Let's talk about GAY MARRIAGE!

[pixyperson]

I'm gonna chime in here, and I don't know if this has been said before, but honestly I already had a rant about this on facebook, and I think my point comes across clear enough:

 

I think that one of the main problems is the term marriage, and how it has religious and legal connotations. I support the legal recognition of a long term commitment, in this sense I support gay marriage, from a legal standpoint. That said, the government cannot force any religious institution to recognize a couple as "married". This means, that I don't support the government making churches, synagogues, temples, etc. marry people.

So is gay marriage a religious issue? No, in my mind, the governmental recognition of marriage is completely separate from a religious institution's. Thus I have no conflict allowing another institution, besides my church, to have different rules and customs on marriage. But I have no training in contract law, or political science, so I could be completely wrong.

 

This said I don't support people trying to make an institution recognize another institution's definition of "marriage" (Just to be clear this is a general statement), be it religious or otherwise.

[ineedalifeplease]

I'm going to casually get involved after reading a bit of this.

I think it's incredibly important that in society, people have the right to marry whosoever they please, be it a straight or gay marriage. Many people who have previously posted here are right in saying that religion doesn't really have a place in politics today, especially not in these modern, secular societies.

 

BUT AT THE SAME TIME religion has and will always be a significant part of society in general. Yes, it is on the decline in places like Britain and the US, but it is still a major part of many people's lives, and I feel they have the right to an opinion on it. Churches should not be forced to marry gay couples, if they feel it is against their religion, so be it. Many religious buildings and community leaders will, I am sure, accept gay marriage. It's the state that should have to perform gay marriages, not the church. You can't ask people to change their religious views on homosexuality, just ask them not to persecute, or infringe on your civil rights.

 

"I just wish we could all get along [...] and I'd bake a cake filled with rainbows and smiles and we could all be happy.."

- That girl that doesn't even go here from Mean Girls

[AmbiguousMuffin]

 

Churches should not be forced to marry gay couples,

This is NOT the issue and it never has been.

 

Gay marriage rights are based solely within the government and whether gay married couples recieve the same social benifits as straight married couples. The list of things this entails goes on and on and on and on, I will not go into that. Any church can marry a gay couple if they wish, but whether that marriage is legally recognized by the state is the issue here. And keep in mind that churches aren't the only places people CAN get married. As soon as that marriage certificate is signed, you're married. Whatever ritual you go through leading up to that is your own business.

 

So as you see, religion has no hold on the issue here. Any stigma religious folks have against gay couples is irrelevent. Don't like gay marriage? Don't get married to a gay person. Judge not lest ye be judged.

[Marae19]

I read a few bits in this forum, and I actually wrote an essay about this for philosophy about gay marriage in the US (even though I live in Holland). (Okay, honestly, the essay's topic was that the US wasn't as free as it said it was, and I also talked about rape, sexism and racism, but this is off topic).

And believe me, I am all pro being who you are and in my opinion, gay marriage should be legal anywhere in the world. This, unfortunately is not true, and I do realise that. Someone above me wrote that religion should have no place in politics, and I agree with that. However, it is incredibly naive to think that that will actually happen in the near future. You know why?

Because many politicians, here in Holland, but also in the US, or probably anywhere in the world, choose a party to support for a reason. The reason that they believe in the things that party stands for. And there are enough politicians who are religious. And I'm not saying that all religious people are against gay marriage. Hell, some of my best friends are extremely religious, but they don't see what's wrong with gay people or them marrying for that matter. All I am saying is that there are quite a few conservative religious people who pursue a career in politics. And those people will stand for what they believe (something I strongly agree with), but not all those things they believe in are the same that I, or someone else, believe in.

And that is why democracy is such a beautiful curse. It can be beautiful if you agree with most people in your country (or state), and the majority will vote for the same party or people, resulting in a government that you agree (mostly, let's stay realistic) with.

