1. Where did you think I’m commenting from, buddy? Little Rock, Arkansas? Or maybe Toledo, Ohio? Try Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I took exception to your whining about being second-class citizens because I am</em a second-class citizen, raca! Not that we don’t manage, because our second-classness is not as bad as outright apartheid. Homosexuals are most certainly not - at least, in the Western world.

You know what? Forget it. The more I think about it, the more pissed off I get. I got better things to do with my life.

No, I object to their effort to remake the language.

Marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman. If gays were honest about it, and if they truly wanted only the benefits you mention, they’d recognize that a “civil union” would satisfy that requirement. However, they have indicated that the “civil union” is _not_ satisfactory, even if all of the legal points you raise are covered by that contractual designation. Therefore, I conclude that they want something _more_ than the legal rights you’ve raised as the crux of their position. And what is that? It seems to me that the critical point to homosexual demands is that they want to be recognized as “the same”. “normal”. “acceptable” in polite society. Shame they can’t be more honest, and it’s a shame that they can’t accept themselves for what they are and have to try to take on the coloration of what they seem to want to be.

>>freedom only applies to behavior you approve of>>

Bogus. No one is attempting to deny them the rights of living their lives as they see fit with whom they see fit. What is being denied is the right to claim benefits to which they are not entitled. It’s _almost_ all about money. Not 100%, but about 90%.

More correctly, for _your_ explanation.

>>There was a famous case a while ago involving a lesbian woman mauled to death by a Doberman in SF, whose partner face difficulty with visitation rights and was unable to inherit property (which went to the state) even though had they been a heterosexual couple–because they’d been together for more than 7 years–the partner would have inherited the estate in full.>>

I’m familiar with the incident. Not the specifics you mention, but the incident generally.

Ok…so if they had been a heterosexual couple, they’d have what is called a common law marriage. My guess is that with no legal determination, visitation rights might still have been a problem, and heritable property would have been challengeable if there were other potential heirs - even if they had been heterosexual. But giving you that you’re absolutely correct, didn’t they know this? why hadn’t they written up wills? requests for hospital visitation rights? In other words, ignorance of the law is no excuse. Not doing what needs to be done and then using negligence as a rationale for demanding rights that don’t exist is hardly calculated to win friends and influence people.

The problem homosexuals have is that they are attempting to force on society an acceptance of their lifestyle as “normal”. They are attempting to do this not through persuasion, but through the courts. If they were willing to be patient and use persuasion, the time would probably come when it would be passed through legislation. Using the courts system to force the decision is likely to do more to antagonize than win sympathy. Sufficient antagonism against the courts could have a long term very bad result, I think.

Homosexuals already can have these “rights” - though I’d disagree that they are “rights”. They are, instead, contractual agreements.

d)Couples can file joint tax returns,

True. Society has granted certain privileges to specific groups in order to encourage activities it considers conducive to the betterment of that society. This is not a constitutional privilege, though. Whether this is a benefit or not is probably not relevant to the principle, but if both adults in the family are working, a joint return will result in higher taxes, so I doubt that’s much of a benefit - but hey! If you want to pay more in taxes, go for it!

e)family medical insurance

As opposed to each having individual insurance? This is a right?

f)if the couple should decide to divorce, can have legal mediation between the two parties.

If the “couple” doesn’t get legally married in the first place, the issue is moot. In any case, anybody can hire a lawyer for legal mediation. Write it into the original contract.

g)homosexuals are denied the right to adopt children and raise them as their own.

No one has the “right” to adopt children - and shouldn’t. It is society’s obligation to provide - to it’s best ability - parenting that best fits the needs of the child, should a child not have natural parents that can take care of him or her. At this time, to the best of psychology’s knowledge and experience, that means a two parent home with a male and a female parent. Until that changes, homosexuals will have to go get their own just as most heterosexual couples do.

h)All these rights are denied to homosexual couples because many people cannot separate their personal moral views from what is clearly required by the Constitution.

None of these are “rights”. They’re “wants”. It’s clear you don’t understand “equal protection under the law”…you want to _make_ laws that fit your “wants”.

i) Whether you approve of their lifestyle or not, the homosexual people of this country are citizens of this country and are required to have all the legal rights endowed to the rest of us, based upon the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution.

j)Even if you and I both hope that our children never discover that they are homosexual, we both would like to know that the Constitution considers them equal in the eye of the law. This issue is pretty cut-and-dried; it’s not a question of what one “feels” but what the law says.

What you want is special privilege - exceptions from the law. Your problem is that the law _doesn’t_ say what you want it to say, so you want the judges to rule in favor of the laws that this society won’t make.

k)Or maybe suek wants to rewrite the Constitution to only afford full civil rights to those people who think and act similarly.

Well…to a certain extent, that _is_ the meaning of democracy.

Please list specific examples of unequal treatment that you feel homosexuals need changed in order to have legal protection.