posted on February 13, 2004 05:35:43 PM new
Without using religion or references from the bible, I would like to hear from people who are opposed to gay marriage. What do you fear about gays getting married?
I am trying to understand why straight people are so against this issue.
"An Army of One"
Bigotry and hate will not be tolerated.
[ edited by logansdad on Feb 13, 2004 05:49 PM ]
posted on February 13, 2004 06:29:37 PM new
Marriage is wrong and therefore we shouldn't allow gays to marry.
Better yet, let's make it illegal for hetros to marry and only allow gays to marry.
I think in about 10 years gays will regret being allowed to get married. They'll all be fondly remembering the good old days of just moving on when you felt like it, and before you always had an excuse for not tying the knot.
posted on February 13, 2004 07:23:13 PM newWhat do you fear about gays getting married?
It has nothing to do with 'FEAR'. That's always the starting point for those of you who can't understand there are people who don't WANT to see the traditional meaning of 'marriage' further desenagrated. Your side starts with a totally false premise....it's fear related. I'm not fearful of gays nor do I wish them harm.
To me it's tradition. Marriage has always been between one man and one woman. Those of us who hold the tradition of 'marriage' in high regard don't want to see that changed. We don't want to see the 'institution' of marriage and family changed to accommodate their 'alternative lifestyle'.
I would support civil unions, but never gay marriage. And that has absolutely NOTHING to do with FEAR. It's a moral standard I have always held.
And I feel strongly that since most voters [the majority] say they are against changing the definition of what 'marriage' has always represented, that's the way it should be. The people's voices should be heard, not just a small majority of opinion being allowed to change it for all. Or not just some radical officials going against the law the people of the states have passed.
Another part of the issue, for me, is that we all will end up paying the benefits for these 'so called married' people. I also have never supported the changes that those living with employees should be entitled to the same benefits as those married are....whether they are gay or straight. It's just more devaluation of the institution of marriage. And it saddens me to see it.
posted on February 13, 2004 07:31:32 PM new
How does a gay marriage affect the traditional man/woman marriage? How does wanting equal rights devalue a traditional marriage?
I consider your atitude bigoted. Why should you enjoy more benefits than anyone else simply based on your sexual orientation. You are free to maintain your tradition without interference from couples of same sex. What right do you have to deny them the same rights and happiness that you enjoy.
posted on February 13, 2004 08:02:39 PM new
KD - I think I've shared my view on this issue quite clearly. The term marriage has never meant a union between one man and another...nor one woman and another. It has traditional been one woman and one man. And even to be allowed to enter the union [of the US] states, the citizens of those states had to set aside their 'view' of marriage as one man and several women. Otherwise they couldn't be admitted to the union.
Allowing this small minority to proceed with it's anti-family anti-marriage agenda just opens up a pandora's box that has endless problems.
------
Helen....I'll once again say to you what you've said to me many times. I really don't care what you think. I have my own values/morals and your comments/insults on my position won't cause me to change them.
Does you good to see how the 'other', more than half, of America views this hot issue.
posted on February 13, 2004 08:16:58 PM new
Linda, don't you think you have to accept others as equals before you can move ahead? Some traditions need updating to include everyone, imo.
posted on February 13, 2004 08:56:54 PM newdon't you think you have to accept others as equals before you can move ahead? Some traditions need updating to include everyone, imo.
No, I don't think I have to accept this change in the definition of what marriage means. Anymore than I can say you have to change your views of not eating meat, or on abortion. We each are entitled to our opinions and we each form them for different reasons....life experiences.
I shouldn't have to accept this change. Not to promote an agenda of a very small minority of people. That doesn't mean I don't accept them as individuals who are different from myself. I just don't believe they need to have the benefit of what the term marriage has traditionally meant. Condoning their union. I don't condon their unions. Why should I have to?
They would have equal rights if they made out wills with direct instructions on how they want things handled IF they should not be able to make the decisions for themselves. Many do that when they have no close relatives or spouses to manage their personal affairs when they can't. There is no reason they have to fall under the traditional 'marriage' term in order to be equal or to have these protections until our laws. No reason other than forcing their agenda upon a majority of US citizens who oppose them doing so.
Imo, civil unions would be, ARE, a "move ahead" of the way things have always been. It is a change that almost half of our nation could accept. But the citizens of 38 states, so far, have voted against this. Their voices should be heard....not over-ridden by PC politicians who break the laws.
posted on February 13, 2004 09:22:38 PM new
I love that "the majority" of americans do not want gays to descrate the traditional of marriage but have no qualms about doing it themselves by using the courts to put the kabosh on that whole "what god has brought together, let no man break apart" aspect. When the majority of americans can abide by the tradition of "till death do you part" I'll consider respecting their opinion but until then they are just a bunch of hypocrits trying to dictate standards to others that they can't abide by themselves.