It can also be a curse. Because if you are a part of a minority in your country of state, based on your beliefs, the party you vote for will not have a majority in the senate (or whatever the correct term is in English for this political thing where the government sit and not agree on anything and basically just waste our money), and you will most likely not agree with the outcome of some laws.

Now, I'm not saying that everyone should be able to marry, if they so desire, no matter what, and I genuinly hope that in the near future this will become a reality everywhere, but I wanted to shed some realistic light on the case.

The reason that there are laws in the US and other countries (luckily not Holland anymore) banning gay marriage, is because the majority of the voters voted for a party that was against gay marriage.

So let's not blame the politicians. They only do what they think is good. You might not agree with it, hell, I surely don't agree with it most of the time, regarding gay marriage or not, but the only thing you can do to change it, is to vote for different people. Because the people voting for the law banning gay marriage have been chosen by the civillians.

 

Please understand that I do not mean for anyone to get offended by this, for or against gay marriage, but I just wanted to shed some realistic light on the matter. I myself, like I said before, believe in gay marriage, and I think it is a wonderful thing, but I do not agree with the people who agree with my, blaming it on the politicians. These people do the exact same as you are doing right now, following your beliefs. And maybe these beliefs are based on a book that you do not agree with, wether it is the Bible, Thorah or the Koran, but your opinion does not overthrow someone elses. That's the beauty of free will. Wheter God or Allah or nobody at all gave us free will, it is extremely unrealistic and a bit hypocritical to think that your free will overpowers someone else's.

 

Wow. This turned out to be longer than I thought it would be. And my apologies for any spelling mistakes, Chrome's spellchecker is on Dutch, so about 90% of the words are red underlined, and I'm way too lazy to check them all.

[tierney_dale]

Hi, just want to put my 2 cents in.

 

I'm a Latter-day Saint (aka Mormon) and chances are that you've heard about the LDS church and its stance on gay marriage. I do NOT want to get into an argument about my church BUT I just wanted to point out something....

 

A lot of the posts on this board talk about gay marriage being banned in the Bible, which is why most people (who are against gay marriage) are against gay marriage. A lot of posts mention that you can't base something on a two-thousand-year-old book. I totally agree with you, and I just wanted to mention that Mormons aren't against gay marriage because it's in the Bible.

 

Latter-day Saints believe in a living Prophet, like David or Abraham or Moses. And by believe, I don't just mean "I think" or "my opinion is" or "Most likely." I mean that I know it to be true, just the same way I know that my mom loves me, and I know that ice is cold.

 

And the thing about gay marriage is that the Prophet -- who speaks for the living Jesus Christ -- has said that Christ doesn't want gay marriage to be legal. That's it, that's the end for me. If the Prophet says so, I believe him because I know he's the real deal.

 

Just saying...not everyone who is against gay marriage is against it solely because it says so in Leviticus.

[ineedalifeplease]

Hi, just want to put my 2 cents in.

 

I'm a Latter-day Saint (aka Mormon) and chances are that you've heard about the LDS church and its stance on gay marriage. I do NOT want to get into an argument about my church BUT I just wanted to point out something....

 

A lot of the posts on this board talk about gay marriage being banned in the Bible, which is why most people (who are against gay marriage) are against gay marriage. A lot of posts mention that you can't base something on a two-thousand-year-old book. I totally agree with you, and I just wanted to mention that Mormons aren't against gay marriage because it's in the Bible.

 

Latter-day Saints believe in a living Prophet, like David or Abraham or Moses. And by believe, I don't just mean "I think" or "my opinion is" or "Most likely." I mean that I know it to be true, just the same way I know that my mom loves me, and I know that ice is cold.

 

And the thing about gay marriage is that the Prophet -- who speaks for the living Jesus Christ -- has said that Christ doesn't want gay marriage to be legal. That's it, that's the end for me. If the Prophet says so, I believe him because I know he's the real deal.

 

Just saying...not everyone who is against gay marriage is against it solely because it says so in Leviticus.

