Same Sex Marriage

[btimsah]

Soddom and Gommorah is about rape. For some reason lot preferred his daughters to be raped. Some say because the messengers were "visitors" and that this story is about bad people trying to abuse the strangers. People with a "message" they did not like perhaps?

 

[charles cure]

God did choose the right people, the best that were available, but it is still the words recorded by man. I, for one, am not willing to take any word of man (God inspired, or not) for truth unless it fits with the whole scripture, the spirit as defined by God's actions and motives, and the logic is undeniable. Everything else is commentary. God could have chosen the best scholar in the world, but because of human communication, it is impossible to precisely convey the meanings of God for many reasons, including human's natural subjectivity and perception. If all the people in Christianity thought they had it all figured out and there was no arguments pertaining to scripture, what can we say about God? If we are able to figure out the scripture completely, is it not simple-minded? Still, the scriptures are simple and complex at the same time, as they should be.

so you are saying that god, in his infinite wisdom and perfection, created a race of beings that were so flawed they couldnt even understand their master's intentions? and then in addition to that, god was clueless enough to either not realize this or realized it fully and then still expected his subservient creation to abide by the rules he set that he knew they couldn't fully understand? that sounds idiotic, even worse it sounds cruel.

By my arguments? How strong of a Christian would you be if it was me who convinced you of God's truth in scripture?.

i would think there are probably many christians out the who consider themselves strong and were converted to the "truth" of scripture by nothingmore than strong words on the part of a preacher, parent, or perhaps trusted friend.

I don't expect anyone anymore to understand what I think and believe. I will try to explain if asked, but if you don't understand, I don't expect it to matter more than any other half-baked irrationality. Believing in scriptures/God's word is irrational if you do not believe in God, and believing in God is irrational because of the lack of evidence. You asked why Chrisitians feel the way they do, I answer with irrationality. Are you surprised? Do you expect anyone to give you the answers you seek? If you aren't finding the answers, maybe you are looking in the wrong place. .

so you are saying that its ok to use the aforementioned half-baked irrationality to justify denying rights to an entire segment of the population because they do not believe as you do? thats beyond arrogant. and no im not surprised, i guess i just expected too much when i asked for "Christian reasoning".

The English word fornication means that, yes. What about the original text? Also, taken in context, the underlying theme is not just fornication, but it talks about sex with beasts (check the scriptures I gave). All sorts of sex outside of marriage. .

what about the original text, the bible is rife with mistranslations of every kind. the word fornication could have started out as the hebrew word for pasta that some church authoritarian had retranslated to mean fornicator, which is yet another reason not to take it seriously.

Also, how can there be a Christian marriage between anything but a male and female, as defined by scriptures?.

the bible doesnt really define marriage, it just goes to great lengths to ennumerate sins and so i suppose if you loosely interpreted certain passages, youd find out that you couldnt get married if you had eaten unleavened bread or mixed your milk with your meat on the sabbath. its all a matter of what you choose to give importance to. which is why the christian stance against gay marriage is bullshit, because it represents a hypocritical singling out of certain people as "sinful" and therefore incapable of enjoyingthe sacrament of marriage whereas otherwise normally sinful people are accorded every privilege there is to be had. i mean how come a murderer can still get married? or a child molester? or a rapist? hmmmm? why them and not homosexuals? it seems pretty arbitrary to me.

The problem has always been us. From the beginning, godly men laid well-meaning traditions and laws to honor God. They made all sorts of sacrifices in the name of God. They created the old testament law based on the intentions of God. The concept you have to get your mind around is that anything can honor God, depending on your true intentions and whether your intentions fit within what God wants. "Good" and "Evil" are defined by God's will. If you do something like help me when I lose my job, and it is not God's will, and you didn't listen, (as good as the action could be), you have sinned. If you help me out and surprise God, it may change his will if you do it for him, and hence you change the future. If you help me out and do listen to God, you have done righteousness.

oh i know youve always been the problem. the reason youre the problem is because you think you know what god wants, you think you know that god has intentions, and you can claim to justify that any of a wide range of societal abberrations are "gods intention".

Politically? We stand against what we perceive as sin. It says in scriptures that all accounts are recorded for the judgement seat. We will be accountable for every stray word we say. Our voting record will definitely be subject to our judgement and could be used against us. So, although we stand against injustice, we must allow all God's people to be free of our judgement. It is not an easy thing to do (to stand for what's right, without judging the faulty), and all of us Christians screw that up. If we were silent on the issue, it would be the same as condoning the behavior.?.

no doing nothing doesnt equal condoning. if you see someone dying in the middle of the road and you just keep going, are you guilty of murder for having done nothing? no. i think if god judges your every word and action and dwells on the moral right or wrong of the minutae of your daily life than he is a ridiculous and unfair god who has grown out of touch with the reality he himself has created for his "children".

