Gay marriage and the death of freedom

Has there ever been a sweeter-sounding, more goosebump-inducing phrase than ‘Freedom to marry’? Everyone likes freedom (even illiberal politicians pay lip service to liberty), and who doesn’t love a good wedding? Marry these two things together (pun intended) and you end up with an endorphin-releasing buzzphrase that will make anyone grin wildly.

So it has been following Senator David Leyonhjelm’s unveiling of the Freedom to Marry Bill. Across Oz, right-minded people who think gays must be allowed to get hitched experienced paroxysms of joy at the introduction of this new phrase into the political vernacular. Sure, those of a leftish bent had trouble computing the fact that it’s a classical liberal politician who’s championing their most beloved cause. But the instant they made peace with this seeming anomaly, they, together with small-l liberals, gay-rights activists and the Age-reading patrons of non-chain coffee shops across the land (well, in Melbourne), were giving themselves adrenalin rushes by whispering those three magic words: ‘Freedom to marry…’

I hate to rain on this fabulous parade, but there’s a massive problem with this happy-clappy rallying cry. And it’s this: everywhere gay marriage has been introduced it has battered freedom, not boosted it. Debate has been chilled, dissenters harried, critics tear-gassed. Love and marriage might go together like horse and carriage, but freedom and gay marriage certainly do not. The double-thinking ‘freedom to marry’ has done more to power the elbow of the state than it has to expand the liberty of men and women. There are awkward questions the ‘freedom to marry’ folks just can’t answer. Like: if gay marriage is a liberal cause, how come it’s been attended by authoritarianism wherever it’s been introduced?

Consider France. Hundreds of thousands of French people — or ‘bigots’, as the gay-marriage lobby brands anyone who disagrees with it — marched against the legalisation of gay marriage in 2013. And they were beaten and tear-gassed by riot cops. Parisians in t-shirts celebrating traditional marriage were arrested for holding ‘unauthorised protests’. In the words of Parisian writer John Laughland, critics of gay marriage were turned into ‘ideological enemies’ of the French state. It’s a funny expansion of freedom that so violently pummels the right to protest.

Consider America. The authorities there haven’t had to whip out their truncheons because non-state mobs have policed the opponents of gay marriage on their behalf. In the words of the author Damon Linker, a supporter of gay marriage, Americans who raise even a peep of criticism of gay marriage face ‘ostracism from public life’. We saw this with the medieval hounding of Brendan Eich out of his job at Mozilla after it was revealed that — oh, the humanity! — he isn’t a massive fan of gays getting married. Linker says the gay-marriage brigade has created a menacing climate, where the aim seems to be to ‘stamp out rival visions’. Americans who fail to bow at the altar of same-sex hitching, from wedding photographers to cake-makers, are harassed and boycotted and sometimes put out of business. The ‘freedom to marry’ clearly trumps the freedom of conscience.

Consider Britain. One of the first things gay campaigners here did when they won the right to marry was demand Catholic schools be forced to teach that gay marriage is as good as straight; even though they don’t believe this. Screw you, freedom of religion. Perhaps Catholic schools should bring back ‘priest holes’ to discuss their beliefs free from the watchful stare of the gay-marriage lobby, which, in Linker’s words, demands ‘psychological acceptance’ of gay marriage from all.

Why is this alleged freedom so feverishly embraced by politicians who can’t spell the word freedom? There’s David Cameron, demolisher of press freedom; French officials, so allergic to liberty that they won’t let Muslim women wear what they want; Obama, Christendom’s spymaster-in-general. What draws such freedom-fearing rulers to the ‘freedom to marry’? It’s simple: gay marriage has diddly-squat to do with freedom. Rather, this new institution, invented from pure cloth by tiny numbers of sharp-suited lawyers and agitators, is better seen as a Trojan horse for the enforcement of a new morality, one which calls into question the old virtues of lifelong commitment and familial sovereignty and replaces them with the flightiness and flexibility more commonly associated with gay relationships. ‘Gay marriage’ is the lick of paint modern society gives to its own discomfort with the traditional family set-up and its desire to dismantle, or at least dent, that set-up in favour of pushing new, post-traditional, state-defined hook-ups.

Twenty-five years ago, American thinker Christopher Lasch argued that ‘progressive rhetoric has the effect of concealing social crisis and moral breakdown by presenting them as the birth pangs of a new order’. Bingo! There’s no better description of gay marriage. Here, too, progressive-sounding rhetoric is really the dolling-up of our atomised, risk-averse societies’ growing disdain for those deep relationships in which families and communities traditionally socialised the next generation, mostly away from the prying eyes of the state. This is why the gay-marriage campaign is so contradictorily illiberal, so hostile to dissent, and so attractive to petty-authoritarian politicians: because it isn’t about expanding liberty at all; it’s about unilaterally overhauling the moral outlook of the traditionalist sections of society and elevating the commitment-phobic, passion-lite, short-termist values of the chattering classes instead. Aussie campaigners for the ‘Freedom to marry’ are actually lucky that the PM isn’t cheering their moral crusade. Because this means that when they finally win this illiberal liberty — which they unquestionably will — they’ll be able to present it as a great victory for civil libertarians who bravely took on The Man. When in truth, their victory will be built on the spilt blood of French protesters and the trampled-upon right to dissent of Americans and Britons and the transformation of gay marriage by Western political elites into a new orthodoxy that you question at your peril.

Poor Mr Leyonhjelm — he thinks he’s striking a blow for liberty, when really he’s completing the final act in a pink-tinged tyranny kickstarted by the new authoritarians of the modern West.

Show comments

JPeron

Pity, as an insufferable Marxist O’Neill was used to distorting facts and fighting individual rights. Not much has changed.
Zoe_Brain

I suspect that the author hasn’t read the bill in question. Journalistic Laziness is the most charitable explanation. Mind-numbing stupidity and lack of even the most basic comprehension skills the next most. Deliberate and bald-faced mendacity the least charitable, but he’d have to be as thick as two short planks to think he’d get away with that.

Here, let me quote from the bill – it’s only half a page long after all.

Application of amendments—ministers of religion
To avoid doubt, the amendments made by this Schedule do not require ministers of religion to solemnise marriages.

And from the explanatory notes:

The purpose of the Freedom to Marry Bill 2014 is threefold.

First, the Amendment reduces the extent to which government interferes in private life. It does this by allowing all Australians regardless of sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity to marry.

Second, it imposes no claims or burdens of conscience on those persons who object to marriages other than between a man and a woman for both religious and non-religious reasons.

Third, it ensures that while conscience is to the greatest extent protected, the state – which stands for all Australians and whose laws ought to be facially neutral -cannot make claims of conscience in this matter.

Item 8 – Paragraph 47(a)
Item 8 omits the reference to “minister of religion”, as the Bill not only protects religious conscience, but also conscience claims by those who are not religious.
- James Abrahams
  
  I think it would definitely be possible for a government to move to a place where marriages between two members of the same sex are allow, in a way that is not an attack on liberty. In fact there are points where Brendan actually celebrates gay marriage as a positive example of liberty.
  
  The problem is that right now that is not what happens. As soon as gay marriage becomes an issue, regardless of the wording of the bill, it spirals out of control and becomes a proxy for a culture war where agreement or disagreement is the sign of if you’re a “good” person or bad (and if you’re bad you’re lynched)
  
  So yes… whilst the wording of the bill might be good. Your presentation of the facts of the bill kind of proved what brendan is talking about. A slight difference of opinion on the right to gay marriage and your first paragraph is a slew of angry insults.
  
  Maybe he is wrong. Maybe Australia is going to be the first place where they will discuss this issue with maturity, keeping liberty still in tack. Maybe after this bill passes it will be ok to publically condemn people who actually choose to marry using this freedom this and not lose your Job… maybe… but your post suggests otherwise.
  - Zoe_Brain
    
    Perhaps I’m too close to the issue.
    
    I’m Intersex. Diagnosed several years after marriage – which is now voidable.
    
    Under current Australian law, I’m not allowed to marry. Not anyone of any sex, as “marriage is between a man and a woman”, and in law, I’m counted as neither. The leading case is “in the marriage of C and D (falsely called C) FLC 1979” where facts are similar enough not to be distinguishable.
    
    My son is not permitted to have married biological parents.
    
    You wrote about “Gay Marriage”, so none of what you said applies to this bill, which is about marriage equality, not just “gay marriage”. That’s a big part of it, but by no means the only part.
    
    Did you read the bill in question? The author didn’t. I think it likely you didn’t either, please correct me if I’m wrong.
    - TomPaine
      
      “Marriage equality” is a manufactured term. Equaity was never the point. It’s just a feel-good liberal term deliberately attached to gay marriage to make anyone who questions it sound retrograde. While I do feel for your situation, it’s not a basis for overwriting bedrock social structure.
      And since we’re talking about something every human understands innately, I don’t think commentors need to have read this bill through in order to opine on the nature of marriage.
      And yeah, I think you’re too close to the issue. : )
      - Zoe_Brain
        
        “Marriage equality” is a manufactured term.
        
        Argument by assertion.
        
        http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argument_by_assertion
      - S_O_T_A
        
        Actually it is, since it relies on assumptions that have never been proven – especially that sexual orientation is something hardwired into a person. Creating mythical subcategories which are then in turn falsely equated to neutral characteristics like skin color in order to trojan horse acceptance of homosexuality through the redefinition of the word marriage is the goal here.
        
        The truth is that marriage equality already exists according to the definition of marriage. The definition includes all men and all women as having the same right – to the exclusion of no-one – but the slogan of marriage ‘equality’ used by activists begs the question – it assumes subcategories of sex in order to create a mythical unfairness. In truth, there is no unfairness at all. The same rules apply to all, male and female. It IS a manufactured term that does not reflect the true situation.
      - Zoe_Brain
        
        Actually it is, since it relies on assumptions that have never been proven – especially that sexual orientation is something hardwired into a person.
        
        The evidence says you’re probably wrong about that.
        
        For example:
        Sexual Hormones and the Brain: An Essential Alliance for Sexual Identity and Sexual Orientation Garcia-Falgueras A, Swaab DF Endocr Dev. 2010;17:22-35
        
        The fetal brain develops during the intrauterine period in the male direction through a direct action of testosterone on the developing nerve cells, or in the female direction through the absence of this hormone surge. In this way, our gender identity (the conviction of belonging to the male or female gender) and sexual orientation are programmed or organized into our brain structures when we are still in the womb. However, since sexual differentiation of the genitals takes place in the first two months of pregnancy and sexual differentiation of the brain starts in the second half of pregnancy, these two processes can be influenced independently, which may result in extreme cases in trans-sexuality. This also means that in the event of ambiguous sex at birth, the degree of masculinization of the genitals may not reflect the degree of masculinization of the brain. There is no indication that
        social environment after birth has an effect on gender identity or sexual orientation.
        
        It’s not a strict binary, and there are degrees. Many are bisexual to some degree, often just a trace. We’re still not sure of the relative contributions of genetics, epigenetics, and foetal hormones too.
        
        But none of the “ex-gay” groups have been able to offer a single skerrick of evidence that change is possible for more than a handful of dubious, boundary cases, when studied over a long term.
        
        So “proven”? As much – or as little – as anything can be in biology.
      - S_O_T_A
        
        Yeah, except I know SEVEN people who do not fit into the homosexualist narrative such studies are usually employed to try to bolster. They are aware that their feelings do not/did not equal identity, much as they might be considered such by activists.
        
        It is a binary because even intersex people such as yourself are measured in reference to it (and even the term ‘SAME-sex marriage’ gives the game away) and everybody has one mother and one father. I prefer to ride with reality that explains 100% of human sexuality rather than so-called experts trying to find speculative loopholes for a small minority of the population using pseudoscience. OK?
      - Zoe_Brain
        
        , except I know SEVEN people
        
        Citation, please? Or why should I give this any more credence than a claim to know SEVEN people who have been to the Moon and verified it’s made of green cheese?
        
        Handwaving, “argument by assertion” , “argument by unevidenced anecdote” and so on don’t work.
        
        As for facts that contradict your ideological/religious beliefs – if they’re incorrect, let’s see the evidence. Labelling inconvenient facts as “pseudoscience” may work in Theology, but not here, If they’re wrong – as they may be – all you have to do is show the experimental data.
        
        And if you can’t, what is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
      - S_O_T_A
        
        Pardon me? You want citations for something you can see everywhere? Huh?
        
        If you think 100% of the reason human population exists can be dismissed, then you are truly impossible to reason with. You are obviously disinterested in anything except forcing your ideology into the world. All I’m saying is that I know 7 people who cannot be explained by YOUR worldview.
        
        Zoe, no matter what, reality always wins. I am secure that I am simply going by common experience of humanity to have laws that are reasonable and sensible. Any legal contortions you might manage to witness in the future that are not grounded on the basics will eventually destroy society the same as a law that would make 2+2=5 ‘legal’. You’re asking for absurdity to be accepted as truth. That would never be any good for Australia in the long term.
      - Zoe_Brain
        
        no matter what, reality always wins.
        
        Well, at least we agree on something
        
        You’re asking for absurdity to be accepted as truth.
        
        As absurd as a round Earth? When everyone can see that it’s flat in everyday life.
        
        As absurd as those little lights in the sky being huge balls of incandescent gas, unimaginably far away?
        
        As absurd as Bose-Einstein condensates, with two physically distinct objects able to occupy the same physical position?
        
        As absurd as this – In an isolated village of the southwestern Dominican Republic, 2% of the live births were in the 1970’s, guevedoces … These children appeared to be girls at birth, but at puberty these ‘girls’ sprout muscles, testes, and a penis. For the rest of their lives they are men in nearly all respects.
        
        Or this?
        Bone marrow-derived cells from male donors can compose endometrial glands in female transplant recipients by Ikoma et al Am J Obstet Gynecol. 2009 Dec;201(6):608.e1-8
        
        This shows that a bone-marrow transplant recipient’s body gradually becomes genetically identical to that of the donor due to cell turnover. So the cells in a 46,XX woman’s uterus and ovaries become 46,XY if the donor was 46,XY.
        
        Reality – especially biological Reality – is full if things that go against “common sense” and “what everyone knows”.
        
        Some – the shape of the Earth, basic Cosmology – have come to be accepted. Others, few know about, and many that don’t insist that they’re physical or even logical impossibilities, “Absurdities” as you put it.
        
        Two objects can’t be in the same position. Men are men, women are women. DNA doesn’t lie, and can’t be changed. And so on. All good approximations most of the time, but none universally true.
        
        Common Sense is usually correct, and we abandon it at our peril. But when the evidence is there that it’s wrong, then no amount of appealing to “everyone knows” will stop Reality.
      - S_O_T_A
        
        You are still pointing to male and female as the standards. When the light actually goes on in your head that you are undermining your own argument, be sure to let me know of these additional sexes that supposedly exist as reference points. Until then, you are just repeating your fundamental error.
        
        You do not have an argument when you give ME the evidence to refute YOU.
      - Zoe_Brain
        
        be sure to let me know of these additional sexes that supposedly exist as references points
        
        Additional sexes? I think you have me confused with Anne Fausto-Stirling (a great compliment if so).
        
        In a paper entitled “The Five Sexes”, in which, according to her, “I had intended to be provocative, but I had also written with tongue firmly in cheek,”, Fausto-Sterling laid out a thought experiment considering an alternative model of gender containing five sexes: male, female, merm, ferm, and herm. This thought experiment was interpreted by some as a serious proposal or even a theory; advocates for intersexual
        people stated that this theory was wrong, confusing and unhelpful to
        the interests of intersexual people. In a later paper (“The Five Sexes,
        Revisited”) she has acknowledged these objections.
        
        All models are wrong. Some models are useful. Both the Gender and Sex Binary models are useful up to a point, as is the Flat Earth model, but try treating them as Universal Truths and you run into trouble.
        
        It’s a multivariate multidimensional continuum, not quantisable into N sexes. A 2 sex model works pretty well, mostly, a 3 sex model somewhat better but still very flawed. Beyond that, any quantised model gives no significant improvement.
        
        The 3 sex model is currently embodied in Australian law, and has been since 1979.
        
        The 2-sex model in use in the US results in some very, very silly situations. Viz Littleton v. Prange (9 S.W.3d 223 (Tex. App. 1999), cert. denied, 531 U.S. 872 (2000))
        
        “Taking this situation to its logical
        conclusion, Mrs. Littleton, while in San Antonio, Tex., is a male and has a void marriage; as she travels to Houston, Tex., and enters federal property, she is female and a widow; upon traveling to Kentucky she is female and a widow; but, upon entering Ohio, she is once again male and prohibited from marriage; entering Connecticut, she is again female and may marry; if her travel takes her north to Vermont, she is male and may marry a female; if instead she travels south to New Jersey, she may marry a male.”
        
        Since 2000, both Kentucky and Vermont have changed their laws, so she’d now be male in Kentucky and female in Vermont.
        
        One can’t help but be reminded of US anti-miscegenation laws, where someone 1/128 Black was deemed White (so unable to marry a Black) in the state of California, but Black (so unable to marry a White) in the commonwealth of Virginia. Ostensibly for the same reasons.
      - S_O_T_A
        
        Still undermining your own argument I see…
      - Right-Minded
        
        Zoe, you’re operating on a higher level than the people you’re engaging, you’ll never persuade them with logic and basic reasoning, that’s your mistake. These people aren’t basing their arguments on deductive reasoning, because if they did they wouldn’t have a single valid argument, the only way to get through to these people is with an abstract philosophical or (more likely) theological answer.
        
        Almost every rebuttal to your eloquent arguments are anecdotal or baseless, you’re an intelligent person, these idiots don’t deserve your time, and certainly don’t know what to do with your answers (which I love btw).
      - Guglielmo Marinaro
        
        What exactly DO these SEVEN people whom you know prove?
      - TomPaine
        
        Common sense suffices in this obvious case. It’s a political product calculated to appeal to liberals, to whom anything associated with equality sounds good. I think we both know that.
      - Zoe_Brain
        
        And since we’re talking about something every human understands
        innately, I don’t think commentors need to have read this bill through
        in order to opine on the nature of marriage.
        
        You’re not the first to assert that I’m not human.
        
        Simple syllogism:
        All X are Y
        Z is not Y
        Therefore Z is not X.
      - TomPaine
        
        That’s an outrgeous twisting of what I said, and you know it. I said that every human being understands the historical nature of marriage.
        
        Discussion is welcome, but abrasive trolling is not.
      - Grace Ironwood
        
        Casuistry
      - Ed
        
        ‘Overwriting bedrock social structure’ – this is a pretentious phrase which is designed to gloss over the large number of fundamental changes that have affected marriage over the centuries. The claim that ‘since we’re talking about something every human understands innately’ is another, unhistorical, essentialist claim.
        
        Basically your anti-gay bigotry means you’d be happier if gays were treated as second class citizens. The rest is noise.
      - TomPaine
        
        The bedrock social stucture to which I refer is the millennia-old structure of family and society. I’m not glossing over anything because I wasn’t referring to contemporary pressure politics to extend marriage to a tiny subpopulation.
        
        Your second paragraph is pure garbage. Name-calling is a fail, assumptions about my attitudes, likewise. Reserving marriage for those capable of forming a family naturally is in no way treating gays as second-class citizens. That would issue from denying someone something they should have, which is not the case. Anyone who thinks he can marry a man or she can marry a woman is lying to himself or herself, deep down inside. Note the large majority of gays who are NOT seeking marriage: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/06/26/how-many-same-sex-marriages-in-the-u-s-at-least-71165-probably-more/
    - James Abrahams
      
      I didn’t read the bill in question and sort of the point is that I don’t need to. The bill, almost doesn’t matter as much as the politics surrounding it.
      
      Personally speaking, as a Christian, I would prefer the state’s version of “marriage” and the religious/ social version to be completely divorced. The extract of the bill that you posted suggests it is trying to do something similar to what I’d like to see happen. So if I were to read the bill, and live in Australia I might even support it.
      
      Except that that doesn’t matter because its not the government that will end up forcing people who disagree with it out of a Job. And when the government gets involved, the actual wording of the bill won’t stop the tear gas aimed at protesters.
      
      You talk about how you’re too close to the issue. I’d suggest you are not. True politics is about people being passionately close to the issue. In the UK Farmers have one of the highest suicide rates and their lives are impacted massively by whether or not the government subsidises their crop or decides they are not worth it. For many people whether politics goes one way or another its a matter of life and death.
      
      The important thing though is what happens when someone disagrees with you. However passionate you are you have a choice. You can force them onto your side or at least out of your way through violence and coercion or you can try and convince them of the rightness of your position through argument and persuasion.
      
      Throughout history this has been an issue regarding your religion. If we’re a protestant country do we tax/ kil catholics into being protestants or do we appeal to their hearts and minds. Spiked-online and brendan have written about this, I think it might have been john stuat mill who bough it up. As a result we’ve learnt a lot about how terrible coercion is in the long term.
      
      The problem with coercion is:
      
      1) You can make the person shut up but if they are not ultimatel convinced it will stew. You can make someone who disagrees with your right to marriage feel stupid, or like they are a bigot. You can publically shame them but they will still think you ought not to marry, but they will talk about it in secret with others who think like them.
      
      2) If coercion is the new way of politics there will be nothing to protect you when the political tide turns against you. All it takes is some sign of weakness on your position and all those people who now hate you and what you represent (because of all the stewing resentment) and then they’ll be able to coerce you.
      
      If coercion is how you do politics, you need to be strong to get your way. Do you think you’ll always be the strongest?
      
      —-
      
      This is a general point. You yourself did present arguments in the form of the bill on top of your insults. You personally may not be guilty of trying to go full on coercion with people who disagree. But plenty “on your side” do and when they get together on mass it gets worrying.
      
      EDIT: Having read most of your comments, you are actually trying to present arguments, rather then using coercion and guilting people into your position (Apart from the comment about whether or not your human, that didn’t make any sense)
      - Zoe_Brain
        
        Thanks for the reasoned critique.
        
        Re: coercion : it’s so tempting when you believe passionately in your cause, when you’ve attended funerals of those killed by the opposition, directly or indirectly, to try to force others to do the right thing.
        
        As you see it… which may not be right at all. Even if it was, coercion would make you indistinguishable from those you fight against.
        
        He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.
        “Beyond Good and Evil”, Aphorism 146 (1886). Nietzche
        
        Every activist, every passionate believer in “truth,justice freedom” “God, King and Country”, and all the rest should remember that. Or you fall into the trap.
        
        I have significant differences from the mainstream of the Liberal Democrats. The reason I support them is because they’re the last party on Earth to go in for coercion, being of the Classical Liberal Benthamite model. The legislation reflects that, with specific clauses designed to prevent coercion.
        
        It’s a matter of principle. I’m to the far left fringe of the LDP, which is a right-wing party in most senses. But it’s a broad church. We all agree on minimum government interference, even if not on the desirability or morality of a social safety net.
        
        Now I’ll go and have a think about to what extent your criticisms are justified. I’m less than perfect, and listening to critique is how I improve.
      - James Abrahams
        
        I should probably reiterate. Most of that was written before reading your responses to everyone else and also it wasn’t really aimed at you. This issue about free speech is an ongoing issue that I’m finding myself talking to a lot of people about. Coercion verses persuasion is a big issue so its directed at a whole movement.
        
        but as I said in my edit, actually you as an individual have done quite a bit of arguing. I think arguing is a very good thing although its even better if you argue with the aim to actually convince someone who disagrees with you, to come over to your side.
        
        The internet is not a great place to do this, but its fun practise in an area with less negative consequences… how you approach people who disagree with you in real life is way more important.
        
        But again, most of my criticisms arn’t aimed directly at you as some people have replied in this comment threat in a way that is definitely irritating and slightly bigotted sounding and you have argued with them rather then biting their head off.
      - Zoe_Brain
        
        I should have been less sarcky in my reply though, your critique was on-target there.
        
        If – a big IF – someone is a bigot, it does no good labeling them as such. Either you’re wrong, so such labeling reflects badly on you, or right, in which case their own words do far more to reveal their bigotry than anything you could ever say.
        
        My intent in commenting is not so much to persuade, as to inform. Often, the people I reply to are impervious to argument – I know that and so do they. But third parties are likely to review the exchange, and make decisions not just on the merits (which is really what they should do) but on seeing one side being calm and rational, the other side .. not so much.
        
        It’s a dirty trick to goad someone to frothing-at-the-mouth insanity, and I try not to do that. No-one here has shown that degree of irrationality, thank goodness. They do seem to be addicted to fallacy though, and arguing by assertion.
        
        That’s not useful. Often, you get more benefit from the evidence, than the conclusions drawn from that. Even my own conclusions. I try therefore to let the facts speak for themselves, they’re more eloquent than I am.
        
        I’m also human – despite some allegations to the contrary (not on this site) – so screw up sometimes. I’m less patient than I should be, and being told that those like me don’t matter is hurtful. It shouldn’t be of course, I shouldn’t care what others say. But we’re a social species, so it does.
FrankS2

Surprised there are only two dissenting comments so far. Maybe the howling pioneers of progressivism have moved ont other things. Still, I expect I’m still a hate-filled bigot.
- jnail7
  
  It really depends. 1) Are your beliefs/actions proactively against a subset of the population in such a way as to disenfranchise them from receiving equitable services from the government? 2) Are your beliefs/actions based upon rational premises that are evidence based, are falsifiable (meaning that some test could be devised to objectively test the validity), and are you mature enough to update your beliefs/actions based on new evidence? 3) Do you make use of fallacious arguments that have the identical form of arguments used by past bigots of other subsets of the population?
  
  If the answers result in 1) yes, 2) no, or 3) yes, then you trending on the bigot side of the issue. A final test would be your reaction to such a post as this. If your reaction is to avoid self-reflection and simply reply with reflexive negations (“that’s not me”), deflections (“that’s you”), insults, red herring arguments, rationalizations(“Is wrong…because (ick)”), and so forth, then despite any mental gymnastics performed to avoid cognitive dissonance, you may likely be a bigot.
  
  If so, that’s ok. Most of us are a bigot when it concerns certain issues. Noone can make you stop hating irrationally. Own it. There’s no need to try and twist things. If being called a bigot makes you feel bad, but not bad enough to re-evaluate your own paradigm then it is obviously not worth the greater effort to rationalize and maintain self-justifications for it. You are a product of your generation and upbringing. That is demonstrably hard to surmount and you are only human.
  - FrankS2
    
    Told you! But what took you so long?!
    - jnail7
      
      Told me what? Took me so long to what? All I did was provide a means for you to self-evaluate. It is what I use when I discover myself holding a bigoted position or performing a bigoted action. If something reduces down to just my not liking it, I own up to it.
      - FrankS2
        
        Thanks for your useful bigotry self-evaluation routine. But there seems to be a logical flaw in the way you apply it for yourself.
      - jnail7
        
        Please cite the formal or informal fallacy for which I have succumb.
      - FrankS2
        
        You run this bigot test on yourself when you find yourself holding a bigoted position – but how do you first establish that you are holding a bigoted position?
      - jnail7
        
        Fair point. The ambiguity is my own fault. Very technically, when I notice that I oppose some issue, ideal, action, etc. I question my own opposition for validity. If my simply not liking it turns out to be a primary motive, I acknowledge my own bigotry. I am comfortable with not liking stuff, but I also acknowledge that I have no business limiting others simply due to my dislike. Easy non confrontational example: I loathe sour cream and I cannot explain objectively why I hate it. However, there are others who love the stuff. As much as I personally would love to never encounter the stuff again in food prepared by others it would be unreasonable for me to expect them to alter their dietary habits to match mine. Instead, I do my best to inspect foods made by others to better avoid the stuff for my own ingestion. It is an inconvenience of my own design for my baseless dislike of a relatively common food ingredient. I have proven that I can eat the stuff, but I choose not to due to my own bigotry against its flavor/texture/whatever it is that I hate about it.
      - Brian Kelly
        
        Likes and dislikes are never baseless. There is always a reason for our affections or hatreds, even if they are concealed from our knowledge or understanding. Talk about ‘rationality’ implies we already know why we like or dislike things – but often we don’t. Maybe you had a bad experience when young with sour cream, and this fact has been imprinted on your subconscious. Now my point is this: modern ‘liberalism’ isn’t really happy with allowing things we dislike (= ‘tolerance’). It will insist on public approbation. It will not be permissible to dislike homosexual relations; they must be actively ‘celebrated’ and praised. Criticism must lead to social and legal penalties.
      - jnail7
        
        Disliking something because of a correlation to some other negative experience is not a “reason”, it is a fallacy. However, knowing that a dislike is irrational doesn’t always mitigate the negative emotional link of hatred. My point was very simple, if one’s dislike is not born of rational premises and sound/strong deduction/induction, then it is a personal problem not the problem of society.
        
        As for the modern liberalism slam. the extremes of any political ideology do not react well to contradiction, especially when pointed out by a labelled opponent. Very few individuals respond positively to criticism, especially baseless criticism that does not address a real problem nor propose rational solutions. If I started campaigning for the banning of sour cream, I would probably gain a few supporters, but I shouldn’t be shocked by a backlash from those who enjoy their freedom to consume sour cream. That is the real crux of most of our issues, trying to use policy to control what other consenting adults do that we may not do ourselves.
      - Brian Kelly
        
        I was using ‘reason’ in the aetiological sense: the cause of something. I assume everything has a cause, if not always a ‘good’ one. Pavlov’s dog had a ‘reason’ for salivating, even when there was no food after the bell was rung.
        Nor do I think you should assume ‘rationality’ is an obvious thing – trans-cultural, trans-historical and so on. Alisdair Macintyre (‘Whose Virtue? Whose Reason?) is clear on this.
        If you could establish that sour cream caused real harm to many people, you might eventually succeed. After all, once upon a time. doctors recommended smoking tobacco. How things change.
        Anyway the issue isn’t about private behaviour (‘consenting adults’); it’s about public valorisation of sexual desires as a basis for legal rights and recognition.
      - jnail7
        
        Relationships can be about more than base sexual desires. Also, marriage is not a prerequisite for sex. Next, there is not a sexual act performed by same-sex individuals that cannot or has not been mimicked by heterosexual couples, when it comes to kink, to each their own. Which leaves the variable of biological sex/gender. Which, in the case of the U.S., the government is prohibited in discriminating against in the provision of its services. This is the underling basis for this political push.
        
        I understood how you were using the term “reason”, and that is why I pointed out the distinction of “correlation” as that is not equal to causation. Pavlov’s experiment reminds us of how deep our flaw in associating correlation with causation can extend into uncontrolled physical manifestations triggered by coupled stimuli.
        
        Rationality is an exercise, a tool for examining observations and concepts in a way that can be examined and evaluated by others. We are flawed in its execution, especially when untrained, as our survival instincts have not caught up and adapted to our modern reality. We are susceptible to type one errors (false positives) as this used to be advantageous for us (There is rustling in the bushes, was it a predator?. Type 1 assuming true, we avoid the bushes and are safe, even though no predator was in the bushes. Whereas Type 2, for false negatives would result in believing there are no predators in the bushes when there actually are, likely to get eaten.) Training is what can help us surpass our limitations in this regard. Logic is one tool. Experimental design and evidence gathering is another. As you so perfectly point out medicine has advanced where previous ideas that were thought valid had successfully been falsified, precisely because they were presented in a rational form that allowed for the potential falsification. Likewise, current medical research is pointing to epigenetic factors in fetal development as probable sources for determining sexual orientation and even gender identity. They may be completely wrong, but at least their presented ideas are testable, reproducible, and most importantly in a form that permits falsifiability. While I personal advocate the freedom of any two individuals to seek equal protection and access to government services and public goods on general principle. I find it even harder to deny someone such access due to their biological development.
      - Brian Kelly
        
        Thank you for taking the trouble to reply. I am busy tonight but will read carefully what you have written and seek to interact with it. I appreciate reasoned and respectful debate between people of different outlooks.
      - jnail7
        
        Likewise. If our ideas are worth having, then they are worth being tested. You will find that I am open to being convinced (in any direction) and freely admit when I make errors.
      - TomPaine
        
        So much claptrap, so little time. All you’ve done is set up a quite biased test in which you define all terms in your favor. And then rather snidely excuse FrankS2 for failing it. Presumption of bigotry in disagreement. Ad hominem. Presumption of guilt (“no one can make you stop hating irrationally”–ha ha). “You’re old so you’re a bigot” (paraphrase). Perhpas you should stick to judging yourself.
      - jnail7
        
        If the test is so biased, then please provide an alternative test. Also I made no assumption of guilt, but rather acknowledged the implication should guilt be discovered. You might want to read up on how ad hominem actually works.
  - James Abrahams
    
    Reasons why you’re a bigot:
    
    1) Pretty much all politics is doing this. It’s about different people trying to get the government to focus on different groups of people. Subsidies for farmers? That helps the farmers in the UK but costs money so hurts everyone else, it can also hurt farmers in other countries when we export out subsidised crops. So your definition of a “bigot” is nice because you can pretty much use it on anyone doing any form of politics and they will be a bigot. You’re then a bigot cause you’re using this to attack people who don’t agree with you
    
    (I’m assuming that’s the case, youre use of big words, trying to be technical means its complicated to pin down what you actually mean so bare with me)
    
    2) This again is a justification of your bigotry towards someone else using attempts at clever philosophy. If someone thinks “Gay marriage is morally wrong” is it possible to falsify that? Well no. But then you can’t do that with any moral statements (though Sam harris tries, it only works when you have a moral statement that you believe to be true that has measurable properties such as “maximising pleasure” where pleasure is a particular function of the brain… it doesn’t justify the original position).
    
    So again, you’re putting forward a position that could make anyone “feel bad” and like a bigot because no one does everything based on falisificationism. (Also try falsificationism with evolution (things in the past) or quantum physics (things that predict probabilistic results)
    
    3) This is actually quite a good example of whether or not you are a bigot
    
    I don’t think my points are really calling you a bigot… they are just general criticisms that I thought would fit within a general point… perhaps I shouldn’t have done that.
    - jnail7
      
      I appreciate your response and have taken no offense.
      
      1) I agree, mostly. The distinction for me is between personal and political (and by political, I mean efforts to form policy). A political entity can only set policy over its jurisdiction. Whereas treaty negotiations are required to work with (or against) neighboring political entities. Thus a political entity can only truly be held accountable for maintaining equity within its own jurisdiction (though it can try to influence such outside its jurisdiction). Perhaps I could have provided more clarity if I had said “proactive and intentional” meaning that efforts to limit equitable access to government services are performed with purposeful intent rather than accidental consequence. Example: the enactment of poll taxes in U.S. history was done with the purposeful intent of limiting who could vote by economic association. Whereas a state lottery has the unintended effect a being a regressive tax that preys on the hopes of the lower class. Finally, I fully admit to being a bigot on various topics. One of which includes those who wish to resort to using policy to directly impact the private lives of citizens or to deny services to some portion of a population without testable premises for future reconsideration.
      
      2) Again, I agree with you. In fact I later point out that this applies to everyone on some level. The goal is self-awareness. If you are going to hate something or someone without cogent justification, just admit to it, “own it”. In doing so, it becomes much easier to treat the human being that has the subjectively undesirable trait as an actual human being. No need to discriminate in commerce, service, or public interaction. To act upon a premise that holds no rational basis is the very definition of acting irrationally. One can be a bigot and still interact with society rationally. As a personal example, I can’t stand stereotypical southern and Jersey accents as it is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. I have no rational basis for this hatred, but I also have no place in letting my professional actions be defined by it.
      
      3) This was based on patterns of behavior that I’ve noticed with vocal extremists in every group that I have observed. Its like there is a Mad Libs of argumentation that is shared, whether conservative, liberal, Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, feminist, men’s rights activist, …basically any fundamentalist ideologue of an organization. I wish there existed argument referees who could throw flags on the play when such tropes are wielded.
      
      I freely admit to being bigoted. In some areas I have grown and put forth the effort to educate myself, which is a great panacea for bigotry born of ignorance. Yet there are still things I simply despise. I just acknowledge they my hatred is my own problem, not the problem of the targets of my hate. I’m ok with that.
  - Grace Ironwood
    
    I asked someone on another thread if he considered it was theoretically possible that a person could have an argument against gay marriage WITHOUT being a bigot.
    
    Guess what the answer was.
Mhjames

None of this seems to amount to a principled case against gay marriage. It’s an argument about the campaign itself that makes some good points. But that by itself doesn’t affect the case for gay marriage. And there are good principled arguments against gay marriage.
- AbigailTea
  
  There are actually no valid arguments against gay marriage. Even social conservatives are waking up to see that.
  - Mhjames
    
    Gosh. I wish I was infallible too.
    - AbigailTea
      
      Who is claiming to be infallible? Go ahead and list the arguments against same sex couples marrying.
      - Mhjames
        
        No one can know ‘all’ the arguments for or against anything. However many you list today, someone might come up with a new one tomorrow. To say there are no valid arguments for or against something is like saying that no one will ever invent anything again.
      - jnail7
        
        I’ll play the semantics game. Until a new argument is created, it does not exist. Just like an invention does not exist until it is made. Assuming a valid argument has been constructed that withstands rational scrutiny, then such an argument would outperform the invalid arguments and have become the default rationale against SSM. It would have become a meme quickly wielded by any who are fundamentally against SSM. Now I will concede that semantically, the claim should have been “There are actually no valid arguments being presented by those actively trying to prevent SSM.” But hey, until a valid argument is constructed and let loose into the political conversation, then the original statement is functionally true.
      - Thomas Richards
        
        You keep using that word, “valid”. I do not think it means what you think it means.
        
        Here is a valid argument against marriage equality:
        
        Equal marriage will lead rapidly and inevitably to all-out global thermonuclear war.
        All out global thermonuclear war is bad.
        Whatever leads rapidly and inevitably to something bad is bad.
        Therefore equal marriage is bad.
        
        I do not believe the argument is sound, because I do not believe the first or third premises to be true and actually have some issues with the second as well, but the conclusion follows logically from those premises, which is the definition of a valid argument.
        
        For what it’s worth, I’m both in favour of marriage equality and uncomfortable with the extent to which many people seem to regard one’s position on the subject as a barometer of moral worth.
      - jnail7
        
        I agree and appreciate your clarification of the term valid. However my point remains unchanged as there is no benefit to an honest debate if the arguments presented are in an invalid form. Once a valid argument is presented, then it can be worthwhile to investigate for soundness.
      - Ed
        
        Really? I don’t know about a ‘barometer’ of moral worth – quite a strong claim – but I’d regard someone who opposed interracial marriage as a shitty person that I’d want little to do with, unless there were major extenuating circumstances. Why are gays different?
      - Grace Ironwood
        
        The gay as the new black argument is a canard.
        Sex is significant to marriage and family. Race is not.
      - Neil Saunders
        
        You’re being pedantic, Thomas. It’s trivially true that an argument can be formally valid even when its premises are untrue.
        
        I wouldn’t get too excited when other people (on either side of a debate) use the terminology of logic and critical thinking rather loosely.
      - AbigailTea
        
        No wonder you people are losing this debate. You people are not really great at thinking critically.
      - TomPaine
        
        Don’t assume too much about who’s winning or losing this “debate”–assuming you mean the debate that gay militants prevented by calling critics bigots. Everyone knows that in most of the states that have made gay “marriage” legal it was in the teeth of public opinion; in other words, it’s politically manufactured consent, not assent to an evident truth bubbling up from the populace.
        
        “You peope” are actually doing better at critical thinking than you are.
      - Lee Warren
        
        In fact, in my country (the UK) the bill to allow same-sex couples to have legal treatment under the law was passed by an overwhelming majority in both House of Parliament, including the often-conservative House of Lords. It has been the most popular piece of legislation in the last decade.
        
        All opinion polls indicated that a majority of people in the UK were either in favour of the legislation, or couldn’t care about it either way.
        
        One group of religious extremists tried to mount a campaign against the legislation. They faked a petition (examination revealed that they had only 20% of the signatures they claimed) and after 2 years, and over a million pounds advertising spend, they managed to get 7,067 ‘likes’ on their Facebook page.
      - Neil Saunders
        
        A lot of people in the UK (as elsewhere) have been bullied or otherwise intimidated either into pretending to support gay marriage, or in suppressing their opposition to it. The gay-rights lobby is enormously powerful in elite circles, and has immense power to control (if not altogether to shape) public opinion. A real poll would reveal something very different from the official polls.
      - Lee Warren
        
        Conspiracy theories about bullying are just silly. Anti-gay religious extremists are prohibited (like everyone else) from discriminating against minority groups. Being legally obliged to treat everyone equally is not the same as being bullied.
        
        An official poll is a real poll. I think you’re getting confused between polls and self-funded propaganda petitions beloved of extreme religious groups.
      - Neil Saunders
        
        The reflexive use of the expression “conspiracy theory” to anathematise something that you don’t like is certainly silly. (Read the essay ‘”Conspiracy Theories” and Clandestine Politics’ by Jeffrey M. Bale, first published in Lobster Magazine, to get a hint why.) Since I am an atheist, your reference to “anti-gay religious extremists” is beside the point. (Presumably you regard anyone who opposes same-sex marriage as some kind of “extremist”; if so, that rather prejudges the issues, doesn’t it?)
        
        Being legally coerced into having to accept a social practice of which you deeply disapprove, and for which your consent was never sought in the first place, is certainly being bullied, not to say disenfranchised and oppressed (the egalitarian stuff is so much rhetorical window dressing to make everything look very humane and compassionate).
      - Lee Warren
        
        ‘Neil Saunders’ wrote: “The gay-rights lobby is enormously powerful in elite circles, and has immense power…”
        
        It’s hardly ‘reflexive’ (sic) to call that out as a silly conspiracy theory.
        
        No-one is being legally ‘coerced’ into accepting a social practice. People in the UK are free to hold any opinion they like, the law merely prevents discrimination in action against minority groups.
        
        Only those with a pre-existing bias against those minority groups find this distinction difficult to understand.
      - Grace Ironwood
        
        You’re right, conspiracy theories are not needed . Gay bullies are out and proud.
      - Halou
        
        So, you’re saying the fact that the majority of people in the UK fail to oppose gay marriage legislation in any way whatsoever is undeniable proof that the majority of people in Britain are in fact that much more opposed to gay marriage legislation?
        
        The sun rises every morning because I command it to do so. The fact that I am unable or unwilling to prove this to be truth merely furthers my point that it is indeed the truth. It’s just as ‘out there’ as what you were saying.
      - Ed
        
        ‘Everyone knows’ – no they don’t. Evidence? All polling evidence in advance of Westminster and Scottish votes (other than a couple of dodgy ComRes polls) showed a heavy majority in favour. This is why morons like O’Neill are reduced to claiming (entirely without evidence) that people have been ‘intimidated’ into stopping their opposition. Try again.
      - TomPaine
        
        Common knowledge speaks for itself, Ed. And I said states, obviously not meaning the UK or OZ. Nice shifting of the example there to evade my point.
        
        One year after the 1994 decision in Massachusetts, eleven US states amended their constitutions or passed laws protecting marriage. Many others followed. So all the lawsuits and judicial decisions you read about were done to change the definition of marriage by one person, a judge, after the people of a whole state stated their wishes.
        
        I don’t need to try again, what I said was true in the first place.
      - S_O_T_A
        
        Because it declares that anybody who thinks that marriage is sacred as a definition of one man and one woman is a non-person – they have to accept that something they consider sacred is the same as something they consider debased. It’s totalitarian.
      - Ed
        
        Good victim playing. Bad argument.
      - Neil Saunders
        
        Explain why you think S_O_T_A’s argument is bad, Ed. (Don’t just assert that it is.)
      - Guest
        
        One of the central arguments against same-sex marriage is that it misunderstands what marriage is FOR. Why does it even exist at all? After all, there are many important relationships, such as friendship, which are central to people’s lives and about which the law has absolutely nothing to say. Marriage is different because it provides a stable framework within which children can be brought forth into the world, and knits the generations together. Because of this it is good for society as a whole, not only for the individuals concerned, and with it therefore come certain rights and privileges – as well as responsibilities – not afforded to other types of relationship.
        
        Same-sex couples cannot procreate, nor do they provide an ideal context for the raising of children, who need both a mother and a father (and, while sometimes children are deprived of one parent through widowhood etc., this is also not an ideal situation, but it has not been brought into being deliberately). The sexes are different and complementary: a mother can never be a father, and vice versa.
        
        Also, if you are in favour of same-sex marriage, what logical reason do you have for not also supporting polyamorous marriage (more than two people) or sibling marriage, of siblings of the same or opposite sexes (provided no children could be conceived, because of the risk of genetic defects)?
      - Quinquagesima
        
        One of the central arguments against same-sex marriage is that it misunderstands what marriage is FOR. Why does it even exist at all? After all, there are many important relationships, such as friendship, which are central to people’s lives and about which the law has absolutely nothing to say. Marriage is different because it provides a stable framework within which children can be brought forth into the world, and knits the generations together. Because of this it is good for society as a whole, not only for the individuals concerned, and with it therefore come certain rights and privileges – as well as responsibilities – not afforded to other types of relationship
        
        Same-sex couples cannot procreate, nor do they provide an ideal context for the raising of children, who need both a mother and a father (and, while sometimes children are deprived of one parent through widowhood etc., this is also not an ideal situation, but it has not been brought into being deliberately). The sexes are different and complementary: a mother can never be a father, and vice versa.
        
        Also, if you are in favour of same-sex marriage, what logical reason do you have for not also supporting polyamorous marriage (more than two people) or sibling marriage, of siblings of the same or opposite sexes (provided no children could be conceived, because of the risk of genetic defects)?
      - AbigailTea
        
        Thank you for showing why you idiots are losing this debate.
        
        Centering your lame argument on procreation and a personal bias against a sexual orientation eh?
        
        Sheesh you people are dumb.
        
        You idiots cannot find a valid argument against SSM so you have you run desperately to an outside scenario. Thanks for proving my point.
      - Quinquagesima
        
        I gave you a reasoned argument, connecting the very existence of marriage as a social and legal institution (as opposed to simply a private arrangement between individuals) with procreation, and you have responded with petty invective. Losing the debate? There is no proper debate, by these standards.
      - AbigailTea
        
        You nuts do not get it do you?
        You continue to regurgitate fallacies.
        
        Honey you have already discredited your silly argument with procreation.
        
        You simpletons take subjective beliefs and personal biases and try to formulate that as your argument.
        
        Again thanks for showing why you people are losing this debate/
  - Zimbalist
    
    Thanks for clearing that up for us.
  - Grace Ironwood
    
    What you mean is there CANNOT be any valid arguments against gay marriage. A priori.
    A true test here : the immunity of your opinion to reason.
TerjeP

Brendans complaint is that people have not been free to dissent. In some cases that may be so. And where dissent has been crushed by the state then classical liberals should object. People should be free to oppose same sex marriage, just not using the apparatus of the state. Something Leyonhjelm has been at pains to point out. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/20/david-leyonhjelm-tweets-criticism-of-gay-lifestyle
- Neil Saunders
  
  In other words, the state has the right to use its apparatus to decree gay marriage as a public institution (with all of its legal and financial consequences, quite apart from its moral and social effects), but dissentients may not use that apparatus to register their private opposition to it. This seems a most inequitable arrangement.
Simon_in_London

Culture war is the health of the State.
Ironically it seems that New Labour actually got it right with the term ‘civil partnership’ – recognising that this was a State-conferred system. Calling it ‘marriage’ makes the much more totalitarian state claim over public morality, with the results that O’Neill describes.
- Neil Saunders
  
  True. But civil partnership was always just a way-station to the true destination that our elites had in mind. It may be that they cynically calculated that an appeal to egalitarianism would enable marriage itself to become what you term a “State-conferred system”; or perhaps, flushed with a belief in the righteousness of their cause, they simply failed to understand the implications of what they were doing.
Neil Saunders

Unlike true marriage – that of one man to one woman – which is a human universal, common to all times and cultures (although there have – exceptionally – been practices such as polygamy and, more rarely, polyandry), gay so-called marriage is the creature of a particular phase of a particular culture: postmodern postliberalism in the developed world.

It is foredoomed to failure not least because – unlike traditional marriage, which developed spontaneously out of the universal need to ensure that as often as possible biological parents raise their own children – gay marriage lacks what the philosopher John Searle would call collective intentionality. Collective intentionality is needed to underpin any social institution (things like nation-states and money being prime examples).

Under the campaign of bullying and intimidation that has been mounted by the proponents of gay marriage (the global elites and their vassals in the mass media and academia) many ordinary people will give their assent to gay marriage with their mouths, while withholding it in their hearts (and I write, incidentally, as an atheist – so please ignore the fact that this issue is usually framed, especially in the United States, as one in which secularism and religion contend).
- Zoe_Brain
  
  Handwaving and unevidenced assertion may common practice, but they don’t cut the mustard.
  
  This bill allows biological parents to marry, when they currently are prohibited from doing so due to one or both being Intersex – so regarded by the law as neither male nor female (for the purposes of marriage only). So much for ensuring “that as often as possible biological parents raise their own children”. The current law manifestly does not do that. This bill does.
  
  Rhetoric about things “foredoomed to failure” is therefore just that – rhetoric. Contrary to fact.
  
  Pointing this out cannot be regarded by any rational person as “bullying and intimidation: by “global elites and their vassals”.
  - Neil Saunders
    
    You are a highly exceptional (and unfortunate) individual. Regretfully (but not regrettably) long-established social customs cannot be altered for your personal convenience.
    
    Broad-brush anathemas (e.g. “handwaving”, “unevidenced assertion”, “rhetoric”) are meaningless on their own; unless you cite concrete examples of what you consider to be poor reasoning and explain why you believe that they are wrong, you are simply engaging in the very activities you implicitly condemn.
    - Zoe_Brain
      
      “Unlike true marriage – that of one man to one woman ”
      
      Assertion: that “true marriage” has this definition. Proof please?
      
      “gay so-called marriage is the creature of a particular phase of a particular culture: postmodern postliberalism in the developed world.”
      
      Assertion – that it is such a creature. Evidence please, especially in light of the historical record viz
      
      CTh.9.7.3
      Impp. Constantius et Constans aa. ad populum. Cum vir nubit in feminam, femina viros proiectura quid cupiat, ubi sexus perdidit locum, ubi scelus est id, quod non proficit
      scire, ubi venus mutatur in alteram formam, ubi amor quaeritur nec videtur, iubemus insurgere leges, armari iura gladio ultore, ut exquisitis poenis subdantur infames, qui
      sunt vel qui futuri sunt rei. Dat. prid. non. dec. Mediolano, proposita Romae XVII kal.ianuar. Constantio III et Constante II aa. conss. (342 dec. 4).
      
      (Codex Thedosus 9.7.3 henceforth prohibiting the existing custom of same sex marriage, if your Latin and Roman history is a little rusty)
      
      Those two will do as a starter for ten.
      - Neil Saunders
        
        True marriage is defined as such by its very universality, as I explained in the first paragraph of my earlier comment.
        
        Gay marriage is indubitably a recent development in the liberal democracies of the developed world, and it has been imposed by legal fiat; there was no gay marriage in 1950s America, Victorian England, Belle Epoque France, or the Prussia of Frederick the Great (to cite no more instances).
        
        I do not read Latin. Will you please provide a translation and a context for the lengthy excerpt you have provided?
      - Zoe_Brain
        
        May I recommend https://translate.google.com/ for a literal translation? A figurative one by me may be subject to bias, so I prefer you see for yourself.
        
        The context is as in http://ancientrome.ru/ius/library/codex/theod/liber09.htm
        
        Wiki’s pretty good on the old Codex Theodosianus, but Long’s monograph on it is better IMHO. It’s at
        http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Codex_Theodosianus.html
        
        I assume you’re familiar with Wikipedia? And Google?
        
        I’ve already made one false assumption about your knowledge in one area – due to your erudite vocabulary and grammar. My apologies. I’ll try not to repeat the error (I can’t guarantee I won’t make new and creative ones).
        
        If I was to start listing the things I too don’t know, we’d be here for years.
        
        I am not a lawyer – so only have a superficial knowledge of Roman law. I dropped Latin in Grammar School in 1973, I was never very good at it – barely scraped a pass at the Advanced level. Nor am I a historian.
        
        The science of Sex and Gender, there I know more than most, and have lectured (by invitation of their professors) to 3rd year medical and science students, though I have no formal medical or biological qualifications.
        
        My formal qualifications are in Pure Maths, Computer Science, Science Communication, and recently PhD work on Genetic Algorithms applied to certain knotty Quantum Physics problems in Computational Chemistry. Usually I do aerospace engineering – some of my work’s currently orbiting Mercury.
        
        I’m a polymath, a Jill of all trades, not an expert except on one or two abstruse areas.
        
        So I have little patience with argument by assertion. That works in Theology, but not when trying to explore Reality.
      - michael currie
        
        Zoe, you make the point that the bill as written is short and to the point. I do not know how things work in Australia but in the U.S. writing and passing a bill is just the beginning. The actual lived consequence of said bill is not known until it passes through the various agencies responsible for enfleshing its bare bones. The ACA, Obamacare is a prime example. What started as a 2000 plus page bill will probably end up being north of 50,000 pages of musts and cants followed by years of haphazard applications and court battles. So it is possible that, regarding the Australian bill, you are being a bit glib as to its’ final implication.
      - jnail7
        
        What alternatives to the situation do you propose? An issue of equity has been raised to the legislative body. The legislative body has followed its process to address the grievance.
        
        Wouldn’t your argument apply more accurately to the original author rather than to a commenter responding to the original post? I mean if the author had acknowledged your premises then they would not have written the article in the first place right? And if they had not written it, then Zoe could not have responded. So is it possible that the author was being a bit glib as to this bill’s final implication?
      - michael currie
        
        We are all being a bit glib. I mean this in the sense that it will take awhile for any of us to know what the implications will be for this and a whole raft of related issues.Nightmare scenarios litter the political and societal landscape. To some the denial of a perceived liberty can only lead to the jackboot at our midnight doors, this is common to both sides, to others the perceived destruction of what are considered to be the essentials of an ordered society can lead only to a dystopian
        
        future. So given our limited ability to see the future we are left with what we think we know. That means that you, me, Zoe and the author have equal standing as regards glibness.
        My answer to your first question is that it should not have been brought up, it should not have passed and that like much of our rights discourse is self indulgent rent seeking.
      - Neil Saunders
        
        May I recommend that you simply provide a translation of the passage in Latin that you quoted?
      - Zoe_Brain
        
        One translation – flawed but at least an objective 3rd party source:
        THEODOSIAN CODE 9.7.3
        
        Emperors Constantius and Constans to the people: When a male gives himself in marriage to a “woman” [sc. effeminate man], and what he wants is that the “woman” play the male role, where sex has lost its place, where the crime is such that it is better not to know it, where Venus is changed into a different shape, where love is sought but not found, we order laws to arise, justice to be armed with an avenging sword, so that the disgraced persons who are or in future shall be guilty may be subjected to exquisite penalties.
        http://www.well.com/~aquarius/constantius.htm
        
        Wiki’s not bad on it, but as always, use it to look up primary sources it quotes. They don’t always match the Wiki interpretation.
        
