Re: To opponents of gay marriage

>Subject: To opponents of gay marriage
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]  (jslater)
>Date: 11/24/2003 3:13 PM Eastern Standard Time
>Message-id: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>For those of you that oppose gay marriage, I've got some good news and
>some bad news for you.  In traditional fashion, I'll give you the bad
>news first.
>
>Bad news (from your perspective).  You're going to lose this issue. 
>Maybe not this year, or this election cycle, but eventually.  The
>trend in this country over the past couple of decades is increasing
>tolerance for gays and lesbians, and increasing legal rights for them.
> There's no sign of this reversing.  More and more gays and lesbians
>are now covered by state and local anti-discrimination laws, laws
>criminalizing gay sex are now unconstitutional, and in social, public,
>and private relations, gays are much more accepted than they were
>twenty years ago, and there's no sign of this stopping.  Think you're
>really going to get a U.S. Constitutional Amendment banning gay
>marriage?  Face facts, it ain't gonna happen.  See also gay marriage
>in Canada.
>
>Indeed, bans on gay marriages are likely to go down in history as the
>equivalent of bans on inter-racial marriage.  Opponents of gay
>marriage should consider how bigoted and irrational those who opposed
>inter-racial marriage seem now.  My bet is that the position you hold
>now will be not just rejected, but thoroughly discredited and mocked a
>generation or two hence.
>
>And let's face it.  Your position really is based on your dislike
>of/bigotry towards gays, because the so-called "neutral" arguments
>against gay marriage dissolve on any close inspection.  Marriage has
>never required people to be able to bear children or say that they
>wanted to bear children.  Loving, two-parent, same-sex homes are
>obviously better for kids than a lot of homes that current marriage
>laws permit children to be born into and be raised in.  Your religion
>disapproves of gays?  OK, but your religion doesn't set national
>policy, and heteros don't need a religion to authorize their marriage.
> You don't like gays?  Hey, I don't like folks in the KKK, but that
>doesn't and shouldn't matter as to their right to marry.
>
>Now here's the good news.  Gay marriage won't hurt "the institution of
>marriage" in any way.  In fact, it will help it.  If you're a marriage
>fan (and I'm a happily married fellow myself), you must have noticed
>that in the past 40 years, heterosexuals haven't been doing so well. 
>Rates of divorce and out-of-wedlock births have been increasing.  Even
>conservative Republicans that run on "traditional values"--Reagan,
>Gingrich, B. Barr, Henry Hyde etc., etc.--have been divorced, had
>affairs while married, etc.
>
>I can't think of any way in which allowing two loving, adult,
>consenting men or women to make a lasting committment to each other
>could possibly hurt my marriage, or anybody else's marriage.  But I do
>see how it could help marriage in general, by letting more people who
>would be good at it take advantage of it.  So relax and/or get over
>it.--Joe (n.j.) [mWo]

Yeesh, what brought this one on?   The pickle too far up your arse today?