[pyro-manic]

Originally posted by Liberator
I give up, I'm butting my head against a wall here.  I don't know what it's composed of except that I get a sense that you are all on some level very unhappy people.  You may not even realize it, but someday I hope you will.  

Nah, not especially. Sure, I have my problems, but then so does everyone.

 

Originally posted by Liberator
May God bless you.

Thankyou.

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Originally posted by diamondgeezer

And the rest of the BB. All I'm after, Kaz, is some respectful tolerance from the man who preaches it's importance the loudest  
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I'll second that.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Originally posted by mikhael

Actually, I'll take your word, just not the word of a book that been constantly revised over the course of the last six thousand years, adding and removing things as the current editor saw fit. This is especially true of the New Testament.

there is no part of the bible (both NT or OT) that is 6000 years old.

Writing itself isn't even 6000 years old!

(orally tings may be different but even then monotheism isn't that old.)

just needed to get that of my chest as it's the second time in a short while I see that silly -Archbisshop Usher related- number pop up in relation to the age of the bible.

[Kazan]

Originally posted by Crazy_Ivan80
Writing itself isn't even 6000 years old!

i doubt the validity of that statement [edit] Confirmed varacity - first known human writing 3500 BCE

Mikhael's correct in that it was revised - it was passed down for a great multitude of years orally

[Woolie Wool]

Actually, now that I think of it, EVERY ONE OF US (including myself) has missed the point of marriage itself and the ultimate reason for banning gay marriage: Marriage is not about the married, it's about having and raising children and extending and strengthening the family. Children function best with a mother and a father, so marriage is protection for children's futures as well as the glue that holds the family together. Gay couples, by their nature, cannot produce children or continue their family line. Now do you see what's wrong with gay marriage?

[01010]

Originally posted by Woolie Wool
Actually, now that I think of it, EVERY ONE OF US (including myself) has missed the point of marriage itself and the ultimate reason for banning gay marriage: Marriage is not about the married, it's about having and raising children and extending and strengthening the family. Children function best with a mother and a father, so marriage is protection for children's futures as well as the glue that holds the family together. Gay couples, by their nature, cannot produce children or continue their family line. Now do you see what's wrong with gay marriage?

No, why don't you point it out. Why do you care so much about what someone who isn't anything to do with you does? What in the slightest bit of a difference does it make to your life?

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Woolie Wool
Actually, now that I think of it, EVERY ONE OF US (including myself) has missed the point of marriage itself and the ultimate reason for banning gay marriage: Marriage is not about the married, it's about having and raising children and extending and strengthening the family. Children function best with a mother and a father, so marriage is protection for children's futures as well as the glue that holds the family together. Gay couples, by their nature, cannot produce children or continue their family line. Now do you see what's wrong with gay marriage?

I always though the point of marriage was a formal confirmation of love & life partnership, as well as a legal benefit of spousal status (i.e. next of kin rights, pension support upon the death of one spouse, etc).

  Or are you suggesting that there should be a law that requires a) all pregnant women to be married and b) all married women to get pregnant?

EDIT; oh, and I presume that this alsos bars artificial insemination and adoption to all childless couples? (regardless of sexuality)

[Kazan]

Originally posted by Woolie Wool
Marriage is not about the married, it's about having and raising children and extending and strengthening the family.

trying to redefine marriage because your other definition wasn't limited enough to justify bigotry - congratulations on passing Bigotry 101

Originally posted by Woolie Wool
Children function best with a mother and a father,

Factual error - studies have found that children adopted by homosexual couples fare no better or no worse than children raised by heterosexual couples - and both groups do better than children raised by single parents be the hetero- or homosexual

 

Originally posted by Woolie Wool
so marriage is protection for children's futures

this conclusion is invalid because it rests on a factual error

 

Originally posted by Woolie Wool
as well as the glue that holds the family together.

Factual error - take this up with the 11000 member american anthropological association
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/02/27/MNGSK59NGM1.DTL


 

Originally posted by Woolie Wool
Gay couples, by their nature, cannot produce children or continue their family line.

So what, big freaking deal - they can adopt abandoned children and give them a chance at life


 

Originally posted by Woolie Wool
Now do you see what's wrong with gay marriage?

no, because you haven't made one sound argument yet

[Woolie Wool]

Originally posted by Kazan


trying to redefine marriage because your other definition wasn't limited enough to justify bigotry - congratulations on passing Bigotry 101

Factual error - studies have found that children adopted by homosexual couples fare no better or no worse than children raised by heterosexual couples - and both groups do better than children raised by single parents be the hetero- or homosexual

I was speaking from the perspective of two biological parents versus other types of caregivers. Pointing to statistics of adopted children is irrelevant.

 

this conclusion is invalid because it rests on a factual error

See above.

 

Factual error - take this up with the 11000 member american anthropological association
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/02/27/MNGSK59NGM1.DTL

Have you ever met children who have been through a divorce? Breaking the bond between the parents leaves lasting emotional trauma. Besides, that particular function is irrelevant to whether the union is heterosexual or homosexual.
 

So what, big freaking deal - they can adopt abandoned children and give them a chance at life

If people would only stress the value of love, marriage, sex, and children, maybe people would exercise some judgement and take more caution with their sex lives and there would be fewer abandoned children in the first place. It's living proof of how badly the notion thast love and sex can be made "convenient" has affected our society.

no, because you haven't made one sound argument yet.

