Author Topic: [SAMPLE SENATE] Gay Marriage; Yes, No, or God no!
Ender_Sai 
Title: Manager Emeritus
Registered: Feb '01
44324_Kyle Katarn
Date Posted: 1/13/06 8:40pm Subject: [SAMPLE SENATE] Gay Marriage; Yes, No, or God no!
This thread basically exists to recreate a Senate style thread to see, as the Malk explained, how the different users can interact, if at all.

The issue over gay marriage is a contentious one; Europe, as a very socially progressive society, has embraced the concept of civil unions which are for all intents and purposes marriages, but in the Anglosphere we tend to view the issue from a few steps behind our European colleagues.

The argument against seems to be that homosexuality is incompatible with the institution of marriage; that marriage is the union of a man and a woman, specifically to reproduce. Of course, exceptions are tolerated for couples that don't intend to have a family, but for homosexuality we can't make an exception.

This is one issue I can't sympathise with the opposing viewpoint on; I cannot think of a single good reason why gays should be denied marriage. The supposed sanctity of marriage is a prize for television contestants and a mockery by the revolving door marriages of celebrities. If two gay people who love each other really want to get married, why not? It won't undermine your marriage, will it?

And does the opposition run deeper than the altruistic concern for the institution of marriage to a rooted intolerance of homosexuality, period, masked by the desire to fit in in the PC world?

So, are you for, or against, gay marriage and why?

E_S

 

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MariahJSkywalker 
Title: Manager Emeritus
Registered: Mar '05
45736_Padme Amidala
Date Posted: 1/13/06 10:59pm Subject: RE: [SAMPLE SENATE] Gay Marriage; Yes, No, or God no!
I'm all for gay marriage, I don't see how it's breaking the sancity of marriage, while there are straight couples who are out making a mockery of it by having shows like "Who wants to marry a Millionaire", or just getting married because they're bored. As long as a couple loves one another and respect each other, they should be allowed to be married.

 

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VoijaRisa 
Registered: Oct '02
6984_Vader<br>Galactic Heroes
Date Posted: 1/14/06 12:05am Subject: RE: [SAMPLE SENATE] Gay Marriage; Yes, No, or God no!
My position can be summed up as stated in this sarcastic tirade:
posted:
Posting this here so I can always remember where it is:

1. Homosexuality is not natural, much like eyeglasses, polyester, and birth control.

2. Marriage is valuable because it produces children, which is why we deny marriage rights to infertile couples and old people.

3. Obviously, gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

4. Straight marriage, such as Britney Spears' 55-hour escapade, will be less meaningful if gay marriage is allowed.

5. Marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all: women are property, matches are arranged in childhood, blacks can't marry whites, Catholics can't marry Jews, divorce is illegal, and adultery is punishable by death.

6. Gay marriage should be decided by people, not the courts, because majority-elected legislatures have historically protected the rights of minorities.

7. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in America.

8. There is no separation between religious marriage and legal marriage, because there is no separation of church and state.

9. Devout, faithful Anglicans should never accept same-sex marriage, because it is an affront to the traditional family values upheld by Henry VIII and his wife, Catherine of Aragon, and his wife, Anne Boleyn, and his wife, Jane Seymour, and his wife, Anne of Cleves, and his wife, Catherine Howard, and his wife, Catherine Parr. They all knew the meaning of marriage and none of them lost their heads over the matter.

10. Married gay people will encourage others to be gay, in a way that unmarried gay people do not.

11. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because dogs have legal standing and can sign marriage contracts.

12. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to legislative change in general, which could possibly include the legalization of polygamy and incest. Because we don't know what comes next, we should never change our laws.

13. Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why single parents are forbidden to raise children.

14. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society. Heterosexual marriage has been around for a long time, and we could never adapt to new social norms because we haven't adapted to things like suburban malls and tupperware parties.

15. Legal marriage will inspire gays to mimic the straight traditions of spiritual commitment ceremonies and celebratory parties, which is currently impermissible for them to do and which they have never done before.

16. Marriage is designed to protect the well-being of children. Gay people do not need marriage because they never have children from prior relationships, artificial insemination or surrogacy, or adoption.

17. Civil unions are a good option because "separate but equal" institutions are always constitutional. In fact, compared with marriage, civil unions are so attractive that straight people are calling dibs on them.

18. A man should not be able to marry whomever a woman can marry, and a woman should not be able to marry whomever a man can marry, because in this country we do not believe in gender equality.

19. If gays marry, some of straight people's tax dollars would end up going to families whose structure they may find morally objectionable. Clearly, it is more just to continue taking gay people's tax dollars to support straight families, who are going to heaven regardless of what anyone else thinks of them.

20. Gays should hold off on the marriage question until society is more accepting of them, because they are not part of society.

21. The people's voice must be heard on this issue. Therefore, we must have a referendum on a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, because we can't think of any other way to discuss the issue.

22. Each state should decide for itself whether gay marriage will be recognized, because there is no "full faith and credit" clause that requires states to recognize each other's institutions.

23. Gay marriage attempts to replace natural heterosexual instinct with a cultural institution. Morality demands that we subordinate institutionalized commitment to raw, unfettered, biological impulse.

