I'm sure it's easy (and probably a little fun) to make jokes at the expense of the bizarre spectacle- and attention-seeking types you put in your picture there. But the truth is, they're about as representative of homosexuals as a whole as the booze- and sex-fueled Spring Breaker types are of heterosexuals.
I have a number of gay friends. They're kind people. They're good citizens. They work their jobs and pay their taxes and love their friends and are in committed long-term relationships and aren't harming anyone. They're not out trying to molest children or turn teens gay or force priests to marry them at gunpoint or whatever nonsense is being spouted this week by Bryan Fischer or Tony Perkins or NOM.
And yet they have to jump through insane legal hoops just to acquire a semblance of the legal protections that my wife and I got from a half-hour at the courthouse.
Which finally brings me to my question. What would you say to a person like me that would convince me that I should vote to prevent my homosexual friends from having the same protections under the law as my wife and I enjoy?
Does the "marrying the person you love is a human right" thing mean that restraining order no longer applies to me? It would be inhumane for some judge to deny me access to my love ;-)
What would you say to a person like me that would convince me that I should vote to prevent my homosexual friends from having the same protections under the law as my wife and I enjoy?
Probably nothing. You're more concerned with how you and your gay friends feel than anything else. You're inundated every day with the catastrophic effects of the breakdown of the traditional family and no matter how much death and destruction it causes, your big concern is pairs of grown men/women with no kids.
I'm not sure how that calculation works out in your head and why those gay friends can't manage to make things work without diluting the definition of marriage to include anything that loves anything else.
If they're so incredibly sensitive that they can't handle a relationship that isn't classified a certain way, maybe they need help. Meanwhile little girls are abused by some poverty-line single mom's latest live-in boyfriend and that's just fine. No need to get wound up about that and fight for traditional values, just roll up your windows, lock your doors and drive fast through those neighborhoods on your way to the ballet fundraiser.
So what am I going to say to you? I dunno, man. How about, "Do you think Sunderland is going down this year? I'm hoping. I'd love to see Aston Villa stay up."
1)catastrophic effects of the breakdown of the traditional family
Isn't heterosexual divorce a much greater contributor, statistically, to the breakdown of the traditional family? Should we outlaw divorce? Should we take it upon ourselves remove children from single parent families and place them in stable, married households?
2)little girls are abused by some poverty-line single mom's latest live-in boyfriend
How, specifically, does a homosexual couple having a legally-recognized marriage contribute to this?
3) If gay marriage leads to such a breakdown in society, why don't we see chaos and destruction in nations where it's already legal?
4) Just because something is "traditional" doesn't mean that it's true. Interracial marriages used to be pretty non-traditional too, but fortunately our society learned that racism is wrong. For the most part, anyway.
5) Does it make it easier for discuss this issue by casting me as some rich, upper-crust socialite who turns his nose up at the underclass rabble?
John, his point is that young men will not respect a devalued institution of marriage. It will damage the most vulnerable and poverty stricken populations.
Secondarily, civil unions are legally the same or so similar as to be indistinguishable before the law. The definition of marriage is as important as any definition which people work to achieve. There is no reason to redefine it beyond some irrational and false slogan meant to appeal to emotion.
So having caused untold human carnage by detaching commitment from procreation, we're going to detach procreation from that commitment so two grown men with no children can feel good about themselves. Brilliant.
No, I'm not going to answer your questions. Feel free to come up with all the shrewd lines of thought you need to convince yourself you aren't helping to screw things up even more.
And personally, I'm betting on QPR and Reading going down. It would be great if Sunderland was the third.
While you're engaged in your smug self congratulations over just how open minded and caring you are because you don't want gays to feel bad, ponder just what it's going to be like for the kids in, say, East Cleveland when Fed purchasing of government bonds doesn't have any effect any more. If I were you, I'd skip that ballet fund raiser. Door locks and windows can only do so much.
his point is that young men will not respect a devalued institution of marriage
These troubled young men aren't causing problems in society because they see two dudes getting married. There are a host of socioeconomic problems contributing to the ills among the trod-upon members of our society. I just have yet to hear a convincing reason for why gay marriage is one such problem.
There is no reason to redefine it beyond some irrational and false slogan meant to appeal to emotion
But again, if it's the act of redefining that you're opposed to, the definition of marriage was redefined when we as a society decided to accept interracial marriages.
