BTW, Florida is supposed to keep getting hit by hurricanes as punishment for Jeb Bush helping out brother Georgie. God, is he clever or what?

When gays ask permission to marry, government officials suggest that gays don’t deserve “special rights” just for them and if they want the benefits marriage, that they marry someone of the opposite sex like everyone else. The gays will say that since they are not straight, that that doesn’t make sense. The official may tell the gay that they CHOOSE to be gay and that America won’t provide gays with “special rights” based on their lifestyle choices. What gays do in the privacy of their own homes is one thing, but why should American society, built on monogamy, have to change to accommodate gays’ chosen lifestyle? The gays may also say that they pay taxes and their tax monies are being used by the government to give government benefits to straights while they are those same benefits. This falls on deaf ears because they CHOOSE to be gay rather than marry an opposite sex partner.

In Saudi Arabia, Christians can’t build churches. I imagine that when Christians ask permission to build a church, Saudi officials suggest that Christians don’t deserve “special rights” just for them and if they want the benefits of public worship, that they attend a mosque like everyone else. The Christians will say that since they are not Muslim, that that doesn’t make sense. The official may tell the Christian that they CHOOSE to be Christians and that Saudi Arabia won’t provide Christians with “special rights” based on their lifestyle choices. What Christians do in the privacy of their own homes is one thing, but why should Saudi society, which was based on Islam, have to change to accommodate Christians’ chosen lifestyle? The Christians may also say that they pay taxes and their tax monies are being used by the government to give government benefits to Muslims while they are denied those same benefits. This falls on deaf ears because they CHOOSE to be Christians rather than being Muslims.

Sound familiar?

I am a single, heterosexual female, but there are millions of people out there that I cannot marry. I cannot marry my father; I cannot marry anyone who is already married (including my ex-husband). Any single, homosexual female out there is in the same situation; there is no discrimination towards her in this. Homosexual “marriage” is not the Holy Grail the homosexual communitity seems to think it is.

The crux of the debate is the definition of marriage. Historically, it has always been between a man and a woman. Fine. Let us all have equal rights. Everyone, regardless of sexual orientation, has the right to marry someone of the opposite sex. If you waive your right to that, then you should not expect something above and beyond that right.

On a tangent, SCOTUS-watching blogs erupted when people found out that John G. Roberts did pro bono work for a gay rights lawsuit. Everyone thought that there was a disconnect, but there really is not. Mr. Roberts argued that people should not face hiring and housing discrimination based on sexuality. That is an issue of equal rights. The marriage issue is one of special rights.

Maybe if we can separate issues of equal rights and special rights, then we can have a much more respectful debate.

In this post, I linked to Alfonso Trujillo’s argument that gay marriage isn’t about equal rights, but instead about special rights. Alfonso said this:Currently everybody already has the same rights with regard to marriage. You, homosexuals, heterosex…

While out at the bar tonight with my new roommate (an ex girlfriend), I shared our discussion with a friend of mine, who is a very very intelligent individual, and our discussion followed what I perceive our discussion here to be heading towards… that of the issues between civil unions and marriage. Basically, having been drinking tonight, I’ll just cut to the chase and let loose. Hopefully you’ll forgive the rough nature of my description.

Essentially what it came down to, was that we essentially agreed that the real issue is that both homo- and hetero-sexual marriages should be, as far as the government is concerened, civil unions. The introduction of the fault into the system was in melding in a religious institution in the first place, and thereby introducing all the moral dilemmas inherent to violating the core morals of that religious system.

Ow my head hurts.

He actually made 1 very very interesting point, which I had not thought of, and I have not yet heard addressed in any forum yet… but at the moment, I forget what it was. I’ll e-mail him and ask him to flesh it out again in an e-mail.

Basically, I think we’re coming to a common ground in some respect. A happy medium so to speak. Based on all the relevant facts involved here.

I think to put it simply, “marriage” is the problem. Which I know might sound a little rough… but realistically, as I think Troyus was hinting at… and that you as well have touched on… we have to address the issues of what is beneficial to the community or whatnot… what justifies the government granting the package security and benefits deal to a couple in exchange for some perceived benefit on their part… to society or their pocketbook, or whatever the case may be.

Unfortunately, it’s almost 6am… I’ve been drinking… and I’m only awake because I was trying to sleep on the floor, having given the only mattress in the house to my new roommate, and found the effort a bit futile. Too much on my mind and a floor with 1 blanket not being conducive to falling asleep.

I’ll touch base again when I hopefully get that information from my friend and can form any kind of coherent statement.

Again, I appreciate the intelligent discussion, it has been a learning experience on my part as well.

