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So in other words you like incest? Wow sure like allowing THAT in society won't have any consequences (sarcasm)
Where is the significant portion of the population who are, as siblings, seeking to be allowed to marry each other? Is this some major movement? Do you know a lot of sets of siblings struggling for the right to marry each other?
Incidentally, "arguments" like these are the exact same ones used by fearful, hateful, ignorant bigots a few decades back to oppose interracial marriage:
"If we let black people and white people marry each other it'll be anarchy! People will sue to marry their family pets! Fathers will marry their daughters! Farmers will want to marry tractors! It would be insanity!"
Where is the significant portion of the population who are, as siblings, seeking to be allowed to marry each other? Is this some major movement? Do you know a lot of sets of siblings struggling for the right to marry each other?
I have often wondered the same thing. When have we ever see siblings marching on Washington wanting to get married? I have never in my 51 years of life knew any siblings who want to get hitched? It seems the only ones I see fighting for this cause are people like the OP and FloridaPirate355. Get Er Done!
"I never said the society wouldn't change. I said that the foundation / absolute standard wouldn't change. Using the "house" analogy I mentioned earlier - you can add on to a house, you can change furniture or appliances, you can change the entire appearance of the house by getting new siding, painting it a different color, etc. I even knew a family that added an entire second floor onto their existing house. But the FOUNDATION never changes."
I would suggest that you do some research as to the foundations of the society known as the United States, ie. read the constitution, the federalist papers, the correspodence between the founders as they hammered out and laid the foundation. While many were religious and belonged to different denominations they took care to make the foundation secular while protecting the freedom of the individual to worship as he or she saw fit. It is even written into the constitution that there shall be no religious test to determine the fitness of anyone to hold public office. I think its safe to say that their vision was that every citizen would be viewed as equal under the law. Laws designed to thwart that equality chip away at the foundation rather than strengthen it. Basic ethics should tell you that any laws that discrininate against an otherwise law abiding segment of the population are fundamentally unjust and should be opposed. I have no problem with a religious organization refusing to marry gay people. My objection comes when those religious people seek to force their beliefs on the rest of society through the law. The law in the United States is supposed to be secular not religious. That is its foundation.
If you either possessed greater reading comprehension or had bothered to read a lot of posts here, you'd realize nobody is making a claim that there IS a functional difference between the day before or after a person's 16th birthday.
Dude, you have no idea who you're dealing with. You wouldn't want to match wits with me in a head-to-head test of reading comprehension.
I understand that nobody made any such claim directly. But they made that claim indirectly by bashing me for arguing that it should not be all about age. In so doing they were asserting a contrary position, that being that it IS all about age, and therefore there is reason to assume that they feel that there's a significant difference in the ability of a 15 year / 364 day old person to consent, and the ability of that same person to consent on his/her 16th birthday.
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Originally Posted by Griffis
Age of consent is a legal definition. It's an arbitray cutoff point that serves a purpose in a number of areas. If you want to fight to lower the age of consent, go right ahead. However I think most people believe there should be some agreed-upon age of consent if for no other reason to protect younger people from the possibility of being exploited in some way or other.
FINALLY we're getting somewhere. Okay.
So why set the age of consent at 16? Why vary it from state to state such that in some states it's 18? What's the deal - someone at age 16 is intellectually capable enough to consent if he/she lives in one state but merely by moving to another state his/her intellectual capability suddenly regresses by two years and now he/she won't be intellectually capable of consenting until age 18? What the heck?!
I agree that young people should not be exploited and that safeguards should be in place to prevent this. Hence why I suggest a psychological test or examination of some kind. Back in the day, in America, people would marry at age 14 or 15 and nobody thought twice about it. These days, people of that age and younger are acting like married couples (having sex, having children) even though they don't call it marriage. In other countries these days, people below the American age of consent get married all the time and it is not called abuse in their country nor is it called abuse in America. If it were, there'd be a heck of a lot more outrage about it than there is - I know of no such measurable outrage. I hear outrage about child labor, starving children, sick children, homeless children... nothing about people under age 16 who get married in other countries even if it's an arranged marriage.
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Originally Posted by Griffis
We get it...you are offended by or disgusted by homosexuals and homosexuality. You endorse systematic discrimination of gay people by precluding them from marrying based solely on their gender. Good for you.
