tatum, is marriage a God ordained institution?

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tatum, is marriage a God ordained institution?

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Mine is and that has nothing to do with government. What govt hands out is just a financial and legal contract.

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How is gay marriage a notch against marriage?

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Simple.

It defines marriage as something that is not directed towards the procreation of children by default and it codifies for all of society that a father and mother are not needed for a child, which is false.

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Is it ok if I get hetero-married and don't procreate?

Seamaster, why don't you let conservative Judge Posner destroy your arguments if you are tired of texags doing it.

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tatum, is marriage a God ordained institution?

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Mine is and that has nothing to do with government. What govt hands out is just a financial and legal contract.

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Should the government be able to altar the God ordained sanctity of marriage and force religious entities or Christian entrepreneurs to partake in a willful violation of their conscience?

(Others have stated you're a tyson sock, and it seemed plausible. If I have been mistaken, I apologize. You called me out for starting a "gay thread" and said I was an unsaved man, so I figured you were just a recreation of tyson).

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tatum, is marriage a God ordained institution?

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Mine is and that has nothing to do with government. What govt hands out is just a financial and legal contract.

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Should the government be able to altar the God ordained sanctity of marriage and force religious entities or Christian entrepreneurs to partake in a willful violation of their conscience?

(Others have stated you're a tyson sock, and it seemed plausible. If I have been mistaken, I apologize. You called me out for starting a "gay thread" and said I was an unsaved man, so I figured you were just a recreation of tyson).

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Tampa,

We are not talking about religious marriage. We are talking about legal marriage. Leave religious marriage up to the church. Legal marriage pretty much just involves government benefits and recognition. It won't affect your marriage or the institution of marriage, unless you let it.

There is no evidence that religious entities will be forced to conduct SSM ceremonies. None. This is slippery slope doom-and-gloom talk. 70% of the US population lives in a place where SSM is legal and it's yet to happen. As far as public accommodation laws, that is a separate issue from this. (For the record, I don't like public accommodation laws)

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tatum, is marriage a God ordained institution?

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Mine is and that has nothing to do with government. What govt hands out is just a financial and legal contract.

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Should the government be able to altar the God ordained sanctity of marriage and force religious entities or Christian entrepreneurs to partake in a willful violation of their conscience?

(Others have stated you're a tyson sock, and it seemed plausible. If I have been mistaken, I apologize. You called me out for starting a "gay thread" and said I was an unsaved man, so I figured you were just a recreation of tyson).

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Government can't and isn't altering the sanctity of marriage.

Government shouldn't force anybody to do business with anybody they don't want to. All accommodation laws should be struck down. If you just want to strike down accommodation laws for gays I have no respect for that. Religion, race. Sex, etc have been infringing on others rights far longer than gays being covered under accommodations.

Government cannot recognize marriage due to its religious connotations. That's a violation of the Establishment Clause. Thus, government must treat its citizens equally with regards to marriage.

Religious organizations will not have to perform any service they don't want to perform. That's not on the table and never has been. Christian business people should either turn their business into a club or follow the law. The law says you cannot deny a service to one group of people that you provide to others.

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tatum, is marriage a God ordained institution?

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To many people it is. In relation to this debate, it's simply a legal construct.

If you think it's god-ordained, that's great. I don't see how any law could change that.

Also, seamaster, I asked you about 20 questions in my 1:19 post. It would be awesome if you could actually attempt to answer even a third of them.

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Fine. You be on the right side of nature, I'll file a joint tax return

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If marriage boils down to a thing where two or more adults file joint tax returns than those opposed to gay 'marriage' would have no reason to oppose it. This tips me off that you completely don't get it. Its not about tax returns.

I've said before and I'll say again, that marriage is an institution has been losing its meaning and impact on our culture for a long time - well before gays wanted to file joint tax returns. Easy divorce/remarriage/IVF/Kardashian weddings etc.

There is truth beind what marriage is - and we've distorted for a long time and its not only the fault of gay 'marriage.' Gay 'marriage' however, complete turns marriage on its head and it codifies that mother and father are not important to children, which is false. That is why I oppose it.

You have the right to love whoever you want to love in anyway you want to love them. You should even have herditary rights and tax rights and hostpital visitation rights if you want them. But you can have all of that without redefining marriage and forcing the rest of society to go along with it.

