Do you want the real anwser to gay marriage? Look inside, everyone...?

Question

If you REALLY think about it...

A marriage is a religious insitution. You get married at a chuch (mostly) by a Pastor, Priest, or Minister, according to the denomination of the church... and the clergymen who perform these marriage services in their churches have to be licensed by the state they live in for it to be a legally binding marriage.

Since traditional times, we have always honored the traditional nuclear family as being the ideal way to raise children, live as an adult, etc... and this is partly because it was the only way we could survive and partly because the church discouraged doing anything else with your life OTHER than raising a family at some point. The idea of marriage (you bible thumpers probably know the verses and exacts better than I do) is an exclusively religious idea in which two people take oaths to care for and be faithful to one another and stake their honor on it, whether it is Judaic or Islamic or Catholic or Christian....

The real issue then, is the fact that our state and federal governments are regulating and recognizing a social institution that is wholly religious in function and origin which runs contrary to the idea of the seperation of church and state put forth in the constitution.

What really needs to happen is that the US government needs to take their hands out of the marriage world and leave it up to the companies and industries that gays feel shorted in to determine how they will define and reward families or spouses (because they WILL choose the way with the most $ in it in the end, which would be recognizing some type of same-sex union) and leaving it up to the churches themselves to decide whether or not their denomination will allow gays to be married.

I mean, that's the bottom line, there is no seperation of church and state here.

If you want to partake in some ritual where you form some kind of spiritual and more-than-temporal bond than I'm sure there are plenty of others out there besides "marriage" that will get that bug out of you...

and if you want some kind of tax break and/or insurance break than I really think that you're out of luck because two guys who shack up with each other shouldn't be able to get a tax break... if not for any other reason than because I would go out and claim to be gay with my roomate right now so that we could both save a little money...

I mean, sure... you guys can be as equal as you want but you are never going to get married at a catholic church like so many millions of people have done because it is simply against the religion.

I'm sorry that you don't get tax breaks or that you have to fill out legally binding and fully obligatory wills if you don't want your (legal) family to recieve your possesions...

I'm sorry that you can't see your gay lover at the hospital but I couldn't see my girlfriend when she was under either.

Any arguments I missed?

marriage may be a civil matter now, but that's because we adopted it from the church.

Answer 1

Sorry, didn't need to read it all to realise it was homophobic crap. You've posted this kind of stuff before. Not convinced. Never will be.

Answer 2

I do not argue that churches should never be forced to perform gay ceremonies, however you used the term "most". Since there is the option for hetero-sexual couples to marry without a blessing from the chursh, gay and lesbian couples hould have the same option. Period. PLUS, there are religons that will perform gay marriage, so because some won't it should not be legal? That reasoning is severely flawed my friend.

If marriage was COMPLETELY a religous institution, I would however Agree with you. But it is not.

And as for the tax breaks, basically what you are saying is that you would pretend to be homosexual for money? You would actually MARRY another man to receive tax breaks?That's kinda like prostitution isn't it? LOL no but seriously, so again a group of people should be denied this right because there are people who would be deceitful and abuse it? That still does not seem to be fair...

People have the choise to choose any or no religon and still be married. If atheists can marry why can;t gays?

Why can people get married from other countries to become citizens but gays can't?

Further more, a lesbian and a gay man CAN get married, not act married just to receive the financial benefits.

So let me see if I have this correct... you can marry for money, citizenship,unwanted pregnancy, or drunkeness (Britney Spears lol) but not because you love someone...who happens to be the same sex as you. Silly really don't you think?

Additionally you say, you're sorry you couldn;t see your girlfriend either. How long had you been together? A long time and told you couldn't get married I hope if you want that to be your arguement.

And Also, immediate family of deceased people can sue and break legally binding contracts in order to obtain the money or possessions of the deceased person from their partner. Furthermore, If i am paying all the same taxes as you, all the same insurance policies as you etc and am supprting my partner and our (her) children, if i were to die, why would those children NOT get social security etc? If there is no male legal gaurdian they won;t receive it twice, and it's the money I paid in, it should go to my family. AND if I have been raising these children and she should pass away... should custody be taken from me? No, not at all.

Answer 3

Yeah, you sure did miss one. That would read something like: Where did you ever get the idea that marriage is "a religious institution" or, more laughably, that it's an "exclusively religious idea"? (And forget bible thumpers as an authority on anything but bible thumping.)

