Gay marriage is a conservative idea

Oregonlive ^ | 3/20/04 | Mark MacDougall

[EGPWS]

It has been a roller-coaster ride of emotions for my partner and I, these past several weeks. We have been together for over twenty-one years and have also been battling AIDS and HIV for all those years. Lately, we have watched the long awaited dream of gay marriage unfold on the television as we sit side by side in a hospital room.

Boy, if I could only be able to force myself to become one of their kind, perhaps I could leave my life of contentment and understand that contentment isn't what life is all about.

How I long for the commitment of a partner to sit by my side and watch me die of aids which has been brought forth because of my insatiable lifestyle.

[Gabz]

Men in general, at least in my experience, are not the sex fiends some would like to portray them.

Maybe to some I'm unusual, but I have worked primarily with men for the past 25 years and have only encountered that description of men on rare occasions............and every single one of them has been a heterosexual male married to a woman.......and usually long term marriages (20+ years)

[Gabz]

I've never seen the program, but will accept your word!!!

My enitre point is that certain traits can not be solely ascribed to any one certain "group."

Generalized stereotypes are WRONG.

[Gabz]

I agree with you.

[EGPWS]

Good grief - properly socialized?????

That is a scary thought isn't it?

To some however it is a statement that is emotionally appeasing.

[F.J. Mitchell]

Gay! gay! gay! Not once does the author refer to himself or his favorite squeeze as a homosexual. It would seem that the first order of business for these folks if they expect to be taken seriously, would be calling themselves the official dictionary definition of their ailment.

That BS about being allowed to marry, maybe curbing cruising, has been discredited long ago. Sexual predators are undeterred by a written and authentic document or the lack thereof.

[supercat]

A legitimate child is one that has an identifiable mother and father, both of whom are married to each other.

A child who is adopted by two men will be motherless; a child who is adopted by two women will be fatherless. Either way, the child will be a bastard.

Although many couples get married and never have kids for a variety of reasons, a key--if not defining--aspect of marriage is that it allows a couple to have (whether by birth or adoption) legitimate children. Since same-sex couples cannot have legitimate children, they fail a lack aspect of marriage.

BTW, a child could be raised by a same-sex couple if there were no pretense that the members of that couple were the child's mother and father. If an orphan's nearest relative happens to be gay, such arrangements may make the best of a bad situation. That is far different, though, from saying that such situations should be deliberately entered into.

[supercat]

If just one teenage gay boy sees society value gay marriage and thus avoids AIDS by living a committed and monogamous life, the health care savings to the rest of society is substantial. Over a lifetime AIDS cocktails can literally cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

So because of the existence of heterosexual marriage, people are never heterosexually promiscuous?

What is needed is for people to decide that promiscuity (whether homosexual or heterosexual) is not a lifestyle they want to adopt. The availability of marriage as an option is neither necessary nor sufficient for people to make such a determination. While the ability to officially record a monogamous union may help slightly, such help is minor compared with the help that could be given if criticism of such lifestyles weren't so actively stifled.

[Gabz]

I won't aplogize - I can not accept that phrase.

[longtermmemmory]

actually the "civilizing" arguement was one of the points used to give women the vote. We have seen the fine products of feminist "civilizing". The vote had nothing to do with "civilizing" as you say, it is an appeasing to emotions of certain people.

[SendShaqtoIraq]

I am about to run screaming from the room at just the THOUGHT of degenerates like this getting organ transplants. This is just WRONG. I bet queers, yes queers, that's what they are, with AIDS are the ONLY group with a fatal disease being given organ transplants.

This just makes me sick! Thousands of good, non-perverted, able to contribute to society in the future children (let alone adults) are being denied organs and dying because of THIS?

[Gator113]

"The gays have it backwards."

ROFLMAO...I don't know if you meant it the way I took your comment, but THAT was funny!!!!!!!!

