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On a scale of 1 to 10 how important is gay marriage?

On a scale of 1 to 10 how important is gay marriage?

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Luna Tick

Luna Tick

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On a scale of 1 to 10 how important is gay marriage? 10 means of paramount importance. 1 means not important at all. This is compared to other issues.
 
Luna Tick said:
On a scale of 1 to 10 how important is gay marriage? 10 means of paramount importance. 1 means not important at all. This is compared to other issues.
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Your question is pretty vague. Politically? Personally? Comparatively? For example, for me, politically, it would probably be about a 9. Personally, because I am not gay, it would be about a 4. Comparatively, when I consider all other issues that are concerning, it would be about a 7.
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
Your question is pretty vague. Politically? Personally? Comparatively? For example, for me, politically, it would probably be about a 9. Personally, because I am not gay, it would be about a 4. Comparatively, when I consider all other issues that are concerning, it would be about a 7.
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How important is it for news coverage. In other words, if you were working in the media with lots of other news to cover like the economy, the election, foreign policy, etc.
 
Luna Tick said:
How important is it for news coverage. In other words, if you were working in the media with lots of other news to cover like the economy, the election, foreign policy, etc.
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Oh, that's a COMPLETELY different question. Seems like you are asking how much news coverage should GM get COMPARED to other things, such as economy, the election, foreign policy, etc. Is that correct?
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
Oh, that's a COMPLETELY different question. Seems like you are asking how much news coverage should GM get COMPARED to other things, such as economy, the election, foreign policy, etc. Is that correct?
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Yes, that's what I meant. A news organization has to make choices every day on what stories are most important -- what page of the newspaper it goes on if it's print, how much air time it gets if it's TV, etc.
 
Luna Tick said:
Yes, that's what I meant. A news organization has to make choices every day on what stories are most important -- what page of the newspaper it goes on if it's print, how much air time it gets if it's TV, etc.
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OK. Thanks for clarifying. All things being equal, especially if there is a court case or a ballot or legislative decision going on, compared to other issues, when it comes to the news media, I'd put it at a 5 or a 6. Certainly the economy, election, and certain foreign issues should have more coverage, but in regards to domestic issues, it should rank pretty high.
 
For me? None. The issue is an idiotic created issue just like marriage in general. There is no point in marriage and the only reason people want marriage and government attached is so they can benefit. Nothing else needs to be said about it for me.
 
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Henrin said:
For me? None. The issue is an idiotic created issue just like marriage in general. There is no point in marriage and the only reason people want marriage and government attached is so they can benefit. Nothing else needs to be said about it for me.
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I can respect that to a certain extent.

I do agree with one of the libertarian positions, get government out of marriage all together, let government give civil unions to whoever wants them (consenting adults of course) and let whichever church wants to do the religious side do that.

I think that would make everybody happy.
 
Not long ago I got some stats on gay marriage in Massachusetts. The number of people taking advantage of SSM's legality there is tiny compared to the general population, and tiny compared to the estimated gay population.... IIRC it was something like one percent of gays had gotten hitched since SSM was legalized several years ago.


Apparently there aren't very many gay people who actually want to get married.


So since your scale doesn't go down to 0.1, I had to choose 1..... :mrgreen: It just seems to be something that thousands of people want to TALK about for every ONE that wants to DO it.
 
Well, the 24 hour news stations fill most of their time with crap anyway so I don't think they should have any problem fitting in all the important issues. But I get what you are asking.

Where would I rate its importance in the news cycle? I'd say...6. But still, if they have room to talk about a philanthropist driving around like Batman, they aren't hurting for space.
 
I gave it a three myself. It's not that I don't think gay people deserve to be able to get married if they want to. It's that it's not an issue this country is going to rise or fall because of. We're facing a tough economy, unemployment, big disagreements over taxes, a decade-old war overseas, immigration questions, people doing without health care, etc. ... and we're arguing over whether a couple gay people are allowed to tie the knot. I'm surprised it hasn't been more of a ho-hum attitude like, "Oh ... the gays want to get married ... all right."
 
Goshin said:
Not long ago I got some stats on gay marriage in Massachusetts. The number of people taking advantage of SSM's legality there is tiny compared to the general population, and tiny compared to the estimated gay population.... IIRC it was something like one percent of gays had gotten hitched since SSM was legalized several years ago.


Apparently there aren't very many gay people who actually want to get married.


So since your scale doesn't go down to 0.1, I had to choose 1..... :mrgreen: It just seems to be something that thousands of people want to TALK about for every ONE that wants to DO it.
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I agree with the 1 (or less), Goshin...and all of your reasons. The gay population has, as far back as statistics show, to be on a steady course. It's not falling or rising. So that tells me that there is little likelihood that a gay will have any true influence on a non-gay's sexual orientation. And a lot don't seem to be interested in marriage.

