The problem with "domestic partnership"Follow

I'm not but then I don't really care either way. Given that the thread was nominally about gay marriage vs civil partnerships, the whole STD thing was a not-very-interesting side path from Varrus.

Hence, the default disclaimer at the top of my first post.

I was simply pointing out that regardless of what kind of whacko argument Varus was trying to apply here regarding STD transmission, the counter that "Gay folks who use protection don't have any more risk of STD infection" was no less ridiculous.


Attack his argument for being a stupid reason to argue against Gay marriage or whatever it was he was arguing. But don't try to argue that gay people are not at a much higher risk for STD infection. That's just an incredibly stupid argument to make IMO. It smacks of clinging to some kind of politically correct dogma rather than any sort of honest assessment of the issue at hand. Refusal to acknowledge *any* negative consequences from the actions of groups you're defending is a pretty good sign that your position isn't based on rational assessment and can probably be ignored.

Getting back on track (and my initial response, but I've posted it a zillion times already). They have this thing called "Power of Attorney". It allows you to make decisions about someone else in given situations (like if the other person is in the hospital). This power is available without being married. Thus, arguing that since it's included in the bundle of powers and benefits granted by marriage, it is not alone a good argument to change the whole of marriage.


If the military offered a special deal to military personel in which they could buy a home, life insurance, a fully automatic assault rifle, and a car all at the same time for some collected low rate, it would be silly for someone to argue that by being denied this combo deal, he's being denied the "right" to buy a home, or a car, or life insurance. The same logic applies here IMO. Marriage includes a whole set of things. Even without getting into why that particular set of things are bundled together under that one umbrella legal status, it's somewhat silly to argue that individual components of that bundle are being denied purely because the entire bundle is being denied. Doubly so given that the particular power needed in this case is easily obtained by anyone and for any reason (actually, don't need any reason or qualification at all).

So a couple which has already LEGALLY REGISTERED their domestic partnership--an institution which is supposed to insure this right already--still needs to jump through legal hoops to be assured of a right they already legally registered in order to have.

Is that what passes for logic in Gbaji-land?

Are you denying that STD transmission rates aren't higher among gay populations than straight? I could dig up condom use surveys, but those only tell you what people reported on the surveys. The proofs in the pudding here. Again. How do you explain the higher transmission rates? Clearly, gay men are having unprotected sex at a higher rate and with more potentially infected partners than straight men are. Which means some combination of the number of encounters, the number of partners, and the rate at which condoms are used is involved.

I don't need to go digging through the studies and surveys to make that statement. It's as obviously "true" as stating that the sun is more likely to rise in the east than in the west.


What I was trying to get at is that gay men engage in riskier sexual behavior than straight men. If a straight man doesn't use a condom when having sex with his wife of 20 years who's had her tubes tied, barring infidelity neither of them are magically going to contract an STD. For most straight couples, the primary reason to use a condom is to avoid pregnancy. When couples get older and that is less of a concern (either because they're trying to have a child, or can't anymore), guess what? They're pretty darn "safe" not using a condom. Thus, straight up condom use statistics are misleading, aren't they?

I'll freely admit to having mangled my words when I first wrote that, but that's what I was *trying* to get across. It's the more relevant statistic than just quoting the exact percentage of sexual encounters in which gay or straight people use condoms. My main point was that simply arguing that as long as gay men use condoms they're just as "safe" as straight men was irrelevant.

I've made this point a number of times in the past.

If the gay rights groups had spent the last 30 years creating a "gay couple's cookbook" of legal documents which already exist and would provide them with all the things they'd need from a civil contract perspective to live a shared life as a couple, rather than chasing after marriage, we wouldn't be hearing these sob stories.

Civil unions are a stepping stone to marriage. The whole prop 8 situation in California pretty much proved that. No one in the gay rights movement thinks of civil unions or domestic partnerships as the "endpoint" in their crusade. They exist solely so that they can point at the ways in which they still aren't the same as marriage.


My argument has been all along that the very insistence on a "marriage or bust" has created as many of the problems facing gay couples today as anything else. If visiting your loved one in the hospital when he/she is sick and being able to make decisions about his/her health is important then shouldn't you simply do what's needed to have that power? But instead, gay couples have been convinced by their own "leaders" to follow a course which delays their ability to get these things and puts them directly into those kind of sucky situations as described in the OP.

That's done deliberately so that they'll be more upset about the fact that they don't have marriage. Let's face it. If every single gay couple simply obtained a standard contract which included all the things they want and could get it notarized and have it be legally binding, they'd have a hard time getting folks to show up for the gay marriage protests, wouldn't they?

The suffering in this case was not caused because there was a lack of laws, rights, powers, etc, but purely because the gay couple in this case is being used as a pawn in an ideological conflict. Ok. And also because a health care provider made a stupid mistake. But it's a "OMG! See how civil unions aren't as good as marriage!!!" type of mistake, so it works for the cause...


Guess what? The exact same mistake could occur if the state had changed their marriage laws to include gay couples. Does changing marriage fix this? I don't think so...

Inequality is not the fault of the victim. Gay people are under no obligation to force the government to give them rights, nor are they under any obligation to play by the most shot-term beneficial course of action and gain de facto what cannot be obtained de jure; it is the government who is under an obligation to continually investigate and administer rights to its populace. The fact that you can not only say something like this but probably also believe it is either relevant or right and have anyone take you seriously makes me want to projectile vomit.



It is bigotry and prejudice which creates these problems gbaji. I'm not under any obligation in the world to take the path of least resistance in demanding my ******* rights.

Edited, May 4th 2009 11:52pm by Pensive

I'm still not clear on why a gay man has less chance of using a condom than a straight man.

They clash with his nekkidness?

I think the uneducated assumption is that a gay man doesn't have to worry about getting his partner pregnant, so is more likely to go unprotected since the biggest issue to the heteronormative mind is thus taken care of.

I'd like to see some citations or surveys regardless.

That's what I thought it'd be, but his response made me think he's got some other logical Mobius loop stashed somewhere.

Best. Analogy. Ever.

And once again, here is where we run into the biggest problem with your argument. You're making blanket assumptions and trying to stuff people under an umbrella that simply will not cover them.

"Gays" would be both homosexual men and women.

Nearly HALF (47%) the gay male population either doesn't practice **** sex, or does so with protection.

We have already established that homosexual WOMEN are at seriously DECREASED risk of std transmission.

Therefore, you CANNOT get away with claiming that "gays" partake in these acts and are at . No amount of repeating it ad nauseum is going to make it any more accurate. You are, quite simply, WRONG.

SOME gay males partake in these acts, but 53% is not a vast majority and by no means gives you any license whatsoever to lump all gay males under that particular umbrella.



No, it's not. It's a sweeping generalization.

What's more, it's irrelevant. Using the possibility of std transmission to somehow invalidate a couple's right to have access to each other in times of crisis is absurd. We don't deny any other subsection of the populace rights based upon their susceptibility to disease. Would you disallow Jews from marrying one another because of the potential to produce a child with Tay-Sachs?





Edited, May 5th 2009 7:52am by Ambrya