You people...

[AstroProdigy]

Who here supports a cons!@#$%^&*utional amendment banning gay marriage?

[Hackysack]

Im not against gay couples or anything, but I do find it wrong for churches to have gay marriages. I for one do not believe in god or anything, but for churches to not allow gay couples to be married at their church is up to them. Most churches won't just because of what it says in the bible. I mean come on now, a church follows the bible as best it can. In my opinion the decision to have gay marriages should be fully up to the churches.

[»i88gerbils]

The state should separate itself from marraige. Marraige should be defined by religion, and religion alone.

[MonteZuma]

If catholics or other religious ins!@#$%^&*utions want to ban gay denominational marriages then that should be up to them.

 

Civil marriages are a whole different kettle of fish and I'm not sure what she be done about that. There needs to be more debate. But I do believe that there should be some form of gay union, so that gay partners can access pension benefits/superannuation and be treated as a spouse in most situations.

 

I don't believe that gay couples should be allowed to adopt children.

[AstroProdigy]

Churches don't have to marry gay couples. The issue is whether the state should marry them. The state cannot seperate itself from marriage unless it seperates itself from all the rights a married couple is given.

 

Incase you forgot a past issue, interracial marriage used to not be recognized by the government because they believed it fostered a society of "muts" and "inbreeds" and feared that interracial marriage would ruin the ins!@#$%^&*ution of marriage and open the gates for all kinds of crazy unions. Funny how some things never change.

 

Monte I'm curious why you think gay couples shouldn't be able to adopt children.

[MonteZuma]

Monte I'm curious why you think gay couples shouldn't be able to adopt children.

Basically, I think that a child has a better chance of growing up well-adjusted if the child has a mother and a father.

 

I think in almost every cir!@#$%^&*stance, a child would choose to be placed in a heterosexual, nuclear family situation. The child's needs come first.

[Manus Celer Dei]

Who here supports a cons!@#$%^&*utional amendment banning gay marriage?

 

 

While I am a supporter of the principle of gay marriage, as a New Zealander I have no motivation to involve myself one way or another in the legal aspects of the US cons!@#$%^&*ution.

[Aileron]

Astro, your comparison of gay marriages to interracial marriages is part of one of the things I hate most about the gay rights movement - the constant comparison to the racial civil rights movement.

 

First off I don't like it because gay people are not a race.

 

More importantly I don't like it because its a shortcut. Marriage has been defined as between a man and a woman for millions of years and ALL of history. To change something in our culture that is as fundimental as that we better have a !@#$%^&* good reason to do it...and the gay marriage supporters are trying to use a shortcut.

 

This isn't an afterthought of the racial rights movement, this is something that is infact more important. It should have its own independant arguement supporting it.

 

 

 

I've said this before though about the "rights" of marriage. They are infact psuedo-rights, because people have the right to get together, live in the same house, have relations, raise children, etc. without marrying. A Certificate of Marriage does not give you any rights at all...rather it forces the other 250 million people in the country to recognize you as married.

 

For example: polygamists. Polygamy is not recognized as marriage in any state. However, there are people in Utah who practice polygamy despite this. The husband and first wife will be legally married, and any additional wives will be married in an unofficial ceremony. The group can live together like a "normal" polygamist family, and as long as the husband doesn't beat one of the wives or have relations with a wife younger than 18, this is perfectly legal.

 

Where the lack of certification comes into play is when one of them tries to conduct business based on this. If the husband tried to go to the bank and get a loan, claiming he has 12 wives, the bank would have the right to say and act on the husband having only one wife and eleven freeloaders, because the husband only has one marriage certificate. If polygamy was legal and that man had 12 certificates, then the bank wouldn't be allowed to say that.

 

So the real question ends up being: Do you want to force everyone in the country to recognize gay couples as married?

 

 

 

 

I don't know about the tax breaks. The whole point of the tax breaks in the first place was to promote the raising of children and increase the national population level (which at the time was a good thing), and gay couples can't do this without some sort of a medical procedure. Whether or not our population has gotten so high that we don't want couples to produce children is another debate, but since gay unions can't produce children, there seems to be no logical reason to give them the tax break.

