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What is the primary reason behind your support for same-sex marriage? [W:539/549]

What is the primary reason behind your support for same-sex marriage?

  • Because I’m gay/lesbian

    Votes: 3 2.2%
  • Because it’s an equal rights issue

    Votes: 78 57.4%
  • Because gays/lesbians love each other too

    Votes: 6 4.4%
  • Because I despise bigots/haters

    Votes: 1 0.7%
  • Because I don’t want to be labeled a bigot

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • I’m opposed to gay marriage

    Votes: 13 9.6%
  • I don’t care, either way

    Votes: 16 11.8%
  • Other

    Votes: 19 14.0%

  • Total voters
    136
  • Poll closed .
It doesn't matter how many times you discussed it here, lol. You can discuss a billion times and that still won't make it any less wrong. If homosexuals actually had the right to marry, then we wouldn't be having this discussion. They would be good to go in all 50 states. As it stands, they aren't even close.

Now, if you were to say that it is inevitable that the SC will cave-in to radical pressure, I would be more inclined to agree with you. But as it stands, you're wrong.... as usual.

what you are saying has nothign to do with equal rights, you just keep proving you dont know what they are lol
there is nothing wrong at all about saying its an equal rights issues, if you disagree please provide any facts that support your false claim id love to hear them.

your example is meaningless to the debate, the rights currently existing is meaningless, but thats ok, people dont know what they dont know. Ill wait for your proof this will be great.

interesting you ignored my two examples about women and minorities that show your example to be meaningless.
 
Back to the original argument that I refuted. Homosexuals can't possibly share the EXACT same love with each other that Heterosexuals share.

opinion and nothing more :shrug:
 
Back to the original argument that I refuted. Homosexuals can't possibly share the EXACT same love with each other that Heterosexuals share.


Pure ignorance.

You can't possibly state any such nonsense as fact and then back it up with anything of substance.

It's just ridiculous nonsense.
 
Wrong. If they actually had equal rights then we wouldn't be having this discussion, as SSM would be legal in all 50 states.

That's exactly why I'm saying so. And don't give me "Because the Bible is irrelevant". The Bible happens to represent the belief of millions in this country.

Show me in the Constitution where it says that.

Secularism should have no influence. Not everybody supports your secular point of view.

Freedom of Religion is promised in the constitution. That implies that the state is secular because a belief cannot be forced upon people. By letting the Bible dictate whether the government allows SSM or not is forcing a belief upon the people, that are promised freedom of religion. May I point out that adultery and Divorce are frowned upon as well as SSM. Why is there no cry for outlawing that? Why is it so common if we are so rooted to the Bible. I am not saying that I believe in SSM morally, because I don't. I think it is wrong and I think that it is gross, but that for no reason means that others don't and they should have that right to disagree. Just because some big shots in Washington are firmly rooted to the Bible doesnt mean that everyone is. And they have no right to impose their beliefs, and take away rights from others.
 
Fortunately, nobody has ever suggested legally requiring a church to perform same-sex marriages in their facilities if they don't want to. Churches aren't required to perform your marriage for you either, you know. They can say "no, go somewhere else. We don't like your hair."

Because it's private property and you don't have a right to use it for your ceremony.

It is really not that big a leap to get from one to the other.
 
but it's not about equal rights....at least that's the excuse several supporters used when I asked about the same equal right for siblings and/or polygamists

It's about eqaul rights as a legal term, not as the magical creation you create in your head to fuel this strawman argument of yours that means "everything must be treated exactly equal in every sense of the word".

Equal Rights when speaking in a legal sense is the statement that a law must adhere to a consistent set of standards with regards to the Governments ability to apply a law in an unequal fashion towards a particular group.

As has already clearly been explained to you before, at which point you basically ignored it and continued on with your strawman as I'm sure you'll do again this time.
 
1.) exactly, youll be waiting forever because the fact is it doesnt at all, equal rights will never effect YOUR own marriage.

