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WASHINGTON (Nov. 29) -- The Supreme Court on Monday sidestepped a dispute over gay marriages, rejecting a challenge to the nation's only law sanctioning such unions.

Justices had been asked by conservative groups to overturn the year-old decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Court legalizing gay marriage. They declined, without comment.

In the past year, at least 3,000 gay Massachusetts couples have wed, although voters may have a chance next year to change the state constitution to permit civil union benefits to same-sex couples, but not the institution of marriage.

Critics of the November 2003 ruling by the highest court in Massachusetts argue that it violated the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of a republican form of government in each state. They lost at the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston.

Their attorney, Mathew Staver, said in a Supreme Court filing that the Constitution should ''protect the citizens of Massachusetts from their own state supreme court's usurpation of power.''

Federal courts, he said, should defend people's right ''to live in a republican form of government free from tyranny, whether that comes at the barrel of a gun or by the decree of a court.''

Merita Hopkins, a city attorney in Boston, had told justices in court papers that the people who filed the suit have not shown they suffered an injury and could not bring a challenge to the Supreme Court. ''Deeply felt interest in the outcome of a case does not constitute an actual injury,'' she said.

Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly told justices that voters can overrule the Supreme Court by adopting a constitutional amendment.

The lawsuit was filed by the Florida-based Liberty Counsel on behalf of Robert Largess, the vice president of the Catholic Action League, and 11 state lawmakers.

The conservative law group had persuaded the Supreme Court in October to consider another high profile issue, the constitutionality of Ten Commandments displays on government property. The court agreed to look at that church-state issue before Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.

He is working from home while receiving chemotherapy and radiation and will miss court sessions for the next two weeks.

State legislators will decide whether to put the issue before Massachusetts voters in November 2006. Voters in 11 states approved constitutional amendments banning gay marriage in November elections. President Bush has promised to make a federal anti-gay marriage amendment a priority of his second term.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court narrowly ruled that gays and lesbians had a right under the state constitution to wed.

The nation's high court had stayed out of the Massachusetts fight on a previous occasion. Last May, justices refused to intervene and block clerks from issuing the first marriage licenses.

The case is Largess v. Supreme Judicial Court of the State of Massachusetts, 04-420.

----------------------------------------SNIP--------------------------------------

Finally, some sense in the courts.

Sense in the courts because they did nothing? Well, I do agree with one thing here, this issue needs to go to a public vote..again, let the people decide....

What the heck is the GOVERNMENT in the business of MARRIAGE? I say leave it to the church's, because sooner or later, gay marriage will be legal just about in every state anyway.

Yeah, but you have to understand directive, that if gay marriage is made legal, then bigamy will have to be legalized, as well as polygamy and, eventually, bestiality (people marrying animals). After that, arranged marriages will have to be made legal as well as underage marriage. And once that happens, then underage sexual relations will have to be legalized and things will just spiral down the drain from there because then people like Michael Jackson would be free to do as they please.

On what basis would the court hear the case anyway? This is a matter for the people to decide through their legislators in the states. Until a Constitutional Amendment is passed, that is. Then it would become the domain of the SCOTUS.

If gays want to get married then they should be allowed. What is it with people that deduce that gay marriage will open up the doors for pedophiles, beastiality and polygamy. Does that mean that if marijuana was legalized then heroine, coke, Lsd and other hard drugs will be legalized soon after?

NiceGuy2003: "Yeah, but you have to understand directive, that if gay marriage is made legal, then bigamy will have to be legalized, as well as polygamy and, eventually, bestiality "


You sir, are a fucking idiot.

Besides, if you check your laws, bestiality is already legal in almost half the states

squalid, you're right that one does not necessarily have to lead to the other.

I do believe that the further we move away from the Judeo-Christian foundation of marriage and family, other undesirable behaviors become more prevalent. You can't just limit it to gay marriage. There is a segment of the gay community that is pushing to relax taboos on pedophilia. NAMBLA.

The Greeks and Romans seemed to be quite accepting of "man-boy love" -- but I don't think those are examples on which we want to model our society.

This is all an argument about what will be the basic foundation of our society -- Judeo-Christian traditions, or "something else." So far, most people -- as evidenced by the strong anti-gay marriage vote in 11 states this November -- would not choose "something else."

"There is a segment of the gay community that is pushing to relax taboos on pedophilia. NAMBLA. "

You DO realize that the majority ot pedophiles are straight men right? Having sex with little girls? So essentailly I can say "There is a segment of the straight community that is pushing to relax taboos on pedophilia."

Saying that all gay men are like NAMBLA members is like saying that every black man will steal from you if you turn your back on them, or every arab will crash a plane if they are allowed on.

NiceGuy and autoadict, I fail to see the reasoning in voters deciding who should wed and who should not.

It's their choice. And because this is a minority vote (Gay vs Straight) I doubt many people truly understand this issue so you get a mob mentality at the polls.

"Vote Straight! All gays burn in hell!"
or something to that nature. Which I personally find wrong.

Lorperrin, I know what I'm talking about.

Squalid, you have to understand that if we do extend marriage rights to homosexuals, then we have to be fair and extend the same rights to men who want more than one wife (or women who want more than one husband), as well as people who want to marry their pets or other animals. It's only fair, afterall. That's why President Bush wants to define marriage as between one man and one woman.

I have nothing against homosexuals living together. It's their choice.

" then we have to be fair and extend the same rights to men who want more than one wife (or women who want more than one husband), as well as people who want to marry their pets or other animals."

Marriage is already defined as a bond between two people, ruling out polygamy. And I really cannot BELIEVE you are seriously comparing homosexual relationships to bestiality. I mean, do you seriously equate the two in your obviously very confused mind?

Some dude married his horse in Holland or somesuch from what I recall. Anyhow laws are there to protect the 'non-consenting' or those of a diminished responsibility.

Gay people do not fall into either of those two categories so I don't see what the problem is with gay marriages. It's purely a religious standpoint and those calling it a moral standpoint are just witch hunting.

By all means, let us all bow to the wishes of the Judeo-Christian ethic which, much like George Bush, has never been wrong. Except maybe for the crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, burning witches, exorcisms, and little things like that.

For all the right-wing morality going on, if Christ returned today, he could not get elected president. Christ was a liberal, pacifist, told the truth and would probably not even reach down to throw the first handful of mud in a campaign. Arnie would call him a girlie-man.

Isn't there anything more pressing in the world to discuss than who has sex with who and/or the method they use? People are not going to stop being gay just because there's a law any more than teens will stop having sex because adults told them not to.

To even believe so is gross ignorance.

The problem with "gay marriage" is the use of the word "marriage" which holds significance for a lot people. They don't want it to be applied to anything else.. like a man marrying a banana peel or something.

Not a single person that I know who voted against it said they had a damn thing against gays. They said they WANTED gays to have the same rights that married people do.

but shit-throwing bush bashing monkeys don't understand that.

"They said they WANTED gays to have the same rights that married people do."

That's why they voted against it?
You're right. I don't understand.

Is that kind of like the people in Alabama who really wanted to scorn their racist past by making sure there are still separate schools for whites and "coloreds"? Did they really WANT to acknowledge that blacks are human, too? Sure they did.

Because they dont want gays using the word marriage. IE: "You can have whatever you want, as long as you change the name so you arent in any way associated with me and I can still think of myself as better than you."

"....you have to understand that if we do extend marriage rights to homosexuals, then we have to be fair and extend the same rights to men who want more than one wife (or women who want more than one husband), as well as people who want to marry their pets or other animals. It's only fair, afterall...."

You act as if all laws are black and white. I can't think of a single one that is.

By your reasoning, anyone who takes a life with a gun should be guilty of murder and should get the death penalty. Our soldiers fighing in Iraq have taken lives with guns -- should they be tried for murder? How about if you have a gun within reach and someone is coming at you with a knife screaming that they will kill you -- should you be guilty of murder if you shoot them in self-defense?

Do you see my point?

As far as underaged marriages go, below what point do you consider people to be underage? 18? You do realize that some states allow marriage at age 16, right? (15 for females in Mississippi, 17 for males, -wtf?-) Have these allowances led to the utter downfall of our society that you predict?

You sound like the RIAA/MPAA screaming about the downfall of the entire entertainment industry if they are not allowed to have laws that lock up their content for all of eternity.

Get a grip. Live an let live.

Irrelivent article. But, since its posted...

I remember hearing about a gays-only school in New York. Created because many of the students suffered so badly at their previous schools they were unable to work - everything from teasing to beatings.

I have been accused of racism myself, for accusing the university asian and muslim clubs of clustering their respective groups into isolation from the rest of the university.