He was a man who found the truth of God in the rawest way, while fighting God tooth and nail. He persecuted the Christians, went on a quest to do that, he then became one. It is similar to the atheist scientists and philosophers today who consciously set out to disprove God's existence and end up becoming Christian.

Paul was a weak-minded bigot and a persecutor of those who did not believe in the same way as he did. all that changed in his conversion from Saul to Paul was his allegiance and the belief system he used as a conduit to propogate his brand of misogyny and bigotry.
i dont believe that most intelligent scientists set out to disprove god's existence, even a cursory examination of the elements involved in an undertaking like that would reveal what a pointless gesture it would be.

If we said nothing against the issue, it is the same as accepting or worse, condoning the issue. We must accept the person, not the practice, if people choose to do it, but when we are asked about the practice, we must speak up or forfeit our chance to speak. If people wish to marry as homosexuals, they should be allowed to do so, the trouble is...we must speak against it if we are asked by politics. How do you get it past the Christians because we are stuck in a conundrum. We can't win either way.

dont you see how easy it is to solve your conundrum? all you have to do is think like this:

i am gods creation
homosexuals are gods creation
god frowns upon the practice of homosexuality
but god mandates that i love my fellow man and accept him
i therefore will accept the practice even though i dont agree with it because i believe that god and not me is capable of judging the right and wrong of their actions and they will be punished if it is right that they should be in the end.

you can win, you just think too small.

Freedom goes hand-in-hand with personal responsibility. Could this nation be free if no one had a sense responsibility? We would have chaos, and require more socialism to control the ones who do not have responsibility. An adopted set of morals is required for a self-governing society, a "free" society..

responsibility and authoritarianism are not the same thing. an adopted set of morals may be necessary for a self-governing free society, but what really is important is the process by which a society adopts a moral code. if the society uses the arbitrary and whimsical pronouncements of an ancient fairy tale to exclude sections of society from exercising their right to enjoy equal treatment and pursue a harmless family life without infringing on anyone elses happiness and liberty, then the society is flawed and unjust. if the society however uses real information and reasonable criteria to decide which actions are harmful and restrictive to the freedom of others, and their moral code is based in a process of thought that can be logically followed, then they have done their best to foster equality and justice.
so, yes morals matter, but how the morals come to be matters more. a moral code can be just as cruel and unfair as any other form of tyranny, you just have to be on the bad side of it to understand that.

Ethics are not a rigid thing and are relative to the situation, what you are talking about is a perfect society like Christian heaven. You want this world to be more like "heaven." Not a bad view, but it is unrealistic and unacheivable.

ethics are definitions. boundaries. they are lines of demarkation between right and wrong. situational ethics are those that shift depending on who they are applied to, even though the circumstances may be the same. the selective application of ethics from one similar situation to another is what is bad, and what is being done when christains seek to take a political stance that would deny same sex marriage rights.
i dont want the world to be more like heaven, i dont believe in heaven. and if you think that a just society that applies its morals and laws fairly among its population without regard for arbitrary lines of division between race, class, gender, creed, or sexual orientation is unrealistic and unacheiveable, then you have just sold yourself and humanity short and should hope to not live in this world for very much longer.

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. So, how can we have objective ethics? Without a sense of unity and peace, we can't. And we are losing our sense of what it means to be an American and fly one banner, or maybe it has always been that way and I'm slowly waking up to those that are un-American.

objective ethics can be defined through logical and reasonable processes. you observe the behavior of all parties involved in a situation objectively (ie: without nationalistic or religious bias) and then you evaluate which person is commiting the greater evil. this doesnt mean that if both parties are commiting evil deeds that they should not both be punished, it means that you cannot have the pretense of moral righteousness if you place the actions of of one party in a sacred context that is viewed as incapable of wrongdoing. that is what many americans do when they look at the actions of so-called muslim terrorists. they place the actions of their nation in a realm of moral infallibility and revile the terrorists for having questioned our righteous motives in the first place, let alone attacked us for perceived greivances. and in turn the terrorists make the mistake of treating all americans as one single person with the same set of values and beliefs and intentions. this happens because religion, whether it seeks to or not, does not foster empathy or respect for the beliefs of others. any religion that makes the claim that its way is the one true way is by definition disrespectful of any belief that opposes it. even if the adherents of that religion do not attempt to eradicate the non-believers, it is a poor delusion for them to think they have respect for the other belief. this is what would be forced upon people if the christian political contingent had its way. disrespect and dishonesty posing as "moral fiber".

I don't understand what you are saying.

what im saying is that if god had to create jesus to come to earht and clean up the mes he had made out of mankind, then he must have fucked up pretty hugely along the line somewhere.

 

[Medicine*Woman]

Soddom and Gommorah is about rape. For some reason lot preferred his daughters to be raped. Some say because the messengers were "visitors" and that this story is about bad people trying to abuse the strangers. People with a "message" they did not like perhaps?

