Last week the California Supreme Court decision backed gay marriage.
In San Diego, this has brought the National Organization for Marriage-California (NOM-CA) to the forefront in their fight against it.
They report they have 1.1 million petition signatures to force a November initiative vote to amend the constitution so homosexual marriage will be prohibited in California . County officials are still confirming the validity of the signatures.
What are the chances of this?
The group says they have raised over a million dollars to fight the gay marriage effort, and their goal is to raise ten million dollars. Groups that support gay marriage say they have seen a boost in their donations since the Supreme Court decision.
It is also reported that some life/health insurance companies are looking into higher premiums for homosexuals. They say they already ask applicants about other forms of behavior which have an impact on life expectancy such as : are you a pilot? Do you abuse alcohol/drugs ?
Anti-gay marriage groups believe that the sexual behavior in the homosexual subculture makes them particularly prone to develop sexually transmitted diseases attributed to the high degree of promiscuity displayed, and their participation in sex with a disproportionately high number of strangers.
One study in San Francisco showed that 43 percent of male homosexuals had more than 500 sexual partners. This is the reason given for the short duration of the majority of homosexual exclusive relationships. Life expectancy of homosexual men was only forty-eight years before the AIDS virus came on the scene, and it is now down to thirty-eight years.
That it will harm the concept of the traditional American family even though the current state of marriage in this country is in disarray. This would further deteriorate it and make heterosexual marriages even more disposable. Homosexuals close the sexual act to the gift of life. Married couples who have produced a child have a greater sense of purpose in their desire to make a home, raise a child, and contribute to society. "Family" is of utmost importance because it is the place where humans learn to care for others, even to sacrifice for others. It provides the basis for human virtue and nobility. A family needs the influence of each sex since neither, alone, is biologically complete. Neither fathers nor mothers are expendable and the most loving father can't teach a little girl how to become a woman. Although there are single parents with children, a majority have the benefit of the influence of both parents, even if on a part time basis. Same sex parenting makes it impossible for a child to live with both biological parents, thus increasing their chance for abuse.
Stanley Kurtz of the Hudson Institute quotes radical homosexuals who state their goal is not personally to be married, nor to achieve domestic equality with heterosexuals, but rather to "Empty the institution of marriage of its meaning."
They note that the lesbian couple whose lawsuit began the Massachusetts journey to legalizing gay marriage are permanently separated. Julie and Hilary Goodrige were married in May, 2004 and separated in July, 2006.
Both sides acknowledge there will be a hard fought political battle ahead and it becomes incumbent on all of us to make our views known.
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Comments: 132
sounds like Calif. needs more marriage counselors.
Adelaide, Especially with our "Hollywoodites" who can only stay married for hours, or days.
John, I think our counsellors are totally discouraged.
a man cannot be a 'wife' to another man.
the divorce rate among men married to women is not a valid 'reason' for men to marry men or women to marry women
as has been said for years...2 wrongs don't make a right....gays getting married to other gays won't stop the divorce rate from rising
I think statement is absolutely false. I'm not married (yet, I'm engaged) but I have a desire to make a home, maybe no raise a child as I hate kids, but I do contribute to society. I know plenty of homosexuals who would like to be married, adopt a child, and already do contribute to society. It's stereotypes and bigotry that believe all gay people have no desire to do any of those things and they obviously haven't known many gay people.
Thanks, Carl
Shirley, you make a good point.
Interesting points ! Henry 8th did that? That scoundrel.
It is precisely my point that it is not a valid arguement. You only underscored the point I was making.
And it hasn't been proven, and cannot be proven, that homosexuals are 'created' that way.
The article asked for opinions. I gave my opinion based on what I believe to be right and wrong. If one studies history, it can be shown that whenever people step outside the laws that God set for mankind, things go badly for them. The Romans and others who engaged in 'alternative' lifestyles lost their empire to others who were not so engaged at the time.
And yes, Jesus was saying that married people should not get divorced, except on the grounds of adultery, it is a breaking of God's law. And of course, adultery would have already been a law breaker for the one committing it. Everyone will reap what they sow.
Glad you brought that up. It has been suggested that homosexuals uniting be called a "Union," and the term "Marriage," be reserved for heterosexuals.
Dan,
Zookeepers have reported that some of their tenants practice homosexuality.
Shirley,
Yes, the debate goes on as to whether or not sexual orientation is an immutable characteristic.
Anyways, if one were to look objectively at society, these insurance companies ought to then put every heterosexual through a lie-detector test in order to rate their premiums, based on their own extra-marital affairs and pants-on-fire lust-seeking congressional behaviors in, say, some airport toilet after a toe-tapping dance... or a Clinton-quickie in the Oval Office.
