Ricky R Cavazos — in response to user mominvermont

This issue is not about eliminating gender integration in marriage. The term “marriage”” seems to be so important to defenders of pro-gender-traditional marriage; some are even content with allowing homosexuals civil unions as long as they don’t term it “marriage,” but if you are so concerned with inequality for children who are deliberately deprived of ever having a relationship with their mother, address this for me: Same-sex marriage is currently allowed in only six states. This is a fraction of the 50 states. The divorce rate in this country is over 60 percent, and many do not last beyond five years. The divorce rate  and custody battles create far greater inequality for children deprived of either parent and fracture the family. Yet, supporters of “traditional marriage” never address this issue; instead, they work politically to deny civil rights to a certain group of taxpayers in this country. A marriage is an emotional, sexual and physical bond with the person you love. And for you or anyone else to deny anyone that term is discrimination, plain and simple. Two men can love each other and have a lifelong commitment to each other as you said, but legal marriage gives them 1200-plus rights, including spousal benefits, hospital visitation rights and tax benefits. So yes, two men can love each other and have a lifelong commitment, but if something were to happen to one of them and he ended up seriously ill in the hospital, what visitation rights would his partner have? What spousal benefits would his partner be denied should the other die? Do you want to be responsible for that?

It is quite possible for the mother to be included in the lives of these children. There are many cases in this country where one parent leaves the child, and that parent is never to be seen again. I have a cousin who grew up without her father because he left her and my aunt. The divorce rate is alarming. Yet, advocates of traditional marriage and pro-family never address these issues. Instead, they blame the gays.

Lastly, I want to add this: Gay marriage boosted New York City’s economy by over $259 million dollars in one year. Imagine what it could do for your city or your state. But you’re too busy putting the blame on innocent people rather than realizing who is really to blame for inequality in this country.

Gregory Peterson

The enslaved people in America’s not-so-distant past have taught us that legal recognition of a marriage is not to make or define a “marriage;” it’s just that: legal recognition of marriage. Gay couples have created and will create marriages, which their families and their own communities recognize as a marriage, legal recognition of those marriages or not. Legal recognition of a gay couple’s marriage is not about there being marriage but about reforming marriage laws, correcting economic discrimination, civil rights, basic justice and fairness, being considerate toward others and of our larger society honoring and encouraging the kind of love that binds adult individuals into a mutually consensual, loving and responsible
family.

I suspect that this is what is really upsetting anti-marriage, as well as why they usually insist on using the excessively clinical, baggage-loaded word “homosexual.”

Unlike with past “homosexual” social constructs, which reflected rather misogynistic societies, of “passive” and “unnaturally” submissive, effeminate males and “active,” manly men; the ever more worldwide gay community is premised upon a radical equality of partners within the bedroom, regardless of any sexual preferences.

Equality within relationships doesn’t stop at the bedroom door either; it’s about a radical equality outside of the bedroom, the LGBT community and a nation’s boundaries. Such a radical equality within relationships is not really sanctioned in the Bible, the societies of biblical times and places and by many “traditional” societies and nations today.