ahh, Canada

Yikes. Hrm. The liberal (gay) part of me is cheering, but the conservative (religious - albeit small)is ... confused. Hrm. :|

As a clarification: I don't believe in same sex marriage. *duck*

Mmm, duck, very tasty with hoi sin and steamed pancakes. Actually, many of us don't believe in same-sex marriage in the same sense that it is applied to heterosexual couples. At least from my standpoint, it is the legal status that really counts; being recognised as the next of kin, an inheritor to estates, being entitled to the same concessions in the eye of the law, access to children. If two people wish to commit to eachother in this way, then I feel that they should be entitled to, irrespective of sex (or even sexual orientation). You don't necessarily even have to call it marriage - it is just word, after all - but when it is borne out of sheer love and mutual respect for one-another, being denied that right is a cruel inequality that is hard to rationalise from the conservative standpoint.

I know that you have strong views on this front, as you've already hinted at them in the past, but I'm making this distinction clear in case you meant 'marriage' in the 'eyes of God' sense.

I wasn't really talking about 'in the eyes of God' idea. Though in the eyes of God, we're all probably going to hell.

Looking at it that way makes it a bit hypocritical. Marriage as a tax cut or a get-rich-quick scheme? What happened to independence from everyone else? So is homosexuality the next big gold-digging ground? Will we be looking for rich old sugar-daddies or sugar-mommies? I'm young, so should I move to Toronto to marry some rich old pervert in the hopes that he will die (or hasten it along in that case?).

As for the children issue... well, being two males in a relationship does make it fairly difficult to be a father, not impossible, but difficult. Not to mention the standards that I believe you should live up to to be a better parent than all the other straight couples.

I believe if you can be together without the messiness of marriage, that you can hold on to each other past the inequalities, past the injustices, and just be with each other just because you want to be, then that's 'love'.

I've seen my own parents get caught in a web of lovelessness and be driven together again and again just because of loneliness. And sometimes they are forced to because of the laws of marriage and the traditions that accompany it. Not to mention the stigma associated with divorce, especially in the case of asian countries.

Marriage is not called the 'ball & chain' for nothing.

I have no qualms about two people declaring their love for one another. I could not care less if the church sanctions or vilifies it.

But putting it in legal terms turns it antiseptic. I admit that in some cases it is useful, like in making medical decisions or other such decisions for your partner. But there are other ways to empower a person to make those sort of decisions for you. Marriage or its legal equivalent, is merely a shorcut.

As for equality, it's highly overrated. We say that we want equality, but too often it comes off sounding like we want special treatment. Minority advocacy groups often come off this way, special schools, special teachers, more benefits. Where's the median? where's the average?

Before anyone can be truly equal, there has to be a drawn line as to what is equal and what is not - which hints towards a conformity among the general population that simply doesn't exist. As for that fact, with all these different groups, you can't draw that line, people will always have different concepts of equality. The line simply is not straight.

People might say that 'marriage' should be a legal right to anyone who wants it. But the law also says that you cannot marry a close blood relative, or an underaged person, or many such matters. So should brothers and sisters (for fiction's sake lets assume they were separated at birth and met each other much much later and fell in love) start campaigning for a right to marry? Or should a 14 year old be allowed to marry with 40 year old?

The concepts there are still repugnant. But the love is still real. If you're marrying for the sake of a few legal rights which can be manipulated by lawyers, you're doing something wrong. If you're marrying for a tax cut, you're more cold blooded than you seem to be. The entire idea of a tax cut for married couples is so that it is easier to raise children for them at any rate, but which is the same as the idea of dependants.

But as in most cases with same sex couples, both work and well, as stated before, rarely rarely ever have kids. We are the perfect DINKS (Dual Income No Kids). So the tax cut shouldn't be a big issue.

You want a law for same sex couples? Fine. Just don't call it marriage, because that's what it isn't and all it ever does is rile up the religious conservatives which will only put more pressure on the political establishments not to grant those self same rights.

Because if you call it marriage, all you'll do is end up aping an institution that has nothing to do with you.

Marriage causes enough problems and ties up enough judicial courts with their problems to be more than a headache enough. Marriage laws were a safety measure in the olden days given to a man and woman so that the man HAD to support the woman. In these days, the laws are becoming more and more irrelevant save for the tax cuts or as a loophole for gold diggers. Paint me cynical, but it really isn't worth the hassle.

As for ducks, I prefer them braised with a light sweet and sour lemon sauce Canton style. :)

I really have to make shorter posts. :P

Could it be that some of your cynicism would be obviated given a little more experience? By way of example - have you ever dated a foreign national? My former partner of almost three years was from abroad, and we spent long periods of time in eachothers respective countries, or apart, and at significant cost and emotional difficulty. Any less dedicated heterosexual couple could have gotten around this problem with far greater ease, but most avenues of action were closed to us. This proved, ultimately, to be quite destructive, and while things are changing very quickly for people in similar situations here, it didn't come soon enough. I retain to right to feel some bitterness toward a system that gives greater rights to normal couples; I couldn't care less were the liberating institution called marriage or 'domestic partnership rights for these aberrant freakshows' provided certain civil liberties were imparted. And I couldn't give a flying fuck whether the act itself appears mercenary or not, because ultimately, anyone in love would be able to see beyond the trivial and recognise that it is a small sacrifice to make in order to be together. Of course abuses will occur, they always have for the current institution, so why we are not entitled to the same hypocrisy is lost on me; I don't need to be forced to conform to some higher level of conduct when I am quite capable of doing it on my own.

