This is my last response to you on this subject. If they take that policy position due to prejudice then yes. That's how their prejudice manifests. I've consistently claimed that the prejudice is the most important element and certainly more important that fear distrust and hatred given our lack of access to the mental states of people and that I don't consider that list exhaustive.

I went back to where I think I originally misunderstood you.

I disagree with you here. Like I said, people have been having same-sex relationships for much longer than this debate. If someone wants to be with someone of the same sex behind closed doors, that truly has no effect on anyone, except for them, and possibly those close to them.

With marriage as the norm, it begins to send a message, I believe, one of acceptance. It's not only gay marriage, it's the sexualization of society, which is all related, imo. In a society where these things are held as equal and accepted and taught to children as normal, IF it is wrong, then I believe that is not beneficial, whereas simply having relations behind closed doors does not have the same effect. That's why I said not all things have the same consequences.

I live in Canada, there is no legislation here, or any options to vote against gay marriage, it's very liberal. In fact we have a gay premier where I am from. My speaking about voting is more in theory. I don't especially see a two party system and a couple of throw-your-vote-away parties as a democracy. I have supported the Liberal party in the past when I was not happy with the foreign policy views the Conservatives had.

My purposes for not supporting gay marriage as I have already said, (which by the way was not my point in starting this conversation, but have only expressed my views because I was encouraged to) is not to deny gay people rights, but because I think the consequences are not beneficial to society for the reasons I have said.

Yeah we disagree and i think you are still misunderstanding.

Allowing homosexual sex and not having it as a crime and treating it equally to hetro sex was creating a new norm and level of acceptance at the time. And one that gay marriage couldn't and wont touch imo. Gay marriage is the result of that far greater influence. If you dont want it to be accepted as a norm and not wrong, thats where your fight should be.

Also id bet good money someone made a similar argument when arguing against not having laws against homosexual sex. But we be going round and round and you dont seem to be addressing or understanding my post so ill give you the last word.

I might regret saying this, but I don't know that making gay sex illegal is right. That's a slippery slope to a theocracy, which I also don't know is right. I don't want to personally put someone in prison for sinning, or for what I consider sinful. I can't imagine imprisoning someone for getting drunk, or for having sex with their partner, whether male or female.

Edit: If I misunderstood you, my apologies, I'm not purposely trying to be daft or give you a hard time. We can leave it at that, I don't need the last word.

No its all good im not mad. My writing is bad and the confusion is not yours alone. I confuse everyone! Just think ive said what i can say the best i can and we will just go round and round is all.

I've been on the computer way too long and I'm tired, I'm sure I'm not thinking straight. Time for some rest. Thanks for the spirited talk.

Ok fair enough. Ill leave with this, watch the volume though its loud and vid is crappy.





And its not because of homosexual marriage. Thats the result.

It's strange how a variant of this post crops up as a response in pretty much any prolonged debate with AaronW.

But if they already don't have rights **** em? This seems a strange position to me that surely you either think that two gay people in a loving commited relationship that lasts long term should have the same right to spousal benefits/protections as two hetero sexuals in the same position or you dont but you want to stop short of saying if they had the rights you would want them removed for the benefit of society. What real difference is there to you in not wanting them to have the rights and removing them if they already had them? Is it just that the position of saying you dont want them to have those rights allows you to distance yourself from the actual oppression that is happening?

As an example of the benefit of marriage her in the UK my wife was with someone for 9 years and engaged before we met. Unfortunately this man died 6 months before their relationship was to be enshrined in law. They had a fairly large amount of saving in a bank account in his name that they saved together and viewed as theirs. After his death those savings were handed to his father and she couldnt stop it or get them back as she wasnt his wife. This is just one aspect of a legally recognised union that is being denied to gays.

This is where we differ. In a hypothetical scenario where the instead of gay marraige it was attending church that was illegal and people were fighting for the right to worship the god of their choice I would vote in favour of religion being allowed and would vote against anyone that would say it is wrong to follow the christian religion despte the fact that I believe the christian religion is a detriment to society as a whole. (This is likely a badly worded analogy but I am sure you can get the general idea that I am trying to convey).

I don't think that it is OK to say "Well I don't personally deny their rights I just try to have people in power that will do that for me". Sure you are using a third party to be the instrument of oppressing people so that you can feel like you are not denying the rights yourself but the end result is the same you use the power of your vote to try and keep a subsection of the population oppressed.

