Homosexual marriage

[Nurvingiel]

You're a very thoughtful person RÃ*an.

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

And an irritated aside - how the liberal media is portraying the proposed amendment that says marriage in the US is between one man and one woman - they keep calling it the "amendment to ban gay marriage". Sorry, folks, read the writing - it is an amendment to define marriage in the US as between one man and one woman. It may have been started in reaction to people trying to make homosexual marriages, but it no more bans gay marriage specifically than it bans polyamorous marriages specifically.

I see what you mean, about what the legislation is really called, and I agree that it should be called the amendment to define marriage as between one man and one woman.

If passed though, same-sex marriage would become illegal in all states - effectively banned.

Doesn't this demolish state rights though? I don't get it. States in the USA are extremely autonomous - I'm surprised governors and people in general aren't very angry about this. Marriage is up to the individual states, not the federal government.

Curious aside, who is the liberal media? What newspapers/TV stations etc?

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

And here your outlook on church and state have fatefully collided. You can not legislate based on this opinion you realize.

I don't see how.

Pedophilia isn’t illegal. Sexually abusing children is. Because it HARMS the children. The children are being harmed without the ability to give consent. Adults who use contraception are doing no such thing.

What is the distinction you are making between pedophilia and sexual child abuse?


And IR, way to argue against theocracy with a reductio ad hitlerum.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

States in the USA are extremely autonomous

heh...not really...

[Nurvingiel]

Oh. But... state rights...

That means Jerseydevil was wrong!

Er yeah. Well never mind about my state rights post then. I did post twice in a row and have a new post at the end of page 25. Sorry about that.

IRex, are you bringing pedophilia into this thread? Because we all know where that leads. It leads to bad, bad times, and many foreheads being smashed upon their keyboards.

I think we should move the contraception debate to another thread.

[Rían]

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

You're a very thoughtful person RÃ*an.

(thanks, and so are you! It's so nice to have you back around more )

Doesn't this demolish state rights though? I don't get it. States in the USA are extremely autonomous - I'm surprised governors and people in general aren't very angry about this. Marriage is up to the individual states, not the federal government.

People in states are VERY angry about THIS: in the vast majority of the states, the people in the states have passed laws that they think marriage is between one man and one woman. IIRC, in EVERY state that it has come on the ballot, this has passed. So why is this even an issue? Because out of all the millions of people in a state, one person can overturn their stated will - a judge with a differing opinion. And in a few states, this HAS happened, and the people are rightly angry about it. And once it's in a state, then because of some other provisions in the Constitution, it can be argued that marriage in one state MUST be recognized in the others. So making a Consitutional amendment will stop this. The other details of what defines a marriage will still be left to the states, though.

Originally Posted by Gwai, ref. to IRex

What is the distinction you are making between pedophilia and sexual child abuse?

Ya got me wondering that one, too!

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

What is the distinction you are making between pedophilia and sexual child abuse?

Pedophilia is simply a description of an attraction. There are tons of pedophiles out there who never act on their urges. They are not criminals. Now if they act on their urges they are by definition molesters.

And IR, way to argue against theocracy with a reductio ad hitlerum.

Hitler? Where?

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

IRex, are you bringing pedophilia into this thread?

No Im responding to his/her comments about pedophilia. Once again we have the pedophilia-homosexuality link being made… Don’t yell at me about it…

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Pedophilia is simply a description of an attraction. There are tons of pedophiles out there who never act on their urges. They are not criminals. Now if they act on their urges they are by definition molesters.

I disagree. I think it is our actions that define us, not natural predilections.

Hitler? Where?

'Tis a term for arguing against something by associating it with something generally considered to be bad/evil. Thus "Hitler had anti-smoking laws!" Maybe it's sorta technically supposed to actually involve Hitler or Nazism, but I'm playin' fast and loose with the rules here.

[Nurvingiel]

What you're referring to, Gwaimir, is Godwin's Law.