        See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage
      - Martin Walsh
        
        I had understood that Mr Saunders point was that the push to legalising gay marriage I.e. Providing formal social and legal warrant is a modern trend. I believe he is correct as I am unaware of any previous civilisation that legally recognised gay marriage. The practice and fact of homosexual relationships is a different matter and is well attested.
        
        This translation does not help you – in fact it records the sanction of law and social approbrium against homosexual practice. The use of the word marriage simply implies the recognition of a sexual relationship and not a commentary on its legal status.
      - pollik
        
        “True marriage is defined as such by its very universality, as I explained in the first paragraph of my earlier comment.”
        
        What a queer comment, that ignores the many cultures globally and historically that accepted same sex marriages. You can start with Wikipedia and move on from there, if you are interested in knowing more, although I suspect you would find that inconvenient to your assertions..
        
        I am wondering if you are confusing “universality” with white, abrahamic (usually brutal) imperialism which left few parts of the world untouched. For sure, something like one person in 20 is gay, and about one person in 50 will have some kind of gender or biological sex difference from the norm. So, “universality” that you claim is likely to be the outcome of oppression by those obsessed with “universality”
        
        “”Nature loves diversity, society hates it.”” Dr Milton Diamond
        
        Never a truer word spoken
      - Neil Saunders
        
        Please list all these cultures and their achievement (rather than lazily directing me to that nest of confusion, Wikipedia), and explain to me why I should accord them any respect.
        
        I wonder whether you are confusing the rote-learned cliches you’ve just written with actual thought.
      - pollik
        
        “Please list all these cultures and their achievement (rather
        than lazily directing me to that nest of confusion, Wikipedia)”
        
        Not
        so much lazy, as weary. Over the years, I have found that when I do
        cite chapter and verse, one of two things will usually happen.
        Either it will get no response or someone will simply refute the
        source, without offering any evidence. For many people, winning the
        argument seems to be more important than having a real discussion and
        I have learned not to waste my time when I think I spot one of these.
        Indicators include, but not limited to, vague broad assertions and
        an unwillingness to do any work for the conversation, for example it
        would be quicker to get a quick translation done online rather than
        throwing it back to the poster.
        
        “and explain to me why I
        should accord them any respect.”
        
        This, I find, is another
        indicator…questioning the sources even before you know what they
        are.
        
        “I wonder whether you are confusing the rote-learned cliches
        you’ve just written with actual thought.”
        
        And then we come to the personal attack. If it is of interest, no
        I am not confusing rote-learned cliches with actual thought. Quite
        the reverse. Over the past 15 years that I have been reading and
        researching, my outlook has changed a several times.
        
        If I am
        to continue this conversation, I need some evidence that you have an
        open mind. The evidence that I am seeing is that you have a fixed
        view for which you offer no evidential support and for which you
        reject requests to provide evidence, basing such rejection on the
        grounds of some kind of vague higher ethical position. The posts
        of yours that I have read seem to consist of well spoken, but
        unsupported assertions or impugning your opponents. Curiously, there
        seems to be little or no content relevant to the discussion in
        hand.
        
        Zoe is more patient with you that I am.
      - hades
        
        only 1 in 20 people are gay eh
        mmm, exclusively maybe its this small, but then
        I think its more likely that in our culture only one in 20 will ever admit to their homosexuality.
      - Grace Ironwood
        
        Gay rates vary enormously from country to country – high percent in Afghanistan, up around 17% by some counts, about 2-4 % in most first world countries.
        See for yourself.
      - hades
        
        no no I get it that the rates in this country are usually very low
        my point is that homosexuality is still a very clandestine activity for many
        out and proud gay people living a gay life are small minority
        but in the future that number will rise
        A lot of it is to do with Identity politics which will also evolve.
        Its not something you can just poll and get a straight (sic) answer like you were asking someone who they’d vote for in an election.
        What polls have a high admittance of homosexuality in Afghanistan?!
        That is very surprising.
      - hades
        
        I mean I’ve been to a few Muslim countries like Morocco and Turkey and I was hit on constantly and pretty sure not one of them would ever officially admit to being Gay or bisexual, like EVER.
        In Morocco it is actually illegal (as is sex out of wedlock which presumably happens a lot)
      - Bruce Lewis
        
        Well, to help you out of your ignorance of Latin, he has just proved to you that “gay marriage” is NOT “the creature of a particular phase of a particular culture: postmodern postliberalism in the developed world.”
      - MichaelGC
        
        Roman dudes didn’t marry each other, neither did the Greeks, such a thing being completely off their radar.
        
        “Mr. MENDELSOHN: There was nothing like a marriage between men, which would have been looked on really with horror by most Athenians. You know, you had at some point this sort of boyfriend, but you were always supposed to
        be married to a woman, to procreate, to make babies who would grow up to be good Athenians.”
        
        That was originally an NPR broadcast, but a transcript can be found here.
        
        http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/3789
      - Zoe_Brain
        
        I prefer primary sources, rather than one person’s interpretation of them.
      - Grace Ironwood
        
        This is interesting anomaly – provide translation and a couple of good references for context.
        
        Why do you think a ” gay” subculture like patricians in Ancient Greece which adopted widespread and semi-institutionalised pederasty did not think of gay marriage ?
      - Zoe_Brain
        
        There’s no evidence I’m aware of that they did – or didn’t. It’s not an area I know much about I’m afraid.
        
        Hellenic culture was very varied, and you’d have to include Minoan and Mycenean (pre-Hellenic) societies too in the category “Ancient Greece”. Perhaps Hittite too, given that Troy was both a Hittite tributary, and a Greek colony.
        
        “Patricians” (Latin) really should only refer to the Roman upper classes – PATRICIVS. While πατρίκιος, patrikios is a Greek word, that was only in the Byzantine (East Roman successor) state.
        
        I think you mean Aristocracy (Greek) ἀριστοκρατία aristokratía, from ἄριστος aristos “excellent,” and κράτος kratos “power”
        
        I won’t speculate, lacking data.
    - Zoe_Brain
      
      You are a highly exceptional
      
      Oh, I try to be. For what I do though, something I have control over, not for what I am – something that’s an accident of birth. Deserving of neither pride nor shame.
      
      Not that exceptional either. 3beta hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase deficiency is exceptionally rare, I grant you. But many Intersex conditions are not.
      
      1 in 60 people match neither a biological male nor female stereotype completely.
      
      Some take that to extremes – see http://www.usrf.org/news/010308-guevedoces.html
      
      Yes, in some parts of the world, 1 in 50 humans naturally change sex. It’s just rarer in your part of the world, so you don’t consider that in your rather naive and provincial diatribe. Neither did the author. Lawmakers don’t have that luxury.
      
      (and unfortunate) individual.
      
      It’s a mixed curse. There are difficulties, but life is never boring. I don’t consider myself unfortunate, the victim card’s not in the deck I choose to play with.
      
      Regretfully (but not regrettably) long-established social customs cannot be altered for your personal convenience.
      
      … said the slavemaster to the slave.
      … said the parliamentarian to the suffragette.
      …said… well, you get the idea. It happens all the time.
      
      Twaddle. Self-evident tripe. As should be obvious to someone of your intellect if you just thought about it for a moment.
      
      It has happened in the past, and no doubt will happen in the future. “Long-established customs” – the Divine Right of Kings, the use of errand boys and telegrams, Pounds, Shillings and Pence (Librii, Solidii, Denarii – l.s.d. – this is an old custom) are often transient. That sometimes is not a good thing, but good or ill, it’s factual.
      - vieuxceps2
        
        Nonethless,although all things except perhaps death are transient, society cannot be arranged for the myriad facets of the people who make up that society. The best we can do is to form a society in which the majority agree to behave in such a way as suits most of them. Then and only then can we look to the relatively few whose needs differ from that majority. That’s civilisation, that’s human society. Whats being demanded now is an equality of law and treatment out and beyond the norms of most people. They say “equality” of course, but what they want is special treatment.How can it be otherwise?
- AbigailTea
  
  “true marriage”–
  
  First of all there are many many forms of “traditional”. And secondly, whoever is legally married is by fact and under the law, officially a married couple.
  - crash2parties
    
    Every time I read about “True Marriage”, in my mind’s eye I see Billy Crystal’s character in the Princess Bride. Except he’s saying “to blarrage” instead of “to blathe”.
    
    True Marriage is very much akin to statements regarding True Christians. Somehow there are millions of examples, each matching the individual claiming it and each incompatible with the next.
    - jnail7
      
      For me it is Peter Cook in “The Princess Bride”:
      
      “Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder today. Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam…”
      - mollysdad
        
        It wanks among the greatest of social institutions.
    - Neil Saunders
      
      Tell it to the Christians, because the Atheist ain’t listening!
  - mollysdad
    
    As yourself this question. Is there any justification for there to be any such thing as marriage? If there is no commitment of the spouses to sexual activity, where is the public interest in such an institution? And if there is no commitment of the spouses to doing the act by which children are conceived, what is the just reason for giving a household of two sodomites the legal and social privileges we used to reserve for a heterobonded couple?
    - hades
      
      too bad creep, the `sodomites` will get their marriages recognised by the state
      So say a prayer to the baby Jesus and cry me a RIVER.
      - mollysdad
        
        Suppose for the sake of argument that God doesn’t exist. It still doesn’t justify giving legal and social privileges to a group unit of precisely two men, just because they live together and f**k each other’s ar**s. Why not extend the privilege to more than two, so that you can get tax breaks for a circle j**k?
      - hades
        
        lol Nice (and very visual)
        Because they are a committed couple?
        Because of the ease of certain situations that marriage affords couples in taxation and various other things to do with building up a life together?
        Looking into it further however you have a point!
        I mean why give any married couple benefits anyway over others
        Why this sense of entitlement?
        How about NO ENTITLEMENTS FOR ANYBODY.
        Esp smug, bigoted bible bashers
        And don’t say for the children
        We certainly don’t need to be helping scum like you propagating yourself that’s for sure 🙂
      - mollysdad
        
        Because they’re a couple. Not a threesome, a foursome or a moresome. Discrimination of sorts.
        
        No social recognition for any group unit would be consistent.
        
        By the way, who’s bashing the Bible?
      - hades
        
        Youre obsessed with polygamy (Im guessing a few other things too)
        Its no longer practised however as most people don’t like the thought of having competition.
        I have no problem with consensual polygamy and entering a contract or agreement between the parties.
      - mollysdad
        
        OK, so what’s the difference in terms of public interest between a man and a woman being bonded together for life for the purpose of raising up the next generation of the human race, and two fairies enjoying the same tax privileges in return for sodding each other over as a hobby?
      - hades
        
        good grief man
        you reek of closeted, repressed homosexuality
        
        ALLEGEDLY
        
        And no one give two fucks about all this romanticised bonded together for life shit
        There are far too many people in England as it is you stupid cu**, just get on with your own white trash life (and repressions) as miserable as it is
        
        And mind your own fucking business while you’re at it
        
        Sorry but I’m just trying to help
      - CynicalGent
        
        ..and you reek of barely concealed rage at the fact someone disagrees with you, despite the fact you would no doubt consider yourself a tolerant liberal on this issue. Your projections about ‘Bible-bashing’ or ‘repressed homosexuality’, or indeed your resorting to personal attacks, only discredit you further. This is because someone who resorts to baseless ad-hominem has, in my mind, already lost the argument.
        
        Gay marriage is just the latest mortal blow to the most important institution any healthy society can have: the one which safeguards the continuation of a culture and race. Without it, we begin to lose ourselves. As we are already seeing.
      - hades
        
        oh haha
        What, are you his muppet or something, who was talking to you anyway?
        Your support of your little friend automatically removes you as a serious poster I’m afraid
        `barely concealed rage` eh?
        mirror please!
        And you should be angry, because less and less people will have much truck with sanctimonious bigots like yourself. Ones that hide behind supernatural beliefs to justify your belief that you have the moral superiority to impose your ludicrous worldview via the state & tell others what to do.
        You’ve lost this one, own it!
      - CynicalGent
        
        Sorry to break it to you, diddums, but in the world outside student unions, a debate is not won by faux-laughter, insults, or proclaiming oneself the victor, but on educated, reasoned argument. Sadly, you lack the latter, so I see you have no choice but to denigrate and project your own insecurities onto others. A common leftist ‘debate’ tactic if ever I saw one.
        
        Who am I to dare question your state-endorsed ‘opinions’ indeed? Well, if you look carefully, you’ll notice that you’re not exchanging e-mails with the last person you desperately insulted for lack of coherent argument, but instead speaking on a public forum for comment. And if you look even more carefully, you’ll note this isn’t the Grauniad’s Komment Macht Frei – it’s the Spectator. Here, you can’t expect a herd of other sheeple who’d like to convince themselves of their own moral superiority to mindlessly upvote your confected anger on behalf of those poor, oppressed gays. No, let’s try to debate with reason and fact – concepts alien to any recent graduate of Herr Blair’s creation, I know, but ones you’ll have to get used to if you’re going to debate at anything beyond university ‘standards’, chap.
        
        Again, I congratulate you on more baseless assumptions, thi time about my own religious beliefs. I must remind you, however, that if I am to ‘look in the mirror’ and see indignation, it is you, a vitriolic, sneering, sanctimonious wielder of insults to whom I am comparing myself. So, nope, try again, this time with something a bit more original, perhaps?
        
        You seem nothing more than yet another clueless leftist ‘liberal’ who has adopted the PC State’s mantra as their own, with no consideration of its wider impacts on society. You have also – as presumably intended – picked up the indoctrinated self-righteousness necessary to come online and furiously defend it. Baa, baa, sheepy, have you any facts? The seal-clapping pre-selected QT audience may not need them, but we do.
      - hades
        
        Look ,just get on with not being in a gay marriage and live your tedious morally upright (in your head) life as you wish
        I actually don’t care what you think as you have no authority and people that think like you have lost this debate completely.
        As for your `arguments` sorry the end of the world will not occur due to `gay marriage`.
        The end.
        NEXT
  - Tim Wright
    
    Nope, they have a legal contract, not a marriage.
    - Neil Saunders
      
      Got it in one, Tim!
    - AbigailTea
      
      Whoever is legally married under the law is a married couple.
      - Andrew K.
        
        Nope again.
        
        Marriage is a socio-cultural institution that predates and supersedes human govt.
        
        The parameters for marriage are set and defined by small-scale community, not top-down by govt ideologues with their laws.
        
        The role of the courts and legal decrees have played in these examples simply goes to show how secretly certain proponents are that their position could never arise or be supported from the grassroots up.
        
        Because in truth, as wonderful or congenial as gay people might be, the vast majority are also thoroughly immoral by virtually any traditional social standpoint.
      - Win
        
        Not my experience. I have worked with many gay lesbian people who are married. They build in law suites for their aging parents, support group homes for street children in Myanmar, some are dedicated and trustworthy teachers that I have worked alongside for years in Vancouver where gays were demarginalized some time ago. They are have many moral and traditional values about caring for their extended family and others. They compare in dedication to any Christian teachers I know.
      - Andrew K.
        
        You have your experiences and I have mine.
      - Catherine Mill
        
        You should not compare gays to Christians unless you know the Christian His story.
        
        http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/murderers.htm
        
        The Christian Heaven may have been a vain folly but the Christian Hell was real enough. For more than a thousand years sadists in the uniform of Christ terrorised and brutalised a continent and then exported
        that terror to the four corners of the globe.
        
        The Church, which,with a satanic twist of humour, claimed to be the instrument of ‘Christ’sloving kindness’ , taught a brutalised and impoverished peoplenew meanings to the words pain and suffering…
        
        For those who dared to be different:
        
        Incarceration – starvation – psychological torment and terror laceration – mutilation – strangulation – suffocation – crushing – choking– burning –garrotting – slow and agonizing death.”
        
        The Pope’s Pears
        
        The vaginal pear was used on woman who had sex with the Devil or his familiars. The rectal pear was used on passive male homosexuals and the oral pear was used on heretical preachers or lay persons found guilty of unorthodox practices. Inserted into the mouth, anus or vagina of the
        victim, the pear was expanded by use of the screw until the insides are ripped, stretched and mutilated, almost always causing death. The pointed ends of the ‘leaves’ were good for ripping the throat, intestines or cervix open”
      - Thomas Weiss
        
        You’re a wee bit crazy.
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        No citizen is required to not be “thoroughly immoral by virtually any traditional social standpoint”, in order to be entitled to equal treatment by the govt. All citizens are entitled to fundamental rights, even if, as you allege, some groups are not considered moral by other groups.
      - Andrew K.
        
        They already have equal treatment.
        
        Nobody has the right to “marry whomever they want.” Try to get past the rhetoric.
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        If the govt recognizes some couples as married, and not other couples, it must have a rational reason related to a legitimate govt concern. In the case is same sex couples, the govt failed in court to produce that rational reason, thus bans on same sex marriage violate the US constitution.
      - Andrew K.
        
        And what, pray tell, is the govt’s concern with marriage in the first place? Why should a couple receive rights or recognition at all? A lot of singles have wondered this. As have the polygamists, for that matter.
        
        Answer this question and you will see the govt’s “rational reason” for picking and choosing which marriage to recognize.
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        If you have a rational reason to deny the fundamental right of marriage, you should get it out there. Same sex marriage already a thing in 2/3 of the states. Canada, England, Spain, France, too.
        
        A rational reason that doesn’t fail in court.
      - Andrew K.
        
        Who grants human rights? Are they discovered? Or created?
        
        Apart from this distinction, any talk about “fundamental right of marriage” is frankly nonsense.
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        Legal rights in the USA derive from the US Constitution. In the US government, the supreme court is tasked with the final arbitration of the legal meaning of the constitution.
        
        In a very real sense, legal rights in the US are exactly follow what the supreme court says the constitution requires.
        
        The supreme court has found a “fundamental right of marriage” in 14 decisions going back to the 1800s.
        
        YOU may not wish to recognize is, but the govt is bound by the supreme court decisions.
      - Andrew K.
        
        Would the drafters of the constitution have recognized that right? And did they think they were “creating rights” or identifying them?
        
        Furthermore, by that line of reasoning, you should allow that countries with constitutions that ban gay marriage are legitimate in enforcing that ban.
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        Off topic. We are discussing a legal issue.
      - Andrew K.
        
        Well, I happen to think it’s very relevant, but no matter.
        
        I do respect that you’ve managed to dialogue with me for this long without resorting to calling me a “hater” or “bigot.” That’s a rather rare thing these days.
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        An ad hominem attack doesn’t add to a logical argument.
      - Richard Lutz
        
        I don’t believe Andrew K. was making an ad hominem attack on Mr Swall, rather he was attacking illiberal SSM advocates like those Mr O’Neill wrote about in his article. It should be noted that ad hominem reasoning is not always fallacious, for example, when it relates to the credibility of statements of fact or when used in certain kinds of moral and practical reasoning, thus can contribute to a logical argument.
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        An ad hominem attack, by definition, neither logically helps nor hinders an argument – it is irrelevant. The most unqualified person on the planet could conceivably be entirely correct on any number of topics. The most qualified person on the planet could conceivably be entirely incorrect.
        
        The right question is whether the argument itself survives inquiry.
      - Richard Lutz
        
        Thank you for your opinion on the definition of ‘ad hominem attack’, much appreciated, though you seem to have a rather limited viewpoint and might like to expand your horizons by Googling ‘ad hominem’.
      - cd
        
        Bloody hell Richard, when your point is shown to be fallacious, don’t go then and make an arse of yourself as well.
        
        In any debate only the evidence and the arguments upon which they are based matter. Not who is making them. That was one of the main victories of the Enlightenment.
      - Richard Lutz
        
        Thank you for your comment, but just because you assert that my point is “fallacious” does not make it so.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        As a side note, human rights are also legal rights. I notice you draw a distinction between the two, but they are inseparable.
      - Andrew K.
        
        In which case we shouldn’t oppose nations that have horrifically cruel sodomy laws because, after all, they are legal and therefore no violation of human rights by your definition. Nice.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        No, human rights are universal as stipulated in the UN charter. Countries that have laws that contravene the UN Charter, do so in breach of your human rights.
        
        At the moment there is no real recourse for the people affected, except perhaps to seek asylum in a different country.
        
        I don’t mean to get personal, but do you always argue so poorly? Either that or you are just not reading my replies thoroughly.
        
        So I repeat. Laws can be wrong. Laws can be in breach of human rights and laws can and very often discriminate wrongly against minorities, because they may be dated or based on the religious principles of one group. In a muti-cultural society those principles are not applicable to everybody.
        
        For instance, I am not a Christian and therefore it will not be applicable for the State to attempt to apply Christian values to my life. The state should be secular and freedom should be universal for all.
      - Andrew K.
        
        You seem like a nice guy, Johann.
        
        Don’t worry, I’m not offended by your accusation that I argue poorly.
        
        Tell you what, I’ll look over some of my arguments and assumptions again, and you try to do the same.
        
        For example, I want you to really think about where the UN gets the authority to declare what is or what isn’t a human right and what that means. Is it just because there’s a lot of people represented, for example? Or because they think these rights are self-evident? Or because the nations represented are powerful? etc.
        
        I feel like you, just like most of our society today, have some fundamental assumptions that aren’t actually consistent with what you argue.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        The UN consists of 193 member states (obviously fewer in the 1940’s) and it arrived at its declarations by way of debate, deliberation and agreement and those declarations are then ratified by its members.
        
        It sounds as if you are suggesting that the UN is some evil, dictatorial organisation enforcing it’s ideology on the world.
        
        No, the UN is a shared voice.
        
        I’m really, really keen to find out – why is it so important to you that gay couples have fewer rights than say yourself?
        
        What good is there to society in one group of people exercising their will over another?
        
        If you think about it, what skin is it really off your back to allow people to marry the person they love and be happy, functional and contributing members of society? Happier and better functioning and better contributing than if they were prevented from this?
        
        I assume that you married the person that you loved and even if you have not yet, as a heterosexual man you very much have it within in your rights to do so… Do you mind telling me why you want this happiness for yourself, but you are unwilling to wish it upon others?
        
        I really, really want to understand.
      - Andrew K.
        
        “It sounds as if you are suggesting that the UN is some evil, dictatorial organisation enforcing it’s ideology on the world.”
        
        Not at all. I think the UN is great–although largely ineffective. And I fully subscribe to the Declaration of Human Rights–without modification for those who want to alter the institution of marriage.
        
        Marriage preceded and has priority over human govt. The state therefore has no right to say anything at all about marriage, except to help mediate between disputes and protect the vulnerable.
        
        My biggest problem with so-called gay marriage is nothing more than that I think it will be bad for society and I want my voice to be one of those raised against it.
        
        My secondary concerns are that homosexuality is a destructive lifestyle and therefore should not be approved by the state as equal to a heterosexual union.
        
        Here’s a question for you: Already people who share my opinion publicly (or privately, in some cases) are losing their jobs, or being denied employment or promotion– from fire chiefs, CEOs, etc. Do you think that’s a positive thing?
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Andrew, you are unbelievably ignorant. Homosexuality is not a lifestyle, it’s a human identity for lack of a better description. A lifestyle implies that it is a chosen way of life, which it isn’t. It’s like saying you chose the heterosexual lifestyle. I do not for one second believe that to be true. You are just living your life according to your own identity, you did not choose anything over anything.
        
        That it is not a chosen lifestyle for the overwhelming majority of gay people is the accepted view of every modern psychology authority from the Royal College of Psychiatrists to the American Academy of Clinical Psychiatrist and the WHO. And no, you don’t know better than them…
        
        The vast majority of gay people will tell you that they never chose to be gay, but rather discovered it – overwhelmingly at a very young age.
        
        I myself realised I preferred boys over girls from my very first memories. Like most gay children who grew up in the 80’s and 90’s, the discovery of my feelings were followed by ten years of self loathing and much hoping and praying that they would disappear. Of course they never did and like the vast majority of gay men, you eventually learn to accept yourself the way you are.
        
        There is literally no manner homosexual feelings can be successfully suppressed, which makes us ask, why would we want people to suppress themselves anyway?
        
        Banning gay marriage does not make for fewer gay people. As I explained earlier, I discovered my attraction to men at about the same age that you probably discovered your attraction to women – as a very young boy. So whether you could marry a girl or not, you would like them anyway, because you have been liking them for years by the time you reach marriageable age. Therefore, banning ssm does not in any way, shape or form lead to fewer homosexual people.
        
        There is no way of turning on a switch that will make you find those of the opposite sex sexually attractive. Why would you ever prefer a group of people to be this unhappy? When people are in fulfilling relationships, they make for happier, more productive citizens. This is ultimately good for society and good for the economy.
        
        Who or what you are attracted to is not something you choose, but you should have figured that our by now, right?
        
        If you indeed ‘chose’ to be straight, then you are in for a surprise today and I suggest that you take a seat as this news may come as a shock. If you actually found both men and women attractive, so had a choice and chose women then you are not heterosexual, but bisexual.
        
        But let’s assume you only ever found women attractive, well I’m the same, except I only ever found other guys attractive. It’s just always been like that.
        
        Conversion therapies have massive failure rates and have been proven to be damaging for those concerned, hence why they will shortly be outlawed here.
        
        Imagine how much therapy it would take to turn you gay – it’s impossible right? Well it’s the same for gay people, we can’t be turned straight.
        
        Oh yes and in case you were curious, the same revulsion you feel when you think of two men having sex, well I feel that same disgust when I think of heterosexual sex.
        
        Do I think it’s right that people are losing their jobs over their views?
        
        Absolutely. When you go to work, you leave your prejudices, dislikes and hatred at home and you treat everybody the same. It’s really not that difficult to be polite and refrain from discrimination just while in public.
        
        All that is asked of you is that you deliver your service or job to everybody equally.
        
        Once you are home, or within the privacy of your personal groups of friends, you are free to voice your opinions to whomever will tolerate them.
        
        But in the public sphere you shall be required to withold all homophobic, racist, sexist and other discriminatory views as they may cause offence among your colleagues or the general public, who unlike your personal friends, likely have not asked you for your judgement.
      - Andrew K.
        
        “Identity” is a politico-social construct that has never particularly concerned me.
        
        I have no doubt that people have exclusively homosexual urges that they have not chosen to have. I myself have heterosexual ones. I simply try my best not to choose to act on all of them or I would be unable to function socially.
        
        In fact, I really don’t think you have understood my position at all. The biggest division between us isn’t in fact our position on homosexuality. Nor is it the fact that you are gay and I am straight. The biggest difference is that we have a very different understanding of what it means to be human.
        
        Now you can disagree with my understanding, accuse me of “bad faith” and “homophobia” and deny me a place in society. Just recall that I have not accused you, or any other homosexual, of the same lack of sincerity by honestly stating their opinion. Nor would I unless I had reason to.
        
        By the way, if you are looking for happiness in marriage or in a relationship with another person–whether you’re gay or straight–you won’t find it. Someday you’ll discover this on your own, though.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Every term we use in language is a construct of some sort and referring to homosexuality as an identity, whether you class it as a politico-socio or not, is a damn side more accurate, than to refer to it as a lifestyle choice. Ask me, Im gay. I know.
        
        I still don’t understand what you want gay people to do? You have undeniably heterosexual urges and in your words you try your best not to act on them all, but you can’t be suggesting that gay people don’t act on their’s at all? Why would you want this? Why would you care? And why would his be better for them, or you, or society?
        
        If you really, really think about it.. Well then you should arrive at the conclusion that the answer is really nothing… It has nothing to do with you.
        
        I dont care what herosexusl couples do. I don’t try and stop them. I don’t interfere with their lives.
        
        In my opinion heretosexuality can be as destructive as any other sexually.
        
        In 2013 there were about 45,000 babies delivered in UK hospitals to teenage mothers, costing in excess of 150m GBP in welfare payments alone. Those figures are just the dole claimed by the mothers, nothing more.
        
        The vast majority of these reflect a lost childhood, dysfunctional relationships and other socio-economic difficulties.
        
        Many of the children are unwanted and end up in care.
        
        You also say that our biggest difference is in our understanding in what it means to be human. That is undeniably true. But is yours superior to mine just because it is different and more standard?
        
        It will only make of you a better person if you try a tiny bit harder to show a little bit more compassion for others.
      - Chairm
        
        Your citing that statstic from 2013 is an acknowledgement that coital relations between male and female is procreative in kind and commonly procreative in outcome.
        
        This goes to the core of the fundamental right of marriage.
        
        It is extrinsic to whatever a one-sexed relationship might do — sexually or otherwise.
        
        The complaint made against the man-woman requirement of marriage law is that the requirement is heterosexual in kind. That basically acknowledges the sexual basis for the public status. That basis, and marriage itself, is two-sexed and is sexual. This is procreative in kind and commonly procreative in outcome. That is expressed in the legal basis for sexual consummation (the marriage is established), for grounds for annulment (no marriage was formed), for grounds for adultery-divorce (marriage dissolved), and, of course, for the legal basis of the marital presumption that the husband is father to children born to he and his wife during their marital relationship.
        
        The complaint poses homosexual in kind as equal to heterosexuak in kind but wherever SSM has been imposed there is no homosexual requirement for eligibility. No requirement or homosexual identity. No requirement for homosexual attraction. No requirement for homosexuak behavior. No homosexual outcome is required of the relationship.
        
        Contrary to the proposed equivalence between heterosexual in kind and homosexual in kind, there is no sexual basis in law for SSM status.
        
        Sexual or not, the one-sexed scenario is not procreative in kind nor procreative in outcome. The homosexual aspect emphasized by advocates of SSM is not an requirement for SSM law. Adding homosexuality to the one-sex-short relationship does not change the fact that the relationship is not marital.
        
        Abolition of the procreative basis for marriage law does not helpt reduce the statistic you cited. Promoting marriage as the best home for coital relations is a more reasonable response to the lived reality behind that statistic.
      - Andrew K.
        
        Btw, do you really believe that I’m a homophobe and that I hate you and desire you to have a miserable life?
        
        Would you believe me if I said that I don’t feel that way at all? That you seem friendly and sincere, and that I honestly wish you all the best, but nonetheless do not want to change the institution of marriage for you or for anybody else?
        
        It’s much easier to demonize the other side by imputing to them hatred and fear, isn’t it?
      - Johann Fourie
        
        I don’t think that you are a homophobe for simply not agreeing with equal marriage. Everybody is entitled to an opinion.
        
        I think you might be seen as homophobic if you were to continuously campaign against equal rights, but I haven’t thought of you as that. I think you would also be a homophobe if you would be happy to strip gay people of their long fought for human rights.
        
        I have just seen you as profoundly ignorant about many issues.
        
        And it strikes me as strange, though it’s not unusual, that somebody who clearly knows so little about a topic would have such vast amounts to say about it.
        
        In my first long reply to you I showed you that all your prejudices were based on nothing but assumptions.
        
        Your views may yet evolve. Who knows. Maybe you will meet a gay person and befriend them, or maybe a good friend may confide in you about his feelings.
        
        Finally, you say that you just can’t support the definition of marriage being changed. Well, it was never changed for you, only for me.
        
        For you marriage will remain a union of one man and one woman. It never has to change from that, unless of course you are suddenly overwhelmed by the urge to marry a man.
        
        It only changed for me. It changed to include me.
        
        The definition of marriage changed multiple times in history. There were times when men took multiple wives and pubescent girls were married off to suiters, too young to consent.
        
        Non religious, civil marriages have been sanctioned and ordained by the state since The Marriage Act was introduced in 1836.
        
        This is when marriage was finally, fully divorced from religion. It never ‘belonged’ to religion very long anyway. It was forcibly high-jacked in the middle ages by the Council Of Trent in 1563 and was deemed a sacrament and exclusively religious for the next 270 years.
        
        So in the UK, marriage rather forcibly enjoyed an official union with region between 1563 and 1835.
        
        But we are now nearly 200 years post religious marriage in this country. Civil marriage belongs to the state and it’s people.
        
        I’m afraid, no matter what your religion is, it literally has no say over civil marriage and hasn’t had one since 1836…
        
        Perhaps It’s just time to catch up now?
        
        http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17351133
        
        P. S I may have erroneously said my long reply was to you, but I just realised it was to a person called Richard.
      - Chairm
        
        You said: “It only changed for me. It changed to include me.”
        
        False.
        
        Does the law require homosexual identity for eligibility to SSM? If not, why not?
        
        Indeed, does the law require of those who’d SSM that they engage in same-sexed sexual behavior or feel same-sexed sexual attraction? If not, why not?
        
        Does the law require or guarantee an outcome derived directly from same-sexed sexual identity-attraction-behavior for those who have SSM’d? If not, why not?
        
        Keep in mind that this query asks for your government’s proferred reasoning in light of the arguments made against the man-woman requirement.
        
        If there is no same-sexed sexual requirement, and no same-sexed sexual basis in the law, then, how is that you believe the law changed to include what is not required?
        
        Moreover, marital status is a public status and the law is societal. So the law did change for all, not just for the gay subset. Further, minus gay requirements, exluding other types of relationship to favor the gay identity group is profoundly sectarian and not pluralistic.
      - Griffonn
        
        Worth noting that something else changes in the law, also.
        
        Currently the expectation is that men and women will make babies together. Adultery is not expected. The name for when a woman makes a baby with someone other than her husband, but one or both of them lie about the child’s paternity, is “paternity fraud”.
        
        Lesbians are already using this method (“paternity fraud”) to create babies, and the government is treating this as a legitimate form of baby-making (see Miller v. Jenkins for one example). So the expectation that marriage will support the biological family is being replaced with a new expectation – one that changes the meaning of the law that guarantees a man the right to be presumed the father of his wife’s child (the “presumption of paternity”) from a law that protects the relationship between a biological father and child to one that can actually be used to sever that relationship and establish a relationship with an unrelated person.
        
        Laws already in place protect other children from this (there are procedures for establishing that a parent has abandoned a child and/or for a stepparent to petition for the right to adopt a stepchild) so it is not unreasonable to argue that the children of lesbians are being deprived of rights that other children enjoy – rights that children have reason to value.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        The reason equal marriage was introduced was because civil partnerships, although they conveyed the same legal rights as marriage, somehow denoted gay people to a different class below heterosexual couples.
        
        It was indirectly saying that our relationships were not quite worthy of the same recognition as opposite sex couples. Almost as good, but not quite.
        
        It’s like having two doors into the same supermarket. One for blacks and one for whites. Or one for men and one for women. It’s really silly and doesn’t serve society well. All it does is fortify divisions and give yet more reason for some people to discriminate on.
        
        By equalising marriage we remove this tiered system and say all relationships are worthy of exactly the same recognition.
        
        In a fair society we want everybody to be completely equal. It’s just right as everybody is paying their equal dues in taxes and contributions. The fewer categories we divide ourselves up into, the less ground bigots have to discriminate on.
        
        It really is as simple as that.
      - Patti
        
        In the USA, civil partnerships or unions never really have conveyed the same rights as marriage. You’re basically in a pseudo marriage that can be dissolved as soon as you cross from one state to another state. Not to mention hardly any country, if any, outside national borders recognizes it.
        
        And for income tax purposes, they’re a mess! A civil-unioned couple can often file jointly in their state, but then has to separate it out into separate returns for Federal purposes, sometimes with community property laws in their home state affecting how things are divided for Federal purposes. It takes many hours to do and runs up their bill for tax preparation.
        
        And it actually costs the United States money not to have gay marriage. As taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_the_United_States#Economic_impact_on_the_federal_government
        
        “Economic impact on the federal government[edit]
        
        “The 2004 Congressional Budget Office study, working from an assumption “that about 0.6 percent of adults would enter into same-sex marriages if they had the opportunity” (an assumption in which they admitted “significant uncertainty”) estimated that legalizing same-sex marriage throughout the United States “would improve the budget’s bottom line to a small extent: by less than $1 billion in each of the next 10 years”. This result reflects an increase in net government revenues (increased income taxes due to marriage penalties more than offsetting decreased tax revenues arising from postponed estate taxes). Marriage recognition would increase the government expenses for Social Security and Federal Employee Health Benefits but that increase would be more than made up for by decreased expenses for Medicaid, Medicare, and Supplemental Security Income.[418]”
      - Andrew K.
        
        Well, I will say it directly:
        
        A relationship between a homosexual couple is not equal to that of a heterosexual couple and never can be. Therefore your relationships are not worthy of the same recognition as that of opposite sex couples.
        
        Not all relationships are equal. At the most obvious level, a relationship between a homosexual couple does not, and cannot, produce new life by its very nature. It is not a joining of different but complementing individuals, in both mind and body.
        
        A relationship may be very valuable and special to you–my friendships and family certainly are–but that does not mean that it has the same value as a marriage of man and woman.
        
        I’m sorry if that hurts your feelings, but it’s just fact. And no govt. legislation can change it.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Oh it doesn’t hurt my feelings at all, but thank you for your concern anyway. What you have stated (although you did so as fact) is merely your opinion and you are absolutely entitled to an opinion.
        
        I do not agree with you. About 80% of those under 40 don’t agree with you. This government doesn’t agree with you. The Labour party doesn’t agree with you and nor do the Greens. Oh and along with about 65% of the general population in the UK.
        
        So its just your opinion.
        
        And as you are of no relation to me and I don’t know you, your opinion means sweet FA to me. Zero. Zilch.
        
        I know though that in this democracy where the majority rule, you are wrong and the reality, as endorsed by my government, is that all relationships are equal.
        
        My grandfather who married his second wife in his 60’s beyond child bearing age, his relationship was as valid as any because breeding is not a prerequisite of marriage. It’s a choice, not a biological necessity for each individual.
        
        If same sex relationships are less equal because they can’t procreate, then so are infertile heterosexual couples or elderly couples who marry beyond their 50’s.
        
        That is according to your clearly failed logic. If you except them, then your logic that relationships are only worthy of marriage if they are bred clearly falls flat on its face.
      - Chairm
        
        You claimed that “the reality, as endorsed by my government, is that all relationships are equal.”
        
        Does the government discriminate between marriage and other types of relationship? If not, then, has marital status been abolished?
        
        If it does so discriminate, then, on what basis?
        
        By the way, you have not presented an argument here that is according to Andrew’s reasoning. Perhaps inadvertently, out of a political reflex, you misrepresented his reasoning. No matter, you ought to understand that your remarks on the infertile couple and on the elderly couple do not logically follow. Surely you would want to address the actual reasoning rather than a straw man?
      - Johann Fourie
        
        There is no strawman. I am just over this very, very tiring debate. I also am no longer required to fight for the human rights that have now so rightly, albeit somewhat late, been awarded to me.
        
        Gay marriage is legal in the UK and my government will now for all eternity, in law, recognise same sex marriages that as 100% equal to opposite sex marriages.
        
        Because it doesn’t matter whether you marry another man or another woman, all that matters is that you are true to yourself and to those who love you and that you are a well functioning, contributing member of society. Apparently what I do still matters to a tiny group of religious people, but as I am of no religious conviction myself, it does not phase me what they think.
        
        I will briefly touch on your request to defend my comments. There is indeed NOTHING illogical whatsoever about my statement.
        
        I am infinitely bored of christians claiming that marriage is designed for the procreation of children, but they fail to adequately explain why couples past child bearing age or infertile couples are still encouraged to wed.
        
        NO CHILDREN could be borne out of such marriages. No more or no less than a same sex couple could produce children naturally (together). So as their marriages are not only permitted, but encouraged, there is a (typical) hypocrisy (again) from the Christians, because they clearly are NOT marrying to fulfil this (apparently) crucial requirement of Christian marriage and that is to have children.
        
        They are quite clearly ONLY marrying for love. There is no way that you can spin this any differently.
        
        In other words, christians permit certain couples to marry for love only and do not hold them to their usual primitive demand to breed.
        
        As per usual christians are ever so happy to make exceptions for themselves when the subject matter is inconvenient and the times suitable.
        
        For instance, you love nothing more than to remind me that Leviticus 18: 22 forbids homosexuality, right? It is one of the clearest condemnation yet in the bible…
        
        Only you gladly overlook Leviticus 19: 19 which also very clearly bans the wearing of garments woven from different fabrics. Yes you may not wear wool and cotton together…
        
        Or hang on? That has become irrelevant…. Has it? It’s in the same book in the same chapter merely half a page further.
        
        Please don’t bother to reply. I have absolutely nothing further to say to your ilk.
      - Chairm
        
        You do love your strawmen.
        
        If you had a sound argument, yoiu woukd not depend on misrepresentations. You promise logic and then go off the rails spitting on Christianity.
        
        Anything but deal with the actual argument.
        
        Now, you do not dictate who may resoond to your remarks so you step down from your pretend throne.
        
        What is the objection to the man-woman legal requirement of marriage law?
        
        That it requires a type of relationship that is heterosexual in kind, we are told tirelessly.
        
        Of course if that is true, then, according to the complaint, the man-woman requirement denotes the type of sexual relationship that is procreative in kind and commonly procreative in outcome.
        
        Further, the unity of sexually embodied creatures, such as we human men and women, is a bodily union. Marriage is more than bodily union but not less. Marriage is a type of relationship that is comprehensive — body, wills, minds, hearts, as well as resources and so on. To be comprehensive, and sexually so, this type of relationship must be a bodily unity. Lacking that, it woukd not be comprehensive.
        
        According to the complaint, it is conceded that marriage is presumed to be sexual in kind, as per the man-woman requirement. The complaint is pushed even though not all particular marriages are sexual. The complainers insist that the man-woman requirement is heterosexual in kind regardless that a homosexual man and a homosexual woman could be eligible to marry each other.
        
        Pretending that the argument is for mandatory procreation or somsuch is just a stupid rhetorical ploy by the complainers who prefer strawmen of mtheir own making.
        
        Procreative in kind, yes. And commonly procreative in outcome, obviously.
        
        Hence the legal presumption of sexual consummation, the sexual basis for legal annulment, the sexual basis for adultery-divorce, which all told expresses procreative in kind as per the legal presumption that the husband is father to children born to he and his wife durng their marriage. The sexual basis is two-sexed, heterosexual, procreative in kind.
        
        No SSM advocate can disagree that the complaint is that the man-woman requirement is heterosexual in kind and that this excludes homosexual in kind.
        
        But coinsider that minus the man-woman requirement, then SSM law has no legal requirement that those who’d SSM identify as homosexual, experience same-sex sexual attraction, or engage in same-sexed sexual behavior. No SSM law requires certainty of outcome directly from same-sexed sexual behavior. So the complaint cannot rest on certainty of outcome nor on a requirement for a sexual relationship much less a homosexual relationship.
        
        The SSM imposition suffers from flaws that the complainers claim are fatal for the man-woman requirement. But the SSM imposition is even more deeply flawed.
      - Griffonn
        
        Pretending that the argument is for mandatory procreation or somesuch is just a rhetorical ploy by the complainers who prefer strawmen of their own making.
        
        I cannot imagine that anyone can – in good faith – assume that this one license, alone among licensed activities, follows different rules than other licensed benefits. (When was the last time acquiring a driver’s license meant you had a legal obligation to drive? That acquiring a fishing license meant you owed it to society to catch fish?)
      - Chairm
        
        Strawmen galore. Thick-headed blather doesn’t qualify as good argumentation. The SSM imposition is unjust and that is demonstrated by your fervent failure to justify it. There is no human right to have society treat non-marriage as marriage. The SSM law is an absurdity that cannot sustain itself. But much harm will be done before it is corrected. Your bigotry and thuggishness is on the wrong side of the truth about marriage which has been known across the historical and anthropological records.
      - Patti
        
        “Well, I will say it directly”
        
        You don’t think your feelings came thru all along, even when you were pretending to be civil?
        
        “Not all relationships are equal. At the most obvious level, a relationship between a homosexual couple does not, and cannot, produce new life by its very nature.”
        
        So you think my husband’s and my marriage is inferior just because we’re both too old to have children?
        
        “A relationship between a homosexual couple is not equal to that of a heterosexual couple and never can be. ”
        
        What a joke! My first husband and I divorced because we were miserable with each other. We even had a child together. But it was still a bad marriage, inferior in every respect to my gay daughter’s long term relationship with her partner.
        
        People make a marriage, not sex organs.
      - Andrew K.
        
        I wasn’t “pretending to be civil.” I _was_ civil. What do you think it means to be civil? Have I called anyone any names? Have I been rude?
        
        Honestly, I’m not sure why I’m dialoguing with either of you in the first place.
        
        You’ve both made clear you have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about.
        
        You repeatedly attack positions that I don’t actually hold because, for some reason, you expect me to hold them and can’t hear me when I say I don’t.
        
        I’ve been told that it’s perfectly acceptable and right for me to lose my job over what I’ve been posting here. I would never say that about either of you. Who is being civil to whom?
        
        Did I ever say, for example, that you must be able to have children to be married? Of course not! My position is that the state of maleness and femaleness is a reality, and both are required to produce new life! How is that controversial?
        
        Having a bad marriage doesn’t change that men and women are different and complementary faces of humanity.
        
        The problem is that you atomize things so much that what I am trying to communicate–which is what most of humanity would hold to up until 20 years ago or so–doesn’t even register.
        
        The problem is further that you don’t want tolerance or civility. You want consent and uniformity. My holding a different position here thoroughly offends you. Therefore, it’s perfectly acceptable to misrepresent me.
      - Patti
        
        When you claim one person’s marriage is superior to someone else’s, then you are being offensive and rude. And this belief came through loud & clear even before you out & out said it. Now if the “inferior” marriage were really hurting someone, such as taking a child bride or involving incest (which can lead to birth defects), then you might have cause to make such a claim. But gay marriage not only doesn’t hurt anyone, it actually helps those involved lead happier and more stable lives. It even helps them create a better home for children should they decide to raise some.
        
        If I said your marriage or the marriage of one of your loved ones was “inferior” would you not take offense?
        
        And I do know you’re not really against old people marrying. I was trying to make what I felt was a logical extension when you base marriage on the ability to naturally procreate. And when referring to my own failed 1st marriage I was trying to point out that a man and a woman do NOT necessarily compliment each other. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. Granted, you need both a male and a female to reproduce, but many totally incompatible people are still able to reproduce together. To make a suitable home for child rearing requires an entirely different set of skills than the ability to have heterosexual intercourse.
        
        As for losing your job, my own gay daughter lost a job when she was just a vulnerable teenager because someone merely suspected she was gay – a job she had held for over a year and had been promoted at. I doubt very much if you are in danger of losing your job unless you voice your opinions so loud & frequently that you end up offending a number of your co-workers. That is, your opinions would actually have to be disrupting the workplace. If this hasn’t been your experience, then by all means speak up.
      - Andrew K.
        
        “When you claim one person’s marriage is superior to someone else’s, then you are being offensive and rude.”
        
        Yes, but that’s just the point: I don’t believe it is a marriage, so I don’t see how it can be rude to say that it is a relationship that is inherently inferior to marriage.
        
        I do not base marriage on the ability to procreate, but I base the meaning of marriage on a union of the divided halves of the humanity. It is a heavily symbolic institution, and the fruit of the union will normally be new life. It further ensures the future of the human race and society and provides a sanctuary for the new life to develop and be nurtured. Therefore it is nonsense to apply the benefits and status of marriage to another human relationship of any sort.
        
        As for the rest, I am sorry your daughter lost her job. That was unquestionably wrong. And I doubt I am in any serious danger of losing mine. Nonetheless there are some who have, and the number is growing. Anyone who holds to my perspective on marriage is labeled a “homophobe” and a “bigot” and considered beyond the pale of polite society. For a view held by most of humanity throughout history. Certainly you can see that this the case.
      - Patti
        
        >I don’t believe it is a marriage, so I don’t see how it can be rude to say that it is a relationship that is inherently inferior to marriage.I base the meaning of marriage on a union of the divided halves of the humanity. It is a heavily symbolic institution, and the fruit of the union will normally be new life.>
        
        And yet would you even dream of calling an infertile couple’s marriage “inferior” even though there will be no new life? If a man has absolutely no attraction towards women, then exactly who should the lucky woman be in his symbolic union of the divided halves of humanity? Would you volunteer your daughter for the job? Do you think it will be a happy life for either one of them? Do you think it will be a stable home for children?
        
        >It further ensures the future of the human race and societyand provides a sanctuary for the new life to develop and be nurtured.I am sorry your daughter lost her job. That was unquestionably wrong.Nonetheless there are some who have, and the number is growing.Anyone who holds to my perspective on marriage is labeled a “homophobe” and a “bigot” and considered beyond the pale of polite society.For a view held by most of humanity throughout history.<
        
        As was slavery. Tradition is no excuse. We've learned to do better.
      - Chairm
        
        What does infertility got to do with your favoring SSM?
        
        Earlier you brought up incest and birth defects. What has that got to do with your favoring SSM? It could not limit eligibility to SSM, right?
        
        You brought up “artificially conceived children”. How does that support your favorable view of SSM?
        
        Maybe it does not. Maybe you are merely relying on the propaganda of the SSM campaign. That lone would color your hostility but nothing you’ve said, so far, explains your favoring SSM.
        
        Why did you bring up slavery? How is tradition antithetical to the SSM viewpoint? Afterall, you demand for a subset of nin-marriage the same status as that traditionally merited by the type of relationship that is procreative in kind and commonly procreative in outcome. But you seem dismissive of the procreative aspect — and confusedly so as per your bringing up incest/birth and conception of children and infertility and the like.
        
        What is the societal significance of the sexuak relationship of man and woman? If you left out the procreative aspect, your account would be very incomplete.
        
        What is the societal significance of same-sexed sexual behavior such that special treatment is merited over an above all other types of relationship that also lack either husband or wife?
      - Chairm
        
        I do not think there is sufficient evidence to support your claim of how SSM would benfit the participants. Your assumptions are well-meaning but little more than that.
        
        Coital relations of husband and wife provides the sexual basis for marital status for the type of relationship that is comprehnsive — a union of mind and of body.
        
        There is no one-sexed possibility of actual bodily union. Besides, what does same-sexed sexual behavior got to do with it?
        
        You brought up old people. That does not provide a logical extension. You used a straw man argument.
      - Patti
        
        If you’re making an argument that gay people shouldn’t be allowed to marry because they can’t produce children together, then that does raise the question of who else will you withhold marriage from because they can’t reproduce? So “old people” is not a straw man, but a logical extension of that train of thought.
        
        You yourself haven’t brought up the reproduction argument, but you are saying they need to be able to have the right type of sex, sex that you consider comprehensive. Once again, old people often can’t have sex at all, and yet they still fall in love and bond. Should we make sure all sex organs are perfectly functional before allowing marriage? After all, you’ve stated:
        
        Coital relations of husband and wife provides the sexual basis for marital status for the type of relationship that is comprehnsive — a union of mind and of body.
        
        So if the couple cannot have coital relations due to age or illness, then according to you there’s no way to have that comprehensive union.
      - Chairm
        
        Okay, so by your account marriage is not a sexual type of relationship?
        
        Then do you disagree with the complaint that the man-woman requirement is heterosexual in kind?
        
        You said: “If you’re making an argument that gay people shouldn’t be allowed to marry because they can’t produce children together, then that does raise the question of who else will you withhold marriage from because they can’t reproduce?”
        
        Persons of the same sex can not form a sexual relationship that is procreative in kind. Adding homosexual stuff does not change that.
        
        Infertile married couples? The vast majority resolve their difficulties through changes in behavior. That can’t be said of the one-sex-short scenarios. Most of these couples (two sexes, hence a couple by type) already have children prior to difficulties. Infertility is two-sexed and the lack of the other sex is not infertility. Something impairs or disables the sexual reproductive process in their relationship; infertility is a disability, fertility is the ability, the lack of the other sex precludes both fertility and infertility for that lack in the relationship is an inability that inheres to the one-sexed scenarios, homosexuak or nonsexual or whatever.
        
        So unless you here argue that homosexuality is a disability, contrary to the SSM side’s homosexual emphasis, then, it does not follow that SSM is supported by the existence of infertile married couples. There is more to say on this, but that suffices in reply to your explanation of your bringing it up.
        
        As for the elderly, they do not contradict the man-woman basis of the type of relationship that is procreative in kind and commonly procreative in outcome.
        
        Perhaps you hang your argument on certainty of outcome? That would severely undermine the homosexual emphasis which can guarantee no same-sexed sexual outcome for each and every SSM.
      - Patti
        
        Most married people have sex together. But even if they can’t for some reason, we don’t forbid them to marry.
        
        And many heterosexual couples do not reproduce. Sometimes they’re too old, sometimes infertile, and sometimes they simply choose not to have children. A young heterosexual couple who have decided early on that they will never have children, and who use permanent means of birth control to make sure they don’t, are still allowed to marry.
        
        My argument is that it’s not the government’s job to be choosing a mate for people. Procreation has never been a requirement for marriage, and for that matter gays are having children using various reproductive technologies. If you’re dealing with not already married consenting adults, then the government has no legitimate interest in dictating whose marriage is suitable. Churches can choose to recognize them or not. But the government is in the position of serving all its people.
      - Chairm
        
        You claim that the lack of a legal requirement for procreative outcome means that marriage is not procreative in kind?
        
        Same-sexed sexual behavior is not legally required of those who’d SSM. There is no guranteed outcome of same-sexed sexual behavior, obviously
        
        By your reasoning, SSM is not sexual in kind much less homosexual in kind.
        
        Your complaint that the man-woman requirement is heterosexual in kind rather concedes the point that this type of relationship is two-sexed, is sexual, and is procreative in kind and commonly in outcome. The man-woman requirement is well-enforced and expressed in various ways: the presumption of sexual consummation, sexual provisions for annulment, sexual provisions for adultery-divorce, and the sexual basis for the legal presumption that the husband is father to children born to he and his wife during their marital relationship. That last presumption applies, also, prior to marital status, provided there was opportunity for impregnation by the husband, and several months after seperation/divorce. This stands head and shoulder over your weak rhetoric and goes a great deal farther in answering your supposed standards used to attack the man-woman requirement.
        
        That requirement says far more about marriage than the anmic homosexual emohasis, which remains extrinsic to the marital type of relationship.
      - Chairm
        
        You asserted that “But gay marriage not only doesn’t hurt anyone, it actually helps those involved lead happier and more stable lives. It even helps them create a better home for children should they decide to raise some.”
        
        My reply: “I do not think there is sufficient evidence to support your claim of how SSM would benfit the participants. Your assumptions are well-meaning but little more than that.”
        
        Then you doged, again.
        
        If SSM were to encourage more of what your daughter did to children, then, it would hurt others, contrary to your assumption.
        
        Depriving children of their birthright to both mom and dad does happen, in the course of things, due to dire circumstances or tragedy. But what could justify choosing to deprive children of their birthright?
        
        Homosexuality is no excuse for it. If SSM enables it, then, that is a certain mark against the imposition of SSM. If the idea is normalize immorality, then, that is another mark aginst it.
        
