You read it that way because that's how you want to read it.
Do you think we should change existing laws to allow gay marriage?
I'm not gay and have no intention of participating in a gay marriage, so I really don't have a place to speak on the matter. I'm completely indifferent on the matter personally. However, if two people of the same sex decide they want to live together as a couple for the rest of their lives, how does the government (i.e. the people) have any standing to abridge their freedom of association and say, "No, you may not be married"? I think that steps over the bounds of what the collective society can impose on individuals. Besides, how does their "marriage" harm me?
And further, I think it's a bit of a disingenuous catch 22 for hardline conservative to always be denigrating gays for alleged promiscuity, but at the same time fight to deny them the vehicle to enter into a long term monogamous relationship.
Of course not - which is why you have posted so much on the topic here. Stop apologizing for what you think.
I'm completely indifferent on the matter personally. However, if two people of the same sex decide they want to live together as a couple for the rest of their lives, how does the government (i.e. the people) have any standing to abridge their freedom of association and say, "No, you may not be married"?
You've got that backwards, Jack. I talked to you once about thinking before you post. If there is no religious marriage and it's only civil then people can only be married when the government says they may. It's called a marriage license and you have to apply and qualify because you get one. If they want to shack up, that's one thing. But if they want to get married they have to fulfill the qualifications. And a man and a man, or a woman and a woman, don't until we make a change. You have yet to make a case for that change except that you don't see why not. And you've already admitted to your lack of imagination.
I think that steps over the bounds of what the collective society can impose on individuals. Besides, how does their "marriage" harm me?
Because it degrades what it means to be married. Not alone, mind you. Other things have done so as well. And our society is founded on stable families, not on women who divorce their husbands because they want to turn lesbian (as Gephardt's daughter did). If we can't keep committments to our spouses we can't keep our committments to our society and it erodes. It has happened every time this experiment has been tried and we Americans are no different.
And further, I think it's a bit of a disingenuous catch 22 for hardline conservative to always be denigrating gays for alleged promiscuity, but at the same time fight to deny them the vehicle to enter into a long term monogamous relationship.
And I think it's diseingenuous for you to suggest that the only way to people can be monagomous is to be married. Gays aren't promiscuous because they can't be married. They're promiscuous because they're gay.
Get a grip.
Shalom.
In a previous post I discussed the reason for marriage. (Which of course you ignored). So I'll do it again here.
Marriage is a civil contract between a man and a woman, sanctioned by the government for the purpose of providing a safe and stable environment for the raising of children. Since only a relationship of one man to one woman produces the optimum environment for raising children, only that sort of relationship receives government sanction. In order to promote the stability of this relationship certain legal advantages are given to the partners in the contract (inheritance, medical rights etc). All these advantages are intended to maintain the stability for the children.
Since the children are the next generation of citizens and will run this society when we retire it is in everyone's best interest to provide for them the best upbringing we can. (and of course that best up bringing only happens in a married household of one man and one woman.)
Anything that threathens or weakens the marriage contract (such as imitation unions between two men, two women, a man and his sheep etc) damages each of us as it weakens the basic foundation of the next generation of this society.
Likewise, 'homosexual' adoption or fostering damages the children raised in such unhealthy homes. Due to their mental illness/damage 'homosexuals' are not fit parents.
(Now before you bring up the standard 'homosexual' talking point "what about people who are sterile or choose not to have children" let me add that the marriage contract only provides the environment for raising children, it doesn't force children to be raised. Sterile people have been known to adopt. This puts the child in a healthy environment of one man married to one woman, exactly as intended by the marriage contract. People decide sometimes much later in life to have children (my wife and I were married 15 years before we had our first child).)
If two men want to live together in a monogamous relationship for the rest of their lives they are already free to do that. They just can't get government sanction to call it a marriage (as it has no possibility of benefitting any children resulting from the union or adopted into the union). They have exactly the same rights that I do.