.
Well, I see that this thing blew up a little while I was away. :) Glad to see that you saw the conversation and threw your hat in the ring this time, MC.
Sorry for the delay, anonymous. Now to my delayed response.
"Marriage, defined in that way, was a long-standing tradition before either the state of New York or the United States were incorporated as governments."
As was the concept of slavery, women as little more than property and a bunch of other nifty little things we have chosen to discard over time.
"You dismissed any argument based on tradition as 'defective'. Well, tradition is just another way of saying 'precedent', and that's what our legal system is all about."
Incorrect. I dismiss any argument based solely on tradition as defective. Even in the legal system precedent does not always hold, and legislation erases prior precedent.
"Well, there are plenty of other household arrangements out there which involve love and familial care. What about two siblings who never marry and share a home into old age? What about a divorced child who moves back in with an elderly parent and together they provide a home for the grandchildren? What about a collective of friends who want to own land and raise their children together?"
Yet none of these relationships are comitted monogamous relationships. The nature of the relationship the people have to each other is different. Of course there is no way of legislating love, which would be the purest form of a contractual relationship of this sort. Where it becomes prejudicial is when you consider that the contractual arrangement, Marriage to a woman, is a boys only club.
"Can anyone explain why my preference for promoting and strengthening civil unions rather than changing the definition of marriage makes me a bigot? I just think it's better public policy."
This would make for the situation I spoke of with separate but equal not being equal. If you allow homosexuals to marry, all of those laws that provide rights to a spouse need not be changed at all, as to the best of my knowledge they are not gender specific. Even with the best of intentions civil unions being strengthened would require immense amounts of legislation to be altered or written to include those same rights. Something that would be a waste of our lawmakers time when the same expedient could be easier reached by stating that since we are giving them the same rights and institution in all but name, why don't we give them the name and go back to work on other issues that also require our attention.
"We need to look at all the angles calmly and dispassionately before we pass laws."
Sometimes we don't have time for calm. Some issues no decent human being can be dispassionate about. Seriously, when it comes down to the rights of a fellow man or woman, how much can you really get worked up about a word?
And since this is supposed to be a government for the people, when one option harms people and the other harms nobody. The first infringes on people's abilities to live as they choose without burdening anyone ele or being held back and the other does no such thing to anyone; doesn't a government have the responsibility to see to their people's needs or at least not interfere with them seeing to their own?
You still haven't argued one point that indicates that gay marriage will harm anyone. So why aren't you on my side?
"I always thought democracy meant that the people have a voice in deciding how we are governed. When the people don't agree about the best way to do things, then we discuss them. "
I agree completely. That is the entire premise of my earlier assertion that you can not say gay marriage should be prohibited because the law says marriage is between a male and female. The law responds to US. Most of the people in this country, especially if you consider the bible belt not acually part of our country lie I do, don't demand the prohibition of gay marriage. Not one single gay person who wants to get married, really the only people effected, want themselves prohibied. So to whom is the law responding to? To people like you who feel uneasy with different cultures and wish them suppressed for yor comfort.
When I say that you can't say it's illegal simply because it's against the law, and when I say that you are trying to externalize your source to a piece of paper, my justification is exactly what you said in the above quoted section. So, clearly you agree with the principle.
I await with curiosity to see how you rationalize your contradictions.
"you can't say it's illegal simply because it's against the law"
Umm...yes, I can.
Steve,
Expediency doesn't justify a muddled concept and a distortion of our language and culture. Words are important because they are the signifiers of thought. I would like to think that Americans are still capable of sophisticated thinking and creative problem-solving. I'm holding out for something better than "gay marriage".
In my view of the issue, legalizing gay marriage is just a bandaid solution on a bigger problem. In your own arguments, you've indicated that the reason for all this urgency is that people are suffering. They are suffering, not because they can't have marriage for itself, but because they can't have the things that marriage would automatically entitle them to under our current bureacratic system.
The elephant in the room here is health care. We can't go on much longer with a health-care system in which access to treatment is tied to employment. I don't think it's any coincidence that the push to legalize gay marriage has intensified over the past 5-10 years, as health care costs have risen dramatically and jobs that offer good health care have dwindled in number. I think it's going to turn out that access to health care is the real issue of our times and gay marriage is just a distraction.
That's all I have time for right now, but I would like to take this aspect further another time.
Anonymous - You are correct that health care is a major issue, but it is not the only one. There are the implied and/or real contracts in regards to dispersal of the deceased, default health care proxy issues, filing taxes jointly, just to name a few other issues that are available as a result of this marriage contract.
I don't see as how the marriage would be a bandaid solution to the larger issue (being access to all of the above rights), quite the opposite, as legalizing such would allow instant comprehensive incorporation of these rights. Hardly something that can be referred to as a bandaid.
Our language and the definitions therein is constantly changing, for no grander reason than common usage. Our culture is self defined. Neither of these, therefore, are grand platforms that we should be willing to sacrifice our citizens for.
Expediency is problematice only when it is a route taken as an alternative to comprehensively dealing with the problem. Otherwise we call it efficient.
The solution would not only quickly provide equal rights to these people, but it would comprehensively do so without harming anyone.
Did you notice those last three words?
Because you still haven't pointed to how gay marriage would actually harm anyone.