        Marriage is procreative in kind because it is two-sexed and it is a sexual type of relationship. It is comprehensive — a union of bodies, minds, wills, hearts, and resources and so forth. It is comprehensive and as such is organically oriented to responsible procreation and family. It is morally sound.
        
        What you describe is a synthetic imitation frought with profound moral and ethical pitfalls of unjust means and unjust ends. It cannot unite fatherhood and motherhood but rather “normalizes” the disunity of motherhood and fatherhood. It segregates the sexes in each instance rather than integrating the sexes. It is an incoherent mess and not a foundational social institution. It depends utterly on artificialities.
      - Patti
        
        What my daughter did to children? You’re sick.
      - Chairm
        
        Yes, Patti, deciding to attain children with the unnecesary decision to deny the yet-to-be-conceived children their father is what your daughter did to those children. Homosexuality is no excuse for it. But you presented it as if to assure that this showed a good thing because of some vague link to homosexuality.
        
        According to your own self-serving account, what was done to these children was supposedly the fault of the father (your first dodge) — or of the mere existence of a sperm banks (second dodge) — or the fault of, as you put it, others who did it too (third dodge). You recoiled and assumed that your daughter is above moral accountability for what she did because … you managed only to hint that the relationship with the other woman elevated what they did to these children beyond moral accountability (another dodge). You dodged moral accountability for your endorsing what was done (the most blatant dodge, as an SSM advocate, painting this an assurance).
        
        You are determined to make this hyper-personal and probably have habitually used that tactic to play the cynical game of feinging to feel offended. You won’t be indulged and that shocks you, supposedly.
        
        Your remarks are blunderous and immature. You thought to slander me, your immediate resort, rather than deal forthrightly and substantively with what was done to these children. How dare anyone challenge your tactics and your self-serving assumptions. Pathetic.
        
        This raises doubts that you have honestly presented yourself here. It does demonstrate the sort of absurd pressure generally experienced by children raised by lesbian couples with your attitude toward children’s birthright. Hopefully there are lesbian couples who are more generous and empathetic toward the children than you have displayed here.
      - Patti
        
        You have too serious a problem with reading comprehension to have any sort of meaningful discussion. Also, you’re extremely accusative and insulting – I’m not feigning offense, I am offended. So rant on without me.
      - Chairm
        
        You are offended by what you said?
        
        You did blame anyone-but-these-women for choices and decisions they made. They did to these children something you understand to be wrong to even want to do to children’s families.
        
        Break them. This creates non-intact families. For what reason? You don’t or can’t say. So, instead, you would redefine intact to include the family structure that has broken off either mom or dad.
        
        This is not an accusation but an accurate account of your side of the discussion.
        
        You desperately wish to avoid being held morally accountable. Your repeated dodges accuse you of just that.
      - Patti
        
        I’m very sorry you’re unable to share the joy of new life being born into the world because it wasn’t conceived according to your narrow constraints.
        
        There are children without parents, others with very stressed out single parents, and children living in dire poverty. They could all use some help. You’ve spent a lot of time bemoaning how horribly treated 2 little children are when they’re actually well loved and cared for in a loving 2-parent upper-middle class home, with lots of extended family, and a happy life. I blamed no one because nothing bad happened. I did answer some of your questions and you twisted answers into something never said nor intended. My daughter, her partner, and a sperm donor take full responsibility for doing something wonderful. For bringing new life into the world into a home with 2 loving committed parents who have the resources to care for them. Were all children born into such a home, the world would be a far better place.
        
        Now go help a child who actually needs help. There are many out there who’d gladly trade places with my grandchildren.
      - Chairm
        
        Patti, the SSM law does not require the participants engage is same-sexed sexual behavior. By your thinking that makes SSM a nonsexul typoe of relationship.
        
        Disagree? Don’t point at imagined exceptions to what I wrote, stick to SSM. Is SSM a homosexual type of relationship even when SSM law would qualify two heterosexual men who are not required to satisify any sort of homosexual requirement?
        
        Think about it.
        
        Elderly married couples are not sexless, in most cases, but your assumptions are amusing.
      - Patti
        
        Many elderly couples have been sexless for years. I have no idea if “most” are, nor do you. But I am elderly and I hang around elderly, and sex is often a gentle joke of days gone by, but replaced by a gentle romance that’s still there.
        
        Your preoccupation with sex makes your posts difficult to comprehend. It’s usually assumed married people will have sex if they can, but there’s no requirement they do so whether gay or straight. If they feel they are soul mates and want to be a legal unit with all the financial and legal obligations that entails, then we don’t question whether they intend to bonk.
        
        It’s doubtful that 2 straight men would want to marry. As to whether their getting married would make it a homosexual relationship I suppose depends on whether they have sex, though I can’t imagine why they’d want to.
      - Chairm
        
        You come across as a politically correct high school student with very little life experience.
        
        You said: “Many elderly couples have been sexless for years. I have no idea if “most” are, nor do you.”
        
        And yet I do.
        
        You could learn more before spouting off with yet more discrediting embellishments of your attack on your strawman.
        
        Conveniently you claim that “many” is an authoritative count (of your own) but that “most” is unknowable. You are mistaken.
        
        We were discussing married couples, not widows, and your assumptions are based on yiur own biases not on the lived reality of elderly married couples.
        
        And your strawman is no substitute for the actual argument. Why dodge, Patti?
      - Patti
        
        So if you know how many elderly married couples are or aren’t still having sex, then come up with some evidence. Otherwise you’re just ranting.
        
        I personally know some elderly married couples in solid marriages who’ve admitted their sex life is a thing of the past. I haven’t asked for details, but that isn’t a unheard of occurrence with aging. The couples themselves are not unhappy about it; they believe they still have good lives. And I do assume they’re not alone.
      - Chairm
        
        More dodges.
        
        Marriage law has a sexual basis. Your side admits it. Now you pose as a prude. How hypocritical of you.
        
        The sexual basis is expressed in the man-woman requirement but is absent in SSM law.
        
        That two-sexed sexual basis is most obviously expressed in the marital presumption of paternity. It is one of the strongest legal presumptions in family law, for obvious reasons. It is the sexual basis for the directly related legal presumption of sexual consummation of marriage. Likewise for the provisions for annulment, aduktery-divorce, harm, and for the special status of the union of husband and wife.
        
        Marriage is a type of relationship. Your side concedes the point when complaining that the man-woman requirement is for a type of relationship that is heterosexual in kind. Maybe your side is “preoccuppied” with sex, especially with the strawmen featuring infertility and old age. But when refuted, you cast aspersions.
        
        Is coital relations of husband and wife procreative in kind and commonly procreative in outcome? Yep. Deal with that honestly.
      - Chairm
        
        You may be correct: it is doubtful that heterosexual men would want to marry each other.
        
        Now, try to explain why you think it is doubtful. Spell it out and leave no doubt, Patti.
        
        ——
        
        My explanation: marriage is the union of man and woman. So doubtful is an understatement.
        
        SSM is a specious substitution for marriage. It is not marriage.
        
        And, as such, as you conceded, there is no legal requirement for homosexuality for those who’d SSM. So it is not a sexual type of relationship. It is sexless, according to your own account of SSM law.
        
        That contrasts with the sexual basis for marriage law. That is procreative in kind and commonly procreative in outcome.
        
        Under SSM law there is no legal requirement that matches the sexual basis expressed in the man-woman requirement that your side readily and insistently says is heterosexual in kind.
        
        Resist your habit of dodging and deal with that forthrightly.
      - Patti
        
        How about it’s doubtful that 2 straight men would want to marry because they’re not attracted to each other, have no desire for romance together, and no desire to form a lifelong union with legal entanglements. Since many straight men are all for legalized gay marriage (though not for themselves personally) then their feelings on gay marriage really have nothing to do with it.
        
        Your SSM is sexless argument makes absolutely no sense. Sex is not a requirement for any type of marriage, though it’s normally assumed if the parties are capable. So whatever sexual basis there is for marriage is the same whether it’s gay or straight marriage.
        
        You keep saying heterosexual marriage is “procreative in kind and commonly procreative in outcome.” If the woman is well past menopause, then there’s no way the marriage is procreative in kind or outcome. The same goes if it’s a young coupe who’s decided not to have children and taken permanent birth control measures to make sure they don’t. Not every heterosexual marriage is procreative in kind. And yet we still don’t use that fact to disallow them from getting married.
      - Chairm
        
        There is no legal requirement that those who’d SSM be sexually attracted to each other. And no legal requirement that they want romance with each other.
        
        So heterosexual men, like society in general, are under no obligation to view SSM through your biases. They can objectively assess that SSM is neither sexual nor romantic. It is sexless, as per your own insistence that the lack of legal requirement is decisive.
        
        And SSM law neither requires nor guarantees a lifelong union of any sort. Dissolution and disentanglement is readily available for any reason or for no reason. So “lifelong” does not survive your insistence on certainty of outcome.
        
        Marriage law does have a two-sexed sexual basis — obviously. Your side’s complaint insists that the man-woman requirement is heterosexual in kind. It is insisted even though there is no legal requirement for sexual attraction nor for romance. The insistence on heterosexual in kind concedes the obvious: the union of husband and wife is a sexual type of relationship that is procreative in kind and commonly procreative in outcome. The sexual basis for the marital presumption of paternity is in marriage law and it is the sexual basis for sexual consummation, for annulment, for adultery-divorce, and or the man-woman requirement. It hangs together coherently.
        
        No opanal and no oral sex act is the sexual basis for presuming the husband is father to children born to he and his wife. Fact of life. No same-sexed sexual act can provide such a basis. Obviously. Coital relations is the sexual basis for the marital presumption of coinsummation and of paternity. Lack of coital relations is legal grounds for annulment — lawful acknowledgement no marriage actually existed. Transgressing the exclusivity of the coital relations between husband and wife is legal grounds for adultery-divorce and harm and so forth.
        
        Feeling romantic or attracted, not so much.
        
        As for your weak attempt to dispute procreative in kind, you got stuck on procreative in outcome.
        
        There is a sexual basis that is procreative in kind and commonly procreative in outcome. It is inherently two-sexed. As such it matches the two-person limitation.
        
        It is extrinsic to all one-sexed scenarios — sexual or not sexual — onesomes, twosomes, or moresomes. None of the one-sexed scenarios are procreative in kind much less in outcome.
        
        Also, the two-sexed sexual basis is unitive in kind, unlike the entire range of one-sexed scenarios which can not provide for actual bodily union.
        
        Consider how it is that husband and wife are more closely related to each other each is to people too closely related for them to marry. And yet, pause and reflect, their sexual relationship is not incestuous. Procreative in kind and unitive in kind explain this quite readily, while no one-sexed basis can.
      - Chairm
        
        When a post-menopausal married couple engage in coital relations, naive Patti, they do form a bodily union. And coital relations is procreative in kind. So you have not come up with a contradiction of what I have said.
        
        An all-female scenario (a onesome, twosome, threesome, or moresome) cannot form an actual bodily union — whether or not post-menopausal. Nor is such a scenario procreative in kind — whether or not homosexual.
        
        Coital relations is procreative in kind and unitive in kind even when impaired reproductively. How you might say otherwise is rather a mystery. That you are stuck in certainty of outcome, well, that is not my fault but yours.
        
        I do see that you wish to view some married two-sexed couples as if they were the conceptual and functional equivalents of all one-sexed scenarios. That is just you hoping to find a loophole.
        
        Consider the reporoductively healthy husband-wife. They experience infertile periods every month. Their coital relations is unitive and procreative even when they do not concieve. It is not just when they conceive.
        
        Just so for your examples.
        
        In another comment you wondered about married couples who for whatever reason cannot complete coital relations. Are they married?
        
        Well, if they sexually consummated prior to the problem, yes, of course they remain married. If they have not consummated, then, privacy shields their relationship which is legally presumed to have been consummated. If either husband or wife bring the lack of consummation to public — officially to a court, in our system — then grounds for annulment are quite possible, typically, and within reasonable time limits. Annulment means no marriage had existed. That is reasonable rather than absolutist and does not entail government peeping into the bedroom windows of all married couples.
        
        It seems your reliance on strawmen is a fixed feature of your rhetoric.
      - Chairm
        
        You said: “So if the couple cannot have coital relations due to age or illness, then according to you there’s no way to have that comprehensive union.”
        
        Close but not quite right.
        
        Regardless of the reasons, if the relationship is not sexually consummated it is not a bodily union.
        
        In systems of marriage law and custom, various means are provided to either keep private or to bring into public the lack of consummation. In our system we use judges to determine and to declare on marital status if either husband or wife invite the court to do so. It is left to the spouses to initiate annulment. The government does not have an intrusive program to seek and weed out unconsummated marriages.
        
        Bodily union is both unitive in kind and procreative in kind, if mutually willed. Hence it is more than, but no less than, consensual coital relations.
      - Chairm
        
        Andrew, I empathize.
        
        They do not want consent but rather submission. They do not want uniformity but rather conformity. They do not want civil discourse but rather ownership of the public square.
        
        While you appeal to reason, they insist there is no appeal against the asserted supremacy of gay identity politics. And that makes their rhetoric and political thinking the analogue of white supremacy which also abused marriage law for the sake of identity politics.
      - Chairm
        
        Human beings are sexually embodies creatures. Your closing sentence does not make much sense.
      - Patti
        
        Having the right mix of sex organs (heterosexual) does not necessarily make a good marriage.
      - Chairm
        
        Well, that is empty of relevant content, Patti.
        
        Do you deny that marriage is a sexual type of relationship? You assume so as per your homosexual emphasis. So, the right organs for SSM are … ? Yet is sexual use of these organs required by law for those who’d SSM? Nope. Is there a guaranteed sexual outcome required of each SSM? Nope.
        
        Your own rhetorical hostility toward procreative in kind, even as you have ineptly juxtaposed heterosexual and homosexual in kind, has depended on attacking strawman arguments. And your attacks set forth standards (legal requirements and guaranteed outcome) that your pro-SSM view can not live up to. Your homosexual emphasis is like a card trick where the trick card comes and goes through sleight of hand. You have been called on this deception.
        
        Now what?
      - Chairm
        
        Johan relies on assumptions. And treats those mistaken assumptions as factual and incontrovertible. Regardless, those assumptions are irrelevant to marriage.
      - Patti
        
        My own daughter showed signs of being gay as young as 2, basically as soon as she was capable of showing feminine or masculine behavior. When she was 6 she acted like she had a crush on one of my adult female friends. In elementary school, she got into an argument with her best friend (now a nice young man whom we still have contact with) over which one of them could marry a little girl they both had their eye on at the playground. There was no conversion. We didn’t even know any gay people at the time! So what kind of choice did she have?
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Hi again Patti
        
        Thank you very much for sharing such a personal story. I purposefully left my age out of the earlier conversation with Andrew, because I simply don’t have the strength to try and argue with him, as I feared him trying to rewrite my history and attempt to tell me that what I experienced, or indeed am experiencing, is not real or valid.
        
        My first gay thoughts were experienced at 3 and I remember them not only vividly, but also as my first ever memories of my life.
        
        I remember insisting that my mother and father read the story of Adam and Eve to me from the children’s Bible every night. I also remember paging back to the first story and seeing how differently Adam was depicted in different versions of the book, whenever I came across such a bible.
        
        In the 80 ‘s in pseudo-religious South Africa, they were everywhere. In the creche, at the doctors surgery, in the play area of family restaurants.
        
        I remember looking at Adam and seeing a handsome and attractive man. More so he was naked, but for a strategically placed fig leaf.
        
        To me as a 3-5 year old kid it was pure porn. Adam was masculine and handsome, I was transfixed by his beauty , Eve was feminine and pretty but the fact that her breasts were exposed but for a few strands of hair made me wish she would cover up.
        
        Adam stirred something in me, as did other men in my life such as my father’s friends and my aunt ‘s boyfriend… Something women simply didn’t do. I remember peeping through the keyhole of the bathroom door when I was just 5 and asking them if they would shower with me.
        
        I never chose to be gay, it chose me.
        
        What I simply cannot get my head around is the seemingly unhealthy obsession so many heterosexual people have with gay people.
        
        Why does it matter what other people do as long as they are happy, functional and contributing members of society and they raise balanced, happy children who go on to contribute too?
        
        In my first long reply to Andrew K, I proved to him with references, that every opinion or view he had on gay people, gay parenting or gay marriage were nothing but assumptions he made founded in his own beliefs and values.
        
        None of what he said was based on science fact or recorded history.
        
        It’s sad that this seems to be the case with so many people still. Heterosexual people who are unable to imagine themselves in another’s shoes. They simply assume that gay people choose a lifestyle, that they are bad parents, that their kids suffer and that they are all self destructive. It’s nothing but assumptions based on deep set prejudices that either stem from views and opinions passed down in the family when they were raised, or more likely from religious indoctrination.
        
        Whatever the case may be, it’s not based on fact and it’s sad that assumptions can cause such a divide in a free country in 2015.
        
        Take care,
        Johann
      - Patti
        
        “Why does it matter what other people do as long as they are happy, functional and contributing members of society and they raise balanced, happy children who go on to contribute too?”
        
        Very true.
        
        The anti-gay-rights crowd keeps saying it’s for the children, and yet they’re willing to let children age out of state institutions rather than support gay adoptions. They also push a stigmatization of gay people that’s been shown to negatively affect children being raised by gay parents. And while claiming that all those peer reviewed studies that show children of gay parents doing just fine (despite the stigmatization), they claim they’re all flawed and then tout the most flawed of all – the NFSS/Regnerus study – as being a good one. [If you’re not familiar with the NFSS/Regnerus study, please Google it. You’ll be shocked at what’s being touted as a “good” study.]
        
        Not to mention, all the stigmatization of gay people certainly was not good for my daughter. She attempted suicide back in the 1990s after suffering a lot of harassment and even threats from ROTC classmates in college. She had stuck to the archaic “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for the military (ROTC is considered part of the military), but classmates found out anyway. Fortunately, she was rushed to the emergency room in time to prevent any permanent damage, but she ended up quitting ROTC which meant the loss of a bunch of scholarship funds. Earlier she’d given up a prestigious appointment to one of the military academies because of her homosexuality, and that would have been an entirely free top-tier education! So it certainly cost her (and us).
        
        But today she has a good life with a wonderful partner, fast track career, and 2 beautiful children.
      - Chairm
        
        As you brought it up, how did two women attain two children?
      - Patti
        
        They didn’t “attain” them, they had them. They used a sperm donor just as many heterosexual couples have done when the husband couldn’t produce live sperm. They took turns getting pregnant by the same donor thru artificial insemination and then adopted each other’s child. The biological father has agreed to meet the children when they’re older if they so desire.
      - Chairm
        
        Right, so their same-sexed relationship is barren, but they imported what is extrinsic to same-sexed sexual behavior between women.
        
        They were not infertile, as a pair, but the lack of the other sex presented an inherent inability within that pair. As individuals, by your own account, they were fertile with the other sex. They sufferd no malady hat would justify IVF.
        
        These children have a father. Is he outside his children lives? By the explicit choice made by each mother? If so, how might that be justified, do you think?
        
        Most infertile married couples resolve their problems without resort to extra-marital procreation. Third party procreation is extra-marital even when married people partake of it. The vast majority of married infertile couples who use IVF use the husband’s sperm. So while you point outside of the marital relationship, you also depend on the rarest of apparent (not actual) exceptions to procreative in kind and commonly procreative in outcome.
      - Patti
        
        Sperm banks came into existence well before many lesbians were having children, so somebody’s been using them. As far as justifying the father being out of their lives, that was his decision.
        
        The 2 women had their children within the relationship they had the best chance of sustaining, thus offering their children the best chance of stability.
      - Chairm
        
        The father chosen to exlude himself, but did each of the two women not also consent to that exclusion or were they coerced?
        
        The decision to go outside the same-sexed relationship was not forcd on them. These children did not exist prior to the decisions each of the women made for themselves.
        
        What justifies these decisions, truly? Not the welfare of children already conceived. Not by your own account.
        
        Female same-sexed relationships are unstable, as a type of relationship, so you ought to take care not to assert too much on that score. There might be some other justification that is more robust?
      - Patti
        
        The children are being well cared for by 2 very capable women who have always put their (the children’s) interests first. And only they know what kind of relationship has the most chance of long term stability for them. You are not involved. No one has to justify their choices to you.
        
        What justifies these decisions, truly? Not the welfare of children already conceived. Not by your own account.
        
        And what, Sir, justifies such false and slanderous insults. Don’t bother answering. I won’t respond.
      - Chairm
        
        Dodge.
        
        How might they justify to themselves?
        
        You favor what they have done. What justifies it to you?
        
        And you brought up their example to attempt to explain your pro-SSM view. The imposition of SSM would make law for society. That involves the public. It did involve me, here, when in our discussion you used their example as a sort of rhetorical shield.
        
        Your inability to defend what was done reflects a harsh light on what was done, not on the query as to what might justify it.
        
        Your reaction (not really a response) is very brittle and might denote defensiveness in light of the indefendable.
      - Patti
        
        There is no need to defend my daughter or her partner. You’ve put them on trial for charges that only make sense to you. And now you demand I defend my family for their existence. You’re imagining harm where there is none, and your seek to put righteous pressure on a family to accomplish what? To split up the only family those children have ever known – a family they’re quite happy in? Do you have any idea how traumatic that would be?
        
        I brought up my daughter’s story talking of the effects of homophobia on her in her early years. Her children were mentioned at the end to assure the reader that she got thru it and has since created a good life for herself. You asked about the kids and I answered. Then you went on to insult. Until you learn how to respect other people’s family I simply have no wish to continue the discussion.
      - Chairm
        
        There was no insult.
        
        You assumptions are challenged. If that is uncomfortable, then, depersonalize it.
        
        Take two complete strangers. Nothing to do with your family.
        
        What could possibly justify doing that to children? If it can not be justified, then, it can not provide the assurance you hoped to demonstrate.
        
        Before the children were even coinceived, before any attempt to achieve pregnancy, certain choices were made.
        
        Would it make a difference if these women were not lesbian, in justification for the decisions?
        
        Ponder it. If yiu are too fragile to respond in a comment here, just ponder it.
      - Patti
        
        I’m not fragile, I just don’t appreciate total strangers on the Internet deciding we’re not putting the children first. That is an insult to any parent.
        
        Anonymous sperm donations have been used for some time well before many lesbians were having babies within their relationships. There have been reports of some of those children feeling betrayed when they found out their legal father wasn’t their biological father, but that’s not an issue with lesbian couples as it’s very apparent one is not a blood parent. There was also the question of children growing up and wanting the right to know who the blood father was. That issue has also been addressed. I somehow doubt if you would have come out attacking like that if it were a straight couple with fertility problems using a sperm donor.
        
        You have this over romanticized version of heterosexual parents. Most do their best and are pretty good parents. Others abuse or neglect their children. The child has a right to love and decent care, and that sometimes means keeping the biological parent as far away as possible. Fred Phelps of God Hates F-gs fame was a married heterosexual father. Do you think he was seriously a good parent as he taught his children to picket military funerals and torment grieving families?
      - Chairm
        
        Contrary to your inane question, there is nothing in my side if our exchange that suggests that heterosexuality innoculates all fathers against performing as lousy fathers. That you posed such a question is a reflection of your gaycentric view of all these topics.
        
        The former deputy education minister of Ontario just pled guilty to a series of very heavy child porn charges; he led the writing of the new sex ed curriculum for grades down to kindergarten; he might be straight, or not, but his boss, then education minister Wynne, is a lesbian and the curriculum includes explicit material that, if I was of your slanderous mind, I could attribute to her homosexuality. And then ask you if homosexuality immunizes her from criticism.
        
        Your gameplaying and misrepresentations discredit you.
      - Chairm
        
        You erred.
        
        Sexual orientation does not excuse what is done to these children. Homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, whatever sexual.
        
        They could be lesbians, thespians, or vegitarians. No good reason is on offer to do this to children.
        
        I explicitly said that third party procreation is extramarital procreation even when married man and woman partake of it. How you took from that for an endorsement based on sexual orientation, I cannot know.
        
        Further, the use of so-called donated sperm does not treat infertility. Such stuff is not a cure nor a medicine for ill health reproductively.
        
        Infertility, like fertility, is two-sexed, sure, and treatment or the couple is certainly justified to attempt to restore what is impaired or disabled. That’s not at issue when discussing third party procreation.
        
        Most married couples who experience infertility, resolve their troubles through changes in behavior. Some are medically treated, yes, but relatively few use third party procreation. A tiny portion of married IVF users, for example, use so-called donated sperm. The vast majority stick with the husband’s sperm. And even a good portion of those who use someone else’s sperm actually mix it with the sperm of the husband.
        
        So some balanced perspective is in order.
        
        That said, I object on sound moral reasoning to IVF. And that begins with so-called straight couples with fertility problems. This obviously precludes “donated sperm” for anyone regardless of sexual orientation or whatever.
        
        Your assumptions are mistaken, again, and still you off no good reason to do to children what your daughter did.
      - Patti
        
        I’m very sorry you’re unable to share the joy of new life being born into the world because it wasn’t conceived according to your narrow constraints.
        
        There are children without parents, others with very stressed out single parents, and children living in dire poverty. They could all use some help. You’ve spent a lot of time bemoaning how horribly treated 2 little children are when they’re actually well loved and cared for in a loving 2-parent upper-middle class home, with lots of extended family, and a happy life. My daughter, her partner, and a sperm donor take full responsibility for doing something wonderful. For bringing new life into the world into a home with 2 loving committed parents who have the resources to care for them. Were all children born into such a home, the world would be a far better place.
        
        Now go find and help a child who actually needs help. There are many out there who’d gladly trade places with my grandchildren.
      - Chairm
        
        Okay, you say that you are not fragile and yet your responses have been evasive and brittle. You offer no good reason to do this to these children. Zilch.
        
        You said: “I just don’t appreciate total strangers on the Internet deciding we’re not putting the children first. That is an insult to any parent.”
        
        As a simple matter of chronological order, and logical order, these women did not put the children first.
        
        The children did not exist. First certain decisions were made. Prior to even the attempt at impregnation. Even before aquiring sperm.
        
        The children came later.
        
        Obviously.
        
        So don’t get your nose out of joint pretending to feel offended at the obvious facts. These facts pre-existed our discussion.
      - Patti
        
        I’m very sorry you’re unable to share the joy of new life being born into the world because it wasn’t conceived according to your narrow constraints.
        
        There are children without parents, others with very stressed out single parents, and children living in dire poverty. They could all use some help. You’ve spent a lot of time bemoaning how horribly treated 2 little children are when they’re actually well loved and cared for in a loving 2-parent upper-middle class home, with lots of extended family, and a happy life. My daughter, her partner, and a sperm donor take full responsibility for doing something wonderful. For bringing new life into the world into a home with 2 loving committed parents who have the resources to care for them. Were all children born into such a home, the world would be a far better place.
        
        Now go help a child who actually needs help. There are many out there who’d gladly trade places with my grandchildren.
      - Chairm
        
        Now you use poor parents, and single parents, as shields, too, to deflect from your lack of good eason to do to these children what you said would be wrong to even want to do — break their family?
      - Griffonn
        
        Infertility treatments impinge on the rights of other stakeholders.
        
        To the extent that they are justified (and that is a separate debate – whether they are ever justified for infertile people), they are justified only for people who suffer from medical conditions that cause infertility.
        
        “Doing it wrong” is not a condition that warrants special accommodations. Not wanting your child to have a parent of the opposite sex from yourself is not a legitimate condition or complaint, and should not be viewed as worthy of the sort of accommodations that are developed for legitimate medical needs.
      - Griffonn
        
        Adoption does not include would-be adoptive parents deliberately arranging for the child to be abandoned.
        
        Adoption is about rescuing children from crisis, not putting them into crisis so that they may be exploited in ways that superficially appear similar to a rescue.
      - Patti
        
        Griffonn, get help.
      - Chairm
        
        Patti, say something relevant and substantive.
      - Patti
        
        I’ve gone around in circles with Griffonn before and don’t wish to do so again.
      - Griffonn
        
        Don’t do this to your kids.
        
        Do you really want to be remembered with shame and loathing by your descendents?
      - Patti
        
        Don’t do what to my kids? Leave them and their family alone to enjoy their lives? What on earth do you think showing the disapproval you want to see is going to accomplish? You want to split up a family, Griffonn – a family that’s been together since before those children were born, and that is the only family they have ever known.
      - Griffonn
        
        Your “children” – the children who had a right to a mother and a father, but you put your “rights” before theirs – are going to be the most vicious critics of what you’ve done.
        
        If your relationship with them is really good, they’ll wait til you’re dead to say what they really think.
        
        But from what I have seen, it appears to be fear – not love – that keeps most of them in their place.
      - Chairm
        
        Yeh, they attained children. Your own account said so even as you objected.
      - Patti
        
        Jesus. Go crawl under the rock where you came from.
      - Chairm
        
        Cowardly dodge.
        
        At one point you wrongly accused me of wanting to break up their family. You understand, apparently, that it would be wrong to want that.
        
        These women deliberately set out to create children whose famiky would be broken by design at the outset; these women wanted to cutout the father from the lives of these children. Not just wanted, they planned it and did it. They found accomplices, enablers, and did this to these children for no good reason on offer.
        
        You endorse it.
        
        Your reaction now is to spit at someone you wrongly accused of wanting done what these women actually did to these children.
        
        You are not beyond moral reproach, even if you merely endorse such a thing for strangers instead of defending it for your own family and grandchild.
      - Patti
        
        I’m very sorry you’re unable to share the joy of new life being born into the world because it wasn’t conceived according to your narrow constraints.
        
        There are children without parents, others with very stressed out single parents, and children living in dire poverty. They could all use some help. You’ve spent a lot of time bemoaning how horribly treated 2 little children are when they’re actually well loved and cared for in a loving 2-parent upper-middle class home, with lots of extended family, and a happy life. My daughter, her partner, and a sperm donor take full responsibility for doing something wonderful. As do those of us who aided and abetted. We all helped bring new life into the world into a home with 2 loving committed parents who have the resources to care for them. Were all children born into such a home, the world would be a far better place.
        
        Now go help a child who actually needs help. There are many out there who’d gladly trade places with my grandchildren.
      - Chairm
        
        Your reaction now is to spit at someone you wrongly accused of wanting done what these women (and their father) actually did to these children.
        
        It remains unjustified by anything you have said here. Likewise your boastful endorsement.
        
        As you pointed out, there are children in need so there was no good reason to indulge in creating children for the purpose of making a broken family by design. With yoiur endorsement, they did that to these children. You gloat over your self-indulgence even as your own words demonstrated you ought to know better. You did this to your own grandchild.
        
        And you lied. You bizarrely said that I have “spent a lot of time bemoaning how horribly treated 2 little children are”, yet I have done no such thing. Telling your falsehoods does not disguise your moral cowardice.
        
        Amusingly, earlier you eroneously scoffed at my reading comprehension, and now your own words displayed a lie told by you knowingly — or, if you want to dodge through an escape hatch, an blatant mistaken made by your misreading.
        
        It is on the record. You are not an honest participant in these discussions.
      - Chairm
        
        Putting the children, their interests, their birthright ahead of your self-indulgent choice to do to these children what was done, and to gloat about it, may seem constraining to you, of course.
        
        Because it is.
        
        And that is a good thin for you to admit openly.
        
        Perhaps you will take steps to correct your narrowed selfish ways. Perhaps to guide your daughter to correct herself, too, for the sake of you grandchild.
        
        Sadly, your gloating strongly suggests you will squelch the chilkdren’s needs and smother their expression of those needs, no matter the cost in future.
      - Chairm
        
        The moral depravity of a grandmother (supposedly) who did this to her own flesh and blood and runs away from the simple question, what is the reason this was done.
        
        Your cowardice is on the public record.
      - Chairm
        
        Taking the name of Jesus in vain to cover your wrongdoing is, well, rather telling.
      - Patti
        
        My account said no such thing. That was your interpretation.
        
        Do you think they didn’t go thru the discomfort and pain of 9 months of pregnancy? The pain of delivery, which for one of them lasted several days? The worry, the working of jobs to keep their household going, the loss of sleep as babies are walked and cuddled when they wake in the middle of the night, and all the rest? You have this idea that having and raising children is all about “complimentary” body parts forming a union. I assume you must let your wife do all the work involved, as you haven’t a clue.
        
        I feel sorry for your family. You’re teaching them to hate their neighbor under the banner of some sort of religious righteousness. You probably don’t see it. But those of us reading your posts sure do.
      - Chairm
        
        Your accusations are absurd. Your dodges are not well-disguised.
        
        You said: “You have this idea that having and raising children is all about “complimentary” body parts forming a union.”
        
        Not body parts.
        
        Men and women are not mere body parts.
        
        Marriage is a comprehensive union encompassing the husband and wife on all levels of their being. I explained this. You deliberately misrepresented what I said to mean, absurdly, body parts That discredits you severely.
      - Patti
        
        Some marriages are that all comprehensive unit and others are not. Your explanation goes against the 65 years of my life’s experience that has taught me many perfectly heterosexual marriages fail to meet your glorified standard. That’s why the divorce rate is so high.
        
        And since you seem to believe homosexuals cannot achieve this comprehensive union of body and soul (i.e. a good marriage), then you very much are narrowing it down to body parts.
      - Chairm
        
        You are stuck on certainty of outcome, again. That is your rhetorical standard only when attacking the two-sexed basis of marriage law via yoiur made-up strawmen.
        
        When your supposedly failproof standard is used to test the SSM idea, SSM falls apart in an instance. Meanwhile the man-woman requirement fairs very well and is clarified as coherent and justified.
        
        I did not say body and soul.
        
        I said comprehnsive. Bodily, yes, of course, and not just bodily.
        
        There is no one-sexed form of actual bodily union. At best you might hope to profer some metaphorical unity of bodies. So it would clearly fall short of comprehensive.
        
        And comprehensive is not an impossible standard. It is commonly realized.
        
        It is also not guaranteed by government. So take care not to get stuck on certainty of outcome again.
      - Chairm
        
        I serious doubt that you are old enough to drive. The lack moral substance in your comments stronglky suggests you are immature — chronologically, perhaps, but also emotionally and socially.
      - Chairm
        
        Oh, but that was your account. Do you have a problem with how these children were attained? Your reaction has not been to explain how the decisions might be justified, and that strongly suggest you just can’t offer much of anything and so, instead, divert o something else. It is a rather significant concession.
      - Patti
        
        I don’t have any problem with how these children were conceived. Obviously you do. I cannot explain your feelings. Nor do I understand your feelings sufficiently to offer this justification you’re demanding. Justify what? That 2 beautiful children were brought into this world that otherwise would not exist?
      - Chairm
        
        Another dodge.
        
        You are not asked to explain my feelings.
        
        You endorse what was done to attain these children. Justify that. Stick to reason.
        
        ——
        
        I note that you tried to characterize my reasoning as mere feelings. Another strawman. You misrepresent too much for it to be anything but a deliberately tactic here.
      - Chairm
        
        Well, that was a sickening account of your early childhood. Unverifiable, sure, but also sickening at face value.
        
        As for parenting, do you truly believe that the lack of either mom or dad has no correlation with outcomes for children? If you do, then, you put your personal beliefs over and above the available evidence.
        
        Perhaps you assume that “gay” is an element of family structure that overcomes the lack of either mom or dad? No facts back that up.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Why is it sickening? I was 3-4 years of age. I’m simply sharing with you that being gay was something I knew all my life and were some ofl my first ever, independent thoughts and I come from a very good family – my parents are still together after 40 years.
        
        I’m really sorry to hear that the personal lives of OTHER people have such a dramatic effect on your heterosexual life.
        
        I’m sorry that it’s such an issue for you that some people feel different to you and that they have a natural attraction to something that is different to yours.
        
        Im sorry that this seems to have such a horrific impact on your life that you need to say the most ghastly things to them.
        
        I’m really sorry that you must share this planet with me.
        
        I am just so unbelievably grateful that I am not like you. That I don’t spend my days and nights thinking about why the couple next door seems happy, despite the fact that their arrangement, compared to mine, seems unusual.
        
        I’m utterly grateful that there is no single group of people that occupy my thoughts such as seems to be the case with you, one whose doing poisons my own sanity.
        
        I am just so unbelievably grateful that I am a tolerant person and that I prefer to spend my energy worrying about people blasted to death in their homes in Ukraine, children dying in Africa and women being stoned to death in Saudi Arabia for being raped as opposed to frivolous facts such as who happens to be gay and who not.
        
        I am so glad that the sexual attraction of persons over the age of consent isn’t newsworthy enough that it has the remotest of effects on my mental wellbeing.
        
        I am so glad that I am not like you.
      - Chairm
        
        Sickening?
        
        You said: “To me as a 3-5 year old kid it was pure porn.”
        
        You said: ” I remember peeping through the keyhole of the bathroom door when I was just 5 and asking them if they would shower with me.”
        
        If prompted, and I won’t, you might say yet more ghastly about yourself.
        
        Anyway, your diatribe is irrelevant to marriage even if it is central to your hostility toward the man-woman sexual basis of the marital relationship.
        
        Your homosexual emphasis is yours and yet it remains irrelvant to marriage itself. It is extrinsic to marriage.
      - Chairm
        
        You just raised the flag of a sexual predator of children. Sickening.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        How on earth could I have raised the flag of sexual predation on children if I shared with you an attraction I had to images of men when I WAS FOUR YEARS OLD??
        
        What an offensive remark.
        
        At that age I obviously never acted on my attraction and no adult ever took advantage of me.
        
        They were just the memories of the first time I realised that I was attracted to other boys. There is absolutely no predation here. I was a child. You are a truly, truly sick individual.
        
        No wonder the Catholic Church is full of child molesters because they all think of you. Religion clearly warps the mind.
        
        Can you not remember the first time you looked at a girl and realised that you liked girls more than boys? You would have been a very young child. That moment is clear and defining in my memory.
        
        You clearly did not read my message thoroughly if that is the conclusion that you drew. What a sick man.
      - Patti
        
        A lot of little boys develop crushes on their adult female teachers. So is that a flag of a sexual predator of children?
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Hey Patti… I think this man just showed himself up for his warped he is. Either that or he didn’t read my reply properly….
      - Patti
        
        His own arguments are incoherent. He’s never come up with any of this “available evidence” he claims is out there showing gay parents are bad. And then when it’s pointed out that all the major medical and psychiatric organizations world-wide who’ve conducted studies over decades state gay parents do fine, he claims they’re all “gaycentric.” And he actually thinks we’re the ones putting personal beliefs above available evidence.
        
        If what his side claims is 1% of the population has bamboozled pretty much the entire medical/psychological segment of the civilized world without ever resorting to weaponry, then what does this say about the far greater number of good Christians who’ve been opposing them? They must be impossibly inept.
      - Chairm
        
        You raised the flag on yourself.
        
        In plain sight.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Hahaha! You are completely incoherent. I told you how I felt when I was 4. There were no adults involved. You are a sick, sick individual and the most satisfying consolation is that your ilk is dying off and that the western world is slowly being rid of your kind.
      - Chairm
        
        Whatever your ilk, Johan, you did say that adult men were involved in your account. Whether or not the account can be excused by you here, in your mind, it remains a classic “tell”.
        
        You raised the flag on yourself, not on others.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        I simply told you that I at the age of 4 I found the image of a man attractive (Adam doesn’t or didn’t ever exist, he was merely a fictional character in a childrens Bible) and did not find the woman (Eve) attractive.
        
        It was not a sexual attraction you dirty paedophile! I was 4!! FOUR!!!
        
        It was MERELY a preference of the male image over the female image. What four year old has a sexual attraction??
        
        You obviously have dirty paedophilic tendencies. I knew there was something wrong with you.
        
        Please go turn yourself in. Or better yet, dispose of yourself permanently.
      - Patti
        
        Chairm’s still haranguing me about my gay daughter and her kids. He was incensed that I should suggest he wanted to break up their home, but now he says she needs to repent her sins – which would mean leaving her partner and thus breaking up the home. I made my final post to him a day or 2 ago where I praised the birth of new life. He’s still fuming and ranting about that.
      - Chairm
        
        Now an even bigger and darker flag, based on your own words.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        You are a disgusting, disturbed paedophile… You insert details, ideas and suggestions where there aren’t any.
        
        I am joining Patti in ignoring you. I wouldn’t wipe my ass on your face if the last square of toilet paper was used on this planet, why would I debate with you?.
        
        You are indoctrinated with superstition and completely imbalanced… Happy ranting!!
      - Chairm
        
        Huge red flag.
      - Chairm
        
        Join Patti? Sock puppets together.
      - Patti
        
        Plenty of studies have been done on gay parents and the children turn out fine just as often as those from straight parents do. The facts are there. You just can’t accept them. Here’s a link if you want to start researching the issue:
        
        http://www.apa.org/news/press/response/gay-parents.aspx
        
        Good parents make a difference. What sex they are hasn’t proven to be relevant. Perhaps it would matter if children were raised in an isolated environment where they had little to no contact with one sex, but few children are raised in a vacuum.
      - Chairm
        
        As for parenting, do you truly believe that the lack of either mom or dad has no correlation with outcomes for children? If you do, then, you put your personal beliefs over and above the available evidence.
        
        Perhaps you assume that “gay” is an element of family structure that overcomes the lack of either mom or dad? No facts back that up.
      - Patti
        
        What available evidence? Your side has stated evidence that 2 parents tend to be better then 1, but have offered no evidence that the 2 parents must be of the opposite sex.
      - Chairm
        
        You are ill-informed on the topic.
        
        For many decades we have accumulated mountainous evidence that the lack of either mom or dad correlates with poorer outcomes for children on average.
        
        Do you believe that gay is the decisive element of family structure such that it overcomes the lack of either mom or dad in outcomes for children?
        
        Heterosexuality does not do it so it woukd be a stretch to assert that homosexuality does what common biological and social parenting appears to do, according to the evidence on outcomes for children based on family structure.
        
        Any study you might cite, one way or the other, on so-called “same-sex parenting” would exclude other one-sexed childrearing scenarios for the sake of a gay emphasis. But without justification.
        
        Perhaps you think that it is not gay identity that is the decisive element, but same-sexed sexual attraction and behavior?
        
        This, in your view, might even justify the decision made by two women to attain children via extra-marital procreation.
      - Chairm
        
        You arrogant fool. There is far more to the research on chikdren and family structure han the piddle on offer by the gaycentric activists. Give your head a good shake.
      - Patti
        
        You totally ignore all the legitimate studies that can pass peer review.
      - Chairm
        
        Do I?
        
        Nope.
        
        There is far more than gaycentric research when it comes to children and family structure. Maybe you think this wider research is not peer reviewed.
        
        Heh.
      - Patti
        
        You have yet to come up with any. I can give you links to every major recognized medical and psychological organization out there citing research over several decades, but I’m guessing you know that. Your side has the infamous Regnerus study where children from intact families were compared to those from non-intact families and they pretended it had something to do with gay parents.
        
        http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/03/04/mark_regnerus_testifies_in_michigan_same_sex_marriage_case_his_study_is.html
        
        And isn’t your side’s assumption that all the major health organizations in the developed world are “gaycentric” slightly paranoid? How did this minority population take over the world? Could it be the evidence was on their side and they simply started winning people over?
      - Chairm
        
        Incompetence on your part does not require me or anyone else to spoonfeed you the mountainous evidence. It is amusing that you think the piddle you offer is all there is. How naive – or politically narrow and self-serving of you.
        
        As for non-intact vs intact families, no fatherless and no motherless famiky is an intact family.
        
        Earlier I asked you about your gay emphasis and you dodged. Think about it.
        
        Is gay a structural element of family form? Explain.
      - Patti
        
        Incompetence on your part does not require me or anyone else to spoonfeed you the mountainous evidence.
        
        So you don’t have any. Figured as much.
        
        As for non-intact vs intact families, no fatherless and no motherless famiky is an intact family.
        
        By intact family I was referring to a 2-parent family who’d stayed together for the child’s life. And yes there are such families among gay people. You do some research for a change.
        
        Earlier I asked you about your gay emphasis and you dodged.
        
        Because I don’t know what you’re talking about.
        
        Is gay a structural element of family form? Explain.
        
        Try explaining your question.
      - Chairm
        
        The social-scientific evidence is not limited to gaycentric research. To illustrate the obvious, go gather your few dozen or so studies and count the total number of children that were actually studied.
        
        It is a pittance compared with the total number of children studied across decades of research on family structure and outcomes for children.
        
        The gaycentric research is rife with essential flaws. The wider research is rich with randomized and longitudinal studies of large samples.
        
        Also, there is no social-scientific narrative that can justify gaycentric research, anyway, because gay is not an element of family structure. It might be a feature that shades fatherless or motherless structures, but its not a magical ingredient that makes the broken family an intact family.
        
        The vast majority of the adult homosexual population does not reside in same-sex households (census term for household led by householder in live-in homosexual relationship), least of all in such households with children resident. About 85% does not live in same-sex households and more 95% does not live in such households with children.
        
        So given the small population of adult homosexual people, and given the relative rarity of their raising children in same-sex households, you are up against it to produce large randomized longitudinal studies. On the other hand there is plenty of legitimate research that meet the higher standards on fatherless and motherless structures.
        
        Your political attempt to dictate what intact means is not even useful for the bulk, small asit really is, of gaycenric studies, much less representative of the child population in same-sex households.
        
        By far most of these children are the chilldren of divorced or estranged man-woman couples (usually married or cohabitating). So they don’t fit your redefinition of intact. That’s about 95% of the children in same-sex households.
        
        Maybe 3-4% were adopted. They don’t fit your redefinition of intact.
        
        Less than a fraction of 1% might have been attained through third mparty procreation. They don’t fit the social-scientific standard for intact, but might squeeze into your redefi ition.
        
        So why your gaycentric emphasis in the first place? And why the redefinition of intact, which excludes almost all of these children?
        
        Read this comment again, carefully, before repeating the mistake of blithely instructing me to do some research. Your vain attempt at insult was just another dodge.
      - Chairm
        
        That account is not relevant to marriage.
      - Patti
        
        It’s very relevant to who she’s capable of bonding with in a committed union.
      - Chairm
        
        I take our word for that. Still, it is irrelevant to marriage itself.
      - Patti
        
        Who you love and form a pair bond with is very relevant to marriage. And it’s relevant to creating a happy stable home for children.
      - Chairm
        
        Pure assertion.
        
        Is love a requirement for those who’d SSM? No legal requirement.
        
        Is childrearing via third party procreation a legal requirement? No.
        
        The pair bond of man and woman is procreative in kind and commonly procreative in outcome because it is a sexual type of relationship that, as a comprehensive type of union, is organically founded on the fact of life that coital relations unifies the male and female bodies, their complentary sexual embodiment, and is oriented to procreation.
        
        How would you habe government distinguish between the same-sex pair bond, as you might out it, and other types of one-sexed relationships?
      - Patti
        
        I’d let the parties decide for themselves. It’s not the government’s decision.
        
        And this is my last post to you. You are too insulting and condescending for me to continue this discussion.
      - Chairm
        
        So the individuals decide and the SSM law can not exclude any type of relationship?
        
        That is where your rhetoric leads. Your remarks have undone the SSM viewpoint. The imposition of SSM not only abolishes the man-woman requirement (and all that it actually says about authentic nature of marriage), it demonstrates the utter arbitrariness of SSM law and of the rhetoic that promotes it.
        
        That arbitrariness directly contradicts the pro-SSM claim that the man-woman requirement is supposedly arbitrary. The SSM advocates have failed to justify the SSM imposition.
        
        That imposition, and that rhetoric, sets the stage, rather blatantly, for the abolition of the special status of marriage in our laws and social mores.
        
        The SSM campaign may be well-intentioned, but it is ill-conceived and so it is ill-argued. Both. The SSM idea is inferior to the marriage idea and when SSM advocates are confronted forthrightly with this comparison, a comparison beckoned by their own rhetoric and hostility, they dodge, they cry foul, they flee the actual argument, while spitting ad homs.
        
        They could do better, if the SSM idea had better equipped them, but they are promoting a lousy idea and need to resort to hyper-emotional noise and banging the tribal drums of gay identity politics.
      - Catherine Mill
        
        What does legal actually mean?
        A group in USA want pedophilia aka child rape to be made legal….so are you OK with that too.?
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        I am not “OK” with child rape. Straw man argument, and once again off topic.
        
        Not in any way related to the topic of same sex marriage.
      - bman
        
        re: “Off topic. We are discussing a legal issue.”
        —
        And so, you should agree that, “.. countries with constitutions that ban gay marriage are legitimate in enforcing that ban.”
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        A country with a constitution that is based on discrimination of minorities would not be one that I could admire. If that is the constitution, then that discrimination is, by definition, legal.
        
        If you wish to prevent same sex marriage in the US at this point, a constitutional amendment is probably going to be required. Considering how much public support it will take to embed discrimination into the constitution, I really doubt your success.
      - bman
        
        re: “….a constitution that is based on discrimination of minorities would not be one that I could admire.”
        —-
        Anything that makes a distinction can be called “discrimination.”
        
        Someone else could just as easily say bisexuals are “discriminated” against because they can’t marry both sexes, for example.
        
        Anyway, your comment about discrimination presumes that law is flawed if its incompatible with a self evident moral law.
        
        That fits the point Andrew K was making here, “If all we are discussing is a matter of “legal rights,” you should allow that countries with constitutions that ban gay marriage are legitimate in enforcing that ban.”
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        We are discussing existing US Constitutional law, not some hypothetical other country. A law is flawed if it is incompatible with the US constitution.
      - bman
        
        re: “We are discussing existing US Constitutional law, not some hypothetical other country.”
        —
        The question can be changed to fit that, “If all we are discussing is a matter of legal rights then you should accept a federal marriage amendment as legitimate if passed.”
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        True. If you can change the constitution to fundamentally include discrimination of some citizens, then by definition, that discrimination becomes legal. You could say the same about the civil rights act – if you changed the constitution to restrict the voting rights of African Americans, it would no longer be unconstitutional to deny them the right to vote.
      - bman
        
        re: “If you can change the constitution to fundamentally include discrimination of some citizens, then by definition, that discrimination becomes legal… if you changed the constitution to restrict the voting rights of African Americans, it would no longer be unconstitutional to deny them the right to vote.”
        —-
        If that became “legal,” it would also be bad law.
        
        The battle against SSM is partly based on the principle that higher moral law is real law, and that codified law should agree with higher moral law.
      - Griffonn
        
        I hate the false equivalence with African-Americans.
        
        Gays are closer to incestuous unions than they are to African-Americans; nobody is discriminating against them based on a passive trait (what state requires that you prove you are 100% hetero before you can marry?) but if you point out their situation is a lot more like polygamists, incestuous couples, or pedophiles than anything else, they scream “slippery slope!” – as if “blacks get the right to participate in marriage the same ways whites do, so therefore sexual minorities get the right to change the way marriage is done and introduce drastic changes to the rules” isn’t a slippery slope?
        
        What gays want is not “equality” – they have that already, and it isn’t enough. What they want are special accommodations so that they can have equality of OUTCOME. That is a disability rights argument – in the same category as demanding wheelchair ramps or more time on school tests. It has nothing to do with anything blacks ever fought for, but gays are using blacks for purely ad misericordiam reasons.
      - Lutesuite
        
        Gays are closer to incestuous unions than they are to African-Americans; nobody is discriminating against them based on a passive trait (what state requires that you prove you are 100% hetero before you can marry?) but if you point out their situation is a lot more like polygamists, incestuous couples, or pedophiles than anything else, they scream “slippery slope!” – as if “blacks get the right to participate in marriage the same ways whites do, so therefore sexual minorities get the right to change the way marriage is done and introduce drastic changes to the rules” isn’t a slippery slope?
        
        You don’t seem to realize how that argument works against you. Recognition of SSM would be unimaginable if anti-miscegenation laws were nor first repealed. So if SSM is a “slippery slope” to polygamous or incestuous marriage, then that slope started with allowing mixed race marriage. So should that have not been allowed?
        
        In any event, SSM only became a viable issue since homosexuality itself became widely accepted. I don’t see that ever happening with incest or pedophilia.
        
        The outright bigotry of your likening both of those to homosexuality needs only be noted without further comment.
      - Griffonn
        
        You are actively seeking special privileges – above and beyond what citizens are normally allowed to do and exempting yourself from obligations citizens are normally required to adhere to.
        
        That is why you have to call me hateful names: to hide the fact that your argument is really a disability rights argument, not at all like what blacks asked for in any way – but you don’t want to admit that the crux of your argument is that gays are so broken that they need special accommodations in order to live seemingly-normal lives, because you want to prey on their sense of denial which requires that you continue to promise them that they can be just like people with normal healthy sexualities, that somehow the law can MAKE people play along with the fantasy that their fake families are real and are like real families. But that can never happen because their families are built on lies, lacking the authority that both biological families come with naturally, and that adoptive families earn through love (real love, the kind that gives to the child the best possible home – not what gays call “love”, which is about using the child to meet the adults’ needs at the EXPENSE of the child’s needs).
        
        You have to call me names because real civil rights never rest on lies – exactly the opposite; real civl rights FREE us from lies. Which is why I am so confident that the children here will be recognized as the real civil rights victims.
      - Lutesuite
        
        You are actively seeking special privileges – above and beyond what citizens are normally allowed to do and exempting yourself from obligations citizens are normally required to adhere to.
        
        There is no special privilege being sought here. Marriage is already available to everyone else, and homosexuals are exempted from no obligations that are required of others who seek a marriage license. The only change is the removal of the gender stipulation. This will benefit all people, not just homosexuals (if ,for some unfathomable reason, a straight person wanted to marry someone of the same gender) while removing a discriminatory barrier to homosexual people receiving the state benefits of marriage.
        
        But that can never happen because their families are built on lies, lacking the authority that both biological families come with naturally, and that adoptive families earn through love (real love, the kind that gives to the child the best possible home – not what gays call “love”, which is about using the child to meet the adults’ needs at the EXPENSE of the child’s needs).
        
        Free advice: If you don’t like being called a bigot, stop saying things like the above, which is exactly the sort of thing only a bigot would say about another group of people.
      - Griffonn
        
        What you want is for us to pretend that what you are doing is marriage.
        
        You want to make it a crime for us to acknowledge the significant, relevant distinctions between what you are doing vs. what married people do.
        
        You want to pervert the institution away from something that protects women & children from exploitation, into one that actively legitimizes your need to exploit women & children (and to expand the exploitation to include the male and his family, as well).
        
        You make your children lie for you. That isn’t civil rights. That’s pathetic.
      - Lutesuite
        
        I’m a man married to a woman. How is “what I am doing” different than what you consider marriage?
        
        Your presuppositions aside, what is different between what a person married to someone of the same sex is “doing” and what someone married to someone of the opposite sex is “doing”, besides the gender of the person with which they are “doing” it?
        
