Redress, the traditions of marriage have been modified, yes... but it has remained male-female throughout history with hardly any significant exceptions.
Explaining why I consider this significant would take pages and pages of dissertations on how societal traditions tend to result from survival-oriented needs, and how changing them drastically should be done only at need and with great caution and consideration. I don't feel like typing several pages worth of arguments on this topic, so let's just sum up:
It matters to me.
It doesn't matter to you.
Therefore you and I need not bother to argue about it.
Sorry for the delay, I was busy blowing **** up in a game. The game is rated "M", and is one that some religious people would like to see banned. Thankfully(since the game is a blast...
Borderlands, highly recommended), we do not make laws based on religious beliefs.
Just because something was done a certain way once does not make it the best way. We no longer live in a situation where lifespans are so short, wars and disease so prevalent, that every possible person who can reproduce should. If the gay people in this world marry, it will not lead to depopulation.
That was the primary reason for encouraging male/female marriage. The world changes. We change traditions every week.
All those gay couples got children either through the intervention of a third party or through adoption. Gay coupledom has no functionality in reproduction.
False. Many are from previous heterosexual relations. Further, the stability in a relationship through marriage is a plus for those children. You do not want to argue on the topic of gays and kids, I have lived it, I know it.
You also have to keep up with technology. A gay woman who wants a kid can conceive quite easily with today's technology. It's a tad more complex for gay men, but there are still options, including adoption and fostering, which benefit society. Arguing against GM based on family, reproduction and children is a pure loser. As I have shown, gays do have kids, can have kids, and it is beneficial for those children to have a stable family.
Redress, I AM extending the same courtesy to you. You are free to vote according to your conscience. I will do the same, and the outcome will be whatever it is.
I cannot stop you from voting your conscience. You cannot stop me from voting mine. Would you want to? Is it a free country if you tell me I can't vote according to my beliefs?
What is your purpose in this post? If it is to persuade me to change my mind, it didn't even come close. Nor is it likely to persuade Blackdog, or other theologically-conservative Christians to change their mind and support SSM. We are not allowed to. We are, in point of fact and within the context of our beliefs, forbidden to do so.
Do you want me to seperate my religious convictions from my political position? I've already told you why that isn't likely to happen. I have to live with my conscience and be able to sleep at night.
I may sympathize with the desire of gay persons to have access to the same kinds of benefits and status as married couples. My sympathy is irrelevant; I am forbidden to support them in that issue, on pain of the displeasure of my God. A willingness to compromise in the matter of Civil Unions is as far as I can go in that direction, and frankly that itself is pushing the envelope. Some of my co-religionists would give me a hard time about that, if they knew.
If it happens it happens. I can't support it.
The purpose of any debate is to persuade. I may not persuade you, but I may persuade some one reading this thread. I am showing why your religious beliefs are irrelevant to the law, why using children as an argument actually hurts your case, and why crying for tradition is a failed argument.
Matter of perspective. I believe marriage is a holy institution, whether the individuals entering into it acknowlege that or not. The government can pass a law saying "marriage is NOT a holy institution" and that will not change my belief that it IS.
I already know that you disagree with me. What more is there to say?
The extra baggage you place on the word marriage is irrelevant to what the law says it is.