AIBU to be increasingly infuriated by the issue of same sex marriage with BOTH sides?

[dopishe]

The whole thing is getting on my nerves now. And I mean both sides of the debate, too. The against who are saying it will wreck society-how exactly? Those who say that it will strengthen relationships of gay people=pull the other one!
As far as I am concerned, civil partnerships and marriage provide equality of financial and legal rights and, whichever a person has, it is up to THEM to make it (relationship) work and cp's and marriage are just titles. So just leave things as they are.

I am absolutely infuriated by The tory party using this issue as pure gesture politics when they do not give a stuff about people's lives and the REALLY important issues like the economy and jobs and things that really matter.

Not saying labour wouldn't be any different, but people, does it matter enough to alter the status quo?

Oh, and I agree that people should be allowed to have civil partnerships (men and women or one of each) for legal reasons with no romantic connotations if they want to.

So two friends sharing a house/home/business can legally protect each other in case of death. Why should only married people be able to take advantage of succession tax rules, for example.

But that isn't marriage.

Civil marriage should be gender-blind, or whatever the correct term is

YABU.

As others have said it is about changing insiduous attitudes which position gay relationships as 'Other'. Making gay people have a different category for formalising their relationships does exactly this.

Re the church not being a government institution. Nor is a shop: would it be OK for a shop to refuse to serve a gay/black/female person just because they felt like it??

Discrimination against gay people seems to be the last acceptable form of discrimation and I think a zero tolerance approach is needed.

Mary I would never force a church to marry LGBTs and I'm sure LGBTs wouldn't want to marry in a church like that, I just think it should be legal for churches who accept LGBTs to be able to perform marriages.

In this it's important to separate church from state.
This though.

I get pissed that a lot of these bigots think that the church invented marriage, or that marriage is a religious institution, it's pure bt. Marriage existed long before Christianity and originally existed as a way to build ties between families.

I went to a public debate about all this & one genius in the audience stood up and said something about the long tradition of Church of England one-man-one-woman marriage, coming down from Henry VIII.

No-one heard anything she said after that because they were too busy laughing.

I went to a public debate about all this & one genius in the audience stood up and said something about the long tradition of Church of England one-man-one-woman marriage, coming down from Henry VIII.

Anytime someone mentions traditional marriage, it reminds me of this comedy sketch:

But adultery in the UK is with a member of the opposite sex. This is just a matter of fact. And I am afraid anybody who says that unfaithfulness is the same whether with a man or a woman is incorrect; the consequences of a man's wife sleeping with another man is likely to be very different to those if she sleeps with another woman owing to possibility of pregnancy. Not saying that neither wouldn't be very hurtful; just different consequences.
Also, within a marriage, the husband is automatically assumed (rightly or wrongly) to be the father of any children his wife produces within that marriage. That is, the default position unless told otherwise. How can this be done with gay people? .

It would be impossible to treat gay couples in exactly the same way without altering the current rules within a marriage for heterosexual people.

Oh, sorry, now I get what you mean

I suppose they could call them civil marriages performed in a church. Or something stupid like that.

True about the history - maybe we need to go back to hand-fasting and get rid of the marriage word altogether.

The thing about discrimination is that churches (and religions in general) discriminate against lots of different people: they discriminate against people of different gender, religion, nationality, age, loads of things, not just against LGBTs. And that's a whole other story, and should really be put to one side (as probably insoluble) while the civil side is sorted.

If the church is so keen on owning the word "marriage" then marriages should only happen in churches, and the law should have civil contracts for everyone, with no marriages outside church at all.

It's so distracting to argue about the word - it's the fact that the civil ceremony is legally different depending on whether it is a same sex or different sex union that is wrong. Call them all civil marriages. Or civil partnerships. Or handfastings. Or whatever. But stop differentiating.

Sorry, I don't know much about this , but I find the argument about words distracts from the real argument which is the discrimination.

Anyway, I've gone off point: cp's and marriage are, for practical purposes, the same so why p* around further and waste time on this issue? So that people can be known as 'married' . As if it makes any difference in the real world.

dopische, I think that is also a red herring.

"the possibility of pregnancy" - does that mean that adultery doesn't count as adultery if you are over 50 (as a woman) or have had a vasectomy (as a man)?

Adultery should be taken out of law. We no longer punish people for adultery (do we?), so why have it in law at all? It's completely irrelevant.

I also think it is wrong that children are assumed to be the "husband's". I think all children should be registered with a mother and a father, both should sign the birth certificate, whether they are married or not.

In fact (having just watched Jeremy Kyle for the first time in a while) I think we are getting to the stage that all babies should have a paternity test done before being registered .

But again, that is irrelevant to the main argument.

"But adultery in the UK is with a member of the opposite sex"

Such a good reason for not allowing gay people to marry!!!!!!

Dopshe if the can legally change marriage, then can legally change what adultery is seen as. The fact that cheating with a member of the same sex may be somehow different to cheating with a member of the opposite sex is irrelevant.

Who cares what people assume about a couple's children? Does that have anything to do with the law? No.