You don't get it. I don't believe there is such a thing as a gay person. I believe that there are people who choose to live a homosexual lifestyle. I know that lots of people disagree with me, so don't y'all start with your hooting and hollering about how you think they're born gay. I know you feel that way, I disagree, you won't convince me to change my mind, so don't waste your keypresses. But if I had stated this for the record even 40 years ago, most people would have agreed with me. My, how times change. *sigh*
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Originally Posted by Griffis
The fact you should remain cognizant of, however, is that there is not one single reason to be offended by or disgusted by homosexuals or homosexuality, or to oppose same sex marriage, that doesn't arise from hate, fear, ignorance, bigotry, or some combination of those things.
Not one.
You're right. There is not one. There are nine. NT = New Testament, OT = Old Testament.
Reject the Word of God at your own peril. Call it "hate", "fear", "ignorance", "bigotry", or whatever, as long as you're man enough (or woman enough) to accept the consequences of that when your judgment day comes. If you will accept whatever consequences would arise as a result of your speech, you have my full respect for your right to free speech even if I disagree with what you say.
And know that it's easy enough for me to see how someone who does not believe the Bible to be the Word of God would find no logical basis for rejecting gay marriage nor anything that is today called "gay rights". I reject it on moral grounds. I admit that any secular/scientific information I could find, to support why gay people should not be allowed to marry, would be weak at best. But for me, the Word of God is sufficient. It won't be sufficient to prevent gay marriage from eventually becoming legal in America as well as at the state level in most (if not all) states, but it is sufficient for me.
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Originally Posted by weltschmerz
How do you reconcile allowing non-virgins to get married with your Christian beliefs? Shouldn't you be standing outside churches with a pocket full of rocks. ready for a good Christian stoning to the death?
A widow/widower is a non-virgin (I hope). They're allowed to remarry.
Someone who got divorced is a non-virgin (again, I hope). Assuming the divorce came about as a result of one or both of the two permissible conditions in the Bible, and the person remarrying was not the perpetrator of those conditions, he/she is allowed to remarry with no punishment.
There's also the forgiveness of sins. If you ask Jesus to forgive your sins with true contrition in your heart, they are removed from you as far as the east is from the west (that line is from Psalm 103:12, in case you wondered). Jesus took our punishment already, as long as we look to Him for forgiveness. Hence - no stoning. (Plus, when was the last time any Christian anywhere stoned anyone to death?)
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Originally Posted by sickofnyc
Anyone this intent on sitting judgement and insulting the personal relationships of two consenting adults is the one that is in need of a hobby.
I never insulted anyone's relationships. You can't name me one person whose relationship I directly insulted. I stated disapproval of a certain type of relationship - that is not a direct attack on anyone. (Apparently you don't respect my right to free speech.) It is not an insult to any specific person to say that I disapprove of a course of action which that person happens to be taking. I don't approve of smoking - does that mean all smokers should feel insulted by me? I don't approve of extramarital sex - does that mean all people who have sex outside of marriage should feel insulted by me? Come on, grow a spine.
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Originally Posted by T-Rob123
Griffis did a great job of answering your question there at the end. I'll add this, the reason I personally never took the time to answer it is because it's a premise to which there is no limit, what's the functional difference between a 16 year old and someone who is 15 years and 364 days? What's the functional difference between someone 15/364 and someone 15/363, 15/362.....13/364, 13/363. It's a silly premise.
I agree. The point of my question was to bring that out, and I'm glad you admitted to it openly. Thus it is equally silly to state, whether directly or indirectly, that consent should be based upon age. To state that consent should be based upon the attaining of some exact number of years implies that the ability to give consent improves dramatically at that particular birthday - or, at least, that the more important thing is making life easy for lawmakers and their cronies, rather than protecting the vulnerable from exploitation. (And if it's that last one, we must agree that having a defined "age of consent" is, in actuality, stupid. Come to think of it, it's stupid in both cases.)
Consent should be based upon intellectual maturity and understanding of the far-reaching effects of exactly what is being consented to. I grant, the vast majority of people don't achieve that until they have aged to a certain point. But I say that even most people who have reached the age of consent in their home state really don't understand what it means to consent to, or enter into a covenant for, something such as marriage. Look at the divorce rate these days for people who get married as teenagers, even if they are over the age of consent. Apparently, being the government-sanctioned "age of consent" is not a good indicator of one's true ability to consent or enter into the covenant of marriage.
