DynamicHalfDuo

Some of the fundamental flaws in the arguments of the Conservative Right:

"The nuclear family is the basic human unit for raising children. Gay marriage will undermine this institution" - based on not one, but TWO false premises. First off, the nuclear family IS the basic child-rearing unit - of a very select few, relatively recent western cultures. It's hardly the "standard" family unit, as any student of history or biology will tell you. Secondly, "allowing" homosexuals to marry (as though we have any right to forbid it!) will hardly "undermine" the existing heterosexual marriage system, and I challenge anybody to show me how it possibly could.

"Homosexuality isn't natural" - if you want to get technical, neither is the steam engine. All that aside, defining what is "natural" and what isn't is NOT the job of the government. It is against the most basic tenet of egalitarian government to provide for the creation of "second class citizens". Determining that someone is "less human" than someone else for any reason is the sort of rationalization that led to the Holocaust (similarly, defining a "fetus" as less human that someone that has been born already uses the same flawed logic, with the same tragic result).

"God abhors homosexuality" - BZZZZT! Wrong again! God hates no man, no woman, no child. And any Christian who claims to hate has rejected Christ at His most basic word.

Try again, Reactionaries.

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princess.tima

i just want to know how anyone could possibly be against gay marriages...
seriously. what do you stand to lose on that? are you maybe worried that you or your significant other might be secretly gay?
why deny 2 people happiness because they don't meet YOUR expectations of what marriage "should be"? are you going to teach your children to hate like you do?

and as for homosexuality "being unnatural"

the only unnatural thing is when gay people try to force themselves to act/be straight because society says it's "wrong" to be gay.

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Weaver

its simple to me, you love who you love! so you should be able to marry whoever you want! And no one, ever, has the right to stop you.

And as to waht tima said up there about when gay's force themselves to act/be straight and blaming society for saying its wrong, i agree with you. BUT, we are seeing change, with pride parades and other things, hopefully soon enough enough people will open thier minds all the way, if not just enough to accept love and stop trying to control it especially when its not thier love in the first place!

PS>
Yes, I am straight.

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Race 2 Da Beat

Telling two homosexuals they can't be married is like telling an interracial couple not to marry...

and it's just as bad...

Thats my opinion

Marry who you want, but remember, you dont need a piece of paper to proove you love someone

Kelly

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chipakapockets

No one, except for those getting married, should have a right to decide whether a marriage is acceptable or not. The only thing that should be important is the desire and ability to carry on a life long commitment. Yes, that means that those who divorce should not be allowed to marry. Marriage is a sacred thing which is taken much too loosely in modern days.

It shouldn't matter who is being married to who, ethnic origin, religion, or (as disturbing as this may be to everyone, including myself) closeness of relation. The important part of a marriage is happiness. In the case of the latter, however, such marriages should be discouraged, but should not be refused. If it is what makes someone happy, if it is a commital to their soulmate, then it should be allowed.

To further that, of marriage of siblings, just because they are being married, does not necessarily mean they intend to have children together. Maybe it is just a joining, because they have been close all their lives and will never find anyone else. Not a sexual joining, but an emotional and supporting one, with no intent for procreation, but instead, so their belongings can, by law, be left to their "significant other," in this case their sibling. Just a thought.


PLURR, Live it, Eat it, Be it,

Chip

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Psychick

I still don't understand how the two are AT ALL related.

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neverlandgurl

^^^^
my thoughts exactly

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GummiBear

If the bible says No gay Marriages allowed, then it would be wierd to just change that. Cuzz isnt the bible the word of godd?? I am not religious, and i never want to get married, but if you change the word of god, then its not even the word of god and then u might as well be praying to the damn Preacher at ur church...cuzz then its no longer the word of god...*sigh*,
If gay people want to get married, there will have to be something else, a new sort of marriage, a non religious marriage where someone just says hey! you 2 love eachother a lot! and you want to get married! so here u go get married!

