i assume your belief in this is religious. then, it behooves me to point out that the idea of marriage goes well beyond religion and well beyond a man and a woman. in egypt, marriages were set up in the civil arena (as was pointed out) for rights of property and inheritance. in greece, marriage was an agreement between a man and his spouse’s father. many countries arrange marriages and many others allow or even endorse marriage to more than one person.
the idea that marriage is by definition between one man and one woman is simply not historically accurate. “tradition” is not on your side this time. i suggest revising what you think is the definition.
also, let me point out that no one is asking your church to sanction gay marriages. there need be no overlap between church-sanctioned marriages and state-sanctioned marriages, and indeed there shouldn’t be, though they share a name.
no one is asking to call barnyard animal love marriage. indeed, no one is even asking you to change your definition of marriage. what is being fought for is the right to be married in the eyes of the state, and to be able to enjoy all the rights and immunities granted to opposite-sex unions and not same-sex unions, despite the arbitrary differences between them.
what about a man who falls in love with an infertile woman? he is choosing a relationship where children cannot result. this is different?
also pretty darned common is polygamy (in fact, historically, it is more common than monogamy), child-rearing by community, and homosexual relationships. cites were provided for this above, by a great, though underappreciated post by AnimistDragon. again, your position is based on historically inaccurate data.
Well, if the American majority have their heads so far up their asses that they’d deliberately betray their own national raison d’etre for the sake of keeping us dirty nasty fags out of the full bloom of citizenship, then they can have this country. I’m moving to Canada if such a thing as a national Defense of Marriage Amendment is ratified. I’m pretty sure by that point gays will be able to claim political asylum.
I’ll be right behind you, jayjay, unless I end up in New Zealand instead.
A national Defense of Marriage Amendment will stand opposed to everything this country stands for, and will (if passed) signal that the United States is no longer a place where I wish to live.
i’ll do the same (though i might choose someplace warmer). i’m a het, and it disgusts me to think that the people of this country might be so bigotted to add a legalization of arbitrary discrimination to our national charter.
i’m not traditionally a politically active person. but if the amendment makes it to congress, you can bet each of my senators will receive letters detailing the plans of a talented and higly educated young person to flee the state and indeed the country, should such hatred be allowed to be enshrined in the constitution.
i think anyone who supports a federal amendment banning gay marriage shouldn’t even be allowed to look at the constitution. they know naught of for what this country stands.
But Fontbone, doesn’t that amount to saying that the state must cast its laws to accomodate your religious beliefs, and make it easier for you to pass those religious beliefs on to your children? Even if the state can base its laws on express religious beliefs (which it can’t, in the U.S.), why should the state take your religious beliefs as the touchstone, rather than the views of religious groups that support same-sex marriage? Because you believe gay marriage is immoral, and want to pass that on to your children, the state should not allow civil gay marriage, even for those whose religious views recognize it?
To take an analogy - some religious groups believe that marriage is a life-time committment and that divorce is immoral. Does that mean that they have the right to have the state prohibit civil divorce for all citizens, regardless of their religious beliefs, to make it easier for those who oppose divorce on moral grounds to pass their beliefs on to their children?
To Jayjay + Ramanujan + KellyM and everyone else opposed to the amendment. I urge you to write those letters to your congressmen/women and make sure they know your opposition.
Personally, I do not think it will make it to a full on constitutional amendment - it would be political suicide in my book.
That’s absolutely right. The Supreme Court delivered Brown v. Board of Education, separate but equal disappeared, and the U.S. immediately entered into a period of racial harmony that endures to this day.
[/sarcasm]
The civil rights movement was extremely complex and diverse, and a big part of it occurred in the legislative and executive branches, both federally and in the states. Things like the Civil Rights Acts don’t get passed because of court decisions, nor do constitutional amendments like the 24th Amendment (banning poll taxes as a condition to vote). They get passed because legislators think they’re the right thing to do, and that the measures are sufficiently popular with the middle folk that they’ll get support for voting for them. Similarly, enforcement of such measures by the executive is driven in part by the courts outlining legal/constitutional obligations, but popular support for such measures helps to ensure that executive measures are not grudging and half-hearted.
And, the ultimate source of authority rests with the people. Take Massachussetts - yes, a major victory for same-sex marriage, as a result of a court decision. Which has triggered a constitutional convention to try to amend the state constitution and ban same-sex marriage. Those who favour same-sex marriage are going to have to build bridges and persuade those in the middle (who may not have not thought of these issues in depth) that they should oppose the constitutional amendment. As a tactical matter, going around saying that if you’re not on my side, you’re a bigot, has never been a very effective method to persuade the undecided.