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on February 13, 2004 09:35:23 PM new
Gay Marriage Debate Goes Global--Slowly
In Canada, the public is divided, according to a poll cited earlier this month by CTV, the Canadian Television news site. The poll found 48 percent opposed gay marriage while 47 percent support it. Support for gay marriage was strongest among women, younger people, those with higher incomes and those with more education, according to the poll.
Personally, I think that there will be less and less opposition as people become aware that gay marriages aren't going to harm or interfere with their own lifestyles in any way. I know it won't affect mine.
posted on February 14, 2004 12:06:15 AM new
I'm in favor of removing the term marriage from the contract the state promotes between straight couples. Call them ALL civil unions unless the couples go to a religeous service and have a religeous marriage under church law.
The contract the state aproves has nothing to do with religeous law and to speak of it's sanctity is a fiction. The law addresses all sorts of rules for such unions but their sanctity it not the state's place to address since that is a religeous matter. The state does not promote God as part of the marriage. If it does it is infringing on the church's business.
Perhaps it IS time to remove the clergy's right to perform a state licensed wedding so people are clear they are getting two ceremonies. If they have to go to an official for the state and a preacher for the church that may finally make the slightly dense and easily distracted they are seperate and have different rules.
posted on February 14, 2004 04:43:31 AM new
Thank you Linda, you postings are spot on...
I might add that civil unions may or may not be recognized by an employer, where as marriage has to be taken into consideration.
It is funny when people were protesting against the war and the felt they had the "majority" were screaming about it... now that the "majority" is against their wrong thinking... they are still screaming... talk about hypocrites...
Fenix... living in another recognized queer city S.D. I can uderstand your misunderstanding of this issue.
I hope that Gov. Arnold takes drastic and swift action against those illegal sham marriages... it will be quite funny when they are "stripped" of their so called marriage.
posted on February 14, 2004 05:48:51 AM new
Gay marriage have been legal in Denmark since 1989 and the vast majority of people there are in favor of it:
These benefits of gay marriage have changed the attitudes of the majority of people in Denmark and other countries where various forms of gay marriage have been legal for years. Indeed, in 1989, when the proposal to legalize marriage between gays first was proposed in Denmark, the majority of the clergy were opposed. Now, after having seen the benefits to the partners and to society, they are overwhelmingly in favor, according to the surveys done then and now.
The fact is that a form of gay marriage has been legal in Denmark since 1989 (full marriage rights except for adoption rights and church weddings, and a proposal now exists in the Danish parliament to allow both of those rights as well), and most of the rest of Scandinavia from not long after. Full marriage rights have existed in many Dutch cities for several years, and it was recently made legal nationwide, including the word "marriage" to describe it. In other words, we have a long-running "experiment" to examine for its results -- which have uniformly been positive. Opposition to the Danish law was led by the clergy (much the same as in the States). A survey conducted at the time revealed that 72 percent of Danish clergy were opposed to the law. It was passed anyway, and the change in the attitude of the clergy there has been dramatic -- a survey conducted in 1995 indicated that 89 percent of the Danish clergy now admit that the law is a good one and has had many beneficial effects, including a reduction in suicide, a reduction in the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and in promiscuity and infidelity among gays. Far from leading to the "destruction of Western civilization" as some critics (including the Mormon and Catholic churches among others) have warned, the result of the "experiment" has actually been civilizing and strengthening, not just to the institution of marriage, but to society as a whole. So perhaps we should accept the fact that someone else has already done the "experiment" and accept the results as positive. The fact that many churches are not willing to accept this evidence says more about the churches than it does about gay marriage.
"An Army of One"
Bigotry and hate will not be tolerated.
[ edited by logansdad on Feb 14, 2004 06:19 AM ]
posted on February 14, 2004 05:49:16 AM new
Preventing gay marriages is against the constitution
Keeping gay marriage illegal also violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. According to the American Civil Liberties Union in 1996, (3) “The law [against same-sex marriage] discriminates on the basis of sex because it makes one's ability to marry depend on one's gender.” The ACLU goes on to say, “Classifications which discriminate on the basis of gender must be substantially related to some important government purpose…tradition by itself is not an important government purpose. If it were, sex discrimination would be quite permissible; discrimination against women has a pedigree in tradition at least as long and time honored as that of discrimination against same-sex couples in marriage.”
Nowhere in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution is preservation of tradition cited as a power or intention of our government. There is no constitutional basis for denying gay couples marriage, and every constitutional reason why our government should actively pursue legalizing gay marriage in order to give gay men and lesbians their rights as equal citizens of the United States and to ensure their inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness that every American is guaranteed. Our government's purpose is to defend the rights of the people, and in this instance our government has undoubtedly failed in its duties.
