Well, crap.

[Doppelganger]

I think you damned conservatives are starting to corrupt me.   Bastards!

This will probably sound like elementary school stuff to some of you, but bear with me.

I want to start out with an admission of error and an apology. I came here proselytizing to you, though it was with good intention. To delilahmused, FGL, wasp69, and others I may have sounded like an ass to, sorry. Know that it was fueled by concern for our nation and the direction it's heading in. I have been raised to believe in American liberalism, and liberal forums have been my main source of political debate, although I have always had deep differences with many parts of liberal ideology. So I came here because I thought 'obviously the problem with our nation is that everyone has been trained to hate one another', and I hoped to argue against hateful political philosophy. And I must also admit I thought most of that attitude of animosity and anti-compromise was coming from the right, because that is a common liberal belief.

Well, now I know it's not. If anything, watching the POTUS this year has proven that even though there's a lot of flowery talk about compromise coming from the left, it doesn't happen. And while I'm sure the GOP has its share of corrupt politicians, I've always disagreed with big welfare, big government spending, big government intrusion into our personal lives... but I never put 2 + 2 together and realized that stuff is, for the most part, all coming out of the left.   See, on the liberal side of the fence, it is hammered in very strongly that liberalism is about 'freedom' and 'equality for all'. It's a very difficult mind-**** to train yourself out of believing.

The past year has made the veil a little bit thinner and easier to see through.

There are probably some aspects of pure conservatism I'll always disagree with a little. I'm fairly agnostic (although I believe in the goodness of the human spirit and in religious freedom) so I will probably always hold a little disagreement with the principles of some on the right. BUT, I think it's safe to say that the term 'liberal' in America has been perverted. Maybe it got perverted a long time ago because of socialism, which I do not think was necessarily started as an evil idea, but was a  STUPID idea because it was so susceptible to evil, and thus it became a system of evil. So... I'm going to cast off the term 'liberal' here and now for any of my philosophies and go with 'libertarian' instead.

I have a lot of friends out there with deep liberal convictions who I'm starting to be very concerned about. I have no idea how to try and make them see things for how they are without them automatically considering my POV compromised.

Anyhow, I know I'm new here, and I came here for the wrong reasons, but thank goodness I did. All it took for me to see conservatism is not a crazy philosophy for a bunch of religious fundies and lockstep-marchers, as the left would have people believe, was to just hear the voices of everyday conservative people instead of media cronies and politicos. Thank you for that.

So, in closing: DAMNED CONSERVATIVES!  

Edit: (Whoops, sorry if I tossed this in the wrong area. Thanks mods.)

[dutch508]

I think you damned conservatives are starting to corrupt me.  Bastards!

This will probably sound like elementary school stuff to some of you, but bear with me.

I want to start out with an admission of error and an apology. I came here proselytizing to you, though it was with good intention. To delilahmused, FGL, wasp69, and others I may have sounded like an ass to, sorry. Know that it was fueled by concern for our nation and the direction it's heading in. I have been raised to believe in American liberalism, and liberal forums have been my main source of political debate, although I have always had deep differences with many parts of liberal ideology. So I came here because I thought 'obviously the problem with our nation is that everyone has been trained to hate one another', and I hoped to argue against hateful political philosophy. And I must also admit I thought most of that attitude of animosity and anti-compromise was coming from the right, because that is a common liberal belief.

Well, now I know it's not. If anything, watching the POTUS this year has proven that even though there's a lot of flowery talk about compromise coming from the left, it doesn't happen. And while I'm sure the GOP has its share of corrupt politicians, I've always disagreed with big welfare, big government spending, big government intrusion into our personal lives... but I never put 2 + 2 together and realized that stuff is, for the most part, all coming out of the left.  See, on the liberal side of the fence, it is hammered in very strongly that liberalism is about 'freedom' and 'equality for all'. It's a very difficult mind-**** to train yourself out of believing.

The past year has made the veil a little bit thinner and easier to see through.