It doesn't change a persons marriage but it absolutely can affect the rest of society. If the government begins recognizing same-sex marriage, or specifically "gay marriage", then essentially this means that all forms of private enterprise that provide additional benefits, categories, services, etc for "married" couples will be forced under the law to acknowledge and accept those types of same sex or gay marriages in those instances OR remove those instances from their enterprise. It also creates an inherent cultural change within society in terms of the notion of what marriage is, impacting for example, the teachings ones child will recieve regarding the practice.

Now you may say "Well, Too ****ing bad...Gay People deserve rights too and if those bigots don't like it, tough ****" and you're more than in your rights to say it...but it wouldn't change the fact that it would still be something tangably affecting them.

Their own "marriage" being changed inherently is a silly argument, but suggesting it will have an effect on them in general or in terms of the notion of "marriage" is absolutely true.
 
It doesn't matter how many times you discussed it here, lol. You can discuss a billion times and that still won't make it any less wrong. If homosexuals actually had the right to marry, then we wouldn't be having this discussion. They would be good to go in all 50 states. As it stands, they aren't even close.

The government denying people the ability to EXERCISE their rights does not mean those rights don't exist.

The government of DC was denying people their 2nd amendment rights. That didn't mean those people didn't have those rights, it meant the government was denying it to them. As was deemed by the SCOTUS.

When blacks were being treated as seperate but equal, they were being denied their rights. Just because they weren't being allowed to exercise those rights didn't mean they didn't inherently have them. Again, SCOTUS overruled unconstitutional law.

That's part of the point of SCOTUS today...to rule when law is infringing upon peoples constitutional rights. Pointing to the fact that homosexual or same sex individuals can't currently exercise their rights is not proof of any sorts that the rights don't exist.
 
Sexuality is not considered when determining rights in most states, this it is a non-factor. Legally speaking LGBT people have equal rights since in most states the definition is one man one woman. I don't think sexuality should be lumped in the same status as race, religion, and gender.

I don't particularly believe it should be a Intermediate or Strict tier of scrutiny under the EPC either (as Race, religion and Gender are), but that doesn't mean it's not still covered by the lowest teir (and specifically, the sterner end of the lower tier) and even at that teir there's still a question as to whether the discrimination in question is rationally related to a legitimate state interest.

Then again, that's why my issue with Marriage is based on the notion of Gender Inequality rather than Sexuality Inequality. Gender IS protected at a higher level of scrutiny and I've yet to have someone present to me an Important state interest that is being substantially served by disallowing same-sex marriage in my mind.
 
The government denying people the ability to EXERCISE their rights does not mean those rights don't exist.

The government of DC was denying people their 2nd amendment rights. That didn't mean those people didn't have those rights, it meant the government was denying it to them. As was deemed by the SCOTUS.

When blacks were being treated as seperate but equal, they were being denied their rights. Just because they weren't being allowed to exercise those rights didn't mean they didn't inherently have them. Again, SCOTUS overruled unconstitutional law.

That's part of the point of SCOTUS today...to rule when law is infringing upon peoples constitutional rights. Pointing to the fact that homosexual or same sex individuals can't currently exercise their rights is not proof of any sorts that the rights don't exist.

One must be careful when describing not being able to live "their way" as having their civil rights denied. You have no right to special treatment under the law based on your desire (preference?) to marry a same sex partner than to marry two opposite sex partners or to marry a brother or sister. Some rights are "presumed" to exist based on the 14th amendment, yet we accept the rights of the state to define their own marriage laws and voting ID laws. Equal protection, does not mean that all laws must treat all people as they wish (prefer?), simply that they are not intentionally discriminating against based on Constitutionally (legally?) defined traits (e.g. race, gender, religion and etc.); so far, "preference" has not been added to that list.

For obvious reasons, the addition of personal "preference" as giving someone civil rights protection is a very tricky thing to do. Is a preference to have two spouses fundamentally different that to prefer having a same sex spouse? Is one's preference to smoke marijuana, buy/sell beer on Sunday or walk around nude reason to allow it as a civil right? Democracy (unfortunately?) allows the majority to establish its "preferences" so long as they do not violate express civil rights, not that they must allow any expressed minority's "preferences" to trump their elected representative's decisions simply by finding a like minded judge.
 
