Pineconn wrote:I'll just say that if I were a child of two men or two women, I'd likely shoot myself. The nonconformity to the common, accepted definition of "marriage" in this thread is making me puke. And it's not the Chinese food I ate a few hours ago, either. (Or is it?) :sick:Marriage should be the union between a man and a woman. Eat that statement, live with it, breathe it, wash your hands with it, shower with it, make love with it, whatever. And no, my religion isn't making me say this, considering I am not a theist.
[CENTER]It's dangerous to go alone. Take this.
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mighty_darknut wrote:It's dangerous to go alone.
Huh?
"We" still have the edge. I'm interested in the 2008 findings, however.
Pineconn wrote:Huh?
Haha. Obvioius Zelda reference is obvious.
I find it funny that you are concerned about our lack of conformity to societal standards here, and yet you yourself have admitted to not being a theist. At any rate, you know that feeling of revulsion you get thinking about gay marriage? I get that same feeling when people with attitudes like yours come along.
rock_nog wrote:I find it funny that you are concerned about our lack of conformity to societal standards here, and yet you yourself have admitted to not being a theist. At any rate, you know that feeling of revulsion you get thinking about gay marriage? I get that same feeling when people with attitudes like yours come along.
I couldn't have said this any better myself. This country is so far behind the times because we still show a prejudice here and don't give equal rights to homosexuals because they are different. It's not a choice. What person is going to wake up and chose to live a life that is constantly ridiculed and people don't want to give you the right to be marry and ultimately settle down in life? So we as a nation are going to hold back and essentially penalize a percentage of our people because of something that's not their fault. It's a social injustice and it needs to be fixed.
I must point out that the accusations that "homosexuals do not have rights" and "homosexuals are not allowed to be married" is not quite true. As the author in my link pointed out, all people are allowed to marry, provided the marriage conforms to rules about age, gender, and consent.
If a "marriage" is not a "union between a man and a woman" then it becomes anything that anyone says it can be. When it comes to what I believe marriage is, I draw the line at "one man and one woman." You might draw it at "two people who love each other." Someone else may draw it at "a group of people who love each other." Yet another may say it is "a potato."
My point is, once you start mucking around with the definition of marriage, then marriage becomes absolutely nothing.
This is not about rights or bigotry or anything like that. It is merely about language. I think that many people on the left use name-calling (bigot, homophobe) when they have nothing to add to the discussion itself. As before, prove me wrong.
i fail to see how the subject of gay marriage is really any different that the civil rights movements of earlier years. you were black, or a woman, so you couldnt vote.
now you happen to like the same sex, and you cant get married?
hmm... i believe that this issue, same as the aforementioned, will in future generations be seen as "what were we thinking?"...
(Referring to the posts above Starkist's.)
Okay, fine. "I'm sorry for thinking gay marriage is bad." Happy now? You can't express an opinion without being pulled into a war of philosophies anymore...
I find gay marriage immoral partly due to the consequences it could cause on the kid of the queer couple (nice alliteration, huh?). I hope I don't have to explain this; hopefully you can only imagine how the child would be treated by people with the same viewpoint as me (but who would actually make fun of him or her).
rock_nog wrote:I get that same feeling when people with attitudes like yours come along.
Are you calling me inferior? This reminds me of a part in a movie in which a white person refers to a black family as "you people." I forget the movie, though.
EDIT: Ah. A Raisin in the Sun.
I agree with Starkist's point of view here. The government really should have no business with Matrimony. The government should stick with Civil Unions or whatever they want to call it. Keep the legal benefits and all that jazz. Matrimony on the other hand, should be a purely religious thing.
If a same-sex couple wants the legal benefits of marriage, let them have it. Both are consenting adults who should be able to make decisions for themselves. No one should really care about what they do in bed.
The one argument against same-sex unions that I hate the most is "It'll destroy the sanctity of marriage!" Yes, marriage in the Christian sense is defined as "a union between a man and a woman." But what most of these people completely ignore is that it's a lifelong union. Any sanctity that marriage had was thrown out the window when people started getting divorces.
Until someone has a truly good argument against same-sex unions, they should just come out and say "gay people are icky!"
Yoshiman wrote:
The one argument against same-sex unions that I hate the most is "It'll destroy the sanctity of marriage!" Yes, marriage in the Christian sense is defined as "a union between a man and a woman." But what most of these people completely ignore is that it's a lifelong union. Any sanctity that marriage had was thrown out the window when people started getting divorces.
Here's the way I see that point: If something is broken, breaking it further is not the solution. Just because the prevailing social opinion of marriage is one of temporary convenience does not mean that the underlying idea of marriage is wrong. If it is a lifelong union of a man and a woman, then those heterosexual people who get married and divorced like changing socks are at fault, not marriage itself.
Hold on... You're saying my best friend can't get married to the one he loves simply because that person happens to be another man, and yet you compare me to a racist because I got pissed off that you would say something like that?
As I have tried to explain, love is not the central tenet of marriage. There are certain requirements that people must conform to in order to be married. A man may love a five-year-old girl, but they cannot be married. A woman may love Brad Pitt, but they cannot be married without his consent. A man may love his brother, but they cannot be married, even if "same-sex marriage" was the law of the land.
I believe marriage is the lifelong union between one man and one woman who are both desiring of the arrangement. If you change any of those parts, then the whole is no longer marriage - it is something else entirely.
Starkist wrote:Here's the way I see that point: If something is broken, breaking it further is not the solution. Just because the prevailing social opinion of marriage is one of temporary convenience does not mean that the underlying idea of marriage is wrong. If it is a lifelong union of a man and a woman, then those heterosexual people who get married and divorced like changing socks are at fault, not marriage itself.
Which is why I prefer the idea of the government sticking to Civil Unions instead of marriages. Marriage should stay religious, Civil Union for the social status.
Exactly! Marriage shouldn't be used in a government context - it's a religious concept. Honestly, though, I would think that heterosexual civil unions would be a harder sell than homosexual marriages. But, nonetheless, yes, I agree that we should simply abolish state-sanctioned marriage.
Then we all agree! Hooray! 😊
A word means whatever it is accepted to mean, and as far as I know, you can call two atheists "married" without any religious connotations. So, the term civil union is superflous and the term marriage is not confined to religious unions in our society.
The meaning of the word marriage already has changed from what it is in a religious sense, and while you may not like that, it's the reality. Denying people something because your definition of that is different from theirs is, in my opinion, ludicrous. It shouldn't even matter. Since the definition of marriage to religious is a union between a man and a woman, then if the state gives heterosexuals the right to marry, then in the point of view of the religious person, they are not really married anyway. Just because it's called marriage, the reality is it's a union between two men or two women. So to the homosexual couple, they can happily call themselves married, in a secular sense, and the religious can recognize that they are not married, because marriage is between a man and a woman (for them).
Words denoting abstract concepts can convey different meanings to different people, and those meanings can change within the same group. However, the concepts themselves remain, and people can and do associate the meaning they acknowledge to that word, despite alternative interpretations.
Because I don't really see the point of making so much hubbub over a simple issue of semantics, that's probably all that I'm going to have to say for the rest of this thread.
John Steward in a stand up act once said something that is very close to what I feel about the subject. He said when he first heard of gay marriage he was against it... then he found out that he didn't have to marry another guy, and his next thought was "what is everyone else's problem". Honestly the whole gay marriage thing should have been solved years ago, there are many sins that Christians have to tolerate because they are legal, and holding one of them up above the others is just plain discrimination. Gays are already allowed to have sex while Christains pray for their souls, just take it one step further... I am sure those holding themselves up to high Moral standards can easily just pray some more.