The Debate Thread: Same-Sex Marriage

[benji]

I'm actually stealing this from an old thread.

Should marriage be between only a man and a woman?
Or should anyone be able to marry?
And as many times and with as many people simultaneously as they wish?
Who does the "right to marry" extend from?
What is the role of the State? Or a Church?
If 50% of marriages end in divorce and the other 50% end in death, should marriage even be allowed?

Feel free to extend this to its normal conclusion:
Is homosexuality wrong?
Is homosexuality equivalent to pedophilia?
Can homosexuality be cured?

If we decide it is relevant perhaps we can discuss:
Where does bisexuality stand in this?
Transgender?
Polygamy?

I can see those last two groups providing their own fodder for a separate topic (perhaps not in current state of the forum) but if we get enough of it here, we may spin-off instead of discussing here.

And for history's sake here's GloveGuy from a thread in which I let my natural opposition to everything stupid anyone says obscure my key points:

Here's my opinion: If you're against it, you're homophobic. I've had millions of reasons thrown at me, and I'm still not convinced that your opinion isn't inspired by your position to gay's in general.

Now what do you guys think? I want to know. Beware, I will come at you if you're against, and I might make you look silly.

And let's try to keep the religious bullshit to a minimum. I don't think you realize how many holes your opinion has if you use religion and/or morals as an excuse.

[Andrew]

I say allow it. I can't see any way it's going to hurt me or my eventual marriage to a woman, nor do I see it destroying society, so I have no reason to object to it. Admittedly I'm not religious so I don't see it as an affront to God or marriage as a holy union for that matter, rather just a public expression of live/commitment by a couple and a piece of paper of significance in matters of law, insurance, health cover etc. Those are matters concerned with the state and since church and state are supposedly separate, I don't believe any religious belief should impose upon that.

As far as the church is concerned though, they're entitled to their beliefs and if they don't want to allow or recognise gay marriage within their religion, then that's their call to make and they shouldn't be forced to change their position.

[benji]

But what if allowing gay marriage allows people to marry more than one person, or marry animals? Or marry plants? Marriage is an institution that says a man and a woman, this is the best and only system for raising a child, thus why it is perfect.

Homosexuality is an obvious disorder and leads to pedophilia if allowed. Indeed if you offered a child to a homosexual they would take it, this has been proven in studies. There is also miles of common law that establishes marriage as a man and woman. Not only that, but gays do not even want to marry, they don't even do so in countries that allow it. Instead they are deviants that wish to foist their homosexualist agenda upon everyone against their will.

If homosexuality was right, they'd be able to reproduce, but they can't. Case closed.

[Andrew]

I imagine the line would still be drawn at two consenting human adults.

[benji]

But why must it be only two? Why should there be a limit on the number of consenting adults?

[Oznogrd]

hmm...me thinks my *real useful* sarcasm detector might blow up on benji's post.

I'm with Andrew on this one: individual churches shouldnt be forced to recognize gay marriage if they dont agree with it (there are plenty of churches that are gay friendly), but as far as the state's concerned: all marriages should be viewed as civil unions whether they're between man, woman, or something in between.

People cite "well the majority of Americans are against gay marriage so we shouldn't allow it." But popular doesnt always mean right. Hitler was popular enough to win an election, did that make his mass genocide right? Of course not.

As far as benji's post, if we could find non religious scientific proof of homosexual=pedobear and non "traditional marriage" leads to interspecies erotica marriage and marrying automobiles/other objects then maybe i'll start believing that homosexuality is wrong.

Single parent households should be forced to marry if they want children from benji's line of thinking. And that's just awkward.

As far as trannies or gender fluid people: there's frogs in nature that switch from male to female (has to be true, Michael Crichton wrote about them in Jurassic Park!) so i figure if that exists in nature, it could very well exist in humans.

Now why polygamy isnt legal? Possibly so we dont have harems getting tax breaks? If all the consenting adults are aware of the polygamous relationship and choose to be in it? That's their business to me. Churches dont have to recognize it, but what business is it of ours to say its wrong or out of line if everyone in that relationship is happy? Pursue happiness however the fuck you want as long as you dont hurt others in that process is my thought.

[shadowgrin]

what if allowing gay marriage allows people to marry more than one person, or marry animals?

Moo.

