Posted on 04/01/2015 10:37:28 AM PDT by wagglebee
March 31, 2015 (MercatorNet.com) -- March 29 marked the first anniversary of legal same-sex marriage in England and Wales. Look around, say the twitterati – no plagues of locusts and frogs have blighted the land; no fire and brimstone have rained down upon Westminster; no earthquake has swallowed up Sir Elton. All is well.
Well, actually not.
In an article in The Conversation, an academic at the University of Kent, Dr Mike Thomas, reported on how happy gay couples in the UK, the United States and Canada feel after tying the knot. He found that most of them welcomed the benefits that legal recognition of their relationship gave them.
But this was not matched by social recognition. Even though the majesty of the law shone upon them, relatives often shunned them and snubbed them.
For many couples, the wedding or civil partnership ceremony was a more bittersweet occasion, bringing difficult family relationships to a head – and reminding same-sex couples that despite their new legal status, they could not necessarily expect to be treated as equals.
Relatives often had few qualms about refusing to attend a ceremony; one couple’s same-sex wedding was boycotted by the entire family. The idea of a same-sex relationship may have been just about tolerable in some families, but being asked to turn up at the town hall and look like they were enjoying themselves was often too much to stomach.
A very positive milestone in a new couple’s life often turned out to be surrounded by bitterness and rejection. “Negative reactions were a surprisingly regular feature of the research interviews, giving rise to complex emotions, including anger, resentment and a sense of despair about the prospects for achieving equality,” Dr Thomas reports.
This complaint is ominous for those who have watched the juggernaut of same-sex marriage roll across its opponents. What is the ultimate purpose of same-sex marriage? Supporters of “marriage equality” contend that it is simply access to the same rights as other married couples, without any discrimination. Equality means equality of opportunity in parenting, employment, in exercising civil rights and before the law.
But the implication of Dr Thomas’s research is that many gays and lesbians believe that legal same-sex marriage ought to confer a right to be welcomed and cherished. He concludes that “Legal reform only takes us so far; it’s usually one of the first steps towards real equality, but it’s certainly not the final one. So one year on, we should raise a glass to same-sex marriage, but not lose sight of the challenges that lie ahead in delivering meaningful, day-to-day equality.”
What is implied by this “meaningful, day-to-day equality”? That relatives, neighbours and colleagues must extend warm congratulations and shower gay and lesbian couples with best wishes and toothy smiles?
Dr Thomas’s research is a bit unsettling if it suggests that gays and lesbians are expecting even more than the legalization of same-sex marriage.
Law in a democracy has limits. It is not a remedy for lack of self-esteem. It cannot force your relatives to attend your wedding or your neighbours to invite you over for a barbeque. It cannot make people like you; it cannot stop people from scowling at you. Only in North Korea does the law compel you to love the Dear Leader and to laugh at his jokes.
Same-sex marriage is controversial enough. But a debate over enforcing “meaningful, day-to-day equality” after same-sex marriage is legalized could be even more traumatic.
Reprinted with permission from Mercatornet.
OldNavyvet I think her name was.
I was told she was pushing other left wing agendas and called us all on here and those who supported the IN law as “backwards and bigots”
Genesis 1
English Standard Version (ESV)
26 Then God said, “Let us make man[h] in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
The Constitution was written to reign in government. Now what is written to reign in interpreting the Constitution? Judges see it as forbidding nothing in the guise of individual freedom. This needs to be stopped. But the opposition is disintegrated. Jews think that suppressing Palestinians is their highest calling and Christians separate on whether or not Mary can help us. These distractions prevent us from stopping the real evil engulfing us. We are being subjected to the legalization of evil. And I’m not talking about Obamacare or a balanced budget. Both parties are contributory. Either they must change or another should rise. We need a leader ‘to restore the fortunes of the land before’ as spoken by the LORD.
And once they force the acceptance of polygamy and child brides, what happens to Warren Jeffs? They just turn him loose and say “Sorry?”
That’s the only reason that it is, indeed, getting warmer!
Never the 1974 Vega for me....too fickle to “marry.” The others? For sure a yes.
Law in a democracy has limits. It is not a remedy for lack of self-esteem. It cannot force your relatives to attend your wedding or your neighbours to invite you over for a barbeque. It cannot make people like you; it cannot stop people from scowling at you. Only in North Korea does the law compel you to love the Dear Leader and to laugh at his jokes.
Same-sex marriage is controversial enough. But a debate over enforcing meaningful, day-to-day equality after same-sex marriage is legalized could be even more traumatic.
Gods Wrath Against Sinful Humanity
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people,
****who suppress the truth by their wickedness,****
19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world Gods invisible qualitieshis eternal power and divine naturehave been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creatorwho is forever praised. Amen.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know Gods righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
Romans 1: 18-32
It really is a slippery slope.
Exactly. We work closely with a very successful client who is gay. After I had some time to know him and his associates better I concluded that they want to be what they are not - normal.
There is no wrong blood in this fight. If it’s ours, there is no nobler cause. If it’s theirs, maybe they’ll get the message.
Or perhaps they will run out of it? :)
Jokes about how many kids the newlyweds will have will be replaced with odd comments about how to clean off that member after using it.
The society will tend toward pleasure-orientation, laxity, and total distraction. We'll be a pushover for our enemies.
I suppose the average homo's view of a utopian society involves a lot of hugging and bad clothing decisions.
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