I was following up on my earlier post, he said, ruining the joke forever.
Whose love is given overwell
May look on Helen’s face in Hell;
While he whose love is thin and wise
May view John Knox in Paradise.
- Dorothy Parker, “Partial Comfort”
And this, of course, is where the disconnect is; denying homosexuals the right to marry is translating the belief into an action, and that action is wrong.
The belief by itself is perhaps misguided and stupid, but substantial problems, as I see it, arise from adding the belief that “X is wrong” to the belief that it’s okay to oppress those who do something which you feel is wrong. And it’s the latter belief which is by far the more venomous, surely.
- Blushes and glances away, tries not to look embarrassed *
Thanks, gobear. Glad I’m coming across well 
matt_mcl Your entire Tori Amos collection?
Yeah, that must have hurt.
Windwalker, in the UK, the Christian marriage rite specifically includes the mention of children. Christianity is the UK’s State Religion. Homosexual couples can’t have children without a 3rd party (naturally, that is). QED.
Personally, I don’t give two hoots about homosexuality. It’s not important to me.
But again I beg you to notice that not all people who disapprove of homosexuality are attempting to enshrine their beliefs in law. I think the state should get out of the whole marriage thing entirely, but in any event my abstract beliefs on the morality of homosexual activity do not influence greatly my voting or lobbying decisions.
The whole thing is fine if one understands that oppressing an action is not the same as oppressing the person himself/herself. Our actions are separate from who we are, human beings after all do have free will. Regardless of what kind of person someone is internally, he can choose not to express his desires externally. And because choice is involved, activities fall within the realm of moral condemnation.
UnuMondo
But a sterile woman can marry. As can a sterile man. And people on birth control. etc.
Umm… yeah. That’s kind of what I was saying, isn’t it?
Laurange, good catch, except the rite is centuries old. I’m not sure, but wasn’t being barren legal grounds for divorce?
qts, the Christian marriage ritual is not the only one that occurrs in the US or anywhere else. But all forms of governmentally sanctioned marriage, be they religious or secular, confer a set of (legal) rights and privelages on the married couple. These rights and privelages are denied homosexual couples even if they wish a purely secular marriage. That’s the issue at hand. The ‘religious’ meaning of marriage is pretty much a red herring in this case.
** Yumanite**, just a small point, but my post cited the UK, not the USA.
Fair enough, but the same is true. Marriage is more than a Christian structure anywhere, so any point made from within that context does not legitimately extend to the entire idea of marriage.
I am now committing a Grievous Sin of my own devising - I am posting without having read the entire thread. Please forgive me. 
(I will read it, though, but I wanted to give some thoughts off the top of my head first.)
Why I have a Real Problem with those who think homosexuality and/or “homosexual behavior”[sup]1[/sup] is a sin:
[ul][li]The word itself - SIN. That word carries a lot of baggage - evil, wicked, wrong, against God, worthy of damnation, etc. Using it in any context immediately raises my hackles, because you are, inessence, calling me evil. You want to call me imperfect? You want to say everyone’s imperfect, and you’re no less so than me? Great. I can deal with everyone on the planet being human and fallible. But calling those imperfections “SIN” puts a whole new slant on them.[/li]
[li]No one lives in a vacuum. If you believe something, it will show in what you do. Even if you support gay marriages, lifting the ban in the military and take a homo to dinner once a week, I find it impossible to believe that if someone truly believes homosexuality and/or “homosexual behavior” is sinful that it won’t reflect in their actions in some way, even if it doesn’t seem like it’s very much. If they have kids, that’s what they’re going to teach them; if they belong to a church, that’s what they’re going to preach; if they belong to an internet message board, they will post it. And those things influence others, and perpetuate an atmosphere of hate and discrimination. You are reinforcing an historical societal prejudice that we really ought to be past by now, yes?[/li]
[li]The sheer hypocrisy of it all. Endless lists have been provided of rules, both Old and New Testaments, that are regularly ignored by most everyone, yet people choose to focus on a few “hot button” topics like homosexuality, abortion, etc. Frankly, you’d think the biggest and most vocal outcry from the radical right would be about adultery - that’s even listed in The Big Ten, and happens a lot more often and affects a lot more people than does homosexuality.[/li]
[li]Even if they only think it, it still means they think I’m fundamentally, morally wrong. These are not people I’m likely to warm up to. And using the old saw of “it’s no worse than any other sin” still equates my loving relationship with murder, adultery and stealing. Yeah, that makes it so much more palatable.[/li]
[li]By saying I am sinning you are saying, quite clearly, that at my core I am wrong and against God. Furthermore, you are saying that if I really wanted to, I could change. Both of these are so inherently insulting and degrading that it boggles the mind. (Worse, if it actually was a choice, it is still saying that private, consensual, adult relationships are still subject to the judgement of others, and that’s not right.)[/li]
[li]And probably the biggest peeve of mine is that there’s no subtlety about how to “overcome your sin and get right with God” - do things their way. Repent. Stop engaging in that behavior. Give yourself up to Jesus. Blah blah blah. It’s as holier-than-thou as you can get. There are no other options - except, of course, eternal damnation.[/ul][/li]
Bottom line - my love and the expression thereof is not sin, and I take umbrage to those who say it is. I can’t imagine how anyone would begrudge me defending myself in the face of such audacity.
