Same-sex marriage in Sweden/Gays in military

[SUBMAN1]

Letting Homo's live in peace is fine by me. Problem comes when they force their lifestyle on others as they are doing with marriage laws and other special rights.

-S

[SUBMAN1]

It goes along with our increasingly weaker country.

-S

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

Letting Homo's live in peace is fine by me. Problem comes when they force their lifestyle on others as they are doing with marriage laws and other special rights.

-S

What special rights?

[porphy]

I just mean that just because a physiological or physical abberation from a norm exists, this does not make it a norm in itself. The phenomenological existence of an exception to the rule may be called "normal" in the meaning of that it could happen, could appear, could take place, but nevertheless it is not necessarily a norm euqla to that to which it is an exception.

Sure, I agree that everything existing can't be normal, but what is normal or not, in numbers can't simply dictate what should be viewed as abnormal, meaning faulty. There is a difference between normal as in most common and normal/abnormal as in working/faulty.

Albinos also a reality, both people lacking pigments in their skin, or in their eyes - or both. Nevertheless that is in not the way our genetical design is meant to be, and even can cause disadvantages. Albonos are noi norm for our specie'S design - they are a copy of our design that happened to have been reproduced with a fault. Genetic mutations can be caused by environmental influence, but thexy can also take place atb random, due to an accident in the genetic reproduction sequence, and then eventually being carried over to the offspirngs of that individual. And medicine knows quite some of these egnetical diseases - and usually you would not call them "normal" in stati9ng that they are a norm of our design, the natural intnetion of how we were meant to be like, genetically. If homosecxuality is caused by differences in the hardware, it may be like this, too, thew thiung one could argue over is if this automtically makes it a "disease". IMO it does not, although that also has something to do with the subjective experience of suffering due to this aberation from a norm. but in a country of blin people, the seeing man would be called the ill, too - does this chnage the fact that nevertheless man's genetical design is such that man is meant to have two eyes for stereoscopical eye-view? Are hemophiliac people nromal in that they represent an evolutionary intended design feature of our species? Hardly.

Sure, but all your examples are about very clear cases of disease, or physiological problems, or organ dysfunction. As I already said, the analogy does not really hold up that well when it comes to homosexual disposition and sexual desire. Nothing is clearly wrong, or not working on that level of bodily functions, as with the eyes, blood, skin colour etc.
You actually point to a fault in how homosexual behaviour functions in relation to reproduction and the evolutionary survival of the species. This is not clearly a fault by any bodily design, as in your examples. I would agree more with you if that was the case.

I can see how it is very tempting though, to think and reason about homosexuality in that way. And I guess that is why scientific research always tries to pinpoint something abnormal and faulty in the homosexual persons body/brain that would explain this behaviour and sexual desire. In that context I find it important to remember how many of these tries that have failed to show anything conclusive throughout history, and the kind of abuse it has leant itself to.
It was not that long ago that criminal behaviour was thought to be traceable to a specific subtype of human. And early classical genetics was often thought of as a promising way to finally explain the criminal that was impossible to correct. The criminal person was simply physically abnormal, a deviation or showing examples of atavisms.

With homosexuality, it is the same, in my understanding, and it suffers sometimes more sometimes less disadvantages from it, but I cannot see a single positive advantage from it. In a homosexual world, individuals would be unable to carry over their genes to the next generation in a natural way, although this is a basic principle of life on earth: genetical copying. Not too mention the suffering from communal constellatios and social system in a heterosexual world.

Well, you propose the thought of a homosexual world as a way of showing that it can't be of any evolutionary gain to the species reproduction. But my example of kin selection was an example of how poulation genetics have explained how a trait that in itself seems to stop its own genetic transmission, acctually is possible, or even something selected for in a positive way.
Homosexuality is a persistent and quite frequent trait in the human population. Kinsey in his days estimated about 4% of the population as homosexual, but if you count the amount of people that say they have sexual desires for the same sex that could well be 7%. How is it that this sexual disposition and desire seem to be both persistent and not that uncommon? If trying to explain it in a biological way, it must be accounted for on a evolutionary plane as well.