That's a reason for being against gay marriage, but why should that dictate the law? Marriage is banned for Latter-day Saints, and many other religious groups, and many are against it in general, but what about atheists, or agnostics or whoever else believes gay marriage is just fine and dandy or a right?

 

If you know about what this prophet says being true like you know about ice and family (which are things I happen to know about too..) surely I can say i know there is nothing wrong with gay marriage?

 

WORKS JUST THE SAME. As I said a while ago, I think it's fine that people are against gay marriage, you're allowed an opinion, a belief, a way of life that deems it wrong. Just don't let it infringe on anyone else's life.

[Jmarbs]

Strongly, strongly, strongly agree. cannot even stress how much I agree.

 

It's HUMAN RIGHTS. There shouldn't even be an argument about this.

[Oganagey]

There's nothing wrong with gay marriage! Personally I don't see the need for marriage in today's society where non married couples aren't frowned upon...after all, weddings are expensive!

[Excoecaria]

I really dislike the fact that this is labeled as 'Gay marriage'

 

Here is an awesome quote for you to read.

 

"Gay marriage. Or As I like to call it, marriage, because I had lunch this afternoon, not gay lunch. I parked my car, I didn’t gay park it."

 

 

:)

[kaybee92]

I really dislike the fact that this is labeled as 'Gay marriage'

 

Here is an awesome quote for you to read.

 

"Gay marriage. Or As I like to call it, marriage, because I had lunch this afternoon, not gay lunch. I parked my car, I didn’t gay park it."

 

 

:)

Thanks for this. Trying to call it "gay marriage" to me has always felt rather "separate but equal" in the sense that there's straight marriage and gay marriage. Makes no sense to me to try to create this distinction in peoples' minds.

[Snowbell]

I fully support all marriage reguardless of gender! I think the governments need to stay out of this personal stuff and focus on something else. Not giving people the right to get married goes against our rights which is something our government should be protecting.

I few extremists need to be ignored so we can do whats fair.

[Katsuokai]

There's definitely no need to call it ''gay'' marriage, as long as these types of married couples get the same rights as everyone else there's no need for it to have a special name.

I'm pansexual myself and I'm personally not interested in getting married, but since marriage in many countries give married couples special benefits I think that no one should be left without the option of getting married if they want to. My (male) cousin got married to a man, it was the first and only wedding I have ever been to. It was nice and they were happy and later on they even adopted a child. :) So I doesn't understand (or rather doesn't want to understand) why GLTBQ people are regarded by many as a threat to straight cisgender people and why we shouldn't have the same rights. Who do we harm just by being ourselves? It's as silly as thinking that a person of colour shouldn't have the same rights as a white person or that women are inferior to men, etc. . There's one thing I want in my life: I want to be happy and in order for that to become a reality I have to be able to live my life in peace, be accepted and not be shunned and badly treated by the authorities, laws and society in general.

To all of you that think that being a GLTBQ person is wrong and that we should even cease to exist, ask yourselves the following questions: Do you find yourself claiming you believe in ''human rights''? If so, would you contact the United Nations just to tell them to remove some of the articles of the UDHR so you can continue to go around claiming you support the Universal Human Rights Declaration without making a fool of yourself? No, right? For the most part, I think you might even believe that especially the first three articles are an essential part of the declaration that shouldn't be removed. I'll leave it here for you to read:

Article 1.

• All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
  
  Article 2.
• Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
  
  Article 3.
• Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

[Navy]

I classify myself as a pansexual, being so, I cannot fathom the idea that if I were to become romantically involved with another woman, a woman I plan on spending the entirety of my lifetime with, I would not be able to marry, adopt children with, buy a home with, or visit in the hospital if they were to become ill or injured. Gay rights are human rights and your religious or own sexual preferences are irrelevant, it doesn't effect you, your children, your relationship with said god(s), or anything else. The only one it effects are the ones it applies to.

 

Another side note: I dislike the term "gay marriage", I'd it to just be "marriage".

