Same sex or same "orientation"?

[LOVEthroughINTELLECT]

What a distortion of reality and reason this "sexual orientation" business is.

Emissions from coal burning power plants are contaminating the environment so much that pregnant women can't eat fish. Potential natural and man-made disasters, and disasters that are a combination of both (see Hurricane Katrina and the U.S. Gulf Coast--especially New Orleans--for an example of the latter) threaten heavily populated areas and government at all levels and private citizens are by many accounts not adequately prepared to respond. A major earthquake is expected to occur in the New Madrid seismic zone in the Midwestern U.S., yet government and private citizens seem to be paying little attention and making few preparations. Toxic methamphetamine labs are dotting the landscape and creating hazards for the defenseless children of the people who run them as well as for the general public. While ideologues quarrel over whether or not climate change is caused by human activity, nearly everybody agrees that climate change is happening--and nearly everybody is ignoring it and making no preparations to deal with it. Entire small island nations could end up underwater due to climate change. Yet, at this time a year ago during the first U.S. presidential election since the terrorist attacks on U.S. soil--during the first U.S. presidential election since the start of the war on terror--what did I find dominating letters to the editor, syndicated columns, editorials, news articles, etc.? So-called same-sex marriage.

All kinds of evils that I am supposed to be leery of were thrown around. Hypocrisy. Unequal protection under the law. Violence. Hate crimes. "Moral decay". The decline of the American family. The decline of civilization. The wrath of God.

Well, as I was wondering how the cities of St. Louis, MO and Memphis, TN will make it through that inevitable earthquake, and as I was wondering how I can plan my diet to minimize mercury exposure without giving up fish, I observed the "same-sex marriage" controversy as an objective third party. Okay, I wasn't really objective. I have been mistreated by both the pro-homosexual and anti-homosexual camps. Nonetheless, from my vantage point the "controversy" raised a lot of questions.

Where, exactly, is the unequal protection under the law? The law in most places has been that one man can marry one woman, right? I have never heard of a law saying that one heterosexual man can marry one heterosexual woman. A so-called homosexual man has been allowed under the law to marry one woman the same as a so-called heterosexual man, right? In fact, many men have married women and then later revealed that they were homosexual all along (see the former New Jersey governor for a highly publicized example). Again, where is the unequal protection under the law?

What if the law is changed so that one man can marry one man. Will that mean that a so-called heterosexual man can then marry another so-called heterosexual man? Or will only men who both have the homosexual "orientation" be allowed to marry? Will a so-called heterosexual man be allowed to marry a so-called homosexual man?

Several years ago the company I was employed by started allowing employees to share benefits with their same-sex partners. The partners had to sign an affidavit swearing that they were in a committed relationship (and probably an exclusive relationship as well; my memory is vague). I am not a lawyer, so I don't know exactly what type of relationship the company had in mind. But I think it is safe to say that the employee had to be more than roommates with his/her partner. I think it is safe to say that they had to be lovers. In other words, if I were to sign that affidavit so that my "heterosexual" self could share my medical benefits with my "heterosexual" roommate it would be fraud.

But why would it be fraud? Why do I have to share intimacy with somebody to share resources? Isn't that a double standard against people who don't want a love life? We all have people whom we care about and want to take care of. If equal protection under the law is the standard, then if an unmarried, childless faculty member of a university in the U.S. meets some bright young man in a so-called Third World country who doesn't have the resources to get a formal education shouldn't he/she be allowed to use his/her free tuition for his/her children on that young man? Why does it have to be a university employee's own biological or legally adopted child? Again, we all have people whom we care about. Why are certain relationships such as intimate partnerships and parent/child relationships given privilege? And if the gay rights people really believe in equal protection under the law then why don't I hear them fighting for equal treatment under the law for all relationships?

It is a civil rights issue, I am told. Martin Luther King, Jr. said "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere", it is pointed out. If I don't jump on the bandwagon then I am guilty of complicity to evil, it is implied.

Sorry, but I don't see the unequal protection under marriage law for homosexuals. Sorry, but what I see is a movement for special rights, not constitutional rights or the unalienable rights that Jefferson wrote about in the Declaration of Independence. I'll say it again: People, have you no shame?

Of course, maybe I've been so busy thinking about earthquakes in the Midwest and defenseless children's' brains being destroyed by meth labs that I have missed the "evil" of past and present marriage law in the U.S.