I'll try to answer your questions in your 1:19 post now but won't have much time to take this much further until the weekend.

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How does my being married make your marriage less meaningful?

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I did not say that your 'marriage' makes my marriage less meaningful.

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How, specifically will my being married **** up a generation of Americans

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More kids will grow up without a father or mother. Ealier in the conversation I posted a link to an article by the Family Foundation which cites numerous studies on this acount. I strongly believe, as a father of five children, that kids crave and need a mother and a father. Its human nature. As much as you might love your child (should you ever adopt one/surrogate/testtube one into life), you or your 'husband' will never be that child's mother. One of the studies in that article discuss how children born into these arrangments often ask about their mother/father - its heartbreaking.

I hope that your 'marriage' does not result in people listening to Nickelback....

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Slippery slope/interracial marriage...

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Interracial marriage has been a fact since the OT times. To even compare the interracial marriage of a man and woman to two dudes/two women is absurd and proves, again, that you are missing the point.

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Gay marriage has been legal in parts of this country for over a decade. It still has not happened. Not one time.

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Gay couples are suing people left and right all over the place when people excersize their conscience. Gay people have sued in other countries to get married in various churches. Its bound to happen - hope its not successful but its coming.

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How does me being married result in someone else deciding not to have children?

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Like I said above - when marriage is weakened the birth rate drops. Birth rates are down for a number of reason and in some parts of the world it is a crises. In Japan they sell more adult diapers than baby diapers. HOW SAD IS THAT!?!? Check out the Japanese marriage rate.... Now, its not the fault of gay marriage alone - Japan might not even have gay marriage, I don't know. But when marriage is not valued for the right reasons, people don't get married as much which leads to more children born out of wedlock and fewer children altogether.

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I'll take my steak and beers right now, actually. We've already got an example of this in Massachusetts, where marriage equality has existed for almost 12 years.

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The marriage rate has dropped in Massachusetts over the past 12 years. In fact, it has dropped in nearly every state. I never said that its 'only' because of gay marriage but gay marriage certainly does not help the marriage rate.

Somebody like him is able to raise five kids. Just sad. I feel so terrible for them

Could someone explain how allowing a new group of people to marry harms the rate of marriage?

Tatum, he appears to be raising his children in a Christ honoring home and in accordance to a Biblical worldview. As a professing Christian, you should be joyful to see a man guide his family under the influence of the Word of God. You shouldn't malign or degrade those who haven't conformed to new age teachings of contemporary society.

How many churches will not marry someone who has been divorced? Maybe it's a lot more than I think, but I think this is where Christians and the "sanctity of marriage" crowd should be focusing their efforts.

747 you make coherent argument

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Cool Laser Falcon - you are right. But that does not mean we stay silent on this and just watch this unfold. My church does not marry divorced people - there is an 'annulment' which is saying that the first marriage was invalid for some reason, and that is abused but thats another story.

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If you are concerned about the government forcing churches to marry same sex couples (which I am concerned about as well) the better defense for the churches is going to be to have their **** in order. It will be much easier for churches to stand behind the defense of, "no, we only preform marriage ceremonies for people who fit the Biblical requirements" than, "yeah, well we're really serious about this requirement."

Ryan Anderson plays good ball.

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Slippery slope/interracial marriage...

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Interracial marriage has been a fact since the OT times. To even compare the interracial marriage of a man and woman to two dudes/two women is absurd and proves, again, that you are missing the point.

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As judge Posner points out (please listen to the audio in the link I posted), the arguments against gay marriage are hardly any different in principle than the ones that were marshaled to deny interracial marriage, or even letting women vote. On what basis can you deny rights to one group of people that most other people have? There has to be some good reason! Again, in this case, the argument boils down to "we don't know what's gonna happen." When asked "what harm, what bad things are going to happen if we grant rights to a new group of citizens?" the position falls apart because there is not one valid, credible reason that is defensible in a court of law that can be provided as evidence that the downfall of society will occur and all of these terrible things that you assume will happen will come true. People ALWAYS have argued that giving rights to those without them would cause the destruction of society. The exact same thing is happening with the gay marriage debate. There was a time when people (including many Christians, of course) thought letting blacks and women vote, letting blacks and whites marry and go to school together would produce all kinds of terrible effects on society. Those rights were granted (by "activist" judges, I'm sure!) even though the courts "didn't know what was going to happen" to society. You now have the benefit of hindsight to see that the sky-is-falling, slippery slope arguments were bogus and never came true on those cases, so you have no problem with interracial marriage or female suffrage. Granting those rights turned out to be OK for society after all. Yet you still cling to the same basic types of arguments in this case. Can you really not see that?

