[quote]JeffR wrote:
Marmadogg wrote:
JeffR wrote:
marmadogg wrote:
“They ALL vote Republican.”
Most people do.
JeffR
ROTFLMFAO!
I posted that to see if you would comment.
I am just surprised it took you this long.
The only way you could have found that post was if you were stalking me.
You have serious issues.
Don’t flatter yourself.
It’s like walking along and getting some dogshit (you) on your shoe. It’s only natural to brush it off.
JeffR
[/quote]
Nice!
You are just another AWM.
What are the ACTUAL passages in the bible having to do with gays? I’m sure wording will vary depending on which version you have, but what is the EXACT WORDING?
[quote]Professor X wrote:
PGA200X wrote:
Professor X wrote:
Professor
I never met your German shepherd or your friend?s Terrier, but I will tell you Terriers are Killers nothing else they are tough and tenacious. [/quote]
If this male Terrier actually was trying to mate with your male Shepherd the Terrier is a freak. I personally have never witnessed two male dogs having sex. I must also admit I have never witnessed two men having sex either, but judging from many men?s behavior it is happing in a much greater ratio than in dogs.
Good point. On the flip side, gay guys know how to accessorize even the dullest of outfits, so it has it positive side. Sorry, this thread needed a bit of humor.
[quote]pittbulll wrote:
Professor X wrote:
PGA200X wrote:
Professor X wrote:
Professor
I never met your German shepherd or your friend?s Terrier, but I will tell you Terriers are Killers nothing else they are tough and tenacious.
If this male Terrier actually was trying to mate with your male Shepherd the Terrier is a freak. I personally have never witnessed two male dogs having sex. I must also admit I have never witnessed two men having sex either, but judging from many men?s behavior it is happing in a much greater ratio than in dogs.
[/quote]
I saw a dog orgy once when I was younger. It was funny watching them all swap back and forth. I wasn’t too young as I knew what they were doing and that the male dogs were taking turns on each other. To this day I have never seen anything like that again. There were 7 dogs involved and most were boys if not all. Yeah, I remembered how many there were!
[quote]Jersey5150 wrote:
pittbulll wrote:
doogie wrote:
Zeb,
How will it devalue hetero marriage?[/quote]
Marriage is a word that has a definition. And to most people believe that by default the definition of marriage includes exclusivity of a man and of a woman. And if nothing else you are suggesting to change the definition
[quote]pittbulll wrote:
Marriage is a word that has a definition. And to most people believe that by default the definition of marriage includes exclusivity of a man and of a woman. And if nothing else you are suggesting to change the definition
[/quote]
Weak logic. This still would do nothing to the institution of heterosexual marriage. Regardless of your concept of definitions, a rose by any other name…
God does not hate “Fags”. God hates sin. Not People. God sent His Son Jesus to save the world from sin, not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him, (Jesus), might be saved.
This picture and these parents are whats wrong with people today. They do not take the time to really search the scriptures to find the Truth.
Jah Warrior.
[quote]pittbulll wrote:
Jersey5150 wrote:
pittbulll wrote:
doogie wrote:
Zeb,
How will it devalue hetero marriage?
Marriage is a word that has a definition. And to most people believe that by default the definition of marriage includes exclusivity of a man and of a woman. And if nothing else you are suggesting to change the definition
[/quote]
You said it “devalued”, not changed the definition. Anyway, it’s still two people in love, standing before their god and loved ones, making a lifelong committment to one another.
[quote]pittbulll wrote:
Jersey5150 wrote:
pittbulll wrote:
doogie wrote:
Zeb,
How will it devalue hetero marriage?
Marriage is a word that has a definition. And to most people believe that by default the definition of marriage includes exclusivity of a man and of a woman. And if nothing else you are suggesting to change the definition
[/quote]
Actually, “marriage” is a word that has many definitions according to the American Heritage Dictionary. And language is fluid and in a constant state of change. Big deal.
mar?riage Pronunciation (mrj)
n.
1.
a. The legal union of a man and woman as husband and wife.
b. The state of being married; wedlock.
c. A common-law marriage.
d. A union between two persons having the customary but usually not the legal force of marriage: a same-sex marriage.
A wedding.
A close union: “the most successful marriage of beauty and blood in mainstream comics” Lloyd Rose.
Games The combination of the king and queen of the same suit, as in pinochle.