Not sure if a poll like this has already been posted, but these are questions that I've been mulling over for sometime. Would appreciate some honest input.

So I'm curious. What are your thoughts on the honest input you've gotten so far?

Are you glad you started the thread?

What are your thoughts on the poll responses?

Why did you start this thread? Were you hoping for more confirmation regarding your own thoughts and beliefs? Are you disappointed with the
passionate responses and the number of responses in support of SSM?

Did you expect something different in terms of the responses?
 
One must be careful when describing not being able to live "their way" as having their civil rights denied. You have no right to special treatment under the law based on your desire (preference?) to marry a same sex partner than to marry two opposite sex partners or to marry a brother or sister. Some rights are "presumed" to exist based on the 14th amendment, yet we accept the rights of the state to define their own marriage laws and voting ID laws. Equal protection, does not mean that all laws must treat all people as they wish (prefer?), simply that they are not intentionally discriminating against based on Constitutionally (legally?) defined traits (e.g. race, gender, religion and etc.); so far, "preference" has not been added to that list.

For obvious reasons, the addition of personal "preference" as giving someone civil rights protection is a very tricky thing to do. Is a preference to have two spouses fundamentally different that to prefer having a same sex spouse? Is one's preference to smoke marijuana, buy/sell beer on Sunday or walk around nude reason to allow it as a civil right? Democracy (unfortunately?) allows the majority to establish its "preferences" so long as they do not violate express civil rights, not that they must allow any expressed minority's "preferences" to trump their elected representative's decisions simply by finding a like minded judge.

After years and years of discussion on this issue, and people still makle the same mistakes. Incest and SSM are not the same thing. Trying to equate them is incredibly lame. Your legal arguments fail as well, but that is a separate issue(Sinbce marriage is a right, to deny marriage there has to be a certain level of reason. That is not there for SSM).
 
It doesn't change a persons marriage but it absolutely can affect the rest of society. If the government begins recognizing same-sex marriage, or specifically "gay marriage", then essentially this means that all forms of private enterprise that provide additional benefits, categories, services, etc for "married" couples will be forced under the law to acknowledge and accept those types of same sex or gay marriages in those instances OR remove those instances from their enterprise. It also creates an inherent cultural change within society in terms of the notion of what marriage is, impacting for example, the teachings ones child will recieve regarding the practice.

Now you may say "Well, Too ****ing bad...Gay People deserve rights too and if those bigots don't like it, tough ****" and you're more than in your rights to say it...but it wouldn't change the fact that it would still be something tangably affecting them.

Their own "marriage" being changed inherently is a silly argument, but suggesting it will have an effect on them in general or in terms of the notion of "marriage" is absolutely true.

First of all, don't worry about the kids. Kids are FAR FAR FAR more open to SSM than adults are.

Second, I truly don't weep at all for people who stand to make more money and have increased business activity but struggle with their own moral issues over where the money comes from.
They'll get over it. Business is about money, income and profit. There will be plenty of establishments that will gladly perform ceremonies, decorate cakes, provide flowers, print invitations, sell dresses and/or tuxedos, and provide space without questioning who's writing the check.

Third, gay people are part of society regardless of marital status. They are police, fire and rescue, construction, small business owners, medical staff, postal employees, waiters, bar tenders, sports figures, ........... so society won't change at all by recognizing gay marriage other than perhaps a slight uptick in profits for some.

I do like many of your other comments though.:mrgreen:
 
After years and years of discussion on this issue, and people still makle the same mistakes. Incest and SSM are not the same thing. Trying to equate them is incredibly lame. Your legal arguments fail as well, but that is a separate issue(Sinbce marriage is a right, to deny marriage there has to be a certain level of reason. That is not there for SSM).

Again, why is the SSM preference more important, or protected, than a preference to use a recreational drug, to not wear clothing, to buy/sell beer on Sunday or to ride a motorcycle without wearing a helmet? Denying those preferences does not serve any particular state interest, they are simply what was desired by the majority, thus they were made into law.
 
