UK: house of commons votes in favour of gay marriage

This forums is understandably USA-dominated but given that there are quite a lot of us from elsewhere and 3 fellow brits I've often considered making a thread about political developments elsewhere.

It would have otherwise been about the Falklands or Britain's reltionship with the EU but the House of Commons just voted in favour (400 to 175, 75 abstentions) of gay marriage so i thought i'd throw that out and see where it goes instead. Any thoughts?

As long as it's not made compulsory who else should care?
Inevitably there will be some who say that the term marriage should be reserved to hetero unions because it is religiously defined as between a man and a woman. To that the easy answers are by what religion (out of hundreds), and when did they gain the copyright?
While I'm straight I do feel for my gay friends who are endlessly made to feel like second class citizens.

JimHacker wrote:This forums is understandably USA-dominated but given that there are quite a lot of us from elsewhere and 3 fellow brits I've often considered making a thread about political developments elsewhere.

It would have otherwise been about the Falklands or Britain's reltionship with the EU but the House of Commons just voted in favour (400 to 175, 75 abstentions) of gay marriage so i thought i'd throw that out and see where it goes instead. Any thoughts?

good for britian! New Zeland is looking at doing the same in the next few months as well. And an interesting point brought up by a chirch leader over here in favor was that religions dont marry people, they wed them, as only a public registrar can marry you, due to marriage being a legal thing.

I also dont care whether someone is straight, gay, bi, polygamous, whatever, so long as they are all treated equally.

OK, what bout other misunderstood sexual deviants? You should see the firestorm on Baen's Bar when this topic appeared today, http://bar.baen.com/index.php?t=msg&th=94370&start=0& First post was:

wizodd wrote:
While it's unlikely that Grantville harbors any serial killers, about 10%
of the population ought to be gay, and about 0.15% peadaphiles....

Hmm, Now that gay's have acceptance, I guess the next picked on group to tug at or heart strings are the misunderstood kiddy diddlers? They are 0.15% of the population and according to evidence are hard wired to be so.

Give me a break!

Poker

PS. I wrote a Honorverse Fan fic that dealt a bit with the subject http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8662390/1/The-Death-Fangs-Chapter-1. Definitely not the best fan fic written but, in full disclosure on this topic I did write a fiction about it.

PPS. SpaceKiwi 'whatever' covers a lot of sickos, just saying. Kind like guns where does one draw the line, hmm?

Daryl wrote:As long as it's not made compulsory who else should care?
Inevitably there will be some who say that the term marriage should be reserved to hetero unions because it is religiously defined as between a man and a woman. To that the easy answers are by what religion (out of hundreds), and when did they gain the copyright?
While I'm straight I do feel for my gay friends who are endlessly made to feel like second class citizens.

JimHacker wrote:This forums is understandably USA-dominated but given that there are quite a lot of us from elsewhere and 3 fellow brits I've often considered making a thread about political developments elsewhere.

It would have otherwise been about the Falklands or Britain's reltionship with the EU but the House of Commons just voted in favour (400 to 175, 75 abstentions) of gay marriage so i thought i'd throw that out and see where it goes instead. Any thoughts?

First: no fan fiction.

Second: homosexuals are not sexual deviants. You should take a look at the Kinsey scale for a better understand of reality rather than the bigotry you've just displayed. The fact is homosexuality has been part of humans for thousands of years, among the most well known are samurai and sailors.

Third: do not directly compare homosexuality to pedophilia. That is misinformation that came out of "safety" films of the 50s, 60s, and 70s (a good example of this is Boys Beware, you can find it on youtube). That is beyond offensive.

pokermind wrote:OK, what bout other misunderstood sexual deviants? You should see the firestorm on Baen's Bar when this topic appeared today, http://bar.baen.com/index.php?t=msg&th=94370&start=0& First post was:

wizodd wrote:
While it's unlikely that Grantville harbors any serial killers, about 10%
of the population ought to be gay, and about 0.15% peadaphiles....

Hmm, Now that gay's have acceptance, I guess the next picked on group to tug at or heart strings are the misunderstood kiddy diddlers? They are 0.15% of the population and according to evidence are hard wired to be so.

Give me a break!

Poker

PS. I wrote a Honorverse Fan fic that dealt a bit with the subject http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8662390/1/The-Death-Fangs-Chapter-1. Definitely not the best fan fic written but, in full disclosure on this topic I did write a fiction about it.

PPS. SpaceKiwi 'whatever' covers a lot of sickos, just saying. Kind like guns where does one draw the line, hmm?

Basically consenting adults that don't do it on the road and scare the horses (old story), should be ok.
I've got no problem with free, informed & consenting polygamy or polyandry either. To compare homosexuality with paedophilia (or as one conservative religious politician did here with bestiality) is absurd and plain wrong headed.

Would the requirements of SSC cover it then poker?

Safe

Sane ( a requirement for all parties, and the situation)

Consensual (all must consent, and all must be of an age to consent)

pokermind wrote:OK, what bout other misunderstood sexual deviants? You should see the firestorm on Baen's Bar when this topic appeared today, http://bar.baen.com/index.php?t=msg&th=94370&start=0& First post was:

wizodd wrote:
While it's unlikely that Grantville harbors any serial killers, about 10%
of the population ought to be gay, and about 0.15% peadaphiles....

Hmm, Now that gay's have acceptance, I guess the next picked on group to tug at or heart strings are the misunderstood kiddy diddlers? They are 0.15% of the population and according to evidence are hard wired to be so.

Give me a break!

Poker

PS. I wrote a Honorverse Fan fic that dealt a bit with the subject http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8662390/1/The-Death-Fangs-Chapter-1. Definitely not the best fan fic written but, in full disclosure on this topic I did write a fiction about it.

PPS. SpaceKiwi 'whatever' covers a lot of sickos, just saying. Kind like guns where does one draw the line, hmm?

Good to see a largely positive response.

First off, this isn't actually law yet. It's still got to pass the House of Lords and signed by the Queen for it to be law, but it should do that easily so

Incidentally, under this law the Anglican Church is specifically banned from performing gay marriages (this ban was to draw Tory support).

Also, LGBTQ people are deviants if all you define deviancy as being 'different from the norm'. I sometimes find it amusing that the Kinsey scale is only now becoming an accepted part of popular culture - it was invented 65 years ago and is now really outdated. Psychologists' understanding of sexuality and gender identity has come a really long way since then.

As to paedophilia that's a false comparison and should remain illegal for obvious reasons. But i've always thought it was a shame that paedophilia wasn't considered more of a mental health issue than simply criminal.

And spacewiki: SSC? i'm impressed.

JimHacker wrote:And spacewiki: SSC? i'm impressed.

I prefer RACK - Risk-Aware Consensual Kink - to SSC - "safe" too easily becomes an unattainable ideal when shutting down other people's activities. Being aware of the risks and still consenting strikes me as much healthier than fetishising safety.

rmsgrey wrote:

JimHacker wrote:And spacewiki: SSC? i'm impressed.

I prefer RACK - Risk-Aware Consensual Kink - to SSC - "safe" too easily becomes an unattainable ideal when shutting down other people's activities. Being aware of the risks and still consenting strikes me as much healthier than fetishising safety.

I had not intended for this to be the topic. It's quite revealing though. Spacewiki! Look what you've done!

I'm now thinking i would have been safer off leading with the UK's foreign policy - Falklands and EU etc