the gay marriage issue

[Giliell]

Getting rid of marriage alltogether would be something I'd call a long-time goal.
But we would have to change A LOT of things before that.
Modern marriage with all its legal and social implications comes from a time when the housewife-breadwinner-children-family was the norm, or at least the norm that mattered to people in power.
The benefits given were thought to help raising the children which is an important task for a country (please, don't mention overpopulation in Africa here. It's like people saying that people shouldn't complain about a flood when there's a draught somewhere else). This goes hand in hand with an idea of "paternal rights" and a lot of other shit.
Nowadays life has changed. DINKS are unjustly getting the privileges while single parents, unmarried parents or gay parents aren't. What's more, when it comes to duties, most countries will dump that on gay couples, but not the privileges (for example, in Germany an unmarried partner has to stick up for the other one before that partner can get welfare just like a spouse has to, while not getting the tax benefits the spouse gets).
So, yeah, I'm kind of with you there.
But until we get there, move the burden of the kids from the parents to society in general, and have effective ways to regulate all those handy things that come automatically with marriage, making it open to everybody seems to be the first step.

 

[Nemesiah]

Homosexuals should have ALL the rights any one else has, Why is this difficult? Now, that means that any sort of privation of those rights is discrimination, so by law they SHOULD be able to get married, form families, adopt kids, get insurance (from their spouse), etc...

NOW if there are homosexuals that want to get married by a religion then they better hope that that religion accepts gays in the first place, since one can't change the religion because that would be infrigment upon freedom of belief.

I myself don't think marriage is natural or functional but if they want to enter the bliss 50% pay lawyers to get them out of, then be my guest.

 

[Demojen]

NOW if there are homosexuals that want to get married by a religion then they better hope that that religion accepts gays in the first place, since one can't change the religion because that would be infrigment upon freedom of belief.

My problem with this sentence is that 100% of religious people cherry pick their respective religious texts to define how they should live their lives. Why is it fair for a bigot to say being gay is wrong, but working on the Sabbath should not be met with death? Why do bigots get to say being gay is wrong, but women aren't chattel? Cherry picking religious texts to discriminate against homosexuality while discarding the rest of the scripture undermines the credibility of the claim in the first place. You know full well that these cherry picking bigots wouldn't dare stand behind the whole of the religious texts by which they ascribe the inspiration for discrimination, for every last one of them would then resemble an extreme version of the Westboro Baptist Church.

 

[Giliell]

? Why do bigots get to say being gay is wrong, but women aren't chattel? .

What, they changed that?
Well, religions Do change. Usually from inside and outside pressure. The catholic church in Germany is much different from the catholic church in the USA. It is different now than whatt it was in the 1950s.
Religions can ban any practise within their club they want.But as such an exclusive club, they should pay propper taxes. If the catholic church doesn't want to marry gays, fine. But they have no right to interfere with the politics and the rights of people who don't believe their BS.

 

[Demojen]

Well, religions Do change. Usually from inside and outside pressure.

Therein lies a problem. Religions change. Under what authority can a bigot proclaim that any one part of their religious texts (in its original format) be outright discarded? It's one thing to say people interpret the texts differently, but in order for this level of discrimination to be sanctioned by the Church, as it changes the other fundamentals of its belief system, it has to throw away some scripture almost entirely.

This only further demonstrates how inconsistent organized religion is. There should be laws against this sort of fraud.

 

[Giliell]

Well, religions Do change. Usually from inside and outside pressure.

Therein lies a problem. Religions change. Under what authority can a bigot proclaim that any one part of their religious texts (in its original format) be outright discarded? It's one thing to say people interpret the texts differently, but in order for this level of discrimination to be sanctioned by the Church, as it changes the other fundamentals of its belief system, it has to throw away some scripture almost entirely.

This only further demonstrates how inconsistent organized religion is. There should be laws against this sort of fraud.

