“If we ignore this it will die down and it will do more for the sanctity of marriage than protesting. By law it is not considered indecent for men and women to be topless in NY. The law changed with little fanfare and zero protests. How many women have you seen taking advantage of this law? How many more would if there were major protests attempting to change the law?”
I would love to believe that you are correct, but I highly doubt it. If you think Gay people are going to “gay” avek, you are under a delusion. The gay lobby gets stronger all the time, and they are not going to lie down and be ignored. I am really disturbed by the idea that they may actually succeed in getting their relationships legally called a marriage, because it diminishes the kedusha of marriage when it is aligned with it.
I would prefer to see that people who are in same gender relationships of long duration are able to have certain rights under the law (medical care proxies for their companions, health insurance, and the like). I don’t want this to be equated with marriage, called marriage, or be considered as marriage. I hate the sin, but not the sinner. BTW, I did not hear about the topless law, but I guarantee you they cannot do that just ANYWHERE they please. It is still called indecent exposure in most places. Obviously there are specific areas that this is permitted, but not on the street.
Regarding a comment Jothar expressed:”Would you also say that someone with pedophilic urges can’t change who he is and just accept it, or would you tell him to go for therapy and get his act together?”
Jothar, in this one specific instance, it has been demonstrated over and over again that a pedophile simply cannot just “get his act together,” through therapy or anything else. There is only one place for a pedophile and that is not in normal society with the rest of us. Child molestation is a particularly heinous and despicable crime, because children are the most helpless of all victims, and often the person victimizing them is a loved one, or someone to whom they look up. I would never, never NEVER allow my child to be alone anywhere with someone whom I knew to have molested children, even if he were supposedly “cured.” It is not just the yetzer hara, it is the yetzer/nature of that particular person. We all have yitzrei hara in us. We do not all become pedophiles. Some of us eat treife, some are mechallelei Shabbos, some do not keep Taharas Hamishpacha, some don’t want to get up in time for morning minyan. THOSE are all potentially changeable. It is highly unlikely that a pedophile will ever change his nature. It might temporarily appear to be held at bay – for a while – but make no mistake, it is a sickness, and sometimes the only cure for that sickness is to contain it, quarantine it permanently, or something potentially far more drastic. It is no coincidence that even the most hardened, brutal, violent criminals in Riker’s Island or the like, despise and hold the pedophile as beneath even their contempt.