Thread: If It's All The Same To You, Why Deny Others?

It took about 38 posts but someone finally fed you the red meat you were looking for Brad.

Originally Posted by jockeys

not good according to who? you? the masses have spoken and the majority of people like it. i realize our country was founded by prudes and puritans escaping from all the exciting sexuality going on in europe but seriously, it's a pretty recent idea that the human body is inherently naughty and seeing it is in any way bad.

Seems to me that Paul the Apostle wasn't too keen on it in the first chapter of the book of Romans a couple of thousand years ago.

To what masses are you referring ? In my state the referendum was soundly defeated. I voted in their favor BTW although I haven't voted in this poll.

As I stated FWIW in the other useless thread (IMO) on this same topic I am all for gays and lesbians having equal rights in civil unions. We all know what my being for it or against it is worth..... Nothing .

Just as bringing up these divisive issues in a forum devoted to straight razors and shaving is just stirring manure. If you stir it it stinks BTW. It ends up being a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.

I am going to go back to reading about straight razors and shaving with them. See ya'.

At one time there was no such thing as marriage and people didn't have last names. marriage was created for the benefit of royalty and the wealthy to pass on what they had including lineage and last names were created to collect taxes from people. Then the marriage idea filtered down to the upper middle classes and then the church got involved and mucked things up turning marriage into something it never was.

So when you say marriage is this and marriage is that its either your experiences and/or upbringing that has colored your thoughts to see marriage in whatever vein you see it as.

There is no absolute when it comes to marriage. Its not like you need oxygen to breath to stay alive or your heart must function to live.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

To what masses are you referring ? In my state the referendum was soundly defeated. I voted in their favor BTW although I haven't voted in this poll.

when i spoke of the masses i was referring to nudity on television, not gay marriage. i prolly should have included that in the quote, it's a little unclear at present.

Originally Posted by erictski

I voted to say that it shouldnt be legal...

Am I opposed to homosexuality...my social mind says well i dont care i guess...my religious mind says its not right...

but the main reason I dont feel it should be legal is because this may cause a trend of people that arent really homosexual to marry just for benefits like health insurance, tax breaks, stuff like that. And now that DOES affect me because my tax dollars are paying for it.

This is nonsense. You are suggesting that allowing same sex marriages will open a door for some as of yet unknown abuse of the system. You are suggesting that no one gets married now for reasons other than true love. I think you are joking or just plain old lying for your argument. I find it hard to believe you've never heard of "marriage of convenience" where platonic friends get married to reap the benefits of the married status. How about overseas bride catalogues?

Did you know there are organizations that take large sums of money from American men and fly them to a city in various foreign lands. Let's say you decided you would diig a hot little latina. You pay the organization $10,000. They fly you to Bogata and put you in a hotel room. A man will arrive at your room and march women past you. Once you have selected one, you will take her on a date. After the date, you either marry her or another bevy marches for your perusal. This time you are bound by contract to marry one from either group. The next day you are on a plane back home where you jump through the hoops of legally getting your blushing esposa into the country. The women you chose from all threw down the same amount of cash you did.

A few years back a very attractive young woman from Poland named Sabina met my brother through Alina, a Polish friend of our mother. Sabina was visiting for the summer and had to fly back to Warsaw in a month. My mother wanted to be a nice friend to Alina so she leaned on my bro untl he agreed to take Sabina to dinner in NYC where he lives. While at dinner, Sabina offerred my brother $25,000 and sexual favors if he would marry her before she had to leave. The funny part is that my brother is gay. He refused the offer. I was very disappointed. I was married at the time or I'd have jumped on that offer. I would have taken the cash and the sexual favors. But my brother needed neither.

Warning, monsterpost!

Originally Posted by Bruno

I am right.
Why am I right?
Because I say I am right.

No, that's NOT what I said. You asked who, I answered the question.

Humankind has a lot of things in its history that we thankfully abandoned.

Yes, just as human history has many things that we still maintain. Families are thankfully one of those. That is no argument what so ever either. So how about we both give up on that one?

Because then you have to maintain 2 complex legal concepts that affect a lot of things, instead of just one.

Even civil unions don't confer the same rights and duties as marriage atm, despite the fact that that is already existing for a long time. Creating yet another concept and updating all relevant legal and administrative texts is a metric ton of paperwork and overhead that is unnecessary because it doesn't change anything.

And if you allow for the concept of equal rights for civil unions, then the only difference would be to the people who are not affected by it, yet object to using the term 'marriage' on emotional grounds.

Actually you don't. Over here you can get a "registered partnership" which will legally grant you EXACTLY the same rights. It's not that big a problem, add a paragraph to the lawbooks which says something along the lines of "a registered partnership legally grants a person all the rights, obligations and priviledges (spelling?) which are granted unto a person that is lawfully married" and you're done.
As for emotional grounds, yes, we are human beings and are therefore EXTREMELY motivated by emotions. Do not underestimate the power of emotions. You seem to imply that emotions are a bad thing to be motivated by. Or am I misunderstanding this? Reacting to emotions is what makes us human instead of robots. I don't mind that.

Originally Posted by icedog

I thought someone would blurt out how if same sex marriage was legal (as it is in many countries) next people would want to marry their dog. I really thought that was going to be the far edge of ridiculousness. But Alex, here you topped that by a long shot! You are comparing same sex marriage to human sacrifice! Awesome, just awesome. We are talking about the joining of two consenting adults. The word marriage means any close joining or relationship. The flavors in a pot of soup marry. The pieces of a lawnmower are married to each other.

