Gay Rights? Or a Civil Dispute?

"Gay Rights"... somehow this seems to fall in the same category as other "Rights" issues. Only, I don't think this has anything to do with "Gays" or "Rights"... All we end up doing is giving Rights to people/minorities that the rest of the people don't have. Think back to "affirmative action" and how it was recently struck down as unconstitutional...
See, I think people have gotten hung up in the "entitlement" mentality for so long that we don't know up from down or a right from a privilege. You have the right to health care. This doesn't mean that you have the right to insurance to help pay for that health care. Insurance companies (auto, home, health, life, etc) all have criteria on what they will and will not cover based on a variety of factors (risk, age, past incidents, etc). We have been feeling the pinch for our government's involvement in the housing and lending industry; allowing higher risk mortgages for one thing, and none of us like what has happened to the economy. Are we now suggesting it is a good idea to allow the government to get involved in allowing insurance companies to take on higher risk policies? Or having the Government go into direct competition with insurance companies, using our tax dollars? When did we become a socialist country?
We do have the right to health care, but we also have the right to pay for it. If we can get insurance to help pay for it, all the better, but that is a separate issue, and one that should be between the insurance company and you.

The real issue, as I see it, when it comes to "Gay Rights" isn't an issue of "Rights" at all. It is an issue of corporations, employers, insurance companies (the way they do business) and legal contracts, and the recognition of something other than a "traditional family"; it is a CIVIL ISSUE.
Currently, to get insurance, you have to purchase an individual or a family plan. Some of these are provided by the insurance company to an individual/family directly (the individual/family pays the full amount) or to an employer for their employees (the employer may subsidizes some of the premiums). You still have the two types of plans, individual and family, and it is the definition of "family" that has people so "up in arms".
The minority, homosexuals, are demanding that their "family units" be recognized as normal family units. And I use the term "normal family units" specifically, here. A family unit in science, biology, history, and religion is described as "a male/female union that produces children", it is a biological process. Even in psychology, a science that can claim a family unit to be just about anything, defines a difference between a traditional family unit (mother(female), father(male), and children(non-adults)) and a non-traditional family unit (someone acting in the role of father(male or female), mother(male or female) and children(adult or not)) Male/Male and Female/Female unions cannot produce children, so these relationships fall outside of what is considered a "traditional family unit", so they currently don't qualify for some of these legal protections provided a traditional family. So, what are they to do?

Well, it isn't a question of "gay rights" it is a question of civil law, how insurance companies do business, and how employers treat their employees. Instead of insurance companies providing only for individual plans and family plans, maybe they should provide for individual plans, family plans and/or "group" plans (while the insurance thing is more complex than I describe here, I am trying to keep this simple).
The "group" in this new insurance "group plan" would be defined as necessary. For instance, if I wanted to add my brother or sister to my "group plan", or my father or mother, then I would pay a higher premium, the same way that I pay a higher premium for adding children to my family plan now. So my group could be defined to include, brothers, sisters, parents, or even perfect strangers, if I wanted to pay the increase in premiums.

The next thing would be to get employers to recognize this ability to add individuals that aren't "family" and to offer the subsidy they provide for traditional family and individual plans to the new group plans. Although this is still up to the company, because they don't have to subsidize anything and at best all you could hope for is getting the "bulk rate" that is offered to employers by the insurance companies. These bulk rates would have to include, not just the individual and traditional family plans, but the "group" plans as well.
Now, the insurance issue has become a civil one, not one of legislation. No need to create new laws, no need to lobby congress, no need to get the government involved (so they cannot screw things up for the rest of us)...just lobby the insurance industry, or sue them in civil court to get what you want. The same would hold true to get companies to recognize this new type of group plan.

