Respect for relationships

One of the main things in our society at large that really frustrates me is the seeming lack of respect for relationships. All too often, one spouse or the other cheats on their partner. Couples that have declared that they are in a monogamous, committed relationship break up so many times because one or the other person cheats.
Because so much of this cheating happens, many people look upon all persons as possible partners. This includes married couples.

We need to examine why so many of us are willing to make a commitment to someone and then feel free to engage in amorous and sexual behavior with someone else on the sly.

Why do we make commitments?

We make commitments in order to establish a time period for which we can count on the other person being there for us and visa versa. We also do this to promise that we will not bring home disease to our family. If there are children, then we make commitments to take care of and raise the children together.

Short of death, abuse, addiction, adultery and deception on the part of our spouse(God only help us if we do those things!), there is no excuse for breaking our word to someone else.

But what of the people who participate in the demise of a family? What of the people who have such little respect for the commitments that someone else made that they will participate in the destruction of a relationship. I warn anyone who thinks that this is a smart move to consider the following: If your lover is cheating on someone else now, will they not cheat on you later? Best to leave that person alone or stay away until the relationship dissolves on its own.

When a gay couple forms a committed relationship, there may be a Holy Union or a home commitment ceremony or just a verbal commitment between the two. There is currently not legal partnership that is recognized other than domestic partnership agreements. You will probably not see a lot of this even if it becomes legal because so many employers discriminate against gay persons. People who have employers such as these would lose their jobs eventually. Since discrimination is so hard to prove, these people would not stand a chance.

It is an interesting thing in American society today. Many describe the gay population as being loose, but they provide no legitimate means for gay committed couples to be recognized.

It is time that the gay and lesbian community respected the commitments that are made within the community.

It is time for ALL PEOPLE to respect all committed relationships.

Loyalty is valued in just about every community. In the same way, loyalty is highly prized in the gay community. Having a gay friend on whom you can count is rare but then this applies to straight friends as well. Even more rare is the friend that you can trust with your lover or vise versa.
It is pandemic in the straight community to find wives mixing it up with husband's best friend,or husbands mixing it up with wife's friends or even sisters. One has to just wonder what all the hoopla is about when a straight person point fingers at a gay person for fickle behavior or downright promiscuity.

But let's just get one thing straight(so to speak). Whether straight or gay, men tend to be similar in behavior when it comes to loyalty and faithfulness. The same could be said for women.

Unfortunately, in our country, we have no sanction for a permanent union since our relationships have been trivialized by the straight community. Thus, continuing the myth that there is nothing but sex going on in gay relationships. And such thinking perpetuates the thought that a gay relationship is short term. In point of fact, there is some evidence to believe that the percent of gay couples in any one age group is a mirror image of the same number of straight couples that have been together for similar lengths of time. Gay persons form bonds of commitment that last lifetimes. The country can legislated against our legal commitments but it cannot prevent us from making moral and ethical ones.

Like the phoenix, the gay community has risen from the ashes in the ghettos of Germany and the gutter of the misinformed American public to say:

I DO to our lovers and I WILL to our friends. We are no worse or better than the general population. We ARE BASICALLY GOOD.