I don't particularly believe it should be a Intermediate or Strict tier of scrutiny under the EPC either (as Race, religion and Gender are), but that doesn't mean it's not still covered by the lowest teir (and specifically, the sterner end of the lower tier) and even at that teir there's still a question as to whether the discrimination in question is rationally related to a legitimate state interest.

Then again, that's why my issue with Marriage is based on the notion of Gender Inequality rather than Sexuality Inequality. Gender IS protected at a higher level of scrutiny and I've yet to have someone present to me an Important state interest that is being substantially served by disallowing same-sex marriage in my mind.

Marriage is largely societal thing that is recognized in law, I don't believe that by default homosexuals and other sexualities have the right to legally define marriage in context of society and the law without their approval. I would say it is within important state interest if when the issue is brought up to a vote that the majority of citizens of a state disprove of SSM (which is usually indirect since nearly all votes are to define marriage as one man one woman). Likewise, the reverse is also true. By default, the way the Constitution is written I do not believe that it demands that SSM be legal and that state interest must be argued to make it illegal. Not allowing SSM is not unlawful discrimination in my opinion.
 
Again, why is the SSM preference more important, or protected, than a preference to use a recreational drug, to not wear clothing, to buy/sell beer on Sunday or to ride a motorcycle without wearing a helmet? Denying those preferences does not serve any particular state interest, they are simply what was desired by the majority, thus they were made into law.

Marriage is a right. recreational drugs and fashion choices are not. This is not complicated stuff and has nbeen explained countless times, including to you.
 
If you loved gay people, you would not discriminate against them institutionally. Because, you see, institutional discrimination is NOT tolerance. Stop persecuting people.

Regarding the bold, who forced you to do gay stuff?

Please explain to me how I've discriminated against anybody?

Regarding the bold, who forced you to do gay stuff?


I never said anyone "forced" me to do gay stuff. I'm talking about the culture of political correctness where people feel pressured to endorse, celebrate and participate in something they have a moral objection to.

-I was watching a television newscast once where a story was reported on new gay marriage laws. The entire news crew was smiling ear to ear as if puppies had been born, some of whom very awkwardly. I know people in TV news and know enough about the industry that they were TOLD to all appear emotionally moved after the gay couples kissed.

-In Canada political correction has been so codified that it is a federal crime for Christian ministers to preach sermons taken from the Bible that define same sex intimacy as a sin over Christian radio stations.

-I have a friend who moved here from Canada who is a preacher. He stopped performing wedding ceremonies there because he was required to perform same sex weddings as a condition of being allowed to marry members of his own congregation.

-Voters in many states have seen ballot initiatives that asked them do they want to see gay marriage legalized; again, something to which they have an honest moral/spiritual objection. Vote no, elements of society label them hate-filled bigots. Vote yes and they violate their own conscious and deliberately and actively oppose the teachings of their God. And democracy isn't just what happens the voting booth. Christians in particular have been instructed in the Bible to actively support Biblical values in the societies in which they live. Matthew 5:13, Proverbs 29:2, Acts 25.
 
Marriage is a right. recreational drugs and fashion choices are not. This is not complicated stuff and has nbeen explained countless times, including to you.

Marriage as defined by the state is a right, I will agree. Marriage as defined by how one wishes it were defined by the state is not a right. Do I have a right to go to the prison facility of my prefered gender, or only my actual gender? Can I serve in the military based on my prefered set of physical standards or must I accept their "arbitrary" use of my actual gender/age to establish them?
 
Marriage as defined by the state is a right, I will agree. Marriage as defined by how one wishes it were defined by the state is not a right. Do I have a right to go to the prison facility of my prefered gender, or only my actual gender? Can I serve in the military based on my prefered set of physical standards or must I accept their "arbitrary" use of my actual gender to establish them?

Loving specifically enumerated marraige as a right in the United States.
 
Loving specifically enumerated marraige as a right in the United States.