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

People in states are VERY angry about THIS: in the vast majority of the states, the people in the states have passed laws that they think marriage is between one man and one woman. IIRC, in EVERY state that it has come on the ballot, this has passed. So why is this even an issue? Because out of all the millions of people in a state, one person can overturn their stated will - a judge with a differing opinion. And in a few states, this HAS happened, and the people are rightly angry about it. And once it's in a state, then because of some other provisions in the Constitution, it can be argued that marriage in one state MUST be recognized in the others. So making a Consitutional amendment will stop this. The other details of what defines a marriage will still be left to the states, though.

A Constitutional amendment also seems unnecessary. All 50 states have perfectly valid marriage laws (some of which I like more than others).

This certainly seems to me like a very poorly disguised attempt to ban (yes, ban) gay marriage. A Constitutional amendment would render Massachusetts' and other states' gay marriage laws illegal. States without gay marriage laws would not be affected, except that their state rights are being stepped on.

Also, I don't see a problem with states recognising the marriages of other states. Not all Canadian provinces have legalised gay marriage yet, but we all still recognise each other's marriage contracts. There hasn't been an influx of people moving to BC, say, just to get married, and then moving back to their home provinces.

So, a Constitutional amendment is totally unnecessary unless you're trying to make gay marriage more difficult.

[frodosampippinmerry]

Your claim of happy contracepting couples lacks source information as well. You presume tha one can contraqcept and be happy in the relationship. My sources are married couples who found that heir marriages were being destroyed until they stopped contracepting and othe official soureces that I will have to look up for you, but I suspect even if I did, it wouldn't change your mind. Ther pedophilia coment was directed at the practice of raping minors, and even if I didn't specify that clearly enough, you knew what I was talking about. I never said there was a connection between child rape and contraception. Again, I will lookup the statistics for you if you want but harm does occurr when sex is practiced outside of a lifegiving procreative Marriage between two adults of opposite sex. I may even have to have couples that were harmed by such practices write a response if they are available. They can give you lots more sources too, but my impresion is that you won't change your mind, you simply wantt o argue.

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

First: prove this. You provide no sources whatsoever.

Second: Even if contraception is “bad� for marriage (whatever that means) are you saying we should illegalize ANYTHING that shows a statistical significance of being “bad� for marriage? And what of all those millions of couples who use contraception and are happily married?



And here your outlook on church and state have fatefully collided. You can not legislate based on this opinion you realize.



Pedophilia isn’t illegal. Sexually abusing children is. Because it HARMS the children. The children are being harmed without the ability to give consent. Adults who use contraception are doing no such thing.



And the answer of course is HARM. And the right to liberty and justice and life. Quite clearly, murdering someone impinges enormously on your right to live. You are forcefully taking away the ultimate right from someone without their consent. Free murder cannot be allowed in a society that hopes to remain intact or else collapse is imminent (everyone will be killed). Contraception does NOT impose anything forcefully on anyone. It is done by choice. And it is done so that we don’t end up with much more awful choices later like abortion or neglected children. Now are you saying you would rather have abortion and child neglect and abuse rife in our society if it means no contraception? If your answer is just don’t have sex unless you want a child well how in the world do you legislate that?



Which is why you don’t legislate based on any one persons “morality�. You legislate based on basic rights and you balance freedom of expression with freedom from immediate and significant harm.



How does contraception affect you exactly? Do people force you to use it? What you are demanding here is a theocracy. Are you sure you want that? It didn’t work to well in places like Iran and Taliban run Afghanistan. Are you sure you want to look to them as the basis for how to set up a government?

[frodosampippinmerry]

Pederasty? We're discussing modern religions. Reform Jews? The wording of the comment was "any Jew seriously practicing their faith"

***This is not to say that reform Jews don't sincerely practice their faith*** in case anyone was confused as to what I am implying.

e.g. If a "sincere Christian" commits adultury they are a liar about their sincere love for God, and their love for the person they are using for their sexual pleasure. You can't claim you love God and unrepentantly live a lifestyle that offends him. And you can't claim to love your neighbor if you are selfishly using them for your own benefit.