There are probably some aspects of pure conservatism I'll always disagree with a little. I'm fairly agnostic (although I believe in the goodness of the human spirit and in religious freedom) so I will probably always hold a little disagreement with the principles of some on the right. BUT, I think it's safe to say that the term 'liberal' in America has been perverted. Maybe it got perverted a long time ago because of socialism, which I do not think was necessarily started as an evil idea, but was a  STUPID idea because it was so susceptible to evil, and thus it became a system of evil. So... I'm going to cast off the term 'liberal' here and now for any of my philosophies and go with 'libertarian' instead.

I have a lot of friends out there with deep liberal convictions who I'm starting to be very concerned about. I have no idea how to try and make them see things for how they are without them automatically considering my POV compromised.

Anyhow, I know I'm new here, and I came here for the wrong reasons, but thank goodness I did. All it took for me to see conservatism is not a crazy philosophy for a bunch of religious fundies and lockstep-marchers, as the left would have people believe, was to just hear the voices of everyday conservative people instead of media cronies and politicos. Thank you for that.

So, in closing: DAMNED CONSERVATIVES! 

in rebuttal: FOAD...

[Aaron Burr]

Buh? I think the man is trying to say that our Evil brainwashing techniques based on insidious truth mongering and outrageous fact based insinuations are beginning to pay off. Soon enough we'll be sharing baked kitten recipes and discussing the best ways to exploit small crippled children for profit.

In the name of teh Rove, the Cheney and the Holy Bush(pbuh) Amen.

[The Village Idiot]

WooHoo...

He said We Won!!

He threw in the towel!!

 

 

We rock!!

 

he is becoming one of us

 

[BEG]

I have liberal friends and while their politics drive me crazy I like them as people.  I have one friend in particular who talks like a conservative (sometimes) but refuses to call herself one.  She is a LIBERAL damn it and don't you forget it!!!!!  Votes liberal but gets pissed when she has to pay taxes, wanted the healthcare "reform" but didn't want any part of the government insurance because well...she is better than everyone else.  She deserves the insurance her husband provides through his work, all the little people can have the crappy government insurance.  Kind of like Congress.  She thinks conservatives are all the same yet almost every one of my liberals friends are in lock step with each other (probably for fear of being kicked out of the liberal club if they do).  My friend I mentioned above when we were talking about welfare reform actually physically stuck her fingers in her ears and said.... I can't hear you.  I pointed out that everyone who can work should work if they are on welfare (while having the government help with child care, etc), she thought that was crazy.  Cause you know, everyone can't be as industrious.  I believe everyone can attain anything they want, they can overcome any situation they are in (obviously there are exceptions, few but there are exceptions) yet liberals think there are a 2nd tier of people, they are the first tier then there is everyone one else.  They think they are helping the "little people" while in reality they are relegating them to perpetual welfare.

I myself lean libertarian.  I don't think it will be the end of the world if gay people are allowed to marry but I think abortion is murder.  I am a libertarian-conservative.   

[The Village Idiot]

  I don't think it will be the end of the world if gay people are allowed to marry

They can marry, they just the rest of us to celebrate it as normal. They want the power of government to FORCE the rest of us to APPROVE of it. As far as I am concerned they need to find a new word, cuz "marriage" is already taken.

[BEG]

They can marry, they just the rest of us to celebrate it as normal. They want the power of government to FORCE the rest of us to APPROVE of it. As far as I am concerned they need to find a new word, cuz "marriage" is already taken.

I really don't care if they want to marry.  I don't have to "approve" of their lifestyle, no one if forcing me to approve.  What would changing the word do?  It is nothing but semantics. 

[Lord Undies]

I really don't care if they want to marry.  I don't have to "approve" of their lifestyle, no one if forcing me to approve.  What would changing the word do?  It is nothing but semantics. 

It's a little deeper than semantics.  Marriage is Biblical.  It is God Almighty's idea of the perfect union of man and woman.  I take it seriously.  My parents were married.  I am married. 

