True Love Waits: www.waitingtomarry.com

[NathanATX]

Celebs are waiting to marry until everyone has the right to marry.

So, I created a website...

www.waitingtomarry.com

And will continue developing it.

:love:
Nate

[Vanessa White]

Awesome Nate! Thanks for always thinking of new ways to take care of the things that need attention- I for one, appreciate it! Peace and love, Vanessa :love: :love:

[pnggrad79]

Celebs are waiting to marry until everyone has the right to marry.

So, I created a website...

www.waitingtomarry.com

And will continue developing it.

:love:
Nate

Nate, what a wonderful website. You can add to it, Brennan Manning, author of The Ragamuffin Gospel, Reba and Dony McGuire, (Reba was with her family ,the Rambos, southern gospel greats) and of course, Peggy Campolo.:)

[Daniel]

Wonderful!

Way to go Nathan!

[tdogg]

Awesome!! Thanks Nate!

[Jaroslaw99]

Did anyone check out the Nov/Dec 2006 "the Gay & Lesbian Review?"

There is a very interesting article called "the marriage fight is setting us back." by John D'Emilio.

He basically posits that the fight has caused the backlash where we not only don't get the right to marry, but also create a whole new body of anti-gay law.

He also claims that we are swimming against the tide of history in that Roe vs. Wade, Slavery etc. had decades of groundwork done BEFORE the Supreme court ruled, which he says was not done with this marriage issue.

I'd be interested in comments on this.

[keltic63]

davidcom, I agree that the kids are getting it! My own kids' HS has had 2 gay guys on the cheerleading squad. While some of the kids don't agree, they just haven't made a big deal about it.
I've even asked my son about a few guys and whether they get any slack. He shrugs his shoulders and says "not that I've heard."

My daughter is a freshman in college. My partner and I went up to visit and watch a football game. She's in the marching band and a few of the guys in her section are gay. They were asking about her dad and his partner, and looking over and saying "that's so cool." It is quickly becoming a non-issue, and as these kids take their place in society, it will become less and less of an issue.

[Daniel]

Jaroslaw-Yes- I have it. It's the one with the pic of dancing boys at Jacobs Pillow (a center for dance for those who don't know) on the cover.

I read the piece by D'Emilio last week. Honestly, I had a negative reaction to it for the following reasons.

The author, oddly, links the setbacks in gay marriage this past year to a quote about sex laws. Duh! We're talking about two things here. Yes. Many states have enacted anti-gay marriage laws. but last I heard, there was a huge, and I mean huge advance in the law as it pertains to gay sex. Remember Larwence vs Texas? He doesn't even mention it. I find this a simple case of skewing the facts, or in ths case, leaving them out, to fit the argument. That's bad journalism.

Ok. So he's not a journalist. He's a historican. BZZZZZZZ (buzzer going off). He doesn't get a pass. A historian worth his salt doesn't rewrite history at either.

The author also notes that society at large is getting more liberal in some ways. What he believes is happening is that hetersexuals are becoming more like gay people. Really? I don't see it the same way. Yes, birth rates are lower (straight choosing not th ahve kids- well what about gay people choosing to have them?). Yes, there are more unconventional relationships out there etc. etc. But the clue to me is his own factoid which notes that a growing conservatvism among the Supreme court as well as in society is some respects- escpecially as far as politics is concerned (does this mean we should give up?).

The author is behind the Manefesto "Beyong Same-Sex Marriage", and while I admire the document in some ways- believing that a diversity of relationships should have legal recognition, I also believe that one needs to play by the game. And the game for the last several thousand years has been marriage.

In short, the author wants to change America to be, if anything, much more liberal than it is now. Hello! Is he watching the news at night. Yes. We are on the TV in more than every. Yes, we are out more than ever. Yes, there have been advances in many respects as towards out civil rights. But who does he think he is kidding? We don't have our rights in any way the resembles the rights of those that marry. Marriage would go a long way- if not all the way- in doing that.