*************
M*W: Actually, the myth of Sodom (sodium/salt flats) and Gomorrah is about being inhospitable to one's fellow human being. The custom of the day was to welcome strangers into one's home, feed them, and give them rest. The mythical town's people of S&G were quite inhospitable to the "strangers" visiting Lot's house. So, Lot offered his virgin daughters to the horny crowd.

Although most researchers don't agree on the actual physicality of S&G, some recent biblical scholars believe that S&G, if they existed, sat on a sandy salty plain atop of an oil reserve which exploded from underneath the Earth. Other researchers believe it was a nuclear explosion that destroyed S&G. I've read where S&G were supposed to have been located toward the lower southwest extreme of the Dead Sea. That sort of makes some sense of how the Dead Sea may have been created from such an explosion.

Now about Lot's wife turning into a "pillar of salt." Most pictures depict Lot's wife as a white columnar pillar ala Greco-Roman architecture. This is ludicrious. It would be more likely if Lot's mythical wife was nothing more than a pile of salt! She simply must have evaporated! This doesn't make any sense, because Lot, the daughters, and the wife were allegedly walking (or running) very close to each other. I am suspicious of why it was only "the wife" who evaporated.

Lot and the girls reached the safety of that cave, and the rest is incestuous history, however mythical it may all be.

 

[GodlessEvil]

Well, i percieve religion and it's traditions as a culture, although i am an atheist i respect it's culture in the western world, i consider same sex marriage as a poisoning of it's culture.
An anarchism against traditional values and a disrespect for the common vision of bride and groom.

I am not against homosexuals, but they have a chip on their shoulder and it obviously leads them to rebel, and same sex marriage is nothing more than a rebellion.

 

[charles cure]

*************
M*W: Actually, the myth of Sodom (sodium/salt flats) and Gomorrah is about being inhospitable to one's fellow human being. The custom of the day was to welcome strangers into one's home, feed them, and give them rest. The mythical town's people of S&G were quite inhospitable to the "strangers" visiting Lot's house. So, Lot offered his virgin daughters to the horny crowd.

Although most researchers don't agree on the actual physicality of S&G, some recent biblical scholars believe that S&G, if they existed, sat on a sandy salty plain atop of an oil reserve which exploded from underneath the Earth. Other researchers believe it was a nuclear explosion that destroyed S&G. I've read where S&G were supposed to have been located toward the lower southwest extreme of the Dead Sea. That sort of makes some sense of how the Dead Sea may have been created from such an explosion.

Now about Lot's wife turning into a "pillar of salt." Most pictures depict Lot's wife as a white columnar pillar ala Greco-Roman architecture. This is ludicrious. It would be more likely if Lot's mythical wife was nothing more than a pile of salt! She simply must have evaporated! This doesn't make any sense, because Lot, the daughters, and the wife were allegedly walking (or running) very close to each other. I am suspicious of why it was only "the wife" who evaporated.

Lot and the girls reached the safety of that cave, and the rest is incestuous history, however mythical it may all be.

at one point i saw an interesting special on Sodom and Gamorrah where they pointed out that the place where the towns are most likely to have existed is littered with these interesting rock salt deposits that look like pillars of salt and they showed a bunch of them and then they discussed how a lot of the pillars looked like different things, like how you can see elvis or a bunny in a cloud. it was kind of interesting as far as it went toward explaining the pillar of salt thing.

 

[charles cure]

Well, i percieve religion and it's traditions as a culture, although i am an atheist i respect it's culture in the western world, i consider same sex marriage as a poisoning of it's culture.
An anarchism against traditional values and a disrespect for the common vision of bride and groom.

I am not against homosexuals, but they have a chip on their shoulder and it obviously leads them to rebel, and same sex marriage is nothing more than a rebellion.

religion and its traditions do constitute culture, but they are nothing more than the culture of that religion and its followers. a country made up of a mileu of western europeans, asians, africans, and various other people from all over the globe should not be subject to the law favoring the culture of one religion out of many that the population adhere to. same sex marriage may be seen as poison to christian culture, but there are lots of people living in the US that arent christian and shouldnt be subject to the legalization of their negative attitudes about what people do in private.

and i think that if the situation were reversed and you were a homosexual, you might think differently. even just the fact that you couldnt get married like every other goddamn person can would probably piss you off a little bit. think of it, gay people often find themselves raised by a society to which their behavior is antithetical, but at the same time, they have come to embrace much of the tradition of that society and the meaningfulness of its rituals and celebrations, as anyone raised from a baby in such a context would. then, upon reaching maturity, homosexual people in our country come to realize that in fact the society that they seek to be a part of bears them nothing but ill will over some minute issues of biblical law. the president himself has set his agenda against them. what would it be like, i wonder if you felt that the way you live your life is reviled by all those who surround you and seek to uphold the values of your country? would you feel like you were being forced out? would you feel alienated? i mean 9 times out of 10 you would probably ignore it and go about your daily business, but it would get under your skin if you fell in love and wanted to get married, or showed up to rent an apartment with your significant other and were denied because the landlord saw you holding hands...theres a million scenarios that justify the "chip" on the shoulder of gay people. in the same way that black people's harsh attitude toward whites in the 40's and 50's and 60's was justified. society put the chip there, they can remove it i think also.

