Affirmative Action [Preferences] For Gays?

I have long suspected that many Americans oppose equal rights for gays because they have seen earlier demands for equal rights morph into demands for preferences. An interesting article in the NYT Week in Review today suggests that tension may underlie conflicting attitudes toward civil unions and gay marriage.

The thrust of much of what the article discusses is neatly summarized in a concluding quote from William Schneider, the CNN analyst: “Look, if you don’t call it marriage, you’ll get more support.”

Perhaps civil unions : gay marriage :: affirmative action : racial preferences.

Say What? (3)

  1. Cobb August 11, 2003 at 5:34 pm | | Reply

    Holy Matrimony:God::Civil Union:State

    Which is marriage?

  2. Laura August 12, 2003 at 7:43 pm | | Reply

    Let me get up off the floor, where I fell in shock: I agree with Cobb.

    I don’t see how somebody else’s arrangements affect my marriage. If heterosexual people who divorce and remarry 8 or 9 times can’t be thought to affect the sanctity of my marriage; or people who openly commit adultery can’t; then how can the union of gay people affect it?

    I can see civil unions being OK. I can see unofficial blessings being OK in churches; they had better be, because they’re already happening. Where in there the holy matrimony part falls, I don’t know. I guess it’s an individual thing that couples have or they don’t. It would probably be a matter of grave disappointment among many of my family and friends if they knew, but I really can’t drum up much disapproval of the gay marriage issue.

  3. Gay Preferences? April 19, 2013 at 9:53 pm |

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