Homosexuality does nothing for the survival of the species, for it does nothing to help the species to reproduce: it even cannot reproduce, our species's design is to survive as a species by heterosexual reproduction. From evolution's standpoint, it is not anything else but a failing blueprint, unable to live on. When talking of survival, I do not mean "fight or flight", or something, but reproduction. Without reproducing, our species would die within 2-3 generations, for obvious reasons. If homosexuality would be normal in your understanding, it would be able to survive by itself - but it cannot.

But it does live on, does it not? Again, what about kin selection? This is not the same as cross coupling where good and bad traits get inherited together. It is debatable if one can use kin selection in this case, but it shows there are biological ways to understand how seemingly self contradictory traits, like being sterile, can be transmissioned genetically within a population without being classified as a fault, disorder or disease. In this case it would explain how grounds for a sexual disposition that results in no offspring still can be within the scope of positive natural selection, it is then not a failed blueprint. Homosexuality is about sexual desire and behaviour in general is no doubt more complex to explain this way compared to being sterile, but the function you find abnormal and faulty is the same as being sterile.

Homosexuality can be found as a phenomenen appearing in many mammal species. But in no mammal species it is "normal", but appears to take place in form of a violation of the norm, or violation of a rule - not because it is intended by the genetical rule/design/evolutionary intention. It is a genetic accident, something like that, an accident that does not cvause a retarded mind or three arms and four eyes, but an unproductive sexual orientation. We also fail to understand or to demonstrate any evolutionary advantage for the individual from being homosexual, or to see an advantage from it for the social context and the community in which the homosexual individual lives. Society wins nothing from the example of homosexuality, but history shows that it can be able to tolerate it, like we also tolerate somebody having something harmless like a flu. But with animals you often see that it allows the animal to gain relief from sexual energetic pressure that it cannot relieve by mating with an individual of the other gender when such an matching partner is not available. Whether it be there are no female animals around, or they are all being "reserved" by other male partners.

I would be a bit more careful with expressions like "violation of a rule" or "intended by the genetical rule/design/evolutionary intention" in a Darwinian context. And to provoke you a bit more, doesn't it seem to be at least to some part a successful genetic accident, as it seems to live on quite happily? Adopting some flavour of Richard Dawkins way of thought provoking images, one could perhaps say that the "homosexual genes" have found the perfect way to live on, as the heterosexual part of the human population only is the vehicle for their propagation.

Yes, I agree it is not that that easy to point out what advantage the same sex sexual behaviour should give evolutionary or in a society. But for example it has been argued that homosexuality gives a more stable society, as individuals can form stable sexual relations in both homosexual and heterosexual ways. A stable society (think of a group of individuals where there is fierce competition for mating) is beneficial for reproduction in general within the group. On a larger scale this could be just enough for natural selection to work on. Or as a recent study from Italy is said to have showed, that the maternal relatives of homosexual men have more children than the maternal relatives of heterosexual men. If this is true, it could suggest that there is a reproductive benefit to women whose DNA tends to result in homosexual male children. See, with biology you can argue anything.

Homosexuality may appear with a certain frequency, but I completely fail to see why that makes it a norm in itself, or even a norm euqal to that of heterosexuality, or makes it appear to be normal with regard to the genetical design of the species. that some genetical abberations in diseases come together with a positive side effect, in some cases is true, for example sichel-cell-anemia raises your immunity to Malaria, however, nobody so far has been able to show such effects for the majority of known diseases - or for homosexuality. Such examples as I just gave, are expections to the rule which appear with a certain frequency - they are not part of the content of the rule itself.

You can also eventually see a broken-down car driving home on just three tires. that does not make it normal. The norm is that a car has four tires. Anything less is called a malfunctioning car. To what ammount the driver cares, is his business. just when he drives in public on three tires, security concerns become valid - and then it is the community's business as well.

I think I commented already about the design thing. And I don't mean that homosexuality is the norm in humans. But what is the rule and what is a deviation of the rule depends on where you start. I think you sometimes overstate the importance of the rule thinking as you connect it to intended design, hardware and blueprints.
And you know, there are three wheeled cars produced as we speak. Not only Mr Bean has one.

