Britain's PM faces gay marriage revolt as plots swirl

[Gerald]

(Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron's ruling Conservative party split in two on Tuesday over his plans to legalize gay marriage, a move that many of his own lawmakers said was wrong, not a priority for the public, and unnecessarily divisive.

Many Conservative MPs stood up in parliament to denounce the legislation ahead of a vote in which up to half of Cameron's 303 lawmakers are expected to reject the measure on moral and religious grounds, threatening a corrosive legacy of bitterness.

It was getting into "Alice in Wonderland territory" for any government to come along and rewrite the rules of marriage, Conservative lawmaker Roger Gale told parliament, echoing the views of many in his own party.

"This is not evolution, it's revolution," added Edward Leigh, another Conservative member of parliament, saying marriage was "by its nature a heterosexual union".

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...E9140082013020


Note: Tue Feb 5, 2013 11:40am EST

[Cybermat47]

I see marriage as a union between two people who love each other, not a man and a woman.

[HundertzehnGustav]

marriage for hetero only here.

marriage,
from my POV is a religious thing.
and IMO religion stinks and is creepy.
maybe IMO marriage stinks and is creepy too.
dunno yet, have not tried, and most likely never will.

officially living together,
for reasons that have nothing to do with religion (PACS) but only to represent an union of homosexuals, is okay with me.
They share a bed, a house, a shower, give them similar tax cuts etc than normal [and i stand by that word] people get when living together and forming a Household.



where i see trouble up ahead is adopting and somehow having children...
There the poo hits the fan... "i got two daddies and my biological mother"
i do not see that end well for the Kids. Not at all.

Originally Posted by HundertzehnGustav

marriage for hetero only here.

marriage,
from my POV is a religious thing.

Why?

[HundertzehnGustav]

do not really know, not in a sense where i can put my Finger on a paragraph or an article.

i guess marriage was done by the church, at the church back in the old times, and not at the town hall / mairie / rathaus.
Therefor Marriage, even though today done in both variants; the official ceremoniy and the optional religious ceremony if desired has, to my mind, its roots in religion.

Gustav, you have it backwards.
If you trawl back to the last major gay marriage topic Haplo kindly produced a link which unfortunately for him destroyed that line of arguement
The early church in rome started getting in on the marriage business which was a civil/governmental matter.
At the end of the day marriage is what it always has been, simply a business contract.

[kranz]

Originally Posted by Cybermat47

I see marriage as a union between two people who love each other, not a man and a woman.

Why do you restrict marriage to a union between people?
I love my cat. Every morning he comes to me and rubs at my legs. When I show him my fist, he hits it with his head. He allows being scratched on his belly.
According to cat experts it is a symbol of devotion and affection.
Why can't I marry my cat then?

Dear mods: please pay more attention to posts such as the one by user: Cybermat47 because they have deeply hurt my feelings.

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by kranz

Why do you restrict marriage to a union between people?
I love my cat. Every morning he comes to me and rubs at my legs. When I show him my fist, he hits it with his head. He allows being scratched on his belly.
According to cat experts it is a symbol of devotion and affection.
Why can't I marry my cat then?

In the event that you are actually being serious here - because your cat cannot legally consent to take part in such a union, in the same way that a child or a lump of coal or a blow-up doll cannot legally consent to it. Another adult human, regardless of sex, can.

[Herr-Berbunch]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

In the event that you are actually being serious here . . .

I don't think he is, and I'm hoping not, but a good response - I would've just shouted names!

[Skybird]

Do I get special rights and a tax refund for having blond hair, please? I contribute a lot of important stuff to the community and do it a great social service with my blond hair, for which I deserve some kind of privileged status and social recognition, I think.

Same rights for singles! Same rights for blonds! Equality for blond singles! I assume living together with my ficus still gets socially discriminated and banned from formal recognition of qualifying for marriage?

Gardeners of all nations, unite! Against inequality, against discrimination, against antisocial ideas of family! Marriage must be green!

Blond Pride!

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Do I get special rights and a tax refund for having blond hair, please? I contribute a lot of important stuff to the community and do it a great social service with my blond hair, for which I deserve some kind of privileged status and social recognition, I think.

