How do you feel about same-sex marriage? (Brown, biased, party)
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Your question is not framed clearly enough. My objection is not just about the marriages taking place in churches. I don't agree with gay marriages at all.
That's really rather simple to get around - don't like same sex marriage? Don't marry someone of the same sex! But I'd really like to know what reasons you would have for denying someone else the right (or privilege, if you prefer) to marry the one person they've found whom they can love? And, as the previous poster requested, please leave your religious beliefs out of it, because they really are not relevant in a discussion on civil, legal marriage.
Can you provide proof to show that marriage predates the Old Testament? Would be interested to see this.
Okay.
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The Institution of Marriage goes way back. Over 5,000 years ago, the Sumerians had made laws which regulated marriage. But it was still "Rough House" rules. The "Best Man" got that name because he would help kidnap the bride, and then fight off the relatives if they tried to rescue her. The Romans thought this a bit uncivilised. They went one step further, and wrote laws that made sure that both the groom and the bride entered into their marriage of their own free choice.
The very earliest marriage certificate that we have was found in a bundle of Aramaic papyri, some 2,500 years old. It was found in the ruins of a Jewish Garrison, that had been stationed at Elephantine in Egypt. It's more of a "contract" than a "marriage certificate", as it documents that the groom landed himself a healthy 14 year-old girl bride in exchange for six cows.
Society does not provide wisdom. Individuals do. Society providing any sort of decision masquerading as wisdom is at best mob thought.
Thank you! The very weakest argument anyone can make for anything at all is the "most people agree with me" argument. Just because more people are stupid than not, is not a reason to let stupidity prevail.
Please don't put words into my mouth. I don't insinuate anything...if I feel it, I'll state it. I don't agree with gay marriage and I especially don't agree with them being held in churches. I've made no mention about force.
Marriage is defined as being a union between a man and a woman...it is a religious concept. So my religious beliefs aren't interfering with anything. On the other hand, those supporting gay marriage are seeking to interfere with what the original religious intent of marriage.
Except that we're not discussing the religious aspects of marriage. We're discussing the civil aspects, meaning the legal aspects. Yes, your church cam marry (or decline to marry) any couple within it's walls. But, unless there's also the legal document called a "marriage license", most states in this country will not agree that the couple is married. But that license does not have to be accompanied by the certificate given by any church to be considered a legal marriage. So, I'm sorry, but your religious beliefs, just like mine, are irrelevant to the discussion.
Where did I say they have to be exactly alike? All I asked is for you to poinWhat exactly did I “get”? Oh, so because blacks were finally given their Civil Rights, we should automatically stand behind gay marriage? Sorry, but many blacks are Christians and, as such, don’t agree with homosexuality. So now blacks are “oppressors”? Do you know how ridiculous you sound? Blacks don’t “owe” gay people anything. Neither do we make up enough of the population to sway the vote for/against anything, so your outrage is misplaced.
As far as I've seen, no one is saying blacks "owe" anyone anything. As for the bolded, This Christian thinks your arguments against same sex marriage are just plain stupid. Neither Christianity, nor any other religion, has ever been the standard by which marriage is considered legal in this country and it shouldn't be. If we were to make Christianity the 'standard', then does that somehow make the marriages of Jews, Pagans, Muslims or those who hold to no religion illegal?
Can you provide proof to show that marriage predates the Old Testament? Would be interested to see this.
This is my thing. The bible states that marriage is between a man and a woman and that for a man to lay with another man as he would lay with a woman is an abomination. Those things are clear. So Christianity does not support the practice of homosexuality. Why exactly then would gays even *want* to be married in a church? Why would they want to take part in a religious ceremony that condemns homosexuality?
I'm aware that marriages can take place outside of the church. I myself was married at the JOP. Still don't agree with this happening with gay couples. Civil unions I'm all in favor of.
The entire point being made by most of the people posting in this thread is that, when it comes to legal marriage in this country, what the Bible says is of no consequence! We don't make our laws based on the Bible, the Torah, the Q'ran or any other religious text. And if the 'civil unions' offered to gays provided all the same rights, privileges and benefits as your civil marriage, I'd even agree, as would most of my gay and lesbian friends. But the point is, they don't! Check it out - look up the differences between 'civil unions' and marriage in New Jersey, for instance.
