Thanks, Dean. Love you too, man. I've wanted to compare you to one of the creatures from "The Island of Dr. Moreau" for a long time, but I've managed to hold off.
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For reasons that are too embarrassing to recount here, I was going over my archives at my old site, and came upon this sample text for wimpy Democrats to use back in late 2003 when talking about marriage rights for gay people. Well now it's election time again, and I think I hit the nail on the head back then.
I think what's important here is to understand the difference between civil and religious marriage. Religious marriage is a sacrament, and I don't believe the government has any business telling any religion who they can and cannot marry. But civil marriage is a legal contract that's enforced by the state, and that confers rights on the citizens that enter into that contract. I believe Americans are a fundamentally fair people. And this is about fairness - allowing people who want to enter into committed relationships, relationships that strengthen the society, to get the rights conferred by civil marriage.See? That wasn't so difficult, now was it?
There's a lot of talk about civil unions these days - trying to create a system alongside civil marriage that would involve the same rights. But why create a new system, a new bureaucracy, to try to simulate something already in place? Is that fair? I don't think it is. "Separate but equal" didn't work in the civil rights era, and it doesn't work here. I know there are a lot of Americans who are uncomfortable with homosexuality. But that unease shouldn't be enough reason to deny basic rights to citizens of the United States of America.
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