♠ LIBERALS PLEASE ANSWER ♠ Why do you want to change the definition of MARRIAGE?

Question

Marriage is, and has been for millennia, the institution that forms and upholds for society, the cultural and social values and symbols related to procreation. That is, it establishes the values that govern the transmission of human life to the next generation and the nurturing of that life in the basic societal unit, the family.

Advocates of same-sex marriage try to make it sound as bourgeois as possible, but gay marriage is really the triumph of the most radical ideas of the sexual revolution: that gender doesn't matter, children are secondary, expressing your authentic sexual self is more important than, well, practically anything else.

It is a harbinger of things to come. All of the time-honored assumptions of marriage -- bride and groom, husband and wife, mother and father -- must be rewritten to accommodate a tiny fraction of the population who choose to be gay and want to form alternative families.

Answer 1

Conservatives were making the same argument about interracial marriage a few decades ago,

You were wrong then, and you're wrong now.

Answer 2

Penelope do you support the miscegenation laws on the books in the Southern United States? The excuse that something has always been done that way so it must not change is a false argument. For thousands of years mankind believed that the Earth was the center of the Universe but now we know that our world is in the tailend of a galaxy that is one of Billions in the Universe. We have had to rexamine our place in the universe.

Should women preach the Gospel? Is a woman equal to a man, in regards to their abilities? If so should she get the same salary as the man for the same job? I don't see it as being a redefinition of marriage but as a reexamination of how we as a people define and view marriage. If that is wrong then maybe this country is wrong for it is based on the most Radical of all political thoughts That the common people can run their own affairs we don't need a King ar a Pope to tell us what to do. We do it ouselves.

The Progressives are believers in the idea that two people can have a caring and giving long term relationship be they a man of any race and a woman of any race or they are two men or women of any race and they should have the same rights and privileges of other couples.

I will give you the same challenge I give any one who debates me on this; If you believe that God created the world and everything in it then he/she created Homosexuality. So how can it be wrong? Also show me how a long term committed Gay Couple are any worse then a long term commited Heterosexual Couple?

All we want is for you and those like you to come to the table and talk and dialouge not yell and dictate.

Answer 3

For the same reasons why we wanted to include blacks and women in the definition of "citizen." In 100 years, you will be rememberd as a bigot. The arguments yoyu make are the same for why balcks and whites shouldn't have been able to marry. Just because something hasn't happenned yet, doesn't mean it shouldn't or else we'd still have salvery. And with groth in knowledge, old values and wisdom needs to evolve to stay vibrant and representative of our needs - lest it become simply the justification of a self-serving majority.

Your thinking is way too limited. There would be no impact to you and your capacity to marry. Minorities have long been the scapegoats for social problems actually created by the ruling party. If the society collapses, it will be because a narrow, power mongering elite will refuse to relinquish power in order to affect the change the society needs to grow, adapt and evolve. Gay marriage is no threat to you. Stripping of constitutional rights should be. You call yourself an American, but you support an imperial war with no justification, just emotionally laden bs. You will destroy the society. Thomas Jefferson would puke if he heard your diatribe in the name of American values.

Answer 4

Wow, that is a tough one. Let me see if I can answer this in 200 words or less.

It wasn't until the later half of the 20th Centery that a woman was seen as equal to her husband, both by society and the law. It wasn't until the 19th Century that women were seen as anything other than property, hence the idea of the bride's father 'giving away' the bride-to-be.

Modern marraige is focused on the concept, however faulty, of love. Love, being an emotion is far less tangible than property, and therefore easier to part with than say a nice piece of farm land or a livestock.

Love, now seen as the highest reason to marry, is not the dominion of heterosexual couples alone. All opposition to 'Gay Marriage' is based on select interpretations of certain religious texts. In case you didn't get this in school, this country was based by people who fled the repressive state/state religion to believe what they wanted to... in peace!

The women of the past have blazed a trail from a darkness where they were nothing but slaves to their husbands. Why? Because when 'God,' in the form of Church, husband, and society, told them that that was their place, but they refused to stay there.

Plenty of today's women, my mom included, stay in horrible marriages with abusive men because that's what God tells them to do. I wonder what it would be like to grow up in a family based on love and mutual respect. I know I'd be willing to face the public shame of an ignorant society to experience it.





The Pollyannic view of the past is what I find most disturbing.

Answer 5

I am a liberal and I do not want to change the definition of marriage. Marriage is a sacrament. It is up to the church to define as well as administer Sacraments. The state should get out of the Marriage business entirely and leave it to churches. The state defines and records civil contracts. If two people want to enter into a civil union (contract) the state should not discriminate because of sex or sexual orientation.

I wonder why heterosexual people consider gay people a threat to the dignity or sanctity of marriage. Heterosexual married couples are doing a pretty good job of destroying the dignity and sanctity of marriage with commonplace divorce. Sham weddings like Britney Spears and Dennis Rodman make a joke out of the Sacrament. Network TV has turned marriage into a game show with The Bachelor, Who Wants to Marry a Millionare, Wife Swap, Temptation Island, and other such shows.