It is a serious scientific fallacy for anyone to suggest that AIDS predominates the homosexual population. Perhaps in America, where homosexual activity has been abnormally repressed for so long due to, well, fundamentalist fatalism. But in the far huger populations of south-Sahara Africa, where the virus theoretically evolved and where some 65% of the world's HIV/AIDS cases are found, it is actually predominantly spread by heterosexual contact. In fact, more women have AIDS than men here. Worldwide, in fact, women have a particular and easily preventable social vulnerability. Nearly 2/3 of all HIV-infected women in the word got the virus via heterosexual contact. And I haven't even mentioned how the virus can spread through an incidental, non-sexual contact with infected blood. The virus could give a damn if the host is gay, straight or whatever. The problem in America has been this absurd stigmatization of homosexuals, which for over a decade resulted in many homosexuals being culturally alienated to gain medical help and simple understanding of the virus' path of infection, and preventative measures... and of course public health infrastructures that can dispense simple and inexpensive medication, so people can live with the HIV, just like people can live with the hepatitis virus if they live healthily and get medication.
What really gets me is this continuing stupidity from fundamentalists, like NOM-CA. If they'd just do some simple reading on the internet, or take a basic biology 101 course, they'd understand that by alienating a particular social group where the virus has unfortunately proliferated, the virus continues to mutate... and we could suddenly be faced with an unparalleled pandemic that crosses all sorts of previously existing biological barriers. The quickest way to prevent the spread and continuying mutation of this retrovirus is education. That goes for all STIs (sexually transmitted infections), like gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis, trichomoniasis, chancroid, genital herpes, genital warts, and hepatitis B. The recent re-emergence worldwide of these "less stigmatized" sexually transmitted diseases highly increase the risk of AIDS. The World Health Organization has an excellent two-point strategy to deal with all this. In this past decade of absolute world stupidity, many western European nations have experienced a catastrophic rise of STIs, crossing every economic, sexual orientation and age group, even in highly socialized Denmark. In Ireland, for example, the incidence of gonorrhea, even among children, is four times more than it was in 1998, when the incidence rate was declining.
"We need better quality sex education for young people and more effective ways of getting the safe sex messages across,"stated Rebeca Findlay of the Family Planning Association.
In America -- for example, Minnesota -- statistics from the Department of Health show that in just 2005 alone, the rate of Gonorrhea infection increased by nearly 20%. And cases of syphilis has skyrocketed by nearly 150%. The big concern by Minnesota's Department of Health is how in recent years, federal funding of preventative health care has gone elsewhere.
But the prunes in the White House... and some nuts now in California... would rather force our population to buy gasoline at $4.00 a gallon, cause an international economic crisis, kill several hundred thousand innocent Iraqis, empower al Quaida by creating parentless, homeless and psychotic teens in Iraq to delusionally go to some Islamic version of the Norse Valhalla via suicide bombs, etc. etc. etc. rather than to face the real challenge like a warrior: stupid ignorance. I can't tell you how many schools, clinics and distribution of medicine and preventive measures could be built into the US, African and other impacted public health/education infrastructures with the US tax dollars (and unprecedented borrowing by the White House) from just one day of this US invasion of Iraq.
The jump of a simian (monkey) immunodeficient retrovirus (SIV) to the one that can infect humans (HIV) theoretically evolved in small pockets of Africa, where it once was common to eat raw monkey products, like the brain, where the infected blood plasma opportunistically at some point could attack human cells to propagate these strands of RNA, not DNA I'm being slightly clinical here - without going too deep into the evolving strains of the HIV and the mechanism by which host cells are "ordered" to reproduce more of these viruses rather than normal cell division via mitosis - so as to avert any discussion of godly retribution. Viruses are part and parcel to why human life evolved on this planet. Biologically, they posses both living and non-living characteristics.
Monkeys - who spread the SIV by sexual contact - have apparently lived with this virus for so long that rarely does an infected animal get any AIDS-like symptoms. Only when it crosses a species boundary do symptomatic issues result, like with AIDS... or like the Simian-AIDS (SAIDS) that can be seen when a monkey of one species infects its strain of SIV with, for example, a macaque, whose cellular chemistry is unfamiliar with the geometry of the infecting viral strain's sheaf... what's called a capsid... which surround the actual genetic strands of the virus. It is the body's ability to recognize these "protein shell geometries" that enable an immune response before entering a white blood cell. It is here the battle begins, for this retrovirus mutates quickly to overcome that cell-wall barrier.
Scientifically, we are really at the kindergarten level of understanding the whole virus thing.
For some insight into homophobia, please read this article: Californicating America
The answer is that homosexuality is absolutely normal in most of nature and in most of human cultures, present and in the past. Again, please go to Californicating America for the links in one of my comments to the article.
Briefly here:
A very quick note prior to going into my day. Thank you all for your comments. As Beb says, there exists still a lot of prejudgment on this one.
If one were to look at pure nature, one observes all sorts of homo- and bisexual activity, from the little fruit fly that can be triggered into homosexual activity by either manipulating its genes or introducing certain biochemical scents... to frogs who can change sex if a particular sex is locally missing, to fathers who become mothers, to certain swan species whose population is more than 20% gay even to the point of forming a threesome relationship in the rearing of their young, among many matriarchies in monkey societies, to even among the male elephants as they wander in male groups and become more gentle through such relationships.