 

(I personally wouldn't mind giving gay couples a tax break...I was just pointing out that there is no logical reason to do it.)

[Greased_Lightning]

I don't support gay marriage but I don't think we need a cons!@#$%^&*utional ammendment absolutely prohibiting it. Several states recently passed laws restricting gay marriages so I think it should be left up to the states as long as those couples realize that what may be legal in one state may not be recognized at all in another. As for same sex couples adopting children I am in agreement with Monte that a standard heterosexual family is better for a child's development. Tax breaks same deal since a same sex couple should not be allowed to adopt children (in my opinion) and biologically cannot reproduce, they should not be en!@#$%^&*iled to tax breaks introduced to ease the burden on families with children. If, however, a same sex couple is allowed to adopt a child, they should receive the same tax break as would a heterosexual couple.

My personal opinion of homosexuality is that it is unnatural and wrong and that it stems from either a biological error in the brain or some sort of issue in personality development (abuse or something).

[AstroProdigy]

Marriage hasn't been around for millions of years and the definition of marriage being between a man and a woman is only post christian. Therefore the government should not legally be able to define marriage as between a man and a woman because this is a religious belief and there is SUPPOSED to be a seperation between church and state.

 

Everyone in the country doesn't have to recognize gay marriage and it could still be legal. Plenty of people still don't recognize interracial marriage and it is legal now. You don't have to change everyone's minds in order to get things done.

 

Marriage gives a lot more rights to the couple actually. Guess how many rights a married couple gets.

(1049 rights) http://scribbling.net/1049-federal-rights-...-marital-status

 

You complain that I compare the gay rights movement with the civil rights movement, yet you compare gay marriage to polygamy. In fact, the gay rights movement is part of the civil rights movement. The civil rights movement isn't just a racial movement. It's a movement for any group that doesn't have all the rights as other group(s).

 

On the other had, I don't even see the relation between gay marriage and polygamy other than they're both illegal. Gay marriage is a union between only 2 spouses just like straight marriage which, unlike polygamy, prevents from major inequality. I would say that polygamy is more closely related to straight marriage because both have to deal with sexism and oppression of women. Of course straight marriage doesn't do this normally, but there are plenty of situations to make this comparison valid.

 

Quote from that link:

"Most people who disagree with gay marriage can't even seem to realize how much the same straight and gay relationships are. The only real difference is the lack of reproductive possibility between the 2 partners. And quite a few straight couples don't do a very good job of raising their children anymore, especially since so many of them don't live together anymore."

 

Many important issues were brought up in that link. For example, if the ins!@#$%^&*ution of marriage is so sacred then why don't we make a cons!@#$%^&*utional amendment banning divorce.

 

I would think morales would be defined as do to others as you would have them do to you, but apparently morales are about controlling peoples' lives and oppressing minorities for the fears of the majority in this country. I thought that was what our cons!@#$%^&*ution was trying to prevent against. Are we really going to make a cons!@#$%^&*utional amendment setting in stone that we are no longer going to be a progressive society?

[MonteZuma]

Who here supports a cons!@#$%^&*utional amendment banning gay marriage?

 

 

While I am a supporter of the principle of gay marriage, as a New Zealander I have no motivation to involve myself one way or another in the legal aspects of the US cons!@#$%^&*ution.

How about an amendment to the Treaty of Waitangi banning gay marriage?

 

Fwiw, [edit] I agree with Greased Lightning [/edit]. The specifics of homosexuality and marriage do not belong in any cons!@#$%^&*ution. I think the cons!@#$%^&*ution should be more generalised. It is probably a state/provincial issue in the US and other countries (like Australia) anyway. I don't think federal governments should over-involve themselves in state affairs.

[Manus Celer Dei]

Who here supports a cons!@#$%^&*utional amendment banning gay marriage?

 

 

While I am a supporter of the principle of gay marriage, as a New Zealander I have no motivation to involve myself one way or another in the legal aspects of the US cons!@#$%^&*ution.

How about an amendment to the Treaty of Waitangi banning gay marriage?

 

Fwiw, I think specifics of homosexuality and marriage do not belong in any cons!@#$%^&*ution. I think the cons!@#$%^&*ution should be more generalised. It is probably a state/provincial issue in the US and other countries (like Australia) anyway. I don't think federal governments should over-involve themselves in state affairs.

