Liberal Humanists are not hand-puppets and cartoon characters. They are your neighbors and coworkers and acquaintances. Perhaps brothers and sisters and parents. Or...does that only cut one way? As a member of said atheists-humanist group, I can assure you that very large segments of this group - and certainly I - do care very deeply about homosexuals and their rights and consider it a genuine tragedy and a shameful fact of society about how they have continually trampled, in large part because of a religious minority whose views are predicated on intolerance. Having been in gay weddings and with some of the closest people in my lives been gay, I can certainly say definitively for myself that this is hardly about scoring cheap political points, but an issue felt very deeply.

I never said nothing changes. There's less discrimination in the world and that's a good thing.

I also post here as someone that believes in god though I accept my understanding of god is very different than yours.

Can you state these disastrous consequences? If you think something big DOES happen - outside of the enormous positive of eliminating the discrimination imposed on homosexuals - then state it. Your utter failure to do so ITT is very telling.

How is profane gifs a mockery of our/their beliefs? I can see how they might mock YOUR beliefs. But how is it inconsistent with a belief in homosexual rights? Accepting higher sexual freedom and expression is part and parcel.

So as a lapsed catholic divorcee I can't get married in church again. I can however get married in the eyes of the state, my partners and my own, our friends, family, the bank and pretty much everyone else in society.

I don't see how I can deny anyone else the right to an entirely secular marriage. I'll actually cede that churches retain the right to opt out of offering SSM I wouldn't dictate to churches that they must offer their blessing but I would deny congregations the right to dictate what happens outside of their church.

That isn't the way certain Christians see it. They see it *as* discrimination. It is just more of the same.

They would say that there is no merit to the claim that marriage being defined in the way it is means discrimination against homosexuals. They would say that marriage isn't about you or me or my marriage or your marriage or homosexuals, but about promoting an institution that is ultimately about the raising of kids. People who marry are more likely to raise children who marry and move on to raise children who marry-- and not wind up on drugs, or in jail, or on death row.

They would say that the current definition of marriage is not a ban on anything. It discriminates against no one. It does not stem from a legal ruling, nor is it defined by judge or jury or court, but rather from divine imperative and biosocial norms. Is this all new to anyone? Why do so many feign as if they don't know of opposing beliefs and their justifications? It is very curious.

Oh right that makes sense. The people who are being denied the right to marry are not being discriminated against. It is the poor people who have the right to marry that are being discriminated against! But I am glad to know that you think marriage is a good thing that prevents people from being on death row. Except, of course, you are denying this good thing to others.

You'd almost have a point if gay couples couldn't raise children or if these people spoke out against marriage between those incapable or undesiring of having kids. But as it stands, this argument is paper thin.

Also, it's rather insulting that you are trying to turn this around and play the victim card for those whose beliefs, words, and actions have caused considerable pain and suffering for the LGBTQ community. The price that will be paid in telling your kids that homosexuals exist and aren't evil is so trivial compared to gains we can make in self and social acceptance of gay people. People have died for being gay. No one that I know of has died from explaining homosexuality to their kids. So like I said, this is rather insulting.

Thank you. This is what I would have said had I not been sleeping while the exchange went down.

Traditional marriage... Isnt that what they try and stop the Mormons form doing.

I'm not so willing to capitulate even a portion of this argument. Suppose gay couples couldn't raise kids, suppose no gay couple ever had this interest. So what? Would it not still be just as heinous to deny the basic right to marry to others? "For the Children!" type arguments have long roots those who fight to deny others these rights, and they have all been entirely shut down. But I feel we sometimes get trapped in such a debate where it is largely irrelevant.

Its also another inconsistent one since they dont want to stop postmenopausal or impotent men or hopelessly infertile couples form marring.

Actually, I welcome it, in a way. Persecutions will increase in the last days. Discrimination against Christians and our beliefs will increase. To a Christian, it just brings us closer to the Lord's day.

That you are now openly mocking their cherished beliefs through rule of law -- is really only the beginning.

Plus, it is not just bigots who discriminate against same-sex couples having children, it is also biology, if you haven't noticed.

Plus, stop pretending that the only cultural ramifications of this is 'telling your children that gay people aren't evil.' You are fooling no one but yourself. You clearly are just cherry-picking what to respond to and what not to.

I said he'd almost have an argument then. I agree that his argument is wrong, but rather than attack it now I was just pointing out how irrelevant that would be. There are multiple approaches to this.

How are you being persecuted and discriminated against? Allowing SSM does not take away your rights to practice your beliefs as you see fit.

Also, I have to point out that it is again highly insulting for you to tell me that my 'sins' are bringing us closer to the end of the world.

Did I miss where you finally told us the other evils that would happen, because I can't think of anything else?

Also, I don't think I'm cherry picking. What arguments have you made that have gone unaddressed?

In practice there isn't, both because (1) by definition being against same-sex CIVIL MARRIAGE means you are not simply trying to protect your religion's and your fake god's right to engage in bigoted discrimination against gays, but also are trying to prevent anyone who has the correct, non-bigoted, 21st Century view about gays and lesbians to follow your fake god's rules, and (2) because people who oppose gay marriage almost invariably oppose all sorts of other rights for gays and lesbians, such as employment non-discrimination laws and the like. In other words, it is very much about making gays into second-class citizens.

