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The Gay Mafia are at it again...
9 years ago
Honestly, Christian wedding suppliers should just claim they're Muslim, and they wouldn't run into this sort of garbage.
TL:DR - two Christian artists are being sued for refusing to make invitations for a gay wedding, and could face jail-time or fines. This is exactly what my own church warned of when the gay marriage issue was being pushed. Naturally, the gay rights activists insisted that this wouldn't happen, that we had nothing to fear... and now it's happening, again and again and again.
For being called a homophobe pretty much constantly by leftists, they really can't tolerate other people not being forced to work for them.
TL:DR - two Christian artists are being sued for refusing to make invitations for a gay wedding, and could face jail-time or fines. This is exactly what my own church warned of when the gay marriage issue was being pushed. Naturally, the gay rights activists insisted that this wouldn't happen, that we had nothing to fear... and now it's happening, again and again and again.
For being called a homophobe pretty much constantly by leftists, they really can't tolerate other people not being forced to work for them.
I'm in favor of marriage equality. Marriage in this country is a secular institution. An individual's religion does not have the right to enforce its morality on other people.
That being said, I don't think anyone has the right to tell an artist that they have to take a commission that they don't want to. That is their right as an artist to make their art under their own terms. They shouldn't bother with the lawsuits. They should just find an artist willing to make art for them and move on.
Unfortunately, they wanted to *expand* governmental marriage, and now it will be even harder to destroy that unholy union - not to mention the groundwork laid that allows gay couples to sue bakers, florists, musicians, artists, etc, for not wanting to participate. But, well... that's what the Gay Rights movement wanted in the first place - to hurt and silence those who disagreed with them. It's what my church warned of before it was passed, and now we see the fruits. I just hope these vile court decisions will be reversed...
Religious wedding ceremonies are not a necessary part of a legal secular marriage.
That being said, ignore how Christianity defines a marriage for a moment. That isn't relevant to the argument.
Muslims can get married, so can atheists. Marriage in this country is a secular union. We're looking at a union before the law, with all the civil liberties that go along with it. I am not talking about a union under God. That's up to your own interpretation whether or not God will acknowledge such an agreement.
Take religion out of the argument for a government recognized marriage, and you're left with two people who want to be recognized as a couple under the state. They should absolutely have that right.
In any case, what you propose still discriminates against people who want to remain single - after all, those are special legal privileges granted to one group (ie, people who want to marry under your definition) but not another (ie, permanent bachelors and bachelorettes). Quite frankly, it's not government's job to give anyone these special privileges.
I don't think I said 'love'. As for the other part of this 'arbitrary distinction', it sounds to me like you're citing the old argument that as soon as the sanctity of marriage is violated to allow people of the same sex to get married, that opens up the gateway for unions of three or more people or for bestiality. That is a red herring argument. There is no evidence to support that allowing gay couples to marry will result in bestiality or polygamous marriages.
That latter argument also doesn't appear to have to do with marriage equality. It seems like an argument that you could apply to the current marriage situation...
I would like to ask you.. Can you give me one argument for why two people of the same sex should not be allowed to be married (legally married, not necessarily religiously married) without using religion as an argument?
Why should it be limited to 'two' and 'people'? What good reason is there to ignore the gender aspect of marriage and uphold the other aspects? Also, you forgot another aspect of it - the fact that the two must not be related.
Moreover, you are wrong in saying there is no push for the other aspects to be dropped; there *are*. In Utah, for instance, they tried to pass a similar amendment limiting marriage to one man and one woman - though the purpose, in that case, was to prevent polygamy. And that movement is growing; I would not be surprised if, in thirty years, that restriction was being challenged and anyone who opposed expanding the definition was accused of bigotry. Moreover, we can already see leftists moving towards trying to socially normalize pedophilia...
The fact is, if there is no good reason to uphold the definition of marriage in regards to the gender of those involved, there is also no good reason to uphold the definition that limits it to two people, that limits it to people, or that limits it to people who are unrelated. Let's stay away from children and animals, for the moment; what is your argument that we should not expand it to more than two people? Or that a person cannot marry their house, or their car? Or that a father cannot marry their son, or a brother his sister? Now, that last example has concerns of genetic defects, that's true, but your concern disappears the moment one of them is sterilized, and you once more have no reason to object... besides the 'old religious arguments' about it.
As it stands, I can give several reasons for why they should not be married. In the first place, marriage confers legal benefits to those getting married, benefits that the rest of society cannot enjoy and which come at society's expense... And thus, at every individual's expense. Moreover, that marriage conferred benefits to society, which gay marriages by definition cannot; a heterosexual marriage provides a much better basis for a family than a gay one, even if the straight couple cannot conceive.