I agree on your last remarks on "desires to share the majority's way of normal living". but I cannot help it, family and marriage are terms reserved for certain social constellation which define these terms, and these constellations nevertheless also are of vital importance for the communal interest and the oingoing exoistence of the society. A person being born with a crippled leg maybe also desires to be "normal" and to compete in running competitions, but his leg is simply against that. he will not grow a new, healthy leg just becasue he wishes for it. Nobody should hinder gays or lesbians to live together if they want, all fine and okay with me, and if one dies, he/she shall even have the right to leave his possessions under the same regulations and conditons like they are legally valid for heterosexual couples, for God's sake: okay, do it like that if that makes them happy and forms social peace Just when they want the same privileges and finacial support and material boni and legal protection that the far mor important institutions of family and related marriages enjoy, and are guaranteed to be given in several Wetsern constitutions - then I become willing to start a fight. and as I said and as Henry also said: quite some many homosexual themselves argue against seeing family as such an arbitrary thing that it could be used as a term to describe homosexual relations as well, maybe even adopting children. This is where my understanding ends and turns into determined rejection.

I think those "representaives" of gay/lesbian lobby organisations we use to see on tV, are not representing a majoirty of their subcommunity, like the hyperaggressive, provoking nudity at Cristopher street Day alöso probably is not representing a majority of their sub-community's general sexual attitude. It's just that they are so incredibly noisy, and the majority that just wishes to live in peace and normality, unrecognised by the general public, does not wish to start a high profile in the media, spoiling their privacy and adressing the media themselves by that.

for heaven's sake, start making such a fuss about these things, guys, and start to please the lobby orgnaisation only, they are little more than noisemakers. just let homosexual couples live in peace and do not make a show of how tolerant about them you are. I am very sure that this is what the vast majority of them wants. - Would you like to see reports about yourself constantly in the media, and people always telling you at every damn opportunity that they think you are "nevertheless very much okay", and that they "nevertheless accept you" and consider you to be "normal"? Hardly.

Please no more crippled legs and three wheeled cars! I need to sleep now... But before that, I have to say something about the terms family and marriage. I agree that you can't change them and their use according to every whim, but I think one can see where they are possible to extend. Concepts are not rigid by nature and they are usually open ended.

Families are vital parts of society, true, but a homosexual family is not that far of from a heterosexual one as far as I know. Two parents and a for example two adopted children (or female couple with a natural born child or two) living together and being responsible to each other.
I'm not convinced about the role model argument you wrote about earlier. There will probably be enough of male and female role modelling available for the kids in their lives anyway. If one allow families like that, they will also be families that actually do support and bring benefits to the society, not just a cost. Isn't more working families even better from a social point of view?

And the ones that want to live unnoticed in peace and normality as you say, well nothing stops them from doing that, gay marriage approved or not. As I understand it, the thing is not so much about if we accept them as totally normal, the thing is about if people who prefer the same sex and that really want to have a family, children, marriage and legal rights, can have that or not.

Anyway, time to sleep now. I enjoyed the discussion!

[Platapus]

"You don't need to be 'straight' to fight for your country. You just need to shoot straight."
-- Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ)

[Zachstar]

Not if you are going for range!

[Onkel Neal]

Threads merged. Boy, you guys have gay on the brain.

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

Letting Homo's live in peace is fine by me. Problem comes when they force their lifestyle on others as they are doing with marriage laws and other special rights.

-S

So gays being allowed to marry makes you gay?

They are just wanting to get married, they aren't forcing anything on you.

[Aramike]

Originally Posted by Rilder

So gays being allowed to marry makes you gay?

They are just wanting to get married, they aren't forcing anything on you.

Sure they are forcing something on the rest of us. They are forcing others to recognize a marriage which they believe demeans the very term. It's actually more flagrant than, say, the right displaying the Ten Commandments on public land.

Ironic how the left seems to think that would be an infringement of rights (although there's literally no effect to those who don't believe) while they proclaim gay marriage as harmless...

