Well, Kend, I sure agree with you on that one. There are way more important things to worry about than what they are trying to cram into our auricular and ocular orifices (or a few others I shan't name) now. It must be a wag the dog moment. Get the people to concentrating on relatively inane side issues and ignore the really important ones...like starvation, pollution, affordable shelter and health care. Less than 2% of the population in the US is gay. And the only reason I can see why gays want to have a legally sanctioned marriage is for benefits that are typically awarded to people who are capable of producing offspring...children. And, until they start creating life in a test tube, heterosexual unions are necessary for the propagation of the species...homosexual ones are not.

There are a lot of lazy leaches who don't want to "get a job" and prefer to sponge off of a spouse for the rest of their lives (and that goes for both heterosexuals and homosexuals who can both be "gold-diggers"). But only heterosexuals have the capability of creating children. And when you create children, you help to propagate the species. But, oftentimes some people are way too "creative" and end up creating more of a problem than is good for a healthy population. While it could be argued that the "non-breeders" are not adding to any overpopulation problems...they certainly can never create life. So, "breeders" are essential and "non-breeders" are not. It is merely a 'sexual preference'.

Sexual proclivities should not be the crow-bar to open the public coffers of a system already over-burdened by the needs of a 'normal' system...especially when it is being sacked by the misdeeds of the criminal ruling elite. Instead of wasting so much time on trying to gain aberrant 'rights' for such a tiny 'aberrant' section of the population...we need to concentrate of the suffering of the majority of 'normal' people.

Gee, I wonder if I could, one day, seek and win access to the public coffers for my dependent 'hand'. It's been so close to me...in fact, inseparable. Now if I can only legally marry my hand and claim it as a dependent. Or, maybe I should just tell my hand to 'get a job'. Some people may even, one day, marry their favorite bestial household pet...like a sheep named Dolly, perhaps.

There is no we the people except for gays or blacks or hispanics or woman or tall or short the constitution say WE THE PEOPLE plain and simple I think they should just follow the constitrution everyone says is the law of the land.

What is "reasonable pro-creation?" We are already overpopulated. Couples should be given an incentive not to procreate more than once, unless outer-space colonization is given more serious consideration soon.

I really don't care if people are attracted to the same sex...or even to sheep. I say whatever makes them happy.... But I get awfully tired of hearing about it and feel like these people are trying to force their awkward proclivities down our throats (no pun intended). We straight people are the overwhelming majority. LBGT is less than 2% of the population.

Whatever people do in their own bedrooms or homes is fine but when they gush it all out in public, and expect to burden the already overburdened economic system with their derived problems, then it is most uncomfortable for the majority of us who are straight. When they try to force the government to recognize their 'aberrations' as 'normal' by giving them equal status and access to the same benefits as heterosexual marriages, further eroding the ability of that system to pay for their benefits to traditionally sanctioned institutions, then we have a really big problem.

It's so convenient to call someone else a bigot until you assess your own bigotry against others. Who are you 'bigoted' against? And if you are, I suppose you feel sanctified or justified in being so. You think gays are not 'bigoted' against straight people? So let's not use that term loosely. Just because you may be gay does not mean that you, yourself, are not 'bigoted' in some way against others.

i am a bigot! i am bigoted against, whites,yellows, reds, blacks, browns, trailer trash, street trash, white trash,christian trash, congressional trash, gays, gay trash! i am a bigot but selectively only towards the ignorant of the ilk!!! i can't believe that in 2013 we are even having this conversation and with such stupid thinking none the less. i've read the news and as rodney said all those years ago? "can't we all just get along?" leave the queers alone. when i wore a young cats cloths as straight youth ladies man (picture justin beiber looking sort of dude) i was a victim of one of those church scandals, you know. so when the word got out i was then coined, fag, queer, homo, faggot and such. ruined parts of my life from 6th-11th grade. could not turn a corner in my hillbilly town without some homophobe trying to start some shit with me. mom said turn the other cheek. one day i couldn't do it anymore. it was kill myself or kill, so then i learned to fight back. So i did and i liked it. long story short? spent a lot of time kicked out of school but i made my point and saved face. down the road at a county fair i was acosted by some old perv so my brother and i bashed him and ran, thats when "I" became a homophobe. anything remotely queer looking or sounding? watch out! i was a hard core homophobe from the 80s and thats all it was, bigoted ignorance and probably my own paranoias but hey i guess we can't expect every one to evolve now can we? at 50? i've meant plenty of "queer" folk and it surprises me that in this day and age people just seem a lot dumber the i was as a youth. time to evolve folks or get left behind as us the immoral majority "will" win. hilarious!!!

Boehner's being a jerk about same- sex couples because he knows how most of them vote............ "progressive." All of the LGBT folks I know are a joy to be around, we always agree politically for starters.

