Coalition wants constitutional amendment against gay marriage

First of all, I was just trying to present the conservative position for the purpose of discussion. Homosexual marriage does not effect me one bit, and I doubt I will think or talk about this subject anytime soon.

I do find it ridiculous though, that you would come to a BBS with this kind of attitude. If you don't care about other's opinions, then why participate in the thread? Your post added ZERO to the discussion, and only serves to polarize participants.


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In the instance of marriage in America, it is NOT about religious freedom. There are some churches that recognize and perform gay marriages already. The government doesn't have the right to legislate what religions do anyway as it should be.

What many gay members of society want is the right to have their relationship recognized legally. In many states, that is the only way, short of forming a business partnership, that partners can share assets. In addition, it is the only way they can share the benefits of marriage such as certain legal rights and company medical benefits.

It has very little to do with forcing religion to do anything. It is more about allowing people to have relationships with whom they want - the "inalienable rights" including "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

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How the hell should I know why God would allow the Holocaust. I don't even know how the electric can opener works. - from Hannah and Her Sisters

 

Max, after rereading my post, I see that I offered an overly simplistic and unworkable solution to a very complicated question.

Like you, I don't know the answer to this social conflict. I do, however, know that if Homosexuals attempt to force the majority to change the current concept of a moral culture through government force, they will not win their fight (in my opinion).

Also, marriage absolutely started out as a religious ceremony, and the majority of Americans view marriage as a religious event. This is the reality that Homosexuals must address to advance their cause.

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Jeff, I would love to hear some feedback on the charge that homosexual couple want to redefine "marriage".

For instance, if our society allows two men to marry because they are in a loving, committed, and monogamous relationship, wouldn't we have to allow two brothers to marry? How about a father and a son?




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We let men and women marry now, but we still have restrictions against relatives marrying even when the relatives are of different sexes.

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Why not visit MovieForums.com?
Or FilmDallas.com?

 

I understand the ban on brothers marrying sisters because of inbreeding.

If we are going to redefine marriage though, based on the notion that two people who love eachother should have the same rights, what is the logic of disallowing the marriage of two brother?



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I felt that I was adding to the conversation by mentioning the great philosophy of 'minding your own business'.

BTW, I was renouncing the argument, not you.

 

I apologize, I completely misinterpreted your post.

One question- what do you say to cultural conservatives who believe that homosexual marriage is their business? Telling them to take a hike does not further the debate.

Where is the common ground that will serve to initiate a reasoned discussion? I don't think either side is close.



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Add this to the list of things that I hate about being considered a "conservative".

Ugh.

I agree. There's something to be said of "consistency".


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Huh? It sounds to me like you are letting other people define who you are.

In my opinion, if you don't agree with using government force to shape social policy, you are the conservative. Those other guys that Jeff is talking about are the hypocrites.

Congrats! You can feel good about being a conservative again.


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What is there to say to a cultural conservative? Fundamentalists don't appeal to logic, they appeal to their religious views to construct judgement. With fundamentalist Christians, the only fruitful conversations are the ones that appeal to Christ's examples. You can always throw in a charge of hypocrisy or "bad Christian, bad!" when a conservative ignores their own loving ideology, but this is rarely successful IMO, b/c of the predisposition of people (in our culture) to have to judge one another to build themselves up.

At least in Christian cultures though, you have a forgiving idol to appeal to. Some other cultures don't let you off of the hook so easily. It's in these situations that we learn the true logistical flaw as to including any premises that appeal to a higher being. Essentially your dealing with tastes, subjective appeals to Pepsi or Coke, and there's no true way to resolve the argument using religious ideology.

So you find yourself where you should have been in the first place, pure logic.

In the land of pure logic, homophobia is as immoral as racism, or sexism, etc. There are no premises that allow for normative conclusions about homosexuality or heterosexuality.

A homosexual act has occurred
<u>*what is this second premise?*</u>
Homosexuality is immoral.

What is that second premise? If it's religious in nature, it has to be discarded. Objectively valid & sound arguments don't allow for multiple truths, and they certainly don't allow for unproveable, nonempirical statements that beg questions to a higher level being.

Also, if the fundamentalist inserts "God says that homosexuality is immoral", it's too easy to appeal to another church that says otherwise to get a different conclusion. This is fine for subjectivists, but meaningless in constructing any objectively valid conclusion.

So we're back to the statement: A homosexual act has occurred.

This is a descriptive statement, and it will yield a descriptive conclusion("x occured")... not a normative conclusion ("x ought/ought not to occur").

