David Cameron and same sex marriage

[perseus]

Shane, (or anyone else for that matter) would you be prepared to offer your views on Prime Minister Camerons' moves to legalise gay marriage please? Do you support the move? Should gay people be afforded the SAME right to marry as heterosexual people?

[Lucy Lass-Tick]

Surely we should celebrate commitment in all loving relationships, regardless of the format?

[SRMoore]

Surely we should celebrate commitment in all loving relationships, regardless of the format?

We do Lucy, they are simply named differently in law.
A hetrosexual couple can get married and a homosexual couple can get a civil partnership. Both equal in law.

Perseus, no. I don't support the current plans for multiple reasons. And before I am accused of it, none of the reasons have to do with homophobia. Two of my closest friends are gay and neither of them support it either.

[SRMoore]

True, although my question specifically was about the term marriage.

But Lucy makes a very good point. If you are in a happy and loving relationship, why should you even care if the state regards you as married or in a civil partnership?

[mk1]

The problems I see.

Only a  minority are 'gay'.

They are over-represented in the media and show business and thus have a stranglehold on promoting the 'positive'  image of 'gayness'.

Some of these gay people are very overbearing and openly  seek confrontation with those who do not actively support their lifestyle choice.

The number of people who do not see things the gay way/disapprove of the lifestyle  greatly outnumber the  gay population.

The disenfranchised majority have been sidelined and gagged in some social experiment/attempt to detoxify a political party.

[SRMoore]

The disenfranchised majority have been sidelined and gagged in some social experiment/attempt to detoxify a political party.

And there we have the real reason why Mr Cameron has suddenly made this issue a priority.

[mk1]

If you are in a happy and loving relationship, why should you even care if the state regards you as married or in a civil partnership?

In my (limited) experience in these matters  the overwhelming majority of male homosexual encounters/pairings have very little to do with 'love'.
When there used to be a lot of public convenience's years ago  they were notorious for being overrun with  males looking for a quick thrill.
Has there been a revolution in gay male behaviour since that time?

[mk1]

you only need to go back to the 60's, (1967 i THINK) and you would be put in PRISON for being gay. This countries old law's on homosexuality pushed (arguably) the most brilliant thinker of the last 100 years or so to suicide.

That is an example of the 'hijacking' that I refered to earlier.
Lots of things used to be illegal but are not today.
However we get these silly campaigns to pardon   those accused of homosexuality. Why?
I for one was not best pleased when as a youth I would go for a p**s and some wierdo would be lurking in the bog and flashing his dick at me.
It had nowt to do with being a repressed homosexual but everything to do with the
attempts to shag 5 blokes a day. It is the incredible amount of partners male homosexuals rack up that made them obnoxious.
Has that mindset gone or is it now all done  in more private venues?

[mk1]

My favourite 'telling' observation.

The way male homosexuals treat their casual  partners is the way most men would like to treat  women-if the women  let them!

[steveL]

The problems I see.

Only a  minority are 'gay'.

They are over-represented in the media and show business and thus have a stranglehold on promoting the 'positive'  image of 'gayness'.

Some of these gay people are very overbearing and openly  seek confrontation with those who do not actively support their lifestyle choice.

The number of people who do not see things the gay way/disapprove of the lifestyle  greatly outnumber the  gay population.

The disenfranchised majority have been sidelined and gagged in some social experiment/attempt to detoxify a political party.

I would like to think that we've long passed the day when such matters are decided purely on the basis of the opinions of a simple majority. Such an approach would only ever work when we can say that ignorance is a thing of the past.

A society can only truly judge how civilised it is on the basis of how it treats its children, its old people and its minorities. At the moment, I'd say we flunk it on all three.

[steveL]

My first thoughts on the gay marriage issue were 'what's all the fuss about'. Now that gay people having gained what Shane describes as 'equality in law', why are we still talking about this? On further reflection, I realised that 'equality in law' is not the same as equality, for if we had real equality then why the need to use the different terms 'marriage' and 'civil partnership'.

Cameron, far from being a Liberal Fascist, has said no priest/vicar should be forced to marry gay people against their own religious beliefs and I don't have a problem if some denominations decide against performing such ceremonies.

Where I do have a problem is in the likes of registry offices who presently 'marry' people who themselves have decided against a Church wedding. To me, this is a classic example of how politicians can sometimes tie themselves in knots over the use of words.

Marrying people in a registry office or anywhere else other than a Church is essentially a civil ceremony resulting in Civil Partnerships yet for some reason when it involves 'gay' people we call it a 'civil partnership', and when it involves 'straight' people, we call it marriage. This is where the inequality lies.

So we can either call both 'civil partnerships' or we can call both 'marriage' - in the context of a civil ceremony then it's just a word. The former isn't going to happen so the only remaining option is to rename civil partnerships as 'marriage.'

If gay people want to get married in a Church, at least they have the option of the Quakers who have always been ahead of the game in such matters. The Church of England, as the debate over women priests has shown, are stuck in a Victorian time warp but we can be grateful that they have at least stopped demanding the burning of people at the stake and they will no doubt catch up eventually.

There's a lot of irony here. I suspect the 'cottaging' that mk1 refers to is a throw back to the necessary secrecy surrounding this issue in less enlightened times and I wonder what proportion of those enaged in such activities are married men. And then there's the Church itself, of course, which traditionally and ironically has been a harbourage for gay people over centuries. 

[mk1]

The Church of England, as the debate over women priests has shown, have at least stopped burning people at the stake and will no doubt catch up eventually.

You can call the  C of E many things but I would say reactionary is not one of them.
Of all the Christian religions it is one of  the most  forward looking. Compared to most  of the  competition it is a model of  tolerance.