gay marriage
- Thread starter cfleck
- Start date
lilbandit
I hate Meath
They can give birth a) with outside help such as surrogacy or b) children from a previous relationship. Basically, 2 men cannot reproduce by themselves. Neither can 2 women. I also think that ivf is a tricky issue, but thats for another day. That said, I just feel that a child would benefit more from a heterosexual family. It is more balanced, a gay couple (male or female) would not provide that same basic human balance found in a traditional family unit. A mother and a father is (in my mind) the best option and in a situation such as adoption, a loving and committed hetero couple would always have priority. I suppose that as a teacher I see the effects of family breakup every day. Some of the children in my classes don't come into consistent contact with a male until they reach senior cycle primary school (around 9-12 yrs old). The children that are well adjusted typically have at least one loving parent (male or female) but crucially in these cases there is always a healthy amount of contact with both sexes. I'm not just talking about a grandfather who calls around once or twice a week, but a consistent and sustained pattern. For example,collection from school and then an hour or so spent in male or female company (whatever the case may be). I'm just commenting on real situations that I have noticed while working with children. It goes without saying that in general the children who fare best are those with a committed mother and father at home.In terms of gay adoption, how can they compete with a loving hetero couple?
octane
I have issues, OK!
mdnky said:
I'm not going to dignify that with an answer.
If you can't figure it out for yourself, I'm not telling you.
I think the situation we have here is a lot of people in a mad rush to assume the moral high-ground.
I prefer it down here, I can see more clearly from where I'm standing...
lilbandit
I hate Meath
In the world of adoption it is that simple, the Department of health and children (or your equivalent social service) vet people based on interviews, background checks, psychologcal assessments, references from neighbours, work, everything. If a gay couple want to adopt this is what they must go through, the same as everybody else. My point is simply this, if it is deemed necessary to take a child into care, they more than anyone else need the most stable and productive environment possible. I think that by their very definition, a gay couple simpy cannot provide round the clock stability and balance between the sexes. That said, families are not perfect and life outside adoption is not that simple. Yet I see no reason to dilute the requirements for potential adoptive parents to satisfy gay rights.
speedfreak
Registered
When exactly did marriage become a right?
speedfreak
Registered
If it were a right one could marry whomever they wished. This is not the case. One cannot marry their sibling for example. or their cousin. Shall we allow this also. Why? or Why not?
Viro
Registered
mdnky said:
Err... lemme guess. Because in the UK at least, back in the late 1700s and early 1800s, the whole anti-slave movement was started by Bible believing Christians, who became convinced from the Bible that God created man equal and that slavery was wrong? Look up James Ramsay, John Newton, and William Wilberforce.
Keep in mind though, that these people were Christians who believed in the Bible, and used the Bible as the basis of determining what's right or wrong. To over-simplify things, they looked at what scripture said, and became convinced that slavery was wrong, and the sweeping reforms were necessary.
The situation now with gay marriages is completely different. The churches that do support it, don't really believe the Bible. To support their argument, they point to the bits in the Bible that talk about God who's loving, but then they completely ignore the other bits in the Bible where this loving God says that gay sexual-relationship is wrong. If you believe that God is loving, then you must accept that he does things in your best interest. So if he prohibits gay relationships it must be in your best interest, even if you don't agree with/understand it. Any good parent will impose prohibitions on their children as long as it is in their best interest. The child does not necessarily agree/understand, I know I didn't!
As a Bible believing Christian, whose moral compass is the word of God, you can't expect me to suddenly do an about turn and impose an idea that doesn't fit in with what I know the Bible says. That would make me a hypocrite.
This isn't an attack against gays. Just because I don't agree with you doesn't mean that I'll persecute/reject you. The Bible does tell us to love one another. The Greek word love here is agape, which is like the love a father shows his son. It isn't eros which has a sexual meaning to it. So Christians are called to love everyone, including gays.
That is why many of the churches in the UK are against gay marriage. That is why I am against gay marriage. It may be that you don't believe in the Bible, it may be that you believe in 'something', not the God who has revealed himself in the Bible. You may now walk away thinking that Christians are the worst bigots, the homophobes, the hypocrites. The whole reason Christians are willing to stand up on this issue and be ridiculed by society isn't because they get some kick out of doing it, and ego trip, or because of some martyr complex. It is because we believe in the Bible, and we believe that it is in the best interest of everybody, especially gays that what the Bible says is followed. If Christians believe in that, would it be loving for them to turn a blind eye, and allow gay marriage to go ahead unchallenged?
octane
I have issues, OK!
mdnky said:
You flatter yourself, you really do.
I think you are so keen to be seen to be all-welcoming and complicit with the tolerance of 'modern society' you are more than prepared to allow your holier-than-thou attitude to ride roughshod over common-sense mental fail-safes.