[Batgirl]

While I am definitively and strongly pro gay marriage, I do think it's a mistake to quickly judge people who are against it as automatically being all the same and horrible. You can respect why their upbringing might not have supported the idea without betraying where you are at or where you think they should be. Your odds of convincing someone who feels you understand their resistance are much better than your odds of convincing someone you called a homophobe or worse in the first 10 seconds.

 

It's easy to talk about how someone should move beyond religion when it doesn't seem like a big hurdle to them personally. But if someone grows up, and especially if they grow up happily and effectively, in a family that has a strong religious view and a town that may largely share those views, it isn't that easy to just step away from it mentally. Exiting the restrictions of that thinking can be as painful, slow and awkward as the coming out process is for many of us. Now, if someone is actively working against people's rights, sure, it's on. But if all they've said is that they aren't sure how they feel about GM, or even that they feel like they are against it, be gentle and don't approach it by asking them to throw out their entire religion.

 

On a somewhat lighter, or at least lighter to me, note, I always like referring to a biblical quote I don't have on hand that essentially says gay people are comprised of good and bad just like everyone else. I'll look up the specifics on it when I have more time.

[leverhelven]

I once saw a quote somewhere that said:

 

"Not allowing gay people to marry because your religion doesn't allow it makes as much sense as not letting me eat chocolate because you're on a diet".

 

That pretty much sums it up.

[Shelley]

I have a vague memory of some anti-gay marriage protest where a man argued that if gay marriage is allowed than he should allow him to marry a giraffe...

 

anyways, I'm strongly for marriage and equal rights for all

 

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, I know a lot of people against it. But I mean legalizing gay marriage doesn't mean they have to take part in it so...

[HomuraAkemiTheHero]

I think they should legalize gay marriage everywhere. There's a few states that allow it bu most don't I think. Also I don't see why the government won't let them it's not really like a gay couple getting married is going to affect the people in the government at all. Anyways there is actually a economical benefit if gay couples were allowed to get married everywhere after all you have to pay to have a wedding and then some may end up paying for a planner and then they have to go through the process of getting decorations for the wedding which have to come from somewhere and it gives the people who sell the decorations or offer wedding planners to help a chance to make more money and it may allow for small businesses to grow as well. I know some are against it but it's not going to majorly affect most people so just let them get married and be happy.

[astro]

Simply put for me:

I do not identify as a religion. Therefore I am non-theistic, and have no feelings one way or another religiously about this. That being said, I am also a pansexual/panromatic and can understand the unfairness of not being able to marry who I would like to. This being said, I stand by my belief that church and state should /be and stay/ separate. If you are of a religion who does not believe in it, that's fine. You or your church if you would have it do NOT have to unify said couples. But legally, if a couple wants to be recognized by the government as a legal couple, you should have no say in this. Religion should have no play in the legal communion of a couple. I think that all state clerk offices should be given the right to marry couples regardless of gender. Churches are then free to accept or deny who they marry as they please.

TL;DR - Should be legal at least in clerk offices.

[Saxen]

So many pan people on TDN ^^ I identify as bisexual but for me that incorporates ALL genders, so basically pan, I just don't call myself that. I would like to end up spending my life with and marrying a woman, and thankfully in my country I have that luxury - and it is one, which I find ridiculous. For a government to dictate and deny a gay couples right to celebrate their love in the same manner as a hetero couple, for religious reasons or no, is a complete breach of human rights (as I'm sure has been said many times in this thread). In a ten, fifty, a hundred years from now, people will look back at how much of a big deal we thought this was and find our generation and the ones before primitive and ignorant, just as we have done in the last century in regard to denying women the right to vote or denying interracial couples the right to be together.

I just cannot believe in our day and age that this is still an issue.

