[Scotty]

KT, was that really necessary?  Especially after you flipped out a few posts ago.

[Solatar]

I'd like to note that not all Christian denominations have the same problems with gay marriage.

The Catholic point of view, for example, is that there's nothing wrong with being gay. It doesn't stem from some proof-texted old Testament verses, but actually stems from the same reason that the Church doesn't like birth control. Having sex is for furthering an emotional bond and to create children. In order for a marriage to be considered valid in the eyes of the Catholic Church, it must be consecrated (if a heterosexual couple never has sex, their marriage can be considered invalid in the vast majority of cases). Because a gay couple cannot consecrate their marriage, they cannot have a Catholic marriage. As you can see, having sex using birth control violates the same ideas regarding sex (can't procreate). So the Catholic Church doesn't hate gays, and doesn't want them to be miserable. . .Like I said earlier in this post, gays are allowed to be in relationships and there really isn't a reason two Catholic gay men couldn't be married in a civil ceremony. But then again how many heterosexual Catholics have never used birth control? Not wanting them to be married in a Mass and not wanting them to be married at all are two VERY separate things.

I know it's very easy to just say "Christians" and lump together every religion that believes in the divinity of Christ, however it's important to recognize differences. Please stop lumping every Christian church together as having the exact same "archaic" beliefs. I'm a fairly liberal Catholic (well, in social matters such as these anyway) and I HATE being lumped together with ultra-conservative Evangelicals. I'm sure I speak for a lot of Christians when I calmly ask that not all of us be lumped together under a very large, pejorative umbrella.


Now. . .as a Catholic myself I really don't give a wooden nickel if gays or lesbians want to get married. It's not a matter of having an opinion one way or the other, it's just the fact that it's not going to affect me. Who gives a **** if the couple down the street is two dudes? Who gives a **** if they sit next to me in the pew on Sunday morning?

[General Battuta]

Watch the flames, KT. Scotty's a good poster.

[Scotty]

*Scotty seconds Solatar's opinion

Please stop lumping every Christian church together as having the exact same "archaic" beliefs. *snip* I HATE being lumped together with ultra-conservative Evangelicals. I'm sure I speak for a lot of Christians when I calmly ask that not all of us be lumped together under a very large, pejorative umbrella.

[karajorma]

Prop 8 passed.

It's all very well trying to claim that it is only the extremists and ultra-conservatives who passed it but that's obviously not the case.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. 

Do away with marriages and call all of them civil unions.  You want to get married go to the church.  You want the state to recognize it get a civil union or partnership.  Solves the whole issue. 

Indeed. This would seem especially timely now that more and more couples in the US are choosing to live together and start families without actually getting married.

Actually, I've got to disagree with this for the same reason KT mentioned. I don't see why religion should be able to lay claim to the words married, marriage, wedding etc.

That said this brings up my only objection to gay marriage. The fact that I don't much like the dilution of linguistic terms. I quite like it if when a man says  he's married you can assume his partner is a woman. It makes conversations less vague.

But then I get annoyed that the word grandfather in English refers to two different relationships (mother's father vs father's father) while uncle refers to four, two of whom aren't even blood relations!

If gay people had picked different words when this started I doubt prop 8 would have passed as easily.

[Ford Prefect]

Well, my reservations about institutionalized marriage are based more on its being antiquated rather than its religious connotations. Its function for most of civilization's history has been as a means of securing property (which has typically included the woman to one extent or another.) And if the US had more substantial social welfare programs (i.e., child care), perhaps we could create conditions under which there would be no additional benefit to state-sanctioned matrimony.

It's not really a soap-box issue of mine, though. I just like to put the thought out there.

[Solatar]

There's also a difference between being "against gay marriage" and "against gay marriage in a Church service".

I think a lot of otherwise well meaning people have yet to realize that fact. If the law allows gays to be married, your church of choice isn't obligated to marry anyone. It's just a civil thing, and until people realize that the state allowing gay marriage is JUST a civil law debate, people will continue to be against it. The trick is separating your OWN religious beliefs from laws. Catholics won't let a Catholic and a non-Catholic marry in a Mass, but you don't see any of us running around saying people of different religions shouldn't be allowed to marry. I see no difference.

EDIT:

That said this brings up my only objection to gay marriage. The fact that I don't much like the dilution of linguistic terms. I quite like it if when a man says  he's married you can assume his partner is a woman. It makes conversations less vague.

I actually agree with this, but I guess the problem is when you take away the word "marriage" people get upset and claim you want to disenfranchise gays.

. . . or you could go the route of Southpark and change their status to "buttbuddies". Offensive, but humorous.

[Knight Templar]

KT, was that really necessary?  Especially after you flipped out a few posts ago.

Yeah, yeah, I think it is. And after I flipped out? You mean laid down my argument.

Watch the flames, KT. Scotty's a good poster.