So... Brilliant.
How exactly are two grown men with no children, regardless of what they do in the privacy of their own home, causing untold human carnage?
I came in here to ask questions, and have been doing so in an honest and civil manner. Resorting to personal attacks isn't doing anything to convince me of your position.
ponder just what it's going to be like for the kids in, say, East Cleveland
You're right, our inner cities are facing dire problems that aren't going to be easy to solve. I'm just still not clear on how homosexuals or their marital options are contributing to these problems in any way whatsoever.
I'll ask it a different way. If gays and gay marriage have such a negative effect on the health and well-being of a society, why don't we see a direct correlation between nations which have embraced gay marriage, and those which have descended into crime and chaos?
Let's say an unmarried woman with a child knows it is a mistake to try raising the child alone, and wants to get married, but can't find a man to marry who would be a good father. But, she has a female friend who is in the same predicament. Wouldn't it be better if she and her friend could pair up, share child-rearing duties, and form a 2-parent family unit than to go it alone? Isn't two parents better than one parent?
Sure, it's a reasonable question. My followups would be:
1) Once we correct for any negative factors like low income, poor education, drug abuse, child abuse, etc., what evidence is there that this kid will be more likely to lead a life of crime simply because he was raised by two women?
2) How is this really so different from a child being raised by a mother and an aunt, or a mother and a grandmother? Kids in those situations somehow manage to turn out fine.
I love it. You guys want to apply 3rd order solutions to a 1st order problem. You want to finesse a catastrophe.
So let me ask you: why hasn't any of this worked? Really, this is just one more step down the road of moral equivalence and the deconstruction of marriage as an institution where previous steps included abortion, casual acceptance of premarital sex, living together outside of marriage, illegitimacy, etc. Why weren't those things at worst neutral for society?
I love the examples we always get - "What about two responsible men who love each other? What about two single moms who want to work together? What about the entire cast of Glee living in a commune?"
The wreckage leading to this point is in the tens of millions and because you can come up with an example that covers, what, tens of couples? A few hundred? A few thousand? we're supposed to think this is going to be a good idea.
Best of all is how very, very important it is that we have gay marriage right now. Oh, sure, there are millions of fatherless boys in prison and whole sections of cities that have devolved into violent, pre-industrial tribalism, but Tony and Bob love each other! We need to redefine marriage so Tony and Bob can feel good!
The wreckage leading to this point is in the tens of millions and because you can come up with an example that covers, what, tens of couples? A few hundred? A few thousand? we're supposed to think this is going to be a good idea.
I'm still trying to understand how gay marriage, specifically, is going to amplify problems among the less fortunate members of our society. You keep throwing out these huge examples of society in distress, examples which have fantastically complex social, economic, educational, etc. causes. You lump gay marriage in with the causes, and then conclude that it has to be stopped. How is gay marriage specifically going to contribute to the breakdown of society?
The wreckage leading to this point is in the tens of millions and because you can come up with an example that covers, what, tens of couples? A few hundred? A few thousand? we're supposed to think this is going to be a good idea
Sorry, but this is a logical fallacy, trying to make an argument from superior numbers. Plus I'm still waiting to hear how these "tens of couples" are contributing to "wreckage in the tens of millions".
Best of all is how very, very important it is that we have gay marriage right now.
Just because we have a lot of other serious problems in our society doesn't lessen the fact that people in that same society are being treated like second-class citizens.
Gay marriage changes the definition of marriage. Children are no longer a component of marriage. Marriage is just any relationship between N people. And, no, you aren't going to limit it to two.
Once you've removed children from it, it's just one more contractual arrangement based on the desire to enter in to a contractual arrangement. You've deconstructed marriage until it means nothing.
That's our whole problem. Marriage meant less when living together became common. Marriage became less imperative when we began slaughtering babies in the womb and you didn't even need contraception to have sex. As marriage has been reduced in importance, society has decayed at the same time. The mechanisms are straightforward and the stats impossible to refute.
Now you want to attack marriage from the other side. Where commitment was removed from procreative sex, you want to remove procreative sex from the commitment that was marriage. Reducing the value, the traditions and the solemnity of marriage has been proven over decades to be a terrible idea.
