Really? So because I’m sterile my coming marriage is incorrect?
See the thing is that the people that act the way that I (as interpreting the bible) believe that they should act actually do live healthy lives and raise healthy children. If they don’t, then you can probably point at a sin in their lives, like selfishness, anger, resentment, basically un-christlike behaviour as the culprit. People (in America) that model themselves after Christ live fabulous lives (today). What is wrong with this belief? Do you disagree?
I’m tired of this argument. We could go on and on. I have answered the OP. To defend myself is useless in this “worldy” discussion group.
You have only to ask:
So while God obviously doesn’t like divorce (explained, as you noted, in Matthew, Mark, and Luke), it is biblically permitted under certain circumstances due to the “hardness of our hearts.”
This is just your opinion. Of course, some of us are happy that there aren’t shows like Beaver on today, but I think you’ll find a lot of people disagree about the general state of the world. You need to provide more information as to why you think it’s crumbling.
Cite? Tell that to a child who’s been abandoned immediately after birth, but adopted and loved by the new parents.
To you. It hardly seems “selfish” to me. As far as what benefits gay marriage would have for society, it seems to me they’re the same as the benefits of straight marriage, which is to say, they’re benefits to the couple. I’m not clear on exactly what the benefits to society are in either case, other than fewer single people trolling bars, and usually having theatre seats sell in pairs.
If you’re talking about raising children, there are studies going both ways (so to speak), claiming same-sex parents are equally capable (or no)t of raising children as their hetero counterparts. Personally, I tend to view the studies that are pro same-sex parents as being more valid, but that’s my opinion. One thing that has, I believe, been determined is that the sexuality of a parent doesn’t guarantee the sexuality of a child.
Don’t forget, many people don’t consider the Bible to be the final authority on law in the 21st century.
On this I tend to agree. I just think this idea applies equally to children of same-sex parents.
Fine. It’s your opinion. But, why should your opinion be the one that we’re all forced to abide by? What difference would it make to you in your life if your neighbors were a gay couple? You’ve suggested that having gay neighbors might give your kids ideas you don’t approve, but do you think that would make your children “turn gay?” It doesn’t work like that.
Have you ever had gay neighbors? Maybe you should get to know a gay couple before deciding how you feel about their rights and privileges in our society.
Damn you Bryan Ekers and your stupid sexy research skills!
So where are you going to go? A christian discussion group?
A SMDB debate with Dopers is intellectual intercourse
A Church debate with other Christians is intellectual masturbation
Only one of these unions has any chance of being fruitful 
Am I the only one who spotted this? That little slip is very telling of where your head is.
What a strange, archaic little world you live in.
Yes, I disagree. Christian Americans live fabulous lives? Then why is there crime/unhappiness in the U.S. (where Christians are the vast majority of the population)? Is all the crime being performed by non-Christians, or something?
Overall, though, you seem to have the impression that the only way to lead a “fabulous” life is through the New Testament. Similarly, the only way a marriage can work (and should be legal) is if it is heterosexual. You haven’t offered proof of either premise and you’re ignoring any contrary evidence.
Well, we’re only “worldly” because we live in the, y’know, world.
Then I will.
The closest thing to a universal “traditional” family structure that I’m aware of is an extended family (typically multi-generational) and community, interlocked and mutually supporting.
Limiting the question to the care of children, there are the following factors:
First of all, children are a lot of work. Traditionally, that work has been distributed among members of a large community so that individuals are not overwhelmed by it. The development of the “nuclear family” produced tremendous social isolation and overwork, generally for the women in those relationships, because they were put in a position where they were expected to do more than their actual capacity. Even in this context, however, there is some distribution of labor, as schoolteachers, coaches, and other adults who are responsible for the upbringing of the children. Further, families have responded to this overwork by clubbing together to form mutually supportive groups (for example, my parents and other parents on my street were members of a “babysitting co-op” in which parents traded vouchers for childcare around).