As for kids; I can't offer anything else other than to say that I know of couples who have had kids and are raising them beautifully.

I've never liked lemon sauces; I really don't know why. Ditto for sweet and sour... it's like eating leftovers covered in ketchup. Char sieuw on the other hand...

Char siew is fantastic. Not to mention morning dim cum. Love that stuff.

Perhaps that's my problem. I've never really been in love. Pardon my cynicism, but I don't really believe in love. My experience and observations of it have been less than joyful, and I suppose the scars run a little deeper than one would expect.

As for the dating a foreign national, to tell you the truth, as I think I've mentioned before, I haven't dated. Ever. No, not even with women. I tend to avoid relationships like the plague.

And as you say, it is unfair that the law doesn't treat us the same way as they treat married couples. And I DO agree that perhaps some laws providing 'domestic partnership rights for these aberrant freakshows' should be enacted. In my own way.

I just don't think it should be called marriage.

It makes me feel like a phony. Makes me feel like the gay people are becoming phony - it's like saying 'Look at me, I'm married, you HAVE to accept me now'. Like you said, you don't need to be forced to conform to some higher level of conduct when you are quite capable of doing it on your own, that's what marriage is, forcing you to conform to a level of conduct befitting a marriage.

Let's face it, the benefits are minimal and can and HAVE been achieved through other means. Parental rights, medical decisions, all these powers of attorney can be done up legally without much hassle through means other than marriage. Besides, prenuptials negate most benefits in case of divorce anyway.

But I think it boils down to this: Perhaps, perhaps if the gay people really need to feel that they belong, that they need an antiquated ceremony to declare their love for one another, that they need to be bound to each other in the eyes of the law, then I say, let them do it. Let them tell the world of their love.

But for me, if I want to tell a person that I love them and them only, I'll just whisper it in their ear.

Dammit! I meant dim sum. Dim SUM. :p Bloody typos. Sorry.

I call it freudian.

*drily* Indeed. */drily*

No words of dissent? :)

No words of dissent; I don't feel that it is my place to overly influence other peoples' attitudes, let alone attitudes that can demonstrate tremendous plasticity at one point or another in a person's life. Cynicism isn't unusual, or particularly unhealthy, just recognise that it won't make life easy for those people who do try to connect to you, as surely they will. Believing in love isn't naïve, by any account, for there is plenty of it around; people can be pretty fickle in all things, even love, and yet there are countless couples around us who have been together for decades. Much as people are quick to forget the weeks of great weather after two days of rain, we don't notice them; they aren't screaming and throwing vases at one another in the throes of acrimonious divorce.

Anyway, you shouldn't be here - go out and enjoy the weekend... eat roti canai, chilli crab, kankong belacan; all the things that I'd kill to get my hands on. Hope work is going better now.

I wish I could enjoy the weekend, but I'm stuck here writing a business proposal that's due in by the middle of next week. Fun. Oh well, glad you're having more success with work than I am. :) Enjoy your weekend.

Just caught up with the latest food menu selection.

ksquare: thanks for the typo, I had a great laugh about morning dim "cum", I guess I can never look at Siu Lung Bao (the ones with lots of juices inside) the same again ;-)

Horizon - Oh thank you so much for mentioning that... now I'll never be able to look at it the same way again... ;P Hmm... now I feel kinda peckish. >;)

ksquare's rambling, often contradictory comments are clearly indicative of the fact that s/he has not actually read the decision handed down by the Ontario Superior Court. Maybe a little homework is in order for ksquare before s/he runs off at the mouth.

I'm intrigued, which part of my rambling comments were contradictory? I admit I'm long winded, but that's more a case of lack of mental organization lately than anything else I'm hoping. I can be fairly concise when I need to be.

As for the Ontario Superior Court ruling, indeed I haven't read it, but I wasn't commenting on it either, I was merely expressing my personal views on gay marriage.

Regarding what I DO know about the Ontario Superior Court ruling on the matter is only from what I was told from a friend living in the province (a she). The court has simply regarded the inability of a same sex couple to marry as unconstitutional even though the common spouse law of the province states that 'marriage is a consensual commitment between a man and a woman', and ordered the city of Toronto to issue a marriage license to the maligned couple. However, I've heard that one of the Justices has suspended the ruling for two years so that the laws could be amended properly to accomodate for them if I'm not mistaken... I had this conversation quite awhile ago and my memory is rather occupied with other matters at the moment.

Actually, I'm rather flattered that you took the trouble to read through all that I wrote. Perhaps I was betting that most people's eyes would have glazed through part way through the posting and simply have jumped to conclusions about my opinions. Or at least simply managed to get the gist of it without bothering to read the nuances implied.

But I'm still curious, which parts are contradictory? If you would be kind enough to point them out, perhaps I could either apologize for my imprecise and addled ramblings or supply a clarification to what I said. If it isn't too much of a bother of course.

Oh, and by the way, I am a 'he'.

P.S. Sorry Stairs. :( Trouble seems to follow me around like a wet dog - you can't always see it coming, but it always smells.