You are the kind of person likely to call me a homophobe.
What kind of world do we live in when there is a pseudo-scientific word conjured up to describe the entirely reasonable and normal act of revulsion towards the idea of homosexuality?
If you cannot see how or why the aforementioned example is so bad, I feel sorry for you.
At some point in your life, you've lost site of the very simple, basic elemental constructs of what it is to be a human...
Viro said:
But see there lies the problem. According to the law (US) there is no god. What would make someone a hypocrite is to force others to be discriminated against through applying that person's religious beliefs on them. People need to live by their own beliefs, not force everyone else to live by them.
How exactly does it harm you if some gay couple is married? It doesn't at all. You just don't like the idea of it. Most children don't like to eat vegetables...should we outlaw carrots and celery just for that reason? The mere thought of it is downright silly.
octane
I have issues, OK!
mdnky said:
Mdnky, this is entirely correct, and I agree with you whole-heartedly.
I say let gays marry, that has been my assertion all along, but that does not mean that I recognize gay unions, in the same way I don't recognize religion as being any more meaningful or significant than a club or membership.
I think the overall argument of this thread has split into three: the socioreligious context, the biological context and the issue of civil liberties.
Only this morning, a survey was published in the UK that shows that religious belief has declined massively in the UK. The figure of UK church-goers is something like 21%.
So with those figures, you can separate a union between two people from its religious connotations.
Gay people are not mentally or physically incapacitated in any way. They work, they pay taxes.
What worries me is not so much the issue of gay marriage in itself, but the depressing precedence this issue creates.
At some point, I may well bring a child into this world. What world might that be with such blithe and sycophantic attitudes that we are no longer prepared nor able to draw sensible lines in the sand where on one side we have simple common sense and an adherence to very simple, basic rights & wrongs and on the other we have political correctness gone mad and veraciously blind and deliberately evasive and obstructive of what is right and wrong?
Who knows why 'gayness' exists, maybe it is a biological mechanism to reduce population growth, there are other theories.
Scientist definitely 'know' what makes a person gay [something to do with a dispersal of protein molecules in some part of the brain], but what depressed me even further was when I read some years ago where some American think tank who were on the verge of proposing a bill to ban couples from aborting or even performing pre-natal corrective therapy on a child who had been identified has having biology conducive to homosexuality.
Why? What moral imperative would this fulfill? The answer is clear: none.
The only motive is a 'popularist' agenda, to make a minority of people happy in the face of a frowning majority.
What the f*ck is happening to this world we all call home? [insert theory here...]
octane said:
There's "pseudo-scientific words" for just about every fear out there...why should this be any different? Spiders, Heights, Planes, Tight Spaces, etc...the list is endless. Fear is best diagnosed by the person with the fear, so you can enlighten us as to the status if you wish. It's not a thing I really have any interest in one way or another, but a problem you need to solve for yourself.
octane said:
No, just want you to actually give a reason for such a statement. Prove it wrong or "so bad". Quite honestly I think you're just skirting around the issue at hand.
octane said:
"holier-than-thou attitude"? [ROFL]
No, I have quite a few friends who are affected by such things. I've known many of them a long time and respect them. They deserve the exact same fair and equal treatment as I do IMHO. If I can marry the person I'm dating and fell in love with (legally), why can't they? I could put a ring on her finger quite easily, but exactly what would that accomplish? That option is open to us, but to some of my friends it's not. Simply because of the prejudice harbored by others. I find that to be absolutely and totally ignorant and downright disgusting.
The simplest, most basic element of human existence (besides life) is happiness.
octane
I have issues, OK!
mdnky said:
Well whippydo! Aren't we the modern man!
Who cares what friends you have? Does that somehow elevate you to a higher point in the argument because you know a few gay people?
[?]
Odd, very odd.
mdnky said:
Try reading my posts before asking a question to which I've already furnished you with an answer to.
Also, I did answer your question about why the analogy was wrong. The answer is in my previous post, but to see it, you have know what you're looking for, and you clearly don't.
I don't have to skirt round any issue, what the hell makes you think that?
I can knock anyone into cocked hat on just about any issue I feel strongly about and I've argued your point more clearly and coherently than you can ever do; gay people are not dysfunctional .. they pay taxes et cetera.
I've argued with more tenacious people than you in my sleep!
I have to ask you this: is any of this your opinion or is it all second-hand? I meet _so_ many people like you who go with any faddy, up-to-the-minute buzz-word issue without even equipping yourself with the full scope of the matter at hand.
It's that fashionable opinion people are all talking about in some trendy bar, it's that right-on issue you read about in a magazine.
I like to make my own opinion by seeing _both_ sides of the argument, not lurching towards the one with the cow eyes and hard-done-by look...