As for “most people believe”, There was a time when people “believed” the earth was flat. Remember those fruitcakes a few years back? The ones who “believed” they could cut off their nuts, tie on some Nikes, and find salvation in the tail of a comet? You’ll need something more substantial than personal beliefs and dogma to convince me.
If and when I marry the strength of that commitment or value that I place upon that union will not be influenced in the slightest by where anyone else is sticking his dick (provided it is not in me or my husband), by whom someone else chooses to love, how they choose to express it, how they choose to express their commitment to it, and so on. I’m busy and I just don’t give a shit. It’s called minding your own business. Shall I provide you with a definition for that?
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Jersey5150 wrote:
Alright I really am curious thats why I keep asking this question.
For all you straight guys who think its a choice. Could you choose to have sex with a man? No one seems to want to say they can/can’t and I can see why.
If you say you can’t then the choice theory has trouble, if you say you could then well thats very a interesting fact about this topic.
My answer to the question is no, I could not chose to have sex with a man.
I dont mean this to anotgonize anyone I respect all your beliefs and your right to have them (unless you believe its ok to kill gays or anyone else you dont agree with)
It is a personal question but I feel it relates to the matter very well.
Have a good day and good training!
Check out Shugart’s weblog and the entry with the Richard Simmons pic regarding “Gay for pay.”
There’s a large difference between behavior, which is pretty much always a choice, and any “programmed” (it seems to me that “feelings of attraction” – undefined as I lack a better terminology – seem to be influenced by some combination of genetic factors and environmental factors) physiological attraction.[/quote]
Right, I agree a person can choose what to do, but not how they feel. Fuck man we’ve all had that person in our life that we where crazy about but was bad for us but still we couldnt get away and when we finally do walk away(the behavior) we cant walk away from the feelings.
Or from food for that matter imagine who easy it would be to eat clean if we could choose to hate potato chips and wings.
I will check out Shug’s weblog.
Its funny no one who believes its a choice to be gay wants to answer the question of whether or not they can choose, very intresting.
[quote]doogie wrote:
pittbulll wrote:
Jersey5150 wrote:
pittbulll wrote:
doogie wrote:
Zeb,
You said it “devalued”, not changed the definition. Anyway, it’s still two people in love, standing before their god and loved ones, making a lifelong committment to one another. [/quote]
Doogie
I can only way I can think to communicate my point would be to use examples. For example if I chose to change the definition of gay to include child molester. Some one who was not a child molester but is gay by the previous definition may be offended.
I am not trying to make any disparaging remarks towards homosexual people.
[quote]Sabrina wrote:
pittbulll wrote:
Jersey5150 wrote:
pittbulll wrote:
doogie wrote:
Zeb,
How will it devalue hetero marriage?
Marriage is a word that has a definition. And to most people believe that by default the definition of marriage includes exclusivity of a man and of a woman. And if nothing else you are suggesting to change the definition
Actually, “marriage” is a word that has many definitions according to the American Heritage Dictionary. And language is fluid and in a constant state of change. Big deal.
mar?riage Pronunciation (mrj)
n.
1.
a. The legal union of a man and woman as husband and wife.
b. The state of being married; wedlock.
c. A common-law marriage.
d. A union between two persons having the customary but usually not the legal force of marriage: a same-sex marriage.
A wedding.
A close union: “the most successful marriage of beauty and blood in mainstream comics” Lloyd Rose.
Games The combination of the king and queen of the same suit, as in pinochle.
My Websters Univeersal College Dictionary Fails to mention d , 3 or 4
As for “most people believe”, There was a time when people “believed” the earth was flat. Remember those fruitcakes a few years back? The ones who “believed” they could cut off their nuts, tie on some Nikes, and find salvation in the tail of a comet? You’ll need something more substantial than personal beliefs and dogma to convince me.
You could use your own words to make my point as well
If and when I marry the strength of that commitment or value that I place upon that union will not be influenced in the slightest by where anyone else is sticking his dick (provided it is not in me or my husband), by whom someone else chooses to love, how they choose to express it, how they choose to express their commitment to it, and so on. I’m busy and I just don’t give a shit. It’s called minding your own business. Shall I provide you with a definition for that?[/quote]
Must I remind you that you are participating in an open forum? I mean no discourtesy to you or anyone. I was simply conversing with people who can do so without becoming angry. If I am wasting your time simply do not respond to me.