But the issue is seen from 3 perspectives:

1. Religious

2. Allowing all of the same government, civic and private entitlements to gays as heteros who marry.

3. Both 1 and 2.

I think it would be interesting to see what the underlying reasons are that people object to gay marriage. I mean get down to the nut-cut with simple explanations similar to the ones I posted above. No narratives...just simple questions with closed end answers.
 
A 5? If homosexuals really want "equal" rights, then shouldn't gay marriage be considered no more less or more important the the marriage rights of any other group?
 
Goshin said:
Not long ago I got some stats on gay marriage in Massachusetts. The number of people taking advantage of SSM's legality there is tiny compared to the general population, and tiny compared to the estimated gay population.... IIRC it was something like one percent of gays had gotten hitched since SSM was legalized several years ago.


Apparently there aren't very many gay people who actually want to get married.


So since your scale doesn't go down to 0.1, I had to choose 1..... :mrgreen: It just seems to be something that thousands of people want to TALK about for every ONE that wants to DO it.
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I understand this perception, but personally I feel that its significance doesn't necessarily stem from the amount of people that take part in said activity but rather in having the right to do so SHOULD you want to. Not everyone utilises their right to freedom of press or every other civil right for that matter - yet they remain significant because they inherently belong there as rights.

Just because only a minority takes part in a certain activity, doesn't mean the right to do so should be abolished.
 
Luna Tick said:
On a scale of 1 to 10 how important is gay marriage? 10 means of paramount importance. 1 means not important at all. This is compared to other issues.
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2% of the population wants access to something half of those who even try will fail at, and this will not affect me regardless either way.

I gave it a 1 because you didn't have negative numbers in your poll.
 
I think issues like this take away from the real issues of our country. Whether two people who are gay happen to marry is far down the line of importance. It is something the government should not be involved with. We got bigger problems such as:

-Our country in perpetual war
-The devaluation of our currency
-The erosion of our civil liberties
-Rapidly growing bureaucracy

Gay marriage is an issue to distract some people from the real issues. Marriage shouldn't even be regulated by the government at all whether it be heterosexual or homosexual. People who think this is important honestly have no grasp on serious problems in our country.
 
I think this is an important issue.

On a personal level, it could have some affect on some of my siblings' ability to marry or remain married to the person they love.

On a national level, it reflects badly on our country to have our laws on this issue not based on equality for all, but rather majority rule even when the majority is keeping a right to contract from certain people just due to bigoted/ignorant beliefs and based on a characteristic that is already protected by our Constitution. And, it doesn't help that we have economic studies that show consistently that same sex marriage being legal would benefit our economy.

When it comes to true importance as a news issue, it should be in comparison to what is going on for that day and what the same sex marriage story has to do with.
 
Since I'm neither a divorce lawyer, who might profit from gay marriage, nor gay myself, it matters little to me. From the point of view of fairness, I see no reason why gays shouldn't be married just like anyone else.
 
Well admittedly being turned into a bigot an homophobe....quite recently...Im against it....so I dont know whether to put 10 or 1 or 1 or 10...put me down for whatever means it shouldnt even be considered..:) thank you
 
Lokiate said:
1, non-issue being blown well out of proportion. If gays want to be together, who gives a flying ****?
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Massive over-simplification of the issue, but I also take it to mean you support SSM and the equal rights to it along with the equal rights to SSD (same sex divorce).


I am reminded of the "First they came..." speech when it comes to debates such as SSM.

I may not have a horse in the parade, but I can still fight for the right of the parade to exist.

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
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Dragonfly said:
Massive over-simplification of the issue, but I also take it to mean you support SSM and the equal rights to it along with the equal rights to SSD (same sex divorce).


I am reminded of the "First they came..." speech when it comes to debates such as SSM.

I may not have a horse in the parade, but I can still fight for the right of the parade to exist.
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I'm not against it, if that's what you mean. All the same, it's their fight, they can fight it. I got my own problems to worry about.
 
Dragonfly said:
Massive over-simplification of the issue.....
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Since we're being asked to use a single digit to sum up an expansive political platform, I think over-simplification is the theme of this thread.

Dragonfly said:
......but I also take it to mean you support SSM and the equal rights to it along with the equal rights to SSD (same sex divorce).
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The "1" is a double edged sword. Those of us who chose it aren't going to stand in the way, but neither are we going to help out with 'support'. Sink or swim, we don't care either way.
 
Jerry said:
The "1" is a double edged sword. Those of us who chose it aren't going to stand in the way, but neither are we going to help out with 'support'.
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I think some of the people who chose 1 are of this mind, but I think there is a significant amount of them that would go out of their way in order to show up to vote against gay marriage. That wold be standing in the way.

I think some people like to pretend they don't care about the issue when in fact they care very much about the issue. They just confuse adamant opposition to gay marriage with not thinking the issue is important. In order to adamantly oppose something, you have to think it's fairly important.
 
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