We feel uncomfortable telling Bob and Ken they're not the same as Paul and Mary just like we didn't want to tell Paul to put a ring on Mary's hand before they moved in together. That squishiness and desire to evade objective morality has lead us here.
Live it up. You don't have much more time. Printing money to cover government spending is always the last phase in decline. I can guarantee you the children growing up in the wreckage we've created with the gays-should-marry outlook aren't going to be able to help pay the bills. They're just totally screwed.
Don't believe me? Dig this. Check out the videos on the side. That's not theoretical, John, that's real.
So tell me again how Ken and Bob getting married is so incredibly important. The best case scenario for gay marriage is that it will be societally neutral and that's not been the case in anything like this we've ever done.
Children aren't a component of elderly, sterile, or just plain childless heterosexual couples either. Should marriage be illegal for them as well?
Once you've removed children from it, it's just one more contractual arrangement based on the desire to enter in to a contractual arrangement. You've deconstructed marriage until it means nothing.
I couldn't disagree more. There are an untold number of childless married couples in the world (heterosexual or homosexual, makes no difference). By saying that their marriages are nothing more than a contractual arrangement just because they're not living up to your childbearing standards, you're instantly cheapening the genuine love these people feel for each other, and it's disgusting.
As marriage has been reduced in importance, society has decayed at the same time.
Another logical fallacy. Correlation does not equal causation.
you want to remove procreative sex from the commitment that was marriage
Not sure why you think I'd want that. Although I do wonder if you're as opposed to elderly and sterile couple getting married and eroding the institution of marriage.
Live it up. You don't have much more time...
So gay marriage contributes to economic ruin? I'm still waiting to see the causal link.
Are there any television shows depicting gay men raising young adopted boys? There must be a reality show or something...right?
ReplyDeleteHmm. Strange.
I'm sure it's easy (and probably a little fun) to make jokes at the expense of the bizarre spectacle- and attention-seeking types you put in your picture there. But the truth is, they're about as representative of homosexuals as a whole as the booze- and sex-fueled Spring Breaker types are of heterosexuals.
ReplyDeleteI have a number of gay friends. They're kind people. They're good citizens. They work their jobs and pay their taxes and love their friends and are in committed long-term relationships and aren't harming anyone. They're not out trying to molest children or turn teens gay or force priests to marry them at gunpoint or whatever nonsense is being spouted this week by Bryan Fischer or Tony Perkins or NOM.
And yet they have to jump through insane legal hoops just to acquire a semblance of the legal protections that my wife and I got from a half-hour at the courthouse.
Which finally brings me to my question. What would you say to a person like me that would convince me that I should vote to prevent my homosexual friends from having the same protections under the law as my wife and I enjoy?
Does the "marrying the person you love is a human right" thing mean that restraining order no longer applies to me? It would be inhumane for some judge to deny me access to my love ;-)
ReplyDeleteWhat would you say to a person like me that would convince me that I should vote to prevent my homosexual friends from having the same protections under the law as my wife and I enjoy?
ReplyDeleteProbably nothing. You're more concerned with how you and your gay friends feel than anything else. You're inundated every day with the catastrophic effects of the breakdown of the traditional family and no matter how much death and destruction it causes, your big concern is pairs of grown men/women with no kids.
I'm not sure how that calculation works out in your head and why those gay friends can't manage to make things work without diluting the definition of marriage to include anything that loves anything else.
If they're so incredibly sensitive that they can't handle a relationship that isn't classified a certain way, maybe they need help. Meanwhile little girls are abused by some poverty-line single mom's latest live-in boyfriend and that's just fine. No need to get wound up about that and fight for traditional values, just roll up your windows, lock your doors and drive fast through those neighborhoods on your way to the ballet fundraiser.
So what am I going to say to you? I dunno, man. How about, "Do you think Sunderland is going down this year? I'm hoping. I'd love to see Aston Villa stay up."
I have a few follow-ups.
ReplyDelete1) catastrophic effects of the breakdown of the traditional family
Isn't heterosexual divorce a much greater contributor, statistically, to the breakdown of the traditional family? Should we outlaw divorce? Should we take it upon ourselves remove children from single parent families and place them in stable, married households?
2) little girls are abused by some poverty-line single mom's latest live-in boyfriend
How, specifically, does a homosexual couple having a legally-recognized marriage contribute to this?
