Bush Fighting Gay Marriage, Do we need a constitutional amendment?

Absolutely no apology is necessary. I want to discuss this further, so I will leave this thread alone so as not to change the direction of it, and will start on titled "Early America." Please look it over and add your thoughts. Thanks.

This is just a quick add in by me. I think that if a church is willing to marry homosexuals, then the government has not right to say they can't or that it isn't legal. It could fall under the argument of religious freedom really. I do know that the American apiscapilian (tell me if I spelled that wrong, I prob. did) was excommunicated by the Pope for performing gay marriages..so if the church will do it, why does the government need to be involved?

If one sect of Christian faith is performing gay marriage, and yet another (think papacy) is condemning it, then there is no endorsement by the church. There are plenty of churches out there that condone a lot of different behavior and actions. This is no mandate to our legislature.

"A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again."
Alexander Pope: An Essay on Criticism, 1709

Mind if I ship this excerpt from your post around to a few colleagues? It's an unusually richly expressed example of the kind of argument it is.

You can use this logic and these methods to extinguish almost any behavior you can identify and isolate -- including laughter and love itself, if such is your social agenda. I've never heard anything so specious and so sad in my life.


Has anyone addressed the question "Why is a civil union not a marriage?" Many people hold out the consolation that laws defining a legally declared civil partnership can be created that will give the partners virtually all the rights available under marriage. And yet this route is not acceptable to many gays seeking to be married. It is not merely a lesser expression of the entity to be formed; it is not the same at all.

Marriage creates a kinship unit called a "family". There are two basic kinds of kinship ties: birth, which has no choice involved, and marriage, which is kinship by choice. The fact that "next of kin" in case of emergency will show preference to a man's spouse of five years over a mother or father of forty years illustrates the power of the element of choice. Family and kinship are not essentially legal entities, but they are social and moral ones, and no less important for that. Probably more important. When you OK gay partnerships as legal entities but nix gay marriage, therefore, it is not a mere quibble over terms and the attendant rights. You are making a judgement a priori that a gay couple is not fit or appropriate to form the bond that is universally and across cultures deemed to be the foundation of human society: kinship by choice or selection (not necessarily the bride's of course ) . And I don't think you can support that premise unless you make reference to a higher authority of some kind, which is why the argument inevitably sinks to a bunch of code words for a value system that is presented as universal or in some way "natural" or ordained, where in fact that presumption can't really be supported.

Yes, you certainly may share this with anyone you wish. Of course as long as you share it with only your colleagues, I expect nothing less from them than complete concurrence to your views. By the way, what part of my quote was specious? All of it, just a line or two? Please do tell.

Gay marriages, civil unions, even homosexuality itself fall into that gray area of what society views as acceptable or normal. Whether any of us like it or not, that is how our society works. We have determined that certain activities are illegal, regardless of whether or not they are injurious to any party. The legal age of consent is one. Laws against bestiality is another. We set these laws and become to view violations against them to be more than criminal, but unnatural, immoral, socially unacceptable, etc. I always am amused when people gasp in horrific disbelief to hear someone so bold as to compare homosexuality to pedophilia or bestiality. The reality of it is that many more people share this view than not. Otherwise gay marriage would be a commonality. And while I'm on the stump, I'll share my opinion of why the issue is being so hotly debated nationwide. Their's is not a cause for equality, or to share in the fountain from which the married heterosexual crowd drinks. No, they are attempting to forever change public perception; to become more than accepted---to become appreciated or even lauded for their sexual inclination. They long for the day when virtually no one would feel the pressing need to regurgitate at the sight of two men kissing in public. I think that can be clearly evidenced by the examples of gays who insist upon constantly revealing their sexual orientation.

1. Pretty much all of what I excerpted is specious, on the basis of the fundamental comparison.

2. You didn't compare homosexuality with bestiality, you compared it with some innate "natural tendency" of children to lie, steal, and hurt others. Not that it's comparable to bestiality either. But your vision of human nature is getting desperate. I'd like to question the credentials of the person you've been studying psychology with -- if it's someone else and not yourself.

