Why can't non christians see why christians oppose gay marriage?

Question

The main problem with gay marrage is that the Christian religion opposes it. If it is legally enforced, Christian churches can be forced BY LAW to marry gay couples. This degrades one of the core beliefs of christianity. A law would make it possible to sue churches for not marrying gay couples. So, churches could be punished by government for obeying our gods law. Or break gods law by satisfying government. With the convienance of seperation of church and state, that christian opponents constantly refer to. The main question is what about seperation of state from church??

You people don't seem to understand the expansion of government. Government gets a toe hold and pushes on. It isn't satisfied until its agenda is completely filled. Look at the patriot act, nothings happened in 5 yrs, yet its getting bigger.

There is new hate crimes legislation. All they have to do is say that it is a hate crime not to marry, and they can prosecute whoever they want

1999-MAR-16: Bill S. 622 was introduced to the Senate under the sponsorship of Senator Ted Kennedy (D, MA), 39 other Democrats and 5 Republicans. 4,16

The principal changes to the existing 1969 law would be:

Gender, disability and sexual orientation would become additional protected classifications.

The six federally protected activities would be deleted. A victim would be protected by the law at all times, not just when they were doing specific activities, like being at work, voting, or attending a public school.

Notice AT ALL TIMES, and this is an old one.

Answer 1

Proponents of gay marriage are entitled to their beliefs as long as they do not force them on others. Opponents of gay marriage are entitled to their beliefs as long as they do not force them on others. For centuries opponents did not accept this, so now proponents are using the legal methods that were used to repress them. The refusal to live and let live is very divisive of society, and I fear that there will be a nasty social reaction to the pro-gay revolution.

Answer 2

I can see why: bigotry.

It's the same reason the KKK opposed interracial marriage.

Incidentally, a priest is not obligated to conduct a ceremony. A couple is not required to see a member of the clergy.

It is within my right to deny a couple's request that I marry them. They cannot sue me, as I am not obligated to meet their demands. The couple can always go to the justice of the peace. It may cost some money, but most legal contracts require some expenditure.

And while some Christians subscribe to the antiquidated notion of homosexuals being the root of all evil, not all Christians are that closed-minded. Some Christians actually follow the path of Jesus and love everyone--including queers.

Edit: "You people don't seem to understand the expansion of government. Government gets a toe hold and pushes on. It isn't satisfied until its agenda is completely filled."

And lawsuits are still brought up when the government oversteps its bounds. If this unlikely scenario happens, there will be a hue and a cry, and it'll be reversed. You shouldn't base your opposition of a group on such an outrageous "what if." The government didn't force the Boy Scouts to accept gays; it just recognized it as a private organization. That is the worst that could happen to your church. And really, churches should pay taxes anyway.

Answer 3

I am not sure if that is correct. There would have to be a clause in the law stating that it is unlawful for a church to refuse to marry a gay couple. The big issue is "civil unions" which has no berring what so ever on any church. My sister and her husband have a civil union, because of his situation with the armed forces, and facing possible future deployment. They are not marrying in the church until this fall (they also are not telling any of the family members that they are already 'legally' married) I personally don't have a problem with a gay couple, married or not. They just want to be happy, and live fulfilling lives. Your question is way off from the fact of why christian religions are opposed to gay marriage. What seperation of church and state, yer not referring to our president that takes his orders directly from his Father in heaven are you? And just because its way to easy, Kennedy was one of the greatest leaders any nation has ever seen, yet the only Catholic president. Being raised in that denomination, this makes sense, because it seems all other christian faiths think the bible says 'believe and worship as we do, or you'll burn in hell' (similar to bush's foreign and domestic policy)?

Answer 4

No, Christians oppose gay marriage because of intolerance towards the beliefs of others. Marriage, by definition, is a civil union first, and a religious union second. No one would ever oppose legislation that allowed for a clause permitting any church from denying the Christian right of marriage to anyone, because, in fact, Christian churches do it all the time.

Christian churches are already protected against such lawsuits as it stands. Laws uphold a church's right to deny a marriage due to the beliefs of the persons being married (for example, no Christian church would marry a Christian member to a satanist).

What Christians are doing by denying the legal right to same-sex marriage, is denying the civil union of marriage to these persons, which, truly, is none of your business, since, it wouldn't happen in your churches, or to your members........

And to your addendum...

Do you not feel that ALL people deserve protection at ALL times?? Probably you have no particular problem with "disabled" individuals..... You probably have a little problem with gender in all situations, because if you are a closed-minded Christian, which you seem to be (this may be my mistake, of course) you probably believe that men have the right of mastery over women. And then, of course, you have a big problem with sexual orientation.......

