G

Blacks did not win their long deserved civil rights by making nice with the folks in DC.. they took the streets. Making nice with the DC anti-gay crowd isnt going to get us our equal rights either.

BTW, President Low Normal is having a big “Defense of Marriage Ammendment” event in the Rose Garden on Monday — after which Mary Cheney and Heather Poe will be shot by firing squad and buried in the Rose Garden.

I’ve never given a dime to HRC and never will. The only national gay organization worth any support at all is NGLTF — at least they have a commitment to grassroots organizing whereas HRC is a traditional political lobby that’s joined at the hip to the DNC. Solomonese’s sick-making defense of Lieberman also epitomizes everything that’s wrong about identity politics today. If a politician agrees to back HRC’s agenda he or she gets the group’s support, no matter what else that politician may support, e.g., the war in Iraq, censorship, unlimited transfers from the US Treasury to the State of Israel, etc. Those of us whose politics don’t stop at “gay rights” have always opposed this approach. I agree with the posters who’ve said they only give money to local gay groups that actually need and deserve it.

WAKE THE FUCK UP, AL !!!!!!”

Ehrenstein (hi from DL) did you know Franken is friends with professional homophobe Gary Bauer? Oh Franken thinks it’s cute to be friends with reich-wingers, and act like it’s just a matter of disagreeing. He isn’t at all offended by Bauer’s homophobia, they just “disagree.” Franken is way too wimpy and centrist in general, but he’s always pissed me off on the gay issue especially.

He’s corrected gay guests when they’ve said they know some people hate the. Franken giggled, and cutesy’d it up by saying it’s just that people always visualize in couple in bed when they meet them. Yes homophobia is cutesy, isn’t it Franken (giggle). He makes me sick.

He was a guest on Rachel Maddow’s “Unfiltered” and complained that everyday Rush is saying liberals are about books teaching two daddies… and we’re not. Excuse me fuckface, liberals aren’t about books like “Heather Has Two Mommies” that teach tolerance for gays and their families? Not according to that weasel. God I hate him, haven’t listen to Franken for years. It’s mostly Seder, Hartmann and Malloy for me on AAR.

to clarify, a friend who is in the clergy once said he was astonished after ordained to find he had quasi-legal powers and felt it pushed the boundaries of church and state.

I’m glad you have peace of mind, but I live under the fear that perhaps one day (god forbid), even with durable powers of attorney, I or my partner may still have to call lawyers to acheive hospital visitation rights, much less make medical decisions.

Long-time reader/scanner – first-time poster:

I’m all for Ned Lamont, although I don’t live in CT. Joementum is a coward and a fool.

Gay marriages should be as meaningless to our government as straight marriages. That’s between the people getting together.

But that doesn’t change my view on marriage and its government-conferred benefits. I’m against them – for EVERYONE – straight, gay, whatever.

I’m talking financial benefits here, more than hospital visitation and the like. If someone I shared my life with was in the hospital, I certainly hope I would be perceived as a welcome guest, despite the lack of an official “marriage”.

Promoting tax-breaks for “working families” is a way to pander for votes at the expense of the millions of taxpaying citizens who are unmarried by choice.

When I was in the Navy, people I knew were getting married left and right just to get the financial bonuses the government offered its married personnel.

Not being married was a PENALTY on your paycheck. Officers told us this was good and that families need this extra money. Like I didn’t?

Many weren’t in love – a lot of them were fairly up-front – we’re doing this for the money – we see other people – we’re getting an amicable divorce whenever the benefits no longer make sense.

Times are changing and demographics are changing – one of the biggies? Single people. Like the kind that don’t really see marriage as an avenue that fits their lifestyle – gay, straight, or otherwise.

I personally want to see all these benefits go the way of the buggy-whip. We should each be treated as citizens by our government – not as families in need of government-sponsored social-engineering.

Family, family, family.

What about me?

(ok, i know this is at the ass-end of the longest thread, so congrats for even getting this far)

NOW LIGHT ME UP!!!

Lieberman is a chump and if I lived in CT, I’d vote for Ned in a heartbeat. But since the gay-marriage issue is so central…

I get why people want the LGBT community to have access to the same marriage/civil-union benefits that their hetero neighbors enjoy.

But at the end of the day, why do (hetero) committed couples get so many financial advantages over perma-singles like me?

Why does the LGBT community want to join a long history of government-supported social-engineering designed to disadvantage unmarried persons?

Political pandering to the “family” has been so long the norm that the larger and larger population of single people with no aspirations for gay or straight marriage are asked to keep going along with it.

Proportionally, someone who is married has government-sanctioned financial benefit over one who is not. And they use my tax dollars to balance it out (and every other unmarried taxpayer out there.

Fuck that!

(I have actually considered marrying my roommate, just to cash in on the benefits – but that’s CRAZY – no? Of course many people did it in the military when I was in – military pay is better is you are married. Singles pay for it. Why?)

I’m not a lawyer and when it comes to hospital visitation and the like – of course family (chosen or otherwise) should get the same great access regular married straight couples get – and everything else that only affects people with such a commitment.

When it comes to financial benefits conferred and whatnot, I don’t know that I will ever wholeheartedly be able to support anything that unfairly disadvantages those who do not choose (”semi”-permanant) partnership at all.

Last thought – as long as anyone is getting these unfair financial advantages – it’s unfair that LGBT’s miss out.

So double-unfair.

Sorry to throw such a meatheaded thread in this late in the game. This is my first post here I think.

FDL rocks!