http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSqH9XdRsT8

It’s an hour and a half long, but very informative and interesting.

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NO.

I can’t take shit like this anymore. Was it ok for Nazi’s to persecute and kill Jews? No? Then THIS IS WRONG. Was it ok for KKK members to persecute and kill coloured people? No? Then THIS IS WRONG.

When are people going to realise, that in 30-40 years when this will (hopefully) be so foreign and horrifying to peopl, that thay are going to look like fucking bigoted idiots?

I can’t, I really can’t.

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Also, the point about civil marriage was about you being a hypocrite. You think it’s a religious institution, but are more than willing to take advantage of the perks that come with it being recognized by the state.

Your position is that keeping a fundamental right from a group of people is okay. I don’t know if that’s reasonable in your world, but it’s definitely not in mine.

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Thank you for your recommendation and understanding. I have purchased the book and will read it as soon as I finish some other books I am currently reading (not to mention some of the things I am reading for school). Perhaps I will see you around town someday. I would like that very much.

Samantha and Tess,

I want to be as clear as I possibly can: I agree with you completely that this law is completely and utterly horrible. It is without any redeeming quality. It is the moral equivalent of refusing to treat someone because they are of a different race. It ought to be condemned and it is shameful that it has ever been considered much less passed by a state legislature. Samantha, I am very glad that your friend was not turned away, and I hope that she has made, and will continue to make, significant progress.

Tess,

Again, I apologize. Profusely. I had no idea that what I was saying (or trying to say) would cause such angst and such hurt. I am sincerely trying to know and understand queer culture, and part of that process necessarily involves dialogue with people who are gay or lesbian. Auto-Straddle seemed as logical a place as any to have that dialogue, but perhaps I was wrong. Do you have any suggestions for somewhere I can speak about queer culture? I already plan to visit Cathedral of Hope, per Ak’s suggestion above. And yes, you are right that not everything can be (or should be) reduced to a purely intellectual exercise. It is not my intention to put gay and lesbian people into an intellectual box on a shelf, and leave it there to gather dust in the recesses of my brain. Rather, I am trying to understand and connect with people, of all varieties, because they are people like me (whatever our dissimilarities), and because I care about people and their well-being. Again, I am very sorry for causing such hurt.

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Just wait for the first time someone tries to use this stupid, wrongheaded law to refuse to treat a Christian for religious reasons…

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I don’t have a site off the top of my head, but I do recommend a book; it’s one that was featured on autostraddle before (http://www.autostraddle.com/microaggressions-in-everyday-life-88745/). I think this will show you more about the impact peoples small comments have on entire minority groups. It gets so bad, that it even affects their health. My background is in Public Health, and it is shocking the physical impact that discrimination and prejudice has on the entire health of communities. (Think Infant mortality and life expectancy, as well as chronic disease and certain cancers)

Since you’re admittedly not a person of an oppressed minority group by orientation, faith, or a person of color, the findings may shock you. Often times, majority populations don’t realize that small things, such as words or actions, can change the outlook of smaller tight knit communities.

To draw an example of logic, imagine being a black boy in school, where the teacher skips over you when asking tough questions and over praises you when you know the answer to an easy one. That over praise – though seemingly helpful – is undermining the child’s critical thinking ability, making them potentially lose interest in school. As a result, very few black men go on to higher education – why be part of a system that doesn’t respect you?

p.s. I live in the Dallas area too – you should go check out the Cathedral of Hope (https://www2.cathedralofhope.com/)it’s in the Oaklawn area near downtown where most of the active gay community lives. That church is the largest gay church in the United States, and I am sure they have some answers to your questions. I’ve only been twice, but don’t like going just because I am a firm Muslim and could not accept Jesus the way Christians do (a church is a church, whether accepting of gays or not, they try to convert you when they can) – also, as interesting as the sermons are, I don’t understand some of the biblical references. As a christian, you probably know that Muslims accept Christ, just not as the son of God.

There are some great people out there, I recommend you visit.

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Thank you. Do you have any suggestions for other sites I might visit? I recognize that I might be blindsiding some people who are looking for affirmation (something few people get enough of) on this site, and that is not what I intend.