Quote:
Originally Posted by T-Rob123
As for your Christian beliefs, I don't know. All beliefs are subjective to the person who has them. I have zero problems reconciling my Christian beliefs and fellowship with God, with being okay with homosexuality.
God makes it very clear, in His Word, that homosexuality is a sin and that marriage is to be between one woman and one man only. See the nine passages I quoted above. Were you to see Almighty God today and be questioned by Him about why, as one who claims to be Christian, you think homosexuality is okay even though He said very clearly that it is not, what would you say to Him in response?
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Originally Posted by T-Rob123
I wouldn't presume to judge you based on your beliefs. I don't know you. All I know about you is that you can equate the abuse of a child with the love of two consenting adults.
I said nothing of the kind, my misconstruing friend. Truthfully, I believe there is a special circle of hell reserved for those who abuse children and never come to true repentance therefrom.
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Originally Posted by T-Rob123
And you can spin my concern anyway you want, but the absolute truth is that type of mentality frightens me. I hope that I'm way off base, but only you know if I am, and if I wasn't, then please address that on your own time with a psychologist or someone else before you hurt someone.
Fortunately for you, you are way off base. At least you were willing to concede that possibility.
Quote:
Originally Posted by T-Rob123
I will leave that matter alone as it pertains to you though, because I don't know you. Just understand that to most people when someone says "I can't see the difference between love being shared between two consenting adults, and the abuse of a child, animal or something else" is sort of like someone saying that there is no difference between a guy fighting in MMA and a guy beating up his wife. Those are two totally different things, and it concerns me when I hear that someone doesn't know the difference.
Ah, but I never said anything about child abuse or animal abuse. I didn't talk about abusing children - I talked about marrying them. Our current legal definition of a "child" is nebulous in that it varies from state to state but in many states it is "one who has not yet attained the age of 16 years". I say that a child is someone who lacks intellectual maturity characteristic of an average young adult. The Bible backs me up on this. Check out 1 Corinthians 13:11. A child is one who thinks, speaks, and reasons like a child. A man is one who has done away with childish things.
Here's another illustrative example. 36-year-old woman with intellectual capacity of an 8-year-old. Adult or child? Should such a woman enter into any kind of contract, or give any kind of consent?
I also never talked about abusing animals. I talked about marrying them. I never suggested bringing any kind of harm to animals, nor did I suggest bringing any kind of harm (mental or physical) to children. I don't believe that any 5-year-old, for example, regardless of intelligence quotient or life experiences, will be capable of consenting to anything or contracting for anything. As a teacher, I've been around a lot of different kids and I can tell you that I've never found one under age 13 who acted truly adult-like... and even at those young teen ages, examples of such ultra-mature people are few and far between. (It depends mostly on parenting.) So I say that those most susceptible to being exploited would be protected in the event of the "age of consent" being replaced by the "test of ability to consent" or whatever it'd be called. Such a test might allow people as young as 13 to (for instance) get married... and it might catch people even up to age 20 (or beyond!) who aren't yet ready. That's the beauty of it. It's a much better way to determine true ability to consent to something, and protect those who are not yet ready from being harmed or exploited, than is the setting of an arbitrary age boundary.
By the way, this notion of a "test of ability to consent" is used very frequently in today's America, though not in a legally binding sense. It's called premarital counseling. Many are the pastors who will not marry a couple if they feel that the couple doesn't know what they're getting into, or that they're so incompatible that severe problems are likely in the foreseeable future.
Where is the significant portion of the population who are, as siblings, seeking to be allowed to marry each other? Is this some major movement? Do you know a lot of sets of siblings struggling for the right to marry each other?
Maybe they'll be the next group to pop up and seek their "rights" in the next social "evolution" cycle in, as you stated later on, the next "few decades".
Quote:
Originally Posted by Griffis
Incidentally, "arguments" like these are the exact same ones used by fearful, hateful, ignorant bigots a few decades back to oppose interracial marriage:
"If we let black people and white people marry each other it'll be anarchy! People will sue to marry their family pets! Fathers will marry their daughters! Farmers will want to marry tractors! It would be insanity!"
Such vitriol! I love how those of us called "hateful" are the ones who spew the least toxic terminology in description of those on the other side of the fence!