No, sorry, not going repent for anything on this one. While I might normally troll some otherwise trivial or amusing topic then eventually wander off to more productive pastures, I don't take kindly to people ****ting on my Constitution. Likewise, I'm not going to bite for anyone who wants to troll an issue like this. I'm genuinely interested in what "Sparda" has to say because he's quite literally the first person in my entire social sphere of the internet to not claim to be religious yet still claim to have a valid reason to support prop. 8, as well as vote for it. That to me, is interesting.

For your boyscout Scottyboy to come in and try to pick apart my argument because I used "Christian" in one sentence, is annoying. So I let him know it. Of course I know not every Christian in the entire world hates Gays. I was raised Christian. I'd like to think any decent, moral Christian would not only know better, but rise above their ridiculous stereotype in the public political image in this nation. However, what your good poster fails to realize is that two out of the three of the biggest financial investors for the prop. 8 campaign (which I'll remind you has spent the most funds on any single political campaign in any state in the nation's history, save for presidential elections) are CHRISTIAN FAITH based organizations. And whether Solatar wants to own up to it or not, the Catholic Church (along with the Mormons) were the LARGEST religious supporters of the campaign, with half of the $40 Million raised for the campaign coming from them.

Mind you the largest religious organizational opponents of the proposition were Jews.

So please tell me, if I want to make a vague generalization and use the Christian institution as a whole as an example of the biggest proponent of Prop. 8 in lieu of specifically referring to each individual donor, each individual denomination, each individual church, please, tell me how I'd be out of place to do so. I'm not. And I don't see Sikhs or Buddhists or even Muslims coming out in force to "religiously" claim ownership to the word marriage and claim it as being a hetero-only right. So yes, either figure out your facts, or go sit with your GI Joes in the thread about North Korea ending the world. The fact that MULTIPLE CHRISTIAN institutions remain the LARGEST supporters and donors makes them LARGELY responsible, not "all of religion." The "religious" connotation of marriage is a lie, and one that's only picked up on when ultra conservatives feel threatened. Because if you can't take Leviticus literally, then you're **** ****ed to try to take the rest of the Book literally either. But that'll be our little secret for now, and I digress.

Because I'm pointing fingers at the Christian institution does not mean I'm pointing fingers at you, or Solatar, or my parents, or any every other Christian. The responsibility (or blame) falls solely onto those institutions, their parishioners, and those who voted for the proposition.

If me getting irritated at the governing document of this nation being ignored by bigoted assholes and speaking out about is "flipping out," I'll flip out all damn day. Kazan had his foreskin fetish, I have my Constitutional one.

Prop 8 passed.

That said this brings up my only objection to gay marriage. The fact that I don't much like the dilution of linguistic terms. I quite like it if when a man says  he's married you can assume his partner is a woman. It makes conversations less vague.

But then I get annoyed that the word grandfather in English refers to two different relationships (mother's father vs father's father) while uncle refers to four, two of whom aren't even blood relations!

If gay people had picked different words when this started I doubt prop 8 would have passed as easily.

Yeah... if you think being vague in English is confusing and want more precision, try Arabic. Don't worry, I'll wait. It won't take long for you to come back. Trust me, the vagueness isn't that bad.

[karajorma]

big long post

And that's what you should have said instead of just telling him to shut up.

If me getting irritated at the governing document of this nation being ignored by bigoted assholes and speaking out about is "flipping out," I'll flip out all damn day. Kazan had his foreskin fetish, I have my Constitutional one.

Get irritated all you like. All the admins and mods are saying is that you have to stick to discussing the subject rather than simply telling your opponent to shut up. If you don't want to get side-tracked point out how the subject is irrelevant and then move on.

Please stop lumping every Christian church together as having the exact same "archaic" beliefs. *snip* I HATE being lumped together with ultra-conservative Evangelicals. I'm sure I speak for a lot of Christians when I calmly ask that not all of us be lumped together under a very large, pejorative umbrella.

Homophobia is the typical position of most Christians in California and probably in the all of America. I find it hilarious when Christians try to complain about being tarred with the same brush because they aren't. Those of you who voted against prop 8 are the extremists. Anyone with sense wouldn't want us to claim that all Muslims are terrorists because of the actions of a minority so why should we claim that American Christians are tolerant towards homosexuality because of the actions of a minority?

When I see more Christians shouting down bigotry than I see promoting it, then you'll be the majority. Then you can make a legitimate complaint about such generalisations. But I suspect that the majority of Christians who didn't vote for prop 8 simply didn't vote at all rather than actually voting against it. And I further suspect that was because they didn't care about religion stomping on the Constitution, as long as it was their religion that was doing it.

Yeah... if you think being vague in English is confusing and want more precision, try Arabic. Don't worry, I'll wait. It won't take long for you to come back. Trust me, the vagueness isn't that bad.

