Why should Homosexuals be allowed to be married?

[Trezza]

Why should Homosexuals be allowed to be married? Please explain your rationale if you are pro or con on the gay marriage issue.

I am not going to give my opinion yet but would prefer to play devil advocate for each side depending on which has more support.

PLZ don't turn this into a BUSH issue as I am not talking about Bush and his ideas but you and your ideas. If you can't follow this premise don't post here.

 

[Dari]

first, you should ask what it means to be married. Is it religious, romantic, partnership, or any combination of the three?

 

[Orsorum]

Why shouldn't they?

 

[0roo0roo]

off the top of my head, spousal rights when one is hospitalized, or dies, or what happens when they are parents and one dies. do you tear the children away because only one of em actually was on the adoption/birth papers? etc etc

 

[jjones]

Because laws which are formulated to exclude people from benefits enjoyed by other members of society are queer.

 

[Zebo]

Consentual adults?
Found someone they Love and want to spend the rest of thier life with?
Want to enjoy the already discriminatory tax code and heath insurance benefits of being married?
Tired of bar hopping and want to settle down and raise a family or just be DINKS?


Why should I care?

 

[Czar]

Because most of the time the idea behind not wanting gays and lesbians to get married is based on religion. Then, starting a "gay" religion that would allow them to get married would most likely not stop people from objecting to it then it is not because of Religion. More because of my point is right and yours is wrong argument and that argument just doesnt hold.

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: Czar
Because most of the time the idea behind not wanting gays and lesbians to get married is based on religion. Then, starting a "gay" religion that would allow them to get married would most likely not stop people from objecting to it then it is not because of Religion. More because of my point is right and yours is wrong argument and that argument just doesnt hold.

It's a BS argument too. There are 5 passages total in the bible re: homosexuality and all says it will lead to scorn by men not that it's prohibited.

Edit: of course a priest told me this so he may be baised.

 

[Bowfinger]

Originally posted by: Trezza
Why should Homosexuals be allowed to be married?

To protect the alter boys?

(Just kidding.)

 

[FatJackSprat]

So they can rightfully experience the pain and hassle of divorce?

It does seem like the main things they are missing out on are the right to inherit, take a share when they're left out of a will, and meeting the requirements for coverage by a spouse's insurance. These are very important rights.

Many people don't bother to have a will, so if they live together and keep their property in just one person's name, when that person dies first the survivor loses title to his own stuff. Everything will pass to the dead person's legal heirs and there's really no way the survivor can make a claim to it. Even if he could somehow prove joint ownership he has still spent money just to retrieve his own property.

Insurance coverage is expensive and if one person stays at home, the other would have to pay for independent coverage. This issue comes down to money and proper care. At the same time, I don't think they should get joint coverage unless they are legally married. How can we expect ins. companies to just people on their word that they are "domestic partners" when people could easily team up to split coverage while sharing an apartment.

I have a relative that is gay and lived with someone for 10 years. When the relationship ended it was just like breaking up with a girlfriend: if they were splitting any property they had to figure it out on their own. If they had hated each other, then the one with title to everything could have been a real jerk about it.

People should be entitled to the same expectations in property rights as everyone else when they make a commitment and then rely on it.

One a side note: I was watching 'The Great Race' the other night and apparently two of the guys are married. One kept referring to the other as his "partner." I think they shoud be able to get married just so I don't have to hear that stupid word anymore. If he's your boyfriend, call him that. If he's your husband, call him that. Calling someone your partner just sounds, well, gay.

 

[Siddhartha]

Originally posted by: Orsorum
Why shouldn't they?

Out side of bigotry I can not think of a reason why they should not be allow to marry. Why is it any of my or your business in the first place?

 

[heartsurgeon]

marriage is about kids and procreation. it is an "institution" which has developed to provide a framework of responsibility and obligations aimed at
raising children.

if you expand the definition of marriage to include homosexual unions...
the next step is automatic qualification for homosexuals married couples to be adoptive parents.
another step is going to be fertility issues. what you say? well, infertile heterosexual couples can get insurance benefits to cover
fertility enhancing therapies..are we to suppose that homosexual couples will not want insurance coverage for the use of surrogate mothers/sperm donors so they can "have children"
if two homosexual men "have" a child, and they "divorce", who gets child custody? the man that donated the sperm? the man that didn't donate the sperm but is a better "parent", does the biologic mother have any say?
can a non-DNA related "parent" in a homosexual marriage, marry his "child" after a "divorce"?

this marriage issue is a canard..
it is not about marriage.
it is about "acceptance"
it is possibly about access to kids and pedophilia

if marriage between consensual homosexuals is ok, why not polygamy? why are you "bigotted" against polygamists (that sounds to much like sodomist, lets invent the appelation "poly" to describe multiple marriage partners, it sounds so much more inclusive).

i guess we can do anything we want to..but do we really want to do this? the subsequent legal implications should be discussed, because the social re-engineering isn't going to end with homosexual marriage.

i personally think that if homosexual couples want to have a legally defined relationship with rights and obligations..let'em have it. It just isn't going to be marriage.
call it a legal union. keep kids out of it.