What he doesn't mention is that we would have to piece by piece, work at getting those 10000 plus rights enjoyed by straight folk. And even in NJ, where civil unions are being poffered, it ain't the same as marriage. It just isn't. Not only because of the 'respect factor', but because of the legal/federal tax issue. Civil unions are meant, not to give rights, as much as they are meant to deny full equality. Because, in the end, the do. Civil unions are meant to keep us in our place.

Unlike the author, I see the recent negative decisions as the first wave of that must be gotten through. More will come, but they will be smaller and smaller. And we are going to have to get more organized in terms of legislative efforts. We have been relying on the courts far too much. That is the lesson we've learned here in NY. We have to stand up for ourselves instead of letting a few lawyers do it for us in court. That is how is was done with civil rights for blacks. Demonstrations. Sit-ins. Marches. Heck. Whole centers of towns were burned down. Remember the race-riots? Now, I don't think we should get violent, but we should remember how things get done (Zerbie- I know- knows all about this).

And what about other countries that have gay marriage? D'Emilio ignores all that. And that may be the point. What he is doing is the fatal mistake many gay liberals/libertarians make. They see that the Christian Right is so strong in this country that, instead of standing up to religious bigotry for what it is, they choose to ignore it/them rather than deal with the root cause of that discrimination. They simply want to be Righer than the Right.

Problem is, the diversity of relationships aside, people still want to get married. And we aren't all a bunch of hetero-aping fools.

What's what I think.

[novaseeker]

I think that marriage is the cornerstone, really. I understand the arguments that making it the centerpiece distracts from other important issues, on the one hand, and also perpetuates restrictions, on the other ... but to be honest, my own view is that with marital rights flows the path to our true integration into society.

With marital rights, more GLBTQ people will get married, move to the 'burbs, have/adopt kids, go to the neighborhood birthday parties, attend the PTA, etc., etc. That kind of transition will be rough on both gay and straight people in many places for a while, but it WILL eventually lead to much more understanding of us, much less fear and loathing of us, and, over time, a "normalization" of us (for lack of a better term) and an integration of us into society in general more thoroughly. I really do believe that with marital rights, we *can* change minds over time, and eventually change the culture of homophobia not by force of persuasion, but just by *being*. That's why I see marital rights as the real lynchpin for our further progress.

I think that the anti-gay-marriage crowd understands this intuitively. When they talk about gay marriage "destroying the culture", what I think they really mean is that once we have that right, and we are present in all sorts of communities and situations, and not really excludible from that, this will, over time, change the culture away from where it currently is. They understand full well how gay marriage could really change attitudes about us over time, and that's why they are so deadset against it.

So while I certainly agree that there are many other important objectives for us, marriage is really the lynchpin, and it's worth focusing on, in all the ways we can, simply because it can be the cornerstone for building a more broadly gay-accepting society over the course of time.

[Jaroslaw99]

Many great thoughts here - thank you all.

A couple more teasers - I think the article also mentioned that LGBT activists used to argue against marrriage in the past because it was part of societal oppression of women for the vast majority of its existence.

While this is not to say anyone I have read, even marriage opponents, think that Gay people should be treated anything less than equally before the law, this is an interesting point to ponder. Why should social security, health insurance etc. be tied to being married? If we were truly a just society, this would not be a question.

Actually, the following question usually makes people squirm, it is so obvious and simple and yet few have really thought about it. I am not against millionaires, and certainly recognize in any system, if a person is going to risk their capital for an idea, they should be reasonably rewarded if they succeed.

The Ultimate question? (in my view) Does society exist for business or does society exist for people?

I digress from the article - another thing Mr. D'Emilio ignores and this was not addressed in any posts - yes we have lost many court battles. But every one that I have read about would seem to be flawed, hopefully fatally, because the reasoning behind the decision is heterosexual privilege, not equality. In other words, if the decisions were truly rational, then it follows that single parenthood be outlawed, divorce should be outlawed, adultery should be a criminal offense and persons who are sterile or elderly or otherwise incapable of reproduction should be banned from marriage as well.