What are the consequences of legalised same-sex unions for society?

Question

Are there any moral or social implications for such a legalisation? Are these good or bad?

Answer 1

abqdan.. is spot on....
I agree with him completely, the only 'bad' thing is a religious implication of sin.

If people are so conserned about 'family values' maybe they should look at past religious teachings about the accepetablity of wife beating. and look into single parent families, and foster families and no families.
If people are against it for reilgiouse beliefs so be it that is their right. The freedom of religion.

But they can not expect to be able to force there religion on another.. therefore cancelling thier freedom of religion.

The only consquence of same sex unions becoming legalised, will be more work for the governement in re-writing forms and such, and also the cases thathave come up about organizations not allowing...say for example.... the renting of a hall for a gay wedding..

This is against the law, if you advertise a public service you are not allowed to dicriminate against people, for any reason.
There will, for this generation be many 'bad feelings' from people towards the gay community, but that will change in the next generation as it become a social norm.....

In example, i bring womens equal rights.... only 50 years ago, women were lawfully beaten by there husbands, as it was his right to do so. Now women are equal, are not allowed to be beaten, work the same jobs, and can choose whether or not to be married....

50 years ago the question you asked would have been also asked about women and equal rights. but now adays its part of every day nrom to see women doctors, police, firefighters.
and so it will be with gays, by the time our grand children have grown, it will have been accepted as a social norm

Answer 2

The direct result is that all citizens are treated equally in law.

The biggest problem is to disassociate the legal contract which affords citizens certain rights and responsibilties in law, from the religious sacrament.

The government has no place in trying to control what happens in churches; similarly, the churches have no place in dictating how laws are written to protect all citizens of the country. The two are by design and necessity separate.

In countries where marriage or civil unions have been granted, nothing bad has happened. The netherlands has the longest history in this respect, and there are no good studies showing any unusual change in the stability of society there. In other countries such as Britain, Canada and Spain, the change has been rapidly accepted and is now fairly unremarkable.

America is still struggling with the concept because, despite the supposed separation of church and state, the fundamentalist Christian movement retains significant (and unwarranted) influence over the political process.

Answer 3

IMO the issue is about the fact that the function of marriage in our society is to create a social environment for raising children. Since it is widely agreed that the best method of raising children is in a family unit - there is a logical social benefit.

Now - as far as I can tell, legalizing same-sex unions would have no demonstrable benefit to society and would only benefit members of certain special interest groups. And the dollar costs of these same-sex unions (healthcare benefits) would result in the rest of us have to pay more.

Why should I pay higher healthcare premiums for something that benefits neither myself nor society at large?

Answer 4

If the US ever allows same sex marriages (it won't) then it will also have to allow Polygamous and Polyandrous marriage due to the equal protection under the law clause. There are certain rules and traditions that are time honored by societies, one of those has always been that a "Marriage" is between a MAN and a WOMAN. People have the right to love who ever they want to love but that doesn't mean the Government has to sanction the relationship by allow for a Marriage to occur.

Answer 5

Same-sex marriage is all about moral implications. People like to preach that the Bible forbids same-sex marriage, but we are supposed to have a seperation of church and state.

You can argue that there are health care benefits and tax breaks that heterosexual couples enjoy and same-sex couples are discriminated against.

I am pretty liberal and say if 2 men or 2 women are stupid enough to want to get married then let them. The problem is, who pays the alimony when it all goes bad? Will these couples assign roles in the relationship?

Answer 6

Companies will have to pay for health insurance for same-sex spouses.

There's a lot of government documents that will need re-printing. Entire forests might need to be felled.

Other than that, I don't think there's any moral imlpications. Nothing beyond the complete and utter ruination of civilization and the human spirit.