You still have yet to bring down my argument that society's increasingly casual attitude towards love, marriage, sex, and child-rearing is having s negative affect. If you do not address this particular argument, I will have no choice but to accept your concession.

[Kazan]

You have yet to even support your point Woolie - and you tried summarily dismissing me when I found show-stopping errors in your argument and you tried to shift focus

how about NO

[Woolie Wool]

And I have addressed several fatal errors in your argument. Stop trying to go off on a tangent and then complain when I steer back on course. This debate is about the MEANING of marriage and its implications for homosexual couples.

As for your idea of me proposing that restrictions be imposed on sexual intercourse, that is nonsense. This has NOTHING to do with restrictions on sex (legal restrictions on sex between consenting adults should NOT exist).

I believe that civil union and marriage be separate, with marriage making you eligible for extended maternity leave (~6 months with 66% pay that expires when the leave has been used up or the child reaches the age of three instead of 6 weeks without pay) but requiring you to be already in a civil union and fertile enough to reproduce (convicted felons are barred completely). Marriage will require a license but civil union will not. Laws will be put in place to require that other marriage benefits (tax breaks, insurance rate reductions, etc.) be extended to civil unions.

[Kazan]

ROTFL -- I'm not in the positive propositional position, I am in the negative argument position

You are making the proposition and are trying to support it - you have flaws in your support and will not address them - instead you try and shift focus and act like i am making the proposition

That doesn't fly here

[Woolie Wool]

The only real rebuttal I found was the one about "studies", to which no link was provided and no hint of where it came from.

[Kazan]

first i cited TWO factual errors to start with

the first one is available in psychological journals

[mikhael]

Originally posted by Woolie Wool
I believe that civil union and marriage be separate, with marriage making you eligible for extended maternity leave (~6 months with 66% pay that expires when the leave has been used up or the child reaches the age of three instead of 6 weeks without pay) but requiring you to be already in a civil union and fertile enough to reproduce (convicted felons are barred completely). Marriage will require a license but civil union will not. Laws will be put in place to require that other marriage benefits (tax breaks, insurance rate reductions, etc.) be extended to civil unions.

How about:

Remove the government entirely from the concept of marriage. Lets put "marriage" in the hands of the churches and the like. It should carry no benefits from the government at all. Make it a strictly religious institution.

Civil unions--between whomsoever choose to enter them--will be entirely seperate from the concept of marriage. All legally granted rights would apply to anyone, anywhere, who is contracted in such a union.

Marriage would neither imply, nor prevent, such a civil union. Thus a married couple would still require the secular civil union to gain any benefits. A married couple not in a civil union have no rights or priveleges toward each other until such time as they are.

[Kazan]

mikhael makes me smile

[mikhael]

Actually, I can't take credit for that, Kaz.

A friend of mine is a telecom engineer. Does the low level stuff for SIP implementations on telco iron. She decided to sit down and try to trace the root cause of the problem and solve it. Obviously, the problem is the in muddled definitions and a crossing of the seperation between church and state. Since all the rights and priveleges granted by 'marriage' are secular in nature and none of them require involvement by any faith-based organisation, surely the problem lies in removing the unnecessary label from the civil union. This would keep the government from telling the churches who can and cannot marry, but it also keeps the churches from telling the government who can and cannot enter into a legally sanctioned civil union. It also takes the federal government out of the business of having to recognize church-based unions.

[Kazan]

I had come to that idea independantly too - a lot of people had

bringing it up made me smile

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by mikhael

How about:

Remove the government entirely from the concept of marriage. Lets put "marriage" in the hands of the churches and the like. It should carry no benefits from the government at all. Make it a strictly religious institution.

Civil unions--between whomsoever choose to enter them--will be entirely seperate from the concept of marriage. All legally granted rights would apply to anyone, anywhere, who is contracted in such a union.

Marriage would neither imply, nor prevent, such a civil union. Thus a married couple would still require the secular civil union to gain any benefits. A married couple not in a civil union have no rights or priveleges toward each other until such time as they are.

I think that's what they're implementing over here (in the UK), both for homosexuals, and also for non-religious couples who would otherwise not be entitled to certain benefits (i.e. on widowhood)

Sadly, there has still been some minor dispute from variuous churches against this (specifically the apllication to homosexual couples), but it's still a positive step IMO.]

i.e. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3231324.stm

I can't a better page about the actual legislation, unfortunately, and I'm not sure if the legislation has been confirmed or whatnot.

EDIT: Little clearer here - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3031332.stm

Doesn;t apply to heterosexual couples, it seems.... there's a very valid attack made on that quoted in there.

[Flipside]

Can I just get straight to the point here and say that I really really hate it when people attack gays because they fear them. That is exactly what the problem is, and most people can't even admit to that fear.
Yes, I used to be a bit homophobic myself, led on by generalised comments at school and 'what I heard down the pub'. Then I made a couple of friends who were gay, and learnt that most of what I 'knew' was a pile of garbage. So I re-learnt what I assumed, and replaced it with facts.

It's called 'understanding'.

[aldo_14]

There is a human tendency to be suspicious (at best) of anything or anyone different, I think.