[quote]pittbulll wrote:
doogie wrote:
pittbulll wrote:
Jersey5150 wrote:
pittbulll wrote:
doogie wrote:
Zeb,
You said it “devalued”, not changed the definition. Anyway, it’s still two people in love, standing before their god and loved ones, making a lifelong committment to one another.
Doogie
I can only way I can think to communicate my point would be to use examples. For example if I chose to change the definition of gay to include child molester. Some one who was not a child molester but is gay by the previous definition may be offended.
I am not trying to make any disparaging remarks towards homosexual people.
[/quote]
I guess it was the use of the word “devalue” that I was curious about. It has a negative connotation.
I dont know who has a monopoly on the word marriage some claim its a religious word mean a bond between a man and women under god.
If so what about athiests? Are our marriges not recognized as a real marriage?
Change happens. At some point you may want to find a different issue to fight for…
Just because what you are used to may change, doesn’t make it right or wrong. It just is.
[quote]Jersey5150 wrote:
pittbulll wrote:
doogie wrote:
pittbulll wrote:
Jersey5150 wrote:
pittbulll wrote:
doogie wrote:
Zeb,
You said it “devalued”, not changed the definition. Anyway, it’s still two people in love, standing before their god and loved ones, making a lifelong committment to one another.
Doogie
I can only way I can think to communicate my point would be to use examples. For example if I chose to change the definition of gay to include child molester. Some one who was not a child molester but is gay by the previous definition may be offended.
I am not trying to make any disparaging remarks towards homosexual people.
I guess it was the use of the word “devalue” that I was curious about. It has a negative connotation.
I dont know who has a monopoly on the word marriage some claim its a religious word mean a bond between a man and women under god.
If so what about athiests? Are our marriges not recognized as a real marriage?
[/quote]
You must admit the proposed change to the meaning of the marriage is really quite recent.
[quote]vroom wrote:
Change happens. At some point you may want to find a different issue to fight for…
Just because what you are used to may change, doesn’t make it right or wrong. It just is.[/quote]
I don?t feel I am fighting for or against anything. The definition of the word has already changed some what. When the majority of humanity wants marriage to include same sex couples it will be so. I say with in the next generation.
[quote]DeadSexy wrote:
What are the ACTUAL passages in the bible having to do with gays? I’m sure wording will vary depending on which version you have, but what is the EXACT WORDING?[/quote]
First I want to say, I’m not here to start a debate. But you did ask for the passage so I will provide it to you. Simply stated, Paul is refering to the lostness of humanity. What was the process of the world virtually falling apart? Why has human beings walked away from God? God gave mankind over to the sins of their heart because mankind chose a life without God. God let them go their own way. Here is where its given.
Romans 1:18
"18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities?his eternal power and divine nature?have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
24Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator?who is forever praised. Amen.
26Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
28Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them."
The following is one of the best articles on marriage that I have come across. As this particular thread steers toward Gay marriage I thought it might be appropriate for all who are interested to take a look.
I am not here to defend or debate the article. If you like the article then send Maggie Gallagher a kind note. If you disagree with her then by all means notify her regarding your concerns.
What Marriage is For
Maggie Gallagher
Maggie Gallagher is President of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy and a co-author of The Case for Marriage. She also edits MarriageDebate.com, a Weblog (“blog”).
GAY MARRIAGE is no longer a theoretical issue. Canada has it. Massachusetts is expected to get it any day. The Goodridge decision there could set off a legal, political, and cultural battle in the courts of 50 states and in the U.S. Congress. Every politician, every judge, every citizen has to decide: Does same-sex marriage matter? If so, how and why?
The timing could not be worse. Marriage is in crisis, as everyone knows: High rates of divorce and illegitimacy have eroded marriage norms and created millions of fatherless children, whole neighborhoods where lifelong marriage is no longer customary, driving up poverty, crime, teen pregnancy, welfare dependency, drug abuse, and mental and physical health problems. And yet, amid the broader negative trends, recent signs point to a modest but significant recovery.
Divorce rates appear to have declined a little from historic highs; illegitimacy rates, after doubling every decade from 1960 to 1990, appear to have leveled off, albeit at a high level (33 percent of American births are to unmarried women); teen pregnancy and sexual activity are down; the proportion of homemaking mothers is up; marital fertility appears to be on the rise. Research suggests that married adults are more committed to marital permanence than they were twenty years ago. A new generation of children of divorce appears on the brink of making a commitment to lifelong marriage. In 1977, 55 percent of American teenagers thought a divorce should be harder to get; in 2001, 75 percent did.