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I for one respect you reaching out to try and learn. I know I’ve done that throughout my life and recognized times I wasn’t welcome. Often times our thoughts are formed on informed decisions but those decisions need to constantly be in flux since the information informing these decisions are constantly changing. Thanks for keeping an open mind but also for expressing what you believe. Although perhaps we could imagine a better forum for this conversation. A lot of people come to this site to escape the microaggressions we face throughout the day for being women, being queer, for being people of color, or for our ownreligious affiliations or lack there of (I myself am Muslim, even though many of my fellow Muslims are anti-gay and even more are anti-gay marriage – I have always found some comfort in my faith despite the antagonism I face from the greater US population). Good luck to you and I hope you continue to allow other perspectives to be incorporated and evolve your informed decisions in the directions you see fit.

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First, I was married before I began to think in depth about much of this stuff. So yes, I do have a civil marriage license granted by the state.

Second, I think that it is important to keep in mind that fundamental rights are very different from privileges. Despite the state’s propensity to dispense with fundamental rights, they ought never to be violated (freedom of speech, association, religion, etc.). Privileges, on the other hand, are transitory and properly within the realm of politics (or perhaps I should say conventional/everyday/dirty legislative politics). That is, if the federal government were to decide that married persons should no longer receive tax breaks, and codified that decision into law, then even though I would miss the benefit, I could not say that my rights had been violated.

Finally, of course I am talking about your lives. How else am I to determine whether my position is or is not reasonable? I never claimed that my position is perfect, or that I am right and you are wrong. It would be very easy to read only conservative or libertarian propaganda and never fully engage in a reasoned decision-making process, but that is something I am unwilling to accept. If gay and lesbian people refuse to engage in conversation with people like me, merely because I currently disagree with you and you consider my position unreasonable, then I will be forced to reach conclusions without the input of the most important constituency involved: the gay and lesbian people whose lives are effected. More specifically, I don’t ask that you view me, or my positions, as reasonable, merely that you engage in reasoned discussions with me. Part of the process of reasoned discussion involves considering unreasonable positions in full, and then determining that they are in fact unreasonable. I am simply trying to test my positions.

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This conversation is precisely why I wanted to start a discussion on this site. You just don’t get the diversity of thought from self-selecting like minded people. Thank you for giving me many new things to think about, and pointing me in a new direction of study. Because of your post I looked up a little bit about the Council of Trent and its position on marriage. Admittedly, I only looked at a couple of sights, but I will continue to look into this material. But first, I thought I might share some things which I found particularly enlightening.

Martin Luther, who led the protestant reformation, had some interesting things to say about marriage: “Marriage is a civic matter. It is really not, together with all its circumstances, the business of the church.” (What Luther Says CPH 1959, Vol. 2, page 885) “No one can deny that marriage is an external, worldly, matter, like clothing and food, house and property, subject to temporal authority, as the many imperial laws enacted on the subject prove.” (What Luther Says Vol. 46: page 265.) “Granted, therefore, that marriage is a figure of Christ and the church, yet it is not a sacrament of divine institution; it was introduced into the church by men who were misled by their ignorance both of the subject and the record.” (Luther – ‘The Pagan Servitude of the Church.’)

The sight from which this material comes can be found at: http://whosoever.org/v14i2/marriage.shtml

The sight takes the position that the Council of Trent simply used marriage as a vehicle to increase the power of the church. Certainly, Luther’s position seems to vindicate this line of thinking. As a general matter, I am wary of people who are motivated by increasing their personal power (so that they can lord it over others), and I generally oppose such efforts.

While I am not yet prepared to immediately change my view of marriage after only a couple hours reflection, I remain open to the possibility that I am wrong. Indeed, I would be happy to read any article, book, or paper that you might suggest (I also read each of the posts you cited in their entirety, and I would like to say that I am seeking knowledge and trying to be civil and purposeful, not that I want you to think of me as “nice”).

Finally, I am sorry that you have had a bad day. If I have been obnoxious, pretentious, acted as though I am morally superior to you, or otherwise contributed to you feeding the troll, then I hope you will accept my apology. These were not, and are not among my intentions.

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