1961: Homosexuality can't be legalized. If it is, we see moral decline and an escalation of all crimes.
2009: Gay marriage can't be legalized. If it is, we see moral decline and an upcoming ability to marry children, animals, or anything else.
Good point.
You could set this in almost any of the red states, make the story be about a conservative Republican politician and hardly have to change a thing.
Why would you think all gay people fit into one category? What makes you think all gays want gay marriage legalized? Gay people are not all the same.
shareIn fact, there's a joke: "Marriage? Haven't we suffered enough?"
However, marriage is an overrated institution...unless you want to get married!
In which case, you should have the right to.
"Thus began our longest journey together." To Kill a Mockingbird
Gay people don't want gay marriage legalized?! I'm gay too, so it's cool if I call you an Uncle Tom.....Riiiight?!?!
Go back into the closet you a*s clown. And bite me.
I'm gay and think if you want to get married fine, if you don't fine...but if you want to, if should be legal. I think it matters most to those who have found that special someone...maybe one day I will.
Enrique Sanchez
What BS, gay marriage is legal in some states, but it is not legal in England. There is a little thing called democracy, which means people vote to change laws. Are you trying to tell us that gays are still being imprisoned for being gay?
Whilst gay marriages are not legal under English law, lesbian and gay partnerships are, with similar legal rights.
shareJakealope is only partially correct (not to mention his/her comment "democracy... means people vote to change laws", which is precisely what democracy does not mean - the courts, not a popular vote, change law, thus protecting minorities from the tyranny of the majority. Prop 8 stripped a minority of equal rights & protection under the law because a segment of the population simply didn't like the law - a dreadfully dangerous precedent).
Moving on... Jakealope rightly says Gay "marriage" - the word- is not legal in the UK (I think you mean the United Kingdom, although you refer to only one country in the UK - England). But UK "Civil Partnerships" DO offer all the rights and responsibilities of marriage. My (American) partner and I were "married" under the CP law two years ago (after 20 years together). I use the "m-word" because the British media do, our friends do, even the Civil Registrar of Marriages who performed the ceremony used it. We (Brits) all know that "Civil Partnership" means "marriage". The word "marriage" wasn't employed when creating/writing the law because that way a) die-hard Conservatives keep quiet & b) in the UK, we colloquially refer to spouses, str8 and gay, as "partners', which is a coureous way of acknowledging that marriage as an institution is not particularly popular in the UK - unlike the US (where I have lived for two decades). The LGBT population has effectively "Queered" Civil Partnerships, and I guarantee that before long the term "marriage" will be adopted. Probably in Scotland first, where, I believe, a bill has already been proposed to the Scottish Parliament to amend the terminology from Civil Partnership to Marriage.
However, you can call my Partnership/ Marriage a hootenany or a clambake for all I care. What matters is that my partner and I have a married couple's legal protections and full equality under the law. The only thing we can't do is walk up the aisle of a church and be married there. As I am one of the growing majority (huge majority) of Brits who have no religious affiliation and think the world would be better off without organized religions, period, this is no sacrifice. What does matter is that my honey now enjoys full immigration rights and can come and join me in MY homeland, without having to go through the legal hoops I had to endure to remain with him in the US (thankfully my work skills and experience raised my visa category and I was able to stay. Other gay couples aren't so fortunate.)
For those contributors to this board who think "not all gays want marriage rights", fine, don't get married. But one day you may want to. And other members of the LGBT population do. So it is in your interests to think about your fellow gays and Lesbians and do the right thing - work towards US gay marriage rights now.
"Victim", this remarkable movie, was instrumental in changing the UK law, which in 1967 was amended to allow sexual relations "in private, between two consenting adults". In other words, you (at that time) had to be over 21 and there had better NOT be a threesome involved!
The comments about Bogarde's "bi-sexuality" confuse me - he was gay, surely?
At any rate, I don't think sex itself is all that important.
It's all about the person you fall in love with, and the human need to give and receive love to and from that person.
There was never a law that let gay people marry in California. As a matter of fact, there were laws that made marriage only between a man and a woman. So all Prop 8 did was re-affirm existing laws, it didn't create a new law. The previous laws were struck down through judicial perogative that went completely against the will of most of the voters. So it was the judges who were acting in an undemocratic manner. Democracy and the will of the people may not be to everyone's liking but it is better than some oligarchy of some judicial elite.