Palindromedary wrote ~ "Less than 2% of the population in the US is gay. And the only reason I can see why gays want to have a legally sanctioned marriage is for benefits that are typically awarded to people who are capable of producing offspring...children. And, until they start creating life in a test tube, heterosexual unions are necessary for the propagation of the species...homosexual ones are not."

First of all Palindromedary and Kend, I agree with one thing you said, we are paying too much attention to a lesser priority issue than the more urgent ones going on with the budget and military aggression. That's it. The rest of your arguments are ridiculous.

Secondly of all Palindromedary, I challenge your statistic that 2% of the population is gay. My figures that I learned in college in a course call "The Sociology of Human Sexual Behavior" puts that statistic between 30 - 50%. Please cite your sources.

Thirdly, you way over value the heterosexual ability to propagate the species. Becoming pregnant and having a baby are not only free but so easy to do it is often considered recreation. Raising that child is where the whole real challenge is that contributes to "propagating the species." This is one of the major issues of this case. Many same sex couples are adopting children that are unwanted by their heterosexual generic parents. They are taking on a huge financial and personal burden; and, in essence giving orphans a chance for a "normal" childhood and a solid future. Gay couples also contribute to society in the work place and as tax payers. They are entitled to all the rights any other citizen enjoys. Anything less is discrimination. And before you say their behavior forces "awkward proclivities" down our throat, realize that from their perspective the same could be said of heterosexuals.

Palindromedary further writes ~ "Instead of wasting so much time on trying to gain aberrant 'rights' for such a tiny 'aberrant' section of the population...we need to concentrate of the suffering of the majority of 'normal' people."

This--as a pure heterosexual male--I find extremely offensive and demeaning. Palindromedary, who are you and anyone else here to judge anyone other than yourself. By what authority do you demean the private activities of others with the word 'aberrant' and proclaim yourself 'normal.' Don't you see that when you fall for that type of labeling you follow a script that is written by every hate monger who ever preached hate. Please, lighten up! This is the problem. Gay people are first and foremost PEOPLE. They deserve to be treated as such and given the same rights, opportunities, and respect as any other group.

As far as "propagating the species" is concerned, gay family's are usually more secure, less stressful, and more financially solvent than heterosexual ones. This group should be given a medal for volunteering to raise children in a loving home that would otherwise be unloved in an orphanage or worse. For this reason alone they should be entitled to all the benefits any heterosexual couple receive for serving society by raising it's unwanted children. Really Palindromedary you should know better. Conception and giving birth are so overrated in this society--especially when half the time such an event is considered an accident.

Please don't use the word 'normal'. There really is no such thing. If by it you mean heterosexual than I find it insulting. I never want to consider myself 'normal' in any way. Please speak for yourself!

I want to just state one thing that I keep thinking and have never said.

First of all, I am 100% in favor of gays getting married.

That said, I think there's more to be said about it than is being said. We need to have some philosophical discussions and agreements. Marriage has long been considered a certain thing. It's always been between a man and a woman. So is it surprising that people get uncomfortable about changing the definition of marriage? Thom says "People should be able to marry whom they love." Even that statement needs expanding, doesn't it? Suppose I love my dog? Oh, but he means "a HUMAN" whom they love!" Then that needs to be specified. No, really!! Well, what about the number of humans a person loves?" Oh, only one human? Then THAT needs to be specified. What if I want to marry one human I don't love? Isn't that my right? So THAT needs to be specified. Please don't throw tomatoes, I really am on your side, and I'm not being stupid!!

What IS marriage, anyway? If it isn't what it used to be, what is it now? That's all I'm saying. Where's the definition of what marriage IS? I don't actually hear anyone talking about it. And I'm not referring to BLAG, either. I'm NOT suggesting we just go back to the old definition. I think gays and Lesbians SHOULD be able to get married. (but what if they don't WANT to get married? And what do we think now about any couple that lives together without marriage? And brings up children without being married.) Hear all the issues inherent in this whole thing? I just want more humanistic, philosophical and even spiritual discussion of what that thing is. Once we agree on what it IS, then maybe all this argument will go away.

"In your dreams," I hear them saying… Anyone know what I'm talking about?

Palindromedary ~ Perhaps I should elaborate about my personal scholastic studies of homosexuality in American society. The course I took included vast coverage of sociological group studies, statistics and polls, clinical case studies, published papers and journals by psychologists on case studies of people with sexual behavior issues over decades of practice, as well as studies of sexual behavior in prison populations, and in the animal kingdom.

The overall findings suggested that the true graph of sexual tendencies in modern American society actually represent more of a bell curve. At each end of the curve are exclusive heterosexual and homosexual groups. Each group represents the extreme extent of sexual tendencies and are exclusively heterosexual at one end and exclusively homosexual at the other end. Each ends represent approximately the same proportion of the curve at between 5 - 10% each. This leaves 80 - 90% of the curve--the true majority of people--which falls under the category of bisexual at varying levels of preference. As you can see, by extrapolating a generous margin of error, my estimate of 30-50% of the population as gay is a quite conservative estimate indeed!