"An Army of One"
Bigotry and hate will not be tolerated.
[ edited by logansdad on Feb 14, 2004 05:54 AM ]
posted on February 14, 2004 05:56:34 AM new
Linda, you said:
To me it's tradition. Marriage has always been between one man and one woman
Well, that's the most often heard argument, one even codified in a recently passed U.S. federal law. Yet it is easily the weakest. Who says who marriage is to be defined by? The married? The marriable? Isn't that kind of like allowing a banker to decide who is going to own the money in stored in his vaults? It seems to me that if the straight community cannot show a compelling reason to deny the institution of marriage to gay people, it shouldn't be denied. And such simple, nebulous declarations are hardly a compelling reason. They're really more like an expression of prejudce than any kind of a real argument. The concept of not denying people their rights unless you can show a compelling reason to do so is the very basis of the American ideal of human rights.
posted on February 14, 2004 10:09:54 AM new
::Fenix... living in another recognized queer city S.D. I can uderstand your misunderstanding of this issue. ::
San Diego - a "Queer City"? LOL! This city is so conservative it's sick, besides I had these opinions when I lived in the concervative south east and in the midwest, I just brought them here with me. By the way, I understand the issue perfectly, we just have different views of it. I don't believe our government should be legislating morality.
::I hope that Gov. Arnold takes drastic and swift action against those illegal sham marriages::
He, after he decided to strip every county of additional funding for fire and police and the state of hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues with no plan on how to replace those funds he might want to spend less time doing commercials for bond issues and more time figuring out how to increase income for the state. Increasing the sales of marriage licsenses is a good place to start.
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on February 14, 2004 11:13:58 AM newGay Marriage Not Just for the Left: SomeConservatives Give Their Support
By Justin Pope Associated Press Writer
Published: Feb 14, 2004
BOSTON (AP) - In the battle over same-sex marriage, liberals have been front and center, pushing to give gays and lesbians the right to wed.
But there is at least a small block of conservatives who are on the same page, often for different reasons: They're loath to tinker with a constitution, for one, or they want to see more people - gay or straight - make commitments.
The stance is a departure from that of most conservatives, a division that supporters of gay marriage hope to exploit.
"I don't see the response to gay marriage as unified at all on the conservative side," said Glenn H. Reynolds, a supporter of gay marriage rights and publisher of the generally conservative blog Instapundit.com.
Most recent polls have shown fairly wide skepticism about gay marriage. Democrats are nearly evenly split on the matter, while most Republicans oppose it.
That split was evident this past week in the Massachusetts Legislature when three proposed amendments to the state constitution that would have banned gay marriage lost by a handful of votes each time. (Each amendment also would have allowed civil unions in some form.)
After two days of intense debate that went well into the evening, legislators failed to reach a consensus and decided to recess until next month.
If lawmakers pass such a constitutional amendment this year, it would put it on course to end up on the ballot in November 2006 - two years after court-ordered weddings are to begin taking place in the state.
A vocal contingent of conservatives are furious that activist judges have forced a revision of the law, and adamant that the millenia-old institution of marriage should be reserved for heterosexual couples.
Gay marriage would not be "the end of civilization," said David Horowitz, a prominent conservative who once opposed a constitutional amendment outlawing gay marriage but has changed his mind in light of the Massachusetts decision. "But I am an opponent of judicial tyranny. And I think there's a lot of conservatives like me."
But while many conservatives oppose activist judges, they also resist tinkering with the state and federal constitutions. On states-rights grounds, prominent right-leaning columnists like George Will have opposed a proposed federal amendment, as have key lawmakers who otherwise oppose gay marriage, like Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga.
A few conservative commentators have articulated a case that goes beyond opposing a constitutional amendment, and actually support gay marriage.
"The conservative course is not to banish gay people from making such commitments. It is to expect that they make such commitments," David Brooks wrote recently in The New York Times, praising the virtues of fidelity. "We shouldn't just allow gay marriage. We should insist on gay marriage."
Brooks has been joined by a few fellow pundits on the right, notably Andrew Sullivan, and a handful of libertarian bloggers who say the government has no place meddling in the relationships of its citizens.
Sensing chinks in the armor, gay-rights activists are appealing to family values or a hands-off approach to the Constitution.
The gay-rights group Human Rights Campaign has touted the virtues of marriage both for gay families and America in ads that ran in establishment newspapers like The New York Times and The Washington Post.
But in the ads it ran in places like Omaha, Neb., and Indianapolis, Human Rights Campaign took a different tack, appealing to conservatives not to support a federal amendment banning same-sex marriage. In one, an elderly woman stares into the camera and says "I'm pretty conservative, but I can't support amending the constitution over this."
