Gay marriage means lesbians can marry too.

Why does most everyone forget this? Everyone is sooooooo worried about two guys touching each others penis or poking their asses with their penis that they forget the fairer sex rubs vaginas together too, and that they wish to get married.

It would seem the being lesbian is a social norm, or at least more readily accepted. When it comes to gay guys, WHOA!! WRONG! THEY WILL DESTROY EVERYTHING!!!

Then the detractors go and spank it to some lesbian porn.

hubiestubert: Good.

And this is as a Republican.

The main problem that I have with the opponents of gay marriage is that it boils down a matter of religious freedom.

Your church doesn't want to perform gay marriages, fine. Feel free to do that, and I support that fully. What a ministry does, and is supported by their congregations is fine and dandy.

But when ministries begin demanding that other ministries and folks of no denomination or faith even conform to their standards, there's a problem.

I don't see it as an issue of equal protection, but a matter of religious freedom. And religious freedom boils down to the freedom for your beliefs, or lack of, to piss other people off.

Equal protection is one way to go about this, but I think it would send a much stronger message about marriage and the rights of gay and lesbian couples to hitch it to a religious freedom angle. It would force the government to finally make a point that the basing law on the concepts of what is meet and good on purely religious grounds, as opposed to damage and real consequence is a bad idea. It would put a nail in the coffin of those who try to manipulate the government with faith as their excuse.

Don't want a gay marriage? Don't have one, but never mind what other ministries, or what the secular community is doing. It has zero impact on your faith, your own marriage, and invalidates your relationships about as much as Newt Gingrich's divorces do.

This.

captain_heroic44: To America's conservative enemies: this is not your country anymore. Love the new America, or STFU, and GTFO.

w00t!!!

You are one of the worst Left wing morans on here. Not saying all left wingers on here are morans but you sir are a moran. STFU and DIAF. The country as a whole will be richer for it.

captain_heroic = a left wing Fred Phelps.

nosferatublue: ExJerseyGirl: Hang On Voltaire: Sorry I only used two words in my argument instead of eight like you. You assuming my reasons for opposing gay marriage are because I am bigoted or don't think that gays should be out doesn't make me want to change my mind

So why do you oppose gay marriage? I have never heard an argument against it that seemed valid.

What's your definition of marriage?

The joining of folks who love each other.

Twenty years ago, this ridiculous argument of marriage is only a man or woman wasn't circulated--now it's the de rigor response, because it attempts to cloud the issue.

It's trying to advance the idea that things are just "different" for gays and lesbians. It tries to advance some ridiculous notion of "special rights"--it is amazingly special to marry someone you love, but not so special to reject the idea that you can only marry folks you aren't attracted to.

You like the idea? How's that sit? If you wouldn't stand for it yourself, why demand it for others?

JoeJitsu: FloydA: JoeJitsu:

Then, as he saw a stream of grim-faced activists from the Supreme Court passing through security at the Iowa Capitol, he said: "The God squad's coming in the door now."

...

Bigots are rightly mocked for being bigots; deciding to be a hateful jackass really IS a "lifestyle choice."

Yeah, that McCoy certainly isn't a bigot. I'm glad he called them out and wasn't hateful himself.

It is interesting that his quote no longer appears in the article. Maybe his lack of hatred just didn't go along with the rest of the story.


So... you're of the opinion that calling people "God squad" is hateful? Why? What makes that label "hateful," in your mind?

Is it, in your opinion, more, less or equally as hateful as claiming that some people should have more rights than others?

Hang On Voltaire: ExJerseyGirl:

So why do you oppose gay marriage? I have never heard an argument against it that seemed valid.

Because marriage is an institution between a man and a woman at it's core. I have no problem with civil unions I just have a problem with society deciding to redefine marriage

Marriage was and always will be a creation of religion. Before the general religion that is accepted today I seriously doubt cavemen had other cavemen perform a ceremony before they bumped uglies with their cavewomen.

Therefore, since you support civil unions, and the fact that a separation of church and state should include no government oversight of marriage (since it is such a sacred religious institution), you would have no problem with marriages from this point forward within these United States becoming civil unions. No matter if you are M/F, F/F, or M/M.

All marriage is, in reality and at the base core of legality, is a license to say "I am with this person, we share things, we can make decisions about each other and we hopefully fark sometimes."

It is not for procreation, as many religious talking heads have said. Why isn't it? Because if it was then to get a marriage license it would have been required to create offspring with a certain amount of time else your marriage would be null and void.

I seriously doubt that the forefathers of this nation would create any kind of religious discrimination or oppression upon those who do not wish religion seeing as how they and their ancestors came here to escape such things from the Church in Europe, as well as the whole "freedom of religion" clause.

Freedom of religion is not freedom from religion. This doesn't mean that people who choose to have no religion can forcefully remove a religion from society. What it does mean is they have a right to not be a part of that religion or have their beliefs oppressed by that religion.

The same in reverse. A religious person cannot forcefully remove a non-religion point of view from society, but they have a right to not be a part of that non-religion or have their beliefs opposed by that non-religion.

Since this is a religious war (imagine that, religion causing another war, who would have thunk?), and marriage is deemed by those who scream the loudest to be a religious institution, you can have it. Except legally. Because forcing your beliefs onto those who do not believe is against the intent of freedom of religion.

jst3p: susansto-helit: Hang On Voltaire: susansto-helit:

Which society would that be, pray tell?

Western

Which one? There are many of those. How do you define western?

Canada is western....

As are Sweden, Norway, The Netherlands, Belgium and Spain, and they also offer equal marriage rights to all citizens, regardless of sexual preference.


By contrast, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Libya and Kuwait are not, and those nations have laws that discriminate against homosexuals.

Are the anti-gay activists suggesting that the US should be more like the Islamic republics and less like the European democracies?