How to respond to this gay marriage argument?

[laircy]

It is no one else’s business if two men or two women want to get married. Two people of the same sex who love each other should be allowed to publicly celebrate their commitment and receive the same benefits of marriage as opposite sex couples. There is no such thing as traditional marriage. Given the prevalence of modern and ancient examples of family arrangements based on polygamy, communal child-rearing, the use of concubines and mistresses and the commonality of prostitution, heterosexual monogamy can be considered “unnatural” in evolutionary terms.

*Gay marriage is protected by the Constitution’s commitments to liberty and equality. The US Supreme Court declared in 1974’s Cleveland Board of Education v. LaFleur that the “freedom of personal choice in matters of marriage and family life is one of the liberties protected by the Due Process Clause.” US District Judge Vaughn Walker wrote on Aug. 4, 2010 that Prop. 8 in California banning gay marriage was "unconstitutional under both the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses

Denying same-sex couples the right to marry, shows we don’t accept gay and lesbian couples or accept them to become a family. Gay marriage also will increase the chance of adopting children. In the United States, there is over 100,000 children waiting to be adopted and if same sex marriage goes up, so will children being adopted because same sex will eventually want to have their own family with their own kids.

 

[WesleyF]

The Secular Case Against Gay Marriage
tech.mit.edu/V124/N5/kolasinski.5c.html

 

[timotheos]

laircy:
There are a lot of good answers out there to this question. But for me it all boils down to one thing: When a nation no longer acts as though God exists, that nation is capable of any and every wrongdoing and evil that the human mind can imagine.

In other words, expect any rational response to fall upon deaf ears.

 

[promethius]

It is no one else’s business if two men or two women want to get married. Two people of the same sex who love each other should be allowed to publicly celebrate their commitment and receive the same benefits of marriage as opposite sex couples. There is no such thing as traditional marriage. Given the prevalence of modern and ancient examples of family arrangements based on polygamy, communal child-rearing, the use of concubines and mistresses and the commonality of prostitution, heterosexual monogamy can be considered “unnatural” in evolutionary terms.

Blah blah blah. It becomes MY business when the government starts telling me that I must act as though people I don’t consider validly married are actually husband and wife.

The government doesn’t FORCE me to recognize the validity of polygamy (in fact, it’s ILLEGAL), nor the use of concubines, mistresses, or the validity of prostitution. None of those, and they’re all invalid ways of living.

But now the government proposes to force me to recognize, via actions, “marriages” that will not exist. It IS germaine for the catholic hospitals that will be forced to provide spousal measures and privilages to non-spouses, to the catholic insurance companies that will be forced to provide spousal benefits to non-spouses, that the adoption services that will be forced to give children to non-married couples pretending to be married.

This isn’t about gays wanting to be “married”… this is about an innappropriate intrusion of government into religious sacramental rites with the attached force of law to recognize these false unions.

*Gay marriage is protected by the Constitution’s commitments to liberty and equality. The US Supreme Court declared in 1974’s Cleveland Board of Education v. LaFleur that the “freedom of personal choice in matters of marriage and family life is one of the liberties protected by the Due Process Clause.”

A gay person, at this time, has no less right in choosing to marry someone than a straight person does. The case for gay marraige is one for a NEW practice for everyone, not about “equal rights”

US District Judge Vaughn Walker wrote on Aug. 4, 2010 that Prop. 8 in California banning gay marriage was "unconstitutional under both the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses

District Judge Vaughn Walker is a gay californian in a long term relationship who stands to acheive personal gain by ruling against prop 8. Any SANE judge would have recused himself from sitting the bench on that case… something he did not. He is a disgrace to the legal justice system.

Denying same-sex couples the right to marry, shows we don’t accept gay and lesbian couples or accept them to become a family.

Spot on.

Love the sinner, but hate the sin. I accept gays and lesbians, but I will NOT be forced into giving tacit approval of their “couplings” or “families”

Gay marriage also will increase the chance of adopting children. In the United States, there is over 100,000 children waiting to be adopted and if same sex marriage goes up, so will children being adopted because same sex will eventually want to have their own family with their own kids.