I don't know the bible well enough to know what it says about the morality of chemical substances that affect humans (perhaps you could link me a verse or two as I would genuinely be curious to know)

You say you dont want a theocracy in other posts but you do seem in favour of the laws reflecting the desires of God (is it just that you don't trust gods representatives on earth who would be the ruling theocracy to have the same opinion of what god wants as you do?).

You also suggest that your only alternative to voting for the conservative party that would oppress people based on 'biblical morality' is to vote for a liberal party that you do not agree with. I don't know how it is in Canada but here in the UK if we think that none of the candidates are the right one we can represent this by spoiling our ballot to show that we care who governs us and don't like our choices.

As an OT aside I think the prayer in school thing you briefly mentioned is an issue that those in favour often misrepresent by trying to say prayer is banned in schools when it isn't (at least not here in the UK). Organised prayer lead by school staff maybe but any person in the school can at almost any time during the day briefly lower their head and say a prayer in their head to whatever god they believe in (doesn't the bible say something about prayer being a personal thing and not intended as a big show?)

My personal view is that you should vote for the person that reflects your views, and if you feel there is no party that reflects your views closely enough that you agree with their significant political stances, then you should make the deliberate choice not to vote.

Voting for someone is giving them your stamp of approval. It's possible in any given election for no candidate to be worthy of that.

Russel Brand, while a bit erratic, has some interesting views on the issue.



Edit: Having grown up in the USA and now living in Canada, I can say with confidence that while the Canadian political system is flawed in a lot of ways, the US system is definitely worse. The absolute lock of the two party system in the USA as well as the fact that moral and social issues are tied with political parties makes the US system a complete mess. For example, in the USA, if you believe the government should deregulate business, it's impossible to vote for a candidate that shares your belief without supporting anti-gay legislation, anti-womens reproductive rights, anti-immigration, etc.

Religious and social values are completely tied with government policy in the USA and it's a total cluster****. It's bad in Canada too, but it feels like a breath of fresh air here compared to the United States.

I tried to discuss this without reference to classic Aaron because that kind of ends the discussion but it's classic Aaron.

Naked_Rectitude, I was going to tell you that it was commendable of you to not vote against SSM despite it being contrary to your religious convictions...only to find out that all you mean is that you haven't been put in the position to vote for or against SSM, and that in fact you would vote against it is the vote was presented! Oh noes.

What I will commend you for is answering questions from all directions, and I hope you will continue a little longer

Earlier you were told that the marijuana legislation was not a good analogy, I'd like to go just a bit deeper, and rather than focus on the legality and more on the morality, lets use alcohol instead. Do you see anything immoral about enjoying a glass of wine? I'm going to assume no (and I don't think you'd see an equivalent with pot, another reason to change the product). What about 3 bottles of cheap plonk within an hour, to get completely inebriated? I'm going to assume you see this very differently, right? Both situations involve alcohol. Is alcohol immoral? No, it's the behaviour associated with the alcohol.

Nothing unexpected about this, right? So when you compared your reasons for disapproval with homosexuality, presumably you have in mind some particular behaviour.

I'm going to cut this short, in fact I just deleted several long paragraphs that still ended up asking the same question, and while it seems like a gross simplification, it does just seem to be what it all boils down to (at least for Christian opposition).

Is your opposition to SSM is ultimately about what you believe to be the sinful act of homosexual sex?

Doggg, while I haven't seen all of those links before, there isn't an argument in them that I haven't heard. If you are interested, leaving emotions behind, what do you think is the best (or perhaps the top 3...or however many you want) that stands up to scrutiny? Surely you have already seen the responses that are given for all these arguments, and there is presumably some counter to these counters? Level three thinking.

It is my honest position that there is no good argument against secular marriage for same sex couples, and I really wonder what you think the best reason(s) is/are. But maybe its fruitless to ask, I don't know.

Naked_Rectitude, I will add one question I deleted from my earlier post:
Do you think romantic love between a same sex couple is immoral?

+1 to this. I get frustrated if im getting the business form more then two posters.

It's not hard to understand why a godless universe is so frightening to you when you make statements like this one. For my part I don't understand why 'meaning' is so important to you, I'm quite happy for there to be no meaning, or purpose, at all, I simply don't need it.

You 'get' your personal idea of him. Since there's very little information available about him, far less than many historical figures, some of whom even predate Jesus, most of what you 'get' is at best conjecture, pure wishful thinking at worst.