 

[ChristianCenturion]

... Martin Luther King, Jr. said "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere", it is pointed out...

Hmmm... would that double edge claim also include the injustice of denial of citizens representation, forced endorsement, allowing the government to teach morality issues in public schools that are DIRECTLY against my First Amendment Rights, declaring that the BSofA are public enemy #1 or dictating what I can or can't read in the Bible? Or are some just supposed to not see those?

 

[Patzak]

Sorry, but I don't see the unequal protection under marriage law for homosexuals. Sorry, but what I see is a movement for special rights, not constitutional rights or the unalienable rights that Jefferson wrote about in the Declaration of Independence. I'll say it again: People, have you no shame?

What's special about a right to marry? Oh, of course, the special right to marry someone of your own sex. However, homosexuals won't be the only ones having that right from then on - everybody, including you, will have the right to marry a person of the same sex, you will just choose not to exercise it.

Really, I don't unsterstand why this is supposed to be such a complicated issue - if they want to marry, let them marry; it'll make lots of people very happy and they won't be hurting anybody. The way I see it is this: on one side you have a same-sex couple that love each other but cannot get married. On the other side you have people who feel that if that couple should be allowed to marry, their personal definition of a concept will become a bit distorted. I'd really say that the ethical thing to do in this situation would be to put actual people and their problems before our abstract notions of how marriage is defined and how the definition changes with same-sex marriages.

 

[LOVEthroughINTELLECT]

Hmmm... would that double edge claim also include the injustice of taxation without representation, forced endorsement, allowing the government to teach morality issues in public schools that are DIRECTLY against my First Amendment Rights, declaring that the BSofA are public enemy #1 or dictating what I can or can't read in the Bible? Or are some just supposed to not see those?

And what about people who don't have the good fortune of being a member of a recognized "minority"? It's like, if you want equal protection under the law then you are going to have to invent some sociological category to be a member of. In other words, the political and legal system we live in is increasingly structured to protect identity groups, not individuals. Whites, African-Americans, so-called heterosexuals, so-called homosexuals, the mentally ill, the disabled, the poor (yes, poor can be an identity, not just an income level), the overweight, etc., etc. If one is not a member of one of those identity groups then he has four options:

1.) Join one of those groups when possible. A white man can't exactly join the African-American identity group, but I suppose any man could join the homosexual identity group.

2.) Create a new identity group. Left-handers unite!!

3.) Change the laws so that they protect all citizens and so that they do not recognize constructed sociological categories.

4.) Live without the same protections under the law that most of the population has.

A good illustration of what I am talking about is so-called "smokers' rights". Laws prohibiting smoking indoors in certain public places violate smokers' rights, smokers assert. It is discrimination against smokers, they complain. Well, I don't know about that. But what I do know is that when my city council debated and then legislated an ordinance prohibiting smoking indoors in most places open to the public that many supporters and opponents framed it as smokers vs. non-smokers. It was framed as the rights of one group vs. the rights of another group (There's that identity group thing again). Some people were calling for compromises that would as much as possible uphold the rights of both groups.

The mistake was framing the whole issue politically around groups and writing the law in a way that would pit one group against the other. The law could have been written so that it didn't wittingly or unwittingly recognize groups. I would have done it this way: Make a law setting minimum standards for indoor air quality. That way, no group could complain that they were being unfairly targeted. That way, no group could claim that the law affects them unequally. The owners and managers of indoor environments could decide for themselves how to meet the minimum standards. They could ban smoking entirely. They could allow smoking only on certain days of the week and then clean the air before the other days. Etc. By making the law regulate the air rather than regulate people's behavior, justice might be optimally ensured. The air doesn't organize into identity groups, if you know what I mean.

I am not a historian, but I think it is a misrepresentation of Marting Luther King, Jr. and a misrepresentation of the Civil Rights movement to compare their struggle to the activism of all of these group movements we now have. The Civil Rights movement was about undoing social structures and political institutions. It was a struggle against institutionalized racism, not a struggle of one group against other groups. Indeed, members of the white majority were victims of the system as well, it is my understanding. Members of the white majority lived in fear just like members of the black minority, it is my understanding. The white people who resisted the system met the fire hoses, dogs and roach-infested jail cells just like the black people who resisted, it is my understanding. The Civil Rights movement was about non-violently resisting injustice, not about one group against another. Members of all groups have benefited from the dismantling and eradication of the social structures and political institutions that maintained injustice against African-Americans.

