I tend to agree with that. Although I really don’t see why theology isn’t a legitimate battle ground, either. It seems like plenty of barbaric religious non-sense has been dropped, I don’t understand why the prejudice against homosexual preferences is a particularly necessary part of one’s relationship with god.
In general I agree with you, but this started out as a discussion of a Constitutional Amendment in response to a court decision. From that standpoint, I don’t see where religion enters into the picture.
I do wish religions would not harp on sexual preference, but I respect the rights of religions to decide that themselves.
Yes, you can get married in order to get benefits that the state bestows upon you. You can treat the Institution Of Marriage as a coupon book. Or you can get married as a emotional union. Gays can have an emotional union, however it will never be recognized by the church, and thus will never be a true marriage.
You can complain that your partner will never get health benefits from the company you work for. That is the fault of the company’s policy. But don’t they have their own health benefits through their own employment? In this economy, you are lucky to have benefits at all.
This is America, which means you are allowed to do whatever you want. A church is allowed to say who can and cannot get married within their doors. I’m not defending the church by any measure, but it always irritates me when someone feels that they are entitled to what other people have, and can change the rules to get it.
Homebrew and Telemark, I just realized that Marriage Licenses have a lot to do with local and state laws, so we may be arguing apples and oranges about the inclusion of religion into the marriage license. On mine, it was necessary.
Again, why doesn’t a group of gays collect together and form their own church, instead of changing an existing one, and marry freely? The church would be recognized, by law, by the government, would have all the benefits and priveledges of any other church. Thus, the marriages would have to be recognized as legitimate. I’m not against gays marrying, I’m telling you why they cannot.
My temple doesn’t have a religious marriage ceremony; it’s never been a function of the religion, either historically or in reconstruction.
If you look back in history, you’ll see Christian ceremonies solemnising same-sex partnerships.
Marriage is a matter of property, not theology. Always has been. Those churches in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts who perform same-sex marriage ceremonies have testified before our legislature asking for the legal protections of those ceremonies, which, contrary to your assertion, they do not have and been denied.
And I was married by a Justice of the Peace, not a priest.
IIRC, the local “defense of marriage act” specifically denies these insurance benefits to domestic partners. It’s very much a “screw the gays” proposition.
I have no doubt it was there, and IANAL, but if you left it blank there is no way the local government could force you do either fill it in or have some religious blessing. This would clearly violate the seperation of Church and State and be shot down by any Federal court.
This is exactly what people in this thread disagree with. You are, a priori, deciding what a marriage is and excluding gays from it. No one cares if the church recognizes it, this is a civil matter. The State defines a marriage for all civil purposes. Churches (and you’ve ignored all the churches that endorse and perform gay marriages) define marriage for their own purposes, which is fine but irrelevant.
How about adoption, visitation, inheritence, etc? There are huge obstacles for gays that are dependent on the concept of spouse. These have nothing to do with religion, they are things the state takes care of.
In summary, again, this isn’t about religion, it’s about rights in a civil society.
Chicago Faucet, the Metropolitan Community Church regularly performs marriage ceremonies for gay people.
However, those marriages aren’t recognized by the US, or even the state they’re performed in. Unless you’re in Vermont.
Did you even read gobear’s list of the federal benefits conferred upon married couples? This isn’t equivalent to getting discounts down at Denny’s. Federal and state recognition of a marriage is crucial to making sure that I can take care of my partner, and he can take care of me, and we can both take care of our children, in a very real and legally binding sense.
The religious aspect of marriage means diddly-squat to me. Making sure my family is taken care of means an enormous amount.
Should someone remind Mr. Frist that the Republican party line is for the government to stop sticking its nose into people’s private lives?
MrVisible’s first point is very valid indeed. Where are you getting the idea, *Chicago that there is some monolithic entity called THE Church and it is fully of one mind on the issue of same-sex marriage? Churches have been scrapping over the use of unleavened bread in the liturgy for centuries. And thats just within Christianity!
What about the MCC? What about the Unitarian-Universalists? What about open and affirming congregations? Hell, even the most stalwart conservative Christian groups have pastors within them shaking for policy change, some even providing marriage ceremonies. Just recently in my city (Cincinnati), a Reverend in the Presbyterian church married multiple same-sex couples in violation of his denomination’s policies.
Chicago Faucet, no one said a church has to marry anyone. They can refuse to marry any couple.
But STATE and CIVIL marriages should not be allowed to refuse to marry same-sex couples. D’uh.
BTW, I see you’re from Pittsburgh. They mentioned this last night on KDKA, featuring a couple who were able to marry in a certain church (it was a really cool wedding-kilts!)
First, I agree with the consensus that Frist’s support for a constitutional amendment is cover for Bush who couldn’t speak on this without getting a quote into the next Democratic direct mail campaign. Social conservatives are going to get the short shaft until after the election.
Second, I have to admit that for once I agree with one of Safire’s op eds. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/30/opinion/30SAFI.html?n=Top%2FOpinion%2FEditorials%20and%20Op-Ed%2FOp-Ed%2FColumnists%2FWilliam%20Safire
Heterosexual marriages are so plagued by divorce and other failings that allowing homosexual marriages couldn’t hurt the institution and might even improve it; at least homosexuals can’t be accused of do it to fulfill social expectations.
