Same sex Marriage

If that happens and churches go broke and disappear that will be just an extra benefit of legalizing gay marriage.
Unfortunately that will not happen because they are already denying people to marry in church for different reasons and on top of that you have their child molestation history but they are still around. There are enough stupid people around to support this nonsense so you don´t need to worry.

 

LOL. It seems your understanding of democracy is limited to the simple dictionary definition. The real life is never that simple.
Can the majority in USA vote to kill all the blacks, Jews,...? According to your definition this should be possible but anyone can see how crazy it is.

 

An ad hominem defense? Should we discard any argument made in favor of gay marriage if it comes from the mouth of a gay, simply because the person may be biased in favor of it? Sorry Bush, but you are going to have to argue the points on their individual merits.

To the specific point you were arguing, do you have any evidence at all a married man is not responsible for child support for the child of a cheating wife? Any at all? Apparently, according to US Law, if the man is the husband at the time of the childs birth, he is responsible for child support, even if the wife divorces and then moves in with the real father. The truly shocking part, most cases continue to hold the cuckold husband financially and legally responsible for the child, even if a DNA test proves him not to be the father. Welcome to marriage. Such draconian laws provide a pretty good understanding of why the state is in the business of marriage.

Can I deny someone a job because they are black? How about if they are gay? The answer is no, I can't. I can, however deny them a job for personality issues, or for being under qualified, or for being a drunk.

Before the civil rights act, I could deny a person employment at will, for any reason, without risk of exposure to litigation. In this day and age, one has to tip toe very carefully with every employee, both in hiring and in termination, so as to avoid exposure to law suits, some frivolous, some not so frivolous.

Once marriage is declared a civil right, how can you honestly think Churches will not be exposed to the exact same type of litigation? Did you not read the article, talking about how Churches in Boston got out of the adoption business for the exact same reason? You might as well call it the "Drive churches from the wedding business" legislation. Whats next, a law requiring Muslims to eat pork?

Question. Does the word "excommunication" have no definition until the state defines it? How about the word "adoption"? "Birthday"? Words have commonly understood definitions long before the state defines them. Sometimes those definitions change over time, but please, lets not try and pretend John Howard invented a definition for the word marriage that was not already the commonly understood definition of the word.

 

I wasn't attacking his catholicism, just making the point he's coming from that angle, which he states in the article. Happy to debate his points.

Strawman, as we don't have that problem here, but i'm sure it could be fought and won. It's not justice being forced to pay for someone elses kid. It makes no sense at all. If it doesn't make sense it's not true. (Judge Judy)

Can you force a gay priest to marry a hetero couple? It's a strawman too. Priests can choose to marry who they want.

Yes, but you can still fire anyone for legitimate reasons. Another strawman.

Impossible. What, all of a sudden we'll force priests to go against their beliefs? Starting a sound a little tin foil hatty to me.

We in Australia are governed by the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_Act_1961_(Australia). John Howard defined the act to make it say marriage is between a man and woman in 2004. It was ambiguous whether gay marriage was allowed before that but now it obviously isn't. It's stated in black & white and will remain so until common sense eventually prevails.

 

Your declared his arguments were invalid because he is a catholic. That isn't a debate of his points.

First, a you need to look up the definition of a strawman argument, as you have misused the term throughout your post.

Secondly, "if it doesn't make sense it's not true"? Really? By that definition, we can declare radical islam to be a lie. The Holocaust? A public education system that charges twice the price of the private system and produces a quarter of the results? Jesus Bush. Things are true or they are not on their own merits. Whether those things make sense to you or not is not even remotely related to the truth of them.

You either didn't read or didn't understand the argument, along with the cited historical evidence that supports it's merit.

Do you not understand what exposure to litigation is?

Again, you protest in the face of real life examples from history, namely the Massachusetts gay adoption laws that drove the church from the adoption business. These are not complicated examples.