 

[Gaard]

<<marriage is about kids and procreation. >>

Yeah, I once knew a girl who never wanted kids and thought, "Man...no way she should be allowed to get married."

 

[her209]

Ban marraige altogether.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Zebo

Originally posted by: Czar
Because most of the time the idea behind not wanting gays and lesbians to get married is based on religion. Then, starting a "gay" religion that would allow them to get married would most likely not stop people from objecting to it then it is not because of Religion. More because of my point is right and yours is wrong argument and that argument just doesnt hold.

It's a BS argument too. There are 5 passages total in the bible re: homosexuality and all says it will lead to scorn by men not that it's prohibited.

Edit: of course a priest told me this so he may be baised.

This is correct. It's looked down on but not prohibited. A passage in the NT merely mentions it as a sign of a corrupt or decadent society.

Religion got nothing to do with it. I know high-profile churches (Protestant of course) that have gay ministers. The issue is money, namely benefits. Personally, I am luke-warm to cold on gay marriage because I believe that the purpose of marriage is to have children.
edit: but hey to each his own. I would suggest another title other than "marriage." Maybe like domestic partnership or something like that.

 

[Moonbeam]

Humanity is infected with the disease of bigotry. It's a difficult disease to treat. A person's whole mental structure is built on the justification of it. The bigot hides inside a silvery sphere that reflects all light. The sphere is his thoughts. Inside that sphere is the unconscious, the repository of all personally witnessed hate. All the physical violence and emotional torture we were subjected to as children to train us to conform, to be anything but how we were born, is hidden there within to come out. From that well into which we cannot see we will draw our bigotry, the overwhelming need to make others see and do as we. We cannot risk breaking the mold into which our lives have been poured because it will make us remember all the pain. We have to control the external world so our inner world remains unprobed. Gay marriage must not be permitted so I don't have to feel my bigotry.

 

[Darkstar757]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Humanity is infected with the disease of bigotry. It's a difficult disease to treat. A person's whole mental structure is built on the justification of it. The bigot hides inside a silvery sphere that reflects all light. The sphere is his thoughts. Inside that sphere is the unconscious, the repository of all personally witnessed hate. All the physical violence and emotional torture we were subjected to as children to train us to conform, to be anything but how we were born, is hidden there within to come out. From that well into which we cannot see we will draw our bigotry, the overwhelming need to make others see and do as we. We cannot risk breaking the mold into which our lives have been poured because it will make us remember all the pain. We have to control the external world so our inner world remains unprobed. Gay marriage must not be permitted so I don't have to feel my bigotry.

So elegant and so true.

Cheers to you

:beer:

 

[SuperTool]

Gays should be encouraged to make a commitment and get married, so they stop screwing around and spreading STD's.

 

[Czar]

Originally posted by: SuperTool
Gays should be encouraged to make a commitment and get married, so they stop screwing around and spreading STD's.

:Q

 

[DealMonkey]

It's a personal choice between consenting adults that isn't hurting anyone else. End of story.

 

[LunarRay]

From a religious point of view it ought to be up to the religion one subscribes to. Legaly, however, there is no need to call it marriage given we have common law union, financial responsibility for issues of a relationship married or not.
The issue is not federal and should not be part of the Constitution via amendment. It is a state issue and ought to be made like the California "no fault" divorce... call it "no fault" entwinement.

 

[LunarRay]

Originally posted by: SuperTool
Gays should be encouraged to make a commitment and get married, so they stop screwing around and spreading STD's.

Ya mean marriage keeps folks from screwing around... OK. If it does or doesn't it should be a status provided for in law so the benefits of that status may inure to the couple..

 

[SuperTool]

Originally posted by: LunarRay

Originally posted by: SuperTool
Gays should be encouraged to make a commitment and get married, so they stop screwing around and spreading STD's.

Ya mean marriage keeps folks from screwing around... OK. If it does or doesn't it should be a status provided for in law so the benefits of that status may inure to the couple..

It doesn't prevent people from screwing around, but it reduces their tendency to do so, especially if there are financial implications from a divorce.
Gays have tonnes of sexual partners, which contributes to STD's. I don't blame them, if girls were as horny 24x7 as guys are, heterosexuals would have a lot of sexual partners too.

 

[LunarRay]

Supertool,

Good point.. I'd not thought about it that way ... but, lesbians hardly ever have STD issues... I've understood..

 

[csf]

You can't just flip flop the argument to say "why shouldn't they?" The status quo is that marriage is a union between a single man and a single woman (since this decision may inevitably slide the slippery slope down to polygamy, as anyone who knows basic American legal history will tell you) and homosexuality is still considered an abnormal societal trait that the public may not be willing to endorse (yes I've seen recent poll numbers so I know how it looks). The point is, the burden of proof is to ask why a major overhaul of law and society must be done so urgently to allow gay marriage, and so far there really is no argument out there than "why not?" or "YOU'RE A HOMOPHOBE WAH WAH WAH."

By the way, tolerating and endorsing are two different things. You can be tolerant of homosexuality and dislike it and be against gay marriage: in fact the very nature of the word "tolerate" implies this. So contrary to what a lot of the PC types would like to say, being against gay marriage is not intolerant at all.