help with gay marriage arguement - non-religious. ( vanity?)

[stompk]

in one of the other forums I am on, people are constantly discussing the gay marriage and civil unions issue.

Now I believe the Bible and the whole Bible and that tends to be where most of my arguments come from, but with this other group, who mostly say they do not believe in God or the Bible or religion of any kind - so any answers in that form are discarded.

Many of the people keep saying "who does it really hurt if two men get married?" or "why do we care what they do in the privacy of their own homes?"

Well, I know how I feel about this, but cannot articulate any solid answers. I realize arguing on the internet never wins anything, but I hate watching them discuss this with no argument from "my side".

please help me formulate intelligent statements about society and the negative effects of homosexuality ( marriage, civil union or otherwise ).

thanks Freepers !

[stompk]

dang. I know where spell-check is on a reply. Couldn't find it for this post. please forgive any spelling errors :-)

[dirtboy]

Many of the people keep saying "who does it really hurt if two men get married?" or "why do we care what they do in the privacy of their own homes?"

Ask these people if they think that smoking should be encouraged or discouraged. Ask them if they think eating tons of fast food should be encouraged or discouraged.

Then ask them why a gay lifestyle is something that liberals celebrate and even encourage, when the life expectancy for gays is some 20 years below the average.

[So Cal Rocket]

Now I believe the Bible and the whole Bible and that tends to be where most of my arguments come from, but with this other group, who mostly say they do not believe in God or the Bible or religion of any kind - so any answers in that form are discarded.

Sounds kinda like: "Tell me why 2 + 2 doesn't equal 5, but don't give me any of that mathematics junk; that stuff don't fly with me".

[Jibaholic]

Speaking as someone who's parents divorced, I firmly believe that children need to be raised by their mother and father. I think I turned out ok, but now that I'm engaged I'm determined that my own children will not have to wonder about why their mom and dad don't love each other.

I would never tell this to my parents because I don't want to hurt them, and I'm sure that the first generation of children raised by gay parents feels the same way, but I know in my heart that they want the same thing: their mom and their dad to love and support each other in a lifelong committment.

[anniegetyourgun]

No one cares what they do in the privacy of their own home. Just don't call it "marriage."

The marriage amendent isn't about homosexuality or disdain for same - it's about preserving traditional marriage as an institition that is favored with our society, because of it's benefits to children. (And yes, it's a given that children are better off with a mother and a father in the home.) It's just good public policy.

Opening marriage definitions to anything else will ultimately lead to opening the definition to everything else. The slippery slope argument is VERY real in this case, because the underlying tenet for those in favor of so-called gay marriage is anti-discrimination. Ergo, how can we discriminate against ANY (and therefore ALL) definitions that come our way?

[Conservative Coulter Fan]

Well, Marriage is an institution that has reigned for more than 2,000 years and it is an extremely radical position for an individual to argue that a union between one man and one woman should be discarded for a tiny but vocal minority (2 percent of Americans) of homosexuals. They are merely sexual perverts and we don’t owe it to them to corrupt and destroy marriage. I’ll point out that we do prevent a siblings and cousins from marrying. We aren’t going to allow full grown adults to marry children nor allow any other sexual perversion to take precedent over Marriage for the sake of the Waffen PC.

[writer33]

There must be a determined value set, despite whether someone believes in God or not. Marriage is defined as between a man and a woman.

Who does it hurt? It hurts the children. For once, I'll agree it's for the children. We teach our children based upon setting examples for them. In that example, one man and one woman is embraced.

Not only by God, but by the will of the American people. And since that example has overwhelmingly passed in 11 states, gay couples are breaking the law. It's that simple. Not just God's law, but American law. And it is a lesson for all children, morally and civically, to obey the law.

[bobsatwork]

who does it really hurt if two men get married......or a man marries a sheep, or a man has five wives, or if a woman marries a boy. Who does it really hurt? It hurts all of us. It hurts the defining core of civilization. "The joining of one man and one woman to form husband and wife" cannot be easily reworded to accommodate a homosexual marriage. It has to be COMPLETELY rewritten until it becomes meaningless. And when marriage is meaningless - that hurts us all. Homosexual unions should not be called "marriages" because they ARE NOT marriages. And, how is any homosexual hurt by acknowledging this fact?

[stompk]

"Sounds kinda like: "Tell me why 2 + 2 doesn't equal 5, but don't give me any of that mathematics junk; that stuff don't fly with me"."

now to ME thats exactly how it sounds. but I "try" to put myself in their place. if nobody had told me about the Lord and the Bible, and I didn't have that and the Holy Spirit as a guide, how would I think ? If all of my teachers told me those arguments were for morons. . . how would I view topics in the world around me ?

I'd like to find SOME way to inform these kind of people and hope to slowly move their thinking. someone there already changed my sig to "newbie bible thumper" so I'm TRYING to reach them on their level :-)

thanks for the help guys !

[N. Theknow]

Substitute the homosexual argument with an incest argument. Whatever they say, substitute Man-man with Father-daughter or Mother-son and say the same thing can be said for those relationships.

[EA_Man]

My two cents

Points to remember;

They are asking the wrong question. How does this affect children raised in this environment? Is a better question.
If they assert that "studies show" homosexual parents are just as effective as heterosexual parents - ask them to name that (those) study(s). They can't because no credible large scale studies have been done. Those that have been done have very questionable methodologies. If they attempt to state that two homosexual parents are better than one hetero parent, their argument reduces itself to a simple numbers argument i.e. If two homo parents are better than one hetero parent, aren't four mommies to be preferred over only one or two, etc?

2) Don't let them get you into an argument on whether or not homosexuals are born or become that way over time. This is a dead end that makes no difference.