Personally, I'd be fine with allowing civil unions in place of the term "marriage". Why? Because using a different term would allow for different rules as well as respect the traditions of the institution of marriage.

But what really pisses me off about gay activist groups is when they claim to what "equal" rights as the rest of us. Umm, they do have equal rights. Literally. Any man, regardless of sexual orientation, can marry a woman. What they want are SPECIAL rights.

What's sick to me, however, is that these groups sadly tend to identify themselves almost solely by their sexual preference. Maybe one day they'll realize that it's easier for the mainstream to accept that which isn't being shoved down their throats (no pun intended).

[Max2147]

I just can't wrap my head around how gay marriage somehow weakens the institution of marriage.

Let's face it, marriage isn't in great shape right now. Our divorce rate is sky-high, and domestic violence is all too common. I don't see how allowing truly loving couples to marry, even if they're the same gender, somehow weakens an institution that's supposed to be about love. There are a lot of heterosexual marriages out there that do a lot more harm to the institution than a loving homosexual marriage ever will.

To me the right of marriage is the right to marry the person you love, and right now gays/lesbians are being denied that right.

All that said, I see civil unions as an acceptable alternative. For that matter, I think all marriages should be seen as civil unions in the eyes of the law. Give the term "marriage" back to the religious institutions, where it belongs.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by porphy

Sure, I agree that everything existing can't be normal, but what is normal or not, in numbers can't simply dictate what should be viewed as abnormal, meaning faulty. There is a difference between normal as in most common and normal/abnormal as in working/faulty.

Fine. then let'S say homosexuality is abnormal indeed. It is a faulty copying of man'S natural sexual orientation. For sex has a meaning and purpose, that is reproduction - the pleasure we take form it, is just a trick by nature to turn us into addicts although raising children is a tough job. And for that, memebers of a heterosexual species must be attracted by the other gender, not by their own.

Sure, but all your examples are about very clear cases of disease, or physiological problems, or organ dysfunction. As I already said, the analogy does not really hold up that well when it comes to homosexual disposition and sexual desire. Nothing is clearly wrong, or not working on that level of bodily functions, as with the eyes, blood, skin colour etc.
You actually point to a fault in how homosexual behaviour functions in relation to reproduction and the evolutionary survival of the species. This is not clearly a fault by any bodily design, as in your examples. I would agree more with you if that was the case.

We disaagree. Where homosexuality does not come as a psychological reaction to stressful experiences, traumata (never heared of just a single case liekt hat, btw.), or is not tried for reasons of curiosity (and read Henry's comments if you think homosexuals just choose to be gay/lesbian, I still wait to meet the first person ever to say that this was the case for him/her), and is correlated with hardcoded differences in physiological chemistry and brainstructure, your argument already has become invalid by your own claim. It's just that the subjective dlevel of suffering experienced form that may differ for the affected people, and not necessarily a suffering of the community. so we can afford not to impose sanctions or even brainsurgery on them. Man is not meant to be an albino. Nor is he meant to be gay or lesbian. He occasionally may try that when young, for curiosity, I suppose most do not, and those who tried it, may return to their normal sexual orientation nevertheless. For these it may be right what you say. But all-life-homosexuals do not chose their orientation. They have no other choice, like you and me do not have a choice regarding the skin colour we want to have.

I can see how it is very tempting though, to think and reason about homosexuality in that way. And I guess that is why scientific research always tries to pinpoint something abnormal and faulty in the homosexual persons body/brain that would explain this behaviour and sexual desire. In that context I find it important to remember how many of these tries that have failed to show anything conclusive throughout history, and the kind of abuse it has leant itself to.

, that it has been abused does not make it less valid. And if there is genetically encoded causes for homosexuality that represent accidents or abberations from a regular genetic copying procedure, then there is nothing discriminatory in stating that. Discirmination lies in what consequences one justifies by the scientific finding. By what you say, scientific research should be forbidden in case of any possible results eventually being unwelcomed. That is not acceptable for me. It reminds me a bot too muh of the medieval, the chruche'S power and the way it tried to silence people like Copernicus and Gallilei.