Moreover, you didn't really listen to what I was arguing for; I was arguing for a dissolution of government marriage altogether. There is, quite frankly, no reason to have it any longer. With no-fault divorce and the secular expectation that women be equal to men in every way and be able to support themselves, the secular institution of marriage is a farce. The legal concept of children is that women have the ultimate choice over when they bear them; it should not be the responsibility of men, then, to care for the woman and her children, which is a big part of why marriage was created in the first place. Likewise, men and women are expected to be financially self-sufficient on their own; why, then, should one partner be responsible for the other after they break up? Shoot, it's not even permanent as the vows say - one partner can end it for any reason or no reason at all, and there's nothing the other can do about it - yet they still bear the full legal responsibility that comes with it. So, yes; it is high time that we got rid of the concept of a secular marriage, as it harms society far more than it helps. Let the religious people hold to the ideas of marriage, and uphold those agreements and contracts in the court of law, yes, just as one upholds any other contracts in the court of law. And, should any non-religious people want to mimic marriage in contract, that is their right as well to engage in contracts with their legal consideration what they wish. But let us not pretend we are helping society with the current laws of marriage, or that the benefits we give to it are owed, as neither is true.
You are still arguing that if the traditional definition of marriage shifts that it will shift again to support incest, bestiality, and pedophilia. This is still a hasty generalization.
I would argue instead that incest, bestiality, and pedophilia are all illegal. (Incest is a little less illegal, but it still is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_.....#United_States )
These issues are unrelated to same sex married couples. For marriage to transition to accept those other extreme options, those other extreme options would need to be legalized, and the path to legalizing them wouldn't be through marriage. I can't find any statistics, but I don't think most Americans approve of incest, bestiality, and pedophilia.
"a heterosexual marriage provides a much better basis for a family than a gay one, even if the straight couple cannot conceive."
I would like to see some proof on this point. No family is perfect. Many heterosexual marriages and many families based from heterosexual parents can be awful. I think a parent's personality has a lot more influence on their child's growth and development than their gender does.
There would be unique challenges for a child growing up with two fathers or mothers, but I think those challenges could be solved with healthy communication with the child, along with good parenting. Those are attributes that heterosexual parents don't always embody.
As for this;
I would like to see some proof on this point. No family is perfect. Many heterosexual marriages and many families based from heterosexual parents can be awful.
I assume you believe in evolution? In that case, our species has been optimized over the course of however millions of years for the production of children in a man/woman partnership, with both parents raising their offspring. But, I honestly don't care about that; again, I'm pushing for government to pull out of marriage altogether.
(Sorry for the late reply, I've been celebrating New Years with Airborne and NyQuil)
Polygamy likewise, confounds the same process. I think what you need to realize is that government recognized unions and religious unions are two different things. I would agree that religious marriage should not be recognized under the law and no benefits be awarded to those couples. In the same right, those couples can still seek recognition at the federal level if they so choose. In this way, no one would trample over your precious beliefs and the more secular among us can still be recognized in marriage. (Whether or not you hate that word being used in a secular way is irrelevant.)
Using a car as an example is ridiculous btw. The government won't recognize that union because the car (I can't believe I have to explain this) is not a tax paying citizen and is not by law a "person."
Finally, I implore you to look up the slippery slope fallacy and maybe not use it. It makes you far less credible.
Regarding the loopholes - those should be closed, and is not a serious argument against incest marriage. After all, there was a time when taxation was much more gendered than it was today, specificially to protect women; that wouldn't have been a good argument back then. And when gay marriage was legalized, we had to change the tax code to reflect that as well. Besides, that issue is already covered in tax code; it's already illegal to claim your spouse as your dependent, afaik, and they already handle legally incompetent spouses or spouses who act as dependents. Bottom line - it's already handled, and even if it wasn't we would still be just as obligated to change it as we did when gay marriage was introduced.
Moreover, why should the law not be changed, based on the current attitude of 'if they love each other, Government should recognize them'? It seems like a rather silly notion that they can't change THOSE laws too, when they already changed so many laws in favor of same sex marriage. Indeed, when it gets to the point that Polygamy is being seriously considered nationally (it already is in certain places, after all!), that sort of attitude will be called 'hate speech'.
Third, a car doesn't pay taxes, that is correct; but some people don't pay taxes either. However, based on the usual arguments of 'they love each other', that's hardly an argument against it. Indeed, who are you to say that a man's union with his car is invalid? He loves that car, cares for that car, has sex with that car... Sorry, you're just being intolerant![/sarcasm]
And finally, regarding the 'slippery slope' fallacy - we need only look at history to see that this is the way liberals operate. When they were first legalizing homosexuality - that is, no longer penalizing it - all of the talk of the gay movement trying to make gay marriage legal was dismissed as a 'slippery slope'. Now that they have gay marriage, they're dismissing polygamous marriage as a 'slippery slope' - despite the fact that the same arguments apply! It's not a slippery slope if we already see it happening, and if the same arguments for one thing apply to another.
At least we can agree on getting government out of marriage, but I wonder - are you in favor of, say, a baker, florist, photographer, etc, not being legally penalized for refusing to participate in a gay marriage? Because that's my main concern; if that's protected, most of the religious people will be satisfied.
But, fair enough; we agree on the important bit at least.