[koberulz]

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[cyanide]

Should marriage be between only a man and a woman? No. Gays should be able to marry like everyone else.
Or should anyone be able to marry? Yes, within their own species.
And as many times and with as many people simultaneously as they wish? No, otherwise what's the point of marriage?
Who does the "right to marry" extend from?
What is the role of the State? Or a Church? The State recognizes marriage for tax and record-keeping purposes. The Church is biased and opinionated when it comes to marriage, but they do have symbolic and cultural sway.
If 50% of marriages end in divorce and the other 50% end in death, should marriage even be allowed? Yes, it's a choice. It's basically an official devotion between two people (or more, if you want polygamy involved).

Feel free to extend this to its normal conclusion:
Is homosexuality wrong? No.
Is homosexuality equivalent to pedophilia? Don't see the correlation.
Can homosexuality be cured? No. Unless you're one of those "pray the gay away" folks.

If we decide it is relevant perhaps we can discuss:
Where does bisexuality stand in this? Could be experimental or ambivalence, or simply having no preference. I really think bisexuals are straight people who are open to sexual choice.
Transgender? Some wiring in the brain and sexual bits got mixed up.
Polygamy? If one is free from jealousy and is accepting, but more often than not, it leads to imbalance of emotional distribution, promotes infidelity and insecurity, and diminishes commitment.

[koberulz]

And as many times and with as many people simultaneously as they wish? No, otherwise what's the point of marriage?

Marrying two people is a lot different to marrying 6.5 billion or however many there actually are on this planet.

Polygamy? ...promotes infidelity

How? Forcing someone to stay with one person is more likely to promote infidelity than letting them be with as many people as they want (unless you count all those people after the first as infidelity, which would be inaccurate).

[benji]

I'll pile on, not that there's anything wrong with that.

Is homosexuality equivalent to pedophilia? Don't see the correlation.

It is generally claimed by a segment that homosexualists are actually pedophiles. For example, take these comments from different people on a legal blog I sometimes read:

I’d love to try the same study showing ephebophile sexual stimuli to all homosexual fundamentalists here. Betcha a billion bucks I’d expose quite a few for being aroused by underage sex. And I would love to see what would happen with pedophile stimuli.

Tranx –my point was that just as ideal youthful girls are appealing to men (as in porn) even if they are under-age (but not children) –so it is that the under-age guys are appealing to gay men. STats show that most homosexuals ARE willing to have sex with minors –I suspect because that’s when they likely got into the activities themselves and since homosexuals don’t observe society’s usual taboos and prohibitions, why observe the one against under-age kids –if you think you can get away with it?
...
What this article doesn’t say is what percentage of gays experienced homosexual acts as under-age youth. I bet it’s high.

We need to protect our children. It’s a shame we can never assume our children are safe when out with men. However, I DO assume it, when I know the men. But there have been wolves in sheep’s clothing in our institutions and neighborhoods.

Where does bisexuality stand in this? Could be experimental or ambivalence, or simply having no preference. I really think bisexuals are straight people who are open to sexual choice.

So you reject the Kinsey Scale?

but more often than not, it leads to imbalance of emotional distribution, promotes infidelity and insecurity, and diminishes commitment.

Is there any evidence for this?

Because I can think of literally countless examples of those things appearing in the majority of monogamist relationships, let me load up TMZ for a second...

hmm...me thinks my *real useful* sarcasm detector might blow up on benji's post.

Every single argument I made in that post (and quoted above) are things I culled from a thread on Volokh earlier this week, and here's some more:

Not at all. I never have been plagued with perverse thoughts –but I was taught not to –and being a Christian was always of utmost importance to me from childhood up. God puts in our hearts a love for righteousness. And for sinners but not for sin.

I don’t know if you know what it is to slam the door on perverse ideation –if you are gay, you do not know, because you didn’t slam the door. You went into the closet –and out –willingly –when you should never have entertained the thought.

[benji]

Some more facts:

Interesting that Rome had a Senate, was a rather advanced society, law-based, “civilized” (to a point –obviously, their entertainments were cruel–we have wrestling and dogfights) and had a lot of homosexuality –and then collapsed. Sound familiar? We have such a wonderful nation and democracy –and are also “gaying” our nation –we are so young. Can we survive by following in Rome’s footsteps? Or will the greatest nation that ever was destroy itself (or be destroyed by enemies) because of our licentiousness and greed and belief in every person for himself without regard for culture and children, honesty and compassion for the needy? (True compassion for the needy, BTW, will include gov’t supports for morality –instead of encouraging, as we do, gov’t dependency.) Has freedom become licentiousness? and dependency on gov’t for our support instead of our own labors? And will we pay a price?

I think this first one is pretty much a bulletproof argument against you homosexualists.