There are many sincere Christians, Jews, and people of other faiths who make mistakes and repent, and try harder next time to avoid those mistakes, with God's help, but there are other people, who try having their cake and eating it too by duplicitously claiming sincerity while contradicting what they say they believe in their actions and words.

[QUOTE=Gwaimir Windgem
I think not. Pederasty was widely accepted in the ancient world, and even divinely sanctioned, for instance in the cult of Ganymede. I don't have any reason to believe that contraception was considered immoral by the ancient world, except the Jews and Muslims.



Depends on what kind. I believe that Reform Jews do not consider pre-marital sex to be immoral.[/QUOTE]

[frodosampippinmerry]

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

I agree with you Gwaimir. I have a different approach than you, but I agree with you and St. Paul - we must work our own salvation. It's the government's job to protect its citizens from physical hardship. Spiritual hardship is up to us.

I call bull crap. Where is a link to a peer-reviewed study with a statistically significant sample size to back up your statements?


I didn't read any of the block paragraph posts, but if you click the "Edit" button and add some paragraph breaks (as explained by the lovely RÃ*an), then I will.

When I hit enter, the board lumps it all together anyways-the suggestion made by rian doesn't work

[frodosampippinmerry]

On the other hand, legalizing gay marriage opens the door for the mormons to ask for polygamy to be legalized, and in countries that do have gay marriage, Marriage has become all but meaningless.

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

You're a very thoughtful person RÃ*an.

I see what you mean, about what the legislation is really called, and I agree that it should be called the amendment to define marriage as between one man and one woman.

If passed though, same-sex marriage would become illegal in all states - effectively banned.

Doesn't this demolish state rights though? I don't get it. States in the USA are extremely autonomous - I'm surprised governors and people in general aren't very angry about this. Marriage is up to the individual states, not the federal government.

Curious aside, who is the liberal media? What newspapers/TV stations etc?

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by frodosampippinmerry

Pederasty? We're discussing modern religions. Reform Jews? The wording of the comment was "any Jew seriously practicing their faith"

My apologies; I thought when you said "was originally held", you referred to antiquity, not the beginnings of the Abrahamic religions.

[Nurvingiel]

Originally Posted by frodosampippinmerry

On the other hand, legalizing gay marriage opens the door for the mormons to ask for polygamy to be legalized, and in countries that do have gay marriage, Marriage has become all but meaningless.

People should be allowed to ask for polygamy to be legalised (it's still up to lawmakers though), but that has nothing to do with gay marriage.

And I can assure you that, as a Canadian and someone who lives in a province that has legalised gay marriage, that marriage is certainly not meaningless here.

Originally Posted by frodosampippinmerry

When I hit enter, the board lumps it all together anyways-the suggestion made by rian doesn't work

That's weird - what browser are you using? I know IE and Firefox work.

Why not write paragraphs like this then?

paragraph1
.
paragraph2
.
etc

[Count Comfect]

frodosampippinmerry - I am a Reform Jew. I do not take kindly to your direct implication that Reform Jews are not seriously practicing their faith.

to inked, from a page or so back... there cannot be harm by preventing someone from discriminating. There is no right involved. It is the same doctrine as the age-old idea that my right to swing my fist ends at the start of your nose. Your right to not approve of someone ends where you violate their rights by discriminating.

I feel like I've given all I can to this debate for the moment. My opinion is out there in the previous pages, if anyone cares. Enjoy yourselves.

[inked]

Jewish World Review June 8, 2006 / 12 Sivan, 5766

Demagogues and the marriage debate

By Jeff Jacoby
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | In a statement opposing the Marriage Protection Amendment debated in Congress this week, Senator Edward Kennedy said that "gay and lesbian couples deserve the same rights as married couples under state law" and dismissed the amendment as "a wholly inappropriate effort to override state courts and to intrude into individuals' private lives."


