Homosexual Marriage

[psychopete]

Well, of course it isn't. Never saying that is was, I'd just like to be able to marry the one I love. Divorce will still happen, it's natural. There's no cure for everything.

I'm just saying that people need to stop treating gays like another species and treat us like people. We're still human beings, we're not toasters (random inanimate object that isn't human, shut up).

[slipstrike0159]

Originally Posted by All_That_Chaz

alright, i was just pointing out the absurdity of comparing modern times to the middle ages where the crown was controlled by the church, not to mention conscription to force people into the military to fight this war.

making gay marriage legal is not an attempt to fix the problems of current marriage beyond its problem of exclusivity. i wouldn't ever say something like, "let's make gay marriage legal, because then nobody would ever get divorced again, or at least no gay people would ever get divorced." people just need to sign prenuptial agreements, which doesn't happen so much because of the inherent inferred lack of trust.

I wasnt saying that someone said that it would be a good reason BECAUSE it would fix problems of abuse. Although, you cant say that while congress is on the topic of marriage and a benefit reconstruction that they wouldnt even just THINK about making a few changes in traditional marriage agreements. In this way i could see that for some people it would play out as being a reason to come up with a solution for those problems AS WELL AS a solution for getting rid of exclusion.

Also, i wouldnt underestimate the church. If they tell all their members that Homosexuality should be shunned then i am sure that with its millions of members it would have some sway towards the advancement of homosexuals as a whole. That is not to say that it would overturn the government or even rebel for that matter, im just sure it would create some sort of extra tension on the issue that could produce a few issues of violence. Knowing that the church really cant do anything to stop congress from enforcing the peoples freedom rights this country stands on, the only type of damage they could do is with the individuals themselves who could use it as some sort of discrimination.

[ckj846]

Originally Posted by slipstrike0159

First of all, the churches would go crazy and i could only assume they would become more homophobic and vocally opposed to homosexuality than they are now. Needless to say, its not a good thing to pick a fight with religion seeing as how that has caused many wars in the past so its probably not the best idea to hint that an attack is being made on any one of them.

This is exactly the controversy over the topic. Isn't the government supposed to separate church and state? If a religious institution is going to sway opinions and views on a bill, that is already violating this philosophy.

Originally Posted by

Also, with a new bill like this being passed i could see a great rise in the abuse of marriage benefits. You can see today that people are getting married and divorced left and right and approving of this would only let those numbers rise. I will even go as far as saying that some people would get married purely for the benefits of divorce, which happens a lot too. Imagine if you will that someone decides they need some money so they head down to a gay bar, pretend to be gay and get into a relationship with someone, then they marry and divorce. I dont think it would be right in this case to grant the first person the assets and benefits that comes from both the marriage and divorce just because he wants to abuse the system.

A rise in the abuse of marriage benefits? As chaz said, this is implying that all marriages should be deemed illegal. The rise in divorce rates are due to people marrying out of love instead of status, like it was in the past. I'm not saying that we shouldn't marry for love, I"m saying that the majority of the younger generation rushes to marriage because "OH I LOVE THIS WOMAN/MAN" and it really isn't a sign of compatibility.

My view on gay marriage should be obvious. I am a homosexual, and as such, I will have a huge personal bias on the subject. I am also Buddhist, which gives me another bias as well. I just can't see how gay marriage is even a huge issue because it is so insignificant compared to many other problems in the country. By restricting marriage to only heterosexual couples, it just creates a second-class group and I just feel it is a bit... condemning. Not giving someone the right to a union of two people is a bit unfair. Sure, in the Bible it says that marriage is between man and woman and the purpose is to procreate. What about those couples who do not choose to have children? Also, it isn't like gay couples don't raise children, many adopt children of their own to raise.

I guess it is just hard for me to be empathetic and view this problem from the other side because of all the personal bias I have. My thoughts are really jumbled at the moment because it's Spring Break and I haven't really done anything intellectually stimulating in a while. So excuse my random jumps in logic heh.

O_o

[talisman]

so this business about "provoking the church" is a bit off. The "church" as it were (or at least some denominations) are already rather "provoked". They're the ones leading the push to make it explicitly illegal, after all. So I don't see how legalization would arouse them anymore than they are, nor do I see it turning every evangelical into a spear-wielding warrior descending upon their secular neighbors.

