Help! (Teen losing debates on gay marriage)

I am a fervent debater, and most anybody who's ever met me in person can testify to that. One of the most controversial issues I have been debating lately has been gay marriage. Does the U.S. government have a right to ban gay marriage? Can America justify making homosexuality illegal?

As a proud Christian, I believe whole-heartedly in the Bible. There isn't the slightest doubt in my mind that the Bible finds homosexuality to be a highly immoral practice. However, when I am arguing with atheists or followers of other religions, especially over a political issues, it seems to be virtually impossible to quote the Bible in any way. If they don't believe in the Book, how can I use it in my argument?

I am consequently faced with a perplexing dilemma: to argue a moral issue without injecting religion.

Bottom line, I need help--ideas, suggestions, web site links, thought-provoking comments, etc. Below I've written down a couple of random thoughts relating to the topic, and I would greatly appreciate your input.

- What about the argument that society is constantly outlawing activities it deems to be immoral and unbecoming of a United States citizen? (stealing, killing, lying) How do I respond to those who try to point out differences between, for example, stealing some gadgets from Radio Shack and marrying a member of the same sex?

- The Tenth Amendment essentially gives states any right not expressed in the Constitution. Does this mean that it is up to each individual state to decide whether or not to allow gay marriages?

Then you should investigate twinning and figure out why there is not a 100% correlation between fraternal twins in their "choice" of sexuality.

Did you mean to say identical twins? Such a study would be far more meaningful.

I do not place as high an emphasis on scientific findings as farmfriend seems to do. Believing science has the answer to social questions is part of the problem of the secular humanists.

People are people. Whether being gay were 100% genetics or 100% choice makes not a whit of difference to me over the two questions panther33 posed.

Does the U.S. government have a right to ban gay marriage?
Can America justify making homosexuality illegal?

Marriage is currently defined as one man, one woman. Mixed marriages were banned. That is correct terminology. But gay marriage is a new concept altogether.

Homosexuality, defined as a sexual preference or orientation, is not illegal anywhere in the fifty states, nor is anyone proposing that it be made illegal. So that is a weird question to pose. Sodomy laws criminalized a behavior. I am opposed to sodomy laws, because I value anyone's freedom to do that in private. I do think it is none of anyone else's business. Making such laws unconstitutional was a very bad SCOTUS decision, however, that will bring a lot of harm.

I would rather err on the side of granting rights than denying them.

Let's look at it. Life - in the natural sense and in the public sesnse - certainly seems less than completely "fair." Bill and Mary are entitled to opt in to a legal and cultural arrangement with a rich tradition and array of formal trappings, but George and Poindexter are not. There is no regulated system for them to simply "opt in" to. They have to go step by step and set up all the legal arrangements themselves.

That's inconvenient, but what is sad for George and Poindexter is that people in their lives don't accord their relationship the same respect as they do Bill and Mary's.

I feel for them, I do, they were born (or they became, whatever) different from heterosexuals, and, well, life is going to be different for them.

Perhaps, though, we need to use the head more than the heart, and think long and hard before committing the awesome power of government to the quixotic task of leveling that particular playing field.

[ If they don't believe in the Book, how can I use it in my argument? ]

You cannot.. Surely you don't believe that almost all willing to argue are in for an honest argument from you're base..?

If there is NO God and/or no legitimate bible... There is actually nothing wrong with homosexuality... think about it... You adjust you're paradigm to those guidelines, they don't, period..

No man comes unless God draw him... One waters another reaps... like that... Argueing is adversarial in essence... Also; what people see in you is much more important than what you say... Everyone is a preacher because of that.. preaching something, oh! yeah somebodys watching, be careful... better than preaching is being a testimony to the truth.. no argument required.. its who you are more than what you say.. Debate is a game in semantics.. When you dealing with something as important as eternity (however paraphrased by various sects) its God himself that does the work, we just gather the sheaves, by the way, if there IS ANY...

My opinion only... but with a lifetime of experience... whatever thats worth.. God is real and worthy to be trusted, in my personal experience.. maybe he'll trust YOU with HIS testimony for this purpose, maybe not.. If so, It'll be as easy gathering sheaves, really...

A man has to know his limitations- Dirty Harry...

The courts have given us thirty years of culture war due to Roe and now they have fueled the flames with Lawrence and Goodridge. Whatever side of the issue one comes down on, we should all be able to agree that the courts should not force policy and mores down the throats of unreceptive Americans. It is neither their charge nor their duty.

That is a very well crafted paragraph for a guy who claims to be a blue collar working man. :) It is most excellent in its spare articulation (not an extraneous word in the whole bit) and eloquence (just the right words are used in a cadence that shows an ear for the language), and in content. Very well done indeed. I suppose it helps that I agree with its content, but that is a minor point, that I hope and trust does not detract in my ojectivity in awarding you an "A+."

What is new may also be no more than an historical anomoly. We are still greatly influenced by Freud whose whole "science," however, may be based on his examination of a single culture, the European culture of the late 19th Century, which was marked by a great crisis of faith. The Sexual Revolution dates from the "gay nineties of the 19th Century, not the 1960s. Modern sexuality may be nothing more than the result of a culture that stives to retain a morality independent of its religious basis. Modern homosexuality blames Christianity for its sense of alienation but what it is reacting against is, perhaps, just that hypocrisy that the '60s railed against, the product of a society that only seemed to be religious. You think of homosexuality as progressive. I think of it as decadence, or at least one kind of decadence.