        If I’m playing a game of tennis, it doesn’t matter if the person I’m playing with is male or female. I’m still playing tennis.
        
        And if you think the traditional forms of marriage were a means of protecting women, you really need to learn some history. This lecture gives a good overview:
        
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIeAnU7_7TA
      - Griffonn
        
        By “you” I mean the plural. You = sexual revolution warriors, the people who want to change the rules so that families are weak and government is strong, so that people have to rely on lefties for their government cheese and public housing instead of relying on their families.
        
        Because, of course, changing adoption from an institution that is based on finding the best possible home for the child in crisis into an institution where rich people can draw from a class of women-as-livestock to buy parts and services to custom-build children-for-sale is like taking the entire idea of breaking families to a whole new level: it is literally changing the definition of “family” from a biological kinship unit to a “choice” made by fickle rich people, reducing two thirds of the family members to the level of chattel who will need to beg you lefties for bread and water.
      - Lutesuite
        
        Because, of course, changing adoption from an institution that is based on finding the best possible home for the child in crisis into an institution where rich people can draw from a class of women-as-livestock to buy parts and services to custom-build children-for-sale is like taking the entire idea of breaking families to a whole new level:
        
        So what does that have to do with the issue of same sex marriage? Are you just presuming that same sex couples are worse parents than opposite sex couples? Based on what, exactly? (Other than your own prejudices, of course).
        
        Meanwhile, some more facts, to counter the hate-filled lies you continue to spew:
        
        An October 2011 report by Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute found that, of gay and lesbian adoptions at more than 300 agencies, 10 percent of the kids placed were older than 6 — typically a very difficult age to adopt out. About 25 percent were older than 3. Sixty percent of gay and lesbian couples adopted across races, which is important given that minority children in the foster system tend to linger. More than half of the kids adopted by gays and lesbians had special needs.
        
        The report didn’t compare the adoption preferences of gay couples directly with those of heterosexual couples, said author David Brodzinsky, research director at the Institute and co-editor of “Adoption By Lesbians and Gay Men: A New Dimension of Family Diversity” (Oxford University Press, 2011). But research suggests that gays and lesbians are more likely than heterosexuals to adopt older, special-needs and minority children, he said. Part of that could be their own preferences, and part could be because of discrimination by adoption agencies that puts more difficult children with what caseworkers see as “less desirable” parents.
        
        http://www.livescience.com/17913-advantages-gay-parents.html
      - bman
        
        re: “So what does that have to do with the issue of same sex marriage? Are you just presuming that same sex couples are worse parents than opposite sex couples?”
        —
        The debate is not simply about parenting skills, though I think Regnerus has shown there is much to debate there.
        
        Granting formal “marital” status to SS couples degrades sexual morality norms for the entire society, and it creates incentive for non-intact family structures to multiply on a population scale. It also institutionalizes the commercialization of children, women, and men through surrogacy and sperm banks, and subverts monogamy as an expected norm, which entails long term negative implications for society and for children.
        
        To put it another way, marriage between a man and woman only is needed to protect monogamy, and we need to protect monogamy to prevent the degrading of morality and the degrading of human dignity that will otherwise manifest in society.
      - Griffonn
        
        The debate is not about parenting SKILLS at all.
        
        It’s about the very idea of what parenting is – whether parents need to be expected to have any obligation toward the child’s interests at all, or whether the child can be reduced to a commodity, a pet, a thing to be used.
        
        First they want to deprive the child of what, by their own arguments, are some of the most important aspects of being human. That is, when their own rights are involved, gays argue passionately that
        “relationships” and “experiences” and “identity” or “cultural”
        “signifiers” or “components” are IMMENSELY important – so much so that
        depriving someone of the right to enjoy ALL such
        signifiers/experiences/components/relationships/etc constitutes human
        rights violations.
        
        But then they need the child to live a narrative – to “live a lie”, you could say.
        
        And they want the child to literally be deprived of the legal rights that other children enjoy – “be second class citizens”.
        
        Every single thing they claim as a horrific human rights violation being done to them by not giving them what they want = something they intend to do to their child, and the child “isn’t going to mind” because …
        
        …
        
        …
        
        ?
      - Lutesuite
        
        The debate is not simply about parenting skills, though I think Regnerus has shown there is much to debate there.
        
        The only thing to debate WRT to Rengerus is how it is possible for such an incompetent and dishonest “researcher” to still have a job.
        
        Granting formal “marital” status to SS couples degrades sexual morality norms for the entire society, and it creates incentive for non-intact family structures to multiply on a population scale. It also institutionalizes the commercialization of children, women, and men through surrogacy and sperm banks, and subverts monogamy as an expected norm, which entails long term negative implications for society and for children.
        
        To put it another way, marriage between a man and woman only is needed to protect monogamy, and we need to protect monogamy to prevent the degrading of morality and the degrading of human dignity that will otherwise manifest in society.
        
        As I’ve said to someone else here, if you have an argument against IVF or surrogacy, then make them in the appropriate venue. They have no relevance to a debate over SSM. SSM can exist without them, and they will exist without SSM. Separate issues.
        
        As to how making monogamous relationships available to MORE people “degrades” and weakens monogamy, well, you’ll have to explain that one further….
      - bman
        
        re: “They have no relevance to a debate over SSM. SSM can exist without them…”
        —
        The institutionalization of SSM presumes formal approval of IVF, surrogacy, and non-monogamy since that is the only way procreation can occur within that marriage concept.
      - Lutesuite
        
        The institutionalization of SSM presumes formal approval of IVF, surrogacy, and non-monogamy since that is the only way procreation can occur within that marriage concept.
        
        Irrelevant. As I said, those already exist without SSM, and if they were all banned then SSM could still exist, with adoption or step-parenthood being the only options.
        
        If you think those things are bad, then protest against them and try get them banned.
      - Griffonn
        
        Why does the child need to be deprived of a mother or a father in order for gays to love a person of the same sex?
        
        Why do the needs of gays have to be prioritized over the best interests of children? I mean, the whole argument for “gay marriage” is that marriage “is not inherently procreative”, so why can’t gays live like they actually mean it and actually do what’s right by their child, instead of coming up with elaborate justifications for why children need to be deprived of valuable things as if it were the kids’ job to provide for the parents’ needs?
      - Lutesuite
        
        Why does the child need to be deprived of a mother or a father in order for gays to love a person of the same sex?Why do the needs of gays have to be prioritized over the best interests of children?
        
        Children of same sex couples are being deprived of nothing. There is no evidence of a need for children to have parents of both sexes.
        
        Why should the “needs” of people who have a personal dislike for SSM take priority over the needs of children up for adoption who, if there were not same-sex couples available to adopt them, would remain without parents?
      - Griffonn
        
        So a child being raised by two men is not deprived of the chance to have a mother?
        
        Real civil rights are not built out of lies.
      - Lutesuite
        
        So a child being raised by two men is not deprived of the chance to have a mother?
        
        No more than a child raised by a straight couple is “deprived” of the chance of being raised by two fathers.
        
        Parental gender has no effect on how children fare.
      - Griffonn
        
        There is no evidence because the relevant questions are conspicuously not asked.
        
        Where is the study showing that a girl raised by two men is as comfortable talking about menstruation with her “father” as she would be with a mother? I wasn’t aware there were even enough girls raised by male gays to even conduct such a study. Normally the impact analysis comes BEFORE the policy change, not AFTER.
        
        Where is the study that proves girls are just as comfortable dancing with a “second mother” at their wedding as they would be with a dad? Because I want to see how they control for incentive bias – the only studies I’ve seen that rely on interviews with the kids, the PARENTS WERE ALLOWED TO KNOW WHAT THE KIDS SAID.
        
        Where are the studies showing the long-term effects of boys who are expected to talk about sexual matters with mothers rather than fathers? I want to see if such drastic deliberate introductions of what I would call “boundary issues” affects the family in the long term. Does it impact the son’s ability to interact with females? To identify with other males? What about in the second generation?
        
        Answer: there are no such studies, because you guys are only interested in created studies that are rigged from the start to create the illusion that gays are good, loving parents. That is why ALL of your studies have deliberately introduced methodological flaws – like carefully selected samples against the general population rather than comparing apples with apples (“Children Raised By Affluent White Lesbians Get Better Grades!” doesn’t mean much when we know affluence and whiteness are both correlated with educational advantage) instead of controlling for all the relevant variables.
      - Lutesuite
        
        There is no evidence because the relevant questions are conspicuously not asked.
        
        So why don’t the anti-SSM folks ask those questions? Why, when they are given money to do research, do they end up producing bogus research with cooked data, like Rengerus did?
      - Griffonn
        
        BTW there is no flaw in Regnerus’ research that is not also present in every other study.
      - Griffonn
        
        Because the entire idea that children are products to be measured via quality assurance standards is flawed. It is the same argument that slaveholders once made when they argued that slaveholding was just because slaves were more likely to be fed and have good clothing than free black men.
      - Lutesuite
        
        Because the entire idea that children are products to be measured via quality assurance standards is flawed.
        
        And since that is what your entire argument rests on, you’ve just refuted yourself again.
      - Griffonn
        
        Even if it were true that all gays and lesbians prefer older, “unadoptable” kids (when really the only reason they have traditionally preferred such kids is because they had trouble accessing what they call “equality” – that is, they were locked out of the baby-buying market, because their rights as consumers were not yet recognized) – it still does not change the fact that the act of same-sex marriage necessarily means prioritizing the desires of gay adults over what’s best for children.
        
        What’s best for children are adults who are actually committed to the child’s welfare, instead of parents who want to use the children to meet their own needs & then want the child to LIE for them by pretending not to mind.
        
        They do mind. Some are starting to speak out. It is only a matter of time until this particular form of child abuse is recognized.
        
        Also, given that older child adoption has a spectacularly high failure rate (second only to kids adopted from foreign orphanages), it is not at all clear that it’s healthy for the LEAST committed parents to have the kids who need the MOST committed parents. They really ought to remain foster parents so that the kids can have access to services and support: http://www.reuters.com/investigates/adoption/
      - Lutesuite
        
        What’s best for children are adults who are actually committed to the child’s welfare, instead of parents who want to use the children to meet their own needs & then want the child to LIE for them by pretending not to mind.
        
        Yes. So what does this have to do with same sex marriage? Oh, unless someone is so bigoted against gays that he assumes they are incapable of prioritizing their children’s needs over their own.
        
        I think a gay couple would be far better parents than a bigot like that.
      - Griffonn
        
        Gay or straight, any parent who is so invested in his own needs that he forces the child to pretend that there is no difference between a same-sex parent vs. an opposite-sex parent is not only unfit to be a parent (and guilty of child abuse), but a moral monster.
        
        Only a really selfish person would make a child feel guilt for wanting to discuss her menstruation with a woman rather than a man. Read the book “Motherless Daughters” and read anecdotes about how girls who are abandoned by their mothers at birth really feel.
        
        Or wait a few years and hear the children of gays talk about the unnatural and uncomfortable positions they were forced to adopt, in order to naturalize their parents’ dysfunctional fantasies. They are already starting to speak out. The only thing preventing some of them from speaking out publicly is the heavy duty toxicity of the various means of coercion these “loving” parents use to keep their children focused on the needs of the parents, and feeling guilty for having a reality that differs from the script assigned to them.
        
        Gays lovingly imagine their kids stick up for them because they’re. right. The reality is that at least some of these kids are waiting and hoping (rather desperately) that their parents will GROW THE FF UP ALREADY, because their kids need a grownup – not an emotionally fragile manchild who will lock himself in the closet screaming if the child says something that interferes with his precious “narrative”.
      - Lutesuite
        
        Also, given that older child adoption has a spectacularly high failure rate (second only to kids adopted from foreign orphanages), it is not at all clear that it’s healthy for the LEAST committed parents to have the kids who need the MOST committed parents.
        
        Well, that’s an argument in favour of SSM, isn’t it? Any same sex couple that become parents can only do so thru lots of deliberate planning. They can’t have a child just by accident. Whereas, for straight couples, it’s quite easy to have an accidental child.
        
        In fact, the argument was made by the states to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals that SSM bans were justified because it was straight couples that needed to be persuaded to stay together and look after the children they didn’t really plan on having, whereas there was no need for the state to do this for gay couples. This argument was received with predictable amusement and incredulity by the court:
        
        [The] government thinks that straight couples tend to be sexually irresponsible, producing unwanted children by the carload, and must be pressured (in the form of government encouragement of marriage through a combination of sticks and carrots) to marry, but that gay couples, unable as they are to produce children wanted or unwanted, are model parents—model citizens really—so have no need for marriage….
        
        Heterosexuals get drunk and pregnant, producing unwanted children; their reward is to be allowed to marry. Homosexual couples do not produce unwanted children; their reward is to be denied the right to marry. Go figure.
        
        http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/09/05/judge_richard_posner_s_gay_marriage_opinion_is_witty_moral_and_brilliant.html
        
        “Go figure”, indeed. You guys need to start comparing notes, so you don’t keep contradicting each others’ arguments.
      - Griffonn
        
        If marriage is not procreative, then there is no reason why any child EVER should be asked to give up a mother-relationship or a father-relationship. The fact that Susan loves Gina does not make Gina the parent of Susan’s child, and there is no reason why Susan’s child should not be allowed a relationship with his real father, or have an adoptive father if that is not possible.
        
        So the real question is, if you really believe that marriage is not procreative, how come you can’t expect gays to live by their own alleged beliefs?
      - Lutesuite
        
        So the real question is, if you really believe that marriage is not procreative, how come you can’t expect gays to live by their own alleged beliefs?
        
        That marriage is not necessarily procreative does not entail that it cannot be procreative.
        
        Gay and straight couples alike can decide for themselves whether they want their marriages to be “procreative”. (For gay couples, of course, it’s much easier to stick to a decision that it not be procreative. A big problem is that too many straight couples end up in procreative relationships that they did not intend to be procreative.)
      - Griffonn
        
        That isn’t the question I asked, though.
        
        Answer the question I asked, instead of dishonestly inverting it. We are not talking about whether people who are eligible for procreative benefits are obliged to use those benefits.
      - Lutesuite
        
        Your question is incoherent. If someone does not believe marriage is, by definition, “procreative”, how is that inconsistent with their deciding to have and raise children?
      - Griffonn
        
        If we do not grant that gays are “married”, then in what sense can they have children together?
        
        They can only have children together if we prioritize the gay couple’s “right” to “have” a child over the child’s right to be placed only with committed intact homes.
      - Lutesuite
        
        Oh. So because gays are not allowed to get married (in some places) they are not suitable to raise children. And since they are not suitable to raise children, they should not be allowed to get married.
        
        Circular argument much?
      - Griffonn
        
        No, I absolutely support gay individuals’ right to have and raise children.
        
        What I do not support is the idea that somehow, because gays “need” to raise children together (a point that I still have not seen established – why do they “need” this, if marraige “is not procreative”?), we should therefore pretend that what they are doing is harmless. It is not harmless; it is at best proof of a serious lack of commitment to the child’s interests, and it requires that the child be stripped of everything that gays themselves hold to be important* (as I’ve already argued, although I notice you carefully avoid my argument, apparently under the delusional belief that if you ignore it, it will go away.)
        
        *”Everything gays themselves hold to be important” – the basis of gay rights claims are that it is morally reprehensible to expect gays to “live a lie”, that “relationships are important”, that “experiences are important”, that not having the same rights as other people means being a “second class citizen” (though of course gays do have the same rights, and are using dishonest language to argue that they need special accommodations), etc.
        
        (1) “The right to not live a lie”: children of gays are told what they are expected to think and feel about being motherless, and are pressured from birth to feel the way they are told, creating a very dysfunctional taboo. Evidence: numerous YouTube videos show gay couples happily forcing children and toddlers to proselytize for their parents’ agenda, “witnessing” how happy they are to have two dads instead of a healthy intact family.
        
        (2) and (3) Relationships and experiences are important: hence my focus on how there is substantial evidence that, despite the ideological WISH of Sexual Revolution Warriors that androgyny be possible, in reality children do experience parents as gendered, and are deprived of significant experiences by being forced to pretend otherwise. See also Doug Mainwaring, “I’m Gay And I Oppose Same-Sex Marriage”, specifically the part where he describes his teenage son kissing mom.
        
        (4) “Second Class Citizenship” – family law in all states + federal Uniform Child Custody Act based on legal presumption that (a) all children have the right to a relationship with and support from/by both natural parents, that (b) this relationship can be severed ONLY by a judge and (c) ONLY in accordance with the child’s best interests, and that (d) subsequent decisions about the child’s custody be determined according to what is best for the child. Gays have successfully argued that their rights supersede this, and thus their children are exempt from (a), (b), (c), and (d).
      - Griffonn
        
        Nobody is disputing that people with a license are not obliged to use that license – whether that license is for a marriage, the right to hunt or fish on public lands, or the right to drive a car.
        
        To establish eligibility for a license, one need only prove that one meets the criteria, NOT that one intends to use the license.
        
        The question is not whether hetero people are obliged to be procreative. The question is why people who can only procreate parasitically need to be exempted from the normal obligations that go with making a family, and/or need to be allowed to put their own emotional and/or political agenda first and foremost in a process that is supposed to be about the kid, not about THEM.
      - Lutesuite
        
        The question is why people who can only procreate parasitically need to be exempted from the normal obligations that go with making a family, and/or need to be allowed to put their own emotional and/or political
        agenda first and foremost in a process that is supposed to be about the kid, not about THEM.
        
        Homosexual people “can only procreate parasitically”? What is that supposed to mean? Sounds to my like it’s intended as nothing more than a slur.
        
        Homosexual people are exempted from none of the “normal obligations” of a family. And your accusation that they wlll “put their own emotional and/or political agenda first and foremost” is nothing more than another unfounded slur.
        
        For someone who does not like to be called a bigot, you sure go to a lot of effort to sound exactly like one,
      - Griffonn
        
        It means there is no way that a gay couple can acquire a child that does not require exploitation of one or more people.
        
        There is an inherent conflict between what the child has reason to value vs. what gays want.
      - Lutesuite
        
        Who is exploited by an adoption? Or by remarrying after a divorce?
        
        If your argument is against IVF or surrogate pregnancy (though WRT the former, it’s hard for me to see how a man is being “exploited” by merely agreeing to masturbate into a cup), then make that argument. That is a separate issue from SSM, since heterosexual couples have children by those means as well.
      - Griffonn
        
        So what is the basis of your belief that we ought to view gender as being interchangeable for the purpose of parenting (but not for the purpose of what YOU want)?
        
        Why do you imagine a child would not care about what gender his mother is?
        
        Do you have any evidence at all that same-sex parents and opposite-sex parents are interchangeable? Because the studies specific to lesbian parenting is very careful to AVOID anything that might raise the relevant questions, and real science (as opposed to the LGBTQ propaganda studies which are riddled with methodological flaws) shows that there are in fact differences between how males parent and how females parent, as well as differences between the roles & relationships between a child and his or her same-sex parent vs. his or her opposite-sex parent.
        
        Your entire argument boils down to accepting, as the default, the very point that is YOUR burden to prove. That you need to rely so heavily on begging the question leads me to believe you not only don’t have a rebuttal, but you KNOW you don’t have a rebuttal and are trying to play sleight-of-hand games.
      - Lutesuite
        
        Do you have any evidence at all that same-sex parents and opposite-sex parents are interchangeable?
        
        I never said there were. There are probably differences between the two, but no evidence that one is better than the other, and considerable evidence that there is no difference.
        
        Anyway, you’ve got the burden of proof all wrong. You’re the one claiming there is great harm being done to children of same sex parents. So let’s see some of that evidence. Where is it? With all the money and effort the anti-gay movement is putting into discrediting same-sex parents, you’d think they would come up with at least a single scrap of evidence of this great harm. Is Regnerus really all you’ve got?
      - Griffonn
        
        What need is there for gays to inflict this loss on children?
        
        And then force the children to pretend there is no loss (which is where the real abuse comes in)?
        
        Admit that marriage is procreative in nature, and stop trying to demand an unreasonable false equivalence.
      - Lutesuite
        
        What need is there for gays to inflict this loss on children?
        
        And then force the children to pretend there is no loss (which is where the real abuse comes in)?
        
        There is no “loss”. You might as well argue that children of opposite-sex couples suffer the “loss” of their second mother or father.
        
        Chlldren of same-sex couples have two parents. They are not deprived of a parent.
      - Griffonn
        
        Children raised by same-sex couples suffer the loss of the absent parent-relationship.
        
        Children raised by two men are motherless, and do not stop being motherless just because their emotionally needy manchild fake-daddies need them to be. Children’s needs do not change based on what their parents need. That is exactly what I am talking about when I speak of “parentification” – or what I call “Birdcage Syndrome” – the irrational belief that a motherless child doesn’t mind being motherless just because that child knows that there is a serious taboo and breaking that taboo will turn his supposedly “loving” parent into a raging drama queen.
        
        Children raised by two lesbians suffer the loss of the father-relationship, as well as the actual father they’re not allowed to talk about (article to read: “The Sperm Donor Kids Are Not Really All Right”, Slate magazine). That YOU need to pretend that they don’t mind doesn’t mean they don’t, it just means that there is an unsafe environment where they’re not allowed to tell the truth about their own feelings and needs, because their emotional reality is in conflict with YOUR needs.
        
        All the bullying in the world can’t change the fact that these kids are being USED. And some of them know it.
      - Griffonn
        
        Also, I have noticed OPEN and OUTRIGHT abuse done precisely because gays need to keep their children from saying things that violate the taboo.
        
        For instance, the kids at the Unitarian Universalist church I used to attend were warned that if they said the wrong thing, evil “Christofascists” would come and take their parents away and quote “put them in camps”.
        
        Loving parents don’t do that to their kids. Toxic, dysfunctional, abusive parents do.
        
        And, of course, people who aren’t parents at all. Maybe these kids just suffer from Stockholm Syndrome.
      - Griffonn
        
        There is no “loss”. You might as well argue that children of
        opposite-sex couples suffer the “loss” of their second mother or father.
        
        Just because YOU need for these kids to play along with your fantasies doesn’t mean they don’t know they have a real mother or father out there somewhere.
        
        And that the only reason they’ll never know what it is to know a mother or a father is because the people raising them are dysfunctional and emotionally stunted.
        
        Don’t ever think that they say nothing because they approve. They say nothing because they keep hoping that someday their parents will grow up and love them – just as all children in abusive homes hope that someday their abusive parents will love them for a change.
      - Chairm
        
        Each of us is born equal of a mother and a father. Yes, two parents but not same-sexed.
        
        According to census and related sources most (by far) of the children who reside in same-sexed households (census term denoting a householder in a live-in homosexual relationship) do have both a mom and a dad.
        
        They have two parents, one of each sex, it is just that either mom or dad split from a previously procreative relationship and setup with a homosexual relationship. Obviously, homosexuality does not create children; and it does not make a stranger an actual parent who supersedes the actual parent of the other sex.
        
        Of the ways that children find themselves in such a hoiusehold at some point that interupts their childhood, maybe 3% were adopted by unrelated adopters. A small fraction of 1% were attained through third party procreation.
        
        Gay advocates too often pretend away the parent of the other sex. Worse, some find it quite delightful that the parent of the other sex is explicitly excluded prior to conception. Such is evil.
        
        So, sure, most of these children residing (for a time) in same-sex households have both mom and dad, their two parents, but homosexuality is the cause of a breach that some gay advocates wish to use to turn a vice into a virtue.
      - Griffonn
        
        By the way, children are not lab experiments; Occam’s Razor is not the appropriate heuristic for evaluating their interests.
        
        The correct standard is “the child’s best interests”. The burden should rightfully be on the gay couples to prove that what they are doing is in the child’s best interest. There is no “right” to do whatever you want to other peoples’ children until and unless harm is proved, so lack of evidence of harm does not grant you the right to adopt.
        
        The correct burden of proof is the same for children as it is for protecting endangered birds when Home Depot wants to build on a spot where they might live: the burden is on the one who wants to exploit the turf to provide the necessary impact statements PROVING that the endangered bird or child is not going to suffer ANY ill effects.
        
        I don’t know where you guys got the idea that children are belongings. They’re people. They have rights and interests of their own.
      - Lutesuite
        
        By the way, children are not lab experiments; Occam’s Razor is not the appropriate heuristic for evaluating their interests.
        
        No, they are not. Still, some degree of experimentation cannot be avoided, simply by the vicissitudes of life.
        
        By denying gay couples the right to marriage, you and your ideological allies in the “culture wars” have been forcing their children to undergo an experiment in which their families are denied the social, cultural and economic advantages of marriage, and moreover have to exist in a culture in which people are openly deriding their parents as “sinful” and “disordered”. And, despite all that, these children have turned out just fine, with no evidence that they have suffered any ill effects as a group. Just imagine how well they will do when they no longer have to deal with these disadvantages.
      - Griffonn
        
        No, they are not. Still, some degree of experimentation cannot be avoided, simply by the vicissitudes of life.
        
        That’s actually not true.
        
        Just because gay people THINK they need to experiment on other peoples’ children does not mean they actually do.
        
        You really want for it to be possible for family to be a “choice”, but no amount of lying in the world will ever actually turn a lie into truth. All you’ll end up with in the end are abused children and reviled fake parents who will someday be remembered with shame and derision for being so preoccupied with their own selfish desires that they were willing to abuse kids without ever once stopping to think about how what they are doing might feel to the kids they are using.
        
        You can’t make people love you by abusing them.
      - Griffonn
        
        The advantages of marriage are the advantages of family.
        
        There is no reason why anyone needs or deserves the right to share those advantages with anyone other than their real family.
        
        But thank you for admitting that you, like all you guys, know perfectly well that the whole “marriage is not procreative” is a convenient lie – one you don’t actually mean.
        
        You guys rely on lies a LOT.
      - Griffonn
        
        Also worth noting that the studies “proving” that kids do “better” (nice non-scientific value judgment there) does not actually prove any such thing.
        
        Apart from the much-discussed methodological flaws, inappropriately irrelevant questions, etc. there is also the fact that one of the reasons these kids are described as “better” is that they demonstrate hypermaturity – which is not actually a good thing, but a bad thing.
        
        It’s not politically correct to say it – and I’m sure any professional who tried would get the Regnerus treatment – but hypermaturity is a tell-tale symptom of a form of child neglect/abuse known as “paerntification” – the inversion of needs such that the child becomes emotionally responsible for an immature, emotionally infantile adult. (In extreme cases the child becomes physically responsible – see Charlie Chaplin’s biography – but that doesn’t seem applicable here). http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=parentification
        
        In the future, I predict this form of childhood neglect/abuse will be remembered as “Birdcage Syndrome”, with Nathan Lane replacing Tatum O’Neal’s character in Paper Moon as its poster boy.
      - bman
        
        The oppressive nature of SSM law on civil rights was also predicted in advance by legal scholars.
        
        See Sea change in the law.
      - Lutesuite
        
        What “oppressive nature”? Sure, when equality rights are finally granted to minority groups, the people who are used to discriminating against those people no longer have the “right” to do so. That’s not “oppression”.
        
        So even if the owner of a bed and breakfast is Catholic, he cannot refuse to rent a room to a same sex couple. And if a member of the KKK runs the B and B he cannot refuse to rent it to a mixed race couple. Such “oppression”. Boo hoo.
      - bman
        
        re: “…homosexuals are exempted from no obligations that are required of others who seek a marriage license.”
        —-
        The requirement to marry an opposite partner would itself be an exemption.
      - Lutesuite
        
        re: “…homosexuals are exempted from no obligations that are required of others who seek a marriage license.”
        —-
        The requirement to marry an opposite partner would itself be an exemption.
        
        No, because by eliminating that requirement it no longer applies to heterosexuals, either. All the laws of marriage that apply to gay couples also apply to straight couples. There is no special exemption for gay couples.
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        There is only one, valid, “higher moral law” in the legal system of the USA – the US Constitution. Anything else is merely the personal ethical or, in those so inclined, religious, basis of values by which individuals make political decisions.
      - bman
        
        re: There is only one, valid, “higher moral law” in the legal system of the USA – the US Constitution.”
        —
        The Constitution once allowed slavery.
        
        Was there no injustice in that?
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        Slavery is an injustice. Constitutional amendment made the constitution a better “higher moral law”.
      - bman
        
        re: “Slavery is an injustice. Constitutional amendment made the constitution a better “higher moral law”.”
        —
        And what if a future amendment allowed slavery?
        
        Would such an amendment convert slavery into higher moral law?
        
        If you say the Constitution is the final authority for what is moral then you say an amendment can make the injustice of slavery into higher moral law, which reduces to an absurdity.
        
        Higher moral law is based on the principle in the Declaration of Independence, “we hold these truths to be be self evident.”
        
        Don’t fall into the trap of thinking law determines what is moral because that allows the legalization of slavery, allows evil to be called good, and allows almost any thing to be legalized as marriage, whether it be SSM, four bisexuals married to each other, etc.
      - Griffonn
        
        Nice begging the question there.
        
        I like how you included your conclusion as a premise.
        
        But of course it is not discriminating to keep the procreative benefits of marriage limited only to potentially procreative couplings, for the same reason it is not discriminatory to restrict driver’s licenses only to people who are actually qualified for the right to drive on public roadways.
        
        I have yet to see any reason why gays need the right to share procreative benefits with someone other than the person they actually make a baby with. (Note that I do not care about non-procreative benefits; if gays would be willing to accept that their ‘marriage’ is not procreative – and would therefore stop demanding the right to have us all pretend that their cihldren have two mommies, and accept that they have the same obligation as a hetero man to actually support, honor, and respect their child’s real mother without regard to whether they happen to “love” her….)
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        Talk about begging the question. You toss out the idea that “procreative benefits of marriage”, like that is the only possible reason or rationale for marriage.
        
        Marriage is far more that simply procreating. We let all kinds of folks get married with no expectation at all of procreation. I married my own wife a few years ago with absolutely no intention of procreate, as we are both past our childbearing years. My wife and I enjoy the many different other legal benefits that accrue from that status.
        
        Nobody is demanding that YOU accept anything about same sex couples or their children. What is being insisted on is that the GOVT treat all similarly situated couples with equality under the law. This includes same sex marriages, and, if those families have children, with equal treatment for those children.
      - Griffonn
        
        I don’t have any problem with gays having the life partnership aspects of marriage.
        
        It’s the lies, the fraud, the false equivalence that I have a problem with.
        
        If gays really believed that marriage “is not procreative”, then there is no reason why anyone needs to pretend ANY child “has two mommies”. There is no reason why you need to do that to these poor kids just to prop up your lies. Grow up and admit that marriage is not procreative FOR YOU, and that means your relationships are NOT the same as the family-making kind, because your “marriages” are incapable of tying family trees together.
        
        Grow up and take care of your family, instead of demanding that your family take care of you. You’re supposed to be the grownup. That you make your kids lie for you proves that what you want is not a “civil right”; real civil rights are the ANTITHESIS of lies. Let your unfortunate children have a relationship with both real parents; stop using them as props, puppets, meat shields, etc. Be a parent, not a manchild!
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        My current marriage is not “procreative”, yet is still a valid marriage. (my children, and my wife’s, resulted from prior marriages; my wife and I were too old for more children when we wed.)
        
        I reject your assumption that only “procreative” marriage is valid – the reality is that every marriage is unique, and has such meaning as those involve choose to imbue it. My marriage is just as valid as yours. A sixty year long marriage has the exact same legality as fling marriage that happened on a drunken binge in Las Vegas last weekend. My current marriage doesn’t change my support for my children, which they currently continue to enjoy into their twenties and thirties.
        
        The reality is that there ARE children being raised by same sex couples, whether or not the govt allows the couple to marry. Legal same sex marriage doesn’t change that fact. Same sex marriage will not likely cause more, or less of them to exist. The only thing same sex marriage will change for those children is to provide the legal protection for them that marriage gives them and their parents.
        
        No proponent of same sex marriage is demanding anything of YOU, merely that the govt recognizes the same status for them as for my “traditional” marriage.
      - Griffonn
        
        Nice straw man.
        
        You can’t address the argument I present, so you put a different argument in my mouth.
        
        But of course your entire argument is lies – just like your marriage is lies, which is why you need to procure someone else’s kids to lie for you.
        
        If you really believed marriage is not inherently procreative, no child would ever have to be deliberately deprived of a mother or father, and be forced to pretend to like it.
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        First of all, I am a man married to a women. I have a marriage license issued by the state of California, and my wedding is acknowledged by the Catholic church. I have no idea why you would imagine that my “marriage is lies.”
        
        As I live in one of the 35 states that now recognizes same sex marriage, all of the married same sex couples I know, personally, are just as legally married, in view of the state and federal govt. YOU may consider their marriages “lies,” but I (and the govt) obviously do not.
        
        I believe that procreation is part of some, but not all, marriages. As many states that banned same sex marriage had no problem with adoption by gays and lesbians, marriage and adoption are two different issues.
        
        The married same sex couples in my personal acquaintance are all women of about my age, i.e., those who have already raised their children (without govt sanctioned marriages) in their households. All of the children are, to my observation, the same as my children, academically successful and either preparing for, currently enrolled in, or graduated from college. None show any obvious detriment from the upbringing and to my knowledge, none are gay.
      - Griffonn
        
        Gay marriage is a lie in that it is a semantic fallacy.
        
        You can’t actually make two things equal by punishing people for refusing to use the same word to describe them both.
        
        It may be true that gays are capable of a life partnership union, and if they were willing to actually accept that their marriage weren’t procreative, I’d be okay with that – but let’s face it: gays themselves acknowledge the inherently procreative by the fact that they want us to pretend that their children “have two mommies” or “have two daddies”.
        
        If they really believed their own bs, that rhetoric wouldn’t be necessary – there’d be no reason why their unfortunate children could not have a relationship with their real mother and father; they would not have to lie for their dysfunctional “parents”.
      - Nordog6561
        
        >>As I live in one of the 35 states that now recognizes same sex marriage, all of the married same sex couples I know, personally, are just as legally married, in view of the state and federal govt. YOU may consider their marriages “lies,” but I (and the govt) obviously do not.<<
        
        Nice appeal to authority.
        
        It is also true that Dred Scott was nothing more than another man's property "in [the] view of the state and federal government."
        
        Absurdities do not cease to be absurdities just because they become fashion.
        
        Ontological absurdities do not cease to be ontological absurdities just because the State of California issued it a marriage certificate.
      - Griffonn
        
        Too bad the government does not have the power to make something false be true.
      - Richard Lutz
        
        The reality is that there ARE children being raised by half-sibling couples, whether or not the govt allows these couples to marry. Legalizing half-sibling marriage does not change that fact. Half-sibling marriage will not likely cause more, or less of them to exist. The only thing half-sibling marriage will change for those children is to provide the legal protection for them that marriage gives them and their parents. No proponent of half-sibling marriage is demanding anything of YOU, merely that the govt recognizes the same status for them as for “traditional” marriage. Half-sibling marriage is allowed in Sweden without the sky falling in.
        
        The reality is that there ARE children being raised by uncle-niece couples, whether or not the govt allows these couples to marry. Legalizing uncle-niece marriage does not change that fact. Uncle-niece marriage will not likely cause more, or less of them to exist. The only thing uncle-niece marriage will change for those children is to provide the legal protection for them that marriage gives them and their parents. No proponent of uncle-niece marriage is demanding anything of YOU, merely that the govt recognizes the same status for them as for “traditional” marriage. Uncle-niece marriage is allowed in a number of nations including Australia without the sky falling in.
        
        The reality is that there ARE children being raised by three or more partners, whether or not the govt allows these partners to marry. Legalizing polygamy does not change that fact. Polygamy will not likely cause more, or less of them to exist. The only thing polygamous marriages will change for those children is to provide the legal protection for them that marriage gives them and their parents. No proponent of polygamy is demanding anything of YOU, merely that the govt recognizes the same status for them as for “traditional” marriage. Polygamy is allowed in dozens of nations without the sky falling in.
        
        The reality is that there ARE children being raised by zoosexuals, whether or not the govt allow them to marry their adult companion animal. Legalizing inter-species marriage does not change that fact. Inter-species marriage will not likely cause more, or less of them to exist. The only thing inter-species marriage will change for those children is to provide the legal protection for them that marriage gives them and their parents. No proponent of inter-species marriage is demanding anything of YOU, merely that the govt recognizes the same status for them as for “traditional” marriage. Inter-species marriage is allowed in some African tribes without the sky falling in.
        
        The reality is that there ARE children being raised by child-adult couples, whether or not the govt allows these couple to marry. Legalizing child-adult marriage does not change that fact. Child-adult marriage will not likely cause more, or less of them to exist. The only thing child-adult marriage will change for those children is to provide the legal protection for them that marriage gives them and their parents. No proponent of child-adult marriage is demanding anything of YOU, merely that the govt recognizes the same status for them as for “traditional” marriage. Child-adult marriage is allowed in dozens of nations without the sky falling in.
        
        The reality is that there ARE children working as child prostitutes, whether or not the govt allow them to do so. Legalizing child prostitution does not change that fact. Legalizing child prostitution will not likely cause more, or less children to work as prostitutes. The only thing legalizing child prostitution will change for these child prostitutes is provide them with the protection that legalization affords. No proponent of child prostitution is demanding anything of YOU, merely that the govt recognizes the same status for them as for “traditional” (adult) prostitutes. Child prostitution is allowed in dozens of nations without the sky falling in.
      - Richard Lutz
        
        The reality is that there ARE children being raised by half-sibling couples, whether or not the govt allows these couples to marry. Legalizing half-sibling marriage does not change that fact. Half-sibling marriage will not likely cause more, or less of them to exist. The only thing half-sibling marriage will change for those children is to provide the legal protection for them that marriage gives them and their parents. No proponent of half-sibling marriage is demanding anything of YOU, merely that the govt recognizes the same status for them as for “traditional” marriage. Half-sibling marriage is allowed in Sweden without the sky falling in.
        
        The reality is that there ARE children being raised by uncle-niece couples, whether or not the govt allows these couples to marry. Legalizing uncle-niece marriage does not change that fact. Uncle-niece marriage will not likely cause more, or less of them to exist. The only thing uncle-niece marriage will change for those children is to provide the legal protection for them that marriage gives them and their parents. No proponent of uncle-niece marriage is demanding anything of YOU, merely that the govt recognizes the same status for them as for “traditional” marriage. Uncle-niece marriage is allowed in a number of nations including Australia without the sky falling in.
        
        The reality is that there ARE children being raised by three or more partners, whether or not the govt allows these partners to marry. Legalizing polygamy does not change that fact. Polygamy will not likely cause more, or less of them to exist. The only thing polygamous marriages will change for those children is to provide the legal protection for them that marriage gives them and their parents. No proponent of polygamy is demanding anything of YOU, merely that the govt recognizes the same status for them as for “traditional” marriage. Polygamy is allowed in dozens of nations without the sky falling in.
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        So hire a lawyer and make your case to marry a sister, or two.
        
        Not logically related to same sex marriage, but rather marriage in general.
        
        Good luck with your lawsuit.
      - Richard Lutz
        
        It strikes me as a little queer that marriage equality advocates like Mr Swall believe a same-sex marriage involving two adult two sisters does not count as a same-sex marriage.
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        Apparently you find a great many things ” a little queer.”
      - Richard Lutz
        
        I even find myself feeling a little queer sometimes.
      - Chairm
        
        Your own reasoning was used to make the case for closely related people. Own it.
        
        The pro-SSM line of thinking is an attack on the core of marriage around which justifiable boundaries are drawn.
        
        The supposed right to marry, according to the pro-SSM leading advocates, requires abolition of the man-woman requirement and abolition of the core meaning of marriage from government policy and, if they get their way, from the public square.
        
        So SSM law is not only unjust, it is arbitrarily imposed for the sake of the asserted supremacy of Gay identity politics. You are the current analogue to those who abused marriage law, and abused society, and corrupted governance, for the sake of the supremacy of White identity politics.
        
        That included then, as it does now with the SSM court shennanigans, a great and shameful dependance on the abuse of judicial review.
        
        You may hope to not be held morally accountable, but this will catch up with you as it did the white supremicists.
      - David_in_the_O.C.
        
        “I have yet to see any reason why gays need the right to share procreative benefits with someone other than the person they actually make a baby with.”
        
        So straight couples that adopt children should also be denied any “child-rearing” benefits that come with marriage, correct? They also didn’t procreate to create their families; or am I missing something? One would also assume this applies to single-parent families as well — since they don’t consist of a mommy and daddy.
        As for the “reason” why same-sex couples that are raising children should receive benefits, if they don’t receive them, their children are literally being harmed. The government has an interest in looking after the welfare of children, regardless of the sexual orientation of the parents.
      - Griffonn
        
        I like how you are ignoring the fact that “straight couples” are able to adopt without any conflict whatsoever between what they are offering and what the child has reason to value.
        
        “Straight couples” are capable and able to make an intact, healthy family through adoption. There is no conflict at all where the children have to be deprived of anything significant.
        
        So tell me again: if marriage “is not procreative”, then why do children need to be deprived of the experience of having a same-sex parent and an opposite-sex parent?
      - bman
        
        re: “As for the “reason” why same-sex couples that are raising children should receive benefits, if they don’t receive them, their children are literally being harmed. The government has an interest in looking after the welfare of children, regardless of the sexual orientation of the parents.”
        —-
        By that same logic, households with a mother and grandmother raising children are “literally being harmed” because the adults can’t marry, or a household where three gay men can’t marry as a throuple etc.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        You asked readers to agree with this statement:
        
        And so, you should agree that, “.. countries with constitutions that ban gay marriage are legitimate in enforcing that ban.”
        
        Within those countries it is clearly ‘legitimate’ under their laws, but that doesn’t necessarily make it right.
        
        Yes, unbelievably, laws CAN be wrong.
        
        In Saudi-Arabia public executions by sword (scimitar) are legal – often after very dubious court hearings. Saudi men may legally beat their wives under certain circumstances and in some countries including northern Nigeria courts legally dispense Sharia law which may include being stoned to death for adultery.
        
        Within these territories these are legitimate laws, but that does not make them right.
        
        Therefore relying purely on the legality of a practice in a particular country or territory is not at all a reflection on its integrity.
        
        And as you insist that we respect other countries where gay marriage is illegal simply because of the law, may I remind you that charity starts at home and in the UK same sex marriage is the law of the land and you are therefore simply required to accept it… Because laws are always right, right? Right…
      - bman
        
        re: “Because laws are always right, right?”
        —-
        You meant, of course, that “laws are not always right” but that is the same point Andrew K and I made against Malcom S.
        
        MalcolmS, an SSM supporter, was arguing from the principle that law is all that matters, and we countered by saying there is a higher standard than just written law.
        
        So, thanks for your support!
        
        Where I said, “And so, you should agree that countries with constitutions that ban gay marriage are legitimate..” that meant “MalcolmS” should agree given his view that law is all that matters.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        I was being sarcastic. I’ve made enough of a point to not have to repeat myself. At the end of the day, just because gay marriage is illegal in many countries does not make it right. There are many questions laws all over the world.
      - bman
        
        re: “At the end of the day, just because gay marriage is illegal in many countries does not make it right. There are many questions laws all over the world
        —
        There are many questionable laws but when a law is nearly universal across history and geographic boundaries, it warrants a presumption of being right morally speaking unless a compelling reason exists to the contrary.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        I suggest that you read the following article. Homosexuality was celebrated for thousands of years in cultures all over the world in ancient times. Modern Homo Sapiens have been around for 200,000 years and homosexuality has occurred since the dawn of man.
        
        There have been periods where it was compulsory, times when it was celebrated and of course other times when it has been outlawed.
        
        http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_homosexuality
        
        However, the period in which it was outlawed is dwarfed by the amount of time humans have been alive – in fact it’s a just a fraction of the time.
        
        So you can’t rely on the last few hundred years, many of which have been grim beyond belief (think holocaust, slavery) and seek validation of your views in those dated values and times.
        
        Allowing all people to marry their partners is simply another evolution in unconditional freedom for all, at least here in the West.
        
        You mention morals – may I ask who arbitrate these morals, because I certainly don’t share your view?
        
        If I don’t share your religion and for me there is morally nothing wrong when two men wed, why should your morals be enforced onto me, especially if you have no business with what other adults do?
        
        Why are you unable to live and let live?
        
        Remember, it is not me who is attempting to force you into a gay marriage, it is you who is attempting to force me into an unhappy opposite sex marriage.
        
        May I politely ask, and I asked this of Andrew K before too, although I’m still awaiting his response. I presume that you married the person that you love and if not yet, it is within your capacity to do so, right?
        
        Why do you want and expect this right for yourself, but you seem hellbent to prevent other adults with different needs from enjoying the same?
        
        I really, really want to understand why it’s important to you that other adults with no relation to you are denied the rights that you demand and expect for yourself.
      - bman
        
        re: Homosexuality was celebrated for thousands of years in cultures..seek validation of your views in those dated values and times.”
        —
        The issue is not the history of homosexuality per se, but its about marriage law being almost universally limited to the marriage of husbands and wives to each other.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Dear Bman
        
        Rest assured, that is still the case for most religious marriages. If you are Jewish, or Muslim, or Sikh, or Hindu, or Catholic, or a member of the Church of England, or many more, marriage is the union of one man and one woman. There you are guaranteed to be blessed with the marriage of your choice.
        
        For the rest of us who do not subscribe to a god or religion, there is civil marriage. Civil marriage has been divorced from religion since it was introduced in 1836.
        
        Over the years millions of atheist, humanist, pagan, other non religious or even satanist couples have married in ceremonies where not a word of any god is uttered.
        
        As the vast, vast majority of people who choose civil marriages have no religious affiliation, the overwhelming majority of them also welcome gay couples.
        
        Which brings us back to the beginning of this argument: if you are a heterosexual Christian and you believe marriage is between one man and one woman, then you have no concern what gay couples do in civil ceremonies, just like you have no concern with what those of other religions do in their ceremonies.
        
        Marriage does not belong to a religion. It is fine if you are religious and you believe that your version does, we respect that, but please respect the fact that there are people who do not share your convictions for whom marriage is nothing but a legal, civil contract, sanctioned by the state… since 1836.
      - bman
        
        re: “…that is still the case for most religious marriages..”
        —-
        We were discussing your statement, “…just because gay marriage is illegal in many countries does not make it right.”
        
        I countered by saying, “…when a law is nearly universal across history and geographic boundaries, it warrants a presumption of being right morally speaking unless a compelling reason exists to the contrary.”
        
        There, I re-stated the scope of “many countries” as being, “nearly universal across history and geographic boundaries” and I said that scope warrants a presumption of “being right” unless a compelling reason exists to the contrary.
        
        In brief, the burden is for you to prove its “not right” for a society to restrict marriage recognition to opposite sex partners.
        
        Your discussion about “civil versus religious marriage” seems off track given that context.
        
        For example, you say religious marriage can be distinguished from civil marriage, but that does not establish its “not right” for “many nations” to restrict marriage to a husband wife union.
        
        I also note that the European High Court has ruled that recognition of SSM is not required of member countries because there is a compelling state interest in protecting the traditional family.
        
        BTW, your previous claim that my view is “dated” is like saying the European high court ruling was “dated.”
      - Johann Fourie
        
        No I’m afraid we had long since moved on from that point. You seem to have missed some of my repies perhaps.
        
        Anyway, read your message again to which I replied.
        
        You mentioned that marriage has ‘universally’ been between one man and one woman. I reminded you that nothing has changed for religious marriage. It still only applies to the union of one man and one woman.
        
        With regards to civil marriage, well you have no more concern with gay couples getting married, than you do with atheist couples marrying in register offices.
        
        In 1836 the Marriage Act divorced marriage from religion and made it legal for couples of any religion or indeed no religion to marry.
        
        In 2014 we broadened the availability to allow men to marry men and women to marry women if they should choose.
        
        And why not? Think carefully before you answer. There really is no difference in whether an atheist couple marry in a register office, or whether two men marry in a register office.
        
        What does it matter to you? If you are a Christian as I presume, then both of those unions are equally condemned by your scripture. And apart from ignoring your god’s strict instructions not to judge, you can’t differentiate between two ‘sins’ that are equally condemned. So if you campaign against gay marriage, you need to be consistent in your beliefs and go right back to campaigning against all forms of non religious marriage. You cant pick or choose what you support or what you don’t support, although it has to be said that most Christians have perfected that to a fine art.
        
        If you have no religious affiliation, then I’m afraid it just makes no sense why you would care and I urge you to work on your ‘live and let live’ skills.
        
        If you are religious, then I kindly remind you that the state is sectarian and not everybody shares your convictions.
      - bman
        
        re: “No I’m afraid we had long since moved on from that point.”
        —
        It seems you moved on before the point of many nations being right was settled. I am still on that point.
        
        >>You seem to have missed some of my repies perhaps.<>You mentioned that marriage has ‘universally’ been between one man and one woman. I reminded you that nothing has changed for religious marriage. It still only applies to the union of one man and one woman.<<>With regards to civil marriage, well you have no more concern with gay couples getting married, than you do with atheist couples marrying in register offices.<<<
        
        Some objections.
        
        First, the issue I am discussing is the rightness of marriage law in many nations that don't recognize SS unions as marriages. So, its not about my concern but its about your claim regarding those laws.
        
        Second, every citizen and every society has a valid concern in whether the traditional family is being eroded. Again, I refer you to the European High Court on that point.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        I absolutely disagree with you that if a law is almost universal that it warrants the presumption that it is morally somehow correct.
        
        There was a time when slavery was virtually universally legal across the world. So by your logic those laws then were morally correct because they were universal. You are 100% incorrect.
        
        There was a time when women suffered great inequality right across the world, virtually again universally so. Does that imply because the whole world was based on misogynistic laws all enacted by men that somehow that makes it morally right? No.. Again your assumption is 100% incorrect.
        
        I can bore you with countless examples.
        
        Today it’s the turn of sexual minorities to fight for freedom and celebrate it if it is achieved.
        
        We will look back in time and see the long periods of oppression by one man on another as one of history ‘s great injustices.
        
        And the fight will not be over until every human being is unconditionally free from the will of another to be imposed on him or her.
        
        I am aware that currently the European Court Of Human Rights does not interpret Article 12 to convey marriage rights to same sex couples.
        
        This ruling was made in 2003 and I obviously disagree with it. I find it to be a rather conservative interpretation of the law.
        
        Remember this can change at any time. The charter can be updated and clarified, or the current interpretation can be challenged if the court should accept an invitation to do so. It is my belief that in the relatively near future the court will change its position on this.
        
        As with all law, it’s about interpretation. This is the actual text of Article 12.
        
        “ Men and women of marriageable age have the right to marry and to found a family, according to the national laws governing the exercise of this right ”
        
        There is no wording in that paragraph that clearly and unequivocally state that men and women should marry eachother, just that men and women of marriageable age have the fundamental right to marry, which is a point we both agree on.
        
        A future, more liberal panel of justices may very well interpret it differently and stress that it never specified opposite sex couples to marry, but simply used men and women in place of people in its description of the parties it applies to.
        
        Excellent examples of this is currently being seen across the US where the same 250 year old constitution is suddenly interpreted differently as is now found in most States and soon by SCOTUS, watch this space.
        
        Law is about interpretation and there is certainly nothing black or white in Article 12 that explicitly limits marriage to men and women in an opposite sex configuration.
        
        Anyway, as I said, you are in a diminishing minority with your views in the UK. Your support for SSM is neither required, nor desired – you would have just been an infinitely better person if you learnt to live and let live.
        
        Finally, don’t forget that there is no credible link between homosexuality and the erosion of the family. That is a link you drew and certainly an assumption you made based on your own values.
        
        The vast majority of LGBTI people live fulfilling and happy lives, have loving families and all the latest studies show that their children do even better than those in traditional families.
        
        If you want to blame the erosion of the family on anything, start with alcohol drugs and the ease at which people start extra marital affairs.
      - bman
        
        re: “There was a time when slavery was virtually universally legal across the world. So by your logic those laws then were morally correct because they were universal. You are 100% incorrect.”
        —-
        Your restatement does not represent my claim.
        
        I did not say universal laws “were morally correct.”
        
        I said they “warrant a presumption of being right morally unless a compelling reason exists to the contrary.”
        
        The conditional clause means slavery would be a law that was “not right.”
      - Johann Fourie
        
        You really do pick and choose how you apply logic don’t you? Well, for your information a vast overwhelming majority of people in the UK agree that same sex couples should have equal rights, as do a majority of people in the US. Therefor, by implication, a vast majority of people also believe that not granting same sex couples equal rights is morally wrong. So we can rely on exactly the same conditional clause: by keeping gay couples from being able to marry, the majority of people in the UK feel that it is morally unjustifiable and that the law therefore warranted a change as the majority of people were in favour of equality. So the compelling reason you referred to before, it exists here too. If a majority of people want something to happen in a democracy, then it is a compelling reason for change.
        
        Exactly the same as with slavery, no different whatsoever. Just when slavery was abolished there was still a minority of people who thought it shouldn’t have been. Today gay people are granted full equality and you are finding yourself on the wrong side of history, in the minority that fought against it…
      - bman
        
        re: “You really do pick and choose how you apply logic don’t you? ..for your information a vast overwhelming majority of people in the UK agree that same sex couples should have equal rights…”
        —
        Actually, I would say you are the one picking and choosing. On one hand you say a nearly universal marriage law is “not right” and then you argue that a majority in the UK makes SSM right. That sounds like you are choosing by the numbers where it suits you and rejecting the numbers where it doesn’t suit you.
        
        Besides, I answered your “majority” argument earlier, “…polls simply do not have the same weightiness as a law that transcends history and geography.” From that perspective, your “majority” in the UK would be a minority.
        
        The same can be said about the UK relative to the European Union. Only 11 nations out of 50 in the EU legally recognize SSm per the Wikipedia if we don’t count nations that recognize civil unions. From that perspective, the “majority” in the UK is still in the minority.
        
        Also, I am not saying that universal laws are necessarily right or that a majority is necessarily right. When you portray that as my argument you misapply my argument.
        
        Rather, I am saying a nearly universal law “warrants a presumption of being right,” which simply means the burden of proof is on the party that disputes the majority view.
        
        The burden of proof has been met with regard to slavery being wrong, for example, and so that actually fits the template I have offered.
        
        By contrast, that does not free you from the burden of proof regarding your dispute with husband-wife marriage law since that is a different issue.
        
        You also did not offer a counter argument to the first reason I mentioned, “When debating any issue, there is an implicit burden of proof on the person asserting a claim.”
        
        Since you asserted the claim that its not right for “many nations” to recognize marriage as only between a man and woman, and since your asserted claim is the one I am disputing, the burden of proof would be yours.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        I’m infinitely bored of this argument. Same sex marriage is legal. The debate is over. It’s been won by us.
        