It was not that long ago that criminal behaviour was thought to be traceable to a specific subtype of human. And early classical genetics was often thought of as a promising way to finally explain the criminal that was impossible to correct. The criminal person was simply physically abnormal, a deviation or showing examples of atavisms.

We know that sociopathy can lead to criminal behavir. Sociopathy, the hints are mounting, is genetically caused, and causes a misfunctioning brain physiology. Kleptomania also is increasingly linked to neural deficits in the brain. I do not know, though, how far it has gone already. However, our behavior and acting for us humans must have correlates in the material-physical-physiological world, we do not form thoughts in a metaphysical sphere of substancelessness. there is the world of neurons, electirc potentials, chemical bridging of neural gaps. there is the reason why neurons are hardwired they way they are, and not in a different way. There is neutrotransmitter substances, hormones, pheromones. Nothing we do we do wiothout solid-matter-processes taking place somewhere in our body.

Well, you propose the thought of a homosexual world as a way of showing that it can't be of any evolutionary gain to the species reproduction. But my example of kin selection was an example of how poulation genetics have explained how a trait that in itself seems to stop its own genetic transmission, acctually is possible, or even something selected for in a positive way.

Oh, I have understood that, it'S just that I cannot see that positive, neither for the individual, nor the community. at best, it causes no negatives for anybody (which is not the case considering that a gay man meets a certain ammount of social pressure that in most cases makes him to hide. On the other hand, what is so fantatsic in letting all the world know that one is gay? As if the world must care for that).

Homosexuality is a persistent and quite frequent trait in the human population. Kinsey in his days estimated about 4% of the population as homosexual, but if you count the amount of people that say they have sexual desires for the same sex that could well be 7%. How is it that this sexual disposition and desire seem to be both persistent and not that uncommon? If trying to explain it in a biological way, it must be accounted for on a evolutionary plane as well.

Mutation, maybe, not always mutations are psoitve, or even have any meaning at all. Evolution has no linear cause, it just adds somethign here, and removes somethign there, and sometimes it is not for the better but the worse of a given design. Short-sightedness also is very priminent in our species now. It is passed from generation to generation, in families. Does thius make it a natural characteristic of ours? No. It very clearly is a fault, a sign for decreasing quality of the gen-pool. This is a contradiction to modenr medicine that many do niot like to be mentioned, and they immeditaely start arguing with the Naz9i doctors and such: but fatc is that modern medicine helps to destabilize the human gen pool, for it increases the life-expectancy of geneticall ill people that before would have died, and in enables them to reproduce and multiply their genetic defects. That'S why the number of heamophiles is rising, for example. It may be politically uncorrect to mention this, but nevertheless it is true. The scientific data and the ethical debate, are two different things here. But ethics cannot chnage the research data. they can (and should) only influence the way the data is being used for forming consequences in our decisions and deeds.

But it does live on, does it not? Again, what about kin selection? This is not the same as cross coupling where good and bad traits get inherited together. It is debatable if one can use kin selection in this case, but it shows there are biological ways to understand how seemingly self contradictory traits, like being sterile, can be transmissioned genetically within a population without being classified as a fault, disorder or disease. In this case it would explain how grounds for a sexual disposition that results in no offspring still can be within the scope of positive natural selection, it is then not a failed blueprint. Homosexuality is about sexual desire and behaviour in general is no doubt more complex to explain this way compared to being sterile, but the function you find abnormal and faulty is the same as being sterile.

As far as I understand you, I cannot agree to your argument.

I would be a bit more careful with expressions like "violation of a rule" or "intended by the genetical rule/design/evolutionary intention" in a Darwinian context. And to provoke you a bit more, doesn't it seem to be at least to some part a successful genetic accident, as it seems to live on quite happily?

That may be becasue mankind has stopped to hunt down and slaughter gay people. No, serious, that means nothing. Many genetically caused diseases are living on. As I said somewhere earlier, some of these may have advanatges for a population (see the Malaria-example), but most of them, accroding to all what we know today, simply are this: diseases, withiut comensating advantages. they remained be carried over to the next egneration before modern medicine showed up, and since moern times, medicine even may have starrted to help them being spread.