Homo- bi- and all sorts of transsexual activity has been observed over the entire spectrum of nature and the logic in it has to do with behavioral patterns that are enhance the overall health and survival of the species. It's not at all a complicated subject, even in the recorded history of humanity... until a particular religion in man turns into a political agenda. By political agenda, I simply mean, a manipulation of facts in order to control a particular group of people in my opinion, which is one shared generally by most of those who objectively study the readily available empirical evidence
The decision rests on rational analysis that yields solid, objective reasoning obtained through a thorough education on the subject.
I found the links you provided here good reading, and invite others to go there.
BTW, I am paying $4.25 a gallon for gas.
I can't condone changing the Constitution for the purpose of devaluing American families and the sacrament of marriage for any reason. I applaud the practice of monogamous commitment between any two people in love, but marriage is for a woman and a man.
Who cares if the married couple next door is straight or gay? Let's make sure ALL Americans have the same rights and RESPONSIBILITIES!
[27] They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.
Heb.13
[4] Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.
Rev.19
[7] Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.
[9] And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.
When two "breeders" marry, they enter into a legal binding contract, known as a marriage. You get a license and everything.
Now, when two gay people enter into the same type of arrangement they are not allowed (thoughout most of this country) to call what they share "marriage". I'ts' called a Holy Union or a Partnership.
What is wrong with any of these labels: Marriage, Holy Union, or Partnership.
Every argument against homosexual marriage is flawed.
Their marriages don't last--Not many Hetero marriages last. I think the reason the divorce rate isn't higher is because the couple can't afford to file. I know a man who has been "married" for 36 years, but hasn't lived with his "wife" for 34 of them.
Children need parents of both sexes to prosper even if on a part time basis---Really. Tell that to every single parent who ever raised a successful child. I can think of two right off the top of my head. Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama were raised by single mothers.
Changing the Constitution would mean putting something about marriage in there. To my knoweledge, marriage law is not included in that document. Even if it meant changing the Constitution, so what? The Bill of Rights was not originally part of the document and everyone here at Gather seems to be enjoying at least one of those Ammendments.
I am so sick of everybody else knowing the right way to live is. You want to know the right way to live? Pick up a BIBLE (Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth), read the parts in RED. Jesus told you how to do it a long time ago.
I have a special message for those who think they need to impart their views of how the world should be, according to the BIBLE:
Matthew 7:3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
In other words, stop worrying about the speck in the eye of the guy next to you, and start worrying about the 2x4 in yours that is obstructing your view of the path you need to follow.
Holy shit!
Momma, that is such a wild image in my mind that I'm bursting in laughter. Ought to get Carter (Habitat for Humanity) to pull all that lumber out of their eyes and build more homes... for perhaps gay couples...
Homosexuality is a distortion of a natural process. It comes about because individuals have a difficult time coping with the balance between their physiological needs and their spiritual obligations as "more than an animal erect." I feel sorry for those who are co-opted into this so called "life style." My heart goes out to them and I wish them no ill will. However, this activity is not only basically opposed to nature itself (and please don't bother to deny it with so called "animal" studies; we are more than "an animal erect.") This practice, while possibly tolerable if not overemphasized or institutionalized, is destructive to your society and our entire future as the "care taker of the Earth." We have already allowed too much to degrade the family structure in this country in particular. Now those so afflicted with this disorder (and I class it as a psychological disorder) want to "fill in the grave" of the family unit and so ensure the fall of our society as a whole. Homosexuals, like the rest of our society, must learn to cope with their distress or their inability to adjust to life as they find it, and solve their personal problems with coping without wrecking havoc on the rest of us. It is quite obvious that the majority -- indeed, the overwhelming majority -- of people everywhere including this country are not homosexual and do not approve of the practice and it's affect and effect on our social environment. Hate the sin, not the sinner is very applicable here. The rest of us need to give these people our love and our respect but not our approval for their failure to control their appetites to the detriment of the rest of us. Homosexuality is an unfortunate mental illness caused by over-stress and is something the individuals need to address personally in their own lives just as any other sick person does. But to institutionalize it (and Lord knows, we have the intellectual ability to rationalize anything as "natural") is not the answer. What's more, it is destructive to the family unit concept in a world that has already become too complex for most people to cope with and maintain their sanity. Why should we let the tail wag the dog? I pray that California and the rest of the country comes to it's senses and has enough intestinal fortitude to stand up and say no to this destructive and degrading practice. It is also amusing, although unfortunately true, that we never seem to learn from history in such matters while all the time professing that we do. I also find it terribly hypocritical of so many people who think of themselves as Christians now defending a practice which God, THEIR GOD, not only condemned and condemns but did so with extreme violence (Sodom and Gamora).
On this post, opinions are running more than two to one...FOR...gay marriage.
Thoughtful observations, indeed.
Deborah,
Jinn looks "Just right," to me.
Bent,
WOW!
