Please explain....

[kingjust]

How does allowing gay marraige hurt you and your family? How does allowing gay couples to have the same rights to marry as a hetero couple hurt our society? And for the sake of this thread, leave religion out. Because what you believe in and what your religion is supposed to be personal and not influenced on other people or politics, even though it still happens.

[Osborn F Enready]

Gays marrying don't affect me in any way, shape or form.

I fully support equal rights for all citizens, and don't let race, religion, sexual prefrence, economic class or any other created division affect my decisions about the rights of equals.

My one and only prejudice, is my lack of tolerance for anti-Constitutional Americans. At least my Constitution provides, and encourages that prejudice.

[RickSp]

Quote by: kingjust How does allowing gay marraige hurt you and your family? How does allowing gay couples to have the same rights to marry as a hetero couple hurt our society? And for the sake of this thread, leave religion out. Because what you believe in and what your religion is supposed to be personal and not influenced on other people or politics, even though it still happens.

Well since those gays started getting hitched my wife and I figure that we just might as well get divorced as the sanctity of our marriage is all spoiled. :(

Seriously now, I cannot figure out how folks I don't know getting married has anything whatsoever to do with my relationship with my wife. As long as no violence is involved, I really don't even see how it is any of my business. I do not understand those folks who think they have a right to try and shove their narrow religious beliefs down the throats of others.

[Irene]

I asked these questions in another thread, but did not get an answer: If a brother and sister or a brother/brother want to get married, is that OK with you? If a man wants to have more then 1 wife, shouldn't he be allowed to? How about a bisexual that is involved in a loving relationship with a man and female, can't the 3 of them get married? These are all consenting adults, shouldn't they be allowed? Its not hurting anyone, is it?

[RickSp]

Quote by: Irene I asked these questions in another thread, but did not get an answer: If a brother and sister or a brother/brother want to get married, is that OK with you? If a man wants to have more then 1 wife, shouldn't he be allowed to? How about a bisexual that is involved in a loving relationship with a man and female, can't the 3 of them get married? These are all consenting adults, shouldn't they be allowed? Its not hurting anyone, is it?

Are you willing to answer kingjust's original question or just prefer to propose those of your own?

To address your questions - the typical if we let homosexuals marry all of civilization will collapse queries :

Incest has been forbidden for centuries in most societies for reasonalbe reasons related to birth defects from inbreeding. Multiple marriage partners, Utah and portions of the Middle East notwithstanding, don't seem to be in particular demand, but I suppose an argument might be made if all concerned are consenting. The problem with ploygamy as practiced by the estimated 30,000 polygamists in Utah is that in a number of documented cases underaged girls have been forced into arranged marriages, which is effectively statutory rape.

I am confident that the Rick Santorum question will soon appear - "if gays can mary why shouldn't we marry our pets?". In the mean time why don't you answer the question originally posed in the thread?

[Mia]

Quote by: kingjust How does allowing gay marraige hurt you and your family? How does allowing gay couples to have the same rights to marry as a hetero couple hurt our society? And for the sake of this thread, leave religion out. Because what you believe in and what your religion is supposed to be personal and not influenced on other people or politics, even though it still happens.

It doesn't, of course. But OMG, do we have to have thread 287 on it? No offense, but I want to puke over this topic.

None of us get to decide - not writing in here instead of to Congressmen anyway.

They're going to decide, and then the Supreme Court.

[Mia]

And you know hopw that's going to turn out, right? Let's accept it's not going to be legal right now. Things don't happen over night, and never things like this with Republicans controlling all three branches.

[Irene]

OK Ricksp, I'll try and answer the original question. How about it harms our society. There is no procreation between gays. I'm sure the logical comeback would be that there are enough heterosexuals to reproduce the populace or there is already enough unwanted pregnancies.......How about homosexuality has harmed our society by the introduction of AIDS and please don't say it's not just a gay disease anymore. Recent statistics show that it is still predominantly gay men that are getting and spreading the disease, followed 2nd by bi-sexuals, which I belive how it spread to non gays(aside from blood transfusions and drugaddicts sharing needles). And would incest be acceptable between two relatives of the same sex since there is no chance of birthdefects from inbreeding?
kingjust, It is hard to keep religion out of the subject. This country was founded on the belief in God and most laws are based on bible teaching in someway or another.

[SoccerfreakAB2]

Quote by: Irene kingjust, It is hard to keep religion out of the subject. This country was founded on the belief in God and most laws are based on bible teaching in someway or another.

We were not founded upon Christianity, that is why we gave people the choice. Because according to the ten commandments, no other God should be believed in. Are you implying that the right to choose a religion goes hand in hand with the Bible? We have thousands of laws. Are you telling me that the majority of them deal with what the Bible has to say? Please, go ahead and prove that statement for me...

[Irene]

You don't think our forefathers had the basic belief in God? God gives us freewill, so then I would suspect that freedom of religion could be based on that concept. I think most laws dealing with humans come from the bible, like no stealing, no murder, don't commit adultery, etc, however you will not find laws such as speed limits, car seat laws, tax law, etc.

