Bront's Forums

Aeson asks a fair question which deserves an answer. 

Marriage, once one takes God out of it, is nothing more than social license and contract.  There is also sex and a party, but one doesn't need marriage for that (after God is out of the equation anyway)

So let's answer why should they before we attempt the negative.   After all there should be a reason to change thousands of years of tradition.  So what is the reason to change? It's not about being 'fair'.  If it were then we should be fair to a polygamist, or anyone else that wants to have sex with anything else, and be 'married'   In other words having sex isn't the basis for marriage (once you take God out of it) and so neither is ones sexual orientation. 

The why of it is the Government has made law and custom to support the traditional family structure, and the wording in this law and custom revolve around the word spouse (or husband and wife, etc...).  The Government has a vested interest in the traditional family, the healthy existence of our country depends on future generations. 

So...
Social Security
Inheritance
Healthcare
Property
Child care
Taxes
Miscellaneous Family deals and customs
Traditions

To name a few

All have legal significance in light of supporting our future based on the value of 'the traditional family'.  This law and custom have inherent value, and so a 'gay couple' want access to this through 'marriage'.  This is why they want to change thousands of years of custom and tradition.  But they haven't made the case for this change, they just demand it and use propaganda and legal trickery to get their way. 

Event so, why not let them?  Isn’t it fair?  Can’t we be nice and let them be 'married' too? 

Well, we should consider the cost.  The burden of expanding spouse coverage for Social Security, Health Care, etc... is enormous.  These systems are already strained; we should consider carefully before adding to the strain. 

But even so, isn't it only fair to let gay couples marry?

One of the problems with the statement is the assumption of 'gay couples'.  Let me illustrate:

Suppose I have a human friend who believes he is a dog.  He feels with all his being that he is a dog.  I suggest to my friend he is not a dog because he does not have dog ears.  My friend is greatly troubled by this and after a few surgeries has this flaw corrected.  If I then mention he does not have dog like body hair, he has surgery and therapy to correct this.  At this point I dare not mention his habit of walking upright on two legs for fear of the surgical correction to that flaw.  Now is my long eared furry friend a dog?  No not at all.  Even when he confesses his deep lust of a certain person’s leg, and his occasional escapade with said leg, this does not make him a dog.  No, I can clearly scientifically show by his dna that he is human.  No amount of belief or psychological anything makes him a dog.

The same is true for the gender confused, say what you want the chromosomes are XX or XY, and any variance is as much a delusion as my friend the dog.

That should be enough to start us on an interesting discussion. 

Nothing to argue with in here...  I'm leaving.

Yeah, I can agree with you Drew, but the opening line was if the Bible and Religion are out of the  picture then...

So I thought I'd discuss it on that ground. 

If it is too much at once, just take a piece at a time.  Pick my weakest point and counter it, let's see where it goes.

I don't understand why it's not a marriage without the bible. I've had people I know get married by a justice of the peace and it was a wedding. They call it a marriage. Is it less of a marriage because God wasn't mentioned? That it wasn't in a church?


there will always be future generations. There will still be hetero couples doing their part.  If nothing else the Duggar family will populate the country all by themselves. Gay couples could also give another place to place foster children. A stable home and someone to love them is all they need. A gay couple could do that just as easily as a hetero couple.

It seems to be the main two arguments is It goes against the bible. and It will cost more money.
I'm sure there are employers out there that wish they didn't have to pay benefits to the employee much less his family. If they could they wouldn't. They finally get a chance to put their foot down and say we don't want to pay benefits to them.
The government as an employer agrees with this so they also quietly and not so quietly support the idea. Gays pay into the system so they should get something out of it. They should be treated fairly because it is fair.

A gay man's partner is dying in the hospital but he's not allowed to see him because they're not family. That is wrong and mean. A couple that have been in a loving and stable relationship for years or even decades but they can't be together in one's final moments.

Also it would help the economy in some areas. It means more weddings. The wedding industry would have more work and more money. Travel companies can now send gay couples on honeymoon trips.