Do you actually speak French? I think that this should have said 'Je m'en fous de votre civilisation'. Non? I think the verb is 'foutre' (to f*ck) and that conjugates to 'Je fous' but it's reflexive (don't know why) and so includes the pronoun 'me'. Somehow, 'Je m'en fous' has come to mean 'I don't care' (the polite version).

They can, I am.

However, I personally know, and know of many Christians who aren't, so it's not a given as you seem to think. In fact, it's a great 'no true Scotsman' example, I'll have to remember that one.

This genuinely made me laugh, I assume that by undue influence you mean they have even the tiniest bit of influence given that the religious have far more influence. How many openly atheist presidents have their been again?

Those religious politicians are known for their integrity and morals arent they?....oh wait I forgot that in your eyes people of the right religion are by default always perfectly moral and correct (otherwise I assume they are secret athiests pretending to be christian for the benefit of the great atheist conspiracy to destroy the world)

Then call them prejudiced. Bigotry is something else. Your inability to decide that someone is motivated by hatred is not a sufficient reason to pick a word and adjust its meaning so that you can call someone by that word.

I really wish you would answer the question of *why* -- Why is it so important to you to be able to call someone bigoted? Why are you tied to using that word when many other words suffice and those other words do not imply motivation by hatred when you admit you don't want to claim that someone is motivated by hatred? It really doesn't make sense why you're so tied to using that word.

As fascinating as the discussion of what connotations of the word bigotry should or should not apply to those that try to ban LGBT people from marrying based on ridiculous arguments is, I saw this which is of some interest given the OP.

http://www.vox.com/2014/6/19/5824022...kers-for-being

I'm not actually sure what explains the asymmetry. By a massive margin, people think it should be illegal to fire people based on their sexual orientation. But it is way smaller if you ask whether this should be enshrined in legistlation. One explanation is that people are really confused as to whether it already is or is not legal, perhaps due to jurisdictional issues. But I suspect that at least part of this is a sort of deeper, kneejerk sentiment against the legislative process generally so when you frame it as passing a law, people hate it, but when you ask if it should be a illegal, people are fine with it.

It’s not a rights issue for me, directly that is. It’s not as if my goal it to take away rights for the sake of taking away rights, or because I don’t like certain people, or even just because I think it’s wrong. This is simply an outcome. My objection to gay marriage is not because I don’t want gay people to have gay relationships or rights, but because I think the act of making it legal will make it acceptable and celebrated, and this will impact the next generations negatively, and the culture as a whole. It’s different than two people simply having a gay relationship, it’s not as if I’m about to bust down doors and demand people stop being intimate, no more than I’m going to smack a joint out of someone’s mouth. It’s the portrayal of complete acceptance that I think is ultimately wrong, which marriage emphasizes. This acceptance could happen without marriage even being present, and I would still believe it to be wrong.

Look at it from my perspective for a moment. Assume homosexuality is wrong, and premarital sex is wrong, and marriage should be sacred and for life between people of different sexes. Just pretend. Now if we live in a culture where homosexuality is encouraged, monogamy not expected, marriage is between whoever, and sexuality is pretty open, wouldn’t children who grow up in that culture ultimately suffer if they are taught by their parents, possibly of the same sex, that these things are not wrong, and by the society who has accepted these things as routine? IF these things are wrong, wouldn’t these children be taught the wrong things, and have a misconception of morality?

I understand that morality is subjective, and people are free to interpret the world as they like, but some things do affect other people even if it doesn’t seem that way, which is why the argument that homosexuality doesn’t affect “you” isn’t completely accurate. SO, if you ask me if I think it’s wrong, then I do. That said, many people do not, and that’s fine, which is why I don't want to force people, necessarily, but I would rather see conservative values survive.

This is sad and unfortunate, and not my aim, it's a consequence, and don't think I don't see this as a reason for contemplation.

I don’t vote based on gay issues, to be candid I don’t vote at all, because I disagree with both parties. This was more of a hypothetical, that if someone asked me, I would say I don’t support it.

Again, it’s not that I don’t want gay people to be together, it’s that I think if marriage is allowed, it’s the next step in a progression which results in the of the death of Christian values. I don’t want gay people to be together no more than I don’t want people to get high.

There are lots of verses about not getting drunk, nothing I can think off the top of my head about drugs, except maybe Jesus refusing to take something to dull the pain when he was going to the cross. The general idea is that you should remain sober, and it’s also easy for drinking to become an idol, since it’s addictive, that you end up putting things before God and become a slave to it.