And I think it is hogwash when people say that rights were "given" to black people. If we believe the Declaration of Independence, rights come with being human and are not something that is given or taken. Rights are either upheld or not upheld.

And apparently if you want all of your rights upheld in today's society you had better figure out a way to be a member of a divisive identity group.

 

[LOVEthroughINTELLECT]

What's special about a right to marry? Oh, of course, the special right to marry someone of your own sex. However, homosexuals won't be the only ones having that right from then on - everybody, including you, will have the right to marry a person of the same sex, you will just choose not to exercise it.

I didn't say anything about a right to marry. The only right that I wrote about is the right to equal protection under the law. And I asked where is the unequal protection under marriage law for so-called homosexuals. If the state of Maine decides that one man can marry one woman, then a so-called homosexual man can enter such a contract the same as a so-called heterosexual man, right? Now if the state of Maine refused to issue a license to a so-called homosexual man to marry a woman, then that would be unequal protection under the law. But in all of the divisive controversy over so-called gay marriage nobody has ever brought to my attention one example of such unequal application to so-called homosexuals of marriage law.

There is also the constitutional right to enter into contracts, it is my understanding (I don't know; the U.S. Constitution is not something I have memorized). It could be agued that the Constitution is being applied unequally by prohibiting so-called homosexuals from entering into a contract. But, like I said, in that case the law is applied unequally to other people as well, such as unmarried, childless people; people who don't want a love life; etc.; not just to so-called homosexuals. Yet, I don't hear the gay rights movement calling for equal protection under the law for unmarried, childless people; people who don't want a love life; etc. Instead, I only hear them talking about their own rights and comparing their "plight" to that of African-Americans before the Civil Rights movement. Hence, the movement is easily perceived as one fighting for special rights for a few people.

 

[MartinM]

And I asked where is the unequal protection under marriage law for so-called homosexuals. If the state of Maine decides that one man can marry one woman, then a so-called homosexual man can enter such a contract the same as a so-called heterosexual man, right? Now if the state of Maine refused to issue a license to a so-called homosexual man to marry a woman, then that would be unequal protection under the law. But in all of the divisive controversy over so-called gay marriage nobody has ever brought to my attention one example of such unequal application to so-called homosexuals of marriage law.

This is precisely the argument made in Loving vs Virginia. Interracial marriage was forbidden for all regardless of race, and the punishment for breach of the law was the same for all regardless of race, therefore there was no racial discrimination and nobody's rights were violated. It didn't hold up then, and it doesn't hold up now.

 

[Patzak]

But, like I said, in that case the law is applied unequally to other people as well, such as unmarried, childless people; people who don't want a love life; etc.; not just to so-called homosexuals.

No, the law only states the right to marriage - and I don't see that right being denied to any of the groups you mentioned. Homosexuals want to marry, but cannot do so, people who don't want a love life could marry but they don't want to. So I wouldn't be surprised at the fact that the gay movement is not campaigning for the rights of those whose rights are not denied in any way.

Hence, the movement is easily perceived as one fighting for special rights for a few people.

I don't agree. I would call them special rights if they were fighting for, I don't know, the right to receive huge amounts of money from the government for being gay. But they are not campaigning for any right that the general public doesn't already have - and again, the right to same-sex marriage would not be limited to professing homosexuals but would extend to all US citizens.

 

[LOVEthroughINTELLECT]

No, the law only states the right to marriage - and I don't see that right being denied to any of the groups you mentioned. Homosexuals want to marry, but cannot do so, people who don't want a love life could marry but they don't want to. So I wouldn't be surprised at the fact that the gay movement is not campaigning for the rights of those whose rights are not denied in any way.




I don't agree. I would call them special rights if they were fighting for, I don't know, the right to receive huge amounts of money from the government for being gay. But they are not campaigning for any right that the general public doesn't already have - and again, the right to same-sex marriage would not be limited to professing homosexuals but would extend to all US citizens.

I didn't know that anybody has the right to marry. To say that people have the right to marry is like saying that people have the right to a state park. I don't think that anybody believes that they have the right to a state park. If anybody had the right to a state park that would mean that state legislatures are required by law to create state parks. Now if a state legislature does decide to create a state park and prohibits certain members of the public from safely, responsibly visiting that park because of their sex, skin color, etc., then that would be violating people's right to equal protection under the law. But the equal right to using a state park is one thing while the right to a state park is quite another.