So. There really are places in this country where a man that calls himself a Christian can carry such virulent, open homophobia with pride, and claim that he is in the majority, at least in his locale, and furthermore that he is "amused" at the protest of people who disagree not with his opinion per se, but his lack of all critical perspective.

Tell me -- what in God's or anybody else's name would you do if one of your boys came out? Shoot him? Disown him? Or have him committed for a cure? But no -- you are certain that your amazing parenting has obviated all concern in that direction. You really believe that's what it's about, don't you?

Oh, yes -- NEVER show flagrant heterosexual displays of affection in public again. I've heard that sheep find it hard to keep from regurgitating at the spectacle. (Well now -- CelticRadio comes through again. They are actually playing Tartan Terror's "Scotland's Depraved" with all the sheep references, at 10:35 PM EST. Check it for yourself. Would you like it stricken from the playlist?)

It's been said that my right to swing my arm ends at the tip of someone else's nose. If that is right, then the end of someone's arm is as far their need to worry about what someone else is doing goes. If it does not DIRECTLY affect you, then quit worrying about it, or GET A JOB, because you OBVIOUSLY have too much time on your hands to worry about something that is REALLY none of you concern!
I have enough going on in my life to spend time on two guys or gals kissing, holding hands or whatever! It comes down to the FACT that is NOBODY'S business but theirs, no IFS, ANDS, or BUTS!

Are you saying that children do not possess an innate natural tendency to lie, steal, or hurt others? If so, you obviously know little, scratch that, nothing about children. Please tell me you don't teach your students that these are exclusively learned behaviors.

And there it is. The old stand-by. If you find homosexuality anything but glamorous, you are instantly labeled homophobic. Fine, if that's your answer. I also will accept the other label of intolerant if it pleases you.

If one of my boys came out of what?

Well, see, there's the old standby of your own. Make it an exclusively black and white issue and throw it back at the other person as if that's what they intended in the first place. It's not very effective. I am not negating the natural presence of aggression in children --- or in yourself, for that matter, or me -- but that you are lumping the same-sex preference, by a specious comparison, in with unacceptable innate childhood behaviors that you feel have to be socialized into non-existence. The comparison is of non-comparable things, and it isn't valid. (That aggression needs to be socialized out of a child so that it never arises is also not the case.)

I would say that a man who makes even an oblique and poorly-specified reference to the urge to puke if two men are observed kissing publicly is homophobic, yes. Actually, there are passages in Mein Kampf that have much the same disorganized and paranoid tone as this passage of yours:

"Their's is not a cause for equality, or to share in the fountain from which the married heterosexual crowd drinks. No, they are attempting to forever change public perception; to become more than accepted---to become appreciated or even lauded for their sexual inclination. They long for the day when virtually no one would feel the pressing need to regurgitate at the sight of two men kissing in public. I think that can be clearly evidenced by the examples of gays who insist upon constantly revealing their sexual orientation."

You are speaking as if the country's diverse homosexual population were a united front with a common agenda. Cover it all with a monolithic "they," then ramble on about what "they" intend to foist on the unsuspecting straight population. Then, of course, if you convince the population that a group is attempting to pull off a deception like that, you give yourself license to go on the defensive, or even some pre-emptive preventive campaign.

That's crude propaganda technique. Unfortunately, as Hitler discovered, it is often effective to the uncritical who give up their individuation and act like sheep. Oh -- sheep. Maybe that's the source of the fear. People who think and act like sheep might well make jumpy, erroneous assumptions about bestiality.

I think you know what "coming out" means. But all right -- if one of your boys were to reveal to you that he is a homosexual, how would you then proceed to hurt him (perhaps thinking you were helping), instead of accepting him?

