Wryword Wrote:Dio, I don't doubt for a minute that there are gay people who are just oriented that way. But I don't see the logical connection or necessity between being gay and marriage. I personally think the whole issue is really about inheritance and insurance issues, and possibly adoption, but as for the financial thing, these things can be handled between two gay people without the necessity of marriage. As for adoption, I am not ready to say that adoption under such circumstances is good for the child. In this latter issue, the good of the child is the important thing, not the good of the people who want to adopt. Same is true for straights, and there are a lot of straight people who have no business being natural or adoptive parents.

Logically, I don't see the connection between marriage and love, esquire, but there are those who do.

More to the point--why should it be your business what people do? What do you care? If you choose not to marry another man, then don't do it. If I feel strongly enough about someone that I want to make a commitment of that magnitude, then why do you care? What's wrong with live and let live?

Does it just madden you that there are people who simply don't share your worldview? Well, it maddens me to. However, I usually don't have the backing of legislative bodies to enforce my ideologies into laws which exclude or include us all as Americans.

And as far as the Episcopal Church is concerned, you would be oversimplifying the matter if you assumed we are all of one mind on the issue.

But we are attempting to evolve as a body of faith. It's either forward or backward, my friend, and yesterday wasn't really as great as you think.

JBR, there has never been a necessary connection between love and marriage, only an illusion of that of relatively recent vintage. I agree with you. It is certainly good to begin a marriage with romance, but marriage tends to last much longer than romance. The Romantics had a part in the creation of this illusion. In past ages marriages were as often as not arranged or brokered, with a view toward creating or cementing economically or politically useful relationships.

Anyway, you are also right that that the emotional and physical connections of other people are none of my business. But marriage is only partly a private relationship. Since secular marriage is a creature of the State and regulated by the State and is intended in part to promote the good of the State, I think I have standing to express a view concerning that institution. It is my opinion that marriage can only exist between a man and a woman, in view of the particular purpose involved,which is raising children. Obviously there is another view, but I think you will find, if you think beyond the box of the "what's good for me" mode, that the other reasons asserted are secondary.

As for your "living in the past" comment, I am not so sure that I live in the delusion that things were better in the past so much as I believe that there are certain truths that are universal and do not change as the generations do. Rail against them as you will -- it has been done many times in the past -- but they have a stubborn way of being utterly unaffected. They have a stubborn way of never going away. Ignoring them doesn't mean they don't exist.

As for ECUSA, I am amused, astounded and disgusted by that organization's profound inability to abide by basic Christian precepts. If in their view they are "evolving",well, fine and good, but why then must they delude themselves with the belief that they are Christians? There is no more general revelation (that alpha and omega thing), so Christians, properly called, will look askance at ECUSA's "evolution". And to put the divinity of Christ into issue, as some of them do, well....

Is ECUSA indeed to tell Christ that his precepts have been amended? Have they all been reading "The Grand Inquisitor"and misunderstanding it? The Druid of Canterbury will do this? I don't know, but I do believe that a new hymn should be required for ECUSA, to be named "Vicki Gene", using M. Jackson's "Billie Jean". Crotch grabbing a la Jackson should be optional, perhaps as a sign of peace, or piece. Red clown noses should be required to be used by all their clergy.

I would say that you ought to read "Choruses From the Rock" when considering ECUSA's suicide. I know that there is hardly uniformity in agreement with ECUSA's path to oblivion, but the fact is that nothing remains but for the church to split -- a good old fashioned schism. Those who are Christians simply cannot in good faith abide these abominations in ECUSA.

But for all this, "gay" marriage is soon to be an accomplished fact, as the events in Massachussets will soon prove. The Repubs will not make much of an issue about it -- they will only make a brief sqawk of disapproval and then go pass a highway bill -- and conservatives are not united enough to make an effect. The battle is already won for "gay" marriage, my friend; it only needs to have formal recognition of it by the federal courts.

joebordenrebel Wrote:Dear Mssr. Torch,

You wrote:

"In short, no I do not think it's lame. (And how do you justify forcing this particular moral code on others?)"

I wouldn't argue that self-determination is "enforcing" any particular sort of moral code on anybody.

Of course not, it's your assertion. (Duh. Does anybody understand logic these days? No, logic doesn't sell advertising in Salon, etc.) The point is, your anarchy is internally inconsistent.

Quote:If you deny my right as a gay man to marry, then aren't you adversely affecting my freedom?

Yes. And if I deny you your "right" to run red lights, drive drunk, or sit in a clock tower sniping students, I am adversely affecting your freedom.
Laws do that in general. That's not the discussion (it is your typical straw man argument from someone who doesn't know a sound argument.)
The discussion is: is a given law "reasonable". Of course reasonable has to be defined, and not inflicting harm on others is a broadly accepted start. But, how that mechanism occurs (of if it truly occurs) is usually a big part of the discussion.

Quote:Isn't that the fundamental fascist impulse? To control everyone? To have them conform to what you think is right?

Isn't using emotional rhetoric another fallacious argument? That's two...

Quote:"Gay marriage denegrates traditional marriage."

How so?

I posted a link for one example. If you're truly interested you'd read the answer when it's given to you on a silver platter. But, it's so much easier to criticize than do real research, isn't it?

Quote:"The homosexual agenda causes confusion among adolescents."

How so? Again, you make many assertions with no evidence whatsoever to back them up.

Again, I posted another link to provide evidence. Seems like you're making the unfounded assertions. Logical fallacy #3...

Quote:Most adolescents I know aren't confused in the slightest about human sexuality.

