Gay Marriage...i don't get it

[gr81]

i dont think i've ever read one post of yours that isnt intelligent, incredibly worded and articulate. F#$% Bush, vote KB!

I know, I love this guy. someone on this board who actually knows what the fucc he is talkin about and is articulate enough to express it..

 

[maniclion]

I keep hearing the argument that it will lead to a motherless or fatherless family. Isn't that what divorce does? If they ban same sex marriage then they have to ban divorce. Then we'll see how many people flip-flop.

 

[gr81]

for the record, I believe that gays should be able to have every right that anyone else does, except for that Queer eye show, I can't stand even seeing previews for that shit. however its my opinion that raising children with two same sex [arents is not a good idea. Is it better to have two loving gay parents than two choas filled hetero parents, absolutely. but Kids need a mother AND a father, not two of each. The male influence in a boys life is EXTREMELY important, and if you don't think so, just look at the millions of kids in the inner cities growing up with no father figure and how they turned out. Your mom can provide alot of things but she can't calm you down like a man can, she can't teach you to be a man. Each parent has a role and a child needs both. It is what it is

 

[kbm8795]

Well, we can't forget the thousands of kids who never see their Dad because he's too busy being deployed to fight in foreign wars. Or so busy trying to earn enough money to make ends meet that the kid's only memory is being yelled at to shut up and give the old man the remote and a beer cuz he had a hard day.

I almost agree with what you say, except usually these people are adopting kids who are either orphaned, in foster homes, or disturbed enough that no upstanding "normal" family wants them. I think the influence of both sexes is important, too, but unless we change child placement laws, the tradition in this country has been to leave children with the next of kin, whether they are single, widowed or divorced. We don't pull kids out of a single parent household or away from families to make sure they have the influence of the other sex - the parent uses relatives and friends to help fill that void. One reason the divorce laws were liberalized was that it was believed it was better to let parents who don't get along live apart rather than let the kid see his Daddy beat up Mommy. We don't exactly examine the character of people who are allowed to marry and procreate, but we do examine the ability of those who adopt to provide a good home.

I always laugh when I see an evangelical church doing a "How to make sure your child doesn't become homosexual" seminar for parents. Instead of telling them not to let them near a priest.....okay, I couldn't resist that one, sorry Stickboy, I was outa line.... . . I can't wait to see the kinds of lawsuits that church gets the first time a child turns out gay anyway.

 

[kbm8795]

And I can't stand that Queer Eye show either. . .they should stick that Karen character from Will and Grace onto the program to chill them out with some of her medicine.

 

[MaxMirkin]

It's just not natural. If you allow this, what's next? Midgets getting married?!?!

 

[Randy]

Midgets getting married was the last proposal Max.

 

[BoneCrusher]

Max you are starting to sound like a Democrat ... Pretty soon you'll be asking us to vote for Nadir.

 

[Rich46yo]

"""""""""Well, we can't forget the thousands of kids who never see their Dad because he's too busy being deployed to fight in foreign wars. Or so busy trying to earn enough money to make ends meet that the kid's only memory is being yelled at to shut up and give the old man the remote and a beer cuz he had a hard day."""""""""""

KBM now do you really give a damn about those "fathers fighting foreign wars" who "never got to see their kids" or is this just another manifestation of your own selfish personal political agenda. Did you mouth such concerned phrases when Bill Klinton was in, and would you if John Kerry was elected?

C,mon now, tell the truth....................take care.............Rich

 

[kbm8795]

Why Rich, you and that crystal ball of gloom and doom just caught me again....

Actually, it was a concern when President Clinton was in power - if you recall, he was the one who made a campaign promise to gay service personnel that he would end the ridiculous witch hunts in the armed services over their closeted enlistment. Even though the right wing, at the time, was preoccupied with contending those people didn't have long relationships (the universal promiscuity argument was popular), there were gay service personnel who had partners and families back home.

Of course, the situation now involves the extended duty responsibilities of people like National Guardsmen who didn't expect to be deployed overseas at the time of their enlistment. Historically, our military didn't use large numbers of Guardsmen for deployment, and now that it has occured, it has created a rather lengthy hardship for those families. That hardship, of course, means the removal of the father and/or mother figure for the period of time they are assigned.

The same often happens in peacetime as well. Military personnel can be assigned locations where they don't want to take their families, so there can be fairly long absences, depending on the type of career and assignment. The obvious point is that there are many situations in many family households in which there is no 1950's-style environment for a variety of reasons. That pressure can come from employment responsibilities to natural situations like early death and/or divorce. Our system of justice has not acceded to pulling children out of a home simply because one of the heads of household is absent for long periods of time - or permanently. The remaining spouse generally is responsible for finding alternative ways of providing that influence through other family members (gosh, including gay ones) and friends. Specific community programs were created to even help that endeavor, like Big Brothers/Big Sisters - even the Scouts try to help fill that void.