So prior to 2004, there must have been quite a few gay marriages since, as you say, it was ambiguous. Can you cite me one example? One? I'm certain thousands of people are married every day in Australia, so one example shouldn't be too tough to come up with.

 

You must be a little slow. First of all the USA is not a democracy. It is a constitutional republic, Democracy is a feel good term that Americans often use. The USA has been considered a "democracy" for a few hundred years despite having trampled on the rights of ethnic minorities for the majority of those years, in fact for almost all of those years, until very recently.

So as I said earlier, in modern democracies, the protection of minority rights is a symptom of democracy, not a defining factor of it. Your modern definition of democracy has no historical basis in fact, policy, or reality. Your statement is equivalent to calling the world flat because that is what it looks like to the human eye, because you have never sailed all the way around it.

And no a majority of citizens in the USA cannot vote to kill minorities because the USA is not a democracy, it is a constitutional republic, a fact that you do not seem to understand.

 

There are lawsuits for everything against everybody. It doesn't mean they have a chance of getting their way. Couples don't need a church to get married, so I say quit whining if their priest doesn't want to go against his beliefs. Obviously, they could find another church or go without one.


As many experts have pointed out, the Supreme Court is unlikely to issue a broad decision regarding gay marriage. They are likely to conclude that it is better suited to the states to decide. They would not rule gay marriage legal in California and then reverse all the other states that have voter approved bans. It would be a huge violation of the rights of the states to overturn voter approved legislation because of one states case.

 

As I understand it, that is the intrinsic value of government-sponsored marriage - to protect children. While married, parents have legal responsibilities with regards to children. It's my understanding that marriage makes it difficult for parents to walk away from their responsibilities.

And the AMA, APA, AMP, etc. all say the same thing - medical research clearly states that a child's psychological well-being is best served by parents one male one female.

It's a fact, a cold hard fact, that an adult's relationship with women and relationship with men is directly related to their childhood relationship with their mother and father, respectively.

Same-sex parents can be psychologically damaging to a child. I was shocked to discover this.

And just to clarify - a Democracy grants and rejects rights. A Republic protects rights. California's process for changing their state Constitution is a straight up democratic vote

The ultimate symbol of a democracy is a lynch mob (ex: Socrates).

 

OK, maybe I am wrong about this and maybe I have based my comment on some interpretations I have heard before. But I also did a quick search and saw this:

http://www.openbible.info/topics/politics


Romans 13:1-7

And then there is:

Matthew 22:17-21

The way that I read it:

"Obama is instituted by g;-d and whatever decision he makes, we should be cool with".

 

I don't know about that. If refusing a marriage to a same sex couple based on the same sex nature of their relationship is determined to be discrimination by the high court, you can bet your ass those lawsuits are going to get settled in favor of those "discriminated" against.

So I've been hearing some interesting and conflicting punditry on this topic. Maddow says if the court does not issue a broad standing decision, that would mean the ruling from the lower court stands. Regarding prop 8 specifically, the lower court ruled it unconstitutional. When it comes to the constitution, I have always been under the impression the SCOTUS is final say so, so they would have to not rule at all to let the lower court's decision stand, IMO.

Alternatively, they could decide narrowly that prop 8 was not unconstitutional, and therefore let the will of the electorate stand. They could also decide narrowly that prop 8 was unconstitutional, but not let that ruling be used outside of the state, or on future cases.

In other words, even though they have hinted at issuing a narrow decision, the outcome of prop 8 is unknown.

If that information truly exists, it is as little known as the fact there is no real scientific evidence second hand smoke causes illness of any sort. I would be interested in seeing credible links to credible scientific studies if you have them.

I know this much. There are enough horrible heterosexual parents that it would be hard to do worse. If the psychological damage they are referring to is social stigma, that to me smacks of something to be worked through. Mixed race couples probably suffered psychological damage from social stigma less than 40 years ago.

