How forumites have evolved (or not) on equal marriage

[afleitch]

I though I’d do this exercise to put things into perspective. Most of the early threads were populated by posters long since gone or descended into arguments where Dibble fended off Brambilla so you have to fast forward a few years to get sensible discussions. These are selective because I don't have all day.

Argh!  What the hell is so immoral about to grown, consenting adults getting married?!  Stop believing in "how it was meant to be" and more on what people want to do with their own lives.  All I see when I see gay marriages happen is happy people.

How about all the legal rights/benifits/etc that goes with marriage without using the word?

People just got used to the idea.  If a vietnamese woman and her black husband and their little half-breed children moved in next door, would you freak?  I'm guessing not.  My bet is that it will ultimately be the mundane (rather than fiery speeches and court decisions) that bring about acceptance of gay marriage as well.  Just a thought.

Only an intolerant would care to find out the gender of persons being married.

One day I won't have to come on here and defend my right to live a decent life…The vast majority of homophobes, from my own experience, are that way to detract attention from their own failings. The people who talk about gays violating the 'sanctity of marriage' are the same people who have probably been divorced more times than Henry VIII.

Same-sex marriage. The right of two consenting adults to marry each other and only each other should be a fundamental human right.

Gay marriage now-People's lives are at stake!  

I have to admit it is a bit repulsive to my repressed little self, but I would not care of it was legal.

If it was natural and meant to be men could have children with men. That can't happen, it's not natural.

my answer is definitely yes.

I'm yet to see a credible argument against it.

Yes

Marriage is a religious institution that has existed for thousands of years - before the existence of the US government, before the drafting of the constitution, before european settlers even arrived in the US. To legislate a new definition of marriage destroys the concept of the separation of church and state.

Most of the gay people I've known live a totally different lifestyle where anything goes. I am for Civil Unions for those who truly are in a longterm committed relationship, but those are few and far between. I worry about them gaming the system to take advantage of the tax benefits you get when you are married. I could "marry" by best friend while we were living together so we could get the benefits and then divorce him once we really found a girl.

But for the most part, we can instate civil unions, but most of this cry is political. Most gay people don't want to get married and sleep with about any guy that has a nice dick.

[Napoleon]

Holmes??!!

[bullmoose88]

Blast from the past. I am a bit afraid to delve deep into my posting history on this or a many other subjects.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

I'm on the evolved train.......glad he didn't find me

[afleitch]

Blast from the past. I am a bit afraid to delve deep into my posting history on this or a many other subjects.

You're fine

gay marriage? support

Even if you didn't, people need to be less defensive about their past selves. When I waded through my own posts I wanted to take the 2004 version of me and slap him.

[memphis]

I stand by my comments

[Lambsbread]

Holmes??!!

I'm pretty sure that was a joke

[minionofmidas]

That post is a satirical comment on the one above it. It caught my eye too...

I haven't evolved on this issue, I think. I've always been at give them full benefits / I don't care whether it's called marriage. All that's changed over the past twenty years is the viability of the proposition - but even when I first formed an opinion there were European countries that already recognized gay marriages even though it was still completely unthinkable here in Germany with Helmut Kohl at the helm.
Oh, and mild bemusement at the speed with which things have happened and at that becoming the litmus test of a progressive. Not that I disapprove of the outcome, but let's fight the economic battles again, people. So infinitely much has been lost there while this battle was being won - thanks in part to this being an issue on which media assistance was much easier to get. Which should tell you something about relative importance. (Now... the battle on legality of gay sex... that's something different entirely. But that was before my time here in Germany, though not in Texas. Incidentally, in Germany as in Britain discrimination over the age of consent continued into the 1990s - the difference being that the repeal of the unenforced paragraph in 1994 happened without any kind of political brouhaha or much of the country even noticing, merely as a by-product of the merger of the East and West German criminal codes. Though the GDR itself had only abolished the last vestiges of discrimination on that issue months before the wall came down.)

[afleitch]

I've deleted Holmes' quote. It was satirical on second checking but the wonders of the search machine didn't quite catch that! I apologise for any offense.

[Mr. Morden]

Of the threads you linked to, this one is the most interesting in terms of revealing how rapidly the debate has changed:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=17437

[TNF]

Good lord I'm glad I didn't post here in 2004-2007. For the record, I was opposed to same sex marriage as a result of my Southern Baptist upbringing until 2006, when a friend of mine came out and I changed my mind. Haven't looked back sense. Glad to be a supporter of marriage equality and civil rights for everyone.

[bullmoose88]

Blast from the past. I am a bit afraid to delve deep into my posting history on this or a many other subjects.

