So cruelty is OK, as long as it's for religious reasons

That depends... Simply disagreeing with someones life is not bullying. Harrassing them is. Telling joe one time that sally thinks he is wrong is not bullying or if it comes up in conversation. Trying to affect joe's life negatively is

Should the government do civil unions for everyone? Yes. Should churches have to marry Everyone? No

People will always suck and will always be mean but I think there is a difference between true bullying and just being an asshat. I think bullying comes in when its a repetetive behavior and they just won't let up

^This!

Minority or not, the fact that legislators are responding and agreeing is enough to irritate me. The numbers don't matter, what matters is that the kids are suffering because of it and the bullies now have a LAW to back them up! All they have to do is claim religion and they can get off, to a point, and that shouldn't be allowed.

That is just absurd. I don't care what you believe in, that doesn't mean you get to pick on other people and use your beliefs as a crutch to do so. Sod off with that crap.

Thats why I said that I think the worst part is the politicians who are so easily bought off

Why do you think they have to buy off the politicians? Plenty of them would do this all on their own given half a chance.

Oy vey... Bought off/easilly swayed/easily threatened/insert any number of reasons a politician would do something unpopular

Yes I am sure many would do something like this on their own If they could but they are so easily pressured, especially during an election year

Should churches have to marry everyone? NO, of course not. NO one is saying they should. Churches can already pick and choose who they marry as that is their right. HOWEVER, churches do NOT own the rights to marriage. Marriage is not exclusive to churches. I am MARRIED to my husband, not "civilly unioned" to him and there is no church involved.

I don't think bullying has to be repetitive to be bullying. To me it is tormenting, harassing, physically or emotionally assaulting someone you are fairly sure can't retaliate for some reason.

Very true. Marriage predates Christianity by a long time, and Judaism as well.

Well... Whatever. I think everyone should have access to the rights whether its marriage, common law, civil union, whatever. They should be able to be with their partner in te hospital etc etc

But then I think the government should be put of the business of marrige all together

Why? Marriage is the contract that gives us those rights. Why do we need a new term just because the church is not affiliated with it?

I am seriously not trying to be snarky at all. I just dont understand this line of thinking. Marriage has pretty much always been a contract recognized by "government" of some type or another. Why because gays want to now get married (and have had the right before throughout history) should the term have to change? Why should government have to "get out of marriage business"?

I dont know, IMO if the people who dont want their marriage to be called the same as gay marriages (and I am NOT saying anyone here feels this way, but I have heard this argument) then they can get a civil union or pick a new word.

Ok so what constitutes tormenting, harassing etc that isn't repetetive? I mean... There are always threads about the duggars here. Many don't agree with their lifestyle and often there are pages upon pages of jokes about them, criticizing their lifestyle, their parenting, etc. is that bullying or is that OK? Is it OK because we aren't saying it to their faces?

Is it bullying if aomeone just doesn't agree with a lifestyle? Is it bullying if it comes up in conversation and someone says "i don't agree with so and so lifestyle and here is why"?

I do not agree with the hateful things people do and say (to any group this isn't exclusive to homosexuals) but then sometimes I also wonder that if you say one little thing you are suddenly labelled all kinds of thins. Just like when Obama was elected and it seemed that if you didn't like him you were automatically racist

I do NOT agree with bullying but you also can't stop people from having opinions and I think there is a difference. Teasing and tormenting is not OK but simply disagreeing is a part of life

I agree that government SHOULD be out of marriage. Marriage should be between the participants, not the participants and a legislative body. Let us designate who has access to us in hospitals, who our beneficiaries are, etc.

I don't think bullying has to be repetitive to be bullying. To me it is tormenting, harassing, physically or emotionally assaulting someone you are fairly sure can't retaliate for some reason.

Public figures are a whole 'nother category. Bullying is something that is personal.

I've sort of come to the conclusion that it is too important to both gay couples and secular couples that their relationship be called a marriage than to support the "everyone has a civil union" solution to the issue. I used to support that . . . marriage is religious, and civil unions are secular. But the word matters. For that matter, when Mike and I get married next year, it will be before a judge . . . and what we will be doing is getting married, not "getting unioned."

Nor can the government completely get out of the marriage business. Marriage is partially a contract, carrying major legal obligations. Even if we abolished joint tax filing, there are many, many reasons to have marriages legally recognized . . . and that means the government (at some level) can't get out of the business entirely.

I've come to the conclusion that the government should just call them all marriages. If a religion doesn't want to marry a couple, or doesn't want to recognize a marriage, that is absolutely their prerogative (we have religious freedom here! Just like if a religion wants to recognize multiple marriages, they should be free to do so, but the government shouldn't have to . . but that's a whole other discussion), but the government needs to recognize all marriages that are lawfully registered with it equally as "marriages." Its the only fair solution. If you find the fact the government lets gay people get married, then just say to yourself and your kids, "We don't believe that those are real marriages, because yadda yadda . . ." Heck the Catholics have done it for years with people getting remarried (secularly, or in another church) after a having a divorce.

Edit: Renee is right that you could just designate things instead of having formal marriage recognition. My concern there is that it by and large wouldn't happen consistently. People wouldn't understand, and wouldn't get around to, the paperwork, wouldn't know everything they had to do. Lawyers would clean up selling "marriage packages."

The convenient thing about marriage, from a public interest standpoint, is that it provides a set of defaults . . . you get married and this, this, and this, happen automatically. That can be a problem in its own right, of course, but it makes things a whole lot simpler, both for the courts (which have to settle any disputes) and for the couple themselves.

Well for one thing, because I don't nessecarily think you should suddenly become privvy to all iinds of tax breaks and such just because you got hitched... Especially with the divorce rate as it is and people getting married just for the benefits (like immigration and such).

Then you have issues of not being allowed to see a loved one at the hospital just because you aren't married or on the otherhand the case with the woman who was braindead and there was the big to do about pulling her feeding tube or not and the husband got to
Make the decision even though it had been years and he had moved on and started another family but the aimple fact that a divorce wasn't even possible he got to over ride her family (i actually agreed with his decision but still)

And then there are these issues. It becomes a political pawn to garner votes

Good solution, Lil.

I don't understand what you mean by not being able to retaliate? Do you mean they are not able or because the "victim" would then incriminate themselve if they did?

So because the duggars are in the public eye its not personal and its OK to ridicule and judge them? Is it OK to do the same to say ... Chaz bono? Public figure so its not personal right?

I don't really agree much with trying to compare cyber-bullying to bullying someone in person. Something said on a forum =/= something said to your face. It's simply different.

It's very much like libel and public figures. Here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_figure

Think of "unable to retaliate" in simple terms, like the front linemen on the football team picking on the 5'4" 120 lb. kid who wears funny clothes.

Really? So if these religious groups didn't say it to the face of a homosexual it wouldn't be bullying? It would just be people talking?

Listen, i am not defending bullying. I hate bullying I really do but I think a lot of time we look at something we are morally against and rationalize our behaviour but when we see the samething going on with something we don't find to be morally wrong and we are appalled at what is being said.

Ok so physically not able to fight back based on size or other such things and NOT for fear that you will then go from victim to criminal (ie: person is being picked in, they fight back physically, suddenly they have an assault charge on their record... I know people this has happened to)