"The previous laws were struck down through judicial perogative that went completely against the will of most of the voters. So it was the judges who were acting in an undemocratic manner."
It's not the job of a judge - including the 5 Conservative Reagan judicial appointees who crafted the majority opinion extending marriage rights to ALL Californians - to follow the "will of most of the voters". If it were, schools would have remained segregated and marriage between races would still be illegal. I repeat, it is the job of the law to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority. Nor is the "manner" of the judges "undemocratic". Or pro-democratic for that matter. They simply - and carefully - upheld Constitutional Law. What if there were a surge in radical Moslem voters, creating a majority, in California - or whatever state you live in - who then voted, via ballot initiative, to install Sharia law in your state? Simply because they were the majority and they wanted it that way? Or a sudden majority of impassioned Vegans who voted - again, by ballot initiative - to make the eating of meat illegal? And the Supreme Court of your State had the sense to re-affirm your First Amendment rights (as a woman) to not wear a burka or a veil, or in the latter case, your absolute right to eat whatever you wish?
When yuo point out that "If it were, schools would have remained segregated and marriage between races would still be illegal. "
Those laws were struck down because they went against amendments to the US Constitution. There are no such amendments that apply to gay marriage. While I am certainly not favorable to Islam or shariah law, those laws, if enacted would fly in the face of Constitution too.
It seems that if those Muslims ever did get critical mass, some of the people egging them on by encouraging mass immigration from their sewer states then telling us what a great culture they have, would be the same ones who were against Prop 8 and for gay rights. Talk about irony. It's like all those white Xtian Lutherans who brought in Somalians "refugees", some who returned to become jihadists and suicide bombers in Somalia.
Those laws were struck down because they went against amendments to the US Constitution.
______________________
Not directly. The US Constitution including all of its amendment says *nothing* about mandatory racial integration. The states tried to wiggle out of the "equal protection" clause by establishing "separate but equal" public schools. It took the Supreme court to interpret the the 14th Amendment to decide that "separate" was inherently unequal.
A number of states do give gay couples the same legal rights as heterosexual married couples have. But I don't see why the SCOTUS can't extend the same reasoning to include gay parity with heterosexual married couples and make it the law of the land.
"Joey, have you ever been in a Turkish prison?"
Siobhaniac # 6
WyzeGal # 10
I think it was much closer to the US in 2002, when it was (in many states) still against the law to have sex with someone of the same sex.
The US law at that time was rarely used on its own, but rather as a way to foreclose other things that lesbian and gay people wanted, like marriage, or other equal rights. It's a pernicious thing, particularly with a proud bigot like W Bush in the White House. Having lived there on a work visa during the time, knowing that at least on paper I could be deported just for having sex with someone, it added a level of stress to everything. I'm so glad I left.
I find the OP repugnant. Homosexuality in Britain in 1961 was deemed a criminal offence and a mental illness. Comparing the treatment of a person's sexuality to the right to marriage demeans the struggle shown in this film.
A bird sings and the mountain's silence deepens.share
Thankfully now in 2016 we can say things have changed, but young people today cannot understand what horrible crap others had to go through just to get here, presuming they survived. However, all over the world it's still like 1961, or much worse. Russia throws people off rooftops, you risk being killed with little or no repercussions. You wouldn't want to be gay in Nigeria, and several other black countries.
share"Because here - in this country ..." That is, in the USA, it is not and never was your
'RIGHT" to get married. Read the Constitution.
Just because you are one of the approximately 2% of the population who happen to be attracted to your own sex doesn't mean the rest of the country has to stand on its ear to accommodate you.
I have NO problem with someone who is homosexual, none. It is what it is, has always been this way since the beginning of time just as there have been other deviations to the 'norm'. You do have the right(s) to be 'treated' like anyone/everybody else.
Where do you get off thinking you are some 'special case' ?
I've had members of the same sex stay over night at my residence and never heard a peep about it from neighbors.
I've shared an apartment with a member(s) of the same sex - ditto there.
I don't flaunt my sexuality in public. I consider my sex life private and my business.
It is conducted behind closed doors and is no one else's business.
I don't demand to be treated extra favorably for my ethnicity either and I keep it to myself. I try not to talk politics or religion with others - funny how it makes life
easier. Just sayin'.
@Ironman54
To whom are you addressing your "just sayin'"? It's come through to me but I'm at a complete loss to understand how it is response to my post.
In the midst of winter I found there was, within me, an invincible summershare