These aren't isolated situations, either - while we might prefer that there be a stable household headed daily by both a mother and a father, a lot of companies interfere with that by demanding lots of extra working hours and lengthy and frequent business trips. We know that in cases where the parents are killed, the child is placed in a home with a single aunt or uncle, or even a grandparent as a priority over removing the child to foster care.

Now don't tell me you made your kid fetch you a beer just as you started to type that post....

 

[Rich46yo]

"""""Now don't tell me you made your kid fetch you a beer just as you started to type that post.... """""""

I dont drink alchohol or use drugs of any kind. Anyhooo, maybe we actually agree on something. I to believe the prosectution of homosexuals by the military is not only un-constitutional, but stupid and self-defeating. Its nobodys business when one adult wants to sleep with another when off-duty. The US Military is one of the last homophobic bastions we have in our society. And since its funded by the taxpayer it has no right to be.......take care...............Rich

 

[kbm8795]

wow..we actually DO almost agree with something. And I can tell you that Clinton broke his campaign promise to end that ban when he caved to a lot of homophobes and instituted that ridiculous "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. In ten years, that policy has caused the often selective discharge of 10,000 soldiers, many of whom served with honor and had distinguished careers in the service. Just recently, one Marine officer was kicked out just because he had apparently been not discreet enough when he was in a gay chat room online - he was baited.

Seems to me that the military has a code of conduct that limits sexual behavior for everybody - and that should be the uniform way it needs to be handled FOR everybody. Unfortunately, the Party's platform adopted in New York calls for a return to the old policy of asking about experiences from recruits upon enlistment and reinstating the "incompatible" crap to allow for the old official "witch-hunts" again.

 

[Stickboy]

OK, let's try this a different way. An individuals sexuality has not been proven to be caused by adherence or rejection of the interpretation of Bible verses. This means the only characteristic we KNOW isn't innate is religion. Expecting one group of Americans to have their relationship orientation voted on by those of another persuasion, especially those who refuse to admit that they're own orientation was based solely on scripture, rather than instinct could very well be seen as a violation of someone else's religious beliefs.

Since you've never alluded to the fact that any gay person has tried to...uh...force anything down your throat, your statements continue to be about exercising a curious interest in regulating the private lives of other Americans.

If we take your reasoning, then we should be voting on whether your Catholic Church should continue to be recognized. It has proven to cause substantial damage to others. The majority of Americans are not Catholic nor do they agree with the Pope. After that sexual abuse scandal, we should be voting on the Church as a legitimate religion.

In other words, if you want to be Catholic, then be one. If that is what prevented you from being "gay" then fine. Just don't shove your Church's teachings down the throats of people who don't agree. Or, as one recently released song would say: "Keep your Jesus OFF my p*nis."

Um, when the bullshit stops flowing from your mouth, you may get some other kind of response from me.

I know what game you are TRYING to play, but guess what? I'm not falling for it.

 

[Stickboy]

wow, kb.

why don't you run for president, buddy?

i dont think i've ever read one post of yours that isnt intelligent, incredibly worded and articulate. F#$% Bush, vote KB!

Amazingly enough, others find almost all of his post to be on the completely other side of intellect, wording, and articulation.

 

[moon]

let the Gays marry! They are only a minority! Maybe this make their lives better. Isn't it better. Gays are gifted by God to be like dat. ^^

 

[Saturday Fever]

He wants the church to back him in the election.

The Catholic church is the richest organization in the world, and he is a republican.

Tha Catholic Church ain't got shit on the jews. If they did, we'd be supporting the Vatican as heavily as we support terrorist Israel. But that's neither here nor there, and I really don't care to enter this thread.

 

[Saturday Fever]

Here's my take on gay marriage. Americans are guaranteed life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If getting maried makes you happy, it is your right. If it offends someone else, and they aren't happy, that's their own problem.

 

[Randy]

My take is that it is morally wrong, and would provide a negative impact on society.
I don't believe we in California should allow it, nor any other state. Outside of that it goes against the constitutional law. You allow gay marriage, what's next?It's ridiculous to even propose such a thing in my mind.

 

[kbm8795]

Amazingly enough, others find almost all of his post to be on the completely other side of intellect, wording, and articulation.

While we all know that you are a nationally-recognized intellectual heavyweight, I think my own professional credentials would stand up pretty easily in this area compared to your own. Your only argument has been that this is against your personal religious beliefs, which only means it is apparently the reason YOU aren't one of those people.

