Capek wrote:
I think you misunderstand me gbaji. I am a Christian. I do believe that being gay is a sin in God's eyes. I am just not a conservative fanatic that wishes to take away a legal right from someone I do not agree with.
Ok. Correction noted. And I'm pretty opposed to religious fanatics myself. However, there's an argument I've made a few times in the past, and it's relevant here. Just because one argument for something is irrational or based on flawed reasoning does not make the "something" wrong. In otherwords, people can argue for the correct acton for the wrong reasons. Just because the religious nutjobs perhaps hate gays and oppose gay marriage on that grounds, does not mean that opposing gay marriage is wrong. It just means that their reason for opposing it is wrong. Following that flawed line of reasoning leads very easily to strawman type arguments. All you'd have to do to argue against *anything* is find one example of someone who argues for that thing for reasons that can easily be dismmissed.
If you oppose something, you need to argue against the "best" arguments, not the "worst" ones. So just because the case made by "***-hating christians" is weak, does not in any way firm up an argument in support of gay marriage. Just wanted to make that little bit clear.
The second part of my problem with your statement is that you define marriage as a "Right". I mentioned this in my previous post on this topic. I specifically posed the question: "is state granted marriage a Right?". You argue that denying it is denying a specific group (gays in this case) their rights, but you have not yet really shown that marriage is a right, or much less a "global right" (one which all citizens should recieve).
I would argue (strongly if you wish me to) that marriage is not a right, but is a benefit. It's specifically licensed by the government as a reward for behavior that the government finds desirable. In this case, it's my firm belief that our state provides those benfits for married couples as a way of dividing those who may have children from those who can't, and ensuring that any of a set of people who live/sleep/etc together and therefore *will* (as a group) produce offspring will be economically and legally bound together. The purpose again is to encourage as many people who may produce children to marry and thefore reduce the percentage of children raised in single parent homes, thereby presumably decreasing the "burden" upon society encurred by such children.
That's my take on marriage and why it's granted. You are free to disagree with it (and you wouldn't be the first!). However, you would also need to come up with a better rational for a government requiring a license for marriage and then providing the specific set of legal benefits that our state does for marriage and explaining how this is a "right", and not a benefit.
As an example. The government provides benefits to handicapped people. Everyone has a "right" to them, but only those who qualify as handicapped recieve the benefits. The analogy is similar. Gays have as much "right" to marry as anyone else. However, in order to qualify for marriage they must choose to marry someone of the opposite sex. Again. I've written my reasons why that condition is present. You may certainly counter with another. But in order to support your statement that by denying gays marriage you are denying them a right, you'll need to both proove that marriage *is* a right, and that a gay couple meets a criteria that justifies the benefits provided by the state to married couples.
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That is the basis for my argument. I can understand if these people do not want gays being married in their place of worship. However, there are benefits to being a legally married couple, mostly financial (i.e. credit applications, tax returns, etc.). What these conservative Christians are doing is denying people the same rights they have because of their sexual preference.
Again. You call it a right, but haven't really established that fact. You do at least recognize that the state provides benefits for married couples, but you seem to imply that those benefits should not be exclusive to a male/female couple. Support that position. For what reason should the state need to profide the benefits of marriage to a gay couple?
Let me put this another way? What justification is there for the state to grant those rights to a gay couple that don't then exist for *any* two people? I've had many roomates in my lifetime. Explain to me why the government should or should not grant myself an anyone I choose to live with the same benefits that a married couple recieve? What is it specifically about "marriage" that differs from "two people living together" that sparks the need for the government to provide benefits?
And if you can't find a reason, then why grant those benfits only to married couples? If it's not about a set of people who will produce offspring, then why limit it at all? Why even have a marriage status legally? Why not give tax breaks to any two adults who choose to live together?
You're going to need to come up with a legally sound definition/explanation for marriage and the benefits that arise from it, that allows gay couples to meet the criteria but somehow still exclude *someone*, otherwise we should just give those benefits to either everyone or no one. If you can't do that, you're going to have a hard time defining what exactly "gay marriage" is. It's two people of the same sex doing what? Loving eachother? That's nice, but the state has no way to distinquish benefits based on something as ephermal as "love". You need to have something concrete. Under my explanation, the restriction to one man and one woman covers the complete set of all pairs of people who will ever produce children. That's pretty good, and makes a lot of sense. What set allows for gay marriage but does not also then include anyone else as well? I can't find one. Not one that makes any sense at least...
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In a country that is supposed to be a democracy and promotes freedom, we have numerous government leaders who are supporting oppression.
Again. You haven't shown it to be oppression. Is *not* recieving a benefit from the government "oppression"? Not by any definition I'm aware of. Again. I'm a conservative, so to me the "natural state" is to recieve nothing domestically from your government. Anything given is a bonus, and presumably exists as an incentive for something the government desires enough to pay for. The fact that all people will not qualify for that benefit does not mean that the rest of the people are being oppressed. No more then I'm being oppressed because my government wont let me park in the blue spaces...
It's a benefit, not a right.
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On top of that we raise up this ideal of separation of church and state but yet we do not uphold it. Not to long ago women received the right to vote and you can believe there was a strong opposition from the Christian community when that happened.
Again. Showing similarities between two different things does not mean that they are the same. I could use the same argument for claiming that my dog should get a vote. After all, not long ago women were denied the vote. They were believed to be incapable of thinking politically. Same as my dog. Clearly the time has come for canines to get the vote!!!
Not a valid argument. You need to show that in this specific case, someone's actual rights are being abridged. Voting is a right, guaranteed under the Constitution. It's also an implied and actual function of the whole concept of democracy. Comparing that to marriage is not really accurate at all. They're two completely different things. There's no law preventing you from living with your gay partner. There's no law preventing you from marrying in your church. The only thing *not* happening is that the state is not granting you special benefits for being a married couple. Again. I don't think it's a right to recieve some special benefit from the government. It's something you must qualify for, and that qualification should be something that is of inherent value to the state as a whole. Remember that the reasons the individual decides to get married and the reasons the state chooses to grant that pair of individuals some legal benfit as a result of getting married are two totally different things. You need to show that the latter contains any justificaiton for granting those benefits to gay couples.
