A quick poll.

[plonq]

Same-sex marriage and the federal sponsorship scandal have been dominating the news up here recently.  Since nobody outside of the media really cares about the sponsorship scandal, I figured I'd broach the other subject.

What are your thoughts on same-sex marriage?  I've set up a (semi-anonymous) poll on the matter.  If enough people fill it out then I will post the numbers up here in a day or two.

[Poll #435934]

Feel free to discuss the matter in the comments section.  I'm always up for a good argument chat.

Comments

[plonq.livejournal.com]

I checked myself down as "indifferent" because it really doesn't affect me one way or the other, but neither am I against it.

I had an interesting discussion with a (recovering) Catholic friend a few days ago, and we took opposite sides on the debate. I was arguing the case for same-sex marriage, and he was quite firmly opposed to it.

His biggest concern was that it was tampering with long-established tradition. On the other hand, he was in favour of calling it a "civil union" and granting all of the same rights and benefits. Of course I took him to task on that and said, "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then why shouldn't we just call it a duck?"

To paraphrase his reply a bit he said, "My objections to calling it a marriage are entirely emotional. I can't give you any good logical or rational reasons to defend my views, so you're just going to have to accept my answer as being that I just don't like it."

I don't share some of his views, but I appreciate his intellectual honesty.

[giza.livejournal.com]

> His biggest concern was that it was tampering with long-established
> tradition.

I never really bought that sort of answer. It kinda smacks of, "Well, we didn't think of this idea, so it sucks!"

Traditions do change over time. I do believe that once it was "tradition" for women to be treated as Second Class Citizens. But that sure changed.

> To paraphrase his reply a bit he said, "My objections to calling it a
> marriage are entirely emotional. I can't give you any good logical or
> rational reasons to defend my views, so you're just going to have to
> accept my answer as being that I just don't like it."

Okay, that puts him on my Cool List for being up front about it. I wish more people who were opposed to same sex marriage would just say that.

[unciaa.livejournal.com]

Plus, if you take 'tradition' far enough you'll hit marriage as a concept before Christianity. They borrowed it and handled it for 2000 years; we'd like it back now, you've abused the privilige, kthxbye. ;)