"They just want the right to marry the person they love!!!"

[MillCreek]

Oh look, things that have nothing whatsoever to do with the discussion at hand.

You mean like equine emperors of ancient Rome?  That sort of thing?

[Ron]

As a casual student of history, I think it is safe to say that if there are any instances of same sex relationships that were granted equal status and standing in law fall under the maxim "the exception proves the rule".  

Having said that, I am not even arguing against gay couples being granted the same suite of benefits or entitlements married couples enjoy under the law. I am against the hijacking of the institution of marriage, the redefining of the word/concept.

Taking one of the most basic human institutions, based on the primary relationship by which our species comes together, brings new life into the world and provides a nurturing atmosphere and redefining it by law against the wishes of the majority is tyranny.  

Create a new institution, call it what you like, establish a history of jurisprudence that reflects the particulars of gay relationships.

Conflating gay partnerships and marriage in law is a Trojan horse that will be used to attack the proponents of religious traditions that consider homosexuality to be sin. 

[MicroBalrog]

Taking one of the most basic human institutions, based on the primary relationship by which our species comes together, brings new life into the world and provides a nurturing atmosphere and redefining it by law against the wishes of the majority is tyranny. 

So, provided the legislature of a given state votes to extend marriage to homosexual couples, that is not tyranny?

[zxcvbob]

"They just want the right to marry the person they love!!!"

Anybody who'd actually say something that gay has an ulterior motive -- it has nothing to do with "marrying the person they love!"

[Ron]

So, provided the legislature of a given state votes to extend marriage to homosexual couples, that is not tyranny?

As we know, the majority do on occasion want to establish the tyranny of the majority. So ultimately we have to hope the first amendment will protect religious institutions.

Like turning over marriage to the state is a bad idea, churches and other religious institutions incorporating, becoming creations of the state in order to escape excessive taxation, have put themselves in the position of having to obey the state on all sorts of matters.

The state has been benevolent up to this point. The groundwork and legal basis for the state dictating how religious institutions conduct themselves has been established already. The state will at some point start calling the shots, tradition, dogma and conscience be damned.

[BridgeRunner]

Buried in our genetic code, AS A SPECIES. If it wasn't there, if it was "nurture instead of nature", it WOULD die off.  It hasn't. There MUST (in this layman's opinion) be a genetic component, and a relatively strong one...

Yep. Further, the idea of a person's genetic code somehow being a constant throughout life, from conception to death, that dictates characteristics, is far from reality.  It is increasingly clear that a whole lot of the tangle of factors that make up a person' gender- and sexual identity occur during gestation.  Those things do become hard-wired, but are not to be found in one's genetic code.  Maternal hormones in utero can influence all sort of developing structures and physiology, which may set in motion the mechanisms for developing gender and sexual identity. 

Me, I'm just puzzled as to why the whole thing is such a big deal to so many. So Joe wants to marry Jim, or Karen wants to marry Kimberly.  So what?  Persecuting any of them for that, attempting to infringe on their liberties, is just as wrong as wrongful persecution and infringement against any other group or individual.

Yep. 

If one thinks gay sex is a sin, I strongly recommend that he not engage in it.

Should churches be FORCED to marry them?  IMO, no, no more than I should be forced to... attend a football game, or something similarly-inane.

Incidentally, are church-affiliated officiants required to marry any straight couple who demands it?  If they are, I need to get on the horn with the ACLU to chat about a couple dozen rabbis of my acquaintance who won't marry Jews to non-Jews, or even people they disapprove of for just about any random religious or personal reason.

[BridgeRunner]

Besides, sexual orientation isn't an on/off button. There's actually a whole pile of levels between "gay" and "straight".

And that doesn't even touch gender identity and how it affects one's choice of a partner of the same or different outward sex.

[De Selby]

Is it about the word?  If so opposition is even more peculiar.  How does usig the same word to describe a relationship undermine the traditional family if the gay couple itself does not?

Fistful, acceptance of gay relationships is not historically exceptional.  There is a decent case to be made that the past hundred years or so is the abberation in that regard.

Requiring non discrimination with public facilities is also nothing special.  If a church does not want any gay folk to use its facilities, it can keep them closed to all non members.  Opposition to such laws is a separate issue from gay rights, and ought to be carefully considered alongside all of the right to carry issues that come with it.

[BridgeRunner]

...The logical progression then places homosexuality as a genetic disease...

Which rather begs the question "so what?"

[BridgeRunner]

This is NOT meant to disparage anyone here: I have yet to see that attitude amongst APSers. Nor is it all that widespread: I've met maybe 20 such in my life. But the ones I've met have NO compunctions about use of force against these "sinful abominations"

One such individual of my acquaintance insisted to me that homosexual acts are of the same degree and type of evil and perversion as acts of pedophilia.  Not the old insistence that gay men are somehow inherently pedophiles, but that mutually consented to sex between adults of the same sex is just as evil and perverted as raping a child, and should be treated the same way under the law. 