There's a difference with interracial marriage. Those who claim that "miscegenation" dilutes the gene pool have certain scientific evidence backing their assertions but regardless, the Bible never states that you must only marry within your race. It states one man, one woman. Never says anything about the ancestry of the people nor the color of their skin.
And at least you touched upon the original premise of my topic - where to draw the line. The closest thing I've come up with, as far as a "consensus of opinion" goes, is that the operative term is "consent" and the ability to give consent. I'm willing to concede that those presently in support of gay marriage may generally band together to stop this liberalization of our legal definition of "marriage" before it goes beyond the intellectual capability to give consent. But I would not be at all surprised if at some point, even after I'm dead and gone, some group rises up and tries to combat that. After all, back in the day, the line in the sand was what the Bible said. That has been slowly attacked until it is now no longer valid. If the present line in the sand is intellectual ability to consent, what's to say that will never be attacked? Get a few studies out there to demonstrate that there is no harm done when people marry animals, and you'll have the bestial crowd thumping their tubs demanding equal rights regardless! Then what happens to the line in the sand at "consent"? It too will get attacked slowly but surely until it is broken down. I hope I don't live to see that day. I'm at least willing to concede "consent", on a secular level, being a reasonable place to draw the line in the sand. Obviously people don't agree on what constitutes ability to give consent or how it should be determined, which makes that line in the sand essentially irrelevant... but if such could be solidified to the point where the vast majority of people agreed upon it, it'd be fine by me, again in a purely secular sense because nothing that violates the word of God will ever truly be fine by me.
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Originally Posted by okie1962
I have often wondered the same thing. When have we ever see siblings marching on Washington wanting to get married? I have never in my 51 years of life knew any siblings who want to get hitched? It seems the only ones I see fighting for this cause are people like the OP and FloridaPirate355. Get Er Done!
At least someone else out there is willing to stand up for what's truly right even when the tide is against him. We'll see siblings / bestials / whomever marching on Washington as soon as they get enough of a foothold in popular culture that they feel they can get away with it. (So far, that is not the case.) Homosexuality has existed for millennia. Stands to reason it's existed in America since America's inception over 200 years ago. Yet, the movement to legalize it has only existed for a few decades - and in the beginning it was very small, underground, and quiet. That's how these cycles always play out. It starts underground. A few renegades get recognized for being willing to buck the system at any cost, some more people jump onto the wagon and follow their lead, and after a few years, you can have a small march and the worst that'll happen is you're seen as a bunch of looneys by most Americans. Keep up the work and within a generation you'll have movements, foundations, calls to change laws, etc. That's always the way it has happened.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 0marvin0
"I never said the society wouldn't change. I said that the foundation / absolute standard wouldn't change. Using the "house" analogy I mentioned earlier - you can add on to a house, you can change furniture or appliances, you can change the entire appearance of the house by getting new siding, painting it a different color, etc. I even knew a family that added an entire second floor onto their existing house. But the FOUNDATION never changes."
I would suggest that you do some research as to the foundations of the society known as the United States, ie. read the constitution, the federalist papers, the correspodence between the founders as they hammered out and laid the foundation. While many were religious and belonged to different denominations they took care to make the foundation secular while protecting the freedom of the individual to worship as he or she saw fit. It is even written into the constitution that there shall be no religious test to determine the fitness of anyone to hold public office. I think its safe to say that their vision was that every citizen would be viewed as equal under the law. Laws designed to thwart that equality chip away at the foundation rather than strengthen it. Basic ethics should tell you that any laws that discrininate against an otherwise law abiding segment of the population are fundamentally unjust and should be opposed. I have no problem with a religious organization refusing to marry gay people. My objection comes when those religious people seek to force their beliefs on the rest of society through the law. The law in the United States is supposed to be secular not religious. That is its foundation.
I wasn't talking about the laws of the United States. They will always change, and must change as things happen such as technological advances, changes in other countries, etc. I was talking about the foundation of a society. There is a difference between the abstract concept that is a society, and the geographical construct that is a country.
Where is the significant portion of the population who are, as siblings, seeking to be allowed to marry each other? Is this some major movement? Do you know a lot of sets of siblings struggling for the right to marry each other?
Incidentally, "arguments" like these are the exact same ones used by fearful, hateful, ignorant bigots a few decades back to oppose interracial marriage:
"If we let black people and white people marry each other it'll be anarchy! People will sue to marry their family pets! Fathers will marry their daughters! Farmers will want to marry tractors! It would be insanity!"
