The conservative case for gay marriage

[stevenash]

​

I can't claim to be overly educated on that subject.  While I have taken the time to discuss homosexuality with several gay people, I have not personally known any transgenders, and have not had conversations with them.

​If I am understanding you correctly, you are saying that you are not sufficiently educated to offer an opinion from the transgender angle, but are sufficiently educated from the gay angle?  I have the feeling that is just a way to avoid the question.   I think you and I both know that " I was born that way", if legitimate for being gay, is also legitimate for being transgender or transracial.

[AggiesAreWe]

No.  People are born gay.  They are not born polygamists.  

​Born gay? How?

[bullets13]

​If I am understanding you correctly, you are saying that you are not sufficiently educated to offer an opinion from the transgender angle, but are sufficiently educated from the gay angle?  I have the feeling that is just a way to avoid the question.   I think you and I both know that " I was born that way", if legitimate for being gay, is also legitimate for being transgender or transracial.

I would assume so, but have had no firsthand conversations with a transgender.  Having had dozens with homosexuals, I have much more information to offer an answer/speak for that group of people.

[bullets13]

​Born gay? How?

The same way you and I were born straight.  Unless you had to make a choice?  For me it never was.  I hit a certain age, and I became attracted to girls.  There was never even a consideration to do anything different.  I couldn't make myself be attracted to man even if I tried.  

[AggiesAreWe]

The same way you and I were born straight.  Unless you had to make a choice?  For me it never was.  I hit a certain age, and I became attracted to girls.  There was never even a consideration to do anything different.  I couldn't make myself be attracted to man even if I tried.  

​The way every man was created/born by God's hands.

Gay is a choice of life, just like any other sin. One chooses to sin.

I will never agree with a person being born gay as well as one being born a bad person or "born to kill". It's all a choice.

[stevenash]

I would assume so, but have had no firsthand conversations with a transgender.  Having had dozens with homosexuals, I have much more information to offer an answer/speak for that group of people.

​Translation=  Your statement of gays being born that way is based on conversations you have had with other homosexuals-  not sure one could consider that as compelling evidence

[smitty]

No.  People are born gay.  They are not born polygamists.  

​Hummmm?!

Edited July 1, 2015 by smitty

[bullets13]

​Translation=  Your statement of gays being born that way is based on conversations you have had with other homosexuals-  not sure one could consider that as compelling evidence

More compelling than the right's stance. 

[bullets13]

​The way every man was created/born by God's hands.

Gay is a choice of life, just like any other sin. One chooses to sin.

I will never agree with a person being born gay as well as one being born a bad person or "born to kill". It's all a choice.

If God can create someone like Millet Harrison, who's mental disabilities led him to eat his mom, I don't think it's out of the realm of possibilities that someone could be born wired to be a bad person. 

[stevenash]

More compelling than the right's stance. 

​In whose eyes?

[mat]

If God can create someone like Millet Harrison, who's mental disabilities led him to eat his mom, I don't think it's out of the realm of possibilities that someone could be born wired to be a bad person. 

​Don't underestimate or discredit the influence of the demonic principalities and powers in this world. Not everything has a biological explanation.

[bullets13]

​In whose eyes?

Anyone not blinded by ideology. 

[LumRaiderFan]

Anyone not blinded by ideology. 

​The Word of God doesn't blind you.

[stevenash]

Anyone not blinded by ideology. 

​Then you are saying those who do not accept your personal contention ( based upon conversations with some homosexuals that you know personally) are blinded by ideology?  And, of course, ideologues come only from the right?  Better re-evaluate that opinion if you have it because there are fewer who are more of an ideologue than the man in the White House.

Edited July 1, 2015 by stevenash

[bullets13]

​Then you are saying those who do not accept your personal contention ( based upon conversations with some homosexuals that you know personally) are blinded by ideology?  And, of course, ideologues come only from the right?  Better re-evaluate that opinion if you have it because there are fewer who are more of an ideologue than the man in the White House.

I don't support him either. 

[CougarCal]

I hope this guy finds marriage equality!

 

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[mat]

I heard a comedian say he was for same sex marriage but they should make same sex divorce illegal and then see how bad they want to get married. 