If you look at the mass media and popular discourses on homosexuals and homosexuality, homosexuals are often portrayed in an extremely simplistic way, as gentle, benign creatures, oppressed by the horrible conservatives who don’t accept and normalize their homosexuality. “All they want to do is love each other,” is a very popular meme. Another one is that “homosexuals aren’t violent (in any way),” “most child abusers are heterosexuals (to the point of implying that homosexuals are thus practically incapable of abusing children), “homosexuals do not sexually harass anyone, specially heterosexuals,” “a large number of homosexuals are driven to suicide because their homosexuality is not accepted, (thus, not only are they are more at risk of death by suicide than other vulnerable groups),” “homosexuals are in considerable personal danger everywhere because of the threat of ‘hate’ crimes, (and not because of how violent they are themselves to other homosexuals)” “homosexuals are discriminated against, but do not discriminate against others,” etc.

The graver consequence of reinforcing a stereotype of non-violent victims for a population that clearly includes a large number of perpetrators of aggression and crimes is that you victimize every single REAL victim of all this violence. As mentioned, this also ensures the harmful dynamics continue unaddressed, and it gives a green light to further violence by the perpetrators.

Homosexual propaganda fits like a glove in any highly violent and irresponsible society like the US that has endemic and epidemic sexuality and personal relationship issues.

While we have a society with a significant number of homosexuals with damaging views and behaviors concerning relationships/marriages and sexuality, all of this is largely ignored or lied about, and endless energy and time is spent on the question of normalizing homosexuality, and legalizing or not SSM.

A large number of Americans would much rather keep their high levels of denial, irresponsibility, and ignorance concerning problems with dysfunctions in personal relationships and sexuality, than to start asking questions about just why are there so many people who cannot form ethical personal relationships (hetero, bi, or homo).

Thus liberals prefer to clap at Pride parades, instead of asking why there is so much adultery, abortion, promiscuous and exploitative sex relations, domestic violence, rape, sexual harassment, and abuse in society. Consequently, liberals prefer to discuss ad nauseum SSM while keeping a mantle of silence on violence perpetrated by homosexuals and bisexuals, for example.

In light of all the cowardice to deal with exploitation and violence issues involving non-heterosexuals as perpetrators, it does reflect a larger dishonesty dynamics in the current panorama of American culture, which is in itself part of a larger denial problem to deal with such issues involving heterosexual perpetrators.

And you, Tranx, still fail to understand that all of us have the same right –to seek marriage with one of the opposite sex –which is what marriage is –the union of a man and woman. Sodomy is sodomy –not marriage. You can’t clean it up with a piece of paper, a condom and a lubricant –nor by saying that dysfunctional heteros do it also.

The national focus of parents, psychologists, and educators should be on preventing abnormal gender identity and orientation–helping kids fulfill their design purpose as males or females –not helping them to short-circuit the purpose of their bio-design –which is to have intimacy with one person of the opposite sex and possibly mature as parents and grandparents, laboring faithfully to raise and civilize and protect the next generation. Of course, there is honor in celibate singleness also whether one chooses it or simply isn’t fortunate enough to find a mate. It is difficult for women to find mates when the men are turning to each other in droves and being celebrated for doing so.

[Oznogrd]

that seems to be proof of nothing but the guy writing isnt getting laid

[shadowgrin]

Its called celibacy! It's praise worthy choice!

I guess the writer is also woman. See last sentence of the last quoted by benji.

[Andrew]

that seems to be proof of nothing but the guy writing isnt getting laid

Or that he's so deep in the closet he's finding Christmas presents. Or yeah, female as shadowgrin just said.

Are men really "turning to each other in droves", or is the percentage of the population that identifies themselves as gay or bisexual simply now apparent because people are more open about it? I doubt that heterosexual men are being turned left and right or keeping homosexuality as a backup option should they have trouble finding a date. As far as homosexuality threatening future generations, Earth's population continues to increase so I don't see how it's destroying families, putting the species at risk or anything like that. So the notion that preventing homosexuality, the whole "pray the gay away" and all that, is being done for the good of the human race just doesn't gel. It's just creating another boogeyman, crusading against a threat that doesn't exist.

[NovU]

I remember my church splitting in half/half in the discussion of our province legalizing same sex marriage. Some members ended up leaving the church since it was decided that our church would support it. As for me, I didn't really wanna get involved in the church elderly peoples' business, so didn't care. But I prefer if my province didn't legalize it, instead let other province take that step to the homosexualization. They're being open about it these days, and frankly quite a few annoys me just by looking at them making out in the public.