This is an emotional appeal. There are a lot of things wrong with the adoption process at this time that could be solved which would make the problem of adoption go away MUCH faster than legalizing gay marraige. Pointing out the problems in the adoption system is not an argument FOR gay marraige.

 

[Spencerian]

The Secular Case Against Gay Marriage
tech.mit.edu/V124/N5/kolasinski.5c.html

This is got to be the most reasoned article I’ve ever read on the subject from a non-religious view. It defines why the state must regulate marriage that hasn’t a single religious argument to it, but co-supports many of the theological and sociological arguments. It doesn’t try to link to every study or factoid. It simply uses common sense and government practice and consequence–without vilifying these people who want to marry.

 

[Langdell]

Gay marriage is protected by the Constitution’s commitments to liberty and equality. The US Supreme Court declared in 1974’s Cleveland Board of Education v. LaFleur that the “freedom of personal choice in matters of marriage and family life is one of the liberties protected by the Due Process Clause.” US District Judge Vaughn Walker wrote on Aug. 4, 2010 that Prop. 8 in California banning gay marriage was "unconstitutional under both the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses

Whether SSM is protected by the Constitution is a very unsettled issue. A lot of constitutional law scholars believe it is, but just as many believe it is not. I personally believe that the “nots” have the better argument. Don’t let anyone tell you that this is settled.

 

[Nate13]

This is got to be the most reasoned article I’ve ever read on the subject from a non-religious view. It defines why the state must regulate marriage that hasn’t a single religious argument to it, but co-supports many of the theological and sociological arguments. It doesn’t try to link to every study or factoid. It simply uses common sense and government practice and consequence–without vilifying these people who want to marry.

I agree. I like how it handles all the outliers to the idea that marriage is about procreation.

Granted, these restrictions are not absolute. A small minority of married couples are infertile. However, excluding sterile couples from marriage, in all but the most obvious cases such as those of blood relatives, would be costly. Few people who are sterile know it, and fertility tests are too expensive and burdensome to mandate. One might argue that the exclusion of blood relatives from marriage is only necessary to prevent the conception of genetically defective children, but blood relatives cannot marry even if they undergo sterilization. Some couples who marry plan not to have children, but without mind-reading technology, excluding them is impossible. Elderly couples can marry, but such cases are so rare that it is simply not worth the effort to restrict them. The marriage laws, therefore, ensure, albeit imperfectly, that the vast majority of couples who do get the benefits of marriage are those who bear children.

 

[Erich]

Gay marriage is protected by the Constitution’s commitments to liberty and equality. The US Supreme Court declared in 1974’s Cleveland Board of Education v. LaFleur that the “freedom of personal choice in matters of marriage and family life is one of the liberties protected by the Due Process Clause.”

This completely ignores the fact that there are, today, right now, plenty of folks who are not at liberty to marry (e.g. minors and those who are already married). Does anyone think for a moment that someone will *not *try to extend the “liberty to marry” to such folks?

If there were truly no distinction between marriage and “same sex marriage” then would there be any need for the “same sex” modifier? Of course not. Spin a globe and pick virtually any place on earth at any previous time in human history; you will find that they do marriage one way – between men and women. There may be other differences, but marriage has always required a husband and wife. Why? Marriage teaches that men and women need each other and that children need mothers and fathers. A loving and compassionate society comes to the aid of motherless and fatherless children, but no compassionate society intentionally deprives children of their own mom or dad. But this is what every same-sex home does – and for no other reason but to satisfy adult desire.

With same sex “marriage” being passed into law in more and more places, we can expect to see the following:
a) The law will teach our children and grandchildren that there is nothing special about mothers and fathers raising children together, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a bigot.
b) Jonathan Yarbrough, part of the first couple to get a “same-sex marriage” in Provincetown, Mass, said, “I think it’s possible to love more than one person and have more than one partner… In our case, it is. We have an open marriage.” Once you rip a ship off its mooring who knows where it will drift next?
c) The statement, “Children need a mother and a father” will be deemed hate speech. The Boston Globe already said so: “Governor Romney is denigrating gay families, practicing divisive, mean-spirited politics…by insisting that every child ‘has a right to a mother and a father.’”
d) Consider an NPR story from Boston from several years ago. An eighth-grade teacher there teaches about gay sex “thoroughly and explicitly.” When asked if parents complained about their children learning such explicit material, this teacher said, “Give me a break. It’s legal now.”