 

[Baron Max]

...and shouldnt be subject to the legalization of their negative attitudes about what people do in private.

I agree. But since this topic is about same-sex marriage, then it's NOT "in private" ....which is a whole new ball game!

...if the situation were reversed and you were a homosexual, you might think differently. even just the fact that you couldnt get married like every other goddamn person can would probably piss you off a little bit.

But homosexuals DO have the same marital rights as heterosexuals!! Heterosexuals CAN'T marry those of the same sex and neither can homosexuals ....seems perfectly equal, don't it.

...what would it be like, i wonder if you felt that the way you live your life is reviled by all those who surround you...? would you feel like you were being forced out? would you feel alienated?

That type of thing happens to many people in the world in many different cultures. And the thing that one should do is to change the way he acts around his fellows. I'm sure that many people here at the forums have felt that way at times ...and I'll bet those who did, changed what they did or how they acted if they wanted to fit into their environment. I'd be willing to bet that they didn't try to change everyone else to their own way of acting, did they? Think about nerds and geeks. They're somewhat in the same situation, right? But are they asking that everyone else begins to act like nerds and geeks?

I'll still vote against same-sex marriage. I will, however, vote for some form of social partnership or contractual partnership. But NOT marriage ...that's between a man and a woman.

Baron Max

 

[jayleew]

so you are saying that god, in his infinite wisdom and perfection, created a race of beings that were so flawed they couldnt even understand their master's intentions? and then in addition to that, god was clueless enough to either not realize this or realized it fully and then still expected his subservient creation to abide by the rules he set that he knew they couldn't fully understand? that sounds idiotic, even worse it sounds cruel.

Yes, compared to himself, we are very flawed. He did not expect us to play by his rules, he just wanted some company, and he wanted to give the freedom to love him.

i would think there are probably many christians out the who consider themselves strong and were converted to the "truth" of scripture by nothingmore than strong words on the part of a preacher, parent, or perhaps trusted friend.

This is a misconception, even among Christians. The strongest of Christians, were called by God. A preacher, parent, or friend may have had a role, but were not the ultimate factor. The reason why someone would be weak if they were converted by a person is that once that trusted person makes a mistake, the convert questions their own faith by seeing their mentor fall. It happens a lot, and my father-in-law is one example.

so you are saying that its ok to use the aforementioned half-baked irrationality to justify denying rights to an entire segment of the population because they do not believe as you do? thats beyond arrogant. and no im not surprised, i guess i just expected too much when i asked for "Christian reasoning".

I'll have to think on this some more...I don't wish to deny anyone any right to sin. But I will not encourage the practice by making it more socially acceptable with a marriage inclusion.

what about the original text, the bible is rife with mistranslations of every kind. the word fornication could have started out as the hebrew word for pasta that some church authoritarian had retranslated to mean fornicator, which is yet another reason not to take it seriously.

If you don't understand a word when you read a novel, what are some ways to understand the meaning? You can either use a dicitonary, or you can extract the meaning from the context. The translators chose to put the word fornication based on the usage of the word. I will have to study on the original text...

the bible doesnt really define marriage, it just goes to great lengths to ennumerate sins and so i suppose if you loosely interpreted certain passages, youd find out that you couldnt get married if you had eaten unleavened bread or mixed your milk with your meat on the sabbath. its all a matter of what you choose to give importance to. which is why the christian stance against gay marriage is bullshit, because it represents a hypocritical singling out of certain people as "sinful" and therefore incapable of enjoyingthe sacrament of marriage whereas otherwise normally sinful people are accorded every privilege there is to be had. i mean how come a murderer can still get married? or a child molester? or a rapist? hmmmm? why them and not homosexuals? it seems pretty arbitrary to me.

Yes, it defines marriage in Genesis. And Jesus repeats the exact passage of scripture and validates it when asked about divorce.
A murderer is not sinng my marrying, he is sinning by murder. The problem is that marriage carryies the connotation of union of flesh and mind, and the intention of giving all of oneself to another. And this is where the sin comes into play. It is like a murderer who is about to murder.

no doing nothing doesnt equal condoning. if you see someone dying in the middle of the road and you just keep going, are you guilty of murder for having done nothing? no. i think if god judges your every word and action and dwells on the moral right or wrong of the minutae of your daily life than he is a ridiculous and unfair god who has grown out of touch with the reality he himself has created for his "children".