Firm, reasoned debate, aimed at the undecided middle, can indeed make change. Insulting the undecided middle can also make change - but it may not be the change you want.
I fully support gay marriage, and am embarassed to live in country that doesn’t. But let me try to answer the OP. Consider, say incest. (For the sake of this argument, between a brother and sister over 21, legally and mentally competant, and one of them is sterile…) You, or someone you know well, probably considers that wrong. But I bet you can’t explain why. But that reason you can’t explain is likely to be very similar to someone’s objection to gay marriage.
Unfortunately I’m not quite sure about my incest example, and can’t articulate the reason. But I think thinking about it might help you understand some anti-gay-marriage people.
fontbone: Thanks for a polite and clear explanation. Now let me disagree with it It’s fine, but it’s based on your assumption that homosexuality is wrong. People disagree with that.
A simplified analogy: Person X believes we go to hell if we do D. Person Y believes we go to hell if we don’t D. It sounds easy, until you replace D by something that’s OBVIOUSLY bad, and some people don’t get it. The trouble is, they’re doing the same the other way round. X and Y are never going to agree. They can kill each other trying to enforce their beliefs, or they can agree to let each do D or not as they choose, even though they ‘know’ the other will burn for it.
Letting ‘civil union’ be called marriage is the price you pay for not having the government require you to call sprouts pumpkins, because some nutcases happened to believe that and managed to get their view imposed on everyone. OK, not really sprouts but I wanted something that everyone could relate to as really stupid.
I don’t think the amendment has much chance of passing. It’ll undoubtedly get a majority, but 67 Senators is a tall order even for proposals with 80% public approval, like the Balanced Budget Amendment. There’s not even a stable majority supporting the FMA.
When the FMA fails, the religious right will have lost their shot on this issue. Generational replacement will take care of the rest over the next 30 to 40 years.
The religious bigots will die out. They will not be missed. Their ideology will go with them.
Of course, I might still move to Canada anyway. The stench coming from the churches in this country is overwhelming.
Sorry, long post. Decided to respond to everyone in one, instead of breaking it up.
Alright. I said I wrote hastily. Obviously this wasn’t clear. Apparently what I should have said is: “Most of the arguments presented, both by those who are opposed and those who are offering straw men to knock down, are not what cause me to be opposed to gay marriage.” By “not important to me”, I meant “are not the arguments I consider important when making my mind up about gay marriage.” I did not intend to imply that they aren’t valid positions for anyone to hold, and important in their own mind. Just that they aren’t MY reasons for being opposed.
Well, we’re apparently different people then. I respect others’ rights to their opinions, no matter how well-researched, well-examined, and well-defended they are. If they’re not those things, I don’t use them to influence my own opinion, but I respect that they may believe however they wish to believe.
(My bold.) I do have a rational basis for doing so. I’ve explained it. You’ve obviously disagreed with it. It has nothing to do with a belief that homosexuals “don’t deserve” anything, or that I’m better than they are. I believe that marriage is between men and women. I’ve stated that I have no problem with all the rights associated with marriage being afforded to homosexual couples. All I’ve said is that I prefer the union to be called something else.
I’m in this discussion because the original poster asked why same-sex marriages bothered people who are opposed to it. I figured I’d explain why I’m opposed to it. And I didn’t intend to dismiss opposing opinions (and, you may not have noticed, I “dismissed” the opinions of people who agree with me, as well), I meant to say that they weren’t my reasons. I apologize for the confusion.
I think it’s a more compelling argument, seeing as how it comes from both sides. That indicates that it’s an important one to everyone.
Why do you say that? I don’t think it’s been the case for me. As I’ve said, I’ve got gay friends, I’ve got friends who drink, who take any manner of drugs, who hate their neighbors, and do many other things that I consider sinful. They’re still my friends. Some of them are my BEST friends. They know my opinions of their habits/lifestyles/beliefs, and disagree with how I live my life. We’re. Still. Friends. Whether you want to believe we are or not.
I explained already, very clearly, why I believe homosexuality is wrong.
You shouldn’t accomodate it, unless you live in the US, and the majority of the people agree with it. That’s the point of a democracy. We all have our beliefs, and whichever “random nonsense” has the most believers makes the laws. I’ve been pointing out why I believe in this “random nonsense”, but impact-wise it doesn’t matter a bit if I don’t have enough fellow believers. If I do, then you have to accomodate my nonsense, or move, as was suggested. If marriage is determined to not just be between a man and a woman, then I’LL have to accomodate YOUR random nonsense, or move. That’s the way things work here.
