How the issue of gay marriages should be played out, but won't be because of the built in political divisiveness permeating american politics....
Step 1: Gay Activists file a lawsuit claiming Gay marriage discrimination because some heterosexuals marriages are between heterosexuals who CANNOT conceive a child, and therefore that is no different than a gay couple that also cannot produce an offspring without additional assistance.
Step 2: Court agrees that it is DISCRIMINATORY to allow heterosexuals who cannot conceive a child to have marriage benefits while denying gay couples who wish to wed those same marriage benefits.
Step 3: Republicans change the law so that ONLY heterosexual couples who can conceive can have marriage benefits.
Step 4: Heterosexual couples who cannot conceive are so incensed they no longer are considered as married as heterosexual couples who can conceive they rip up their marriage certificates and form a coalition with gay couples and agree to have a "civil union" ceremony instead.
Step 5: Liberal heterosexual couples who CAN conceive join the protest, rip up their marriage licenses, and agree to also have a "civil union" ceremony.
Step 6: Traditional marriages drop to 50% of all marriages. The Civil Union Ceremony coalition comprises the other 50% and now DEMAND legislation that acknowledges their civil unions be treated like a marriage.
Step 7: Republicans and Democrats now must bicker over issues such as entitlements and benefits "conventional" marriages presently receive versus what is acceptable for civil union ceremonies to also receive.
The wildcard in all of this are heterosexual couples who cannot conceive receiving the exact same benefits that a gay couple would receive, and no more, I believe that is the best strategy for moving forward.
Instead of the above scenario then playing out to a spell binding finish, we get "yeah", gay marriages should be legal" from the progressives, and "ugh, gay marriage is an abomination" from the neo con republicans.
Can we ELEVATE the gay marriage discussion por favor?
The real talking points are...
A. Gay couples should receive the exact same marriage benefits as a heterosexual couple who cannot conceive a child, to argue against this point would mean one is an intolerant religious zealout, and that percentage of the population is probably no more than 25%.
B. Heterosexual couples who are married and can conceive really do have it the toughest among all potential pairings since their lives can change at any moment in time by pregnancy, whether they like or not, and this point should also not be forgotten.
C. Gay couples could stay the course and over time make civil unions more popular than conventional heterosexual marriages.
Barack Obama has simply played on the emotions of progressives and liberals by making this a democrats vs republicans issue. If Hillary Clinton had been elected, I think there would have been constructive dialogue based on some of the concepts outlined in this article.
And Hillary Clinton was labeled the divisive one in 2008, by whom, the dividers among us.