Here's another take on the whole gay marriage issue. Has it ever occurred to the posters that just maybe people voted for the various Defense of Marriage acts because thay didn't want four judges of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court deciding the laws for the rest of the United States?

I mean, if the voters of my state decide to legalize gay marriage. Then, that's fine because it was the will of the people. But don't expect people to sit back and let four unelected judges in another part of the country decide their morality for them.

As for underage marriage, how I seem to recall that Jerry Lee Lewis' first wife was 13 when he married her. That sounds like the setup to a redneck joke. After all, Nothing comes to loving like your own first cousin. (At least in the backwoods)

"decide their morality for them."

It has NOTHING to do with straight people. What do you lose by allowing gays to marry? FUCKING NOTHING! If gay marriage is allowed, how does that affect John Q Public? IT DOESNT!

You make it sound like those judges went into every home and decreed that from this day forth, you must ALL think gays are ok. THATS NOT WHAT HAPPENED! Those judges followed what they believed the constitution meant and allowed a discriminated people the right to do the same as average people. IT. DOES. NOT. AFFECT. YOU.

NiceGuy2003 - "Lorperrin, I know what I'm talking about."

Are you gay? Are you a bigamist? Are you into bestiality?

If you answered no to each of those questions then how could you POSSIBLY understand the motivations of ANY of these groups? Keep in mind that there is nothing in common at all in these groups, I mention all of them because "NiceGuy" linked them himself.

"Their attorney, Mathew Staver, said in a Supreme Court filing that the Constitution should ''""""protect the citizens of Massachusetts from their own state supreme court's usurpation of power.''

Federal courts, he said, should defend people's right ''to live in a republican form of government free from tyranny, whether that comes at the barrel of a gun or by the decree of a court.''
""""

pardon me.. but i wish to request thorough psychological evaluations for the bar exam.

The man's argument also reflects a thorough misunderstanding of the constitution.

"Those judges followed what they believed the constitution meant and allowed a discriminated people the right to do the same as average people. IT. DOES. NOT. AFFECT. YOU.to do with straight people."

Actually, their decision does affect my state. There is that one little point where states must respect the laws enacted by other states.

Thus, the four men from the Peoples Republic of Massachusetts does affect me. Had they allowed Massachusetts to offer civil unions then odds are there would have been NO Defense of Marriage acts in most of those eleven states.

To be specific: Section 1. Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. 117

Now to expand upon what the Constitution says:

This is a command to the States which they must obey. It is another of the nationalizing clauses of the Constitution. "The public acts (that is, the laws], records and judicial proceedings" (judgments and decrees of courts) of one State must be given in every other State "the force and effect to which" they are "entitled in the State where rendered." Thus a copy (properly authenticated or proved) of a judgment against a man for money, obtained in a court of the State of New York, may be presented to a court in California (the defendant having moved to the latter State, perhaps to escape the obligation) and a judgment will be there entered against him and enforced as it would have been in New York had he remained there. It is not necessary again to bear the trouble and expense of bringing witnesses and proving a case.

Substantially the same language was in a resolution passed in 1777 by the Continental Congress, and it reappeared in the Articles of Confederation. The first Congress under the Constitution passed an act (May 26, 1790) to effectuate this clause by prescribing how records should be authenticated and declaring that they should have' such faith and credit in every State as they had in the State from which they were taken.

Full faith and credit was held by the Supreme Court of the United States (1903) not to have been denied by the courts of Massachusetts in permitting the first wife of a man, rather than the second, to administer his estate upon his death, as the law of Massachusetts made invalid in that State a divorce which he went to South Dakota to procure. Full faith and credit did not require that a decree of divorce granted in South Dakota should be respected and made operative against the public policy of Massachusetts. c91

George,

They all said the same thing. They wanted gays to have the same rights that married people do, they just don't want them to be "married." Not a single person that I've talked to said they were against "civil unions" in which they were granted the same rights.

They just didn't want to call it marriage.

"Did they really WANT to acknowledge that blacks are human, too? Sure they did."

Your fucked up analogy is a good indicator of your confusion.

"as long as you change the name so you arent in any way associated with me and I can still think of myself as better than you."

Did you actually keep a straight face while you were typing that? You're stereotyping a huge group of people, trying to make them look bad. That reminds me of something George said.. something about hating blacks...

I'm sure some people voted against it just because they don't like gays, but those people are in the vast minority in my experience. From what I've seen, that wasn't really an issue. People just don't give a shit what the issue really is.

i agree that if gay activism was asking for the same rights as married couples, but with a different semantic definition,i.e. "civil union", they would have it by now.

Niceguy may be going over the top by saying that legitimizing gay relationships will lead to legalizing,(or normalizing), pedophilia, which doesn't involve consenting adults, but...

Can anyone out there who supports gay marriage explain to me how you would justify a ban on consentual incestuous marriages,(dad/daughter, brother/sister)? Especially when the male has had a vasectomy?

And lordperrin, while you are correct in stating that most pedophiles are heterosexual, I wonder if it has occurred to you that most males in general are heterosexual, anywhere from 90 to 97% as a matter of fact, therefore, the statistical liklihood of a gay man being attracted to children is still much higher than a straight one.

I have nothing against gay people or their relationships but a gay union is not a marriage. If you think it is than you don't know what marriage is, what it's purpose is and why it evolved in pretty much every human culture since the dawn of time.
And you will never, ever, convince the bible thumpers differently, they'll just dig in their heels, and while i don't jibe with them on most issues, I'm with them on this one.

Here's the one thing I can't understand. what's the big deal about marriage in the first place? I've been living with my wife for 11 years without the benefit of sacrament. bfd. If gays want to live together, they will. just as a man and a woman will. if they want to get married then what's the difference? what the f*** difference does a piece of paper make anyway? I don't have one but if I was to split with my wife she'd still get eveything I own anyway.

It seems to me that the statistical liklihood of a gay man being attracted to children is still much lower than a straight, sexually repressed priest.

You know, I hear a lot about peoepl who are against gay marriage are't against homosexuals. It may be true but not in my experience. I have a firend who believes all homosexuals should be killed, BTW he is a white supremacist, another person whom I know I would say a extremist chirstian and believes God didn't create gays, besides the contradiction that God supposedly created all humans. I know another person who is a biogt and agrees with the white supremeacist. I'm dating a bisexual and I don't have a problem with gay marriage, I believe it's a right thing and that the tihng about then polygamy bigamy and bestiality being allowed is pure crap. I got into an arguement with basically my whole class about homosexuals and gay rights and marriage. Maybe the only reason nearly everyone is against gay marriage here is because I live in Kentucky (hyuck!) who are known for the bigotry, at least in this part of Kentucky.

"Your fucked up analogy is a good indicator of your confusion."

Sorry, Sherm, but both cases look the same to me. I don't see what the difference is at all. Both display bigotry and intolerance.

Well, I see the cases as totally different. But I can't explain anymore than I already did because it's not even my viewpoint. I voted against the ban.

Kentucky is a beautiful state, MRNEMO; I was born there. Now I only go there once every few years to see my cousins. Couldn't make me live there for anything on this planet. And I agree with George. My brother-in-law asked me one day, "If gays can get married, what does that say about my marriage?" I called him on it and he couldn't come up with an answer. So any of you anti-gay married people out there, please explain to me how gay marriage affects YOUR marriage, not your state, not your religion (PLEASE!! NOT YOUR RELIGION!!), but YOU. If a guy wants to marry a banana peel--so what?--does it make marriage look cheaper than all the damn divorces in this country already do? Or does it make the guy look stupid, and that's all? And yeah, bigotry and intolerance, and more than a touch of fear seem to be at the root of all this, wouldn't you say?

So NEMO, why do you hang out with racist homophobes?

I live in a pretty conservative part of the world, the Canadian prairies, and still you have to go pretty far to find people who will admit to believing that being gay justifies you as a target of violence and persecution.

If you do find someone who believes this, they are usually ignorant,economically depreseed young males, who feel a need to mindlessly vent aggression and pick on people.

Most people, however, who oppose the concept of gay marriage do so because they realize that concept is based on an inaccurate estimation as to what marriage means, and basing legal decisions on flawed assumptions is bad news, no matter what you think of gay people living together.

As a society, we've devalued marriage to the point where you can get one in a drive-thru window, failure rate is around half, and guys like the cap'n up there can ask,"what's the big deal about marriage anyway?" and no one has a good answer for him.

Before we can change a social tradition that has been with us for milennia, we should first understand it and it's purpose.
You don't dam a river until you find out how it will effect the folks downstream.

Do you want to know what really makes marriage seem cheap and less meaningful?

Every person who verbally or physically abuses their spouse.

