Tasker responds to Michael Jones’ confused homophobic rant about gay marriage:

I support gay civil unions (not marriage)

What exactly do you mean by civil union? How is it different than marriage? Isn’t the difference between the two a religous point? A civil union should mean that the couple basically forms a two person corporation where they share their finances and insurance and that sort of thing. The marriage part should mean that they have perfomed whatever religous ceremony they believe in and are now considered married by their church and have the blessing of their God and religous brethren.

The government shouldn’t be sticking it’s nose in the religous side.

For this we overturn thousands of years of marriage tradition

I don’t know about that. There have been all kinds of marriage traditions over the years.

The essence of marriage is the creation and nurturing of the next generation.

We’ll have to disagree on that. By your definition an infertile man or woman would not be able to get married because they couldn’t have kids.
Is there a minimum number of kids a couple must have to be married? What if they have one and the kid dies? Do they have to either divorce or have another kid at that point? What if they get married and don’t have a kid right away? Will we have marriage police that check to make sure they are at least *trying* to have kids? How often do they have to try?

The essence of marriage is sharing your life with another person. For example. lets look at a traditional marriage vow:

I, (Bride/Groom), take (you/thee) (Groom/Bride), to be my (wife/husband), to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; and I promise to be faithful to you until death parts us.

No mention of children in that vow. Read the full marriage ceremony at the page I linked to. No mention of kids anywhere that I saw.

The vows concentrate on being loyal and supportive of each other, through thick or thin. That is what marriage is about.

Both of you seem to be hung up on having some sort of scientific proof that being gay is genetic and not a choice.

I don’t know what science has ‘proven’ on this so far. I don’t pay much attention to it. I don’t care what science proves or disproves about it. I know what I have witnessed.

Gay people that hate themselves because they are gay. Gay people who torture themselves and despise themselves because they have been taught they are perverted or possesed by demons because of their feelings. Gay people who kill themselves because they are gay.

You think that’s a lifestyle choice?

Gay people born and raised in small rural towns in the midwest. Parents fine upstanding straights, everybody they know is straight. They aren’t molested by some gay uncle when they are young. They don’t have pictures of Madonna or Boy George on their walls. They have *nobody* influencing them to be gay, no contact with gay culture, no desire to be gay and yet, they are.

You think that’s a lifestyle choice?

50 years ago non-closeted gays were beat and punished for being gay. It was a crime in most places. You would have been better off being black more than likely. Yet there were still plenty of gay people. You think they chose to be gay? You think these people choose to be shunned by their families, have their father disown them, people they grew up with spit on them? Why do you think they would CHOOSE this?

I grant that these days there probably are some people out there calling themselves gay who are being trendy or something. I don’t think they represent the vast majority of homosexuals.

The average gay lifestyle for men in the US much more of a health risk than is the average heterosexual lifestyle.

Do you have some proof that?

Hepatitis and HIV are easily spread

By heterosexuals too. You don’t really think straight people are immune to HIV do you?

The argument would go that therefore I should be critical of promiscuous heterosexuals too. OK, I am. From a public health point of view, the idealized virgin-until-marriage, faithful-marriage-for life is the safest.

You’re going off on a bizarre tangent now. Do you also think we should euthanize defective children? Or maybe just be sterilized so they don’t pass on their broken genetic material? It’s all public health, right Doc? And some cultures have a tradition of leaving their defective children exposed so they would die so you even have those “thousands of years of tradition” on your side.

But personally, I would be very, very offended if gay monogamy is called “marriage.”

Public policy shouldn’t be based on how offended you are going to be. I’m sure many people were very, very offended when we let blacks start voting and then more were very, very offended when we let women vote. I’m very, very offended that my gay friends that are devoted to each other and have been together for years and seem to have every intention of being together their entire lives aren’t allowed to share their lives the way a straight couple could because of bigots like you and Nick.

I for one would be interested to see if a study has been done which can determine if homosexuality ever takes place in any species except humans.

link or just search for ‘homosexuality’ and ‘nature’ in google. You’ll find lots of stuff to read.

Welcome to BiPass. My thoughts, my feelings, and occasionally my rants. I’m 22, Bisexual, and hopelessly in love, with a man; yep a wonderful, smart, handsome man. I have been with this man for 8 years, I couldn’t be happier. This relationship has created an interesting path for my life. I have always sensed that I was attracted to women, and yet I have been attracted to men also. I seem to have looked at them both equally in a sexual way. I have, however, always dated men; and I intend to marry and spend my life with a man. I just get along better with men. I came out to my boyfriend about 6 years ago. I am lucky that I have a secure and loving boyfriend. It wasn’t easy to tell. I had denied the way that I was for a long time, and even thinking about telling him was daunting. But I did tell him and he was amazing: not only was he ok, he was supportive, and communicative, without judgment. He loves me.

That is why I simply cannot understand what is going on in our country at the moment. Most people spend a life time trying to find what I have with him. Yet there are people that are trying to deny others with love like mine the right to express and share their love and lives. There aren’t many people who know I am bisexual; so nobody questions the validity or strength of my relationship with my boyfriend…we are being pushed to marry and procreate as we speak. I wonder if that would change if people knew I have sex with girls. I wonder if it would change if they knew my boyfriend knew about it and supported it and has encouraged my to truly be myself. Saying that a loving, healthy, committed relationship is a travesty to the fine institution of marriage based on the couples sexuality is a crock . It is a fallacy of the worst kind. Who are we to judge someone else’s relationship? Who are we to say who can be bonded in love, finance and law? Yet there are quite a few people in this country who seem to think GLBT marriage will disturb or destroy the sanctity of marriage. Well I will ask this: What do an over 50% divorce rate, prenups, and The Bachelor do for the sanctity of marriage? How will equal rights for all people and the ability to be beholden and bonded to the person you love harm the sanctity of marriage beyond was is already being done? Beyond that, how does the relationship of strangers effect the strength and love of your relationship? Do these people have answers? Please, give me answers. Give me an answer that justifies this denial. No? Couldn’t come up with one? Didn’t think so.

~Liv

If you would like your own blog, like this one, check out OutNotes’ new blog section!