What are your thoughts on gay marriage?

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Why don't you do the same in respects of your arguments, as I'm sure the whole world has heard "Gay marriage is wrong because marriage is about families and having children and gays can't love or have a family, and it's a sexual perversion against god." Everyone's heard that a million times and it's a circular argument because the only backup is religious text.

Also, your argument that it's better to live now rather than before that 200 year period is pretty nonsensical, since it was to illustrate that the definition of a marriage has changed dramatically since, then, and there's no reason why it can't do so again.

When did I ever bring up religion?

I can only assume that your argument is religious, since that is the only rebuttal commonly used against homosexuality today. I might also add that if you are going to present secular arguments against homosexuality, they were also based on religion with the religious elements converted to arguments about natural law; ie. thinly veiled religion.

If you are to present homosexuality as a disorder, I would like you to tell me what the pathology of it is, since if you are not religious and ready to use "It condemns you to eternity in hell as a sinner" there really is no pathology, and therefore no disorder.

Aaron,

We all have choices. You make the choice to hack and see "clouds of it." No one is forcing you. You are correct if you think that I wouldn't keep looking at something I found distasteful. I wouldn't. That's because I control my actions and no one else does. Jerry Springer doesn't bother me because I don't watch it. I know it goes on and I know people watch it. I find it completely repulsive and I find it repulsive that people find it amusing. I consider it a perversion. So, should we ban all Jerry Springer-type watchers from marriage?

Do you see how convoluted this gets? Do you see how those kinds of opinions are just opinions? My feelings about that are MY feelings and really have very little to do with those people. It has much to do with me. Once you see that and you accept it, you'll be able to finally say that isn't for me but I don't care who does it. There's a certain freedom in that.

What he or she is saying is you can't use the argument that this is what marriage is. Marriage was strictly created for ownership purposes and then was changed to mean something else. It has no intrinsic meaning that you can hold onto. It only has the meaning we impose onto it. That means we can impose whatever meaning we want onto it without perverting it since it's already been perverted (changed) many times.

As for the legal meaning of marriage now, it only means a domestic contract between two partners regarding money and family issues. That's it. It's a civil contract. In the eyes of the law it has absolutely no religious meaning and only exists to help courts sort out property and children. It's no different at all then a business contract. They are both merely civil contracts between people. Basically they say, these are the set of rules we agree to abide by for the length of the contract. Because the contracts have no end of life terms (pre-nup agreements), they go to court to resolve how the "assets" and "liabilities" are divided up when the contract is broken (divorce). In a purely legal sense, it's strictly contract law. Children only fall under "family court" because we now have the issue of courts deciding what's best for children because they are no longer considered property. Does that make more sense?

I think that so long as they love each other, anyone should be able to get married, regardless of their sexuality.

I am a Christian, and although people may call me crackhead and delusional/illusional for it, I wish and aspire to conform to God's will and desire...

The thing is...however, the human situation is extremely complex and it seems that God is aware of it more than anyone else...like when Jesus told the adulterous woman, after protecting her from the people who wanted to stone her, something like 'I do not judge you, so go and do not sin again.' Then, Jesus went ahead and payed for the price of everyone's sin, including the adulterous woman's...
Another example from my personal experience is when I left my former church (I felt that I totally didn't fit in...but I do appreciate my experience there), although it was a difficult process, and could be viewed as a 'sinful' act (you know, not obeying and leaving your church...), I felt that God understood me and was supportive of me all the while. I felt that God was aware of my 'complex' situation.

Now, I'm not a theologian and I don't know the Bible very well, but I have been told that it is clearly stated in the Bible that God is not affirmative of homosexuality. But before I make a judgment, I would like to remember a piece of wisdom I learned from a pastor's sermon. (I think it was from a sermon CD by Dr. Timothy Keller. He's a great preacher by the way. I would highly recommend his sermons to anybody interested in Christianity.)
And it was that everybody lies but when someone else lies we don't hesitate to call them a liar, whereas when we ourselves lie, we acknowledge that we are complex human beings...

I think same view can be applied when I view homosexuality. The situation is complex and I would be arrogant to say that I have the ability to grasp it fully and make a judgment... Moreover, Jesus didn't judge the adulterous woman, which means He didn't judge homosexuality either. Then who am I to judge? Even if I accept that the Bible views homosexuality as sinful when I think about all the sin that I committed, and think about my own sinfulness, and how I was pardoned through grace...then I am left with little room to say anything.

Yeah, all this is based on the Christian doctrine so I suppose that many of you don't buy it.
Another view of mine is that, I acknowledge how extremely difficult it is to actually find a partner whom you are able to share your life with. (at least, it has been so with me) I wouldn't easily say that someone should not live with their partner or leave their partner because they are of the same sex. Of course, living together is different from marriage...hmmm...now that I arrive at this point I feel like I've been beating the bushes all the while....

