# Gay marriage proponents as dangerous to America as terrorists? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 3, 2004, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-proponents-as-dangerous-to-america-as-terrorists/232209 "2004-03-03T01:19:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Brutus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-proponents-as-dangerous-to-america-as-terrorists/232209/61 "2004-03-03T17:11:49Z")
> [@Dead Badger](#): > > Yeah, you can hear the mental cogs ticking, trying to find the one key issue (however irrelevant) that can distinguish hetero and gay marriages, then hanging an entire argument on it. Shame that any thought of love and companionship gets lost along the way - no, these days marriage is apparently solely about getting taxpayer money for pumping out sprogs. How very romantic. If this is the fabric of society, it’s sackcloth. Bullshit. You can love and accompany whoever the hell you please without the state getting involved. ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-proponents-as-dangerous-to-america-as-terrorists/232209/62 "2004-03-03T17:22:33Z")
> [@Brutus](#): > > Bullshit. You can love and accompany whoever the hell you please without the state getting involved. What about inheritance, spousal decision power and all the other things that straight people take for granted? I’m not expecting you to give a good answer. I know you don’t have one. We’re calling you a bigot for a reason, **Brutus**. You are one. It’s just that simple. You choose to discriminate a group of citizens for no sensible reason. You pretend to have a sensible reason and for all I know you may even believe that you do, but you just don’t. It comes down to this: why differentiate between gays and straights in this manner? What’s the point? There is none. You choose to do so anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Badger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dead\_Badger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Badger)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-proponents-as-dangerous-to-america-as-terrorists/232209/63 "2004-03-03T17:27:01Z")
> [@Brutus](#): > > Bullshit. You can love and accompany whoever the hell you please without the state getting involved. Bullshit back (isn’t this fun?). The state, as you will surely agree, is already involved in marriage. The standard wedding vow is: > [@](#): > > (Name), I take you to be my lawfully wedding (husband/wife). > > Before these witnesses I vow to love you and care for you as long as we both shall live. > I take you, with all your faults and your strengths, as I offer myself to you with my faults and my strengths. > > I will help you when you need help, and will turn to you when I need help. > > I choose you as the person with whom I will spend my life. This mentions both love and companionship, but not children. You are clearly talking about some other type of marriage, therefore. Would you care to tell us which? ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Badger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dead\_Badger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Badger)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-proponents-as-dangerous-to-america-as-terrorists/232209/64 "2004-03-03T17:32:43Z")
> [@Dead Badger](#): > > The standard wedding vow is… Actually, here’s a more common one: > [@](#): > > (First Person), will you have this woman/man as your lawful wedded partner, to live together in the estate of matrimony? Will you love him/her, honor him/her, comfort him/her, and keep him/her in sickness and in health; forsaking all others, be true to him/her as long as you both shall live? (I will). > > (Second Person), will you have this man/woman as your lawful wedded partner, to live together in the estate of matrimony? Will you love him/her, honor him/her, comfort him/her, and keep him/her in sickness and in health; forsaking all others, be true to him/her as long as you both shall live? (I will). Again, I’m seeing love and companionship but no promise to have ones loins bear fruit. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-proponents-as-dangerous-to-america-as-terrorists/232209/65 "2004-03-03T17:32:53Z")
**Brutus:** _No offence, but if you are not going to have children, why should the state grant you the privileges intended to help raise children?_ Again, it sounds as though the real point of your argument is not against **gay** marriage but against **childless** marriage. That, at least, is a logically consistent position, so why spoil it with illogical arguments that childless gay couples ought to be denied the same rights that childless straight couples get? They just make you look like, yes, a bigot who’s clutching at the “childlessness” factor for the purpose of resisting gay marriage _per se_. Go convince the state to fix its unfair policy of granting child-raising marriage privileges to **any** childless couples, and then you’ll have a logical leg to stand on when you argue that childless gay couples shouldn’t be allowed to marry. _If I am a ‘bigot’ in your eyes, I may as well just act like one._ You’re doing a pretty good job of that already, I’m afraid. Face it, **Brutus** , when you make **illogical** arguments in support of a policy that is largely supported by bigots, it is hard for others to understand what motivation you can possibly have **except** bigotry. _The state has every right and obligation to not change its institutions until it is shown that the change will, on the average, be for the better._ Well, by your own admission, you think it’s unfair that the state grants marriage benefits to childless heterosexual couples, right? And removing that unfairness would be a change for the better, right? So you support changing the state’s institution of marriage to deny it to childless heterosexual