Ok, I'll respond to Mr. Bishop first:
Have you stopped to consider the reason why marriages moved over to the legal realm in the first place? It's all about stuff. Who owns it while your living, and who gets it when you divorce or die.
If heterosexual marriages were all the wholesome, loving, as-god-intended-it-to-be sacred institutions heterosexuals would like for us to believe they are, then can someone please explain to me the high divorce rate in this country, or why there are such things as prenuptial agreements, or why people think Anna Nicole is a money grubbing slut who married an old man for his money, or why I can turn on the TV and watch programs like Cheaters, Who Wants to Marry a Stupid Rich Guy, Who Wants to Marry a Midget, Trading Spouses, or any number of programs where smucks parade around kissing each other for two weeks to see if some guy or girl is "the one" only to find out that their choice is you or a check big enough to retire on? Oh, and lets not even get started on big celeb weddings that last anywhere from 55 hours to two weeks.
To tell me that allowing homosexuals to marry will somehow "tarnish" the brilliant gold standard that heterosexuals have set for marriage is a crock of horseshit.
I know I've said this before, but since it's been a while I'll say it again. It is my personal philosophy that marriage is nothing more than me saying, "Hey, will you marry me." and that person saying, "Yes." If you truly love and trust someone enough to want to marry then and spend the rest of your life with them then it doesn't take god or George Bush to say that you are. What ever happened to a person's word is their bond? Tell me how my belief in what marriage really is tarnishes yours? You can't because it doesn't. You simply can't get a more pure definition.
Now to answer ResearchMonkey:
Yes, we would flock to a gay theme park... or perhaps skip and rave our way there. Yay Gay Days at Disney!
Why would homosexuals want marriage? After my rant about what the "title evolved [into] over the centuries" has evolved into, I have no clue as to why we'd want to be a part of it. I certainly don't. At least not how it's described today. However, there are a few things that are nice about being married that I see no reason why homosexuals should be excluded. Health Care for example.
I'll have to find the site I read this on, but a study was done that showed that allowing same-sex couples to share benefits would save the country billions in health care. Not only that, but the increased revenue to the economy from fees, ceremonies, rings and all the other trappings that go with a wedding would boost the economy. Letting gay people get married should appeal to a capitalist country such as ours. Other benefits include hospital visitation rights that aren't extended to homosexual couples.
If my boyfriend were in a car wreck today I'm the only family he has here. Where is the justice in forcing me to sit in the waiting room while he slips into a coma and dies all alone? Isn't four and half years of a solid loving relationship good enough to prove that I should be at his side?
What non-honorable methods are homosexual's using to achieve the goal of being treated as heterosexuals without the social stigmas attached to homosexuality? As far as I'm aware none of us have flown a plane into a building, bombed a building, shot an abortion doctor, tied someone to a fence and beat them to death, or tied a man to the bumper of a pickup truck and dragged him down a dirt road till his head popped off. And your damn right we're organized. We got centuries of persecution and the subsequent civil liberties movements to draw upon. We're better educated and more connected than any group before us simply because of the times we live in.
Every group has it's militant supporters, and so we do to. That doesn't mean that the homosexual community follows and believes in what they do any more than it means Prolifers everywhere throw a party every time a Abortion Clinic gets blown to smithereens.
As for NAMBLA, since I'm pretty sure nearly every state has laws that dictate how old a child can be before he or she is old enough to understand what it means to have sex (and I don't think it's 8 or 13) then having sex with children under that age is legally rape. What burns me is how people want to try to say that if we allow homosexuals to have the same rights to live un-oppressed in today's world that it automatically leads to letting grown men fondle children's butts. That's how it's silly. Me wanting to be in a loving, consensual sexual relationship with another person of the same sex who is old enough to understand what he's doing and able to accept all that being in the relationship means is simply not the same as me picking up little boys who may only understand that me touching them down might feel good.
The separation of church in state, as it applies to the constitution, seems to be one of those things that, like the bible, can be interpreted how you want to fit your own needs. The sites I listed as examples, offer, in my opinion, a very good argument that the constitution does indeed have provisions for a separation of church and state. If you choose not to see that, there is no argument I could possibly provide that would sway your opinion on it. For that matter, I'm unlikely to change the minds of any person here that doesn't feel I have the right to live in a free, open society, where I can be married (should I choose) and not worry about getting run down in the street if my boyfriend and I are holding hands on a street corner. However, since I'm a gay superhero, I will do what I can to try.
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