I'm not even going to dignify the mental illness statement with an answer.

This is fundamental to the difference in our world views.  The simple answer is, yes, life without God is something less, and a marriage without Him is not the same as a marriage with Him.  I'll be happy to digress here if you like.



Hmmm, I mean to say that we (any country, or culture) need to have future generations that are productive, and have a stake in their culture through past and future generations.   This should be the norm for a healthy society every thing else, makes the culture something less... 


I think you fundamentally misunderstand.  Children need a stable home and a Mom and Dad.  Anything less is not good.  This should be common knowledge, but men and women are different, and children need those differences.   There are times a child needs their Mom, and times they need their Dad.  No one else can fill those roles.  The roles are clearly sex linked, no female can really be Daddy, and no Male can really be Mommy.  Not only can a gay NOT do this just as easily, they can't do it at all.  If you still disagree we need to digress here, and I suggest it be the focus of our conversation for a bit. 



Right but you are side stepping why there are family benefits.  A father is providing for his family.   If there are health benefits to be had the head of a family will take that job instead of one with out.  Supply and Demand, forces the issue of pay and benefits.

If I split the cost of an apartment with a male friend, in what way am I different than a gay couple? The only real difference is, am I having sex with my friend.  So should my friend and I also get these benefits?  Isn't it only fair?  Do we have to have sex for it to be fair?

This doesn't happen, unless the family excludes the 'partner', and yeah that is mean, and may be wrong (there is a ethical/moral issue here we have not yet tackled).  The hospital or other agencies involved don't care, until someone makes an issue of it.  I have a friend who is gay, we both exercise at the local Y, and we talk most mornings.  He had an artery swell up to about twice its normal diameter, and it could have popped and he would have simply died in seconds, so he had this operated on it.  I was there to visit him, and prayed over him 'til he woke up.  I held his hand and talked with him 'til he fell asleep again.  This would be normally the role of the family but they weren't there, nor was his partner, I think because neither wanted to chance seeing the other.  My point though is, no one in the hospital did more than tell me that it was family only visiting, at which I nodded my head and visited.

I disagree that simply spending money without production, helps the economy, But that is another thread.



Ah, interesting response.  So not only can the discussion not include religion, but it can't include any factual information that might show that life style as an illness.  Do you understand that only three decades ago, that lifestyle was a treatable mental illness?  I'm willing to be open minded enough to hear reasons why that was wrong, are you willing to be open minded to hearing that maybe it was correct.  Or is this just another example of things that are off the table for discussion?  It's always interesting how a world view that claims tolerance so quickly has to be intolerant of other points of view.   We can even assume the norm is pro-gay, are you willing, open minded enough, to hear factual information to the contrary? 

Please understand, I know I'm saying things that are unthinkable from your world view.  Please feel free to open my eyes, do not worry about offending me.  We have to get beyond that or we can't really discuss the difficult issues.  Frankly, the difficult issues are the ones we really should discuss. 

Thank you for your honest and obviously heart felt response.  I'm glad you have brought in real life examples to make your point and I appreciate you taking the time and effort to open my eyes to your world view. 



I understand BLGT, I read literature focused on that lifestyle and understand it about as much as one who does not share that temptation can.  Please forgive my language, but there is no way for me to discuss it in terms that aren't insulting from your point of view.  If one were to check everyone (except very rare circumstances) has a XX or XY chromosome pair which determines their gender.  People who act contrary to this are gender confused.  We'll get back to this but I have to go slowly or the insult of what I'm saying will obscure the factual nature of what I'm saying.



Again, there is no way to approach this without insult, please forgive me. 

We need to unwrap this a bit.  First of all, please understand that having faith in God does not make one "good", or better than someone else.  No Christian, can say they are "good", or better than anyone else.  I'd be happy to explain that further if need be.  Second, yes there are traditional families that are not healthy.  The difference is they could be with some work. 

