Re: why not allow gay marriage?

So often this argument overlooks one key factor: legal rights. It doesn't matter whether you or anyone else can or cannot accept the homosexual lifestyle. You live your life and we'll live ours. That's fine. But where the line must be drawn in the sand is when you deny us our rights and equal protection under the law.

Homosexual couples are forced to fight for the term marriage in order to receive all the benefits and protections that a heterosexual couple receive. It has been proven now in several states including recently in New Jersey that other terms or categories such as civil unions are not effective in providing equal rights. For some it may be just the term they are fighting for, for whatever reason, but for the majority they are fighting for their rights. Rights to inheritance, to adopt, rights to pensions and healthcare benefits. These are the things that are important in life not some term. Unfortunately, gay couples have learned over and over again that they are not granted or guaranteed these rights because they are not married. Tell me how that can be fair? It's not, but nobody wants to admit it or look at it from this persepctive. Everyone overshadows the issue with their own prejudices and religious beliefs.

You can make so many parallels to the fight for civil rights by African Americans in this country who led the way for every group after to obtain equality. African Americans in the South were not allowed to sit in the same row as a white person. Why? Because whites, based on their prejudices, did not see African Americans as their equals and as such they denied them basic rights like where they could sit on a bus. Mind blowing. Yet there it was. It was considered legal. We all know of course that Rosa Parks fought for her rights and eventually Montgomery's segregation on buses was deemed unconstitutional. Now the whites in Montgomery didn't have to like Rosa Parks or accept her in any way, but they now had to respect her right to sit wherever she wanted on that bus. And I imagine that's all she really cared about.

For gay couples it is no different. I don't care if you accept me or not, but I do want you and everyone else in this country to respect me and my partner's rights to the same rights afforded to heterosexual couples under marriage. It really is that simple.

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