Homosexuals are not special in any shape, form, or fashion.  That they find members of their own sex desirable does not make them a separate gender or a designated race.  They are just homosexuals.  They can do what they do in a nice closet somewhere and leave the rest of us alone. 

Like my gay cousin said,  homos are like the dirt under the refrigerator.  Everyone knows it's there and there is absolutely no reason on earth to pull the refrigerator out to prove it.  I don't know if that really makes sense, but I laughed anyway.

[BEG]

It's a little deeper than semantics.  Marriage is Biblical.  It is God Almighty's idea of the perfect union of man and woman.  I take it seriously.  My parents were married.  I am married. 

Homosexuals are not special in any shape, form, or fashion.  That they find members of their own sex desirable does not make them a separate gender or a designated race.  They are just homosexuals.  They can do what they do in a nice closet somewhere and leave the rest of us alone. 

Like my gay cousin said,  homos are like the dirt under the refrigerator.  Everyone knows it's there and there is absolutely no reason on earth to pull the refrigerator out to prove it.  I don't know if that really makes sense, but I laughed anyway.

We are talking the state here, not the bible/church.  They can't force the church to marry them. 

[The Village Idiot]

We are talking the state here, not the bible/church.  They can't force the church to marry them. 

Oh but they WANT to force the church to condone them. That is on their list.

[BEG]

Oh but they WANT to force the church to condone them. That is on their list.

They can't.  The best they can do is the Unitarian Universalist's or some fringe Christian "church" that already marry them.

[Lord Undies]

We are talking the state here, not the bible/church.  They can't force the church to marry them.  

Ok.  I have a hard time separating the two since I consider the USA a divine gift from God.

I reserve the right to live in a society that does not recognize sexual perversion as a subset of normal.  I reserve this right in the same way I reserve the right to live in a society which does not condone the murder of unborn babies.  

I have rights too.  I am tired of always having to give up my rights in order to cater to perverts and baby murders.  Let them give up their rights for a change.  I wanna win one for once.

 

[Oceander]

Let me stick me nose in here and see how quickly it gets singed.  I think that there are two prongs of the liberal attack on religion and marriage that they wage through the queer marriage issue.  The first is rather banal - they want more bennies for more people, so they've figured out the more people they can get classified as "married" for purposes of socialist bennies, the better.  This is, actually, a bit of a red-herring and should not be addressed in the context of queer marriage - where it doesn't belong - but as a matter of cutting the welfare state, regardless of the characteristics of the individuals to whom socialist redistributive benefits are going.

The second one is, in fact, an attempt to attack religion, but in a way it's almost comical because, being liberals, they've confused the label with the thing that is labeled, and have concluded that if they can degrade the label, then they're degrading the thing itself.  The deal here is that certain liberals have concluded that religion is nothing more than a system of labels, and therefore if you can ridicule or destroy the labels themselves, you destroy the underlying religion.

Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth - no matter what you want to call it, the union of a man and a woman in the eyes of God, duly ordained by a minister of God, is the only sacred form of personal union amongst human beings.  Traditionally, we refer to that union as a "marriage," but, as should be clear, the label is one merely of convenience and tradition, aka habit.  The State could outlaw the use of the term "marriage" to refer to anything other than the union between a human-being and a chimpanzee, and that wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference to those men and women whose unions are blessed in the sight of God - the State could even go so far as to make it illegal for an individual to perform the rites that bind a man and a woman together as one in the sight of God (as some States have, from time to time), and yet the practice would merely go underground, and move into house churches, such as Chinese Christians make use of in order to gather together and join the holy communion.

So, as far as I'm concerned, the State can expand the use of the term "marriage" to include guys and their favorite chimps (ah well, I guess we're too late as far as a certain pop-star is concerned), I don't care - I will continue to attack the socialist welfare state on the more general principles of economics, efficiency, and fiscal responsibility, none of which is in any wise affected by whether we're talking about traditional marriage, common law marriage, queer marriage, or chimp marriage, and I will simply ignore the second prong except to continue to insist that the State not attempt to force any private group or association to perform their rites of marriage for unions that they do not accept as proper (so the church of queer can marry only fags, and refuse to marry straights - no big deal as far as I'm concerned).

