It’s up to both sides to reason and advocate for their beliefs, ideally in a civil and rational matter (even though this matter is beyond logical deduction alone).

I think Jon Stewart’s interview with Mike Huckabee captured the stalemate of this debate well. So, I’ll leave it at that — and will close the comments on this post.

Thanks all who contributed your voice.

They demand “respect” through force while indoctrinating our school children, having marriage licenses issued unlawfully, overturning the overwhelmingly supported Prop. 22, rushing to get married “legally” before Prop. 8 was decided, then challenging the will of the people on Prop. 8.

People of faith will defend their beliefs upholding the moral principles of marriage and protecting their children from the promoters of an immoral lifestyle. This moral battle will continue. Immorality is not “equality”. “Respect” is not force. “Education” is not indoctrinating kindergartners. Defending religious beliefs is not “hate speech”. Protecting marriage is not “discrimination”.

They demand “respect” through force while indoctrinating our school children, having marriage licenses issued unlawfully, overturning the overwhelmingly supported Prop. 22, rushing to get married “legally” before Prop. 8 was decided, then challenging the will of the people on Prop. 8.

People of faith will defend their beliefs upholding the moral principles of marriage and protecting their children from the promoters of an immoral lifestyle. This moral battle will continue. Immorality is not “equality”. “Respect” is not force. “Education” is not indoctrinating kindergartners. Defending religious beliefs is not “hate speech”. Protecting marriage is not “discrimination”.

The “alternative life style” typically attacks viciously, smearing persons or institutions be it governments, politicians, businesses, corporations, religious bodies, or educational institutions opposing any part of their agenda. They play the “victim” to gain sympathy for being a “discriminated minority”. The “real” victim will be people of faith who they label as having “hate speech” or “discrimination.” Look what has happened in Massachusetts or Canada for challenges to faith.

Even though numerous and respected Seventh-day Adventists scholars and administrators personally urged voting no on proposition 8, the Seventh-day Adventist Church (along with Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses) argue against gay rights and gay marriage issues holding that religious liberty is only concerned with the first four of the Ten Commandments, or one’s obligations to God.

When a gay marriage bill came before the California legislature in April, 2004, Adventist church members were urged to contact their representatives and voice their opposition. In “The Liberty Blog” the religious liberty director for the North American Division of the Adventist church argued against the proposed federal “Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007,” suggesting it could have an indirect impact on free speech, would give special protection, would be unnecessary since local laws already provide protection against hate crimes, and could lead to marginalizing those who oppose homosexual practice. In the September/October, 2004, issue of church periodical, Liberty, which was devoted to the issue of gay marriage, another religious liberty director called for the church not to remain silent in opposing gay rights.

Most recently, the Seventh-day Adventist Church has strongly asserted in it’s churches that it opposes all gay rights including gay marriage. In doing so, it has encouraged members to not only vote for Proposition 8, but to also financially support any and all efforts to oppose gay marriage rights.

I like and respect many of my unmarried heterosexual friends, but I think they shouldn’t have sex. In other words, I support them as people but I don’t support them having relationships with sex involved. (And, incidentally, if someone wanted to make a law that said that if you live with someone, that’s legally the same as marriage, I’d oppose that too.) Does that make me anti-them as well? Sounds like, by your definition, I’m a pretty-much-everyone-phobe.

I would refer you again to my comments about separating identity and sexuality, and separating the desire and the act. If you don’t think those things can be separated, then I’m afraid you are going to think that I don’t like you as a person. All I can do is continue to tell you that you’re mistaken.

I don’t get it…aren’t we talking about legislation?

No, not always – at least that wasn’t my main objective in most of my posts. Sorry to confuse you since many of the other posts are related to the issues of legislation.

The reason I suggested the “smoking” analogy was because I was hoping that it would allow people who think differently than I do to at least slightly be able to understand why I think the way I do.

The reason I added the “life expectancy” thought was because it should be a consideration for anyone that is involved in smoking or homosexuality. Whether or not a cause for the “lost years” is known or identified, it is highly likely that lifestyle changes can extend life expectancy (that’s fine if you disagree). If even one person who reads this can gain even an extra year of life, then mentioning it was worth it.

