Why is everone making a fuss about gay marriage?

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Maybe that is the "perfect libertarian solution", but everyone knows that it will take a long time for something like that to happen. Right now, there are gay couples who want to have the same rights as straight couples. So right now, we should allow gay marriage. The other debate comes later.



I think you're seriously overestimating the amount of "resources" it would take to allow gay marriage. Governments can do more than one thing at once.

If you really believe in the philosophy of "governments should only deal with the most important issue", then why are you worrying about the economy? Surely governments should be spending all of their time worrying about the possibility of human extinction!

David Cameron supports gay marriage, and so does Barack Obama, and so does Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs.

Therefore, so do I, because authority is always right, and I want to be on the right side of history.

Now, can someone find me a funny jpeg so that next time I can demonstrate to everyone that I have the correct opinion about this subject without having to explain myself?

As a heterosexual male who supports equal marriage rights for same-sex couples (and opposite-sex couples), I think government needs to stay out of marriage and focus on other important issues.

Answer to the OP's question: There's a big fuss about it because LGBT community is more respectfully recognized and openly accepted. If same-sex marriage happens in all 50 states and D.C., then I will have to get used to it and understand heterosexual marriages are not affected by this as well.

I'm pretty much open to the idea of same-sex couples deserving the same marriage recognition as their heterosexual counterparts.

Interesting that at the same time as the same-sex marriage debate in america, we're having a similar discussion in the UK, except over here it's already legal and everything, and the argument is over technicalities of whether it should be allowed in church (as though the government should have any say over what happens inside of churches) and whether it is allowed to be called 'marriage' or not. whilst I agree with the idea of equal rights and such, I don't see that as a particularly big issue.
But, what this says to me is that, regardless of your opinions on married couples being treated any differently to anyone else, the debates are highlighting that there is still clearly opposition to the idea of equality in this area, and trying to force through an unpopular law isn't helping that, we still need a lot of work to make same-sex couple acceptable to the general public.

Actually, it is not "already legal and everything."

The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill received second reading in the House of Commons, but has not had third reading, nor has it been passed in the Lords or proclaimed in force. There is still a long way to go before there is marriage equality in England and Wales. As for Scotland, the Scottish Parliament is only in the initial stages of consideration of amendments to Scottish law to recognize same sex marriages.

There has been no movement in Northern Ireland, and same sex couples are having to resort to litigation.

I meant it's been legal to have a same-sex 'civil partnership' for a long time, which amounts to pretty much the same thing as a marriage, the new legal stuff being debated in parliament now is just a set of amendments to this.

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"Pretty much the same thing" is not good enough.

It has long since been decided that, "separate but equal," is bad law. If two identical water fountains--one for "whites" and one for "coloreds" aren't acceptable, then neither are two types of relationships, one for straights and one for gays.

The legal stuff being debated in Parliament is not a set of amendments to the civil partnership law. It is a legislated change to the law of marriage. These are fundamentally different things, even if they substantively and subtantially overlap in terms of their application and effect.

I agree, there's obviously still a lot of opposition. So what are the choices for proponents? a) try to get something passed today while there's still a lot of opposition, knowing that when gay marriage becomes more commonplace and people start to see that no, the institution of marriage was not destroyed because of this, and that no, the very fabric of society has not been ripped to tatters by this, then people will be more ok with it, or b) wait years or decades for public opinion to catch up to what's right, and in the meantime deny gay people the rights that they should be enjoying today, which personally I think is fundamentally unacceptable.

That's why I was pretty disgusted to hear the Supreme Court arguments in the US with the justices asking questions as if they're more interested in the supposed consequences of allowing gay marriage, rather than in the rightness / wrongness or more to the point, the legality and constitutionality of it - and it is the legality and constitutionality of it that is supposed to be the sole consideration for them.

I'm against it because it goes against natural law and God's law. No man-made law can ever trump either one of those.
That having been said, I should also mention that the Catholic Church does not hate gays and lesbians themselves. What it is against is their practicing the lifestyle.

Just my two cents.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Whenever I get frustrated about US politics, I think of this...

Just an observation - both god and nature seem to have allowed for people to be gay. So I'm not sure how anything that they do is against either God's laws or Nature's laws.

That said, if God demanded you to sacrifice your first born, or jump off a cliff, would you do it? Would you do it despite the fact that every instinct and the very essence of your being would probably rail against the very thought of doing either of those things? If someone's very instinct and essence compels them to do something that you think is again God's laws, should they not then do it, when I would imagine that you yourself would put aside God's laws if you found one of its provisions to be too far opposed to your own nature? Moreover, would you deny someone else the right and the ability to make that sort of choice for themselves? Frankly, its not yours or anyone else's place to do such a thing. Believing one's-self to know what god wants is horribly arrogant and presumptive - only god knows what god wants and until such time that god actually reveals what he wants, your guess is no better than anyone else's.

Example?

Despite what the religious right claims, we are a secular country. We're a country with Christians, rather than a Christian country. Otherwise, non-believers would be at risk of having their rights denied. That's why gays ought to get equal rights in all things - including marriage. The consideration in this case is about civil rights, not what God may or may not have said.
Incidentally, my own church body, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, is hardly favorable to gay marriage, holding to the same opinions of the Catholic Church. But despite that, I am a supporter of gay marriage, as I see this clearly as a civil rights issue. I had told my pastor this, and he told me he had no problem with that.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Because gay marriage is a slippery slope to hamsters marrying turtles and we all know, such a spiritual union is blasphemous even in the malicious eyes of the dark atheist god, Atheogocoles

I'm not American but in my country it's discussed in the government too.

While I think marriage is sheer BS and should have been given up yesterday rather than today I still think if there's such a thing as marriage there is no reason to ban anyone from it. Any proclaimed "reason" to ban homosexuals from this very basic right is just void.

If marriage is perceived as a way to pronounce two people's mutual love then there should be no reason to ban anyone from this way of expression; that is, nobody who is able to express consent. I wonder why there is even discussion about it. People love each other? Why yes then they should have a way to express this love to others. There's not even questioning about this.