A new marriage movement?a distinctively American phenomenon?has been born. The scholarly consensus on the importance of marriage has broadened and deepened; it is now the conventional wisdom among child welfare organizations. As a Child Trends research brief summed up: “Research clearly demonstrates that family structure matters for children, and the family structure that helps children the most is a family headed by two biological parents in a low-conflict marriage. Children in single-parent families, children born to unmarried mothers, and children in stepfamilies or cohabiting relationships face higher risks of poor outcomes… There is thus value for children in promoting strong, stable marriages between biological parents.”
What will court-imposed gay marriage do to this incipient recovery of marriage? For, even as support for marriage in general has been rising, the gay marriage debate has proceeded on a separate track. Now the time has come to decide: Will unisex marriage help or hurt marriage as a social institution?
Why should it do either, some may ask? How can Bill and Bob’s marriage hurt Mary and Joe? In an exchange with me in the just-released book “Marriage and Same Sex Unions: A Debate,” Evan Wolfson, chief legal strategist for same-sex marriage in the Hawaii case, Baer v. Lewin, argues there is “enough marriage to share.” What counts, he says, “is not family structure, but the quality of dedication, commitment, self-sacrifice, and love in the household.”
Family structure does not count. Then what is marriage for? Why have laws about it? Why care whether people get married or stay married? Do children need mothers and fathers, or will any sort of family do? When the sexual desires of adults clash with the interests of children, which carries more weight, socially and legally?
These are the questions that same-sex marriage raises. Our answers will affect not only gay and lesbian families, but marriage as a whole.
IN ORDERING GAY MARRIAGE on June 10, 2003, the highest court in Ontario, Canada, explicitly endorsed a brand new vision of marriage along the lines Wolfson suggests: “Marriage is, without dispute, one of the most significant forms of personal relationships… Through the institution of marriage, individuals can publicly express their love and commitment to each other. Through this institution, society publicly recognizes expressions of love and commitment between individuals, granting them respect and legitimacy as a couple.”
The Ontario court views marriage as a kind of Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval that government stamps on certain registered intimacies because, well, for no particular reason the court can articulate except that society likes to recognize expressions of love and commitment. In this view, endorsement of gay marriage is a no-brainer, for nothing really important rides on whether anyone gets married or stays married. Marriage is merely individual expressive conduct, and there is no obvious reason why some individuals’ expression of gay love should hurt other individuals’ expressions of non-gay love.
There is, however, a different view?indeed, a view that is radically opposed to this: Marriage is the fundamental, cross-cultural institution for bridging the male-female divide so that children have loving, committed mothers and fathers. Marriage is inherently normative: It is about holding out a certain kind of relationship as a social ideal, especially when there are children involved. Marriage is not simply an artifact of law; neither is it a mere delivery mechanism for a set of legal benefits that might as well be shared more broadly. The laws of marriage do not create marriage, but in societies ruled by law they help trace the boundaries and sustain the public meanings of marriage.
In other words, while individuals freely choose to enter marriage, society upholds the marriage option, formalizes its definition, and surrounds it with norms and reinforcements, so we can raise boys and girls who aspire to become the kind of men and women who can make successful marriages. Without this shared, public aspect, perpetuated generation after generation, marriage becomes what its critics say it is: a mere contract, a vessel with no particular content, one of a menu of sexual lifestyles, of no fundamental importance to anyone outside a given relationship.
The marriage idea is that children need mothers and fathers, that societies need babies, and that adults have an obligation to shape their sexual behavior so as to give their children stable families in which to grow up.
Which view of marriage is true? We have seen what has happened in our communities where marriage norms have failed. What has happened is not a flowering of libertarian freedom, but a breakdown of social and civic order that can reach frightening proportions. When law and culture retreat from sustaining the marriage idea, individuals cannot create marriage on their own.
In a complex society governed by positive law, social institutions require both social and legal support. To use an analogy, the government does not create private property. But to make a market system a reality requires the assistance of law as well as culture. People have to be raised to respect the property of others, and to value the traits of entrepreneurship, and to be law-abiding generally. The law cannot allow individuals to define for themselves what private property (or law-abiding conduct) means. The boundaries of certain institutions (such as the corporation) also need to be defined legally, and the definitions become socially shared knowledge. We need a shared system of meaning, publicly enforced, if market-based economies are to do their magic and individuals are to maximize their opportunities.