couples, right? In exactly the same way, gay-rights advocates are complaining about another form of unfairness in the marriage laws as currently defined, and arguing that removing that unfairness would be a change for the better. _You can love and accompany whoever the hell you please without the state getting involved._ But the fact remains that heterosexual couples, childless or otherwise, **are** allowed to involve the state in it if they want to, whereas homosexual couples, childless or otherwise, are not. See, we are complaining about unfairness in the institution of marriage **as it actually exists today**. You are replying with the objection that it isn’t actually so unfair in the context of **what you think the definition of marriage ought to be**. That’s not a logical response. ---
**Author:** ![Orbifold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/779978/32.png) [@Orbifold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orbifold)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-proponents-as-dangerous-to-america-as-terrorists/232209/66 "2004-03-03T17:36:51Z")
So _if_ we take for granted the unproved assertion that the purpose of marriage benefits is to make childrearing easier… …and _if_ we take for granted the unproved assertion that two parents of the same gender can’t raise children as two parents of the opposite gender… (…and if we don’t ask “Well, why don’t we _help_ gay couples raise children better by giving them those benefits of marriage, then?”…) …and _if_ we completely ignore the other legal incidents of marriage that have nothing to do with childrearing, like the ability to refuse to testify against your spouse in court… …then that _still_ doesn’t demonstrate how the hell gay marriage is “a threat to the fabric of society” on a par with international terrorism! Brutus isn’t just trying to shift the burden of proof. He’s throwing proof out the window entirely by focusing on things irrelevant to the issue at hand in this thread. Some people ask how the hell gay marriage is at all equivalent to international terrorism, and in response Brutus has dragged us into hypothetical la-la land. ---
**Author:** ![JoeyHemlock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7ba0ec/32.png) [@JoeyHemlock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoeyHemlock)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-proponents-as-dangerous-to-america-as-terrorists/232209/67 "2004-03-03T17:36:56Z")
> [@Brutus](#): > > In the interests of fairness, I wouldn’t be opposed to taking away the ‘benefits’ of legal marriage to couples, to be reinstated upon the birth of children. That would have the added bonus of either saving the gov’t some money, or allowing those benefits to be more generous. I was getting all angry at your homophobic and bigoted view of the matter, but then I read the quote above, and now I get it! You’re just a raging lunatic! That makes it a _lot_ easier to ignore you. ---
**Author:** ![Orbifold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/779978/32.png) [@Orbifold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orbifold)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-proponents-as-dangerous-to-america-as-terrorists/232209/68 "2004-03-03T17:38:06Z")
> [@Orbifold](#): > > …the unproved assertion that two parents of the same gender can’t raise children as two parents of the opposite gender… I meant “can’t raise children _as well as_ two parents of the opposite gender”, of course. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-proponents-as-dangerous-to-america-as-terrorists/232209/69 "2004-03-03T17:44:54Z")
And friend **Brutus** , a voice in the crowd, cries out! “Won’t somebody _please_ think of the children!” ---
**Author:** ![LibrarySpy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f9ae1b/32.png) [@LibrarySpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LibrarySpy)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-proponents-as-dangerous-to-america-as-terrorists/232209/70 "2004-03-03T18:20:41Z")
Some more references, studies of gay parents have been going on for more than 20 years, and there’s no evidence that the kids turn out poorly. [Cite from the ACLU](http://archive.aclu.org/issues/gay/parent.html) And a [counterpoint](http://216.239.37.104/search?q=cache:Sz0R7-6_2fYJ:www.dadi.org/hom3adop.htm+are+homosexuals+bad+parents&hl=en&ie=UTF-8), which makes the argument that because gays have a higher suicide rate than the national average, they’d make unstable parents. Ahem. Such brilliant reasoning will be right up **Brutus** ’ alley. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-proponents-as-dangerous-to-america-as-terrorists/232209/71 "2004-03-03T18:24:17Z")
Brutus, if a same sex couple had custody of a child, would you support them getting married, and partaking of the child rearing benefits? Just for argument purposes, assume the other parent died, or is otherwise unfit for parenting, and the living parent wanted to remarry but with a person of the same sex. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-proponents-as-dangerous-to-america-as-terrorists/232209/72 "2004-03-03T18:33:32Z")
> [@ElwoodCuse](#): > > I saw an article where a “scientist” said that homosexuality was dangerous because homosexual sex was better than heterosexual sex, and this lure will turn more and more people gay until we as a species completely fail to reproduce. I think that “scientist” was Edie Massey in _Female Trouble_: “Queers are just better. I’d be so proud if you was a fag, and had a nice beautician boyfriend. I’d never have to worry. I’m worried that you’ll work in an office, get married, have children, celebrate wedding anniversaries. The world of heterosexuals is a sick and boring life.” ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-proponents-as-dangerous-to-america-as-terrorists/232209/73 "2004-03-03T18:53:01Z")