Seth Kilbourn, HRC's national field director, said his group believes the country's conservative leadership is split on gay marriage. His group is trumpeting the message that amending the constitution to discriminate is wrong.
"Under that message falls the conservative argument: You don't use the constitution to resolve these kinds of social debates," Kilbourn said.
The Log Cabin Republicans, a group of gay Republicans, is also focusing on the constitutional argument.
"We have found some conservative Republicans and a handful of senators, Democrats and Republicans, who are probably never going to be with us on equality but would probably cut their arm off before they'd mess with the constitution," said Mark Mead, the group's political director.
Social conservatives say such arguments betray the cause.
Genevieve Wood, vice president of communications for the Family Research Council, accuses Brooks and others of failing to be "true conservatives" when it comes to gay marriage.
While social conservatives and libertarians "agree on lower taxes, less government involvement," she said, "when it comes to redefining the family, we don't think that's for government to do."
posted on February 14, 2004 11:58:16 AM new
Linda, in my last post, I wasn't referring to you in particular... I meant all of us need to be more accepting to be able to move ahead - not just you.
posted on February 14, 2004 08:12:04 PM new
Such an amendment would violate the first & most importantamendment in the Constitution:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
Really, it surprises me to hear folks on the right, who can often be heard shouting that the beliefs of the Founding Fathers are to be adhered to, would propose such an amendment. It violates one of the principles that the founding fathers held to be of great importance: that the government should not control or be controlled by, a religion. Any religion. Many people fled to this continent to escape such a thing. As Jefferson stated in his Virginia Bill of religious freedom (a precursor to the First amendment):
A BILL FOR ESTABLISHING RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
SECTION I. Well aware that
the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds;
that Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint;
that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments, or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do, but to extend it by its influence on reason alone;
that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time:
That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical; that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness; and is withdrawing from the ministry those temporary rewards, which proceeding from an approbation of their personal
conduct, are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labours
for the instruction of mankind;
that our civil rights have no dependance on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry; that therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right; that it tends also to corrupt the principles of that very religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing, with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments, those who will externally profess and conform to it; that though indeed these are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way;
that the opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous falacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own;
that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order; and finally,
that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.
******
Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but unlike charity, it should end there --Clare Booth Luce
[ edited by bunnicula on Feb 14, 2004 08:19 PM ]
posted on February 14, 2004 08:56:02 PM new
Which is why even some Fundies are coming out of the woodwork on this issue. Not all of them are full of rocks and the ones who can read and comprehend what they read want no part of tampering with the Constitution...
posted on February 15, 2004 12:02:30 AM new
Once you sit down and start changing the constitution you may end up with a few lines altered you didn't intend. The administration seems too comfortable with other ideas they may slip in too. They don't seem to pay anything but lip service to the abuse of women in Afganistan and Iraq. It would not surprise me to find they secretly envy those sons of Allah the upper hand they have.
posted on February 15, 2004 06:00:36 AM new
Wrong Bunnicula,
The admendment will pass because the WILL of the People want it passed, I am sure there will be no mention of religon in the proposed admendment, you can surmise all you want, it would be a legal decision and one that will pass...
It must be hard to be a queer now and really see that the American people do not want them...
posted on February 15, 2004 06:47:11 AM new
It is nice to see how people over looked the fact that gay marriages have been legal in Denmark since 1998. I don't see that country going to he** in a handbasket.
I hope that Denmark refuses to recognize marriages from the United States.
posted on February 15, 2004 06:52:12 AM new
The Governemnet would need a constitutional amendment to legally define marriage between a man a woman because there are sections of the constitution that specifically allow it.
From the 14th Amendment:
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
The government can't have it both ways: They want a separation of church and state and then want to pass laws defining what marriage is. Tell me how this is not a contradiction.
"An Army of One"
Bigotry and hate will not be tolerated.
[ edited by logansdad on Feb 15, 2004 06:53 AM ]
posted on February 15, 2004 11:23:11 AM newThe admendment will pass because the WILL of the People want it passed, I am sure there will be no mention of religon in the proposed admendment, you can surmise all you want, it would be a legal decision and one that will pass...
Religion IS behind this proposed amendment. Marriage is, for the most part, a religious institution. The proposers feels that their beliefs, their views are THE right one, the one that all should be forced to obey will they, nill they. Hence the proposed amendment.
******
Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but unlike charity, it should end there --Clare Booth Luce
posted on February 15, 2004 11:51:32 AM new
Logansdad, without the religious backing telling people homosexuality is a sin, there's no reason for believing it's a sinful lifestyle. None. Nobody yet has offered you a reasonable explanation for their slanted views, and in 10 years, they won't be able to either because there isn't one.
