Response to Donkey vs. Elephant commentary on gay marriage

My last blog was about gay rights, gay adoption rights, ect. so I didn't really want to touch on the same issue in this last blog...but...looking through classmates blogs I stumbled upon comments made on the Donkey vs. Elephant blog. The blogger disagrees with gay marriage and since I completely disagree with everything said in the blog I am compelled to comment on it.

You said:
Children who are raised by gay parents face hardships that children with strait parents don’t.

Are you saying that children of straight parents are not picked on or teased by classmates? Kids are kids, there will always be the bullies who pick on other kids. Always, it's a part of life. It is the homophobic parents who put these ideas in their childrens heads.

You said:
Children need both a maternal and paternal influence to be healthy.

This claim is just a little ridiculous, I'm not sure how to respond. According to the 2006 census there were 12.9 million one-parents families in the United States. That is a lot of unhealthy people being raised according to your claim. I do think that two people raising a child is preferable to one person but I don't think the child would discriminate between two mommies, two daddies or a mom and dad.

You said:
One other claim that I cannot stand is that gay people are the way they are because of genetics. There are no genes that determine one’s orientation. Being gay is a choice people make for whatever reason and all choices have consequences.

Being gay is a choice huh? I don't know why anyone in their right mind would CHOOSE to be gay. I was raised in a Mormon household. I don't know if you are familiar with their teachings but like a lot of churches they believe gay people are going to hell. For a long time I believed this too. It has been a very long struggle but I've almost made it to the end, complete acceptance. I KNOW this was not my choice. It's so much harder than being straight, why would anyone choose that? Gay teens are 300 times more likely to committ suicide than straight teens. Does that mean they are happy about being gay? No. Would they be straight if they could? Probably.

You said:
I personally do not agree with gay marriage.

As an American all I want is the equal rights. This IS a civil rights issue. There have been many parallels to the African-American civil rights movement of the sixties. Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe writes, "For if opposing same-sex marriage is like opposing civil rights, then voters who backed Proposition 8 are no better than racists, the moral equivalent of those who turned the fire hoses on blacks in Birmingham in 1963". It wasn't very long ago that interracial couples were not allowed to marry. In 1967 in the Loving v. Virginia case, the Supreme Court ruled by a 9-0 unanimous decision that bans on interracial marriages were unconstitutional. Today would anyone think twice about two people of a different race marrying?