Canada is a LOT better off as a country, as a nation, as a society than the U.S. is, not just as far as gays are concerned, but there's also a lot less racial tension in Canada as well, and that's another area where it seems like we can never grow out of either, it's like even to this day in America, many whites still feel like they're the superior master race, and many blacks still act like they're being degraded and oppressed, and really, having Obama in office hasn't helped race relations at all.
(Snickers profusely). Anyone thinking having a not white guy in office would improve race relations is completely out of their minds. Though I think to generalize every Republican as a racist because they don't like them is pretty idiotic. There is some of it, that birth certificate crap (which was a dumb conspiracy theory that started out as a bunch of conservatives passive aggressively making insane theories about how he could be impeached on technicalities)... but the main fact is, they don't like him because he's not one of their guys politically. I'm just going to end it there... though I am LOVING this new thing where only black people are racists.I could go on about how they chose Herman Cain as a subversion as a "Oh, you only like women, blacks, gays, and other people we've historically oppressed if they agree with you." Then he was caught being a dirty old man, and that would have hurt them substantially.
There is this irrational fear that the legal acceptance of gay equality will somehow encroach on religious freedoms. The only reasonable concern I've heard concerns adoption. I was adopted through Catholic charities and some of these organizations receive federal dollars. I don't know why, but they do. Could they discriminate against gay couples and still receive government money? I don't know the answer to that. I'd say give the Catholics what they want if that happened to be the only thing standing in the way of gay marriage!
Religious institutions NOT only get tax exempt status, but money from the government. AND they want to have a major say in Constitutional law (basically contradicting half of it).
I forget who said it, but if that's the case, they should have two options. Either drop tax exempt status and have what they believe God's word is law as the law of the land, or as Fry put it, "Shut Up and take [the government's] money!" I especially love how they liken having to give employees, especially non-Catholic ones, government money to get access to contraception (especially when contraception does
other things that I can't talk about) to the whole sale slaughter of Jews, Gypsies, Gays, cripples, and basically anyone who wasn't white, blonde, and perfect of bod by a certain psychotic art school reject.
And, as far as the Catholic Church goes, it has centuries of freaking dirt on it's hands. The Crusades? That was them. The church wants everyone to pretend that crap didn't happen, yet they cling to such archaic ideals themselves. I really think South Park did a justice when they mocked them in the episode about the molestations. Change isn't bad at all.... it's necessary to keeping what they're saying relevant so they don't lose followers that disagree with their teachings.
Constitutionally, the law of the land trumps the law of God because not everyone can agree on what those laws are, and not everyone follows them. That doesn't mean killing people and stealing stuff should be legal. That's common ground. Something that biblical scholars are going to debate for centuries that not every major religion, or even factions of that religion can agree with aren't, and that's for good reason. Could you imagine if all conflicting religious teachings, especially implied and exploited by certain leaders? Chaos. An unAmerican police state that would rival anything the Middle East has. There's a reason why we don't let Doomsday Cult leaders make ritualistic mass suicide legal.