24. Gay marriages could very well suffer maladies like domestic violence and substance abuse. That's why we invented the Quality Control department to pre-approve the righteousness of all marriage applicants, such as convicted serial killer Richard Ramirez who married a woman while on Death Row.

25. Those who support gay marriage aim to overthrow the dominant culture, as evidenced by their enthusiasm to participate in it.

26. The country can't afford to provide benefits for married gay couples. That's why Bush would never consider spending $150 million on programs that encourage more straight people to get married.

27. Gay couples do not deserve marriage because, if everyone on earth limited themselves to same-sex sexual behavior, humanity would soon be extinct. Based on the same concern, we also deny marriage rights to the biologically childless and to those who have borne only one child. (We are also considering denying marriage rights to those who have borne three or more children, because if everyone copied them, the world population would shoot through the roof.)

28. Marriage was created in the Bible as a bond between a man and a woman. The people who lived prior to the writing of the Bible, such as the Chinese, sat around in confusion for many years until the Mesopotamians finally came around and invented the family unit.

 

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AnakinsGirl 
Registered: Nov '01
7364_Mara Jade
Date Posted: 1/15/06 10:31am Subject: RE: [SAMPLE SENATE] Gay Marriage; Yes, No, or God no!
Thank you SO much for posting that, because it is absolutely true. If we want to open the "sactity of marriage" can of worms, let's start looking at a long line of examples outside of gay marriage that we can fight against first.

If you want marriage to be sacred and holy, do it in a church.


I am happy to make my marriage mean what I want it to, whether that be just a slip of paper or a Godly bond.

 

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Ender_Sai 
Title: Manager Emeritus
Registered: Feb '01
44324_Kyle Katarn
Date Posted: 1/15/06 3:05pm Subject: RE: [SAMPLE SENATE] Gay Marriage; Yes, No, or God no!
How do you counter the argument though that in allowing gay marriage you open the door for polygamy and whatnot?

E_S

 

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Darth_Guy 
Registered: Aug '02
17265_Lumpy
Date Posted: 1/15/06 3:44pm Subject: RE: [SAMPLE SENATE] Gay Marriage; Yes, No, or God no!
Ender_Sai posted:
How do you counter the argument though that in allowing gay marriage you open the door for polygamy and whatnot?

E_S


Polygamy is (usually) an unequal relationship (one man to three women and so on), whereas homosexual marriage would be practiced with two equal partners.

 

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AnakinsGirl 
Registered: Nov '01
7364_Mara Jade
Date Posted: 1/15/06 4:21pm Subject: RE: [SAMPLE SENATE] Gay Marriage; Yes, No, or God no!
First of all, I think it is totally illogical to pass a law or not pass a law based on whatever "doors it could open". Polygamy falls under the exact same category as gay marriage for the argument of "sanctity of marriage". I have no problem with polygamy, given that each partner is consenting and of age. As for grown men marrying little boys, as I have heard gay marriage would lead to.....the boys in question are certainly not old enough to be making such a decision, and it would not be hard to argue that exploitation of children is most definitely not respecting their rights as individuals.

Marriage to animals, you say? Well, fi someone legitimately wants to get married to a chicken, I say whatever. Although I think this shouldn't be allowed based on the fact that it is just silly.

 

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VoijaRisa 
Registered: Oct '02
6984_Vader<br>Galactic Heroes
Date Posted: 1/15/06 7:13pm Subject: RE: [SAMPLE SENATE] Gay Marriage; Yes, No, or God no!
I'm all for polygamy too. Not something I want personally, but as long as it's all consenting adults, I don't see why I should be telling other people what they are and aren't allowed to do.

However, as it relates to gay marriage, saying it opens the door to polygamy, beastility, pedophilia, etc. is nothing more than a slippery slope.

 

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AnakinsGirl 
Registered: Nov '01
7364_Mara Jade
Date Posted: 1/15/06 10:16pm Subject: RE: [SAMPLE SENATE] Gay Marriage; Yes, No, or God no!
Exactly. You could make the "opening the door" argument for nearly ANYTHING. That's just like saying legalizing abortion would open the door to killing your children legal. YEs, they seem vaguely similar as far as they both have to do with "killing children", but in reality they deal with completely different issues.

 

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Quixotic-Sith 
Title: Manager Emeritus
Registered: Jun '01
6264_Darth Maul
Date Posted: 1/16/06 3:24pm Subject: RE: [SAMPLE SENATE] Gay Marriage; Yes, No, or God no!
In general, "opening wedge" arguments are meant to be the more plausible version of "slippery slope" arguments (which, by themselves, are logical fallacies).

I can see how gay marraige could be conceived as an opening wedge argument for some alternate formalized relationships between adults (e.g., polygamy), but I think it's too much of a stretch to suggest that it opens the door to pedophilia, bestiality, etc. I think that this limited expansion allows for the discussion of polygamy simply by virtue that it is proposing an alternative to marraige as has been traditionally defined (i.e., heterosexual).