Yes, if you just keep going, then you are saying that it is okay that that person dies....and, though you may not have stabbed the person, you have let the person die, and did not stop the intention of the murderer. Had you saved the person, the murder would not exist, and there is left only one sinner in the situation.

All people that are involved in a decision are responsible for the decision. By walking past the dying person, you walk into the equation of the decision to kill. This concept is something that liberals cannot grasp. They never get past the surface and are too hasty in judgement. I don't know what you are, but try to see past the surface and into Utilitarian morality.


Paul was a weak-minded bigot and a persecutor of those who did not believe in the same way as he did. all that changed in his conversion from Saul to Paul was his allegiance and the belief system he used as a conduit to propogate his brand of misogyny and bigotry.
i dont believe that most intelligent scientists set out to disprove god's existence, even a cursory examination of the elements involved in an undertaking like that would reveal what a pointless gesture it would be.

i am gods creation
homosexuals are gods creation
god frowns upon the practice of homosexuality
but god mandates that i love my fellow man and accept him
i therefore will accept the practice even though i dont agree with it because i believe that god and not me is capable of judging the right and wrong of their actions and they will be punished if it is right that they should be in the end.

you can win, you just think too small.

That is my reasoning behind the issue, but then you put me in the equation of morality, and I am against the issue.

so, yes morals matter, but how the morals come to be matters more. a moral code can be just as cruel and unfair as any other form of tyranny, you just have to be on the bad side of it to understand that.

Well, it would be nice if some atheists would produce a system to replace the old before removing the first set, then introduce it into society in a less-dramatic fashion. According to scripture, we will see that happen.

if you think that a just society that applies its morals and laws fairly among its population without regard for arbitrary lines of division between race, class, gender, creed, or sexual orientation is unrealistic and unacheiveable, then you have just sold yourself and humanity short and should hope to not live in this world for very much longer.

That is how I feel, but I must perservere until my work is done.

what im saying is that if god had to create jesus to come to earht and clean up the mes he had made out of mankind, then he must have fucked up pretty hugely along the line somewhere.

He had to send his already created son to come to Earth to clean up the mess WE made out of reality. WE are the ones who chose to live in a messed up world. In hindsight, I'm sure Adam would have not taken the apple. Or, maybe the future of this timeline is a better one than if we had not taken the apple. God knows.

 

[Medicine*Woman]

I agree. But since this topic is about same-sex marriage, then it's NOT "in private" ....which is a whole new ball game!

But homosexuals DO have the same marital rights as heterosexuals!! Heterosexuals CAN'T marry those of the same sex and neither can homosexuals ....seems perfectly equal, don't it.

That type of thing happens to many people in the world in many different cultures. And the thing that one should do is to change the way he acts around his fellows. I'm sure that many people here at the forums have felt that way at times ...and I'll bet those who did, changed what they did or how they acted if they wanted to fit into their environment. I'd be willing to bet that they didn't try to change everyone else to their own way of acting, did they? Think about nerds and geeks. They're somewhat in the same situation, right? But are they asking that everyone else begins to act like nerds and geeks?

I'll still vote against same-sex marriage. I will, however, vote for some form of social partnership or contractual partnership. But NOT marriage ...that's between a man and a woman.

Baron Max

*************
M*W: The laws of marriage were created by men, of men, and for men, (i.e., the patriarchy) to ensure ownership rights one's wife and children were his legal property. There is absolutely nothing sacred nor spiritual about the act of marriage. Through the course of history, certain customs arose like the kneeling proposal, white wedding dress, wedding ceremony, wedding ring, wedding cake, honeymoon, etc., but let us not also forget about the dowry one's father had to pay the groom to take his worthless daughter, the arranged marriage, the wedding night horrors of young married girls, and their admittance into a lifetime of slavery as a wife.

Marriage as defined between one man and one woman is about the legal ownership of slaves. Any children born out of that 'marriage' also become the legal 'property' of their father. How convenient! Even today when a child is able to work and support himself, regardless of his/her age, he is said to be 'emancipated!' My, my, how the world has not changed!

Marriage more rightfully defined should be allowed to occur legally between any two individuals providing them with equal rights and equal status under the law. It's time to get the Church and State out of our homes, our beds, and our reproductive organs.

 

[btimsah]

Did I state the fact that I was gay? I am!

As someone who fought with my sexual orientation growing up, I feel I can relate to everyone here. Because I used to be a somewhat fundamentalist christian fighting my orientation, but now I'm a somewhat liberal (but I voted for Bush? lol) who has accepted that some people are gay as created by God. Unless you feel the devil can create life...

I used to believe the bible did condemn homosexuality. I was raised Baptist and unfortunately that upbringing is what makes me come across as somewhat anti-christian today. But I am a Christian, just not the one that hates homosexuality and thus homosexuals with it.