At the same time it already seems stupid that marriage is mostly about law now anyway, so might as well just strip the religious godtalk from it, and then it would be ok for anybody to get married =D! yay for that!!

DynamicHalfDuo

Except A) the bible has nothing to do with law

and B) it doesn't say no gay marriages

RoB-B

i agree in pologamy

monogamy just gets way to boring

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chipakapockets

Religion has NOTHING to do with LEGAL marriage. Religion has to do with a religious union between two people, but not legal. This thread, as far as I know, was not about the RELIGIOUS ethics of gay marriage.

The Catholic religion has stated that they do not support gay marriages, or homosexuality in general, with their own reasons. That does not, however, mean that the entire world, and marriage in general, need to follow their rediculously outdated, homophobic and narrow-minded views. The Catholic religion is a hypocritical pile of rubbish and, like most other organized religions, should be abolished unless it can be led properly, according to its rules. Over the past centuries, this has already proved to be an impossible task for the Christian faiths. Their "God" must be long since dead, or he would not have stood idle, watching those acting in his name commit the attrocities which they have (the three inquisitions, the "Holy" crusades, only to name a few).

The only thing you need to marry two people is a judge. There doesn't have to be a priest to marry people, unless you want it done in a particular religious fashion.

PLURR, Live it, Eat it, Be it,

Chip

PS: Looking back on what I just wrote, I sound very angry. But I am. I /hate/ organized religion with a passion. Especially Christian faiths. They're a load of outdated, fearful rubbish. Their "God" is ancient and DEAD.

Weaver

Every civilization up until the fall of Rome ... and maybe alittle after i forget, had NO problem with gay marrages! Infact many would have a wife, and gay lovers on the side. the greeks even had a special army division composed entirley of gay males! So what happened? Why now in our society is it such a big contraversial thing? We shouldn't view this... or even THINK of gay marrages as a problem, because its not.

If every other past form of governemnt allowed it, I see no reaso why we shouldn't as well.

chipakapockets

The world is no longer accepting because Christianity has poisoned the minds of most governments and the entire world. Christianity encourages paranoia and the complete lack of acceptance and open mindedness. They claim to preach teachings similar to PLUR, but in reality spawn hatred and fear of the unknown and different.

Their savior, "Jesus," is little more than a political construct created over five hundred years of creative editing of Christianity's holy book, the Bible. Whatever there once was of that man is long since dead.

Ah, lest I get off track. The only reason, I believe, that the world is no longer accepting is because Christianity, the world's largest cult, has influenced every form of government (every form of public thinking, in general) to the point of utter fear of anything that is different from the societal "norms" which Christian leaders, or the "Holy Bible" dictate.

PLURR, Live it, Eat it, Be it,

Chip

DynamicHalfDuo

First - proposing that Christianity has influenced "EVERY" government in the world is a ridiculous claim, to say the least. Christianity remains very much a western religion.

Second - to believe that Christianity spawns hatred and fear of the unknown is only marginally more believable.

It is the misapprehension of the teachings of Christ that create the havoc you credit the faith with. A thorough understanding of the teachings of Christ leads one to a path like Mother Theresa, or Ghandi. An understanding laced with common misapprehensions leads to fear and paranoia - or rather, allows fear and paranoia already extant to express themselves in a way the individual sees as being legitimized.

To make such a blanket judgement of Christians is a fairly painful judgement to make, and I believe more than a little misinformed, but I don't blame you for it. It's an easy mistake to make.

RaverPrincess

Well here's my two cents.
I just recently got engaged to a man I love more than life itself. Even previous to getting engaged, I knew that I would never love anyone else except him. However, being married in the eyes of god and in the eyes of the law was very important to me. I realized that if anything (god forbid) were to happen to Ray, I would not be considered his 'next of kin' as far as the law is concerned. I would not have access to any of his money etc that would be left if anything were to happen to him. So on a legal standpoint, marriage was important to me. And on a spiritual level, being married was even MORE important. It means sharing those sacred vows in front of your family and god. THAT was important to me. There is something intensely reassuring about knowing he and I will be man and wife. Now, THAT being said...I cannot imagine ever having the gall and the insensitivity to ever presume to tell ANY human being that they were not entitled to feeling the very same way that I feel.

