Joe: Hey Fred, how are you voting on Amendment 10?
Fred: The ban on same-sex marriage? I’m voting against it Fred.
Joe: But, you’re a Christian aren’t you?
Fred: I sure am.
Joe: I don’t understand…
Fred: This country was built on freedom for ALL beliefs, Joe, not just mine. I couldn’t be involved in gay marriage, but that’s my personal business. I have no right to force my way of life on others, just as they don’t have the right to force their’s on us.
Imagine if there was a Jewish majority in the country. Would it be right for them to ban everybody from eating pork? They might have the power to do so, but wouldn’t it be much more in the spirit of freedom to allow people to make that choice themselves?
Joe: Well, I suppose so…
Fred: If you read your history, there were times when we Christians suffered persecution and limited rights because of our beliefs. I feel it’s our obligation to not make the same mistakes.
Joe: You’ve sure given me something to think about!
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I think the biggest reason the bans on SSM had such overwhelming support is that folks do not see the difference between “I’m personally against it” and “It should be against the law.” Perhaps driving home this point would help.
Joe: God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and STEVE!!
The way to SSM is to take a stepwise approach. Get civil unions passed as an interim measure, and people will come around to SSM eventually. I think it’ll take a generation, but it’ll come. Gay relationships are entering the mainstream at an accelerated rate.
You’ve never listened to a rant on SSM. Most of the people the ad would be targeted to disagree (nearly violently, and sometimes violently) with the first sentence. Their deeply held, absolutely incorrect belief is that this country was built on freedom for all types of Christians (and even then, they want to define “all” to mean “all types of Christians that they happen to like.”) - they think that the first amendment is twisted whenever it is used to refer to free exercise of religion that is not centered around Jesus.
It’s a freaky, twisted worldview. But that’s where they are. So, yes, they completely believe they should get to force their way on others.
And again, you’ll get bizarre answers that deal with this being a Christian Country and God made it that way, so He wouldn’t allow that to happen.
You’re trying a rational approach with people who are not in the least bit rational.
The ad makes a strong point, but the point is not a clincher.
The basic argument is that two people who enter into a same-sex marriage are not “forcing their views on anyone”. Underlying this is the unstated premise that marriage is a private affair, which affects only the couple involved.
And the weakness is that the premise isn’t true. A conjugal relationship can be private, but marriage is the act by which I and my partner take our private relationship and make it public, demanding legal and social recognition for the commitment we have made to one another. This affects the community at large; that’s the whole point of marriage as a legal and social institution.
So the proponents of same-sex marriage are not requiring anybody to enter into a same-sex marriage, but they are requiring everybody to accept, and give effect to, the same-sex marriages that others enter into.
So you have to go further and argue that our commitment to freedom, diversity and tolerance requires us to extend to same-sex marriages the same legal and social recognition we extend to opposite-sex marriages. I personally have no difficulty with this, but others apparently do. And, much as I like your ad, it doesn’t really address the point.
I personally don’t think appeals to reason are really going to help. “Freedom”? If some people cannot understand why denying a certain portion of the population the same legal priveleges and protections as the rest based on orientation isn’t “bigotry”, I really can’t see how you’re going to get through. Some of them don’t care if they’re bigots, others don’t really recognize faggots as human beings who deserve equal treatment under the law.
It looks to me like habituation and attrition are the only way to go; habituation through slow change that is relatively imperceptible but always progressive; attrition through eventual death by age or other natural causes of those who cling to the old-fashioned notion that gay couples are fundamentally different from straights.
It’s slow, and unfair; but given the resounding backlash across the country against gay marriage, my read is that, excepting the People’s Republic of Pinkofaggotopia (MA), the only way to beat the bigots is with patience, guile, and a healthy dose of cynical realism.
Comparing it to Jews banning the eating of pork is a false analogy. Gays are allowed to live together, they just do not get state recognition via marriage. They also do not get the tax benefits from marriage. I am for gay marraige, but from what I can tell all it means is that the state doesn’t recognize your union. You can still live together and you can still get married under whatever religion you choose, you just don’t get to be called ‘married’ or get to have the taxation system and judicial system involved in your union.
When I read your other question: “Does Isreal separate Temple from State?”, my first reaction was: “Not even America does that, and WE ARE SUPPOSED TO!”