Making it legal can make it recognised. My son lives in Virginia which had legalised segregation by race. Separate schools, separate churches, separate hotels and separate toilets. The Supreme Court declared separate schools illegal. At first when one went into a restaurant one would find both blacks and whites but all black tables and all white tables. Gradually they started to mix. Now you see intermingling and mixed dating. It took a while but mixing now is voluntary. I go back there every two or three years to visit him and notice the changes.

I think it will be the same if same-sex marriage is made legal. At first some people will be uneasy about, but it gradually will be accepted and recognised.

David,I dont mean to rain on your parrade, but these are two very different scenarios, as the difference between colored and white are instantly recognizable.

You can have a bar full of gays and non gays, and have no idea who is married, if gays be allowed to marry that is.

You can also have a group of females/males sitting together and have no idea whether any of them form a couple.

So short of having a tattoo or say an arm band, I think your example has flaws.

As I say, I doubt they (gays) will be satisfied with the legal right, as I am sure they will want recognition.

After all, many married men these days, myself included (27yrs) domt wear a ring.

So strangers would not know if we were married, or just an item.

I hope all this fuss about gay marriage is not just the beginning.

Dear rehctub,

What are you worried about when you write, "I hope all this fuss about gay marriage is not just the beginning."

Beginning of what? I am a man married to a woman for over 30 years. I don't see how same sex marriage will affect my marriage at all. If one of us is in hospital the other can get in to be with the one who is sick even though other people may not be allowed to. That is because our relationship is recognised. If same sex marriage is allowed it will be the same with people with that type of relationship. They will also have inheritance and other rights other married people have, and I see no reason why they shouldn't have those rights.

Exactly what are you worried about?

Dear rehctub,

You didn't rain on my parade at all. Whether black and white people are recognisable is not the point. The point was that making something legal resulted in making it acceptable. In the case of racial segregation making race mixing legal resulted in making it acceptable. Those who do not want to mix are free not to do so. If same sex marriage will be made legal I think it will become acceptable. Those who don't want to be married to someone of the same sex will be free not to do so. What is different from the present is that those who want to be married to someone of the same sex will be free to do so, and I see no reason why they shouldn't be free to do so.

What will happen is that we'll just have two classes of marriage but same sex marriage will always be regarded as the lesser form, the "Clayton's Marriage", like White people who convert to Islam or Judaism, they're not "really" Jews or Muslims but under the law they can demand that people outside their faith treat them as such. Same sex marriage is always going to be second best because it's been created out of thin air by an an amendment to act of parliament by politicians who are roundly hated by the people and who agreed to starve then bomb Iraqi children so long as they kept their jobs, I'd hate to be in a situation where Warmongers, sell outs and corrupt union stooges were my only moral support. The "rights" of gays could also be taken away at the stroke of a pen if the political and managerial castes were threatened by, oh let's say the flood of hostile, medieval minded Third World immigrants who are quietly filling the nooks and crannies of suburbia. What are gay going to do in decades to come when there's two or three million Muslims and Third world fundamentalist Christians on the electoral roll?

Jay,
A fairly comprehensive rant.
Is there anybody you don't hate?
Anthony
http://www.observationpoint.com.au