If you are correct and we all have the right to marry, then that means that states are required by law to sanction marriage. That means that if the state of Michigan wanted to stop sanctioning civil marriages that it would be prohibited from doing so.

I have never heard anybody say that the Constitution guarantees everybody the right to marry and that states therefore must sanction marriages. The Constitution does say that states have to recognize contracts created under the laws of other states, it is my understanding (again, I am not a lawyer, and I have not memorized the U.S. Constitution). So even if Michigan didn't want to sanction marriages the state would have to recognize the marriage contracts of people in other states.

States do sanction marriage, of course. Therefore, all citizens have the Constitutional right to equal protection under the marriage laws that states create. As far as I can tell, states apply those laws equally to both so-called heterosexuals and so-called homosexuals.

But state-sanctioned marriage is one thing while a mere contract is quite another. A person can enter into a million different non-marriage contracts to get all of the "benefits of marriage", it is my understanding. But if the state creates some benefit that only married people can have, that is discrimination against people who don't choose to enter into a marriage contract or who for whatever reason (nobody will marry them, maybe) are unable to enter into a marriage contract. Does the Constitution allow discrimination based on failure to enter into a contract? I don't think so. So if the University of Texas at Austin was to compensate married faculty members with 2 parking spots each--one for the faculty member, one for his/her spouse--that would be discriminating against unmarried faculty members. The Constitutional thing to do (with respect to equal protection under the law) would be to either give everybody one parking spot or to give everybody 2 parking spots--the unmarried people could let their girlfriend/boyfriend, business partner, friend who just got out of prison, etc. use the 2nd parking spot.

What the gay rights movement is about, as far as I can tell, is getting that second parking spot for the partners of faculty members who are so-called homosexuals--the fact that someone who doesn't have a "partner" might want to use the 2nd parking spot for, say, the family of a young man he met through Special Olympics doesn't seem to be on the radar screen of what appears to be nothing more than one group's movement to get a share of the piece of pie reserved only for select members of society.

 

[Niels]

Sorry, but I don't see the unequal protection under marriage law for homosexuals. Sorry, but what I see is a movement for special rights, not constitutional rights or the unalienable rights that Jefferson wrote about in the Declaration of Independence. I'll say it again: People, have you no shame?

My problem with the situation is essentially a matter of semantics. You are correct in stating that homosexuals already have an equal right to marry (that is, to enter a union between man and woman as recognized by the state). However, a member of the gay community would obviously prefer a homosexual union instead of a straight union (they're gay, so can you blame 'em?). The difficulty is that a homosexual union isn't a union between man and woman, legal or otherwise, so it isn't, strictly speaking, a marriage (until the definition of marriage is fundamentally revised, which I simply don't see happening without rubbing a lot of people the wrong way... which is the last thing the gay community needs right now).

That said, I think civil unions which provide equal legal status/protection/rights, but go by a name other than 'marriage' are certainly reasonable. Personally, I'd rather the government stay out of peoples' personal lives altogether. But if the state is going meddle (which is nothing new in such matters), they may as well let folks legally mate with whomever they choose. I believe this to be possible without redefining marriage. The only problem I see with this is that it smells a little like "Separate but equal"... which never really was about equality. The thing is, I've never seen anything like "straight only" bathrooms, so we're probably comparing apples and oranges here.

Come to think of it, why not call all of those legally recongized unions "Civil Unions" regardless of orientation, and leave "Marriage" alone? Personally, I don't think most straight people care in the least what gay folks do. However, the very attempt to redefine marriage, rather than simply engaging in a quest for identical rights to a legal union) may be what's drawing most of the ire of the straight community.

 

[LOVEthroughINTELLECT]

My problem with the situation is essentially a matter of semantics. You are correct in stating that homosexuals already have an equal right to marry (that is, to enter a union between man and woman as recognized by the state). However, a member of the gay community would obviously prefer a homosexual union instead of a straight union (they're gay, so can you blame 'em?). The difficulty is that a homosexual union isn't a union between man and woman, legal or otherwise, so it isn't, strictly speaking, a marriage (until the definition of marriage is fundamentally revised, which I simply don't see happening without rubbing a lot of people the wrong way... which is the last thing the gay community needs right now).

I didn't know that the Constitution protects "unions".

Thomas Jefferson didn't write that all "unions" are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights... What Jefferson wrote was that all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights...

