Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
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"Yes, I'm being a bit extreme here, but practically any governmental definition we end up for marriage , whether we allow gay marriage or not, is likely to be logically full of holes and legal nightmares."
Well, gay marriages were legalized two years ago in my neck of the woods, and yet none of the forecasted (fundie) doomsday scenarios have actually come to pass since then, so I really don't see why all social hell would break lose over them elsewhere.
Registered: Nov 1999
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Um, so I have what ought to be a question to those who might possibly oppose this: How could allowing two people who love one another to be joined in a legal and spiritual sense possibly ever hurt you ever?
My sister lives in San Francisco with her girlfriend of 6 (7?) years. They haven't gone down to City Hall yet. But seriously, to discriminate against them if that was something they wanted to do just seems wrong, doesn't it? I mean like akin to saying that people of different races couldn't inter-marry. I think marriage ought to be sacred and precious and spiritual and a big deal�, but that's a personal belief and I would never presume to impose it on anyone. Last I checked there were plenty of adulterers, divorcees and even spousal abusers in the heterosexual world, so it's not exactly like it's some unblemished bastion of morality.
Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
Agree. Wil Wheaton said it nicely. Whether two gay people can legally marry in no way threatens my relationship with Anne [his wife]. In fact, the only thing that can threaten our relationship... is us."
I really hate the conservitism trend of shoehorning their beliefs on others. I think the only way we're going to survive this is to somehow manage to beat the inertia and raise a generation of freethinkers -- kids whose first-grade education starts with the basics of the scientific method: testing the validity of an idea, be it theirs or someone elses. Logic and critical thinking are essential if you're to have someone who doesn't let others do their thinking for them.
Let all those who fear change go find a nice cave to hunker down in. And no sneaky using fire or tools. We'll have to take those clothes away, too. Plus glasses, contacts, fillings, crowns, dentures, or any other technological artefact.
--Jonah
-------------------- "That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."
--David "Woody" Wooderson, Dazed and Confused
Registered: Feb 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Balaam Xumucane: Um, so I have what ought to be a question to those who might possibly oppose this: How could allowing two people who love one another to be joined in a legal and spiritual sense possibly ever hurt you ever?
So (and I hate to do this), how does allowing two people who happen to be related but who also love each other (in that way) to be joined in a legal and spiritual sense possibly hurt you?
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
"...or any other technological artefact."
Like books. Can't have printed paper in there either.
Registered: Nov 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Cartman: "Yes, I'm being a bit extreme here, but practically any governmental definition we end up for marriage , whether we allow gay marriage or not, is likely to be logically full of holes and legal nightmares."
Well, gay marriages were legalized two years ago in my neck of the woods, and yet none of the forecasted (fundie) doomsday scenarios have actually come to pass since then, so I really don't see why all social hell would break lose over them elsewhere.
I never predicted a thing. Logic holes do not have to be resolved immediately. As a member of a forums that regularly discusses Enterprise, you should be painfully aware of this fact. Its just that some of us appreciate and prefer some consistency in our laws and application of said laws.
Registered: Mar 1999
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
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Good luck rewriting most of them, then.
Registered: Nov 1999
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I again have to ask why it couldn't just as well form a psychological bond between one man and one man or between one woman and one woman, why it would cause emotional harm when used out of man-woman context, or why it would be cheapened by non penis-in-vagina activities.
The point is that such a bond is inherently unhealthy, because...
Don't say "it's not how life is intended to be lived", because that's a circular non-answer.
...it's not how life is intended to be lived. There is one specific way to live life, among quite a number of varities. That one way, due to the design and nature of life, is the only healthy and good way to live. Living life in any other way is therefore Not Good. It's not circular, you just disagree with my premises.
But that author of life also created homosexuality
No more than he created greed or pride or envy. He simply created humans with the capacity for anything they care to think or believe, and the free will to live life as they choose.
Oh, please, let him counter that homosexuality was obviously created by the other guy. . .
Well, you can't very well have homosexuality with just one...
I may be wrong, but Omega's point seems to be that the religious and economical versions of "marriage" should be kept seperate.
Slightly wrong on two counts. What I actually proposed was eliminating a legal concept of marriage all together. Further, I didn't advocate the idea, I simply proposed it.
a psychological (tho I prefer to say spiritual) bond
Looking at the reaction to the word, you can see why I used a different one.
how do you explain the couples who have stay together for decades without legal or social benefits to do so?
I didn't say such relationships couldn't possibly work. I said they weren't good for the people involved. They lack relationship with God.
While I agree that sex is about fellowship (which results in pleasure and procreation), I think that it cheapens sex more to regard it as shameful outside the marriage context. True, sex can be more easily abused outside of marriage, but I see so many Christians put shame around it that I find it difficult to believe a shame so engrained would disappear overnight (literally). And how are they to have the psychological bond if the glue is weak?