It may well be that homo sex is better than het sex. Don’t know, not likely to find out, since the idea of kissing another guy creeps me out. But if thats a problem, its _my_ problem, not _thier_ problem. Long as they don’t scare the horses, none of my beeswax. Why would anyone want the dull ordinary life of the married, office-slogging het? I’ve no idea. But if they do, why shouldn’t they have it? And as well as the children, think about the parents. People used to torment themselves needlessly when thier children turned out to be slightly bent. Where did they go wrong, how did they fail? Why shouldn’t _they_ have the comfort of nagging thier son-in-law and spoiling thier grandchildren in vengeance? ---
**Author:** ![artemis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/91b2a8/32.png) [@artemis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/artemis)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-proponents-as-dangerous-to-america-as-terrorists/232209/74 "2004-03-03T19:09:36Z")
> [@Brutus](#): > > No offence, but if you are not going to have children, why should the state grant you the privileges intended to help raise children? So, I take it you feel my parents’ marriage ought to be legally annulled? They’re certainly not raising any children: I’m 41, and my younger brother is 39. We may be their biological offspring, but by no means are we kids. By your logic, my parents’ marriage should have ended 20 years or more ago, and their legal status for the past 2 decades should simply have been that of “shacking up”. Boy, THAT’S one legal change that’s going to go over well with the public! Face it, **Brutus** : marriage isn’t solely (or even primarily) about raising children. Othewise the elderly, the infertile, and those who deliberately choose to remain childless would not be permitted to benefit from the institution - and they are. ---
**Author:** ![Binarydrone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3da27b/32.png) [@Binarydrone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Binarydrone)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-proponents-as-dangerous-to-america-as-terrorists/232209/75 "2004-03-03T20:16:28Z")
> [@Brutus](#): > > Hardly, and your constant characterization of your opposition as ‘bigots’ just adds to determination. You are going to sit there and fling names at me? Well, fuck you then. If I am a ‘bigot’ in your eyes, I may as well just act like one. :rolleyes: > > The state denies equal access to secular institutions all the time. I cannot get the benefits that a small-business does, because I do not have a small business, one of the preconditions. Sure, I could start one just to get the benefits, but then again, a gay person could just marry a woman, no? I similarly cannot get a the various benefits that American Indians get, simply because I wasn’t born an American Indian! The unfairness of it! Et cetera. (Examples only. I do not think that I do or should qualify for either set of benefits.) > > The state has every right and obligation to _not_ change its institutions until it is shown that the change will, on the average, be for the better. To be honest, I could give a sweet shit if the opposition’s becomes more determined. We have tried asking, we have tried reasoning so fuck it, time to take what we want. Assuming that you are one of those folks that wish to deny people the protection of marriage based on orientation, and in reading you’re your posts I have no reason to think differently, well fuck you to. Enjoy being left behind in the 19th century. The rest of the world will get along quite well without you and your ilk standing in the way. As to your foolish argument, I know that this is a hot button issue but do try to think. Talk to me when the president is proposing a constitutional amendment to prevent a specific sub-group of society from obtaining a small business license and then you might have something. ---
**Author:** ![Homebrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Homebrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homebrew)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-proponents-as-dangerous-to-america-as-terrorists/232209/76 "2004-03-03T20:19:01Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > It may well be that homo sex is better than het sex. I’ve tried both. It is. Much better, in fact. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-proponents-as-dangerous-to-america-as-terrorists/232209/77 "2004-03-03T20:23:04Z")
I _still_ want to know how legalizing gay marriage would “fundamentally change the fabric of our society, and not for the better.” ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-proponents-as-dangerous-to-america-as-terrorists/232209/78 "2004-03-03T20:32:14Z")
Well, you see, the fabric of society is kind of like the fabric of the space-time continuum. If there’s a rip in the fabric, you could end up buggering your grandfather. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-proponents-as-dangerous-to-america-as-terrorists/232209/79 "2004-03-03T20:43:45Z")
Damn. And me without my deflector dish. ---
**Author:** ![brianjedi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@brianjedi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brianjedi)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-proponents-as-dangerous-to-america-as-terrorists/232209/80 "2004-03-03T20:46:48Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Well, you see, the fabric of society is kind of like the fabric of the space-time continuum. If there’s a rip in the fabric, you could end up buggering your grandfather. Would that be a paradox or a pair of dicks? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-proponents-as-dangerous-to-america-as-terrorists/232209.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-proponents-as-dangerous-to-america-as-terrorists/232209.md?page=5)