No one taught me that, actually. I was raised, by both my parents and my religion, to believe that homosexuality was wrong. At some point in my rebellious teenage years, I realized that all my friends were doing these things (drinkin’, druggin’, havin’ premarital sex, etc.) that I had been taught were wrong, but they seemed to be having a good time of it. So I had to decide for myself what I believed. I thought about these subjects, I researched 'em, I prayed about 'em, and I came to the conclusions I’ve come to.
I’m willing to look into it. But as I’ve said, my opposition stems not from what is traditional, but from what I think is right. So even if you’re right, and heterosexual marriage is only a century-old American tradition, it won’t change my opposition to same-sex marriage, because that’s not what causes it. I’m always willing to become more educated, though.
First of all, the whole fact that a discussion exists shows that it’s much more than “arbitrary” differences. But I’ve said, and I’ll say again, I have no problem with same-sex unions enjoying the same rights and immunities granted to opposite-sex unions. Just don’t call it marriage. In my opinion, it’s not. And that’s how I’ll vote on any ballot that asks.
Please note, I said “were everything functioning normally”. An infertile woman does not have “everything functioning normally”.
Did I miss anyone?
Fontbone
“Calvin: Verbing weirds language.”
“Hobbes: Perhaps in time we can make language a complete impediment to understanding.”
I agree wholeheartedly, and encourage anyone who is in favor of the amendment to write to their congressmen/women and make sure they know your support.
But I don’t think it will either. It WOULD be political suicide…the topic is too hot for that. So everyone planning to flee the country can probably put their emigration plans on hold.
Fontbone
“Calvin: Verbing weirds language.”
“Hobbes: Perhaps in time we can make language a complete impediment to understanding.”
Well Fontbone - this is why I’m proud to be an American. Because we can still retain the right to disagree…
I hope this thread doesn’t dissuede you from joining the boards in other places besides volcanic debates in Great debates. Once you get to know others here…it becomes quite fun!
And, well, I figure if I can enjoy myself in the midst of a volcano, I can enjoy myself anywhere. I’ll probably pick something light and fluffy for my next thread to follow, though.
Fontbone
“Calvin: Verbing weirds language.”
“Hobbes: Perhaps in time we can make language a complete impediment to understanding.”
Okay, now that you’re actually looking at the arguments against your position, I’m going to detail my objections to your “rational” objections to my being allowed entry into the legal state of marriage.
Keep in mind, this is an argument about legality. If you want to establish legal boundaries around the legal institution of marriage, you’re going to have to provide verifiable, rational facts which will prove that society is better off keeping us gay people separate. So, if you’re going to use religious arguments in a legal context, expect to be asked for facts. Like, for instance, prove that souls exist. Prove that souls have gender. Prove that there is such a thing as marriage in an eternal sense. Prove that, if such things exist, they’re limited to male/female relationships.
What you’re spouting here, to a secular viewpoint, is nonsense. Pure gibberish. You’re basing a decision which will turn me and the man I love into second-class citizens on unproveable mumbo-jumbo. It has as much validity as me claiming that I’m Emperor of the Known Universe because Ming of Mongo has made me so. You can’t prove I’m wrong; Ming of Mongo only talks to me. You’re just going to have to take my word on it.
It’s infuriating to have religion standing between secular citizens and their rights in what is, constitutionally, a secular government.
What do you mean by basic nature? To me, homosexuality is my basic nature. Define your terms. This statement, as it stands, is semantically null.
I was homosexual before I even knew the word. I had crushes on boys my age when I was nine years old. If I had never touched a man sexually, I would still be homosexual.
Sure, I could live the life of a cloistered monk, and deny that I have any sexuality at all. But then, I would never have had the chance to meet my boyfriend, to make him feel loved, to make him happy, to devote my life to him. I’m sure it would make you more comfortable if we were chaste and miserable, but instead we’re in love and happy. The fact that you want us to deny our sexuality in order to appease a god we don’t believe is astonishingly selfish. Yes, we could choose to be chaste. But you could choose to be charitable.
Your analogy between alcoholism and homosexulity is abhorrent. I grew up in an alcoholic family. If you can’t tell the difference between a disease that brings misery and destruction to those you love, and love itself, then I can’t help you. Nobody can.
That’s astonishing. You have a prejudice, based on unproveable assertions, and the reason you want to see an entire class of people discriminated against is so that you can more easily pass on that prejudice to your children? Unbelievable.
Are you so afraid of the weakness of your position that you think that your children will reject it out of hand when they’re exposed to an alternative? Then it’s not much of a position.