How should those who disagree with Kennedy's position react to it? By explaining on the merits why they believe he's wrong? Or by calling him names — a "gay-loving fanatic," say, or an "immoral pervert"?


It's a no-brainer. Only a demagogue believes that the controversy over same-sex marriage can be improved by hurling insults at those who radically want to change the meaning of matrimony. Even if you think they are wrong, there is no reason to doubt that most Americans who favor legalizing gay and lesbian marriages consider it an issue of fairness and tolerance. Their arguments should be challenged with facts and logic, not vitriol. Anyone who slandered Kennedy with slurs like those above would be considered contemptible, and rightly so.


It is just as contemptible when the slurs and slander are hurled in the other direction.


"A vote for this amendment," Kennedy has said repeatedly, "is a vote for bigotry, pure and simple." Like so many on his side of the debate, he insists that supporters of the marriage amendment are fanatics and haters — knuckle-draggers from "the rabid reactionary right" who want to "stain the Constitution with their language of bigotry," as he put it the last time the Senate took up the issue. If you are strongly committed to the traditional understanding of marriage as the union of husband and wife, in other words, you aren't just wrong — you're evil. You aren't fit to debate with, only to demonize. Kennedy and his allies don't want to consider your point of view, and they don't want anyone else considering it either. And they know that there is no better way to make a viewpoint so toxic that decent Americans shun it than to portray it as the equivalent of racism and prejudice.


But if it's "bigotry, pure and simple" not to want same-sex marriage to be forced on American society by a handful of crusading courts, then among the bigots must be the large congressional majority — 85 senators, 342 representatives — who passed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, confirming that marriage in the United States is between members of the opposite sex only and allowing states to deny recognition of same-sex marriages performed in other states. Former President Bill Clinton must be a bigot too: He signed the bill into law.


The bigots must also include the dozens of American religious leaders who signed the Religious Coalition for Marriage statement endorsing the marriage amendment. The list of signatories is remarkably ecumenical — Roman Catholic cardinals, Greek and Russian Orthodox primates, the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, rabbis, an apostle of the Mormon church, the president of the Coalition of African-American Pastors, the editor of Christianity Today, and many others. Bigots all, apparently.




Vastly more numerous are voters in the 19 states where constitutional amendments securing the definition of marriage have been put on the ballot. "In every case," as President Bush observed this week, "the amendments were approved by decisive majorities, with an average of 71 percent." All told, 45 of the 50 states either have adopted constitutional amendments or enacted laws meant to keep the timeless meaning of marriage from being undone. If Kennedy is right, all those states, all those lawmakers, all those voters should be despised as bigots.


But Kennedy isn't right.


It is not bigotry to insist that there is a good reason why marriage has existed in every known human society, and why it has always involved the uniting of men and women. It is not bigotry to acknowledge what reams of scholarship confirm: Family structure matters, and children are more likely to suffer problems when they are not raised by their married mothers and fathers. It is not bigotry to resist the dishonest comparison of same-sex marriage to interracial marriage — skin color has nothing to do with wedlock, while sex is fundamental to it. And it is not bigotry to fear that a social change as radical as same-sex marriage could lead to grave and unintended consequences, from the persecution of religious institutions to a growing clamor for legalizing polygamy.


Pro, con, or undecided, Americans should be able to discuss something as serious as redefining marriage without resorting to slander and ad hominem attacks. There are sincere, compassionate, and thoughtful people on both sides of this issue. How can you tell who they are? They aren't the ones calling people bigots.
http://jewishworldreview.com/jeff/jacoby060806.php3

And, my calendar for today quotes Margaret Mead, "No matter how many communes anybody invents, the family always creeps back." Anthropological history by an anthropologist.