 

Heh, I get your point (even though the comparison is kind of silly). I do agree with the idea that sometimes one must involve themselves in the affairs of another sovereign country when the situation merits it (eg if a country legalised murder of the unemployed), but in this case I do not feel any such compulsion. Over here we recently passed a civil unions bill that effectively gives any couple the same rights as a married heterosexual couple if they choose to form a civil union. I approve of thelaw, but at the same time I do not feel the need to preach its merits to anyone else.

 

[edit]eye r teh badd speelr[/edit]

[MonteZuma]

Marriage has been defined as between a man and a woman for millions of years and ALL of history.

I don't think marriage has been around for millions of years. Tens of thousands maybe. In any case, the idea of marriage has been revolutionised since the 1960s. It isn't the same ins!@#$%^&*ution that it was.

 

To change something in our culture that is as fundimental as that we better have a !@#$%^&* good reason to do it...and the gay marriage supporters are trying to use a shortcut.

I don't think gay marriage supporters are trying to change the concept of marriage. Men and women can still get married as they have done for thousands of years. Heterosexuals shouldn't feel threatened by this.

 

It should have its own independant arguement supporting it.

It does. Why should same sex partners be denied the rights that opposite sex partners have with regards to accessing retirement savings and decision-making in critical medical situations? - for example.

 

A Certificate of Marriage does not give you any rights at all...

Yes it does....as above.

 

Where the lack of certification comes into play is when one of them tries to conduct business based on this. If the husband tried to go to the bank and get a loan, claiming he has 12 wives, the bank would have the right to say and act on the husband having only one wife and eleven freeloaders, because the husband only has one marriage certificate. If polygamy was legal and that man had 12 certificates, then the bank wouldn't be allowed to say that.

No bank has any right to call anybody a freeloader. All a bank needs to decide is whether or not it will lawfully make money from a transaction. Whether the man has 12 wives/concubines/sex partners/close female friends is irrelevant, unless it affects his ability to fulfill his contract. You learn about that through tax returns, payslips and !@#$%^&*ets, liabilities, income and expenditure statements - not by installing peep holes in people's bedrooms or making subjective statements about personal relationships.

 

So the real question ends up being: Do you want to force everyone in the country to recognize gay couples as married?

Why do you care so much if Fred and Neville want to get married? How will it affect you?

 

I don't know about the tax breaks. The whole point of the tax breaks in the first place was to promote the raising of children and increase the national population level (which at the time was a good thing), and gay couples can't do this without some sort of a medical procedure.

Actually gay people can have kids without a medical procedure. They just need to introduce a third party. As it turns out, I think giving tax breaks to encourage procreation is wrong.

 

Whether or not our population has gotten so high that we don't want couples to produce children is another debate, but since gay unions can't produce children, there seems to be no logical reason to give them the tax break.

Gay couples don't want tax breaks to have kids. This is a red herring. What they want is their special relationship with their significant other to be recognised. Undoubtedly there are some homosexuals fighting for the same rights as heterosexuals when it comes to children, but I think that this is an entirely separate debate. I've already stated some of my views on that. On the flip side though, if a gay couple do find themselves raising a child (after a divorce or whatever), then they should have the same access to child support services that a heterosexual couple would have. The child's needs come first - ALWAYS.

[MonteZuma]

Everyone in the country doesn't have to recognize gay marriage and it could still be legal. Plenty of people still don't recognize interracial marriage and it is legal now. You don't have to change everyone's minds in order to get things done.

Yeah. I guess you are right and was going to say something to this effect myself, but it gets a bit hairy. It could be the case that anyone that didn't recognise a gay 'marriage' might be guilty of some form of unlawful discrimination. Maybe?

 

You complain that I compare the gay rights movement with the civil rights movement, yet you compare gay marriage to polygamy. In fact, the gay rights movement is part of the civil rights movement. The civil rights movement isn't just a racial movement. It's a movement for any group that doesn't have all the rights as other group(s).

Yeah. I noticed this. Agree 100% with this and the rest of your post. Well said.