        As the law now states that it is legal, then you are the party asserting to claim otherwise. There is no onus on anybody to prove anything. Debate over. Finished. You lost. You have no choice but to accept, I have the freedom to celebrate. I can now experience the happiness you take for granted for yourself and you so vehemently want to deny those who are different from you. Nice.
        
        The previous law is now defunct. It’s served It’s purpose. It has been transcended. It’s dated. It wasn’t inclusive enough. It’s over. It was wrong. History will judge it with the same disapproval institutionalised racism and sexism and frankly all other forms of pointless discrimination are judged. You will die one day. Your view will die too. The sooner the better. Frankly.
        
        I am bored. Unbelievably so.
        
        Yawn.
        
        Good luck.
        
        You are in the minority for a change. Reassuring. Good luck. Cheers. Goodbye.
      - Patti
        
        TO ALL FOES OF GAY MARRIAGE:
        
        I believe what Mr. Fourie is trying to say is,
        “Na-nana-naa-nah!”
      - bman
        
        re: “The debate is over. It’s been won by us.”
        —
        We still have the better logic and reasoning. Where SSM has won its through logical fallacy.
      - Griffonn
        
        SSM has won its through logical fallacy.
        
        And, more importantly, intimidation & brute force.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        You carry on telling yourself that. I’d hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you live in a democracy.
        
        democracy
        dɪˈmɒkrəsi/Submit
        noun
        a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.
        “a system of parliamentary democracy”
        synonyms: representative government, elective government, constitutional government, popular government; More
        antonyms: tyranny, dictatorship
        a state governed under a system of democracy.
        plural noun: democracies
        “a multiparty democracy”
        control of an organization or group by the majority of its members.
        “the intended extension of industrial democracy”
        
        The majority of people wanted the law changed. There has been 50 years plus of ongoing debate on this issue. You have to understand that we managed to convince two thirds of the general public and both houses in parliament filled to the rafters with ageing, old fashioned farts that we hold the better reasoning.
        
        In fact, so convinced were they with our reasoning which is simple, EQUALITY FOR ALL, that they were willing to risk the fracturing of their electorate and party members.
        
        Clearly we made a very, very compelling argument and you didn’t. When you have love versus hate in the West at least, love will always prevail.
        
        Your opinion is that you hold the better reasoning. Of course you are going to tell yourself that, if you didn’t believe that you would be for same sex marriage.
      - bman
        
        re: “The majority of people wanted the law changed.
        —
        You seem to play the numbers where it suits you while dismissing the numbers when they don’t.
        
        A logical fallacy does not become good logic simply because it has a majority.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        That is because YOU keep on taking my answers out of context.
        
        We happen to live in a democracy where the majority rule. The concept of democracy is still evolving and being refined.
        
        So in the 60′ and before we had institutionalised racism and indeed a majority of people would have supported racist laws, however since then our understanding of human rights have changed significantly.
        
        We have learnt from those mistakes. So a majority of people supporting slavery, racism or the inequality women suffered for millenia were undeniably wrong.
        
        We won’t make those mistakes again. We now believe in equality for every single person. Everybody is exactly the same, gay, straight, black, white, Asian, disabled, abled and other.
        
        So now we have a majority of people voting for the inclusion of everybody. Unlike past racist laws, we are on the right side of history this time.
        
        Inroads made in same sex marriage, in the West at least, are permanent and it is inconceivable that they will ever be reversed.
        
        Reversals of gay human rights are currently happening in Russia, India and some African countries, but that is because these countries do not have such refined democracies as Europe or the US. In fact most of them do not have true democracies at all. No real opposition exists in Russia because speaking out against the government can get you arrested and charged.
        
        SCOTUS will soon pick up some of the cases it has been petitioned to consider and it WILL rule in favour of equal marriage as this is the way things are moving in the US
        
        The only way to reverse this then would be for a constitutional amendement to be ratified by at least 3/4 of all States.
        
        It will never, ever happen. If it arrives across the US it is there to stay.
        
        Same in the UK, with all major political parties and 80% of people under 40 in favour of same sex marriage it is here to stay.
        
        I wish I could understand why, if you are not gay, it bothers you so much when gay couples marry? It just make no sense. Why obsess about something that is really none of your concern and certainly has no effect whatsoever on your life?
      - bman
        
        re: “We won’t make those mistakes again. We now believe in equality for every single person. Everybody is exactly the same, gay, straight, black, white, Asian, disabled, abled and other.”
        —
        I agree that preventing the mistakes of the past means equality under law must be guarded, but that does not imply that every kind of sexual relationship or practice must be treated as equal under the law.
        
        Marriage institutionalizes the conjugal sexual relationship, which should be the same for everyone if equality is to be maintained.
        
        Its slight of hand to say “equality for everyone” while actually meaning equality of everyone’s sexual practices.
      - bman
        
        re: “That is because YOU keep on taking my answers out of context.”
        —-
        I understand you to say that you are not playing the numbers where it suits your view, but that you make a distinction whether a majority is right or wrong depending on how it handles the principle of equality.
        
        I would not object If that was truly the distinction you were making, but that is not how I see your overall argument.
        
        As I see it, you are not arguing that equality makes a majority right or wrong, but you are arguing that “your” view of equality is proved right because a majority in the UK agrees with it, while you dismiss any majority that disagrees with “your” view of equality.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        >>I understand you to say that you are not playing the numbers where it suits your view, but that you make a distinction whether a majority is right or wrong depending on how it handles the principle of equality.<>As I see it, you are not arguing that equality makes a majority right or wrong, but you are arguing that “your” view of equality is proved right because a majority in the UK agrees with it, while you dismiss any majority that disagrees with “your” view of equality.<<
        
        It's not technically possible to have a majority agree with my view, while having a majority disagree with me at the same time. Could you rephrase please?
        
        So I will sum up:
        
        Equality has only one meaning. It's a universal meaning and it's not unique to me. I dont have an interpretation of equality that is any different of any standard dictionary definition.
        
        There was never equality in the past. So when a majority of people supported racism, or sexism, or homophobia it was wrong – always wrong.
        
        So to answer your question directly: equality does make a majority right or wrong. If equality means everybody is treated equal and it's supported by the majority then it's unequivocally right.
        
        So equality is what was missing of older versions of democracy.
        
        We have only just started to implement equality in the West. In the UK we have now virtually achieved absolute equality with the Equality Act of 2010, bar for a small issue here and there.
        
        In our modern democracy a vast majority of citizens agree with the status quo and for the first time can we confidently say that based on mistakes in the past, this time we got it right.
      - Griffonn
        
        The majority are going to change their mind as the truth comes out.
        
        In fact, they probably aren’t even a majority – it’s probably just the Bradley effect. Your “victory” is built on intimidation, but it’s not at all clear you really have the power to keep it up.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        That will never happen. They will sooner chace you out of the US as a Muslim (I assume you live there), than they will revoke my rights. Homophobia is DECREASING. Islamaphobia is INCREASING. Do the math while you start packing your bags.
        
        Intolerant and hateful heterosexual (not all of course) people have intimidated, murdered and assaulted gay people in UNPROVOKED attacks for thousands of years.
      - Griffonn
        
        Lies and fraud are not a “right”.
        
        While it may be true that you need special permissions in order to live something resembling a normal life, even disability rights are not a blank check to behave any way you like.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        There are no lies or fraud, only lies and fraud you imagine.
        
        No gay couple is trying to change the identity or freedom of heterosexual people, but there are plenty of heterosexual people wanting to change gay people.
        
        That is the crux of this whole argument. You want to impose your will on us, not us impose our will on you. You are just imagining that we want to impose our will on you because you are so used to waving the sceptre of absolute power.
        
        Name me one area where a guy couple getting married actually has any effect on you and your marriage to your wife or any part of your life actually?? There is none.
        
        So why don’t you just ignore it, why have this unhealthy obsession about something which has nothing to to do with you?
      - Griffonn
        
        Nice argument. What has it got to do with any argument anyone is actually making?
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Answer the question. How does gay marriage affect either your marriage with your wife or your life?
        
        There is no answer here, but I would like you to try… That is why you avoided the question. The question is completely valid since we are talking about gay marriage and I’m asking you how it affects your life for you to keep on oopposing it so vehemently.
      - Griffonn
        
        It affects me, so I have a right to care.
        
        Whether it affects, specific relationships is a red herring.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        How does it affect you? Spell it out! Just saying it does is not justifying your beliefs. Tell me, how on earth does it affect you?
      - Griffonn
        
        I have spelled it out, quite a few times.
        
        You’re welcome to read my disqus feed – where there are quite a few arguments on the topic.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        That is the most pathetic worming out of a tight spot I have ever seen. I don’t have the time or interest to trawl through thousands of your posts.
        
        I am asking you one final time. How does gay marriage affect your life?
        
        You can’t even provide me with an answer because you simply don’t have one.
        
        That is my whole point. I am arguing with brainwashed, indoctrinated, superstitious loons who can’t even say why they feel a certain way..
        
        Because there is no rational reason.
        
        However as a minority yourself, I would have expected better from you. You of all people should know what pointless discrimination feels like.
        
        Tragic case.
      - Griffonn
        
        Your troll tactics do not constitute a “iight spot”.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        What is wrong with you? Asking you how same sex marriage affects your life, since you are opposed to it, is not trolling.
        
        This is a debate about same sex marriage so it is incredibly relevant.
        
        You just don’t have an answer to the question, as I suspected.
        
        Because none of the people ranting about same sex marriage actually do have a compelling, or even half compelling, answer. That is my and the whole world who support same sex marriage’s point exactly.
        
        I would also suggest that you brush up on your vocabulary. This is not the first time that you misapplied the meaning of a word.
        
        I have not been trolling, but rather debating and challenging your view in a respectable manner. Please remind yourself of the meaning of the world trolling.
      - Griffonn
        
        It’s a troll tactic because you already have access to the arguments you need, and you have no reason to require me to type it all out again.
      - Mars Attacks!
        
        It’s a troll tactic because it begs the question that “how does it affect you personally” is the sole criterion for objection. How society and its institutions are affected also matters.
        
        The happiness of less than 2 percent of the population isn’t worth turning society upside-down. And the misery of less than 2 percent of the population is a small price to pay for good social order.
      - Griffonn
        
        Yes, it assumes that they are entitled to what they want unless I can not only prove harm, but a very narrowly defined sort of personal harm.
        
        The funny thing is that I could make such an argument because I have experienced and observed several instances of exactly how the proposed rule change impacts people in a negative way – but not without revealing more information about my family than I feel comfortable doing.
        
        Of course, we have seen in the past that when I do try to use personal experience to answer this question, their response is to say my answers don’t count because I have a personal bias.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        What a lame excuse. You never answered me the question before and there is no search facility to find. Besides, other people reading our conversation will just see you as ditching the question.
        
        It’s a pity you won’t answer, I really wanted to understand why you are so opposed to it and how allowing gay marriage actually affects your life.
      - Griffonn
        
        If you really wanted to understand why I am so opposed, it’s not like it’s difficult to find the answer. You could read the comments I’ve already made right here on this thread.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Yes, you ranted about morals and about this and about that. But every day countless of ‘immoral’ acts happen in marriage around you, for instance some couples host sex parties, swingers events etc so the moral argument doesn’t hold up, because what you deem as immoral your neighbour may see as completely normal.
        
        My question was more specific. I asked you how does gay marriage affects YOUR life. So if you could possibly get it right not to invade other people’s lives and make their personal affairs your problem, how on earth does gay marriage affect YOUR life?
        
        Well it doesn’t… That is the problem. Unless you choose to marry a man, it just doesn’t affect you.
      - Griffonn
        
        Well, if all you want to do is marry a man, go ahead. Nobody’s stopping you – and you’re right: it doesn’t affect me.
        
        It only affects me if the laws are changed to force a false equivalence, so that we are all expected to pretend that your marriage is like a real one.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        But you don’t need to validate a gay marriage. It’s a civil contract between two people and the state, it really has nothing to do with you..
        
        Why are you making it your business to ‘validate’ something which doesn’t require your validation?
        
        Do you check the marriage certificate of every person you speak to before you deal with them?
      - Griffonn
        
        Now you’re just being dishonest.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Not at all. Not at all. As you have trouble understanding words I have copied the meaning of the word marriage for you.
        
        For the life of god I can’t understand when looking at the meaning of marriage, how any other couple’s marriage could be having any, any impact whatsoever on YOUR life. It doesn’t and it can’t. You work bloody hard to make it your problem, but I promise you, if you let go you will see your life will go on as usual with nothing changed. I promise you.
        
        marriage
        ˈmarɪdʒ/Submit
        noun
        1.
        the legally or formally recognized union of a man and a woman (or, in some jurisdictions, two people of the same sex) as partners in a relationship.
      - Griffonn
        
        You’ve created a semantic fallacy by creating another meaning for the word “marriage” and then saying that since both meanings are in use, your marriage is like a real marriage.
        
        Which is understandable, since you can’t win the debate without resorting to dishonesty. The whole point is that you want to force people to pretend two unequal things are equal, after all.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        You made me laugh so much my sides hurt. I did not invent the term civil marriage, nor did I dream up its meaning.
        
        Civil Marriage, or non-religious marriage was introduced in the UK by the Marriage Act 1836. It is a civil contract as sanctioned by the state.
        
        Two thirds of all marriages in the UK are now civil non religious marriages.
        
        Here are the official numbers from the UK government’s office of statistics.
        
        It is beyond a joke that you are suggesting that I made this up lol.
        
        http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/vsob1/marriages-in-england-and-wales–provisional-/2011/sty-marriages.html
      - Griffonn
        
        You didn’t read what I wrote?
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Of course I did. I made a ludicrous statement. You said that marriage was not a civil contract and when I explained and proved it was you accused me of making it up.
      - Griffonn
        
        So basically you don’t understand what I wrote.
      - Eponymous1
        
        That’s called begging the question… you pulled up a recent (online! Winston Smith’s job was never so easy) definition that simply incorporates the recent REdefinition of the term and scrubs the historical universal meaning. No dictionary printed prior to a few years ago would ever have included such an addendum.
        
        The ontological (and logical) reality of marriage is the union of the two sexually complementary halves of humanity in the singular union that is able to continue humanity. Only a man and a woman together have a complete human reproductive system.
        
        You’re asserting two left shoes make a pair, and then trying to legislate that the natural order of feet should be rearranged to accommodate this assertion.
      - Griffonn
        
        Begging the question is all he really has.
        
        That and insisting that the argument is his until and unless someone proves otherwise, then saying “nope” every time anyone argues any position – regardless of the position’s merit (is there a name for that particular troll tactic? Because I think of it as “king of the mountain” – and I always think of “Prince of Dorkness” when I see it. Did you ever encounter that guy?)
      - Eponymous1
        
        Yes… it’s the “prove it to me” game, where they set themselves up a judge of your arguments, and then (surprise!) find them wanting.
        
        And you’re right that, invective, and misguided appeals to “fairness” in the name of a false equality is “that is all they have.”
        
        I’ve had numerous discussions in which I lay out what marriage really is, why it’s important, how the two sexes produce children, why that is principal reason for the state having an interest in that particular human relation etc.
        
        I’ve never received any real contrary argument whatsoever defining why this alternate arrangement fulfills any of the criteria, or why numerous other arrangements would not be included under their arbitrary redefinition. Just bald assertions that “marriage has nothing to do with procreation.” That’s it.
        
        Absurd on its face. But this issue isn’t fundamentally about logic, but about desires and demands.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        I disagree with you. Civil Marriage and the definition I gave of it was introduced in the UK in 1836.
        
        That is marriage which is completely divorced from religion.
        
        The primary function of Civil Marriage in its most basic form is to offer legal recognition and facilitate financial stability for both partners in a contract and ceremony that is devoid of any religious references. So whatever the Christian Bible, the Muslim Quran or the Jewish Torah or Tanakh says about marriage, it is NOT applicable here.
        
        That is it’s primary function because that is the FIRST (PRIMARY) benefit you get from it. Many couples stop there. Some are beyond child bearing age when they get married, some are infertile and some modern couples simply choose not to have any children.
        
        However, a majority of couples then go on to reproduce. This is where the SECOND (SECONDARY for the slow ones) set of benefits kick in and protections are offered for the children because the children were born after the marriage. It’s not hard, really it’s not. Second comes after first. Secondary comes after primary.
        
        However there will always be couples who have children already (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie), who then choose to get married after the birth or adoption of their children for the stability of their children. They have mentioned more than once that they will be getting married for their children’s sake.
        
        This proves just how utterly personal and individual the meaning of marriage is. Their is no legal universal meaning of marriage such as you are claiming.
        
        That meaning is just your personal opinion.
        
        But because not all marriages produce children it would be a farce to suggest that that is the primary function of marriage.
        
        As mentioned the primary function is purely to join two adults in love for financial security.
        
        There is certainly not anything written anywhere that requires you to procreate if you want a marriage certificate, so your understanding of marriage is your personal opinion.
        
        In a multicultural society it would be wrong for you to enforce your understanding of marriage on others.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        I disagree with you. Civil Marriage and the definition I gave of it was introduced in the UK in 1836. Of course it was added that in some jurisdictions this is to include same sex marriage, but the definition was of Civil Marriage, not Same Sex Marriage per se.
        
        That is marriage which is completely divorced from religion.
        
        The primary function of Civil Marriage in its most basic form is to offer legal recognition and facilitate financial stability for both partners in a contract and ceremony that is devoid of any religious references.
        
        So whatever the Christian Bible, the Muslim Quran or the Jewish Torah or Tanakh says about marriage, it is NOT applicable here.
        
        That is it’s primary function because that is the FIRST (PRIMARY) benefit you get from it. Many couples stop there. Some are beyond child bearing age when they get married, some are infertile and some modern couples simply choose not to have any children.
        
        However, a majority of couples then go on to reproduce. This is where the SECOND (SECONDARY for the slow ones) set of benefits kick in and protections are offered for the children because the children were born after the marriage. It’s not hard, really it’s not. Second comes after first. Secondary comes after primary.
        
        However there will always be couples who have children already, who then choose to get married after the birth or adoption of their children for the stability of their children.
        
        This proves just how utterly personal and individual the meaning of marriage is. Their is no legal universal meaning of marriage such as you are claiming.
        That meaning is just your personal opinion.
        
        But because not all marriages produce children it would be a farce to suggest that that is the primary function of marriage.
        
        As mentioned the primary function is purely to join two adults in love for financial security. There is certainly not anything written anywhere that requires you to procreate if you want a marriage certificate, so your understanding of marriage is your personal opinion.
        In a multicultural society it would be wrong for you to enforce your understanding of marriage on others.
      - Griffonn
        
        Marriage is not just a civil contract.
        
        One more way real marriage is different from what gays are doing.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        I have had to teach you four new words already. I think you are embarrassing yourself.
        
        I am not religious so I have had a civil marriage. By saying marriage is not a civil contract you are saying the sky isn’t blue. I have told you before, this time I’m sticking to my decision, you are far, far too unintelligent to warrant my time.
        
        Here is the definition:
        
        civil marriage
        noun
        a marriage solemnized as a civil contract without religious ceremony.
      - Griffonn
        
        Marriage is more than a civil contract. It is a contract, a license that bestows benefits that enable the making of families, an institution, and more.
        
        Marriage protects families. It protects women (look at where gay men get their babies from and you’ll see what marriage protects women from). It protects children from being abandoned or sold by one or both parents. In short, it protects vulnerable family members from exploitation at the hands of powerful family members.
        
        That’s why gay marriage can never be like marriage. Because real marriage is about equalizing power relations between family members, and gay marriage is about legitimizing parasitic reproductive strategies and punishing people who stigmatize the buying and selling of children for reasons other than the child’s best interest.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        I forgot to nention, every year tens of thousands of HETEROSEXUAL couples marry in civil ceremonies the world over.
        
        Yes that is civil ceremonies, with civil contracts only and not a single religious vow in sight.
      - Griffonn
        
        It isn’t the word civil. It’s the word contract.
        
        The reason marriage can’t ever be “just” a contract is because there are more than just the two stakeholders. The children of the union have rights as well – at least in real marriage (in gay parody marriage children are stripped of rights and are classed as belongings).
      - Eponymous1
        
        But it DOES affect everyone else. It affects how things are presented in schools, it affects whether you’re allowed to dissent or refuse to participate in “gay” celebrations, it can affect one’s livelihood and ability to live by their own faith or moral precepts. And civil marriage provides public benefits at taxpayer’s expense, so civil marriage is the business of all
        taxpayers, not merely the people who wish to marry.
        
        And as soon as this point is made and supported by the numerous examples (that it does impact others) the ground is IMMEDIATELY shifted to justifying that impact. “They have to follow the law, they have a business, or it’s their job” etc. etc.
        
        Well, when the law, usually a judge-enacted overturning of a law, really… suddenly puts your moral values outside the law, you have a case of one groups “values” being imposed on anther… which the left used to say was appalling, but which they now enthusiastically cheer, since it’s their values that are being imposed.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Fail.
        
        Gay people have been around since the dawn of time. Gay marriage shouldn’t affect how things are taught in school, but rather the fact that gay relationships exist at all should determine what is taught.
        
        Gay relationships are a fact of life. You can’t stick your head into the sand and pretend that they don’t exists, and as they do, having a curriculum that teaches diversity and tolerance is required whether gay marriage is legal or not.
        
        Also it is vitally important to teach these matters in sex education as young people discover same sex attraction at a very young age, for me it was at 4.
        
        Many teenage pregnancies could have been prevented if adequate education was given. Sadly, there are a growing number of 15-18 year old gay youths affected by HIV due to a lack of education.
        
        Hiv is not the scary disease it was in the 80’s, so we don’t have government sponsored advertisements educating the public anymore, but it is still a very serious condition and sex ed does not adequately address the situation.
        
        Whether we like it or not, hiv still disproportionately affects the LGBTI community and if you care for your child you will let him be educated on how to keep himself safe.
        
        And no matter how much you rant, most people do not choose to be gay and your child will very, very unlikely be telling you that they are gay before sexual experimentation starts, so a forward thinking, clever parent would want to educate their child whether they agree with gay relationships or not.
        
        If you refuse you are in effect sticking your head deep into the sand and potentially putting your child’s health, mental health and life at risk. .
        
        Equality laws demanding that businesses treat everybody equal are not dependent on gay marriage, you shifted the emphasis clearly and perhaps indeliberately out, but rather based on sexual orientation.
        
        These protections have been in place long before same sex marriage.
        
        You cannot allow a person to discriminate against certain groups based on their beliefs, because we cannot have a civil society where some Christians don’t want to serve gays, some Muslims dont serve some Jews or some Jews refuse service to Hindus.
        
        Under a religious conscience clause all of the above would be possible and putting signs up saying no gays is like putting signs up saying no blacks.
        
        Christians are also incredibly inconsistent in how they apply their beliefs. They work on Sundays, serve divorcees and bake cakes for people of other religions – all equally condemned in the Bible. In fact there are only about 3 or four places where the Bible mentions homosexuality, but dozens and dozens of places where it condemns non believers (all other religions) hence why they aren’t taken seriously.
        
        Gay people more often reposition themselves in higher socio-economic groups and they place a much smaller draw on public benefits than heterosexual people, whose teenage pregnancies and housing benefit I’ve had to pay since the first day I started paying tax.
        
        No judge enacted any laws here, in the UK all the laws had to be passed through three readings in each house of parliament and are the will of the democratic public and on average 66% of the population unequivocally supported it. .
        
        In the US it turns out that the constitutional case for marriage equality begins with the sweeping and universal text of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, which guarantees “equal protection of the laws” to “any person.”
        
        So the constitution that Americans have been so utterly proud of has a clause in it stating clearly that all citizens have a right to equal protection of law.
        
        It’s really quite black and white. All these years gay people were denoted as second class citizens in the US while they were sitting on a document since 1868 that protected their right to equal marriage??
        
        Shameful!!!
      - Eponymous1
        
        “FAIL.”
        
        Nope. Just because you don’t agree, doesn’t mean its not true. “Gay people.” So have fornicating people, and hunting people and killing people. You know, people have done ALL SORTS of things “since the dawn of time.” Guess what, the fact that people want to do things doesn’t justify doing them. That’s what separates us from the animals… we’re moral actors, and we don’t just follow every urge. The fact of a behaviors existence doesn’t justify that behavior — it’s the beginning of a discussion over whether that behavior should be encouraged and promoted and even celebrated… not the end of it.
        
        The one thing that is absolutely certain is that there is NO real equality between the union that is fruitful, productive, life-creating and life sustaining, based on our natural design for continuing the species, and another that not only will NEVER sustain a society or humanity, but is so extremely unhealthy, that it spreads syndemic and pandemic disease.
        http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/risk/gender/msm/
        http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/risk/gender/msm/facts/
      - Johann Fourie
        
        You are missing a crucial part of the story. Gay people exist. They don’t choose their attraction (mostly) and their attraction never, ever goes away.
        
        It’s been proven that conversion therapies do not work and just cause damage to the person involved. Exodus was the US ‘s largest same sex reparative movement and they have announced that they are throwing in the towel.
        
        Please look at this, it’s not propaganda but from a Christian site.
        
        http://m.christianpost.com/news/exodus-international-rejects-reparative-therapy-for-gays–77413/
        
        Yes it is a sad fact that LGBTI people are disproportionately affected by hiv, but that is because it is a much smaller, semi closed community so of course it will contain viruses more easily.
        
        Once again, the problem will not go away. There are way, way more heterosexual infections of hiv in the world so it’s by no means a gay disease, but gay people are disproportionately affected. That is a fact.
        
        You can’t make the issue go away by ignoring it or not supporting it. If young people discover same sex attraction in puberty or before they will act on it, regardless of what your moral code is and as parent you choose whether they do so blindly or whether they do so armed with the knowledge to keep themselves safe.
        
        If you care about your child you will want him educated.
        
        By ignoring it you are simply facilitating the spread of hiv because gay sex happens, it happened 2000 years ago and it will happen 2000 years from now.
        
        Dont be a fool and act like an ostrich.
        
        Sex and relationship education is crucial if you don’t want your child blindly stepping on a land mine.
      - Nordog6561
        
        >>Gay people have been around since the dawn of time. <>Gay relationships are a fact of life.<>Sadly, there are a growing number of 15-18 year old gay youths affected by HIV due to a lack of education.<<
        
        True, everyone should be taught that sodomy is dangerous.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        >>Gay people have been around since the dawn of time. <>Gay relationships are a fact of life.<>Sadly, there are a growing number of 15-18 year old gay youths affected by HIV due to a lack of education.<<
        True, everyone should be taught that sodomy is dangerous.
        
        That is your opinion. But if your child is gay he is going to experiment with gay sex no matter how you rant and rave about sodomy. Gay sex feels0 as natural to gay people as much as heterosexual sex feels natural for heterosexual couples. By disapproving of certain sexual practices your child is not going to simply not do them if they happen to be so inclined.
        
        So we have learnt that just saying no to drugs and sex and certainly gay sex doesn't work. Only a stupid fool will carry on flogging that decomposed old horse.
        
        Clever parents arm their children with as much knowledge as possible.
      - Nordog6561
        
        >>Homosexuality is not a birth defect,<>Apples and oranges.<>But if your child is gay he is going to experiment with gay sex no matter how you rant and rave about sodomy.<>Clever parents arm their children with as much knowledge as possible.<<
        
        I'll note your esteem for cleverness.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Homosexuality is an anomaly, not a birth defect. It is not listed as such by the WHO, American Academy of Psychiatrists, the Royal College of Psychiatrists or any governing health body or authority in any Western state or country. So you are wrong to call it a birth defect.
        
        Would you at least want to appear more intelligent in this conversation?
        
        Its a great pity that some people still hold ignorant views such as yours on homosexuality and gay sex. At the end of the day the only real potential loser here is your child, or others in this position.
        
        Sadly it’s the youth growing up facing same sex attraction that end up paying the price for their parents ignorance that resulted in a lack of balanced education. .
      - Nordog6561
        
        >>Its a great pity that some people still hold ignorant views such as yours on homosexuality and gay sex. At the end of the day the only real potential loser here is your child, or others in this position.<<
        
        Well, at least we agree that the losers are those in that position.
        
        You can put a sweet face on homosexuality all you want. You can talk about being on the right side of history all you want. You can complain about hateful religion all you want. You can appeal to the authority of psychiatrists all you want.
        
        None of that will change the immutable fact that homosexuality is disordered, and sodomy and tribadism do not rise to the level of marriage.
        
        The LGBTSTFU mob here in America over reaching (make a pun here if you must). The fact is history has shown time and again that when massive social change has been wrought through emotional appeals and mob coercion (as is the case here) it never ends well.
        
        Hey, if your "Gay Proud" that's your choice. There are just millions who refuse to comply with the program of insanity.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        I am not having any further discussions with you because unlike many of the other people here who disagree with same sex marriage, but at least agree that they should have the freedom to live and have protection under the law as all other minority groups, you harbour a deep, ugly hatred and no matter what I say you are too far gone to be helped.
        
        Your ignorance is staggering because you have no experience of what it feels like to have same sex attraction, so you do not have an informed opinion, only a judgemental, biased and deep hatred.
        
        Exactly the type of judgemental hatred your god, if you are a Christian, loathes.
      - Nordog6561
        
        >>I am not having any further discussions with you because unlike many of the other people here who disagree with same sex marriage, but at least agree that they should have the freedom to live and have protection under the law as all other minority groups, you harbour a deep, ugly hatred and no matter what I say you are too far gone to be helped.<>Your ignorance is staggering because you have no experience of what it feels like to have same sex attraction…<<
        
        You don't know that. You don't know anything about my sexual attractions. Maybe I have had same sex attractions. Maybe I have not. Neither scenario would in any way be relevant to the discussion.
        
        Only childish intellectually and emotionally stunted narcissist insist that propriety of an idea is the function of one's experience.
        
        One need not be a homosexual to have an informed opinion of its disordered nature any more than one needs to be a doctor to know that Kermit Gosnell was a monster.
        
        The actions are the thing – not the emotions based on navel gazing.
        
        Here's a BIG clue for you: Dismissing people because of what you THINK their experiences are (as you have done here) IS bigotry.
        
        But hey, run away if you must.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        I’m not running away. I am emotionally drained. I have posted tens of carefully thought out replies in this forum and I have reached a point where I am exhausted.
        
        We will never agree, so we can agree that any further correspondence is purely a waste of energy.
        
        I have indeed made a number of assumptions on you, but they are based simply on the picture you have painted of yourself. I am happy to apologise if some of them were wrong.
        
        You do not speak as somebody who have empathy for people, sometimes battling, same sex attraction. All you have is condemnation, so it was a safe bet to say that you clearly do not know what it feels like.
        
        I am not a bigot.
        
        bigotry
        ˈbɪɡətri/
        noun
        intolerance towards those who hold different opinions from oneself.
        
        I have had a respectful debate with you thusfar, but I am exhausted and as gay marriage is legal in the UK and soon will be across all States in the US, there is no gain for me in further debate.
        
        I absolutely believe that you should be able to hold this view, even if I do disagree. That is why I told you it is a great pity that you hold this view, rather than attacked you for having it.
        
        You just wanted to get bigot in so badly, that you were willing to try and ‘make’ it work.
        
        Well it failed.
      - Mars Attacks!
        
        Male-on-male homosexuality should be prohibited on grounds of public health.
        
        MSM (men having sex with men) are a little over 1% of the population, yet account for 70% of syphilis infections.
        
        http://blog.aids.gov/2012/12/syphilis-and-hiv-a-dangerous-duo-affecting-gay-and-bisexual-men.html
        
        This furnishes a powerful rational basis for an outright ban.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        And as approximately 75% of HIV infections in the WORLD occur during heterosexual sex, by your most perverted logic all heterosexual sex should be outright banned on grounds of public health too.
        
        But wait!! What about the human race?? Don’t worry, I’m sure you have it all covered.
        
        You likely have your screened and selected Aryan candidates already enrolled in a training programme in Russia, from where they will be launched to Mars to restart the perfect, disease free race for you.
        
        You are such an inspiring human being I feel like I could blow chunks.
      - Mars Attacks!
        
        Heterosexuals are 98% of the population. Not so good with math, huh?
        
        MSM are also the only population cohort among whom the rate of new AIDS infections is accelerating.
        
        Comparing 2008 to 2010, the estimated number of new HIV infections among MSM increased 12%, from 26,700 (95% CI: 23,400–30,000) in 2008 to 29,800 (95% CI: 26,200–33,500) in 2010.
        
        http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/statistics/surveillance/incidence/
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Oh I expected you to turn the figures upside down. Also, you quoted US figures, I am talking about International infections, so the figures you just mentioned are irrelevant.
        
        As we are looking at the world population as a whole, any sexual demographics are unimportant, other than the overall percentage of MSM vs heterosexual infections, because 75% of the 35 million world wide HIV infections are heterosexual and that means the virus’ spread is mostly being facilitated by heterosexual sex.
        
        It doesn’t matter what the ratio of MSM is to the 25% of world wide homosexual HIV infections, because it’s not so much their infections that are threatening the health of the broader public, but rather the other 75% who are heterosexual whose infections threaten the public health of mostly heterosexual people.
      - Mars Attacks!
        
        Oh, are you living in Africa and not in the US? It is here that your ilk spread your diseases and unfairly burden the health care system.
        
        AIDS figures in Africa have long been known to be unreliable.
        
        http://www.aim.org/aim-column/the-uns-massive-aids-scandal/
      - Johann Fourie
        
        I am from Africa yes. I lived there the first 19 years of my life and in the UK the last 16 years of my life.
        
        I have been back to Africa 14 times in the last 16 years, sometimes for 5 months at a time. So yes, I am afraid I do care for Africa.
        
        Clearly you don’t, presumably because the majority of the population is black and that certainly does not fit well with your ideology of the perfect, Aryan race.
        
        Just between you and me, black people’s lives in Africa are as valid as yours, you should try not to dismiss their suffering too easily.
        
        Besides, your government has spent 48 billion USD on aid specifically destined for HIV prevention in Africa through the PEPFAR programme between 2008-2013.
        
        Those are your tax dollars. So whether you are treating infections at home or in Africa, your tax dollars are paying for HIV and if you object to paying for HIV treatment for gay people in the US, you have to object to them paying for heterosexual people in Africa.
        
        After all, if your quest is to ban gay sex in the interest of saving your tax dollars, then the same should apply to straight sex – as they cost you billions of USD in 2013 alone
        
        You are such a fool. The only consolation is that there are very, very few people with your level of hate on this planet.
        
        http://www.avert.org/funding-hiv-and-aids.htm
      - Mars Attacks!
        
        Oh, shut up, you pompous bore.
      - Patti
        
        You were the one who asked if he was from Africa.
        
        BTW, since you seem very concerned about the spread of AIDS, I assume all lesbians can count on your support. After all they are the least likely to spread HIV or any other venereal disease.
      - Mars Attacks!
        
        I have no issue with lesbians. However, I do not support their quest for marriage or their quest to adopt. And I won’t pretend they’re not dysfunctional.
        
        However, lesbians really ought to do something about their rates of domestic violence.
        
        The report found that bisexual women had an overwhelming prevalence of violent partners in their lives: 75 percent had been with a violent partner, as opposed to 46 percent of lesbian women and 43 percent of straight women. For bisexual men, that number was 47 percent. For gay men, it was 40 percent, and 21 percent for straight men.
        
        http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/11/a-same-sex-domestic-violence-epidemic-is-silent/281131/
      - Patti
        
        They’re already allowed to adopt, something that was determined years ago to be in the best interests of the children. And they’re now also allowed to marry in most of the country.
        
        As for domestic violence, I note from your stats that straight & gay women experience it at roughly the same rate, or at least within the normal margins of error of most surveys. Bisexual women for some reason have significantly higher rates per the report in the article you linked, though they don’t say who’s doing the abusing. This is cut & pasted from the NISVS report the article links to:
        
        “Q. Why are rates so high among bisexual women?
        “The NISVS data helps us to better understand the experiences across groups in the prevalence and
        consequences of violence, but they do not provide information on the variety of factors that may cause
        victimization experience to be higher among some groups in comparison to others. There are a number
        of social factors such as attitudes about violence, poverty and disadvantages, sexism, homophobia/
        heterosexism and other forms of discrimination and social exclusion that contribute to risk for
        victimization. Other factors include prior exposures to violence in childhood and adolescence, and
        stressors resulting from limited access to community support, community resources, and service that
        may contribute to the differences presented in this special report.”
      - Mars Attacks!
        
        The article does not discuss the state of marriage in Africa.
        
        Should the United States treat MSM as acceptable mainstream behavior. Clearly not, based of disease incidence.
      - Patti
        
        >The article does not discuss the state of marriage in Africa.Should the United States treat MSM as acceptable mainstream behavior.Clearly not, based of disease incidence.<
        
        Once again, I presume all lesbians can count on your support.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Yep, that’s it. Throw an insult if you lose an argument. All you seem capable of are hating and insulting when things don’t go your way, oh and lifting irrelevant figures. There is no understanding or compassion for people who are of different sexual orientations or indeed race.
        
        I bet you too are indoctrinated by the BS of the biggest scourge of society: religion.
        
        Sad. No tragic.
      - Patti
        
        I thought he was arguing in favor of lesbians. They do keep down the spread of HIV.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        I love it, Patti! And indeed they do. These imbeciles literally cannot tell their a*seholes from their elbows.
      - Patti
        
        I sometimes wonder what arguments people like this used to bash gays with before AIDS. After all, AIDS is relatively recent and homosexuals have been around for all known human history.
        
        I can just picture one of these people putting together his arguments and going, “Thank God for AIDS! “
      - Mars Attacks!
        
        I haven’t lost the argument, but I nearly lost my dinner over your pious self-righteousness.
        
        The topic under discussion is the health and welfare of American mating customs.
        
        Your African statistics are a distraction. MSM in America are a disease-spreading threat tho public health. Nor has their STD-spreading behavior been altered by access to marriage. Clearly, gay monogamy is a chimera and gay marriage merely an effort to use the imprimatur of state approval to promote the fiction that what you do is the moral equivalent of the biological function upon which depends the future of the human race.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        You suggested that gay sex be outlawed on grounds of the cost to public health which is funded by your taxes and I just reminded you that by that token you should be seeking to outlaw heterosexual sex too, at least in Africa, as your government spent $ 48bn on aid JUST for the treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS in Africa through the renewed PEPFAR programme which is funded by the same tax dollars.
        
        Your argument just couldn’t stand up to the scrutiny, which means it’s just a bigoted, hateful, prejudiced puffs of hot air bellowing from your mouth.
        
        I have a thick skin, nothing you say could ever offend me. I will also not rise to your bait and lower myself to your level where I will be trading personal insults.
        
        I discredit and condemn your comments, but not you. You are likely of advancing age and caught up in a very, very unhappy and u fulfilling marriage yourself and have become embittered and angry with the world so I understand why you hate the world so much.
      - Mars Attacks!
        
        My concern is not cost, but the eradication of disease. I would ban the practices of MSM for the same reason mosquito eradication is employed to stamp out yellow fever.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        If your concern is eradication you want to start with the biggest viral reservoir in the world, the 28m or so heterosexual people with the disease.
        
        So blinded are you by your hatred, that you have become rather severely intellectually challenged and that you seem to struggle to formulate rational and sensible suggestions or ideas. .
        
        You suggested an outright ban on homosexual sex. And how did you with your putrified brain expect that to be policed or enforced?
        
        Your country couldn’t keep a lid on alcohol consumption in the 20’s and it can’t keep a lid on drug taking today, despite some of the harshest sentences in the a western world.
        
        The disease could NEVER be eradicated by banning a sexual behaviour, because you cannot dictate to people how they have sex. Gay sex was banned until the 60’s and it never stopped any couple from doing it
        
        You would spend so much money trying to prevent your own citizens from having sex, that you will have no money left in your budget to pay for your military to protect you against the latest enemy that you created, IS (in all fairness, this was 50% you, 50% us in the UK as we formed the coalition).
        
        Your suggestion is so absurd, so unworkable, so laughable, so ill thought out, so prosperous, that I can only assume that you must have been molested by an uncle as a child and that you have since harboured a deep, unwavering hatred for men.
      - Mars Attacks!
        
        We’re talking about syphilis. Gay men are fewer than 1 percent of the population, yet 70 percent of syphilis infections. Your diseased bodies represent nearly the entire reservoir of the disease.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        No, nobody was talking about syphilis. This is a debate about same sex marriage for those so filled with injudicious hatred that their brains can no longer grasp simple concepts.
        
        It’s a debate about same sex marriage.
        
        You fell out of nowhere with syphilis.
        
        It is 100% irrelevant to the debate.
        
        By the way, you better start building your stock pile. The end is nigh for the US. SCOTUS has agreed to hear four cases from four States and based on their gutting of DOMA in 2013, their refusal to get involved in States where the Courts of Appeals upheld the repeals of illegally enacted bans against same sex marriage and generally on the direction the matter has taken in the US, SCOTUS *WILL* rule in favour of SSM and it will become law of your land just as it has become law of both my native South Africa in 2006 and my adoptive UK in 2013.
        
        And we will celebrate that our love has and will ALWAYS prevail over your sickening, irrational, pointless, unwarranted, pathetic, demented hatred.
        
        http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/01/16/supreme-court-gay-marriage/21867355/
      - Mars Attacks!
        
        Yes, you idiot. My initial comment was about syphilis.
        
        https://disqus.com/home/discussion/spectatorwww/gay_marriage_and_the_death_of_freedom/#comment-1796234171
        
        You butt boys always change the subject to AIDS so you can water down your own astronomical infection rates with numbers from Africa. We’re talking about the industrialized world. We’re talking about syphilis.
        
        Male-on-male intimacies should be banned for the same reason unpasteurized milk is banned: disease.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        But you can’t suggest you police something which is A) impossible to police and B) contrary to a person’s human rights you vile c*nt.
      - Mars Attacks!
        
        There is no human right to spread disease.
      - Griffonn
        
        The entire notion of the Sexual Revolution is that the manchild has the “right” to do whatever his unsocialized ego demands.
        
        Consequences are for other people.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        You really are as thick as a steaming pile of pig sh*t, aren’t you?
        
        There is an unconditional human right to have sex with any person or persons who are over the age of consent. We all have the option to make that sex safe and not put ourselves at risk, but that is and will always remain a personal choice.
        
        I assume as an American you will have a mutilated pr*ck, perhaps the doctor misunderstood your mother and misheard ‘foreskin’ and performed a frontal lobotomy rather than a circumcision, there seems to be an integral part of your brain missing.
        
        You also strike me as a profoundly angry and unhappy person.
      - Mars Attacks!
        
        There is an unconditional human right to have sex with any person or persons who are over the age of consent.
        
        Such as your mother? How about a mentally disabled person?
        
        Sorry, your declaring something to be a human right doesn’t make it a human right.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        No, not your mother. I am not you. I referred to only legal and consensual scenarios.
        
        Sex with your mother is illegal. Sex with a mentally disabled person could be deemed rape if the person was unable to consent.
        
        Unlike you, I don’t entertain the idea of any illegal sexual relations.
        
        So I will repeat: it is an unconditional human right to have consensual sexual relations with any person over the age of consent that occurs within the current law.
        
        This is the case in the US as well as Europe, Australasia and most of South America as well as some Asian and some African countries.
        
        The Universal Declaration of Human Rights underscores this, it’s not my invention as you so erroneously allege.
        
        Article I All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
        
        Article 3 Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person. (Liberty means freedom for those with decayed brains)
        
        Article 12 No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
        
        Article 20
        (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
        (2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association.
        
        Article 1, 3, 12 and 20 secure the individual’s freedom and liberty and protects us from interference in our privacy and guarantees freedom of association – that is why homosexuality will never be outlawed in signatory States.
        
        In addition the Treaty of Amsterdam 1999 explicitly guarantees freedom of expression, including sexual expression for all gay people in the EU as a designated human right.
        
        http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_the_European_Union
        
        It is an accepted, written human right here in the UK and Europe (independent of the UDHR) and it is an implied human right in the US.
        
        As this article is published on a UK site and I am in the UK, the UK definition of human rights apply here.
      - Guest
        
        And if it’s any consolation to you, I detest that fallacy of that royal c*nt, jESUS cHRIST, that is responsible for your indoctrination as much as I detest the monsters such as you that arose from its brainwashing.
      - Patti
        
        But as long as he brought up STDs:
        
        “Klausner et al. analyzed data obtained from a survey of 2881 gay men in four major metropolitan areas of the United States and concluded that “same-sex male civil unions are associated with lower-risk behavior for HIV infection and other STDs … suggesting that societal and legal recognition have an impact on the maintenance of safer sex behaviors.”24”
        
        http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3093259/#!po=40.6250
        
        That’s just a small snippet from the paper “Public Health Implications of Same-Sex Marriage.” The whole thing is worth reading.
      - Patti
        
        Which is, of course, a good reason to encourage gay men to settle down and get married.
        
        http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3093259/#!po=40.6250
        
        “as reported by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health: as a result of the legal recognition of same-sex marriage, 72% felt more committed to their partners, and 70% felt more accepted by their communities, while 93% of children with same-sex parents reported feeling happier and better off.19”
        
        “Klausner et al. analyzed data obtained from a survey of 2881 gay men in four major metropolitan areas of the United States and concluded that “same-sex male civil unions are associated with lower-risk behavior for HIV infection and other STDs … suggesting that societal and legal recognition have an impact on the maintenance of safer sex behaviors.”24”
      - Mars Attacks!
        
        Happy talk.
        
        The rate of new STD infections among MSM is accelerating. MSM are the only cohort among whom new AIDS infections is increasing instead of declining.
        
        A majority of MSM couples are non-monogamous.
        
        http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2906147/
      - Patti
        
        I read your entire link and it said nothing to negate the benefits of gay marriage. As far as a majority of MSM couples being non-monogamous, it looks like it’s pretty darn close to 50/50. Specifically, this study of 566 gay male couples from the San Francisco Bay Area showed:
        
        “Ninety nine percent of couples reported having an agreement (see Table 2). Specifically, 45% had monogamous agreements, 47% had open agreements, and 8% reported discrepant agreements.”
        
        So when allowing for a margin of error, the monogamous and open couples were pretty even. The 1% of couples without a formal agreement could go either way, though probably in the direction of “open”. The 8% with “discrepant” agreements obviously have a communication problem (which was borne out by the study itself). It could mean one of them is being non-monogamous, or perhaps the one thinking there’s no agreement simply thinks it wasn’t necessary to formalize their arrangement whereas the other one thought they had done just that. Anyway, whether or not it hits 50%, there’s still a large number of monogamous male gay couples according to this study, a study that actually took place in “party central” for gay men, the San Francisco Bay Area.
        
        I doubt if either one of us is surprised that men tend to be less monogamous than women. What surprised me was that the “discrepant” agreements only comprised 8% of the sample. That is only 8% of the male gay couples in the sample had a misunderstanding of what rules they had laid down for each other. That may be better than heterosexual couples fare.
        
        Anyway, whether or not they’re all monogamous, gay marriage or gay civil unions still lower their risk for HIV and other STDs. I suspect even the non-monogamous male couples are having fewer partners once married. Plus they’re part of an actual family now and thus need to protect both themselves and their partners, leading to more condom use when they do stray. The paper I gave you is recent – it was written in June of 2011 – and it’s right on the point of what we’re discussing. Here it is again:
        
        Public Health Implications of Same-Sex Marriage
        http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3093259/#!po=40.6250
        
        If you really want to know how same-sex marriage affects the health of those involved, I’d strongly encourage you to read it. They analyze a large range of studies. I already gave you a couple of quotes from the paper, and here’s another one:
        
        “Not only is marriage associated with positive health outcomes for all individuals, regardless of sexual orientation; in addition, same-sex marriage has not been demonstrated to adversely affect the institution of heterosexual marriage. In 2007 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that all five states allowing same-sex marriage had divorce rates nearly 20% lower than those found in the rest of the country.26 Longer-term experience with same-sex marriage in Scandinavia and the Netherlands lends further support to these reassuring statistics.27”
      - Mars Attacks!
        
        Stress? We’re talking about syphilis.
      - Patti
        
        What are you talking about? I never even used the word “stress”. If you’re talking about the paper I linked to, it talks about a lot of items having to do with health & recognition of gay unions, including this statement:
        
        “Klausner et al. analyzed data obtained from a survey of 2881 gay men in four major metropolitan areas of the United States and concluded that “same-sex male civil unions are associated with lower-risk behavior for HIV infection and other STDs … suggesting that societal and legal recognition have an impact on the maintenance of safer sex behaviors.””
        
        You do realize that syphilis is an STD, don’t you?
      - Mars Attacks!
        
        All of the health benefits referred to stress. The language you quote is supposition, not data. Obviously, there isn’t lower risk behavior, since other research indicates that fully half of SSM is not associated with monogamy.
        
        The authors acknowledge the limits of their study.
        
        Furthermore, that study overestimates the gay percentage of the population 4-fold, based on comparisons to far more recent and comprehensive studies.
        
        Despite the spread of SSM, STD rates among MSM are accelerating, not declining.
        
        MSM have syphilis rates nearly 300 times that of heterosexuals. Not twice. Not ten times, 300 times.
      - Patti
        
        So you’re talking about the article. It did talk a lot about “minority stress,” but it was including bullying and teen suicides under that heading, things that can kill much more quickly than STDS. And it also talked of non-stress related health factors. Sounds like you didn’t read it very carefully.
        
        >The language you quote is supposition, not data.Obviously, there isn’t lower risk behavior, since other research indicates that fully half of SSM is not associated with monogamy.The authors acknowledge the limits of their study.Furthermore, that study overestimates the gay percentage of the population 4-fold, based on comparisons to far more recent and comprehensive studies.Despite the spread of SSM, STD rates among MSM are accelerating, not declining.MSM have syphilis rates nearly 300 times that of heterosexuals. Not twice. Not ten times, 300 times.<
        
        That was your own computation based on what I though were some dubious assumptions. But if you want to link to you source and recap how you got from there to the 300 times, then I'll go thru it more carefully. I don't doubt that STDs are higher among MSM, but I seriously doubt that keeping them marginalized is going to somehow help.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Again, completely inaccurate. About 5% of the public admit to being gay when surveyed, but many, many people are not out of the closet so will not admit when asked. Therefore a very large margin of error must be expected.
        
        Furthermore, human sexually is a spectrum. Many more people are bisexual, so the actual figure is potentially much more than 5%.
        
        Not 1%. I have come though to not expect any accurate or rational responses from you because you are incapable of delivering them.
        
        http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/12/08/opinion/sunday/how-many-american-men-are-gay.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
      - Mars Attacks!
        
        Less than 1 percent.
        
        Less than 3 percent of the US population is gay, lesbian or bisexual. Only 1.6 percent are gay or lesbian. Since it’s roughly a 50/50 breakdown between the sexes, that means gay men are less than 1 percent.
        
        http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/health-survey-gives-government-its-first-large-scale-data-on-gay-bisexual-population/2014/07/14/2db9f4b0-092f-11e4-bbf1-cc51275e7f8f_story.html
        
        In Britain, the numbers are similar.
        
        http://www.theguardian.com/politics/reality-check/2013/oct/03/gay-britain-what-do-statistics-say
        
        Male homosexual rates of syphilis infection are nearly 300 times that of the heterosexual population.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Your idiocy doesn’t fail to make me laugh. The figures you used were obtained from surveys. People are not always open about homosexuality. I showed you sources that were colated from more than just surveys and that include web searches and medical statistics – the figure is around 5%.
        
        Anyway, I am no longer responding to you. I have had amazingly civil debates with people here, even in the face of strong disagreement, until you came along with your irrational and deep hatred. Your sole purpose is to provoke a fight. You are a troll. You can be glad that you are in the US, because your comments are seen as hate speech in the UK and nothing would have given me more pleasure than to have you booked for the night.
        
        I simple don’t converse with people like you in real life and I wouldn’t wipe my sh*tty ass on your face if the last square of toilet paper had been used on this planet.
        
        I bet you are one of those putrid things called christians. Vile, superstitious, brainwashed, indoctrinated hate mongers that love picking and choosing which verses of their pile of cr*p bible they choose.
        
        I can tell u one thing… I am clever enough to see the holes in your fairy tale, but I’m educated enough to know what the bible says – because you ignore your god and cast judgement morning, noon and night, because of your intense hatred for fellow humans and because you make christianity so unattractive that you repel people from your god, despite your god having sent you on a clear mission to ‘win followers for him’, you have succeeded in making people detest the religion.
        
        I shall look forward to seeing you in hell. Pack lightly and remember shorts and a t-shirt only, I heard it gets a little toasty in there.
      - Mars Attacks!
        
        I have given you data. You have replied with obscenities.
        
        Now you blame religion when science argues for the eradication of your practices.
        
        The problem isn’t religion. The problem is disease. Which is just another way of saying the problem is you.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        All this hatred is rooted in religion. Science does not and never have argued for gay sex to be outlawed. Your personal hatred parading as pseudo-science has though.
        
        Every time a new disease pops up you cannot attempt to eradicate it with combinations of imprisonment and social cleansing.
        
        Your suggestions are ridiculous, unworkable and it would be illegal to implement.
        
        So in that tiny little pea brain of yours, surely you can get your three brain cells to collaborate to help you understand that even IF it could be outlawed, it would never stop it from happening.
        
        Gay sex was outlawed with harsh penalties until the 60’s and it never stopped anybody from having it. It’s impossible to stop.
        
        By driving it underground, such as in Africa and Russia (in the latter actual gay sex is not illegal, but educating safer practices are), you actually facilitate the spread of disease.
        
        Because if it is illegal to do and illegal to talk about and illegal to educate on, BUT IT HAPPENS ANYWAY, diseases spread faster as there is no support and as the practice is now illegal people do not seek help for conditions in fear of prosecution.
        
        Remember, the diseases that you labeled ‘gay’ aren’t kept within the gay community as there are plenty of bisexual people who then spread them into the heterosexual community, which means you, your sons or daughters could be infected.
        
        So you sticking your head in the sand like an ostrich and driving it underground not only accelerates the spreading of disease, you inadvertently eventually endanger your own community.
        
        But you don’t think that far. Because your brain is so putrified with hatred, that you would happily hack off your nose to spite your face.
      - Mars Attacks!
        
        Sorry, you’re dead wrong. Many diseases have been eradicated through strict public health laws. If your reasoning were followed, tuberculosis would still infect the milk supply, as it did in the 19th century.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Sex between consenting adults have never been successfully banned because it is IMPOSSIBLE to police what people do in their bedrooms and sex between consenting adults within the law (no incest, persons who can’t consent) will NEVER be banned because it is contrary to our human rights.
        
        And attempting to do so simply drives it underground and facilitates the spread of disease.
        
        I am not surprised that you cannot grasp that very simple concept.
      - Mars Attacks!
        
        Then why ban incest? Why ban sex with the unconsenting? By your lights, any effort to regulate sexual activity is unworkable.
        
