Hey guys, I wasn't sure where to put this, but this seemed like a good place. So I was walking home from class through grounds (what you poor non-UVA alumnis would call "campus"
) and I noticed a crowd of people arguing. As I drew closer, I could see a man holding a huge sign saying "God" near the top and "there is a hell" near the bottom. As I got yet closer I could see that in between was some smaller print talking about how homosexuality was a sin. THe man was loudly preaching and various students were arguing with him - it was a circus. THe provecation for all this? A small table, a few feet away from the furor, covered with a rainbow tablecloth and manned by a couple of students handing out flyers asking students to "vote no in November." I stopped to ask them (there was hardly anyone around the table) what the excitement was about and found out that Virginia's got a referendum vote coming up on whether or not to alter our state constitution so as to "ban civil unions, domestic partnerships, and gay marriage." That is, not only would they not allow homosexuals to marry, but they won't allow them (or anyone else) to obtain a civil union that would give them the same basic rights as married couples (i.e., to visit their partner in the hospital, claim their kids on tax forms, etc.)
You know, I'm not gay, and I don't have any gay friends, so usualy I don't take too much interest in this sort of thing, but this just makes me angry.
I always thought that the problem was that people got too hung up over the word "marriage," which seems to me to be a religious sacrament that the government can't really grant to anyone. I thought that the solution was obvious: make it clear that the government can only grant civil unions (to straights or gays) that recognized that two people were now recognized by society as domestic partners and would have certain legal rights; i.e., to file their tax forms jointly and claim any children of either partner, to be considered "relatives" for the purpose of hospital visits, life insurance, wills, etc. But now its obvious that the conservatives don't just want to "keep marriage sacred," they want to deny gay couples the rights that straight couples take for granted. I'm so angry I could spit.
Okay, rant over. So, what are the viewpoints of the folks here on homosexuality in general and gay marriage in particular?