Mary Beth,
For sure, the money could be better spent.
Rose,
You have introduced some new quotes. To me, at least.
MOMMA,
I think I know that man you mentioned.
Ginger,
Right on. California has "Huge" issues going on.
Vicky,
I think we have "Big Brother," more than we care to acknowledge.
Donald,
Amazing astute comments. Thanks.
I'm off to work now. Later!
If this is the case, why are we allowed to feel pleasure. In "nature", animal mating practices are uncomfortable, if not painful. When humans come together it is more than comfortable, it is pleasure-filled (if you're doing it right).
"Homosexuality is a distortion of a natural process. It comes about because individuals have a difficult time coping with the balance between their physiological needs and their spiritual obligations as 'more than an animal erect.' "
You can't have it both ways, either we are a part of nature or we are not.
"What's more, it is destructive to the family unit concept in a world that has already become too complex for most people to cope with and maintain their sanity."
If anyone has lost their sanity here I know I'd cast my vote for the person who thinks sex isn't to be enjoyed. If I lived my life that way , I'd go insane, too.
"I also find it terribly hypocritical of so many people who think of themselves as Christians now defending a practice which God, THEIR GOD, not only condemned and condemns but did so with extreme violence (Sodom and Gomorra)."
Read your BIBLE a little more carefully. God got ticked because the people of Sodom and Gomorra were trying to have sex with the Angels that God sent to them. That is why Sodomy is defined as an un-natural sex act. So, remember, if you're having sex for any other reason than procreation, re: the above noted statements, and it feel good you are engaging in sodomy, according to one man's opinion.
Also, the Old Testament is more or less history lessons for Christians. Jesus abolished the old law with His sacrifice. We are saved, not because we follow the old law, but because we ask forgiveness under His blood, and live our lives as closely to His as we can. You know: Judge not, lest....., well you know the rest, don't you?
No it isn't. It is found widely in all of nature. That's been irrefutably proven by any empirical standard.
God created marriage? Really? I'm assuming (that since Christian scripture was quoted), the reference is to the Christian concept of God. Well, I think it's important to point out that people in the numerous non-Christian religions, the ones that have blanketed our globe since the dawn of humans, have been each other with great success for millenniums.
Secondly, although it may be fine for Christian folk to feel and believe the way they do, America is supposed to be a country that allows freedom of, and from, religion. If the only argument made in government for making laws against gay marriage are based solely on certain religious teachings, then the First Amendment to our Constitution is being abridged.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"
Marriage is a form of Spiritual Love commitment that is practiced by both religious and non-religious people. For our government to make marriage illegal between certain folks means that those folks will be prohibited from exercising their spiritual beliefs and practices (religion).
Seems to me, that if you think our American governments should create Constitutional establishments that limit marriage to heterosexuals, because of Christian religious teachings, then it should also constitutionally define divorce as only allowable under incidence of adultery, that it should outlaw adultery all together, and proscribe that women be subservient to their husbands in all things.
Perhaps it should also proscribe the specifics by which sexual congress can only be committed; like only in the privacy of a bed room, in the missionary position, and that one MUST only engage in it for the sake of pro-creation, with no thoughts of enjoyment allowed.
..and let us make women wear veils once again.
Cause forcing people to conform themselves to specific religious views is what "Freedom, Liberty and Justice For All" is really all about, eh?
Anyway, the biggest threat to the nuclear family is not gay or lesbian marriage, it's the increasing demands of our economically based society which keeps family members apart the most. Once upon a time, folks could raise an entire family with just one parent as the full-time income earner; which meant lots of time for the other parent to "be there" for children.
If you really want to save heterosexual, American or Christian family values, what you've got to do is make sure that lots of time is spent on nurturing and maintaining strong emotional bonds.
The families that do stuff together, stay together; proportionately.
MOMMA P. -- Not to detract from your most excellent quote and point about splinters, beams and vision, but a "beam" would be more like a 6 X 6 (or larger); rather than a 2 X 4.
... a 2 X 4 doth not a beam make.
Criticism taken and noted for further comments.
Thank you.
(and that's sick - very sick)
you can go to your haven
Where exactly do the hermaphrodites go when they die?
It would be like making a constitutional amendment banning sheep farms, because the beef raisers see it as a threat to their lifestyle? (Which actually almost happened back in the old west.)
I would highly question this figure.
How did they conduct the survey?
How many people were surveyed?
This is very misleading.
They could have interviewed 3 people and come up with these stats.
Funny, but true.
R.I.P., Mildred Loving,
The Yolo, County (California) Clerk's take on same-sex marriage, and
40 Years of Loving
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And how do people end up having more than one or the other?
From the Christian view, doesn't God decide at the person's point of conception how such things are proscribed? Which would mean that God made them that way.
So, if God made us each in His own way, and God is going to judge each and every one of us at His end, and according to His own merits, who are you to step up now and try to do God's job? eh?
Can you not wait on God's time, for God to do His own job?