Further, most adults will find that there is some age of child that they’re completely unable to deal with. Stereotypically, this is teenagerdom, but this is not a universal; I know a woman who provides foster care for troubled teens in part because she’s capable of interacting sanely with them and can’t deal with younger children at all. In an extended family, there will likely be someone who is adept at infant care, someone who is skilled at dealing with toddlers, and so on, up until the children are recognised at adulthood. A single pair of adults doesn’t have the resiliency to deal with these possible failure modes without risking harm to the children.
An extended family unit will leave the children exposed to a number of different people of a variety of ages and roles within the community. Rather than limiting the children to role models as presented by their biological parents, it introduces them to people of their grandparents’ generation (or older, if they’re so lucky as to have surviving great-grandparents) and their collected knowledge (and, with luck, wisdom). It gives them the examples of older children and adolescents so they know what they can expect as they grow older. And it provides them with access to a number of adults of their parents’ generation to talk to, interact with, and take as role models: aunts, uncles, their partners, family friends, and so on.
The primary social need of children is stability; children in disrupted homes are more likely to have troubles as adolescents and adults than children from stable ones. (And this is really, IMO, where marriage as for the good of the children comes from; the establishment of formal social ties underscored with economic entanglements promotes stability both by bringing together groups of people and making the dissolution of those bonds non-trivial.) That stability can be and has been produced from a variety of social structures; my personal preference is to look at families within their entire social context, because to break that off closes off avenues that have been, historically, used to keep families stable, and also does not recognise the necessity of distributing the process of child care.
Wow, it takes the Village People to raise a child.
Well stated, Lil, but I doubt even exposing prisoner’s generalizations as flawed will deter him.
Yes, you are. I’m just not sure if you’re still around to read this, since you got pulled into another kind of argument with others.
Absolutely no disagreement from me on this. But what does that have to do with same sex marriages? SSMs don’t produce children, so how would your statement above be changed if two men were allowed to be married?
But how? This is the sticking point where you lose me. Look, in case you missed it, I’m not gay myself. I’m happily married to a person of the opposite sex. I whole-heartedly agree with you that a family is best when there’s a mother, a father, and children. I agree that children need both a mother and a father.
But where I get lost is: what does that have to do with marriage? I mean, in logic, “a implies b” does not mean that “b implies a”. While I would agree that “family” implies “parents should be married (and of opposite sexes)”, I don’t see where “married” implies that “family” must follow. And, as has been pointed out ad nauseum in this thread, examples abound of a married man and woman who produce no family. So, clearly, marriage between a man and a woman can exist without family, without children, so why can’t marriage exist between two men the same way?
This I disagree with. In my experience, children are born tolerant. It’s their parents who teach them intolerance.
See, I don’t get where this follows. What do unconventional family units have to do with premarital sex? Are you really saying that if children were to grow up in a world that allowed two men to be married, that those children would be more likely to engage in premarital sex than the children who are currently growing up?
I’m not going to argue with you about whether the world is getting “worse” or not, if you see it that way then that’s what’s true for you. But what I just don’t understand is how allowing same sex marriage would contribute to that. How does SSM make the world more hedonistic? How does SSM make the world more selfish? How does SSM harm society? I see it exactly the opposite. Having SSM illegal makes it more likely that gays will be selfish. It’s human nature. If society told me that I couldn’t get married to the person I wanted to, while other people could, I’d be angry. I’d say, “Why should I do anything for society when society isn’t allowing me to just live my life the way I want, and the way so many others are allowed to live?” Call it petty if you will, but it’s human nature. If society showed respect for the relationships of gay couples, society would get respect in return.
So, you said it yourself: “marriage for a straight couple has GOT to take children into consideration”. I won’t argue with that (I don’t agree, but I won’t argue it). But what about that is inconsistent with allowing gay marriage? Marriage for a straight couple will still take children into consideration. And marriage for a gay couple won’t. What’s the problem with that?