[AstroProdigy]

Thanks Monte :-). I say you don't have to agree with gay marriage. I never said I like gay marriage, but I suppport the right, as it is a right I would like to have if I were in the same position.

[Dr.Worthless]

I'm against a Cons!@#$%^&*utional Ban on gay marriage, I don't think it has any place in the Cons!@#$%^&*ution.

 

It should be an up-to-the-states issue. If the states want it, put it up for vote. The citizens of a particular state can vote on it.

 

I also agree with Monte, I don't think Gay couples should be adopting children, on the same grounds that he cites.

[Aileron]

Greased, it might not be unnatural...when the lemming senses they are overpopulated, they have a natural desire to kill themselves off...maybe we humans have the same desire.

 

 

I do have the reasoning to "contradict" myself there...first off I never actually compaired gay marriage to polygamy, I just made a very strong implication.

 

For a reason that isn't BS, I'm attacking gay marriage, but you are attacking the traditional definition of marriage. Gay marriage is a very recent and relatively untested notion that has been around for atmost 30 years. (Homosexual practices may have been around longer, but we are talking about gay marriage.) The length of time the traditional method has been used is by all true accounts unknown...though DEFINETLY pre-exists Christianity (All I have to do to prove this is point out that Jews marry too.)...there's evidence of traditional nuclear families in the ruins of Sumeria and Achient Egypt, and there's even some evidence of such families in prehistoric times. We can probably safely make the !@#$%^&*umption that cavemen married in the same traditional manner as we do. The evidence we have supports that conclusion.

 

Interracial marriage is old - some of the societies that came before us were more racially accepting. Others had weak gene pools and HAD to practice it.

 

Polygamy is also old, it pre-exists mormons certainly. However, the idea of it being wrong is dependant on the women's rights movement and is very new.

 

You compaired something new with something old, hence the invalidity. I compaired it with something effectively new.

 

(I once made an arguement that if you count a man and a woman mating for life and producing children as a marriage, which may not be the exact defintion we use today but does exclude gay marriage, that heterosexual marriage (no arguement necessary for heterosexual mating) pre-exists humanity...if we were created my God, He invented marriage...if we evolved from apes, some primate that we evolved from practiced it.)

 

 

To shorten this because I'm running out of time...Astro, you are on offense. I am on defense. Because I am on defense I am allowed to make such comparisons and you are not, by the fact that your cause is untested and mine is ancient.

[AstroProdigy]

Not if the apes practiced polygamy. You haven't really made any case proving gay marriage is related to polygamy other than that certain aspects of them are relatively recent. By the way, polygamy was considered wrong for a long time, not just with the womens' rights movement, so you're only taking a very secific aspect and your picking and choosing small parts that sort of match simply because they're recent. That makes them similar?

 

You do understand that making the claim that the modern nuclear family existed in ancient society doesn't mean that was all the marriages involved. The Ancient Greeks and the Roman Empire also practiced bisexual and homosexual lifestyles. Picking and choosing again to claim "That's how it's always been" isn't proving your argument.

 

So you say you somehow "proved" that your argument is ancient while mine is untested, yet you only look at the history that supports your claim. The history that refutes your argument doesn't exist because it's not conveniant? There is still a lot we don't understand about our past.

 

The traditional definition of marriage means until death do us part. You cannot defend the traditional definition of marriage unless you are prepared to ban divorce. It also means the wife must obey her husband. Let's just get rid of women's rights too then. The traditional definition of marriage is dead. It is no longer in use, so why is that still the issue?

 

Homosexuality isn't a new issue. It's always been around, but christian societies chose to destroy most of the records that it existed because it went against old Judao-Christian beliefs of marriage.

 

I'm trying to compare the issues in common between interracial marriage and gay marriage and you're trying to pick small time periods and say that they are different so the comparison somehow doesn't exist? Why is pieces of the time interval of the issues that you picked to support your argument so important and the actual issues don't matter?

[Aileron]

Actually I ran out of time and had to go to class and that's why I didn't come up with a good compairison.

 

First off let me point out that I really didn't intend to make that a compairison, rather an analogy. However, to save your time, I'll give you the answer you want first. Cite any dictionary before 1990 and the definition of marriage would be something that amounts to a one man and one woman. The reason I said before 1990 is that they now include a second definition to explicitly make themselves politically nuetral on this subject. A Dictionary.com search gave the definition of the word marriage as:

 

"a. The legal union of a man and woman as husband and wife."

