Opposing gay marriage is not denying the humanity of gay people. I'm not even opposed to gay marriage, but hyperbolic language like yours only hurts discussions, it never ever helps.
There was a famous court case where the gay widow had no legal rights over their dying partners medical care, that is a pronounced human right that a heterosexual couple has over a gay couple that has been defined and why the opposition actually hurts people in ways many have not considered.
Remember that the compromise was "let gay people have those same rights, just don't call it marriage" and that was rejected. The opportunity to have that "pronounced human right" was always there but no, they wanted the culture war W of redefining marriage instead.
The same way they have today, through a court order. People didn't have a problem with extending whatever legal protections to gay people, they objected to redefining marriage to get there. There was always a compromise available but again, sticking it to the religious types was the goal.
How do you propose to get a court order in a state that doesn't recognize (Edit: other states') civil unions? The whole point of marriage protections is that they transfer across states.
> There was always a compromise available but again, sticking it to the religious types was the goal.
Once you understand the difference between a state recognized civil union and a marriage that transfers across states, I'm sure you'll realize that this was instead religious people sticking it to gay people.
> How do you propose to get a court order in a state that doesn't recognize civil unions?
All 50 states recognize civil unions or other relationship arrangements. At that point the courts just have to demand that states treat them the same as any other marriage. Not impossible, certainly not any more so than the seismic shift of redefining a centuries old definition of marriage.
> All 50 states recognize civil unions or other relationship arrangements.
Sorry, but your attempt to claim "separate but equal" fails to fit reality. The Full Faith and Credit Clause did not afford civil unions the same protections as marriages.
"But suppose that you and your same-sex partner drive from Maryland to Vermont to enter into a civil union because it is the only state that recognizes a significant legal relationship between same-sex couples. If an accident occurs on your drive home and one of you is hospitalized, most states and institutions will not acknowledge your legal relationship with your spouse."
> seismic shift of redefining a centuries old definition of marriage.
Just as before, you are free to get a religious "marriage" that is unrecognized by the state. Just as before, the state can issue a marriage license to people that a particular religion does not approve (e.g., Orthodox rabbis are forbidden from officiating or validating non-Jewish weddings and do not recognize the resulting marriages, and the LDS church taught that interracial marriage, aside from between white men with native American women, was a sin until 2013). The only thing that changes is what marriages the state allows. There was no "seismic shift" outside the small minds of bigots.
Is opposing polygamy denying the humanity of polygamists/polyamorists?
Is opposing first cousin marriage denying the humanity of people in romantic relationships with their first cousins? (The first anniversary of Connecticut's first cousin marriage ban is later this week.)
Israel bans both same-sex and interfaith marriage domestically – although it recognises both when performed overseas – if the former is a denial of someone's humanity, is the latter equally so?
In a previous generation, the deserving target of eyerolls and groans was people who both-sidesed an issue. In part because it was shallow, and part because it was just a weaponized way of talking where you get to be political under superficial the guise of neutrality. Asking an audience to believe it is just not respecting the intelligence of your audience.
I think the version of that for our generation is the person who says "Gosh let's not talk politics" about obviously political things when doing so is clearly just to shield preferred targets from criticism. Of course it's not always that, and you can never prove it in any particular instance, which is why it's such convenient phrasing. But it gets eye-rolls for a reason.
I wouldn’t find “let’s not talk about politics” eye-rolling and neither would my social circle (first generation Asian families). In fact if someone kept bringing up politics in an overly emotional or pushy way, they probably wouldn’t be invited back.