 

[jhigh]

Gay people have exactly the same right to marry that I do. As a man, I am prohibited from marrying another man, as well - no discrimination there. What this issue really boils down to is that they want the right to marry whomever they want, and they are trying to change the law to accomodate their desires. Inevitably, this argument devolves into a discussion over the role of government when it comes to marriage.

It’s actually very simple: government regulates marriage because when men and women have sex, children are quite often the result. Society needs those children to survive. The civil purpose of marriage is to force men and women into lifelong relationships so that when they have sex, the resultant children are in the best situation possible. No other relationship has the same qualities and, therefore, no other relationship is regulated by government.

 

[manualman]

The first question that must be asked is “Why is government involved in marriage anyways?” The revisionists are implicitly assuming that marriage is merely an emotional experience involving feelings. If that were true, it WOULD be unfair to withold it from gay people. But it would also be stupid for the government to be involved: regulating FEELINGS?

Government got involved in marriage precisely for the reasons cited in the OP’s original argument. In past times and cultures polygamy, incest and all sort of weird sexual relationships were practiced without societal censor. Mind you those societies lacked the cohesion we take for granted in America: they practiced slavery, concubinage, outrageous racial discrimination, exploitation, no universal access education, no access to health care, etc. It is precisely because of the societal stability that real marriage provides that cultures stood up and recognized the innate superiority of the permanent, monogomous, heterosexual union. By it’s very nature it is ordered towards the creation, care, nurturing and education of new life. No matter how hard you flap you gums, you just can’t say that about gay marriage.

Real marriage is what made civilization possible. Once we denigrate it to just one acceptable choice among many, we will very quickly kiss civilization goodbye. Humans are not spiritual human beings trapped in flawed flesh. We are a unity of body and soul. Our bodies reflect who we ARE. It is not an arbitrary coincidence that two gay men are unable to create new life, it is a marker of what is fundamentally missing compared to an actually married couple. An infertile hetero couple is not the same because their infertility is based on an incidental defect, not a characteristic of their nature.

 

[edwest2]

It is sometimes said that the government should get out of the “marriage business.” Then why are homosexuals persons trying to get governmental approval for their relationships by putting this issue on the ballot? As a friend of mine said, “Why do they need my approval?”

The other argument put forward (and I saw it on TV) was a lesbian couple announcing that they were “equal” now that they could be legally married in their particular location. Equal in what way? How did their relationship change the day they received governmental recognition?

Then some are trying to lead us to believe that heterosexual and gay couples both love each other and are committed to one another in the same way. According to the New York Times, there is evidence this is not the case for many successful gay marriages.

nytimes.com/2010/01/29/us/29sfmetro.html

And there is a plan for what happens after gay marriage:

firstthings.com/onthesquare/2006/08/robert-george-beyond-gay-marri

Peace,
Ed

 

[Nate13]

It is sometimes said that the government should get out of the “marriage business.” Then why are homosexuals persons trying to get governmental approval for their relationships by putting this issue on the ballot? As a friend of mine said, “Why do they need my approval?”

The other argument put forward (and I saw it on TV) was a lesbian couple announcing that they were “equal” now that they could be legally married in their particular location. Equal in what way? How did their relationship change the day they received governmental recognition?

Then some are trying to lead us to believe that heterosexual and gay couples both love each other and are committed to one another in the same way. According to the New York Times, there is evidence this is not the case for many successful gay marriages.

nytimes.com/2010/01/29/us/29sfmetro.html

And there is a plan for what happens after gay marriage:

firstthings.com/onthesquare/2006/08/robert-george-beyond-gay-marri
Peace,
Ed

I agree. I don’t want to be the conspiracy theorist but I don’t think it takes a lot of brains to see the end goal of the real activists is to change religion or destroy any religion that won’t change its view of homosexual acts. They want acceptance not tolerance. They have tolerance right now although I believe there are areas we could work to make things easier on them such as visitation rights are concerned in hospitals and other legal document issues.