Quote:It's not a question of legal rights. It's about morality and choosing what is right. Marriage was/is/always will be, a physical and spiritual union between a man and a woman. I wish the ban on Religious/Spiritual discussions wasn't still in place; otherwise, I could elaborate even further. I personally could care less if a homosexual couple lived together, raised some adopted children, or even had sex together. Again, it's their lives not mine. But defining a same sex relationship as a "Marriage" is really, really, pushing it.
There's a specific reason as to why Nature limits reproduction between a male and a female. The same reason as to why a Planet orbits a Star, why Humans can't breathe in the Ocean, and why Dogs can't fly. There are no "Coincidences" at work here.
In nature, there tends to be many species with multiple partners. Does that mean that polygamy should be legalized?
Quote:In nature, there tends to be many species with multiple partners. Does that mean that polygamy should be legalized?
Including humans throughout history, just to be clear.
Quote:While I disagree with this, I understand the point of view and it doesn't bother me. However, as long as marriage provides specific legal benefits denied to those not married, it absolutely is a question of legal rights. 100% it is.
Agreed, that's why I prefer to just eliminate all legal benefits of marriage. It's not the responsibility of government to encourage nor discourage civil or religious unions.
For me it's just another reason to change the tax system from a production tax to a consumption tax. Under a consumption tax it wouldn't matter if your married to 10 people, homosexual, heterosexual, single, divorced, married but separated, and so on, everyone is taxed as they spend.
Quote:Including humans throughout history, just to be clear.
in fact (i hope this isnt delving too far into religion) but in older times when the church had an incredible amount of power and influence, kings, priests, emperors..... all had multiple partners and same sex partners.
all this idealism that its morally wrong is BS, because morals are subjective. If everyone that created laws in the US were gay, then things would look a lot different. this wouldnt be an issue.
gay couples have existed since pretty much the beginning of time and guess what? we are still here and in fact our population is growing at pretty much the fastest rate ever....even though gay marriage is legal in more places than it ever was! super weird right?
the argument that reproduction will stop? bad one. maybe thats a good thing.... the planet is becoming overpopulated and there are plenty of homeless children that need families, a lot of gay couples undertake that kind of thing.
the argument that its immoral to call it marriage but they can still be a couple? another bad one. for reasons previously stated about benefits that married couples get.
its just an ignorant stance. gay marriage doesnt effect you if you arent gay. unless you have to spend money and take time off work to go to a wedding...rent a suit......and just have a good time, because lets face it.... weddings are a blast!
Quote:Agreed, that's why I prefer to just eliminate all legal benefits of marriage. It's not the responsibility of government to encourage nor discourage civil or religious unions.
For me it's just another reason to change the tax system from a production tax to a consumption tax. Under a consumption tax it wouldn't matter if your married to 10 people, homosexual, heterosexual, single, divorced, married but separated, and so on, everyone is taxed as they spend.
I'm all for a consumption tax but this would not solve other issues like the medical rights married couples have in regards to emergency healthcare, visitation etc... It's not purely a tax issue. I know you are aware of that but some either are not or deny it.
Bottom line is, IMO, being opposed to gay marriage in a legal sense is trying to legislate "morality" based on a certain set of beliefs cultivated from a young age by a portion of the populace. I do not cannot agree with that.
Quote:I'm all for a consumption tax but this would not solve other issues like the medical rights married couples have in regards to emergency healthcare, visitation etc... It's not purely a tax issue. I know you are aware of that but some either are not or deny it.
Bottom line is, IMO, being opposed to gay marriage in a legal sense is trying to legislate "morality" based on a certain set of beliefs cultivated from a young age by a portion of the populace. I do not cannot agree with that.
Agreed it is undeniably one of the most obvious cases of trying to legislate morality.
Quote:The vast majority adopt. Is this a bad thing? It's also a faulty argument. It doesn't turn straight couple gays. It does not guarantee the end of the "natural family" as you see it. Gay couples would still be together, loving each other, and living together. Why are you so against them having the same legal rights as straight couples?
