Because your bigoted post obviously shows that you lack an understanding of what you are really talking about, from the viewpoint of the American fight for gay rights, Let me tell you a thing.
From the late 1800's to the 1950's there was no such thing as gay people. That doesn't mean that people were not homosexuals, that just means that you were not allowed to come out. You were not allowed to show it in any way shape or form. It was to remain only in your mind, and never acted on. You were supposed to pretend to be straight and exude masculinity. You were supposed to marry a girl you didn't love, have children you didn't want, and live out a hollow existence as a ghost of a man. If you ever were caught displaying any kind of homosexual behavior you would loose your job, loose your wife, your kids, your home, your job. It was legal to discriminate in housing then. No one would rent to a homosexual. No one would sell to a homosexual. Often, if you were found to be a homosexual you would be declared legally insane. You would sometimes be carted off to a mental institution for drugging and shock therapy, or to a prison where you would probably be killed by other inmates, or you would be made a sex offender, and not allowed to show your face in public.
Then the 60's happened and in the communes, and Haigt Ashburry, and New York, those social barriers came down. Blacks met whites, white men met homosexual men, and Asians and so on. Following that it gave us gay people the courage to stand up and carry a banner and come out, just little, even if it was just in what had become our own neighborhoods. But even those weren't safe. The police would regularly raid. They would arrest without suspicion, unconstitutionally. They sometimes would not even go that far. Sometimes they would just drag us into an alleyway and beat us to a pulp, then pin the crime on blacks or some such. It wouldn't always be police too. The Upstairs Lounge in New Orleans was locked, and torched from the outside. 32 men, and one of their mothers died. Burned to death. Melted to the walls. Their only crime was being gay. The police never prosecuted for the crime, despite someone repeatedly, and loudly, taking claim for the arson. The men were left by the fire department for three days, one of the victims half hanging out the window, as a moral warning. We took the name "Gay" and took on the idea of ourselves as a minority. Along came a man named Harvey Milk, the first openly homosexual man elected to office in the united states. He was a San Francisco City Supervisor. Among his work to defeat a bill that would have fired all homosexual schoolteachers fired in the state of California he secured gay rights in the city, and solidified a lot of minority neighborhoods together and but a brief stop to a lot of deep seeded hate. For this, and being gay, he and mayor Moscone were assassinated by fellow city supervisor Dan White, who served 5 years in jail. He got off easy, because he claimed that his judgement was impaired because he ate too much junk food, and because one of the men he killed was "Just a homosexual". It was a kangaroo court. Following that, Aids came about, and we started dying by the hundreds. Our Family. See, because of all this gay people had no Family. They were each others family, and everyone knew everyone. So imagine if a third of your family started dropping dead, and no one had any clue why, except apparently the Christians, who claimed it was god's justice. So, we rallied.
"Just a homosexual." That is the key. That is what we are fighting. So what does this have to do with Marriage? As a legal concept marriage touches thousands of corners of American law, but more importantly it is a symbol. We rallied around the idea of marriage, because it was one aspect of our "culture" that straight people could relate too, and humanized us in the wake of our pain. The idea of marriage is that of an equal bond between two people, and if that equal bond can be made between two people of the same sex, then it also reveals itself in the mind, and implants the idea that it can also be an equal bond between two stratified groups in society. By attaining "Gay Marriage" It would give us a strong step to climb up on. It would make us equal under so many eyes of the law, irrefutably.
So, no. This isn't about Religion, or going against tradition, or marriage as a human right, but rather as the attainment of our most certain human right to be EQUAL under the LAW which is set fourth by the legislators which we elect to protect us, and the constitution which in turn protects us from them. It is about ensuring that none of the above could ever, ever, happen again and be gotten away with. It is about ending a silence. It is to make it that if we should so choose we can walk down the street holding the hand of the same sex and not be arrested. It is about being free of the fear of needless searchings, and beatings from the very authority that is supposed to secure us. Anything less than equal marriage, as defined under law as the word marriage, not "civil union" is to denote us a second class citizenry which secures the system of the hiding and fear, the abuse, and the pain of all gay people in the United States Of America which does still persist.
It is not about churches.
It is not about god.
It is not about tradition.
It is about equality under the law to be secure in our persons, lives, and ambitions from tyranny, as is our right. And THOSE are god given.