Let me quote authorities who argue AGAINST same-sex marriage:

"It is true that Judaism and Christianity have contributed much to the Western understanding of marriage. But it is also true that they absorbed parts of the secular marital codes of Greek law, Aristotelian philosophy, Roman law and German law. Even in ancient secular systems, legal marriage was seen as a way to help society regulate and achieve a complex set of desires and goals: sexual activity, procreation, mutual help and affection, and parental care and accountability."

And, as you will se below, even they over-stress the religious aspect of it because of their ignorance of aspects of history and anthropology.

The actual history of marriage bears little resemblance to the bromides in your explanation - yes, even in the U.S.

Unlike your "traditional" definition of marriage, in the U.S., if we start at more or less the time of the revolution, it's been, through time:
- An arrangement wherein the female was powerless chattel
- Only for whites (not even for free blacks)
- Only for members of the same race.

And if you go back just a little further into "traditional times" you'll find that the typical European Joe and Jane took up housekeeping without ever telling the Vicar.

Before the 13th century, there was very little religious involvement in marriage at all in the "Christian realms." And it had "traditionally" been a totally secular ceremony that took place BEFORE THE COMMUNITY. (This is really the core of its meaning.)

Even Pope Innocent III (13th Cent.) decreed that what defined marriage was the "free consent of both spouses" and NOT "church solemnities."

In fact, priests first came into it as "orators" and to call on witnesses to be present when the couple made their vows. Sometime later they started offering the church porch for the ceremony. It was some 3 centuries after Innocent that the church managed to take the whole thing over.

So let us refrain from inventing "tradition."

Answer 4

Why would you invent the idea that civil marriage was copied from it's religious counterpart? In the West it has been just the opposite!!
Did you bother to research this or did you just decide to "start" at a time convenient for your argument, or did you just "assume" it? Church weddings became the thing in Europe around the 16th century. Before that they were civil ceremonies in which the church played, at best, and late, a marginal role. The ceremonies were more akin to a public agreement of contract.

This is all public knowledge. If it's not on the web, then it's certainly in any reputable library. We owe it to the young and impressionable to pose as much of the truth as we know.

Answer 5

OK...

first...

the separation of Church and State is this: it was put in place to KEEP the church from running the government. It is NOT a catch all for ANYTHING involving religion and the LAW...

Second the BEST argument that the politicians could come up with concerning gay marriage is "it will lead to people wanting to marry animals and inanimate objects'. Do they REALLY think that the population of the US is that FRIGGIN STUPID? Come on...

if gays want to get married then LET THEM. just because it may be against one persons religious beliefs does NOT make it against EVERY ONES beliefs.

Answer 6

My thoughts are:

I'd rather know that my girlfriend and i are committed to one another on a loving,spiritual,energetic way. I don't need a paper or priest/minister to tell me I shall repeat my vows before God. I do that in my heart. Being a lesbian, I have been able to at both sides of the situation. I feel that as long as gays have the same rights legally (i.e. adoption,foster parents,power of attorney,wills,guardianship of children, and custody) as a heterosexual couple has, then we'd be fine. Heterosexual couples are granted those rights automatically even if they're not married, which is completely unfair. We are all children of the same higher power, and in the end, we all come in the same way and we all go out the same way. We are equal and we don't want to each other for who we are.

Answer 7

All this bullshit about "religious marriage". Marriage is no longer religious. How many woman do you know have gotten married becuase they got pregnant. Yeah, that goes against most religions too! How many husbands beat their wives? How many mothers kill their children? How many husbands cheat? How many wives cheat? How many people really care if a gay man tells another that they want to spend the rest of their lives together? Come on people. The government is way to controlling for a "free" country.

Answer 8

I wasn't married in a religious ceremony. Marriage is also recognized in non-Judao-Christian countrys. Take China for example. As far as what gay rights groups are asking for... I don't have a problem with it. In my state for instance, common law marriage doesn't hold up in courts, only a legally binding marriage contract does.

Answer 9

Marriage is also a civil matter wherein the fortunes and futures of 2 loving people are combined in promise and faith. These are the words also of a religious marriage. Factually marriage is not restricted to religion and your original premise is flawed...thereby the rest is rhetoric on a flawed base.

Answer 10

some people think there is a difference between "freedom of religion" and "separation of church and state". for those people, it's better to state your points in terms of "freedom of religion". and yes, gay marriage does come down to a question of religious freedom. no religion should be coerced into either sanctioning or denying gay marriages. it should be up to the religion.

Answer 11

Marriage is a contract w/ the state. Atheist get married too. It's silly that we don't allow gays to get married. Generations from now will think it was silly.