Every person who treats their spouse as a slave, object or "lesser" person (many common religions stipulate that women are lesser beings -- including Catholicism as I have heard)

Every person who cheats on their spouse

Every person who gets married for any reason other than that they want to spend the rest of their lives with this person and truly love them.

As a straight married man, allowing gay people to marry affects my marriage because it re-defines the vows I took, right under my feet.

It inclines me to accept a modern, slack-assed definition of marriage as equal in value to the more traditional definition, which is more demanding of its adherents.

It, for the last bloody time, has nothing to do with hatred, fear or ignorance of gay people and their right to live a productive, happy life...Jeez, get that though your skulls.

shoshidge -- well put

Well, part of it anyway. The part about our society devaluing marriage. No one can define your own marriage accept you and your spouse. If the actions of someone outside of the two of you can affect your marriage or the way you value it, then you are the one who doesn't understand marriage. My wife and I define our marriage. Not you, not Bush, not gays, not the bible-thumpers. This is as it should be. People spend way too much damn time worrying about what everyone else is up to.

accept = except

It's getting late.

When I grew up, I believed that religion was about peace, love, tolerance and goodness. As I have gotten older, I have come to realize that...for most people, it seems...religion is more about fear, hate, intolerance and stubbornly holding to misinterpreted rules.

It is in society's interest to determine a set of standards regarding who should or shouldn't get married, leaving it up to individuals is what has CAUSED the de-valuation of marriage.

Until about fifty years ago, people didn't have much choice in who they could marry, your parents were the ones to decide, usually they chose wisely, considering your wishes, sometimes not.

Most of the world still follows this system, and the more i think about it, the more sense it makes compared to the one we currently practice, which views marriage as a romantic, whimsical expression of "luuve" between two immature people, who eventually get bored and get divorced leaving a kid or two in the wake of the whole ordeal.

Religion is not really about love and peace, nor is it about hate and intolerance.

The purpose of god is to provide a sense of someone always looking over our shoulder so we are more inclined to do the right thing, even though we don't want to.

I still have a hard time figuring out why this is a big deal. This Country is founded on the premise that all men are created equal.... i won't get into all of this due to the level of bigotry and racism which exists today.

If i can recall my history correctly, we went though this debate several years ago in regards to interracial marriage. CAN SOMEONE TELL ME HOW THIS IS ANY DIFFERENT THAN THAT IS.

The other question is, what is worse... A gay couple who is commited and happy with one another, or a straight couple where the husband abuses his wife and children?? Divorce among straight couples is running near or above 50% This is undermining marriages more than any damage that will result due to more liberal definations of a relgious event.

This issue is yet another example of the racist and bigoted attitudes which still persist across this country. Someone who is different is not allowed. Come on people we have bigger issues we should be dealing with. or maybe we should just go back to handing out the white hoods.

"The purpose of god is to provide a sense of someone always looking over our shoulder so we are more inclined to do the right thing, even though we don't want to."

I agree shoshidge. I think religion is for people who don't know how to follow their conscience, or maybe don't trust their conscience.. or at least not until they refer to their conscience as "god" and pray to it then reach the exact same conclusion they did before except now they accept it as right.

Some ppl are non-religious because they hate their religion (i.e. former catholics). I think religion is for people who don't think they know how to do the right thing. They can't distinguish what is morally right/wrong in different situations. "Follow your heart" doesn't have meaning to them I guess.

rjosborn - that's a pretty good point. It's hard to say you want to keep marriage as something "special" or "protect its sanctity" when most of them break up anyway. In the US at least.

"Saying that all gay men are like NAMBLA members is like saying that every black man will steal from you if you turn your back on them, or every arab will crash a plane if they are allowed on."

Perrin, you are an idiot, because that is NOT what I said. I know what I said, it was perfectly clear, perfectly true, and I stand by it.

The obvious point that eluded your mangled brain is that if NAMBLA (which is, as I said, only a segment of the gay population) succeeds in eliminating the taboo against same sex underage relations, then obviously that will reduce the taboo on heterosexual relations between adults and children. Obviously. Duh! Yes, the latter category is larger. No argument there. Nevertheless this logic of progression from acceptance of one perversion to acceptance of a similar one is perfectly reasonable.

"'Vote Straight! All gays burn in hell!'
or something to that nature. Which I personally find wrong."

That is not what most voters voted for JC123, nor would they vote for it. They simply voted to disallow the legalization of one particular brand of relationship which is traditionally ONLY granted to heterosexual couples. That's it, no more or less. To attach hatred to it is something you're doing, but not necessarily in the minds of people who voted for those amendments. You are reading the paranioa of the gay rights movement into the results.

George? Christ was a pacifist? He overturned the tables of the money-changers in the temple, and whipped them with cords. Is that the action of a pacifist? Is that a girlie-man? Your statements utterly contrdict the record. You people who claim to speak about what Christ was while ignoring the original sources of eyewitnesses as to what he really said and did -- well, it just slays me.

Christ also spoke of judgment and punishment, too. Yes, Christ spoke about evildoers burning in hellfire. (I don't believe in eternal torment -- they will burn up and be ashes.) I guess you tore those pages out of your Bible, so you could misrepresent Christ on your own terms, George?

"It is in society's interest to determine a set of standards regarding who should or shouldn't get married, leaving it up to individuals is what has CAUSED the de-valuation of marriage."

I guess you don't value freedom very much, which makes no sense why you would frequent a site such as this. Society setting standards = control. Society (or in this case government) controlling what you can say and do. Doesn't sound very free to me.

"Until about fifty years ago, people didn't have much choice in who they could marry, your parents were the ones to decide, usually they chose wisely, considering your wishes, sometimes not."

"Most of the world still follows this system, and the more i think about it, the more sense it makes compared to the one we currently practice, which views marriage as a romantic, whimsical expression of "luuve" between two immature people, who eventually get bored and get divorced leaving a kid or two in the wake of the whole ordeal."

You would rather have your parents decide with whom you will spend the rest of your life?!? Thanks, but no thanks. I really don't think this system is used by "most of the world," but I could be wrong. In any case, the arranged marriage system usually only works because those cultures demand that the female be subservient to the male in the relationship. To me, that's not marriage, thats slave ownership.

Think about this: Do you remember the worst boss you have ever had in your life? Do you remember how he treated you and made you feel. Can you imagine what your life would be like if you were forced to be stuck with that person as your boss, 24/7, for the rest of your life? That could be you if you are in an arranged marriage. Sure, let's all go back to that.

I would not want ANYONE to choose my spouse for me any more than I would want someone else choosing my music. I might end up with music I like, or could even love -- or I could end up with RIAA rap music. Again, no thanks.

So Christ has one bad day and kicked some moneychangers' asses. In honor of this, we have a stock market.

As I recall, most of the time Christ was going around healing sick, telling us to love our neighbor, turning the other cheek and things like that. I guess you tore those pages out.

And here we are, back to the "evildoers." With the extra "burning in hellfire" parts thrown in, despite the fact that Hell was invented by one of the popes.

A can also find pages in the Bible that support the genocide of select groups or the murder of specific people. In fact, the President, who professes to get his info directly from God...

"God told me to smite Sadaam and I smote him"

... but almost all of it is wrong, must be put to death as a false prophet (WMDs), along with Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Pat Buchanan and the rest of the power-hungry pseudo-Christian fundamentalists in this country. (I wonder how ol' Jim Bakker is doing these days...)

And I though NAMBLA was the official name for the Boy Scouts. Seriously.

NAMBLA is the group who was sued a couple years ago for wrongful death in the case of a Boy Scout.

How does the gay lifestyle hurt us as individuals and as a society?

# 1 MOST religions consider homosexuality a sin.Virtually EVERY religion in the world, including ALL the major ones in this country, consider homosexuality unacceptable. It is offensive and a swipe to the religious freedom of the majority to have to recognize a relationship they consider sinful. The legal system in the United States evolved out the laws contained in the Bible. We shouldn't go even farther to tear down those laws.

# 2 It would weaken the definition and respect for the institution of marriage.
The 50 percent divorce rate has already weakened the definition of marriage. We shouldn't be taking further steps to define what marriage is. A law allowing gay marriage would increase the number of joke or non-serious marriages, such as a couple of friends who want to save on taxes. Marriage is the most sacred institution in this country, and every society considers it the joining of a man and a woman. It makes biological sense since only a man and woman can pro-create.

# 3 It would further weaken the traditional family values essential to our society.
The building blocks of our society and the thing that makes it strong is the traditional family of man, woman, and children. It is what has sustained us through two world wars, a great depression, and numerous other challenges over the years. While friends & lovers come and go, your family is always there. The main reason our culture and values have started to crumble is the weakening of families. Introducing another form of "family" would only make the situation worse.