[Oznogrd]

I remember my church splitting in half/half in the discussion of our province legalizing same sex marriage. Some members ended up leaving the church since it was decided that our church would support it. As for me, I didn't really wanna get involved in the church elderly peoples' business, so didn't care. But I prefer if my province didn't legalize it, instead let other province take that step to the homosexualization. They're being open about it these days, and frankly quite a few annoys me just by looking at them making out in the public.

But anyone making out in public is bad, not just gays. Hell, anyone who's too in your face about "im in love and your not" in public is annoying.

[shadowgrin]

ZanShadow is a perv who enjoys seeing hetero couples making out in public.

[NovU]

I remember my church splitting in half/half in the discussion of our province legalizing same sex marriage. Some members ended up leaving the church since it was decided that our church would support it. As for me, I didn't really wanna get involved in the church elderly peoples' business, so didn't care. But I prefer if my province didn't legalize it, instead let other province take that step to the homosexualization. They're being open about it these days, and frankly quite a few annoys me just by looking at them making out in the public.

But anyone making out in public is bad, not just gays. Hell, anyone who's too in your face about "im in love and your not" in public is annoying.

Let's just say that's my side of double standard. It's just too uncomfortable for me.

[cyanide]

Marrying two people is a lot different to marrying 6.5 billion or however many there actually are on this planet.

I know. I'm saying there would be no point to the concept of marriage if anyone could "marry" as many times as they want to and as with as many people they want to. You could just as easily call it "relationships."

How? Forcing someone to stay with one person is more likely to promote infidelity than letting them be with as many people as they want (unless you count all those people after the first as infidelity, which would be inaccurate).

Good point. I guess infidelity isn't a good word choice. Perhaps promiscuity? Or more commonly, disease spreading whores?

So you reject the Kinsey Scale?

Don't you?

Is there any evidence for this?

Probably, from those who disagree with polygamy. Don't make me add an "Edit: imo"!

not that there's anything wrong with that

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[benji]

Don't you?

Not really, I may reject details and such but I don't find the concept to be absurd at all.

Probably, from those who disagree with polygamy.

So those who disagree with polygamy think polygamy has bad effects? I'm shocked!

that seems to be proof of nothing but the guy writing isnt getting laid

They're actually from three different women. (At least the usernames indicate women, like "Barb.") But there are men and undetermined ("badlaw", etc.) as well, they just didn't say things THAT absurd, just expected.

But I prefer if my province didn't legalize it, instead let other province take that step to the homosexualization. They're being open about it these days, and frankly quite a few annoys me just by looking at them making out in the public.

Ah, okay, so it makes you uncomfortable for some reason so you want it banned.

[koberulz]

Marrying two people is a lot different to marrying 6.5 billion or however many there actually are on this planet.

I know. I'm saying there would be no point to the concept of marriage if anyone could "marry" as many times as they want to and as with as many people they want to. You could just as easily call it "relationships."

Isn't that all marriage really is? A relationship?

Good point. I guess infidelity isn't a good word choice. Perhaps promiscuity? Or more commonly, disease spreading whores?

Is promiscuity a bad thing? Why is it wrong to sleep with more than one person at a time, provided everyone's aware of what's going on?

Ah, okay, so it makes you uncomfortable for some reason so you want it banned.

That's how the world works these days. That or tax. Here, we've got an internet censorship plan, ridiculous taxes on cigarettes, and a proposed ridiculous tax on alcohol. Because that works far better than teaching people about risks and shit.

[shadowgrin]

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LMAO. I miss watching Seinfeld.

[Andrew]

But anyone making out in public is bad, not just gays. Hell, anyone who's too in your face about "im in love and your not" in public is annoying.

Indeed, straight or gay public displays of affection fall under the umbrella of common decency and etiquette. That said, it is going to bother some folks for other reasons and they're entitled to that stance. South Park did a great episode on tolerance vs like ("so courageous") and the message of tolerance being a two way street is right on the money. That's why as we noted, churches can't be forced to perform or acknowledge gay marriage or be comfortable with homosexuality because they're entitled to their beliefs.

[benji]

Indeed, straight or gay public displays of affection fall under the umbrella of common decency and etiquette.

Exactly, which is why being a homosexualist in public should be banned.

And since it is a proven fact they are sexual deviants, allowing them to be homosexualist at all is a perversion which causes them to be so in public.

If you zealots would get it into your head (and throw off the homosexualist agenda you've been force fed by our media) that allowing people to be homosexualist endangers our children to a state of endless sodomy at the hands of the worst creatures on Earth, then we can finally get to where we need to be in legislating this horror of horrors away.