Sure it would. It would mean, as the Westboro Baptist Church says, that "God hates ____".

But also, I don't see how pawning the bigotry off on God solves the problem. If God decreed that that gays can't get married, then God is unworthy of worship and we should go ahead and follow the human principles that are correct rather than the decrees of the evil douchebag homophobe God which are incorrect.

Your sins are not bringing us closer to the end of the world. My sins are just as bad as whatever your sins are, I'm sure.

One of my weaknesses in particular is getting knee-deep in these ridiculous arguments -- that quite honestly, I could care less about-- only because I find the protagonist arrogant, small-minded, odious and revolting (not you).

Quite honestly, I don't know why any homosexual would ever want marriage redefined in this country. You have a secular alternative. The political ramifications could be devastating. The whole thing may well backfire, setting you back 20 years or more. It could never be worth it, just to say: "I'm married." Why?

For one, it will never be recognized by christians as a christian marriage. It's one battle you will not win.

And 2: because Christians will feel slighted, whether you want to recognize it or not.

I want you to read this. Really read it.

Does it sound like they are ready to retreat?

Link

It is one thing when you make progress against bigotry, but another thing when you win some territory "against discrimination" and at the same time slap a bunch of people in the face, and they happen to be your neighbors.

Oops! Google Chrome could not find www****.org

It should probably set off a red flag when the site you're linking to is blocked.

The thing people like you will never understand is that those who support gay marriage don't care if the bigots are made upset by it. The rest of decent society is not here to tip-toe around their bigoted sensibilities.

I'm sure lots of bigots felt 'slapped in the face' when schools were integrated. Guess what? No one cares. Social progress has been and will continue to be made without them, until it is uniform and those people are left to mutter under their breath about how they are being discriminated against because things are happening they don't like.

Wasn't that the whole point?

It's a pdf file, which probably doesn't help, but I can't find it in html.

It's called the "marriage solidarity statement."

Do you really believe that you are morally superior to a christian because you support the redefinition of marriage?

And you wonder why I question the motives of the liberal activists.

If you really wanted to help homosexuals, there are better ways of doing it.

Since you have yet to respond with a statement of what - exactly - the disastrous consequence you keep alluding to actually are, I think you are well deserving of a "perhaps you should think harder" respond to this little gem of a comment.

I beg to differ. "Christians" have been rapidly changing their minds on this issue, just they have on many other social issues. I know many christians firmly resolved on the injustice of denying basic rights to others, Christians who believe that Jesus has a message of love and acceptance, not one of denying the greatest symbol of love and acceptance to those who are marginally different. Societal attitudes are changing, and as gay marriage gets passed in state after state (what a truly spectacular year it has been for that!), people will increasingly accept it. It is just the norm in canada now.

This is more or less what I feel about those who aim to deny two people who love each other the basic right to marry. While it has been certainly trumped in the past, it is among the more odious and revolting denials of basic rights that still is left in the US.

List them. Can you?

I actually don't entirely disagree. I have posted before about problems with the incessant focus on marriage equality. For instance, issues like the tragic rate of gay teen suicide rates or drop out rates (you can imagine some of the reasons for this given the OP) are very significant but don't, perhaps, get enough attention. That said, rightly or wrongly, marriage equality is an enormous symbol of acceptance of gays more generally, and hopefully will usher in a greater acceptance of gay people generally that reduces said suicide and drop out rates.

The thing about gay marriage, is that it is the "easiest" thing to get right. Unlike most issues we face from education to healthcare, it costs nothing (effectively) to fix. It is just a rule change. We don't have to pay for increased education and resources targeting gay teens or any other such things, we just change the wording of a law. There is no reason not to do it. So while there may well be more important things to strive for, this is certainly an important one, and is such low hanging fruit we would have to be callous not to pluck it.

Well just to get this straight, I do not believe I am morally superior to anyone in general, certainly not. I do feel I am morally superior on this issue than people who take the contrary position, because I feel that the contrary position is morally reprehensible. So, by definition, the answer is yes.

What's funny to me is all this circuitous nonsense about how to "really" help the homosexual, as if thats what you're interested in. Social change always comes with resistance, and those resistors always hide behind paper thin arguments and rhetoric in order to keep "tradition". What you have to realize is it's you who is fighting the meaningless battle.

Because we don't want to have to use a different institution for the same thing. As much as you're playing the victim card, you don't understand what it's really like to constantly be told that you're different in a bad way. To be able to share in this institution of marriage with everyone else is validating. Equality is worthwhile.

When those are the faces of people holding me down, I don't care how many get slapped. I really don't know how else to express this but it's infuriating to read you constantly play the victim card for those who will barely be affected by this (in ways you have yet to elucidate) when it's the other side that's actually suffering every day. I really don't know how terrible a person you have to be to continue holding this line.

This is exactly the point IMO.

My only hope is that it will be written into the constitution that women have the right to abort their child whenever they want, and the same with the marriage amendment, because only then the liberal-humanists will have no more bogey-issues to hide their ugly and deleterious ideas behind.

Of course, we'd still have the problem of turning around whole groups and communities of people that you have destroyed by making them dependent on free money forcibly taken from your 'enemies', but that too will come in time.