 

Admittingly, their "d." explicitily used an alternate definition for a same-sex marriage. However, this is the 1.a. main defintion that would still be in the books today were it not for the gay rights movement.

 

So, lets see how inter-racial marriage and polygamy stack up to this.

 

In an interacial marriage, there is one man and one woman of different races. But this still obeys the definition, the definition said nothing about race.

 

In polygamy, there is multiple men and/or women. While this definition didn't explicitly say "one" (others do), it did use the word "a" and the words man, woman, husband, and wife are all in singular tense, making it clear that there is only one man and one woman. Thus polygamy is not in this defintion.

 

Thus inter-racial marriages do fall under the traditional definition, wheras polygamy and same-sex marriages would require a change in definition, or the addition of a pathetic d. definition.

 

I guess the word "legal" settles the debate of how long marriage has been around too...at very latest Sumeria, where the first known record of law was found....that's still about 30,000 years if I remember correctly. If you drop the word "legal" though, it still doesn't include same-sex couples and the time it goes back is who knows how long.

 

 

Going back to why I made the implication, I was making an attempt at an analogy that I didn't really do around to making clear. Here's the new and improved version:

 

Suppose some guy with a lot of money starts a bank. He decides to give out loans at 7% interest. He is a family man and somewhat of a philantropist so he decides to give a special 6% loan to married persons.

 

Suppose he doesn't believe in gay marriage. A gay couple walks into the bank and demands a 6% loan. He has the right to say "Screw you, I don't believe in gay marriage, you get the 7% loan." However, add gay marriage being legal and a Certificate of Marriage, and he would be LEGALLY OBLIGATED to treat that gay couple as any other marriage no matter what his opinion is.

 

Suppose in a different scenario the bank owner did believe in gay marriage. Suppose a gay couple walked in claiming they were married, but didn't have the certification because gay marriage isn't legalised. The bank owner can still offer that couple the 6% loan if he wants to. There's no such thing as a Certificate of Being Single, so the bank is under no legal obligation to consider the couple as two single people.

 

 

The Greeks and Romans practiced homosexuality, but not gay marriage. Their practice of homosexuality mostly occured in the military as a way for their soldiers to p!@#$%^&* the time. It was about sex, not family. They might have had sex while away from home and were surrounded by men, but they came home to a female wife, and they viewed it such that only a man and a woman could start a family. Sex with a man was acceptible for entertainment, but marriage to a woman was required for a family.

 

Marriage is about family, not sex. Those here who think its about sex should talk to a 40-50 yr old married man and ask him when the last time he had some was. It is in this where the thin line between gay sex and gay marriage lies. Gay sex is just a form of entertainment, and really is nobody else's concern. Gay marriage is different because marriage is a part of family, and family is the building block of society, and our society is everybody's business.

 

 

 

Am I prepared to ban divorce? You don't know me very well, do you?

 

I think there would have to be some sort of grey area between some chovinistic pig ordering his wife around and letting whoever marry whatever. A man controlling his wife is not part of my definition of traditional marriage...your attempts to make it as such amount to a straw man arguement.

 

The traditional definition of marriage is dead? True half of our marriages end in divorce, but the other half still stay true to their vows...so the traditional definition is only half dead. Besides, that just implies that we have one problem with divorce, and the last thing we need right now is a second one with gay marriage.

 

 

 

 

The Judeo-Christians destroyed the records? Who the !@#$%^&* did you think were safekeeping historical do!@#$%^&*ents in the medieval period? The King Arthur's Historical society? Every secular authority was too busy trying to make war with every other secular authority to give a !@#$%^&* about history! Monks and scribes were the ones keeping the records...during that period science and religion were the same body. Granted there was the situation with Gallileo, but they didn't destroy all records of his work and that was a exception to an otherwise fitting partnership. Don't use Darwin as a more modern example either...the science of eugenics started with a monk breeding peas.