Because your bigoted post obviously shows that you lack an understanding of what you are really talking about, from the viewpoint of the American fight for gay rights, Let me tell you a thing.
From the late 1800's to the 1950's there was no such thing as gay people. That doesn't mean that people were not homosexuals, that just means that you were not allowed to come out. You were not allowed to show it in any way shape or form. It was to remain only in your mind, and never acted on. You were supposed to pretend to be straight and exude masculinity. You were supposed to marry a girl you didn't love, have children you didn't want, and live out a hollow existence as a ghost of a man. If you ever were caught displaying any kind of homosexual behavior you would loose your job, loose your wife, your kids, your home, your job. It was legal to discriminate in housing then. No one would rent to a homosexual. No one would sell to a homosexual. Often, if you were found to be a homosexual you would be declared legally insane. You would sometimes be carted off to a mental institution for drugging and shock therapy, or to a prison where you would probably be killed by other inmates, or you would be made a sex offender, and not allowed to show your face in public.
Then the 60's happened and in the communes, and Haigt Ashburry, and New York, those social barriers came down. Blacks met whites, white men met homosexual men, and Asians and so on. Following that it gave us gay people the courage to stand up and carry a banner and come out, just little, even if it was just in what had become our own neighborhoods. But even those weren't safe. The police would regularly raid. They would arrest without suspicion, unconstitutionally. They sometimes would not even go that far. Sometimes they would just drag us into an alleyway and beat us to a pulp, then pin the crime on blacks or some such. It wouldn't always be police too. The Upstairs Lounge in New Orleans was locked, and torched from the outside. 32 men, and one of their mothers died. Burned to death. Melted to the walls. Their only crime was being gay. The police never prosecuted for the crime, despite someone repeatedly, and loudly, taking claim for the arson. The men were left by the fire department for three days, one of the victims half hanging out the window, as a moral warning. We took the name "Gay" and took on the idea of ourselves as a minority. Along came a man named Harvey Milk, the first openly homosexual man elected to office in the united states. He was a San Francisco City Supervisor. Among his work to defeat a bill that would have fired all homosexual schoolteachers fired in the state of California he secured gay rights in the city, and solidified a lot of minority neighborhoods together and but a brief stop to a lot of deep seeded hate. For this, and being gay, he and mayor Moscone were assassinated by fellow city supervisor Dan White, who served 5 years in jail. He got off easy, because he claimed that his judgement was impaired because he ate too much junk food, and because one of the men he killed was "Just a homosexual". It was a kangaroo court. Following that, Aids came about, and we started dying by the hundreds. Our Family. See, because of all this gay people had no Family. They were each others family, and everyone knew everyone. So imagine if a third of your family started dropping dead, and no one had any clue why, except apparently the Christians, who claimed it was god's justice. So, we rallied.
"Just a homosexual." That is the key. That is what we are fighting. So what does this have to do with Marriage? As a legal concept marriage touches thousands of corners of American law, but more importantly it is a symbol. We rallied around the idea of marriage, because it was one aspect of our "culture" that straight people could relate too, and humanized us in the wake of our pain. The idea of marriage is that of an equal bond between two people, and if that equal bond can be made between two people of the same sex, then it also reveals itself in the mind, and implants the idea that it can also be an equal bond between two stratified groups in society. By attaining "Gay Marriage" It would give us a strong step to climb up on. It would make us equal under so many eyes of the law, irrefutably.
So, no. This isn't about Religion, or going against tradition, or marriage as a human right, but rather as the attainment of our most certain human right to be EQUAL under the LAW which is set fourth by the legislators which we elect to protect us, and the constitution which in turn protects us from them. It is about ensuring that none of the above could ever, ever, happen again and be gotten away with. It is about ending a silence. It is to make it that if we should so choose we can walk down the street holding the hand of the same sex and not be arrested. It is about being free of the fear of needless searchings, and beatings from the very authority that is supposed to secure us. Anything less than equal marriage, as defined under law as the word marriage, not "civil union" is to denote us a second class citizenry which secures the system of the hiding and fear, the abuse, and the pain of all gay people in the United States Of America which does still persist.
It is not about churches.
It is not about god.
It is not about tradition.
It is about equality under the law to be secure in our persons, lives, and ambitions from tyranny, as is our right. And THOSE are god given.