Forums → WEPR → Gay Marrige??

I'm not against gays getting married, I'm against same sex marriage

@Bigbowla
You cite the declaration of independence, which is not a governing document, therefore what it states is not law. If everybody had the right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, there would be no death penalty, there would be no prisons, there would be no penal system what-so-ever because punishing people would infringe upon their rights. I have not even attempted to present an argument as to why I believe gay marriage is wrong (as strop guessed my motivations are religious in nature) all I am saying is that the rights of homosexuals are not being violated by outlawing same sex marriage.
And while strop may also call strawman on this lets think for a second. If you believe people have the right to marry whoever they like, do you think it would be alright for a person to marry their sister? Their Daughter? Their Brother? I should hope not. What if a man truely loved his sister and wanted to marry her? Would you tell him no? I should hope so. There have to be rules governing marriage. I'm not saying that you can't BE with a another man (that would be violating your rights) all I'm saying is that you can't marry one.

Hooray for better articulated response!

I shan't call strawman as I'm interpreting your extreme examples here to be rhetorical in nature and not actually to be literally taken as part of your argument :P

So what becomes quite clearly apparent here is that the term 'marriage' as donosld has considered it is contained within a different (more restricted) context than what many of us consider 'marriage' to be.

This having been explained and understood (at least, I'll go on: the reason I do not object to restricting the term 'marriage' itself to a religious code is multi-fold:

i) Marriage (as we're discussing it) is a cornerstone of a social institution formed by, guess what, the Church! The sanctimony of a life of wedded monogamity (and likely subsequent adultery) is derived from those same religious roots. Now this intimates the whole discussion of "separation of church and state" etc. because our being largely removed from such contextual roots results in the nature of our misunderstanding here.

ii) (or i cont'd, really)- It is now increasingly apparent that we can freely express ideas that different people relate to different things differently, and additionally it is no longer appropriate to consider everything within the quasi-church-state manner that we are liable to. It is really up to the Church as an institution to engage with the people or not with rulings on this. I'm aware that this may create conflicts with people who wish to affiliate with the Church based on their faith but feel disenfranchised because their particular denomination condemns one thing or another or everything but that's how the cookie crumbles.

iii) I therefore see acknowledging this and actually upholding that law that 'marriage is between one man and one woman' as an important cornerstone to being able to account for aforementioned increasing expressions of other forms of relationships and interactions. In short I'm saying that reinforcing these laws while acknowledging the importance of non-discrimination effectively opens the door for us to, well, move on.

There will of course be other rationales that will appear to 'discriminate against' various people and their interests but as has already been noted, insofar as constitutional rights are important, we must make sure that we facilitate the exercise of equal rights for as many people as possible, and this means that certain restrictions must be put in place until evidence demonstrates that they should be changed/abolished. However, acknowledging the limitations and origins of various terms is the first in a series of ongoing changes that will hopefully lead to a more balanced society disentangled from obsolete cultural artifacts.

Well they are still people at the end of the day its not like there aliens so they really don't make a difference to other people if they do I am not sure why?

"Aliens are people too" D:

Wait, what am I saying! Is this a good time to say "define 'erson'?" Before you say "duh, you idiot", I'd like to refine that question: "Given that a person is an entity that is endowed with the properties of personhood, define personhood."

Anyway, as the previous page demonstrates, for some reason, it seems to make a difference! "Why" is just one of those deliciously futile, human questions.

Gay people should have the same rights as everyone else... a different sexual preference doesn't make you evil, does it??? I mean really... from a religious perspective, God or whatever ultimate power made you the way you are or your genes, whatever; but you are who you are and you shouldn't be treated differently because of it, should you?

I find it strange that a lot of the problems that people have with gay marriage is the word "Marriage". People say that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. If the problem is really partially with the word, why not solve the problem there? Give gays the right to all the benefits of marriage (joint filing, among other legal and taxical sorts of things) without the word 'marriage'. Pick a word, whatever word, and we can call gay marriage that. Civil Union has been working for a while.

I know that the word isn't the major issue, but it is an issue there. And I realize that it is still horrible that people are adverse to not allowing gay marriages to be called that (though in Cali, they are now, woot!). I remember Obama saying he believed gay marriages should become legal, but without the word marriage. It's a step in the right direction, right?

Yeah, I'm with you there DM. Actually in terms of this forum, I'm ahead of you :P But more likely people are going to relate to how you've expressed it.

*headdesk*

Eddie amen. God made adam and eve not adam and steve. If you let gay marriage happen that means you have to let anyone marry anything they love so the little quote democrats use "you cant deny love" wth its stupid so a guy loves a goat he can marry a goat. its stupid marriage is between a man and woman not a man and a man and not a women and a women.

Everyone should be able to get married..no matter to who or what...but a "what" would be kind of weird....

@Aids247: Right, because a goat has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

Look, I agree with necromancer that the government should get out of the marriage business. Allow people to sign contracts that give each other whatever legal and financial powers that marriages grants, and stay out of the issue altogether. Two people want to call themselves married? More power to them

donosid's arguments are the same arguments bigots used to try and keep interracial marriage illegal in the 1950s, I think that's all that needs to be said about that.

Hm, I'm gonna run with Aids247's fallacious slippery-slope argument, and Erako's statement.

Let's remove the word 'marriage' from its original context and assume that without going into the trouble of actually creating various neologisms, that we can make terms that are the equivalent legally. Then what bounds should be placed on marriage?

For example, in certain countries it is legal to marry a non-human animal (hooray for them). But what's the big deal? What does 'marriage' here stand for?

As I've already said, all arguments about what kinds of 'marriage' is allowable must entail a consideration of what 'marriage' or variations thereof involves.

I honestly don't see the problem here, why would anybody care about this, it has no effect on anybody else, it doesn't hurt anyone if a gay couple get married, so nobody should even care about it.

gays are a bad idea and it is against my religion so please if you are gay dont marry just conceal yourself please