 

Besides, how would YOU be privy to this information? Do you have a time-machine in your basement or were you infact born a thousand years ago and discovered some anti-aging medicine? And what about modern archealogical digs? Most of the sites I spoke of were only discovered in the last century...do you think there is some sort of international conspiracy of Judeo-Christian homophobes devoted to not letting people know about homosexuality in ancient times, that manages to get to each dig before the archealogists discover it, take all evidence away, and bury the whole thing again?

 

(phew, he almost had us figured out for a minute there...)

 

For the record, Nazis and Fascists were the only groups in European history to burn books in general. The Catholic Church once or twice have ordered the burning of a specific editorial publications, some of Martin Luther's works come to mind, but never anything of scientific or historical value...these things, however disagreable they may be, are the truth, and that is one of the things the Church stands for. The Church would still be supporting the sciences today, except that most of our universities are public funded and those that aren't don't want anything to do with a religious body or they would scare away all Muslims, Hindus, as well as every Athiest whos scared to death that they might be wrong. Heck, we do anyways, haven't you ever heard of Notre Dame?

 

Forgive me for devoting half a post to a single stupid statement which proves nothing except that we are all human and sometimes make stupid statements, but I'm in a bad mood.

[MonteZuma]

Greased, it might not be unnatural...when the lemming senses they are overpopulated, they have a natural desire to kill themselves off...maybe we humans have the same desire.

You think gay marriage is going to kill us off? How?

 

...there's evidence of traditional nuclear families in the ruins of Sumeria and Achient Egypt, and there's even some evidence of such families in prehistoric times. We can probably safely make the !@#$%^&*umption that cavemen married in the same traditional manner as we do. The evidence we have supports that conclusion.

The notion that women are the property of men is also part of the 'traditional' definition of marriage. Tradition doesn't make it right.

 

Interracial marriage is old - some of the societies that came before us were more racially accepting. Others had weak gene pools and HAD to practice it.

What do you mean by weak gene pool?

 

Polygamy is also old, it pre-exists mormons certainly. However, the idea of it being wrong is dependant on the women's rights movement and is very new.

The tradition of monogamy in the west pre-dates the women's rights movement. Mormons are atypical.

 

...if we evolved from apes, some primate that we evolved from practiced it.

Apes don't marry. Whether or not an ape has the same mate for life or multiple mates, and whether an ape is heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual is irrelevant to this debate. For a start, apes don't have retirement savings.

 

 

To shorten this because I'm running out of time...Astro, you are on offense. I am on defense. Because I am on defense I am allowed to make such comparisons and you are not, by the fact that your cause is untested and mine is ancient.

How will gay marriage affect you?

[»i88gerbils]

Wow. So many !@#$%^&*umptions that Aileron has thrown out for us to just tear apart. Seriously, stop being dumb and creating connections where none exist. You completely throw in things without ever explaining their context. If I just "believed" all the "made up" !@#$%^&* you just said, then it'd be the same as jumping off of a bridge because you said so.

 

*sigh* Can we write better please (rhetorical question not directed at anyone)? It turns me off on forum posting when I have to read crap.

[MonteZuma]

Cite any dictionary before 1990 and the definition of marriage would be something that amounts to a one man and one woman.

The English language is in a constant state of flux. So?

 

Suppose he doesn't believe in gay marriage.  A gay couple walks into the bank and demands a 6% loan.  He has the right to say "Screw you, I don't believe in gay marriage, you get the 7% loan."  However, add gay marriage being legal and a Certificate of Marriage, and he would be LEGALLY OBLIGATED to treat that gay couple as any other marriage no matter what his opinion is.

Is this an example of how you think the social and economic fabric of the world will be destroyed by gay marriage? I think you need to find a better example than this.

 

The Greeks and Romans practiced homosexuality, but not gay marriage.  Their practice of homosexuality mostly occured in the military as a way for their soldiers to p!@#$%^&* the time.

Checkers is a way of 'passing the time'. Homosexual sex is something else.

 

Marriage is about family, not sex.

Rubbish. Many people get married because their church or their family forbids sex outside of marriage. Many people who get married have no intention of having children.

 

Those here who think its about sex should talk to a 40-50 yr old married man and ask him when the last time he had some was.

Ask a 40-50 year old single man and you'll probably get the same response.