[x]

It's worth considering, but I doubt it will work. The idea that gay male promiscuity is a result of the fact that marriage isn't an available option looks specious. The promiscuity of many young straight people, and the monogamy of many lesbians are enough to disprove the hypothesis.

Gay marriage looks a lot like one of those 60's ideas that liberals had so much faith in and that eventually disappointed and disillusioned people. When one can see in advance that it isn't going to work the way the proponents claim it will, isn't that reason enough not to do it? Probably, but history has seen lots of erroneous "ideas whose time has come" which prevail because of the passionate fervor of the few and indifference of the many.

[oldtimer]

When I was growing up they were called queers, but now with political correctness, the queers are ... oh heavens...just like us.

What a crock!

[Gabz]

organ transplants - another interesting subject and I agree with you.

I'm a smoker (of cigarettes) and in many places smokers are denied organ transplants and in even more places (like right here in the USA) many of their organs are not wanted for transplants.

I'm not saying that my choice of smoking is a healthly habit, however it is a lot less likely that I am going to wind up with a fatal disease from my choice of bad habit than it is for a homosexual.

[SendShaqtoIraq]

Well I'd have to say I'd not want an organ that came from a smoker, because there isn't the time to make sure there is no cancer anywhere in the smoker's body. On the other hand smokers can receive organs if they stop smoking and are scanned every which way from Sunday to see that cancer isn't already present.

I am also against transplanting lungs into cystic fibrosis patients, kidneys into hypertensive/diabetics, etc because the disease process that ruins the original equipment will then ruin the new, making them wasted.

[Trillian]

"We believe one or the other contracted HIV shortly before we met in 1982. One can only guess whether, if gay marriage was available and valued back then, our earlier sexual behavior would have been different and years of heartbreak avoided..."

That is the funniest thing I've read today and don't believe it for one second. You put the nails in your own coffins by engaging in deveiant sexual behaviour.

[Gabz]

That's fine...........but I know that there are more smokers without any cancer then there are with....choose to eliminate those possible donors at your own choice.

I find it interesting you only single out smokers in your litany of where organs should come from all the others you you mention are not choices. You make no mention of alcoholics or coal miners or welders - just smokers.

Unfortunately that particular attitude (I'm not singling you out, I'm speaking in general) is causing more and more people to decline being organ donors, thus removing that many more organs from the available pool.

You will never have to worry about the possibility of an organ being transplanted to you or one of your loved ones from this particular smoker or many that I know - our living wills all state that while we are willing to donate our organs, they will only go to our small circle of family and friends.

[longtermmemmory]

If marriage was available "back then" very few people would actually consider marraige significant enough to bother. They probably would have gotten aids in 1980 rather than 1982.

[qam1]

Well I'd have to say I'd not want an organ that came from a smoker, because there isn't the time to make sure there is no cancer anywhere in the smoker's body. On the other hand smokers can receive organs if they stop smoking and are scanned every which way from Sunday to see that cancer isn't already present.

That's just dumb.

1) If you need an organ transplant the odds are you are close to dying real soon anyhow so worrying about getting cancer later is not an immediate concern.

2) Most organs come from young people who die in accidents, I wouldn't worry about getting cancer from a 16-40 year old.

3)  You can't get cancer from a transplant, The reason cancer is so hard to fight is because it's part of your own body so it's hard for your immune system to pick it out. Even if you got a lung that had tumors in it those tumors couldn't spread so the worse case scenario would be that you need a new lung in a few years. Even if you transplanted a whole tumor and nothing but the tumor from one person to another the recipient wouldn't get cancer as his immune system would destroy it.   

I am also against transplanting lungs into cystic fibrosis patients, kidneys into hypertensive/diabetics, etc because the disease process that ruins the original equipment will then ruin the new, making them wasted.

I agree, Mikey Mantle was a perfect example, He was already knocking on death's door and total waste to put a new liver in him only for him to die in a few days anyhow. People over 60 should be last on the list anyhow. I am also against giving prisoners serving life organ transplants.