Heheh. Exactly. But not quite. I agree with Lilarian but I disagree that it “exposes my generalizations” as flawed. In fact it demonstrates my hypothesis. As you so humorously explained, it takes a village to raise a child. So what happened to the “village”. I’ve lived in small towns before where most people know each other. It’s nothing like the world as it used to be. People may be friends, but next door neighbors don’t bother with raising each other’s children. Proof that the world has changed. And why has it changed? Women leaving the home is part of it. I know it’s not the only reason. The industrial revolution is a large part of it as well. But before you can get the village back, women have to be willing to return home and fulfill their duty to their children.
Ok, so change my questions to “Does the fact that … have any effect on THE WORLD?”
See, I think you’ve missed the point of that hypothetical. You have indicated that you think allowing gay marriage would have some negative effect on the world, or society, or marriage in general. But there are plenty of examples of marriages – between a man and a woman, the kind of marriage that everyone approves of – that are exceedingly dysfunctional or destructive or harmful to the participants in that marriage, and even to their children. Why don’t you believe that such marriages contribute to the decay of modern society? How can you accept marriages like that, which have a clear and obvious detrimental effect, and yet not accept a same sex marriage that has no demonstrable negative effect?
Um, perhaps teach them a tolerance of gay people that seems to be lacking in their parents? Teach them that gays are just people, no different, in any significant way, than themselves? That gay people have loving, monogamous relationships, just like straight people, and are just as entitled to be married as straight people are? That allowing same sex marriages will not hurt them, or their family, or their neighborhood, or their city, or their country, or the world, or society?
Right there’s your problem. To people like prisoner, this IS harmful. It’s an incredibly silly and hidebound viewpoint, in my opinion, but there it is. Remember, this is a poster who’s gone on record here as actually holding the opinion, in 2004, that women belong in the home and not in the workforce.
Somehow the entire last 40 years have just whooshed over his head.
I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure it didn’t run and hide because of homosexuality.
So, what would be better environment for a child: a hetersexual couple living in suburban isolation, or a gay couple with lots of adult brothers and sisters, involved parents etc. in a support network? What’s the more important factor, sexuality or support? If you worked at an adoption agency and had to decide between a straight couple with no support, and a gay couple with extensive support, how would you decide and why?
How is this even slightly relevant to the notion of gay marriage? Can we please save the discussion of the roles of women for another thread?
It’s all of a piece, Bryan. He can no more separate his archaic beliefs from each other than he can separate his arm from his body. Homophobia and sexism are two sides of the same coin, and people like prisoner prove it.
And thus we see: this topic cannot be discussed civilly on this board.
And we’re on our way to 48 states with amendments similar to the 11 that passed in this cycle.
Hey, I’m doing my best!
Heh.
So to boil this down…you don’t want to change the way marriage works because that’s the way we’ve always done it. Let me share a little story with you:
http://www.swordstyle.com/blog/archives/000051.html
Start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water. After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result - all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.
Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.
Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth.
Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked. Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.
After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana.
Why not?
Because as far as they know that’s the way it’s always been done around here.
I guess the moral is…you don’t have to do what you’ve always done simply because there is a history there. Sometimes its just an experiment that started with a monkey and now its safe to get the bananna. You’ll never know unless you try. And the stakes here are far higher than a bananna…we’re talking about human dignity.
Haha. Funny story. But it’s already been established that those of us who are against gay marriage aren’t against it because man/woman marriage is the way it’s always been. Read my first post. I outlined two perfectly understandable and logical (if selfish) reasons why some might be against gay marriage.
Aside from the fact that we still, for the moment, have freedom of religion in this country, prisoner, there’s one small problem with your argument:
The God upon whose values your argument is based said explicitly that He values certain other behaviors above all else, and your intent to condemn others – including me; I’m half of an infertile marriage, remember? – is contrary to what He said to do.
It’s not my place to tell you what to do, but I’d suggest a healthy dose of self-examination and repentance for speaking out against His Word in public.
May His peace be with you!