Yeah me too. This reminds me of my former grandpa in law so much, or a sketch on Mr. Show. Yes, "former." Gay marriage also means gay divorce!

Seeing as marriage rates, even between men and women, are way down, this ruling probably effects like 2% of the population, tops. And of those who are effected, more than half are going to get gay-divorced within a couple years anyway, so really we're not looking at much of a change at all.

Did your former grandpa-in-law get gay-divorced, IZ? How did that work for him?

Oh wait, nevermind. I think it totally missed your point. You're talking about the grandpa of your bitch ex-wife, yes? The divorce was your own, I assume.

Still, I would like to imagine that your g-i-l got gay-divorced and filmed rants like this afterwards.

Incidentally, informal PoeTV poll here, how many of you know people your own age who are actually married?

I know three. One of them is a Christian Army vet who got married last year; she is very nice and they seem happy. Another is a friend who essentially got pressed into a shotgun wedding; he and his now-wife were living together when the poor girl got dropped by her mother's health insurance (Yale). This was bad, because she's got all kinds of health issues (lupus, SARS, bread allergies, etc). Since my friend also works at Yale, and spouses of Yale employees are allowed to keep their Yale health insurance, they had to get married within a little more than a week after getting the discontinuance notice from Yale. The final couple is a pair of crazy bisexual juggalo crusties who are truly meant for each other. They have like four kids, albeit all with different partners, and all of the kids live across the country in Portland.

Everyone else I know under the age of thirty-five is either cohabiting longterm with a non-marital partner, is a single parent with a string of failed relationships (never married), or is currently divorced.

I have a couple of radio friends who have been married for a long time, but we don't get together much, so the friendship is more like associates with mutual respect for our abilities rather than friends to hang out with. Some of that's a distance issue, but even on line we aren't in chat or tweeting.

No, most everyone I know is unattached by marriage, but some have SOs at different levels, and date and hook up with different people over time.

Still, it's kind of self-fulfilling it's it though? Over time I've had a few friends drop out of the ring when they got married and didn't have the ability to keep up friendships like before, so you're left with more unmarried friends, party down.

I also tend to have eccentric friends who have too many other important things to do to be married.

Boomer

A stripper I used to date just got married, kinda because she got knocked up, and a good friend of mine who I think is 32.. yeah that's all I can think of. In all honesty mine was a shotgun wedding too. I was 21 and we decided to get married over a mostly emptied box of Franzia. Didn't think she'd remember proposing to me in the morning. I did the same thing, proposed to someone through a text message just yesterday but she's on the road and is leaving town today. We hung out for the first time since Madison Wisconsin in 20XX I dunno last night.. I'd go with her but I guess I can't/shouldn't.. it would probably turn out like the last time. Personally I like being single now. Technically I'm still married but that's for the courts to decide if she ever stops hiding herself away and her friends telling me that she's dead.. I don't give a flying fuck; basically love costs 233.45 to end, but it's free to start again

Grandpa in law was one of those grandpas who had never left the town he grew up in except to go to Branson Missiouri to see Yakov Smirnoff kinda grandpas, because Garrison Keilor is too crude for him kinda grandpas. But overall I think he liked me: I helped him slaughter his chickens even though I was a vegetarian freak from Orygun and he didn't mind when I stepped outside to smoke weed and locked the door behind me at 4 in the morning. Overall good guy.

EH, gen-X'rs don't believe in love, loyalty, or children, so no. All gen-x marriages are either to enable being an alcoholojunkie, have a place to live while polyamorizing with Planet Earth, or... okay, I can't think of a third one. Drugs or opensex. When both don't have a stake in the house they live in, divorce is inevitable.

I'm married and most of the people I work with are, as well. We're all in our late twenties/early thirties. I love my husband and I like being married. :P

"insure". Sorry, I haven't had my Ensure today.

You're changing the definition of "actuary tables".

Well, the trouble with finding that people have a "constitutional right" to marry, is that such language opens the door for the state to start prosecuting religious groups who refuse to acknowledge or accommodate non-traditional marriage rituals {1}. This is not outside the realm of possibility, as precedent has already been set in recent years, as with the Ocean Grove incident and the state and federal lawsuits which ensued {2}{3}.

Using the coercive power of the state to deny people their right to happiness is tyranny without a doubt. Telling other people how to live - socially engineering them to think and act in ways approved by our moral code but not their own - is tyrannical, too. And crying about tyranny, then condoning it when it no longer affects us, is definitely "retarded". You are correct about all of these things, Mr Pain.

In victory or defeat, it helps to keep some perspective, and to be mindful at all times of where exactly our own horse is in this race, lest we slip and become Christians ourselves.


{1} http://bigstory.ap.org/article/churches-changing-bylaws-after-gay- marriage-ruling
{2} http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/03/nyregion/03ocean.html?pagewanted =all
{3} http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/nyregion/18grove.html

The only reason the State has jurisdiction over this particular religious ceremony is because Chirstians allowed the State to codify and regulate it in the first place. Had the barrier between Church and State been maintained, Churches would still control the marriage ceremony, and none of this would be happening. They could be as pissy as they want about it, and protection of religion would apply. But that wasn't enough apparently. They wanted the State to institute their religious beliefs for all Americans. And now, the State is doing so.

I don't see that to be case, Mr Wildcat. First off, "they" is a rather broad and poorly-defined pronoun. There is no one singular Christian hivemind, just as there is no one singular gay hivemind, singular liberal hivemind, or singular American hivemind. Who is this "they", exactly? Second, it's not at all clear yet that the State *will* be weaponizing itself against Christian churches (at least not successfully and on a large scale). I rather suspect it won't, at least not in the near future, because while there is doubtlessly a fringe movement that would like to see such a thing happen (and we should oppose these people at all costs), the Constitution is perfectly clear on the limits of government authority over the activities of churches, and we are still a good decade or two away from the Constitution being thrown out completely. Third, even if both of your statements were true - if "they" brought this on "themselves", and if the State really is about to start oppressing Christians - then it does not follow that the rest of us should just sit back and allow such a thing to happen! I don't know if that was your intended meaning (I doubt it was - you are one of the "good-aligned PoEsters" who rarely ever argues the case for fascism), but your post does come off as rather apathetic and resigned towards these state of affairs. Two wrongs do not make a right, particularly if we go into things knowing full well that we do is wrong.

When a daddy sandworm & a mommy land whale love each other very much...

A woman with a large behind. Way to out yourselves as prejudiced cunts.

You fight the good fight Gmork! I will wave a banner for you.

You are fat by choice, Gmork. Your behavior causes real and measurable harm to the rest of society, in the form of healthcare bills that we, not you, must ultimately pay for. Your reckless, selfish hedonism is directly responsible for the proliferation of Big Agra, frankenfoods, Rain Forest clearcutting, and ultimately global warming.

We aren't prejudiced. We're the victims. Stop colonizing us with your plate.

My stars are for pillager for getting to a Dune reference before me.

I though Gmork was having a piss, but after looking through the hopper, I see he's right. Honest to god Gmork, I thought it was a side of ham. How right I was...

The eleven herbs and spice must flow.

the xtains are the bottoms, LCRs the tops