In a world where there is so much hate, why are we telling people they can't love each other? We should be creating a society where love like that flourishes instead of trampling on it.

I know how I feel about MY fiancee and how exciting it is to plan to spend the rest of our lives together, and whether you are gay or straight - EVERYONE is entitled to feel this way. It is for many people, a rite of passage into adulthood. Everyone whether man or woman, looks forward to finding that soul mate and pronouncing in front of god, family, and society that they are a united bond.

Just my two cents!

~Nadine~

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MrJakk

My stepdad ( who doesnt seem to like gay marriages, or gays at all) showed me the newspaper today and 2 gay men got married in san francisco with their babies on their chest. haha, aparently gay marriages are legal there weather ya like it or not!

good for them.

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Psychick

Birds Do It, Bonobos Do It
* If homosexuality is truly unnatural, why does it occur in 450 different species?

By Marlene Zuk


PERTH, Australia — Anyone who doubts the relevance of homosexuality in animals to the current debate about gay marriage should consider Roy and Silo. The two male chinstrap penguins live together at the Central Park Zoo in Manhattan, eat raw fish and are rearing a chick of their own — kind of like those sushi-loving San Franciscans who've been flocking to the courthouse in droves lately. Roy and Silo, the New York Times reported recently, have been inseparable for six years, having sex with each other and showing no interest in female penguins (who also showed little in them). After the pair tried to incubate a rock, a sympathetic keeper gave the penguins an orphan egg to hatch, which they sat on for more than a month. Then they fed the chick until it was able to fend for itself.

Animal homosexuality comes up in part because arguments against gay marriage often invoke phrases like "natural order," "natural law" or "crime against nature," which make it, well, natural to wonder about whether birds and bees do that, too. It turns out that sexual behavior directed at members of the same sex, up to and including copulation, is widespread among animals. According to Bruce Bagemihl, author of "Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity," some form of it occurs in more than 450 species, from plovers to bighorn sheep to, yes, penguins. We don't know how common it is in the wild, because if the sexes look alike, as they do in penguins, it can be hard to tell whether the members of a pair are male or female.

Scientists, who are as subject to social biases as anyone else, have often ignored or explained away homosexual behavior in animals, although the tide now seems to be turning. In primates like the sexually adventurous bonobos, smaller cousins of chimpanzees and close relatives of humans, same-sex behavior is now understood to be part of a complex social life in which sexual gestures are often used to defuse tense situations. So the idea that homosexuality is unnatural or deviant simply doesn't hold up when we compare ourselves to other animals.

That said, analogues to gay marriage in the animal kingdom can go only so far. If homosexuality evolved in animals, it has to have a genetic component. Obviously, Roy and Silo cannot impart the biological tendency to pair with another male to their offspring — they required the zoo equivalent of an adoption agency to obtain their chick. And exclusive same-sex pairing cannot persist in large numbers in a wild population since the genes associated with doing so by definition are not perpetuated.

But then, analogues to heterosexual marriage are imperfect in animals, too. Long-term pairing is rare, particularly among mammals; our only close relatives to exhibit it are gibbons, those long-armed apes that whoop like banshees across Asian rain forests. And as far as monogamy goes, we are not as devoted as many species, since partner changes and infidelity are common.

It is noteworthy that Roy and Silo belong to a species in which offspring are always raised by two parents. A similar male duo would be extremely unlikely in, say, peacocks, because male and female peacocks never stay together under the best of circumstances. Roy and Silo are still behaving like penguins in many respects, but if every penguin did exactly what they are doing, we would soon be sadly short of penguins. What that doesn't mean is that no penguin should do it, or that doing it is somehow unnatural or wrong.