There's a darn good biological/evolutionary reason for it, which, as many astute commentators above have pointed out, is found evident in all of humanity's most enduring and peaceful civilizations. Just look at the True Americans, who many of them engendered three genders into their cultural patterns, to wit the Lakota winkte, who, due to their empathic natures, were relegated the roles of teachers of children.
I believe marriage is the union of one man and one woman.....
I am ok with a civil union for gay couples that gives them the same legal status as a married couple.... but I think the term "marriage" should be reserved for heterosexual couples and I really, really don't understand what the objection of the gay community is to that.
It seems to me that by trying to force the issue and have their relationships termed to be "marriages" they are alienating many people in the society who would otherwise support their right to legal equality..... If they do not like the term civil union, let them think of another term that they like..... but not marriage..... that is for one man and one woman..... There is a whole world of words out there.... why can't just one of them been reserved for us....
Perhaps the gay community needs to re-evaluate their position on gay marriage and display some level of sensitivity to the rest of us.... respect is a two way street..... If they want me to respect their right to have their relationships legalized and to have the privileges extended to them that go with that legalization, they need to respect my right to have my marriage remain what it has always been.
Have a magical day.
Wasn't the First Commandment from Moses, "Do Not Kill!"
How dare all these fundamentalist Christians then advocate we kill several hundred thousand innocent Iraqis to get to one idiot who yanked on Bush's OILy chain!
How's that one equate with all this diversion from the issue of this article?
Or are these Bible thumpers then not doing exactly as those they condemn in small minority pockets of Islam, where the hallucination of a wrath of God has gotten mixed up with the neurotransmitters from our jungle heyday as monkeys hyper-vigilant over tigers and patriarchal dominance display to be the carriers of genetic material.
Fine.
And while we're at it, since "marriage" is a religious word, it shouldn't be used in government at all.
So Angel, I presume you're OK with being civilly unioned to your husband, unless you were "married" in a church? So there will be no more marriage by justice of the peace, and ministers and other administrators of the faith will no longer be vested with power by the state to marry; they will only be authorized to perform civil unions.
So man-man, woman-woman, man-woman, woman-man, it will all be civil unions as far as the state is concerned.
I don't have a problem with that.
Do you? Do you want your 32 years of "marriage" to your husband to be referred to by the government as a "civil union"?
Because, after all, remember Brown v. Board of Ed? Separate but equal does not equate equal. So if we're going to do it for one, so must we do it for all.
But I'm down with that. Again, my question is, are you ok with it, with the government viewing your legal relationship with your husband as nothing more than "civil union"?
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Having said that, since the beginning, people have received different signals to their brain regarding who is attractive. I don't claim to understand neurology and the brain, but I do understand what has happened for thousands of years is natural. I am a pragmatist. I cannot discount something that other people feel that I do not share. I can't wear everyone's moccasins, although I try. What occurs is natural, what has always occured is natural. I don't like murder and mayhem, but apparently, it's natural. What you say is a lifestyle is something that people can't change about themselves. I don't know how many friends I have that have tried to change and be with the opposite sex, but it doesn't match the signals in their brain. As I said, I am a pragmatist. The brain is a beautiful thing that doesn't always follow what society wants. To me this is all about not accepting what is not understood.
In Native American society, gay/transgender members of the tribe were called Two Spirits because God gave them both spirits. The original peoples understood that it was natural because it was, and they accepted it because it was.
I know that you and I will never agree on this topic, and you are very tolerant of something that you don't agree with. My parting take on this topic is that people used to think epilepsy was witchcraft until they understood that epilepsy was the result of the inability of the brain to manage electrical signals. Exorcisms have been done on autistic individuals in the belief that it was caused by the devil. I think that someday when all the research is in, people will have done the same thing - thought ill of something that God created, just like God created epilepsy and autism.
ahhh the memories *groan*
I'm not the person to ask about marriage. I've seen what a farce it can be when it ends in family court. It becomes nothing more than a one-sided contract at that point, and, for those people who are Bible-oriented, it's then that one sees wickedness in the place of justice, as was stated in Ecclesiastes.
I have to admit I'm somewhat mystified as to why gays want to adopt a failing institution unless it's about the couple benefits that are associated with marriage. If marriages fail so often, the institution of marriage hardly seems something so worth desiring.
Just my $0.02 -- and now that the penny isn't being made any more, that doesn't amount to much!
I mentioned the definition of the term marriage and my feeling that it should not be changed.
I proposed that a new term be found for the civil union of gay couples and that that union be legally the same as marriage.... same ceremony... same laws.... same services offered by the government in the same facilities by the same people.... just a different name for a different type of couple.
Brown vs the Board Education dealt with different services offered by different people in different places not being equal and in fact not being the same. They decided that those separate, but equal services would not in fact be equal due to their separation in person, place, and services rendered.
The situations are not comparable. Same service different name does not equally compare to different services by the same name.
My marriage of 32 years was joyously entered into as a special union between one man and one woman and it should be allowed to continue that way.
Angel
The examples that you give are not discussing the same service by a different name.