[Oceander]

Ok.  I have a hard time separating the two since I consider the USA a divine gift from God.

I reserve the right to live in a society that does not recognize sexual perversion as a subset of normal.  I reserve this right in the same way I reserve the right to live in a society which does not condone the murder of unborn babies. 

I have rights too.  I am tired of always having to give up my rights in order to cater to perverts and baby murders.  Let them give up their rights for a change.  I wanna win one for once.

 

Unfortunately (or, more appropriately, fortunately, considering that the heathens hold the reins of power right now), the Constitution does not grant you those rights, at least not in any pure or unalloyed sense.

[BEG]

Ok.  I have a hard time separating the two since I consider the USA a divine gift from God.

I reserve the right to live in a society that does not recognize sexual perversion as a subset of normal.  I reserve this right in the same way I reserve the right to live in a society which does not condone the murder of unborn babies.  

I have rights too.  I am tired of always having to give up my rights in order to cater to perverts and baby murders.  Let them give up their rights for a change.  I wanna win one for once.

 

Ok, and I have the right to not care if they marry.  I have tried to understand the conservative view of it and if you believe in the separation of church and state (you may not) then I don't understand.  Murder of an unborn baby is different, you don't have to be a religious the feel that abortion is murder.  Actually I guess you could be non-religious and care that gays marry but I understand that view even less.  

You will hear some conservatives say "they already have civil unions", that is basically what you and your wife have as far as the state goes.  You are married in the eyes of God.  If the states allow them to marry it wont affect what you consider marriage as I'm sure you don't care if the state recognizes you are married, all you care about (and rightly so) is that God recognizes it.  Allowing them to marry by the state wont affect your relationship with God or demean you marriage because they wont be married in the eyes of God.

I don't feel strongly enough one way or the other really to "fight" for this.  Perhaps one of you can make the non-religious argument and change my mind.  By the way, I am a Christian (I think you know this).

[Lord Undies]

Ok, and I have the right to not care if they marry.  I have tried to understand the conservative view of it and if you believe in the separation of church and state (you may not) then I don't understand.  Murder of an unborn baby is different, you don't have to be a religious the feel that abortion is murder.  Actually I guess you could be non-religious and care that gays marry but I understand that view even less.  

You will hear some conservatives say "they already have civil unions", that is basically what you and your wife have as far as the state goes.  You are married in the eyes of God.  If the states allow them to marry it wont affect what you consider marriage as I'm sure you don't care if the state recognizes you are married, all you care about (and rightly so) is that God recognizes it.  Allowing them to marry by the state wont affect your relationship with God or demean you marriage because they wont be married in the eyes of God.

I don't feel strongly enough one way or the other really to "fight" for this.  Perhaps one of you can make the non-religious argument and change my mind.  By the way, I am a Christian (I think you know this).

I just took a stab at telling why I think it is important to keep our blessed nation on the Christian course.  As for Separation of Church and State, well, that's nonsense and has never existed.   This nation was founded and thrived on Christian life.  Freedom of religion is a Christian principle too when one is convinced liberty is a gift from God.  That gift of liberty includes the right to deny God.

What else doesn't exist is freedom from religion.  And as long as congress doesn't attempt to establish the Church of America, it's all good.     

[BEG]

I just took a stab at telling why I think it is important to keep our blessed nation on the Christian course.  As for Separation of Church and State, well, that's nonsense and has never existed.   This nation was founded and thrived on Christian life.  Freedom of religion is a Christian principle too when one is convinced liberty is a gift from God.  That gift of liberty includes the right to deny God.

What else doesn't exist is freedom from religion.  And as long as congress doesn't attempt to establish the Church of America, it's all good.     