So let me get this straight: local, state and federal government has historically recognized and protected the unions between one man and one woman by sanctioning those unions legally through what we call marriage, but have not recognized and protected other unions. The failure to recognize and protect the union between one man and one man, three men, two women and one man, etc., etc., has been unequal protection under the law. And in the case of the failure to recognize and protect the union between a so-called homosexual man and another so-called homosexual man, the failure has been motivated by evil and prejudice rather than a well-intentioned but misguided effort to promote the general welfare.

Again, I didn't know that the Constitution protects unions. I thought the Constitution protects individuals.

Sanctioning marriage, I thought, is a way of protecting the Republic and protecting its individual members. You know...marriages and families provide a safe environment for children, social stability for the whole group, etc. etc. I didn't know that sanctioning marriage is really the state protecting unions (unions between two people, that is; not to be confused with the "more perfect union" that the Constitution created, the Union that Abraham Lincoln preserved, etc., etc.)

Even if Jefferson did intend to say that unions have rights, and even if the Constitution does guarantee rights to unions, the fact remains that the law does not protect all unions equally. And the fact remains that the gay rights movement appears to only want a share of the special protection given to the union between one man and one woman who have a romantic intimate relationship rather than wanting all unions to have equal protection under the law. The fact remains that the union between, say, a graduate student in the U.S. and a boy he met in Africa on a Peace Corps assignment is not protected equally under the law--before that graduate student can share a lot of his resources with that boy he is going to have to form a "partnership" with him.

 

[Niels]

Sanctioning marriage, I thought, is a way of protecting the Republic and protecting its individual members. You know...marriages and families provide a safe environment for children, social stability for the whole group, etc. etc. I didn't know that sanctioning marriage is really the state protecting unions

I actually tend to personally agree with most of what you're saying here. However, what I'm referring to has to do with the realities of hospital visitation rights, tax breaks, inheritance and such. Why should these things be denied to gay couples in committed, long-term relationships?

 

[ChristianCenturion]

I actually tend to personally agree with most of what you're saying here. However, what I'm referring to has to do with the realities of hospital visitation rights, tax breaks, inheritance and such. Why should these things be denied to gay couples in committed, long-term relationships?

Usually, people are to show proof of their assertions (in this case, it may be a misconception).
I know of no widely used law denying people from being legally compliant with common contracts held by many and denied based on homosexual or heterosexual grounds:

Medical Power of Attorney
Will
Marriage tax penalty (only temporary to my knowledge)

 

[LOVEthroughINTELLECT]

I actually tend to personally agree with most of what you're saying here. However, what I'm referring to has to do with the realities of hospital visitation rights, tax breaks, inheritance and such. Why should these things be denied to gay couples in committed, long-term relationships?

Why should those things be denied to a graduate student in the U.S. and a boy in Africa he met on a Peace Corps assignment? Why should those things be denied to a retired widow and a young girl she met while volunteering for Special Olympics? Why do the traditionalist, fundamentalist evangelical conservatives and the gay rights movement and its allies on the left fight over keeping or getting access to the piece of pie reserved for couples who are romantic "lovers" and ignore non-lover relationships? Is the long-term friendship, sharing and sacrifice between two people who share the same interests and passions not worth as much as the long-term relationship between two people who "love each other"? If a middle-aged, middle-income professional woman wants to help a young homeless man she met on a church mission trip with paying his medical bills for treating his terminal cancer, her only options are to either pay out of her own pocket or to marry him so that he would then be her spouse and she could include him in her employer-sponsored health insurance policy. Why can't she share a lot of her resources with him as his friend and his sister in Christ? Why is she only allowed to share a lot of her resources with him as his wife? If the gay rights movement really believes in equality, why do they seem to be preoccupied their own right to the marriage pie and ignore the variety of other relationships in which people take care of each other?

If what the traditionalist, fundamentalist evangelical conservatives and the gay rights movement and its allies on the left say about the importance of commited relationships between people who "love each other" is true, do you know what that means? It means that if a man in the U.S. who has a passion for mathematics and engineering meets a boy in Sri Lanka who also has a passion for mathematics and engineering and the man mentors the boy and helps him pay for formal schooling that he otherwise would not be able to afford, and if they stay in contact the whole time that both of them are alive--visiting each other in the hospital, attending the graduation ceremonies of each others' family members, etc., etc.--, and if one of them becomes terminally ill and the other takes him into his home and is his caretaker, that none of that contributes to the collective welfare of society. It means that those of us who have never had a "lover" have never had personal relationships that are meaningful to society and benefit society. It means that people who have a "lover" relationship with others are morally superior to those of us who have nothing more than deep platonic friendships. It means that those of us who have never had a "lover" are a burden to society.

