Posted on 12/04/2003 9:53:48 AM PST by ArGee
Now that the Massachusetts Supreme Court has ruled it unconstitutional (in that state) to deny marriage to homosexual partners there is a lot of noise about how politicians are reacting. Most of the nine dwarves have declared that they oppose homosexual "marriage" but support "civil unions" that look exactly the same on paper. (President Bush has stated that he supports a maintaining our traditional understanding of marriage without giving us any specifics.)
Does anybody remember the duck test? Civil unions are marriage. This is a semantic shell game. Now, don't get me wrong. I understand Democrats and their semantic shell games. They're caught because most Americans don't support homosexual marriage. But many, if not most, Americans support some kind of civil unions.
If I understand this, Americans are against homosexual marriage, but they are in favor of homosexuals being married in everything but name. Therefore the politicians have to follow the people they want to lead, and come out against homosexual marriage.
Can any FReeper help me understand what's in that name? What is it with marriage that makes it impossible to call a relationship involving sex, shared property, joint custody of children, inheritance rights, and shared benefits marriage?
I work with, live near, and have very friendly relationships with gays. I suspect my sister divorced her husband because he decided he was gay (after their child was six), although nobody told me. Additionally (and I consider them related) I have relatives who are alcoholics.
And therein is the issue. Alcoholics are good people when not drinking or drunk. Yet nobody wants to "tolerate" their alcoholism. Their family members may enable them, but we don't see people trying to remove drunken disorderly laws or DUI laws. Alcoholics aren't monsters, but they do need treatment, and our society has done OK that way.
Homosexuals are maladapted. I don't think there would be any argument that if we had a simple cure, like an injection, that would leave a homosexual completely unchanged except for his "sexual orientation" that he would be better suited to society. If it were as simple as a cortizone shot to clear a rash, I'm sure there would be no objection to requiring all homosexuals to get the shot. There certainly wouldn't be the widespread effort to stigmatize "homophobia" and teach kindergartners that homosexuals are just like heterosexuals.
Well, there is an effective treatment. It is not more effective than treatments for other mental problems, but it is not less effective either. (I also happen to personally know some ex-gays and our friend scripter can give you more links than you want to ever read about the success rate.)
And this is the answer to your question. Homosexuals aren't "icky." They aren't monsters. They are as nice as the person next door. But they have this problem that would be better treated than left alone. It's OK if they don't want treatment, but their unwillingness to receive treatment does not mandate us changing our culture to accomodate them.
The next question is, how do you fit that down into a sound bite.
Oh, and I'm embarrassed to have misdirected you to Jeff Jacoby. He's the Globe's token conservative, not the Herald's. He emails his columns to me so I have lost track of the links. However, you can read it here.
Shalom.
Long enough that by the time The Almighty moves, America will no longer be.
I'm not saying that will happen, but it could.
Shalom.
-PJ
I also happen to personally know some ex-gays and our friend scripter can give you more links than you want to ever read about the success rate.
We have ex-gays on this forum as well.
FWIW, freeper hunter112 knows all about the categorical index as I have repeatedly pointed out links and named links to hunter112.
if that were in the hands of praying people....
Indeed. The homosexual community's well planned, well funded propaganda campaign has been going on for years, as documented in the following references:
Changing the definition of marriage is a means by which alternative lifestylers seek to force a gesture of approval and support from the mainstream. "We have to be OK with you, 'cause it's marriage. Haha. We've hijacked your sacrament, and there isn't a darned thing you can do about it."
The whole movement is one of spite. And it looks like it'll be successful...
The undiscussed consequence, I believe, is when those shacking up seek to sanction their "unions" post hoc...through a divorce, though no marriage took place. Palimonious disputes will skyrocket.
First of all, in the last generation or two the cart has been following the horse. There have been many SCOTUS and State SC decisions which have not been agreed upon my the majority of people. Liberal-leftists have specifically been using court decisions from on high to force their agenda on the sheeple, who gradually get used to them, figuring that the black robed judges are super human, or that our Constitution gave them some kind of supernatural powers to rule us without representation.
So I totally disagree with this point. For you to say that every or even most court decisions are just following popular opinion is completely false, and flies in the face of the outrage and justified anger about so many SCOTUS and circuit court decisions. In fact, in CA (for example) the courts have overturned referenda voted on directly by the people. IOW, the courts have decided that the legitimate votes by the majority of people (who voted) wasn't worth s**t and a handful of black robed buffoons get to tell 37 million people what to do.
Until and unless we convince people that homosexuality should be considered a disorder rather than a 'normal' condition (even if only for a minority, just as only the minority has blue eyes), there is no Constitutional basis for refusing them whatever secular privileges other citizens receive.
That is also unnecessary. Gay activists and their willing handmaidens have tried to convince the people that homosexuals are a legitimate minority such as blacks or Asians, which anyone who has the slightest desire to see reality knows is a crock, since same sex acts are a voluntary and chosen behavior. Even someone with same sex attraction doesn't have to follow those desires. And the fact is that there are ex-homosexuals. There are no ex-blacks.