'Data' is not the plural of anecdotes. And what qualifications do you have discussing this private issue w/ adolescents? And why, once again, do you avoid reading links that provide the evidence you ask for?

Quote:"And certainly teaching about it in public schools would affect my children."

Teaching what? The so-called "homosexual agenda"?

For someone who is so fervent for individual's rights, you sure back down quickly when it's not the "right" you want enforced.

Quote:"Moreover, check the actuarial tables, homosexual relationships have far more incidents of disease, violence and early death." 

Please provide these actuarial tables, Herr Doktor. I'd love to see them.

Why, you don't read the links I've posted. Read the literature, the average life expectancy for a homosexual is decades lower than for a heterosexual.

That was checkmate. You couldn't even defend your position, you simply questioned mine while avoiding all research.

Wryword Wrote:JBR, there has never been a necessary connection between love and marriage,

etc.

While you may not particularly relish it, I think you made some excellent points here Wryword.

I just hope you're wrong in your last paragraph.

Thank you, DrTorch, so have you. But if you hope I was being extreme in that last paragraph, look what they are doing in San Francisco, in open violation of State law. And it does not seem the the Attorney General of that State or the governor have any wish to enforce the law of the State. Utterly unbelievable

well, now, this has all worked out so "well", hasn't it?

(06-13-2023 02:05 PM)GoodOwl Wrote:  well, now, this has all worked out so "well", hasn't it?

Dang! 19 year old thread. What page was this on?


But to answer your question... kinda how we knew it would.

(06-13-2023 03:19 PM)umbluegray Wrote:  

(06-13-2023 02:05 PM)GoodOwl Wrote:  well, now, this has all worked out so "well", hasn't it?

Dang! 19 year old thread. What page was this on?


But to answer your question... kinda how we knew it would.

So much worse than I imagined.

Record thread bump?

(06-13-2023 03:28 PM)shere khan Wrote:  Record thread bump?

Perhaps, perhaps not. I find some value in History (as in those who become/remain unawares of it are often doomed to repeat it), so reading people's passionate posts and retorts on a subject after the passage of time can be insightful and instructive to helping better inform future positions and decisions on such matters of import.

But mostly intelligent folks could see this sort of outcome in general as relativism never beats objective truth. Although admittedly the horrific particulars of the results would have been (and were) denied by the promoters of this madness as impossible....ooops!) Perhaps maybe if "they" just get relativism "right" this time?....nah, I won't hold my breath.

Too, if we re-examine most of the tenets of those who promoted the "(not-so)great Society", if there was an equivalent message board of posts to refer to from the 1960's, we'd see that Leftism and government engineering of society in these overly-intrusive (and staggeringly expensive) ways has been a near-complete, abject and total factual failure. Why even Reagan warned us about Medicare, and government overreach of inserting itself into and controlling "healthcare" back then. He was correct.

Hey why stop here, society was "better" prior to the Loving decision (which I was happily celebrating the anniversary of yesterday) so lets just bring that back!

I was in favor of civil unions

In general, I was opposed to gay marriage for 3 main reasons

-- normalizing family structures that were not natural
-- naturally, there was a next step. Even though everyone was assured there wasn't, the snowball started rolling downhill
-- kids, as in.... obtaining or creating children without regard for the child, ultimately not providing that child the choice(or chance) of having a mother and a father (see number one)

All of these things have escalated tremendously, but I will repeat... there is a vocal part of the gay community who is totally against what is happening now. They feel like their efforts and the limits they promised are being eroded.

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I was in high school when this thread started.

(06-13-2023 04:02 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  Hey why stop here, society was "better" prior to the Loving decision (which I was happily celebrating the anniversary of yesterday) so lets just bring that back!

In some ways yes, in some ways no.

(06-13-2023 04:02 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  Hey why stop here, society was "better" prior to the Loving decision (which I was happily celebrating the anniversary of yesterday) so lets just bring that back!

The measure of societal decline doesn't hinge on one decision, law, or point in time.

It's a culmination over a period of time. It's normalization of the unnatural or immoral.



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(02-06-2004 09:48 PM)flyingswoosh Wrote:  this is the biggest travesty ever. Talk about the gov't getting into people's homes. I don't agree with their lifestyle but it's their life, and they have the freedom to choose how to live it. Bush and the rest of the gov't is pissing me off. Dubya is trying to ban gay marriage from a religious standpoint. what happens if you aren't christian? Are christians the only ones who are right?

If gays want to marry, or adopt a child, they should be able to, it's their life.

LOL, this hasn't aged well at all. This buffoon couldn't see the slippery slope. And here we are a short 20 years removed and look at the sickness that's taken hold here. It's not, nor has it ever been, about the ability of two people in love being together legally. As we see right now every sort of perversion is being celebrated and openly flaunted for the whole world to see.

Communism is working, it's gaining traction here at breakneck speed. The only problem is that once it does take hold, all the so called rights the left has fought for will be taken away, by force at the end of a gun if necessary.

Meh, fuq it, let them eat each other, they always do anyway.

(06-13-2023 04:15 PM)maximus Wrote:  I was in favor of civil unions

In general, I was opposed to gay marriage for 3 main reasons

-- normalizing family structures that were not natural
-- naturally, there was a next step. Even though everyone was assured there wasn't, the snowball started rolling downhill
-- kids, as in.... obtaining or creating children without regard for the child, ultimately not providing that child the choice(or chance) of having a mother and a father (see number one)

All of these things have escalated tremendously, but I will repeat... there is a vocal part of the gay community who is totally against what is happening now. They feel like their efforts and the limits they promised are being eroded.

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