Regarding Gay Marriage: Why must Christians try to impose their beliefs on the rest of society?

Question

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070627103638AAZdU67&r=w#NbUvWzO9VTl4g2bNhBVR

The above links to a question regarding homosexuality. Let me start by saying that I recognize that the Christian religion and Bible regards homosexuality as a sin and this is not what I want to debate. What I want to know is why must you try to impose those beliefs on the rest of society?

My main point is: If the Christian church refuses to perform or acknowledge homosexual unions or marriages that is their right. There is nothing wrong with it because the government cannot impose it on the church. If the church doesn't want to perform or acknowledge gay marriage, then they don't have to and can't be forced to (if gay marriage were legalized throughout the US). But why must the church and Christian followers try to impose their beliefs on the rest of society, including the government, by fighting legalization of gay marriage? How would legalization of gay marriage affect you in any way?

Let me rephrase by saying "most Christians". I do recognize that not all Christians behave this way.

Answer 1

First, please do me a favor and recognize that the fundamentalists who want to impose their will on everybody do NOT speak for all Christians. They don't even speak for a majority of us. The most recent data shows that those opinionated loudmouths are only one third of all Christians in this country.

I am a Christian. I support and back (through voting, through donations of cash and time) the right of every American to marry whomever they want, regardless of race, color, creed, or sexual orientation. I know many, many Christians who think and feel as I do on this. We're not all small-minded.

In my opinion, no church should be required to consecrate _any_ marriage, if that marriage does not fit within that church's belief system. But civil marriage by a Justice of the Peace, and the rights, benefits, and responsibilities that go with it is not the jurisdiction of any church.

As to the whole concept of "defending marriage" that keeps being shouted about:

My marriage needs defending from nobody. Certainly not from Bill and Joe, or Sue and Margaret. I fail to understand how two men or two women marrying each other would harm MY marriage, or any other person's marriage. The whole concept of defending marriage is just ridiculous.

And let's not even go into the kids issue. "Children need a mother and a father, otherwise they don't have a real family!"

My answer to that is ALWAYS: Tell that to every kid with one dead parent. A family is whatever it is. So long as the children are loved and cared for, does it matter what genitals the parents have?

Anyways. To sum up:

Not all Christians are closed-minded loudmouths who support that agenda.

Heterosexual marriages will not be endangered by homosexual marriage.

Families are whatever they are. Nobody's business but their own.

Answer 2

While I personally don't agree with gay marriage I wouldn't ever impose that view on my friends. My best friend is gay and has been a long term relationship for many years. I've never had a better friend and would never ever think of pushing her in a corner and destroying our friendship.
As a Christian I believe the only real way we can make an impact in society is by our own example and through the raising of our families.
I heard Malcom X once say in an interview that you can't legislate morality. He's right. Laws are there to keep us safe from one another, not change us.

Answer 3

Actually some Christian churchs actually marry gays. It's states that don't.

States have a right and people that run those states have a right.

Most liberal who are for Gay marraiges don't know much about homosexuality at all, have never been to a gay bar, have never been to a bath house, have never been to a hall where 12 year old boys close dance with each other.

The first time I saw that it was very, how can I put it, impactful on my mind.

Now, if you're a mother and YOU find your son there at 12 dancing and kissing I think you're gonna have a whole nother view of homosexuality.

I think if you're a wife and you findyour HUSBAND in a bay bar hugging and kissing a man you are going to have a totally different view of marriage and homoseuxlaity and liberablism.

I think when you go to the park with your 5 year old children and see men kissing men and women kissing women on blankets in public you are going to have a different view on homosexuality, unless you are already a lesbian.

If you're a lesbian you probably think it's weird that girls kiss guys!

I mean guys are so, icky!

I know a lesbian who is trying to get inseminated, probably with a turkey baster and have a baby with her girl friend.

She's very outspoken. Very pro lesbian. I don't know if she'll make a good mother or not, but her orientation has nothing to do with that, it's her type A and aggressive attitude that bothers me. I wouldn't want that in my wife.

This girl I wouldn't mind making babies with doesn't view sex as a bed room sport, isn't into sleeping next to someone all the time or even part of the time, but when I watch her with her sisters kids, she build her world around them.