Answer 6

Ok I am jumping in here even though it is directed to Liberals and I am not.
The basic aspect is the left want to make what society has been abnormal. Normal is a relative term which depends on where you are and this is not always the ground you stand on but the place where your mind and heart may be. Now the left wants others to except and make what is and has not been normal for many years. And to use sick things like Cesar is not right as many of people in power abuse this and left or right is no different. Evil is evil and the fact that the norm in the west says that to be gay is not normal so this leads to those in the left over 60's hippy generation of free love to try and make it normal. They how ever must make people lock inside what they feel and know is wrong in order to do this they call any one a bigot racist or worse. To use political correctness they can then silence those who oppose their views. Marriage is between a man and a women and that is the way it must stay if it would change than yes the family will break down even future than it has. No one today wants to take responsibility for their actions. And many on the left still have deep rooted shame for what they have done or are doing and this internal fight to be shed for them needs to now become excepted so they think they can forgive themselves which is false and they can only do this with in them selves not using external methods such as drugs sex material things or any other thing that diverts the person from dealing with them self. This they must deal with and not try to change what they can not as marriage is a man and women and the children that beget to move through time. And to go back to not doing as such would take us back to the ape or for you liberals reverse evaluation and go back to swinging in trees. Move forward and face what are your demons and leave the rest of us alone and do not try and change what is. And for all of you here that say you do not care than this shows just how little your mind works as you should care as many of you most likely came from mothers and fathers who felt that free and open sex is ok and you need to care as many of your issues come from their lack of dealing with issues therefore you have no tools. So wake up it is a man and women only.

Answer 7

That simply isn't true. For several millenia the definition of marriage comfortably accepted polygamy. In some parts of the world it still does. I understand that you believe that you're defending something, but in actuality you're choking it.

Marriage should NOT be linked to procreation. That type of thinking encourages people to enter poorly thought out marriages, based on unexpected pregnancies. Making a mistake to fix another is useless. Growing up with two parents who despise eachother is not more beneficial than growing up with a single parent. How exactly would any of this put children secondary? That's flawed logic.

Nothing needs to be rewritten, because nothing has been written yet. These definitions that opponents of gay marriage are throwing around are brand-new. Let people form whatever family they choose. Who are you to judge?

More importantly, do you really want the Federal Government involved in the structure of your family? Having the freedom to raise your children as you see fit, means that other people have the same freedom. Are you certain you want to start playing around with that? Once you grant new powers to the government, it's really hard to take them away again when they become inconvenient for you.

Answer 8

While I would probably be considered a liberal, I wouldn’t classify myself as anything, I look at each issue individually and form my own opinion accordingly.

I advocate same-sex marriage simply because I believe that it is unjust to do otherwise. I use the same style of logic to justify this as I do justifying racial and gender equality, equal opportunity and religious tolerance and freedom.

10% or more of the world’s population is gay/bi or transgendered based on homosexual contact and/or thoughts and feelings. Its most likely more considering the stigma around being gay, I'd wager that if we were more accepting the population of lez/bi/gays would increase a little more.

Like I can see where you’re coming from, but I know many gay couples who for them children are primary. They do everything they can for their children. I love the idea of gay couples adopting, its so heart warming to see unwanted and abused children get good homes.

Most gays I know could raise a child better then I can and in recent studies of child outcomes in children raised by homosexual couples, those children were found to have better understanding of sharing and division of house labor as well as were inclined to be more empathetic and altruistic then children raised in a heterosexual couples home. They were also very slightly more likely to identify as homo or bisexual, but I'm willing to bet that is simply based on the fact that the children didn't hide their feelings because of fear of rejection from their family. You see, the only real problems these families have are the problems that society makes them have by limiting rights and freedoms.

I wouldn't really be scared of like some "gay overload" syndrome where this signifies some great decay in tradition and religion. People have been gay for as long as there have been people. Even out in the wild, nature shows the same approximate numbers of homosexual behavior as do us humans. Its not "new" or even that different, only gay marriage is, but so is racial equity and the right to live.

I like to think that we all have our own path, and in exchange for others honoring mine, I honor others. Sure you can't extend full immunity for crimes, but I don't feel this to be a crime. I believe in the separation of church and state because it leads to one sided goals, and this is one such issue.

Answer 9

Your premise that marriage is "...values that govern the transmission of human life to the next generation and the nurturing of that life in the basic societal unit, the family." is flawed. This is the not the definition of marriage. This is a single aspect of marriage. Individuals get married for many reasons as I'm sure you are aware of. Many even choose not to have children. Does this make their union less valid?

Answer 10

Marriage is marriage. Where does it say that it is just between a man and a woman. There are no law that say this. We've been socially conditioned to think that way. You're right, it is an ASSUMPTION that marriage should be between a man and a woman. But a marriage is a life time union between two people. In any marriage, if the couple has children, the children are NOT secondary. Even with gay couples who have children, these children are not secondary. What is wrong with asking our institutions to be more democratic? What is wrong with our culture becoming more inclusive. Isn't that the very definition of democracy?
Perhaps people need to just chill out when it comes to gays. Most of us believe in live and let live. This means that my rights as a heterosexual married female should be given to all people to marry the one they love.
I have alot of gay friends, and not one of them CHOOSE to be that way. They are that way and they were born that way. There has been plenty of scientific evidence to back that up.

Answer 11

I thought that marriage was primarily about love between two people. If, as you say, marriage is about procreation, what is to be done about childless marriages. Shall they be viewed to be of less value than marriages that do procreate? Some marriage vows include a "bless this union with children" vow, but some don't. Shall the government step in and re-write marriage vows? I think that the government has more important issues to deal with right now such as the war, immigration, etc. than to interfere where they are not needed.