No, but you do get special rights because you are hetrerosexual. Until those rights are extended to individuals not of the same orientation, your rights remain exclusive and therefore special. See Skybird, these people don't want to be treated special. They just want to be treated like you. What you are saying, and have been saying, is that homosexuals are not equal to you, and therefore do not deserve the same rights as you. You try and dress it up using vague language and endlessly long circular rants, but the message is the same.

[Armistead]

The question is, what is marriage today, it's a civil agreement because government is involved with many laws. Numerous people marry with no religious thought. I think it does come down to constitutional rights and opens a host of other issues such as polygamy. I don't see government getting out of marriage, so I think it has to support the rights of adults to marry who they love regardless of sex.

Gay marriage isn't for me, if it isn't for you, don't do it. Whatever my morals or beliefs are, they shouldn't step on the civil rights of others.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

No, but you do get special rights because you are hetrerosexual. Until those rights are extended to individuals not of the same orientation, your rights remain exclusive and therefore special. See Skybird, these people don't want to be treated special. They just want to be treated like you. What you are saying, and have been saying, is that homosexuals are not equal to you, and therefore do not deserve the same rights as you. You try and dress it up using vague language and endlessly long circular rants, but the message is the same.

I do not get special rights like families and hetero couples. I pay more taxes, I am excluded from more forms of tax refunds. I agree to families granted special, status, because I see the importance they have - or should have - for the community. I see the social and psychological damage done where in the West these institutions of families fail - may it be due to socialist dictatorship, may it be due to dysfunctional families. That's why I accept that I have an inferior legal status on taxes and some law issues, compared to them - they are more important than singles like me are, for the society, they contribute more to the communal interest than I do.

Point is homosexual couples contribute not one bit more to comunal interest than I do. So why should they be given special status over singles like me, equalling them with the status of families? They cannot justify that. The question wether they live together or not, simply is unimportant and uninteresting for everybody else. Their homosexuality does not make them any special. Different: yes. Better, special: no.

Homosexcual couples do not contribute anythjing more to the community than singles do, or friends, or working colleagues. Being gay/lesbian, is no accomplishement of whatver a kind. Like I do not deserve specia,l recongition for having blind hair, they do not deserve special recognition for being homosexual. If I claim special rights due to my white skin coklour, I get called a racist, a white supremacist. If a gay claims spoecial riughts becasue of his genetic marks that make him gay -t at shou,.d not be anything else but sexcuall discmrination against non-gays? Hardly.

I am not making a big fuss about gays or lesbians. I never did. It just doesn't bother me, as long as they do not make a big show of their gayness. It's just that right this normality and equal treatment is not good enough - they want be treated with special treatment and call that normality, they want to stageact they are family and as if they are of the same importance for the community like families are. Special rights that Singles are not given.

Well, here is the news: gay couples living together are of zero interest and importance for the culture and social community. Or it is not more important than the question whether or not I own a dog or not. Are dog owners so important that they should be given special protective status by the state? Hardly. Two colleagues going to cinema after work? No. A pedestrian and a bus driver sharing some words at the traffic light? No. Families? ABSOLUTELY.

Several years ago, on a party given by a former colleague, a gay couple introduced itself to me, people I did not know. Fine with me, I listened. They not just introduced themselves as "eingetragene Lebenspartner", as it is called here, but immediately - and unasked - started to explain how special it is to live their gayness open and to be living in this partnership and how wonderful and special and Oh and Boah and Wowh. That was what started to piss me in no time, and so I cut them off by asking them whom of the two I should call Mr. and whom I should call Mrs. That did not make them my friends, but it made them two people who turned their backs on me immediately, snapping. Which left me as a happy man.

Normality that is just acted and practiced without thinking about it, is normality. Normality that is constantly reminded of, talked of, praised, thanked for, demanded - is no normality. It is a mess.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by Skybird

I do not get special rights like families and hetero couples.

Can you marry? Can they marry? If the answer to both is not 'yes', then one group's rights are special. It's as simple as that. Everything else you wrote is simply dressing trying to dance around that fact.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

At the end of the day marriage is what it always has been, simply a business contract.

In some respects.