Good Luck

[stompk]

"no one cares what they do in the privacy of their own home. Just don't call it "marriage.""

this argument and the "slipper slope" argument are holding no weight. they are countering with "how can someone be told that they cannot visit their loved one in the hospital" or "why can't I leave my money to the one I love" the same as "straight" people.

[anniegetyourgun]

Healthcare directives and wills (and even life insurance beneficiary elections) are currently available to people of the same sex. Society is not responsible if some are too stupid to tend to these matters in advance.

[stompk]

"Healthcare directives and wills (and even life insurance beneficiary elections) are currently available to people of the same sex. Society is not responsible if some are too stupid to tend to these matters in advance."


GRIN

[FredZarguna]

Many of the people keep saying "who does it really hurt if two men get married?" or "why do we care what they do in the privacy of their own homes?"

These are separate questions. Trying to answer them both with the same argument suggests that marriage is a strictly private arrangement, like a specific sexual act at a specific time, in a specific place. First, don't be drawn into a false alternative. It's baloney.

The question is about marriage. The answer is, Throughout the history of the United States, the question of who can make a particular contract with whom, under what circumstances has been a question in law. Laws are created by majoritarian institutions, not by courts. To devolve the creation of contract law in addition to its correct regulation entirely to the courts is to place a (judicial)tyranny over nearly every aspect of private life, exactly what the proponents of "gay marriage" claim to be against.

Marriage has a number of facets: personal, psychological, cultural, social, moral, religious, and political. Some of these facets overlap, some are orthogonal. In some the state has (and can have) no interest. Proponents of "gay marriage" often confuse those aspects which have state interest with those that have none. For example, the overriding reason for state interest in marriage as a specially recognized contract is in its own future: the propagation of humans and a stable environment for immature people to become fully participating members of the polity: adults. Faced with this, homosexual advocates advance the claim that "marriage isn't just about children." Justly so, but in the wrong cause. The aspects of marriage that homosexual advocates advance--bonding through mutual physical satisfaction and other kinds of personal fulfillment--are not areas in which the state is (or should be interested). So these dimensions really aren't relevant to the argument. And homosexuals really don't advocate that they should be: they already claim these areas are beyond state supervision, and their argument for "gay marriage" is an argument for state recognition for precisely those aspects of marriage under the supervision of the state.

But that doesn't stop them from mixing irrelevancies into their arguments.

[stompk]

well said !

someone posted this on another forum. I just saw it.
not sure who the author is or if he really said it, but this is a good post.

"Heterosexual marriage (and the accompanying traditional family) have constituted the base, foundational unit of Euro-American, Judeo-Christian society since at least the times of the Renaissance. The very fabric of our society is weaved of the values found in the traditional family. One need look no further than the endeared paintings of Norman Rockwell and the Saturday Evening Post to understand the role that the traditional family plays in this society.

Sadly, over 500 years of rich cultural and historical precedent has been vastly eroded and erased in just the past 25-50 years with the horrid decline of traditional morals (e.g., celibacy before marriage, no children out of wedlock, etc.) and the acceptance of "alternative lifestyles" (e.g., sexual promiscuity, single parent families, homosexuality). Gay marriage is another chip, and a large one at that, at the foundational unit of our society, i.e., the traditional family.

As the foundation unit of society, the traditional family has played a vital role in the stability and progress of Euro-America. Through the raising of children by mothers and fathers in good, Judeo-Christian homes, our society has excelled in numerous areas based, in large part, on the values taught in those homes (e.g., protestant work ethic). Indeed, society, overall, experienced far less moral and domestic tragedy under the traditional family system than it has under the heretofore referenced weakening of said system over the past 25-50 years.

Divorce, unwanted children, undisciplined children, etc., have never been more of a problem in the past 500 years than they are today. The deterioration of the traditional family unit has accordingly resulted in an upheaval of societal values and wellbeing. Gay marriage is just another step in the wrong direction, another step toward the killing of the traditional family--the central force behind the success of this society for the past 500 years.

We must return to our foundational strength... the traditional family (and the "sea of red" states voting for Bush suggests the majority of the nation agrees). We need to promote the traditional family, encourage the traditional family, and bring back the balance that made this society great. We need a caring mother and a father in every home, raising the next generation with proper discipline, work ethics, and moral values. Only then will we be able to stem the tide of social decay that pervades modern-day Euro-America.

-Gaius Caligula, November 2004"

[N. Theknow]

If two people sit around chewing tobacco all day and collect the spittle, bottle it and put a Coca-Cola label on it they shouldn't expect anyone in their right mind to accept it as the "real thing."

And if they want to do it, don't try to indoctrinate young people that it is a healthy lifestyle.

[jwalsh07]

There are several arguments for limiting marriage to one man and one woman.

The first have to do with morality, religion and tradition. I think you're pretty clear on those.

The other has to do with the unlimited expansion of government because if the basis for "marriage" is that folks love one another then there are no limits. Groups of people can marry and access the public treasury through SS and healthcare. I love my grandchildren as much as any homosexual loves their other or whatever is the politcally correct term these days. If civil unions or "homosexual marriage" are enacted as law then why can I not marry one of my grandchildren so they can tap the federal treasury for SS survivors benefits for the rest of their lives?

[FredZarguna]

Agreed. As a point very much related to why this issue has traction now which has nothing to do with the intellectual arguments is simply this: the behavior of straight people has been abysmal. Heterosexuals have taken the institution of marriage and gone to tremendous lengths to destroy it. Homosexuals implicitly recognize this, though they argue from the positive: "how does my 'gay marriage' hurt your straight marriage?" The answer is, it's just one more nail in a coffin that, sadly, has been mostly hammered down by us straight people. But your immoral behavior isn't justified, or excused, by ours.