Adopting some flavour of Richard Dawkins way of thought provoking images, one could perhaps say that the "homosexual genes" have found the perfect way to live on, as the heterosexual part of the human population only is the vehicle for their propagation.

that would be called parasitism.

Yes, I agree it is not that that easy to point out what advantage the same sex sexual behaviour should give evolutionary or in a society. But for example it has been argued that homosexuality gives a more stable society, as individuals can form stable sexual relations in both homosexual and heterosexual ways.

circular logic here. A is of advantage in an arrangement with A and B present, becasue it allows to refer to not only B, but A also.

Without homosexuality existing, there would be no need to form homosexual relations.

that homosexuality helps to increase social stablity, I totally fail to see. It's just that discirmination lowers such stablity, and non-discrimination does not affect stability, leaving it at the same level where it is.

A stable society (think of a group of individuals where there is fierce competition for mating) is beneficial for reproduction in general within the group.

Or not. depends on discrimination switched on or off.

On a larger scale this could be just enough for natural selection to work on. Or as a recent study from Italy is said to have showed, that the maternal relatives of homosexual men have more children than the maternal relatives of heterosexual men. If this is true, it could suggest that there is a reproductive benefit to women whose DNA tends to result in homosexual male children. See, with biology you can argue anything.

I would instead say: with statistics you can argue anything. Even more so when many scientists do not even reliably know the most elemental basics of statistics. The novice'S fault of overinterpreting correlation coefficients is prominent even amongst high academic levels - which is a scandal.

I think I commented already about the design thing. And I don't mean that homosexuality is the norm in humans. But what is the rule and what is a deviation of the rule depends on where you start. I think you sometimes overstate the importance of the rule thinking as you connect it to intended design, hardware and blueprints.
And you know, there are three wheeled cars produced as we speak. Not only Mr Bean has one.

Please no more crippled legs and three wheeled cars! I need to sleep now... But before that, I have to say something about the terms family and marriage. I agree that you can't change them and their use according to every whim, but I think one can see where they are possible to extend. Concepts are not rigid by nature and they are usually open ended.

In this case only with chnaging the already massiveoly hurt most basic fundament of social community in Wetsern civilisation. And I am not willing to accept any more dmaages to this fundament, sicne it already is shaking. And we see the cataclysimic effects of that everywhere, in the feministic approaches, in education problems, in schools failing, in the changed and falling apart set of ethic rules in ypoung people not seeing perspectives anymore - I could write a whole social-scientific essay here. All damage done to "family" - shows as damage to our world and community.

Families are vital parts of society, true, but a homosexual family is not that far of from a heterosexual one as far as I know.

I see it from a psychologist'S view, and say there is a difference. A gay man would need to violate himself to get engaged in a heterosexual partnership and have children of his own. but the truth is, and again I say this from a psychologist'S perspective, that for many - i assume: a wide majoreity - this comes at the price of supressing a part of themnselves and experience suffering from this. Such people sometimes show up in partner- and family therapies, you know. the reasons they once choosed to go hetero, are diverse, but most often it also has something to do with a desire to be "nromal" like the normal majority around, and not being different with all the negative consequences for that, and just live a peaceful life by not attracting hostile attention. They really may love their hetero partner, yes. But still, their original orientation is - and always will be - a different one. That'S where the pressure comes from they are under, and it can make them suffer, sometimes more, sometimes less.

Two parents and a for example two adopted children (or female couple with a natural born child or two) living together and being responsible to each other.

I referred earlier to adoptation and the importance of sexual role models, which indeed is leading far beyond later sexual behavior. Adoptation by homosexual couples makes a smuch sense to me as intentionally removing a ftaher or a mother from a family. where divorces happen, it is a tragedy for the kids in most cases (only exception is wheere they suffered more from the parent'S constant battles, but that is in no way the rule). That parents nevertzheless sometimes divorce, dos not mean that adoptation by singles or dicriocing itself should be declared an arbitrary normal option that could be chosen at will. It is not normal, but it is normality failing.

there it is again, this thing normality. but man cannot help it, normality is important for us humans. We could bear to live in a world we perceive as unpredicatble and filled with more excepotions from the rules, than there are rules. Such ammount of uncertainty makes us sick easily. We need normality. and beside that, I still think it is valid to claim some things being a norm, and even being a normality beyond just statistical relations between variables and values. It also is nromal that a child has two parents. There are orphans in the world, too. but it is neither a norm, nor normal.