If the fundamentalist ignores the charge of hypocrisy (in the Christian based tradition), then that individual is of course in the realm of subjectivism. Fine. Just please don't pass hate mongering laws based on taste. It was the taste of this country a few decades ago to discriminate against blacks and against females; to do so again against homosexuals is a sin just as grave.

 

Laws are also meant to be "reasonable." If they stand up to that standard, they have merit. Allowing two brothers or two sisters or a brother and sister or whatever to marry is an unreasonable thing to accept simply because there is a further dynamic that goes beyond sharing a gender.

Marriage, to dispute your claim that it began in church, actually began in part as a way to solidify political and military partnerships. Women were regarded as property of their families, hardly a Christian value, and were considered a commodity that could be traded for power, land or influence. Rimbaud knows more about the history than I do.

The religious ceremony came in much later as a way to further enforce the political bond. Bringing God into the equation brought a permanence to living together.

Obviously, the pairing of men and women for the purpose of procreation predates modern religion so it also outdates them.

Finally, the argument that same gender marriages would alter the face of marriage would probably be logical if marriage was simply for procreation. My wife will likely not have children. Does that make us less married?

The conventions of marriage do not a marriage make. Love is the bond that creates and sustains marriage. If that exists between the same gender, they have as much right to declare that bond officially to us as opposite gender couples do.

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How the hell should I know why God would allow the Holocaust. I don't even know how the electric can opener works. - from Hannah and Her Sisters

 

I have an honest question: Can someone please explain to me homosexuality in evolutionary terms?

By the way, Achebe, was that a bit of "righteous indignation" I detected in your post? Certainly you weren't speaking from your soap box on the corner of "More Enlightened Than Thou" and "Only people who agree with me have a right to an opinion."

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The sky is falling!

 

I feel pretty strongly about gay marriage. Put it bluntly: treating gay people any differently than anyone else is just like being a racist. No difference to me. And if religion decrees otherwise, that part of your faith is full of crap and worthless. Religion was once used to justify slavery, as well.

Does it never strike you that religious authority seems to so consistently oppose progress? The printing press, medicine, democracy, religious tolerance, chemistry, birth control, racial equality, gender equality... all opposed by religious authority. In the current century, a Pope secretly sanctioned Hitler.

I don't believe religion itself is ultimately bad. But it doesn't have a really good historical track record when it comes to "issues." I think it's usually a bad choice to base decisions on political issues on religion. Instead, why not think for yourself.

What is so different about being gay than straight? What bothers and threatens the religious right so much about it? I want logic not crap about "the family" and "American morals" blah blah blah.

TraJ: anybody's entitled to an opinion, but I want to see it logically constructed. Don't base it on fallacies and "faith" or your opinion won't be respected.

kingrene:

That poll you're referring to was abnormally low. Until it's replicated, I'm not really going to believe it.

Usually, most people will poll as being "satisfied with current abortion laws."

It's mostly about the way you word the question. Almost nobody wants unrestricted abortion laws (even me). And the rape # that you see is usually closer to 70%.

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[This message has been edited by haven (edited July 11, 2001).]

[This message has been edited by haven (edited July 11, 2001).]

[This message has been edited by haven (edited July 11, 2001).]

 

And while they're at it, explain masturbation too. Nothing like sitting around in a treehouse above 35 macaques (Yemasee Primate Facility in Beaufort) and Dr. Cope climbing up to my stand to point out a juvenile playing the skin flute.

I don't know Traj, you'll have to point it out to me. I'm currently sitting at the opinion intersection "love is better than hate" and "as long as you're not hurting anyone, who cares".

Did you disagree w/ something in my post? Do you think homophobia is tolerant? Do you think Christ would tell us to be homophobic? Do you think homophobia is logical?

BTW, I constantly see these claims that I believe that anyone that disagrees with me is an idiot. Is it the voice that comes across when you read my posts? Is it because I'm posting something that you don't believe? I have disagreed on this issue with people that have meant more to me than you could possibly understand. I would kill to spend an extra moment with my grandfather... and yet we disagreed on this, and many other issues.

When we discuss issues, we're playing with words, accepting or rejecting arguments. This is about learning (i.e. Roxran teaching me to be more accepting of faith in schools) and an exchange of ideas, little else...

 

Haven,

I personally believe making blanket accusations about religious people not thinking for themselves is on par with people making blanket statements about one particular race. I guess that just goes to show that everyone makes judgments about certain things, very often without recognizing they're doing so.