Loving specifically said that race could not be used by the state to restrict it. Loving lacked any mention of gender "preference".
 
Loving specifically said that race could not be used by the state to restrict it. Loving lacked any mention of gender "preference".

What did I write? That Loving established marriage as a right. Why did you go off on some unrelated tangent?
 
What did I write? That Loving established marriage as a right. Why did you go off on some unrelated tangent?

Silly me, I thought that we were talking about changing state law, by SCOTUS fiat, based on a preference for SSM being recognized (added?) as a new "civil right". ;)
 
One must be careful when describing not being able to live "their way" as having their civil rights denied.

Not speaking about being able to "live their way". I'm speaking specifically of a civil right that the SCOTUS has deemed is constitutionally protected...ie marriage.

Equal protection, does not mean that all laws must treat all people as they wish (prefer?), simply that they are not intentionally discriminating against based on Constitutionally (legally?) defined traits (e.g. race, gender, religion and etc.); so far, "preference" has not been added to that list.

Actually, sexual preference IS on that list (so far as all those on the list are there due primarily to judicial precedence). It's on the list as a lower teir category protected group, requiring the sterner second-order rational basis test of that teir. That means to discriminate against the group the state must provide that the discrimination is rationally related to a legitimate state interest.

Is a preference to have two spouses fundamentally different that to prefer having a same sex spouse?

Yes, as to my knowledge there's no precedence that "polygamist" is viewed as requiring that sterner version of lower teir protection. Furthermore, the potential financial and contract pitfalls of a multiperson marriage provide additional arguments overtop any that one would be able to present in terms of allowing for same sex.

Is one's preference to smoke marijuana, buy/sell beer on Sunday or walk around nude reason to allow it as a civil right?

Again, there has been no precedenec in determining that there is an inherent civil right to smoke marijuana, buy/sell beer on sunday, or walk around nude. Additionally, the issue of what "group" is being discriminated against and on what basis would need to be determined, not to mention that all those things have varying degrees of arguments in terms of state interest. It's a rather non-sensical argument you're putting forth.
 
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Silly me, I thought that we were talking about changing state law, by SCOTUS fiat, based on a preference for SSM being recognized (added?) as a new "civil right". ;)

OK, I can see I am going to have to slow this way down for you.

Loving established that marriage is a right.

For a state or federal government to deny a right to a group, they need a reason. How good a reason is determined by the level of scrutiny. So far SSM bans have failed based on the lowest level of Scrutiny, Rational basis Review.

States are the final arbitors of who gets married, but they have to do so within the framework of the US constitution. In other words, states cannot deny rights guaranteed under the Constitution.

There is no "changing state law by SCOTUS fiat".

There will be no new civil right.
 
First of all, don't worry about the kids. Kids are FAR FAR FAR more open to SSM than adults are.

Yeah, your anecdotal statement that there are more kids that are open to SSM than adults in no way changes my statement that it does create an actual change.

Second, I truly don't weep at all for people who stand to make more money and have increased business activity but struggle with their own moral issues over where the money comes from.
They'll get over it. Business is about money, income and profit. There will be plenty of establishments that will gladly perform ceremonies, decorate cakes, provide flowers, print invitations, sell dresses and/or tuxedos, and provide space without questioning who's writing the check.

The fact you "don't weep for them" in no way negates the fact that it would cause a change.

Third, gay people are part of society regardless of marital status. They are police, fire and rescue, construction, small business owners, medical staff, postal employees, waiters, bar tenders, sports figures, ........... so society won't change at all by recognizing gay marriage other than perhaps a slight uptick in profits for some.

Your strawman, again, doesn't negate the fact that there would be cahnge. I never suggested "gay people" weren't "a part of society". I suggested that changing the legal meaning of marriage would impart a societal change as to what the public consiousness of "marriage" means. While you can't force societal acceptance of something, it would force society to LEGALLY accept something which DOES create a change.

Simply because you think those changes are good or don't care that people may not like the changes doesn't mean they don't happen.
 
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