The gay marriage issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This Catholic Republican thinks it's about time that her gay friends are able to marry. There needs to be a landmark case like, The Lovings Vs Virginia.

protected class?

[Anonymous]

Aren't there churches that marry gays? If so, isn't it a restriction of freedom of religion for the state to refuse to recognize these marriages?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the pro-polygamy movement is "heating up," as you say, then there will be plenty of time to discuss it in a polygamy thread. This thread is about gay marriage. If the only argument you can make about gay marriage is that polygamy is wrong, you don't have a very good argument.

Never said that polygamy is wrong, just can't understand why they can't be compared.

Compare them if you wish. But I do not see how the rights of a particular group should be hindered by the situation of another group. Their situation should be examined on its own merits.

[Anonymous]

worry is that if you start changing the definition of marriage, one that has been fairly constant for 4,000 years in our judea-christian western culture, in order to appease minorities, then you are going to have to appease EVERY minority and that is where it gets tricky. rather keep the status quo and change other laws to give the homos any other rights they are lacking.

[Anonymous]

this is the PP. someone told me shorthand "homos" for homosexuals was offensive. Didnt mean it that way - meant it just as an abbreviation. i.e., heterosexuals = heteros. Going forward I'll use a different term.

are the hard-core conservatives also against some form of civil union? i'm ok with that, just leave marriage alone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here goes.
I am a moderate who is waffling on the gay marriage issue. I am mostly against it for a number of reasons. One is that I wonder how long it will take for the next marriage rights agenda to come along, like polygamy. Then gay polygamy and so on.
But here is my two cents. These failed attempts in states to legalize gay marriage make me think that a large number of people do not support it, but will publicly behave as if they do. I do not know anyone who would vote against it, but it seems that once the curtain is pulled, true feelings are revealed.
Have we come to a point in this debate where people can be honest about how they feel? Is it just a matter of being PC to say that we support gay marriage?

Don't have time to read all the responses right now but wanted to point out how you are conceptualizing this. It's as if there is some kind of natural continuum with heterosexual marriage at one end and people marrying animals at the other. And the assumption is that we've managed to stay on this one end but if we slip at all and move in the direction of the other end we will eventually be forced to move to the other end.

Here's the problem I have with that -- I don't see a continuum of any kind. Things like polygamy and bestiality are very different from a committed relationship between two mature adults. I think we should recognize the importance of validating love between two consenting people who want to build a life together.

(And even if there were some kind of continuum, why do people assume we have to move further down it if we take even one step? Boy, that assumes the general public is so impressionable that we will all go along with anything.)

With regard to the voting issue, there's lots of people who will say publicly that we should have freedom of religion but if you gave them a chance to vote to keep Muslims from immigrating to the United States or from teaching in the schools they would vote that way in a minute. I think there are lots of states where people would vote to restrict the rights of Muslims even as they would say in public they think Muslims should have equal rights. That's why I oppose putting matters of human rights on the ballot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I never heard of any kind of animal that mates for life with another one of the same species and same gender. Why would we do it?

That's the dumbest argument against it I've ever heard. We do a lot of things that animals don't do... talk, reason, practice medicine, go to church. I mean, come on. At least try to make sense.

pretty sure gay marriage is an evolutionary dead-end.

You mean like the priesthood and the convent? The celibacy of a few men and women hasn't led to reduced birth rates by any means. Celibacy, which in my view is quite unnatural! But that's just my opinion. I wouldn't restrict their rights over it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:...
are the hard-core conservatives also against some form of civil union? i'm ok with that, just leave marriage alone.

If marriage were left to religions and civil law were based on civil unions alone, perhaps everyone could have his/her rights without so many feeling that their world-view was under attack.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:worry is that if you start changing the definition of marriage, one that has been fairly constant for 4,000 years in our judea-christian western culture, in order to appease minorities, then you are going to have to appease EVERY minority and that is where it gets tricky. rather keep the status quo and change other laws to give the homos any other rights they are lacking.

I am not sure that this is true. The Bible provides many examples of polygamy and polygamy seems to have been fairly widespread in ancient Judaism. Exodus 21:10 says, "If he marries another woman, he must not deprive the first one of her food, clothing and marital rights." That set guidelines for, rather than a prohibition of polygamy.

But, for how many years was slavery considered a normal practice? Or, how many other "constant" definitions have changed with time? For centuries, kings and other forms of monarchy were the governing norm, many with religious justification.

