abortion..gay marriage..?

Question

how many of you have had strong views on a topic as controversial as these and had a person, or event, change your views? what happened that caused it to change? for those of you that have not had a change, what are your views on said topics and do you think something could change your view?

let's lay off insulting other people for their choices. i didn't ask you to bash anyone.

Answer 1

i was lucky enough to say goodbye to my religion a few weeks short of my thirteenth birthday. i was in a confessional (preparing for my confirmation - for the technicians among you) when i suddenly realised i had major doctrinal issues with the theological position the priest was taking with me (monsignor had just made reference to the dogma of the immaculate conception - before he had finished his point i knew i was no longer in accord with the doctrine of lourdes).

within a few months i was no longer roman catholic, since i could see the church was in error on a major point. but where i have since discovered many more errors in the catholic position i have never found any protestant church with even a tenuous grasp of important truth. i have remained heterodox since the age of thirteen, so unlike most people i have grown up taking all my major ethical and moral decisions without any prejudices except my own.

as far as i remember i always knew that a fertilised ovum is not a human life, so the issue of abortion for me always turned simply on when a conceptus becomes 'human'. our school was in the mansion of a nineteenth century industrialist, so throughout my teens i was surrounded by the paraphernalia of an age when people thought babies not truly human until their fifth or sixth birthday. i was lucky enough to learn both latin and ancient greek at school, and again i met the idea that children are not people until they are a year old (or more).

i missed the prejudices of my religion, and even the prejudices of my era.

times before our own knew that a human life is not born. a chicken or a frog or a skink hatches as what it is, but a human baby becomes a person only as she learns to smile, to laugh, and to speak - the things that make us uniquely human.

our babies are born massively prematurely - they are born before they are human. 'ensoulment' - if the concept is meaningful - does not happen in the womb. a baby becomes a human baby as it learns to recognise its parents, its world, and itself. the romans were right - a baby becomes a human shortly after birth, not before it.

so i cannot find abortion an issue, and i do not grieve for a stillbirth the way i would for the death of a child. miscarriages are terrible things (and i have been touched by more than my share), but they are terrible only for the mother - there is no 'child' involved.

what would it take to change my view?

i think if either of my parents ever talked about my lost brother kevin as if they could conceive of him as a person i might review my position. but my mother does not talk about kevin as a person, or think about him that way. for my mother kevin was a child waited for who never arrived.

kevin is as unreal as all the other children my parents never had. kevin was stillborn, that was tragic but not as tragic as losing a child.

opposing abortion as if were murder trivialises the murder of real children (which it makes no bigger an issue than a termination). but bigots will accept any evil so long as it blows their way.

Answer 2

The two topics that my view points are most strongest about....

I'll start with gay marriage. I am a lesbian so of course I believe that homosexuals should have the right to marry. I understand that a majority of the population is against gay marriage, however; the majority of the population is FOR civil unions or some sort of recognition of a family when it comes to gays and lesbians.

We live just like any straight couple so why can't we receive the same rights? How is it hurting anyone if we were to marry?

I am very pro-choice and know this will probably piss a lot of people off but I also believe that in cases of rape that should mean automatic abortion. I've never personally had to make the choice to abort or not but I know of people who have and I am indirectly involved.

Answer 3

For both. I used to be anti-abortion, but then I realized it was stupid to make someone have a child. And I researched some basic biology and learned that an immature fetus is no more alive than a rock. My views on gay marriage will never change because it doesn't affect anyone other than the people who will be allowed to get married. And, being bisexual, I'm obviously for gay marriage.

Answer 4

I've always been anti-abortion, but I'm pro-choice. I used to be pro-life. It changed when I realized that the government wants to make a moral decision for women all over the US. There is something really wrong with the government making moral decisions for people. There should be restrictions, but not a total ban otherwise we will all just end up being zombies for the government. I'm anti-gay marriage. I always have been. They only want to be allowed to marry for the benefits of being married. It's not even necessarily about love. If it were totally about love, this wouldn't even be an issue. And I'm opposed to allowing any Tom, Dick, or Harry to get married just because they want the benefits. People will marry their roommates just to get extra tax benefits or insurance benefits or whatever without there being love. It's just wrong. Marriage is supposed to be about love and not the benefits. That's why our divorce rate is so high. Nobody is in it for real love anymore. Okay, I'm getting down off of my soap box now.

Answer 5

my views are: abortion=wrong, unless u were raped (then it depends on your emotional state, whether the baby would be sick, etc.) or having the baby would be dangerous to you or it & nothing could be done about it. i think that gay marriage can be ok as a statutory thing (so, like it could be classified as common law marriage or something), but NOT religiously cause i think it's wrong religiously. i used to think that abortion was TOTALLY wrong, but then i read an article about a woman that was raped and thought "what if that were me? i wouldn't want the kid of some nasty stranger!" and that sort of changed my views on that. but that was a while back...i'm pretty strong in my views now & i don't think anyone could change my opinions lol

Answer 6

Abortion is something I'm very against. You may call me close-minded but the fact of the matter is that this must stop. Abortion steals away a being the chance to love and enjoy life. Furthermore, in a nation that proclaims justice for all it is disgusting to see how this nation overlooks the fact that a live human being is murdered in the process of Abortion.
And for Homosexuals, I have nothing against them, but a marriage is to be between a man and a woman. It does not matter your religion, it is tradition that a woman marries a man. Not two men or two women. I believe that they certainly have the right to be together.

Answer 7

i was against abortion then i read this bible verse exodus 21:22, but then after that some guy told me that the didache, which is something the christian church used before the bible was all put together, says that killing an unborn child is considered murder. but since the only source of things like this are books of faith i think that abortion should be legal until the third week when nerves develope.

on the issue of gay marriage i used to think it was a sin to be gay, but that since the only reason i thought that was a book of faith i never thought it should be illegal to have a gay marriage, because faith should not be imposed on people. but recently i have found out that the bible is not inerrant and that since homosexuality doesn't hurt anyone it probably isn't a sin.

Answer 8

I was once apposed to gay marriage. Once I grew up a little I realized that what two adults do is none of my business and I'm happy for anybody who can make a marriage work. As for abortion. I'm pro life. That comes from being a mother. I was a teen mom. My parents tried to force me to kill the baby. I ran away and raised my son alone. Today I'm married, mother of two boys, successful, and my parents do love their grandchildren. I made a bad decision and got pregnant. Then I made a good decision and nurtured the child. I may have made a life but it was not my place to take that life.

Answer 9

I used to be anti-gay though not violently so, and definitely against gay marriage. Then one of my sisters confided in me several years ago that she was gay; and about the same time my parents starting discussing that one of my older cousins was gay and how that was destroying his relationship with his parents. When it comes close to home like that, it becomes personal and not just a moral abstraction; and though it doesn't make me want to be gay I have come to feel like people should be left alone in choices like this, because for the life of me I can't see how allowing gays to marry legally will affect either my own life or anyone else's. I despise the Republicans and religious right for manipulating this issue for votes and power.

Answer 10

guess you could say i have a strong opinion on one of them-long time ago a friend of mine made a decision to have an abortion-tore here apart to do it and saw a lot of people give her grief over it-wasnt a decision she had made lightly or was happy about-think the only thing a person should do in that situation is offer support and love-as for the gay marriage thing-who cares i not the one getting married not my buisness-keep the peace lots of love old hippie here