Not to mention the right to bear arms. I am sure everyone around here is fighting for that fundamental right for everyone too.
But that goes to what I alluded to before about polygamy. IT can also be applied to other things like pedophilia which is legal in some societies. So they (the government) already DO tell you what you can do and who you can marry and you agree with them.
The Constitution doesn't mention marriage AT ALL. I guess all three of Predident Trump's unions were illegal, then.
Of course it does. You're arguing that gay marriage doesn't have to be allowed because it's not listed. Well, neither is straight marriage. So, in a land where everyone is supposed to have the same rights, logic would dictate it's all or nothing.
I am not arguing that. People here are saying gay marriage it is a fundamental right. That is the argument.
Marriage is the fundamental right. To restrict it you need more than just religious beliefs to do so. .
If you believe that gay marriage is a fundamental right then why not everything else I listed? No one seems to explain to me that in a logical coherent way.
People like to throw around labels here based on views and core beliefs. Do you like it when the tables are turned? The conclusions some can come to around here is if you believe in gay marriage you also have to logically say that you are pro- polygamy, incest and pedophilia. because religious and moral views cannot be applied to marriage in your beautiful world of moral relativism. (Homophobe looks like a slap with a wet noodle compared to the names people will call of you.)
I was correcting your statement that other posters had said that gay marriage was a fundamental right. One can argue whether a right is fundamental or not but what I've stated that if you are going to restrict a right it needs to be for a good reason. As for your points about polygamy and especially paedeophillia the reason they are restricted is because of the inherent inequality of those relationships. Of course restrictions against these are fairly recent. You may be surprised but rights change over time and they don't come down because of some holy book. They change as societies change.
Who determines what is equal and what is not equal within those relationships? Who are you or the Government to arbitrarily make rules on those types of relationships when there are Groups of people who are as sincere as the LGBT community who believe their fundamental rights are being infringed upon? How do you personally come to your conclusions about which are right and which are wrong without any bias?
But you are saying it is alright for the government to make such decisions if they are deciding to ban gay marriage.
So when government decides to ban marriage among self-proclaimed Christians you should have no complaint because what you have stated indirectly is that raw political power alone is enough of a determinant as to whether someone should have marriage rights.
If there is legislation or 5 judges who eventually do something as Stupid as that I will not be alive to complain about it.... ... or I will leave the country. (Really leave the country and not just say it like a bunch of idiots have said the last few weeks.)
Now you are getting into a very interesting hypothetical. There are many who want marriage to just be in the hands of churches where in America most of them took place for centuries. And out of the hands of legislation and government.
If you've finished trotting out all of the debunked stereotypes of the card-carrying homophobe *(see the bottom of this post for the answer to the inevitable response to this term), then I have some questions for you. Before we get started, I would like to point out that I agree with you in one respect--there are SIGNIFICANT differences between racism and homophobia. There are, however, significant SIMILARITIES between the gay rights movement and the civil rights movement (which has historically included the fight for women's rights, rights for the disabled, and other target groups). Not surprisingly, opponents of gay rights tote out the same sort of attacks (Bible, state's rights, and on and on) for both civil and gay rights. So no, racism is not exactly like homophobia, but the quest for equal rights is very similar. You only see that first part, which makes you assume the second can't be true. You're incorrect. There are, generally speaking, three arguments against gay marriage: 1- Religious grounds 2- The "can't change the definition" crowd 3- The State's rights crowd I'm going to take them in order here. 1- The religious grounds argument makes no logical sense whatsoever. There are two reasons for this--one, you can't legislate your faith on other people (it's kind of the founding concept of our government), and two, you can't legislate someone else into heaven. They both have to do with the idea of impact outside of the activity. A gay couple getting married doesn't impact you at all. People complaining about cake shops and such are missing the point. Those store owners aren't being prohibited from expressing their religious beliefs. You want to bake a wedding cake and include a passage from scripture taped to the box? Go right ahead (I actually bought a briefcase from an awesome company in Texas that does just that. I wasn't offended. It struck me as thoughtful and...Christian). You want to invite a gay customer to your church in the hopes of convincing him/her to "change"? Go right ahead. The problem is when service is refused. That goes against the laws of our country. A law that allows one religion (and be real, "freedom of religion" is really "freedom of Christianity") to impose their beliefs on others is an act of establishment. Unconstitutional. So let's take it out of the secular and into the religious. I have no interest in mocking your religion (and I don't like it when others do just that as their defense). I was raised Catholic. I was an altar boy. I have translated large swaths of the Vulgate Bible from the Latin (most recently the Book of Judges). What I say now is not out of a disdain for religion or an ignorance of religion, but rather from a deep knowledge of religion: What do you hope to gain by pushing against gay rights? Legislating against gay people will not help you get into heaven. It will not help us get into heaven. If anything, it drives a wedge between the church and the people that that church should want to work with more than anything (going on the notion that they believe homosexuality to be a sin--which is a whole other issue that I disagree with). So the "Religious liberty" reason holds