I'm not convinced about the role model argument you wrote about earlier. There will probably be enough of male and female role modelling available for the kids in their lives anyway. If one allow families like that, they will also be families that actually do support and bring benefits to the society, not just a cost. Isn't more working families even better from a social point of view?

I must question the easiness by which you claim it is functioning famiolies, and I have earlier referred to research data that is known since the 80s that children being grown by just one parents have a significantly higher probability of showing chnaged social behavior patterns especially rehgarding the other sex, then children from functional families. A mother is not just any female in the world, a father is different from just being a male. Both are that, too, but the role of parents leads beyodn that. And then there is the simp0le fact that you ncannot doubt that chikldren from homosexual "families" would suffer from that, and being mocked out. As Henry said: "think of the kids!". He meant whyt many of them will need to go through.

despite that, I stiuck to what I said about the importance of role modelling by father and mother, again taLKING FROM A PSYCHOLOGIST's VIEW AND THAT OF A CLOSE GIRLFRIEND OF MINE WHO IS WORKING AS A FAMILY THERAPIST: SHE HAS A LOT TO DO WITH IMMIGRANT FAMILIES with often rigid, patriarchalic structures, and thus she has a seat in the first row to watch what damage disfunctional or non existing or perverted role models by mothers and fathers do to sons and daughters.

And the ones that want to live unnoticed in peace and normality as you say, well nothing stops them from doing that, gay marriage approved or not. As I understand it, the thing is not so much about if we accept them as totally normal, the thing is about if people who prefer the same sex and that really want to have a family, children, marriage and legal rights, can have that or not.

Indeed, and I totally oppose anything that equals gay partnerships to the constitutional portected status of families, dissolves the concept of marriage in it's - you cannot help it - given definition to be a bond between heterosexual partners with an outlook to create children of their own, and adoptation of children by homosexual partners.

And from the few direct experiences with gay people that I had, I must say: all of those that I met, agreed with me. Who are we that we want to know better than they themselves what they want?

Anyway, time to sleep now. I enjoyed the discussion!

Indeed. A discussion that does not turn into name-calling and catch-phrases, most often is a good one, even where disagreement remains. Sweet dreams to you, my darling.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Max2147

I just can't wrap my head around how gay marriage somehow weakens the institution of marriage.

Let's face it, marriage isn't in great shape right now. Our divorce rate is sky-high, and domestic violence is all too common. I don't see how allowing truly loving couples to marry, even if they're the same gender, somehow weakens an institution that's supposed to be about love.

First, less than a century ago, people used to marry just once in their lives, and stayed together until high age. that has been the norm. Today it is the exception from the norm.

Second, originally, marriages have been about economic traits, distribution of work, and securing a safe environemnt with future perspective to children. love is luxury in that. Certain cultures even see marriages as a tool to increase family status, gain political power, and to come to wealth by selling their kids into marriage.

For Christians, marriage is a "holy sacrament", a bond that is meant to be natural, spiritual, social, all in one, and due to the social role, it was meant to be between a man and a woman. That religion gave it that status was for two reasons: as a mediator in forming that bond, the religious institution won in social power and influence, and it added to the argument that where there can be children from that partnerhsip, a far-reaching perspective of socially protective stability must be maintained.

Many young people marry head over heels, just becasue they asre in love. Theyignore other fatcors, and oversee other important factors, even in the other's character, that speak against a lasting relationship. Add to this the social stress from working environments, the economic pressure to dissolve the family and rip it apart so that women can (must?) return into their jobs as early as possible, and a general hedonistic egoism and tendency to not being enduring and to avoid difficulties on first sight, and you have many major reasons why marriages fail often these days.

