dreamer_easy | (no subject)

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drhoz: Copy this sentence into your livejournal if you're in a heterosexual marriage, and you don't want it "protected" by the bigots who think that gay marriage hurts it somehow.

I have yet to hear an explanation of how extending the legal protections, privileges, and responsibilities of marriage to serious, dedicated gay couples would affect my own legal protections, privileges, and responsibilities.

What's more, I'm impatient with patently false arguments that gay marriage will destroy freedom of religion or opinion and the family unit. The latter is a particularly bizarre argument: how will legitimising and supporting stable two-parent families lead to more single parent families, polygamy, etc?

If - when - gay marriage is legal, Christian churches would no more be forced to marry Adam and Steve than they would be to marry Jon and I. Teachers will not be forced to teach acceptance of homosexuality in the classroom. (See A Commentary on the Document "Six Consequences if Proposition 8 Fails", which debunks lies about the November California referendum on banning gay marriage.)

Jon and I have no children and are unlikely to have any children. If anyone is attacking our marriage, it's the opponents of gay unions who insist that the purpose of marriage is to produce offspring.

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Just how fragile is heterosexual marriage, if gay marriage might destroy it?

I get really annoyed when people start spouting such nonsense. If they really want to protect the sanctity of marriage, they'll make it much harder to get married (with a requirement to prove the commitment on both sides), and make it all but impossible to get divorced...

The Indomitable Sword Goddess strikes again! Thank you so much for writing this.

Well, for fuck's sake.

I've yet to see any rational argument beyond, "I don't want two same-sex, total strangers I'm never likely to ever meet get to have the same rights as me because they're second-class citizens."

The Ancient Egyptians had the right idea, if ironic, in that marriage was considered a purely civil contract - in the midst of a highly religiously-based theocratic monarchy. This is why there are no marriage rituals in AE documentation or defined in their temples, to my knowledge.

Mesopotamia was the same. And in fact, gay marriage (or civil unions, or what-have-you) are a state matter, not a religious matter.

Frankly, considering the divorce rate, some peeps need to reread Galatians 6.

I've always thought that fact about AE was an odd little anomaly, considering how pervasive religion was in their society. I'm sure there were celebrations, natch, but formalised rituals seem to be completely absent. Fascinating.

See what large letters I use as I write to you with my own hand!

I had this sudden vision of this large print equivalent of "OMG" being written by a Biblical-era correspondent, and snorted my tea in accordance with this totally inappropriate mental image.

No, heterosexuals are more than capable of destroying their own marriages, kthx. They don't need any help on that front ;)

Come to think of it, I have read that there have been Christian societies where the standard marriage procedure was a civil contract followed by a church service that celebrated the union but explicitly was not itself the point at which the union began.

(It would of course be helpful if I could remember where I read this, or which society it was talking about.)

The challenge to freedom of religion is not prima facie false - you may be correct that there would be no practical change, but that requires proof, and assertions that this should not require proof concede rather than prove your point. The burden of proof is on those who want a change from the status quo, not those who want to do the same thing they've always done.

Evidence: all other civil rights laws apply to religious groups as well, and any religious group which does not comply with them runs the risk of losing it's tax-exempt status. If the Roman Catholic church wants to build a new cathedral somewhere, they must comply with the ADA. Tax laws were used to pressure the LDS church before their revelation that black people could hold the priesthood as well (for that matter, the question of polygamy would probably provoke very strong emotions in the LDS commmunity, but I digress).

What evidence should practitioners of religions which define marriage in the traditional way look toward to see that the court or tax system will not be used to pressure them into changing their doctrines? Should they rely on faith? (rimshot) Seriously, where is the good faith conversation on the part of the proponents of changing the definition of marriage as to the limits of the implications of that change?

*Mandrake gestures hypnotically* Follow the link I posted.

I wrote this post (http://lillibet.livejournal.com/83478.html) a few years back exploring a possible background for the opinion that same-sex marriage undermines the institution of marriage itself. It's just about the opposite of my own opinion, but I find it helpful to have at least some idea about where the disagreement actually lies.

I agree with the bumper sticker that reads, "If you're against gay marriages . . . dont have one!"

That seems to cover the issue, really.

that bumper sticker sure hits the nail on the head. It seems so MIDDLE AGES to be against gay marriages/civil unions.

I don't see that cultural traditions, or legal abstracts, need protecting. They exist regardless of what we do. People are worth protecting; ideas are beyond our ability to harm.

I cannot see how the right, or lack thereof, of consenting adults to enact a mutually agreed contract should affect my marriage or my family. Consequently I see no reason why people should be restricted from doing so on the basis of sexual orientation.

It does occur to me that when marriage is legally defined more broadly than 1 man + 1 woman that some people may choose, for whatever reason, to apply to have their particular arrangement solemnised by a religious official or institution that does not recognise their arrangement, making such an application either out of ignorance or in provocation; and that depending on the legal terrain, should the religious official or institution refuse, they may expose themselves to legal action on the basis of discrimination. I feel that religious officials and institutions should be protected from such legal exposure. Actually, I think discrimination is important. However, I also think this is a separate issue, and should not be used as an argument to resist universal legislation permitting unconventional marriages.

If churches in the US are forced to marry gay couples, it will be - as far as anyone seems to be able to find out - the first time they've ever been forced to marry anyone:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/27/us/27right.html

“The idea that we would be forced as clergy to perform a marriage that was against our conscience, or that a church would lose its tax-exempt status, is ridiculous,” said the Rev. Karen Sapio, the minister of Claremont Presbyterian Church in Southern California. “If you look dispassionately at the record, there are a lot of churches with policies that are at odds with civil law.”

She continued, “I have not heard of a single Catholic church forced to marry someone who has been divorced, or a rabbi forced to perform an interfaith marriage or an evangelical church forced to marry a couple who has been living together.”

Nor, apparently, have the proponents of the gay marriage ban heard of any such thing, or we'd be hearing all about it.