Now, in legal matters, we still aren't talking about "family", we are talking about contract and biological law. The marriage of a man and a woman is nothing more than a contract in the law and at court. Marriage is something that happens in a church or in religion, and is also a "legal contract" or "civil union". This does not mean that a "marriage contract" or "civil union" is a Marriage in a religious way. Legal rights concerning property, money, and children are defined by a marriage contract. The only item in this list that could be in dispute is the parental legal rights concerning children.
There are the two parts to a marriage/family contract...the property side and the biological side. The property side is easy as anyone can enter into a legal contract with anyone else over property. This has been changed and amended over the years to include (in some cases) prenuptial agreements (among other types of agreements) that define property rights before a marriage contract, and hold throughout the marriage time frame. This isn't the issue. Any same-sex couple could enter into property contract (even if not recognized as a "marriage" or even if there is no civil union), and acquire legal rights equal to having been married.
The hard part of this issue is the biological side. Since a same-sex couple cannot produce children, we must use other laws governing children that are brought into a same-sex union. In a female/female union, for instance, if one person gets pregnant the legal rights belong to that person and the "biological father". The adoption laws would have to cover the other female in this situation, if the father is unknown, deceased, or has legally given up his rights to the child, There is no need to create a whole host of new laws here, it is pretty well covered.
For male/male unions, both "parents" would have to be covered by the adoption laws. This is similar to "traditional" families where the current father in the current family unit may not be the biological father of the/some children in the family. The step-father's rights do not extend to any but his own biological children, unless an adoption occurs. This would be the same for step-mothers, and others involved in the traditional or non-traditional family units.
The biggest hurdle here is getting approval from the adoption agencies to allow same-sex couples to adopt. But now, this situation has been removed from the legislative arena to the civil arena. Sue the adoption agencies to get recognition.
Now, what were once such huge and daunting tasks have become small and manageable. What used to be considered a matter for legislation is now only a matter of a civil dispute.

There are some big HOWEVERs that are attached to all this.

HOWEVER: None of this is to preclude the rights of a religion to have their opinion, membership criteria, or to even support (so far as the law will allow) issues they believe in. None of this can be used to force a Religion to recognize a civil union as a Marriage, so long as the Religion supports, believes in, and teaches Traditional Family, and Traditional Family Values.
Religions are like private clubs, private businesses, and government agencies. They can have criteria for membership/employment. For instance, a Police Department can claim to be an equal opportunity employer even if they will not or can not hire a convicted felon. This is still discrimination. In the same way, a Religion can deny membership to anyone they view as "living in sin". Just because someone has the "right" to engage in behavior does not mean we all have to like or agree with it. That doesn't mean we are bigots, it simply means we have the right to not do or like something, we have the right to believe in what we believe in.

HOWEVER: If we open the law and open the corporate, employment, and insurance arenas to accepting "non-traditional" families...besides accepting same-sex couples, we would have to accept polygamous families (this includes bigamy (being married to more than one person), polyandry (being married to more than one man), and polygyny (being married to more than one woman)), and this could become even more complex if these "non-traditional", same-sex families become polygamous.
Where do we draw the line, who do we exclude? Or do we just accept it, and force the courts to deal with impossibly complex issues such as; are biological rights greater than adoptive rights when dealing with 5 female "parents" where one has biological rights and the other 4 have equal adoptive rights? In this situation, how do you deal with the rights of the child over the rights of the parents? What is truly best for the child? Being left with the biological parent (even if she is a drug addict/alcoholic/mentally incompetent, abusive and negligent individual?) Or one of the other parents, and how do you choose one over the other? And what is more important for the child, the stability of a cohesive family unit, or being passed around to 4 or 5 individuals over a space of time to not have lasting, deep, or bonding relationship with any individual? What is the psychological impact of such relationships on children? What are the long term effects? How about the effects (short and long term) on society?

HOWEVER: Traditional Families may not have been completely successful, they are a known quantity and teh statistics give us a good idea of what we are looking at. Single-Parent families aren't a good as Traditional Families. Same-Sex Families have more problems than Traditional Families.

HOWEVER: Biology dictates that children must be born, or the race goes extinct. This is why homosexuality in animals is rare, compared to the human race. Homosexuality is a drive to extinction. There is a good argument, legally, for disallowing homosexuality, and that is to protect the society, the human race, from going extinct.
Populations must have a positive birth rate to keep the genetic pool alive and active. Populations that fall into stagnation will soon find inbreeding a problem. Societies with a negative birth rate will soon become extinct. It would not even take a majority of a population to practice homosexuality for a negative birthrate to occur. In fact, the Global Birth Rate is in decline, and has been since 1972. Some estimates are that by 2070 the world population will peak, and then decline. That is only just over 30 years from now.

So, how do we balance the rights of an entire population, an entire species, over the rights of a minority?