I know there's a huge battle for gays to get the rights to be married. And I'm ALL for it. Yay for them! But. Marriage is something(at least in the U.S), that seems to be declining more and more in importance. People are happy just living together. That being said. I know it may be important on an emotional level. It should be recognized because it would finally be "justice for all". Is there anything else?

I may be completely wrong, I'm horribly uneducated on this point. But I saw this one CSI(I think) episode. And there were these two gentlemen, and a boyfriend stole nearly everything from his boyfriend, and since they weren't recognized as a couple of the state, nothing of his was protected.

So that's a possible factor? I've heard the argument that "we already give them civil union, what more do they want?"

So....why?

Again, I'm all for it. Just trying to understand more.

That is why many people want to be married. To become family, and not have to make a hundred different little contracts -- none of which would make you "next of kin" anyway.

Period.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/28/2011 05:21PM by wine country girl.

One way I look at it is to compare it with the Jim Crow laws. Black people were not allowed to eat at the same counter as white people, drink in the same drinking fountains, attend the same schools. Bigots justified it by saying that black people had their own and didn't need to be the same as white people. But it was demeaning and degrading to not be allowed the same rights as everybody else.

It is just a way to discriminate against a minority, and as long as there is a majority, there will be a minority they are stepping on. If people want to live together without getting married, they should be allowed that right. If they want to get married and have a huge celebration, they should be allowed to, whether they are the same sex or different, same ethnicity or different. Two consenting adults should be allowed to marry if they want to.

Marriage doesn't mean too much to someone who takes it for granted that they have that right. But to someone who is denied that basic right, it is everything.