So that people can be known as 'married' . As if it makes any difference in the real world.

And herein lies your issue, it's not important to you it doesn't effect you so you don't think we should be discussing it and you don't think it makes a different in the real world. Because, obviously, gay people who want to get married don't exist in the real world and this issue doesn't effect them.

Like I said before, I'm glad people didn't think it as too unimportant to give black people, women and children equal rights.

From the BBC news coverage of the Tory conference:

"Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey ... also risked controversy by appearing to compare anti-gay marriage campaigners to persecuted Jews in Nazi Germany. Calling for a "sensible debate", he suggested verbal abuse of Jewish people marked the beginning of the totalitarian Nazi state. "Remember that the Jews in Nazi Germany, what started it against them was when they were called names, that was the first stage towards that totalitarian state," he said."

Oh dear, excuse my awful spelling and grammar mistakes

We could adopt the French system, where you have to have a civil ceremony first and can then have any religious/secular or whatever ceremony afterwards. Or not of course.

I must admit I know several same-sex married couples, several of whom have children and my marriage feels completely invalidated as a result.

Yes, that system works in many countries Peetle.

And for people remarrying after divorce; they have a civil ceremony, and then a church blessing.

But that still means the civil ceremony should be called either a "marriage" (civil or not) OR a "civil partnership", regardless of the gender of the people taking part in it.

Not one word if it is two men (or two women), another if it is a man and a woman.

It's only recently that marriage has become the 'property' of religion, and in this country largely the CofE. As an agnostic, it really irks me that romantic commitment appears to be the domain of some groups and not others. For this reason, I don't think we should change the term. It's marriage. It has been for a long time - since before religious marriage as far as I recall.

Equal marriage wouldn't force churches to do anything they don't want to - churches can already impose restrictions on who they marry. That's right, they can refuse to marry people who can legally get married. I think it would rarely be disputed anyway, apart from when people try to prove a point. Couples who wish to marry in a religious institution will more than likely be a part of that institution, and accepted and loved within that community. I really can't imagine a couple wishing to spend this momentous occasion in a place where they weren't accepted for who they are.

For some parts of society, gender is becoming a fluid thing, a spectrum. There is almost an infinite number of couple combinations that could be made from people on that spectrum of gay, lesbian, bi and trans* people. I think it's crazy that two people who are in love could marry, one could make the decision to change sex legally, and suddenly their marriage would be invalid! They're still the same two people with the same feelings for each other!

The issues that arise from same-sex relationships and trans people could be avoided entirely if marriage was redefined - any two consenting people over the age of 18. Simples. Remove gender/sex from relationship law, sorted. Yes, that might involve changing hetero-marriage law a little. Come on, we've had the easy side of the deal forever*! It's a small change to have to make to grant equality to a large group of people.

Belatedly - but dopishe, that explains it ... I don't bother listening to the tory party if I can help it!

What a crappy, rude, right-wing thing to say.

FFS dopische...

Your posts make you sound like an arse and here's why. You're talking about this as if it's people making a fuss about nothing because it doesn't affect YOU. I bet a lot of white Americans felt the same about Martin Luther and Rosa Parks.
The real world?
Is that the real world where we get letters addressed to Mr and Mrs because people assume that one of us must be male?
The real world where I went to pick DW up from hospital after an operation last year and had to repeat FOUR TIMES that I was there for my female partner, not for MR Empress and that was why they couldn't find "him" on the list?
Where a child in DD's class told her last year that her parents were going to hell?

Scrap what I said about us having the same concerns as straight couples. Straight couples don't have to deal with any of that!

I'm not biologically related to my DD but I have legal parental rights. I have stayed up all night when she's been ill, fed her, washed her, clothed her, disciplined her, treated her, held her when she's been upset. I have been there since she was 2. And I'm less of a parent than some fathers who get the mother pregnant and then vanish? What are you saying about adoptive parents?

I'm NOT anti fathers BTW. I love my dad to pieces. But you're ascribing FAR too much to the possession of a dick.

Yes, marriage and civil partnership are just words but words can mean a lot. And if they are just words then why the fuck shouldn't we all use the same one?

more from Lord Carey should you wish. "First they came for the bigots...."

MaryZed, how would you register DCs who had 2 mothers and a donor?

Sorry, I should have said "parents" registered on birth certs, not mother and father.

And if the two parents (lesbian or gay) wanted to include the donor(s) (presuming the donor is a known donor) then that should be made possible. There should be a place for all parents in unconventional arrangements to be included on the birth certificate, if that is their wish at the time the birth is registered.

My Jeremy Kyle comment was flippant and irrelevant, sorry.

Thanks MaryZed, that makes sense.

Empress your problems could easily be solved by having a civil partnership so everything you say is a red herring. Gay couples can adopt as couples, so, sorry, your post is all red herrings.

What Empress said wrt how you sound.

I agree that marriage should be for those who get wed in a religious wedding, and all couples who go the civil route can be CP. I would prefer the CP option for straight couples. I think the gvt have gone about it all wrong.