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Argument #1: That same-sex marriage would destroy the institution of marriage.
Point by point:
The Scandinavian studies to which the article presumably refers are the work of right-wing author Stanley Kurtz, who attempted to prove that same-sex marriage decreased the rate of heterosexual marriage in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. This work has been discredited; see the last paragraph on this page for a summary explaining why.
The often-quoted reference from Romans 1:29-32 omits the following verse, Romans 2:1, which reads "Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things."
No credible study has ever found that children are negatively impacted by being raised in a lesbian or gay household.

Argument #2: That if same-sex marriage is legalized, polygamy will follow.
Even if this concern had a rational basis, a simpler solution to this problem would be to propose a constitutional amendment banning polygamy--which would be easily ratified--rather than fooling around with an anti-gay constitutional amendment that only one-third of Americans support.

Argument #3: That same-sex marriage would make heterosexual divorces too easy.
No, seriously. The article actually describes this as an "even greater objective of the homosexual movement" than the legalization of same-sex marriage proper. The article makes no real attempt to explain why this would happen, or how this would happen, but presumably one is expected to accept the statement at face value without giving any real thought to it.

Argument #4: That same-sex marriage would require schools to teach tolerance.
People who support same-sex marriage also tend to support tolerance education in public schools, but the former isn't essential to the latter. Just ask Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who vetoed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage and signed a bill enacting a gay-friendly public school tolerance curriculum in the same month.

Argument #5: That same-sex married couples would be able to adopt.
Again, this does not require same-sex marriage. California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Oregon all specifically permit joint same-sex adoption, and most other states do not specifically prohibit it.

Argument #6: That foster parents would be required to pass sensitivity training.
I'm not clear on what possible relationship this would have with same-sex marriage. Again, some states may require such training and some states may not, but the presence or absence of legalized same-sex marriage has nothing to do with the issue.

Argument #7: That Social Security can't afford to pay for same-sex couples.
In argument #1, the AFA article criticized the low marriage rate. But in order for Social Security to be an issue, lesbian and gay Americans would have to remain single altogether rather than becoming heterosexual. The Religious Right's vision of millions of lesbians and gay Americans converting to heterosexuality and marrying members of the opposite sex would have to be written off entirely in order to produce any economic benefit based on denying same-sex couples the right to marry.
And any such benefit would be small-scale anyway. If 4% of the U.S. population identifies as lesbian or gay and half of lesbians and gay men get married, then that's only a 2% increase in the national marriage rate. That won't make or break Social Security.

Argument #8: That legal U.S. same-sex marriage would encourage its spread.
This is the only argument on the list that doesn't strain credulity. Legal same-sex marriage in the United States probably would encourage other nations to also legalize same-sex marriage. But Canada was really ahead of the curve on this one, and will probably be given most of the credit by historians.

Argument #9: That same-sex marriage would make evangelism more difficult.
And just what sort of evangelism are we talking about here, exactly?
In any event, I find it remarkable that any contemporary Christian would see a social policy they don't like as an obstacle to evangelism. A little less than two millennia ago, Christians were actually being executed by the Roman Empire, and surviving texts do not indicate that they saw this as an impediment to evangelism. Why would a change in marriage law, one that does not even directly impact heterosexual couples, somehow destroy evangelism when several generations of Roman emperors could not?

Argument #10: That same-sex marriage would bring about divine retribution.
Again, a little perspective is in order. More than 3,000 children die every day of malaria; during the 1990s, an estimated 100 million children died of starvation; AIDS is sweeping the Global South; and the issue that will bring profound divine retribution is a change in marriage law?
I also have to question any theology that portrays God as some sort of violent, capricious bogeyman who must be supplicated, like the malevolent spirits of animist traditions, by sacrifices and incantations. The first generation of Christians welcomed the idea of divine intervention with the word "maranatha": "Come, Lord Jesus." There is no trace of that message, so central to the earliest Christian teachings, in this AFA article.

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Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
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Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
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Thus we can at least conclude a strong correlation between significant Islamic influence in a state and the legal status of polygamy.

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Kathaariancode
I don't think he was being honest anyhow. I mean he really just wants your vote.

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Wild Creature
Yesterday, President Obama set back the gay rights movement by three or four decades in his affirmation that gays are not equal to straight people, and therefore don't have federally protected constitutional rights which may not be lessened or compromised by any of the several states. He took a position completely at odds with Ted Olsen and David Boise's brave and intellectually brilliant stances on Prop 8, currently before the U.S. Supreme Court. His flim-flam that he now believes gays "should" be allowed to marry is nothing more than a confession that he is a homophobe who has decided to feel pity for these people -- who he clearly believes are fundamentally making a choice and not acting through a natural force and instinct instilled in them through God, protected by the Constitution -- based on his wife and children's assurances that they are good people, and that he, therefore, supports giving them something (marriage certificates) that they aren't really entitled to, and have no fundamental right to demand.

He is a disappointment and a failure and I would rather vote for an angry tomato than vote for him again.