Where do you think I got the idea?

I don't know about Arabic but I know that Urdu does have separate words for those terms. Besides many families tend to informally fall into this sort of pattern anyway, referring to nana and granny in order to distinguish them. It just makes sense to formalise the words so that they don't need explaining.

[NGTM-1R]

It's all very well trying to claim that it is only the extremists and ultra-conservatives who passed it but that's obviously not the case.

There are some very ugly truths behind how it passed and how it was opposed. One of those truths is that opposition to Prop 8 was...well that tends to be based on who you ask. Words like "mismanaged", "screwup" and "not fought" are likely to surface. I can't say whether there was some kind of entitlement complex belief going on, those orchestrating the opposition were badly out of touch, or someone was simply criminally neglient.

But Prop 8 passed at least in part because it was not opposed as it should have been. Opposition to Prop 8 only truly crystalized after it had already passed, when the many smaller organizations against it rejected the leadership of the larger ones who had called for calm and headed up the efforts to keep it from passing. The process of mobilizing the voters to strike it down was badly mishandled. It was not fought using anything like the full resources at the disposal of those who had a stake in doing so.

In a sense, this probably doesn't matter; it will be struck down in 2010 or 2012 if the state hasn't distingrated by then.

[karajorma]

Mismanaged or not 7 million people voted for it. It's pretty hard to claim that California has 7 million extremists.

While an organised campaign might have provided enough of a swing to prevent it from passing I doubt it would have had much of an effect on the majority of those 7 million.

[NGTM-1R]

Mismanaged or not 7 million people voted for it. It's pretty hard to claim that California has 7 million extremists.

While an organised campaign might have provided enough of a swing to prevent it from passing I doubt it would have had much of an effect on the majority of those 7 million.

7 million remains is a fairly small number in the total population of the state (which according to the figures in 2008 is 36,756,666, up more than three million from 2000). It is, in fact, entirely possible that California has 7 million extremists, or rather 7 million Baptists, hardline Roman Catholics/Lutherans, Mormons (there are a relatively small number of them in the state, but a disturbingly high percentage of the funding that went into the campaign for Prop 8 came from Mormon sources), members of other denominations both Christian and Abrahamic who backed it. Labeling them all extremist is foolish. These are not Young Earthers, nor are they members of the Westboro Baptist Church.

It is also true that the campaign for Prop 8 was a masterpiece of fear-mongering and probably at least one million of the people who voted for it had a seriously distorted view of what the proposition actually entailed.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. 

Do away with marriages and call all of them civil unions.  You want to get married go to the church.  You want the state to recognize it get a civil union or partnership.  Solves the whole issue. 

nonsense: the best way is to get religion out of marriage.
It is the state, not the church, that provides the legal basis on which your marriage is recognised both nationally and internationally. It is the state that provides the legal benefits (and drawbacks) that come with marriage and it is the state which regulates and codifies into law these benefits.
The only thing a church does is provide some bells and whistles for the religiously inclined.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Prop 8 passed.

It's all very well trying to claim that it is only the extremists and ultra-conservatives who passed it but that's obviously not the case.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. 

Do away with marriages and call all of them civil unions.  You want to get married go to the church.  You want the state to recognize it get a civil union or partnership.  Solves the whole issue. 

Indeed. This would seem especially timely now that more and more couples in the US are choosing to live together and start families without actually getting married.

Actually, I've got to disagree with this for the same reason KT mentioned. I don't see why religion should be able to lay claim to the words married, marriage, wedding etc.

That said this brings up my only objection to gay marriage. The fact that I don't much like the dilution of linguistic terms. I quite like it if when a man says  he's married you can assume his partner is a woman. It makes conversations less vague.

But then I get annoyed that the word grandfather in English refers to two different relationships (mother's father vs father's father) while uncle refers to four, two of whom aren't even blood relations!

If gay people had picked different words when this started I doubt prop 8 would have passed as easily.

heh. In that regards the dutch word is better (though the controversy is pretty much the same... or was: both the Netherlands and Belgium, i.e. the dutch speaking countries, allow same-sex marriage. It is now accepted. But then agian, only marriages performed by the state carry legal weight here, church has nada to say)I think. "Trouwen"is just a verbified version of "trouw", which can be translated as loyalty. which is what people who get married supposedly do: promise undieing loyalty to each other.

[NGTM-1R]

nonsense: the best way is to get religion out of marriage.
It is the state, not the church, that provides the legal basis on which your marriage is recognised both nationally and internationally. It is the state that provides the legal benefits (and drawbacks) that come with marriage and it is the state which regulates and codifies into law these benefits.
The only thing a church does is provide some bells and whistles for the religiously inclined.

Marriage is however a religious institution in pretty much every area of the world, not a secular one, governed by religious mores (as this topic has bluntly proved). Civil unions for all is therefore a vastly more rational and achievable plan.