Also, thanks for bringing up that ‘unspoken approval of homosexuality’ point. In your opinion, does our current society disapprove of homosexuality? Please list your reasons why you think that’s a good thing. Seriously. List them. What specific, tangible good is it doing society to disapprove of homosexuality?
Unless they adopt. Or have children by a previous marriage. Or (in the case of lesbians) opt for in vitro fertilization. Or take on the responsibility for family members’ children. In which case, the (now-complete, by your standards) family is hampered by a lack of protections, for the kids and the parents, in case of accident, death, divorce, or legal proceedings. They’re financially handicapped when it comes to property rights, inheritance, and taxes. Please tell me why the children of these unions should be penalized? Why are these kids unequal?
Examine your beliefs. Keep an eye on the consequences of the actions which you espouse. And wonder, for just a moment, if you might not be wrong.
what if the ballot says “since this will be similar in all counts to what the state currently considers marriage, we (the state) will refer to it as marriage. you may refer to it as ‘tim’ so long as we know what you’re talking about.”?
does it matter one lick what the state calls it, as long as you are free to disagree with the terminology, and your church has that same right?
or perhaps if the state eliminated all instances of civil marriage, and referred to every one as a civil union, would that be good enough?
It seems the bottom level of the problem is an inadequate separation of state and church in America in regards to marriage.
I was told (and I’m afraid that is all the citation I can give, so hopefully there’s a French doper here who can confirm or deny) that in France a couple is not considered legally married until they have gone through a civil marriage ceremony. That is, they don’t have the legal status of marriage and the rights the state gives to married citizens until they’ve met the requirements of a civil union and had that union ‘blessed’ or ‘acknowledged’ or ‘recorded’ or whatever the action is by an appropriate civil official.
The couple is free to undergo a religious marriage ceremony as well, of course, (before or after the civil one) if they so desire, and if they find a religion that accepts them as a suitable-to-be-religiously-wed couple.
Or a couple can have just a religious marriage – but while that might please the family and social circle, it won’t get them the right to share their partner’s insurance or the other ‘legal’ benefits of marriage.
Basically, the State sets the rules for who can be married civilly, and what rights that conveys in regards to the state and its laws. The Church sets the rules fro who can be married religiously, and what the implications are in regard to its sacraments and the parties’ souls and God and whatall.
It seems to me that a system like this might be compromise that would be acceptable to the majority of Americans. Since both gay and straight couples would be undergoing the same ‘civil marriage’ in order to gain the exact same set of legal rights and protections, gays would not relegated to accepting some ‘second class’ status.
At the same time, those whose faiths do not permit gay marriages could comfort themselves with the knowledge that at least there are no Catholic/Baptist/Mormon/etc. “religiously married” couples. They could rest assured that their own “religious marriage” meant their coupling was better and higher and more sacred than that of the gay couple down the street.
We’d have to settle on language that would make it clear what was being spoken of at any given time, but language usage is adaptable. After all, we only learned to speak of ‘analog clocks’ once ‘digital clocks’ were invented.
So we could say “civilly married” or just plain “married” to mean “having achieved the legal status of married in the eyes of the government” and use something like “religiously married” or “wedded” or “bound in Holy Matrimony” to mean “having undergone a religious joining ceremony.”
Probably we would have to grandfather all marriages in pre-existence before the adoption date of the new rule as automatically including the ‘civil marriage’ status, but those are just details to iron out.
You do realize that the amendment in question would not only bar gay marriages, but also bar and rip apart every single gay civil union in this country, and a great number of local ordinances which provide protection to gays as well, don’t you?
Actually, that’s the situation in the US now, too. You can have a religious ceremony, but you need to sign a certificate to be married. You can be married before a Justice of the Peace, and not have any church involved.
Unfortunately, the religious people want to have the civil institution bow down to their religious doctrines.
It’s easy, if you watch the news here, to think that gay people are demanding the right to be married in churches no matter what the churches believe about homosexuality. The truth of the matter is that we’re not trying to impose homosexuality on their religions; they’re using their religions to try and keep homosexuals from exercising their secular rights.
No, you don’t. You have a mumbojumbo nonsense reason for hating gays, based on crap about the no-proof-it-exists “soul” having a gender, and then accusing me and those like me of being, effectively, perverts who act against their soul’s gender. You know nothing of homosexuality. You are ignorant, and your opinions are worthless.
Yet you support the Republican Party’s no-marriage, no-civil union, no-gay rights at all Amendment. Your hatred belays your soothing lies.
Being gay is not something you do, it is something you are. Homosexuality is a state of being, not an action. So if you call that sin, you call my entire being, my entire core, my entire person sinful.