Ah the race card... The desperate attempt fallacy that says you don't even have an argument. It's so stupid to bring up as it has nothing to do with gay marriage, most black people happen to be against it.
It does not matter if incest couples are a small minority, so are gay people. Eventually incest couples will become accepted by society. And your side is going to be the one to blame for it.
God makes it very clear, in His Word, that homosexuality is a sin and that
marriage is to be between one woman and one man only. See the nine passages I
quoted above. Were you to see Almighty God today and be questioned by Him about
why, as one who claims to be Christian, you think homosexuality is okay even
though He said very clearly that it is not, what would you say to Him in
response?
Who? YOUR God? MY God says there's nothing wrong with it. If your God opposes it, then do the right thing and don't get married to a dude. Pretty simple, really.
Quote:
Dude, you have no idea who you're dealing with. You wouldn't want to match wits
with me in a head-to-head test of reading comprehension.
You're adorable. Who ARE we dealing with? Please enlighten us.
I'm not offended by gays, I just don't support gay marriage. I have gay family members who I love dearly. I see it like smoking, it's unhealthy and bad and something that society should discourage. But I don't hate the people that do smoke.
Just like we don't allow smokers to smoke wherever they want, we shouldn't allow gays to get married either. They are welcomed to same benefits and a ceremony but not marriage, it's not the same.
What if someone said smoking is okay and perfectly normal and some people are born smokers? And we should celebrate it? This is exactly what gay activists and liberals argue with gay marriage.
Lately I've been discussing this on another thread and to avoid derailing the conversation, I decided to post it in a different thread.
I've heard the argument made by those in favor of gay marriage, quite a lot in recent years. It boils down to equal treatment under the law, "it's only love", "to each his own", etc. One thing that has always escaped me is where the gay marriage supporters would "draw the line"... as in, where they would stop applying that rationale when considering other types of marriage. So I have a few questions for y'all, and let's see what type of response I get.
1) Should people who wish to marry their close relatives (sisters, brothers, children, parents, first cousins, etc) be permitted to do so because only then would they be getting equal treatment under the law? After all, it's only love. It may even be heterosexual love, and the two parties may be at or beyond the age of consent! There has even been a "condition" named for some people who feel this attraction - they call it "GSA" or "Genetic Sexual Attraction".
2) Should people who wish to marry multiple spouses be permitted to do so because only then would they be getting equal treatment under the law? Heck, some people even claim that their religion commands them to do so. If they can have a happy marriage and support multiple spouses, why not? After all, it's only love, and in so doing, each spouse would be relieved from a pressure oft felt by an exclusive spouse - the pressure to singlehandedly meet all of his/her spouse's needs!
3) Should people who wish to marry "children" be permitted to do so (assuming the children also want it) because only then would they be getting equal treatment under the law? Don't kid yourself... some kids know plenty about love. I've been a lover since age 2, and my development of feelings of romantic love was at least three years ahead of the average. I can't be the only one. Children can feel love too. The age of consent may be 16 but when people start dating, for real, around age 12 (or even younger, these days), that shows that they have an idea of what "love" is. And besides, many countries allow marriage of children for any number of reasons. It's legal on most continents in the world, and in most countries therein. American "children" engage in sexual relationships and get each other pregnant all the time. Why not legalize marriage of people under age 16 (without parental or judicial consent of any kind) in America?
4) Should people who wish to marry animals be permitted to do so, because only then would they be getting equal treatment under the law? Let's face it... animals have a pretty deep capacity for showing love. Certain types of animals are much less inclined to cause problems for people than people are. (I read this one time - "Try locking your wife, and your dog, in the trunk of your car for a few hours. When you open the lid, which one will be happy to see you?") It's only love... and how could it harm either the person or the animal?
Now... if you answer "no" to any of these questions, I'd like an explanation as to why... and to be fair, you should know that I will be examining the explanations to see how they differ from the explanations commonly used to support gay marriage. And if you start name-calling, your post will be reported. Let's keep this civil. Obviously I am not a gay marriage supporter, but liberal-minded people who support gay marriage often use the word "tolerance". Let's apply that and be tolerant of my views, seeing as I am coming at this civilly.
Yes, to all 4. Who is anybody to say differently?
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