[IT'S IN THE BONE]

Conservative case? I don't agree with the lifestyle, I think it is against God but I also think nobody has the the right to make judgement upon these fellow human beings created by and children of God. God loves them the same just not the act. When we pass on we will have to stand before God and answer and that means even answering for the judgement of thy brother. If it is a choice than you will answer for that choice; if it is a genetic or some sort of dis-order than I am sure that will be met with compassion no different than those with other various mental conditions. I am not making a statement about it being choice or dis-order, I am just verbalizing a possible path.  I do not think the church should not have to do perform services and no financial retribution from tax status should be allowed. If a church as in the Episcopal Church that has decided to recognize and perform services than that is between their flock and God. Guys this really is the bottom line here and in the end whatever you may think or feel will not override how the good Lord feels about it...I assure you he will handle his business and I don't think there is one of us here that does not need all the earthly time possible to prepare for our time to stand in front of God Almighty.

[Mr. Buddy Garrity]

Polygamous Montana family applies for marriage license to let man legally wed 2nd wife

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XTBmi88PgP​

 

Somebody on here said this would happen, I forgot who though. 

[bullets13]

Polygamous Montana family applies for marriage license to let man legally wed 2nd wife

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XTBmi88PgP​

 

Somebody on here said this would happen, I forgot who though. 

It all comes down to whether or not you feel that gay is genetic or a choice.  I've talked to dozens of people who've said "I was -- years old and knew I was different.  I wasn't attracted to the opposite sex."

I've never heard of anyone who said "I was 11 years old, and knew I wanted to have 3 wives."

[IT'S IN THE BONE]

It all comes down to whether or not you feel that gay is genetic or a choice.  I've talked to dozens of people who've said "I was -- years old and knew I was different.  I wasn't attracted to the opposite sex."

I've never heard of anyone who said "I was 11 years old, and knew I wanted to have 3 wives."

​Three wives is a choice, not very smart choice in my book. Heck I have enough of an issue with just one...but three??? could be mental! LMBO not for me broski

[mat]

It all comes down to whether or not you feel that gay is genetic or a choice.  I've talked to dozens of people who've said "I was -- years old and knew I was different.  I wasn't attracted to the opposite sex."

I've never heard of anyone who said "I was 11 years old, and knew I wanted to have 3 wives."

​Maybe you just haven't hung around enough polygamists and discussed it enough to know how they feel.

[PN-G bamatex]

Under the contemporary view of marriage - that is, the view of marriage as a legal institution as much as a religious or social institution - this ruling couldn't have been more spot on. While I agree with the reservations Justice Roberts has expressed in the past about the application of 14th Amendment protections to prevent perceived discrimination outside the text of a particular law as opposed to discrimination within the text of the law, the fact remains that marriage is an institution legally integral to the function of American society, and that the same-sex marriage bans deny access to that institution, and all the rights and benefits thereof, to a minority. This was the right and necessary thing to do.

 

That being said, this never would have been a problem to begin with had the states stayed out of the marriage business.

 

Western churches were proclaiming marriages long before governments ever had anything to do with them; indeed, the first laws passed regarding marriage in Medieval England were instituted by the Catholic Church in England in 1215, and, on that note, the earliest forms of marriage licenses in England weren't issued by any element of the English government, instead being issued by the English bishops themselves. Marriage was, at that time, a religious institution, not a legal institution. It had always been a religious institution prior to that, and it would remain a religious institution and a religious institution alone in the minds of the English and of the different peoples born out of the English commonwealth for centuries to come.

 

It wasn't until much later that states became involved in the marriage business. Some states started issuing them far earlier than others; Massachusetts, for example, began issuing marriage licenses while it was still a colony in the 1600s. Other states took far longer; Texas, for example, was one of the last states to adopt the practice, not issuing marriage licenses until the mid-1960s (my grandparents' marriage licenses weren't marriage licenses, they were marriage certificates issued by their respective Methodist churches in the 1950s). The rationale behind the transition to marriage licenses varied among the states - states in the North largely adopted the practice to complement and enforce tax laws, while states in the South often did so to enforce bans on interracial and incestuous marriages.

 

It should be noted here that marriage licenses, which are the legal incarnations of the institution of marriage, weren't adopted to expand or enable marriage, but to enforce preexisting laws that related to marriage. Also note that this occurred in a time when the "separation of church and state" was just beginning to be incorporated, and when many Americans, including the legislators carving out American marital laws, still viewed the wall between church and state as porous and unidirectional. Given this gray area between church and state which existed in the minds of most Americans when marriage licenses became a state practice, it probably didn't mean much to most people at the time - after all, how could a people who had attended public schools where prayer was said every morning object to state involvement in a religious practice? And so, the new laws were never really objected to, and were in fact embraced by the racists, social engineers and tax hawks of the era. No court cases came forth, no religious freedom arguments were made against them, and marriage licenses issued by the states became a normal part of American life.