Comparing homosexual activity to statutory rape and bestiality is interesting, although there is a huge difference. Stutory rape involves acts between two people where one CANNOT consent. A minor cannot consent, by law, to sex. A minor cannot enter into a marriage contract, depending on the state of course, without parental consent. Bestiality is sex with an animal. If you don't see there being a difference between sex with an animal or a child and marriage between two consenting adults, then I don't see much hope for discussion.

I still don't see anything other than a morally ambiguous agrmuent against Gay marriage. It's an opinon, not based on fact, but simply based on personal preference, which has nothing to do with the issue. No one is saying you have to like gay's getting married. No one is saying you even have to accept it. But it is wrong to deny them the right to marriage jsut because of what they are.

And going to the strict definition? Please. Our country has changed what marriage means throughout the years and laws regarding marriage so it isn't as if this is a cut in stone idea.

If you don't like watching homosexuals kiss, then don't watch.

I really don't understand why people are so adament about denying gay people the right to marry. Have we really not moved beyond these petty issues of what humans have the right to be full members of society and which ones don't deserve equal attention?

But, I suppose it's more important to make sure the queers don't get the same rights as the straights than it is to solve the education problems, the economic problems, the war problems, or really any other problem in the US.

Hear, Hear CC!! I think you hit the nail on the head!

As far as I can tell the only reason that people object to homosexuals getting married, or even EXISTING, is because it is 'icky'. But at the same time I have yet to meet a man who would honestly object to watching two women. Many think it's very erotic. Granted they wouldn't encourage it, but they also wouldn't put a stop to it!! Not with any kind of force anyway, depending on who was watching them watch.

There are still places in this world where a girl of 12 or 13 is forcably married off to a much older, sometimes abusive, man to increase her families position in the community and/or wealth. She isn't a 'consenting' party but yet she is given no choice and no say in the matter. As it's between a man and a woman does that then make it right? That IS the definition of marraige after all, at least the one definition.

As CC said, the laws have changed much over the years. In Jefferson's time blacks were not considered to be human, or at least enough DIFFERENT from white men that they weren't covered by the same laws, including marraige. White men were allowed to sleep with their black slaves because, well, they had urges, but it was unacceptable to marry one. And any black man who had sex with a white woman, whether consentual or not, was killed. To be touched by a black man made one unclean and sullied their character. We smartened up about that and now inter-racial relationships are not illegal. Some still look down on them but there isn't any LAWS saying there wrong. If we can learn to 'tolerate' that why not homosexual marraige? Unless, as CC intimates, they aren't REALLY humans?

But the majority of people do not vote at all.

You're right, acushla. And that has to change.

Maybe if everyone in this discussion e-mailed a link to this thread to all their contacts and lists and let it spread out, it would shake up some of the complacency.

Lynn, I cannot tell you at this moment in time what I would do. Pray for strength is a given. You seem to believe that because I see homosexuality as something wrong that somehow I wish to do harm to homosexuals. That is an incredible reach that I am now going to completely ignore.

Something you will always have trouble with in your attempts to be taken seriously is your concept of diversity. Love all, accept all, unless they don't celebrate gayness, then plaster them with labels for all the world to see. Believe me, I get it.

SCShamrock...no one is asking anyone to celebrate gays. No one is asking anyone to make out with a man. No one is asking for a National Queer Day where the gays take over the streets. No one is even asking for straights to involve themselves in the gay community.

This isn't a question of how will the straight majority be affected. Frankly, it doesn't affect the straight community at all. This is about extending rights to a minority group that they do not currently have. It is already illegal to discriminate against someone based on race, gender, or sexual orientation. It has been found that to do so is against the constitution of the united states of america.

How is not allowing gay's the right to marry different? How is this NOT discrimination? How is thsi constitutional? I mean, that is the judicial branch's job after all, at least from what I learned in school. The Judicial Branch interprets the constitution and if Congress or the Executive branch of government tries to pass a law that is unconstitutional, the judicial branch can strike it down. Is that not correct?

Why do those against gay marriage feel as if the whole world will turn gay the minute homosexual marriage is lawfull?