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election irony
patrickl:
Dear lord, are people still reding this thread?
shmokes:
by the way...i added a bunch of stuff to my last post and you were likely in the process of replying while i was modifying so you wouldn't have seen it. just an fyi.
saint:
With all due respect, that is the silliest argument against gay marriage I've ever heard, and it seems to be the biggest one.
Marriage is a bond between two people who form a family unit. My relationship with my wife is no more affected by two same sex people forming a bond than it is by the staggering number of heterosexual couple who are getting divorced. My love for my wife is not affected by two other people loving or hating one another. Anyone whose relationship could be altered because of the relationship of two other people should be seriously questioning the strength and validity of their own relationship, not looking askew at someone else's.
To say that a gay marriage cheapens a heterosexual's marriage implies some sort of scarcity of available marriage partners or some kind of strange competition. I don't understand that thinking at all. There's not a limited number of marriages allowed per year. A gay marriage doesn't suddenly make fewer partners available for heterosexual people (they were never available in the first place, married or not).
Does the marriage of two gay people suddenly make my marriage to my wife less valued in the eyes of the church or God? If so, why? My committment and love for my wife hasn't changed, why should its value in the eyes of the church or God? Gay people getting married doesn't make me go to church less, pray less, have less faith. If your belief and faith can be changed by the actions of someone else, it's your faith that has an issue, not the actions of the other person.
Does a marriage of two gay people suddenly change the value of my marriage to the state? Does the amount of taxes I pay suddenly change? Do I, as a heterosexual married man, suddenly become a threat to society because a gay couple gets married? If not, then how exactly does a gay marriage undermine my marriage?
The family unit in America is not being threatened by gay people. It's being threatened by people getting married on a whim, the staggering heterosexual divorce rate, parents who aren't involved in the lives of their children, and other issues that are clearly on the shoulders of heterosexual, often (but not always) church-going people. These people aren't necessarily evil, but when looking for the cause of some of the major ills in this country, hold up a mirror before holding up a pointing finger.
As a side note, gay people getting married are for the most part taking themselves out of the gene pool. (For the record, I believe a faithfully married gay couple should be allowed to adopt children, have children via artificial means, etc. This last comment was tongue-in-cheek for the anti-gay-marriage crowd).
--- saint - married, happy, unaffected by any choices you make that don't directly involve me.
--- Quote from: TA Pilot on November 09, 2004, 03:23:44 pm ---Once you allow gay/multiple marriages, you completely undermine the long-held sanctity of same.
--- End quote ---
shmokes:
I think, TA, that all of this stuff: States rights, the institution of marriage losing it's "meaning" all stems from your seeming inability to separate marriage as an institution of the state from marriage as a religious institution.
The full faith and credit clause is in the constitution for the express purpose of making a Michigan Supreme Court ruling supercede Ohio's constitution. If I go to Ohio they are required by federal law to recognize my marriage, in spite of the fact that I got married in Utah so I didn't have to have any blood tests done (for argument let's say that Ohio requires them -- many states do).
The reason that conservatives need an amendment to the U.S. constitution is that all of these state laws and amendments being passed clearly violate the U.S. Constitution. As long as you consider marriage an institution of the state you can't get around full faith and credit. As soon as you consider it an institution of religion it's unconstitutional with or without a ban on gay marriages.
shmokes:
Y'all are skirting the separation of church and state issue pretty close with your "protect the sanctity" campaign.
Sanctity -
1. Holiness of life or disposition; saintliness.
2. The quality or condition of being considered sacred; inviolability.
3. Something considered sacred.
Sacred -
1. Dedicated to or set apart for the worship of a deity.
2. Worthy of religious veneration: the sacred teachings of the Buddha.
3. Made or declared holy: sacred bread and wine.
4. Dedicated or devoted exclusively to a single use, purpose, or person: sacred to the memory of her sister; a private office sacred to the President.
5. Worthy of respect; venerable.
6. Of or relating to religious objects, rites, or practices.
edit: definitions courtesy of www.dictionary.com