Successful social institutions generally function without people’s having to think very much about how they work. But when a social institution is contested?as marriage is today?it becomes critically important to think and speak clearly about its public meanings.
AGAIN, what is marriage for? Marriage is a virtually universal human institution. In all the wildly rich and various cultures flung throughout the ecosphere, in society after society, whether tribal or complex, and however bizarre, human beings have created systems of publicly approved sexual union between men and women that entail well-defined responsibilities of mothers and fathers. Not all these marriage systems look like our own, which is rooted in a fusion of Greek, Roman, Jewish, and Christian culture. Yet everywhere, in isolated mountain valleys, parched deserts, jungle thickets, and broad plains, people have come up with some version of this thing called marriage. Why?
Because sex between men and women makes babies, that’s why. Even today, in our technologically advanced contraceptive culture, half of all pregnancies are unintended: Sex between men and women still makes babies. Most men and women are powerfully drawn to perform a sexual act that can and does generate life. Marriage is our attempt to reconcile and harmonize the erotic, social, sexual, and financial needs of men and women with the needs of their partner and their children.
How to reconcile the needs of children with the sexual desires of adults? Every society has to face that question, and some resolve it in ways that inflict horrendous cruelty on children born outside marriage. Some cultures decide these children don’t matter: Men can have all the sex they want, and any children they create outside of marriage will be throwaway kids; marriage is for citizens?slaves and peasants need not apply. You can see a version of this elitist vision of marriage emerging in America under cover of acceptance of family diversity. Marriage will continue to exist as the social advantage of elite communities. The poor and the working class? Who cares whether their kids have dads? We can always import people from abroad to fill our need for disciplined, educated workers.
Our better tradition, and the only one consistent with democratic principles, is to hold up a single ideal for all parents, which is ultimately based on our deep cultural commitment to the equal dignity and social worth of all children. All kids need and deserve a married mom and dad. All parents are supposed to at least try to behave in ways that will give their own children this important protection. Privately, religiously, emotionally, individually, marriage may have many meanings. But this is the core of its public, shared meaning: Marriage is the place where having children is not only tolerated but welcomed and encouraged, because it gives children mothers and fathers.
Of course, many couples fail to live up to this ideal. Many of the things men and women have to do to sustain their own marriages, and a culture of marriage, are hard. Few people will do them consistently if the larger culture does not affirm the critical importance of marriage as a social institution. Why stick out a frustrating relationship, turn down a tempting new love, abstain from sex outside marriage, or even take pains not to conceive children out of wedlock if family structure does not matter? If marriage is not a shared norm, and if successful marriage is not socially valued, do not expect it to survive as the generally accepted context for raising children. If marriage is just a way of publicly celebrating private love, then there is no need to encourage couples to stick it out for the sake of the children. If family structure does not matter, why have marriage laws at all? Do adults, or do they not, have a basic obligation to control their desires so that children can have mothers and fathers?
THE PROBLEM with endorsing gay marriage is not that it would allow a handful of people to choose alternative family forms, but that it would require society at large to gut marriage of its central presumptions about family in order to accommodate a few adults’ desires.
The debate over same-sex marriage, then, is not some sideline discussion. It is the marriage debate. Either we win–or we lose the central meaning of marriage. The great threat unisex marriage poses to marriage as a social institution is not some distant or nearby slippery slope, it is an abyss at our feet. If we cannot explain why unisex marriage is, in itself, a disaster, we have already lost the marriage ideal.
Same-sex marriage would enshrine in law a public judgment that the desire of adults for families of choice outweighs the need of children for mothers and fathers. It would give sanction and approval to the creation of a motherless or fatherless family as a deliberately chosen “good.” It would mean the law was neutral as to whether children had mothers and fathers. Motherless and fatherless families would be deemed just fine.
Same-sex marriage advocates are startlingly clear on this point. Marriage law, they repeatedly claim, has nothing to do with babies or procreation or getting mothers and fathers for children. In forcing the state legislature to create civil unions for gay couples, the high court of Vermont explicitly ruled that marriage in the state of Vermont has nothing to do with procreation. Evan Wolfson made the same point in “Marriage and Same Sex Unions”: “[I]sn’t having the law pretend that there is only one family model that works (let alone exists) a lie?” He goes on to say that in law, “marriage is not just about procreation–indeedis not necessarily about procreation at all.”