I understand where you are coming from Undies, and I believe the Judao-Christian beliefs are what this country is founded on too.  I just have a hard time agreeing with this point, I hope that doesn't mean I am out of the conservative club. 

Hey how have you been feeling lately? 

[Oceander]

I just took a stab at telling why I think it is important to keep our blessed nation on the Christian course.  As for Separation of Church and State, well, that's nonsense and has never existed.   This nation was founded and thrived on Christian life.  Freedom of religion is a Christian principle too when one is convinced liberty is a gift from God.  That gift of liberty includes the right to deny God.

What else doesn't exist is freedom from religion.  And as long as congress doesn't attempt to establish the Church of America, it's all good.     

I do so hate to disagree with you, but ....

Yes, this nation was founded on the basis of Christian values, but it was not founded as a Christian nation - that is, it was specifically and intentionally founded to have no established religion - that was a radical divergence from the common practice of the day, in which most sovereigns, from great Emperors down to podunk little provincial kinglets (in the case of the group of little fiefdoms that preceded the state of Germany), "established" a particular Christian sect as the form of worship each of their subjects must accept, and typically ostracized, or outright stole from and/or killed, anyone who refused to go along.

In particular, what the Founding Fathers were extremely sensitive to was the degree to which permitting the establishment of a state religion would have resulted in religious warfare in the new United States that would have made the Old World's religious wars look like academic chess-squabbles by comparison.  Many of them had already had a taste of precisely the sort of intolerance that followed on after the "establishment" of a state religion, and wrote passionately against it, such as Thomas Jefferson, who authored in 1779 a draft for a Bill for Religious Freedom in Virginia that was eventually enacted.  At that time, the Anglican Church was the officially established church - that is, it was the only "valid" state-supported Christian sect in Virginia.  The bill authored by Thomas Jefferson specifically de-established the Anglican Church, and did not establish any other in its stead.  The text of the bill is worth reading, and worth quoting here because it is blessedly short:

Well aware that the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds;

that Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint;

that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments, or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do, but to extend it by its influence on reason alone;

that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time: That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical;

that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness;

and is withdrawing from the ministry those temporary rewards, which proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct, are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labours for the instruction of mankind;

that our civil rights have no dependance on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry;

that therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right;

that it tends also to corrupt the principles of that very religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing, with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments, those who will externally profess and conform to it;

that though indeed theseare criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way;

that the opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction;

that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own;

that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order;

and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself;

that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate;

errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.

S e c t i o n   II.

We the General Assembly of Virginia do enact that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

S e c t i o n   III.

And though we well know that this Assembly, elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding Assemblies, constituted with powers equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this act irrevocable would be of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right.

As should be clear from this document, it was precisely the principles and doctrines of Christianity that led Thomas Jefferson and the Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia to enact a law that specifically denounced the belief that civil society should be arranged by the government in conformity with any particular religious viewpoint.

That is, to put it bluntly, that Christian principles established by logical argument - far better than most of us could - that it was antithetical to the teachings of Christ for the Commonwealth of Virginia, and by extension, the soon-to-be-formed federal government - considering Jefferson's instrumental role in forging that new government, to be premised on any particular Christian viewpoint.

In other words, because of their strongly-held Christian beliefs, the Founders specifically determined that the new nation they were creating was NOT to be a "Christian nation."

[Oceander]

I think you damned conservatives are starting to corrupt me.  Bastards!

This will probably sound like elementary school stuff to some of you, but bear with me.

I want to start out with an admission of error and an apology. I came here proselytizing to you, though it was with good intention. To delilahmused, FGL, wasp69, and others I may have sounded like an ass to, sorry. Know that it was fueled by concern for our nation and the direction it's heading in. I have been raised to believe in American liberalism, and liberal forums have been my main source of political debate, although I have always had deep differences with many parts of liberal ideology. So I came here because I thought 'obviously the problem with our nation is that everyone has been trained to hate one another', and I hoped to argue against hateful political philosophy. And I must also admit I thought most of that attitude of animosity and anti-compromise was coming from the right, because that is a common liberal belief.