President Bush declared that "marriage cannot be severed from its cultural, religious and natural roots," but those natural roots leave humans huddled in a defensive little group of monogamists that includes gibbons, snow geese, marmosets, a couple of kinds of cockroaches, and of course those two penguins, gazing out at the hugely nonmonogamous rest of the natural crowd.

This hardly suggests that we resign ourselves to the breakdown of marriage as an institution, however. As virtually everyone examining animal homosexuality has pointed out, whether or not animals exhibit a behavior is not grounds for emulating it. Marriage itself is a social and legal invention, not a literal translation of other species' actions. Roy and Silo can't get married, but neither could a male and female penguin. Neither gay nor straight marriage is particularly natural, if by natural you mean that it is found among a wide range of animals or rooted far in our evolutionary past. This should not bother us any more than it should bother us that we are the only species with flush toilets. At the same time, we should not view marriage as a cultural weapon necessary to keep our "animal instincts" toward sex with anyone, anytime, at bay. Animals — and people — do a lot of different things, and forming long-term pair bonds is one of them.

What, then, does the homosexual behavior we see in other species, whether or not it involves lifetime pairing, tell us? For one, it suggests that among animals as among humans, sexual behavior is about more than reproduction. People unfamiliar with life in the wild often envision animals keeping their sexual contact to a bare procreative minimum, where male and female meet, mate and part as soon as the plumbing has everything lined up. Among some species that's true, but among many others sex plays a more complex social role in communication and in competition. Female vervet monkeys will mate outside the time they are fertile, for reasons that are still not understood.

At some level, everything living organisms do is about sex, because reproduction is how we pass on genes. From a biological standpoint, anything that does not further our own reproduction — not the reproduction of others of our species, but our personal ability to perpetuate our genes — is useless. Viewed in this manner, staying warm is about reproduction, evading predators is about reproduction and regulating our heart rate is about reproduction, because without all of these we cannot pass on our genes, and if we do them without passing on our genes they are evolutionarily meaningless. Still, even if being warm is about sex, no one expects to get pregnant by putting on a sweater. Even behavior that is related to sex doesn't have to lead immediately and inexorably to conception.

Going back to the bonobos, a student I once had in my animal behavior class was confused by the idea that sex was used to resolve social crises. Imagine, I said, that you and somebody else both wanted something, like a banana. If you were humans, maybe you'd fight over it, but if you were bonobos, you'd have sex. The student still looked puzzled. Yeah, he said, but then who would get the banana? By that time, I replied, you wouldn't care about the banana

Psychick

Oh, and xRaVeRx? You still haven't explained what the hell incest and gay marriages have to do with each other. Please explain.

princess.tima

he can't, because it doesn't make any sense.
but hey, when ya talk out of your ass, it's mostly a lot of shit.

Psychick

Buuuuuuuuurn!

xdigitalxdreamx

omg!! gay ppl are sooooo adorable! and weddings are so pretty!
adoable and pretty means awsome!
i love the idea of gay ppl getting married its so sweet!
they should have took care of this along time ago!
YAY FOR GAYS!

PLUR
rave on
siouxsie

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PLUR
rave on!

siouxsie
----+----what you want 2B! in this industry! use that NRG! hardcore chemistry!!-----+-----

xdigitalxdreamx

chip you smartiepants! :P

PLUR
rave on
siouxsie

astralkid

Who cares if they agree with it or not... it is a fundamental right.

Kandy_Monkey

^^^^ I agree with you comletely....and if gay parents decide to have children and raise them...so what if the children grow up to be gay? That can happen too, and thats their personal lifestyle choice...someone saying "gay parents could have gay children" like your child being gay....is a defect! abuh! I think not! Encourge and love them anyway and be proud of their strength to stand up and be themselves in a world that makes it hard to be yourself.

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