# 4 It could provide a slippery slope in the legality of marriage (e.g. having multiple wives or marrying an object could be next).
Gay rights activists claim that these marriages should be allowed because it doesn't hurt anyone, but it could start a chain reaction that destroys the whole idea of marriage. If someone wants to marry his dog, why shouldn't he be able to? What if someone wants to marry their brother or parent? What if someone wants to marry their blow-up doll or have 10 wives? Unless we develop some firm definition of what a marriage is, the options are endless.

If these options sound absurd, remember that all it takes is a few activist judges to use the statute to open the door. It doesn't matter if 95 percent of the population disagrees with the policy, one judge can interpret the case the way he wants and use the doctrine of stare decisis to impose a law on everyone. Do you remember how two judges in California recently declared the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional? If the decision hadn't been overturned, it would have prevented millions of children from being able to say the pledge every morning, despite the fact that 95+ percent of Americans disagreed with the decision.

# 5 Once we abandon marriage to the whims and desires of adults seeking validation of their sexual lifestyles, we denigrate children and their needs – legally validating relationships that would deliberately leave them motherless or fatherless. And that hurts society. We have plenty of data to show what happens to children when they grow up without a father or a mother. Prisons are filled with adults who were fatherless as children. The financial burden of welfare and prison programs on society as a result of children growing up without their mother or their father is horrific. And that is not even taking into consideration the immense personal suffering that inevitably is too often hidden behind these statistics.

"It is offensive and a swipe to the religious freedom of the majority to have to recognize a relationship they consider sinful."

This is almost word for word the arguement against interracial marriages. Do you think a black man shouldn't be allowed to marry a white woman? Isn't that a slippery slope? :rolleye

"The legal system in the United States evolved out the laws contained in the Bible. We shouldn't go even farther to tear down those laws.
"

Tne bible has a series of antiquated laws which no longer are held relevant in this society. Why do you feel that you have the right to pick and choose these laws and force them on people who do not believe in your religion? Isn't escaping such religious discrimination the reasons for the foundation of this country?

"Marriage is the most sacred institution in this country, and every society considers it the joining of a man and a woman."

Tell that to Belgium and the Netherlands where gay marriage is legal and recognized.

"It makes biological sense since only a man and woman can pro-create.
"

It has been possible (and will be much more easily done in the future) for 2 women to procreate themselves.

"Introducing another form of "family" would only make the situation worse.
"

Show me your scientificaly documented proof, otherwise this is simply your opinion stated as if it were fact.


"It could provide a slippery slope in the legality of marriage "

Yeah, just like interracial marriage did, I mean, I think I might marry a pineapple tomorrow.

"If someone wants to marry his dog, why shouldn't he be able to?"

because a dog cannot understand the bond on our terms and cannot sign legal paperwork.


"We have plenty of data to show what happens to children when they grow up without a father or a mother."

Without quoting the study or linking it, your ststement is meaningless. Show your proff or you're so much hot air.

pepe:

#1 Sin is borne by the sinner. Just because most religions consider homosexuality to be a sin, does not mean that the weight of that sin is placed on the shoulders of the religious. You also seem to forget that many marriages take place without any affiliation to religion, such as via a justice of the peace. In this way, these marriages can take place without "forcing" any religion to accept them. You also seem to forget about the separation of church and state that is in place to prevent our government from engaging in religious persecution. Your desire for our government to base laws on religious ideals is a dangerous one. Eventually you would have to determine on whose religion laws would have to be based.

#2 How does the marriage of two people who love each other weaken the definition of and respect for marriage? The divorce statistics you quote are created by heterosexual marriages, since those are currently the only kind "allowed." Therefore, there is no imperical evidence to suggest that homosexual marriages will further worsen those statistics. In fact, since these people are striving so hard for something they are currently denied, don't you think they are more serious about it than, say, Britney Spears who married on a whim only to seek annulment right away. Joke marriages occur all the time between hetro couples.

#3 There is a lot more involved than your "traditional family values" that has gotten us through all these years, trials and tribulations. Human will is very strong. Not to mention, who are you to say that homosexuals don't have good, strong family values, albeit not "traditional" as you define it.

#4 This whole "chain reaction" paranoia is ridiculous. When has anything in this country made that huge of a swing in a bizzarre direction? Even the entertainment industry, with all of it's lobbying power, was able to get copyright laws swung in it's favor only so far before the courts and other groups started giving lots of resistance. If your hypotheses were true, p2p would already be gone -- along with the internet. Calm down, Chicken Little. The sky is not falling.

#5 How is allowing homosexual marriage going to suddenly leave tons of children with a single parent? I don't get the correlation. If a parent in a hetero marriage has homosexual tendencies, I don't see how this issue will suddenly cause them to abandon their spouse and children. Unless you are referring to children growing up with 2 fathers or 2 mothers as being "without." In which case, your problem is more with adoption laws as opposed to marriage laws. This argument doesn't seem to have any relevance to homosexual marriages. Therefore, I can't see how you come to the conclusion that this will cause prison time and "immense personal suffering."

Some of us appear to be channelling Falwell here, which is sad.

Lordperrin is right. This is exactly the same close-minded argument that deemed interracial marriage as an abomination in offense of God.

It is superstitious nonsense from people trained to fear that which they do not understand. It could be...

Satan?

Isn't that special?

"We have plenty of data..."

We?

dont 50% of all marriages end in divorce? divorce has a very big impact on morals especially when kids are involved, so should divorce be illegal/banned?

WASHINGTON - The CBS and NBC television networks have rejected an advertisement for the United Church of Christ that shows two beefy bouncers turning away a gay couple, a Latino woman and a disabled man outside a church.

Officials of the Cleveland-based denomination, which has nearly 6,000 congregations and 1.3 million members, said the 30-second ad is intended to emphasize its inclusiveness. "Jesus didn't turn people away. Neither do we," the ad says.

And who decides when a religion is just wrong?

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration on Wednesday won a Supreme Court stay that blocks a New Mexico church from using a hallucinogenic tea that the government contends is illegal and potentially dangerous.

--------

When you worship the politically incorrect God, suddenly limits pop up. Illegal and potentially dangerous.

I wonder how many Iraqis we killed today in the name of God.

Not just Iraqis, George; how many of our own died today in the name of God and country...with the information we have today, I would say one of either is still one too many.

This is a little OT, but I thought it was amazing--maybe it explains why some people are so confused.

http://www.democrats.reform.house.gov/Documents/20041201102153-50247.pdf

I can't believe the amount of ignorance that is being passed off as education these days.

Kentucky is a beautiful state shadowmom but the people here are ugly. My girlfiend the other day got chicken thrown at her because shes vegan. I get paper thrown in my hair cause i have long hair. Mexicans are a hated by the majority here. Homosexuals are bashed continuously. Most of the people here will get a hard kick when they leave school.

That's why I don't go back more often. I was born there, some of my family still lives there, but whenever I'm there, I feel like I'm from another planet. I can't connect with those people at all. I can't even comprehend how they think.

Religious groups that do not toe the party line soon become enemies of the state. So be sure to check with the political party in power before you announce your adherence to a particular philosophy or creed.

"In Freedom of Information Act requests filed in 10 states and Washington, D.C., the ACLU sought information about the FBI's use of Joint Terrorism Task Forces and local police for what it called political surveillance.

"It pointed to some documented examples of task forces' involvement in the investigation of environmental activists and anti-war protesters.

"'The FBI is wasting its time and our tax dollars spying on groups that criticize the government, like the Quakers in Colorado or Catholic Peace Ministries in Iowa,' said ACLU associate legal director Ann Beeson."

The two arguements I hear way to much of when discussing this issue are...
1. "What's better, an abusive straight marriage or a blissful gay one?" and,
2."Opposing gay marriage is the same as opposing interracial marriage".
The first arguement is like me asking you,"who is smarter?", and then putting up for comparison a stupid black man and a genius white man as representatives for their respective races. It's obviously an unfair comparison .

The second arguement demonstrates how misunderstood the anti-gay marriage position is by so many people.

Traditionalists see marriage as a way in which a culture protects its vulnerable members, namely, women and children, by ensuring that a man who wishes to have sexual relations with a woman agrees in front of god, the tribe, the womans's family, his family, the state, or whoever, to take over the care and protection of that woman and the children that may result from their actions.

The most obvious symbolic expression of this fact occurs in the wedding ceremony when the father of the bride,"gives away" his daughter to the groom, effectively saying," Okay sonny, you want her? well you can have her, she's your problem now, good luck".

The whole reason marriage exists is because when men and women fuck, they eventually produce offspring.

Most people in our culture don't think of marriage this way, I realize that, but if you look at marriage rituals thoughout the world, thoughout history, instead of focusing on our current watered-down marriage concept which is new, and isolated to North America and some of western Europe, then the facts become clear.