[dayday0819]

Growing up, I identified as Jewish and straight. I now identify as non-religious and bisexual, but regardless of what identities I had or have, I always strongly supported gay marriage. I respect people's identities and religions and believe that everyone is entitled to their opinion on gay marriage, but it is never right to force it upon someone else. Just because you personally don't support gay marriage doesn't mean that no one who is gay should get married. If you don't want to marry someone of the same sex or gender as you, that is your choice, but you shouldn't try to convince or force others to do the same. I'm not sure if this quote has been posted already because I haven't read through the whole thread, but as Stephen Fry said: "homosexuals are not interested in making other people homosexual. Homophobes are interested in making other people homophobic".

[Duskitty]

Why shouldn't it be legal?

 

Love is love, no matter your gender or sexual preference.

 

I could go on a rant about this topic, but it would be quite exhausting and I prefer not to offend anyone, so I will leave my post short and simple.

[AJ11]

I don't think it should be allowed. Bisexuality included.

 

Like someone here said, a child cant succeed without a male and female role model.

 

I am a Christian myself and I believe in God fully. In my opinion, homos are not Christians, no matter what they say.

 

I also don't think it should be allowed that a gendered person would have surgery to become that other gender. Though you don't really become another gender, you gain the outside qualities of one. A male should be happy to be a male and a female should be happy to be a female.

 

That is all.

I respect that this is your opinion and I think that it is very lucky for you that you are not born bisexual gay or trans. I only think you are lucky because you personally would have found it a lot more difficult to accept the beliefs that are around you if you had not been as you are.

 

Can you imagine for one moment how it would feel to realise that what you are deep down is 'wrong' in your way of thinking.

 

If you have a child with your partner and that child is gay I hope that you will be able to open up a little more and recognize that they are not wrong or bad because of the way they are born.

 

It is sometimes easy to point at others as wrong as it can give us a feeling of superiority but I hope that isnt the case here.

 

Im pretty old and I have found that my views have changed on lots of things as time has passed, I hope you are able to keep an open mind and heart

[dayday0819]

AJ 11: Thank you for that, it was so eloquently written. I completely agree and I'm really happy you made that point. It's been almost a year for me, and I'm still unable to tell my parents because I'm afraid. It's so horrible to have to keep a secret as large as that from them. I'm afraid that they will dislike, reject, or be angry at me for my sexuality and that's really hard.

 

Also, I would like to point out that no where in the Bible does it say, explicitly or implied, that homosexuality is wrong. I think it reaches a point where people need to stop blindly following their faith and interpret it for themselves. Even the pope is in support of gay marriage.

[Welcome Back Apathy]

I hate it that anyone has to worry about what their parents will do or say. I mean, society at large, too, but it's worse when it's that close to home. (Literally, I guess.)

 

My own sexual orientation is...kind of up in the air. I have always been more attracted to women than to men, so I said I "rounded to a lesbian". But I'm married to a man now, so it's harder to say that. I've been attracted to women, men, and people in between on the gender spectrum. I've been attracted to MtF trans* people. I don't know if I've been attracted to an intersex person because that's only what's covered up by clothing, and well, I haven't seen that much of that. I could almost say I'm pan, except I can't think of a time when I've been attracted to a FtM trans* person. Just MtF. Seeing as how I'm married to one person, I don't give the identity too much thought. Meh.

 

But once upon a time, I identified as "rounded to a lesbian". I didn't tell my parents, but it wasn't because I was afraid of what they would think. I knew they wouldn't care. I wanted to think up a creative way to come out, and I didn't think of one in time. My mom just flat-out asked me one day while we were on a walk, in the context of me going to gay prom with a (male and gay) friend. I told her the truth. She basically shrugged and said "Cool, smaller chance of STDs."

 

I wish all parents could be like that. I didn't need my mom to act overly supportive; I wanted her to treat me like it was perfectly normal and didn't change a thing about me. I mean, when it comes to gay men, you can't say "smaller chance of STDs", but you can be supportive and not spout misinformation or hate.

[Navy]

I've never really understood why this is up for debate, marriage is a human right, and the funny thing about rights is, they're not optional.