Wolfson is right that in the course of the sexual revolution the Supreme Court struck down many legal features designed to reinforce the connection of marriage to babies. The animus of elites (including legal elites) against the marriage idea is not brand new. It stretches back at least thirty years. That is part of the problem we face, part of the reason 40 percent of our children are growing up without their fathers.
It is also true, as gay-marriage advocates note, that we impose no fertility tests for marriage: Infertile and older couples marry, and not every fertile couple chooses procreation. But every marriage between a man and a woman is capable of giving any child they create or adopt a mother and a father. Every marriage between a man and a woman discourages either from creating fatherless children outside the marriage vow. In this sense, neither older married couples nor childless husbands and wives publicly challenge or dilute the core meaning of marriage. Even when a man marries an older woman and they do not adopt, his marriage helps protect children. How? His marriage means, if he keeps his vows, that he will not produce out-of-wedlock children.
Does marriage discriminate against gays and lesbians? Formally speaking, no. There are no sexual-orientation tests for marriage; many gays and lesbians do choose to marry members of the opposite sex, and some of these unions succeed. Our laws do not require a person to marry the individual to whom he or she is most erotically attracted, so long as he or she is willing to promise sexual fidelity, mutual caretaking, and shared parenting of any children of the marriage.
But marriage is unsuited to the wants and desires of many gays and lesbians, precisely because it is designed to bridge the male-female divide and sustain the idea that children need mothers and fathers. To make a marriage, what you need is a husband and a wife. Redefining marriage so that it suits gays and lesbians would require fundamentally changing our legal, public, and social conception of what marriage is in ways that threaten its core public purposes.
Some who criticize the refusal to embrace gay marriage liken it to the outlawing of interracial marriage, but the analogy is woefully false. The Supreme Court overturned anti-miscegenation laws because they frustrated the core purpose of marriage in order to sustain a racist legal order. Marriage laws, by contrast, were not invented to express animus toward homosexuals or anyone else. Their purpose is not negative, but positive: They uphold an institution that developed, over thousands of years, in thousands of cultures, to help direct the erotic desires of men and women into a relatively narrow but indispensably fruitful channel. We need men and women to marry and make babies for our society to survive. We have no similar public stake in any other family form–in the union of same-sex couples or the singleness of single moms.
Meanwhile, cui bono? To meet the desires of whom would we put our most basic social institution at risk? No good research on the marriage intentions of homosexual people exists. For what it’s worth, the Census Bureau reports that 0.5 percent of households now consist of same-sex partners. To get a proxy for how many gay couples would avail themselves of the health insurance benefits marriage can provide, I asked the top 10 companies listed on the Human Rights Campaign’s website as providing same-sex insurance benefits how many of their employees use this option. Only one company, General Motors, released its data. Out of 1.3 million employees, 166 claimed benefits for a same-sex partner, one one-hundredth of one percent.
People who argue for creating gay marriage do so in the name of high ideals: justice, compassion, fairness. Their sincerity is not in question. Nevertheless, to take the already troubled institution most responsible for the protection of children and throw out its most basic presumption in order to further adult interests in sexual freedom would not be high-minded. It would be morally callous and socially irresponsible.
I am a Christian and I believe that homosexuality is not as simple as a black and white choice. If so, then why the confusion and frustration felt by so many homosexuals?
I believe that people may be born with various urges to participate in immoral behavior be it excessive gambling, drinking, stealing, homosexuality, etc.
It is not the urge that is the sin, it is the act. So one can be gay but at the same time choose to refrain from participating in homosexual acts.
All of us have had urges and are tempted to do immoral things, the choice lies in the act.
I would also add that the people in the picture are idiots and are in for a rude awakening the day they are judged.
Also, regarding the choice matter. I knew a gay guy from work a few years ago. We got to talking and he told me that he was in a relationship with a woman for nearly five years. They almost got married in fact.
Long story short, he had his heart broken and he started to believe that maybe women weren’t for him. Now obviously he wasn’t repulsed by the idea of homosexuality, otherwise he wouldn’t have even been able to pursue a gay relationship. My point is that there are probably environmental factors that play a role as well.