 

Gay sex is just a form of entertainment

Rubbish. Gay sex and homosexual sex are both forms of entertainment. They can both be acts of love as well (or so I'm told ).

 

, and really is nobody else's concern.

Bingo.

 

Gay marriage is different because marriage is a part of family, and family is the building block of society, and our society is everybody's business.

Why can't a homosexual couple be as much a part of society as a heterosexual couple? What are you afraid of?

 

A man controlling his wife is not part of my definition of traditional marriage...your attempts to make it as such amount to a straw man arguement.

Traditionally, women are the property of their husbands, whether it is part of your definition or not.

 

For the record, Nazis and Fascists were the only groups in European history to burn books in general. The Catholic Church once or twice have ordered the burning of a specific editorial publications, some of Martin Luther's works come to mind, but never anything of scientific or historical value...

Yeah. "Once or twice". LOL

 

these things, however disagreable they may be, are the truth, and that is one of the things the Church stands for.

In theory. So does science, in theory. So does every other religion, in theory. Your truth is not my truth.

[AstroProdigy]

I'd post a rebuttle, but Monte has pretty much done it for me. Thanks for saving me time Monte ! Maybe now I can get a social life.

[Aileron]

You wanted an example and I provided it. Its not really about the English language, because the gay rights movement is changing the Spanish, French, and German defintions too. This is about the changing of society, not a mere literary definition.

 

Interracial marriages weren't in and of themselves an expecation of the majority of society to turn itself around to accomodate a minority. It was a mere social stigma...similar to marrying somone "below your station". People didn't have a right to say "that's not a marriage", they could say they didn't approve of the marriage, but they had to admit that the relationship was a marriage.

 

 

 

Besides, I'll provide ANOTHER example why I'm allowed to compaire gay marriage to polygamy and he isn't allowed to compaire it to interracial marriage...

 

Suppose there was an airplane manufacturing company that made two airplanes...the 234 and the 345. The 234 turned out historically to be unreliable and dangerous...so dangerous that the whole fleet was banned from flying in 5 years. The 345 however had a marvelous safety record and was considered one of the best designs off all time. The company then decides to build a third model...the 456. Suppose they have to appear before some safety board before selling this model.

 

Suppose a company chairman said "Its similar to the 345, we don't need to test it." That would be flawed, because the safety of the airplane is a very important thing. If the 456 is airworthy, it should be able to prove itself in independent tests. The similarities may be valid, but we couldn't risk the !@#$%^&*umption and not test it.

 

However, if a safety board member pointed out that he noticed some design features similar to the 234 and that the 456 should be run under additional tests, he would be right. The safety of the airplane is a very important thing. The similarities might not affect the airplane's performance, but we couldn't be sure until we test it.

 

Unfortunately, we can't test fly a society...all we have is logic. The point is still the same though. Anyone promoting a new idea has to get it past whatever gauntlett the opposers can lay down, and they are not allowed to themselves take shortcuts.

 

 

 

That wasn't an example of how the social and economic fabric of the world would tear apart. The only case I can make supporting that I can think of is Fractal Theory...if you change something ever so slightly, but repeat the changes over many times, you change the big picture drastically. If you change family structure slightly, then multiply by 6 million families, you get a big change in how society functions (or might not function). Granted, this change may not necessarily be for the worse, it may be for the better (otherwise it would be impossible to justify any change)...the point is that we shouldn't underestimate the scale of the changes this issue would cause and the fact that this indeed does affect everybody.

 

 

What the example was of is that gay marriage doesn't grant couples any rights, it only denys the rights of those who don't approve of gay marriage...the point there was the gay marriage law didn't give the gay couple any rights...it just denied the banker the right to give them the 7% loan. They didn't have a right to a 6% loan...its the banker's money, he gets to decide what to do with it as long as there isn't some government issued certificate in his face ordering him to do otherwise.

 

 

The people who get married without having children aren't trying to replace societies' definition. The reason why some religions forbid sex out of wedlock is because they don't approve of sex as entertainment.

 

Monte...you'd be suprised how long they stay sexually active, though you do have a point. I'll use a different one...Why do people cheat on their spouses then? If marriage was about sex, they would have as much as they ever needed and wouldn't want to go back to somebody else.

