I'm new to this thread, and I'm not going to read all of the posts right now. I wouldn't know where to begin replying to them. That said, perhaps after my finals are done I can read the entire thread and more thoroughly reply. For now, I just want to jump in. Sorry if I've missed something vital. =\
I'll first state my opinion: I believe that marriage is a holy institution, ordained by God, and reserved for one man and one woman. Yes, I am a Christian. No, I am not going to explain how I became a Christian or apologize for my beliefs to justify myself; it would sound too much like proselytizing, and it wouldn't get us anywhere. Suffice to say that
because I believe the Bible is the word of God, it follows that I believe things like homosexuality, premarital sex, etc. are morally wrong.
I am aware of history. I know that there have been different definitions of marriage throughout history. That does not change my view, simply because my belief that only marriages ordained by God are legitimate and that Christians such as myself should not be complicit in deliberate distortion of the institution does not preclude the possibility of people making marriages out of all kinds of things.
Secondly, let me state my view on same-sex marriage in the legal sense. To the extent that marriage is defined
by the state, I simply cannot support same-sex marriage any more than I could support marriage between, say, a brother and sister. To do so would be to actively endorse it by private action and choice (i.e. voting). Consider incest and polygamy, by the way. I find it absolutely hilarious that many advocates of same-sex marriage would not so readily endorse an incestuous relationship/marriage between consenting adults, because their lack of endorsement for it, given their frequent arguments, means their logic is inconsistent. If you happen to support same-sex marriage, but would not advocate for the legalization of polygamy or incestuous marriages where
only consenting adults were involved, then, unless you've come up with some magical argument, your personal views at least appear to be based not on solid logic, but on societal whims. Since I haven't thoroughly read this thread, maybe there are geniuses here who have either thought up this magic argument or taken the honest road and justified all contracts between consenting adults. If you've done the former, wow, and if you've done the latter, then you deserve to be applauded for consistency.
This is not, by the way, a slippery-slope argument, and anyone who tells you so is either being deliberately misleading or has been misled themselves. It is a logical argument--the application of the logical premises behind one situation to another situation.
So we've established that I do not personally support same-sex marriage, and that I could never vote for it. There is a way out of all this. Marriage, when analyzed from a
secular perspective (which is the only reasonable way to analyze it if you're talking about making laws), is one of two things--either it is a social construct, defined by the aforementioned societal whims, or it is a private contract. Perhaps it's both. Arguments swing all over the place on both sides, and no one seems to have made up their minds about which it is; either way, a lot of problems could be solved if government got its intrusive nose out of the whole affair. Period. Don't extend benefits to married couples (to do so discriminates explicitly against single people) of any orientation. Don't define marriage. Quite simply, allow people to make their own contracts and define their personal relationships in what way they see fit. Private organizations can arrange and cultivate these unions, or the individuals can simply go through the necessary legal processes to change their names or whatever they wish to do. In this way, anyone able to make a contract (it follows that they would be consenting adults) would be able to marry the person or people of their choice. We could avoid these silly policy debates.
If it's really a matter of individual rights, then
get the government out of it altogether.
Ryudo wrote:
US claims to have separation of church and state but that is the biggest crock of shit as just about everything comes down to "christian morals"
Whether or not the
constitution, which is the document that matters when discussing U.S. law, actually makes this claim is a matter up for debate. Trust me, the "wall of separation" is not a settled issue, even among Supreme Court justices, and the words "separation of church and state" are found nowhere in the Constitution.
I am sympathetic to and generally endorse libertarian solutions and views; however, the concept of state sovereignty that was present at the nation's founding is a conservative belief I strongly endorse. The federal government should not impose any definition of marriage upon the separate states. Flawed as democracy is, these moral issues are best decided democratically at the smallest level of government possible, if only to prevent the raging conflict you saw in the wake of, for example, Roe v. Wade.
By the way, not everything comes down to Christian morals, but unfortunately over the twentieth century things have come down to all-around Statism. The religious right is hardly different than the progressive left in this regard--the only major difference is who's imposing what on whom. Consider that both support rampant bans (be they guns, drugs, or video games), and both support a robust federal government that spends us into oblivion (with wars, corporate welfare, and social programs) and regulates our daily lives (with environmental measures, wiretapping, and health care mandates) and you might start to see the similarities. I could go on. Frustrating beyond belief.
But Christianity is not the enemy here, simply statism. It's a sickness that is by no means unique to the United States.
In spite of my lengthy post, this issue isn't that important to me. If same-sex marriage were legalized in my state, I would be against it, but I wouldn't grieve. There are more important things to worry about. That said, I find efforts by progressives to normalize certain trains of thought by either imposing them on children through public means (read: public education) or by sending tax dollars to their preferred programs to be heinous violations of individual rights in themselves. I would no sooner advocate the deliberate, government-funded normalization of secular views through tax dollars than I would the imposition of my personal Christian values. I understand the concern that conservatives have that, if same-sex marriage were legalized and endorsed by the government, these efforts would prevail, to be well-founded. Likewise, I understand the strong argument homosexuals have--that extending benefits to certain relationships while excising others is, if not discriminatory, at least severely arbitrary and unbalanced.
Hence the "government should get out of the marriage business" perspective.
PS: one thing that has got to go: ALL restrictions on visitation rights.