I do still agree that the mere act of smoking decreases life expectancy, so it’s fair to say that all smokers put themselves at a higher risk of dying early.
I do still DISagree that practicing homosexual sex decreases life expectancy of gay people, no matter which populations you compare head to head.
But even if the latter were true — are you not saying that we *shouldn’t* condone those acts because they lead to a shorter lifespan? I thought that was your point of comparing it to smokers smoking or whatever.

Nope, I wasn’t implying whether to “condone” anything or not. I was merely saying that if it were me and I saw a “correlation” between something I was doing that could severely decrease the years of my life, I would need to think real hard about maybe doing something differently.

Yes, this is the “grandfather”-phenomenon of the FDA. Nicotine, alcohol, and caffeine would *never* be approved for distribution if introduced today.

Sorry for the continuing the tangent briefly, but one last comment on this. Why can’t smoking truly be “grandfathered” (such that it is phased out)? Speaking of ideas and solutions, I have one. It is very simple. Rather than using a “relative” date to determine whether a patron could purchase cigarettes or not, an “absolute” date could be used. It’s also easy – no math needed. All that would be needed would be for cigarette points-of-sale to check ID (which is already required), but instead of checking whether the purchaser is 18 or 19 (depending on current state rules), simply check to see if the person was born before 1990 (even in subsequent years). Each year, the age requirement would effectively increase by one year. That also eliminates any math for age calculation. No (or very few) new cigarette addictions, and eventually, cigarettes would be phased out.

Re: children, biologically you need resources from 2 humans of the opposite sex to make them, so we evolved to be attracted to each other to make that happen

The last thing Chris probably wants or expects is for this comment thread to head into a heated discussion about the Theory of Evolution, but I feel that this indeed is a key factor in why people are at odds on so many of the key issues of today. I know that many of you will disagree with me on this statement, but the theory of evolution has fatal flaws, and is at the core of most of these key issues. Before someone labels me a “creationist nutcase”, I will just clarify that a more accurate description of my position is “anti-evolutionist”. A person does not need to be a creationist to find flaws with evolution. Whether or not I believe in a creation does not need to affect the arguments against evolution.

I have extensively studied and thought about all of the “theory of evolution” propaganda and have found too many issues to consider it even remotely viable. I could write a book on it (and I might), but the simplest explanation is follows: initially, the theory of evolution was based on “natural selection”; but Darwin soon realized that natural selection only gets you so far (varieties of the same kind with different attributes (coloring, size, etc.)). Kind would still beget kind. So, “mutation” was added to fill in the gap necessary to attempt to explain how single-celled organisms can evolve to complex life forms. Mutation is the flimsy keystone in which archway of evolution collapses. Again, I could go into extensive detail as to why the total reliance on mutation is fatally flawed, but that is for another time and place. Suffice it to say that: 1. Natural selection is mutation’s worst enemy – they do not work “together” to progress a life-form; 2. Mutation never has and never could explain even simple complexity “enhancements”, let alone explain new features such has new limbs, organs, “body systems”, etc.

So, what does evolution have to do with the topic of homosexuality (or abortion, or any current issue)? Well, two things:

1. When a person is steeped in the “evolution” mentality, then that person generally thinks that “we are an ‘effect’ ” rather than “we can ‘affect’ “. People like this talk in terms of “gamete donors” and “fetus” rather than “parents” and “child”. People argue that “things don’t matter” because “things have just happened in the past”. There was no purpose, no morality, just “evolution”.

2. The second item is huge with me because it represents the main reason why I voted yes on Proposition 8. The theory of evolution infiltrated our society (mostly through the education system) and has done an untold amount of damage. “Piltdown man” was a 40-year hoax, during which time Evolution made some its most significant headway into textbooks and into the educational system. It is largely accepted as fact by most people today (although if you ask people whether they believe that humans evolved from single-celled organisms, then people start to back off some). So, the bottom line is that “policy” and “politics” can definitely frame belief and morality. What does it hurt if evolution is “required” to be taught in schools? Now we know.

