Gallup: Record number of people (including Republicans) now support Same-Sex Marriage

mindlight said:

Right and wrong does not require popular consent to be what it is. This is a symptom of a fallen culture increasingly divorced from Christian perceptions on reality.

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I find that I agree with the first sentence and disagree with the second.

First, I do not think your culture is 'fallen'. I don't really understand what that can mean. Nor do I think that tolerance of others is a bad thing.

(As for 'christian perceptions' I think they are a bit irrelevant to a secular society; nor have I been able to find any reference to homosexual conduct in the Gospels. The New Testament references are from the writings of St Paul and Timothy, not to me quite the same thing.)

mindlight said:

Right and wrong does not require popular consent to be what it is. This is a symptom of a fallen culture increasingly divorced from Christian perceptions on reality.

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This is where you have it 100% wrong.

Right and wrong is decided by public consent unless it's imposed by a dictator. That's why different societies have always had different rules. Right and wrong are determined by when and where you live and by the culture you inhabit.

Christianity once had the power to dictate morality by imposing its version of right and wrong.

Fortunately we're now mature enough to decide for ourselves and set aside arbitrary Christian rules.

OB

Pavel Mosko said:

1. It's not surprising. Liberals have been working to mainstream homosexuality since the 1970s, are we really that surprised that they slowly are changing the social climate in spite of things like religious taboos and other kinds of social resistance?

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But conservatives have been working just as hard to establish conservative values.

hedrick said:

But conservatives have been working just as hard to establish conservative values.

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Yeah but we don't have the institutions except for things like private schools, universities, etc. But we don't have the mainstream ones that really affect the culture by and large.


I also disagree with "just as hard". It is not just as hard, conservatives lobby party time most of the time, while many times liberals can make their cause a full time missionary/defacto religion thing. Their are only a few Moral Majority, Pat Robertson types that you can point to as a direct equivalency , and the optics on them is not that good most of the time.

Pavel Mosko said:

Yeah but we don't have the institutions except for things like private schools, universities, etc.

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Huh? You have whole state governments, and the national government until people rejected it in disgust. At the beginning of this, most institutions agreed with you. Institutions have changed in their support just as the population did. At this point, you're right. But at this point that's how the population feels.

You're also right that gays and people supporting them have campaigned for years. But at the beginning even more conservatives campaigned in the other direction. Why did one side win?

I suggest it's because many people perceived it as just another kind of discrimination, with no better justification than the last kind. Again, this isn't a logical argument. Logically, discrimination against gays might be justified while discrimination against blacks was not. But I think people preceived it as the same.

The Biblical argument might convince conservative Christians, but because it had been used to justify opposition to mixed marriages and even slavery, I think a lot of people didn't find it convincing. Again, logically this one could be right even though the others were bogus. But when it's generally the same conservative Christians making it, I think people simply didn't find it worth listening to.

OK I guess I need to define my side in the argument. I am not talking about, nor advocating things like "repression", discrimination, etc. like stuff that led to things like "the Stone Wall Uprising", nor am I interested in "imposing Biblical values" on such people like many conservatives.

I am however talking about things like celebrating gay culture, about considering it as healthy as heterosexual relationships and insisting on that as a kind of dogma even when the data says otherwise. (When this happens that data is always blamed on things homophobia, "internalized homophobia", no matter how gay friendly the community and culture comes).

Gallop usually only polls up to 1500 people. That leaves tens of millions un-polled on the subject.

The article says, "The company also broke down responses, calculated through a random sample of phone interviews with 1,000 adults, based on age groups."

That's why I think polls aren't worth a hill of beans.

hedrick said:

Huh? You have whole state governments, and the national government until people rejected it in disgust. At the beginning of this, most institutions agreed with you. Institutions have changed in their support just as the population did. At this point, you're right. But at this point that's how the population feels.

You're also right that gays and people supporting them have campaigned for years. But at the beginning even more conservatives campaigned in the other direction. Why did one side win?

I suggest it's because many people perceived it as just another kind of discrimination, with no better justification than the last kind. Again, this isn't a logical argument. Logically, discrimination against gays might be justified while discrimination against blacks was not. But I think people preceived it as the same.

The Biblical argument might convince conservative Christians, but because it had been used to justify opposition to mixed marriages and even slavery, I think a lot of people didn't find it convincing. Again, logically this one could be right even though the others were bogus. But when it's generally the same conservative Christians making it, I think people simply didn't find it worth listening to.

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When you combine it with critiques of religion that are common in our culture going back centuries, it's not hard to see why people would take it seriously. Those kinds of arguments that Christians used were perceived as self-serving and meant to defend power structures that benefited elites in society.

Pavel Mosko said:

I am however talking about things like celebrating gay culture, about considering it as healthy as heterosexual relationships and insisting on that as a kind of dogma even when the data says otherwise.

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Hmm. The thread is not about celebration; it is about acceptance. I have noticed dogma on this issue and it relies on a certain religious, actually biblical, standpoint.