 

Yes, gay sex is of nobody else's concern...but we aren't arguing over gay sex, are we?

 

What am I afraid of? As I said...Fractal Theory.

 

 

Women being their husband's property is a tradition only to chovinistic pigs. Its not part of any respectable person's definition of marriage. The only time it is part of said definition is when somebody who can't justify their own arguement says that it's their opponant's viewpoint. Since they can't argue with their opponant's real arguement, they concoct their own imaginary facade of an arguement, claims that it's their opponant's viewpoint, and blasts the facade. Its called a Straw Man logical fallicy.

 

 

Its true Monte...the Catholic Church is far too old and traditional to have to run any disinformation campaigns. Now, there are a lot of cases of some power-abusing person with a !@#$%^&*le doing this, but that's the individual. Its been held that Richard Nixon was responsable for Watergate, not the United States Government.

 

No Monte, there's only one truth, there may be many viewpoints, but only one can be correct in a definite system, such as the world we live in (except in Quantum Physics). Opinions are more ambiguous and there is the possibility of more than one truth there.

 

The whole concept of tolerating other religions developed when everybody realised that we have no !@#$%^&*ing clue what the supernatural world is so we should stop argueing about it. Still, there only can be one way it could be layed out.

[MonteZuma]

This is about the changing of society,

If gay marriage was introduced, how would it change your life?

 

the point is that we shouldn't underestimate the scale of the changes this issue would cause and the fact that this indeed does affect everybody.

How will gay marriage affect heterosexuals?

 

 

What the example was of is that gay marriage doesn't grant couples any rights, it only denys the rights of those who don't approve of gay marriage...

Rubbish. Did you click Asto's link? Marriage confers legal rights and responsibilities.

 

the point there was the gay marriage law didn't give the gay couple any rights...it just denied the banker the right to give them the 7% loan.  They didn't have a right to a 6% loan...its the banker's money, he gets to decide what to do with it as long as there isn't some government issued certificate in his face ordering him to do otherwise.

And I'm saying that this is irrelevant.

 

Why do people cheat on their spouses then? If marriage was about sex, they would have as much as they ever needed and wouldn't want to go back to somebody else

Some people get divorced because the sex is not so great any more . People get married for lots of reasons. Sex, commitment, conformity, recognition. In the case of gay marriage, the issues that I am concerned about are commitment and recognition. For legal and financial reasons, the state should have a mechanism for recognising an intimate union between two people of the same sex. Refer to Astro's link.

 

What am I afraid of? As I said...Fractal Theory.

I'd call it fear of the unknown, or paranoia.

 

Women being their husband's property is a tradition only to chovinistic pigs.

No. It was the norm.

 

Its not part of any respectable person's definition of marriage.

Not now. But it was for hundreds or thousands of years. I'm sure when someone made a law saying that men can't beat their wives anymore there were people who claimed that society would collapse. Well. It didn't. Although it sure as !@#$%^&* did make it harder for me to find someone willing to iron my shirts!

 

 

The only time it is part of said definition is when somebody who can't justify their own arguement says that it's their opponant's viewpoint. Since they can't argue with their opponant's real arguement, they concoct their own imaginary facade of an arguement, claims that it's their opponant's viewpoint, and blasts the facade. Its called a Straw Man logical fallicy.

No. What it does is debunk the idea that 'tradition' is something that should always be followed.

 

Its true Monte...the Catholic Church is far too old and traditional to have to run any disinformation campaigns.

I disagree.

 

No Monte, there's only one truth, there may be many viewpoints, but only one can be correct in a definite system, such as the world we live in...

We don't live in a definite world. We live in an uncertain world.

 

The whole concept of tolerating other religions developed when everybody realised that we have no !@#$%^&*ing clue what the supernatural world is so we should stop argueing about it. Still, there only can be one way it could be layed out.

I think this is OT, but if nobody has a clue about what the supernatural world is, then everybody could be wrong. The problem with religions such as Christianity is that they are entirely based on faith. Therefore they can never be proven nor disproven. I can argue for the existence of one-eyed, one-horned flying purple people-eaters too....and that can never be proven or disproven either. But we certainly can argue for and against their existence - if we choose to.