Gay people don't run the risk of procreating when they have sex, they can't "accidentally" get themselves pregnant, they can do whatever they want to each other without running the risk of bringing an innocent life into the world, therefore marriage in its traditional form does not apply to them.

It does however, apply to inter-racial marriages, people who oppose inter-racial marriages do so for different reasons, reasons which are mysaterious to me.

"Gay people don't run the risk of procreating when they have sex, they can't "accidentally" get themselves pregnant, they can do whatever they want to each other without running the risk of bringing an innocent life into the world, therefore marriage in its traditional form does not apply to them."

Is this a joke? Because I laughed a long, long time.

/step up on soapbox
marriage has nothing to do with all this fucking bullshit all you religious nuts have been spouting...it is a religiously created institution. and just to let you know, most religions DO NOT hate gay people, only the jewish, christian and islam religions are extreme in their takes. it isn't anybodies Goddamn business who marries who or what the fuck they call it. i despise people that are so bent on tradition that they are willing to sacrifice the freedoms of others, and eventual themselves. CLOSEMINDED ARE YOU PEOPLE!!! tradition, so fucking important eh? cool, drag your fucking wives out into public in their burka's. why don't you put chastity belts on your daughters? why aren't you out there slaying "WITCHES"? maybe because it's fucking wrong. DO YOU KNOW WHAT GOD IS FOR? He's there to control mankind, and allow mankind to control others. he's there for the weakminded that can't live their lives without some "I AM BETTER THAN EVERYTHING ELSE ON THIS PLANET" idea. fucking monkey! i'm cussing a lot for two reasons.
!. Close minded religious fucks piss me off!
2. Cussing and taking god's name in vain tends to piss off you religious fucks!

my marriage will not be affected by gays marrying. my daily life will not be affected by that. BUT, religious fucks who push their religious ideas onto everyone else WILL! you say, stop the gays from marrying...I say GO DOWN TO YOUR LOCAL CLOSE MINDED RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION AND TELL THEM TO FUCK OFF!!!

FUCK BUSH
AND HIS PSYCHO CHRISTIAN FOLLOWERS

DUBYA'S STILL LYIN
TROOPS ARE STILL DYIN
DOWN WITH THE BUSH REGIME!!!

/stepping off of soapbox

shoshidge,
Your definition would also exclude any sterile females, including every woman on the planet who has had a hysterectomy. Not to mention poor ol' Handy Andy who lost his nuts in a corn shucking accident, any man who has had a vasectomy and all the fat ladies shopping at Walmart.

And I'll bet that there are a few Marines who come back unable to procreate after stepping on a land mine.

You going to tell them they are not worthy of marriage?

Bigotry and ignorance -- married. What a wonderful view of the world.

Infertility is one of the few justifiable exucuses for divorce among some conservative religious doctrines, which re-enforces the point, if you can't procreate, why bother getting married?

In cultures that allow polygamy, you can't divorce someone for being infertile, but you can marry another wife, as long as you can afford to provide for her needs, such marriages are usually done with the consent of the first wife too.

Whatever, I don't want to defend polygamy, but you guys assume marriage to be some kind of fundamental human experience that everyone should be able to enjoy on their own terms, without judgement from others.

Marriage isn't a right, it's an obligation.

Does anyone disagree that if a guy gets a girl pregnant, he is morally obligated to help provide for her and her child?

Anyone?

That is what marriage was meant to do, it's just been ritualized, romanticized and watered-down to a point where we don't even even know what it is we're talking about anymore.

For those of you bitching about freedom, consider this...

Who is more free? A girl who lets her young, teenaged impulsivity override the wishes of her strict but loving parents, who runs off with some shithead who knocks her up and splits, leaving her a single mother with no education and limited options, or...

A girl who listens to all of that closed-minded, uptight religious, moral dogma out there and waits until she is ready to be an adult, and finds a decent bloke that her parents approve of who will stand by her when the shit hits the fan?
It's like you're arguing for the right to slam your head in a car door.

The vast majority of elopements end in divorce, most people have decent parents, if they don't like your new fiancee, maybe they have a point, they know you better than anyone else and have been around longer than you,(unless your parents are dickheads, in which case, this arguement doesn't apply).

The problem with this topic is that everyone assumes it's about gay people, it's not, it's about the insidious gradual destruction of what might be the most important social institution we have, this is just another chip off of the block.

For the record, I'm not religious and I don't support Bush.

GdZiemann, what did you find so funny about the paragraph up there, is it not true?

And regarding your inquiry about infertile people getting married, my point is, why should they bother?

Oh, right, marriage is a fundamental human right that us mean people want to deny anyone who doesn't fit into our racist, intolerant mindset.

Yes, it's a fundamental human right to have a party at some lame community hall with a bad top 40 DJ and a drunken brother in law puking in your lap while your estranged, divorced parents lurk on opposite sides of the room, avoiding eye contact and making snide comments about your step parents.

That sums up most of the weddings I've been to lately, tacky and superficial.

The whole reason why marriage is sacred is that it represents the fact that god,(or nature, depending on you beliefs), has granted us the ability to reproduce ourselves and that great gift, and responsibility, shouldn't be taken lightly, hence the solemn wedding ceremony.

It is also a reason to celebrate, hence the wedding party.

A gay couple is entitled to a ceremony and a party too, in my opinion, I just wih they would call it something else, because it is not the same thing.

And just imagine the irony, when gay couples start having civil union ceremonies en masse, and they inevitably make them much more more fun and stylish than the tacky weddings we are used to...
All of the hip, urban straight couples will be clamoring to have their own civil union ceremonies in the same style, and don't you know that some gay folks will complain about breeders usurping their traditions?

Mark my words

"New Mexico church from using a hallucinogenic tea that the government contends is illegal and potentially dangerous."

It was a federal offense. It would also be illegal for a religion in the US to kill people in the name of their religion.

And to pre-emptively protect myself from stupid comparisons with the war in Iraq - killing the enemy in a war is not illegal. As bad as it is, and as wrong as it is, and as much as you hate Bush, it's a stupid comparison, so don't say it. And if Bush really were to be convicted of being a "war criminal" then he would, in fact, face the consequences. My mind is already numb from trying to think of how someone could possibly make the comparison.. and it's even number knowing that it's inevitable - there's just that many stupid people in the world.

"Your definition would also exclude any sterile females, including every woman on the planet who has had a hysterectomy."

That's a fine job of refuting his argument, but none of the others.

Marriage between a man and a woman is "sacred" because our society says it is. That's all. There's nothing else to it. That's the culture here. People aren't against gays having rights (only the vast minority). People are simply against gay "marriage." Not gay "unions" in which they are granted the exact same rights.

"Not gay "unions" in which they are granted the exact same rights."

Show me ONE gay union law where gays are allowed the same rights. Oh? You can't? That COULD be because there ARENT ANY!

"It would also be illegal for a religion in the US to kill people in the name of their religion."

Maybe you've heard of the Native Americans. A lot of people call them Indians -- when they weren't hunting those godless heathen savages down.

"Marriage between a man and a woman is 'sacred' because our society says it is."

Much the same reason the church gave Galileo before they persecuted him for the blasphemy of saying the earth was not the center of the universe. The earth WAS the center of the universe because his society said so.

If that is the best reasoning you can come up with, it's time to create a new society because the old rules are based on bullshit and superstitious piffle.

lordperrin

I don't know the rules where you come from, but up here in Canada, Gays across Canada have always had the same rights as married folks for years now, health care, tax benefits, survivor benefits etc...and lately, in most provinces they're now free to marry, unless a public vote takes place to put a stop to it.

If I'm not mistaken, the entire point of forming America was to get away from religious oppression and having the government dictate your beliefs, your habits and your bedroom activity. At its height, even married couples were not allowed to have sex unless they were granted royal permission.

Hence came the term "fuck"

Fornication
Under
Consent of the
King

"That sums up most of the weddings I've been to lately, tacky and superficial."

Sound so... sacred.

Get married to procreate??? What a novel idea. I didn't know that's why we were supposed to get married!! Thirty-three years, and it's been for the wrong reasons!! How embarrassing!!

"Show me ONE gay union law where gays are allowed the same rights. Oh? You can't? That COULD be because there ARENT ANY!"

Congratulations you fucking idiot!! No shit! They never voted on that you fucking dolt. The whole point is that if it would have been about unions and not marriages, they would have voted yes. Way to be fucking retarded.

If George Bush wasn't so fucking retarded, we would have voted for him. If only he hadn't used the words stategery, misunderestimated, Hispanically or nuculer. If only it had not said "Republican" next to his name on the ballot. If only the campaign had contained some truth.

