I'm not American so that question would better be answered by others but Prop 8 in California was a change in legislation.

From Wiki:

"The measure added a new provision, Section 7.5 of the Declaration of Rights, to the California Constitution, which provides that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.""

Churches voted "Yes", progressive people voted "No".

I think the infertility question is a tougher nut than you've treated it as being, though.

Specifically, what is this 'natural ordering' that seems to be the gearbox of your whole line here, and why is it to be privileged above the utility derived by the respective people?

A straight infertile couple wed and have a normal sexual relationship. If I understand you, you would say that their coupling 'follows the natural order of reproduction'. I think here you are simply stopping at a convenient level of abstraction in your consideration of the respective actions (ie, insertion of a penis into a vagina). But the couplings of the infertile do not, in fact, feature in the biological realities behind reproduction - for obvious reasons.

So what is an infertile couple doing when they copulate, then? They are mimicking the act of reproduction as best they can, because of the utility that mimicry affords them.

What do you think gay people are doing? The very same, if you ask me.

There are other issues - if you call an infertile couple who use a surrogate 'married', what of a gay couple who use a surrogate? What of all the ways around biological impediments that human ingenuity has built? Why do they open doors for the infertile but not for the gay?

If you are only concerned with the name but are prepared to cede the rights and legal status, I have no particular beef with you. Whatever the law or legal document says, people will call it marriage. Give it fifteen years after that and a full homogenisation measure will pass no sweat in any case.

If you are concerned with the name and are not prepared to cede the rights and legal status, then we've got business.

I thought this could turn into an interesting discussion, but I don't know that it would survive the maelstrom of the thread.

I mean conceive and raise children.

A lesbian couple can do that. (A gay couple can too with a surrogate.)

Now, if you are a bigot, maybe you think that shouldn't happen.

As for the rest of your post, you missed the point, but then again, I'm not surprised.

Homosexuality is natural too, and while raising other people's biological children may or may not be natural, it is definitely far preferable to a world where the only children people raise are their own biological issue.

Like with many things, there is no equivalence between natural and good.

Pitying someone for living a wonderful life, loving members of the same sex, and wanting the same rights you have because he or she is your equal is, in fact, bigotry.

And lots of bigotry is religiously motivated, as I noted upthread.

You want to be a non-bigot, support gay marriage and gay rights while continuing to believe whatever you want about whether it is sinful.

You are suggesting that I support gay-marriage and at the same time that I believe it to be sinful? That is similiar to the hypocracy that the pharisees and sadducees in biblical times were accused of. What you are suggesting is impossible for me to do in good conscience. Of course they may live a "wonderful [happy] life", I'm not denying the bliss they may feel. Something that you need to understand is that their is pleasure in sin, all sin. Also my standard of what is right and what is wrong is based on biblical ideals, that is where I look if I want to know whether something is right or wrong. I want to iterate that I don't hate homosexuals, just that according to my beliefs, their actions are a sin against God. Actions similiar to lieing, cheating, stealing, adultery. How do you base what is right and wrong from? The answer to this question will shed some light to why you believe what you believe.

So are there any biblical laws you dont agree with, but adhere to because they are specified in the bible?
Which parts of the bible do you take your laws/morals from?
Why do you take the bible as your guide. If the answer is "because its gods book", how do you know this to be so?

1. Its hard for me to answer the first question, well maybe not hard but...who am I to question my creator, because I know there is pleasure in sin but at the same time know its wrong. I do that which God commands me and don't do that which He commands me not to do.
2. Though there were laws/rules that the people of Israel had to follow, however some rules changed after Christ came to deliver the gospel. Examples: the eating of certain foods. In short I take my morals/laws from the entire bible.
3. Faith .

Are you going to answer my question? I don't mind you not liking the idea of gay marriage, and I totally understand why a Christian would be against it. But do you think that it is correct that gay marriage should be banned by law?

And i bet if they are Catholic and neither has ever been married, the Church would have no problem marrying them even though there is no hope of having children.

So should divorce be illegal? Should not honoring your father and mother be illegal? How about blasphemy? How about denying the divinity of Jesus?

Do you recognize no separation at all between sin and illegality or is it selectively applicable to the gays?

answer 1) I dont think I will ever understand this. I imagine that a creator/created relationship would be a bit like a parent child relationship, and I questioned everything about what they said, why they said what they said, etc. You have no (rational) proof that any of this stuff is true, yet you choose to base your life on a book. I guess its easier to not think for yourself. Like I said, dont think I will ever understand.
Answer 2) If you are honest in your answer that you take your morals/laws from the entire bible, then you need to admit that you agree that slavery and stoning badly behaved children is just and acceptable.
Answer 3) its not really an answer . Your basically saying you believe it because you believe it( or you believe it because you want to)

n/m

All the above offences were punishable by death, by stoning, in biblical times. Divorce isn't a sin per say. There are instances where divorce is okay. Also Jews in Christ's day didn't all recognize Jesus's divinity, it was blaspheming the God of Abraham that was punishable by death. Answering your question about whether it should be against the law for homosexuals to get married, in short, yes. Obviously this is based on my moral absolutes.

Do you support the right of people to have sex outside of marriage even though its a sin? Do you want a law passed that says its illegal so it coincides with your view on sin?

Allowing homosexuals to get married and allowing people to sleep around are 2 different issues. One is an institute ordained by God and the other is something completely different. Murderers were crusified however gluttons weren't, both were sins but one wasn't made illegal. This is such a case.

Seems inconsistent with your other post but alright.

Fwiw sex outside of marriage was punished and illegal (for women mostly). And still is against military law in the US.

They are Catholic and neither of them have been married. And as you guessed, their church has no problem marrying them despite the fact that my aunt has no hope of becoming pregnant.

In the sense that governments are involved, you're right that it's a civil right. But the societal contract understanding predates (and precedes) the formal government process.

Just imagine that you've got a loose association of families in an early agrarian society that follows arranged marriages. Within this framework, there's no sense of "legal oversight" over the marriage contract. It's just an agreement between two families. So I don't really see how this framework makes it a "civil right" to marriage.

To be clear, which are you saying:

1) Marriage is not a civil right

2) Marriage is not a human right

?

Lucky they didn't get counsel form BTirish.


Really not sure what you mean by human right.

I would say its not a right the government should be involved in. If people want to get married on there own. I got no problem with that.

The messed up thing is that even if gay marriage is legalized in a state the couple is not allowed any of the federal rights that a heterosexual couple is granted, like tax breaks and other benefits.

A "human right" refers to some sort of inherent right or freedom that a person, as a human, should have access to and should be defended by the society at large. For example, human trafficking is a "human rights" issue because there is a sense in which being sold into sexual slavery is a violation of some essential human-ness. This is what gives us the moral authority to disrupt the practice (and also the moral impetus TO disrupt the practice).

However, something that's a "civil right" would be the right for American citizens to vote. It's a right that exists by virtue of a government entity (or any authoritative entity).

So by your description, you're calling it a human right. There is some essential "freedom" of humans to have access to this thing called "marriage" and this thing is somehow bigger and broader than merely something granted by a government.

I am of the opinion that everything ought to be a human right unless there is a specific reason for it not to be, which usually (though not always) involves its infringing upon somebody else's rights. In other words, I do not see a reason why gay people should not be allowed to marry and therefore the should be.

I was trying to avoid the aspect of not being allowed to marry being a benefit for people who didn't want to get married (I was trying to avoid the topic of forced marriages as you suggested).