I don't really care if you change your mind, you wont because of obvious reasons. I do question why you would bother posting if you didn't want to hear anyone's retorts.
Do you have data or a link showing the majority of adopted children are raised by Gay and Lesbian spouses?
So it wouldn't be the end of a natural family huh? Can a man get pregnant by another man? what about the same for a woman?
Again for the record, I support Gay and Lesbian couples having benefits, just dont change the definition or modify the word Marriage and its official definition or meaning.
Union would be a better fit.
Quote:Some one around here has to attempt to translate your besotted ramblings.
Anything else?
Quote:Do you have data or a link showing the majority of adopted children are raised by Gay and Lesbian spouses?
So it wouldn't be the end of a natural family huh? Can a man get pregnant by another man? what about the same for a woman?
Again for the record, I support Gay and Lesbian couples having benefits, just dont change the definition or modify the word Marriage and its official definition or meaning.
Union would be a better fit.
Anything else?
Unless I missed a prior post of his about this issue, he isn't saying that the majority of adoption is by gay couples. He's saying that most gay couple that have children get them through adoption.
And as far as ending the "natural family"... I don't think all of us straight people are going to wake up tomorrow and be suddenly gay. There has always been gay people...giving them the right to be legally married isn't going to stop people from having children.
Quote:.. weddings are a blast!
Especially if you're not the one getting married.
You wanna solve the problem of "gay marriage?" Make healthcare affordable and make it easier to name someone to get benefits that would be due to a spouse.
In a rarity, I'm with Eric: There should be no legal benefit to being married. Only a religious one.
Quote:Do you have data or a link showing the majority of adopted children are raised by Gay and Lesbian spouses?
So it wouldn't be the end of a natural family huh? Can a man get pregnant by another man? what about the same for a woman?
Again for the record, I support Gay and Lesbian couples having benefits, just dont change the definition or modify the word Marriage and its official definition or meaning.
Union would be a better fit.
Anything else?
Are you intentionally twisting words to suite your backwards "beliefs"? That is not remotely what I said. Go back and read what you quoted. Don't be so willfully ignorant.
It's not the end of the "natural family". Would gay/lesbian couples able to have marriages all of a sudden destroy your "natural family"? Any other straight couples' familes? You know they wouldn't, I know they wouldn't, everyone knows they wouldn't. It's a BS argument that holds no water at all. BTW can we please acknowledge this idea of the "natural family" is merely a recent concept and is, in fact, not natural to the human species?
Quote:Are you intentionally twisting words to suite your backwards "beliefs"? That is not remotely what I said. Go back and read what you quoted. Don't be so willfully ignorant.
It's not the end of the "natural family". Would gay/lesbian couples able to have marriages all of a sudden destroy your "natural family"? Any other straight couples' familes? You know they wouldn't, I know they wouldn't, everyone knows they wouldn't. It's a [BAD WORD REMOVED] argument that holds no water at all. BTW can we please acknowledge this idea of the "natural family" is merely a recent concept and is, in fact, not natural to the human species?
Actually, the demise of the nuclear family is already well underway because of divorce, SSM will only pile on. It's not gay people's fault, it was over long before this debate started in earnest. It's the liberal perspective on marriage that's destroyed Western Society, as no less than Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote over 40 years ago. The African American community is in shambles and the white community isn't far behind, all because we permitted western marriage to fall to progressivistic foolishness.
Quote:Actually, the demise of the nuclear family is already well underway because of divorce, SSM will only pile on. It's not gay people's fault, it was over long before this debate started in earnest. It's the liberal perspective on marriage that's destroyed Western Society, as no less than Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote over 40 years ago. The African American community is in shambles and the white community isn't far behind, all because we permitted western marriage to fall to progressivistic foolishness.
I don't understand. Are you saying same sex marriage contributes to the decline of the nuclear family? Please explain. I don't understand how people wanting to get married would contribute to the decline of the nuclear family.
Quote:I don't understand. Are you saying same sex marriage contributes to the decline of the nuclear family? Please explain. I don't understand how people wanting to get married would contribute to the decline of the nuclear family.
