Honestly, I can't think of a single argument against gay marriage that isn't either based on religion or personal distaste for the lifestyle. Two gay men just got married right this second. Quick, who here had their life affected? Exactly. You hear all these ridiculous arguments: "It violates the sanctity of marriage!" You know what else violates the sanctity of marriage? Adultery. Divorce. Spousal abuse. How come these people don't rally against that? "If a man can marry another man, or a woman can marry another woman, what's next? Marrying a cow? Marrying a horse? Marrying a child?" Yes, because men who marry women use that as a gateway to marry cows, horses, and kids. Marriage is supposed to be two consenting adults. There you have it. Personally, I think most gay marriages will do pretty well. Why? Look how fucking hard they have to fight to be able to do it. If I had to go through all that shit to get married, I wouldn't have bothered. Hell, if it was as hard to get married as it is to get divorced, I think the marriage rate would go way down. I say eliminate the word "marriage", call every union between two people (straight or gay) a "civil union", give everyone the same benefits and call it a day. Take out the "marriage" term and it's religious connotations, and apply the rules evenly to everyone.
I think this is the main reason why gay marriages will do well in the short term. The ability to get married was withheld for so long that the couples that are the first to get married will have already been in committed relationships that have acted like marriages for years now. They will be strong relationships where most of the major issues that would break up the marriage have already been dealt with or overcome back when they could just split up without any legal consequences. Over time, the divorce rate will probably move closer to the rate for heterosexual couples. Of course we'll probably have people screaming "IT'S NOT WORKING!! BAN IT AGAIN!!" when this happens, but logic and critical thinking are typically lost on people with that mentality in the first place.
To open up another huge can of worms (hopefully gummy worms. I love gummy worms.), our understanding of sex/gender is becoming less binary as time goes on. Defining marriage as between one man and one woman would raise serious issues with trans, intersex, genderqueer etc. people.
I honestly no one on this board is going to say that gay marriage is bad. You know what would be a much better topic? 1. Marriage to animals (or animal loving in general) 2. Polygamy I have a feeling with the lack of gay jokes, this thread will be roughly as interesting as someone listing what cards you currently carry in your wallet.
To clear up some of the PMs and responses to my OP: -I'm all for the legislation. I personally don't care about gay marriage, but the benefits outweigh the negatives. Frankly it's a non-issue that should have not taken this long to resolve. -I'm also all for same-sex parents adopting children. Although it's not as good as a hetero-based family, theres too many orphaned children and same sex couples tha could provide them a loving, nurturing household. -It's not a civil right because sexuality is not innate or inherent. Also, I'm more referring to Civil Rights than civil rights. It's absolutely not the same struggle the blacks went through to achieve equality and to try to lump it in into the same cause is insane. -Why is religion not a sufficient reason to be against it? If you're religion speaks against it, and you follow your religion, then why is that not valid? Do you think religions should be forced to marry same sex couples if it became a national law?
I live in New England which is relatively tolerant towards gays and everyone loves to call themselves open minded. People like to say that anyone who doesn't want to make gay marriage legal is an idiot and then uses the 'they're not hurting anybody' argument. People also love to flaunt the fact that they have gay friends. But as soon as you bring up polygamy (I made it a point to bring this in my last couple of years in the city) they change their tune. Pretty much every argument you could make to support gay marriage you could make to support polygamy, but once you shift from supporting gay marriage to polygamy you go from being open minded to a creepy Mormon. Apparently you can condemn one group as long as the people you're talking to don't have any friends in that group. Is this true for a lot of other 'open minded' areas? I always attribute it to familiarity, you can't throw a rock without hitting two guys giving each other a hand job in Boston* but there are almost no mormons or polygamists. *ok, it's not that open, but it's not Montana.
So you're saying it's a choice? I don't know a single gay person that woke up one morning in their teens or early twenties and thought "Hey, you know what? I think I'm gonna start being attracted to other guys (or other girls). That's the conscious decision I'm making." Do you? Personally, I don't have a problem with religions not recognizing gay marriages. Those are their beliefs and they can choose to marry or not marry whichever couples they want. Would anyone expect the government to force a church to marry a couple of Satanists? (Obviously not trying to compare the two in any other way besides that they both go against the Christian belief system) But religious marriages and civil marriages are two separate things. Two gay people getting married in the eyes of the law and enjoying financial, legal and social benefits of that marriage don't affect anyone's religion in the slightest. Using religion to deny someone's civil rights is the same thing as the government telling religions who they can and can't marry in their faith. Separation of church and state and all...