I would rather have less sex or no sex and be with a woman who love children and buildes her life around them then a sex fiend or nympho who yells at them all the time because they are in her way.

Answer 4

Christians feel it is their duty to share the knowledge of the bible and all the good therin. As a Christian you are supposed to spread the Lord's good word and his works. That also means the "bad". The bible does speak of homosexuality as being a sin, so therefore a Christian is going to let it be known what the bible says of that issue. I think saying they are imposing their belief is taking it a stretch although that may be exactly what their doing, if you can understand what I am saying. Put it like this: if someone believed that apples were bad and their God told them to spread the word that the apples were bad and anyone who ate one would go to Hell, then that's what they would be doing...although someone else who has eaten an apple may feel like it's the best tasting apple in the world and they don't want any other fruit. Do you get me?

Answer 5

Very good question. The most viable period for the Christian church was during the earliest period when the church was being persecuted. Now that the church is so firmly established it has begun to try to legislate it's ideas rather than to move people to personally embracing those ideas. In short it is acting as a body completely differently than Christ taught.

Another point to consider. Some churches do indeed bless gay couples marriages. Yet they are not allowed to give those marriages legal status. At the funeral of a close friend who died of a heart attack his pastor spoke of him and his husband saying "they enjoyed a long marriage blessed by the church, and recognized by God, but alas, not by the state."

Answer 6

the whole thing in a nut shell is this, All Christians believe that they must work for God, and that converting others to beleive what they beleive is the only way to save the world. Homosexuals just got caught up in it. There is no actual words to state anything for or against homosexual relationships. There is verbage that basically says (written in old english/ and can be easy to misunderstand) we should only have sex in a monogamist relationship. Christians world wide have interpreted these words to what they want it to be. Don't ask me where in the bible because I have a short term memory problem, but I didn't just take someones word on this I looked it up and read it my self. I ask all people to read the bible and find out the truth for them selves.
The only logical argument against gay marriage I can think of is this, people are afraid of what they don't know and all new things are scary. By the way I'm not gay, I just don't want anyone to tell me who I can be in love with, so I don't think I or anyone else has the right to tell anyone who to be in love with. The fact that people fall in love to begin with and want to spend their lives together is an amazing thing. Please excuse any mispellings my spellcheck don't work.

Answer 7

They fear that if homosexuality becomes common place and they are allowed to marry then their children might see that homosexuality is alright and they might try it. As a Pagan and Witch, I see their discontent with my religion as having the same fear for them. By censoring, they feel that out of sight is out of mind. It is hard to explain to people who have such strong beliefs that children often do the very thing that their parents don't want them to. They don't understand that homosexuality isn't a choice and no matter what they do or what laws they support there will always be gay people and if they drive them so far underground that they won't know who their enemies are. At least now they know who to stay away from!

Answer 8

There are several different types of Christians. None of which are actually following Christ to the T.
Humans are very self absorbed, and when we have an idea, we think that everyone else should share it, contribute to it and abide by it-naturally.
Why don't you write to your congressman/woman and ask them why gay marriage is not legal. Is it a crime against humanity, or do people, in general, regardless of their religion, think that it is not OK, and that marriage should be constituted for one man and one woman. and vote accordingly.
(I couldn't care less if 2 men or 2 women wanted to get married, it doesn'nt concern me) Besides, there are ways in which to get the same benefits that married people have, without the 'paper.' they go to an attorney and say, I want this person to be able to do ....

Answer 9

I'm a Christian, and I don't try to impose my beliefs on everybody. I actually don't think the government should be allowed to legislate this issue at all. I think gays should be allowed to be married, or at least have the benefits given to married couples (i.e., being able to visit your SO in the hospital). I personally wouldn't be comfortable with gay people being married in my church though, since I believe that it is a sin. I think it should be up to each individual church whether or not that church wants to wed gays.

Answer 10

The argument is that marriage is a religious relationship that happens to have legal recognision. If gay couples unite, that is not so much the problem as calling it a marriage. Again, marriage is a religious term, it just happens to have legal standing which is why gay couples feel they have the right to be married. If christians can accept that gays have the right to a soul mate and gays can recognize that marriage is a religious thing, I think both side would be happy with calling a gay union a "civil union" or something else with all the legal rights as a marriage.