Pope: Saving world from homosexuality like saving rainforests

[Nihilismus]

No, although I don't like it, I also don't view it as a positive change for society, I think it is wrong, and I don't think it should be condoned.

Again, why not?

I don't want to hear about any of their sex lives.

Why would you have to hear about it?

 

[OphidiaPhile]

We each have a right to our own opinions and if it came to a vote, we'd all have an equal vote. So mine doesn't matter any more than yours. I'm just trying to explain why.

But if it is a guess and not a thoroughly educated opinion you are doing yourself and the country a disservice.

 

[Aianna]

No, although I don't like it, I also don't view it as a positive change for society, I think it is wrong, and I don't think it should be condoned.

Well then you're going to have to elaborate on your reasoning. Why is it wrong for these individuals to have access the same benefits that heterosexuals do? How is it anything but positive for these people to get equal rights?

I don't want to hear about any of their sex lives.

I think the general trend is that heterosexuals can talk about their partners with no repercussions but if homosexuals do the exact same thing people accuse them of "flaunting their sexuality."

 

[angellica]

So... you don't like it. You don't show how it is bad, or how it will be a negative change, or why it will harm us.

Yes I did, but you don't agree with it. To me it's harmful to society to accept and condone and encourage this behavior - harmful for our future generations. But you don't think it is.

 

[Garyzenuf]

No wonder I get confused, this must be the "Son of Non-Religious Reasons Against Homosexual Marriages" thread.

*

 

[angellica]

Well then you're going to have to elaborate on your reasoning. Why is it wrong for these individuals to have access the same benefits that heterosexuals do? How is it anything but positive for these people to get equal rights?

See my earlier posts for my opinion, I don't feel like repeating it.

I think the general trend is that heterosexuals can talk about their partners with no repercussions but if homosexuals do the exact same thing people accuse them of "flaunting their sexuality."

No, I don't want to hear about either of their sex lives.

 

[Nihilismus]

No wonder I get confused, this must be the "Son of Non-Religious Reasons Against Homosexual Marriages" thread.

*

We adopted him.

 

[angellica]

But if it is a guess and not a thoroughly educated opinion you are doing yourself and the country a disservice.

It is not a "guess."

I think there may be genetic factors that make some people more likely to be gay, but it's also a combination of environmental factors, just like alcoholism. Some people are pre-disposed to be alcoholics, but they don't all become alcoholics. It is combined with environmental factors and upbringing.

 

[OphidiaPhile]

I see a bunch of insurance stuff in there. THAT will affect taxes and maybe even how much insurance I have to pay or how much coverage I'll get if they get all those added benefits. So there is a reason for not doing it. Why do they need benefits? I am single and I have benefits because I WORK. If they want some insurance, why not get a job or marry somebody of the opposite sex?

You focus on one thing but yes insurance does matter and they have just as much right to married benefits as you or I, even though ANYONE than wants to get married is nuts in my book.

And now you have shown your hand, most gay people work and most are in very high paying white collar jobs, far more percentage wise than heterosexuals. And you are ok with making a mockery of marriage as long as it does not affect your delicate sensibilities because as you say they could marry a person of the opposite sex whom they are not attracted to nor ever will be and cannot love in the way that is necessary for a marriage. I suggest you befriend some homosexual people and truly learn to understand where they are coming from.

 

[OphidiaPhile]

Like I said before, the stuff about how it would be more generally accepted and viewed as a legitimate "family." I realize some people agree with that, but some don't. So to me, it would be detrimental to me and my future kids if I have any. I don't want them in that kind of environment. You may disagree with my reasoning, but it's just what I believe, nothing more and nothing less.

Of course the fact that those societies that allow gay marriage have had no detrimental effects does not factor into your opinion.

 

[b&wpac4]

Yes I did, but you don't agree with it. To me it's harmful to society to accept and condone and encourage this behavior - harmful for our future generations. But you don't think it is.

This is something Keith Olbermann said on his show Countdown after Prop 8 passed. It is much more eloquent than I could produce right now.

Finally tonight as promised, a Special Comment on the passage, last week, of Proposition Eight in California, which rescinded the right of same-sex couples to marry, and tilted the balance on this issue, from coast to coast. Some parameters, as preface. This isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics, and this isn't really just about Prop-8. And I don't have a personal investment in this: I'm not gay, I had to strain to think of one member of even my very extended family who is, I have no personal stories of close friends or colleagues fighting the prejudice that still pervades their lives.
And yet to me this vote is horrible. Horrible. Because this isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics.

