What's the fuss about same sex marriages?

I dont even see the issue to be a financial one, I think its more about not treating gay people as second class citizens. By not allowing gay people to marry, we are saying they dont have the same kind of love as a heterosexual couple and thats just not true.
As for the marriage being a religion thing and civil unions a state thing...my parents are both atheists but they were married in a church by a Catholic priest, yet they still call it a marriage..why cant a gay couple who DO believe in God enjoy the same title.
I find it amazing that its 2004 and were even having this discussion. Just 40 years ago black people faced similar intolerace and discrimination..I think people that dislike gay people today will be looked upon with the same discust that we now have for those people that saw blacks as second class people.

 

Thank you so much for your kind words.

Homosexuality is also covered by the same sodomy laws of which you speak.

Unintended consequences are going to happen. People will use this to cheat the law a million different ways. From friends marrying each other for health insurance reasons & car insurance price reductions to who knows what.

Who are you to say I wasn't born with an affection for my siblings? or multiple people Who is the gov't to say we aren't in love and can't marry?

Have fun.

 

I am republican as they come and I just dont understand my President on this one.


The way I see it is that civil rights and equal protection under the law supercede just about everything else, including or supporting who you can marry.

Seems simple to me.


DrS

 

Oh, I'll get a popularity vote with this post (haha!). In the 'Big Picture', I think that the gay marriage issue is just one more liberal victory that adds to the list of 'protective rights' that is causing this country to go further down the toilet. As this country picked up steam in the late 50's, less attention was paid to the moral values of our families and more attention was paid to making more money, spoiling our kids and accepting cable TV in our homes.

We turned into a liberal nation of 'anything goes'. Your son's dress like crack dealers, your daughters become gutter rats while your wives divorce you with ease. Our borders are open to any non-citizen that will walk over the border, spit on our flag, have their babies and suck off our welfare system, all protected by the ACLU. Our schools are out of control with underpaid teachers turning out the highest percentage of 'brain-dead' graduates this country has ever seen. The hands of our police are tied while murderer's get of with light sentences.

I'm not so bent out of the fact that gays can get married as I am on the blatant disregard of how families have been raised over the last thirty years and the moral fabric (that once was what America was all about) of wholesome living has been abandoned.

 

I'd have to blame this on television. Repetive exposure to behaviour, good or bad, leads to acceptance and then mimicing those behaviours over time. But that's another topic.

 

Jumping in a little later here, but there is a long waiting list for WHITE babies. My neighbors have adopted one white child and are fostering and will probably adopt a Mexican infant. They were not looking to adopt again but an agency called them because they couldn't place the little girl. Apparently noone wanted to adopt her because she "looked too Mexican".

 

Here's my take on this --

1. Homosexuality is abnormal in the classic sense of the term. When looked at strictly from a biological sense, sex unrelated to giving birth to children is abnormal

2. Please don't take this to mean that homosexuality is not natural or otherwise perverted. Clearly, the historical record shows evidence of homosexual behaviour as far back as we can trace.

3. There is a reason why we develop certain cultural taboos over time. If continuing the species is the main consideration, it is easy to see why homosexuality and other acts such as masturbation or bestiality become labeld as abnormal or perverted. Similarly, it is easy to see why incest has become a cultural taboo.

4. The role of religion in the delvelopment of states or nations is undisputed. If you would like to know more, please pick up a copy of the book "Guns, Germs, and Steel."

5. Given all this, it is easy to see why various religions have promoted hetrosexual marriage (and thus sex) and have banned "pervisions" such as homosexulality.

6. Now, fast forward roughly 20,000 years to the year 2004 in the US. Not only has technology made hetrosexual sex obsolete for giving birth, but our "Rule of Law" has replaced the old "Rule of God." (Insert whichever God you choose in this context.) The real question, then, is whether our Rule of Law should toss out one of the old Rules of God with respect to homosexuality.

7. This gets further complicated because our Rule of Law is constantly evolving. We like to think that the US Consitituion is our verison of Moses's 10 Commandments, but the reality is that our current Rule of Law has moved far beyond what the signers of the consitution ever envisioned. (Separation of church and state is just one example. The original intent of the Consititution was to make sure that we didn't replace a King with a Pope. Banning Xmas trees wasn't even on the radar screen.) Any time we change our Rule of Law, this opens the door to other changes in the future, i.e., unintended consequences.

8. If, for example, homesexual marriage becomes legal, then why can't underage marriages become legal? If this becomes true, they why can't Man/Boy marriages become legal? And so forth and so on. The point is that once you open this door, you will never be able to close it.

All this explains why I'm in favor of a form of "common-law marriage" for homosexuals, but not "Marriage" in a classic sense. This common-law/civil union could convey the same legal rights and responsibilities as marriage, but without the offical blessing of our Rule of Law.

