I never said i agreed with them, they are simply irrelevant to this discussion.

Marriage has nothing to do with reproduction. Also homosexuals can reproduce and same sex couples can have children so even if it were true it would still be irrelevant.

Marriage is a human right. People who deny this human right to their fellow humans are bigots.

You presume that what you do as an individual has anything necessarily to do with what your organs are biologically for. This would be like arguing that because you like to get tattoos, it must be the case that human beings have skin so that they can get tattoos. Or that a blind person's eyes just aren't, biologically, supposed to be able to see.

1. We're going to disagree to some extent about whether there are problems arising from sex outside of marriage.

2. Right, I'm arguing that even most heterosexual people who get married don't understand what marriage is, and this is tied in with high divorce rates and promiscuity outside of marriage. People think marriage is primarily about romance, and it's not.

3. A group of seven chaste women could occupy and fund an institution that takes custody of and raises children. You wouldn't want to call their relationship with each other a marriage or that institution a family. You want to call the homosexual relationship a marriage because you think marriage is based primarily on love, and you want to call it a family because you think a family is typically constituted by two parents and children. The latter intuition is only justified if you agree that marriage as a relationship is fundamentally ordered towards having and raising children, not on romance.

Perhaps most people in the United States and Europe right now, but not the majority of people in the world, and certainly not the majority of Westerners in the last 1000 years.

Unhelpful self-praise.

It doesn't surprise me you confuse God's intent with the world's intent.

The OT people were suppose to be a separate and holy people. They were suppose to provide the example. Be a light to the nations of the right way to do things and they weren't completely successful because they allowed paganism's sinfulness to invade them and their way of life.

This Q and A session on here is just choppy. An attempt to find fault and look for errors in small bites.

But there is a way to live life and there is continuity in that way throughout one's life.

That's why atheists are using a bastardized form of logic. They aren't getting the full gist of His intent because they don't want to. They want to break his word down into little bites and find fault without understanding the full range of things.

People trot out history as if it matters. What people in biblical times thought marriage was is irrelevant. Even if it weren't homosexual couples can have families so those arguments break down. I mean the greeks used to be fond of pederasty. Maybe we should hold on to that tradition too.

You conceded them by refusing to engage with them, even when directly asked whether you disagreed with them. Now you're back-tracking.

1. As one of my favorite lines from a Monty Python sketch goes, that's not an argument, it's just contradiction. I gave you a brief version of an argument. You said everything I said was irrelevant to the discussion. Now you are challenging one of the premises I offered, that marriage is primarily about reproduction and raising children. You do so by just saying "marriage has nothing to do with reproduction."

2. Then you turn around and say "homosexuals can reproduce," but by your own statement (the one immediately prior) this should have nothing to do with the question of whether or not homosexuals can marry. I am very confused. Do you think marriage has anything to do with reproduction, or not? As to the fact of whether homosexuals can reproduce, I am fairly sure that it is virtually impossible for two men or for two women to reproduce with each other, without some assistance of some kind from someone of the opposite sex. Do you disagree?

Marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman in which they attempt to reproduce and cooperate to raise any children they have. They stay together for life in part to facilitate education of children (and grandchildren etc.), which takes a lifetime.

Every human being can enter into a marriage, understood in this way: everyone has exactly the same right, the right to marry a person of the opposite sex who isn't otherwise unable to get married. This has nothing to do with whether you are attracted to men, women, or are asexual; and nothing to do with whether you are particularly sexually attracted to a possible spouse.

As I said, I think most of the problems facing marriage now have to do with the mistaken belief that marriage is primarily about romance and, I would add, fulfillment of one's own desires in the present.

If you don't think that the views of the historical majority matter, I'm more inclined to want to reject your opinion than theirs.

Homosexual couples cannot have families without the assistance of at least one person of the opposite sex.

I'd also like to hear your argument against pederasty. Why do you reject that practice?

Its not about 'romance' what are you talking about? It's about the right of any two people to be legally bonded with each other, ie marriage.