Yet, if all of the above "if only" scenarios had taken place, it wouldn't have made any difference. I still wouldn't have voted for the guy. I would have found another reason.

Just like you would have if the measures had called for civil unions.

So I'm fucking retarded for not allowing you to define my union. Right on Sherm. Right on. Fucking breeder.

I voted against the ban, dumb shit.

Someone here was looking for statistics....

marriage and sex-sex unions May 2004

According to the folks at the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, marriage is "the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law."

That's why I'm having trouble viewing the thousand gay and lesbian "marriages" performed last week in Massachusetts as, well, marriages. In a pluralistic, secular democracy, gay and lesbian couples certainly have a constitutional right to enter into a consensual and contractual agreement, allegiance, bargain, bond, codification, covenant, oath, pact, pledge, promise, relationship, treaty, and/or but not limited to a verbal understanding.

But there are some very real differences between marriage of a man and women and a union of same-sex partners. Let's look at the statistics in some key categories:

Duration

A 2001 National Center for Health Statistics study on marriage and divorce statistics reported that 66 percent of first heterosexual marriages last ten years or longer, with 50 percent lasting twenty years or longer. The 2002 U.S. Census Bureau study reported slightly higher numbers, with 70.7 percent lasting ten years, 57.7 percent lasting twenty years or more.

However, a study of homosexual men in the Netherlands published in the journal AIDS found that the "duration of steady partnerships" was one and a half years. According to a study of male homosexuality in Western Sexuality: Practice and Precept in Past and Present Times, "few homosexual relationships last longer than two years, with many men reporting hundreds of lifetime partners."

A 1995 survey by Partners Task Force for Gay And Lesbian Couples found that the average female relationships lasted over six years (6.6) and male relationships just over four years (4.2).

Fidelity

A nationally representative survey of 884 heterosexual men and 1,288 heterosexual women published in the Journal of Sex Research found that 77 percent of married men and 88 percent of married women had remained faithful to their marriage vows. A 1997 national survey appearing in The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States found that 75 percent of husbands and 85 percent of wives never had sexual relations outside of marriage.

The Dutch study of partnered homosexuals, found that men with a steady partner had an average of eight sexual partners per year. The Handbook of Family Diversity reported a study in which "many self-described 'monogamous' homosexual couples reported an average of three to five partners in the past year." According to McWhirter and Mattison, most homosexual men understood sexual relations outside the relationship to be the norm and viewed adopting monogamous standards as "an act of oppression."

Safety

According to the U.S. Department of Justice: Office of Justice Programs and "Intimate Partner Violence," the percentage of heterosexual wives abused is one-quarter of one percent (0.26); married heterosexual men, one-twentieth of one percent (0.05).

The same study revealed that 11.4 percent of women in lesbian relationships suffered abuse while 15.4 percent of men in gay relationships suffered abuse. A study in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence found that 31 percent reported one or more incidents of physical abuse. In a survey of 1,099 lesbians, the Journal of Social Service Research found that slightly more than half of the lesbians reported that they had been abused by a female lover/partner.

Parenting

Homosexual couples seeking to adopt children point to studies that children raised by gays and lesbians are no different than those raised by heterosexual couples. In fact, in 2002 the American Academy of Pediatrics announced that it was endorsing homosexual adoption.

However, sociology professors at the University of Southern California Judith Stacey and Timothy Biblarz report that "contrary to earlier assertions, children of same-sex parents exhibit significant [negative] differences when compared to children raised by heterosexual couples." David Murray of the Washington-based Statistical Assessment Service agrees that most of the research on homosexual parenting is politically contaminated. "We have allowed the politicization of this issue to erode our capacity to see clearly."

Both sides of the battle are seeking to interpret the data for their own agenda. However, the following statistics should concern all of us: A study in Adolescence found that children are sexually molested in 0.6 percent of heterosexual households. That's, obviously, 0.6 percent too many! However, 29 percent of adult children of homosexual couples report being sexually abused as young people. That's 48 times higher than sexual abuse occurring in heterosexual households!

Apples to . . .

Based on these statistics, comparing traditional, heterosexual marriage to homosexual unions is not just comparing apples to oranges, but apples to Oregon. From a simply statistical perspective, there are few correlations in the duration, fidelity, or safety of the two social groups.

So, call same-sex unions civil unions, domestic partnerships, or whatever, but please don't call it "marriage."

(c) 2004 James N. Watkins

http://www.gospelcom.net/watkins/shorsex.htm

Wow. Someone had better call Dell publishing and warn them that their American Heritage Dictionary is wrong. Of course, my copy is from 1983, before the great rewrite, evidently.

marriage -- 1) The condition of being married; wedlock. 2) A wedding ceremony 3) A close or intimate union.

marry -- 1) To take as a husband or wife. 2) To unite as husband and wife. 3) A close or intimate union.

"David Murray of the Washington-based Statistical Assessment Service agrees that most of the research on homosexual parenting is politically contaminated."

"Based on these statistics..."

You guys should work for the RIAA.

oops. made a slight error. Definition 3 of "marry" is really "To enter into a close relationship."

We all get the picture now. Bigotry is okay if it is church-approved.

The Church is the least of your worries....try looking up the EU...and with that I will say to all, have a good weekend....

The EU is in Europe.

The church is in our neighborhood.

Im sure that www.gospelcom.com is an unbiased newsreporter with it's articles on how to know god and its skewed statistics on homosexuality. If you need to go to a site with such an obvious agenda for your 'facts' you might as well have gone straight to www.godhatesfags.com

That article is not only on a christian website, NOT a news or scientific site, but it also doesn't cite a SINGLE SOURCE for all of its facts.

Im sure you can do better

George,

Not that it's relevant (of course, neither is this article), but Galileo was never persecuted for saying the earth was round. That story has no basis. The truth is anybody who would have said that the earth was flat by his time would have been a laughing stock, just like they would be today.

Some greek guy calculated the circumference of the earth a long long time before Galileo was ever around anyway. Like I said, doesn't matter, just fyi.

lordperrin,

I am also of the opinion that anybody thinks gays should be denied rights is a piece of trash and a bigot.

Gay civil unions are not enshined in law beacause that is not what gay activism has been asking for, they want marriage. If gay activists asked for civil unions they would get them,(in most states), but that would deflate their push for gay marriage so they press on.

Marriage was not imposed by religion originally, it was imposed by our biology, religion just wrapped it up in a bunch of metaphorical fluff in order to sell it to people.

Until the advent of reliable contraception, marriage has been the required role for heterosexuals wishing to have sex with the blessing of their community. (If you want to do it without the blessing, you find a prostitute).

The reasons for this are so blatantly obvious i can't believe how hard it is for some people to see it.

Pregnancy is an extrmely vulnerable state. A pregnant woman is at a major physical disadvantage, sometimes unable to work, provide for herself the neccesities of life, evade predators etc.

That vulnerability is heightened when the woman gives birth and she now has a helpless baby to look after.

Isn't the most appropriate person to fufill the duty of provider and protector of that woman is the guy who knocked her up in the first place?

How do you force the guy to do it if he is unwilling to?

Convincing him that god will smite him if he doesn't is a good start, forcing him to enter into a contract with the woman and her family before the act of fornication takes place is also a good idea, HENCE, the birth of the marriage ceremony. That, in a nutshell, is why we have marriage, I know it's more comlicated now but that is it's original function.

Is traditional marriage perfect? NO
Do I want to go back to the days of arranged marriages and wives treated like slaves? NO
Are gay relationships a bad thing in this day and age? NO

But a gay relationship, no matter how wonderful, is fundamentally different from a straight one, just as lordperrin said,we're BREEDERS, we breed when we fuck, most of the time we don't want to but it still manages to happen in spite of our precautions.

If you're married for fifty years and never had kids, fine, I'm happy for you, but you just got lucky,(or unlucky), things could've been different and if they had, I'm glad the marriage was there to provide a secure beginning for what could've been your child.

"Not that it's relevant (of course, neither is this article), but Galileo was never persecuted for saying the earth was round."

That's not what I said. Common belief in his time was that the universe revolved around the earth. Galileo set forth the proposition that the earth revolved around the sun. This was a crime, namely heresy.

"...forcing him to enter into a contract with the woman and her family before the act of fornication takes place is also a good idea, HENCE, the birth of the marriage ceremony."

Great little story. Pure bullshit. Marriage is a bill of sale.

From "Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things" by Charles Panati (Harper & Row, 1987, pg. 30):

"The earliest extant marriage certificate was found among Aramaic papyri, relics of a Jewish garrison stationed at Elephantine in Egypt in the fifth century B.C. The contract is a concise, unadorned, unromantic bill of sale: six cows in exchange for a healthy fourteen-year-old girl."