It all is about the social institution of family, the way it is mant to be, has already been so severly hurt.

There are a lot of heterosexual marriages out there that do a lot more harm to the institution than a loving homosexual marriage ever will.

Two bads do not form one good.

To me the right of marriage is the right to marry the person you love, and right now gays/lesbians are being denied that right.

Maybe that is becasue you do not use the term "marriage" int he historically grown meaning of it, and just cisntruct your idea of relationship and mislabel it as "marriage", althiugh that temr smeans soethign different. Already Confuzius complained about the disorder of term - and the unpleasant consequences coming from that. More and more words get used, but less and lesser they do have a meaning.

Names and terms are not arbitrary. Use them only for what they actually are reserved for in meaning. "Marriage" neither by name nor economically nor religously nor culturally nor socially is not meant to describe homosexual partnerhsips, like it or not. I also do not marry my dog, although I may like it very much. And when I call "Discrimination!" because somebody tells me I should not marry my dog, nevertheless I will not be allowed to marry my dog.

All that said, I see civil unions as an acceptable alternative. For that matter, I think all marriages should be seen as civil unions in the eyes of the law. Give the term "marriage" back to the religious institutions, where it belongs.

At least the German constituion puts the family in its tradito9nal meaning under explcit special protection by the state, and financial and tax benefits given to families also base on that constitutional guarantee. Since families in their traditional meaning of "father-mother-children of their own" are so vitally important for our society (even more with our societies overaging and not enough babies being born), I fully agree with these bonis, last but not least becasue they express that their importance is being accepted and recognised. Indeed the need to not compromise the importance of - already massively hurt - families as a social core institution even more is my main argument against not accepting home marriages as equal to normal marriages.

And taken for itself, the idea simply is absurd to the max, too, consiering that the term is not arbiotrary, but has a long grown history of meaning.

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Max2147

I just can't wrap my head around how gay marriage somehow weakens the institution of marriage.

Let's face it, marriage isn't in great shape right now. Our divorce rate is sky-high, and domestic violence is all too common.

Yeah, I have to agree, all this talk about weakening the institution of marriage...straight people have already destroyed it. Marriage means nothing anymore. It takes two people to agree to getting married, it only takes one person to end it. Straight people should look to their own faults with marriage before bellowing about gays.

[Skybird]

Again, two bads do not make one good. People say the world is a mess. I tend to agree. I pointed at some causes. That marriage does not mean much anymore and the family has been hurt so massively, has reasons. I listed some of them. The cure to this neither is gay marriage, nor makes it gay marriage taken for itself any less unreasonable. Traditonal marriage and family has been hurt, and gy marriage hurts it even further. That simple it is.

[mookiemookie]

Hurts the institution of marriage? Two consenting adults who love each other wanting to marry hurts the institution of marriage? I hardly think so.

I always thought the list of reasons why gay marriage would ruin society was great:

1. Homosexuality is not natural, much like eyeglasses, polyester, and birth control are not natural.

2. Heterosexual marriages are valid because they produce children. Infertile couples and old people cannot get legally married because the world needs more children.

3. Obviously gay parents will raise gay children because straight parents only raise straight children.

4. Straight marriage will be less meaningful, since Britney Spears's 55-hour just-for-fun marriage was meaningful.

5. Heterosexual marriage has been around for a long time, and it hasn't changed at all: women are property, Blacks can't marry Whites, and divorce is illegal.

6. Gay marriage should be decided by the people, not the courts, because the majority-elected legislatures, not courts, have historically protected the rights of minorities.

7. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are always imposed on the entire country. That's why we only have one religion in America.

8. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people makes you tall.

9. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage license.

10. Children can never succeed without both male and female role models at home. That's why single parents are forbidden to raise children.

11. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society. Heterosexual marriage has been around for a long time, and we could never adapt to new social norms because we haven't adapted to cars or longer lifespans.

12. Civil unions, providing most of the same benefits as marriage with a different name are better, because a "separate but equal" institution is always constitutional. Separate schools for African-Americans worked just as well as separate marriages will for gays & lesbians.