Gay Marriage Ban: For or Against? (Page 2)

I don't believe the government should have anything to do with marriage hetero or homo.  In Colorado all you have to do is walk into the county clerk's office, pay ten bucks, tell the clerk you're not related and state whether you are  never-married, divorced or widowed.  Nothing sacred about that.

Is there any reason that the government could not recognize partner unions (I'm not sure what you would call this) regardless of the existing relationship.  In other words, two siblings/friends/relatives could form a partnership with legal benefits and sex wouldn't have anything to do with it. 

I hope some of you could follow what I'm trying to say.  I'm not feeling particularly eloquent here.

Thanks for the link, Chucky. The very first hit brought me to about.com's guide to conservative politics, which included 3 pages/screens of reasons. But they truly are laughable. Here are a few snipets that made me giggle:

"The teachings of the three most prominent religions in America - Christianity, Judaism, and Islam - all declare gay and lesbian sexual behavior to be immoral."

uh, no, there are branches of all three that think honoring who you are, as God made you to be, is the most moral obligation a believer has.  A believer. As far as I know, not one of The Big Three cares to much what non-believers do...

Gay and lesbian people are free to make decisions about their own behavior, but it is wrong to try and force all of society to accept that behavior as legitimate and moral. Efforts to legalize same-sex marriage are attempts to do just that."

wrong-o. I can only speak for myself (as a lesbian person) but I don;t much care if you believe I am moral, my efforts to NOT ILLEGALIZE GAY MARRRIAGE ( as opposed to legalizing my marriage, which I have no interest in doing at the federal level at this time) are economic at this stage. The morality that I DO hope to impose on my fellow Americans is that I am entitled to the same rights as every citizen.

"While traditional marriages contain normal human beings, with all their faults and shortcomings, the nuclear family remains the strongest and healthiest of all models."

Wait, some professional writer/pundit thinker actually wrote that? (insert louder guffaws) I would think that there are certain "faults and shortcomings" (let's just say, for starters, physical and emotional abuse, drug addiction, alcholism,) that many of these normal nuclear families exhibit that might be less ideal than, say, freaky lesbians like my partner and me. Anyone on this website raised by straight married people want to chime in on your superior childhood experience?

I maintain that, as a lesbian, the idea of a FEDERAL BAN, an amendment to our Constitution is fundamentally mean spirited, and goes against what America means to most of our citizens, the bogus research on this site notwithstanding. But I am supposed to be cut off from COJ, it's too distracting from real issues, like, my family (as vile and threatening as it may be to yours) my career (in which I work to improve literacy among the children of Wisconsin, a contribution I make to fellow tax payers' normal strong healthy families) Grrr, settle down Possum.

How does that relate to the people here who voted for the ban?  Is that their opinion?  Are you speaking for them?  I'd rather hear their reasons, than assume. 

If you want to deny someone rights, I think you owe them an explanation of why.  But that's just me.  I think someone who doesn't have the guts to do that is a coward.  That's my judgement.  It's not like I'm asking for a constitutional amendment to define them as cowards.

Hangloose made a good point in that there are several issues here that could affect how you think about this: you can be pro/con gay marriage and pro/con the feds having the power to make an amendment.  (Hangloose let me know if I've misquoted you)

Summer, you inspired me to look up Federalism.  My Political Science background is pretty weak.  It seems to be the idea of distributing power between a central government(the feds) and the states (I must have learned this in High School but. . . ya' know puberty etc.).  Hmm. . .sounds like a good idea since locals know more what's going on in there area and what is appropriate.

As I write this, I'm thinking I'd like to see a federal law prohibiting recognition of any marriage and only recognizing civil unions thus strengthing the separation of church and state.  I suppose that makes me less of a Federalist.

 Hmm. . well you all got me thinking!

Well, it is probably of little use to compare an ideal heterosexual couple to an ideal homosexual couple in regards to how "good" of a family it is. It would be more useful to compare the average heterosexual couple family to the average homosexual couple family. Although there's probably not enough statistics on that now.

But, for certain, there are a lot of screwed up heterosexual families, and tons of divorces.

Why is there no movement to make a federal amendment against DIVORCE?? What is the conservative christian stance on that?

Anyone who thinks that gays deserve to have rights denied to them is not a good person in my book.  I don't care what else "good" they may do or have done in life.  You may not agree with my judgement, that's fine, as I don't agree with yours.  They are still cowards in my eyes.  You call them good people.  I call them cowards.  Who is right?  Neither and both.

You are right that they don't owe me anything.  They owe the answer to Possum, and Q, and Akabak, and all the others here to whom they want to deny rights to.

If they don't speak up and support their position, then I think they are cowards.  Don't want to be coward?  Don't hide behind the mask of anonymity.

Engage in the debate.  So far, no one that voted for the amendment has as far as I can tell.

I disagree with their position, I think that's obvious, but that's not why I think they are cowards.

And I really don't think that anyone can tell anyone else authoritively that their own personal judgement is "WRONG".  Tell them you disagree with it, and give reasons why.  Chucky says they are good people and I'm incorrect in my judgement.  Show me something other than a statement that backs up the Chuky's judgement they are good people.

There's a world of difference, subtle as it may be, between "something is" and "I think something is". 

I agree - these people who support the amendment really don't owe you or anyone else an explanation. I can't blame them for not wanting to risk the wrath of those who feel passionately that this ban is anathema.

Read my post again.  I think you missed some parts, like where I said they are cowards for avoiding debate, not because of their position on the issue.  I make no apologies for passionately defending my positions.  My beliefs are very sincerely held.

They are pre-judging gays to be incapable parents and undeserving of recognition of their marriages.

Way to accuse me of an ad-hominem, and then jump right into your own.