"Isn't the most appropriate person to fufill the duty of provider and protector of that woman is the guy who knocked her up in the first place?"

Sure. If he's not in jail. Or a rapist. Or her cousin. Or her brother. Or her uncle, her Dad, her priest, dentist, doctor, teacher, the heroin addict from under the bridge, a mass murderer, alcoholic, wife-beating madman.

And what if he is gay and just had a hetero fling? Should he still marry her? Or would he be better off to shoot the bitch, change his name and move to San Francisco?

First of all bro, what do you have against cousins marrying?

Secondly, one example of one Aramaic marriage does not speak to all marriages, I admit there were shitty marriages, there still are, our progressive, enlightened concept of marriage has not stopped women from marrying abusive assholes.

There are probably still places in Africa and Asia where your can get a fourteen year old girl for a few cows, I'm certainly not defending that practice.

Hell, I could get a fourteen year old girl here for a few rocks of crack if I looked hard enough.

And if, in the EXTREMLY unlikely circumstance that a woman becomes pregnant because she is raped by her dentist, teacher or an escaped mental patient,(!?!) and she choses to keep the baby for some odd reason, don't you think that the rapist should be financially liable for the care of the baby?(By liquidating his assets an behalf of the mother.)

Anyway, the reasoning here is stupid, you're attempting to discredit a system which served humans as a whole reasonably well for thousands of years by bringing up drastic, inflammatory worst case scenarios as if they happened every day, there are abusive gay relationships too, that fact should have you arguing on my side.

I believe that most traditional marriages end up OK. They might not be as romantic and exiting as we would like but modern marriages don't differ from that reality.

I'm fully aware that women often ended up short in traditional marriage agreements, I'm glad that has started to change but while men had the authority, they also had the responsibility, they also had to go to war from time to time.
Honorable men worked and died for their wives and children, they didn't buy and sell them or trade them like livestock at the drop of a hat, and if they did, they were assholes and I hope they got some kind off karmic ass-kicking. Let's not lump in the majority of our ancestors who did well by their kin OK?

And your cow story got me thinking...

What you describe sounds like a dowry, a tribute payment to the parents of the bride by the grooms' family, which was pretty common in the world and still is,I'm sure, in more "primitive" areas.

If we were in the olden days, and you wanted to wed my daughter, I would need proof that you would be able to provide for her and my grandchildren, such proof could be given though a tribute of valuable goods, livestock being one of the most valuable commodities our ancestors knew.

In some nomadic cultures, your very survival depends on the well-being of your herd, in that case, giving away six cows would be a pretty huge sacrifice, and of major symbolic significance to the bride's family.

I don't endorse a return to the days of women as chattel and mindless traditionalism, but I don't want to see us continue on the path of moral anarchy either.

All I want is for us to decide on a system which combines the newfound miracles and freedoms of modern technology and civilization with the wisdom of our forbearers.

We can't do that until we try to understand why are forebearers maintained a taboo against homosexualty, it's got to be more than just ignorance and stupidity, until we know, let's leave marraige the way it is because if we change it, there's no going back.

In the meantime, let's allow gays and lesbians the freedom to be together and enjoy the same legal protections that us breeders get, Hurrah! Just don't call it marriage.

Hey, shoshidge has made some solid points.

"First of all bro, what do you have against cousins marrying?"

Nothing, if you want inbred oddities for children.

"Secondly, one example of one Aramaic marriage does not speak to all marriages"

It was merely to refute your "birth of the marriage ceremony" story, which had no basis in fact.

"We can't do that until we try to understand why are forebearers maintained a taboo against homosexualty, it's got to be more than just ignorance and stupidity, until we know, let's leave marraige the way it is because if we change it, there's no going back"

Until we know that it's not ignorance and stupidity? Do you know what the definition of ignorant is? Unaware and misinformed. So we should leave everything the way it is until the world's brainless idiots decide to learn something?

"Just don't call it marriage."

Okay fine. But whatever church you belong to, just don't call it religion.

Speaking of our "forebearers," they actually provided a simple way around this whole argument. It's called the First Amendment.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"

We let the Puritans in, they held witch trials. We let the Mormons in, they believe polygamy is required for heavenly ascension. We didn't have to let the KKK in, they were proud God-fearing Americans that we grew ourselves. We let the Jews in, they don't believe in Christ. We even let the Jehovah's Witnesses in, who completely rewrote the Bible to meet their specifications.

So if the gays create a religion, form "churches" and "priests," maybe hold services once a week, plus a Wednesday Night "prayer meeting, then under the Constitution, they have as much right to have a marriage as oh, say, people that are into rattlesnake dancing or think marrying your cousin is a good idea.

And they can call it WHATEVER THE HELL THEY WANT.

And my opinion about marrying your cousin seems to be much the same as your opinion toward gays marrying. I just think it is wrong for vague medical concerns of which I have no data to back up, will not research and really do not care what you think. It is my bias, my personal bigotry against the ignorant and stupid. Nothing that you say can make me change my mind, as nothing I say will change your mind about gays.

But at least I'll admit my prejudice.

"First of all bro, what do you have against cousins marrying?"

what the fuck?

The stereotype about cousins producing freak babies has no basis in fact. Marriage between cousins is normal in many parts of the world.

The danger of inbreeding comes from a small, isolated group of people breeding amongst themselves over several generations, which accentuates negative recessive genes like the ones that cause hemophilia and cystic fibrosis.

It also makes everyone sorta look alike which is a little freaky.

But a one-off union between you and your cousin will have the same chance of producing a normal baby than if you bedded a total stranger.

Inbreeding also reinforces positive genetic traits, that's why purebred animal breeders often mate siblings together, in order to bring out the positive characteristics.

"The danger of inbreeding comes from a small, isolated group of people breeding amongst themselves over several generations..."

Like English royalty, which is what we moved here to get away from.

"The stereotype about cousins producing freak babies has no basis in fact."

Have you seen Jerry Springer?

As to the birth of the marriage ceremony theory, no one knows how it started because it happened so long ago. Before the advent of agriculture, writing, and before the evoloution of religion as we know it, way, way before your Aramaic buddy wrote his contract

I believe that it evolved around the same time we ceased being animals and became thinking creatures, right around the time when we were painting primitive scenes on cave walls.

Prehistoric humans could not survive without some sort of commitment ceremony revolving around sex.

And for the last fucking time, I have nothing against gays, quit lumping me in with the rednecks.

I am arguing that the purpose of marraige is to allow society to cope with the biological reality that our desire to have sex and our desire to procreate are not always in line with each other.

If we had absolute control over when and where are kids would be conceived, we could then declare marriage obsolete and we could all have civil union ceremonies, gay, straight or whatever.

Until that glorious day, straght people will always have an extra worry that gay folks don't, the possibility of unwanted pregnancy.

Which makes straight relationships different than gay ones, and when something is different with something else, we give it its own name, so we don't confuse the two.

I don't see anything about that belief that is anti-gay, if you do, please enlighten me.

You think Jerry Springer is factual?
Jerry Springer warns us of the danger of stupid trailer trash having babies, if some of them happen to be cousins as well i consider it a coincidence.

"Prehistoric humans could not survive without some sort of commitment ceremony revolving around sex."

Where do you come up with this stuff? How do the rest of the planet's species manage to survive more than one generation without a religious commitment? My cat isn't smart enough to find its damn food dish unless I show it to it every time. Mysteriously, however, if I don't get the little kitty neutered, I think it'll figure out what the female cats are for.

Yeah, here's how the original ceremony went -- "I'm the biggest baddest dude in the cave, and I'm taking this one or I'll beat you to death with a club."

Unfortunately, they didn't have words, much less a ceremony, so it actually sounds like this:

"Ugh. Arrrrrr. Ugh." And the beating begins.

" I am arguing that the purpose of marraige is to allow society to cope with the biological reality that our desire to have sex and our desire to procreate are not always in line with each other."

So you're going to force them to fit your mold? What gives you -- or anyone else -- the right to define what is and is not love between two people?

Because as sure as you do, someday you'll discover that your own lifestyle has been outlawed. That is supposed to be the difference between America and the rest of the world. We are not supposed to let this shit happen. We are not supposed to allow religious fanatics to dictate behavior outside of their followers, and in some extreme cases (Waco, for example), we will eliminate them when they become too annoying.

"Until that glorious day, straght people will always have an extra worry that gay folks don't, the possibility of unwanted pregnancy."

This is no more valid since the first time you said it, for the same reasons. Adherence to your notion that marriage's only purpose is making babies requires nullifying the marriages of 80% of the heterosexuals that bothered to get married in the first place, especially those of us who have kids and have vowed to never let it happen again. Not to mention that Grandma should dump grandpa for firing blanks and get a real marriage going, eh?