That being said, I tend not to focus on the gender, and I look more at the relationship - at its core, in my understanding of it, marriage is a pledge and commitment, an affirmation of the relationship and the bond between two people, a statement of love. By this understanding, I do not consider the celebrity marriages or pop-culture marriages to be marriages in the real sense, as I don't see the depth there. I do believe that individuals of the same sex can make this kind of commitment to each other, and hence, it stands to reason that they ought to be allowed to do so. The polygamy issue enters into this by virtue of being able to ask whether it is possible to make this kind of pledge to more than one person concomitantly, but that is a separate issue.

I do not buy the 'physicalist' argument that marriage is about reproduction and children, by virtue of the fact that both religious and civil ceremonies can occur between infertile people, the elderly, etc., which fundamentally undermines the idea that "marriage is about children." Further, I think that argument turns on its head, in that both heterosexual and homosexual couples can produce children (in that their respective biologies still work). The only difference is that the homosexual couple would require a surrogate, which is also permissible in heterosexual marriages.

 

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Ender_Sai 
Title: Manager Emeritus
Registered: Feb '01
44324_Kyle Katarn
Date Posted: 1/16/06 3:40pm Subject: RE: [SAMPLE SENATE] Gay Marriage; Yes, No, or God no!
AnakinsGirl; of course laws should be mindful of their long-term influences; that's what precedent is all about.

QS; It may be logical fallacy central, by if someone were to say, "Well, I'm a polygamist. I love these two women, as they love me and love each other, who are you to say we cannot show our love as a married entity?"

Do they lack rights too?

E_S

 

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Quixotic-Sith 
Title: Manager Emeritus
Registered: Jun '01
6264_Darth Maul
Date Posted: 1/16/06 5:00pm Subject: RE: [SAMPLE SENATE] Gay Marriage; Yes, No, or God no!
Ender_Sai posted:
QS; It may be logical fallacy central, by if someone were to say, "Well, I'm a polygamist. I love these two women, as they love me and love each other, who are you to say we cannot show our love as a married entity?"

Do they lack rights too?

E_S


I would challenge that ability to have that kind of genuine commitment to two individuals, but I will freely admit that to be a personal bias of mine. I view marriage as a superlative, not pluralistic, in the sense that marriage occurs with the person who is the best fit, not one among many good fits.

I would further challenge that concept as an Aristotelian, in that I don't think that polygamy leads to the cultivation of virtue. As I don't believe human nature is plastic and as a metaethical moral absolutist, I would say "I am me; I am a rational being who believes that true virtuous conduct stems from character, and indecisiveness, greed, and cowardice are not virtues, but vices." Indecisiveness from being unable to decide which of two mates is a better fit, greed for not wanting to have to decide between two options, and cowardice for being unwilling to take a chance on one of two options.

As a psychologist, I would argue that polygamous relationships invariably produce jealousy, distrust, competition, and resentment, all of which are poison for healthy relationships.

So, pick your response. wink

 

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AnakinsGirl 
Registered: Nov '01
7364_Mara Jade
Date Posted: 1/16/06 5:41pm Subject: RE: [SAMPLE SENATE] Gay Marriage; Yes, No, or God no!
I don't think there's anything wrong with polygamy, socially or morally. Whatever, is my response. There's not going to be a huge social degeneration due to the fact that 2% of the entire population want to shack up and have sex with more than one person. People do it all the time in unfaithful relationships (the having sex with more than one person thing...)

Furthermore, there are many tribes in Africa and South America that still practice polygamy. The man is married to several women, each woman has her own hut, and each one bears him a few sons. In this instance, the relationship actually strengthens the social structure, not disrupts. While I understnad we don't live in the jungles of Africa, the point I am making is that polygamy in and of itself, is not inherently BAD for society.

 

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epic 
Title: ex mod / rsa
Forum Feud Winner

Registered: Jul '99
Date Posted: 1/19/06 8:11am Subject: RE: [SAMPLE SENATE] Gay Marriage; Yes, No, or God no!
i think it should be legalised. i don't see why they should be treated any differently. the only reason why anyone has anything against it is because of religion, from what i can see, and tradition. why get hung up on the 'sanctity of marriage'? marriage is about love and is a committment between two people; which fits both hetro and homosexuals, IMO, yes.

ps: Nigeria Bans Gay Marriage and Unions

 

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Ender_Sai 
Title: Manager Emeritus
Registered: Feb '01
44324_Kyle Katarn
Date Posted: 1/19/06 9:57pm Subject: RE: [SAMPLE SENATE] Gay Marriage; Yes, No, or God no!
But epic, society has accepted marriage as being a union of a man and a woman for centuries; why do homosexuals need to call it marriage? What's wrong with civil unions?

(Come on DM, I'm not happy in the role of devils advocate here!!! tongue )

E_S

 

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VoijaRisa 
Registered: Oct '02
6984_Vader<br>Galactic Heroes
Date Posted: 1/20/06 1:20pm Subject: RE: [SAMPLE SENATE] Gay Marriage; Yes, No, or God no!
Ender_Sai posted:
But epic, society has accepted marriage as being a union of a man and a woman for centuries; why do homosexuals need to call it marriage? What's wrong with civil unions?
Why can't everyone else call it civil unions while we're at it? Why discriminate?

 

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