So anybody who can't create children shouldn't be allowed to marry? So that young woman who, say, had cysts on her uterus and had to have a hysterectomy at a young age shouldn't be allowed to marry her high school sweetheart?
Or, a couple who decides they would rather not have children by choice shouldn't be allowed to marry either?
So your 80-year-old grandma meets an 80-year-old widower in the nursing home and falls in love, there is no reason to add "legal structure" to their relationship by getting married?
But I'll bet you'd like to, wouldn't you?
Why should the young woman with the cysts on her uterus have to accept abandonment when her high school sweetheart knocks up the girlfriend he has on the side?
Our state governments have largely maintained that those entering into marriage be one male and one female without trying to make judgement calls about who is or is not fertile, but the intent of the requirement that a married partner not copulate outside the marriage is none the less obvious. It is to prevent the creation of children outside the marriage.
It is equally obvious why marriage's sexual fidelity requirement serves no practical function when applied to homosexuals who are in all cases incapable of creating a child with a same-sex partner.
Our state governments have largely maintained that those entering into marriage be one male and one female without trying to make judgement calls about who is or is not fertile, but the intent of the requirement that a married partner not copulate outside the marriage is none the less obvious. It is to prevent the creation of children outside the marriage.
This is too funny. There is no guarantee that a married man (or woman) isn't going to "copulate" outside of marriage. Just ask my lying, cheating ex.
And I'm pretty sure there are many husbands who have had vasectomies who are out there "copulating" outside of their marriage, as well as women who have had tubal ligations. And there have been many instances of cheating spouses having children with the person they're cheating with. So the whole marriage is to prevent children outside of marriage argument just makes no sense at all.
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Why should the young woman with the cysts on her uterus have to accept abandonment when her high school sweetheart knocks up the girlfriend he has on the side?
What do you mean by "accepting abandonment?" If she marries her high school sweetheart and he fathers a child with another woman, how did "marriage" prevent that from happening?
And what does that have to do with two people of the same sex who love each other not having the same rights as any other couple in love?
I am sure same sex marriages share many of the same issues that heterosexual marriages do with lying and cheating and bickering over money and who's going to take out the garbage. Marriage is no guarantee of anything except that it gives certain legal rights to the people who want to get married.
All instances of marriage in the bible are between a man and a woman. Is this just an odd coincidence? Please refer to:
Gen. 2:18, 21-24 The Lord God said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him'...and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, 'This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man.' For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
Mark 10:6-9 "But at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female.' 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."
1 Corinthians 7:1-4 Now for the matters you wrote about: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife.
Once again, we don't make our laws based on what the Bible or any other religious text. Not to mention the fact that what any of those verses above says depends entirely on the version of the Bible you are reading. For instance, I have two versions in front of me right now and not only do they read differently from your quote above, they read differently from each other!
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Also, I'm not interested in reading people's translations and interpretations of what the bible says. I'm only interested in what the bible actually says. Lev 18:22, without further hyperbole, analysis, etc, is enough for me.
Again, which version? I have had three or four different versions and they all read differently.
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I won't get into churches with gay elders, etc. That's a whole nother topic.
And why should that be 'another topic'? Or do you really think YOU should have some sort of 'control' over what every church in this country teaches? What you need to realize is that each individual who reads the Bible gets something different from it. So, of course not everyone is going to agree with what you consider "infallible teachings" from that book or any other.
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Let me be clear. The problem with Christianity and homosexuality is not that someone is gay. It is the practice of homosexuality that is the problem because it is fornication. All forms of fornication, whether it be straight or gay is sin.
"Practice of homosexuality"? And what would that be? And, if gays were legally married, it wouldn't be fornication, would it? Or would you still consider it to be fornication even when the parties involved are legally married, just because your religious beliefs have convinced you homosexual feelings are 'wrong'?
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And I agree...I could never attend a church where the elders were practicing homosexuality and/or performing gay marriages.
Somehow I get the feeling you would never be invited to such a church, even if a friend of yours was getting married, whether it be a straight couple or a gay couple. Oh, and those elders you have such disdain for? They aren't "practicing homosexuality." They ARE homosexual, whether they ever actually engage in sex or not. Celibacy doesn't make someone "straight" any more than sexual hedonism automatically makes one gay.
Once again, we don't make our laws based on what the Bible or any other religious text.
It's like talking to a wall, isn't it?
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