As an atheist, I totally agree with you. Only the religious will never see that. They will claim that any changes made are really made in getting closer to the truth, that what they said before was based on older, human mistakes (they'll kind of explain it with a peer-review process like science) and so on. Of course, they never offer any consistent argument in the first palce

 

[RunningMadness]

I'm from the Netherlands and gay marriage is allowed here since april 1st 2001. In the USA there's a big discussion going, but here nobody ever discusses it. It has been accepted and it has become part of society.

America should wake up and stop this discriminination. They don't think homosexuality is wrong anymore, but they don't want to change the concept of marriage because they cling to tradition. But marriage has been changed several times throughout history (you can divorce, white people can marry black people, etc.). So why not now?

Cultures change, and so do traditions. So why do you prevent progress?

 

[ohcac]

I disagree that anti-homosexual bigotry depends on whether you are religious or non-religious. The first reason that I believe this is that I have seen atheists that I know in my school who are particularly hostile to the notion of homosexuality. The second reason is that I have known a different trend to be true: Those who think that they are superior or commendable for things dependent on accidental circumstances: thinking they are hot shit for things such as being born to a wealthy family, being born with good health, in a society with technological means of keeping people warm and clean, etc. People who take these lucky circumstances and perceive them as *earned accomplishments* are to a very high percentage bigoted to people who are different than them, homosexuals included.

Indeed, many of these people that I have talked to do *not* like hearing from me (and even get HOSTILE) the simple notion that they would have been completely indifferent to their current life aims had they been born in western Africa in the 12th century or if they had been born as a prehistoric shrew 45 million years ago.

 

[Demojen]

I disagree that anti-homosexual bigotry depends on whether you are religious or non-religious. The first reason that I believe this is that I have seen atheists that I know in my school who are particularly hostile to the notion of homosexuality. The second reason is that I have known a different trend to be true: Those who think that they are superior or commendable for things dependent on accidental circumstances: thinking they are hot shit for things such as being born to a wealthy family, being born with good health, in a society with technological means of keeping people warm and clean, etc. People who take these lucky circumstances and perceive them as *earned accomplishments* are to a very high percentage bigoted to people who are different than them, homosexuals included.

Indeed, many of these people that I have talked to do *not* like hearing from me (and even get HOSTILE) the simple notion that they would have been completely indifferent to their current life aims had they been born in western Africa in the 12th century or if they had been born as a prehistoric shrew 45 million years ago.

You are correct. The anti-homosexual marriage issue isn't just a religious issue.
For example, the prime minister of Australia does not support gay marriage. She's an atheist.

 

[ArthurWilborn]

Hrm...

There are two aspects of this, as I see it; rights and entitlements.

I'll say right off that I'm generally not in favor of expanding entitlements (such as, say, tax breaks) in some attempt at social engineering. I'd question the application of entitlements to any relationship. Why is the state trying to control people's actions and decisions like this? People should not be induced to marry or not marry by the government - it should be their decision. I especially disagree with the entire concept of the government rewarding you for engaging in behavior that it deems desirable. Sure, its not too bad when it works, but the chance for idiotic manipulation is just too high.

On the subject of rights; the three major categories of rights I hear about in this context are support, access, and inheritance. Inheritance is a non-issue, I think; you should be able to direct your inheritance to whoever you desire. If you don't, well, your failure to plan is not my problem.

Access gets thornier; this deals with things like seeing someone who is sick or dying, or custody and visitation. Now here we get into a place where government intervention is entirely appropriate. There does need to be some kind of legal framework of rights that people can voluntarily enter into in order to negotiate and secure these rights. This is a fair balance between allowing anyone access and banning all access for people who may have a legitimate interest.

Support is the thorniest of issues. The basic concept is that of the fundamental underlying biological truth; that women get pregnant and men don't. Spousal support addresses the need to compensate someone for the unpaid labor they put into maintaining and expanding the family. With same-sex partners, not to mention reproduction technology, this gets murkier. Does someone in a same-sex relationship with no children need or deserve support when the relationship ends? Do you parse it out to individual circumstances? By gender mix? Do you have one rule (say, income based) for every couple? I couldn't even begin to answer this.

So, in short, I would say there is a need for a recognized system of granting individuals rights to access, whatever you want to call that.