How ? It’s not like homosexuality is some hypothetical behavior; we know for a fact that being gay isn’t going to cause spontaneous combustion or self cannibalism or whatever “harm” you imagine it might. Even if it did, forbidding marriage wouldn’t stop it.
There’s no inherent connection between those two beliefs; you could just as easily say “I believe in God. Therefore bisexuality is mandated”.
First, the existence of homosexuality in the first place ( including in nature ) shows it’s no great evolutionary weakness, and possibly an advantage. Second, evolution is a description of how things work, not a moral imperative.
I don’t understand why people try so hard to oppose gay marriage. What will be accomplished if it’s illegal to be same-sex married? Sure, it may disappoint a bunch of people, but what more? It’s not like every gay person is going to look at his or her partner and say “Ohp, we can’t get married, so now I’m straight and I hate you. burr.”
Very well said; Persoanally, I do not think that law should have ANY root in a religious footing. My religion has no bearing on what your lifestyle should LEGALLY be defined as; it actually should at most only define how I view your lifestyle. This is a great cause of misunderstanding arround certain people i know, with my following Bhuddist teaching, with Protestant parents and a denied (By my grandfather) Jewish Heritage. (We won’t even go into my Catholic Godmother or the fact that I said Bhuddist teaching because I prefer to think of ones place in the world and all it encompasses, while everyone else around this backwoods area thinks if you don’t go to the white clapboard meeting houses every Sunday then you’re going straight to Hell)
But digressions aside, I agree with you. Subjectivity is key when deciding law. Homosexuals are humans. I know that some folks would rather deny them even such a simple concession. They desrve the same rights and privlages given to any other group of humans within our society. Generally speaking, the Average White Male is the yard stick we use in this country: How does the salary of women compare to that of the Average White Male? How does the Educational Oppurtunity of a Black Male compare to the Average White Male? How do Latino Men compare to Average White males when it comes to knowing football trivia? ( Ok, I am being a bit glib.)
the point is, What if the Average White Male is gay?
Suddenly, is he not worthy of even the simple common curtesy of recognition that he is allowed to choose a partner and live, if not with the respect of all people, thwn with the courtesy of privacy and human compassion?
It is strange how hard people will go to extremes.
One one hand, it is whast makes America great, that you have such freedom to be zealous about any cause. On the other, it makes it all the more satisfying when you can soundly support / debunk a topic upon which someone has championed with the fervency and zeal of their convictions.
It also seeems that people will rally with extreme force against their fears, and place them in a basket of morality, in order to decide what is best for others, all so they can live without the discomfort of their said fears.
I will agree, with this alternative: “I believe in god, and his creation of man, and gave hime free will. Therefor, if man is gay (or bisexual) God created that as well, and I accept it.”
So under your logic, MLK Jr. was asking what his country could do for him. Susan B. Anthony was asking what her country could do for her. Thus their goals should not only have been ignored, but actively opposed. Because they had the audacity to ask for equal rights for themselves instead of joining the army or whatever they’re supposed to “do for their country.”
So on that basis, women getting the right to vote would have cost too much money. Desegregation would have cost too much money. If you were alive during those times, you would have opposed it since it cost any money at all and didn’t personally benefit you.
I think that the argument “for” gay marriage is actually a derivative of the separation of church and state issue coupled with simple civil rights, and here’s how I see it:
Marriage is *either * a religious ceremony or it is a civil contract; if it is argued to be both, the provisions of the First Amendment start to go out the window.
If marriage is a religious ceremony, then each religion may define and regulate “marriage” as it sees fit, conduct their own ceremonies, etc., which is all well and good. BUT, if that were the case, then the government would not subsidize or be involved in said religiously-dictated or governed ceremony in any way (separation of church and state).
However, the US government most certainly IS heavily invested in marriage, as citizens are required to obtain licensure, laws regulate marriage (and inheritance and family law), and people receive tax breaks/subsidies by having entered into “marriage,” (and for procreation). This being the case, then, marriage is NOT merely a religious ceremony, but instead is a contract by and among the marrying parties and the state. As marriage is in actuality a civil contract, by and among the marrying parties and the state, then the State has no right whatsoever to discriminate against any two persons who wish to marry, regardless of gender.
You can’t have it both ways; either a) marriage is nothing more than a religious ceremony (in which case the various churches and religions can dictate the terms and conditions without interference from the State), and the government must cease subsidizing folks (tax breaks, etc.) who participate in this religious ceremony, **or ** b) marriage is a contract between two persons and the State, through which those persons receive not only legal recognition as a paired set, but also tax benefits, and just like *every other contract * to which the State is a party, may not be discriminatory.