 

The well being of children ... well, it is all debateable what is good and what isn't. But one thing:

It should never be political and about gay rights or any type of adult based rights. That is what I have an issue with. Children's rights should come first.

 

If I had been asked about gay marriage, let alone gays, 3 decades ago I'm sure I would have responded with revulsion. (at least among straights). Two decades ago, my reactions turned the corner, when one person I knew to be gay acted so nobly, with such generosity, and kindness, that it knocked me out...and I was forever grateful.

Unfortunately forever was a short time. Unknown to me this person had HIV. Shortly after the event I recall, he came down with AIDS. In a year he passed away. I saw him a good bit over that year. He was a brother to my closest friend and stayed at my friend's home quite a bit. It was a miserable death which I watched proceed over the course of a year. He withered away. I was speechless for the most part over that year.

What was doubly tragic was that shortly after that death the combination medical cocktails that prevented HIV from turning into AIDs were finally found to work. Millions of lives were saved. Not my friend's brother.

What was incredibly tragic was that during the decade before that as medical research worked feverishly to find antidotes to AIDS, funding was continuously hampered by the Conservatives in Power and the Christian Right. I knew AIDs researchers during the 1980's. Medical research is an incredible process of trial and error, trial and error. More funding would have resulted in more trials and possibly quicker results to finding if not a cure, at least a way to stop HIV from becoming AIDs. Tragic that stupid politics and fundamental religious efforts blocked more funding more quickly. It simply cost millions of lives and one person to whom I was deeply grateful for a tremendous act of human kindness and generosity.

During the following two decades I've gotten to know many more gays. My old prejudices have disappeared.

Gay marriage is not a big deal to me. What I know is that there is no deep difference among people, certainly not based on innate sexual preferences. What is apparent though, is that while marriage is a natural occurrence among straights it has been outlawed among Gays until recently. It seems a shame. The nation that has made an effort to lead the world in freedom and human rights has fallen behind other nations that have recognized the inherent equality of all people and embraced Gay marriage.

Who is against it? Iran is against it. Iran is a nation run under a most fundamentalist religion. In fact the President of Iran proclaimed a while back....."THERE ARE NO GAY PEOPLE in IRAN"

LOL Ha ha ha. What an idiot and an idiotic statement.

But surprise, while not a formal declaration, there is a county in the US where supposedly there are NO GAY people whatsover.....at least officially. But there are Gays there. Its an interesting read: http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/24/opinion/sutter-franklin-county-mississippi-lgbt/index.html

I mostly and innately have a lot of respect for formal religion and religions. But not when their premises are to force restrictive and oppressive views on everyone. Basically, in my experience that is every fundamentalist old line religion steeped in the orthodoxies of the past. That is true among Christians and Muslims and Jews, at least IMHO. These days and for the better part of the last 60 years fundamentalist Islamics have been on a killing spree. In earlier centuries the mass killers were Christians in the name of religion. Those are examples of religions at its worst.

I see no reason to block gay marriages. Per the commentary from the Supreme Court this past week there are 40,000 kids in California who are growing up with Gay parents. That is a ton of kids. I had no idea the number is so large. Those kids and their parents deal with restrictions that other married families don't face. Its a shame. It restricts their lives and adds hardships. There appears to be no good reason to do so....other than old fashioned primarily fundamentalist religious views and the fears and hatreds of some people.

 

What a load of codswallop you wrote there Corwin. All parents can be psychologically damaging to thier kids full-stop. So can the ice-cream man, and clowns. Heck, the milkman denying you credit can give some kids psychological problems. It's such an easy claim to make and likely just as true. When you grow up i'm sure you will see your biases, just like I did.

 

Never understood this sort of "reasoning". Including a previous comment similar. OK, so all parents can be damaging. And yes, there are also parents who kill their children.

In that case: Let us disregard everything in relation to discussing what is best for a kid and say screw it, let's wish them luck and not worry about what is good for them and what isn't?

This is generally speaking and not necessarily including or exclusively related to the topic at hand.