But I will even go so far as to state that the prohibition against homosexuality is part of the "old covenant", which Christ declared null and void. I further believe that the difficulty that modern churches have with homosexuality has more to do with bigotry than with scripture. In the early days of man, God may very well have had a problem with homosexuality, because it didn't fit the plan of being "fruitful and multiplying"....but I think we have fulfilled that goal. If we are much more fruitful, our environment will cease to support human life. While some of you think that this is part of "God's plan" of the end times, you cannot be positive about this, as he has not spoken on the subject in some time. It may very well be that the rise of homosexuality is God's way of dealing with the "overfruitfullness" of man, and should not be questioned......

Namaste,

--Tom

Answer 5

nice question. i honestly don't have an answer to your question, so sorry for answering anyways. just wanted to throw it out there that i don't think marriage is only around god. tons of atheists get married all the time, i think it's only what is said at your wedding that should be taken into consideration. a marriage is a binding of two souls, legally and emotionally. the spirituality is totally up to you. Also, i love when the fundies come on here and start quoting bible verses even when you obviously are not religious. how irritating, and a little sad, that they have nothing else to answer with besides quotes from a book. at least none of them have stooped to telling you they'll pray for your soul.

Answer 6

This is why non-christians have a problem with hard core christians. NO ONE CAN MAKE A CHURCH MARRY ANYONE THEY DO NOT WANT TO MARRY. Seriously brain dead. That is some propoganda from your tent preacher. What gays want is to have all of the legal aspects with some one they love that marriages give. Most do not want to get married in a church, but they want the legal aspects of marriage. The state cannot force churches to do anything. They did kind of force Mormons to forgo multiple spouses, but that was they could not become part of the Union unless they did. Try reading history and something other than the bible. Try listening to some one other than your tent preacher propogandist.

Answer 7

Unless I'm mistaken, churches cannot be forced to marry anyone. What's being spoken of today is LEGAL marriage, with spousal benefits and protections for both people involved, and any children from the union. The reasons I hear most are that it's "God's Law". And I sense a really strong undercurrent of "But that's so yucky. They need to be punished for it." I've seen people worry about their children seeing a married gay couple and thinking it's ok (Although how anyone will know unless they make it their business is beyond me...). I've seen people worried about it destroying the sanctity of their own marriage, which is ludicrous, or freaking out about mother and son unions, or pedophile marriages, both of which are irrelevant to the issue at hand.

Now, the big issue for me is that the Christian right is trying to legislate their morals, make the whole country bow to their stupid rules. And at the same time, disallowing a group of people basic rights. It sucks.

Didn't Jesus say "Render unto Ceasar..."?

Answer 8

What you're basically saying is that love is a sin. That's just about the worst thing I've ever heard. Opposing love is a terrible thing.

Answer 9

I'm christian and I don't oppose gay marriage, but I fully understand why churches won't do it. It's a competition between God and law, which is the total purpose of separation of church and state, as you've so eloquently stated.

I could care less if gays marry, as long as no church is forced to marry them by law. I don't care if they get married by a judge, a notary public, ship captian, whatever, but churches should not be forced to go against what the bible teaches. If the individual church wants to, that's their choice, but it shouldn't be mandated by law. Like I said, I have no problem with gay's marrying, I have a problem with the fact that they expect churches to do it, knowing its against religious doctrine. You can't tell me that these gays who are marrying are so religious that they can't be married by a secular person. They know exactly why churches don't want to do it, it seems to be nothing more than another way of forcing their lifestyles on us. Like I said, I don't care if they marry, tolerance is not a problem, but them trying to force churches to do it is just wrong.

Answer 10

Is there any statute on the books that would allow gay couples the ability to sue a church that didn't want to marry them?

No. At least, not one that I have EVER heard. And if there is one I'll be shocked.

Churches have the right to refuse ANYONE they do not want to marry. This includes people of other denominations. They have the right to turn atheists away, or Wiccans, or refuse to perform ceremonies for them. They have that right because of the separation of church and state. That means the state CANNOT LEGALLY FORCE A CLERGYMAN TO MARRY A GAY COUPLE.

And the reason we non-Christians have a problem with it is because you are trying to legislate based upon your BIBLICAL laws, which is also a violation of the separation of church and state. You are not trying to block gay marriage because it would in any way harm society, you're trying to block gay marriage because YOUR god said it was wrong.

)O(

Answer 11

Christian churches can't 'by law be forced to marry gay couples' sparky.

A church can refuse to marry anyone - even if they are a heterosexual couple. Churches are private institutions, and cannot be forced by government to perform gay marriages. If a gay couple attempted to bring a lawsuit against a church, it would be laughed out of court.

Besides that - most gay couples aren't christian, and wouldn't want to have a church marriage anyway.

As usual, you have set up a factless straw man to attack.

Though you do bring up a good point - we need seperation of church and state, but when christians get involved in all aspects of government, then why shouldn't government get involved in aspects of your religion?? Freedom of religion also includes freedom from religion.