Well, now I know it's not. If anything, watching the POTUS this year has proven that even though there's a lot of flowery talk about compromise coming from the left, it doesn't happen. And while I'm sure the GOP has its share of corrupt politicians, I've always disagreed with big welfare, big government spending, big government intrusion into our personal lives... but I never put 2 + 2 together and realized that stuff is, for the most part, all coming out of the left.  See, on the liberal side of the fence, it is hammered in very strongly that liberalism is about 'freedom' and 'equality for all'. It's a very difficult mind-**** to train yourself out of believing.

The past year has made the veil a little bit thinner and easier to see through.

There are probably some aspects of pure conservatism I'll always disagree with a little. I'm fairly agnostic (although I believe in the goodness of the human spirit and in religious freedom) so I will probably always hold a little disagreement with the principles of some on the right. BUT, I think it's safe to say that the term 'liberal' in America has been perverted. Maybe it got perverted a long time ago because of socialism, which I do not think was necessarily started as an evil idea, but was a  STUPID idea because it was so susceptible to evil, and thus it became a system of evil. So... I'm going to cast off the term 'liberal' here and now for any of my philosophies and go with 'libertarian' instead.

I have a lot of friends out there with deep liberal convictions who I'm starting to be very concerned about. I have no idea how to try and make them see things for how they are without them automatically considering my POV compromised.

Anyhow, I know I'm new here, and I came here for the wrong reasons, but thank goodness I did. All it took for me to see conservatism is not a crazy philosophy for a bunch of religious fundies and lockstep-marchers, as the left would have people believe, was to just hear the voices of everyday conservative people instead of media cronies and politicos. Thank you for that.

So, in closing: DAMNED CONSERVATIVES! 

Edit: (Whoops, sorry if I tossed this in the wrong area. Thanks mods.)

Wow!  That took a lot of courage Doppelganger; congratulations on having the courage to have your say.  That doesn't mean I won't be a "damned conservative" more often than I probably ought to be, but hopefully we can convince each other to knock the worst of the rough spots off of our respective philosophies.

[GOBUCKS]

All it took for me to see conservatism is not a crazy philosophy for a bunch of religious fundies

Note that to democrat moonbats like this doppel character, "fundy" is an epithet that means "Christian". I second dutch's sentiment.

[The Village Idiot]

Of course I don't think government should give out benefits to anyone, not corporations, not non-profits, not schools, not colleges and definitely not OTHER.

Then there would be nothing left to fight over.

[debk]

Yes, I think marriage is sacred....and should be kept as such.

However, I do think gays should be allowed to have a legal civil union.

They want all the benefits of "marriage"...they should also have all the "benefits" of divorce....instead of being able to just say.."see ya, byeeeee"....and their "union" be over with.

[Chris]

Yes, I think marriage is sacred....and should be kept as such.

However, I do think gays should be allowed to have a legal civil union.

They want all the benefits of "marriage"...they should also have all the "benefits" of divorce....instead of being able to just say.."see ya, byeeeee"....and their "union" be over with.

I just can't see a "man" marrying another "man" as being equal to a husband and wife.  Married couples have the benefit of legal protections, tax benefits, and right of inheritance.  The idea is ludicrous and imbecilic.  You might as well grant civil rights to household pets.

[debk]

I just can't see a "man" marrying another "man" as being equal to a husband and wife.  Married couples have the benefit of legal protections, tax benefits, and right of inheritance.  The idea is ludicrous and imbecilic.  You might as well grant civil rights to household pets.

I didn't say I understood it....nor do I think it should be called a "marriage".

I just think if they want the good benefits....they should also have to the bad.

[Chris]

Sorry, I just can't take that first step.  The entire concept is ridiculous and unworthy of consideration.