Anyway, this is how I would view homosexuality regarding my spiritual/religious side...that is that I would not make a judgment.
And personally, if I didn't have a Bible to ponder upon, I wouldn't find a problem with same-sex marriage...athough I am heterosexual...why shouldn't you and I live and let live...

(Oh, and there's another aspect to the whole issue that I would like to mention...that sexuality can get very destructive...spiritually, emotionally, and physically...whether it be homosexuality or heterosexuality it can be dangerous to treat it lightly...that's why even if within my own mind I feel there is no problem, I choose to resort to the Bible...)

Last edited by sunnycat on 21 Mar 2007, 12:38 am, edited 4 times in total.

Sunnicat--

Though we disagree on gays and gay marriage (I'm a Buddhist), you presented your side respectfully and I appreciate that.

I feel that the state should have no business in "marriage," and should only have a civil unions register. In fact, I think anyone should form domestic ties with any other person, even if the relationship is not romantic in essence. So two older people, just an example, could form a partnership based on friendship, and promise to take care of each other in their twilight years, and share benefits. Or whatever.

If a church of any sect wishes to set restrictions on marriage, that is their prerogative. The state has no basis for setting rules for churches, temples, etc.

Metta,

I really enjoyed seeing such a reasoned discussion about someone's Christian beliefs. Too often, all one hears is dogma.

I think that most people can respect it as long as it's applied consistently.

For example, the book of Leviticus says that it's an abomination to eat shellfish, and that it's an abomination for a man to cut the hair around his temples. That's why you see orthodox Jews with those long locks. But I was always taught that Jesus' teachings of love and divine grace were considered to have done away with the old laws, thus a Christian was free to get a haircut or eat clam chowder. (Eph. 2:14-16) "Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law... love is the fulfillment of the law." (Rom. 13:8-10)

And yet it is the book of Leviticus that says that it is an abomination for men to lay together, and that is what you'll usually hear cited in these arguments. (The Bible says nothing whatsoever about lesbians.)

Either those laws are gone and forgotten, or they aren't. If a Christian wants to condemn gays, despite all the teachings about love and forgiveness, I'm definitely ignoring them if the hair around their temples has been cut. Love and forgiveness are self-consistent, and I can't imagine that many people could object to them.

You are correct Geek and this is why the "Christian" part is called the "new" testament. Most of Leviticus was Jewish law set up for health and safety reasons anyway. Added to which not all of the Jewish Torah was included in the old testament, only that which a group of men decided should apply. The Catholic bible is different than the Protestant bible which is different than the Mormon bible. And so on. It's too easy to forget that even Paul said he was just a sinner trying to find his way. He was documenting his own personal account and sharing it. Now it is considered "doctrine." Since Paul realized his own frailty and failings I doubt he would be very happy with that. He didn't try to say he was speaking the absolute truth, he said this is what he understood about it all. Sunny cat is simply experiencing the same journey as are all other Christians, whether they want to acknowledge that or not. You are a human, you have frailty and failings. So do we all. We aren't omnipotent and we have no business judging anyone (Aspies least of all).

All Christian bibles state that we have free will which means that we can decide to go to hell if we want to and it's no one's business but our own and God's. If we decide we don't even believe in hell, that's our free will in action. The same if we do not believe in God. It's still free will. When we begin to legislate what people should believe, we lose free will. If we lose free will, we no longer make our decisions and we no longer truly "believe," we just obey the law. That's in direct contradiction to Christian belief. If you don't really believe, you are going to hell anyway (in Christian doctrine), so it becomes a catch 22 proposition. That should actually be a route no Christian would want to take. But then we are fallible...so we go down it.

Last edited by ZanneMarie on 21 Mar 2007, 8:56 am, edited 1 time in total.

I love this free will argument. It really points out that religion should itself try to avoid legislating any morality. But, our law is steeped with our religiously moral beliefs. In fact, even so called secular culture shares the vast majority of beliefs as to what is 'right' and 'wrong' with religion.

That is because as humans (even Aspie humans), we have this insane need inside of us to feel part of some group which we want to believe is magically the "correct" and "moral" group. Since we never exist in a place where all agree, "the group" must then impose what it believes upon the dissenters or it risks acknowledging that its beliefs are not "pure truth." This argument has always gone on and you can insert any words into it. It probably existed before we could speak and we simply beat the dissenters into agreeing. I don't see it going away any time soon. Take out the current issue and insert the next. And so it goes.

I have no problem with gay marriage. After all, this is a country that was founded on the ideals that people should not be persecuted based on things like that.

I view gay marriage as I would a heterosexual one - if you want to do it, go for it.

That is the way the legislation giving legal sanction to same-sex marriage in Canada is written -- a church that has a religious objection to gay marriage is under no obligation to perform one.