Quote Originally Posted by thir View Post

The catholic church has launched a campagne from pulpits urging its flock to oppose gay marriage. I understand that this has not to do with whether the marriage is performed in a church or not.

So what. They like anyone else can preach pretty much whatever they wish so long as it's breaking no laws in my book.

Gay couples make wedding plans amid angry Catholic sermons

Sophistry 101...make it seem like the people trying to get married literally have to wade through reams of protestors to get hitched. Looks too me like the media yet again is trying to make mountains out of mole hills.



"While the new dean of St Paul's Cathedral the Very Rev Dr David Ison has called on the Church of England to embrace gay marriage.

Well there you go...the Anglican backed government will decide (and usually against the Catholics if history continues to repeat itself.

I am thinking, is this a matter of freedom of speech?

For the Catholics? Yes. For the gays wanting equal rights its a completely different kind of struggle.

Or is it a matter of one set of people trying to determine what others can (or, in this case, cannot) do?

Both, the gays in their pursuit of equal rights under the law: I am guessing would love for the Catholics to shut up as much as the Catholics would love for the gays to stop attacking what the Catholics see as something sacred. Though its more than that since the gay community isn't satisfied with an equivalency to marriage they want the titular distinction as well which is only natural. (Harkens back to the days when the civil rights movement got on about "separate but equal" segregation issues here in the states.)

If the gay people gain the right to marry, will hetero marriages loose in validity?

lol Only Catholic ones apparently.

If you have a cherished tradition, and others use it differently but with the same name, would you loose something? Or, if different people than your group use the same tradition, would you loose something?

No you dont loose anything imho yet....

...iIt can feel that way sometimes.

Ever hear an online only submissive talk about how she is collared and such a perfect sub in a room full of real life practitioners before? Kinda like claiming to have climbed Mount Everest without ever even touching so much as a climbing wall let alone an actual mountain.

That analogy I am sure will picked apart now since its sorta like comparing apples too oranges, but you do get the jist of what I am saying I hope...but perhaps we can agree to side bar it in a separate thread ahead of time huh?

Would it be intruding on your tradition or, or maybe watering it down, or would it be enlarging it?
Shrugs. I am all for letting gays, multiple poly couples, dog lovers, what have you...get married and have equal rights under the law and I could care less what they call the arrangement's. Heck I dont even get bothered anymore when I see bracketts with initials after a nic now days.