The funniest thing about your opposition to same sex marriage in the USA is that you live in the first country to legally recognize same sex marriage.

I don't really care for being called rediculous. I wasn't comparing gay ,ariage to human sacrifice. I was actually responding to your original question. Your question was: "if it doesn't harm you why should you care?" and I gave an example of why people care even if it doesn't affect them now. Because it could affect them in the future, or simply because they feel it is immoral.

As for marriage meaning nothing but a close joining, maybe it's like that in the english language but it's not the same in the other languages that I speak. In both Dutch and German a mariage can only happen to people. So how about we wipe that argument off the table as well since we're working with a very international group?

As for it being funny that I'm opposed to gay mariage since I'm living in the netherlands? I don't find that very funny at all. I happen to think that the whole of my government is made up out of a group of people that do not care what their population thinks one way or another, I have nothing but disrespect for those in parliament right now and most of those in parliament in past years. I don't agree with my government and probably won't on most things. I'm doubtfull that the gay mariage laws would have passed if those in power would actually have held a referendum or talked to the people that they're supposed to represent.

Originally Posted by jockeys

that's not what marriage IS, it's what you have arbitrarily defined it as. you're a cool guy and all, but just because you think something is, don't make it so. marriage is different for every instance of it. marriage means something totally different to me and my wife than it did to either set of our parents, and we're just garden-variety breeders!

Good for you, I respect you for having an opinion and having formed your own ideas, but so does everyone. So you're not quite unique in that. A lot of people during the forming of their opinion however find out that they agree with what their parent taught them.

the point is that arbitrarily outlawing it, even if it seems silly to YOU, is nothing short of tyranny and is an assault upon personal liberty.

So be it. Sometimes people do need to be told on what's allowed and what not. I know you don't agree on that but I personally think it's a good thing that there are laws for things such as these.

1. if my son is of consenting age, and is that dumb, he can go right ahead and kill himself, he's making the world a better place.
2. if you legally define marriage as 1 man and 1 woman, you are setting a precedent to make legal decisions about marriage in general. your point seems the opposite of valid here. writing it down in the law books opens the door for the whims of majority to control it in the future. deciding that the gov't shouldn't be involved AT ALL is the only way to preserve freedom for future generations regardless of their preference.

I don't believe you have any children do you? I know you're going to say that that doesn't matter but it does. Logically you might still say the same things about it if a situation had happened like that. However I seriously doubt that your feelings would agree, or those of the wife that you have to share a house with. To most parents their children are the world. And I don't think there are many parents out there in a situation such as that who'd be able to say "thank goodness he apparently was an idiot anyway, good riddance".



Gentlemen I thank you for your thoughts and hope you can hear mine out with the patience that I try to give to you.

My cousin went to one of those "family planning" places to see about an abortion, as she was in an economically untennable position at that time.

She was confronted/talked to by one of those crazy picketing sign wielders and re-considered what she was about to do.

My second cousin (i.e.- her daughter) is now 20 years old, and a wonderful person.

But why should those people have cared? Why should they have "denied" my cousin's *ahem* right to have an abortion?

Maybe it really doesn't matter to them, but it sure mattered to my second cousin!

Can someone also please spell out exactly what legal "benefits" I recieve as a married person? Seriously I'd like to know.


And so, why stump for legal rights for gays to marry, and not simply stump for equal rights for everyone, married or not?

In my opinion, the government should get out of the marriage business completely and leave this to religion. This is not to say that the government does not have an interest in or a need for a contractual agreement for domestic partners, gay or straight, but this interest is entirely based on secular issues such as property, support, and survivorship. Thus, I think everyone would be best served the secular and religious aspects of unions between consenting adults were severed. Under this system, all couples who wished could enter into a domestic union contract with the goverment, and these should be available to everyone regardless of sexual orientation. Religious unions would be handled by the appropriate religion, and would be totally separate and apart from the civil unions. Individual religions would be free to deny union to anyone based on the dictates of their faith. Religious unions would not, however, have any legal basis in the courts.

In my opinion, it is simply one person forcing their ideas upon another.

Is this wrong? Maybe. But maybe its only wrong because we have the luxury of debating about it. We can't know its wrong unless we are educated about the subject. Not so long ago, most of our morals came from the pastors at church. In fact, I would go so far to say that its not all that different today.

People are not generally leaders, people are followers. So if their church leader says "gay rights are a disaster and all gays should be crucified," then the congregation is likely to believe him. They are too lazy to actually research the subject themselves and blindly follow the authoritative figure.

Gay rights may not affect them in any financial way, but it is abhorrent to their beliefs and they probably can't even stand the sight of two men or two women holding hands in public. I would wager, that if they could have their way, it would be like Iran, where homosexuality was a prosecuted crime and the penalty was death.

Personally, I am a little turned off when I see two men publicly displaying their affection, but in the end, I know it doesn't affect me. I also know that their genes will likely die with them. Plus, its a great population control.

As an educated person, I see the big picture. I'm more concerned about global warming and whether my offspring will have a planet to live on. Or if they will have fresh water to drink and clean air to breathe. These are more pressing problems. I could care less about gay rights, honestly. But I think they should have them. Refusing gays rights is simply cruel and unfair. It is similar to punishing a minority for being of a different race. And as a minority, I empathize with that position.

I personally don't really care if they don't get "marriage" and its called a "civil union," but they deserve equal treatment. We don't live in an oppressive government. People in the US should be able to live the life they want.