Marriage is a civil right in the US

Nor can I.
In fact I can't accept anyone, who, like Hitler, demonises a group of people because of his/her personal belief that he/she has the right to decide what's best for everyone.
They're called fascists aren't they?
The only coherent point I've seen brought up here is that "our" systems may be open to exploitation thru' gay mariage.
But hetero marriage already does this so it's hipocritical really imo.Marriage is far from a Christian monopoly, and whatever Christians may feel applies to marriage, can apply in their churches.Slightly off topic here (sorry), but an earlier poster claimed that Ireland was "anti-gay", I'm Irish and funnily enough up until around the eighties this was close to the truth.
Since then we've moved forward as a country and lost much of our intolerance and smallminded bigotry.
From what I know we don't even kill people for being protestant anymore.
Like our new-found acceptance of homosexuals, this is a relatively new occurence, but I think an improvement.
Please don't attempt to speak for an entire nation, uninvited, however long you've spent in Europe.
It's pretty offensive.

lo
Rgb you wrote... Sure, I wasn't trying to claim Ireland was incredibly forward thinking (or anything about any other country), just responding to somone who said homosexuality was considered an aberration here.
It's not. Dublin was considered the Gay capital of Europe for about three years recently.
The point being, regardless of wether or not popularity was a qualifier for this sort of thing (it isn't imo) the view that was presented was an erroneous one, an unsubstabtiated opinion of what others think.
Since I am one of those others, commented on, as are my friends family etc., I felt I should speak up, as we (and many others) were being misrepresented.
Many people are intolerant in any country, but to associate this with the "official", or collective view of things, isn't valid.Funnily enough I think that this notion of a rigid set of rules which must be obeyed to qualify, is what mocks marriage.
And the idea that anyone knows, or can control, who someone else loves, or how they manifest that love, is nonsense.
Do we also now have to pass a test to "qualify" that our love fits the Christian interpretation? hardly.
Should we have exams to see who's qualified to show their love, or that how they express it, fits how we think it should? no, that's nonsense too.
How about we test everyone, and give them percentage marks, and unless they score 100% compliance with Faiths, ot whoevers, definition of marriage they can't?

Lo,
Faith you've said earlier, that gay couples should be treated as single. There's a very obvious flaw in this statement.
Watch
1+1=1
Doesn't work does it?
Well, it might if it were 1984, but it isn't.Also you've said that the "perks" of marriage, were for the "protection" of women, and therefore, gays shouldn't get them.
So lesbians should get twice as much then yeah?Funny thing is, when you think about it, at this point in histroy, it'd probably be far better to only have gay relationships.
We could legislate who could and couldn't have kids far more efficiently.
We could ensure only good-looking, intelligent, honest people got to reproduce, and everyone got genius kids.
We could plan far more effectively for raising our families.(lets face it not too many gay men are gonna get pregnant by mistake now are they?)
Funny huh, the more you think about it, the more it seems Gays have some advantages over straights, as parents.
Glad I had mine before they ban all us stupid heteros from it.

Then they should show this to be the case. When they show this to be the case. When it is shown to cause real and deliberate or unavoidable harm to others.
The last two I can't answer, as I'm not American.
And if Faith is still out there I'd still like to know should lesbians get double rights in marriage as they've no man to "protect" them?