America is a secular state. Faith groups can forbid or at least discourage their following from same sex marriage (and they need not perform marriage ceremonies between same sex couples). That is where religious authority ends.

From the poll cited here it seems that a large and growing number of Americans take that view.

Pavel Mosko said:

OK I guess I need to define my side in the argument. I am not talking about, nor advocating things like "repression", discrimination, etc. like stuff that led to things like "the Stone Wall Uprising", nor am I interested in "imposing Biblical values" on such people like many conservatives.

I am however talking about things like celebrating gay culture, about considering it as healthy as heterosexual relationships and insisting on that as a kind of dogma even when the data says otherwise. (When this happens that data is always blamed on things homophobia, "internalized homophobia", no matter how gay friendly the community and culture comes).

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The data doesn't suggest people coming out is the least bit unhealthy, quite the opposite in fact.

The fight was never primarily about gay culture (which isn't a singular thing and never has been), but simply what Justice Louis Brandeis said was the fundamental right for an individual, the "right to be left alone". Coming out was part of making people realize that anti-gay laws and discrimination caused harm. If that offended some people... that's their problem. Nobody should have to apologize for being who they are.

MMXX said:

Gallop usually only polls up to 1500 people. That leaves tens of millions un-polled on the subject.
That's why I think polls aren't worth a hill of beans.

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110% of the people who feel as you do are not very good at statistics.

"See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ." (Col 2:8)

The world holds forth many truth claims utterly opposed to God's word. God's word, on the other hand, is truth (Jn 17:17). God's word has been challenged ever since the serpent entered the garden and deceived Eve. It's the same old story. Just another twist.

cj. said:

"See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ." (Col 2:8)

The world holds forth many truth claims utterly opposed to God's word. God's word, on the other hand, is truth (Jn 17:17). God's word has been challenged ever since the serpent entered the garden and deceived Eve. It's the same old story. Just another twist.

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In a past thread I wrote that 100 years ago sacred and secular society would have pretty much agreed on moral rules and facts. Today secular society has ,finally, decided to go its own way in a number of areas where religious opinion can't be justified.

This is a list of some of the areas where church dogma and public opinion have parted company:

• Abortion
• Assisted dying
• Same sex marriage
• Gender transition
• Evolution
• Age of the Earth/Universe
• Biblical literalism e.g.
  • Genesis
  • Noah’s flood
  • The Tower of Babel

• Acceptance of non-stereotypical gender behaviour
• Sexual activity outside of marriage
• Acceptance of homosexuality
• Female equality
• Contraception
• Marriage like relationships (aka 'shacking up')
• Children out of wedlock (single or partnered)
• Divorce

OB

GOD Shines Forth! said:

I wonder at the extent of this "support". Many people these days are tired of endless controversies and see all this weird stuff going on and are like "Fine, do what you gotta do". Is that "support"?

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Compared to what came before? Yes.

And thankfully, not having perfect strangers try to control and sabotage ones life is all the support most people usually need in their lives.

GOD Shines Forth! said:

I wonder at the extent of this "support". Many people these days are tired of endless controversies and see all this weird stuff going on and are like "Fine, do what you gotta do". Is that "support"?

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The absence of name calling and discrimination would be a good start.

OB

MMXX said:

Gallop usually only polls up to 1500 people. That leaves tens of millions un-polled on the subject.

The article says, "The company also broke down responses, calculated through a random sample of phone interviews with 1,000 adults, based on age groups."

That's why I think polls aren't worth a hill of beans.

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I think you need to take a course in statistics.

If the sample is properly randomized, a 1000 people is a more than adequate sample size to determine the overall distribution for an entire population, pretty much regardless of size. That's like stat 101 stuff.

Occams Barber said:

In a past thread I wrote that 100 years ago sacred and secular society would have pretty much agreed on moral rules and facts. Today secular society has ,finally, decided to go its own way in a number of areas where religious opinion can't be justified.

This is a list of some of the areas where church dogma and public opinion have parted company:

• Abortion
• Assisted dying
• Same sex marriage
• Gender transition
• Evolution
• Age of the Earth/Universe
• Biblical literalism e.g.
  • Genesis
  • Noah’s flood
  • The Tower of Babel

• Acceptance of non-stereotypical gender behaviour
• Sexual activity outside of marriage
• Acceptance of homosexuality
• Female equality
• Contraception
• Marriage like relationships (aka 'shacking up')
• Children out of wedlock (single or partnered)
• Divorce

OB

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Are you trying to say that the Tower of Babel never existed, or just that it wasn't the original source of all of the world's languages?

trunks2k said:

I think you need to take a course in statistics.

If the sample is properly randomized, a 1000 people is a more than adequate sample size to determine the overall distribution for an entire population, pretty much regardless of size. That's like stat 101 stuff.

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All evidence is equal: the flaw in statistical reasoning