How is marriage "natural law"?
It appears to me to be an institution created by man and the ursurped by the religious class (it exists in most cultures and is not the sole provence of Christians).
I have not yet heard a non-religious argument against civil unions. The idea is for people ot be able to make a permanent commitment to one another and to enjoy the benefits and protections the law offers two people who have chosen to do so.
"It's just not right" doesn' quite cut it for me as a reason to deny certain rights.
Once again, allow the churches to keep the instition of "marriage" holy, but civil unions hurt no one.
Answer me this: On what basis do you say that Marriage, or Civil Unions, are between two people?
Does your employer provide spousal benefits? If you had 20 spouses, would your employer consider cancelling all benefits? Would that disturb you or your co-workers?
And also: How can you be against polygamy?
How can you be against a grandfather marrying his granddaughter (in order to provide Social Security survivor benefits)?
These questions are not intended to be rhetorical. Marriage is being re-defined. Where (and why) does that re-definition stop? There will be broad consequences to this.
Marriage wasn't created by man, but leave that aside for a moment. It's clear, by a cursory examination of the anatomy of men and women, that people of the opposite sex were intended to marry, have sex and pro-create, and those of the same sex were not. This is the natural law argument.
The only difference between civil unions and marriage at the state level is the name. Nothing else.
By allowing homosexuals to marry, we cheapen the idea of marriage because we broadcast the idea that it can mean anything we want it to mean. Homosexual behavior would be propogated by our government and our schools even more than it is now. Finally, separating marriage from child rearing (which is what homosexual marriage is) could drive up illegitimacy rates, as it did in Scandinavia.
Where have you been? We've posted dozens of articles and had thousands of debates on FR.
"It's just not right" doesn' quite cut it for me as a reason to deny certain rights.
Once again, allow the churches to keep the instition of "marriage" holy, but civil unions hurt no one.
If you define civil unions the way the Massachusetts legislature did in proposed amendment, you establish it as equal to marriage in everything but name. If this definition is used across the country, the implications are enormous. But never mind "small things" like opening up the treasury for marriage benefits, an explosion of sham gay civil unions, the changing of marriage laws (remember that hypothetically, there would of necessity be only one set of laws to cover marriage and gay civil unions) to help it fit the different issues of same sex couples.
The bigger effects will be deeper and will compound over generations. Marriage/unions will no longer function in the social sphere the way marriage has done in the past. Men and women that head stable families are powerful role models that allow children to grow up in more ideal circumstance.
If you say it is nonsense that marriage gravitates toward a less central role in child-bearing, family formation, please refute not me but the studies of the trends in Denmark and Norway.
I have not yet heard a non-religious argument against civil unions. The idea is for people ot be able to make a permanent commitment to one another and to enjoy the benefits and protections the law offers two people who have chosen to do so.
Two arguments here.
1. Every single monotheist religion (and many that aren't such as Buddhism, Taoism, and others including Sihkism, Jainism, etc) throughout history has always considered same sex acts to be against nature, and marriage to be man+woman. So this has absolutely nothing to do with sectarianism. It just so happens that this country was founded by and settled by primarily Christians, with a fair number of Jews, so the term Judeo-Christian morality; and since the Christian morality is based on Judeic scripture and tradition there really is no difference in the basics.
So you're opposed to any morality based on any religion?
2. Since it appears that you oppose any morality based on religion, what do you propose to substitute for moral absolutes? By rejecting the moral absolutes that are almost identical in every single religious scripture, you open the doors to a dog-eat-dog system of "morality" which leads to anarchy, and then totalitarianism.
By leaving aside all moral absolutes, give me a good reason why consensual cannibalism should be a crime.
P.S. If you want non-religion based arguments about why homosexuality should not be normalized (and shoved down everyones' throats) read EdReform's links to the Index of articles about homosexuality. If you haven't studied up, then your support of homosexuality is based on the grossest ignorance.
Um, no. That is not the purpose of marriage, either civil or religious. The purpose of marriage, in law, nature and tradition is to provide a stable relationship for the purposes of procreating and rearing children.
The benefits and protections the law offers to married persons are to reduce the burdens and encourage child rearing.
Homosexual marriage cannot exist by definition because they cannot procreate. And don't give me any carp about existing gay families, every child in them was created by hetersexual means and are in gay families by malfeasance of the bio parents and/or the state agencies that placed them there.
Marriage is a procreative institution by nature, tradition and law. Judicial activism to redefine it may change the law and traditional culture, but it will not change nature.
There will be ugly, unintended consequences for future generations as a result of this judicial tyranny and stupid social engineering.
You almost answered your own question. Why do all societies recognize marriage between one man and one woman (and sometimes polygamy, which is a minority position)? Because it's natural. It is of the natural order. People intuitively understand that marriage between one man and one woman is the best way to raise children and is the proper context within which men and women should unite sexually.
What other institution could be proposed for the raising of children? The question itself is absurd.