I probably won’t be able to respond for a while.
Thanks for the discussion.

Animal Lover (AL)

Why do we need to even have some special status granted to people just because they love each other and are extra-committed (esp since that commitment doesn’t even mean much these days)?

In the past marriage was something people did for purely economic reasons — like a business transaction or merger if you will. You make money, I’ll keep house, and we’ll probably make some kids in there too.
Nowadays (in western society anyway) marriages do not happen for prudent financial planning or the combining of family estates — it’s about love and commitment and planning to spend the rest of your life in a partnership with someone.

But Marsha’s right, we can do that without getting married. The official legal marriage is sort of like having a joint bank account for life — in that future resources and assets the couple create together, including children, will have joint responsibility and “ownership” (for lack of a better term).
Re: children, biologically you need resources from 2 humans of the opposite sex to make them, so we evolved to be attracted to each other to make that happen — which also lends itself to this man-woman union in marriage as above.

However, none of the above applies anymore. Women don’t need men to have money or houses, and men don’t get “paid” to take a man’s daughter off his hands (i.e. dowry).
We still need the male and female parts to make a baby, but we now know (yes “know”) that it is not necessary to have those same 2 male and female bodies around to raise a happy, healthy child. We have adoption, we have fertility treatments, we have divorce, and of course we have parents whose spouses are involuntarily absent for other reasons — and still children who grow up happy and well-adjusted with lots of love in their lives.
As I’ve stated in earlier posts that there is now clear data re: what type of home/family/parenting-situation is correlated with happy healthy children, and it is NOT the traditional nuclear family we all used to think was ideal. I’ve read several books addressing this issue and I do believe this data that comes from the more objective studies and the more experienced experts in this field.

I’m still not sure how I feel about the necessity for the legal bond of marriage though…but Marsha’s point makes some sense in that it is a simple framework one can put together to plan to raise a family, i.e. the 2 gamete-donors being legally-bonded to raise the child(ren) they conceive together.
Even though I don’t believe there is something particularly special or “better” about this family configuration than others (in fact there are many arguments to be made for it being socially NOT ideal for raising children), I do agree it’s the simplest in terms of making them.

However…in that case, I don’t see what the point is of 2 people getting married if they’re not about to make kids together. Like, say you choose not have kids with your partner, male or female. Or you’re older (either already had kids or never planned to, or you’re widowed and want to spend your golden years with your nursing home sweetheart) — what’s the point of legal unions in those cases?
Plus what if for whatever reason this couple needs to use someone else’s gametes anyway, or say they don’t plan to have kids for at least 5yrs or something…what’s the purpose of these people marrying?
Why can’t these people just be extra-special boy/girlfriends, and save the marriage benefits for the families they’re meant for?

So again, I kind of agree with Marsha — if we are to consider marriage something more than just “extra-committing” to your boy/girlfriend, then we should limit it to people for whom it actually serves a purpose. I think couples should only be getting married when they’re about to start having children, and not before — otherwise why should these adults get the benefits that are supposed to be reserved for families with *children*?
For it to be fair to the marriages with a *real* purpose, if a married couple ends up not having kids as expected (for whatever reason), they need to annul their marriage. And of course anyone who is physically unable to bear children (due to age or whatever) should never be granted marriage licenses until they have a child coming to them by some other means.

The other cool thing about Marsha’s idea is that it makes divorce sort of unnecessary, because either you marry and have kids, or you don’t marry at all — so if you want to break up, you just break up, without tarnishing the institution of marriage.
And people who have kids but no longer want to be romantic partners (as much as we don’t want that to happen, occasionally I’m sure it still will), well…they can split and have different lives, but they’re still parents of that child so they may as well stay married. Unless they’re planning to immediately bear children with someone else, there’s really no need to divorce their ex-.

This is exciting, I think we really are coming up with some great ideas for a fair and equal society! We should all collaborate on a new bill for 2010!