It’s not that I don’t want a theocracy necessarily, depending on how it’s run. I don’t see the benefit of punishing people who don’t follow some moral laws, they will just end up pretending to follow it, and everyone ends up internalizing their immorality. It may solve the problem of the decline of conservative values, but it’s only a show. Aside from the fact that it’s impossible to enforce given there are many Gods and religions to pick from, it’s not at all feasible.

I’ve sided with the Liberals at times when I felt the Conservatives were not representing Canada with our foreign policy, but mostly I side with the Conservatives because they’re more church-friendly. I don’t like the idea of picking the best of the worst though, so like you suggest, I have not been voting. This system is not a true democracy, I have no true vote.

Again, I didn’t really mean go out and cast a ballot on school prayer, I threw the term "vote" around haphazardly to my detriment.

I think I should say that just because I'm discussing this doesn't mean this issue is dear to my heart, I happen to believe these things but I think because I have been open about it, it makes it seem as though I put this debate on top of some list, and I don't, this was mainly about conversation. I rarely consider gay marriage, and up until now I had never spoken to Christians about gay marriage. If anything this was simply to say that the argument that it doesn't affect "you" is not entirely true if examined through a different light, and that the purpose is not to eliminate rights, that's the unfortunate outcome. Sorry if I missed some things, I had trouble with this post.

I actually agree with you, I always catch slack for not voting for that reason, so I don't like admitting it. Have not watched the video yet, but will check it out. Brand is actually a pretty interesting character, I heard him debate on British television, he's surprisingly quick and articulate.

I hadn't noticed you were from Ottawa, my friend lives there, I'm in Toronto.

From what I've seen, you can probably correct me, is that politics in the US are more discussed and prevalent in everyday life, than in Canada. I can go weeks without anyone mentioning politics here, but it seems when I go to the US, or turn on a US channel, it's all politics.

I don't mind answering questions, except this conversation upsets people for obvious reasons, and I like keeping the peace.

More or less agree so far, alcohol that is just sitting in a bottle is not in itself immoral, it's just a liquid, but yeah, drinking in excess is the problem.

Yes, and no. I do think it's sinful, but that's not the main reason of objection, which is why I think the pot comparison is apt. If pot is made legal, it emphasizes an acceptance of it and it soon becomes mainstream. It's not that I want to barge in to your home and forbid you from getting high, the concern is with the overall effect it will have, not the specific act you may commit. If it simply was the sin, I should want to forbid sinning altogether.

Not exactly sure what you mean. Maybe I can answer like this: If I find that I am getting a little too close to a married woman, and I start to develop feelings for her, and her me, then it would probably be wise to create some distance because the relationship is ultimately wrong. Is it wrong that I speak to married women? No, not in itself. Is it wrong that I fall in love with a married woman? Maybe, maybe not, but I if you're not willing to put an end to it, then I would think it is wrong.

I got into a long conversation with my father in law about this recently, and despite his multiple advanced higher education degrees, he couldn't seem to grasp this.

He insisted that atheism was at fault because Mao and Stalin did horrible things in the name of atheism, but Christianity wasn't at fault for stuff like the crusades, because a real Christian wouldn't do that stuff. Eventually the argument flamed out and he walked away more confident than ever that he was right in his assessment.

Not only is this view utterly illogical, it's also inconsistent with Christian teaching, which asserts everyone is sinful and parades a long line of redeemed liars, cheats, and *******s through the Bible to make its point.

When I asked him if there was no such thing as a Christian since doing evil apparently disqualifies a person from the label of "Christian" but the Bible asserts that everyone is sinful, the conversation abruptly ended.

Still a bit salty about it. I like discussion, but if a person's views are utterly unchangeable, there's no point.

Further updates from the white house: http://www.washingtonblade.com/2014/...s-sex-couples/

After the DOMA decision, there is some question of to what extent all the numerous little ways being married gets interpreted in a large number of government institutions was now going to apply, especially to situations where one was legally married in one state but not recognized in another, and so on. Looks like the WH doesn't believe it can act entirely unilaterally, and in fact needs legislative engagement which, uh, isn't exactly likely I wouldn't think.

People sometimes like to propose the whole "civil union" bit as an acceptable alternative to gay marriage. The reality has long been that the way most civil union laws are implemented so that the legal ramifications are not identical, and indeed, that civil unions get a smaller and lesser body of legal benefits than married people receive (even if identical, civil unions should still be strongly rejected for symbolic reasons). This is hopefully a lesson that despite the numerous achievements - ending DOMA hardly least among them - there is still significant work to be done to get to true legal parity.