Anyway it doesn't matter because none of the arguments that you have made here would ever hold up in a court of law, which is the venue for finally deciding this issue for all Americans.

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How does me being married result in someone else deciding not to have children?
Like I said above - when marriage is weakened the birth rate drops. Birth rates are down for a number of reason and in some parts of the world it is a crises. In Japan they sell more adult diapers than baby diapers. HOW SAD IS THAT!?!? Check out the Japanese marriage rate.... Now, its not the fault of gay marriage alone - Japan might not even have gay marriage, I don't know. But when marriage is not valued for the right reasons, people don't get married as much which leads to more children born out of wedlock and fewer children altogether.

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It's not "sad" to me at all. Why would lower birth rates and fewer people on earth be a sad thing?

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Quote:Fine. You be on the right side of nature, I'll file a joint tax return

If marriage boils down to a thing where two or more adults file joint tax returns than those opposed to gay 'marriage' would have no reason to oppose it. This tips me off that you completely don't get it. Its not about tax returns.

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No, in the legal sense it's absolutely about tax returns. And inheritance rights. And hospital visitation. And access to courts for division of property upon divorce. And automatic power of attorney rights. And rights relating to children. And all of the litany of other legal rights and obligations that come with a legally-recognized relationship.

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There is truth beind what marriage is - and we've distorted for a long time and its not only the fault of gay 'marriage.'

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I'm glad you're the arbiter of what is "truth" in marriage, whatever that means. The fact of the matter is not everyone in this country believes as you do. If your church wants to enforce it's beliefs regarding marriage on its members, have at it. Not everyone is part of your church though.

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Gay 'marriage' however, complete turns marriage on its head and it codifies that mother and father are not important to children, which is false. That is why I oppose it.

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There are tons of gay couples out there raising children, right now, this very second. Your crusade against their parents marrying each other does nothing to stop this. I don't see how you can make this argument unless you also support removing children from these homes. Maybe you're crazy enough to actually think this; I honestly don't know.

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You have the right to love whoever you want to love in anyway you want to love them. You should even have herditary rights and tax rights and hostpital visitation rights if you want them.

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There we go! Yes. I absolutely do have the right to these things. The status of marriage laws in this country prevents this, however.

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But you can have all of that without redefiningmarriage and forcing the rest of society to go along with it.

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Please elaborate on how I can have all this without having access to the legal institution that guarantees all of these things. Also, if you agree that I'm entitled to all of these legal rights, how am I forcing anyone to go along with anything by obtaining them?

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Quote:How does my being married make your marriage less meaningful?

I did not say that your marriage makes my marriage less meaningful.

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You said it makes marriage as an institution less meaningful, to the point of being meaningLESS. If the institution becomes meaningless, how does yours not become so? Why is your particular marriage immune to this meaninglessness the greater institution is going to suffer?

Also, when quoting you I've gone ahead and removed your "scare quotes" when referring to my marriage to make you seem like slightly less of a condescending ass.

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Quote:How, specifically will my being married **** up a generation of Americans

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More kids will grow up without a father or mother.

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Stop right there. How so? You do realize not allowing gay people to marry has absolutely no bearing on whether those same gay people will or won't be raising children, right?

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Ealier in the conversation I posted a link to an article by the Family Foundation which cites numerous studies on this acount.

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I'm sure this is a completely unbiased and scientific journal. Moving on.

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I strongly believe, as a father of five children, that kids crave and need a mother and a father. Its human nature. As much as you might love your child (should you ever adopt one/surrogate/testtube one into life), you or your husband will never be that child's mother. One of the studies in that article discuss how children born into these arrangments often ask about their mother/father - its heartbreaking.

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So I shouldn't be allowed to marry because some hypothetical child I may have someday might ask about his mother? And again, if this is so bad of a thing that it's going to "**** up a generation of people," you should be jumping up and down screaming from the rooftops that gays not be allowed to raise children at all. And again, you may just be crazy enough to advocate for that.

