Hi everyone, our Parliament had their first session on an initiative for marriage equality today. It was brought up by some MP's earlier but it was refused. However in 2012, a new way of proposing a legislation was introduced: citizens may prepare an initiative, and if it can gather more than 50,000 endorsements it will be dealt with as would be dealt with any other bill. The marriage equality initiative was signed by almost 170,000 voters — over three times the required amount of endorsements, and in a country of almost 5,5 million, that's quite many. So, today they started their work on the bill by having a session on it, which includes arguments for and against as well as members' opinions on the matter. It was rather hilarious, and deeply worrying at the same time. Many of the arguments against were ridiculous, as they tend to be. The reason I'm posting this in the chit chat area instead of the news are is because, well, who cares about our North-European country anyway I thought I'd share some of the arguments here and focus the attention on them instead of the actual session. Some of the arguments for were so articulate and beautiful that I thought they deserved to be translated to English, while most of the ones against were so humorous, or blatantly offensive, that I wanted to share how even in a European, very left (free healthcare? we must be communists), values can be very conservative. These are my translations, so they aren't their words exactly, but you get the idea. "Homosexuality has become a sort of trend that is constantly seen in the papers. Some might even begin to wonder: "are you so fogy that you're actually still married to a woman?"" "Where are the human rights of heterosexuals? [We would be] Letting the minorities in charge of the sexual education of our children. I'm telling you, if this bill passes, the devil might as well be put on the dole since we'll be doing his work for him." "To those of you who support the traditional marriage, I ask: how traditional? Surely you do not support the definition of marriage in 1910, when children were wed. Probably not the way it was defined in 1968 either, when epileptics and speech-and-hearing-impaired were denied the right to marry. Perhaps you prefer the 1987 notion of marriage, when mentally ill and mentally retarded people were prevented from marrying." "After this [law has passed], is your own marriage worthless somehow?" "If institutions were set in stone, there would never have been and end to slavery, and women would never have been granted the right to vote." The debate sidetracked a lot. At some point, one member wondered why lesbians used the same locker rooms as heterosexual women. Many protested against adoption rights for gay couples. The church was brought up several times, despite the fact that the initiative clearly states that all religious institutions will have autonomy and are allowed to have additional requirement, and that the initiative is strictly about civil unions. This was reiterated probably six times during the session... It's scary that people with little to no reading comprehension skills — or, even more frightening, people who do not even read the bills they are refusing — are running our country. Edit: Oh, and to the moderators: if you think this thread really is better suited in another area, I apologise for posting it in the wrong section!