Growing up I never did understand why I was attracted to the same sex. I mean, if homosexuality was so bad "according to God" then why the hell (no pun intended ) was I gay!? It's not like I could have just chosen to find the opposite sex attractive one day. I mean, do you guys think you could forget your attraction to women? One day wake up and you've forgotten such a thing? That's not possible.

You know how some militant fundamentalist christians claim a gay person needs to pray for God to turn them straight? Of course I tried that! In doing so what I learned was that God allready turned me gay from birth and that I needed to stop bitching about it and move on with my life. I did that and came out to everyone around me. My life has turned around 100% since then. I can be myself now. My personal growth was completely screwed up because of the self hate and felt like I had little reason to live, BEFORE I came out. I blame myself first, for not realizing what was so obvious to begin with. But fundamentalist christianity played a HUGE role in shaping this self-hate. Because fundamentalist's are more concerned with their personal dislike of homosexuality than they are worried about the homosexuals relationship with God and their emotional state. This is where they fail.

Now of course the fundamentalist christian in reading this would assume I am now a "whore", (They always do) sleeping around with people of the same sex constantly. That person can ASSume such a thing all day. If it makes you feel better, you can assume I'm a celibate priest who came to terms with my sexual orientation.

Once you realize the fact that no matter what you think of homosexuality, homosexuals will still exist you realize how futile your objection is. It's comletely useless. So shutup about it allready.

Fundamentalist christians can fight homosexuality as much as they want - but there are still going to be homosexuals and that will never change.

The question is, have YOU prayed to God to change you?

 

[Hapsburg]

But homosexuals DO have the same marital rights as heterosexuals!! Heterosexuals CAN'T marry those of the same sex and neither can homosexuals ....seems perfectly equal, don't it.

No, that's not equal in any way. It's denying homosexuals thier rights, pertaining to thier sexual orientation. Your sense of "equality" is pertaining to ONLY heterosexuals. What you are saying is denying homosexuals thier rights to the pursuit of happiness, which would be unconstitutional.

 

[jayleew]

But fundamentalist christianity played a HUGE role in shaping this self-hate. Because fundamentalist's are more concerned with their personal dislike of homosexuality than they are worried about the homosexuals relationship with God and their emotional state. This is where they fail.

Good point.

It is a condition of self that one has to live with like the preference of ice cream. To deny yourself the chocolate is cruel!

Still, you have no scriptural ground to believe that God agrees with homosexuality. I do not presume to know the will of God, but only that the scriptures paint a clear picture of God's distaste for fleshy lusts from gluttony to murder.

I have no clue what God would say to you if you were a righteous homosexual at the time of judgement, if there could be such a thing as a righteous homosexual. It seems to be a gamble, but the alternative (I'm assuming) is denying who you are.

The scriptures hint that there is no male and female in the afterlife, so I don't know...Paul states it like this: Anything you do that is not in faith is sin. Anything that you would be ashamed to do in the throne room of God is sin...so for me, I could not agree to condoning the practice unless God was to teach me that it is his will.

The question is, have YOU prayed to God to change you?

Indeed. Such a prayer, would definitely do good for me.

 

[MetaKron]

Xians know all about same sex marriage. In their marriages, sex is always the same!

 

[charles cure]

You know how some militant fundamentalist christians claim a gay person needs to pray for God to turn them straight? Of course I tried that! In doing so what I learned was that God allready turned me gay from birth and that I needed to stop bitching about it and move on with my life. I did that and came out to everyone around me. My life has turned around 100% since then. I can be myself now. My personal growth was completely screwed up because of the self hate and felt like I had little reason to live, BEFORE I came out. I blame myself first, for not realizing what was so obvious to begin with. But fundamentalist christianity played a HUGE role in shaping this self-hate. Because fundamentalist's are more concerned with their personal dislike of homosexuality than they are worried about the homosexuals relationship with God and their emotional state. This is where they fail.
[/B]

its cool that you have come to terms with yourself, your religion, and your sexuality. i guess i think if i was in your position though, i would say to myself - look how much self-loathing and self-denial i could have saved myself if religion had not been a factor in my life, whether i felt its pressure exerted on me through my family or by wider society. christianity enshrines an ancient bias against nonconformity across all aspects of life that you would never have had to deal with if we had never allowed ourselves to take the irrational claims of religion seriously. i would think it was my obligation to save others from this trouble.

 

[SnakeLord]

As long as I don't personally have to attend or partake in their bedtime activities I don't honestly give a shit.

All this fuss for a ring and a piece of paper? Come on..

 

[charles cure]

I agree. But since this topic is about same-sex marriage, then it's NOT "in private" ....which is a whole new ball game!

it is completely about what people do in private. the issue revolves around the christian oppostition to the act of gay sexual expression. if it did not then gay marriage would not or could not be an issue because if you remove the opposition to the sex act then why would it matter who married who? the bibles forbidding of it would be meaningless at that point.