[frodosampippinmerry]

I apologize if you misunderstood me. I did not mean to imply that all reform Jews were insincere about theiir faith. I meant that it is a lie for a person of any faith to claim they are sincere while acting in a way or believing things contrary to their faith. e.g If someone says "I'm a good Christian" and enjoys raping minors, they can delude themselves all they want that they're a good Christian, but as long as they continue to violate the 6th commandment, they are a liar because they love neither God nor their neighbor as long as they continue using their neighbor for their own gratification.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

frodosampippinmerry - I am a Reform Jew. I do not take kindly to your direct implication that Reform Jews are not seriously practicing their faith.

to inked, from a page or so back... there cannot be harm by preventing someone from discriminating. There is no right involved. It is the same doctrine as the age-old idea that my right to swing my fist ends at the start of your nose. Your right to not approve of someone ends where you violate their rights by discriminating.

I feel like I've given all I can to this debate for the moment. My opinion is out there in the previous pages, if anyone cares. Enjoy yourselves.

[frodosampippinmerry]

apparently it doesn't work inall browsers, but I have firefox too. Thanks for the tip

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

People should be allowed to ask for polygamy to be legalised (it's still up to lawmakers though), but that has nothing to do with gay marriage.

And I can assure you that, as a Canadian and someone who lives in a province that has legalised gay marriage, that marriage is certainly not meaningless here.

That's weird - what browser are you using? I know IE and Firefox work.

Why not write paragraphs like this then?

paragraph1
.
paragraph2
.
etc

[inked]

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

What you're referring to, Gwaimir, is Godwin's Law.

A Constitutional amendment also seems unnecessary. All 50 states have perfectly valid marriage laws (some of which I like more than others).

This certainly seems to me like a very poorly disguised attempt to ban (yes, ban) gay marriage. A Constitutional amendment would render Massachusetts' and other states' gay marriage laws illegal. States without gay marriage laws would not be affected, except that their state rights are being stepped on.

Also, I don't see a problem with states recognising the marriages of other states. Not all Canadian provinces have legalised gay marriage yet, but we all still recognise each other's marriage contracts. There hasn't been an influx of people moving to BC, say, just to get married, and then moving back to their home provinces.

So, a Constitutional amendment is totally unnecessary unless you're trying to make gay marriage more difficult.

Wrong, Nurv. To keep the issue a state-prerogative is the point. One federal judge can remake the nature of marriage in the entire country by one ruling. That is the problem. Faced at it's baldest, the fact is that one judge can over-rule the expressed intent of 45/50 states in the interests of 2-3% of the population and EVERYONE will pay the consequences.

There has to be a Marriage Amendment or we end up like Canada!

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/14756518.htm

http://www.marriagedebate.com/2006/0...-yesterday.htm

http://www.canadianchristianity.com/...ates/060608gay

And, for spin.....
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060608/...JlYmhvBHNlYwM-

I love it when this is called a wide margin ... if a lack of 12 votes is a wide margin for opposing the ban I'll eat my hat. I view it as a small margin to confirm the states in their rights. But if you want to spin it, I'll go along. Here's what the headline should be: Only 12 votes needed for Marriage Amendment as Between the Sexes. That sounds much better, I think!

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by frodosampippinmerry

Your claim of happy contracepting couples lacks source information as well. You presume tha one can contraqcept and be happy in the relationship.

Are you implying that ALL couples who use contraception are unhappy? That would be an incredible assumption to make. We can safely assume there are plenty of happy couples using contraception and plenty of unhappy couples using contraception. The question is, is it the contraception that is causing all the happiness/unhappiness? I think it’s a silly theory myself and a bad use of logic. Throwing out one family’s take on it will not help us at all in exploring the issue. I can line up plenty of couples who are happy and contracepting too. But why? Whats the point? It doesn’t tell us anything.

I never said there was a connection between child rape and contraception.

You said people were looking to legalize it… The logic being well if you allow contraception then that just leads down a slippy slope to child rape. I reject that kind of gross misconception and miscatogarization.

my impresion is that you won't change your mind, you simply wantt o argue.

Well I do like a good debate sure but in this case Im just countering dangerously incorrect public declarations. Im doing my civic duty.