"Which makes straight relationships different than gay ones, and when something is different with something else, we give it its own name, so we don't confuse the two."

If I go to a wedding and both the bride and groom are either male or female, I usually think, "Hey, I bet these guys/girls are gay." If it's a man and a woman, I think, "These are probably heterosexuals."

I was never confused.

If you need a different name because you can't tell the difference without it, that's your problem, not the rest of the world's.What these people are asking for is NOT your approval. They are concerned with things like health care for their significant other, the ability to visit their loved ones in the hospital (family members only!), insurance, and all of the day-to-day minor details that they have to put up with for no good reason other than some idiot decided that if it is gay has to have a different name.

How about "gay marriage"? Doesn't the additional modifier add that elucidation that you are seeking? Or can you still not tell the difference?

So here's the solution that solves both soshidge's problem and mine.

Gay and lesbians couples should make a pact with other couples. Switch partners with the opposite sex, get married, and then go back to what you were doing. You're gay, you're married and shoshidge is none the wiser.

" Jerry Springer warns us of the danger of stupid trailer trash having babies, if some of them happen to be cousins as well i consider it a coincidence."

I would consider it a coincidence if they were not.

It has a lot of basis in fact. All you have to do is read it.

And don't act like people doing it in other places in the world justifies it. People everywhere are religious, too - but that doesn't make it right.

"Adherence to your notion that marriage's only purpose is making babies requires nullifying the marriages of 80% of the heterosexuals that bothered to get married in the first place"
-Most people I know marry with the intention of eventually having kids.

"How do the rest of the planet's species manage to survive more than one generation without a religious commitment?"

-Many bird and mammal species mate for life, are they religious about it? I don't know, maybe in their own way, their brains aren't complex enough to comprehend religion as we know it, for all I know, my dog might think I'm god when I scratch his ears.

Mating for life is a survival strategy that is usually found among animal species,(including humans), that have small litters, if we were like frogs, a woman would give birth to a thousand little tadpole-humans, and then walk away, assuming that a handful of them would survive.

Part of the problem is that human babies take an awfully long time to develop, depending on the culture, anywhere from 12 to 21 years, which is unprecedented in the animal kingdom.

Back to the dead horse... How do you compel a man to stick around for 12 or more years in order to ensure that he shares the burden of child raising?("Is one orgasm worth this? I'm outa here!")

You make him enter a contract, enforceable by God, the tribe, or in our case, the state, which says; in order to have sex with this woman, you must agree ahead of time to assume the responsibility for her care and protection and in the event she becomes pregnant, you are also responsible to ensure the well being of the child to the best of your ability.

Where did I get these crazy notions? Have you ever been to a wedding? Did you listen to the vows? Or did you assume they were just a bunch of ceremonial mouth noises?

As tacky as our modern marriages have become, the symbolism still enforces my point. Have you ever thought what the purpose of the best man was? The brides' father walking her down the aisle? The brides maids? The fact that whether or not it is a religious ceremony, the service must be performed by a symbol of cultural authority?

Most of that symbolism would be meaningless in a gay union ceremony. Which is why I think they should have a different ceremony, full of rituals that actually pertain to the circumstances of their relationship.

So Sherm, enlighten me, how is a single generation mating of first cousins bad?
Especially when a geneticist has been cunsulted and he said,"based on your profile you guys SHOULD have kids".

Especially when interesting theories about inbreeding being partially responsible for the evoloution of intelligence in man are coming to light?

Before anyone chooses to comment of the cousin issue, I suggest reading this http://www.straightdope.com/columns/041001.html

Cecil said it best, get informed before you make an ass of youself

"Where did I get these crazy notions? Have you ever been to a wedding?"

Yes. Several. Some of them my own.

"Did you listen to the vows?"

Yeah. At my brother's Jehovah's Witness wedding, it was pretty clear their conviction that women should run and offer to wipe a man's ass every time he farts.

"Or did you assume they were just a bunch of ceremonial mouth noises?"
Only the Catholic ones.

"Have you ever thought what the purpose of the best man was?"
To lend the groom a car if he changes his mind.

"The brides' father walking her down the aisle?"
Just making sure she's really going this time.

"The brides maids?" No clue. Don't care. If the bride doesn't show up, the groom can pick from the bridesmaids.

"The fact that whether or not it is a religious ceremony, the service must be performed by a symbol of cultural authority?"

Must? Says who? You?

As for cousins. Don't care what you say. It's bad. Evil. Evildoers. Burn in hell. All of that.

When breeders become cousin-screwers, it's time to start killing them off.

Whoever Cecil was, I think he was talking to you because your endless litany of righteous reasons to be a bigot contains an enormous amount of ignorant propagandist tripe.

I'll take your opinions about cousins with the toungue-in-cheek that I assume was planted in there, I don't think you would seriously be that hypocritical.

So I'm an evil doer AND as bigot, hmmm, OK, I tell you what, If you can explain to me how anything I've written in this thread is bigoted I will retract it.

I have at no time made any disparaging remarks about any race, religion, or gender.
I have repeatedly stated that my disagreement with gay people is restricted to a few political details, which have no bearing on how I see them as individuals.

I am not, as I have stated before, advocating a return to rigid, reactionary, misogynistic marriage practices.

I just think that in our zeal to rid ourselves of bad traditions, we might be throwing away some good ones, the baby with the bathwater you could say.

I have not, in jest or otherwise, advocated "killing off" anybody, unlike yourself.

And as far as "ignorant propagandist tripe" goes, I represent no organization, and hold no religious convictions, my views are my own, so who am I propagandizing for? Myself, maybe.

Perhaps you haven't realized the fact that I am tremendously sarcastic but yes, I can be hypocritical, especially in a debate where the outcome has little to no bearing on anything to do with me.

It's all about the semantics of the word "marriage" and your reluctance to give in to the "political details" is the mentality that deprives gay people of all the details I mentioned earlier.

But you did finally mention the key word, which is, of course, "political," which is exactly what this issue is -- a political wedge to drive people apart. You're with 'em or you against 'em.

On to more important issues, like who stole SpongeBob from Burger King?

Did you read your own link? Or just the part that you liked?

"First-cousin marriage is currently illegal or restricted in 31 states. (Some states allow it if there's no chance of procreation--interesting in light of conservative opposition to gay marriage on the grounds that the institution's function is to produce children.)"

Cousin marriage is illegal in those states because, like you, they are under the mistaken belief that children from such unions turn out flawed.

Bad facts make bad law.

I don't know when the law to ban marriage between cousins was written in those states, probably a long time ago, I suspect they allowed non-breeding couples to marry because they didn't see the harm in it.

Nowhere in there wildest dreams was it imagined that this law would be used decades later as a precedent to legalize gay marriage.

The law was not meant to endorse non-breeding marriages, but to prevent the birth of circus freaks, either way it's a dumb law.

Have you discovered evidence of my bigotry yet or are you going to be a man and retract that accusation?

Absolutely not.

Bad facts make bad law. Your refusal to allow gays to use the word marriage is based on nothing more than the fact that you just don't like it. You want to use this foggy logic of "that's the way we always done it" to justify your prejudice.

What the fuck difference does it make to you what two gays in San Francisco call their living arrangement? Why does your refusal carry the weight of economic punishment? You are terribly worried about the consequences of letting gays use your secret word.

"let's leave marraige the way it is because if we change it, there's no going back."

"Have you discovered evidence of my bigotry yet"
About 75 posts ago.

"Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?. Whilst we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess and to observe the Religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us. If this freedom be abused, it is an offense against God, not against man: To God, therefore, not to man, must an account of it be rendered."

-- James Madison

That's a good rationale for freedom of, AND from, religion.

I agree with that quote, I don't know what it has to do with my opinions on marriage, which I'm approaching from a non-religious, almost Darwinian direction.

Frankly, I won't lose any sleep if gay marriage is legalised, which is a forgone conclusion here in Canada anyway.
I don't think allowing gays to marry will cause the destruction of humanity, but I don't think it will be of much benefit to gays either.

But I am sick and tired of the arguements of those who oppose gay-marriage being misrepresented by people who just assume it's about hating gays, so they get out their politically-correct mallets and start swinging without even considering the arguement at face value.

There are a lot of things about gay politics that I disagree with, i'm sure if you would lay off the kneejerk," give it to the ignorant bigot, pat yourself on the back, take a swig of beer and bask in the warmth of feeling like you just scored one for the good guys" routine, you would too.

I don't agree with a lot of things coming out of contemporary feminism either, does that mean I hate women too? Am i imposing my beliefs on them by disagreeing with some of them some of the time?

I don't like a few of the things I hear from racial equality activists, am I racist now too?

Still waiting for the bigotry evidence