But homosexuals DO have the same marital rights as heterosexuals!! Heterosexuals CAN'T marry those of the same sex and neither can homosexuals ....seems perfectly equal, don't it.

yeah well that point of view is completely one-sided. thats like saying hey retarded people have the same brain as everyone else, they just dont use it. in truth its only equal if you are on the side that has the right and can choose not to exercise it at their leisure. heterosexuals dont want the right to marry people of their own sex, so the whole issue is of no real import to them unless they are arrogant enough to believe that their lifestlye is the only acceptable one.

That type of thing happens to many people in the world in many different cultures. And the thing that one should do is to change the way he acts around his fellows. I'm sure that many people here at the forums have felt that way at times ...and I'll bet those who did, changed what they did or how they acted if they wanted to fit into their environment. I'd be willing to bet that they didn't try to change everyone else to their own way of acting, did they? Think about nerds and geeks. They're somewhat in the same situation, right? But are they asking that everyone else begins to act like nerds and geeks?

so youre saying that if the law or society is fundamentally flawed you should just accept it and alter yourself until it seems to make sense?
gay people arent seeking the marriage right so that they can fit in with heterosexuals, because they obviously already dont, they are seeking the legal recognition of their relationship as legitimate and the benefits that are accorded to every other couple who is married. if everybody were to suppress their urges to differ from the accepted social norm in any way, civilization would become stagnant or fall apart completely. there would be no diversity of thought or process, no innovation, no creativity, no imagination, no individuality. what you are suggesting robs life of the things that differentiate truly living from just surviving.

I'll still vote against same-sex marriage. I will, however, vote for some form of social partnership or contractual partnership. But NOT marriage ...that's between a man and a woman.
Baron Max

why does it make any difference? the church will still refuse to perform same-sex marriages, and i doubt a lot of gay people would want to be married by a person in a place where their lifestyle is clearly frowned upon anyway, so for religious purposes marriage will still have its "sanctity" whatever that is, whether the law changes or not. thats a benefit of the seperation of church and state and why it is so essential to free society.

 

[charles cure]

All this fuss for a ring and a piece of paper? Come on..

youre missing the point of it then. im not gay but i still think gay marriage should be allowed. why? i am not fighting for a ring or a piece of paper or anything. however, the outcome of this issue will have an impact on the power struggle between secular morals and christian morals and which one is allowed to define law in our culture in the US. to be sure, i would see christian definitions of morality replaced with ones that make logical sense and are based on modern definitions of right and wrong as articulated by fact-based opinion and evaluation of what advances the common good while protecting the rights of all, insofar as this can be done. the politico-religious agenda of some people in the United States will not allow for such a shift in the cultural paradigm because they believe that ancient biases predicated on scriptural teaching should remain the only pool from which authority and moral superiority can be drawn. gay marriage is one issue among many that, depending on how it is decided, can help make a change toward favoring rationality and objective ethics as the basis for law.
so yeah its not so much about a ring and a piece of paper to everyone.

 

[GodlessEvil]

religion and its traditions do constitute culture, but they are nothing more than the culture of that religion and its followers. a country made up of a mileu of western europeans, asians, africans, and various other people from all over the globe should not be subject to the law favoring the culture of one religion out of many that the population adhere to. same sex marriage may be seen as poison to christian culture, but there are lots of people living in the US that arent christian and shouldnt be subject to the legalization of their negative attitudes about what people do in private.

and i think that if the situation were reversed and you were a homosexual, you might think differently. even just the fact that you couldnt get married like every other goddamn person can would probably piss you off a little bit. think of it, gay people often find themselves raised by a society to which their behavior is antithetical, but at the same time, they have come to embrace much of the tradition of that society and the meaningfulness of its rituals and celebrations, as anyone raised from a baby in such a context would. then, upon reaching maturity, homosexual people in our country come to realize that in fact the society that they seek to be a part of bears them nothing but ill will over some minute issues of biblical law. the president himself has set his agenda against them. what would it be like, i wonder if you felt that the way you live your life is reviled by all those who surround you and seek to uphold the values of your country? would you feel like you were being forced out? would you feel alienated? i mean 9 times out of 10 you would probably ignore it and go about your daily business, but it would get under your skin if you fell in love and wanted to get married, or showed up to rent an apartment with your significant other and were denied because the landlord saw you holding hands...theres a million scenarios that justify the "chip" on the shoulder of gay people. in the same way that black people's harsh attitude toward whites in the 40's and 50's and 60's was justified. society put the chip there, they can remove it i think also.

Why not just get married to your cat or dog or even sheep (if you're welsh)
you know, i don't think there is a great deal of difference between beastiality and homosexuality, it is just rare, a women can get fucked by a horse willingly on both sides, but i wouldn't think for a moment it would be OK to marry the horse no matter how much you loved it or cared for it, because it is just sick.

While we might like to think same sex marriage is an achievement of social diversity, it is also an achievment of social de-culturalisation and de-evolution.

