gay marriage

If this is the case then there are a bunch of roomates that are married and don't even know it.

@Space Cowboy - you don't have to berate the bible just because you don't believe in it. It also promotes tolerance, and acceptance even of those not of like beliefs.

You don't need a book to tell you right from wrong. Especially when said book can't make up it's mind on what is right and wrong.

The ideas of right and wrong that we learn today from society have been influnced from said books. You can see the differences in other cultures that have had less influnces from Christianity, Juadism, Hindu or Islam. Look at japan, almost no christian influnces, and something like revenge is an honorable thing. In western society it isn't. The moral thing is to forgive, because of christian influnce. So these books HAVE helped shape morals.

Not trying to say what morals are right and wrong, just that these books are relevant to how you live your life, because they shape the society you live in.

I say if gays want to get married then let them. If they get married it wont effect my life in anyway so why hold them back?

My apologies for not reading the whole thread, but I wanted to comment because I find this argument amusing and disturbing.

Legaliszed Incest: The only reason this should be a law is because of the need for genetic redundancy. If human DNA had fewer flaws, then there is no reason why incest should be illegal. Since gay couples do not exchange DNA, it's not a valid argument.

Beastial Marriage: If animals ever receive the full rights and privaleges of legal adult citizens, then marriage is the least of my worries.

Polygamy: Should not be illegal. I don't think I've ever heard a good reason for why this is illegal, except that most people can barely handle the responsibilities of one spouse, much less multiples. However, just because something is hard doesn't mean it should be illegal. One of the most intriguing concepts of marriage I heard was described in Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" where people were kind of paired off, but only loosely, and there were general relationships happening. The entire family also had shared monetary responsibility. Of course, that thing would never be legal because it'd be impossible to institute inheritance tax because everyone would always have a younger spouse.

Holy fuck. Nice job on opening a can of worms. So the state is supposed to control breeding based on genetic quality?
Hmm...I think they've tried that in the past. In, you know, Germany. Didn't quite work out.
Incest laws are superfluous, archaic clutter. If a child is involved, it's child abuse and should be punished accordingly. If it involves only consenting adults, the state can have no business in it (NB: the legal situation in France and the Benelux actually adheres to this principle).

Everybody should see Bruno. It's 90 minutes of gay jokes.

In my opinion, men can marry anyone they like as long as it doesn't affect me in any way, shape, or form.

I hear this alot, and while I'm not saying whether gays, not just gay men, should marry or not, it does effect you.
Because you and your family, your kids, will be affected. I've seen post about how people are okay with gays, but hope if they have kids that their kids don't turn out gay. But allowing gay marriage puts that couple's marriage into your society more visabily. You will walk down the grocery aisle with your kids and be behind two guys holding hands. Your political leaders will have a same sex partner and they'll represent you to the rest of the world, to other states, to other governments, and other countries because they are YOUR elected official.

Whether your okay with that is up to you, but the thought that gay marriage doesn't effect you isn't correct. It does affect you because it is your society and culture that it effects.

I'd rather have a gay person represent my country than an old ignorant homophobe or racist.

Oh no, ze childrenz, thinks about ze childrenz. So my kid sees two gays holding hands in a grocery store. He's gonna turn gay because?



Obama is black. Does his fucking blackness effect me? What if they discovered he likes to fuck his wife with a dildo stuck inside his own ass. Does that shit effect us? The only thing that will happen is the fucking media will start spouting shit to the public making republicans attack the idea of dildos in male asses. The president's personal preferences in sex should not effect anyone in this country nor should anyone let it effect them as long as he's doing his fucking job which says nothing about him having to fuck her the normal way, nor does it say anything about him having to fuck a woman.

[Disclaimer: Not specifically aimed at razama. Also has curses.]

And if you think that the president shouldn't be gay because it makes our country look all all equal and non discriminatory oops I mean if it makes our country look gay, then you're a fucking homophobic cunt who discriminates only based on sexual preference which he/she shouldn't even give a fuck about but he/she does anyway because the thought of having a gay leader is too much for his/her hateful mind to handle.

Why should it matter two fucks to you, eh?
I wouldn't want two gay guys making out in front of me at the supermarket, but I wouldn't want a straight couple making out in front me at the supermarket either. And I can't think of a situation in which I would NOT want a lesbian couple making out in front of me...

Point being, I expect gay folks to keep their private lives private as much as I expect straight people to, and provided they do this, their gayness doesn't effect me.

And I hardly care if it does. Gay is not contagious.

Umm... that's not at all what I said. All I'm saying is that incestuous relationships have a disproportionate chance of producing unhealthy offspring, and that it is immoral to subject one's children to that if avoidable. It's the same reason why human cloning is immoral, because science hasn't found a way to produce cloned offspring as healthy as the genetic donors. (for the record, the sanctity of the human soul argument with regards to cloning is total bullshit)

I suppose that we're fast approaching scenerios like that described in Gattaca where the state actually could approve/disapprove genetic couplings based off of a list of known genetic disorders, but that'd still have the negative reprocussion of whittling away genetic diversity.

No were aren't. Not even close, and there is no way it'd ever happen.

It may not have been what you meant, but it is what you said:

"should be illegal", "should be a law" = state intervening on breeding,
"need for genetic redundancy" = the reason being genetic quality.
QED.


So does a maternal age >35 years (incidence of trisomy 21 strongly increased; takes off wildly beyond 40). According to your reasoning, breeding beyond the age of 35 should also be illegal.
So does a relationship where both parents have a recessive trait that predisposes the child for hereditary diseases. Should all people then not be screened for that and those found wanting not be barred from breeding? After all, it is immoral to subject one's children to that if avoidable.



I sure do not hope so, because that'd mean the work of all biologists since Gregor Mendel would have been in vain. And that would be the least worrisome consequence.

I didn't read Rbz or Dante's post last time but...

If you don't give a shit then fine. That wasn't the point I was making. The point was that it DOES affect you. Rbz, you can mock "think of the children" but it will have an impact on peoples parenting and how they raise there kids. I don't give a shit either way if you think it is right or wrong. But it will affect people's lives.

I didn't mean fast approaching as in socially probable, I meant technologically feasible.

As for your other comments, you do raise a good point. I think we can all agree that there is a good reason for why incest is illegal- however you've succeeded in convincing me that that reason isn't good enough to impinge on the rights of the individual. Congratulations on changing someone's mind on the internet.

I personally can't think of any reason not to allow gay marriage. Of course, it's not like I graduated in sociology or something, but I think the negative impact of allowing gay marriage - if any - would be ignorable. I doubt there'd even be a large impact of any kind except maybe cultural shock (as in "OMG they're allowing gay marriage").

And apparently we are also discussing incest now, but I won't say anything on that subject because I actually got in trouble once for stating my opinions on the matter.

I gotta say, there is no good reason to deny gay people marriage. The "tradition" of marriage argument is just not a good argument. In the end marriage is a contract, you can skip the ceremony, sign a form, and tada you're married. The ceremony means nothing in a legal sense. Marriage is an agreement of shared rights as far as the government should be concerned.

Ironically, although many conservatives disagree with gay marriage, they should be for it. Conservatives after all do believe in smaller government, well not allowing gay marriage is government intervention in someones private life.

And, in the US the divorce rate is something like 50%. That is ridiculous to imply marriage is "sacred". Never mind how many senators and governors and what have you seem to have affairs of both straight and gay sorts.