Jodi asked me what I would ask of those who believe homosexuality is a sin but never act on that belief[sup]2[/sup] (up to and including actually vocalizing that belief to other people), those who “love the sinner but hate the sin” because they truly believe it is the only way they can reconcile “being gay is ok, but having gay sex is not.” My answer was that, in many ways, I can’t demand that they change their thinking, but I can encourage them, and outright ask them, to honestly and completely look at why you believe what you believe and whether or not what you’ve been taught is the truth, is right for you, and/or is something truly worth believing in.
Given the above, I think that’s fair.
Esprix
[sup]1[/sup] I put the term in quotation marks because, IMHO, it just sounds ridiculous, like referring to loving relationships between adult, consenting opposite-sex couples as “heterosexual behavior.”
[sup]2[/sup] The parallel to the typical Christian stance of “it’s ok to be gay, just don’t do those gay things” is painful.
THat’s the best you can probably hope for, Esprix.
Sadly, I’ve learned in life that not everyone is going to agree with me, nor I with them. And the best I can do is just treat everyone with respect, no matter what.
Had a run-in tonight. Was coming out of the Shop-Rite and some old fellow was talking to an old lady and saying, just as I passed by, “Them faggots always wanna walk in the parade, and they don’t want them faggots walkin’ with them.”
I skidded to a halt, backed up, and said, “Excuse me, my brother is gay.” [I don’t have a brother, but I wanted to keep this short and sweet]. They were both stunned silent, mouths gaping, so I strolled on.
I was kind of hoping I would get an argument from him, so I could say, “Oh, is it just faggots you object to, or niggers and kikes, too? Or cunts, like her and me?”
Miserable bastard.
You ROCK, Eve!
Of course, those “faggots” wouldn’t want his wrinkled ass around anyways.
I have (well, had I guess since he’s in the military now, so it might not be a good idea) permission to tell people he’s gay if I need a weapon in a conversation with people like that. I had the perfect opportunity once, and I didn’t do it…sigh
I wasn’t so upset that he felt that way–I know how many idiots there are in the world. What really pissed me off was that he felt it was perfectly alright to say such things out loud in public, with people walking by. I’m sure I didn’t change his mind, but maybe he’ll think twice now before using such language in public.
It most certainly was not well debunked by Mtgman.
He said that marriage was not a creation of nature, and that people can make babies without being married and that married people can chose not to have babies.
His conclusion was that evolution therefore did not care one whit about marriage.
Wrong.
Fact is, marriage – regardless of whether you label it “natural” or a “social” construct – confers a selective advantage on those who practice it. A married couple who stay together will have more of their offspring reach reproductive age than those who fuck and run. This is the essence of natural selection at work here, people!
Kids born to such a union will have, in general, better resources in terms of what’s necessary to survive, than those who are not. Therefore, “marriage” is an adaptive behavior that will spread throughout a population because it confers a survival advantage on the offspring of the parents who practice it.
The children who learn this adaptive behavior – and practice it when they reach reproductive age – will also have more kids survive to reach reproductive age.
(This may indeed be changing in the last century or so, but in the very long time scale that human evolution has been in operation, this has been true.)
Just because a behavior is not “innate” or “instinctive” or hard wired into our genes does not mean that it is immune to Darwinian selection. Plenty of socially learned behaviors are subject to evolutionary pressures – those that increase evolutionary fitness prosper, and those that don’t will fade away.
I’m not making a moral argument for heterosexual marriage here, just pointing out some of the biological reasons why it’s so prevalent.
I don’t think gays or gay sex is wrong. I think the pursuit of pleasure is a great thing. Have at it.
I don’t particularly care one way or another about gay rights…there are other issues I care more about, and when I choose which candidate I vote for, gay rights don’t even make a blip on my radar screen. I have never seen a candidate who holds all my views; choosing the best fit is always a compromise. That’s the main reason gay rights / gay marriage don’t matter to me. Abortion laws, gun laws, capital punishment, legalization of drugs, taxes; these are the issues I care about.
I do think (male) gay sex is gross. Disgusting even. It’s the same with a lot of heterosexual fetishes as well. But I don’t give a fig about people who choose to do these things. I wouldn’t even terribly mind if I ever got hit on by a queer. (Is fag really hate speech? It sounds better than queer to me.)
So, am I a homophobe as classified by the SDMB?