 

Now fast forward a few generations. The states have slowly incorporated several other elements of what's now understood to be marriage into the legal institution created by the license, itself. Visitation rights, power of attorney, tax benefits and other such things have created a robust legal union grafted onto the original religious institution. The word "marriage" has slowly transitioned from a word of deep religious and spiritual meaning into a legal concept and social practice. In the minds of many, marriage is no longer an institution proclaimed by God, it's an institution bestowed by the government that just happens to take place in a church under the officiating of a pastor because of religious beginnings. Our conception of marriage today is not what it originally was or, frankly, what it should be, it's the conception of an institution that has been gradually separated from the church and usurped by the state.

 

This offends basic American political philosophy. If we're to be true to the "separation of church and state" - if we're to have a government which does not interfere in the internal workings of the various religions without just cause - then the states, in principle, should return marriage to the institutions which created it.

 

Now, most of the people reading this post probably think that a move like that would be a death sentence for gay marriage. After all, if the churches were given sole domain over marriage, institutions that have defined marriage as between a man and a woman (or in some cases, a man and several women) for thousands of years aren't going to up and start marrying two men and two women, right? And that would effectively render the legal benefits of marriage off limits to same-sex couples, right? The answer to both of those questions is "no," and for two reasons.

 

The first has to do with the legal rights of marriage as they stand today. There would be no legal issue with a sequestration of the legal and religious institutions if done properly. We've all heard about the "civil union" idea - it could easily be repurposed to serve as legal a union for any two people, not just two people of the same sex. And the word marriage can simply be relegated to churches by law as the symbolic, religious union, for the churches to bestow on whatever two (or more) people they please, regardless of sex or sexual orientation.

 

This brings me to the second reason: there are churches out there that will marry two people of the same sex. In fact, there have been for a while, and I would argue that had states never started issuing marriage licenses at all and churches been left to control marriage from the beginning, gay marriage actually would have happened years ago. I'm sure there are people out there who think that's preposterous. Those people have likely never heard of the Episcopal Diocese in Alabama, which has openly supported same-sex marriage for the better part of a decade. In fact, the pastor at one of the largest Episcopal churches in Alabama, located in Birmingham, is a lesbian with a partner, and that  partner has been extended benefits by that Episcopal church for the better part of that decade as well. If a church in Alabama, the heart of the Bible Belt, has been that dedicated to same-sex marriage for that long, it stands to reason that other churches in equally conservative states would have been as well, and that being the case, it further stands to reason that those churches would have begun performing same-sex marriages long before this Supreme Court ruling came down were it not for state laws preventing same-sex couples from obtaining state-issued marriage licenses, and thus that same-sex marriage would have been brought to those states years earlier. This might also make a good point in a discussion about why the government should have extremely limited involvement in the day-to-day lives of Americans generally, but that's a conversation for another time.

Edited July 6, 2015 by PN-G bamatex

[TxHoops]

Under the contemporary view of marriage - that is, the view of marriage as a legal institution as much as a religious or social institution - this ruling couldn't have been more spot on. While I agree with the reservations Justice Roberts has expressed in the past about the application of 14th Amendment protections to prevent perceived discrimination outside the text of a particular law as opposed to discrimination within the text of the law, the fact remains that marriage is an institution legally integral to the function of American society, and that the same-sex marriage bans deny access to that institution, and all the rights and benefits thereof, to a minority. This was the right and necessary thing to do.

 

That being said, this never would have been a problem to begin with had the states stayed out of the marriage business.

 

Western churches were proclaiming marriages long before governments ever had anything to do with them; indeed, the first laws passed regarding marriage in Medieval England were instituted by the Catholic Church in England in 1215, and, on that note, the earliest forms of marriage licenses in England weren't issued by any element of the English government, instead being issued by the English bishops themselves. Marriage was, at that time, a religious institution, not a legal institution. It had always been a religious institution prior to that, and it would remain a religious institution and a religious institution alone in the minds of the English and of the different peoples born out of the English commonwealth for centuries to come.