That was the moment when I realized that, no, I was never going to understand this person, and didn't really want to.

[BridgeRunner]

For thousands of years when someone used the word "married" it was understood to mean man + woman or maybe man + multiple women in some cultures.

Except that "woman" was understood to mean "property" at various points and to various degrees in those thousands of years.  Sometimes "man" was too. 

The issue isn't what "marriage" has always and forever really, really meant, but what all those other words in the definition always and forever really, really meant. 

Marriage today as practiced in the US is fundamentally different from marriage at many other times in places throughout history, the presence of tab A and slot B (and C and D and E, as noted) notwithstanding.   

Deciding by fiat to shoehorn same sex couplings into thousands of years of cultural understanding of what marriage is and somehow attempt to make the legal system constructed around normal heterosexual relationships try and apply to something that is not the same is just plain crazy.

Deciding that thousands of years of jurisprudence defines my own marriage, for example, or that of anyone in this conversation is at least as crazy.   Yes, current culture is informed by past law and culture, but they don't define the present.  "Normal" heterosexual relationships today bear little to no resemblance to "normal" hetero relationships of say, 400 years ago. 

Words have meaning.

Yes, they do.  All the words.  And they all change, all the time.  People who think they can repeat history are doomed to create it.  Or at least re-create it in their own image.

They don't want to be considered different, despite the obvious.

And yet it's weirdly non-obvious to me why they should be treated or considered differently. 

Those that want to conflate the rabid haters with those who actually believe in the meaning of words and the importance of the family structure are being intellectually dishonest IMHO.

That's ok, I don't mind you being wrong about the nature of homosexuality and the nature of language and the history of family structures.  Not even when it leads you to accuse me of being dishonest.  Your arguments have nothing to do with intellectuality.  Or say, history or philology or anthropology.

 
[/quote]

[BridgeRunner]

As a casual student of history 

Emphasis on the "casual," I presume?  Because your conception of history is so highly romanticized it's hard to figure out exactly what you're talking about, much less when or where.

[CNYCacher]

If this were true then pretty much all major genetic abnormalities (especially those that kill people young) would breed out of the population over time.  They don't.  Genetics isn't quite that simple.

I'll be extremely generous to your argument and say for sake of argument that being gay still gives you a 50% chance of breeding the average amount of times.

Go find a genetic mutation which is 50% fatal in childhood but somehow represents 2% of births and I will concede the point.

[Ron]

-read above-

Unpacking your post leaving aside all the diversionary spider trails, I see that you agree the word always meant male/female relations and historically no culture considered same sex relations the same as heterosexual relations, esp in regards to what we call marriage. Otherwise you would have pointed out those cultures to us.

We also seem to agree that the power of the state is being used to force those who disagree with you to comply to your state mandated "evolution" of marriage.

Go back to the OP. It will start with mandating to whom churches must rent their facilities. Pretty soon after it will be who they must hire and who they have to perform marriages for. Look to Europe for the progression. Religious freedom, freedom of association all sacrificed for government mandated PC confusion. Build your own institutions and show a better way. Don't use the state to hijack and destroy religious institutions just because they don't agree with your predilections or choices.

I am not sure where I accused you of being intellectually dishonest, please elaborate.

[Perd Hapley]

Fistful, acceptance of gay relationships is not historically exceptional.  There is a decent case to be made that the past hundred years or so is the abberation in that regard.

Don't change the subject. I was talking about whether a homosexual relationship could be considered a marriage, not whether it is "acceptable." I know this will probably blow your mind, but the question of whether or not something is a marriage is not necessarily related to anyone's moral judgments about it.

The insurmountable problem for same-sex marriages is that the same-sex relationship is fundamentally different from the heterosexual relationship, in exactly those particulars that make marriage such an important social and legal institution.

[BridgeRunner]

Unpacking your post leaving aside all the diversionary spider trails, I see that you agree the word always meant male/female relations and historically no culture considered same sex relations the same as heterosexual relations, esp in regards to what we call marriage.

That is incorrect.  Perhaps with regard to what they called marriage. Because see, words matter.  And their meanings matter.  And their meanings are context dependent. 

Otherwise you would have pointed out those cultures to us.

No, I would not have.  That is not the way the argue.  It's too boring, and is too easily highjacked.

We also seem to agree that the power of the state is being used to force those who disagree with you to comply to your state mandated "evolution" of marriage.

Who huh wut?  I'm still trying to figure out where anyone comes up with anyone being forced to perform marriages for anyone else. 

It will start with mandating to whom churches must rent their facilities. Pretty soon after it will be who they must hire and who they have to perform marriages for.

I love your crystal ball skilz.  Any insight into which stocks to buy?

Look to Europe for the progression. Religious freedom, freedom of association all sacrificed for government mandated PC confusion.