By the way, why do people who believe we shouldn't be judgmental make the majority of judgment calls on this BBS? Better yet, why can't they seem to see the beam in their own eye? (Please forgive me for using biblical imagery. I often forget biblical based speech is the only kind not protected by the first amendment, or so it would seem.)

Achebe, I must have missed the love in your first post, as well as any discussion of the issue. It sounded more like, "My mind's made up, and anyone who doesn't share it is a moron." I'm sorry, that seems to me to be the very attitude you despise. I'm sorry if that was not your attitude or intent. I think you may have missed the issue, however. This is not a matter of homophobia or hatred. For the record, I am opposed to homosexuality, but I neither hate nor fear homosexuals. I've had several homosexual friends and, unfortunately, have even lost one of them to AIDS. This is a moral judgment, plain and simple. Just as it's a moral judgment to say that homosexuality should not be criticized.

The question still stands: Can someone explain homosexuality in evolutionary terms? It seems to me that either the current theories about evolution must be modified (at a minimum) or views about homosexuality must change. I don't see any possible way for them to be reconciled, but then again I've overlooked things before. That's why I want someone to actually discuss the issue and not avoid the obvious conflict. Yes, masturbation poses the same question in a slightly different form, but it doesn't suggest an answer to the question. Good science doesn't sidestep the tough (i.e. politically incorrect) questions, right?
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The sky is falling!

[This message has been edited by TraJ (edited July 11, 2001).]

 

I fail to see how Biblical speech isn't protected by the Constitution. It's protected as long as it's not proselytizing in a government-based setting.

I don't judge people based on arbitrary categories. I don't dislike or have contempt for "religious people." I do have some contempt for the decision to base decisions on religious doctrine. Religious doctrine has proven false *far* too many times for it to be a good standard.

If the Bible is right about certain things... fine... but I want you to justify your position by explaining the internal logical structure of it rather than relying on a document. If religious doctrine is correct, certainly it isn't too much of a burden for you to explain *why* it is.

I mean, sure you can say "God agrees with me" all you want, but that doesn't really mean to much when other religious believe that God feels differently. Nobody knows what God things... so base your arguments on logic and rational ethics or I'm not going to treat them with respect.

I don't consider that judgemental, just discriminating.

Many post-modernists believe that all viewpoints are equally valid. While I believe that context determines the course of one's life, I also believe that we're capable of rational interpretation of the phenomena we see around us. I don't believe in absolute truth; I do believe in superiority of interpretation.

Opposing gay marriage seems to be a very poor position to take, given what I understand of the world, largely because I don't see how anyone exercising reason can arrive at it. Other positions are different; I may disagree, but I *understand*. That's why I probably come across rather abrasively on the issue.


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Clutchcity.net... source for all your Rockets, Astros, political, music, humor, and Gordita news.

[This message has been edited by haven (edited July 11, 2001).]

 

good night mc mark!

I don't think that most people think that we aren't or shouldn't be judgmental. Most people think that if you're going to say "something is/is not something" then you should be at least logical about it.

Appealing to people to not be judgmental is merely a tool to get Christians to agree with you. Oftentimes religious people will refuse to recognize simple 'if a then b, if b then c and then if...' sorts of arguments, so an easy game is to appeal to their own idol to convince them to agree with you. It's just a barrage. If s/he still disagrees with you and if your argument was sound and valid, said individual has not only discounted a logical argument, they've discounted their own religious ideology. There is nothing you can do.

BTW, I am still curious to see if you disagreed with my post. Is homosexuality immoral? I'm anxious to find out why...

 

Sorry Traj, I didn't see your update. Luckily things are a bit clearer.

I assume that your intuition is that homosexuality is maladaptive? Is that true? Therefore homosexuality wouldn't have been tolerated in our lineage?

Differential reproductive success is merely being more successful than others in the sack... and your offspring being viable in reproducing as well. Your intuition that homosexuality was maladaptive would be true if homosexuals were only born to homosexuals. Homosexuality wouldn't get very far in such a situation.

Until outlaw's elementary school recruitments become a bit more successful, our species has nothing to be concerned about. The species is quite viable.

BTW, evolution isn't 'done'. You have a third molar that can't fit in your mouth b/c of your ascending ramus. You have organs that have no functional purpose. Your wife's vagina might be too small now for vaginal birth b/c the little lady is too efficient of a biped, and the distance between her acetabulae have shrunk.

These all have costs associated with them, and yet we survive. I trust everything will be okay (but the # of cesarian sections does scare me).

All that being said, I'm curious as to what the relevance is. Other putatively 'maladaptive' things show up, such as developmental disabilities or physical disabilities... but we certainly don't make moral judgments based on these things!