 

It wasn't until much later that states became involved in the marriage business. Some states started issuing them far earlier than others; Massachusetts, for example, began issuing marriage licenses while it was still a colony in the 1600s. Other states took far longer; Texas, for example, was one of the last states to adopt the practice, not issuing marriage licenses until the mid-1960s (my grandparents' marriage licenses weren't marriage licenses, they were marriage certificates issued by their respective Methodist churches in the 1950s). The rationale behind the transition to marriage licenses varied among the states - states in the North largely adopted the practice to complement and enforce tax laws, while states in the South often did so to enforce bans on interracial and incestuous marriages.

 

It should be noted here that marriage licenses, which are the legal incarnations of the institution of marriage, weren't adopted to expand or enable marriage, but to enforce preexisting laws that related to marriage. Also note that this occurred in a time when the "separation of church and state" was just beginning to be incorporated, and when many Americans, including the legislators carving out American marital laws, still viewed the wall between church and state as porous and unidirectional. Given that gray area between church and state which existed in the minds of most Americans when marriage licenses became a state practice, it probably didn't mean much to most people at the time - after all, how could a people who had attended public schools where prayer was said every morning object to state involvement in the religious institution of marriage? And so, the new laws were never really objected to, and were in fact embraced by the racists, social engineers and tax hawks of the era. No court cases came forth, no religious freedom arguments were made against them, and marriage licenses issued by the states became a normal part of American life.

 

Now fast forward a few generations. The states have slowly incorporated several other elements of what's now understood to be marriage into the legal institution created by the license, itself. Visitation rights, power of attorney, tax benefits and other such things have created a robust legal union grafted onto the original religious institution. The word "marriage" has slowly transition from a word of deep religious and spiritual meaning into a legal concept and social practice. In the minds of many, marriage is no longer an institution proclaimed by God, it's an institution bestowed by the government that just happens to take place in a church under the officiating of a pastor because of religious beginnings. Our conception of marriage today is not what it originally was or, frankly, what it should be, it's the conception of an institution that has been gradually separated from the church and usurped by the state.

 

This offends basic American political philosophy. If we're to be true to the "separation of church and state" - if we're to have a government which does not interfere in the internal workings of the various religions without just cause - then the states, in principle, should return marriage to the institutions which created it.

 

Now, most of the people reading this post probably think that a move like that would be a death sentence for gay marriage. After all, if the churches were given sole domain over marriage, institutions that have defined marriage as between a man and a woman (or in some cases, a man and several women) for thousands of years aren't going to up and start marrying two men and two women, right? And that would effectively render the legal benefits of marriage off limits to same-sex couples, right? The answer to both of those questions is "no," and for two reasons.

 

The first has to do with the legal rights of marriage as they stand today. There would be no legal issue with a sequestration of the legal and religious institutions if done properly. We've all heard about the "civil union" idea - it could easily be repurposed to serve as legal a union for any two people, not just two people of the same sex. And the word marriage can simply be relegated to churches by law as the symbolic, religious union, for the churches to bestow on whatever two people they please, regardless of sex or sexual orientation.

 

This brings me to the second reason: there are churches out there that will marry two people of the same sex. In fact, there have been for a while, and I would argue that had states never started issuing marriage licenses at all and churches been left to control marriage from the beginning, gay marriage actually would have happened years ago. I'm sure there are people out there who think that's preposterous. Those people have likely never heard of the Episcopal Diocese in Alabama, which has openly supported same-sex marriage for the better part of a decade. In fact, one of the largest Episcopal churches in Alabama, located in Birmingham, is a lesbian with a partner, and that  partner has been extended benefits by that Episcopal church for the better part of that decade as well. If a church in Alabama, the heart of the Bible Belt, has been that dedicated to same-sex marriage for that long, it stands to reason that other churches in equally conservative states would be have been as well, and that being the case, it further stands to reason that those churches would have begun performing same-sex marriages long before this Supreme Court ruling came down were it not for state laws preventing same-sex couples from obtaining state-issued marriage licenses, and thus that state marriage would have been brought to those states years earlier. This might also make a good point in a discussion about why the government should have extremely limited involvement in the day-to-day lives of Americans generally, but that's a conversation for another time.

Excellent post.   

[TxHoops]

The same way you and I were born straight.  Unless you had to make a choice?  For me it never was.  I hit a certain age, and I became attracted to girls.  There was never even a consideration to do anything different.  I couldn't make myself be attracted to man even if I tried.  

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Interesting article.  Of course, it is rooted in science which many of the hard core right almost view as evil.  And, indubitably, the scientists on whose work it is based are likely no match for the geniuses on this forum.