[General Battuta]

[long post]

Well, that's a perfectly good post - there's no problem with your opinions, after all. We just can't tell people to be quiet and sit in the corner (although I've done the same thing a few times, I'm sure.)

[karajorma]

7 million remains is a fairly small number in the total population of the state (which according to the figures in 2008 is 36,756,666, up more than three million from 2000). It is, in fact, entirely possible that California has 7 million extremists, or rather 7 million Baptists, hardline Roman Catholics/Lutherans, Mormons (there are a relatively small number of them in the state, but a disturbingly high percentage of the funding that went into the campaign for Prop 8 came from Mormon sources), members of other denominations both Christian and Abrahamic who backed it. Labeling them all extremist is foolish. These are not Young Earthers, nor are they members of the Westboro Baptist Church.

That's my point. Yet this is exactly what Scotty and the other Christians were trying to claim. You can't say Prop 8 passed with only the extremists supporting it.

And it doesn't matter if 7 million is a small number for the state. It's bigger than the number who voted against it. So it's pretty hard to make the claim that more Christians were against Prop 8 than for it. Which again means that it's pretty hard to say that it wasn't the Christians who are responsible for allowing this law to pass.

It is also true that the campaign for Prop 8 was a masterpiece of fear-mongering and probably at least one million of the people who voted for it had a seriously distorted view of what the proposition actually entailed.

Wouldn't doubt it. When all is said and done there isn't a single reason to go against gay marriage except fear. Why else should it matter to someone who wasn't gay?

[Grizzly]

Prop 8 passed.

It's all very well trying to claim that it is only the extremists and ultra-conservatives who passed it but that's obviously not the case.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. 

Do away with marriages and call all of them civil unions.  You want to get married go to the church.  You want the state to recognize it get a civil union or partnership.  Solves the whole issue. 

Indeed. This would seem especially timely now that more and more couples in the US are choosing to live together and start families without actually getting married.

Actually, I've got to disagree with this for the same reason KT mentioned. I don't see why religion should be able to lay claim to the words married, marriage, wedding etc.

That said this brings up my only objection to gay marriage. The fact that I don't much like the dilution of linguistic terms. I quite like it if when a man says  he's married you can assume his partner is a woman. It makes conversations less vague.

But then I get annoyed that the word grandfather in English refers to two different relationships (mother's father vs father's father) while uncle refers to four, two of whom aren't even blood relations!

If gay people had picked different words when this started I doubt prop 8 would have passed as easily.

heh. In that regards the dutch word is better (though the controversy is pretty much the same... or was: both the Netherlands and Belgium, i.e. the dutch speaking countries, allow same-sex marriage. It is now accepted. But then agian, only marriages performed by the state carry legal weight here, church has nada to say)I think. "Trouwen"is just a verbified version of "trouw", which can be translated as loyalty. which is what people who get married supposedly do: promise undieing loyalty to each other.

What? We (the Dutch) didn't accept anything. We just removed the restriction that marriages should only be between people of different gender to save on printing costs.

[Mongoose]

Homophobia is the typical position of most Christians in California and probably in the all of America. I find it hilarious when Christians try to complain about being tarred with the same brush because they aren't. Those of you who voted against prop 8 are the extremists. Anyone with sense wouldn't want us to claim that all Muslims are terrorists because of the actions of a minority so why should we claim that American Christians are tolerant towards homosexuality because of the actions of a minority?

You know what I truly hate in this entire debate, far more than the ramifications of either side?  The way that the term "homophobia" is so blatantly and egregiously misused and overused by such a large number of people.  Yes, because I am opposed to the concept of same-sex civil marriages for whatever reason, be it religious/biological/social/what have you, it follows without fail that I loathe and despise the very concept of homosexuality.  It's a given that I hate those of homosexual proclivity with every fiber of my being, that I would do anything above and beyond the law to drive them out of my community.  I'm out there leading lynch mobs every other weekend, just for kicks.  And there's no possible way that I could possibly count as close friends people of that proclivity.  No, that's simply impossible, because I'm a "homophobe."  Oil and water shall never mix, and all that.

Tell you what.  When one whole side of the debate stops being nearly as bigoted as they accuse the other side of being, then maybe we can have a nice, pleasant, reasoned conversation about the topic.  Until then, I'll just sit back and twiddle my thumbs.  Because there can be no "discussion" under such conditions.

[karajorma]

Maybe you should look up what the word means before complaining at people who use it.

Homophobia (from Greek homós: one and the same; phóbos: fear, phobia) is an "irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals", or individuals perceived to be homosexual

As I said earlier all the "religious/biological/social/what have you," reasons you like to claim exist all boil down to fear in the end. So the term is correct.

If you want to argue I'm wrong feel free to prove it. If you want to find someone you can distract with an argument about semantics, look elsewhere.