This whole emphasis on sexual, romantic, "lover" relationships has distorted things, in my humble opinion. At least the traditionalists recognize that marriage is not the same thing as "love". At least the traditionalists recognize that there are kinds of love other than the "love" between "lovers". There is agape. There is the love that Jesus showed on the cross. There is the love that Martin Luther King, Jr. showed for all of humanity.

I don't know about anybody else, but if the "love" between "lovers" was to disappear I don't think that the world would be a worse place. It is the other love, like the love between a retired widow and a young girl she meets while volunteering for Special Olympics, that I would hate to see the world lose. And that is the love that apparently nobody has any problem "denying" equal treatment of.

 

[Niels]

Usually, people are to show proof of their assertions (in this case, it may be a misconception).

Misconception based on hearsay. I will take time to further educate myself on the topic at hand, before re-entering the conversation.

 

[Electric Sceptic]

Hmmm... would that double edge claim also include the injustice of denial of citizens representation, forced endorsement, allowing the government to teach morality issues in public schools that are DIRECTLY against my First Amendment Rights, declaring that the BSofA are public enemy #1 or dictating what I can or can't read in the Bible? Or are some just supposed to not see those?

If any of these were true, you'd have something to complain about. They're not.You don't.

 

[Patzak]

Is the long-term friendship, sharing and sacrifice between two people who share the same interests and passions not worth as much as the long-term relationship between two people who "love each other"? If a middle-aged, middle-income professional woman wants to help a young homeless man she met on a church mission trip with paying his medical bills for treating his terminal cancer, her only options are to either pay out of her own pocket or to marry him so that he would then be her spouse and she could include him in her employer-sponsored health insurance policy. Why can't she share a lot of her resources with him as his friend and his sister in Christ? Why is she only allowed to share a lot of her resources with him as his wife? If the gay rights movement really believes in equality, why do they seem to be preoccupied their own right to the marriage pie and ignore the variety of other relationships in which people take care of each other?

Right, I guess I see your point now. I think the long-term friendships and similar relationships have a problem of not being easily recognizable - while I must agree with you that it would have been nice if the benefits of marriage could be extended to such relationships, these would probably also be easily abused (for example, I could enter a "share and care" relationship with all my buddies and nobody would be able to prove I don't care deeply about them all) - I guess this also makes for an argument against polygamy. Of course the traditional marriage (and homosexual marriage) are open to such abuse as well but at least it's limited to one at a time, plus it does carry the traditional weight of marriage as a "love" relationship and includes not only benefits but also obligations. So I'd say I agree with you: it would be great if non-sexual relationships could be recognized in the same way that marriages are, I just don't see a plausible way of doing it. There is, however, no (additional) problem with extending the right to another type of sexual relationship.

 

[outlaw]

Usually, people are to show proof of their assertions (in this case, it may be a misconception).
I know of no widely used law denying people from being legally compliant with common contracts held by many and denied based on homosexual or heterosexual grounds:

Medical Power of Attorney
Will
Marriage tax penalty (only temporary to my knowledge)

These are rights automatically granted with a legally recognized marriage. The fact that members of a minority have to go through special legal proceedings to gain equivalent rights afforded to married couples indicates that the rights of a married heterosexual couple and a married homosexual couple are not equal at all.

 

[Electric Sceptic]

These are rights automatically granted with a legally recognized marriage. The fact that members of a minority have to go through special legal proceedings to gain equivalent rights afforded to married couples indicates that the rights of a married heterosexual couple and a married homosexual couple are not equal at all.

Of coures they're not equal - they're "separate but equal", which wasn't good enough for blacks, but (so many christians maintain) should be good enough for gays.

 

[Scally Cap]

If the gay rights movement really believes in equality, why do they seem to be preoccupied their own right to the marriage pie and ignore the variety of other relationships in which people take care of each other?

Probably because a focused effort on a single issue is usually more effective than a broad-spectrum campaign that would be hopelessly vague? You imply that gay-marriage advocates are feverishly working to prevent any relationship other than "lovers"--to borrow your words--from being state-recognized and state-sanctioned. It's similar to decrying the American Cancer Society for not raising funds to fight cystic fibrosis.