Regarding sex as shameful in and of itself is damaging, I certainly agree with that. However, that doesn't change my arguments about sex outside of marriage being harmful and/or cheapening its value.
What about incest? Yes, its "icky" to think about siblings marrying and having children but genetically its no worse than say two people who are guaranteed to have gentically defective children.
Well, again we have the same issue. Siblings may not be able to get married, but so far as I now they can still live together and have sex and even have babies if they're so inclined. Like homosexuals, why should they care?
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
Registered: Mar 1999
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... You're joking right? Incest is legal in the states? What, is this some holdover from believing that everyone came out of Adam and Eve's children doing the nasty repeatedly?
At least in Canada:
quote: Incest: 155. (1) Every one commits incest who, knowing that another person is by blood relationship his or her parent, child, brother, sister, grandparent or grandchild, as the case may be, has sexual intercourse with that person. Punishment: (2) Every one who commits incest is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding fourteen years. ...
posted
Well, it doesn't appear that incest is a federal offense, but, at least in Missouri:
"1. A person commits the crime of incest if he marries or purports to marry or engages in sexual intercourse or deviate sexual intercourse with a person he knows to be, without regard to legitimacy: "(1) His ancestor or descendant by blood or adoption; or "(2) His stepchild, while the marriage creating that relationship exists; or "(3) His brother or sister of the whole or half-blood; or "(4) His uncle, aunt, nephew or niece of the whole blood." -section 568.020, Missouri Revised Statutes
It's a class D felony (up to four years in prison). I didn't check any other states, but I suspect they all have similar laws.
Interesting that the Missouri law doesn't provide for "uncle, aunt, nephew or niece of the half-blood". So, a person could legally have sex with their half-sibling's child, or their parent's half-sibling.
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Originally posted by PsyLiam: So (and I hate to do this), how does allowing two people who happen to be related but who also love each other (in that way) to be joined in a legal and spiritual sense possibly hurt you?
Well it wouldn't, probably. I mean unless they had a kid who came out violently malformed and it sunk its big, crooked single tusk through my infant's spine or something. No, I find it wrong and generally reprehensible and fucked up and weird, and probably so would most folks. But that's my (our) morality. And I don't know that my morality needs to be codified in constitutional law.
And but for example someone, say, Omega, feels that homosexual unions are wrong and un-natural and that my sister is a dirty, dirty Soddomite who will undoubtedly suffer the torments of hell for her manifold sin of falling in love with a beautiful, loving and caring person who happens to not have a dick. And it's entirely his right to believe that. He's entitled to his beliefs, and I must respect that. It's even his right to tell her that, to warn her if he so desires. And it's also her right to believe that he's a self-righteous psycho-fundie cock with a morality complex and a grossly repressed infantile sexual impulse which will only end in frustration, misery or (ironically) a pattern of deviance. And she has the right to tell him that. Those are their rights. But why does there need to be a law if this natural one is so blatantly obvious?
Does everyone get a law based on our morality? How could that be even remotely possible in a nation of millions of opinions?
Please explain to me how my sister, who loves and adores this wonderful woman she's now lived in harmony with for over five years, could, by marrying this woman, be sullying the sanctity of marriage one iota more than these fucking "Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire" reality-TV shows? Is that natural? Where is that Constitutional amendment?
-------------------- "Nah. The 9th chevron is for changing the ringtone from "grindy-grindy chonk-chonk" to the theme tune to dallas." -Reverend42
Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
Ah, now there's an amendment I could give thought to supporting...
Registered: Mar 1999
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
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The point is that such a bond is inherently unhealthy, because... () ...it's not how life is intended to be lived.
Who are you to say your way is the intended way? Who are you to say that, even if there WERE such a thing, anyone who deviates from it is living an "inherently unhealthy" life?
There is one specific way to live life, among quite a number of varities. That one way, due to the design and nature of life, is the only healthy and good way to live. Living life in any other way is therefore Not Good. It's not circular, you just disagree with my premises.
Because your premises are flawed, yes. Seriously, homosexuality is unhealthy and bad because it clashes with your interpretations of the "design and nature of life"? You must live in constant angst.
No more than he created greed or pride or envy.
Those are character traits. Homosexuality is not.
He simply created humans with the capacity for anything they care to think or believe, and the free will to live life as they choose.
People don't choose their sexual orientation. So either this author of life is a real sadist, or... there is more than "one specific way to live" after all.
I didn't say such relationships couldn't possibly work. I said they weren't good for the people involved. They lack relationship with God.
Who are you to say what is and isn't good for them? Who are you to say they lack anything?
[ February 28, 2004, 05:10 AM: Message edited by: Cartman ]
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted
Well, it also depends on how close of a relative they've married. One of the most beloved presidents of this country, FDR, married his (I think) second cousin.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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