The fact you think it has to be between a man and a woman is bigotry.

I guess I am a bigot then for opposing the NAMBLA and polygamists.

Hmm, interesting. A Catholic wanting to hear arguments against pederasty.

Do you think that God's intent should be legislated though?

You probably have but your own bigotry prevented you from seeing it as such.

Most liberals and atheists/agnostics vigorously defend the right for gays to marry.
From my own experience, if you argue against gay marriage, you are "anti-gay," and will be accused of "anti-gay posting", even if you use rational, and/or secular-based argument.
It's just not worth it.

I haven't made up my mind on that question. I'm still considering it and haven't got all the info in perspective yet.

Gay rights was a non-issue historically for so long that I tend to think all the gay rights agitation really is an End Times signal.

Gay rights, women's rights...etc. etc. All the rights issues shows me the is that the world is fed up with the devil trying to run the show. God will have to show up soon to right all the wrongs. People aren't that good at doing it. Never have been. They aren't reasonable or kind enough.

Again, I'm the bigot? And yes, I'd like to hear your argument against pederasty.

Please give some of these ration or secular arguments.

You really are surprised that people think that denying a homosexual a human right is anti-gay? Seriously?

"I'm not anti-gay but you know, they should not be allowed to marry and stuff."

It's just like the "I'm not racist but...." comments.

What does "legally bonded" mean? Can you clarify? It just seems vague to me.

Yes. How was my statement, a statement of fact about your post, making me a bigot? Jesus the twisted logic in your head is frightening. (I was born and raised a Roman Catholic btw and where I come from the word bigot is used more often than probably anywhere on Earth).

No, you're confusing yourself here. You're saying people shouldn't be allowed to get tattoos because the primary purpose of skin is not to be an art canvas. I'm saying that has no bearing on whether or not somebody should be allowed to get a tattoo.

I know, and you're wrong, but that's largely irrelevant.

I know, and again, you're wrong. You don't get to tell people why they should get married.

Adding multiple people to a marriage makes it a bit hairy legally, but I certainly would call their relationship a marriage if they were married to one another. The nature of the relationship itself would determine whether or not they were married and/or a family. The way you phrase it, though, makes it sound as if you are referring more to an orphanage, which of course would not be a marriage (though could be considered a family in a sense I suppose).

No, I only want to call the relationship a marriage if they want to get married. And the last sentence is just flat out wrong, I'm not sure why you decided to throw that in there.

Fortunately we are talking about the US and Europe right now.

No. You are very confused on the topic of marriage and I was hoping that my post was clear enough to help you understand things a bit better.

This is entirely irrelevant to the post you quoted.

You use phrases like "hhmm interesting" in pointing out totally random, purely factual statements, having nothing to do with associations people draw with the thing that you're pointed out? That is, you just accidentally said something that most people would take as a joke about sex abuse by Catholic priests? If so, I apologize for misunderstanding you.

I may have over extrapolated.

I anticipated you going into marriage as an institution in pagan countries pre-Moses but you might have meant something else.

Lolwut? There have been three issues that you'd have to care about as an American Christian in the last decade: gay rights, ID in class and defending the OT God's evil deeds. How much time do you really need to decide on these?

Btw, just to get it straight, are gay and women's rights the work of the devil or the work of God iyv?

All the arguing over rights is a sign something is wrong with the world that only God can fix.

Atheists get things backwards. They try to solve all the world's problems without reference to God. They can't.

God even tells everyone up front that there won't be a general peace on Earth until Christ comes to institute his reign with the Millenial Kingdom. We're just living in a long transition phase right now.

I don't have any bigotry toward gay people and I have listened closely to the arguments made time and again against gay marriage. None of them have had no bigotry in them. Now, I've heard plenty of people try unsuccessfully to make non bigoted arguments. They just don't work (and are almost always a mask for bigoted reasons anyway).

The problem is there simply don't seem to be any sound ration and/or secular based arguments.