The only argument against Gay marriage involves religious-specific morality, and those arguments (“it’s immoral,” “it’s improper,” “it’s against God’s will,” and so forth) attempt to create the imposition of certain religious beliefs upon what is in reality a government-controlled contract. That is the actual Constitutional “entitlement” vis-a-vis gay marriage; it’s not only a “civil rights” issue as so many have tried to argue…it’s the First Amendment issue as it relates to the “institution” of marriage.
It’s a little ironic that someone who opposes SSM on the principle that it’ll do nothing for him would decry gay folks for asking what their country can do for them.
Peanut50: Excellent post, but with one serious flaw. You adopt the Fallacy of the Excluded Middle in it.
Marriage arguably is, in individuals’ perceptions, three different things:
[ul][li]Union contracted between two people who commit to each other, regardless of what any third party may think about it. I’m personally acquainted with a Lesbian couple here in N.C., which is about as likely to give legal recognition to their marriage as it is to award Osama bin Laden honorary citizenship. But what they mean by the marriage is what counts.[/li][li]Legally recognized institution, in which two people undertake to accept responsibilities with respect to each other and to give rights regarding themselves to each other, and the state agrees to that union and to enforce those rights and responsibilities.[/li][li]Covenanted union before God, often seen as sacramental in nature.[/ul][/li]
Note that any given relationship between two people can be any combination of these elements. A couple may agree to split and to have their marriage dissolved in court and annulled by the church. If the church acts before the state, we have a legal marriage in which the couple no longer regard it as one and the church no longer recognizes it as one. It’s a commonplace that the Catholic Church does not regard a civil divorce as dissolving a marriage in its eyes. And a “common-law marriage” is one where the couple have made the commitment but never bothered to invoke church or state to recognize it.
Under the law in most states, a civil marriage is contracted by the exchange of vows before someone authorized to receive them. That someone can be a public official or an authorized clergyperson, acting as agent of the state to solemnize a civil marriage simultaneously with carrying out his clerical capacity as officiating at their religious wedding. He wears two hats in that role: agent of the state for the legal aspect, and agent of the church for the religious aspect.
The couple I mentioned in my first example had a church wedding (before it became illegal to do so in N.C.), co-officiated by our priest and the Reform rabbi who was the clergy for the Jewish woman who was half of the happy couple. So couple and church recognize a marriage not considered legal by the state.
Beyond that quibble, which I think is an important one, your post says something important: if the sole grounds for discriminating against a same-sex marriage are religious in nature, then the Establishment Clause kicks in. However, there have been people posting here setting forth non-religious arguments against gay marriage (which I personally think don’t hold water, but I’m not the one who has to decide that).
In the interest of the Straight Dope, I should point out that the phrase I bolded is utter nonsense.
The origins of that phrase are pretty well documented, and Kennedy would have heard them before anything Hitler might have said was translated out of the German, if Hitler actually said something similar.
Oliver Wendell Homes, 1884:
LeBaron Russel Briggs, 1904:
Warren G. Harding, 1916:
George St. John, a student of Briggs who was later headmaster of Choate school at the time that JFK attended, in an address declaimed annually to the students:
They may not conduct services purporting to be marriage services or reasonable facsimiles that solemnize a union contrary to what state law permits. It’s somewhere in the General Statutes, but I don’t have a cite nor the ambition to wade through them to find it.
[quote]
Marriage arguably is, in individuals’ perceptions, three different things:
[ul][li]Union contracted between two people who commit to each other, regardless of what any third party may think about it. I’m personally acquainted with a Lesbian couple here in N.C., which is about as likely to give legal recognition to their marriage as it is to award Osama bin Laden honorary citizenship. But what they mean by the marriage is what counts.[/li][li]Legally recognized institution, in which two people undertake to accept responsibilities with respect to each other and to give rights regarding themselves to each other, and the state agrees to that union and to enforce those rights and responsibilities.[/li][li]Covenanted union before God, often seen as sacramental in nature.[/ul][/li][/quote]
I disagree that your first example constitutes “marriage” as we are discussing it here, and as the law at any level construes marriage. The entirety of the debate circles about legally-recognized marriage, not some form of cohabitation or living together that has the “sanction” of some individuals’ religious body, as in the case you mentioned. This is the flaw in your argument - if we define “marriage” as you have in your first example - effectively, nothing more than cohabitation - then there IS no argument about “gay marriage,” because patently, gay persons can cohabitate NOW. Your assertion that “what they mean by the marriage is what counts” is fallacious in that the entire *point * of the debate over gay marriage is the legal recognition and status that is afforded to heterosexually married couples.