BTW - if you look at what MC said (the part you quoted) from a slightly different angle you will see that he referred to circular reasoning. Murder is not illegal because it is against the law, it is illegal because it is a danger to the community and seriously infringes upon the rights of the victim. To say something is illegal for no other reason than the fact that it is illegal is problematic.
That is precisely what I meant.
We are both in agreement that there is nothing directly harmful about a legally protected, monogamous homosexual relationship. (We don't have to agree that there's nothing harmful about a homosexual relationship in the first place, because that's not really something that we can rule on in a pluralistic, democratic state.)
The only thing we are arguing here is whether it would be better to achieve that end by changing the definition of marriage, or by passing a new law giving homosexual civil unions the same status as marriage.
As I've said a few times before in this ungodly mess of posts and comments, I do not disagree with your basic premise that as a society we need to do the right thing by our gay neighbors. I just don't like the way it's happening.
I don't understand why the two of you can't get beyond the idea that anyone who disagrees with the gay rights movement on this issue has to be a bigot. When you say "separate but equal is never equal", that's just a slogan. Propaganda, in fact. It tries to force a close identification of this current issue with the struggle to end racial segregation. Anyone who expresses reservations about gay marriage is automatically associating themself with the Ku Klux Klan. That's emotionally manipulative and intellectually lazy.
The comparison between the two movements is tenuous at best. For one thing, unlike public education (which is the original source of the "separate but equal" concept), marriage is not a system created and funded by the state. The state has no clear jurisdiction to change the meaning of marriage in fundamental ways, whereas it absolutely has the jurisdiction to grant equal status to other relationships.
For another thing, gay people have never faced the kind of across the board discrimination that black people and other races have in America. There are gay people in every walk of life, at every economic level. There is nothing to stop them from entering any line of work (except the military, and I would agree with you if you said that the military's policy is clearly discriminatory), or to stop them from living in any neighborhood.
Your side may very well carry the day on this issue. Although, last time I saw the results of a nationwide poll, I think the majority still preferred some sort of civil union over gay marriage.
I will still think gay marriage is a flawed concept even if I end up in the minority. Change is not always for the better.
Funny, I am not generally a conservative person, but in this case I am seeing the connection between the word "conservative" and the word "conservationist". I don't want to see the institution of marriage changed for many of the same reasons I wouldn't want to see an old growth forest chopped down, or a rare species driven to extinction. You can't really prove that it will be a bad thing for the world if a particular species of bird disappears, any more than you can prove it's a bad thing to distort the meaning of a cultural tradition. But I am not convinced that immediate human needs are more important. Especially when we could meet them in a way that would not touch the tree, so to speak.
I'm going to have to let that be my last word on the matter for the time being, as I'm going to be away from the computer for awhile. I'll probably look back to see where you went with this after I left, but I assume you'll be on to new topics by the time I check back. I've enjoyed this opportunity to work through my thoughts on the issue, and I hope Steve and MC enjoyed attacking them.
I missed the part where you said you were for civil nions as an entirely equal thing.
Were that possible, and I'm not convinced it is, I'd agree with you. A marriage is nothing but a legal contract anyway, what difference does it make?
All I'm saying is that all the same rights and privileges should be afforded. A rose by any other name, you see. Were it not for Brown v. Board, I might leave it at that. However, segregation is segregation.
Also, the government does control what constitutes a binding legal contract. We are not a theocracy, unless McCain wins, but for the time beng, we aren't. We don't have to look or ordination of our decisions. If we wanted to be inclusionist we could very easily include gays and lesbians in marriage.
Frankly, I don't see the point anyway. All a marriage is, is a binding legal agreement to forfeit half your shit and half your shit in perpetuity if it turns out you chose poorly or your life situation ever changes. I could have married this one girl, Wanderer knows who I'm talking about, but I didn't. Ironically, it wasn't even for this whole reason, it was because I'd poisoned it the night I met her. But that's another story.
Anonymous - "For another thing, gay people have never faced the kind of across the board discrimination that black people and other races have in America. There are gay people in every walk of life, at every economic level. There is nothing to stop them from entering any line of work (except the military, and I would agree with you if you said that the military's policy is clearly discriminatory), or to stop them from living in any neighborhood."
Rose colored glasses? These people are in every walk of life and capable of entering into any job because they can hide what they are. There are many neighborhoods, jobs, etc... that strongly discriminate against people they know to be homosexual. I desperately hope you take the time to research this if you don't know this to truly be the case.
I mentioned before that marriage wasn't the only issue, it is just the one that gets the limelight and the only one you openly disagreed about. One of the issues I brought up, ENDA, was intended to create a federal law stating it was illegal to discriminate as an employer against homosexuals. Did you know there is no such federal law? Or that most states don't have this law in place either? Did you know that the fight has been hard every step of the way to try to push this? But of course with rosy glasses you can say they can get any job that they want. Unfortunately those glasses don't make it true.
So hold the opinion that equal civil unions are acceptable and push your lawmakers in that arena. Get behind these other issues if you think they are right.
You may not be a bigot. You may just have your eyes closed. But the issues have been brought forth so keeping them closed crosses that line anyway.
Thinking it would be nice for our gay and lesbian neighbors to have their civil rights protected isn't enough. It isn't happening unless the laws change. The laws don't change while people sit on their asses and philosophize.
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