If there were any evidence of this, you might have a point.
The point is that you can’t dismiss the legitimacy of their concerns simply because the ssm argument is possibly made by a minority within the gay community. Which is what you did. Do I really believe that gay marriage is exactly the same as throwing Christians to the lions. Not really. But my Irish blood can not pass on the opportunity to make an impassioned defense of man’s struggle for liberty. You also have to consider that those in the movement may feel oppressed by the lack of the right of marriage. It is just wrong to dismiss them with an ad homenin attack. They certainly can and do feel they are marginalized by not being treated exactly the same by society.
Our system of government and our belief in and pursuit of legal individual rights comes directly from Europe.
They’re all predominantly Christian countries, too.
Larkin:
But it has nothing to do with gay marriage. You associated it in a cause-effect manner with decline in marriage rates, which is specious. Marriage is an ancient institution that has lost its protective purpose in countries that have economic mobility and strong legal protections for women and for children. Persons continue to pair and mate and cohabitate for love, for money, for protection, for children–and most of them marry. But as the legal distinctions and between married pairs and unmarried pairs lessen and the protective advantage of marriage lessens, then more and more folks will find cohabitation a viable alternative.
Not so, McTeague. I’ve lived in San Fransicko. I’ve witnessed the parades. I’ve watched the horrible and wretched actions of those who are vocal and it all depressed and angered me. They did not care if children were witnessing what they were doing. They did not care whether or not they were on TV. They just writhed in slithering snakiness and sickness for the sole purpose of flaunting their sickness. And, let’s make no mistake, when sex becomes the most important thing in your life, you are sick and will display it.
Well, not from Europe in general, but, from the Magna Carta and for specific, outlined grievances. Then, we put together the Constitution and dusted the MC.
Not unfounded fears, rather, unfounded assertions - on your part.
CINO countries, you mean.They’re all predominantly Christian countries, too.
No; marriage rates go down when unbridled sexuality becomes the standard for life. You buy into a standard of depraved sexuality and let me know how it goes in a couple of years.
Are you denying the European roots of the Enlightenment and their contributions to the ideas around individual liberties and rights of personhood and conscience? Are you claiming that the American/British founders read no Europeans nor understood the European history of intellectual and religious growth toward individuality? Are you suggesting that our Constitution is not much more informed by Protestant (European) spirit than by Catholic?
An intellectually convenient dismissal.
What “standard” are you talking? You are shifting the pea under another shell.
Why would my sexuality matter to you? I am certainly not interested in yours. And I certainly don not and would not “hate” you whether I was more religious or not. Let’s stick to the topic at hand, shall we?
I am not gay. Just extremely open minded. Living in NYC, I to have occasionally seen some pretty outrageous things. But they often seem similar to what a lot of young people do when flaunting their identities and individuality.
I have a question for you: “What’s wrong with England?” Is it just part of a greater Europe now? Does it not have its own identity, and do the people not have an English identity any more?
Don’t take this the wrong way, but if you’re really offended by the extremes of gay culture, why did you turn up at an event to view leather boys and lewd queens on floats?
Nothing is wrong with England. It is just an incomplete answer to the question. You blamed “Europe” for social ills around the expansion of individual rights and freedoms. I thought it necessary to remind you that that is where the Reformation and Enlightenment had its primary inception. England participated, too, of course, and the Founders were all Brits, and overwhelmingly Protestant of one form or another–which of course was initially another European idea.