[slipstrike0159]

Haha, i like how everyone is taking me so very literally.
I really dont think that the church would do anything so rebellious but i do believe that if they teach that it should be shunned then many of the hardcore church-goers will take it to heart and the others will keep it in the backs of their minds at the least. Even if its not a huge step or act of discrimination, there will still be little thoughts that will make some people treat them differently because of what they have been told, kind of like how some people still discriminate African-Americans even if not with big single acts.

[GuidoHunter]

talisman: I still think that it's a possibility. I'd really like to think that it's a very small possibility, but recent history has shown that I can't give crazy people with lawyers that little credit. The slippery slope problem is by no means the main reason why I support a constitutional amendment against it, but it's significant enough that I cannot disregard it.

If you're afraid of slippery slope, then make the things you're afraid of sliding into illegal at the same time (aka bestiality-inspired marriages, marriages to property, whatever). Just change the definition (legally) to that between two consenting individuals.

The thing is that changing the legal definition of marriage would require a constitutional amendment (that's the only surefire way to stop the slippery slope). Once it gets to that point, I'm very willing to submit to the will of the people and accept your definition if that's the way the states vote. I'd personally be voting the other way, but your suggestion in the form of an amendment (not just a law) is a perfectly fine argument.

--Guido

http://andy.mikee385.com

[Lamoc]

Originally Posted by psychopete

I'm just saying that people need to stop treating gays like another species and treat us like people. We're still human beings, we're not toasters (random inanimate object that isn't human, shut up).

Thats the biggest thing I think. Everyone thinks homosexuals is like a disease or something. Go to google and look up homosexual, you will find 99% of the found topics are forums or something saying homosexuality is a disease and has to be "cured". Thats rediculous. When slavery was around it was all about frowning on african-americans. Now everyones against homosexuals. Of course I don't mean everyone but you get the point. Its time that people wake up and see that homosexuals are just like everyone else. We're not that different. In fact there are lots of famous homosexuals and such. But everyone is afraid of homosexuals for some reason and in doing so they hate them. Thus the way of americans. If you don't know what it is or don't understand it, destroy it.

Example: Van Diesle. I forget how to spell his name. He is a famous actor. He became very popular, one of the best. He came "out of the closet" a while back. Since then his popularity dropped 78%. I was reading this in an article in a magazine not too long ago.

Come on now people. Personaly I hate fish. I don't understand why people like it. So should I hate the people that eat it? No, thats thier desision, not mine.

I want to suggest this to EVERYONE. Read almost any book by a man named Brent Hartinger.

[Chrissi]

I simply can't comprehend any reasons not for gays to be allowed to be married.

To me, the main reason that gay marriage NEEDS to be legal is because it straightens out (no pun intended) all of the other little kinks in the system and makes life easier for everyone. For example!!! It is very, very, very difficult to get your sex changed legally, even if your sex didn't "change". For example, the doctors said you're male and guess what! They were wrong! You're female! You've always acted female and you've always felt female but the doctors said you were male. Now, you can easily go about your life as a female, not bothering with any paperwork, after all, it rarely matters - might confuse some people when legally you're a man but socially and physically you're a woman but who cares? Let them. It doesn't do anything to you.

However, if this woman is STRAIGHT, but her birth certificate/documents say she is male, and she tries to get married to a STRAIGHT man, oops! This falls under gay marriage. To get legally married, she'd have to be a lesbian.

Hope this makes enough sense. I'm a tad tired, but I really wanted to get my point across here.

It's these poor souls, who are trapped under the system, and no one thinks about them. And so what if they're a minority. You're still STEALING THEIR RIGHTS right out from under their noses, and there's not a thin they can do about it - until gay marriage is legal. Luckily for me, it's legal in Canada. I feel satisfied knowing that if I fell deeply in love with and wanted to spend the rest of my life with a woman, nobody could hold me back from that legally.

[Lamoc]

It does a tad bit. A little off-topic.

[Chrissi]

No, the thread's about gay marriage. In my eyes, these are the same issue - directly related. You can't have one without the other. By preventing gays from getting married, people are inadvertently preventing these people from getting married as well. To focus only on how it affects gays, to me, is rather short sighted. We need this, not just for gays, but for people who are marked down as the wrong gender, or are gender ambiguous, or somehow don't fit into the standard "You're a man(woman) and legally defined as male(female)" category. As much as people would like to separate them, they are the same issue.