I do not understand why you want to change the meaning of the word marriage.... It is like gay people suddenly decided that they would rather be called heterosexual and wanted to change the meaning of the word to include homosexual behavior and demanded that the meaning of the word heterosexual be changed to reflect their wishes.
Nothing you have said has been helpful in increasing my level of understanding of why we should have to change the definition of the word "marriage".
Angel
but "generally" marriage is understood as the joining together of two separate things. Such as the marriage of thought and philosophy, science and art, people to a church.
Marriage is a joining which takes place at an extremely deep level.
I suppose if "marriage" is redefined to only mean the union of one man and one woman, then scientists will also have to come up with a new word to describe a blending/joining together of separate things.
Somebody call Webster.
I just don't want to change the meaning of the word "marriage" to include unions between same sex couples. Let them select another word to describe the union of a same sex couple.
Angel
Everything else you compared homosexuality to is something that creates, or involves, an unwilling victim.
Gays and Lesbians are lovers who give themselves willingly to the relationship's specific activities.
And that is a HUGE difference.
Unless government is your religious figurehead, their labels should not affect the speciality of your relationship.
It makes me wonder how special a union can be if it is destroyed, or threatend, by some government applying a label on others?
Like feeling special about being an American.
It's not about any government legislation regarding what an American is. The speciality is in how you (the individual) feels about being an American,
My husband and I were married by a notary on a boat sailing down the Withlahochee River in Hernando Florida. We are no less or more married than anyone else.
If we continue to allow the government to mandate things like this then like anything else you give them an inch and they will take a mile.
And who knows the next law might actually affect people like Angel or Donald..now wouldnt that be a shame?
Marriage has been shaped by the Bible in the western hemesphere. It's perameters have remained steady although people have long chosen to ignore many of them. The Judeo/Christian social culture of the expectation of marriage has been chosen, even by atheists. It has become the accepted social custom. Till death due you part.
Now you that are gay are trying to force us to change the entire definition of this deeply held tradition. That is very selfish of you. You want to pull marriage up by its roots and redefine it's meaning; changing the words of God to your own words.
You have the same freedom as heterosexuals; no more, no less.
Marriage is based on God. If you want to reject that, fine.
Create a different union; call it what you please; draw up your own rules; petition the state for the same priveleges it has granted Marriage. That is your right.
I get my back up when some of the gay community begins to force me to acknowledge that gay is eqaully as normal as hetersexual. I know what the Bible teaches. No matter how much you try to twist it, same sex is condemned as wrong.
But if I'm in a discussion I am call bigoted and hateful.
What those particular gay people are saying is "You must now turn from your God and allow us to be your god. We will tell you what to believe. And if you do not adhere to us we will despise and abuse you. They can't just live and let live. They are the ones I have no respect for.
I'm injecting something here from a parallel conversation at another article, since Gina's comment was so inspirational.
from the article "God":
In researching the motion of distinct cultural groups - looking at language bases, such as the Dravidian and distinct austric, and interpreting burial rituals etc. - prior to the emergence of the Vedic Indus-River valley societies, we find several strong influences, including a flow from a highly successful group from the Australian archipelago region, long before their more recent dream-time concept of reality. These groups seem to have also influenced the foundations of what later became the cultural centers of the Tigris-Euphrates Nile, Greek and Chinese river societies. Many of them appear to have been matriarchal and stable for thousands of years. A few theories suggest that these matriarchies and egalitarian cultures fell apart due to their abilities to predict and then survive severe droughts, and that under such stressful times, aggressive patriarchal groups capitalized on their resources. There are also several theories that suggest how many of these matriarchal patterns (who all naturally accepted transgender) may have passed on in the flow of cultures across the Sino-Russian continent, over the Bering straight, into the Americas. Isolated from these counter-influences until recent history in several Himalayan regions, exist to this day some small matriarchies. In one such society, when a boy is born, he is wrapped in a blanket with a predominantly female symbol on it. When a girl is born, she is wraped in a blanket with a predominantly male symbol weaved into it. This was to symbolically give each gender its archetypal path to integrated balance.
Among many of the Native American plains tribes, like the Lakota, there evolved three genders, each with their often equally respected roles. Their winkte gender, who often wore half male and half female attire, were often considered their respective tribes' best teachers for their young. Many American indigenous societies embraced significant half-male, half-female power sharing attributes in their cultural patterns, as some interpret to be matrilineal (the female inherits all forces to do with descendancy, ie: the male who marries necessarily becomes a part of his wife's social group and the land they occupy, also dominated by the female power). In my study of native American culture, I've often been told locally that the very notion of a European type anthropology, with its inherent biases, analyzing and interpreting their folklore and rituals has really upset them. I found this very significant on the Di´neh Nation (Navajo Reservation). The Navajo might have one of North America's most European-studied creation stories, due to the Christians who attempted to convert them on behalf of a very frustrated US Army in the pockets of Utah ranchers and later, mining concerns. The Navajo, like virtually all North American native societies, actually never found the need to evolve a Western style written language. That language exited at the deeper level of rituals and symbols, such as beads, weaving, totem poles (like with the Nootka of the Northwest coat) and other features most of us would have a hard time wrapping our minds around. God, religion, shamanic-natural spirituality and "government" were not dis-integrated. When the first Spanish Conquistadors came to the Navajo, after having tortured to submission the more agrarian Hopi in the lowlands, a Franciscan priest empowered by the Pope to capitalistically determine if "pagan societies" had a soul approached a Navajo clan, and held up a cross: "Do you believe in Christ, God, who died on the cross for your sins... (in broken Hopi)." The Navajo shrugged their shoulders, pointed to the sky and the four directions of their Nation, and said something like, "This is our Mother and Father, our God. All of it is. That is so cruel to nail your God to a tree."