        Is it a human right to spread tuberculosis? How about infecting food with E-coli or listeria?
        
        Declaring something a human right doesn’t make it a human right.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        I cannot believe that I have stooped this incredibly low to have this conversation with you, but you clearly need educating so I will do it for the sake of mankind.
        
        Incest carries dangers for a third party. Almost invariably people have a natural aversion to incest, however despite that and despite it being technically illegal, IT STILL HAPPENS! And it happens surprisingly alot. Different studies arrive at different figures ranging from 2%-15%. References below.
        
        In contrast, although the vast majority of people, in excess of 95%, identity as heterosexual, over half of Americans have consistently agreed that same sex couples should have equal marriage.
        
        This percentage further increases significantly when respondents are asked whether gay people should have some formal recognition of their relationships.
        
        In 2007, 90% of all UK citizens agreed that all discrimination against gay people should be illegal. Due to nearly all people’s natural aversion to incest, no such support exists for it.
        
        Only a very, very small fraction of people believe homosexuality should be illegal at all.
        
        This is the opposite with incest. Incest is harmful for any children born from incestuous relationships.
        
        Human rights aren’t dreamt up by a small group of people. They are voted on, discussed and deliberated at length by organisations such as the EU or the UN or individual democratic countries. They then require ratification by all member states.
        
        So when a human right is declared, because of the sheer scrutiny and debate and ratification it was subject to, IT DOES MAKE IT A HUMAN RIGHT.
        
        You are in a category of your own. The vast majority of people on this very conservative forum do not want equal marriage, but do agree gay people deserve their human rights and at least some other recognition of their relationships.
        
        It’s been a long, long time since I have come across a person with your view. In fact, in Europe I never, ever have.
        
        I love my American friends dearly and even there your view is a minority, heck I’m off to New York in February, but your view is virtually unheard of in Europe and for that I am grateful that I live in a more tolerant society with markedly less hatred than the USA.
        
        You are the one with the problem.
        
        http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incest
        http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_the_United_States
        http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_the_United_Kingdom
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Deliberate infection of any disease, whether it is tuberculosis, E. Coli, or listeria or indeed hiv or syphilis are illegal in most jurisdictions including the UK and US.
        
        An infection of hiv that occurs during consensual sex is no different to an infection of tuberculosis that occurs at a family gathering or a food poisoning that happened at a dinner.
        
        Diseases don’t discriminate.
      - Mars Attacks!
        
        Restaurant workers are required to wash their hands. Milk is required to be pasteurized.
        
        MSM should be banned. It’s a small price to pay for eradicating 70 percent of syphilis.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Anyway, I have said before that I will no longer be taking part in conversations with you and this time I will not rise to whatever you try to bait me with. My back hurts from stooping so low.
        
        I am wasting my energy. You are beyond saving.
        
        Luckily for me, people with your view are not only in a miniscule minority, they are also dying out.
        
        Goodbye.
      - Mars Attacks!
        
        No, the consequences of letting your ilk run amok will eventually be too dire to ignore. I hope you will recall this conversation when you’re hooked up to an IV drip in a hospice. AIDS was just the curtain raiser.
      - Nordog6561
        
        >>I am wasting my energy. You are beyond saving.
        
        Luckily for me, people with your view are not only in a miniscule minority, they are also dying out.<<
        
        Spoken like the true bigot you are.
        
        Dying out?
        
        You're still prattling on about the "right side of history" nonsense?
        
        If disease doesn't kill you, you may live long enough to see the backlash against the LGBTSTFU mob.
        
        But, go ahead, run away – again.
        
        LOL
      - Johann Fourie
        
        I am not running away. It is just futile to try and have a discussion with a person that believes gay sex should be illegal in order to prevent disease.
        
        Not only is it contrary to a person’s human rights to attempt to ban gay sex, it is wholly unworkable, as it was illegal for hundreds of years and never stopped a soul who were so inclined from having it.
        
        All you do is create misery, unhappiness, dysfunction and drive disease underground and facilitates it’s spread which then affects the heterosexual community too.
        
        So it’s a ridiculous, illegal, unworkable suggestion.
        
        You keep imagining a backlash against gay people. When the entire Western world is moving towards acceptance, where is this imaginary backlash going to come from?
        
        You have to understand that gay rights are written and accepted and rattified human rights in much of the world, but specifically here in Europe.
        
        It will never, ever change. I will always be free in my country and you will forever be a prisoner of your own mind, your own hatred and your own ideology, which would always have you fuming and ranting about the fact that those you hate have the right to be different and which would never, ever be supported by enough people to bring to law in your democracy, let alone the vast majority of people who whether they are for or against gay marriage, loathe the senseless discrimination that you are guilty off.
        
        Of course you and your type are dying off. The extreme views you hold are mostly found in the 60+ group, rarely in the under 40’s, the future generation.
        
        Look at opinions through the ages, they have consistently moved in one direction and that is the direction of tolerance and acceptance of those who are different.
        
        I am not running away from anything. I just don’t need your approval or your support for this. You are welcome to be one of a minute minority. You have also admitted to not reading my replies, so I’m just not going to bother anymore with you and Mars Attacks so you can rant until you need a valium to get yourself to sleep.
        
        In my country 90% of people believe that I should be protected from any form of discrimination and that would include my human right to have sexual relationships with consenting adults.
        
        http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_the_United_Kingdom
      - Nordog6561
        
        >>Not only is it contrary to a person’s human rights to attempt to ban gay sex, it is wholly unworkable, as it was illegal for hundreds of years and never stopped a soul who were so inclined from having it.<<
        
        Hey, I'm not the one arguing to make sodomy illegal. You'r right, I think such laws would be wholly unworkable. You and I could be wrong on that point, but I don't think we are.
        
        In any event if you want to argue against anti-sodomy laws you should take it up with someone who disagrees with you.
        
        Having said that, it is absurd to claim that sodomy is a human right, but then you are known for absurdities.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        I just explained to you why I was having no further conversations with Mars Attacks (you accused me of running away, remember?)
        
        It is him that wants to ban gay sex. I have no interest in having conversations with anybody that wants to deny me my human rights.
        
        Sex is a human right and gay sex is a designated human right (however you wish to have it) here in Europe according to article 10 and 19 of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union which were enacted by the Amsterdam Treaty 1999. It was ratified by all member states of the EU.
        
        The following two articles stipulate clearly and unequivocally that no discrimination shall be tolerated within the EU based upon sexual orientation. Sexual orientation and how people consequently express themselves sexually is a designated human right in the EU and a condition by which all States must agree in order to ascend to the EU.
        
        >>>Article 10
        In defining and implementing its policies and activities, the Union shall aim to combat discrimination based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation.
        
        Article 19
        (ex Article 13 TEC)
        
        1. Without prejudice to the other provisions of the Treaties and within the limits of the powers conferred by them upon the Union, the Council, acting unanimously in accordance with a special legislative procedure and after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament, may take appropriate action to combat discrimination based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation.
        
        2. By way of derogation from paragraph 1, the European Parliament and the Council, acting in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure, may adopt the basic principles of Union incentive measures, excluding any harmonisation of the laws and regulations of the Member States, to support action taken by the Member States in order to contribute to the achievement of the objectives referred to in paragraph 1.<<>>Fourteenth Amendment
        
        Section 1.
        All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.<<<
        
        In other words. Equal protection in law means homosexual sex cannot be outlawed, while heterosexual sex isn't and a guarantee of freedom and liberty means that the state cannot interfere with how consenting adults have sex.
        
        Also… It would be wise to not equate homosexuality with anal sex. I have many straight friends who do it regularly, while I have gay friends who never do.
        
        Being gay is about who you fall in love with more than it is about who you have sex with. It really is no different for gay men how they view men to how you as a straight man view women.
        
        http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_the_European_Union
      - Nordog6561
        
        >>I just explained to you why I was having no further conversations with Mars Attacks (you accused me of running away, remember?)<>Also… It would be wise to not equate homosexuality with anal sex. I have many straight friends who do it regularly, while I have gay friends who never do.<<
        
        This is so stupid.
        
        Of course all manner of people can engage in sodomy.
        
        But gays can ONLY engage in sodomy.
        
        No sodomy – still regular couples.
        
        No sodomy – no "gay" sex (and face it, what's "gay" without sex?)
        
        You need to work on your convertibility of propositions. Start with Aristotle's Square of Opposition, or if that's too much for you, look into Venn diagrams.
        
        Either way, straight people can have sex without being demented or perverted.
        
        Not so for "gays".
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Whenever you seem to realise that you are at the losing end of an argument you get personal
        
        And yes I know I said I wasn’t going to talk to you but as unreasonable as you may be, you are not as far gone as Mars Attacks, so I guess I’m just trying my best to get you to understand the issue a bit more.
        
        Because it’s clear that you don’t.
        
        There are plenty of gay men who never engage in anal sex. Stephen Fry has admitted that he falls in that group in a documentary recently.
        
        Penetrative sex isn’t everything. Lesbians can’t have natural penetrative sex at all, but it doesn’t stop them from being lesbians.
        
        There are many sexual activities you can do without penetration.
        
        But I guess most do it.
        
        A man’s prostate gland is a couple of inches up his rectum, you can actually have a full orgasme from from being the bottom during anal sex. Yes that is a full orgasm without touching your penis.
        
        I know many, many straight guys who love their girlfriends or wives doing that to them…
        
        Id recommend you give it a go. You may just end up loving it lol. 😛
        
        Live and let live.
      - Nordog6561
        
        I like how you totally ignored this part…
        
        >>Either way, straight people can have sex without being demented or perverted. Not so for “gays”.<>Live and let live.<<
        
        Tell that to the LGBTSTFU mob in this country.
        
        I WAS Live and Let Live until the mob insisted on full compliance and nothing short of public advocacy of "gay" marriage whenever the subject came up – and the mob was ALWAYS bring the subject up.
        
        So spare me you ersatz nobility. It's bullsh1t.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        A society where people could put signs up and say No Gays like they said No Blacks in the 50’s and refuse goods or services to them is not live and let live.
        
        A society where certain people cannot marry the people they love is not live and let live.
        
        A society where certain groups do not have access to state benefits or pensions despite having lived as a monogamous couple for 20 years and made equal contribution in taxes to heterosexual people is not live and let live.
        
        A society where gay people can get fired simply for being gay is not live and let live.
        
        A society where people are suppressed by the majority because they happen to be part of a minority is not live and let live.
      - Nordog6561
        
        >>A society where people could put signs up and say No Gays like they said No Blacks in the 50’s and refuse goods or services to them is not live and let live.<>A society where certain people cannot marry the people they love is not live and let live.<>A society where certain groups do not have access to state benefits or pensions despite having lived as a monogamous couple for 20 years and made equal contribution in taxes to heterosexual people is not live and let live.<>A society where gay people can get fired simply for being gay is not live and let live.<>A society where people are suppressed by the majority because they happen to be part of a minority is not live and let live.<<
        
        OH! You mean like the Wolves and the Sheep!
        
        Maybe your not so stupid after all…ah…no.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        I am so bored of the incest comparison. Incest is illegal because it holds dangers for a third party – children born to incestuous relationships have a medically higher chance of being born with birth defects. No such danger exists for a third party in consensual homosexual relationships so it’s apples and oranges again. I’m wondering if you are running a fruit stall here lol.
        
        My reference to people putting signs up saying no gays is what it boils down to when Christians can refuse to serve gay people. You support this so it has everything to do with you. You are thus the liar.
        
        You cannot dismiss the seriousness of the matter thar you and your partner will have access to each others pension fund in old age and that previous to the gutting of DOMA, gay people didn’t, despite making the same contributions.
        
        It has nothing to do with leftism or with benefits, but about principles. It is about fairness. You would have been outraged if the whole US were entitled to their benefits, but you were barred from yours say because of your religion or anything comparable.
        
        Lol, I love how you try to grab back the analogy but fall on your face so badly. You are NOT being suppressed.
        
        You can marry the person you love.
        You are entitled to every right and privilege every other person is entitled too.
        You can buy any goods or use any service without people turning you away discriminating against you because of who you are.
        
        YOU ARE NOT SURPRESSED LOL
      - Nordog6561
        
        >>I am so bored of the incest comparison. <<
        
        It wasn't a comparison.
        
        It was an example of a relationship that passed the requirement for marriage set by you.
        
        I'll note your denial of your LGBTSTFU mob. That mob can be denied only through ignorance or lies.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        You are a liar. It doesnt pass the requirements for marriage set by me. I only ever referred to legal relationships. Incest is illegal. I don’t refer to incestuous, paedophillic or forced relationships. Ever.
        
        Why on earth would I ever refer to a relationship that is not legal?
        
        That should go without saying, although I did specify ‘legal’ several times in other messages. It goes without saying because this is not the Tor network where people can lust after disgusting, illegal relationships.
        
        We are discussing only legally accepted sexual relations here. Why are you so far off course? It is slightly worrying and quite nauseating.
      - Nordog6561
        
        >>You are a liar. It doesnt pass the requirements for marriage set by me. <>I only ever referred to legal relationships. Incest is illegal.<<
        
        This from the guy who claims we can't make sodomy illegal.
        
        LOL
        
        So pathetic.
      - Nordog6561
        
        >>Why on earth would I ever refer to a relationship that is not legal?<<
        
        I cannot be held responsible for your imbecility and deviancy.
        
        Not my fault.
      - Griffonn
        
        If anyone ever seriously promotes the idea that people with gay genes should be discriminated against, I will be absolutely opposed.
        
        But otherwise, I think your attempts to conflate the evilness of discriminating against passive traits like skin color with the not-evil act of discriminating against people based on lifestyle choices is incredibly dishonest.
        
        The right to discriminate against people who choose behaviors that you hold to be evil is the very heart of freedom of association.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        This is where you are so wrong. Being gay is not a lifestyle choice. I didn’t choose to be gay and to be attracted to members of my sex anymore than you chose to be heterosexual and be attracted to those of the opposite sex.
        
        If you indeed had a choice then I’m afraid that you never were heterosexual, but rather bisexual.
        
        This is the view of every major health body including the WHO, the American Academy of Psychiatry, the Royal College of Psychiatrists and hundreds more.
        
        Besides, you don’t need to ask the WHO, just ask me, I’m gay, I’m telling you.
        
        Same sex attraction is not something you choose and it is not something that can go away with therapy.
        
        All the latest studies suggest that homosexuality may be the result of hormonal changes in the womb, thus no ‘gay gene’ is required for it to be understood as something we are born with.
        
        There are hundreds of studies, just search.
        
        http://news.sciencemag.org/evolution/2012/12/homosexuality-may-start-womb
        http://scitechdaily.com/homosexuality-might-develop-in-the-womb-due-to-epigenetic-changes/
        http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1522403/Being-gay-starts-in-the-womb.html
        http://m.seattlepi.com/national/article/Study-suggests-homosexuality-begins-in-womb-1207258.php
        http://www.economist.com/node/2121955
      - Griffonn
        
        Nobody is discriminating against you because you have “gay genes”.
        
        You are welcome to your beliefs, but you are not welcome to force your beliefs upon me. Saying that I cannot discriminate against you based on how you behave, or what lifestyle you live, is abusive on your part – which is why you need to deliberately pretend that people are discriminating against you because of some passive trait, rather than because of YOUR CHOICES.
        
        You cannot and will not win equality, dignity, or happiness through lies.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        I am not lying. Why don’t you read up on the subject a bit? You are completely out of touch with reality.
        
        You have no proof that I am lying, it’s a baseless accusation. I am offering you proof that the latest studies suggest people are born with same sex attraction because of hormonal changes in the womb.
        
        These are big studies.
        
        Anyway, I said it before and this time I will stick to my guns. I am not having any further conversation with you because it is futile.
        
        I am wasting my energy.
      - Griffonn
        
        You are missing my point. Nobody is discriminating against you because you have gay. They are discriminating against you because you think being gay gives you the right to violate other peoples’ beliefs.
      - Griffonn
        
        This is where you are so wrong. Being gay is not a lifestyle choice. I didn’t choose to be gay
        
        nobody is discriminating against you for having homosexual impulses.
        
        There is no way they could even know you have homosexual impulses.
        
        The problem is that you are assuming that having homosexual impulses means something. That is the disputed part. Having a disability does mean having the right to accommodations, but the disabled person doesn’t get to decide for himself that everything he wants is his by entitlement.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Also I think that you are missing the crux of this entire debate, the core of the article the original author also seemed to miss. But we have come to not expect any more of ignorant haters.
        
        Being gay is not about men who want to have sex with men. It is about who you fall in love with. Sex is a component of any healthy romantic relationship, so sure, sex happens, but it’s more about who you love than who you want to have sex with.
        
        You love females. You want to marry a female. You want to have sex with females. You are heterosexual.
        
        I love males. I want to marry a male. I want to have sex with males. I am homosexual.
        
        It’s as easy as that. Just like I couldn’t say that all you cared about was sex with women and discounted the fact that you want to have a relationship with one, you can’t say that about me.
        
        You could lose your penis in an accident and never be able to have sex again, but you still would want to spend your life with a woman. Not being able to engage in heterosexual sex doesn’t make you any less heterosexual. Heterosexuality is in your brain and in your heart and it flows through your veins, just like homosexuality is in my brain and my heart and flows through my veins. It’s not just in your c*ck.
        
        If you remove sex from my or any other gay persons life it doesn’t make them any less gay like you suggest. I still want to spend my life with a guy and not a girl.
        
        The sex isn’t the hallmark of sexual orientation, love is.
      - Nordog6561
        
        >>But we have come to not expect any more of ignorant haters.<<
        
        Well, given that you define those in opposition to "gay" marriage as "ignorant haters" your statement here is a lie.
        
        There are a great many expectations of compliance and endorsement on those poor blighted slobs you hate so much.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        I have had plenty of respectful debate with people whose views are different to mine. I respect their opinions as everybody is allowed to have their own view. I don’t call people haters for opposing gay marriage.
        
        But you are one of two people who sling personal insults when your argument or knowledge starts wearing thin.
        
        You call gay people demented, perverted, sick and a whole lot more.
        
        I’m afraid that is where the line lies and you become a hater, while the others just differ from me.
      - Nordog6561
        
        >>I have had plenty of respectful debate with people whose views are different to mine.<>But you are one of two people who sling personal insults when your argument or knowledge starts wearing thin.<>You call gay people demented, perverted, sick and a whole lot more.<>I’m afraid that is where the line lies and you become a hater, while the others just differ from me.<<
        
        OHhhh…
        
        That's your point.
        
        How banal.
        
        Another Leftist twerp calling someone a hater for disagreement. I just disagree with you that homosexuality is not disordered and perverse.
        
        I'll note that you've chosen to not comment on the nature of the LGBTSTFU mob that doesn't allow Live and Let Live in this country.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        I did reply to that, check my replies.
      - Griffonn
        
        He does not understand that you have the right to believe a behavior is perverted or sick.
        
        He seriously thinks that you are obliged to embrace his beliefs.
        
        Massive boundary issues.
      - Mars Attacks!
        
        I would humbly submit that when he’s reduced to defending his lifestyle on the grounds that a ban is unenforcible, the case for legitimizing it with marriage licenses has been immeasurably weakened.
      - Nordog6561
        
        Reduced?
        
        He calls it “stooping”.
      - Mars Attacks!
        
        I suspect much of his time is spent stooping… while gripping his ankles.
      - Nordog6561
        
        AND it’s a Human Right dontchano.
      - infadelicious
        
        LOL
      - Nordog6561
        
        >>It will never, ever change. I will always be free in my country and you will forever be a prisoner of your own mind, your own hatred and your own ideology, which would always have you fuming and ranting about the fact that those you hate have the right to be different and which would never, ever be supported by enough people to bring to law in your democracy, let alone the vast majority of people who whether they are for or against gay marriage, loathe the senseless discrimination that you are guilty off.<<
        
        This is just a bunch of childish whining.
        
        You don't know that you will always live free anywhere.
        
        None of us do.
        
        In fact, what little is left of freedom in what we once called the Free World is very much at risk.
        
        You confuse your right to call sodomy "marriage" with freedom. That is a function of your childish narcissism.
        
        You aren't free, and "sodomy rights" will not make you so.
        
        Grow up already.
      - Nordog6561
        
        >>In my country 90% of people believe that I should be protected from any form of discrimination and that would include my human right to have sexual relationships with consenting adults.<<
        
        Reality is not a popularity contest. You're a fool to think the 90% means anything necessarily.
        
        Don't forget, three wolves and a sheep taking a vote on what to have for dinner is democracy too.
        
        But go ahead, run away, like you keep threatening to do.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        I quoted the sources, but you didn’t click on it obviously.
        
        In the UK 90% of people believe gay people should have protection under the law against all forms of discrimination. 61% (still nearly two thirds) of UK citizens believe that gay people should have equal marriage, that figure rises to neatly 80% for the under 40’s. The future in other words.
        
        That is 90% of 70 million people. It is slightly different than your false analogy of a couple of wolves and a sheep.
        
        In your analogy you suggest that the sheep has a vote but then gets murdered. I’m afraid in a democracy no person can have a vote, but if the vote is lost it costs them their life such as your sheep. Absolute false analogy.
        
        http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/False_analogy
        
        I feel like I’m arguing with a bunch of kindergarten kids, although I actually think they may just be able to hold a more coherent argument.
        
        http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_the_United_Kingdom
      - Nordog6561
        
        >>That is 90% of 70 million people. It is slightly different than your false analogy of a couple of wolves and a sheep.<<
        
        Did you have to work hard to miss the point about the wolves and the sheep, or are you really that dense?
        
        90% of 70 million? I don't care. Reality doesn't care. Homosexuality is a disorder. Again, reality is not subject to a popularity contest even when it is ignored by the masses.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        No I discarded your analogy as it was a false one. I explained it to you. Your sheep had a vote, but then got murdered.
        
        That never happens in a democracy so I’m afraid as it didn’t stand up to scrutiny I couldn’t take it into account.
      - Nordog6561
        
        >>No I discarded your analogy as it was a false one. I explained it to you. Your sheep had a vote, but then got murdered. That never happens in a democracy so I’m afraid as it didn’t stand up to scrutiny I couldn’t take it into account.<<
        
        Wow. That is astounding stupid and betrays a great lack of historical awareness.
        
        Truly pathetic on your part.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Ok I will spell it out. Three wolves and a sheep voting about what is for dinner and the sheep gets eaten can in no way, shape or form be used as an analogy to demonstrate that 90% of 70 million human beings could be wrong when they state that they want equal protection for gays.
        
        It’s a rhetorical fallacy. No aspects of your analogy actually reflect my original statement. The conclusion is not supported due to the immense differences in the objects.
        
        You are comparing animals with humans. You are comparing an electorate of 4 individuals versus an electorate of 70 million individuals. In your analogy the sheep loses its life along with the vote.
        
        None of these components can justifiably be used to discredit my statement. It is technically known in the English language as a false analogy or a rhetorical fallacy.
        
        An analogy, as a like for like comparison, must be able to stand up to scrutiny or you will end up comparing apples and oranges and then you fail to demonstrate your point.
        
        If you want me to take notice, use a valid and fair analogy.
      - Nordog6561
        
        >>Ok I will spell it out. Three wolves and a sheep voting about what is for dinner and the sheep gets eaten can in no way, shape or form be used as an analogy to demonstrate that 90% of 70 million human beings could be wrong when they state that they want equal protection for gays.<<
        
        Ok, I will spell it out for you. I never said that. The fact remains that the democratic principle can in no way be seen as being an real justification of anything. That's the point. You're appealing to the 90% is fallacious begging of the question. Either that which the 90% likes is just or it in unjust. The number involved to totally irrelevant to the question of justice.
        
        That you get bogged down is irrelevant aspects of the analogy as if it were to be taken literally is further indication of your imbecility.
        
        Really? People are literally wolves? Really? Wow! NOTHING gets past you!
        
        LOL smh
        
        The fact is you reject the analogy, and would reject any analogy ordered to the same point, because you reject the point.
        
        And the point – AGAIN – (pay attention) is that appeals to popularity have no substantive connection to the right, the just, and the moral.
        
        You reject that fact – that is obvious to anyone who can read.
        
        If you honestly think that majorities can not or have not voted to kill those minorities among them then you are really lost.
        
        Your appeal to the democratic principle is worthless in your effort to overturn reality.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        You know what? Your reply stinks of sour grapes.
        
        You are in the very miniscule, dwarfed minority so you attack the integrity of the overwhelming majority, the 90% that wanted it.
        
        Yes in the past majorities persecuted and killed people, but we have learnt from history.
        
        We no longer live in the middle ages or even Second World War.
        
        We have since had various different declarations and treaties of human rights.
        
        You make such a massive thing about this, it’s really quite hilarious. All the 90% of people have said is that they want equal protection for gay people, you are ranting and raving as if they just voted for a second holocaust against the Jews.
        
        You are over reacting entirely.
        
        And as you are in the miniscule, might I add diminishing, minority, your only weapon now is to attack the integrity of the 90% of 70 million people.
        
        That is rather pathetic. And I don’t just smell sour grapes, I smell a vinegar distillery.
      - Nordog6561
        
        I can be the most sour grape that ever existed in the history of the Universe.
        
        It would not change the reality of anything I wrote about the reality that you cannot change reality with a vote.
        
        Reality is not a popularity contest.
        
        >>All the 90% of people have said is that they want equal protection for gay people…<<
        
        Actually, over here, that is not true. The LGBTSTFU mob has done FAR more than that.
        
        But I'll note your concern for those you ridicule because they weren't actually put into ovens.
        
        Man you're a hater.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        You speak with such authority about what is right and what is wrong, but it remains just your personal opinion or your interpretation.
        
        I don’t share your values or your interpretation of morals. This is a free world and I don’t share your religious views either.
        
        So your values and your religious views and your definition of morals have no bearing on my life.
        
        You live your life according to your morals. You are under no obligation to marry a man, have sex with a man or engage in any form of homosexual behaviour.
        
        I can choose to live my life how I see fit.
        
        All we demand is respect.
        
        You will not refuse goods or a public service and hide behind the fallacy of religious freedom if u have chosen to operate a business serving the general public and you do so under the condition that you adhere to local laws.
        
        Nobody is forcing you to agree with same sex marriage, but as marriage is a contract between two people and the state and the state is willing to sanction them, then it’s not your concern if two people of the same sex wishes to marry.
        
        You will not have the right to dismiss a person from his job simply for being gay as no gay boss will have the right to fire you at a whim simply because you are straight and he would prefer to employ a gay friend in your role.
        
        Our demands are not unreasonable. They are not unfair.
        
        And before you regurgitate the boring, worn out cases of gays and florists, bakeries or photographers. When you choose to run a business, then you do so according to the laws of the territories you operate within. So if the territory passes a law saying that you leave your prejudices and beliefs at home and you treat everybody equally, then you do that. If you disagree, you can close your doors and seek a different livelihood. Perhaps you can go work for a religious organisation.
        
        Christians are very quick to cry that their religious freedom has been compromised by being forced to serve certain groups, but they happily open on Sundays, serve divorcees and people who renounce christ, all condemned in more places in the Bible than homosexuality. They apply their beliefs so inconsistently and pick and choose which verses of their bible still apply to today’s world.
        
        You just don’t agree with this because you have been indoctrinated by dated values from an irrelevant religion.
      - Nordog6561
        
        >>You speak with such authority about what is right and what is wrong, but it remains just your personal opinion or your interpretation.<<
        
        I may be right or I may be wrong regarding the propriety of a given action.
        
        The point is not that I am always right or that I am never wrong.
        
        But you are right to mention "opinion", just not right in the way you think.
        
        No, the point is, was, and will remain, that democracy, popularity, votes, or "history" do not change reality.
        
        Either sodomy is a physical deviancy or it is not.
        
        Either homosexuality is objectively disordered or it is not.
        
        What 90% of the 70 million inhabitants of your home planet think on those to points is, as you say, their opinion.
        
        Their veracity opinion is neither strengthened nor weakened by its popularity.
        
        Besides, right or wrong, contrary to your claim my opinions are not JUST my personal opinions.
        
        I will note, sadly, that you think that somehow personalizing the disagreement by calling it "opinion" has an bearing on the matter.
        
        So, you are right to imply that opinions do not matter ultimately as regarding the truth and reality of a thing.
        
        But you are wrong to think you are right simply by rejecting someone's opinion.
        
        And of course, and again, you are phenomenally wrong to think that ontological realities are subject to the opinions of them.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        I disagree with you. We are going in circles so there is no point in me repeating myself again, other than saying that I do not believe (my opinion and luckily also that of the lawmakers of the country and union that I live in and for acceptance purposes the overwhelming majority of my fellow citizens) that sodomy, or sex as I call it, is a physical deviancy.
        
        I believe our bodies are ours and ours alone and I reject the idiocy that it somehow belongs to an invisible god and I believe that they are ours to enjoy. Your anal area is part of your erogenous zone. It feels good when it is touched, stroked, licked or penetrated. Both men and women can get pleasure from stimulation in this area, so no, it’s not a physical deviancy to explore during sex. It is 100% fair game and normal.
        
        In this instance, seeing that not only my country the UK, but also the European Union and United Nations recognise my absolute right to freedom as a gay man and sexual expression and that 90% of the people I walk among in my country believe that that is right, it just doesn’t matter to me what your opinion is or whether you believe it to be right or not.
        
        It doesnt affect my life in the slightest. It’s 100% irrelevant.
        
        I dont believe in a god. I’m an out and proud atheist. Therefor I do not hold your moral code about anal sex being a deviancy, it is normal to me, it is my human right, it is my freedom and it is my liberty and I think that it is rather unhealthy and worrying that you seem to have it on the mind more than me.
      - Nordog6561
        
        >>… I do not believe (my opinion and luckily also that of the lawmakers of the country and union that I live in and for acceptance purposes the overwhelming majority of my fellow citizens) that sodomy, or sex as I call it, is a physical deviancy.<<
        
        Yeah, you are a master at missing, ignoring, the point.
        
        Your deviancy is not subject to opinion, faith, or vote.
        
        It's a deviancy even if there were no moral component attached to the subject matter.
        
        It just is.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        My final question to you is, if neither anal sex nor homosexuality is listed as a deviancy or disorder by any government or medical or psychiatric governing body in any European country, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, much of Africa, All of South America and much of Asia or EVEN GAY HATING RUSSIA, then what are you basing this fact on?
      - Nordog6561
        
        On the fact that the world is mad to not recognize the self-evident physical biological deviancy of sodomy.
        
        You really have this thing for fallacious appeals to authority. That’s the sign of a mob that thinks it’s in power.
        
        If all those powers and organizations were to flip their opinion on the matter (and it wouldn’t be the first time) suddenly you would reject your appeal to those authorities.
        
        That you even have to ask your “final question” indicates how demented your thinking is.
      - Nordog6561
        
        >>I dont believe in a god. I’m an out and proud atheist. Therefor I do not hold your moral code about anal sex being a deviancy, it is normal to me, it is my human right, it is my freedom and it is my liberty and I think that it is rather unhealthy and worrying that you seem to have it on the mind more than me.<<
        
        That's so banal and hackneyed.
        
        LOL
        
        I'm not the one insisting that the world celebrate sodomy and call it marriage.
        
        You are.
        
        The LGBTSTFU mob is.
        
        It is profoundly sad that you have no problem reducing "human rights" to your insistence on having butt sex.
        
        You really are demented, and that's a demonstration of it.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Misquoted and misconstrued. I am reducing my human rights to the right to have a relationship with any consenting adult within the law that I wish. I am further reducing my human rights to do with my body what I wish, it is after all my body. Sexual expression is but a subfactor of my freedom to be who I am.
        
        Why are you so obsessed with sex?
      - Nordog6561
        
        >>Why are you so obsessed with sex?<<
        
        I'm not.
        
        You're the one who just argued that your compulsion to sodomy is a factor in your very being, and consequently must be recognized as a human right.
        
        Hell, I was minding my own business.
        
        I'm not the LGBTSTFU mob getting into everyone's face.
        
        That's your lot.
        
        I'm not the one who defines his being according to his sexual appetites.
        
        That's you.
        
        So…
        
        A bunch of perverts start marching in Pride Parades around the world, exhibiting all manner of deviant behavior.
        
        I ignore it.
        
        A bunch of perverts insist that have the right to work in the marketplace.
        
        Fine, I don't care. Of course people should be allowed to work.
        
        A bunch of perverts insist that they have the right to marry.
        
        I mention that the notion is absurd.
        
        A bunch of perverts insist that I have no place in society because of the opinion I expressed. I am labeled a bigot.
        
        I push back and say, "You're absurd and you're acting like a mob."
        
        You come along and say, "You're a bigot. Why are you obsessed with sex?"
        
        You're an idiot.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        You love taking me out of context. It doesnt happen in modern democracies, you know that is what I meant.
        
        When did the US or Europe, Australasia or the vast majority of South American or even Asian countries that have evolved true democracies that are considered developed countries actually execute a citizen for voting a certain way?
        
        Never!
      - Nordog6561
        
        >>You love taking me out of context. It doesnt happen in modern democracies, you know that is what I meant.<<
        
        Yeah, tell that to Dred Scott.
        
        Tell that to Homer Plessy.
        
        Tell that to Fred Koramatsu.
        
        Tell that to anyone who lived under Jim Crow.
        
        Tell that to anyone who voted against the National Socialist Party and Herr Hitler in 1932.
        
        You're a fool or a liar. Maybe both.
        
        What a friggin' idiot.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Oh dear. How embarrassing for you. I said MODERN democracies. You even quoted me… Lol..
        
        Modern democracies are post 2nd world war. Try today.
        
        Goodnight.
      - Nordog6561
        
        >>Oh dear. How embarrassing for you. I said MODERN democracies. You even quoted me… Lol..
        
        Modern democracies are post 2nd world war. Try today.<<
        
        OH, that's right. What was I thinking? FDR didn't have the Internet or YOU to guide him into Modernity.
        
        When you say "modern" you really mean, "Since the day I was born, and only if I approve."
        
        Shouldn't you be biting a pillow somewhere?
      - Mars Attacks!
        
        His kind may not die out, but I expect another major die-off any year now.
      - Nordog6561
        
        >>My back hurts from stooping so low.<<
        
        Gross.
        
        We told you "gay" sex was bad for you.
        
        LOL
      - Griffonn
        
        Funny how the people who claim to be in favor of “arming” kids with “as much knowledge as possible” never want to include things like – for instance – drug resistant STDs being potentially lethal.
      - Mars Attacks!
        
        It’s a birth defect.
        
        http://news.sciencemag.org/evolution/2012/12/homosexuality-may-start-womb
      - Griffonn
        
        If homosexuality is not a defect, then why do they need accommodations?
        
        Let them marry the person they procreate with, and honor that person.
        
        Equality of outcome is a disabled rights concept. Healthy people do not get equality of outcome – only equality of opportunity.
      - Patti
        
        >If homosexuality is not a defect, then why do they need accommodations? Let them marry the person they procreate with, and honor that person.<
        
        Heterosexuals quite often don't marry the person they procreate with. So are heterosexuals also asking for accommodations?
      - Griffonn
        
        When heteros make a baby with one person but marry someone else, they are not exempted from honoring, respecting, and supporting that first person.
        
        If Joe marries Linda, but has already had a baby with Susan, then it is Susan, not Linda, who gets the procreative benefits of marriage – not only the tax benefits but SSI, pensions, health insurance, life insurance, etc.
        
        What gays are demanding – using an “equality of outcome” argument that says that they have special needs because of their defect (though they are careful to avoid such honest language) – is that they can’t be “happy” unless they are allowed to pretend that the woman they made a baby with doesn’t exist, and that everyone must pretend that the child is the result of a pairing of two men.
        
        Which contradicts their claim that they believe marriage to be “not procreative” – (but of course we all know they are lying and they know they are lying when they claim to believe that).
      - Patti
        
        When hetros make a baby with one person but marry another, they do have to support the child either through having custody or paying child support. (The same is true of gay people making a baby.) There is no law, though, requiring hetros to honor or respect the person they made the baby with, and quite often they don’t. That is rather than honoring & respecting, many people have nothing good at all to say about the person they procreated with.
        
        In your example, Susan doesn’t automatically qualify for ANY of the benefits you listed. The ones who get to file a joint tax return are Joe and Linda (the woman he married). As Joe is required to pay child support to Susan (assuming she has custody), then he could be the one claiming the dependency exemption for the baby. This varies depending on what the court orders, what any separation document might say, and what Joe & Susan have arranged among themselves. If Susan is the custodial parent then she would have first dibs on the dependency exemption unless she’s agreed to let Joe take it. There’s also a child care tax credit which will go to whoever’s paying for the child care.
        
        SSI could be awarded to either Joe or Susan depending which one is in need. Custody of a child is not necessarily a requirement for SSI. And if Susan is earning a good salary, she very likely won’t qualify. I never did and I was a single mom for 4 years. Susan will have no claim on Joe’s pension if she never married him. Susan will not be covered under Joe’s health plan, but the baby will be if it’s a family plan. Susan will not qualify for Joe’s life insurance unless he names her as his beneficiary.
        
        Basically, most of what you said is false, at least here in the US. I am not familiar with the laws from other countries.
        
        Gays are not asking for anyone to pretend. They are not asking to be treated as having special needs. Heterosexuals can use artificial birth methods and there’s absolutely no reason to exclude gays from using the same. Heterosexuals can adopt, and they now see there’s a huge advantage to letting homosexuals do the same as they’re much more likely to adopt the hard to place child.
        
        Marriage may or may not be procreative as I’m sure you know. Many heterosexual couples either can’t or won’t have children. Among those that “won’t” are heterosexual couples who simply don’t think they’d be very good parents, often due to baggage left over from their own childhood despite the fact that they had married heterosexual parents. At least that’s been my experience with the reasons of the “won’t” crowd.
        
        You obviously had some bad experience with gay people somewhere along the way and seem to be taking it out on every gay person out there.
      - Griffonn
        
        That’s just it: gay people don’t make babies.
        
        That’s the lie at the heart of “gay marriage”.
        
        I’m okay with gays claiming to be life partners – and having the same benefits as a sterile or elderly couple – but if you are going to insist that it’s discriminatory to exclude gays from marriage because marriage is not inherently procraetive, then you can’t logically (or honestly) turn around and insist that “because we are married, you have to pretend my child is also her child.
        
        Real civil rights ≠ lies
      - Nordog6561
        
        >>Just saying it does is not justifying your beliefs.<<
        
        Tell him for starters there are poofters demanding you justify your beliefs.
      - Griffonn
        
        He isn’t intelligent enough to even understand why I shouldn’t have to justify my beliefs.
      - Nordog6561
        
        “Gay marriage” doesn’t affect other marriages per se so much as the embrace of the idea that sodomy or tribadism is a sufficient physical component to consummate a marriage is madness.
        
        The notion that a civil society embraces that madness is an indication of societal rot and decay at the most fundamental level.
        
        Then there’s the whole LGBTSTFU mob seeking to destroy individuals lives and careers for having the temerity to simply mention that they oppose the madness.
        
        Then there are the litigants who seek to drive Christians from the public forum and marketplace for refusing to make a certain product or provide a certain service (products and services that blaspheme the fundamental and foundation sacrament of their faith) to customers they otherwise serve willingly and happily.
        
        So there’s that.
        
        But if it makes you feel any better, real marriage has been in hospice for some time, and the LGBTSTFU mob didn’t put it there. Rather the mob is just dancing on its not just yet dead body.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Biased, ill-informed, ignorant and wrong. That sums up your reply beautifully.
        
        You said:
        
        “Gay marriage” doesn’t affect other marriages per se so much as the embrace of the idea that sodomy or tribadism is a sufficient physical component to consummate a marriage is madness.”
        
        What the hell are you bothered or worried or indeed interested in how other couples have sex?? I think your interest is rather unhealthy, considering that you are as you say heterosexual.
        
        Thinking about heterosexual sex makes me feel rather nauseous. The remedy is to just not think about it. Relationships and how they are consummated are the absolute most private business of the couples involved. Now if gay marriage had nothing to do with you, then how they have sex has even less to do with you. It’s also absurd that you seem to want to police the consummation of relationships.
        
        How weird of you.
        
        I’m afraid to tell you this, but if a person offers a public service like photography or baking then they should leave their personal beliefs at home and treat everybody equally.
        
        See, Christians’ cries that it somehow impinges on their beliefs to bake a cake for a gay wedding doesn’t stand up to logic, because Christian bakeries readily bake cakes for divorcees and for people of other faiths and frequently indeed cater on Sundays, all equally condemned by their hateful god. Even when their doors are closed on a Sunday, they have baking to do if they have orders for Monday.
        
        So, as per usual, Christians have gotten it down to a fine art which biblical laws they CHOOSE to follow and which not.
        
        When a group of people are so inconsistent in their beliefs then I’m afraid they are not taken seriously.
        
        Second of all, and I follow these cases (Arlene’s Flowers, Wash. Ashers Baking Company, N Ireland among others), the gay person is a regular customer of the florist or bakery and these businesses claim that they did not refuse them because they were gay, but because they did not agree with the marriage for which they were asked to cater.
        
        Now if you can’t already see the laughable inconsistencies screaming at you here, then there is something wrong with you.
        
        Their action to refuse the flowers or cake for the wedding, but happily serve them Monday to Friday, is a contradiction as the ‘sin’ would be in the business profiting at all from the so called sinner, not just on this one occasion. .
        
        So taking money from them on regular days would be the sin, not the particular event in question. Yet both these businesses counted the customers in question as regulars.
        
        Even so, according to Mark 12 (Yes I’m talking about your hateful black book) the people ran to Jesus to asked him if it was right to pay the imperial tax and Jesus said: “Give onto Caesar what is Ceasar’s, and give onto God what is God’s.”
        
        In other words, follow the law of your land. If gay marriage is legal or there are antidiscrination laws in your country, you need to follow them because Jesus had told you so by his own words.
        
        Very typical Christian behaviour to only follow the most convenient verses.
        
        It’s very simple. By allowing bakeries and florists to pick and choose who they serve, we are going back to the era when we had signs up saying ‘no blacks’.
        
        It’s really, really not that hard to treat everybody the same. Go on, try it, you might be surprised.
      - Nordog6561
        
        Whatever.
        
        All your blather changes not one bit of the fact that sodomy and tribadism don’t rise to the definition of marriage, or that homosexuality is a grave disorder.
        
        Your bleating here is just a bunch of noise. Hateful, demented, bigoted noise.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        After your initial rather articulate post I expected a much, much better reply from you.
        
        But you know I made excellent points and you had no come back.
        
        The bottom line is Christians do pick the verses they follow. Nowhere is more evident than in Leviticus.
        
        Oh dear, if I had a pound for every time Lev 18 : 22 was quoted ( “‘Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.”), I would have been so rich. Interestingly just a little further in the same book, Leviticus 19 : 19 god says:, “‘Keep my decrees. “‘Do not mate different kinds of animals. “‘Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed. “‘Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material.
        
        In Leviticus 18 : 19, yes only three single verses before the gay rant, god says: “‘Do not approach a woman to have sexual relations during the uncleanness of her monthly period.”
        
        All these condemnations have been conveniently ignored.
        
        I want to see you leave the house dressed in clothes all of the same thread. Yes you read it here, it’s not only unflattering, it’s also a sin to wear that cheap polyester / viscose suit of yours.
        
        I am not comparing different testaments, or even different books – all these laws come from Leviticus, one of the cornerstones of the homophobe’s usual diatribe.
        
        Jesus DID say give unto Ceasar’s what is Ceasar’s and onto God what is God’s.
        
        So you must realise that they were wrong to refuse the services. Not just wrong lawfully, but they were wrong in their own interpretation of their own religion.
        
        I am a bloody atheist and I seem to know more about how a Christian should live.
      - Nordog6561
        
        >>But you know I made excellent points and you had no come back.<>So, as per usual, Christians have gotten it down to a fine art which biblical laws they CHOOSE to follow and which not.<<
        
        …and it is clear that you're having an argument with yourself.
        
        I've not made any theological claims or Biblical appeals at all.
        
        So it became clear immediately that your demented mind is running its own tapes and spitting out pre-recorded replies to comments not made.
        
        In other words: More madness from you.
        
        And as much as I hate to break the news to you, I was an agnostic/atheist adult in my 30's when I finally realized that homosexuality is a grave disorder.
        
        It wasn't any scripture or religious faith at all, let alone a case of "cherry picking".
        
        Why would I quote scripture to you?
        
        That would be stupid.
        
        I remember Bible thumpers quoting the Bible to me and I would tell them, "But the Bible is just a bunch of crap; I don't believe it."
        
        To which they would reply, "But it says in the first chapter of the book of…"
        
        Morons.
        
        Kinda like you.
        
        If it weren't so long ago I would introduce you.
        
        So, if that line of bullsh1t you're running helps you sleep at night, knock yourself out. What's one more lie you tell yourself?
        
        The fact that Christians are targeted is the answer to your question. It's not a theological argument. It's a statement of factual reality pertinent to your inquiry.
        
        Face it, you're not very bright, you're a bigot, and you suffer from a grave disorder.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        I repaid your favour by not reading your reply at all.
        
        I simply explained to you why in a sectarian state, Christians aren’t taken seriously. Because they apply their beliefs too inconsistently.
        
        Besides, Christian, Jew or Muslim – if you CHOOSE to run a public service, you are required to do so indiscriminately.
        
        Take care.
      - Nordog6561
        
        I think you mean “secular state” but you would be wrong either way because, well, you’re pretty much wrong about everything.
        
        You’re just another member of the LGBTSTFU mob. You probably think something stupid like you are “on the right side of history”.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Yes, my phone’s autocorrect changed the word. Of course I meant secular.
        
        Thank you for pointing it out.
      - Nordog6561
        
        >>Besides, Christian, Jew or Muslim – if you CHOOSE to run a public service, you are required to do so indiscriminately.<<
        
        An unjust law is no law at all.
        
        Once the law held that it is illegal to serve blacks and whites together.
        
        I guess you would be okay with that.
      - Griffonn
        
        If the debate were over, you guys would not have to be so vicious to those who don’t agree with you.
        
        It will never be over. There will never be a time when you can relax – if you kill us all, new people will eventually replace us. Because your argument is based on lies.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Of course the debate is over. It has been raging for decades. Gay people have been actively and openly campaigning and fighting for their deserved rights to be recognised since the 60’s.
        
        That is 50+ years of debating.
        
        Gay people are not vicious with people who want all the human rights in the world, but do not want to grant it to those who they see as different. You don’t know what vicious is.
        
        Vicious is the thousands of gay people MURDERED the world over by heterosexual people in hate crimes, because like you, they think that it is ok to hate.
        
        Vicious is the amount of gay people who are ‘legally’ executed in many African countries and across the middle east simply because they live in superstitious countries where their lawmakers believe it is an invisible god’s will.
        
        Vicious is the amount of gay teenagers driven to suicide, because bad parents like you reject them, hate them or take futile steps to try and change them.
        
        Vicious is the amount of gay children who are bullied at school and who suffer daily abuse from homophobic family members.
        
        Vicious is the tens of thousands of gay people who are needlessly attacked and seriously injured in hate crimes the world over, simply for being who they are.
        
        Viscous is the fact that you have a majority of people who historically suppressed minority groups living among them.
        
        Vicious is the fact that you demand or expect certain rights for yourself, but will vehemently oppose those with different needs from you having them, even when them having the rights do not affect your life.
        
        The debate is over. It has been won by the tolerant, modern and free thinking newer generation.
        
        The law is passed and it is legal. It is inconceivable to imagine it ever reversing here, so it is over. Those with your views are in the dwindling minority and dying off. It will never disappear completely, but it is becoming more and more socially unacceptable. Your view is already opposed by two thirds of the British public and 55% of all Americans.
        
        There are much fewer racists today, than in the 60’s. We are moving in the right direction. The same is happening with homophobes.
        
        As the debate is over and our rights awarded, what you are doing is ranting.
        
        Pointless ranting.
      - Griffonn
        
        Awww, bad news for you in today’s news feed
        
        four children of same-sex couples have “come out” and issued briefings to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that striking down same-sex marriage bans in three states could lead to pain and suffering to thousands of kids.
        
        Recalling childhoods rife with loneliness, sexual confusion, alienation, and, most of all, fear of repercussion from gay activists; Katy Faust, Dawn Stefanowicz, B.N. Klein, and Robert Oscar Lopez were each uncompromising in their condemnation of denying children the right to be raised in households without mothers and fathers.
        
        http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/children-gay-parents-testify-against-same-sex-marriage
        
        I was expecting this – but not so soon!
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Your article made me laugh out loud. They managed to find four, that is FOUR, kids of gay parents who were unhappy with their parents???
        
        Just four???
        
        Hahaha!!!
        
        Just ask Google how many children were neglected in the US (alone) and it gives you this depressing answer:
        
        “How many children are abused and neglected in the U.S? In 2012, 6.3 million children were referred to Child Protective Services (CPS). In 2012, 3.8 million children were investigated for maltreatment by CPS. In 2012, 678,810 children were determined to be victims of abuse or neglect.”
        
        So please, do try and pay attention in class.
        
        It will also make of you a better, not lesser, human being if you acknowledge that hate against the LGBTI community costs lives.
        
        If we reduce the hate, enhance the tolerance, then common sense dictates that we will have less violence.
        
        Just like there is less race related violence today, pro rata, than a few decades ago.
      - Griffonn
        
        What’s amazing is that they found anyone at all. I figured it would be at least five years and probably more like a decade until they had enough of a support network to even risk speaking out.
        
        It’s happening much sooner than expected.
        
        Of course most children raised by gays won’t be ready to speak out for quite some time – mostly because abused children tend to justify the abuser and hope he or she will change, but also because of course the gay community will attack with extreme viciousness.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Gay people have been having children for decades. Why did we need to wait more decades.
        
        Everything you said is based on prejudiced assumptions. You stated no facts.
        
        Goodbye.
      - Griffonn
        
        Actually, gay couples can’t reproduce. What you call reproduction is parasitism.
        
        And the reason your kids don’t speak out out loud is because they don’t have a support network. They know you can’t handle hearing things you don’t like.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        You are a Muslim. That explains your distorted views and prejudices. Like Christians and Jews, you have been indoctrinated with institutionalised hatred.
        
        Everything you said in your reply is just an assumption and a laughable one at that.
        
        Oh and by the by, I don’t think you meant to use the word ‘parasitism’. Here is the description – I couldn’t make it work in your sentence.
        
        ‘Parasitism is a non-mutual symbiotic relationship between species, where one species, the parasite, benefits at the expense of the other, the host. Traditionally parasite referred primarily to organisms visible to the naked eye, or macroparasites.’
      - Griffonn
        
        LOL really?
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Their briefings won’t stand up in the court of appeals and if by fluke it does, it will be struck down by SCOTUS.
        
        You can mark my words today.
        
        In the one briefing Klein said:
        “While I do not believe all gays would be de facto bad parents, I know that the gay community has never in my lifetime put children first as anything other than a piece of property, a past mistake or a political tool to be dressed up and taken out as part of a dog-and-pony show to impress the well-meaning,”
        
        I quote: ‘I know that the gay community has never put children first’
        
        Huh? How does Klein know this?
        
        You cannot in front of a court make sweeping generalisations and say things such as all blacks steal, all gays use children as tokens, all homeless people use heroin or all disabled people are angry with the world.
        
        The fact that she generalised, without any proof whatsoever, actually would do her case a huge disservice.
        
        Reading their statements I am beginning to question which planet they hired their lawyers from.
      - Griffonn
        
        SCOTUS is going to strike down the kids’ testimony? On what grounds?
      - Johann Fourie
        
        The appeal against the striking down of the marriage bans in the three states. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals will dismiss their appeal. But if by some fluke they do not, the case will likely progress to SCOTUS where it will be dismissed.
        
        I am confident of this, as this is the way in which rulings have moved, including key findings in SCOTUS with relation to DOMA etc.
        
        I am not discussing anything with you anymore, you are far too unintelligent to warrant my time.
      - Griffonn
        
        I am far too scary, because I have heard the things your kids say behind your backs.
        
        And I have seen the way you guys treat your kids. Everything the one kid says is true: you guys use your kids as props for your agenda, as things – and you guys are going to go down in history as the people who exploited and used and hurt and destroyed kids because you were so in love with your crotches.
      - bman
        
        re: This ruling was made in 2003 and I obviously disagree with it. I find it to be a rather conservative interpretation of the law. Remember this can change at any time…”
        —-
        The latest ruling I know about is dated July 2014.
        
        And although rulings can change, the question then is which court used better reasoning.
        
        Indeed, according to your own argument law is not necessarily right, and that would certainly apply to changes made to the law by a society that is in moral decline.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Can you please quote your sources on a ruling in 2014?
        
        Also, could you please refrain from equating morals with homosexuality. They have nothing to do with one another.
        
        I don’t believe in your god. I don’t share your interpretation of morals. Your values do not apply to me and evidently to the majority of people in the UK.
        
        Could you please tell me how old you are? I’m starting to feel as if you may be very old… So I’m curious to find out. The polls found that equal marriage support was nearly 80% for those under 40 and 37% for those over 65.
        
        Just remember, it’s the younger group that is the future. The older group would soon start dying off and taking their antiquated, prejudiced and judgemental views with them – 10-15 years and the majority would have departed.
        
        That means a much more accepting and happier world for the rest of us.
      - bman
        
        re: “Can you please quote your sources on a ruling in 2014?”
        —
        See CASE OF HÄMÄLÄINEN v. FINLAND
      - bman
        
        re: “Also, could you please refrain from equating morals with homosexuality. They have nothing to do with one another.”
        —
        I was referring to a correlation between the general moral decline of society and support for SSM. The two seem related.
        
        For example, a Gallup poll that reported homosexual relationships were gaining “moral” acceptance, also reported that unwed child birth was gaining “moral” acceptance right alongside it.
      - bman
        
        re: “That means a much more accepting and happier world for the rest of us.”
        —-
        The alternative view is that Judeo-Christian values act like the immune system for Western society and that social ills increase as Judeo-Christian values decline.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        I respect your affinity with judeo-christian religions. I sincerely do. I want you to be able to worship your god to your hearts content and I want your right to be a christian protected at all cost.
        
        Personally I see religion as nothing but superstition. In return for respecting your right to believe, I want you to respect my right for disbelieving.
        
        Have you noticed how it’s never the atheists, homosexuals or others trying to change the Christians, it’s always the Christians trying to enforce their will on the rest.
        
        It’s so tedious.
      - bman
        
        re: “Personally I see religion as nothing but superstition. In return for respecting your right to believe, I want you to respect my right for disbelieving.”
        —
        Your statement mis-frames the issue.
        
        For example, suppose someone rejects two person marriage law because its linked to religion, and they want throuple marriage legalized, where three persons can marry as a single couple.
        
        Does their belief or disbelief require me to institutionalize their beliefs and disbeliefs into marriage law at the voting booth?
        