Well, as most European nation have never had any ostensible separation of church and state, I find this comparison non-applicable.

I am not sure where I accused you of being intellectually dishonest, please elaborate.

Probably where you raised the issue of intellectual dishonesty. 

To elaborate per your request: using spurious semantic arguments that ignore the nature of language and culture to create some artificial distinction between you and those distasteful other people who share your incorrect and unjust opinions is ludicrous.  I do not distinguish between people who would deny others basic rights because they just hate 'em and between people who have invented spurious arguments that they attempt to use to prove that it's ok to deny others basic human rights. 

To resort to the rhetoric of Godwin, not for the sake of condemnation but because of a handy situation for illustrating my point: I don't think the Jews killed by drunken peasants screaming "Kill the dirty Jews!" feel any less dead than Jews killed by the Nazi Scientific Rationalization Machine. 

You stated that you consider this position of mine to be intellectually dishonest.  I find that ludicrous.

[Ron]

Those that want to conflate the rabid haters with those who actually believe in the meaning of words and the importance of the family structure are being intellectually dishonest IMHO.

This is the text where I used the term intellectually dishonest.

So you consider me to be a rabid hater?

edited to add:
A yes or no will suffice.

[Ron]

To elaborate per your request: using spurious semantic arguments that ignore the nature of language and culture to create some artificial distinction between you and those distasteful other people who share your incorrect and unjust opinions is ludicrous.  I do not distinguish between people who would deny others basic rights because they just hate 'em and between people who have invented spurious arguments that they attempt to use to prove that it's ok to deny others basic human rights.  

So it is a basic human right for homosexuals to define what the legal and religious meaning of marriage is? Tradition, history, public opinion (a poor measure of sanity if ever there was one) aside?

Basic human right? According to whom? The majority? The state? God? Which god or God?

Where do your "human rights" emanate from?

[MicroBalrog]

Public opinion? 

I'm not sure you appeal to public opinion here. If we base this on public opinion, should not gay marriage laws be enacted in those state where they are supported by most of the public?

[SteveS]

Look to Europe for the progression. Religious freedom, freedom of association all sacrificed for government mandated PC confusion. Build your own institutions and show a better way. Don't use the state to hijack and destroy religious institutions just because they don't agree with your predilections or choices.

I don't know if this is a great comparison.  As it has already been pointed out, many European countries have state religions.  In addition, I would argue that many European countries have a long history of people ceding power to the state.  This includes speech, guns, and all sorts of things we take for granted.

[De Selby]

I am still wondering how equal legal rights for gay couples destroys or even impairs hetero marriages, and how it destroys religions.   Can anyone clearly articulate the connection?

Fistful, the assertion was made by you amd others that the tradition of marriage excludes gay relationships.  That isn't true - gay relations have had legal status in the past, just like marriages today.  And heterosexual marriage hasn't always been about child rearing and social stability (that notion appears to be fairly modern).

The question here isn't whether you should be forced to like it; the question is whether the State may afford legal entitlements to one group of couples on the basis that it prefers them to others. 

[MechAg94]

I am still wondering how equal legal rights for gay couples destroys or even impairs hetero marriages, and how it destroys religions.   Can anyone clearly articulate the connection?

Who was arguing against equal rights?  The pro-gay marriage activists I have heard speak are NOT satisfied with just "equal rights".  They want more.  It was clear to me from listening to them that whatever they are asking for now, they will keep pushing further in the same way anti-gun activists do.  That is the primary thing that bothers me about the whole issue.  Any new law or legal decision has to be viewed in the present as well as the possible future.

[MillCreek]

Who was arguing against equal rights?  The pro-gay marriage activists I have heard speak are NOT satisfied with just "equal rights".  They want more.  It was clear to me from listening to them that whatever they are asking for now, they will keep pushing further in the same way anti-gun activists do.  That is the primary thing that bothers me about the whole issue.  Any new law or legal decision has to be viewed in the present as well as the possible future.

This interpretation reminds me of the same tactics used by the pro-marijuana crowd.  First, let's emphasize medical uses, and from there, move towards full legalization. 

[De Selby]

Who was arguing against equal rights?  The pro-gay marriage activists I have heard speak are NOT satisfied with just "equal rights".  They want more.  It was clear to me from listening to them that whatever they are asking for now, they will keep pushing further in the same way anti-gun activists do.  That is the primary thing that bothers me about the whole issue.  Any new law or legal decision has to be viewed in the present as well as the possible future.

Ok, what more are these people asking for???  Can you point me to a gay marriage advocate who wants more than equal legal treatment?

[zxcvbob]

This interpretation reminds me of the same tactics used by the pro-marijuana crowd.  First, let's emphasize medical uses, and from there, move towards full legalization. 

And by doing so, they ruin it for people with a legitimate medical need [for marihuana]