Although you 'believe' there can be stable and healthy same gender families, there can not be.  The same gender family can at best mimic, a stable and healthy family.  Again please forgive my language which must be offensive to your world view.  There are distinct roles that must be filled to have a stable and healthy family.  There are distinct stages a stable and healthy family go through.  Mommy, Daddy, First born, middle siblings, and the youngest all have their roles to play, and so do extended family.  As the family goes from giving birth, to raising children, to raising grand children, things happen that make them a family.  At best a same gender family can try to simulate that.  But we are completely by passing reality.   A traditional family, lives out being a family, there is not much choice, they are not trying to be a family, they are getting through life and it forges them into a family (almost as if a higher power had planned it that way).  But the same gender couple, typically is just that, a couple that grows old.  If you check, that's the norm.  They might have children from an earlier (traditional) marriage, but the typical same gender couple isn't about kids.  Could there be?  Yeah, and I agree there are a few, but that doesn't make them stable or healthy in the ways that matter to family.     There is much to delve into here, but let's see your response first.



No, I'm saying your dad gets his connection to history, because he was adopted into a family and treated like a normal part of it.  Even so, we both know there were times when he suffered doubt, felt different, needed to be reassured he was really family.  It is a good thing that your past is tied to this family and their future tied with yours.  It would be better if life had played out so you could share a past with your native family and they could share in your future.  The little things in your circumstance are not barriers that are difficult to overcome, but there are certainly bumps and misunderstandings to overcome.  Now think of the same sex couple, and all the additional barriers to overcome.  There is a difference, and it is a poor imitation of real family.



There has been an on going discussion on what part DNA or environment play in child development, but I've never heard anyone claim how parents raise their children has no part in child development before.  Forgive me, but I not only disagree with you, I can prove you wrong.  I spend a lot of time with kids.  In scouts, youth group, or at the family shelter.  I can make changes in their development, testable, provable, lasting changes, and I have far less influence on them than a parent does. 


Ah yes, I certainly don't know it all.  So, I'll talk from experiance, and education, about things we can know and test.  I would support Polygamy over same sex couples, for many of the reasons I've already sited.  It has a family structure which can sucessfully create future generations.  The obvious gender roles are fulfilled.  I'll withhold my critizisms because that would be off topic.  I can also discuss history, and how different family structures have worked in the last few thousand years, and we would see a problem historically with same sex couples.  I can speculate into the future, and show you the weakness that same sex couples present.  I'll refrain for the moment as I've written too much for today.  




Are you in favor of murder, simply because it has been around longer than christianity?  The fact that humans did something long ago, does not make it a thing we should endorse.  I use the little c because you must be simply refering to human ritual and tradition, rather than a human relationship with a transendant, creator, God. 


PS, I might not be looking at the posts for a few days at a time during the Christmas season, please don't take offense if I'm slow to respond.

There is no scientific PROOF to this statement anywhere, and I challenge you to back up that claim with fact. 

The answer to that is an easy yes.  It can be measured by the chemicals in the brain. 

NOOOOOOOO!!!!!

I've come to a conclusion that you need to separate marriage and civil union.  A marriage is a union under religious notions, while a civil union is a civil union of commitment that allows the state to treat the two people involved as a couple legally.

Under this guise, Marriage could remain a religious institution structured by their rules and restrictions, but every one could have a civil union (which a Religious marriage would fall under). 

There are a lot of negatives associated with a gay lifestyle, and oddly some of them are created because of a lack of the ability to marry such as promiscuity.  Without any binding unity beyond a simple word, there is less incentive to remain faithful, or to remain a couple.  This also prevents them from entering into some other social contracts as well, such as buying a house together, joint bank accounts, retirement funds, etc.

The big con of allowing such unions to happen is the social acceptance of homosexuality.  Some may not see this as a con, but even for those that do, it doesn't trample on your rights or change how you life your life directly.

Simply changing the name doesn't address the issues at hand.  Is it good for our country to endorse same sex relationships?  Simple math, can show non-child bearing couples (even heterosexual) are a drain on the future welfare of our country.  I'll be happy to digress, if you respond.   