I disagree completely to anyone who suggests it is a social evolution or improvement in any way.
A line has to be drawn otherwise as a race we begin to show more and more sympathy towards the diverse and perverse.

 

[Medicine*Woman]

Why not just get married to your cat or dog or even sheep (if you're welsh) you know, i don't think there is a great deal of difference between beastiality and homosexuality, it is just rare, a women can get fucked by a horse willingly on both sides, but i wouldn't think for a moment it would be OK to marry the horse no matter how much you loved it or cared for it, because it is just sick.

While we might like to think same sex marriage is an achievement of social diversity, it is also an achievment of social de-culturalisation and de-evolution.

I disagree completely to anyone who suggests it is a social evolution or improvement in any way. A line has to be drawn otherwise as a race we begin to show more and more sympathy towards the diverse and perverse.

*************
M*W: You know, you're right. As a former Catholic now recovering, no one in the church per se married a couple. The couple married each other. Therefore, why can't two lesbians or two homosexuals 'marry each other?' The law discriminates and should be abolished.

That's like defining family structure. Who has the 'authority' to define what a family is? To me, a family is made up of anyone you want it to be -- natural children of natural parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandchildren, great grandchildren, adoptees, foster children, friends of the family. Who could possibly define a family? All humankind is family.

I'm a heterosexual grandmother, but I promote equality among humankind. Sure, it was a cultural shock to me when Blacks and Whites became couples. I was full of GRITS (girl raised in the South). I was shocked and stunned by inter-racial dating and marriage. Along came the Viet Nam Era, and I continued to be shocked and stunned by the bi-racial unions -- our American GIs were marrying Vietnamese women and bringing them home just like our fathers did when they were in Korea, Germany, France, Italy and Japan. I learned to accept them and have made good friends with some.

Prejudice is a learned behavior. We are not born with it. Babies aren't born with prejudice nor religion. I know. My career is childbirth. Instinctively, babies are all the same regardless of their color. They've taught me a lot.

When that baby makes its descent into the world, it comes here with no pre-conditioned values. Its only instinct is to survive by locating its mother's nipple. All babies are atheists, and that's the only instinctive way to be throughout life. Nothing else calculates.

Marriage between two people should be legitimized without question. If I married a homosexual man, who would be the first to condemn it? If a Lesbian woman married a homosexual man for purposes of procreating a child, who would be the first to condemn it? If a heterosexual man married a Lesbian, who would be the first to condemn it? If a woman married another woman, why should anyone condemn it?

The Earth is filled with people even though we are all unevenly spaced apart. Who is to condemn this? It's time we consider all people, then there would be no societal groupings and clandish behaviors. We all came onto this Earth looking for the way to survive. It really doesn't matter what we think or what we believe, survival is our goal. What is survival for one is not survival for another. We should welcome with open arms any brother or sister whose goal it is to survive. Lesser agendas do not matter. We are all looking to survive.

 

[charles cure]

Why not just get married to your cat or dog or even sheep (if you're welsh)
you know, i don't think there is a great deal of difference between beastiality and homosexuality, it is just rare, a women can get fucked by a horse willingly on both sides, but i wouldn't think for a moment it would be OK to marry the horse no matter how much you loved it or cared for it, because it is just sick.

While we might like to think same sex marriage is an achievement of social diversity, it is also an achievment of social de-culturalisation and de-evolution.

I disagree completely to anyone who suggests it is a social evolution or improvement in any way.
A line has to be drawn otherwise as a race we begin to show more and more sympathy towards the diverse and perverse.

well youre taking it to an absurd extreme that doesnt even have any relevance to the issue of marriage between humans. the reason you wouldnt marry your cat or dog or horse is because it can be demonstrated that the animal would actually not be aware of the union in any real sense, therefore making it impossible for the vows (even if they were to somehow be pronounced by the animal) to be honored. so thats why people dont marry animals, because the animal wouldnt know that its was married and we couldnt tell if we were marrying the animal against its will or not. that basically makes your argument completely useless.

what you are really saying is that you find the sex act between animals and humans, or between gay men or women perverse and disgusting. well, i believe sex between people and animals is illegal and taboo for much the same reason that marriage between humans and animals is illegal. the animals response to sexual stimulus is far more involuntary than ours and therefore makes it easy for humans to take advantage of them against their will, whether you think the horse wants to have sex with the woman or not is irrelevant. face it, beastiality is not the same as homosexuality. and gay marriage probably wouldnt change society in any fundamental way, except that it would allow for gay people to have the same rights as heterosexual people as it pertains to their sexuality. youre right though in one sense, there is a line that must be drawn somewhere, i would argue that on one side of the line is a rational person who knows that gay marriage is as harmless as normal marriage, and on the other side, theres people who think gay sex is the same as beastiality and would result in society's imminent destruction.