Same Sex Marriges - What's the problem?

[TheFirstForgottenSoul]

Answer: there should be none! Who cares what one person's sexual orientation or religion is? That's what America's about. Freedom. Those against it aren't going to take advantage of that freedom, so why bother making it illegal? This country has the freedom of religion, so why try to push some religion on the rest of us?

I know I will never even think of beniffiting from samesex marriage on a personal level. I'm straight. And, technically, I am a Christian, though I don't beleive in everything many Christians do. I've never had a problem with homosexuality. Just don't try to marry me, and I'll be fine. If it's not hurting anyone, and people are in fact benifiting from it, how could you possibly want to ban it? Even if religously you believe it to be wrong, let them find out on their own then.

Edited: Also, think of this, as Chibi_riki said. With more same sex marriages, there willbe more adoptions. With more adoptions, there will be less children in oprhanages.

Also, there is another thing. Many Christians are afraid of being outnumbered by Non-Christians. The problem is, many churches don't believe that someone can be gay or bisexual and still be Christian.

[BloodRedOath]

I agree that it should be legal, but the problem is others don't, and they never will. I'm pretty sure that they think its a bad idea because it would change the definition of the word "marriage" (although it's not like there's an absolute official definition for every word in every language anyway), or because they in general don't like gay couples. There's really no way to convince either side because, like I said, there's no ASBSOLUTE definition of a word, and because people who are homophobic or just hate gay people...well....are homophobic or hate gay people. Not really easy to change.

Btw, America is about freedom, but there are limits. If we didnt have any limits then there would be no laws.

The problems are really these: "hurting" to some is the whole marriage word thing, about the definition of it, and the tradition of it being a man and a woman, and anyone who's religious in the way that they'd care about this so strongly that they'd want it to be illegal is probably religious enough to hate the idea of it happening anywhere in the world regardless of whether it directly affects them or not.

[Minty]

I've seen a bit of discussion about this somewhere else, and unfortunately the argument doesn't seem to be quite as simple as that anymore. Talk about personal and social rights and distinctions between marriage and other forms of union is inevitably going to come down to money, economics and the betterment of society as a whole at some point or another. And people also invoke the snowballing argument that if same-sex marriage is for equality, what is there stopping that notion of equality spreading to other types of sexuality (e.g. incest, paedophilia, bestiality etc. etc. - how far the comparison stretches is your opinion).

[Hikuro]

What's wrong with Civil Union? It's the exact same rights and privilages as someone getting married, you can even dress it up as Marriage. Besides marriages are done in a church, sure you can a court house or a backyard, but it's done with a member who represents god, but when Churches shun homosexuality, sort of makes it pointless doesn't it?

[AmyAnn]

Hikuro makes a point.

However, I am all for same sex marriages. I know plenty of same sex couples and a family member or two. I think anyone should be able to unite together through this bond, no matter what sex they are.

[Luchia]

My moms best friend she loves another women, I think that is fine; I dont see any bad things about it... if someone loves someone it should be aloud. But I guess the reason is because people and their religious views and how if you are a women you are expected to marry a man and same for a man to marry a women, i dont think its a big deal; I hate how in California they are taking away that law saying they are aloud to marry the same sex.

[snowfender]

yeah, technically, many "married" people are not married according to some churches. i'm not gonna speak for all forms of Christianity, but i know Catholocism doesn't find any of the following forms marriage:

1. civil union (any marriage not done by a priest)
2. a marriage not inside a church
3. someone who has been legally divorced- they need to get an annulment

i support gay marriage. i'm not a Christian but i understand why Christians do believe that homosexuality is wrong. for many Christians, marriage is between two people who will share everything, soul and body, which includes sex. but Christianity teaches that sex should be for the love between two people, pro-creation, and honoring God's gift to humans. and two men and two women, as of now, can't have kids. that's why Christianity doesn't support pre-marital sex or (at least in Catholocisim) contraceptions like condoms and the pill. i do respect this view but i feel any person who has pre-marital sex and is against homosexuality is a hypocrite.

but yeah, i do support gay marriage. i believe you have one life and you might as well live it happily. i think some (not all, so please don't be offended) Christians are very ignorant of people who are gay and because of that they do have a lot of hate toward homosexuality, but that goes for all people of any religion or lack of religion.