Third, the main non-theological argument I’ve heard against gay marriage is that it will hurt the children. I’ve studied a fair amount of psychology and the literature, as of last summer at least, showed few significant differences between children adopted by homosexual parents and those adopted by heterosexual ones. The few differences were related to a decline in the strength of gender roles (distinct from gender identity). Girls were more promiscuous, while boys were more chaste (weakening of the slut/stud bias). Women were more likely to aspire to typically masculine careers (i.e. doctors, lawyers, politicians) while boys were more respectful of “woman’s work” (teachers, nurses, misc child rearing endeavors). I don’t have access to the APA database right now so I can’t refer you to any particular article but I can tell you that these effects are small in magnitude and that almost all studies I have seen on this issue either find no differences or the ones above. Note: no study I have ever heard of has found that children adopted by homosexual parents are more likely to identify as homosexual.
Welcome to the Straight Dope, Telcontar. That’s as good first post as any. It’s nice to have another thoughtful poster aboard.
I think it’s part of a much larger and more sinister plan on the part of the evil Republicans.
There, that sentence should have cleansed me of any last particle of partiality, so you can take this next observation with your required dosage of salt.
The plan is simply to make gay marriage an issue over the next sixteen months in an effort to polarize the election around it. It’s all about flagging the most divisive possible issue the people in power can smear on good old Howard Dean, Governor of Vermont, signer of Vermont’s civil union law, and candidate for President. If the brush gets sloppy enough, they can use it to smear everyone else on the Democratic side.
If not, well shoot, GOP has further alienated a small minority which so far has proven unable to directly influence election politics against them. The fags are still the perfect target.
Frist is hedging a bet so that the GOP can play on the moral outrage caused by bare sexuality in hopes of minimizing or counteracting the far more technical moral outrages like the ones I personally hold.
Slouch 'em toward Gomorrah, and maybe they’ll knuckle-drag themselves to the polls.
Its the darndest thing, Sofa but I heard almost exactly the complementary opposite come slithering out of the mouth of Mike Savage (a radio ad offering to infect the listener with his viewpoint) he talks about how the Dems are going make gay marriage the number one point of thier campaign!
(You gotta listen to this guy, he makes you thankful for the development of thorazine.)
What I have never understood is why people even CARE so much about who’s gay and who isn’t? I mean, unless it’s like, the person you’re interested in dating-what does it really MATTER?
Forget “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, my philosophy is, “Don’t Know, Don’t Care.”
Oh, this is so weird. Elucidator, I was just composing a response to you in this thread.
I’ll save us the trouble and quote what I had so far here:
Looks like a pretty good read of the situation between the two of us, but of course completely unsustainable by actual evidence. Now I understand why you piss me off so bad sometimes–I know I’m right, and I’ll never have jack for a real citation.
Chicago Faucet, there seems to be confusion between matrimony, a religious rite of bonding, and marriage, a social-legal relationship
The State chooses to recognize SOME matrimonial rites as being valid ways to enter a marriage. But not all. Any church, religion or cult can perform matrimony upon a man and a woman, a man and a man, a woman and a woman, a man and four women, or two men three women and a hedge. The state can refuse to recognize it as valid if it doesn’t meet the state’s requirements (monogamous, among people legally capable of giving consent, nonincestuous, and so far heterosexual). The state OTOH cannot command the churches to administer any matrimonial right.
Contrary to popular belief, marriage as we know it did NOT originate with Christianity. The Romans and Greeks had civil marriage, complete with stipulations as to who could marry who and what were grounds for divorce – you could get a blessing praying to the gods for a succesful marriage at the local temple, but it was nto what made it legally binding. The ancient Israelites did NOT require a rabbi or priest to celebrate a marriage, it was handled by the tribal elders. What happened was that churches and temples being in many lands the one organized institution that held together amidst the passage of history, they at various times took over such things as recording and officializing marriage, birth and death records. Which led to forms of marriage amenable to church doctrine becoming the usual and customary standard – but that doesn’t mean the state is subject to the church’s doctrine. Specially in the USA.
If the two parties go into it with love and commitment, a civil marriage signed in front of a county clerk and two witnesses is a 100% true marriage; and one performed in sung Latin in the Great Nave of St. Patrick’s by ten Cardinals isn’t official until one of the redhats signs a paper (license) from the State of New York.
It already does. One question, tho. How is a traditional, male/female couple who decides to remain childless any different than a same-sex couple? Or, for that matter, how is a same-sex couple who adopt children (or have young children from a previous marriage living with them) any different than a traditional couple?
**
Agreed. How does a same-sex marriage weaken a traditional marriage?
A quote from the Honorable (no giggling) Mr. Frist:
“I have this fear that this zone of privacy that we all want protected in our own homes is gradually — or I’m concerned about the potential for it gradually being encroached upon, where criminal activity within the home would in some way be condoned,”
A quote from me:
“I have this fear that this zone of privacy that we all want protected in our own homes is rather rapidly being encroached upon by a an entire segment of the political elite which has no business telling me, quite frankly, who I can and can’t have sex with, or make a lifelong commitment to.”
Nobody ever seems to ask this, but I have a question for the conservative dopers among you… I’m sure everyone agrees that the vast majority of people find true happiness in marriage, yes? Or at the very least, they are happy for a long time.
Now- do you expect homosexuals to “go straight” and marry members of the opposite sex, to find fulfilment in another person? Or is the goal to force them to live in (not my term- I happen to believe in and enjoy premarital sex) “sin”?
Sorry, this should have been included in the last post…
Apart from anything else, conservatives and republicans (and those who are both) spend a lot of time suggesting that America is overpopulated and that immigration must stop, or at least slow down…
Shouldn’t you be thrilled at the idea of gay- and presumably childless- couples?