[GuidoHunter]

Lamoc: your pathetic appeals aren't doing anything here. The issue is a political one (at least, the issue that we discuss here on FFR). Our heartstrings have been sufficiently tugged for quite some time, now. You're pretty much just preaching to the choir about gays being people, too.

So what's your opinion on the political goings-on surrounding the issue?

You say, "Most states don't allow gay marriages," but you're failing to consider the most basic issues surrounding the gay marriage debate. Gays can get married anywhere in this country, and no law or part of the constitution can or will change that. Define your terms, here.

Then, you say, "You're removing rights of homosexuals of getting married." Please quote me the clause in the Constitution guaranteeing the right to marry whomever you want.

We're trying to have a logical debate and you're just throwing out pathetic appeals. You started the thread; try to be a part of it.

--Guido

http://andy.mikee385.com

[adlp]

Originally Posted by Lamoc

everyone is afraid of homosexuals for some reason and in doing so they hate them.

some people cant tolerate others being different, and with most of the US population straight, they stick out in a crowd and become shunned.

Originally Posted by Lamoc

Your removing freedoms of a large portion of the U.S.

2% of the US population is gay.

i would assume a large portion would be at least 1/5 instead of 1/50 of the population.


i personally think gay marrige is stupid based on my own sexual orientation. i also think that the idea of homosexuality is also stupid, seeing how MOST of fags turn gay for attention.

[Lamoc]

haha, well its about 10% now. and most people are still in the closet but w/e.

And wtf attention? Why the hell would we want attention? That makes no sense. Telling people your gay normaly makes people hate you more.

[devonin]

There's not a single appeal that can be made against homosexual marriage that can't be easily undone by just showing how that objection reflects upon heterosexual marriage.

"The gays can't have kids" - Many heterosexual couples don't have children, what about people who are physically unable to have children? Should they be forbidden to get married as well? Further, there's something wrong with creating stable, loving homes in which to raise the thousands upon thousands of children needing to be adopted?

"Any kids they have/adopt will be gay too!" - I really love this one, because probably 99.99% of all gay people were born and raised by straight parents, by this logic, the gays should have all straight kids!

"Homosexuality is unnatural" - The word unnatural means "contrary to nature" and homosexuality has been observed in nature in many species of animal. It's bad from a species-survival standpoint, but when a population is at a high level and potentially straining resources, homosexuality or at least bisexuality is a good plan, because it allows those species to copulate without risk of further reproduction straining resources. That's a crude brush to paint emotional, sentient humans with, but the objection still stands.

"They chose to be gay, so why should we cut them slack?" - Right...a substantial percentage of the population woke up one morning and thought to themselves 'you know what? I'm going to set myself up for years of emotional abuse, mocking, bigoted idiots, risking being fired from my job, disowned by my parents, and beaten up or even killed, because man, I think I'd really like some ****' Virtually all homosexuals and bisexuals -and- heterosexuals report discovering which one they were around or even before the time they started to develop sexually, there's ample evidence to support sexual orientation being genetic, right down to the knowledge that for every son a woman has, she is more likely to have a gay son (This has to do with hormones kept away from embryos once gender is determined, and the mother's body's ability to keep those hormones from the fetus degrading with each successive male child)

I mean, lets be honest, the -only- objections to homosexuals being accorded every single right, priviledge and responsability of hetersexuals is some misguided appeal to a religion that while you are free to practice, you are -forbidden- to force me to practice.

The religious right in the United States, and their equivalent in every other nation that outlaws gay marriage, are simply using their political influence to block any attempt to grant all of their citizens equal rights.

I mean, the political document they appeal to when lodging their objections was written at a time where "sodomy" was not only illegal, but in many places could get you executed. It simply never occured to anybody that someone who wasn't a "deviant" would ever want to get married. Homosexuality was listed in medical journals as a psychological disease until as recently as the 1980s. The instant it was discovered that with almost complete certainty, sexual orientation was genetic, and not a free choice later in life, it should have -automatically- become protected under the constitutional directive that nobody can be discriminated against for sex, creed, race or colour.

At this point it's entirely a matter of waiting for the still growing segment of the population that is becoming more politically and socially aware, and in large numbers, starting to swing to the left, to take enough control of government to give people the rights they should have had from the get go.