        In other words, there is no disrespect to your beliefs and disbeliefs if I oppose the institutionalization of your beliefs and disbeliefs at the voting booth.
        
        Nor is there disrespect if I disagree with your beliefs and disbeliefs during the discussion here.
        
        I also note that even some gays think its not good for society to institutionalize same sex marriage. Are they disrespecting your beliefs too?
      - Johann Fourie
        
        I forgot to respond to one of your points. You said that the burden of proof lies with me to prove that same sex marriage should be accepted. Uhm, are you completely deluded? You just completely made that up.
        
        Where does it say that I have to prove anything to you? We live in a democracy, in the run up to the legislation, there were countless polls done through YouGov, Ipso Mori and many other respectable research companies and they invariably found overwhelming support for ssm – to the tune of 66%, yes that is a two thirds majority enough for a constitutional change in most countries. The same was reflected of course in both houses of Parliament. Absolutely, overwhelming support.
        
        So could you again politely remind me why the onus is on the majority of people to prove to a minority anything ever?
        
        It’s not. You are in the minority. I quite frankly don’t care how you feel, I don’t require your support in this matter.
        
        It would have just been a positive thing for you as person to learn some compassion.
      - Patti
        
        Johann, I’m sometimes not sure if you’re giving us info from Australia or Great Britain. Are the 2 countries still connected somehow? Sorry for my ignorance on this. Which country was the poll that found 66% support taken in. Thanks.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Hi Patti
        
        Not at all, it’s in the UK. This Wiki article has a summary of all the polls and it’s outcomes.
        
        http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_the_United_Kingdom
      - Patti
        
        Thanks for the link. Before reading it I didn’t realize how recent gay marriage was in Scotland, only a few weeks old with it first open to all on December 31.
        
        The poll numbers show the UK ahead of the USA on this issue, but the steady progression is the same. The more people read and discuss it, the more they realize being against gay marriage has no rational basis. Older people are the hardest to convince as old habits & beliefs die hard, but you’re making inroads there too. In my own family, everyone’s in favor of gay marriage from those in their 80s on down.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Hey Patti
        
        That is so true. I’m done with arguing with this lot of miserable old men and going in circles around and around. They have made up their minds and as all couples have equal access to marriage, I am literally wasting my energy.
        
        You can’t fart against thunder.
        
        I really don’t care what they think or how they feel. Despite black liberation decades ago already you still have people who simply hate black people for no other reason than they are different to them.
        
        And likewise you get people who simply hate, dislike or disapprove of gay people for no reason other than they are different.
        
        Or worse still, they are superstitious and believe an invisible all loving god has given them the licence to hate.
        
        They are in a minority. A dwindling minority.
        
        So I said my piece. I will now go on to enjoy my long deserved rights while they can be left fuming and in turmoil and disillusionment about which party to vote for in May.
        
        May I suggest UKIP? They are the only party worth mentioning that do not support equal marriage.
        
        Every swing from Conservative to UKIP is an extra inch for Labour into Number 10.
        
        Its beautiful to watch. Conservative minded old men cannibalising eachother.
        
        Take care.
      - Patti
        
        Since I’m an American, I’m not involved in English politics, but I do see that UKIP has made quite a splash for a relatively new party. On my side of the pond, we’re just trying to keep the plutocratic religious-right-catering Republicans at bay. They’ve won both houses of Congress, but now they’re going to actually have to govern rather than obstruct. I think Jeb Bush Is the Republican with the best shot at the White House (our version of Number 10) in the general election, but the right wing wackos probably won’t let him get the Republican nomination (he’s for recognition of gay couples among other Republican “atrocities”). Our battle for gay marriage isn’t over yet, but we’ll see what happens with the upcoming Supreme Court case on the issue.
        
        “…they are superstitious and believe an invisible all loving god has given them the licence to hate.”
        
        Is that the same loving God who hid his face from all mankind due to something their far distant ancestors did, but will still allow them to burn in H-ll if they then doubt his existence? The one that craves continual adoration and worship? The one that was given a complete makeover between the Old and the New Testaments?
        
        Well it’s been nice reading your posts, Johann. They’ve been well thought out, interesting, and remarkably civil given the circumstances.
        
        BTW, we were in your country back in 2013, mostly London. We had a great time! Loved everything about it (with the one exception of the Tube during rush hour).
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Hi Patti,
        
        I really enjoyed your reply. I have promised so many times that the debate is over with this lot, but I just love taking the bait too much.
        
        At the end of the day I am wasting my energy. The laws are passed here so these prejudiced men are just ranting on about something they could never now change.
        
        Although I could never wish it on their children, the only way they would come around is if they were to have a gay child. I saw Andrew K had a small kid on his hand in his profile photo, so who knows.
        
        When a child tells you he or she is gay, the issue is suddenly very close to home. You will always get the lost cases that will disown and sever all ties until they die or worse still drive their kids to suicide, but the vast majority with a fraction of a heart will come around. I’ve seen this in many of my friend’s families.
        
        I’m 35 now, nearly 36, so I’ve had plenty of time to see much initial rejection, but very, very little lasting.
        
        You know what, we may be talking about the same god.
        
        The one I was talking about comes from one of the most elaborate, yet unbelievable book of fairy tales.
        
        Apparently he has been there for eternity (just pause and try wrap your mind around the concept of eternity) and then out of the blue somewhere in the middle of eternity grew bored and lonely and decided to create some company. Even though he is almighty, all seeing and all knowing he devised a very unfair test by which some candidates would be born with magnificent health, wealth and resources and others would face pain, disease and poverty. All candidates, despite the monumental differences in their circumstances, would be required to pass this test equally. And while this is playing out before his eyes he will pick off his candidates… One by one, or sometimes 298 at a time such as when MH17 crashed in Ukraine. Apparently based on where his mood has taken him.
        
        Some will be babies and children who will have had no chance and others would be born to different cultures in different continents who would also have no chance (try pitch a Muslim and Christian against eachother and tell them to convert eachother, both believing to death that they are right) .
        
        All this while this god knew exactly who would pass and who not before he even made them. So why bother? Why not just create the ones of good character that you knew would pass anyway and save all the suffering in this theatre of misery? What kind of sadistic being does this and then insist on him being call the fair, all loving god? Clearly one that is not only sadistic, but also narcissistic. Anybody with the intelligence to query this pile of BS is told to not question and believe like a child.
        
        Sounds like the citizens of North Korea to me. They don’t question. They have been indoctrinated not to and to accept their regime’s gaping holes without query or resistance.
        
        It all sounds very plausible, right? NOT!
        
        The story has more holes than a farmhouse screen door.
        
        The bible is one of the most violent collection of fairy tales of all times. We have tales of decapitation, stoning, crucifixion and being burnt alive.
        
        It is unbelievable that any rational person could believe this rubbish.
        
        To add insult to injury, they then want to govern this real life world of us with this 2000 year old horror.
        
        It would have been funny if the repercussions weren’t so real for us.
      - Chairm
        
        Go, run away. You put forth no real argument. You posed. You blathered. You showed little, if any, reasoning much less sound reasoning in favor the SSM imposition. The circles, as you out it, where entirely due to your stamping your foot and pivoting around and around. Idiotic.
      - Chairm
        
        You have no sound argument for abolition of the man-woman requirement of marriage.
        
        You do not know what yoiu are talking about.
      - bman
        
        re: “You said that the burden of proof lies with me to prove that same sex marriage should be accepted. Uhm, are you completely deluded? You just completely made that up.”
        —-
        There are at least two reasons why the burden of proof belongs to you in this discussion.
        
        First, there is the reason stated in the Wikipedia article on Philosophic burden of proof,”When debating any issue, there is an implicit burden of proof on the person asserting a claim.”
        
        Thus, you have the burden of proof because you asserted the claim its not right for “many nations” to recognize marriage as only between a man and woman, and your claim is the one to which I was referring.
        
        Second, a nearly universal law across history and geography warrants a presumption of validity. That also means the burden of proof properly belongs to you.
        
        As for the polls you cite, they refer to a recent trend that is subject to fluctuation. Those polls simply do not have the same weightiness as a law that transcends history and geography.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Times change, Bman. Attitudes change. In Victorian times women could not show their ankles, nevermind a cleavage.
        
        Of course polls change, but what they showed was the voting public consistently in favour of granting same sex couples the rights they deserve.
        
        So let’s flip your claim on its head. The status quo in this country is equal marriage is legal. That is the law of the land. You are the person wanting to claim otherwise, so the burden of proof now lies with you.
        
        The debate on whether gay couples should marry is long over and has been won by my team and consequently lost by yours. It is now legal so your opinion means nowt. In fact, if you voice it in public in too strong a terms you may be locked up. So why don’t you do me a favour and grab a megaphone and preach your prejudice from a street corner in town? At least I won’t have to go into circles here for another 24 hours.
        
        I don’t owe you any explanations or any proof. Your view is in the considerable minority and it’s dying off slowly.
        
        How old are you, by the way?
      - Chairm
        
        You declared that: “remind me why the onus is on the majority of people to prove to a minority anything ever?”
        
        So when the majority was against SSM imposition, the law was right, by your thinking. Where the majority stands against you, you are wrong.
        
        It is a political fact that polls have over-estimated support for SSM in actual votes on the issue. In all democratic jurisdictions where this has come up for citizen votes.
        
        Opinion surveys are not decisive in functioning democracies. So you overplayd your hand, again.
        
        You also announced: “Times change … Attitudes change.”
        
        How? By public discourse, perhaps, although not always are public attitudes changed for the better. Seems you favor the thuggish tactics of fascists not the democratic process and the back and forth focussed on truth.
        
        You thuggishly spat: “The debate on whether gay couples should marry is long over and has been won by my team and consequently lost by yours. It is now legal so your opinion means nowt. In fact, if you voice it in public in too strong a terms you may be locked up”.
        
        If that inheres to the SSM imposition on society, then, the SSM law is already discredited by yourself.
        
        There is no sound argument against the man-woman requirement of marriage law. Your own comments demonstrate this observation.
        
        The SSM imposition is unjust. It is rotten to its core. Hence you idiotic assertions.
      - Chairm
        
        You asserted that: “homosexuality has occurred since the dawn of man”.
        
        That ridiculously speculative (and irrelvant as bman notes in his reply).
        
        The notion of ” homosexuality” is a very recent invention of our modern times. Certainly very recent in the scale of 200 thousand years you proposed.
        
        Dial down the hyperbole and keep your feet on the ground.
      - bman
        
        re: “Why are you unable to live and let live?”
        —
        When a public law would adversely affect society we should judge that law on its public merits.
        
        The European High Court has ruled, for example, that SSM is not required of member countries because it poses harm to the traditional family norm.
      - Griffonn
        
        “Live and let live” – that’s a hoot, in light of the concerted effort gays have put into trolling those who dare to refuse to embrace their beliefs and celebrate their fantasies.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        You don’t have a clue just how much you discredit yourself and how pathetic you seem by twisting the truth and adding blatant lies to suit your argument.
        
        Firstly, homosexuality is not at all destructive for society, why do you think every EU member state has to have minimum standards of equality to be part of the Union? Reference to two such treaties are offered further down.
        
        Secondly, your biggest and nastiest lie yet. The European Court Of Human Rights have ruled that same sex marriage is not yet a universal right ACCORDING TO THE EUROPEAN CONVENTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS, a treaty document that was signed in 1950. There is simply not a provision for it in the 65 year old document, which considering it was debated in the 40’s and implemented in 1950 is not odd at all. Merely 5 years earlier Europe was at war still and Hitler was killing 6 million Jews. It’s NOT AT ALL because it is destructive and they have called on the European Parliament many a time to debate and pass such a provision. Blatant lie from you.
        
        The court, as any other court, can only make findings based on EXISTING laws. Suggesting that it is because it is destructive, as you claim, is beyond ludicrous.
        
        The European Parliament voted on March 12th 2015 on a resolution to recognise same sex marriage in all its members States.
        
        It reads: “The European Parliament takes note of the legalisation of same-sex marriage or same-sex civil unions in an increasing number of countries – 17 to date – around the world; encourages the EU institutions and the Member States to further contribute to reflection on the recognition of same-sex marriage or same-sex civil union as a political, social and human and civil rights issue.”
        
        The resolution passed by a vote of 472-115.
        
        There are already the following mandatory provisions for gay rights in the treaties signed by all member states – indeed conditions for EU membership:
        
        The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union makes in Articles 10 and 19 provisions for combating discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. These provisions were enacted by the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1999.
        
        Furthermore, Article 21 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights asserts that “any discrimination based on any ground such as […] sexual orientation shall be prohibited.” The Charter was agreed in 2000 and became legally binding in 2009.
        
        You bman, are a lying c*nt.
      - bman
        
        Your lewd closing statement shows an unprincipled mindset that is unable to judge what is morally best for society .
      - Johann Fourie
        
        You are a pathetic lying c*nt and I do not care what you think of me. You are an unenlightened, intolerant, hateful bigot and I do not owe you any justification – I have 100% equality in my country so go find another forum where you can antagonise the members.
        
        What I do have is an obligation to set straight the blatant lies and distortions that you peddle and I will do that with the biggest pleasure in the world.
        
        What a vile, vile old c*nt you are.
      - bman
        
        re: “I do not care what you think of me..”
        —
        What you think of me is Irrelevant.
        
        This is a public conversation and you should maintain common decency.
        
        Once again, your use of unprincipled speech shows you are unqualified to judge moral matters of public import.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        If you act like a c*nt because you employ blatant LIES to attempt to fleece people into supporting you, then I have no qualms to call you one.
        
        Unlike you, I do not pretend to be a moral crusader – I do not share your distorted, superstitious religious ideologies and I do not fight my corner under the guise of pseudo morals like you (while you fare out against homosexuality, I have no doubt that you count many divorcees among your friends, heck you may even be one yourself). I fight my corner on the principle of human rights.
        
        I am not a conservative, hypocritical bigot like you. I call a spade a spade and indeed a c*nt a c*nt.
      - bman
        
        re: “…your biggest and nastiest lie yet. The European Court Of Human Rights have ruled that same sex marriage is not yet a universal right ACCORDING TO THE EUROPEAN CONVENTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS…”
        —-
        You merely offer a false dilemma. The Convention alone did not cause the court to deny a right to SSM.
        
        Per the Convention, the court had to determine if a legitimate state interested existed for husband-wife marriage law, and it had to determine the right balance between individual rights and a legitimate public interest in protecting the husband-wife marriage norm.
        
        The Convention alone did not determine the court’s ruling against SSM, but it actually provided the court legal space to determine the matter, and it found that protecting the traditional family norm was a legitimate state interest.
        
        A “let live” issue is one where a private behavior would not adversely impact the public order.
        
        This is not about a private behavior, however, but its about a public law that would impact the public order.
        
        As such, its “a public order issue” and its not a “let live” issue regarding a private behavior.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Lies, lies, lies. More ill informed lies. Your pathetic answer is that the ECHR did not only base their judgement on the European Charter of Human Rights and Austrian Constitution, but that they had carte blanche to make it up as they went along! Bhahaha!
        
        You are truly, truly pathetic. The court can only make judgements based on EXISTING law.
        
        You know you could have Googled it yourself and come across as at least half educated:
        
        http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schalk_and_Kopf_v_Austria
        
        They stated very clearly in their judgement that the text within the ECHR or Austrian constition DOES NOT require the definition of marriage to be changed.
        
        The ECHR was introduced in 1950. It obviously was not progressive enough at the time to include same sex marriage.
        
        But that judgement is 12 years old and the court may interpret the law differently now if they choose to reconsider another case.
        
        The European Parliament is continuously asking member states to debate same sex marriage so there is certainly no central belief in Europe that same sex marriage is a negative thing.
        
        In fact the European Parliament passed a resolution only a couple of weeks ago to make recognising sane sex marriage IN ALL states policy across all member states.
      - Patti
        
        the European Parliament passed a resolution only a couple of weeks ago to make recognising sane sex marriage IN ALL states policy across all member states.
        
        Interesting. Now how does the resolution fit into the bigger picture? Does it mean all countries in the UE must recognize same sex marriage, or just new ones, or something else altogether? Sorry for my ignorance on this, Johann.
        
        (And I assume you did mean same sex marriage rather than sane sex marriage, or was there a problem with too much kinky stuff in the bedroom?)
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Haha Hey Patti, you made me laugh!
        
        Unfortunately, it is not yet a change in EU law as such would require the ratification of all member states and is likely to be a long drawn out process.
        
        The resolution, which was voted for in favour by a huge majority, does however encourage and consequently make a pledge that all member states shall out marriage equality at the centre of their human rights goals.
        
        This is why it’s so laughable when some of these posters try so hard to make the EU out as if it is firmly behind their warped, bigoted anti same sex marriage sentiments.
        
        The EU is the most gay friendly place to live in the world. In 2003 the European Court of Human Rights were not able to find within the current European Charter Of Human Rights that gay couples have a fundamental right to marriage – this is because the charter was written in 1950 and they can only find within existing law.
        
        As the Charter does not make provision explicitly, the European Parliament has shifted the responsibility to individual member states and so this resolution is a ‘commitment’ for individual states to address the matter domestically.
        
        http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2015/03/13/ukip-and-tories-abstain-on-eu-motion-to-recognise-same-sex-marriage/
      - Patti
        
        Thanks for the info. Here’s hoping the resolution gets discussed and ratified in all the EU states. I’ve visited the EU several times and the more accepting atmosphere is refreshing.
        
        The last few days, I’ve been in a rather nasty discussion with Chairm who just really homed in on my grandkids via my gay daughter. To me it’s mind boggling – with so many truly needy children out there, this idiot is all up in arms about 2 healthy robust children born into an upper-middle-class 2-committed-parent home with every imaginable advantage to getting a head start in life. Why don’t these people use their energy and passion to help children who really need help instead of haranguing the families of those that don’t?
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Patti, it is one of three reasons. People like Chairm have either been indoctrinated with some or other pathetic superstition, or religion as they call it, in which they spend their entire single life on this planet worrying about the next which is a truly tragic situation, or they battle same sex attraction themselves and either make a big fuss to deflect attention from themselves or its a a way of venting anger about their own feelings.
        
        There may also be a chance that Chairm suffered some sort of abuse in his life and therefore wrongfully harbours a lot of anger towards gay people.
        
        I have literally never come across a person with such hatred that do not fall into one of those three categories.
        
        Chairm and people like Bman’s highlight of their day consists of twitching their curtain to see what the neighbour is up to. Only persons this imbalanced and obsessed with others could possibly think that the loving couple next door is about to bring the next apocalypse.
        
        It’s so sad. No so tragic. We shouldn’t feed the trolls. Just let them suffocate slowly without any attention.
        
        They are not worth it and nothing we will ever say will make them come around.
      - Patti
        
        True. I’ll stop responding to him. He’s become way too abusive.
        
        Thanks for the perspective, Johann.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Only in your bigoted little world where the highlight of your day consists of you twitching your curtain to see who is knocking on your neighbours door, could you make the fact that two men down the road married eachother a public order issue that somehow affects your life.
        
        How utterly, utterly tragic.
        
        Tell me something, how does it feel to be losing this battle? Because I’m on the winners team… You seem rather frustrated and angry by it all.
        
        Poor you.
      - bman
        
        re: “…a treaty document that was signed in 1950. There is simply not a provision for [SSM..”
        —-
        European courts are not confined to the 1950 meaning because they treat the Convention as “a living document” that changes with society.
        
        While I disagree with their approach on that point, it means the court was free to rule for SSM under the 1950 Convention but it still ruled against it.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        No you clearly can’t tell your elbow from your ass. Sit down before you hurt yourself.
        
        The European Court of Human Rights can only find within existing law – the same as any other court on the face of this planet.
        
        They cannot make it up as they go along, no matter how much you want them to do that.
        
        “The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR; French: Cour européenne des droits de l’homme) is a supranational or international court established by the European Convention on Human Rights. It hears applications alleging that a contracting state has breached one or more of the human rights provisions concerning civil and political rights set out in the Convention and its protocols.”
        
        “Applications by individuals against contracting states, alleging that the state violates their rights under the European Convention on Human Rights, can be made by any person, non-governmental organisation or group of individuals. ”
        
        All findings by the court can only be made based on EXISTING text within the European Charter of Human Rights and the European Convention Of Human Rights (other written protocols are taken into account too).
        
        You are indeed so ill informed it is shocking. You are not European, are you?
        
        http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Court_of_Human_Rights#/media/File:Council_of_Europe_(blue).svg
      - bman
        
        re: “The European Court of Human Rights can only find within existing law – the same as any other court on the face of this planet.”
        —-
        A web search on the terms “Convention living instrument” will show the Court is not so confined.
        
        Here is an excerpt from The ECHR as a Living Instrument: Its Meaning and its Legitimacy an article by University College London – Faculty of Laws.
        
        “The idea that the ECHR is a living instrument that must be interpreted according to present-day conditions has been a central feature of Strasbourg’s case law from its very early days….evolutive interpretation…is essential to the Court’s legitimacy…
        
        In the hands of the European Court of Human Rights…the Court will take into consideration ‘present-day standards’ as an important factor in interpreting the Convention; it will very rarely inquire into what was thought to be acceptable state conduct when the Convention was drafted [contra your claim JF], or into what specific rights the drafters of the Convention intended to protect.”
        
        Will you also say the author is “not European,” or to “sit down” before he hurts himself (etc)?
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Lol!! You are absolutely pathetic!!!! You are completely misunderstanding you idiotic excuse for a human being.
        
        Of course the ECHR is a living instrument, but not in the way that you suggest. They cannot make up bloody laws as they go along!! Hahaha!!
        
        The EU’s laws and resolutions change continuously, holistically the EU functions as an ever evolving, ever changing authority and it is those changes and those evolving laws that the ECHR must take into account.
        
        Because new precedents are set constantly and interpretations are evolutionary so these must always be taken into account.
        
        IT DOESNT ACTUALLY MEAN THAT THEY CAN MAKE IT UP AS THEY GO ALONG… JESUS CHRIST…
        
        With the ruling on same sex marriage neither the Austrian Constitution made a provision for it and the European Charter clearly states ‘men and women’ in the marriage clause and the European Court Of Human Rights did not feel that either of those made a provision for THEM to be able to force change the marriage law without the European Parliament legislating in the area.
        
        It has nothing to do with morals like you allege. The European Parliament passed a resolution just a few weeks ago to make same sex marriage policy across all the member states.
        
        What living instrument means is as the judgement is now 13 years old and since then a large amount of member states have introduced same sex marriage, if they were requested to reconsider a similar case, they may very well find in favour because the circumstances have changed in the EU since that judgement.
        
        In 2003 only one member state had same sex marriage, there was simply not a compelling enough reason for the court to interpret the law in favour of the claimants. The story is very very different today.
        
        Living instrument simply means taking other relevant laws into consideration, not making it up as they go along you thick piece of sh*t.
      - bman
        
        re: “IT DOESNT ACTUALLY MEAN THAT THEY CAN MAKE IT UP AS THEY GO ALONG…”
        —
        I never said, “they can make it up as they go along.” Those are your words.
        
        Your accusation is no different than if you accused the article as saying, “they can make it up as they go along.”
        
        Just as the article didn’t say that, neither did I.
        
        You are merely ranting against words you have wrongly attributed to an opponent, which reduces to a strawman argument on your part.
      - Griffonn
        
        It is not a law that gay marriage is “illegal”.
        
        It is the absence of law – a failure to recognize such a thing as gay marriage.
        
        There is a difference between criminalizing a marriage (interracial marriage) vs. failing to recognize something that isn’t a marriage as a marriage.
      - bman
        
        re: “There is a difference between criminalizing a marriage (interracial marriage) vs. failing to recognize something that isn’t a marriage as a marriage.”
        —–
        Agreed.
        
        Formal recognition of marriage is not owed to alternative marriage concepts.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Did you watch that video?
      - Chairm
        
        Just because SSM has been imposed in some jurisdictions does not mean it is right.
        
        So the basic question is, “What is marriage?”
        
        It is a relationship that is sexual, two-sexed, comprehensive (a union of minds and bodies), and as such is procreative in kind and commonly procreative in outcome. Marriage is also a foundational social institution of civil society; the just marriage law reflects this truth of civil society and does not presume the government’s ownershio of civil society. Marriage integrates the sexes on many profound levels, it provides for responsible procreation, and it does both as a coherent whole, ie a social institution indispensible to the well-being of society.
        
        The government is not competent to do what marriage organically does as a bedrock social institution.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Absolutely everything you said, the union of two minds, two bodies, the complimenting of two sexes and every other beautifully poetic reason you may present to me why marriage should be between one man and one woman only, ONLY applies to you, because you are heterosexual. It does not apply to me, because I am homosexual and no matter how hard I try I could not ever have a fulfilling relationship with a woman.
        
        I am just not attracted to them both romantically or sexually. It is quite simply exactly the same and equally impossible as for you to have a same sex relationship.
        
        This is assuming that you are 100% heterosexual and not kicking up this very stink about SSM, exactly because you are fighting an unwanted same sex attraction within.
        
        So assuming you don’t, just simply imagine the opposite for you. It’s quite frankly impossible.
        
        There is really no point to make another innocent person miserable and pretend to be something that I you are not. It is much better for a homosexual person just to have the relationship that is both fulfilling for them and their partner and do not cause suffering for a person who is essentially conned into a relationship that could never, ever work.
        
        As my attraction to persons of my own sex is here to stay and as there are millions of persons in my situation, as I do not hold any religious convictions and as I pay my equal share of tax, it is only fair and just that I receive the same rights, responsibilities and freedoms as anybody else, including you.
        
        It’s really not that difficult or hard an issue to let go of. Letting people be happy as opposed to forcing them into unhappy marriages due to the expectations placed upon them by society. How hard could it be?
        
        I have seen this scenario way, way too many times. In fact it happened to a close family friend of my parents: man marries wife in conservative, homophobic 80’s. Man is gay but suppresses it because it is not what society wants and therefore man is led to believe it’s wrong. Man has two children with wife. After 25 years of love, but no romance the marriage finally falls apart. The man can no longer live the lie anymore and is now dating men, separated from his wife. The woman is heartbroken as the man she loved all her life, the father of her children was gay. The daughter accepted her dad. The son has not been able to do so as he is at university and finding it too difficult.
        
        What do we have? A broken family. It’s such a tragic story.
        
        If society didn’t place expectations on this mans shoulders of having to be something that he is not, he could have had a fair and fulfilling relationship from the start and innocent parties would not have gotten hurt…
        
        Only a few intolerant Christian would have had something to say… I repeat, I have no idea why I am even bothering to reply to you. I have equality in my country and I require no justification to you.
        
        Soon the SCOTUS will rule that every person in the US, gay or straight, has an equal right to marriage, because who would have known that beautifully and poetically written, almost as if by yourself, neatly tucked away in the 14th Amendment, is the guarantee that all US citizens be treated equal before the law.
        
        By implication that means that a law cannot bar a homosexual couple from marrying, if the law does not bar the heterosexual couple from doing so.
        
        Gosh, who would have thought the writers of the US constitution would have such vision?
      - Patti
        
        The writers of the US constitution were men of vision. They obviously were not thinking of gay marriage at the time as gays were too far back in the closet then for it to be an issue. But they did realize issues would come up thru the years that they couldn’t possibly anticipate. So they wrote the framework for solving whatever future disputes came up, a framework that included all citizens being equal before the law, and the government making no laws respecting or prohibiting religion.
      - Chairm
        
        None of that is relevant to marriage itself.
        
        It clearly is central, for you, to something else entirely.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        It is central and relevant to relationships where both people are of the same sex. Regardless of your putrid and out of step thinking with regards to them, they are valid relationship and in the country where I live, 100% equal to heterosexual relationships before the law.
      - Chairm
        
        And irrelevant to marriage.
        
        Contrary to your delusion, there are many basic, and obvioius, ways in which the lack of the other sex is not the equal of the union of husband and wife.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Thanks for clarifying anyway.
      - Catherine Mill
        
        The court is a corporation designed to make profit.
        Law is not justice.
        So who are these people who decide what legal rights to bestow on their people?
        If we are all equal under the supreme Law of the Universe- then ask yourself , why is one group of people dressed up like court jesters deciding what legal rights others can have?
        The Government is equally bound by the Supreme Law of One and of the Universe.
        Patriarchy is all about us and them – divide and rule.
        Sovereign human beings seem to have forgotten that they have sovereign citizenship of Mother Earth. Does She ask us for anything? Does S/He make rules to suit herself above her children? No.
      - bman
        
        re: “The supreme court has found a “fundamental right of marriage”..”
        —
        Yes, but that does not mean a fundamental right to alternative marriage concepts, which is what SSM is.
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        The question is whether the govt may make a distinction, a discrimination between opposite sex couples and same sex couples. As marriage is a fundamental right, due process applies. This means the govt must show a rational reason related to a legitimate govt concern. As more than two dozen federal court cases finding bans on same sex marriage violate the constitution have shown, the govt has failed to provide that rational reason.
      - bman
        
        re: “As more than two dozen federal court cases finding bans on same sex marriage violate the constitution have shown, the govt has failed to provide that rational reason.”
        —-
        I noted this in another reply but it fits here also, the majority of upper level courts to consider the issue from 2003 thru 2010 ruled against same sex marriage.
        
        The recent ruling by the 6th Cicruit in November 2014 also rejected SSM.
        
        Your comment refers to the wave of rulings that occurred after the Windsor case within the year or so after, but the logic of the earlier majority (2003-2010) remains quite sound.
        
        Additionally, as the 6th Circuit noted the cases supporting SSM are not in concert as to why they support it, and they presume voters for marriage protection amendments acted only from animus against gays, which is clearly a case of poor reasoning by pro-SSM courts.
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        Do you have a rational reason related to a legitimate govt concern to deny the fundamental right of marriage to same sex couples?
      - bman
        
        re: “Do you have a rational reason related to a legitimate govt concern to deny the fundamental right of marriage to same sex couples?”
        —
        As the 6th Circuit noted in its review of the Loving case, the fundamental right to marriage refers to procreative marriage.
        
        In other words, SSM is an alternative marriage concept much like it would be an alternative concept if a bisexual was allowed to marry both sexes. There is no fundamental right to have an alternative marriage concept legalized.
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        You don’t actually explain why we should not have same sex marriage.
        You object that it is “alternative”, but don’t actually explain why you think it should be denied.
        IF some citizens are homosexual, and IF they form family units, WHY should they be treated differently than heterosexuals?
      - bman
        
        re: “You don’t actually explain why we should not have same sex marriage.”
        —-
        There are many reasons.
        
        The article at the top of this blog, for example, has shown that SSM law reduces to authoritarianism and undermines existing freedoms.
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        “SSM law reduces to authoritarianism and undermines freedoms.”
        What to you mean by that? What freedoms have been undermined?
      - bman
        
        re: “What to you mean by that?”
        —
        Its in the article.
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        Sooo, cant explain what you meant, then?
      - bman
        
        Since this blog is about the article its proper to reference it.
        
        Besides, it seems your tactic is to wear out your opponent by having them do all the work of providing answers that you then dismiss.
      - Chairm
        
        You are mistaken.
        
        The judicial branch is co-equal with, not supreme to, the legislative and executive branches of government in its constitutional role.
        
        Judicial restraint means the judicial role does not empower a fellow citizen (who happens to sit as a judge for a time) to set aside reasonable interpretation of the constitution and to favor, instead, his own policy preferences . No pro-SSM court opinion (at whatever level of the judicial branch) has shown such restraint and none has managed to justify marital status for something other than the union of husband and wife.
        
        The fundamental in the fundamental right of marriage is explicitly discarded in pro-SSM court opinions. I doubt you can do better here.
      - Catherine Mill
        
        Every Hu-man need = Hu-man right.
        
        Its that simple.
      - Johann Fourie
        
        A fundamental right to marriage is nonsense? Exactly what fact is this based on? Oh wait! None. It’s based on YOUR personal beliefs and nothing else.
        
        Article 12 of the European Convention on Human Rights guarantees men and women of marriageable age the fundamental right to marry.
        
        This is not currently seen to be universally applicable to same sex marriage across Europe, but does apply in member states where same sex marriage exists.
        
        The bottom line is and you denied this, a fundamental right to marriage (for heterosexual couples) exist.
        
        Furthermore, you question where human rights are from, whether they are discovered or created.
        
        I am privileged to share with you that human rights are fought for. Through thousands of years and countless wars, relentless campaigning and tireless lobbying.
        
        Going back over the entirety of human history, there was a time when most groups of people were suffering an oppressor of some sort and liberation had to be fought for . There was a time in recent history when the black man was devoid of rights. There was a time when women had no rights. There was a time nobody other than Catholics had rights and indeed times when the reverse were true.
        
        Human rights are fought for. They are wrestled from the hands of the likes of you. They have a dear price and the currency is blood.
        
        That is why they are so valuable today.
      - Andrew K.
        
        “men and women of marriageable age”
        
        In other words, they’ve placed limitations on this “fundamental right.” Just as SSM marriage opponents want to do. Glad to see we’re in good company. The UN no less.
        
        “I am privileged to share with you that human rights are fought for.
        Through thousands of years and countless wars, relentless campaigning
        and tireless lobbying.”
        
        You didn’t answer the question. In fact, going by your logic, it would seem that people back before the struggles for human rights didn’t actually deserve them–because no one had fought for them yet so they didn’t exist.
        
        🙂
      - Johann Fourie
        
        Yes, the limitation that you are referring to is a temporary limitation. It is merely there to prevent the exploitation of children. In time, every single person would have the fundamental right to marry. That may be at 16 years or it may be at 18 years. In most EU states it is 16.
        
        A limitation on deferring marriage rights until a person is old enough to understand the responsibilities is NOT the same as wanting to prevent a certain group from having marriage rights forever.
        
        I never suggested that people didn’t deserve human rights before they were won, people always deserved their rights, they were just not enjoying them.
        
        That is because modern democracy is a fairly new and frankly still developing concept.
        
        Under old fashioned monarchies or dated dictatorships there was only one voice and only one ruler.
        
        The voice has slowly been shifting from this one rule system to democracy over the course of the last few hundred years and it’s this brutal feel and fight in the dark process that has ultimately led to the recognition of our human rights.
        
        Just because it took thousands of years to rise against singular rule and as much time to secure ones rights, does not mean one were any less deserving of them before.
        
        And finally may I ask Andrew, why do you feel so strongly about same sex marriage? Why is it so important to you that other adults from other demographics with different needs to you do not have a right to marry eachother?
        
        If you are heterosexual, how can this have any bearing on your life?
      - bman
        
        re: “If you have a rational reason to deny the fundamental right of marriage, you should get it out there.”
        —-
        Its not marriage that is denied but the legalization of an alternative marriage concept that is denied.
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        You are playing with words.
        
        As there have been more than two dozen federal court cases on the subject, it is pretty clear that the argument is NOT whether there is “an alternative marriage concept”; rather whether it is constitutional for the govt to recognize some marriages (opposite sex couples) and to deny some marriages (same sex couples).
      - bman
        
        re: “….the argument is NOT whether there is “an alternative marriage concept”; rather whether it is constitutional for the govt to recognize some marriages (opposite sex couples) and to deny some marriages (same sex couples).”
        —-
        The majority of upper level courts to consider the issue from 2003 thru 2010 ruled against same sex marriage partly on the basis that SSM would redefine the the institution, and so it was not the same marriage concept mentioned by earlier courts.
        
        The November 2014 ruling by the 6th Circuit rejected SSM on that basis:
        
        “Loving [1967] did not change the definition. That is why the Court said marriage is “fundamental to our very existence and survival,”… a reference to the procreative definition of marriage….
        
        Had Loving meant something more when it pronounced marriage a fundamental right, how could the Court hold in Baker five years later that gay marriage does not
        even raise a substantial federal question?
        
        Loving addressed, and rightly corrected, an unconstitutional eligibility requirement for marriage; it did not create a new definition of marriage.
        
        As for playing with words, I think that aptly describes whoever calls two men “married.”
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        The sixth (and presumably, the fifth) create an appellate court split. Hopefully, the supreme court will shortly take the case up in the current term, and we will have some national resolution by June.
        
        I really doubt the court will back the sixth, after it recently denied certori (appeal) to the cases from the other two appellate courts and allowed same sex marriage to commence in more than a dozen more states. Reading Kennedy’s majority opinion in Windsor, I also doubt there is much appetite for “the daily harms” to children raised in same sex families caused by the bans on same sex marriage.
      - bman
        
        About all I can say is that proper logic requires SCOTUS to reject SSM.
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        What is your rational reason related to a legitimate govt concern to deny the fundamental right of marriage to same sex couples?
        
        Why not let them marry? I just seems fair, and it doesn’t really affect you.
      - bman
        
        re: “What is your rational reason related to a legitimate govt concern to deny the fundamental right of marriage to same sex couples?”
        —
        Its starting to look like your plan is to keep asking that same question until I get tired of answering it!
        
        SSM is an alternative marriage concept and so there is no fundamental right to it any more than if a bisexual said there was a fundamental right to marry both sexes because bisexuals are attracted to both sexes.
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        You are only stating that it is different, but not offering why that difference is a rational reason to deny the right of marriage.
      - bman
        
        re: “You are only stating that it is different, but not offering why that difference is a rational reason to deny the right of marriage.”
        —
        In addition to other reasons, its rational to believe the institutionalization of SSm would destabilize marriage.
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        I don’t find it rational, per se, to assume SSM would destabilize marriage. I think that it is rational to assume the opposite, i.e., your marriage does not effect my marriage.
        
        Massachusetts has had same sex marriage for more than a decade. What evidence can you show that marriage has been “destabilized.” Divorce rates have declined, and are lower than any “red” state.
      - bman
        
        Ten years is too early for the harm I am referring to. It took about 40 years, for example, before researchers were confident that no fault divorce had harmed marriage.
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        Do you feel that we should revoke no fault divorce?
        I feel that folks in failed marriages should be able to escape them without having to prove someone at fault in court.
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        You create a catch-22 – How would we ever demonstrate that SSM doesn’t “harm marriage” (whatever you imagine that to be), if we prohibit it?
      - bman
        
        re: How would we ever demonstrate that SSM doesn’t “harm marriage” (whatever you imagine that to be), if we prohibit it?”
        —-
        Any policy argument about the long term future must be based on rational predictions since evidence can’t exist beforehand.
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        So what “damage to marriage” can you rationally predict?
        
        As the constitution protects individual rights, and not the rights of institutions like marriage, even if you could prove some damage to an institution, would it be constitutional to restrict individual rights in order to protect societal institutions?
      - bman
        
        re: “So what “damage to marriage” can you rationally predict?”
        —-
        I note, first, there are areas of harm caused by SSM, other than harm to marriage, that have already manifested.
        
        A federal said, for example,“Given that Massachusetts has recognized gay marriage under its state constitution, it is entirely rational for its schools to educate their students regarding that recognition.”
        
        In practical terms, SSm law entitles the state to condition everyone ‘s children to celebrate gay love and romance through public education.
        
        Most people who support SSM law would never have voted for SSM if the law clearly stated upfront that it gave the state comprehensive powers to indoctrinate children with a pro-gay ethic.
        
        Viewed from another angle, SSm is like a legal virus that overwrites the moral and religious foundation of a society.
        
        Anyway, the many harms that will come from SSM law, to include harm to marriage, can be rationally predicted because SSM law would institutionalize a new social ethic.
        
        The institutionalization of the new ethic implies a new future society, a society that believes in gender relativism, moral relativism, social acceptance of any consensual sexual relationship, and the elimination of socially imposed norms on sex and family structure left over from the Judeo-Christian ethic of previous generations.
        
        Although SSM leaders and leftist “progressives” may view the institutionalization of the new beliefs as a change for the better, those same beliefs imply a new society that is completely indifferent to marriage, non-marriage, and things in between. This does not suggest heterosexuals would shift to practicing same sex marriage en masse, but it suggests heterosexual society would lack a moral basis to commit to marriage in the Judeo-Christian sense.
        
        Its not a case where moral disapproval of SSM would harm marriage, but a case where acceptance of the SSM ethic would harm marriage.
        
        And, its not about the number of gay marriages being too small to affect social behavior, but its about an institutionalized ethic being so pervasive it must affect social behavior.
        
        Nor is it about a reduced availability of marriage for heterosexuals causing harm, but its about a much greater availability of customized alternatives to marriage causing harm that require less commitment than Judeo-Christian marriage.
        
        The alternatives could be anything from cohabitation to “marriage contracts” that are actually civil unions. A woman might have a union with multiple men, for example, where the men are referred to as husbands, or there might be a mix of men and women.
        
        If a contract permits termination by a partner, it opens a slot for a different partner to join the union, and so children would have different “parents” coming and going at will.
        
        There might be an agreed upon expiration date unless renewed, and/or agreements to allow sex outside the “marriage” etc.
        
        It’s about a new future society that views “marriage” as flexible, but where increased flexibility also means decreased structure and decreased stability for the procreation and raising of children, and a society that is in decline.
        
        By default, we can rationally predict that such a society would progressively lose its moral compass and religion over time. It implies continuous increase in rates of abortion, teen pregnancy, unwed child birth, fatherless homes, welfare dependency, unstable and changing family structures, juvenile delinquency, low educational achievement statistics, higher poverty, etc.
        
        It also points to things not likely to be considered, like elementary school children claiming to be transgendered who want sex change surgeries that will ruin their lives, children having sex with children or drug use at very early ages, the manufacture of human beings in labs to where human dignity no longer serves as a foundational principle that guides the course of society, major upticks in human trafficking because human dignity has declined.
        
        In sum,a change in foundational morality presumes harm. SSM is about changing fundamental morality . Therefore, SSM presumes harm.
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        You presume that it is a social harm caused by legal same sex marriage that children will be educated about the reality of same sex marriage, or the social acceptance of gays, in general.
        
        You could just as easily argue against the social harm of interracial marriage that children will be educated that interracial couples exists and that their marriages are legally reality.
        
        This is not the argument of serious people.
      - bman
        
        re: “This is not the argument of serious people.”
        —
        Your reply relies on the hyper-equality fallacy.
        
        In Baker v. Nelson the Supreme Court rejected a right to SSM five years after the Loving case.
      - DGJC
        
        You’re incorrect on that. The Supreme Court never did any such thing. They merely said that no federal issue was involved in that case. They didn’t hear the case. There was no decision.
      - bman
        
        re: “They merely said that no federal issue was involved in that case. They didn’t hear the case. There was no decision.”
        —
        The Wikipedia article on Baker v. Nelson says:
        .
        “In most cases presented to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Court’s refusal to hear the case is not an endorsement of the decision below. However, since this case came to the Court through mandatory appellate review, the summary dismissal is a decision on the merits of the case.”
      - DGJC
        
        You said that already.
      - bman
        
        re: “You said that already.”
        —-
        That’s because you made the same argument twice.
        
        In one post you said, “They didn’t hear the case. There was no decision.”
        
        And the other you said, “They never addressed the merits of the Baker case whatsoever. They merely said there was no “federal issue involved.”
        
        Both called for the same reply.
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        Baker was dismissed for “want of a federal question.” There was no ruling on merits. The Supreme court just denied cert on seven cases, all of which discarded Baker as no longer a precedent. If the Supremes still thought of Baker, why wouldn’t they have taken up the cases in order to correct?
      - bman
        
        re: “Baker was dismissed for “want of a federal question.” There was no ruling on merits”
        —
        Here again is the Wikipedia article on Baker v. Nelson,
        
        “In most cases presented to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Court’s refusal to hear the case is not an endorsement of the decision below. However, since this case came to the Court through mandatory appellate review, the summary dismissal is a decision on the merits of the case.”
      - bman
        
        re: “The Supreme court just denied cert on seven cases, all of which discarded Baker as no longer a precedent. If the Supremes still thought of Baker, why wouldn’t they have taken up the cases in order to correct?”
        —-
        Baker was a decision on the merits but the denial of cert you mention was not a decision on the merits.
        
        One reason I have heard for the denial was that there was not a circuit split.
        
        I agree, though, its odd that SCOTUS allowed state constitutions to be overthrown if it intended to uphold Baker.
      - bman
        
        re: “As the constitution protects individual rights, and not the rights of institutions like marriage, even if you could prove some damage to an institution, would it be constitutional to restrict individual rights in order to protect societal institutions?”
        —
        The courts interpret some rights as fundamental and some as not.
        
        If a right is fundamental the state must have a compelling reason to interfere with that right, but if a right is not fundamental, the court allows a state law or policy to withstand a Constitutional challenge if the law or policy is rational and relevant to a legitimate state interest .
        
        The majority of upper level courts from 2003 thru 2010 ruled that SSM is not a fundamental right, and that the state has a relevant interest in fostering responsible procreation between men and women, and a reason to to prefer intact family structures for raising children.
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        Supreme Court has been ruling since the 1800s that marriage is a fundamental right. SSM is not a separate right, but rather, the enfranchisement of more people into the existing right of marriage.
      - bman
        
        re: “Supreme Court has been ruling since the 1800s that marriage is a fundamental right.”
        —
        The Supreme Court ruled against SSM in 1972 in the case Baker v. Nelson.
      - DGJC
        
        Nope, the didn’t do any such thing. They never addressed the merits of the Baker case whatsoever. They merely said there was no “federal issue involved.” The funny thing is that you heterosexual supremicists were utterly clueless that by placing your bans on gay marriage onto the state constitutions it gave us gay people a direct route to legalizing it using the courts. Are you really that dense?
        Baker has been declared irrelevant in one decision after another. Try to keep up. Now that marriage equality has been legalized and DOMA has disappeared, there IS a federal issue involved. That was not the case in 1972.
      - bman
        
        re: “They never addressed the merits of the Baker case whatsoever. They merely said there was no “federal issue involved.”
        —
        Here again is the Wikipedia article on Baker v. Nelson,
        
        “In most cases presented to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Court’s refusal to hear the case is not an endorsement of the decision below. However, since this case came to the Court through mandatory appellate review, the summary dismissal is a decision on the merits of the case.“
      - DGJC
        
        The entire legal landscape has so completely changed since Baker as to make it entirely irrelevant. It was not even brought up in the Prop 8 and DOMA cases. Know why? Once DOMA became law, then there was a federal interest in this issue. Baker no longer applies.
      - bman
        
        re: “Baker no longer applies.”
        —
        The 6th Circuit just ruled in November that under Baker a state is not required to recognize SSM.
      - bman
        
        re: “It was not even brought up in….Prop 8…. Know why?”
        —
        Baker v. Nelson was brought up by the defense in Prop 8, but in their appeal to the 9th Circuit they said Walker ignored it,
        
        “The district court did not confront the Supreme Court’s holding in Baker, binding authority from this Court, or any of the well established lines of authority opposed to its conclusions. It did not distinguish them. It did not explain why it believed they were wrongly decided. It did not even acknowledge their existence. It simply ignored them.
        
        A brief web search also shows it was used in defense of DOMA but that SCOTUS did not mention it in the ruling.
        
        link: http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/10/testing-the-status-of-baker-v-nelson/
      - Griffonn
        
        But the Supreme Court then recognized marriage as being inherently linked to procreation.
        
        Now we are expected to simply beg the question. If you don’t let gays use their conclusion as a premise, you’re a h8er.
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        The Supreme Court dismissed Baker “for want of a federal question”
        I didn’t rule on SSM. ALL of the dozens of recent cases have cited, and dismissed Baker.
        
        Why would the Supreme Court deny certori on the seven cases this fall, if Baker was improperly discarded?
      - bman
        
        Answered in another post.
      - Griffonn
        
        Marriage is a fundamental right, but what gays are doing is not marriage.
        
        It does not tie family trees together, but rather breaks families.
        
        It does not protect children from abandonment by its parents, but rather encourages not only abandonment but the outright buying and selling of children-as-commodity.
        
        It does not protect women from exploitation at the hands of sexual partners, but rather commodifies women, reducing them to the level of livestock and Othering them with dehumanizing labels such as “donor” or “gestational carrier” (to describe what is actually their act of motherhood).
        
        To the extend that gays are able to be life partners, they might be able to participate in a sterile version of marriage, but there is no reason why gays should be any more entitled to share the procreative benefits of marriage with the “person they love” over their actual family, than a man who happens to love one woman but made a baby with some first wife (who now has claim on his medical & life insurance, tax benefits and status, pension, social security,etc. as well as child support). What makes gays above the law, that they can pick and choose which obligations of family they feel like honoring, at the expense of not only the child but the child’s other actual parent? What gives them the right to prioritize their own “needs” over what the child has reason to value (intact family if possible, relationship with both same-sex and opposiite-sex parent either way). Even adopted kids have the right to be the center of their own custody decision.
        
        And why if marriage “isn’t procreative”, how come lesbians are arguing in court that simply being married to a woman at the moment when she gives birth somehow “makes” a stepparent into a “second mommy”? Why does being gay come with the right to unashamedly commit fraud, and how come they aren’t being at least condemned for it, if not JAILED?
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        “Marriage is a fundamental right, but what gays are doing is not marriage. It does not tie family trees together, but rather breaks families.”
        
        Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. What is your evidence that same sex marriage “breaks families.”? Wha
      - Griffonn
        
        You are the one making an extraordinary claim.
        
        I have never heard a single reason why we OUGHT to view what gays are doing as equal to marriage.
        
        Because I believe in disability rights – and gays apparently cannot be happy unless they get some sort of special accommodation – I am willing to grant that their life partnership is equal to the life partnerships of sterile or second marriages, but they are not content with that – they want the expressly procreative benefits of marriage, and they want us to pretend they are procreative, that they are capable of making a family together and that their children “can have two mommies”. Please explain why that is necessary.
      - David_in_the_O.C.
        
        “To the extend that gays are able to be life partners, they might be able to participate in a sterile version of marriage…”
        
        You mean like all FOUR of Rush Limbaugh’s non-procreative marriages; or two of Newt Gingrich’s adulterous marriages; or perhaps Charles Manson’s sterile version of marriage?
      - Griffonn
        
        You are confusing “being eligible for – but not using – a benefit” with its opposite, “demanding the right to use a benefit you’re not actually eligible for”.
        
        if gays were content to actually live as if marriage “were not procreative” then there would not necessarily be a problem.
        
        it’s the lies and the fraud that is the problem.
      - Nordog6561
        
        So, you look to Rush, Newt, and Charlie for leadership in marriage?
        
        I don’t.
      - Catherine Mill
        
        Exactly. The patriarchal INSTITUTION of marriage tells us all right there in the word INSTITUTION and that marriage binds 3 parties – the church/state and the 2 parties – whether same sex or not.
        
        The contract gives couples permission to have legal sex -permission from the church/state and that’s it.!!!!!
        If there is freedom in reality- why go asking permission to marry from someone else – thus giving them power over you.
        
        Its nothing to do with love.
        The patriarchal marriage of old gave the couple permission to have legal sex, hence why un husbanded women had their children removed and given to husbanded women.
        Its all there in sacred texts- wombmen were and are the vessels – maritime law- through which new slaves for the system are created. Women had to be husbanded like cows in animal husbandry.
        In ancient cultures like Ireland – before the Romans came to civilise us – lol- we only had 2 human beings involved in marriage – using the doughnut stone. These people had freedom. They were free to come back to the stone any time and divorce and there was no need to ask the men in frocks of the men in black robes in the court corporations for permission. Now that was true freedom.
      - David_in_the_O.C.
        
        For picking and choosing which marriages to recognize? The government allows 100% of the heterosexual populace the right to get married. There is no picking and choosing. All straight people get a “free pass” to marry. That includes non-procreative elderly people. Infertile couples. Those that don’t want to have children. Even mass-murderers like Charles Manson have a right to get married. What possible “rational reason” is there to let psychopathic killers get married? But God help us all if committed same-sex couples want a marriage license. Now you’ve gone too far!
      - Andrew K.
        
        “Free pass” to marry? What does that even mean?
        
        For me to marry, I had to wait until I was of a certain age. Then I had to find a female human of a certain age who was also unmarried and was willing to marry me. I was allowed only one, excepting I went through a messy and costly divorce.
        
        That sounds pretty restricted to me. Restrictions you probably even agree with. But as soon as the restrictions touch on gender, apparently that’s beyond the pale.
        
        But that’s where the real debate lies, and that’s why it’s more important than simply letting a tiny percentage of a tiny percentage of the population live under a certain title.
        
        This is about gender, the objective reality of gender–always assumed in previous generations, hence the dearth of SSM proponents in all centuries prior–and what it means to be human.
      - leftleaningtx
        
        That’s on old canard agrument.
        Gay people are able to marry now in many places and soon it will be the law of the land, like it or not. Argue all you want, you have already lost the battle and are just in denial about it.
      - Andrew K.
        
        Ah, but you consider the “You’ve already lost, give it up,” a legitimate form of argumentation.
        
        Well, I’ve certainly heard it enough, I’ll grant you that.
        
        But maybe you misunderstand the motivations of me and others like me. Maybe we’re less concerned about “winning” than about protecting our freedoms to “like it not” without losing our jobs as punishment.
        
        Mozilla anyone?
      - NJB
        
        Ha ha – hilarious. So you don’t think it’s marriage – I get it. I’d rather settle for marriage in law if it’s all the same to you, even though you must be very important, speaking as you do, from ‘virtually all traditional social standpoints’. Lol.
      - Andrew K.
        
        I’m imagining you guffawing loudly over your computer right now. A floating set of initials. I’m a bit confused over what’s so funny, but we’ll let that go. Glad you’re enjoying yourself.
      - leftleaningtx
        
        only if you rely on stone age text.
        Regardless, the time of religious bigotry has passed and you and yours heads can explode all you want put it won’t change the progression of society, nothing will, not your religious dogma, not your jesus christ,,,,nothing.
        God has spoken and in the end allows for freedom of all men punishing the followers that have polluted His Name.
      - Andrew K.
        
        I think you mean Late Bronze-Age to Early Iron Age.
        
        No exploding heads here. I just want to go down as one of the people who tried to put the breaks on this mess you call “progression”–a term that someday I would love to see our “Progressives” actually explain. As Wittgenstein once said,
        
        “Our civilization is characterized by the word “progress.” Progress is
        its form rather than making progress being one of its features.
        Typically it constructs. It is occupied with building an ever more
        complicated structure. And even clarity is seldom sought.”
        
        As for what God has said, I guess we’ll find out some day. 😉
      - leftleaningtx
        
        You have also forgotten that indeed many think it is YOU and Yours who are immoral shoving your cult belief down everyone’s throat.
      - Lutesuite
        
        Because in truth, as wonderful or congenial as gay people might be, the vast majority are also thoroughly immoral by virtually any traditional social standpoint.
        
        Still wondering why opponents of SSM are considered bigots? There’s the answer right there: Because they ARE bigots.
      - Andrew K.
        
        You do realize sex before marriage has been traditionally considered immoral as well, right? Would you call me a bigot for also holding that view?
        
