Civil marriage has enabled you to sponge off others. That's really the bottom line here. All the crap about civil rights and liberties etc is just smokesreen.Sure Rabbi, you "nailed it". I'll wait for the subpoena. Why not ask the reluctant hypocrite himself?
Strawman, I'm not reluctant. I'm glad it makes my spouse happy. When you grasp that, maybe you can move past government marriage just being collective validation and start to get the real thing. Gays are not all like you BTW. My VP of sales for my business is gay. She has worked for me about three years. She has been in a serious committed relationship for about one. She and her partner very much do things for each other's interest. Isn't it interesting? You have the paper, she doesn't want it, but I consider her far more married than you are.
Oh...so you're happy to be a raging hypocrite. Good to know. Can I call you the happy hypocrite instead?
Really? You're gonna try the "I have a gay friend" thing too?
Being civilly married was in the interest of both my spouse and I. We both wanted it and to you that means we're worthy of derision...because we want the same civil marriage you and your wife wanted that now only she wants.
And your opinion of my marriage doesn't make me any less married or any less in love with my wife.
You should consider that sometimes when you do things because they are in your partner's interest rather than your own and you don't demand your way or even a compromise, you get more in your own interest than getting your way. Blows your mind, doesn't it?
And I conceded you have the paper, you have government marriage. You just don't know what marriage is.
And you assume I do without any knowledge.
I have a marriage. We've been together 20 and married 7.
Let me tell you what that "piece of paper" has done for our family. First and foremost, our children can say their parents are married and if you talk to child experts, they'll tell you that's important to the children. Also importantly for our children, our civil marriage has allowed my spouse to not work. She can be on my employer sponsored health plan and so she can stay home and be there when the kids get home from school, have a hot meal cooked, clean clothes and a house for them.
What it could have done if we had access to it 15 years ago was save a lot of money. Instead of paying thousands of dollars for my spouse to legally adopt our children and change her name, a $75 marriage license would have taken care of the whole shebang in one fell swoop.
It's great you compromise. You deserve husband of the year for staying married when you don't want to. What makes you a dick is wanting to deny those same rights, benefits and privileges to gay couples who want to care for their spouses like you do.
I was wrong. There are 3 arguments for gay marriage:
1) Gays are really oppressed black people c.1965
2 We're winning in the courts
3) Give us the money.
There is really only one argument
Same gender couples deserve to be treated under the law, exactly the same as my wife and I are.