[ckj846]

Originally Posted by adlp

2% of the US population is gay.

i would assume a large portion would be at least 1/5 instead of 1/50 of the population.

State your sources because the numbers are much higher then that. There are more gay people in your life than you may think.

i personally think gay marrige is stupid based on my own sexual orientation. i also think that the idea of homosexuality is also stupid, seeing how MOST of fags turn gay for attention.

That's a sweeping generalization. Try being empathetic and realizing the stress and pain that someone has to go through to have the balls and say out loud that they are a minority in society. Not only a minority, but one who is looked down upon because of many religious institutions. Sure, you may think that gay marriage is "stupid," but at least have some evidence other then "most fags are turn gay for attention."

I would actually have to agree with devonin. He pretty much said everything that was swirling around in my head.

O_o

[GuidoHunter]

Homosexuality isn't necessarily "unnatural", but it sure is (allow me to create the phrase) "counter-natural".

I think the main problem with that argument on both sides is a problem of definition. The ones who give the argument mean one but say another assuming synonimity, and the ones who rebut the argument denounce the spoken term, not the intended one.

Homosexuality is indeed counterproductive to the most basic, most natural law of the animal kingdom: the progression of the species.

@Lamoc: stats, plz. I don't even believe the 2% figure, so suggesting that one in every ten people is gay is just a wee bit ridiculous to me. EDIT: haha, was ninja'd by ckj, which makes this point kind of funny.

@adlp: watch your rhetoric in CT. This is a place for mature discussion, not derogatory remarks.

--Guido

http://andy.mikee385.com

[devonin]

Homosexuality is indeed counterproductive to the most basic, most natural law of the animal kingdom: the progression of the species.

Unless the population is so strained for resources that further reproduction would be disastrous to the species being able to survive. At that point, being able to execute the biological imperative to copulate in a manner that doesn't lead to procreation is not only not bad, it's arguably very good.

Generally when someone makes the "it's unnatural" argument, they mean "It's not normal, you're a freak" in which case the "Actually it occurs in nature with around the same level of instance as in humanity" is a neat objection to the claim. Obiviously it's just as bad for humans as it is for any other species with regards to making more members of the species, but then we do all kinds of things that are horrible from a species survival standpoint *grin*

[Lamoc]

Originally Posted by GuidoHunter

@Lamoc: stats, plz. I don't even believe the 2% figure, so suggesting that one in every ten people is gay is just a wee bit ridiculous to me. EDIT: haha, was ninja'd by ckj, which makes this point kind of funny.
http://andy.mikee385.com

In school alone the stats were 1 in every 4 people were homosexual. in everyday lives we see 2 in every 15 or so. Homosexuality is becoming greater and greater. As you can see 1 in every 4 students are homosexual. Much greater than before. I think its because society is more "loose" with everything. And more with the express yourself concept. If society accepted homosexuals, I think there would be ALOT more than we see now.

[MRTL_mrclean17]

Gay marriage seems to be an issue with which the government has completely circumvented the constitution which states "the seperation of Church and State". Marriage is religious by definition, and as thus should be left up to the churches to decide whether they allow gay couples to marry or not. Marriage in the legally documented sense should of course be left up to the government.
I wish more people were homosexual, not only would there be less contraversy on this issue, the lines at Wild Waves would be shorter.

Originally Posted by Lamoc

I thought I would put my thoughts into this. I was gone the past couple days and saw how the last time this came up, the topic was.... well destroyed. This is a serious issue. If me reposting, er reviving this topic is against the rules let me know. I couldn't find anything about it.

You can't put a ban on homosexual marriages. Thats wrong. Your restricting the rights of people as well as limiting thier future.

Lets flip this around. How about a ban on hetrosexual marriages? (Hetro meaning "straight") How would that be? To ban 2 people putting everlasting love into each other by documentation. If that makes sense.

People don't have the right to prevent others from doing something. Thats invasion of anothers right to the constitution. Your removing freedoms of a large portion of the U.S.

Homosexual marriages should be allowed. Theres no question on that.

If you guys are having trouble understanding parts of this i'm sorry. I tried the best I could to make this as easy to read as I could. Just finished driving for 14 hours and very tired.

But if everybody in the world was gay, i think you know what would happen...