They stayed clear of those Europeans.
That pattern of thinking sits still in how many here are caught in their religious, albeit not-spiritual (imho), beliefs.
Regarding spirituality versus religion:
There are many paths to enlightenment.
Be sure to take the one with a heart.
- Lao Tzu
Implied: religion without heart lacks spirituality
Religion is a man-made institution, whereas spirituality would, by definition, transcend that.
The hell with politics now. Just give everyone who loves another the Constitutional legitimacy to do that.
For example, Alabama:
Title 30. Marital and domestic relations - Chapter 1. Marriage. § 30-1-19. Marriage, recognition thereof, between persons of the same sex prohibited.(=Ref.2, cited as the "Alabama Marriage Protection Act")
What is this Reference 2:
Marriage is a sacred covenant, solemnized between a man and a woman, which, when the legal capacity and consent of both parties is present, establishes their relationship as husband and wife, and which is recognized by the state as a civil contract.
Interpretation of the First Amendment's separation of church (religion) and State clause, from the 1992 ruling:
When the government puts its imprimatur on a particular religion it conveys a message of exclusion to all those who do not adhere to the favored beliefs. A government cannot be premised on the belief that all persons are created equal when it asserts that God prefers some.
--Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun.
For those of you who are objecting to same-sex marriages using a semantic obsession with the word "marriage" itself, here's a little history lesson. Until only very recently, everywhere in the world - and that includes the "Christian" west - marriage has been a financial agreement between two families. "Love" was never involved; it was an agreement between two families that involved the trading of money and property for the lives of two people, an agreement that basically united two families. The concept of marrying for "love" only came in in the 1800s, and really only in the west. So all you "Christians" who object that same-sex marriage changes the institution of marriage - YOU already changed it significantly in the last two centuries. This is only a further evolution of the process YOU started, so get over it!
For the record right now, I am for a union for any one who wants one. I don't like the idea of church and state being together on this thing. So, I got married by a judge. So, my union is not church-based. It is not a sacrement, it is a legally binding contract.
Why can't gays have what I have? They don't need to do it in a church, they can have a legally binding contract same as Bill and I do.
I still have no idea how gay marriage devalues the state of marriage in our country.
You know, wife-beaters have done more damage to the state of marriage in this country. How come you don't see fundamentalists fighting that sin?
I am a Californian, born and bred. My state isn't the only one trying to allow some basic rights to a group of people in this country. And I am proud to say that. It's about time states took on this whole idea and did the right thing.
By the way, we have changed the laws about marriage, already. We made it legal for whites and blacks to marry. Do you think that was wrong too? Should we take that back? Hmmmmm.
To say that "the Bible created marriage" because it is mentioned therein is laughable.
One also needs to respond to the unhistorical dishonesty of linking the fate of Rome to the subject of same sex relationships, sex roles, and the tradition of marriage.
Like any civilization that endures seven hundred years (in history, that is - there is a longer "prehistoric" Rome), Roman values and traditions changed dramatically through the centuries. There were times of great looseness, and times of rigid, even puritanical, morals.
There is no correlation between Roman military and economic success and the adherence to traditional morality.
Rome reached it's greatest territorial expansion under some of the most depraved emperors, and was mortally threatened in times of rigid virtues.
The Decline and Fall of Rome has been much studied, and the roots lay in disastrous imperial compromises to which no one could summon the will or power to correct; a corrupted republican form of government that became an oligarchy of landowners, then a plutocracy of rich men; disastrous foreign wars that were financed with huge tax levies, an economy that became dependent on slave labor, a collapse in public belief/support of Roman Justice, etc. etc.
It is ludicrous to think that the Vandals and the Huns who overran and sacked Rome were better exemplars of "traditional morality".
Same sex attachments were rampant in these armies, and the number of same sex couplings undoubtedly rose when the "barbarians" reached the gates.
To say that "the Bible created marriage" because it is mentioned therein is laughable."
Peter, for those of us who believe the Bible ... marriage was instituted by God for the first man and woman. As people scattered across the earth they took the understanding of the marriage as given by the Jewish Godwith them. Basic stuff.