Sorry, let me clarify.

Regarding my second question, I meant, "Can America justify making gay marriage illegal?"

I, too, couldn't care less about what people do in the privacy of their own bedrooms (unless, of course, it's like rape or something like that, but obviously we're talking about a completely different issue). My stance is that I find it atrocious to suggest that the government put its stamp of approval on gay marriages by issuing marriage licenses to gay couples.

"basic laws are based originally on some kind of scriptural reference"

3 comments. You start out with a false statement. Many of our laws, governmental strructure and legal system can be traced back to the pagan Greeks and Romans. They had nothing to do with scripture.

The issue we face in a free country is which moral issues need to be legislated and which do not. I believe the whole issue of sexual behavvior with adults, adult personal contracts and marriages are no longer necessary for governmental control. If they are to be governmental controlled it is clear that the religious precepts of a particular religion should not prevail since we don't have a state run religion.

It is very sketcher to cite scriptural source for our laws. There are many practices, laws, and social norms in the scriptures, especially the old testament which we do not enforce now, nor have the been in practice for centuries.

I find it atrocious to suggest that the government put its stamp of approval on gay marriages by issuing marriage licenses to gay couples.

Atrocious
1. extremely wicked, brutal, or cruel; barbaric
2. appalling, horrifying (e.g. weapons)
3a. utterly revolting; abominable (e.g. working conditions)
3b. of very poor quality (e.g. handwriting)

Let's assume, as we have done with farmfriend, that we deal only with civil union law that comes about legislatively. This assumption at least partially eliminates the following atrocities:

1. social change by judicial fiat
2. assault on a time-honored civilization-bearing institution
3. the black hole of equal protection

At the end of all this, the government is still putting a stamp of approval on the gay civil unions.

What does the stamp of approval mean? It means that the bond of these two individuals (even though it is not a marriage bond) is to be honored and respected.

I can't buy it. It amounts to the couple being out. And the problem I have with outness is that children are being shown from a very young age that these choices are available and equally valuable. It would be an unfavorable result if this resulted in a greater percentage of people living as homosexuals. But I think even more unfavorable would be the emphasis on lifestyle choices away from family-centricity.

LOL. This is hilarious. So you're saying we should change the definition of marriage because of men with brain disorders?

The next thing you know they will be claiming disability for their deformity.

All your science may have proved is that the psychiatrists were wrong when they declared homosexuality was not a mental illness.

Next you'll have the schizophrenics declaring the voices in their heads are real and that the definition of marriage should be changed so they'd be allowed to marry themselves.

1. There are documented differences in the brain structure of gay men. They examined the structure of, I believe the hypothalamus, under the microscope. Straight men have little holes in the structure. Gay men and women do not have these holes.

This is America and in this wonderful country there can be no discrimination in the laws...can there?

B.S.

Homosexuality is a healthy and normal feeling that we as humans have gone through for centuries.

Speak for yourself, pervert.

Civilization is a very fragile thing. If you were not so ignorant of history, you would know what happens when the veneer of religious morality is stripped from government. If you insist upon endeavoring toward such a path, I suggest you obtain a good winter coat; it gets very cold in the death camps.

Worth repeating.
BTTT

"There isn't the slightest doubt in my mind that the Bible finds homosexuality to be a highly immoral practice..."

Agreed...it is a highly immoral practice, but I don't think that quoting the Bible in your current debating environment is going to go very far. It is obvious that those promoting gay marriages don't follow the Bible...so there is nothing there to convince them of anything.

You'd be better off to stick to the issues of disease and the mis-matched plumbing issues. Also, that a very small minority even want gay marriages, subjecting the rest of society to their constant "advertisement" of the way they like to have "sex". Most of us don't give a da*n how they do it...as long as we don't have to watch it, or hear about it.

With the world's AIDS infected at epidemic proportions, it seems that some of those people who continue the practice that spawned, and spreads AIDS would eventually say "duhhhhh".

"Smoking" has become the "villian" of the last 15 years, and yet something as potentially dangerous as smoking is being promoted? Usually smoking takes a long period of time to get you...AIDS doesn't.

I've often wondered if those who smoke would claim to have a "smoking gene", if they would be allowed to continue their practice. Or maybe they could say that they are..."a non-smoker trapped inside a smoker's body...". Sounds ridiculous that way, doesn't it?

Frankly, I wouldn't even honor the subject of gay marriage by even debating it. If people don't stand up and raise the roof about it, you KNOW it's going to be passed. Politicians at every level are highly intimidated by minority and special intest groups. Until a mass majority stands up and raises hell, the gays will win...they always do.

OK, "communal" homosexuality is a phenomenon of an advanced and decadent civilization somewhat as modern art is. Jung once observed that it always more common in an urban than in a rural culture and may be the result of the confusion of sexual roles in a city environment. So in a sense it is a natural development, but I certainly don't buy the claim that it is genetic in nature, at least ot on a wide scale. I am depending on memory here so I may be wrong, but someone, maybe Parkman in his "Oregon Trail," observed it among the Plains indians. But if there were any butch" types they were not readily apparent. The "sissy"types--those not up to the rigors of a hunter's life-- dressed as women and were left to do women's work. I certainly don't buy the notion, however, that there is anything like a gay gene." The comparison with blacks and women is pure political bull.

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