no water. From a secular standpoint, it's blatantly unconstitutional, and from a religious standpoint, it's actually counterproductive. Moving on. 2. The "you can't change the definition" crowd. You've tossed this one out a few times in this very thread. Here's a question: which definition are you talking about, exactly? The one where marriage was between one white man and one white woman? Loving v. Virginia (the SCOTUS case that did away with anti-miscegenation laws) was passed less than 50 years ago. What about the definition that saw marriage as a business or political contract that viewed the women as chattel property of the man? That definition was valid as recently as a couple hundred years ago. The definition of marriage has changed repeatedly over the course of our civilization. This is why the "slippery slope" angle that grows out of this argument doesn't work. The definition has been tweaked several times throughout long term and recent history, and it didn't result in the collapse of the institution. If anything, it made it stronger. Moving on. 3. The "States should decide" argument is flawed on so many levels. For starters it ignores laws set up to ensure that marriages (and drivers licenses and such) issued by one state are recognized by others. Nobody wants to have to get "re-married" if they move to another state. Nobody should have to deal with an issue of being transferred (via employment or military service) to a state where their marriage is no longer recognized. Further, I would ask you if you would like states to decide on the validity of YOUR marriage. I'm assuming the answer is no. That's the other issue. People like you only want to legislate against "sins" that you don't commit. The Bible is MUCH more explicit about divorce, but nobody would dare criminalize that. As long as a "sin" is victimless there is no justification for letting the states decide for one group and the federal government decide for another (and incidentally, the presence of a victim is why you CAN pass laws against murder, assault, theft, etc AND can ban pedophilia). Finally, there are federal, medical, tax, etc benefits connected to marriage. These rights and benefits are established at the federal level. You have codified straight marriages by rewarding them with secular benefits. Once you do that, you CAN'T exclude the LGBT population. And before you say that all 50 states would immediately pass straight marriage rights, I wouldn't be surprised if the bluer states (NY, California, Maryland, and several others), given that choice, would dig in and only consider bills that codified marriage for BOTH straight and LGBT. To boil it down to the TL/DR version, I pose you these questions four: 1- Would you want a Muslim person to legislate their faith on your personal life? 2- Do you think legislating against LGBT marriage will enable you OR us to reach salvation? 3- Do you think we should go back to the earliest definition of marriage to preserve the sanctity of definition? 4- Would you want YOUR marriage status (and the benefits thereof) to vary from state to state? Unless you can answer "yes" to ALL four of these questions, then you have no ground to stand on in opposing marriage equality. * The inevitable response I get from people when I use the word "homophobe" is the trite "I'm not scared of some pansy!!" Yes. Yes you are. Homophobes are terrified that if the LGBT population is legitimized socially, then they might start treating straight men the way straight men treat women. Exhale, chief. Even sight unseen, I can tell you with absolute certainty that loud guys with no sense of logic and poor research skills are really NOT my type.
1- Would you want a Muslim person to legislate their faith on your personal life? The context of marriage in America just like many other things come from Christian World Views and Biblical truths. Hence for decades the good majority of people have sworn on the Bible for oaths in courts, public office and other important things in life. A Muslim extremist who exists in your hypothetical who is following the tenants of his beliefs puts the quran over the constitution and would try his best to put Sharia law into practice as we see in some neighborhood in England and other Euro Countries. 2- Do you think legislating against LGBT marriage will enable you OR us to reach salvation? I believe that Legislation against it is just like the list of other things that are not allowed within marriage in this nation. 3- Do you think we should go back to the earliest definition of marriage to preserve the sanctity of definition? I believe that marriage is between one woman and one man and that is the way it has been defined by a good majority of societies of many different religions and creeds. 4- Would you want YOUR marriage status (and the benefits thereof) to vary from state to state? Sure, just like Insurance rates vary and other things.
You can take my rights out of my fabulous hands. It is a relief in a way. Now its all on the table. The queer community knows that millions of people either hate us, or don't care. Makes the fight easier. Being civil got us here. So when you try to play your games remember when you are wringing your hands about rioting that you caused it.
That is like a Christian person saying if you do not believe in what I believe you either hate us or don't care.
Swing and a miss, Homie. 1- For starters, marriage predates Christianity by quite a ways, and exists in various forms across all major religions and cultures, including cultures that have no religion. It is a social construct, not a Christian trademark. You being ignorant of religious and cultural history does not allow you to legislate out of that ignorance. I said nothing about an extremist. I said a Muslim. And a Muslim putting his/her beliefs ahead of the Constitution would be no different from a Christian doing the same. And that's precisely what you are espousing. 2- Please go back and actually read the bit I wrote completely shattering the false equivalency you tried to build and the nonsensical notion of the slippery slope. 3- I don't give a fiddler's fart what you believe. We don't make decisions in a secular government based on "belief." We make them based on fact. You have demonstrated a terrifying lack of knowledge on the history of marriage for someone who has such strong opinions about other people's marriage. If you want to live in a theocracy, then that's your issue. Go move to one. 4- Another false equivalency. It wouldn't be a difference in insurance rates. It would be a difference in being allowed to have insurance.