This is about the... human heart, and if that sounds corny, so be it.
If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not... understand. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don't want to deny you yours. They don't want to take anything away from you. They want what you want -- a chance to be a little less alone in the world.
Only now you are saying to them -- no. You can't have it on these terms. Maybe something similar. If they behave. If they don't cause too much trouble. You'll even give them all the same legal rights -- even as you're taking away the legal right, which they already had. A world around them, still anchored in love and marriage, and you are saying, no, you can't marry. What if somebody passed a law that said you couldn't marry?
I keep hearing this term "re-defining" marriage.
If this country hadn't re-defined marriage, black people still couldn't marry white people. Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal... in 1967. 1967.
The parents of the President-Elect of the United States couldn't have married in nearly one third of the states of the country their son grew up to lead. But it's worse than that. If this country had not "re-defined" marriage, some black people still couldn't marry...black people. It is one of the most overlooked and cruelest parts of our sad story of slavery. Marriages were not legally recognized, if the people were slaves. Since slaves were property, they could not legally be husband and wife, or mother and child. Their marriage vows were different: not "Until Death, Do You Part," but "Until Death or Distance, Do You Part." Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized.
You know, just like marriages today in California are not legally recognized, if the people are... gay.
And uncountable in our history are the number of men and women, forced by society into marrying the opposite sex, in sham marriages, or marriages of convenience, or just marriages of not knowing -- centuries of men and women who have lived their lives in shame and unhappiness, and who have, through a lie to themselves or others, broken countless other lives, of spouses and children... All because we said a man couldn't marry another man, or a woman couldn't marry another woman. The sanctity of marriage. How many marriages like that have there been and how on earth do they increase the "sanctity" of marriage rather than render the term, meaningless?
What is this, to you? Nobody is asking you to embrace their expression of love. But don't you, as human beings, have to embrace... that love? The world is barren enough.
It is stacked against love, and against hope, and against those very few and precious emotions that enable us to go forward. Your marriage only stands a 50-50 chance of lasting, no matter how much you feel and how hard you work.
And here are people overjoyed at the prospect of just that chance, and that work, just for the hope of having that feeling. With so much hate in the world, with so much meaningless division, and people pitted against people for no good reason, this is what your religion tells you to do? With your experience of life and this world and all its sadnesses, this is what your conscience tells you to do?
With your knowledge that life, with endless vigor, seems to tilt the playing field on which we all live, in favor of unhappiness and hate... this is what your heart tells you to do? You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your God and the universal love you believe he represents? Then Spread happiness -- this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness -- share it with all those who seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or book of choice telling you to stand against this. And then tell me how you can believe both that statement and another statement, another one which reads only "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
---
You are asked now, by your country, and perhaps by your creator, to stand on one side or another. You are asked now to stand, not on a question of politics, not on a question of religion, not on a question of gay or straight. You are asked now to stand, on a question of...love. All you need do is stand, and let the tiny ember of love meet its own fate. You don't have to help it, you don't have it applaud it, you don't have to fight for it. Just don't put it out. Just don't extinguish it. Because while it may at first look like that love is between two people you don't know and you don't understand and maybe you don't even want to know...It is, in fact, the ember of your love, for your fellow **person...
Just because this is the only world we have. And the other guy counts, too.
This is the second time in ten days I find myself concluding by turning to, of all things, the closing plea for mercy by Clarence Darrow in a murder trial.
But what he said, fits what is really at the heart of this:
"I was reading last night of the aspiration of the old Persian poet, Omar-Khayyam," he told the judge.
"It appealed to me as the highest that I can vision. I wish it was in my heart, and I wish it was in the hearts of all:
"So I be written in the Book of Love;
"I do not care about that Book above.
"Erase my name, or write it as you will,
"So I be written in the Book of Love."
---
Good night, and good luck.

 

[OphidiaPhile]

Just because there's other marriages that I don't agree with doesn't make gay marriage okay. Two wrongs don't make a right.

It is not your right though to decide which type of marriage is wrong or right that should be entirely up to the participants.

 

[Garyzenuf]

It is not a "guess."

I think there may be genetic factors that make some people more likely to be gay, but it's also a combination of environmental factors, just like alcoholism. Some people are pre-disposed to be alcoholics, but they don't all become alcoholics. It is combined with environmental factors and upbringing.

How on earth could environmental factors "make" someone an alcoholic.

*

 

[angellica]

How on earth could environmental factors "make" someone an alcoholic.

*

Being exposed to drinking a lot, being encouraged to try drinking, desensitization to alcohol in general, acceptance of having a casual drink as okay and normal, access to alcohol in the home, etc.

 

[angellica]

This is something Keith Olbermann said on his show Countdown after Prop 8 passed. It is much more eloquent than I could produce right now.

To me, this is trying to guilt me into going along with something that I don't agree with. I'm not acting out of hate.

 

[OphidiaPhile]

Being exposed to drinking a lot, being encouraged to try drinking, desensitization to alcohol in general, acceptance of having a casual drink as okay and normal, access to alcohol in the home, etc.

Actually quite the opposite is true they have found that those most likely to abuse alcohol are those that do not grow up with it as a normal part of life.

 

[OphidiaPhile]

To me, this is trying to guilt me into going along with something that I don't agree with. I'm not acting out of hate.

It may not be hate but is not far from it.

 

[angellica]

Actually quite the opposite is true they have found that those most likely to abuse alcohol are those that do not grow up with it as a normal part of life.

Well then there you go! An environmental or outside factor (non-genetic) has an effect on alcoholism. That is the point I was trying to make .

 

[Nihilismus]

To me, this is trying to guilt me into going along with something that I don't agree with. I'm not acting out of hate.

It is sentimental nonsense in response to sentimental nonsense. You should be able to relate.

 

[b&wpac4]

To me, this is trying to guilt me into going along with something that I don't agree with. I'm not acting out of hate.

I don't agree that you should be able to dictate to them how to live their lives and what rights they are afforded in the country they have just as much right to be in as you.