I disagree. If something is not innate or inherent, you're implying it is a choice. I'm assuming you are straight. To paraphrase Dan Savage, I defy you to make the conscious choice to suck a dick and, by the force of your choice, be aroused by it and enjoy it. I'm bisexual, and I cannot by the power of choice simply turn off my attraction to women for the rest of my life. While I'm not claiming that the gay community's struggles compare to that of the black community, it is most certainly a civil rights issue. These people are being discriminated against for something outside of their control. Focus: To second another poster, I think that in the short term at least, gay marriage will have a higher success rate, because so many of the first couples are probably going to be couples that have been together in a relationship for years already, and have already gone through and gotten past so many of the challenges relationships struggle with in their first years.
There are actually several small, and one massive, arguments against polygamy that don't apply to gay marriage. Small: bookkeeping shit about tax benefits, which spouse gets power of attorney, etc etc. Massive: Polygamist societies tend to trend toward high status men accruing multiple wives, which leaves a large underclass of poor, desperate, sexually frustrated men who not only aren't getting laid right now, but have no legitimate hope of getting laid ever. It's like someone perfected the recipe for violent insurrection.
I agree, but it's irrelevant. It's not about what you think or what you "know". It's about what you can prove; and you can't prove that homosexuality is not a choice. I definitely believe it isnt a choice and people are born that way, and I'm sure most agree with me. But it doesn't matter, if there's even the slightest doubt about whether or choice is involved, its no longer inherent. You can prove someone is black, white, tall, short, etc and the law is used to equalize those indifferences. But so called lifestyle "choices" (whether they are or not) do not fall into that category.
Uh, what? What, pray tell, is sexuality then? It's biological. One could argue that some people have significant enough pressures from various directions that they may "choose" to be homo or heterosexual, but that doesn't mean that our sexual urges aren't innate. ...explain. WTF do religions have to do with anything? Nobody is saying that all churches must be legally obligated to perform same-sex weddings. Just that gay couples be able to "get married" - in a legal sense. That has exactly zero to do with a church ceremony. Gay couples can have church ceremonies right now. Without the marriage certificate, it means squat.
You can't prove heterosexuality isn't a choice either. Homosexuality and heterosexuality are on equal footing there. The point is that there are laws in place around privileges of heterosexual couples who choose to be married by the state, and those laws should apply to homosexual couples. In any event, there's a lot of scientific evidence that sexuality is biological.
That's pretty much the only tangible difference in my mind. Yeah, but on a similar note if 80% of women went lesbian and only 5% of men went gay we'd be in a similar predicament. If that were the case would it be okay for the government to force lesbians to marry men until we get back to normal?
Watch your step kids, we are slipping down this very slippery slope. I don't have an opinion. Ya know why? Because I don't care. Ya know why? Because it's none of my business, nor is mine or what I do, theirs.
This is pretty much the only thing I have against gay marriage- I fucking HATE the people who are championing the cause. I hate the people who walk down the street wearing nothing but a g-string with a vodka bottle shoved up their ass demanding that we respect them while they blatantly disrespect those around them. I hate the people who publicly vilify and try to personally destroy anyone who made the horrendous mistake of having a different belief (eg- the Miss California shit-show, where the girl was asked a loaded question and was publicly crucified for standing by what she was raised to believe), and I hate the media who give these assholes a platform to spew their rhetoric. I hate the activist-politicians who try to force this shit down the throats of the public, regardless of public sentiment or the will of their constituents and despite the fact that in the grand scheme of things, this isn't anywhere CLOSE to being an important issue compared to the shit that is going on around us right now (basically, I hate all politicians). Its because of these people that I sometimes hope this shit is never legal- just to spite the Perez Hiltons and Rosie Odonnels of the world.
Well sure, but with those kind of ratios, we wouldn't be around very long as a species to even have these debates.
Because religion is something society has made up in order to make ourselves feel better about not knowing what is going to happen to us once we die. We are the only creatures (as far as we know) that know we will expire one day so in order to keep going in life religion was created to explain what we don't know. Everyone is allowed to have their own opinions, but there is a reason church and state SHOULD be separated. I say should because of statements like this are made and followed through on. Religion-based opinions should not be factors in making laws in our country. Because whether you like it or not-not everyone believes the same thing. Nothing is black and white and not everyone is going to be pleased with laws, but making decisions for our country based off someone's religion and personal opinions is sad reality. And as someone already stated, how the hell does a guy marrying a guy or a girl marrying a girl you don't even know affect you on a personal level? It doesn't.
Won't work any more or less than any other marriage does. It'll work as long as both parties (m/m, m/f, f/f, whatever) want it to work. Once they don't want it to work, they'll divorce. Marriage in and of itself is easy as long as both of you want it. The day one stops wanting it, it becomes hard. Gender, sexuality, whatever else, none of that matters as much as the simple human element of wanting it.