If you are intent on maintaining a specific definition of marriage, then marriage should lose all legal entitlement and become a purely religious endowment that has no legal ramification. The rights now conveyed by marriage can be linked instead to civil unions or something along those lines. Then, the state won't be involved with straight or gay marriages and each Church could define marriage however it wanted. (Editing to say that the PP made more or less this same point while I was typing).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:hardly would say I obsess over it. But if it is on the ballot, I am going to vote against it. I don't care if homos live together, just like I don't care if unmarried heteros live together. Let's just keep marriage the way it has been for thousands of year in our society. It aint broke, don't fix it. what is the big deal about getting married? why can't you respect tradition?

as for the slippery slope - islamic immigrants to europe are starting to push for multiple wives. how will that not be an issue here soon?

Here's why I can't respect tradition. Not long after my dd came to terms with the fact that she is a lesbian, she came into my room sobbing, asking why people thought there was something wrong with her. She said, "I'm a nice person, I study hard, I don't get into trouble, why do people think I don't deserve to get married?" Try telling her that people like you don't mind if she lives with the person she loves. For me, in my 50s, that's huge progress but all my teenage daughter can see is that the world thinks there is something deeply wrong with her.

People like you think my daughter is a second class citizen and she knows it and it is deeply painful for her. That's the big deal about getting married. I won't give up fighting for marriage equality until my daughter has the right to get married just the way I had the right to marry her father.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am all for it. I think it's a travesty and a civil rights abomination that it's not allowed already. By the time our children are grown, it will be legal and they won't believe it was ever a serious debate.

The slippery slope argument is a weak one. It doesn't have to lead anywhere else or to redefining marriage in any other way.

There is no good argument against it except a religious one, and as we all should know, "the Bible says so" isn't a good enough reason for something to be against the law. Your church doesn't have to marry anyone it doesn't want to, but the state does.

I agree with this. I would only add that I think it's an abomination that it is ever put to referendum. If integrating schools had been put to referendum it would never have happened. Civil rights of a minority should never ever be put up for majority vote.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:hardly would say I obsess over it. But if it is on the ballot, I am going to vote against it. I don't care if homos live together, just like I don't care if unmarried heteros live together. Let's just keep marriage the way it has been for thousands of year in our society. It aint broke, don't fix it. what is the big deal about getting married? why can't you respect tradition?

as for the slippery slope - islamic immigrants to europe are starting to push for multiple wives. how will that not be an issue here soon?

It ain't broke for *you*. You are a protected majority.

[Anonymous]

I think that is the whole issue here. It is not really about obtaining the benefits of marriage for gays, which could be provided via civil partnerships called something else, and I think most opponents of gay marriage could largely live with that outcome. That is not enough for many (I think most) gay marriage proponents, because the real motivation is to force public recognition of gay relationships as having equal status to straight ones. It is essentially a symbolic point.

Therein lies the problem, because many (I think most) people simply do not believe that gays are similarly situated as straights with regard to the issue of marriage, and will oppose gay marriage for reasons that are not irrational (tradition, biology, etc.) even if they (as I think) can certainly be challenged and, at the end of the day, may be wrong on the merits. Calling it an issue of equality or rights just assumes that one side is correct, and is totally unconvincing to those not already persuaded.

I'm pro gay marriage (at least if adopted democratically as opposed to judicially), but I think it is grossly unfair to demonize opponents of gay marriage as bigots (which puts liberals to a difficult choice with regard to Obama -- bigot, or liar? ;-p ), and I think that the objection based on polygamy is relevant because there really isn't a principled distinction between broadening marriage outside its traditional definition to include same sex marriage, and broadening marriage outside its traditional definition to include three, rather than two parties. All the same arguments seem to apply to me. Why should marriage be defined to include two people, but not three? What if I really love them both? What if I was born this way?

[Anonymous]

Why are so many liberals anti-polygamy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think that is the whole issue here. It is not really about obtaining the benefits of marriage for gays, which could be provided via civil partnerships called something else, and I think most opponents of gay marriage could largely live with that outcome. That is not enough for many (I think most) gay marriage proponents, because the real motivation is to force public recognition of gay relationships as having equal status to straight ones. It is essentially a symbolic point.

Therein lies the problem, because many (I think most) people simply do not believe that gays are similarly situated as straights with regard to the issue of marriage, and will oppose gay marriage for reasons that are not irrational (tradition, biology, etc.) even if they (as I think) can certainly be challenged and, at the end of the day, may be wrong on the merits. Calling it an issue of equality or rights just assumes that one side is correct, and is totally unconvincing to those not already persuaded.

I'm pro gay marriage (at least if adopted democratically as opposed to judicially), but I think it is grossly unfair to demonize opponents of gay marriage as bigots (which puts liberals to a difficult choice with regard to Obama -- bigot, or liar? ;-p ), and I think that the objection based on polygamy is relevant because there really isn't a principled distinction between broadening marriage outside its traditional definition to include same sex marriage, and broadening marriage outside its traditional definition to include three, rather than two parties. All the same arguments seem to apply to me. Why should marriage be defined to include two people, but not three? What if I really love them both? What if I was born this way?

very well stated.