How do you decide who gets to wear the wedding dress?
Posted on 11/30/2005 2:08:49 PM PST by Hildy
I'm sure she doesn't want comments that are very easily dismissed by considered non-standard straight couples.
Kids have a hard time with gay parents? So do children of interracial couples.
Not producing kids? Neither do the old, the infertile, and the unreproductive by choice.
Weird? It was pretty weird when Anna Nicole married that old fart.
Those arguments are genuinely terrible.
You need a legal and enforceable contract to protect families from abandonment by either the husband or the wife.
How do you decide who gets to wear the wedding dress?
The only legitimate justification for state involvement in marriage is that the institution is better than any other at producing children and raising them in a stable relationship. This is true despite abysmal divorce statistics.
Gay couples - despite lots of anecdotes - are not even close to marriage in terms of stability. Production of children is essential for continuation of a state, much less a stable society. Just look at the predictions of doom surrounding social security - it's going down the toilet because of a lack of children to support their retired elders. Europe is currently experiencing a demographic collapse because it did not value stable child-producing and rearing institutions.
Every argument for gay marriage focuses upon the claim that the state shouldn't discriminate by denying marriage to two people who "love" and "care" about each other. While I feel very comfortable with a government saying "we need children to continue our society so we will subsidize and support the institution with a proven 6000 year track record at doing so," I have a serious problem with government granting benefits just because two people claim to love or care for each other. That's the role of the church or individual conscience.
Government benefits sanctioned on feelings, rather than legitimate needs of the state, are absurd.
Democrats are for this. Did you know that?
What He Said!!!!
"Marriage" is a religious institution, and so government should have no hand in it, pro or con. These religions are perfectly entitled, and are protected under the Constitution, from being coerced by the state into performing a religious act - marriage - for those whose very concept of self revolves around behavior that is explicitly condemned as abomination by those same religions.
Of course, there are churches, or at least they call themselves that, who will marry gay and lesbian couples right now. So, it's not really about marriage, per se. And, it's not about religious freedom, because clearly there are religious settings that accept gays and lesbians, and have been for quite some time. It's really about force ... forcing acceptance of homosexual behavior upon those whose religion forbids it. Hate crime law will come into play, eventually, with the spectre of arrest, fines or even imprisonment for refusal to perform a religious ceremony for those whose own behavior explicitly indicates rejection of that religion.
Make any sense? It's anti-freedom of religion, anti-freedom of conscience and anti-freedom of association. It's all about forcing acceptance, ultimately at the business end of a gun.
This would be the conservative libertarian stance on the matter, I suppose.
I know they hate this kind of stuff but sperm does not get sperm pregnant. I know sex is supposed to be pleasurable but the bottom line is sex was meant for reproduction of the species not the feces.
2. It is contrary to the natural family. No one has ever been begot by two men or two women. Political support for that reality directly benefits every child. Even gay children (I disagree with that term) have only one real father and one real mother.
3. By redefining marriage in this way, you inadvertently redefine other relationships and add awkwardness to them. Friendship changes. Father/son, mother/daughter changes. Small things like public restrooms, dressing rooms, locker rooms change in that you end up sharing these more intimate spaces with persons sexually attacked to you. Why have male/female divisions at all, anywhere? (This effect takes place to a certain degree with any acceptance of homosexuality, but it is greatly increased when marriage gives it official status.)
4. Costs. Can we afford to lavish more gov't goodies to a new group for no reason other than they like to have sex together?
5. When imposed by the courts, it denies to others their right of dissent. This builds resentment in the people and takes away the government's moral authority. When that happens, who are you going to get to fight your wars or stand up for the values of the coutry as a whole? Who wants to risk their life for a coutry they do not believe in? Granted there will always be those whose disapproval of gov't will cause this reaction, but you avoid a mass disconnect by not robbing the people of their right to consent.
Two words: Gay Divorce
You are confusing the state with the society.
The institution of marriage predates the institution of government and is outside of the government's authority to regulate. The real threat of gay marriage is not just homosexuality but it gives the government the power to control and regulate marriage. This is especially true if a constitutional amendment is passed to ban it; in that it would give the government power that it has never had.
Marriage is not about children alone.
Marriage is not about love alone.
Marriage is not about social responsibility alone.
Marriage is greater than the sum of its parts.
Many people marry and make a mockery out of it; does that mean we should allow greater mockeries to ensue?
As I understand it children concieved in gay marriage have numerous medical problems in addition to being sterile. Most are born HIV positive and limbs are randomly placed on the torso. Many have actually had their faces where their asses should be and sex organs in plain view.
I hope this helps...
You say marriage and not civil union. Historically, since the dawn of matrimony, marraige has been defined as between a man and a woman. If gays want to hook-up then they also need to think about the straights and not just themselves. If their 'union' is called a marraige, then it redefines mine and everyone who has ever taken the plunge. My marraige can mean man+woman, man+man, woman+woman. If someone asks me if I'm married I need to qualify my status. The gays don't want to qualify their status so why should I? Let them unite and call it a civil union. Everyone will know that it is same gender with all the rights of united couples. Marraige will be different genders with all the rights of united couples. It will eliminate that second qualifier question which every form will ask. 'A rose is a rose", not a tulip...
Yup, taking responsibility for children is an area where the Government needs to get involved and they do, whether one is married or not.
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