So to follow your logic, special rights (such as the right to marry/have civil unions, adopt kids, whatever) MUST be given to adulterers, bisexauls, transvestites and transgendereds, incest afficiondos, "swingers", polygamists, bondage lovers, electicity devotees, and ultimately pedophiles. There is no rational reason not to, since these are all groups whose only distinguishing characteristic is how they like to derive sexual gratification. And that is also the only distinguishing characteristic of "gays". Unless "gays" are more special than those others groups for some mysterious reason?
Except Michael Jackson.
Just trying to keep the discussion honest here.
:)
Shalom.
I believe the Bible accurately reflects the origins of man. Therefore, I believe we all have one common ancestor whose name is Noah. From Noah we have a basic understanding of G-d and righteousness which is reflected in the commonality of almost all of the world's religions. Despite our different developments on different continents, there are basic rights that are recognized the world over which lead our founders to declare them "unalienable" and coming from "the Creator." There may be other explanations but this is the one I accept.
I also believe that G-d created us with a basic need for Him and a basic knowledge of Him. These show themselves in a spiritual yearning and a conscience. Again, you may have your own explanation but this is mine.
Now let's look at the problem I have been wrestling with. Since about the 1960s there has been a concerted effort to deconstruct human sexuality. Where as there had been the notion that human sexuality was an expression of our nobility, the deconstruction has been to refer to it as an animal apetite, similar to our apetite for food. "They" took sex outside of marriage, then fidelity was removed, then love, to the point where marriage was only a piece of paper used to ruin a relationship or confer legitimacy on offspring. Even this latter is unimportant in today's society. Nobody will think twice if you're a bastard - it must means your parents have to do a little more work in writing their wills.
There is no evidence of a human conspiracy to deconstruct marriage, but there is evidence of a human conspiracy to reconstruct it. The homosexual agenda could best be described as a homosexual juggernaut. We've become so desensitized to homosexual behavior that, when an adult described fisting to a minor in an educators workshop there was more outrage that the "private" meeting had been recorded than in what the recording revealed. Nothing upsets us, nothing phases us. Most of us want it to go away and leave us alone.
Until the idea of homosexual marriage comes up. We have been uninterested in drawing lines. Homosexuals can do whatever they want as long as we can catch the football game and hopefully see Brittney Spears' new breasts. But marriage causes us to turn away from the tube at least long enough to say that enough is enough. Our opinion is so firm that even the 9 Dim dwarves, rather beholden to the homosexual lobby, have the courage to say no to homosexual marriage. They get around this by supporting marriage in everything but name, calling it "civil union" and the public accepts this and turns back to the tube. "Yeah, we'll let them have everything marriage gives them, just don't call it marriage. That's the ticket.
WHY? Why can America accept homosexual sex, which the Bible and centuries of tradition tell us is a twisted perversion, but not homosexual marriage? What is it about that word that caused the homosexual juggernaut to stumble? Nothing else got the public's attention, why marriage?
I had no answer when I started this thread. Now I am leaning toward one. We do still have a hint of the Divine Image in all of us, and we do still know that marriage is not just a physical union nor a legal institution. Somewhere deep within we remember Noah and the G-d he served. At some base level that most Americans don't even admit they have, they see a spiritual line is about to be crossed. And their spirits rose up and informed their consciences that if this line were crossed there would be no turning back. Homosexual "marriage" is not on the slippery slope, it's in the abyss. Their consciences have listened and they have acted by tellinge pollsters they could not support gay "marriage."
Absent a spiritual reaction which they don't understand and can't explain, I can't see any other reason why the idea of "homosexual marriage" would bother people any more than the idea of "free love."
I welcome your thoughts.
Shalom.
But men, vasectomies or not, are not allowed to marry other men.
The fundamental purpose of marriage is a male-female union, for only a male-female union can procreate and rear children. The fact that many male-female unions do not or cannot procreate does not render this fundamental complementary biological union irrelevant (although such sterile unions have diluted it).
There is enormous value to society, and to the men and women involved, in male-female unions that do procreate and remain faithful to provide a stable environment for children to flourish and to learn from example how to perpetuate that good through their own marriages and children.
All other human relationships fall far short of this ideal--which is a fully achieveable ideal.
Alost all of what gay activists are seeking is already available (e.g., hospitals allow visits from friends) or can be provided by private agreement. One way to view a "civil union" is to view it as a special form of business partnership that extends to the domestic realm. But if such partnerships are allowed, there is no practical way to limit them to male-male or female-female relationships. Neither can they be limited on the assumption that the partners will or desire to engage in intimate sexual behavior with one another. As a practial matter, any person (of legal age) would be allowed to enter such a partnership with any other person.
Gay activists are not happy with that. They desperately desire the approbation of society. They want the to be lied to and told they are what they can never be: the moral, legal, and biological equivalent of a male-female union.
I agreed with everything you wrote except this.
My basic premise was that everyone, atheist or not, has a spirit which knows when we do wrong. We have been quenching that spirit for decades to the point where we no longer hear it. With homosexual "marriage" the spirit screamed loud enough to be heard.
Shalom.
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