How exactly will Gay Marriage harm Marriage as an Institution?

What are you people confused about?

Did you read through the articles?

I don't neccesarily agree w/Huck's position, but that doesn't in any way make him a close minded moron

Try refuting his arguement instead of acting offended and hurling insults...

 

BRILLIANT CYNICAL!!


Hucks thinking is typical of the exclusionary nature of christianity, for he sees himself as one the pretty little angel will drop out of the sky to save, while the rest of the heathens burn in hell fire.


i suppose you can't fault someone for being a primitive.......but i will anyway.


If you are going to let gay people "destroy" your marriage, then your marriage was weak anyway.

I plan on writing Christian pop songs, scamming my followers and taking all the money they would normally give to Pat Robertson, then letting be known that I worship "the devil" and that i lust after their children....then i will laugh as they cry.

 

And yet the mud slinging continues...

 

Oh I'm a mean one shane....

This arguement can't be won by stating facts, its an issue of whether you believe all people are created equally or not....i do.

I'm tired of fundamnetalist christians using this issue as a red herring while real problems grow.


we would be better off if this rising tide of fundamentalism ended, the whole world would be better off.

 

dammit, seamonster, i'm a christian, too. i dont' consider gay marriage to be condoned by the christian church, nor should anyone expect it to be, freedomof religion and all that. but i also believe taht we should allow gay unions, since, in fact, christianity has no right to monopolize the state sanctioned institution of marriage. now should we force christian churches to hold weddings? NO. but should we stop anyone else from receiving the same benefits of anyone else? MOST DEFINITELY NOT.


and i'm a christian.

 

KC, notice i said *fundamentalist* christians, i dislike all fundamentalist religions the same, I'm fair that way



i totally agree about the church acting like it has monopoly with marriage, which makes no sense considering you can get married in front of a judge like I did.

i have no problem with epople who believe in christianity, especially the way old black women practice it, i just have a problem with extremists trying to infiltrate the government.

Its a disturbing trend.

 

yeah, sorry man, i was just needing a cigarette. got all defensive without cause. i would like to tell you though, that there are a lot of christians who agree with me on this, due to the seperation of church and state. those who are interested in keeping the state out of the church tend to be for gay marriages and against the faith-based organizational funding. and a few of these are *gasp* fundamentalist christians. i know a few of them from my SDA church days, and they're pretty fundy.

 

Not all christians are extreme, not all republicans are neo-cons...i know all of this. In these times it just seems that the extremists are the ones getting thier viewpoints out there, while everyone else is too scared or lethargic to fight back.



used to live across from an all black baptist church, i loved sitting on my porch on sunday and listening to their music, it was so perfect.


all this is because i like black people better than whites because i am racist
seriously though, it seems that they had a more positive and "more better" form of chrisitanity because it appeared to be funner than the churches populated by dour faced white peoples.

 

Things have sure changed in the U.S. A generation ago, we were proposing a Constitutional amendment to guarantee rights for women, blacks, gays, etc. Now we're proposing amendments to keep them from having rights.

Let's have a Constitutional Amendment to ban rich people so that we can protect the sanctity of the middle-class and the poor.

 

I doesn't look like you bothered reading any of the articles I cited. Here are a few excerpts:​

Kari Moxnes, a feminist sociologist specializing in divorce, is one of the most prominent of Norway's newly emerging group of public social scientists. As a scholar who sees both marriage and at-home motherhood as inherently oppressive to women, Moxnes is a proponent of nonmarital cohabitation and parenthood. In 1993, as the Norwegian legislature was debating gay marriage, Moxnes published an article, "Det tomme ekteskap" ("Empty Marriage"), in the influential liberal paper Dagbladet. She argued that Norwegian gay marriage was a sign of marriage's growing emptiness, not its strength. Although Moxnes spoke in favor of gay marriage, she treated its creation as a (welcome) death knell for marriage itself. ​

​

and

NOTHING ILLUMINATES the cultural shift in the Dutch understanding of marriage so clearly as the contrast between the conservative Van der Staaij and the centrist-liberal Vos during the final gay marriage debate in 2000. Vos, like many in his party, had opposed gay marriage only two years before. Once Vos and his party moved firmly into the gay marriage camp, the parliamentary battle was over.​

It is noteworthy that when Vos switched sides, he did not adopt a moderate defense of same-sex marriage. He never argued that gay marriage would strengthen marriage for all. Instead, Vos flipped from traditionalism to a view of relationships barely distinguishable from that of radicals like Van der Pluijm. ​

It wasn't necessary for Van der Staaij to wait years to see his warnings about the slippery slope from gay marriage to de facto abolition of the institution borne out. Indeed, Vos himself approvingly cited the very article from Nederlands Juristenblad that Van der Staaij had brandished as a warning. Yes, said Vos, the government ought to get out of the marriage business altogether. The state has no business encouraging citizens to choose marriage over other relationships. ​

​

Startled by Vos's radical shift, leaders of the other parties pressed him to explain his change of heart. Tellingly, Vos attributed his own earlier opposition to gay marriage to sheer inertial traditionalism.​

So the juxtaposition of Van der Staaij the steadfast traditionalist and Vos the new radical encapsulates the shift in the Dutch understanding of marriage precipitated by the decade-long debate over same-sex unions. Van der Staaij speaks for those increasingly marginalized Dutch who continue to view marriage in largely traditional terms. Vos represents the secular center, once content to ride the rails of tradition, now radicalized by the same-sex marriage debate. ​