3) If gay marriage leads to such a breakdown in society, why don't we see chaos and destruction in nations where it's already legal?
4) Just because something is "traditional" doesn't mean that it's true. Interracial marriages used to be pretty non-traditional too, but fortunately our society learned that racism is wrong. For the most part, anyway.
5) Does it make it easier for discuss this issue by casting me as some rich, upper-crust socialite who turns his nose up at the underclass rabble?
John, his point is that young men will not respect a devalued institution of marriage. It will damage the most vulnerable and poverty stricken populations.
ReplyDeleteSecondarily, civil unions are legally the same or so similar as to be indistinguishable before the law. The definition of marriage is as important as any definition which people work to achieve. There is no reason to redefine it beyond some irrational and false slogan meant to appeal to emotion.
So having caused untold human carnage by detaching commitment from procreation, we're going to detach procreation from that commitment so two grown men with no children can feel good about themselves. Brilliant.
ReplyDeleteNo, I'm not going to answer your questions. Feel free to come up with all the shrewd lines of thought you need to convince yourself you aren't helping to screw things up even more.
And personally, I'm betting on QPR and Reading going down. It would be great if Sunderland was the third.
Have a nice day.
While you're engaged in your smug self congratulations over just how open minded and caring you are because you don't want gays to feel bad, ponder just what it's going to be like for the kids in, say, East Cleveland when Fed purchasing of government bonds doesn't have any effect any more. If I were you, I'd skip that ballet fund raiser. Door locks and windows can only do so much.
ReplyDeletehis point is that young men will not respect a devalued institution of marriage
ReplyDeleteThese troubled young men aren't causing problems in society because they see two dudes getting married. There are a host of socioeconomic problems contributing to the ills among the trod-upon members of our society. I just have yet to hear a convincing reason for why gay marriage is one such problem.
There is no reason to redefine it beyond some irrational and false slogan meant to appeal to emotion
But again, if it's the act of redefining that you're opposed to, the definition of marriage was redefined when we as a society decided to accept interracial marriages.
So... Brilliant.
How exactly are two grown men with no children, regardless of what they do in the privacy of their own home, causing untold human carnage?
smug self congratulations...ballet fund raiser...
ReplyDeleteI came in here to ask questions, and have been doing so in an honest and civil manner. Resorting to personal attacks isn't doing anything to convince me of your position.
ponder just what it's going to be like for the kids in, say, East Cleveland
You're right, our inner cities are facing dire problems that aren't going to be easy to solve. I'm just still not clear on how homosexuals or their marital options are contributing to these problems in any way whatsoever.
I'll ask it a different way. If gays and gay marriage have such a negative effect on the health and well-being of a society, why don't we see a direct correlation between nations which have embraced gay marriage, and those which have descended into crime and chaos?
A think I think is worth considering:
ReplyDeleteLet's say an unmarried woman with a child knows it is a mistake to try raising the child alone, and wants to get married, but can't find a man to marry who would be a good father. But, she has a female friend who is in the same predicament. Wouldn't it be better if she and her friend could pair up, share child-rearing duties, and form a 2-parent family unit than to go it alone? Isn't two parents better than one parent?
A think I think is worth considering
ReplyDeleteSure, it's a reasonable question. My followups would be:
1) Once we correct for any negative factors like low income, poor education, drug abuse, child abuse, etc., what evidence is there that this kid will be more likely to lead a life of crime simply because he was raised by two women?
2) How is this really so different from a child being raised by a mother and an aunt, or a mother and a grandmother? Kids in those situations somehow manage to turn out fine.
civil unions are legally the same or so similar as to be indistinguishable before the law
ReplyDeleteThis sounds an awful lot like "separate but equal" to me...
I love it. You guys want to apply 3rd order solutions to a 1st order problem. You want to finesse a catastrophe.
ReplyDeleteSo let me ask you: why hasn't any of this worked? Really, this is just one more step down the road of moral equivalence and the deconstruction of marriage as an institution where previous steps included abortion, casual acceptance of premarital sex, living together outside of marriage, illegitimacy, etc. Why weren't those things at worst neutral for society?
I love the examples we always get - "What about two responsible men who love each other? What about two single moms who want to work together? What about the entire cast of Glee living in a commune?"