You're fine

gay marriage? support

Even if you didn't, people need to be less defensive about their past selves. When I waded through my own posts I wanted to take the 2004 version of me and slap him.

I always want to do that to yesterday me. I was just nervous that I might have posted something awful like pro killing baby seals or something...

[minionofmidas]

Baby seals are an abomination that ought to be eradicated by hakapik.

[Holmes]

I've deleted Holmes' quote. It was satirical on second checking but the wonders of the search machine didn't quite catch that! I apologise for any offense.

What was the quote?

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

I came to Atlas having been already in favor of the gay marriage, but few words about my evolution:

Ideologically I was never "anti-gay". However, personally, I considered homosexuality quite disgusting and while supported civil unions politically, I opposed adoptions for gay couples or using the term of "marriage".

It changed when my very good friend came out. I realized my feelings of "disgust" came out of ignorance and the fact I never really knew gay people before. I mean, why on earth should I stop a good friendship just because we differ in sexual orientation? And, more importantly, is this why my friends (since them, I got more gay friends) should be discriminated?

[traininthedistance]

Look, the vast majority of people who now support gay marriage either:

a) are younger than 25, or
b) have "evolved" on the position.

I might as well come clean and say that I have, as they say, "evolved".  And I'm not that much older than 25.  To a certain extent this could be excused as me shaking off the strictures of Catholic dogma (when I was 9 years old, I had exactly two political opinions, which I held with equal fervor: that all pollution and all abortion should be illegal), but even after I came to terms with my non-belief* I definitely preferred the civil unions approach for awhile.

To be clear, I "evolved" faster than the country at large.  I was definitely for full marriage equality, in theory at least, by the 2004 election.  But even then I would sometimes couch my position as being in favor of civil unions instead, since I knew how it was being used as a wedge issue against us and I preferred pragmatism.

Obviously, I'm thrilled that movement has been so rapid on this issue.  And all right-thinking people should be as well.  Such rapid movement wouldn't be possible without people evolving, and without people of generally incrementalist bent who are able to switch from advocacy of civil unions to advocacy of marriage as things get better, and the universe of the possible expands.  We should welcome people as they evolve, full stop.

*Or, at least, disbelief of Catholic dogma.  It took me a much longer time to come to terms with being a non-believer more generally.

[Hash]

I think I came around (to see the light) in 2009 or so. Before that, my position was the moderate heroish generic stance of 'civil unions, but not marriage' or 'letting the states decide'. As I became more gradually left-wing and fully socially liberal, I realized how ridiculous that stance is.

[Tender Branson]

Tender Branson 2007:

Pro gay-marriage

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=37239.msg1091447#msg1091447

Tender Branson 2013:

Still Pro gay-marriage

[Holmes]

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=17437

It's so interesting to stumble on Richard posts before he "discovered" butt sex.

[Oakvale]

By far the weirdest one is Beet's.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Great, an opportunity to do some narcissistic posting :

do you support legal gay marriage (not the half-ass 'civil unions')

Yes.

[Hatman 🍁]

I don't think I've ever been against gay marriage.  I did make the odd gay joke in elementary school, but I've never really been anti-gay. I think I acquired my position on same sex marriage whilst in high school, so in the early 2000s- before I started posting here.

Growing up, we had gay neighbours, so that helped I guess. Plus, my mom also had gay neighbours growing up, so that probably prevented her from being anti-gay. I do know around the early 2000s when it was in the news here in Canada, my Dad took the moderate-hero position. Not sure if he still has that view or not.

[Tender Branson]

I didn't give a sh*t about gay marriage until I was 17, which was in the summer of 2004.

I read a lot about the US Pres. elections (Bush vs. Kerry) at that time, because this is what I chose as my early-2005 high school graduation exam topic in English (for which I then got an A).

(Strangely, I was not aware of this Forum back then ... Or was I ? And just didn't signed up ? ... Hmm. Can't remember anymore.)

There were a lot of anti-gay marriage referendums on the ballot in Nov. 2004 and probably because since then I was already in favor of gay marriage, because I thought that this inequality has to end.

Not that I ever cared about marriage really, hetero or homo, but if some people still really want to marry these days, they should be able to do so.

[Hatman 🍁]

From 2005...

Both the NDP and the Conservatives have populist roots. Most muslims vote for the Liberals anyways. Quite frankly, I don't want to vote for a muslim who is against same sex marriage anyways.  That's why, I would not have voted for the NDP had I been old enough last election, despite being a proud supporter of the party. (Candidate was a socially conservative muslim)

Brownie points for whoever can name that candidate.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I never "evolved " on this, and I am older than 25.