I would like to direct you to a post at huffington... post... by rob thomas regarding gay marriage

[ejpoeta]

It is very cogent and makes some great arguments! Here is just a small paragraph that makes great sense:

I believe the fact that an atheist, who doesn't believe in God at all, is allowed to enter into the holy land of marriage while a gay Christian is not, shows that this law is arbitrary. Are we to believe that anyone who doesn't live their life according to the King James Bible isn't protected by the same laws that protect those who do? Using the same argument that I've seen on the 700 Club, that would mean that Jewish, Hindu, or Muslim weddings are also null and void.

here is the link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rob-thomas/the-big-gay-chip-on-my-sh_b_208183.html

[SacredCow]

1. Was never a huge fan of his music, but he gets a tip of my hat...

Thank you, Mr. Thomas.

[NMMNG]

2. Not that we haven't been screaming that for years now

Their "marriage is a religious rite" and "we'll be forced to marry homos in our churches" lines are both lies. Religion didn't get involved in marriages until the Middle Ages. And no church has ever been forced to marry anybody nor will they ever be. When has a church been forced to marry an atheist or agnostic? When have they been forced to marry someone outside their faith or a couple who they felt didn't adhere to their "rules" in some way? They haven't, just like marriage is not solely the province of religion, but they lie about gay people to keep us from having rights.

[BR_Parkway]

3. He says it all so simply, and reaches a big audience - thanks to the

straight, but not narrow singer for standing up for what is right

[joeybee12]

4. I'm kicking and recommending this...n/t

[nichomachus]

5. The biggest problem is

that fundamentalist Christianity floats on a sea of contradictions and illogic. Their entire theological effort is in building constructs to work around that mishmash of nonsense. Most of what they say is gibberish.

[csziggy]

6. Some Christians do not think marriages not performed in their own church are legit

My uncle, the fundie minister, for instance, does not believe I have been married for nearly 32 years even though we have the license from the State of Florida saying we are married. Since neither of us are believers in a deity we chose to do the bare legal minimum to get the recognition of our relationship under state law. We bought a license, got it signed by a notary public and had it registered by the clerk of the court. Period.

So my uncle thinks we've lived in sin for almost 32 years (if he only knew, we've been living in sin for 34 + years :P ).

As I proposed in another post, let's remove the automatic recognition of legal marriages performed by clergy. Make the religious bigots meet the same requirements that secular authorities that perform marriages must meet. Keep the legal process of marriage separate from the religious rites - they can 'sanctify' marriage however they want, but their religious silliness should not be the same thing as having the legalities met. And if a religious authority does not want to meet those requirements, any couple they marry will not be legally married until they go through all the legalities.

My other post on this: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5728398&mesg_id=5731502

[ejpoeta]

7. to my personal mind's eye.... the paper is just that... a piece of paper.

we were married before that because we had made that commitment to each other. the wedding was more for others than for ourselves. and ours was a civil ceremony performed by a judge. i remember overhearing a conversation before the wedding outside of a kid asking about us not getting married by a priest or preacher. i can't remember what the response was, but i chimed in about how some people don't believe in churches. or something to that effect. i know my preacher uncle was there... i wonder what he thinks, but then again i don't really care. he's REALLY religious so much so that his kids were not allowed to listen to music that was not christian music and they were not allowed to go anywhere where they could be influenced by bad things i guess. the eldest daughter went out and rebelled hard to that. don't know about the rest of the kids... my sister who had played with elizabeth told me about how elizabeth shoplifted and all kinds of stuff. it's crazy. Gee, what could possibly go wrong if you don't even let your kids experience the actual world while you can help them navigate through it and make choices. geesh. but i digress.

I think too many people focus on a day.... a marriage is a promise made between two people... the public ceremony be it religious or civil is merely a public display for the benefit of the state and your family. so screw the religious idiots.

[csziggy]

8. Yes, we aleady had the commitment to each other but some things came up

That made having the legally defined relationship advisable. So we got that piece of paper signed by our friend, the pizza cook and notary public.

Other than having to fight with the IRS and the Social Security Administration about me keeping me name, it really has made no big difference to the world or in how we feel about each other. We celebrate our first time 'getting' together just the same as we do the date we made it legal.

But for the sake of equal rights, the GLTB should be able to have that legal recognition - and it won't mean much if it isn't recognized at the federal level.

[ejpoeta]

11. amen. i totally agree. the piece of paper is about legal things and for the

benefit of others. and gay and lesbian partners should have the same opportunity to have that public and legal marriage available to them.

[leftofthedial]

9. Rob Thomas is a good and thoughtful man.

[paulsby]

10. of course it took a beauty contest question to spur this essay, not a presidential comment

i don't recall him writing any essays of this sort when obama (and other presidential candidates) came out against gay marriage.

sounds a bit opportunistic. it's easy to criticize silly beauty contestants.

fwiw, i've always liked thomas' music.

[Toasterlad]

12. How Do You Know He Didn't?

How silly to complain about him not doing anything when you'd know if he did or not.

[paulsby]

13. i just did a google search

to placate you. didn't find anything.

i used to have a lexis nexis account, which would be a more accurate search, but i know i can't prove he didn't (since that would be proving a negative). i can only report that i have found no references to same.

hth

[xchrom]

14. and you took the opportunity to bitch about him on a popular website.

at least he went out there in defense of gay people.

all you could do was bitch about 'opportunism'.

i'll stick with rob.