That's right my dear friend. The true vast majority of people are bisexual with the greatest distribution under the curve made up of people who can equally go either way with 50-50 tendencies. The moral of this study and what it implies is simple--a lot of people go through a lot of trouble to lie to themselves and everyone else about their sexuality.

So if you are 100% heterosexual, have never had the slightest desire to touch another man, and have never in your life experienced or been curious about having a gay experience--congratulations! You are in the minority!

NORMAL is a misleading label; and, a very dirty word!

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_do_you_know_when_your_bisexual

Heh, heh, heh...are we all having fun yet? Is it not "normal' for some people to take University courses solely for the purpose of discovering who one really is. Does it not highlight one's interests and expose their self-discovery? People who are sexually confused often seek such courses. What say you professor? Maybe you are, at least, a little bi yourself. And if anyone needs to show the source of their claims it is someone who claims that as many as half of us are at least bi-sexual. That's just way too difficult to swallow (no pun intended).

"SAME-SEX COUPLE HOUSEHOLDS
BY STATE
Approximately 594,000 same-sex couple
households lived in the United States
in 2010, not statistically different from
the 581,000 households reported in the
2009 ACS.

Nationally, about 1 percent
of all couple households were same-sex
couples. The percentage of same-sex
couple households for the 50 states and
the District of Columbia ranged from
0.29 percent for Wyoming and 4.01
percent for the District of Columbia."

http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/acsbr10-03.pdf

Howdee Hi OUTBACK, I posted something off topic...Feel free to chime in.

This is what I plan to say to my fundamentalist christian family member when the subject comes up at Easter dinner and she asks if I believe in God, which she will since my daughter and this other self-righteous family member have been arguing about it online: "Of course I believe in God, the one in whose image we are ALL made and who said 'what you do to the least of mine you do also to me.'"

Palindromedary has obviously "hooked his gonads up to his thalamus and disconnected his cerebrum..."(Robert Heinlein)

The Samurai have a tradition of homosexuality and before Americans occupied Japan there were pleasure houses with male hosts. Gay Greco-Roman philosophers, such as Socrates and Plato heavily influence American philosophy. Alexander the Great was gay. Greek military forces were gay or gay tolerant as were many Roman detachments. Several Roman emperors and generals were openly gay.

To list only a few internationally known homosexuals, there are the Chinese emperors Ai Ti and Pu Yi; the UK has Queen Anne and William Shakespeare; from the US, Presidents James Buchanan and Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, J. Edgar Hoover and Francis Cardinal Spellman. There was also a suspiciously ‘warm’ relationship between George Washington and Alexander Hamilton. Catholics include the Popes Benedict IX, John XII, Julius III, Leo X and Paul II. From Prussia we have Frederic the Great; from Germany, Ludwig II and Richard Wagner; Italy - Da Vinci, Michelangelo and Florence Nightingale; Russia - Tchaikovsky and Czar Alexander I; Ireland - Sir Arthur Sullivan and Oscar Wilde; Japan – Kukai and Musashi Miyamoto; Israel – King David. (Queers In History) Every occupation, religion, culture and family has men and women who are gay and psychosexually need to express physical love for people of the same sex.

Homosexuals come from heterosexual parents. If you're human, you have homosexual relatives in your families. As there are documented 'gay' members in many other species, one may assume it's in our DNA, as it is in theirs. It's a fact of life, but that is exactly what the homophobic, bigoted Republicanazis are focused on, denying facts. Everyone has a right to be wrong in their opinion, but no has the right to be wrong in their facts. Denial of facts, obstruction of legislation and justice, uselessly wasting taxpayers' money doing so, and deceit are the tools used by the GOPers to create chaos in America, and fear of gays, immmigrants, minorities, women and ignoring veterans are fomented to distract people's attention from other, equally important legislation concerning job creation, poverty alleviation and eradication, disaster recovery and prevention, infratructure repair and replacement, encouraging educational opportunities, participating in international cooperation and expanding Civil Rights and governmental transparency here.

Perhaps if people could chose who they form an emotional bond with that we sometimes refer to as "love", this discussion wouldn't even be taking place. People love deeply whom they love.

The secrets revealed on death beds reveal more than most people can imagine.

"God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." 1John 4:16. You may take that literally, It's a core teaching for all of Christendom. Christians should probably stop slapping God in the face.

IN the New Testament, the basis of Christianity, Paul is used to condemn homosexuality. The writings of Paul were addressed to specific problems within specific churches...in Romans, prostitution by both sexes. A carry-over of non-Christian religious practices.

Paul became an Apostle after the crucifiction. He was never directly taught by Jesus. John was.

There is a saying, "First Paul overcame Peter, then he overcame Christ." Contradictions to the teachings of Jesus are rampant in his writings. That's where the hatreds and bigotries of Christians come from.

"God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." 1John 4:16. You may take that literally, It's a core teaching for all of Christendom. Christians should probably stop slapping God in the face.

Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease"