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This is why we need a federal gay-marriage law. It's why we need to change our legal system so that people who are in long-term, committed relationships can enjoy all the same benefits that those who marry in a church enjoy.
Read this post by Nicola Griffith and you'll understand what I mean. Because she was a lesbian, Janice Langbehn was denied the right to visit her dying partner; it's why their children were denied the right to visit their dying mother. It gets worse:
"U.S. District Judge Adalberto Jordan dismissed a lawsuit yesterday, essentially finding that the Jackson Memorial Hospital was within its rights to leave a dying woman alone while denying her present and immediate family to visit her, be updated on her condition, or even to provide the hospital with medically necessary information."
I come back to the question whose answers I simply do not understand: Why do certain religious fundamentalists hate gay people? Why do they feel the need to deny them the right to form legal entanglements with others? It's not as if atheists are denied the right to marry. It's not as if getting a church wedding is any guarantee of long-term success, fidelity, or happiness. And one needn't even go to a church to get married. So why do the fundamentalists scream with foaming mouths about "protection of marriage" and fight with bloody fingernails against the right of human beings - citizens of a nation founded on the very notion of personal freedom - to declare to the world, "We choose each other! We wed our finances and property. We promise to chop everything we own into two equal parts and support the other and our offspring should our union fail." I mean, for those who have endured a divorce - especially one that spawned children - that's no huge honor.
So here we here a marriage (in every way except the legal protection) between two women. They raised four kids together. One of them is stricken with an aneurysm. Now the partner and children must sit terrified in the hospital waiting room. Now the stricken woman must die alone.
This is barbaric, people. Is this not the 21st Century? Is this not The Future as conceived by our SFnal forebears? Is this not the United States of America, land of the free and all that? If so, why must gay partners die alone? Why are those who enjoy rights of citizenship allowed to deny the same rights of others just because they disapprove of certain bedroom activities? Why is love, the most beautiful and perhaps sole redeeming feature of humanity, only valued when it occurs between a man and a woman?
It's time for change, people. Based on campaigns that fired us all up last fall - and whose top-dog speaker used to great effect - I'd say that the climate is right for this necessary change.
Chris
Read this post by Nicola Griffith and you'll understand what I mean. Because she was a lesbian, Janice Langbehn was denied the right to visit her dying partner; it's why their children were denied the right to visit their dying mother. It gets worse:
"U.S. District Judge Adalberto Jordan dismissed a lawsuit yesterday, essentially finding that the Jackson Memorial Hospital was within its rights to leave a dying woman alone while denying her present and immediate family to visit her, be updated on her condition, or even to provide the hospital with medically necessary information."
I come back to the question whose answers I simply do not understand: Why do certain religious fundamentalists hate gay people? Why do they feel the need to deny them the right to form legal entanglements with others? It's not as if atheists are denied the right to marry. It's not as if getting a church wedding is any guarantee of long-term success, fidelity, or happiness. And one needn't even go to a church to get married. So why do the fundamentalists scream with foaming mouths about "protection of marriage" and fight with bloody fingernails against the right of human beings - citizens of a nation founded on the very notion of personal freedom - to declare to the world, "We choose each other! We wed our finances and property. We promise to chop everything we own into two equal parts and support the other and our offspring should our union fail." I mean, for those who have endured a divorce - especially one that spawned children - that's no huge honor.
So here we here a marriage (in every way except the legal protection) between two women. They raised four kids together. One of them is stricken with an aneurysm. Now the partner and children must sit terrified in the hospital waiting room. Now the stricken woman must die alone.
This is barbaric, people. Is this not the 21st Century? Is this not The Future as conceived by our SFnal forebears? Is this not the United States of America, land of the free and all that? If so, why must gay partners die alone? Why are those who enjoy rights of citizenship allowed to deny the same rights of others just because they disapprove of certain bedroom activities? Why is love, the most beautiful and perhaps sole redeeming feature of humanity, only valued when it occurs between a man and a woman?
It's time for change, people. Based on campaigns that fired us all up last fall - and whose top-dog speaker used to great effect - I'd say that the climate is right for this necessary change.
Chris
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Let this also be a wake-up call to all of us who are in committed relationships to have Power of Attorneys, Living Wills and all the necessary paperwork drawn up to protect our rights as patients and to see that our wishes are respected.
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It's time to stand together, so no one has to die alone, just for being gay.
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And people wonder why I was (was? am!) a tad pissy about that little Nobel Prize topic. *polite cough*
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I once actually changes someone's mind. He was against gay marriage, but did not know about the whole hospital visitation/determination thing. Once he heard that, he was all like, "I see the point now. It's stupid to deny people those rights."
Now, if only I can have that conversation 300,000,000 more times...
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Dude.
It says right there in the Good Book (Bible) that queerness is bad. I do not remember where I found it, but do remember that it was written by that Paul person.
Why do they feel the need to deny them the right to form legal entanglements with others?
Because they can't get around the "problem" of having sexual contact with a same-sex person.
It's not as if atheists are denied the right to marry.
No, but a queer atheist would be.
And one needn't even go to a church to get married.
OK, this is a good point. Now I'm baffled, too. Here in the good ol' US of A, we are supposed to have separation of church and state. So if denying gays the right to marry is a religious quandary (and it is), then why can't a marriage take place in front of a Justice of the Peace? I don't get it. To me, this is the point, where I don't understand it, either. DANG IT! I thought i could be the sassy one on your f-list with the answers to these questions.
In fact, it does not make sense.
And the rule about not allowing YOUR FAMILY OF CHOICE into a hospital room (regardless of whether or not they are bound by marriage) ???? Why? What's the point?
Jeez.
I'm a fail with the answers to these questions...but I'm not a fail with the solution to this problem. I agree with you 100%: it's time for a change.
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I tried! But you're right, there is no understanding something that makes absolutely NO SENSE, and is also just plain wrong.