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I hope that your 'marriage' does not result in people listening to Nickelback....

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Great, now please answer my question and provide specific examples of how this generation will be effed up by my marriage. So far we've got "some kids might ask questions about where they came from."

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Quote:Slippery slope/interracial marriage...

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Interracial marriage has been a fact since the OT times. To even compare the interracial marriage of a man and woman to two dudes/two women is absurd and proves, again, that you are missing the point.

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Once again, I'm talking about the legal concept of marriage in this country. It is not absurd to compare bans on one type of couple marrying to bans on another type of couple that existed in this country less than 50 years ago.

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Quote:Gay marriage has been legal in parts of this country for over a decade. It still has not happened. Not one time.
Gay couples are suing people left and right all over the place when people excersize their conscience. Gay people have sued in other countries to get married in various churches. Its bound to happen - hope its not successful but its coming.

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They're suing when public accommodations discriminate against them. Minority racial groups do the same thing; it has never once happened in the context of church discrimination with them either. Also, I can't believe i have to say this, but other countries do not have the same laws we do.

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Quote:How does me being married result in someone else deciding not to have children?

Like I said above - when marriage is weakened the birth rate drops. Birth rates are down for a number of reason and in some parts of the world it is a crises. In Japan they sell more adult diapers than baby diapers. HOW SAD IS THAT!?!? Check out the Japanese marriage rate.... Now, its not the fault of gay marriage alone - Japan might not even have gay marriage, I don't know. But when marriage is not valued for the right reasons, people don't get married as much which leads to more children born out of wedlock and fewer children altogether.

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At the risk of you actually learning something, no, Japan does not have gay marriage. Any issues they have with their birth rate are not our fault. The tsunami and earthquakes on the other hand - yeah that was probably us.

So that aside, can you please tie this notion of me being married to marriage being "weakened?" Are you honestly saying straight people will look around, see their gay family members getting married, and say "you know what? now that they're married I don't want to be anymore." If you were a widower and 10 years from now were seeing someone you cared deeply for, are you saying that you would not marry her because there are gays out there marrying each other? If your answer is no, I don't see how you can actually make this argument.

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Quote:I'll take my steak and beers right now, actually. We've already got an example of this in Massachusetts, where marriage equality has existed for almost 12 years.

The marriage rate has dropped in Massachusetts over the past 12 years. In fact, it has dropped in nearly every state. I never said that its 'only' because of gay marriage but gay marriage certainly does not help the marriage rate.

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So I take it by this goal-post moving exercise that my husband and I will not be receiving our gift card to Eddie V's? And again, with the statements of opinions as fact. You've yet to answer how, specifically, gay people marrying makes straight people not want to get married anymore.

If you actually look at the numbers I provided, the marriage rate in Massachusetts declined quite a bit more from 1990-2003 (7.9-5.6) than it did from 2003-2011 (5.6-5.5). It's almost as if some other factor was responsible for the earlier decline, like maybe women working more and going to college in greater numbers.

BB.

I don't have time to answer everything and likely my last comment for a few days.

I'l only say this - you can have all the tax benefits/visitation rights and everything else and marriage can remain as marriage as always been. Its not just homosexuals that are denied these things - its siblings who live together or friends that share things etc.

Secondly -

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I'm sure this is a completely unbiased and scientific journal. Moving on

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In other words, "This has data that challenges the narrative I am going with therefore I will ignore it."

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747 you make coherent argument

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Sarcasm noted. The point, however, was to direct a little levity at your "coherent argument" that follows thusly: "Somebody like him is able to raise five kids. Just sad. I feel so terrible for them." I like levity. It makes life more fun.

More seriously, it's quite clear in these past 4 pages that Seamaster believes marriage to be something more than contract that has benefits a la heredity, visitation rights, and tax returns as it seems his detractors believe. He even concedes that if marriage was just as his detractors believe, there is no grounds for opposition. That marriage, as Seamaster and I believe, also ordinarily involves the siring and raising of children is not necessarily a religious sentiment (yes, it is part of Catholic understanding of marriage, but it is not uniquely Catholic nor uniquely religious). For instance, my wife and her acupuncturist had an interesting discussion regarding diet and pregnancy. The acupuncturist was shocked/surprised that my wife hadn't eaten specific nutrient-dense foods or superfoods during and after her pregnancies. The acupuncturist revealed that in her native China, newlyweds, as per custom, were given prized foods to support virility and fertility, so as to help aid in procreation as well as support gestation. Yes, it is anecdotal, but it does seem to me to support the notion that marriage is more than just a contract and involves children. Take it as you will.