[Prometheus]

You speak of the "sanctity of marriage", and yet marriage is currently a government thing. If marriage means something sacred to you, then that is fine and good, but there is nothing sacred about a procedure the government does. My view of the sacred nature of marriage is so far removed from what the government says marriage is, that the governmental definition has absolutely no affect on what I consider to be the sacred nature of marriage. Comparing a civil marriage with a religious ceremony is comparing apples and oranges.

[belverron]

Quote by: Irene How about homosexuality has harmed our society by the introduction of AIDS

That's all well and good, but it has nothing to do with marriage. Also, the introduction of AIDS was an unfortunate and sad day in human history that probably had nothing to do with gay men. We just happen to be extremely susceptible to it.

I don't know why you're complaining about it when we're the ones scared out of our minds of infection. I've had nightmares about it; I don't know where you come off condemning me.

[mr.perfecto]

Please explain how not having it harms anyone?

[belverron]

Quote by: mr.perfecto Please explain how not having it harms anyone?

It harms the people who cannot properly care for or receive care from their partners. But you don't care about them, clearly.

*edit* In the interest of brevity I left this post too vague. Obviously I have hospital visitation in mind, but I was also considering things like inheritance.

[SoccerfreakAB2]

Quote by: Irene You don't think our forefathers had the basic belief in God? God gives us freewill, so then I would suspect that freedom of religion could be based on that concept. I think most laws dealing with humans come from the bible, like no stealing, no murder, don't commit adultery, etc, however you will not find laws such as speed limits, car seat laws, tax law, etc.

You say etc. but no stealing and no killing is pretty much all this is. There is no law for adultery. Everything else has nothing to do with the Bible. Fortunately, Catholicism has reformed itself to allow free will with religion. Since the dark ages, that was not possible (inquisition, heretics, blasphemy). I think it is our government who first said that we have free will, not because the Bible somewhere claims it, but because we didn't want our people to be forced to believe something.

[belverron]

Quote by: Irene You don't think our forefathers had the basic belief in God? God gives us freewill, so then I would suspect that freedom of religion could be based on that concept. I think most laws dealing with humans come from the bible, like no stealing, no murder, don't commit adultery, etc, however you will not find laws such as speed limits, car seat laws, tax law, etc.

The Code of Hammurabi made provisions for all of those things, also, and it predates the first written Old Testament. The origin of our laws is not purely Judeo-Christian.

[Irene]

belverron, I'm not condeming you, kingjust wanted to know why it would hurt society and I was just giving my opinion. I worry about it because we have a society today, that wants to tell my children in elementary school that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice, that it is normal for some people to be that way and it is not. If it were a natural behavior, we wouldn't be having this debate. Aids is a terrible disease, and I wouldn't wish it upon anyone.

quote " probably had nothing to do with gay men. We just happen to be extremely susceptible to it." Are you saying Aids had nothing to do with gay men? Can someone tell me HOW aids originated.

[Jack]

Can someone tell me HOW aids originated.

At the opening lecture at 5pm tonite Dr Beatrice Hahn talked about her reseaerch in Africa and how her research leads her to think that HIV was passed to humans from monkeys in West Central Africa. Her research leads her to believe that HIV was passed from other primates to monkeys thousands of years ago. And she believes that perhaps HIV was passed to humans through the business of hunting and selling bushmeat in Central Africa by humans. The humans were exposed to the blood of primates through catching, killing, and cutting up the animals. She and her team looked at 788 primates/monkeys and 16 species in Central Africa. 13 primate species had HIV-1/HIV-2; 20% of the animals had HIV (range 5-20% among the various species). 90% of the sexually active adults had HIV. She believes HIV was spread from one animal to another by the fighting of animals amongst themselves. Hahn developed a non-invasive way to check urine & fecal samples from the monkeys to test them for HIV. Hahn said that by identifying where AIDS came from and by studying the immune system of these monkeys who are able to handle AIDS (that is, coexist with AIDS), perhaps we can identify a strategy for vaccine and treatment.

Source

[Irene]

THank you, but can you now tell me why it is mainly prevelant in the gay community?

[SoccerfreakAB2]

Quote by: Irene belverron, I'm not condeming you, kingjust wanted to know why it would hurt society and I was just giving my opinion. I worry about it because we have a society today, that wants to tell my children in elementary school that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice, that it is normal for some people to be that way and it is not. If it were a natural behavior, we wouldn't be having this debate. Aids is a terrible disease, and I wouldn't wish it upon anyone. quote " probably had nothing to do with gay men. We just happen to be extremely susceptible to it." Are you saying Aids had nothing to do with gay men? Can someone tell me HOW aids originated.

It originated from chimps in the Central African region. The people there ate chimps and thus became infected. Around the 1950s, Americans started getting infected, and well, it goes on from there. Gays are more susceptible, yet I still doubt they are the largest population of AIDS recipients. Millions have the virus and will probably die with it in their body and they won't know it, we just don't know why only sometimes it comes out and ruins someone's life.