        I’d imagine you wouldn’t consider having multiple sexual partners immoral. Well historically many societies have. That’s just a fact. And I think most people who actually read and think reflectively and have some sense of historical awareness can understand this.
        
        Now “bigot” away.
      - Lutesuite
        
        You do realize sex before marriage has been traditionally considered immoral as well, right? Would you call me a bigot for also holding that view?
        
        Well, that’s not quite comparable to what you wrote, is it?
        
        If you had written “Homosexuality has been traditionally considered immoral”, that would merely be a statement of a historic fact.
        
        But what you actually wrote was, “(I)n truth, as wonderful or congenial as gay people might be, the vast majority are also thoroughly immoral by virtually any traditional social standpoint.”
        
        Big difference, no?
      - Andrew K.
        
        No, there isn’t.
        
        Really don’t understand what you are talking about at all.
        
        Reread what I wrote and consider.
        
        Bye.
      - Tim Wright
        
        On March 5, 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that black people were not 100 percent equal to white people. Of course this is wrong. In the same way that two people of the same sex can not be married. Homosexuality is a disordered condition and natural law in all its obvious brilliance does not nor will I accept this flawed attempt at equality in regards to male/female marriage. When the legal system in time acknowledges polyamory, people will begin To see the flawed reasoning of same-sex marriage. Large numbers of people and not just the religious nut jobs will never really see two people of the same sex being married. What they really want, they will never have.
      - Kara Connor
        
        Homosexuality is not classified as a disorder either in DSM-V or ICD-10, so your statement is false in any medical or scientific sense. Your “in the same way” sentence simply makes no sense, by the way, but I suppose that’s no shock given how the entire rest of your post is factually wrong.
      - Tim Wright
        
        Neither is transgender. So here we have a group of people who say they feel that they are the opposite sex. Nature has assigned them as either a male or female. Guess what reality is correct, they are the right sex they are just confused or deceived.
      - Kara Connor
        
        Unfortunately for your argument, elementary school level knowledge of biology is inadequate to the task of explaining reality. Everyone starts off essentially “female brained” unless testosterone masculinizes the brain in the second trimester. This does not always happen, even if someone has a Y chromosome. To start with, read the short paper
        
        Gender Differences in Human Brain: A Review
        http://benthamopen.com/journal/render-fulltext.php?articleID=TOANATJ-2-37
        
        to get an understanding of dimorphic areas of the brain, and also how the brain develops as male or female.
        
        Some conditions such as AIS give very visible features – for example, appearing physically female. Others may not affect the gonads, which differentiate in the first trimester, but do inhibit the second trimester differentiation of the brain as (we all start out “female-brained” as it were), and of course the brain is not usually visible. It turns out that many of these gender dimorphic areas are not neuro-plastic, i.e. once formed during gestation, they do not change in response to hormones, therapy, drugs, whatever. They’re fixed for life.
        
        The following papers are a small sample of those demonstrating that trans women have brains which physically resemble those of typical XX females, despite the subject having a Y chromosome. Remember that genotype is not necessarily phenotype, due to a number of factors such as in-utero hormones, epigenetics, e.g. methylation of certain genes which switches them off.
        
        The gonads develop in the first trimester of pregnancy whereas the brain differentiates male/female in the second trimester in response to androgen surges, but only if they happen, and only if the androgen receptors and chemical pathways are responsive. Note also that several of these papers explicitly compare MTF transsexuals who have never received hormone treatment, in order to eliminate that as a cause.
        
        http://jcem.endojournals.org/content/85/5/2034.full
        
        A sex difference in the human brain and its relation to transsexuality
        http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v378/n6552/abs/378068a0.html
        
        A sex difference in the hypothalamic uncinate nucl… [Brain. 2008]
        http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18980961?dopt=Abstract
        
        Neuroimaging differences in spatial cognition betw… [J Sex Med. 2010]
        http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19751389
        
        Regional gray matter variation in male-to-female t… [Neuroimage. 2009]
        http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19341803
        
        Sexual differentiation of the human brain relevan… [Gynecol Endocrinol. 2004]
        http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15724806
        
        White matter microstructure in female to male tran… [J Psychiatr Res. 2011]
        http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20562024
        
        Pacific Center for Sex and Society – Atypical Gender Development a review
        http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articles/2005to2009/2006-atypical-gender-development.html
        
        Pacific Center for Sex and Society – Dichotic Listening, Handedness, Brain Organization and Transsexuality
        http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articles/2010to2014/2010-dichotic-listening.html
        
        Discordant Sexual Identity in Some Genetic Males with Cloacal Exstrophy Assigned to Female Sex at Birth
        http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1421517/
      - Tim Wright
        
        And then there is this.
        
        http://www.mygenes.co.nz/transsexuality.htm
      - Kara Connor
        
        That’s an opinion piece, not a paper. The physical brain differences in INAH3, BSTc, amygdala and so firth, along with gray/white matter ratios and macroscopic details exist as observable fact, and are mostly in none-neuroplastic regions set by second trimester. It doesn’t come much more “born that way” than that. I never mentioned genes as the sole cause by the way. Your blog article leapt to that straw man. All the more reason to cite science papers instead of bigot blogs.
      - Tim Wright
        
        I cede that you are more informed on the biological differences in brain differences. I have found over time that many studies in the different journals produce different results. I think there is a difference bewtween something being deterministic and having an influence. We are responsible for the choices that we allow to influence us.
        
        I do not think name calling is needed in this dialogue, my opinion or someone elses opinion may be different than mine but I don’t you or I have the right to call someone a bigot.
      - Neil Saunders
        
        If I were you, Tim (and assuming that you have the time and inclination), I’d read up on (and around) the brain science Kara cites, just to make sure she isn’t distorting or cherry-picking.
        
        I’m sure that bigotry is possible on either side of any debate, but I agree with you, Tim, that simply calling someone a bigot without explaining why you believe this to be so is just “name calling”.
      - Neil Saunders
        
        “Bigot blogs”; no prejudging of the issues there, eh?
      - Kara Connor
        
        How else would you characterize blogs which deliberately ignore the published science and the reviews of the APA, AMA, and WHO to name but a fee, in order to misrepresent a group of people in a negative light?
      - Neil Saunders
        
        Which published science? Which blogs? All you’ve done is to list organisations associated with science and medicine and allege that the blogs you disagree with ignore these findings.
        
        I’d avoid emotive, subjective words like “bigot” altogether, and instead offer actual tangible arguments of your own instead (and not merely vague mentions of scientific concepts and bodies you claim support your own favoured positions, or lazy links thereto).
      - Zachary_Bos
        
        I fear your efforts to educate are seeds cast on stony ground (some people are terrifically uninterested in ending up on the right side of history) but wanted to say to you, good job, and give you a word of encouragement greater than merely clicking on the “vote” button (though I did that too).
      - Kara Connor
        
        Thank you.
      - dmm
        
        So you are saying it is absolutely proved by medical science that trans-sexuals are brain damaged?
      - Kara Connor
        
        If you consider female brains to be brain-damaged, you’re a misogynist as well as a bigot. No surprise there.
      - dmm
        
        ahahahaha! You’d be a great comedy act if you didn’t take yourself so dreadfully seriously. Yeah, when a brain is in a male body with XY chromosomes, but the brain FAILS to turn into a male brain, then I consider that brain-damaged. I have no problem with female brains in female bodies. And vice versa: a male brain in a female body is likewise brain-damaged. (Although I notice you have no “scientific” explanation for that one. I guess, by your “logic”, that automatically makes you a man-hater.)
      - Kara Connor
        
        A male brain in a female body is a trans man. Nor is it damaged. What you consider brain damaged and what science and medicine considers so are two quite different things, your view being incorrect. When the scientific community starts taking proof by blatant assertion seriously, I’ll reconsider what you have to say.
      - Neil Saunders
        
        For one who claims scientific objectivity (when it appears to bolster your cause), you rely a great deal on unsupported assertion (e.g. “A male brain in a female body is a trans man”).
      - Kara Connor
        
        Start by reading the short paper
        
        Gender Differences in Human Brain: A Review
        http://benthamopen.com/journal/render-fulltext.php?articleID=TOANATJ-2-37
        
        This will give you an understanding of “gender dimorphic” areas of the brain, and also how the brain develops as male or female. Some conditions such as AIS give very visible features – for example, appearing physically female. Others may not affect the gonads, but do inhibit the second trimester differentiation of the brain as (we all start out “female-brained” as it were), and of course the brain is not usually visible. It turns out that many of these gender dimorphic areas are not neuro-plastic, i.e. once formed during gestation, they do not change in response to hormones, therapy, drugs, whatever. They’re fixed for life. Sometimes in the second trimester, the brain of an XY individual remains female, or that of an XX person can be masculinized. Why this is is not yet clear, but the evidence is mounting that these are real, physical effects.
        
        The following papers are a small sample of those demonstrating that trans women have brains which physically resemble those of typical XX females, despite the subject having a Y chromosome. Remember that genotype is not necessarily phenotype, due to a number of factors such as in-utero hormones, epigenetics, e.g. methylation of certain genes which switches them off.
        
        The gonads develop in the first trimester of pregnancy whereas the brain differentiates male/female in the second trimester in response to androgen surges, but only if they happen, and only if the androgen receptors and chemical pathways are responsive. Note also that several of these papers explicitly compare MTF transsexuals who have never received hormone treatment, in order to eliminate that as a cause.
        
        http://jcem.endojournals.org/content/85/5/2034.full
        
        A sex difference in the human brain and its relation to transsexuality
        http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v378/n6552/abs/378068a0.html
        
        A sex difference in the hypothalamic uncinate nucl… [Brain. 2008]
        http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18980961?dopt=Abstract
        
        Neuroimaging differences in spatial cognition betw… [J Sex Med. 2010]
        http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19751389
        
        Regional gray matter variation in male-to-female t… [Neuroimage. 2009]
        http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19341803
        
        Tanaka et al, Psychiatry Clin Neurosci. 2010 Apr 1;64(2):157-61.
        “GID subjects had a significant decrease in rCBF in the left anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and a significant increase in the right insula compared to control subjects.
        The ACC and insula are regions that have been noted as being related to human sexual behavior and consciousness. From these findings, useful insights into the biological basis of GID were suggested”
        
        Sexual differentiation of the human brain relevan… [Gynecol Endocrinol. 2004]
        http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15724806
        
        White matter microstructure in female to male tran… [J Psychiatr Res. 2011]
        http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20562024
        
        Pacific Center for Sex and Society – Atypical Gender Development a review
        http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articles/2005to2009/2006-atypical-gender-development.html
        
        Pacific Center for Sex and Society – Dichotic Listening, Handedness, Brain Organization and Transsexuality
        http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articles/2010to2014/2010-dichotic-listening.html
        
        Discordant Sexual Identity in Some Genetic Males with Cloacal Exstrophy Assigned to Female Sex at Birth
        http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1421517/
      - Neil Saunders
        
        No. You start by offering arguments of your own.
      - Kara Connor
        
        You actually asked “Which published science?” Well if you won’t read the peer-reviewed, published literature you are wilfully ignorant and should recuse yourself from this thread.
      - Neil Saunders
        
        One solitary article by a scientist from a Saudi university is hardly overwhelming evidence for anything, Kara.
        
        I want to see something like a consensus of opinion among scientists that most of us have actually heard of.
      - Kara Connor
        
        One solitary article? Go back and count. Use your fingers if necessary.
      - Guest
        
        Yes, Kara, you linked to one article, by Zeenat F. Zaidi.
        
        Why is it necessary for you to make insulting references to “us(ing my) fingers if necessary?” If you are confident in your arguments you don’t need to do this.
      - Neil Saunders
        
        Yes, I can see that you made an ambush of links to presumably “peer-reviewed” articles and papers. Well, that is hardly arguing, is it?
        
        Do you honestly think that most of us have the time to wade through such stuff?
        
        Do us the courtesy of providing your own precis of such research, and combine this with why you believe it to be convincing; do not sneer at us for not having endless leisure hours to pursue such research ourselves.
      - Neil Saunders
        
        BTW, if you were confident about your arguments you would not find it necessary to adopt a sneering and patronising tone.
      - Kara Connor
        
        When I’m replying to someone (not you, but you appeared to be in agreement with him) referring to transsexuals as “brain damaged” I feel that presenting the facts, as I have, with supporting references, followed by a snark, is perfectly fair. If your questions are genuinely in the spirit of inquiry, then I offer my apologies to you (not him).
      - Neil Saunders
        
        I don’t think you’d know the “spirit of inquiry” if it bit you on the bum, Kara (the sort of person who thinks that it’s ever fair to “snark” clearly doesn’t). What you clearly are is a single-issue obsessive, with an enormous amount of spare time at your disposal, whose idea of rational argument is to overwhelm anyone who disagrees with you (or appears to) with specialised terminology (which you’ve clearly expended a great deal of energy boning up on) and seemingly knowing references to obscure academic research in areas vaguely related to the subject of your obsession in order to impress and cow into submission. (Incidentally, you also have an over-developed esteem for “peer review”, which in itself is no guarantee of truth. There’s plenty of academic dross.)
        
        You resemble the sort of Christian casuist who says to an atheist or agnostic who is attempting to reason with them, “Ah, but, my dear boy/girl, since you’ve already admitted that you don’t read Aramaic, Ancient Hebrew or Koine you’ve as good as admitted that you have no right to an opinion on this subject. Kindly come back when you’ve educated yourself to the level where it becomes meaningful to debate with you. In the meantime, you might find the following entry-level texts helpful in getting you started.”
      - Kara Connor
        
        It’s hardly my fault if you are incapable of understanding science. I suggest you educate yourself better before commenting on matters of which you have admitted you have no scientific understanding.
      - Neil Saunders
        
        You’ve rather made my point for me, Kara!
      - easynaw
        
        Says the person who has offered no contribution BUT sneering tone, since the start. You lost this, long ago.
      - Neil Saunders
        
        Thank you for your forensic analysis.
      - Neil Saunders
        
        Who the hell are you?
      - Goccio
        
        That’s not true
      - Neil Saunders
        
        Yes, Kara, I did ask “which published science?” But I was expecting you to offer a brief summary in your own words of such science, along with reasons which led you to find it convincing. I was not expecting a reading-list that will keep me busy until 2045.
        
        Incidentally, don’t you think it a little pompous to use words like “recuse”?
      - Kara Connor
        
        I supported my own words with references. You complained about “unsupported assertions” then complain when they are supported by peer-reviewed published papers. There are many more showing similar trends to the data.
        
        The key part is that everyone starts out essentially female brained, and with undifferentiated gonads. In most XY individuals the enzyme 5α-reductase converts testosterone to the more potent androgen, dihydrotestosterone which masculinizes gonads during the first trimester, and a combination of testosterone and estradiol produced by aromatization of testosterone masculinizes the brain during the second trimester. Should anything interrupt or cause partial brain masculinization in trimester 2, then clearly that leaves that person with a wholly or partially “female brain”. Your brain is your identity. Is that clearer?
        
        My own words from above post, references removed:
        “… an understanding of “gender dimorphic” areas of the brain, and also how the brain develops as male or female. Some conditions such as AIS give very visible features – for example, appearing physically female. Others may not affect the gonads, but do inhibit the second trimester differentiation of the brain as (we all start out “female-brained” as it were), and of course the brain is not usually visible. It turns out that many of these gender dimorphic areas are not neuro-plastic, i.e. once formed during gestation, they do not change in response to hormones, therapy, drugs, whatever. They’re fixed for life. Sometimes in the second trimester, the brain of an XY individual remains female, or that of an XX person can be masculinized. Why this is is not yet clear, but the evidence is mounting that these are real, physical effects.
        
        The following papers are a small sample of those demonstrating that trans women have brains which physically resemble those of typical XX females, despite the subject having a Y chromosome. Remember that genotype is not necessarily phenotype, due to a number of factors such as in-utero hormones, epigenetics, e.g. methylation of certain genes which switches them off.
        
        The gonads develop in the first trimester of pregnancy whereas the brain differentiates male/female in the second trimester in response to androgen surges, but only if they happen, and only if the androgen receptors and chemical pathways are responsive. Note also that several of these papers explicitly compare MTF transsexuals who have never received hormone treatment, in order to eliminate that as a cause.”
      - Neil Saunders
        
        You’ve done it again, Kara! You’ve made assertions (e.g. your second paragraph above), and then claimed that they’re supported by the research to which you’ve linked.
        
        What I want to know is which scientist has said which thing (stated in fairly general, non-technical terms)? Which other scientists support him or her? And I want to know it in the body of your posts, not inferentially, as a result of a trawl through the literature that you cite or to which you link (or to whatever other reference materials might seem necessary).
        
        What I also want to know is whether any of the research is controversial. Is there a consensus in the general community of scientists in the relevant field of research that such research is valid? Or are there other scientists, also publishing their own versions of the “peer-reviewed” material by which you set so much store, who have reservations about it, or who even fundamentally disagree with it?
        
        Something that does interest me, though, is that not so very long ago, a person who held your general social and political beliefs would have been viscerally hostile to biological explanations of human sexuality (as indeed many still are); they would have seen them as narrowly determinist in nature, and incapable of explaining deviations from perceived norms. (However, I can see why an already committed votary of the “born this way” school of explanation for homosexuality would have compelling grounds for embracing biological determinism.) Perhaps you are also deeply committed to the relevant science, and will pursue the consequences of it wherever it might lead; on the other hand (and this strikes me as not at all unlikely), you will use the science where you think it supports your cause, and discard it (or ignore it) where you think that it does not.
      - Kara Connor
        
        I have a Ph.D. in High Energy Particle Physics and worked at CERN back in the 80s. I follow the science and take an evidence-based approach. It is vastly over-simplistic to suggest that ALL variances in the behavior and psychological makeup of males and females is genetic. Complex behaviors typically have numerous causes. Epigenetics, for example (genes being switched off, typically through methylation) also affect whether and how genes are expressed. Similarly, in-utero hormonal levels are know to affect people and animals, e.g. sharing the womb with siblings who are producing testosterone. Much of gender *expression* is culturally modified, e.g. clothes, makeup and so forth.
        
        However, innate gender identity has been demonstrated to be unchanged by cognitive therapy, by hormone treatment, by electric shocks, by psychiatry, and by a raft of other treatments, some of which have verged on torture in the past. That makes sense when one considers that many of the areas associated with innate gender identity are generally not neuroplastic, i.e. they don’t change significantly once developed. The tragic case of the attempt to raise David Reimer, the victim of an early accidental genital mutilation, as a girl from infancy through adolescence is cited, along with other similar examples, seems to discount that one’s inborn sense of gender is developed through parenting, as does the lived experience and history of many trans people. It could be a “choice”, but is an extremely difficult road to go down, and would be amenable to cognitive therapy if it were a choice. This is not the case.
        
        Some of the research is controversial – sample sizes need to be improved, though of course when it requires removing a trans person’s brain to study small areas which can’t be seen on scans or without using dyes to make structures visible, that necessarily makes it harder to collect data. More research definitely needs to be done. What is known is that the WPATH treatment guidelines produce very good outcomes on the whole – success rates are comparable if not better than many other treatments of less controversial conditions. I could post a raft of references here but won’t unless you really want them.
        
        You also seem to be conflating sexuality with gender identity. The two things are quite orthogonal. A trans woman may be straight (attracted to men), lesbian (attracted to women), bisexual or asexual. The fact that she’s transsexual tells you nothing about her sexual orientation. Perhaps your apparent assumption that trans women are all attracted to men colors your viewpoint? As for whether one is born gay or not, it makes no difference in terms of legal protection and equality whether I was born a lesbian or “chose” to be one. You weren’t “born a Christian” yet you still have your religious freedom protected by the 1st Amendment. I have my freedom from your religion guaranteed by the same.
        
        You ask “Is there a consensus in the general community of scientists in the relevant field of research that such research is valid?” Well you’d have to read the papers, but the answer is generally yes. The neurological explanation is generally regarded as the most likely one, based on the evidence. However, as I mentioned, more research is needed before definitively being able to say what the cause is. What we do know is that the professional body for psychiatry in the United States, the American Psychiatric Association, supports and recommends the WPATH treatment guidelines http://www.apa.org/about/policy/transgender.aspx, as does the American Medical Association, the British Medical Association, and similar professional bodies in the developed world. They base their views on reviews of the current literature. You can’t, by definition “publishing your own versions of the ‘peer-reviewed’ material”. Publication in a reputable journal, i.e. one associated with the field and with a reputation for accuracy and honesty, after having your paper peer-reviewed by other experts in the appropriate field is how science works, along with continued testing of a theory, and reproducible results. That is why, for example the Fleischmann–Pons claims of nuclear fusion at room temperature became discredited. There isn’t some “science leader” that tells everyone what is right. It emerges by consensus, based on the evidence.
      - Neil Saunders
        
        You have impressive scientific credentials, Kara (which your handling of scientific terms had already suggested to me). May I ask you a question (and it is not a frivolous one)? Were you born a boy or a girl?
        
        May I ask you another question (again, not a frivolous one)? Do you think that, e.g., a man after sex-change surgery literally becomes a woman?
        
        My knowledge of brain science is sketchy to the point of being virtually non-existent. I’ve read popular books by people like Rita Carter, and an interest in philosophy of mind and language has exposed me to the ideas of people like Pinker, Chalmers, Dennett and – a bit of a jump – Searle, and thence to some very basic acquaintance with neurophysiology. The impression I obtained from this reading is that brain science is a vast, unexplored territory (much like the interior of Africa to Europeans a few centuries back), waiting to be explored (if not exploited). Awareness of my own ignorance and lack of credentials in this area has led me to be extremely cautious in approaching the subject, and highly sceptical about any large claims made in relation to, or on the basis of, it.
        
        I was interested that you should mention the Reimer case, which was also cited in articles by Paul McHugh (who, as you know, is no friend of transsexualism), and, IIRC, one of the episodes of the Hjernevask (“Brainwash”) series by the Norwegian comedian (!) and broadcaster, Harald Eia (a series where academics in the Nordic Gender Institute, deeply hostile to biological explanations of differences between the sexes, were heavily criticised).
        
        I don’t think that I’ve made any assumptions about the sexual preferences of transsexual people, since I don’t recall ever expressing an opinion about them (perhaps you are confusing me with another of your interlocutors). Until recently, my sole concern on this thread has been to articulate and defend a principled opposition to SSM in secular terms.
        
        I’d better explain that my religious freedoms (including, in my case, my freedom to be an atheist) are not protected by the First Amendment, since I am Subject of the British Crown and not a Citizen of the United States of America. Consequently, I’m not sure that any constitutional arrangement safeguards whatever beliefs I may or may not choose to have – I think it’s each person for him- or herself over here! (Interestingly, devout Muslims claim that everyone IS born a Muslim. Some are fortunate enough to be raised as Muslims (in majority-Muslim countries and elsewhere), but those less fortunate may subsequently “revert” (not convert) to Islam.)
        
        I expressed myself badly in my passage about peer review; all I meant was that in those areas of scientific research where this is not (or not yet) an overwhelming consensus, there will be peer reviewed submissions that differ from one another, sometimes to the point of being in opposition.
        
        However, I would be less sanguine than you that the official bodies always pursue scientific objectivity (desirable as I believe this to be) rather than bending to the prevailing winds of fashion (which may very well also blow through the “current literature”). Falsehood, as well as truth, can emerge from consensus. (See the excellent book, “Irrationality”, by the late Stuart Sutherland.)
      - Kara Connor
        
        I’m English too, and have lived near Seattle for over 15 years, and I _think_ that case law and European law protect your religious freedoms in a similar way, but I’m not a lawyer and I don’t play one on television 😉
        
        I attempted to be clear in saying that the data and scientific evidence is “trending” (in the scientific sense) toward showing neurological causation of transsexualism. We definitely need more research, but that’s how science progresses, and at any given time we can only go on the best available evidence. That can sometimes be unsatisfactory to “both sides” of an issue, but life is like that – sometimes there just aren’t 100% signed, sealed and delivered answers. We just push on and keep investigating.
        
        I will answer your questions as best I can. I was assigned male at birth, but would say I was never a boy. So, yes, I have “skin in the game”, as they say. After transitioning, the way I would describe it is that your body, and social interactions become more aligned with your innate gender identity, or with the brain, if you prefer. Clearly there has been no chromosomal change, and I am unlikely to give birth – were I to think either of those things then I _would_ be delusional. As a scientists I have asked myself many of the same questions you would ask. How do I _know_? I readily admit that this is a very difficult question to answer. We’ve kind of been over the genitalia/Y chromosome points, so I won’t rehash that. Unsatisfactory though it is, I just know. I tried to live in denial, thought I could “handle it” because hey, I’m smart and (believe it or not) very well balanced, not mentally ill (I’ve been screened) and incredibly strong willed. It eventually occurred to me that I was killing any chance of happiness I had, so I faced up to who I was. Not at all easy. So I have been interested in developments such as some of the research I cited (and if you do read it you’ll see I have tried not to cherry-pick – many papers say “not conclusive” or “more research needed”). Nonetheless, much of what these papers say makes sense, and I can directly relate it to my own lived experience, which I admit is totally subjective, but it would seem to make sense for people to at least hear what the experience of transsexual people is from those most affect5ed by it.
      - Neil Saunders
        
        Thanks for that. I’ll try to get up to speed on the science and consider the evidence.
        
        Merry Christmas (from one atheist to another)!
      - Kara Connor
        
        Same to you, Neil! I’m back in Blighty early next year. Christmas isn’t the same without Morecambe and Wise 🙂
      - AbigailTea
        
        ” Homosexuality is a disordered condition and natural law in all its obvious brilliance does not nor will I accept this flawed attempt at equality in regards to male/female marriage. ”
        
        Thanks for showing why you nuts are losing this debate.
      - Tim Wright
        
        I love the name Abigail. One of my favourite people in the world is named Abigail. I don’t see this as a debate but a honest dialogue at knowing what people actually believe. I may disagree with you, but I have not honestly come across anything on this page that anyone has shared that I would consider “nuts”. All the best.
      - bman
        
        re: “Whoever is legally married under the law is a married couple.”
        —
        That reduces to saying anything the law calls marriage is marriage, like a ten person deca-marriage, for example.
      - AbigailTea
        
        *sigh*
        
        This is not a hard concept at all.
      - bman
        
        re: “This is not a hard concept at all.”
        —-
        Marriage between one man and woman is not a hard concept.
        
        Anyway, your reply does not defend your statement.
        
        If marriage can declare two men are a married couple , then it can declare that three men are a married throuple (a three person couple).
        
        Your comment reduces to that unless you modify it in some way, which you have not done.
    - Malcolm Swall
      
      YOU don’t have to call it a marriage. The Govt must recognize all those who are legally married. Due Process.
      - Tim Wright
        
        Roman Emperor Caligula married his horse, would you say they were married, I doubt it. Even though he had the authority to make laws, most people knew people marrying animals is not really marriage just like people of the same sex participating in a marriage ceremony. Against natural law.
      - Guest
        
        Who makes this ‘natural law’?
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        The Roman empire was almost 2000 years ago, and was a dictatorship. Dictators make whatever laws they want. We, however, live in a constitutional republic, with a system of representative govt that includes a system of checks and balances, including a judiciary with the binding power to declare laws unconstitutional.
        
        “Natural law” is an oxymoron.
        Laws, marriage, govt’s, religions and civilizations don’t exist in nature.
      - Tim Wright
        
        Marriage has always been a covenant between a man and a woman which is by its nature ordered toward the procreation and education of children and the unity and well-being of the spouses. People who promote same sex marriages are pursuing something entirely different.
        
        This denies the self-evident biological, physiological, and psychological differences between men and women which find their complementarity in marriage.
        
        It also denies the specific primary purpose of marriage: the perpetuation of the human race and the raising of children.
        
        Two entirely different things cannot be considered the same thing.
        
        Marriage is not just any relationship between human beings. It is a relationship rooted in human nature and thus governed by natural law.
        
        This rule is confirmed by the evident difficulties faced by the many children who are orphans or are raised by a single parent, a relative, or a foster parent.
        
        The unfortunate situation of these children will be the norm for all children of a same-sex “marriage.” A child of a same-sex “marriage” will always be deprived of either his natural mother or father. He will necessarily be raised by one party who has no blood relationship with him. He will always be deprived of either a mother or a father role model.
        
        Same-sex “marriage” ignores a child’s best interests.
        
        I can not imagine growing up without one of my parents.
        
        I have friends who have adopted children and they all to one degree or another are deeply impacted by the circumstances that placed them in a position for the need to be adopted.
        
        Same-sex couples adoptions are state sponsored child abuse and intentionally by design deprive
        a child of both a Mother and a Father.
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        YOU think that children who are raised other than a Mother and a Father are “deprived.”
        
        Even if you are right, (and there isn’t any scientific evidence to back your claim, and plenty that controverts it) that is not a rational reason to deny the right of marriage to same sex couples (as many court cases have demonstrated.) No one is denied a marriage because they don’t demonstrate the optimum environment for children. No poor person could marry – poverty tracks consistently with poor outcomes for children. No one is denied a marriage because they are sterile. We don’t deny a right because some don’t have the same expectations as others – that just isn’t how it works.
        
        Tens of thousands of children are currently being raised in same sex couple households – legal same sex marriage won’t change that one way or the other. What will happen is that those children will no longer suffer “the daily harms of bans on same sex marriage”, as Kennedy pointed out in the majority opinion of Windsor.
      - Tim Wright
        
        I think we need a longitudinal study to see if there are long-term consequences for children being raised by a same-sex couple.
        
        As to the consequences of being raised by a single parent, this has already been found out to be well documented
        fact.
        
        http://futureofchildren.org/publications/journals/article/index.xml?journalid=37&articleid=107&sectionid=692
        
        &
        
        http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2012/07/single_motherhood_worse_for_children_.html
        
        In a same-sex marriage, there will never be the potential for a child from this couple because nature has not given them the capacity to procreate.
        
        In an ordinary male/female couple their biological complementarity is the design for bringing children into this world. This is obvious.
        
        Hey, I need to go to bed. I will read more comments tomorrow. thanks for keeping this dialogue civil, really appreciate it. Have a good evening.
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        Still not a rational reason to deny same sex marriage.
      - carlolancellotti
        
        Nobody is denying anything. It is simply rational to tailor public policy to different groups and social needs. Shrimp fishermen do not need tax breaks designed to encourage solar power generation. Likewise fertile couples need special forms of support related to child bearing that other people do not need. I propose we give marriage licenses only after the birth of the first child, so nobody feels discriminated.
      - Richard Lutz
        
        I rather think Mr Small thinks people have a right to marry their half-sister and their dog. Or does he does he oppose marriage equality for self-described incestsexuals and zoosexuals who suffer much discrimination and bigotry?
        
        If so does that make him a racist-like incestophobic and zoophobic bigot for opposing consanguineous marriages like half-sibling marriage (legal in Sweden without the sky falling in) and inter-species marriage (allowed in some tribes without the sky falling in) who is akin to the racists who opposed inter-racial marriages?
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        Mr. Swall desires that the govt follow the constitution. Just because one law is found to violate the constitution does not infer that all laws are void. Each are evaluated separately.
      - Richard Lutz
        
        If the constitution required the government to persecute homosexuals and Jews, validate the rape of children via child-adult marriages, and validate inbreeding via incestous marriages, would Mr Small want the government to follow the constitution? If so what would that say about Mr Small?
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        I cannot say what Mr Small has to say. My name is Swall. The constitution requires a rational reason, IE, due process. There are rational reasons for preventing under age marriage, and arguably incestuous marriage. If it prevents the kind of marriage you advocate, you need to try your own case. Just because one law regulating marriage is found to violate the constitution, it does not follow that all laws about marriage are suddenly void. Each must be individually
        Evaluated
      - Richard Lutz
        
        Sorry, I don’t know why I called you Mr Small. A mental slip it would appear. I did not intend to diminish you in any way you can rest assured.
        You say that there are “rational reasons” to oppose underage and incestuous marriages, just as there are rational reasons to oppose same-sex and polygamous marriages, but it seems to me that if you believe marriage is about validating the love that people have for each other – nothing to do with procreation, raising children or even sex – and such marriages are an inalienable human right, then it follows that underage, incestuous and polygamous marriages must also be legalized.
        So I had wondered if, as a matter of principle divorced from legal and constitutional arguments, if you think three adult sisters who love each other have a right to marry, and if a 9-year-old girl has a right to marry the man she loves as is allowed in nations like Saudi Arabia and Malaysia?
      - bman
        
        re: “Still not a rational reason to deny same sex marriage.”
        —
        You could just as easily say its not a rational reason to deny three-person gay marriage.
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        Hire a lawyer and sue for your right to have a three person marriage. Either the govt will present a constitutional reason to deny or it will not. Due process requires a rational reason related to a legitimate govt concern. Just because a ban on same sex marriage violates the constitution doesn’t argue either for, or against, a law prohibiting polygamy. Each law is evaluated independently.
      - bman
        
        re: “Hire a lawyer..”
        —-
        My reply targeted the “logic” in your claim.
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        My “logic” is that each law is either constitutional or it is not, individually. The benchmark of constitutional is whether or not the govt has a permissible reason, a rational reason related to a legitimate govt concern.
        
        Any assumption that legal same sex marriage must lead to other, previously prohibited, kind of marriage is a slippery slope fallacy.
      - Richard Lutz
        
        SSM validates motherless and fatherless families wherein children are deprived of an intimate male or female gender role model, which naturally causes developmental and emotional damage as occurs in single parent families.
      - carlolancellotti
        
        If marriage has nothing to do (at least potentially) with producing children, I don’t see why the state should get involved, and why couples feel that they need special benefits as opposed to singles. You can say it’s the law, I can say it’s a stupid law.
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        Just because something has “always been” is not an indication that it is right – slavery was a case that had “always” been traditional.
        
        Marriage has not always been a covenant …… even in the bible, there were many other kinds of marriage – spoils of war and rape, harems of wives, etc. For royal families for millenniums, marriage was foreign policy and succession planning.
      - Zachary_Bos
        
        I fear your efforts to argue the side of right will amount to seeds cast on stony ground (some people are terrifically uninterested in ending up on the right side of history) but wanted to say to you, good job, and give you a word of encouragement greater than merely clicking on the “vote” button (though I did that too).
      - bman
        
        re: “Just because something has “always been” is not an indication that it is right…”
        —
        Sounds like another argument for ten person marriage.
      - Neil Saunders
        
        These are highly exceptional forms of marriage, even in the societies under consideration, Malcolm.
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        Do you feel that “highly exceptional” is a rational reason to deny a fundamental right?
      - Neil Saunders
        
        In the appropriate circumstances, yes, because the “fundamental right” being claimed is spurious.
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        Marriage has been found to be a fundamental right by the Supreme Court in 14 different cases going back to the 1800s.
      - Neil Saunders
        
        For whom? Two men and a woman? A man and a goat? A 60-year-old woman and a 10-year-old boy? If not, why not?
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        If the govt recognizes some couples for a special status, marriage, and does not recognize other couples, it may only do so if it does not violate the constitution, i.e, it must use due process. Due process means a rational reason related to a legitimate govt concern.
        
        I can envision that the govt can provide a rational reason to deny a marriage to spouses unable to legally consent, i.e., children, goats and inanimate objects. What the govt has failed to provide in more than two dozen federal court cases in the last two years, is a constitutionally valid rational reason to deny the right of marriage to same sex couples.
        
        In the case of multiple spouses, I don’t have a personal objection. I believe that if the govt bans them, it is obligated, if a case is presented, to defend a rational reason related to a legitimate govt concern. I suspect that it could, perhaps just on the grounds that it makes the legal issues so much more complex – divorce, survivor-ship, medical decisions, etc. I think some might argue that, in practice, there is not equality among spouses, often subjugation of wives, etc. It is a different law, and whether or not it is constitutional is the subject of its own legal battle.
      - Neil Saunders
        
        You keep hiding behind the Constitution (and legalism generally), as if it were some kind of sacred oracle rather than a particularly artificial, wholly man-made institution. What, for you, would a “constitutionally valid” objection to gay marriage look like, or is it simply inconceivable in your scheme of things? (I, for example, can understand the arguments for SSM, framed in terms of equality, even though I reject SSM on other grounds.) It is revealing that you think that “legitimate concerns” are the particular prerogative of government (acting in conformity with the Constitution), rather than of society as a whole.
        
        Also, is not a “rational reason” tautologous? A reason is surely rational by definition.
        
        I nowhere mentioned “inanimate objects”, so I do not understand why you refer to them. It is true, however, that there are people who claim to have loving relationships with more than one person at a time (as you acknowledge), with animals, and with children. I don’t think that objections to such hypothetical unions would be framed primarily in terms of legal complications, but of abiding moral objections among the community.
      - John Clegg
        
        Tim, My believe is that you are right absolutely in what you say and also brave. My conscience prevents me from thinking that homosexuality and homosexual marriage should be equal and normal, so I’m prepared for a hate filled tirade by saying this.
      - Tim Wright
        
        Thanks John,
        
        I am used to name calling and shock when I say this publicly on online forums and openly in public. Fortunately, I can’t be fired and I have no practical consequences from what I say, except loss of friends, which is sad, but have truth as a comfort. Thanks for your encouragement.
      - Bruce Lewis
        
        John and Tim, I believe that what you are both saying is a denial of the reality faced by many children who are “difficult cases,” and who, but for “same-sex” adopters, would have no parents at all.
        
        Therefore, I think what you are saying is insensitive and cruel, and not in the least bit “pastoral” or charitable.
        
        However, I don’t say that it’s so “insensitive and cruel” that you have no right to say it, and I believe that the author of this article is correct when he says that “poltiical correctness” on this issue is becoming totalitarian.
        
        There really isn’t any reason why people of both persuasions on this issue can’t live peacefully in the same polity, so long as they don’t impose their views on others. You two stay out of the business of “same-sex-attracted” couples who want to adopt, and who are allowed to do so, under the laws of Protestant secularized “liberal democracies,” and let the enthusiasts for “gay liberation” and “gay marriage” leave you alone to believe what you want, and practice what you want within your churches and church-affiliated institutions.
        
        Just please don’t apply for some license to “serve the public” when you won’t serve ALL of the public. Do your marrying and your adopting behind closed doors and be the counter-culture that Christianity was always meant to be. The Catholics of Britain have had a long history of learning how to be that, and, for my money, it made them better Christians. It’s now time for the Anglicans and the Methodists and the Presbyterians to learn the same thing.
      - Tim Wright
        
        Hi Bruce,
        
        Lets flip your thoughts toward those who are same sex attracted.
        
        If you want to have sex with people of the same sex, please stay behind doors. This is how it has always been. Yes, you may keep your “gay bars and bathhouses” but please keep it behind closed doors as it always has been. You do your thing with your people, but please be nice and respectable about it and please don infect our children with your thoughts and ideas.
        
        I think that is how it has been in the Christian west or liberal democracies for the past 100 years. Have gays been persecuted and violentky attacked, yes and that is wrong.
        
        I don not believe that any religion should stay in the closet behind their doors. If they are “true believers” as Eric Hofer noted, they will be the most ardent, passionate and engaged with culture but not hiding from it. As for the Christians that I know, love is their motivation, they take the words of the bible as an articultaion of Eternal Truth not some thing to bash people with, but in the hope of restoring society to the words of Christ, Thy Kingdom Come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
        
        As for Christian adoption agencies, Christians have been barred from placing children into families that disapprove of homosexual practice. This is not a live and let live policy.
        
        I think we are all adults and we need more dialogue about what people believe in the open public. Some words may hurt people but democracy has been born in a caludron of ideas, dialogues.
        
        As for children who are special cases for adoption, I still believe placing children into a home of same sex couples is State sponsore child abuse. Same sex couple natuarlly are barren families for a reason, they do not have within their design the potential in their relationship for creating life. They may clultivate a kind of life but not a life that represents human flourishing.
        
        So, I won’t stay in my closet and I hope to be part of a civil dialogue in cultavating an atmosphere of civility and love. Tolerance is such a lonely word.
      - Bruce Lewis
        
        If they are “true believers” as Eric Hofer noted, they will be the most ardent, passionate and engaged with culture but not hiding from it.
        
        “Engage” with “culture” all you want, but in a spirit of civility and peace, not in a spirit of coercion and power-mongering, and realize that, historically speaking, most “cultures” have been formed by violence, which you, as Christians, are called to eschew.
      - Tim Wright
        
        I absolutely agree with you if we can agree that violence is physical and not verbal. I think we all want others to agree with us and will use all the civic-minded rights provided to all citizens of this nation, I do not think, speaking, debating, lobbying, protesting, marches, advertisement, etc… are expressions or signs or power-mongering or coercion. In this country to say that I think something is wrong, is tantamount to not endorsing the politically minded script from the media, right or left.
        
        If someone says I don’t want any more immigrants in the country, you are automatically branded a racist. Not true, are some people racists, of course, but ad hominem attacks are not prudential or enhancing to greater civility.
      - Bruce Lewis
        
        There are plenty of verbal expressions that are, with deliberate intent that is discernable, incitements to physical violence or the use of force against others. I agree with people of your persuasion, however, that some kinds of political force are violent or too coercive. I really don’t understand why people of different persuasions can’t live together in a federalized system, so long as government is not totalitarian, and so long as people are free to get up and move to locales of greater affinity. Although a proponent of “gay marriage” (I once preferred civil unions, but am repelled, now, by the vociferousness of critics), I want it enacted by states and their legislatures, rather than by courts. The culture is gradually rejecting any stigma for homosexuality, and I am content with the gradualism.
      - Tim Wright
        
        Hi Bruce,
        
        If you are making reference to freedom of speech in the USA and not the UK.
        
        I refer you to the Fred Phelps case.
        
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snyder_v._Phelps
        
        By an 8-1 decision the USA Supreme Court said that in the USA we have the right to offend.
        
        Secondly, let me ask you this, am I or anyone esle responsible for what you feel?
        
        If the answer is yes, you are then responsible for what I feel, which is absurd.
        
        Each person is responsible for their own feelings.
        
        Again, I do not believe that homosexual expression, is a sign of human flourishing. It is a disordered desire.
        
        People are totally free in the USA to do what they want behind doors, but for the culture to endorse this expression is reflection on the lack of wisdom and discernment on the uniqueness of the male and the female. While they are equal in their gentic structure, they are noit the same. Men will never be able to breast feed , nor will will men be able to give birth.
        
        In 1973 The Supreme Court in the Roe v Wade decision leagalised abortion. This is not settled in society, more people now consider themselves prolife than in 1973.
        
        I am in this struggle for the longhaul and raising my children to do the same for the sake of the true family of male/female.
        
        In my heart I have no desire to hurt anyone, but if my words offend people, I am not responsible for what they feel nor are they for what I feel.
        
        There is no gay gene, this has been shown in studies of identical twins, where one child was gay and the other twin was not.
        
        I reject the idea that their sexual orientation is the main aspect of their identity. I am quite willing to be hated and jeered at for my beliefs.
        
        Tim
      - Neil Saunders
        
        Your very insistence that people accept a definition of marriage which they find repellent is itself totalitarian, Bruce. To be forced, on pain of social, financial and even legal penalties to say with your mouth what your heart denies (or to leave your dissent unsaid out of fear) is precisely to be subjected to violent political force and coercion.
        
        It is not “the culture” (whatever this sonorous but empty abstraction might conceivably mean) which is “rejecting any stigma for homosexuality”, but the metropolitan elites (in government, the law, the media and academia) which are agitating for – and, in the applicable spheres, legislating for – gay marriage and other controversial novelties rooted in sexual, racial and religious identity politics.
        
        They do this in the (blunted) teeth of a diffuse and beleaguered opposition (outward or – increasingly (see above) – inward, given the imbalance of relative power and influence) not merely from fundamentalist Christian conservatives and other “reactionaries” – who may be easily ridiculed and dismissed – but a vast swathe of ordinary, decent, fair-minded people outside of the elite bubble who feel that they are being bludgeoned by changes that are occurring at a pace too rapid for them to consider any possible merits and likely implications properly. In short, the changes are being imposed from without (and “above”) by diktat and without democratic legitimacy.
      - Neil Saunders
        
        I haven’t noticed a conspicuous absence of “coercion” or “power-mongering” among the advocates of gay marriage, Bruce.
      - Shen Danger
        
        It boggles my mind that YOU feel attacked by the rights and freedoms of other people. That’s how slave owners felt when they were being pushed to give up their slaves–like THEIR rights were being infringed upon. How dare you victimize yourself when people on your side of the argument are not the ones dying, suffering from depression, being kicked from their homes onto the streets and being fearful for their lives because of people like you?
      - Tim Wright
        
        Hi Shen,
        
        I do not remember saying that I felt attacked. I don’t feel attacked in any way. I think our culture is under assault from a big lie, that homosexual expression is normal. It is not. We are accommodating a disordered sexual behaviour, not an identity. We are celebrating something that is un natural.
        
        As for daring, how dare people who are engaged in activities that go against natural order and demand that our culture endorse & celebrate a behaviour that is unhealthy in so many ways.
        
        Homosexual couples do not have the potential for ever having children.
        
        I think we fundamentally disagree on the unique contribution that a male and female bring to the pictre of rasing children.
        
        I do not believe anyone would choose to have same sex attraction, but we are responsible for what we do with the feelings that we have.
        
        I may have a strong sexual desire for someone at my office, but I don’t act on those desires because I have made a covenant with my wife till death do us part, that I will not be sexually, emotionally, or romatically involved with another women.
        
        We live in cultures where do not have thought police, or at least I thought so.
        
        I want people to be free to say whatever they want without putting people in a box for one thought that goes off message from the cultural script as I have said before.
        
        This issue will not go away. Just wait, in time we will be having Polyamory legalised. And people will say why not.
        
        And who knows whats next?
        
        Peace
        
        Tim
      - Shen Danger
        
        Many straight couples also do not have the potential to have children. Furthermore, gay couples never abandon children they accidentally had. They often adopt children that straight couples throw away, which is what a barren straight couple can do.
        
        Your argument that it is unnatural is not based on any kind of scientific fact. The APA says this: ” Both heterosexual behavior and homosexual behavior are normal aspects of human sexuality. Both have been documented in many different cultures and historical eras. Despite the persistence of stereotypes that portray lesbian, gay and bisexual people as disturbed, several decades of research and clinical experience have led all mainstream medical and mental health organizations in this country to conclude that these orientations represent normal forms of human experience. Lesbian, gay and bisexual relationships are normal forms of human bonding. Therefore, these mainstream organizations long ago abandoned classifications of homosexuality as a mental disorder.” Furthermore, the argument that it is unnatural is strange because it never bothered us that shoes, prosthetic limbs, computers and glasses are unnatural–yet they are.
        
        What evidence do you have that the “behavior” is unhealthy? The only evidence I can cite to this effect would be how dangerous it is for lgbt people to face an unwelcoming society. More scientific, documented research shows that after coming out of the closet lgbt people become mentally healthier. Of course they are in more danger of attack from other people at that point, but most consider it a small price to pay.
        
        And as for being responsible for what you do, believe me: queer people do not chase every person that attracts them. They do have self control. An extremely large portion of the queer community is monogamous–a ratio comparable to straight people. Polyamorous relationships are a completely separate topic that contains large debate within the queer community as well as the straight community. Gay people look down on cheating just as much as straight people and do not usually have agreements with their partners for sexual exploration outside of their relationships. Your fear of the future does not justify the oppression of minorities here and now.
        
        And Tim, you are free to think however you want. But the culture is under attack because it deserves to be attacked. Your culture has been attacking lgbt people for as long as it has existed and it is not appreciated by them. This article in itself is an attack on that culture and these responses I write to you are an attack on your culture. Just because we are attacking your culture does not make us wrong, otherwise you would be wrong solely because you are attacking ours. Your defense of your way of life is understandable, but just because you are comfortable with it doesn’t make it right. Slavery culture was destroyed much to the discomfort of slave owners. I’m not sorry for your discomfort any more than I am sorry for theirs.
        
        Finally, yes we do disagree I am sure about the value of a hetero couple raising children versus a homo couple. But two men or two women raising a child cannot possibly be worse than one man or one woman raising them alone and yet we have countless single parents in America and nobody is taking their children away. Straight couples are well-known for messing up their children because people in general are raised by straight couples. Maybe we should remove the rights of straight couples to raise children? Because they suck at it.
        
        I assure you you cannot win a logic or scientific argument here. You will have to get religious and then you might have a fighting chance at a spiritual argument but I am prepared for that one too.
      - Tim Wright
        
        Hi,
        
        Hi Shen,
        
        You are engaging with me because you are an expression of a male and female coming together to create you. It is good that you are here in this world. All life comes together because of a male and female. Nature is very strict in this matter.
        
        A male and the female is needed in the raising of children. Placing children in a home of two men or two women is an artificial construct that is naturally incapable of producing the children under their care.
        
        My great comfort is in knowing that this experiment with the sexual fluidity will not last. The tragedy will be for the people who will be emotionally damaged because of well intentioned but deceived individuals as to the historical necessity of the family based upon a man and women. Longitudinal studies in time will prove this point. Just as society was deceived into agreeing on no fault divorce.
        
        More children were unintentionally damaged by this flawed legal reasoning than could be counted.
        
        The queer culture as you call it is not known for their monogamy, bathhouses for men, yes, but that is more of the sexual nature of men than homosexuals. Sex buddies are well known and tolerated.
        
        In the latest UK law for “gay” marriage, there are no grounds for adultery with a person of the same sex, opposite sex, yes. Such commitment.
        
        http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9827596/Gay-marriage-bill-opens-door-to-abolition-of-adultery.html
        
        The Male Couple, authors David P. McWhirter and Andrew M. Mattison (themselves a gay couple, one an M.D. psychiatrist, the other a Ph.D. psychologist) reported that, in a study of 156 males in homosexual relationships lasting from one to thirty-seven years, only seven couples had a totally exclusive sexual relationship, and these men had been together less than five years. Stated another way, only nine percent (9%) of the male couples were actually monogamous, but none of the couples with a relationship lasting more than five years were sexually exclusive.[viii] McWhirter and Mattison consider monogamy to be a homophobic stage that gay couples pass through and out of; in other words, McWhirter and Mattison consider promiscuity to be definitional to male homosexuality.
        
        [viii] David P. McWhirter and Andrew M. Mattison, The Male Couple: How Relationships Develop (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1984): 252, 253.
        
        I think we disagree and seem to be going over the same areas. I won’t be commenting anymore but if you post something, I promise you I will read it. Thanks for the dialogue. All the best.
        
        Tim
      - bman
        
        re: “It boggles my mind that YOU feel attacked by the rights and freedoms of other people…”
        —
        Another argument for three partner marriages.
      - Griffonn
        
        Yeah, people like us should just drop our own reality and adopt whatever reality you want to assign to us!
      - easynaw
        
        The conjecture is overwhelming!!!
      - Bruce Lewis
        
        He made his horse, Incitatus, a Senator, not his wife; he “married” his sister. The Ptolomies and the pharoahs of Egypt married their sisters, as well.
        
        “Marriage” was ALWAYS a human–not a divinely sanctioned–institution, until Jesus Christ made it a divinely sanctioned one. Even the Jewish patriarchs and prophets had many wives, and polygamy, in those days. seemed, to the ancient Jews, God-sanctioned. (But notice that there’s no sanction against polygamy in the Ten Commandments).
        
        It was Christ who made marriage “sacramental” and “eternal,” when he forbade the divorce that Moses had allowed. THAT created the role of religion in defining what a “true” “Christian marriage” was. However, the Protestant heresiarchs deliberately undid this when Luther, for instance, married a nun (thus divorcing her from her “spouse,” Christ, whom she had “wed” in a sacramental “marriage ritual” of sorts). The Protestant heresiarchs knew what they were doing when they did this, because they wanted to put “Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect” way into the shadows, in favour of “salvation by faith alone.”
        
        In fact, Luther, when he was reminded that Christ had forbidden divorce, said that the Savior had made this rule “to convict us of our sins.” What Luther meant, in other words, was that the Lord had, as he put it, “His tongue far in his cheek when he gave us that rule”: Christ was, Luther preached, giving mankind a rule that He knew he could not keep, because of his concupiscence. Enter, at that point, the role of the secular-minded Western governments that, with divorce, begin once again, historically-speaking, to preside over the secularized, non-sacramental marriages of the Protestant nations.
        
        I really wish more people in the so-called “liberal democracies” of the West understood that the way for “gay marriage” was paved by the INNOVATION that the Reformation made in orthodox Christianity’s “doctrine of divorce.” I also wish that the Catholic Church would use this knowledge of secularized, Protestant marriages that it actually knows about to simply divorce itself from the whole “gay marriage” debate, and say, “Your marriages are not our ‘marriages’ anyway, and haven’t been since the Reformation era.”
      - Neil Saunders
        
        “[M]ost people know that marrying animals is not really marriage…”
        
        Here’s a beautiful example of collective intentionality (in the Searlean sense) at work!
      - Neil Saunders
        
        That’s right, Malcolm, get the government to run a legal steamroller over all the people who disagree with you!
      - Malcolm Swall
        
        The “legal steamroller” is there to ensure every citizen receives the due process guaranteed by the US Constitution. If you want to violate the Constitution, prepare to be “steamrollered” by the legal system.
      - Neil Saunders
        
        I can’t violate the Constitution, Malcolm; I’m a subject of the British Crown. You, as an American, are entitled I suppose to support what appears to be the legal absolutism (or tyranny) your Constitution appears to embody if you wish (assuming that your interpretation of its nature and scope is correct), but neither I nor anyone else has to applaud it (or even approve of it).
        
        SSM was never democratically put to the electorate in the UK for its consideration (and subsequent acceptance or rejection), but was imposed by diktat as a legal fait accompli by our ruling elites.
    - NJB
      
      They have a marriage in law. If you’d like to read the statute I can send it to you. I get that you, Tim, don’t believe in it but I hope that you, Tim, also get that that really isn’t relevant.
      - Tim Wright
        
        I agree that the state says they are legally married, but I will never publicly or privately acknowledge a marriage of a same sex couple. That may hurt their feelings, but I am not responsible for what they feel, they are.
    - Lutesuite
      
      Nope, they have a legal contract, not a marriage.
      
      Well, that’s a very interesting point. If the thing we are discussing, the entity that is known as “marriage” within the legal framework of the state, and which is now being opened up to same sex couples, is not really marriage according to your definition, then why all the fuss about same sex marriage? You’re still quite free to consider unions of same sex couples something other than “marriage,”, regardless of what they, the state, and everyone else calls it (i.e. “marriage”.)
      
      Whatever this thing that the state provides and refers to as “marriage” happens to be, however, it cannot be withheld from people without good reason. It can’t be given to white people and not black people. It can’t be given to Christians and not Jews. And it can’t be given to heterosexuals and not homosexuals. It’s just that simple.
  - mattghg
    
    Keep telling yourself that.

Rather than striking a blow for individual liberties, the dogma of gay marriage is stifling them

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