That is *precisely * my point; while the priest or pastor or rabbi may well be officiating in his religious capacity in accordance with the couple’s religious beliefs, he/she is not allowed to perform that ceremony without the sanction of the state, or, if he does perform the ceremony sans state sanction, the state has no requirement *whatsoever * to recognize the ceremony or grant any legal rights thereunder to the “married” couple. In this instance, if the couple is not interested in legal recognition (for whatever reason), then no one other than the couple and their church, including the government, has any say in whether those persons do or do not perform this particular ceremony. As an example, neither the government nor the citizenry have any say in whether or not your daughter gets baptized or makes her Holy Communion or her Bat Mitzvah. BUT, none of these ceremonies confer specific standing under law, or legal recognition. Legally-recognized marriage, however, most certainly does confer specific legal rights and recognition, and benefits under law…which is why it is a civil contract between the participants and the State.
Yes…they are cohabitating, with the sanction of their respective religious (local) leaders, with no legal rights appurtenant to marriage, no rights of inheritance, no rights to each other’s social security, no rights to file joint tax returns or to receive tax deductions based upon their status. They may have had a religious ceremony performed…but they are not married under law. This legal differentiation is the very crux of the argument about gay marriage, and to argue that cohabitation is equivalent to legal marriage is to effectively deconstruct the argument, for if cohabitation = marriage, then there IS no “gay marriage” argument, is there? Gays or heterosexuals may cohabitate without interference from anyone…but they don’t get all the legal goodies, either, and those legal “goodies” are precisely why gay people want to “marry,” not cohabitate.
I believe that most arguments against SSM purporting to be “non-religious” are specious. I haven’t seen one yet that does not, at its heart, spring from religious convictions centering around marriage as a “sacrament” or marriage for procreation. If marriage is nothing more than a contract by and among two individuals and the State, what non-religious reasons can exist? This *is * where the Establishment Clause kicks in, IMHO.
Regarding the first point: By forbidding same sex marriage, we deny to one segment of the population the right to enter into a legally recognized relationship that bestows both rights and obligations regarding taxation, survivor benefits, division of property in the case of separation and all the other rights and responsibilities that the law recognizes for spouses. For example, it is not at all rare to hear of situations in which one partner of a homosexual couple is denied the right to speak for a partner who has suffered an injury or disease that renders them incompetent, forcing the first partner to watch as the birth family makes medical decisions contrary to the wishes of the ill or injured person. Even visitation rights to hospitals can be denied a partner on the grounds that that person is not “family.”
OK. I have thought “evolution.” I have also read actual articles by actual scientists regarding evolution. Several salient points appear as a result of those readings:
homosexual behavior (including lifelong homosexual behavior) occurs within the realm of nature, so it is clearly not something that evolution destroys;
there are actually several separate hypotheses regarding the utility of homosexual (and non-breeding) behaviors: among them, that an individual that does not breed contributes to the food gathering and defense success of a kin group, thereby increasing the amount of food (and the probable defense) of the offspring of the breeders. Since the non-breeding individual shares a certain amount of genetic material with the breeding parents, actions performed to ensure the success of their offspring actually increase the likelihood of the propagation of the non-breeding member’s genetic material.
no group (human or otherwise) has a population of homosexuals that exceeds the ability of the species to reproduce, therefore claims that homosexualityt will lead to the death of the species (including humanity) are simply in error.
I seem to be losing any skill I had at expressing myself clearly, so here goes again:
What person X means by “I am married” can mean three different things: I agreed to commit myself to Y for life in exchange for his/her promise to do likewise"; “I got a marriage license and went through a state-approved ceremony to get legal recognition for that commitment”; or “I and my spouse-to-be went before our clergyman and the church and committed ourselves in marriage before God.” Only one of these is the official, state-recognized state of marriage, but all three enter into people’s mental constructs of what they mean by “marriage.” I can find you literally 100 threads on a Christian board where people are arguing straight-faced that gay marriage should not be permitted because God is opposed to it. Nothing to do with law, everything to do with the religious construct, but they’re switching definitions in midstream to apply the religious definition to the legal one. And, free speech being protected, they have the right to do that. Even though it works an injustice on the gay people who want legal marriage.
By the way, there is a distinct difference between a couple who is married in their own sight and one who is cohabiting. It has to do with individual commitment. I’ve known couples who were doing each, and what they meant by it were quite different. Yes, legally there’s no difference. But what makes this discussion so convoluted is that people are in fact swapping definitions one for another rapidfire.
Nobody ? Of course not; there are always people looking for something to hate, and there are always people who hate those who have different tastes. Even in cultures where homsexuality has overwhelming approval, I’d expect someone to hate it. There’s a jerk in every crowd.