I think this is all backward.  Marriage clearly doesn't prevent people from promiscuity.  How many Marriages end in divorce because of this?  Rather a couple, decides to be a couple, and with or without ceremoney stay a couple.   

Social acceptance of homosexuality has already happened.  It's not a pro or con, it just is.   Please notice, I'm not saying it should or should not be because people like it or accept it.  I'm questioning if it is a good thing for the future of our country.

So it does actually measurably trample on Social Security, health care, etc...  Just like a smoker does.  We should be talking is the cost, worth the benefit, but I've never seen a pro-gay person admit to a cost.

Yes, indeed, that's exactly the position atheists take.  Judges have interpeted law to prevent religious people from praying, contrary to the plain language of the consitution (Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof).  If the majority pass a law, one is always faced with obeying or objecting.  In the case of religious freedom as well as this one (what to call it, gender freedom) I would advocate honest, open discussion, so that an intellegent law can be passed or not.  The problem in both cases is, the amount of dishonest propaganda is harmful to our country.  The cure to propaganda is honest discussion.  


Hmmm, I did a smiley, I had hoped to take any sting out of what I said.  My assumption was that both Chad and you were joking, or at least having fun at the comical delema which arises from our conversation.  

It's funny, I hope, my point was not about what type of porn you (or Chad, or anyone else) may or may not indulge in, but rather how difficult it is to just talk about certain topics.  The response, kinda proves the point, yeah it is hard to honestly talk about certain topics.   Please know, the only Judgment I've made about you is that you are honest, kind hearted, and interesting to talk to.


Well, I thought I was.  Let me be more clear, and please help me to see where I am wrong.

Pros
Individual freedom

Cons
Social Security cost
Health Insurence cost
Health Care cost
Damage to the traditional family unit
Lost future generations
Gender Confusion
Measurable increase in crime
Shortened life span




That should be enough for the moment.

Depends on if they adopt.  If a gay couple were allowed to adopt, many would.  That would be a help to the economy, welfare, as well as the kids adopted into a loving family as opposed to left to struggle in foster homes or orphanages.

As for the promiscuity, that's a perception issue as much as anything.  People assume it happens because there is no social contract of commitment beyond that of a boyfriend-girlfriend.  On top of that, there are less social and financial repercussions of being unfaithful/promiscuous.

Sure, divorce and adultery happens all the time now in heterosexual marriages, but the bond of marriage is a deterrent for some still.  Promiscuous relationships among heterosexuals who are unmarried are still higher.  There's something to be said for the social contract that is more binding than simply being a couple. 

There are a lot of base assumptions here that we disagree on.  Perhaps surprizingly, I know a number of 'gay couples', none of them want kids, some of them have kids from a previous hetero marriage, but they are not intending to have more.  What you are talking about here is not typical.  The phrase 'loving family' also is not typical, one is over looking the social dynamics of Mommy and Daddy roles in the family structure to try to claim 'loving family' for a same sex couple.  I'm not saying a child is better off in an orphanage, just that what you imply is simply unlikely, and more to the point the child is better off with a Mommy and Daddy.


Yeah, I can agree with that.   I'm not sure anyone has claimed promiscuousness as an issue yet. 


Again we start with different base assumptions.  I don't see marriage as simply a binding contract.  I also don't see a difference in the numerous sexual sins we are talking about, all of it is a problem.



I appologise if I gave any offense.  If, at the time, we were on good enough terms for such a discussion, I would have done my best to ask questions and help you think through the process.  I suspect we would be stuck on God's place in a marriage, before we got down to how the role of father applies, and the difficulties you would face in the marriage you planned. 

But let me rephrase it this way, if I could have talked you out of it then you were not ready for marriage. 

My intent is not to play god and pass judgment, but to recognize the 'norm' and be ready to realistically face the issues that arise outside of that.  To compassionately aproach those issues, but discuss them even if it is difficult, perhaps especially if it is difficult.