THESE TWO EMBLEMATIC LEADERS' radical view of gay marriage is widely held. The leaders of De Gay Krant--the sparkplugs of the movement for gay marriage--always sought full social recognition for homosexuality, not the reinforcement of the position of marriage in society. De Gay Krant's history of the gay marriage movement makes no mention of what in America is called the "conservative case" for same-sex marriage--the argument that gay marriage will encourage gay monogamy and strengthen the unique appeal and status of marriage for all.​

The Dutch movement for gay marriage got a major boost when the main Dutch gay rights organization, the COC, finally joined De Gay Krant in the fight. For the first five years of the battle, COC had refused to support the cause, on the grounds that marriage was an oppressive and outdated institution. The COC never changed its mind on that score. When it finally joined hands with De Gay Krant in 1995, COC openly declared that this was a tactical shift that did not signify acceptance of marriage as an institution.​

The Dutch left was similarly frank about its radical understanding of gay marriage. During the 2000 parliamentary debates, Green party spokesman Femke Halsema said it was only when considered superficially that the drive for same-sex marriage appeared to contradict the feminist quest for the abolition of marriage. In reality, said Halsema, conservative opponents were largely right to claim that gay marriage would be tantamount to the abolition of marriage--which was exactly why gay marriage was a good thing. Halsema added that the logical consequence of her position was that registered partnerships ought to be protected and encouraged as a nontraditional alternative to marriage.​

The Greens had recognized the radical significance of gay marriage as early as 1996. At the time, Dutch lesbian intellectual Xandra Schutte argued in De Groene Amsterdammer (The Green Amsterdammer) that providing gay marriage as one of a menu of relationship options was the equivalent of the abolition of marriage. Necessarily, Schutte emphasized, gays would be trendsetters in removing the connection between marriage and parenthood, thereby pushing society toward a more flexible conception of relationships (which, she said, could include three- and foursomes).​

A comparable position was implicit in the stance of the governing coalition. During the 2000 debate, Boris Dittrich, spokesman for the liberal D66 party, a member of the governing coalition and floor manager of the gay marriage bill, suggested that changes could be made to registered partnerships that would establish them more securely as a "light" alternative to marriage. So the main government sponsor of the gay marriage bill was still another who saw same-sex marriage as an invitation to further experimentation with the relationship system.​

And that is exactly what has developed in the years since gay marriage was enacted. The revised parental leave act passed by parliament in 2001 extends the rights of married couples and registered partners to unregistered cohabitors. The 2001 revision of the tax code also extends rights to unregistered as well as registered partners. These legal changes--which came five years into the upsurge of Dutch parental cohabitation--confirm that the legalization of gay marriage in the Netherlands is associated not with renewed emphasis on the privileged status of marriage but with the opposite.​

Dutch opponents of gay marriage don't seem to have spent any time rebutting the "conservative case" for gay marriage. Why should they? All participants in the debate--the gay community as well as the political left, center, and right--took gay marriage to signify the replacement of marriage by a flexible and morally neutral range of relationship options.​

​

See also http://www.leaderu.com/marco/marriage/gaymarriage2.html.​

 

yawn...


i will only read the above post if the writer can prove he is black.

 

I'm sorry, I have to repeat myself, but.............

People's love lives ARE NONE OF YOU'RE FUCKING BUSINESS!!!!



Q: You know what this "issue" is actually about?


A: It's about insurance companies not wanting to grant benefits. That's it.



So you can get all religious about it, but we have this rule in America called "seperation of church and state" and what that means is... you sick religious fucks don't get to tell everyone how to behave.

 

for once i agree with you Bacchus, 100%
again let me ask, what is the threat?! how is anyone elses behavior going to change your relationship with your stepford wife?

People were probably saying the same ignorant things when women were allowed to vote, work outside the home, or when black people were allowed to vote.

 

if you open up to new ideas, you'll find this will be more often than not.

 

As I expected, there's no real interest in a thoughtful debate here.

 

I disagree with this. Insurance companies would love to have more people covered, because that means more premiums collected. Large corporations, however, can save money on inurance premiums by denying coverage to same sex partners. Many companies, however, have begun offering such coverage, because they now see the value of a diversified workplace.

In Virginia, up until a few years ago it was ILLEGAL for a company to provide same sex insurance benefits. The company I work for offers them, but because of state law, I could not get them for my partner. The only way same-sex partner insurance benefits could affect the state is to save them money, by keeping people off of medical assistance. One more example of institutional discrimination.

Huck, your articles STILL do not explain why I am not entitled to the same rights as you. You don't have to love me, or even like me. Just stay out of my way! I deserve equal protection under the law. Marraige, for many Americans, has been empty for a long time. You still haven't proven how gay marraige will effect the traditional family and the sanctity of marraige in the United States.

 

there is no point in debating with religious fanatics.


Why don't you answer some of the questions in my above post....do you not agree that this debate is similar to other civil rights struggles.......do you really see the role of religion as denying citizens equal rights?!

 

No, Huck, there just is NO DEBATE. I deserve equal protection and rights under the law. Where is the debate? How can you deny me that? What makes your money, relationship, and interests more important or more valid than mine. I am not a second class citizen.

 

There's nothing to debate. It's like if I called Trump Towers and told them they had to change the entryway. They'd tell me, It's NONE OF MY BUSINESS!


I don't like gay guys. I think they're gross and that they are helping to ruin the idea of man. But do I have the right to deny them medical coverage?

NO!!

It's none of my business, regardless of my personal beliefs and predjudices.


You really need to get over yourself. You're not that important, and your beliefs aren't really all that important either.

 

Actually, gay men are much more likely to refuse social benefits. It seems when you are discriminated against by a group, you don't want any of their help either. People who are sick and do not have medical coverage are a LOT less likely to take themselves to a hospital until an emergency arises.