The wreckage leading to this point is in the tens of millions and because you can come up with an example that covers, what, tens of couples? A few hundred? A few thousand? we're supposed to think this is going to be a good idea.
Best of all is how very, very important it is that we have gay marriage right now. Oh, sure, there are millions of fatherless boys in prison and whole sections of cities that have devolved into violent, pre-industrial tribalism, but Tony and Bob love each other! We need to redefine marriage so Tony and Bob can feel good!
ReplyDeleteThe wreckage leading to this point is in the tens of millions and because you can come up with an example that covers, what, tens of couples? A few hundred? A few thousand? we're supposed to think this is going to be a good idea.
ReplyDeleteI'm still trying to understand how gay marriage, specifically, is going to amplify problems among the less fortunate members of our society. You keep throwing out these huge examples of society in distress, examples which have fantastically complex social, economic, educational, etc. causes. You lump gay marriage in with the causes, and then conclude that it has to be stopped. How is gay marriage specifically going to contribute to the breakdown of society?
The wreckage leading to this point is in the tens of millions and because you can come up with an example that covers, what, tens of couples? A few hundred? A few thousand? we're supposed to think this is going to be a good idea
Sorry, but this is a logical fallacy, trying to make an argument from superior numbers. Plus I'm still waiting to hear how these "tens of couples" are contributing to "wreckage in the tens of millions".
Best of all is how very, very important it is that we have gay marriage right now.
Just because we have a lot of other serious problems in our society doesn't lessen the fact that people in that same society are being treated like second-class citizens.
Gay marriage changes the definition of marriage. Children are no longer a component of marriage. Marriage is just any relationship between N people. And, no, you aren't going to limit it to two.
ReplyDeleteOnce you've removed children from it, it's just one more contractual arrangement based on the desire to enter in to a contractual arrangement. You've deconstructed marriage until it means nothing.
That's our whole problem. Marriage meant less when living together became common. Marriage became less imperative when we began slaughtering babies in the womb and you didn't even need contraception to have sex. As marriage has been reduced in importance, society has decayed at the same time. The mechanisms are straightforward and the stats impossible to refute.
Now you want to attack marriage from the other side. Where commitment was removed from procreative sex, you want to remove procreative sex from the commitment that was marriage. Reducing the value, the traditions and the solemnity of marriage has been proven over decades to be a terrible idea.
We feel uncomfortable telling Bob and Ken they're not the same as Paul and Mary just like we didn't want to tell Paul to put a ring on Mary's hand before they moved in together. That squishiness and desire to evade objective morality has lead us here.
Live it up. You don't have much more time. Printing money to cover government spending is always the last phase in decline. I can guarantee you the children growing up in the wreckage we've created with the gays-should-marry outlook aren't going to be able to help pay the bills. They're just totally screwed.
Don't believe me? Dig this. Check out the videos on the side. That's not theoretical, John, that's real.
So tell me again how Ken and Bob getting married is so incredibly important. The best case scenario for gay marriage is that it will be societally neutral and that's not been the case in anything like this we've ever done.
Gay marriage changes the definition of marriage.
ReplyDeleteSo did legalizing interracial marriage.
Children are no longer a component of marriage.
Children aren't a component of elderly, sterile, or just plain childless heterosexual couples either. Should marriage be illegal for them as well?
Once you've removed children from it, it's just one more contractual arrangement based on the desire to enter in to a contractual arrangement. You've deconstructed marriage until it means nothing.
I couldn't disagree more. There are an untold number of childless married couples in the world (heterosexual or homosexual, makes no difference). By saying that their marriages are nothing more than a contractual arrangement just because they're not living up to your childbearing standards, you're instantly cheapening the genuine love these people feel for each other, and it's disgusting.
As marriage has been reduced in importance, society has decayed at the same time.
Another logical fallacy. Correlation does not equal causation.
you want to remove procreative sex from the commitment that was marriage
Not sure why you think I'd want that. Although I do wonder if you're as opposed to elderly and sterile couple getting married and eroding the institution of marriage.
Live it up. You don't have much more time...
So gay marriage contributes to economic ruin? I'm still waiting to see the causal link.
Don't worry, I'm sure you won't see any of the bad effects. No matter what you have to do to avoid seeing it.
ReplyDeleteFeel free to continue the discussion here. I'll let any and all of you have the last word here.
ReplyDelete