So majority rule is absolute, and to hell with all minorities, huh?
Very Christian. Your carpenter pal would be proud.
And why should what YOU think is right dictate what freedoms I have in MY life?
First off, I’ve been a lurker for a while, and this was the thread that finally spurred me to joining up. It’s a bigger and faster-moving message board than I’m used to, but I’ll jump in toes-first and see how it goes from there.
I’m a happily married bisexual woman, been married to an amazing fella for very nearly four years now, and I can see us sitting off in the far future together, all prune-wrinkly with my amazingly irritating dog yapping at something inconsequetional. Then, I think of how that vision could be popped so easily like a soap bubble, if my husband had been born a woman, and I just want to cry. I’m one of those rare people for whom gender is absolutely not even a barrier when it comes to falling in love and having desire for someone, and I just as easily could have fallen for a woman – in fact, my last relationship before meeting the Misterkyttie seven years ago was with a woman.
I’ve been questioned by well-meaning people that, since I’m married to a man, doesn’t that immediately negate my bisexuality? My answer is, absolutely not. I still have sexual feelings towards women, still find 'em attractive, and I still find plenty of men attractive. Show me a picture of A.S. Head, the fella who plays “Giles” on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and I’m apt to melt. Ditto for Angelina Jolie. At the same time, though, I’m not about to go cheating on my husband because of sexual thoughts about other people, male or female. I’ve been “this way” since right before puberty, been having crushes on girls as well as boys, but never said a peep about it 'til almost out of high school. This was the early '90’s, and homosexuality was still pretty well a new thing to be hearing of in rural NH, where I’m from. In fact, I was the only open kid there.
I guess the point of that is, for me, as well as for many other people in the world, this is not a choice. I can choose not to act on my feelings, because why would I want to cheat on such a rockin’ husband? but I’m still -gay-.
Why would anyone wish to deny the joy and wonder and stability of marriage to people who simply cannot choose who they fall in love with? I’ve read all the arguments for and against this topic, and while my rational, thinking mind can grasp it, on some fundamental level, I still can’t.
Fontbone said earlier that family is still the core reason behind marriage. He’d never condemn people who got married and found later that they’re infertile, because that’s something they can’t help. What about people like my aunt and uncle, who’ve been married for 40+ years, and never had kids, because they just plain didn’t want 'em? They’re both so wacky, I’d never wish children upon them for fear they’d be raising little Richard Lewis-es, but because they chose to stay childfree, does this make their marriage any less in the eyes of God?
I think this is a great idea. I really, really do. I’m not Christian, instead adhering to a melange of my own spiritual philosophy, Christianity, and love of Nature, and my husband is a straight-on agnostic. (His words: “I’ll believe there’s a God when He comes down to shake my hand and says, ‘Hello, MK’s Husband, I’m God.’”.) We were married outdoors, by a Justice of the Peace. It was a civil ceremony, nobody’s Gods were invoked, nor were any trampled on. But, we were married, got the paper to prove it. Whether any Church, be it Christian, Jewish, Tao, Baha’i, or whatever, ever recognizes it, doesn’t matter to me – I’ve got the paper, I’ve got the rights it entails, and I’ve got the man I love for the rest of our lives, however short or long they may be.
Conversely, if my man were a woman, I’d want to be granted those rights. Again, I’m not Christian, so whether any Church ever recognizes me, doesn’t really matter. I just want the legal rights so if I die or get hurt, my wife and our kids could have the benefits accorded to any spouse.
My dad’s one of those lumpy middle-America folks that were talked about earlier in this thread. He’s all for giving us the rights we by all means should have, but he’s vehement that we not call it a marriage – because so many more “tradition-minded” people would get offended by us using the word “marriage”. Mind you, he’s the first person to say something utterly non-PC in a conversation, just to get hackles raised, because it’s his freedom of speech to say what he wants to say, whether or not you or I get offended by it, but on this topic, he doesn’t want to offend anyone. I never said that people were easy to understand. shrugs
Personally, I’d rather that we call -all- “marriage”-type unions civil marriages or civil unions or whatever, as long as the rights are the same for everyone across the board, same-or-opposite sex. Then, if the more Church-minded folks wanna do a religious thing, and call it a marriage, go ahead. No skin off of my nose. As long as I have my rights, I’m a happy woman.
(Sorry if I ramble – I have ADD and tend to digress a -lot-. Medication cannot change 25 years of ingrained conversational style, I guess.)
It’s fine, but it’s based on your assumption that homosexuality is wrong. People disagree with that.
but I wanted something that everyone could relate to as really stupid.