[Russ]

It is unfortunate that people think that opposition to gay marriage is based on homophobia. And I wonder to some extent people just come up with that as an excuse because they don't want to confront the fact that there might be sound societal reasons for making a bright line between heterosex marriage and everything else.

So lemme just try to tackle this one. Like most sociological arguments, it can be a tad esoteric.

The one thing that every society MUST have in order to survive is a next generation which absorbs and passes on its values. Pretty much everything else is optional. And a society which does not simply abandon its elders once they can no longer support themselves must ensure that the population of each generation is not much less than that of the previous one - otherwise, the ratio of workers to retirees will so overburden the former that the entire system will collapse, or the number of soldiers to defend the society will be insufficient in the face of external threats.

So children must be produced. But a society that values freedom cannot force breeding, so instead it must have a system which encourages people to choose to bear and rear children on their own, averaging a bit over two children per couple. It turns out that the one circumstance which is most likely to accomplish this is one in which a woman is regularly intimate with a man whom she can rely upon to provide for her and her children. That is, heterosexual marriage or its equivalent. Nothing else comes close, so society has a vested interest in encouraging marriage, and the best way to do that is to privilege it above all alternatives.

It does that via legal subsidies and social pressure. Without social pressure, men have an incentive not to marry, but rather to enage in a sequence of temporary relationships, and avoid paying to support any children they provide. The strongest way to counter that is with the strong societal assumption that the proper behavior for a man is to marry a woman and support her. Every alternative situation that suggests that this is just one of many equally valid choices available diminishes the number of men who will actually marry, and thus the number of successful children.

A society which recognizes gay marriage as legally and socially about the same as straight marriage undermines this clear expectation. Even if there were no likelihood that a man would be motivated to choose a gay marriage over a straight one (that is, absolutely no bisexuals), the prominence of gay marriage acts as an excuse for men to avoid marrying women.

If we had a high fertility rate, it wouldn't matter, but right now most Western nations have a very low rate; the US is borderline and much of Europe (and Japan) has such a low rate as to be just a few generations from total collapse. Gay marriage could well be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

[snowfender]

If we had a high fertility rate, it wouldn't matter, but right now most Western nations have a very low rate; the US is borderline and much of Europe (and Japan) has such a low rate as to be just a few generations from total collapse. Gay marriage could well be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

well, yes there is a lower fertility rate, but there is a reason for that: an unstable economy worldwide. who wants to have children nowadays when they are in fear of losing their houses? the least of the worries at the moment is a lower fertility rate.. there are many homeless children worldwide because there are TOO many children and not enough people who want them. i'm not saying that you're not right about some reasons why homosexuality is seen as "bad," but there is little influence of homosexuality on the population birth rate. it's more like 1) less people want a family and 2) less people can afford a family. yes, less children are born because two men or two women can't give birth but i really doubt the societal hate towards gay people has anything to do with that.

a lot of young people are growing up HATING gays. like seeing a gay person and beating them up or calling them names wherever they go. it's not just a "sound societal reason" anymore- it's just hatred. society is NOT encouraging people to have children anymore. look at all the TV shows and movies, glorifying the "single life" and showing how awesome sex is because sex feels good, not sex = kids. even if people do get married now, many choose to not have kids in favor of their jobs or their lives. it seems that people are against same sex marriage because "the Bible said it's evil" and yet they can go off and do whatever they want that is against the Bible, since it's not as big of a controversy. it's because they were raised to believe something, not because of societal preservation.

and i understand what you mean too. yeah, there are people who do believe in the sanctity of marriage, but how many people believe marriage is sacred because of the reasons you have listed or the reasons of Christianity? it's definitely not the majority of people anymore.

[Matt Cruea]

The problems, for most people, have to do with religion. The question our courts are asking is whether "marriage" is a religious institution or a governmental one, which it really is currently both. If there were no tax breaks given to married couples (an apocryphal holdover from the times of the dowry), then this would be so much less of an issue. Religious, straight couples want to protect their tax breaks. There's also a lot more homophobia in our nation than one might realize, and it's certainly not just in the south (what's up, California's Prop 8?).

There are so many factors, this debate is not likely to get solved any time soon.

As for my own views, I say let 'em get married. It's all good. However, I also do not deny the rights of those who oppose the idea. The way a Republic works, the majority rules. If they're the majority, so be it. We deal with it and move on. Vote again in a few years.