Gay Marriage

[kandrathe]

I'm a little burned out on this topic, but I felt compelled to respond to your points if for no other reason than to help you strengthen them.

Slippery Slope
You gravitated to the extreme and ludicrous examples, but say we kept, children, pets, and inanimate objects out of the argument. What if 4 women and 4 men wish to create a polyandrous union and call it marriage? Say this collection of individuals produced offspring. What are the rights of the individuals involved, or the children? Is our legal system prepared to untangle these types of knots?

The Sanctity of Marriage
Again, you delve to the extreme of the trite and unholy unions. What about people who "truly" believe? Since marriage to them is a religious act, by sanctioning gay marriage the state is beginning to trample on the traditions of most major religions. Consider this article and reflect on what the problem is with divorce. It is not that these people considered their marriages a sham.

Tradition
Your argument takes the word marriage as it has ever been used in history and mashes into today's context. 9 in 10 marriages occur in a church with a religious ceremony. That is the tradition we are speaking about, and not what happened in Mesopotamia 3000 years ago. You then attempt to use the First Amendment argument to justify secularity, while the converse of that argument is the reality. The state shall impose no law restricting the practice of religion. In effect the attempt by the state to define marriage is contrary to the First Amendment.

The Unnatural Argument
I'm not sure you had an argument for this one. Are you saying that humans are animals, so anything animals do is ok for humans to do? Not quite compelling, as we have some greater level of self control. I've tried not to interject my opinions too much so far, but here I must offer one. My stance is that whatever a persons sexual practices are, it is no business of the state as long as they are "legal". We can quibble about the legality of sexuality, but suffice it to say that not all sexual behavior should be permitted. Some things, such as, involving children, or other incompetents we can all agree upon being wrong. But, generally, I think most people would agree that whatever consenting adults do in private is no business of the state.

Encouraging Immoral Behavior
You offer a weak argument against this ludicrous attack, and maybe that is why you present only the "science says" argument. Science also says that people with frontal lobe damage are more likely to become psychotic killers. The point is that ~10% of the population have same sex relationships, and some fraction of those people identify themselves as homosexual and live the lifestyle. There is no other demographic difference in this group, other than the rate at which they are discriminated against and/or are the victims of hate crimes. My experience has been in my friends and associates who are homosexual is that by far they are the most caring and responsible people I know.

My view on the whole issue is that "marriage" is a religious word and has many connotations which are religious and not the states concern. Therefore, the solution I would feel most comfortable with would be that the state remove any recognition, boon, tax, or any language referring to "marriage" from its coda. Not an easy task as it was an assumption taken for granted by the founders 200 years ago and has been the working principle up until now. One alternative would be to create something "equal" to marriage like "domestic partner", as long as there were zero difference in how the state treated that status. Another, less likely, would be that the dominant religions think themselves out of the dark ages and take a more modern stand on homosexuality.

So, in summary, I feel that religions have the right to adhere to there dogma and exclude gays, and gays have the right to feel hurt and rejected by them. The state needs to govern both groups and if the two cannot form a compromise, then the state must accomodate both in the best way it can.