I had hoped to stear this discussion away from any specific moral issue, but since this specific topic (and my opinion of it) has been brought up:
I'll say again that gay marriage is not about tollerance. You're talking apples and oranges. There are thousands and millions of groups and practices that are not formally recognized by our government as being good or bad, legal or illegal, and homosexuals are one such group. Homosexuality is currently tollerated: No one stops them from doing what they believe is right for them to do. Recognizing marriage is a big step beyond mere tollerance: It is endorsement. It is legal sanction. It is a proclomation by the state saying "this is good" and "we support this."
Yes. Yes they do. They stop a loving couple of consenting adults from being married: Legally and Spiritually. This causes considerable conflict for gay Christian couples who are forced to live in sin.
Gay marriage is like that: It is a state proclomation of the moral rightness of homosexuality. I am against the state making such a proclomation. I am for tollerance, but I am not for endorsement. If you think the state should endorse homosexuality, then make your case, but don't call it "tollerance," because it isn't.
No, the banning of gay marriage is the government stepping in to moral issues. Morality is best argued by the church and the parents. Laws that say who can and can't enter in to legal contract together is a terrible step away from freedom. You are welcome to argue that Adam and Steve shouldn't be married in the eyes of the Christian god, but that shouldn't make a bit of difference to the president or congress.
Before laws were passed that stated that marriage was between a man and a woman there weren't laws against homosexual marriage. The government had to actively BLOCK gay marriage. I'm not suggesting that state or federal governments should advocate gay marriage (or straight for that matter), just not block it.
We are not talking about simply giving homosexuals extra rights. We are talking about throwing out the deffinition of marriage and writing a new one, and those of us who view our marriages with great sanctity suffer injury from this.
How, in any way, does the signing of a legal contract between two adults ruin the sanctity of marriage?
Let's posit some arbitrary group, say the ficticious Central Illinois Go Club. To be a part of this club you have to live in central IL and play go every Wednesday night at the clubhouse. We who are in the club have agreed to its rules and enjoy certain privledge and status because of our affiliation. Good for us.
But then a group of chess players comes in and demands to be part of the go club. We say "Sorry, but we play go here. If you want to play chess next door, go ahead, and if you want to start your own club, we're fine with that." But the chess players are not satisfied. They say "No, we demand to be part of the go club." We say, "Uh, sorry, but, you see, if we let you play chess in here, then it won't really be a go club anymore. So, if you wouldn't mind, please go play your chess somewhere else. I know of a vacant building on 4th street you could use for a clubhouse." The chess players repond, "No! We will be part of the go club, and, moreover, we are outraged at the intollerance you go players show for our game! You're a lot chess-o-phobes."
The chess players then file a lawsuit to force the Go Club to allow chess at their meetings.
That's how I feel, and that's how I see it. If gays want to be gay, fine. If they want to live together in loving, manogamous relationships, good for them (and they can do it on my street too). If laws are passed giving them all the legal privlidges of marriage, I can tollerate that. But if they want to change the deffinition of my marriage to suit their beliefs, that's not fine. Leave me alone, and thank you very much.
Lets turn this around:
Your parents play Go. Your brother plays Go. Your sister plays Go. Your uncles and cousins, and neighbors, and pen pals play go. The President plays Go all the time. Your favorite sports stars play Go. Everyone on TV plays Go. You play Chess.
You've played Go, and it's just not your thing. You like Chess, you've always liked chess and you will always like chess.
All the Go players are members of the Greater Universal Alliance of Go Players, and only Go players are allowed in there. As a member of GUAGP you get special privileges, just for playing Go. You don't have to be good at it, or play often, or you can play way too much and cheat at it, but as long as you play Go, you get the privileges. Those privileges you are entitled to are, say, $5000 a year, a new car, and a membership card that lets you use the hotel swimming pools anywhere in the world.
Everyone plays go, so everyone gets the $5000, and the car, and they all hang out at the pool. Big deal. Everyone does it. Some people don't even care that they get the benefits, they just love playing Go so much that they'd do it with out the perks. But, you know from your childhood that not
everyone plays Go. Some
weirdoes like to play other games. Some people who just aren't
Ok.
You're one of those people.
You're an outcast because you don't like to play Go.
A few people tell you that playing chess is "wrong", but people look at you funny, and they don't like talking to you. Although there aren't any laws saying that playing chess is illegal, there are laws saying that not playing Go isn't ok.
So you don't get the $5000 everyone else gets. And you don't get the new car everyone else has. And you don't get to hang out at the hotel pools like everyone else. You’re told that that’s fair. Go players stand around and say "What's wrong? It’s still legal for you to play chess, isn’t it? You're still allowed to drive a car, aren't you? You can still have a job. You can swim in the ponds and public swimming pools, just not the hotel pools like
normal people do. So why are you upset?"
Is that fair?
Is that tolerant?