Mere semantics, you say? Perhaps. But the older I get, the more I appreciate why certain cultural norms exist and that we ought to really think before we leap.

Your thougths? Dale

ps Pls note that some of us in the estate tax planning area are planning to use this to effectively kill the estate tax. We will just have the surviving spouse marry one or two of the kiddos and use the spousal exemption to beat the tax. After all, if Gay marriage is legal, then why can't incest marriages be legal? Further, why can't polygamy be legal?

 

I don't see the big deal and I don't care. Seems to me that people with their own sexuality problems are making a big deal out of this probably because they're worried that the divorce rate for homosexual couples won't be as severe.

 

Quote:"I'm not so bent out of the fact that gays can get married as I am on the blatant disregard of how families have been raised over the last thirty years and the moral fabric (that once was what America was all about) of wholesome living has been abandoned."

I think we tend to romanticize about what life was really like "back then." Most people's lives were probably not as peachy keen as Ozzie and Harriet would lead us to believe. I think family values have really IMPROVED since then. Both my parents said their family lives were hell growing up in the 50s and 60s and my grandmother said her parents never once told her "I love you" when she was growing up in the 20s and 30s. Yes, a lot of families have problems nowadays, but this is ture of any time. At least my parents take the time to say "I love you," make me feel special, and teach me that its WRONG TO DISCRIMINATE AGAINST ANY GROUP. You may think that we are getting rid of our morals nowadays, but what we're really trying to do is make a world in which all people are treated fairly.
As for society today being all about money...show me a time in America when this wasent true.

 

Actually, a species of chimp does this too.

 

I live in Australia, and was born in New Zealand, and I am reasonably sure that same sex marriages are not yet allowed in these 2 countries ... but I do not have any problem with that.

I do though have a problem with a gay couple (male or female) either:

1. adopting children, or
2. if female having a child via sperm donors, etc.

The point I would like to make, is that a child should not be treated like a commodity, or that latest accessory to ones life just because they want one. We are talking about another persons life here, and it should be a hugh deal. Thus if a child is that important to you, then which is more important your sexuality or being a parent ...

The opposite view is that your sexual orientation should not limit you having children ... er, well maybe it should as like has already been discussed being gay looks like it is genetic ... and maybe that is natures way of saying you should not have children.

I also have an issue with all the medical ways of having children when natural ways have failed. What we are doing is playing with nature, and simply not everybody should have children, just like not all of us are gifted musicians, etc.

The last point I would like to make is that a child is a creature of its (hate using its ...) surroundings, and thus needs a good male and female role model ... how can a gay couple provide that?

Pete

 

When people voice their opinions on this topic, how many do so having had any actual experiences with gay friends/acquaintances/coworkers/whatever? I ask that in all seriousness. The regions in this country where openly gay lifestyles are accepted are still few--usually small sections of major cities--which means most people are formulating their opinions without ever even meeting a gay person, let alone developing the slightest understanding for what it must be like. Over the years I have accumulated many gay friends, men and women, and when you get to know the issues on a more personal level, learning about the little things we take for granted that they can't, you start to change your tune some. What dangers does it pose to anybody if the lesbians down the street from me can legally marry? They live together, and have pledged their lives to one another. So why not recognize that union? It bothers me when our government turns its back on its own citizens. It also bothers me when people use the Bible to explain why homosexuality is wrong. It's a very flawed case, since first of all the Bible didn't get everything 100% right. Flame all you want, but that's a fact. Also, if God doesn't want gays, then why is there homosexuality? Oh that's right. Eve ate an apple and now there are sins, like homosexuality. It isn't something they've asked for--a choice they made, like buying a car--it's something that chooses them.

 

I love the people that are against gays adopting kids. Maybe those kids would be better off bouncing around from foster home to foster home. Gay couples don't typically adopt the highly desirable kids, they get the leftovers. Statistically the children are more likely to dabble in the homosexual lifestyle, but foster raised kids are more likely to be abused and end up in jail later in life. Given the choice of the two I think the nation is better off having more gays then more criminals. If all the people against gays adopting kids would team up and stop having kids and adopt the ones out there, then you wouldn't have to worry about gays adopting. Or maybe you should go after the irresponsible heterosexuals that keep making babies to adopt, because those are the people that are the biggest problem.

The arguement that majority should rule is a poor one when it comes to voting for rights for others. What if a state decided to vote away Muslim rights? If 70% of the people are for it are Muslims S.O.L.?