The Catholic Church isn't exactly a democracy, nor did it advocate secular democratic governments for most of its history. Moreover, it is a rather shallow rationalization to justify persecution of others based on no more information than one denomination's biblical interpretation of less than a dozen verses - most of which are in the Old Testament. Trying to legislate "love" has always failed - which is one reason why your OWN choices in relationship is protected above the interest of the State.

The idea of marriage is NOT about whether the Church should designate morality - the point is these relationships not only exist, but have been around for a long time, despite religious disinformation campaigns designed to pretend they aren't there or that the parties are incapable of maintaining them. The recognition of those relationships are about benefits and responsibilities that promote stability - one would think a conservative would encourage that kind of responsibility from a couple. I haven't seen where those 1000 + benefits are enumerated as state responsibility to provide married people in the Bible - and churches certainly aren't footing that bill.

Since you think it is a "game" to question the validity of your religious faith, but NOT a "game" to suggest you have the right to question the validity of another American's relationship orientation, it sounds just like religious persecution to me - those who don't subscribe to your faith are supposed to suffer both materially and financially in order to make the Church feel better about it's claim to moral standing and leadership. One does wonder how much money and time the Church has spent trying to find out the causes for this situation with these people - my guess is that it is negligible at best.

Of course, it has spent about $500 million in settlement payouts for it's own sexual abuse scandal, a staggering amount of money which has caused school closings, some church closings and parish restructuring - all because of a coverup that lasted some 50 years. It not only decided it was "moral" to attach a monetary amount to personal violations, but tried to hide them when they directly contradicted their own teachings of celibacy. Then they try to tell those outside the Church that they have to engage in a celibate life if they can't "change" their homosexuality.

There is nothing innate about religion. No one is born into a Church. Yet those rights are protected more than the rights of gender, race and sexual orientation in this country. If you and your Church want to persecute within your body, that's certainly a protected right - to expect all others to adhere to those teachings is a violation of their freedom to worship according to their own conscience. Not every denomination holds to those teachings - several bless same-sex unions and consider themselves just as faithful and christian as your church does. And they have just as much constitutional right to practice those ceremonies as any other church in this country.

The right to marry is provided by the State, not the Church. Churches only have the right to perform a ceremony - it isn't a requirement to access the benefits of marriage. And the State has to answer to it's own constitution, not the teaching or leadership of someone else's church.

Since your Church has always been adamantly against divorce, which affects marriage more than a few thousand same-sex couples seeking benefits, I have yet to see them demanding and pushing a divorce amendment.

 

[kbm8795]

My take is that it is morally wrong, and would provide a negative impact on society.
I don't believe we in California should allow it, nor any other state. Outside of that it goes against the constitutional law. You allow gay marriage, what's next?It's ridiculous to even propose such a thing in my mind.

It does not go against constitutional law - that's the reason why the right wing is clamoring for constitutional amendments designed to abridge the rights of those people. It's easy to think something is morally wrong when it isn't about your own life or yourself - but damaging if it causes permanent material suffering from those people. These aren't illegal immigrants - they are constitutionally-protected natural-born citizens of this nation. They have to pay taxes. But they are also designated as permanent unmarried people who have faced some pretty awful treatment because of the way some marriage statutes have been written.

In my mind, there is something morally wrong about a State recognizing the rights of a third cousin over someone's estate and burial OVER the person they chose to spend their life with - especially if that someone was not allowed to legally protect that partner because of the State. The simple answer would have been for states to look at some of those laws and rewrite them to allow for these situations and recognize individual rights and responsibilities instead of engaging in legalized theft.

This, to me, just isn't about marriage - it's about individual rights. I should be allowed to decide for myself who visits me in the hospital, who makes health decisions for me, how I want my body disposed of, how I want my property inherited without interference or redefinition of my life from the government. I should be able to decide who my family is without the bonds of marriage and without spending 30 times as much to attempt to do so, only to have it challenged and changed in court.

Distribution of property based on someone else's sense of "morality" is definitely NOT a conservative philosophy - it is government interference in the life choices of an individual. These aren't criminals here - they owe the State or strangers nothing. Why should anyone give a rat's ass whether you think that life was "moral" or not? You certainly aren't going to walk around the neighborhood and ask everyone if your choice of a wife is approved - nor would you accept someone telling you that their "church" or "moral" beliefs don't approve of her. It wouldn't change a thing for you - you'd marry her whether the church or the neighbors liked her or not. And if the State disapproved, you'd live with her anyway.

There are thousands of examples of heterosexuals who left churches that didn't approve of their marriages or divorces, which is one reason why states don't put any "moral" requirement or test on allowing people to marry.