No, it's simply pushing it further down the road to irrelevancy, and I believe that we're suffering much damage to our society as it becomes more irrelevant.
Quote:No, it's simply pushing it further down the road to irrelevancy, and I believe that we're suffering much damage to our society as it becomes more irrelevant.
How does it push it down the road to irrelevancy?
Quote:Are you intentionally twisting words to suite your backwards "beliefs"? That is not remotely what I said. Go back and read what you quoted. Don't be so willfully ignorant.
It's not the end of the "natural family". Would gay/lesbian couples able to have marriages all of a sudden destroy your "natural family"? Any other straight couples' familes? You know they wouldn't, I know they wouldn't, everyone knows they wouldn't. It's a [BAD WORD REMOVED] argument that holds no water at all. BTW can we please acknowledge this idea of the "natural family" is merely a recent concept and is, in fact, not natural to the human species?
So you can't provide a link to backup your claim you made earlier?
Anything else.
Quote:How does it push it down the road to irrelevancy?
Traditional western marriage: one man, one woman for life
Progressive western marriage: one man, one woman until one decides it's over
Today's western marriage: Two Xs until one decides it's over
Tomorrow? Who knows, but whatever it is will contribute to an ever declining emphasis on the primacy of marriage and the nuclear family to western civilization.
In the meantime, 70% of African American children are born out of wedlock and the incarceration rates from a lack of fathers is a direct result. This is a natural downstream effect of the push to end the sanctity of the marriage institution and replace it with a mere legal relationship. The results we see all around us, and even the liberal Democrats told us it would be this way. There's a price to pay for destroying the institution that made your society great, and now we get to reap the harvest.
But, "Hey! Hey! Ho! Ho! Western Civ has got to go!"
Quote:Traditional western marriage: one man, one woman for life
Progressive western marriage: one man, one woman until one decides it's over
Today's western marriage: Two Xs until one decides it's over
Tomorrow? Who knows, but whatever it is will contribute to an ever declining emphasis on the primacy of marriage and the nuclear family to western civilization.
In the meantime, 70% of African American children are born out of wedlock and the incarceration rates from a lack of fathers is a direct result. This is a natural downstream effect of the push to end the sanctity of the marriage institution and replace it with a mere legal relationship. The results we see all around us, and even the liberal Democrats told us it would be this way. There's a price to pay for destroying the institution that made your society great, and now we get to reap the harvest.
But, "Hey! Hey! Ho! Ho! Western Civ has got to go!"
First of all, I like Progressive western marriage (as you define it) a LOT better than what you call Tradional western marriage. In what you call a Traditional western marriage, no matter how bad things get, you cannot leave the marriage? That sucks.
Secondly, I cannot see how allowing more people to get married would contribute to "an ever declining emphasis on the primacy of marriage and the nuclear family to western civilization." Allowing homosexuals to get married has no effect on your marriage or my marriage, and it would have no effect on anyone's "nuclear family."
Thirdly, how in heck does allowing more people to get married cause more black babies to be born out of wedlock? Homosexuals have nothing to do with babies being born out of wedlock. They cannot have babies.
And as far as your lament for the demise of western civilization, civilization evolves. It has always evolved. Most of the time, it has evolved for the better. If you really don't want civilization to EVER change, then you don't ever want things to get BETTER. You just want them to stay the same.
This is just another example of why gay marriage proponents are winning this argument. There are no compelling reasons to oppose it. Just a bunch of empty rhetoric about how we are destroying western civilization. Well, they made the same arguments about a host of societal advancements, and it didn't work. You cannot stop the march of progress.
Quote:You cannot stop the march of progress.
But what you call progress is regression, that's the heart of these discussions. We fundamentally disagree on what constitutes progress.
Quote:So you can't provide a link to backup your claim you made earlier?
Anything else.
I said Gay/Lesbian couple mostly adopt kids, that's how they get their children. You tried to claim I said they have most of the adoptions as a whole.
You are either intentional being dense or simply lack basic comprehension skills. I can't help you with that.