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Wild Creature
Yesterday, President Obama set back the gay rights movement by three or four decades in his affirmation that gays are not equal to straight people, and therefore don't have federally protected constitutional rights which may not be lessened or compromised by any of the several states. He took a position completely at odds with Ted Olsen and David Boise's brave and intellectually brilliant stances on Prop 8, currently before the U.S. Supreme Court. His flim-flam that he now believes gays "should" be allowed to marry is nothing more than a confession that he is a homophobe who has decided to feel pity for these people -- who he clearly believes are fundamentally making a choice and not acting through a natural force and instinct instilled in them through God, protected by the Constitution -- based on his wife and children's assurances that they are good people, and that he, therefore, supports giving them something (marriage certificates) that they aren't really entitled to, and have no fundamental right to demand.

He is a disappointment and a failure and I would rather vote for an angry tomato than vote for him again.

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mike10k
you don't need to look for a reason to vote republican, wild creature!

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Wild Creature
Yesterday, President Obama set back the gay rights movement by three or four decades in his affirmation that gays are not equal to straight people, and therefore don't have federally protected constitutional rights which may not be lessened or compromised by any of the several states. He took a position completely at odds with Ted Olsen and David Boise's brave and intellectually brilliant stances on Prop 8, currently before the U.S. Supreme Court. His flim-flam that he now believes gays "should" be allowed to marry is nothing more than a confession that he is a homophobe who has decided to feel pity for these people -- who he clearly believes are fundamentally making a choice and not acting through a natural force and instinct instilled in them through God, protected by the Constitution -- based on his wife and children's assurances that they are good people, and that he, therefore, supports giving them something (marriage certificates) that they aren't really entitled to, and have no fundamental right to demand.

He is a disappointment and a failure and I would rather vote for an angry tomato than vote for him again.

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that he now believes gays "should" be allowed to marry is nothing more than a confession that he is a homophobe who has decided to feel pity for these people

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-- who he clearly believes are fundamentally making a choice and not acting through a natural force and instinct instilled in them through God, protected by the Constitution -

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betamax
First: WC, i'd like to apologise if the tone of my post was a bit strong. I misread your position from the tone of your post and was actually quite angry at the position i thought you'd taken. Your second post cleared up some of that and clairified your stance on gay rights so, yeah, my mistake and i apologise.

However, a question i'd like to raise... i'm UK so my understanding of American politics comes purely from the media - i'm not there on the the ground to gauge opinion. The way i see it is this:

1. This is a hugely divisive issue in the US;
2. Obama making this a federal decision, essentially overruling the states, would be political suicide;
3. this is his stance on it, in the hopes that it can become less of a divisive issue and less of a taboo subject in the long run...

I mean, isn't this tippy-tappy 'long-game' approach better than committing political suicide and not having a voice in the debate at all?

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Robin Roberts
So if you were the governor of New York or legislator in North Carolina... would vote for legalizing same-sex marriage?

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Barrack Obama
I would... I asked myself right after that New York vote took place, if I had been a state senator...how would I have voted? And I had to admit to myself, "You know what? I think that-- I would have voted yes."

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Wild Creature
by [sic] making that admission, he is admitting that gays do not possess a fundamental right to be protected by the equal protections clause of the US constitution. This is devastating to the concept of gay rights. It is the same exact thing as saying that he doesn't believe that blacks should be prohibited from marrying whites, but if a state votes that way, then he would respect it. As a matter of constitutional law, you cannot subject basic human rights to the vote of the majority.

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Kathaariancode

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Wild Creature

However

I would argue that the gay marriage bans are not a violation of the fourteenth amendment, which is what I assume you are referring to by the "equal protections clause), because gay people do in fact have the exact same marriage rights as straight people do in those states; they can marry, just not whomever they choose to marry.

here is the counter argument to this, which i think is the foundation of the whole issue. the argument you present is the same as saying, a black man can vote, just not while he is black. a gay person can't marry a different sex person because in order to do so they would have to fundamentally alter who they are. the argument you make assumes a person can change their gayness (i doubt that is a word). that is no more true, however, than a black person being able to change their race.

EDITED to add: totally screwed up the quote thing there, but you get the point.

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The first thing that distinguishes a writer is that he is most alive when alone. - Martin Amis



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/10/2012 04:40PM by Wild Creature.

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Wild Creature

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Kathaariancode

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Wild Creature

However

I would argue that the gay marriage bans are not a violation of the fourteenth amendment, which is what I assume you are referring to by the "equal protections clause), because gay people do in fact have the exact same marriage rights as straight people do in those states; they can marry, just not whomever they choose to marry.

here is the counter argument to this, which i think is the foundation of the whole issue. the argument you present is the same as saying, a black man can vote, just not while he is black. a gay person can't marry a different sex person because in order to do so they would have to fundamentally alter who they are. the argument you make assumes a person can change their gayness (i doubt that is a word). that is no more true, however, than a black person being able to change their race.

EDITED to add: totally screwed up the quote thing there, but you get the point.

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Wild Creature
He is a disappointment and a failure and I would rather vote for an angry tomato than vote for him again.