 

@Obamanation; As usual you create your own made-up story and base your conclusions on that or it must be the language barrier. Forcing priests to commit gay marriage will never happen, even though Americans love gaming the justice system.

Another sneaky trick? Both of us know homosexuality was illegal for most of the civilised world, including Australia up until 1989/1990. Gay people couldn't admit sleeping together, let alone think of getting married.

[ADDED] It seems when we started gaining our rights, our church-going PM, worried gays gaining equal-rights may lead them to want to actually get married, and knowing it was possible with ambiguous legislation, added a small part to make it impossible, which appeased his ACL (Australian Christian Lobby) mates at the time.

I believe doing so calmed down the loud-few who were railing against gay rights at the time so I am not claiming he did it for no reason. It was done for purely political purposes to appease religious sensibilities.

 

Because it's bullshit I guess. Some people are more averse to psychological damage than others. Why blame gay parenting when straight-parenting brings about the same result. Assigning blame for how, who and why somebody is arbitrarily 'psychologically damaged' is impossible.

Would you deny marriage to all hetero couples because some of them might psychologically damage their kids?

 

The problem is that children's rights are not being advocated as much as gay rights or the lobbying of the Christian right. You turn on TV, you see a gay rights activist vs a Christian right representative. And then comes a child advocate who hardly says anything afraid anything she might say could be considered politically incorrect towards the other two.

This is why the world, not the US, the whole world, is such a pile of shit, because goyims don't put their children first. 20 years from now people again will wonder what is wrong with society and I tell you what it is:

Nobody puts the future generation first, but rather expects them to turn out ok and only focuses on their own political, social or religious agenda.

 

What rights are being violated exactly? This thread is about same-sex marriage, not same-sex parenting however I agree children's rights should be priority.

I don't share this view. I think THIS is heaven, where everybody has what they asked for.

I'm not saying to discard his view at all, I'm saying take the fact he has religiously biased eyes coming into it and is coming from the tired old gay is immoral, sinful and 'creepy' mindset, whilst at the same time, yes, you should also take my view as having gay biased mindset, one who knows gays are just gays, with exactly the same problems as straights (i've lived both). Now put the two opinions together and decide what's right for yourself.
FTR; I'm probably not the right person to defend gay marriage lol, as stated earlier. i'm not really into marriage.

 

And yet that isn't what is being discussed in front of the court is it. The decision being weighed is whether the voters in California who overwhelmingly decided to block gay marriage for whatever reason, should have their will overturned by the court.

Curious. Was it then your intention to destroy your previous statement claiming John Howard somehow redefined the term "Marriage" for Australia?

I would have liked this post in its entirety except for your use of the word goyim(not sure you are even Jewish). There are still people who put their children first in this world who are not Jews. I just hired a 29 year old Vietnamese kid with an advanced engineering degree from a top school and a solid few years of referenced work experience for credible companies. His parents came to this country as refugees, without a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. I suppose it is no surprise his political leanings tilt to the right.

I didn't get any of that from his post. Sure he mentioned he came from Catholicism. Does that in your mind automatically make him a bigot? I find liberal ideology "creepy", does that make me a bigot?

You have once again provided evidence to a point I made earlier. The new mantra, which has already grown old and tired goes something like this. "Religious people are creepy, hateful, and bigoted". That kind of hateful stereotyping, has a wonderful culture of liberalism it festers and grows in . Given enough time, I can see the Southern Poverty Law Center classifying most religious groups in America as hate groups.

Invoking Earlpearl from a previous post, "through much of my life, I found religious people to be repulsive and stupid. Then I got to know a few, and I realized they are just ordinary people, just like my friends who are gay".

 

Thanks for reminding me why I don't get into serious debate with you. You live on your own planet dude, like seriously.
In 2004, John Howard changed our 1961 marriage act so it now said marriage is a union of a man and a woman. Twist it all you like, but it's true.