Surveys have indicated Californian's don't mind gay couples entering into domestic partnership, but want marriage reserved for a man and woman. However, however, where that might stand at the time of the vote is anybody's guess.
This type of venue is invaluable in showing a wide array of thoughts, and broadens our knowledge, regardless of how preposterous another way of thinking may seem to us. We are all better off for each of you who made a comment. Keep them coming, please. You probably either strengthened our resolve or caused us to give pause to a thought. The more knowledge we have, the better equipped we are to make intelligent choices ... and isn't that how we all like to think of our choices?
This post was originally written in another discussion to do with science, but I find it appropriate to include here... for the sake of our abilities to work together for a "more perfect union."
It is (probably) a wonderful thing, the evolution of a brain that can problem-solve not only surviving the often harsh issues presented by the various cyclings of natural events on the planet, getting beyond the daily or even hourly struggle to keep surviving all that, concentrating more and more genetic information to be even better problem-solvers in the process, and then learning through that brain of ours, small fragments of the mechanisms that bring that about.
But it was just a moment ago in time that conventional science believed bacteria and other microorganisms to simply spontaneously generate, until Pasteur and others disproved that. And then a bit later, a monk in Holland wondering about wrinkled peas, and a curious guy on a ship that sailed to some remote islands, and looking at how birds of a feather adapt differently due to variations in the ecosystems on those islands, began making us clever about the very macroscopic and microscopic scales of systems driving biological evolution.
In much of the "modern" world, we feel so safe in our homes, driving our cars on highways, going to stores with a bit of smart plastic to buy almost whatever we want, flick a switch at night to see, and another to entertain ourselves... and we feel more and more isolated from the hierarchy of powerful carriers of forces in the universes raging all around us, and locked up in substances under the earth we walk, with a relatively fragile energy umbrella high up in the atmosphere naturally shielding us from most of all that coming from the sun and distant other bodies. Or something old, heavy and unstable in the ground, residual from old interactions, reaching up from industry having exploited a feature in it, and dumped some of it near a farm, and somebody ingesting it. And let just one incident of those countless types of ionizing particles, or a massless gamma "beam, wave, packet" however one wants to frame that type of energy, slipping through all that, managing to transfer some of its potential or kinetic energy, like a pool ball striking another and changing the course of events in what it affected by transferring a bit of its energy in the encounter... in a cell that'll eventually undergo mitosis cell division, and several months later, after increasingly worrying about a growing patch of skin on one side of your face that's loosing feeling, your doctor totally rocks every notion you ever had of feeling safe and secure: brain tumor. That microcosmic transfer of energy had mutated one cell in the brain, and in dividing, its daughter cells began growing something "alien" in your brain that'll eventually overtake its "normal" functions on that scale, until all life in your body ceases to tick anymore.
You might get really ticked off at the universe for having produced energy or a bit of unstable substance to have made you sick, unless you learn that without all those (probably) 15 billion years of activity, time, space and everything within would (probably) disappear in less than a moment, and every thought pattern in your brain would simply never have existed... probably (smile).
And perhaps to survive some extra years, you are actually treated to a similar energy as had made you sick.
And after fear, anger and all sorts of emotions, perhaps, you get peacefully humble again as in childhood, and realize that our brains, no matter how clever, are not the masters of the universe. For inside the brain's smallest neuron cell's smallest molecule's smallest atom's smallest fundamental particle's smallest quantum property, "probably" sits attributes and horizons that "probably" have scales of influence that are infinitely unimaginable. Otherwise, what brought about the (probable) Big Bang. Much like the question, what were we before we had the first thought in infancy?
OK, so we can get humble through this sort of incidental, individual suffering. But that does not change the courses of behaviors among the rest of us nearly 7 billion arrogant slobs on the planet, who all too many of us are stupidly yelling louder and louder at each other over who is right or who is wrong about what makes anything on this rare planet tick, and who "owns" the minuscule of all that "ticking" that our minds have managed in some nearly improbable series of cosmic events to have provided us with to exploit... or creatively play with, to paraphrase some of Einstein's and other humble physicists' thinking in recent history.
If we'd just drop this ownership issue, cooperatively work together to better understand all these hierarchies of forces in our universe, from what's making the universe expand until probably not even an atom can remain stable anymore anywhere, to the solar and more local hierarchy of systems that for a few billion more years, probably could allow enough reasonably relative stability on this planet to continue functioning for human brains to keep evolving... so our hands can continue creating ever-evolving technological tools, to perhaps explore horizons outside even our solar system's life expectancy. But I fear that if we spend one more century with this patriarchal nonsense on our planet, a series of natural events - like having gotten mad at a pool game and and just hurled a bunch of cue balls onto a table with a lot of other cue balls moving about on our planet to regain without thinking a measure of stability, from energy systems driving the winds, oceanic currents and endless other systems so that the entropy locked up in all motion and energy destabilizes those systems that produced what we call life on Earth.
And each human organism on this planet can never ever isolate itself from all that.
Stop all that alpha monkey yelling at each other, dudes! For it generally is the male brai