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It supports the idea that marriage is sometimes, for some people, in some places, more than just a contract, and sometimes, for some people, in some places involves children. We are all free to assign whatever beliefs to the concept of marriage that we want. But what Seamaster cannot seem to handle is the fact that our government was set up such that it cannot codify one particular set of beliefs into a law that defines what marriage will be on either a practical or a metaphysical level for all citizens. He has total contempt for the separation of church and state.

BB.

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I don't have time to answer everything and likely my last comment for a few days.

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Odd how you tend to suddenly get very busy when your arguments get so thoroughly refuted. I'm sure you'll be back in a couple weeks to start a thread just like this one and start the cycle anew.

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I'l only say this - you can have all the tax benefits/visitation rights and everything else and marriage can remain as marriage as always been.

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Again, no I cannot. Unless my marriage is recognized in every state and federally, this is categorically not true.

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Its not just homosexuals that are denied these things - its siblings who live together or friends that share things etc.

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Jesus, I really don't think you could be any more condescending if you tried. Are you seriously trying to tell me that my relationship is an arrangement of friends who share things? I really should be given a medal for not typing what I want to type right now.

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In other words, "This has data that challenges the narrative I am going with therefore I will ignore it."

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No, I'm saying the source is completely biased and unreliable. If you want to get relevant data on the pros and cons of having a fox watch your henhouse, you don't get your statistics from the United Council of Fox Henhouse Watchers. It's an incredibly simple concept.

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It supports the idea that marriage is sometimes, for some people, in some places, more than just a contract, and sometimes, for some people, in some places involves children. We are all free to assign whatever beliefs to the concept of marriage that we want. But what Seamaster cannot seem to handle is the fact that our government was set up such that it cannot codify one particular set of beliefs into a law that defines what marriage will be on either a practical or a metaphysical level for all citizens. He has total contempt for the separation of church and state.

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Indeed, it supports that notion at the very least. I also think it challenges the notion that the idea of marriage involving procreation as inherently religious. Certainly, this notion overlaps with his (and my) faith, but I dispute that the argument is inherently religious based on my wife's conversation with her acupuncturist. As such, I believe our system of government could codify such a thing into law without crossing the church/state boundary.

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Odd how you tend to suddenly get very busy when your arguments get so thoroughly refuted

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Odd that I have a job and started the converstation on the weekend and can really only have time for much back and forth on the weekend. How strange.

And yet you're still here. But like I said earlier, please keep talking.

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747 you make coherent argument

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Sarcasm noted. The point, however, was to direct a little levity at your "coherent argument" that follows thusly: "Somebody like him is able to raise five kids. Just sad. I feel so terrible for them." I like levity. It makes life more fun.

More seriously, it's quite clear in these past 4 pages that Seamaster believes marriage to be something more than contract that has benefits a la heredity, visitation rights, and tax returns as it seems his detractors believe. He even concedes that if marriage was just as his detractors believe, there is no grounds for opposition. That marriage, as Seamaster and I believe, also ordinarily involves the siring and raising of children is not necessarily a religious sentiment (yes, it is part of Catholic understanding of marriage, but it is not uniquely Catholic nor uniquely religious). For instance, my wife and her acupuncturist had an interesting discussion regarding diet and pregnancy. The acupuncturist was shocked/surprised that my wife hadn't eaten specific nutrient-dense foods or superfoods during and after her pregnancies. The acupuncturist revealed that in her native China, newlyweds, as per custom, were given prized foods to support virility and fertility, so as to help aid in procreation as well as support gestation. Yes, it is anecdotal, but it does seem to me to support the notion that marriage is more than just a contract and involves children. Take it as you will.

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Not being sarcastic. You make coherent arguments. Seamaster doesn't.

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What I don't understand is why marriage can't be the things listed above for some, and all the things you consider it to be for others.

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Perhaps the subjectivity of it all bothers me. Not 100% sure. I do subscribe to a Natural Law understanding of marriage and sexuality, which is fairly objective in my understanding.

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Not being sarcastic.

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My mistake.