 

Ah.. the most common logical fallacy... The Slippery Slope. No point getting into this for obvious reasons. But what the heck. Currently, it's legal for a man and woman to get married. Soooo why can't I marry my mom? If I had a daughter, I could marry her too.. or heck, I'll just marry my grandmother right before she dies so I can get all of her assets. Heck why not, it's legal for a man and woman to get married!

Anyway.

What I find particularly interesting are the idealogical twists that have taken place, mostly in the Republican party. The party of privacy... the party of individual rights.. the party of state's rights... The GOP once stood for these ideals, but now they're not only trying to regulate the personal lives of our citizens, but they're going to do so with a federal law that trumps the states? Wasn't our system of government designed so that states had their own laws so that a tyrannical 'king' or centralized gov't couldn't weild its power to inflict its will upon the states?

I also find it sad that everyone has heard the phrase "those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it," yet no one takes the time to think about it in the context of their own beliefs. I can't wait to look back on this debate 50 years from now and marvel at the voracity with which our president, elected officials, and citizens openly called for discrimination based on something as benign as sexual orientation. We've all seen and heard about the racism and sexism that existed in gov't and public policy just 50 years ago, and it makes us cringe. The bigots of that time used the same arguments, same language, and same 'reasoning' to decry interracial marriage, women in the workforce, women and minority voting rights, etc... yet none of the bigots of today are capable of seeing themselves in that context. It's a sad state of being, but one that will surely reveal itself in the clarity of hindsight.

-R

 

I believe that you are right. An adult cannot marry a minor, today. (Although didn't Jerry Lee Lewis marry his 13-year old cousin? I realize that this probaby took place in Louisianna, but that's another story.) My point is that since we have switched to a Rule of Law, we need to be careful about opening doors. because, under our current legal system, once opened, a door is impossible to close. Take abortion, for example. I firmly believe that abortion will never be fully outlawed in this country, even if Pat Robinson is elected President. There is just too much water over that dam.

However, if we legalize same-sex marriages today, who is to say that adult-minor marriages will not be around the corner? Or, a better example is polygamy. If your legal logic, says that same-sex marriages between adults is legal, then how can opposite and/or same-sex polygamous marriages be illegal?

This is all a slipperly slope that involves more than gay people qualifying for health benefits or Social Security. I don't think that saying, "Hey folks, we need to think about this for a minute" makes me a right-wing, pseudo-Nazi, homophobic.

I haven't learned much so far. But I have learned to be suspicious of simple answers to complex problems. I think it is great that we are having this dialogue. However, I would urge those of you who are on the pro side to avoid knee-jerk name calling. Perhaps you could instead listen to what people are saying before ripping somebody's head off. In fact, I thought that liberals were supposed to be more tolerant of diversity in viewpoints, eh?

Dr Mahatma Tax

 

Can't everyone see how sacred marriage is? Only heterosexuals should have the right to get married by an Elvis Impersonator, then get divorced the next day. Yes, let's keep marriage sacred...wouldn't want to degrade the institution. I personally don't want my kids to even KNOW there is a such a thing as "gay"...or they surely will become gay themselves.

 

The history I learned in school may be wrong, but I was told the homosexual relationships were quite common and open in ancient Greek culture .....isn't there culture still looked upon as a "golden age"???

I just can't understand why oppressing a minority just because we can is a particularly good idea or how it will improve our country. I really don’t see this amendment happening, but maybe I’m overestimating the population as a whole. I hope I’m not.

 

You ever really LOOK at some "normal" heterosexual couples? THESE are capable hands???

 

TV? mmm. Did the Romans see a crucifictions on TV before they tried it out on people? Jack the Ripper tuned into BBC? Do I need to go on??

 

Hmmm…..if you ask most any Americans if this is a monogamous country they will say “yes, of course it is”. Monogamy means to have only one mate. But if you look at the data you will see, that almost all people practice serial polygamy. Serial polygamy is a series of mates, with only one at any given time (the monogamous part). In fact most men keep score and their peers hold the ones with the highest score quite high regard. Also, the data suggests that a good portion of the population cheat on their serial mate at some point during the relationship, which means they have more than one mate at the same time. This country is nothing like monogamous really, it’s just a story we tell ourselves. It’s neither good nor bad, just the truth. I have no problem with make it legal, it is already common practice.

 

Could Karl Rove be pulling Dub-ya's strings on this issue? Notice he didn't field any questions after today's press conference.

 

It's funny you mention that... There are several books I think should be mandatory reading for the entire human population, two of which were written by Edward Long. Chimpanzees Don't Wear Pants is one, the other being Sex, Violoence, Politics, and God: How They Rule Our Lives. Among many other things, the author amasses a mound of evidence, logic, and reason as to why marriage goes entirely against human nature and evolution. You might want to look into them.. they're pretty cheap on Amazon, maybe $10..

-R