(Which infers an apology on my part for my initial hostility… I’ve been dealing a lot with very ignorant people lately arguing similar points… so when I see a flaw in a statement, even if it’s simply because the statement was overly generalized… something of which I am certainly guilty as well… I tend to be overly aggressive in my initial comments. Given your calm and rational responses, I feel obliged to extend my gratitude for a refreshingly intellectual discussion on the topic, and your general tolerance towards my oft-times unpleasant manner in addressing points I don’t agree with. I’ll be in touch again soon.)

(Another note is that I give you credit for preemptively sensing where my rebuttals would come from. I’m impressed. I still have a few points to make, but as you can probably guess, I’m in no state of mind to articulate any of what I’d like to say. Just another tip of the hat where credit is due.)

Thanks for your response; again, sorry about the spam filter thing, I’m still working on trying to fix that. Which posts do you want me to delete? Can you give me their specific number, for example, this post is post 29. I don’t want to delete the wrong ones, and your description gives me too much room for error. Now back to our discussion…

However, following that logic, should sterile couples not be allowed to marry? Should that be a stipulation of the marriage license? Requirement to bear children must be fulfilled?

Actually, the problem for us opponents of gay marriage is bigger than your response above. For example, you could also respond with, “What about two 80 year olds getting married, they clearly can not produce children either, should they be allowed to marry”? These are all fair questions, and I grant that they get at the gray areas of this whole discussion. And personally, I think it is these gray areas where the true gay marriage debate is.

I’ve seen opponents of gay marriage respond in several different ways. If push comes to shove, there are (I’ve only seen one person take this stance though) some who would allow a ban on 80-year-old heterosexual couples from marrying. There are others that state that regulating infertile couples would be too costly, too much of a civil right violation, and since the percentages of infertile unions are so small, they can be ignored. There are others (myself included) who will say that even infertile heterosexual couples, be they 80 year olds or young adults, still provide society with a benefit by marrying, and so they should still be allowed to marry. We reason that these marriages still serve as examples to others and still promote a culture of ‘you should be married when you have children’ and a culture of ‘marriage is a good thing’. So because they still provide society with a benefit, specifically a benefit that benefits the proper upbringing of children (which is ideally children being raised by their original parents), they should still be allowed to marry. Add this to the fact that they represent a small fraction of total marriages, and one could easily reason that the cost/benefit analysis allows for these groups to also marry.

Now, you may think all of these responses have holes in them. That they are still not completely coherent, that they don’t answer all of the issues, and that is fine, to some degree I would agree. But that is completely different than saying because of this, gay marriage is justified. Remember, gay marriage is a much larger departure from the core of marriage than the examples above, gay marriage will allow the union of two people whose very order is geared against having children, by their very nature. It would be even more of a departure than allowing siblings or cousins to marry. Man and man, and women and women, are completely at odds with producing children, and because of this, would dramatically change the meaning of marriage.

Let me try to explain this with an example. In the past, I have heard opponents of gay marriage argue that if you allow gay marriage, that would eventually lead to allowing people to ‘marry their dog, or their animals and so forth’. Obviously that is a false analogy, since gay marriage still stands on the consensual agreement between two adults, and therefore to insert animals into the picture is a fundamental change in essence, in other words, it’s a non sequitur. While the two scenarios, gay marriage, and ‘marriage to animals’, both share the same characteristic - ordered against the procreation of children- they are still fundamentally different. And because of that fundamental difference, it would be logically erroneous to imply that one will lead to the other.

Well, the same can be said with regard to sexually intimate heterosexual unions and sexually intimate homosexual unions. While infertile heterosexual unions and homosexual unions both share the same characteristic - procreation of children is impossible- they are still fundamentally different. To move from an infertile heterosexual union to a homosexual union is a change in essence, not a change in degree. So just as it would be illogical to assume that gay marriage is equivalent to animal marriages, so too it would also be illogical to assume that gay marriage is equivalent to infertile heterosexual marriages.

And therefore gay marriage strikes at the heart of what marriage means, it takes an already shaky link to children, and completely severs it, leaving marriage fundamentally changed to what it was before.

Which brings me back to what I said earlier. The gay marriage debate is not about gays, the gay marriage debate is about marriage. What does marriage mean, what are its limitations, and what will changing it do to the future of society. How you answer these questions regarding marriage in general, will dictate on what side you stand on in this debate.

Again, thanks for the thoughtful discussion. I hope we can learn to disagree without losing respect for one another, because I certainly respect your views, and benefited from this discussion.

PS: Allow me to extend an olive branch, while I am still very much against gay marriage, there is a form of ‘marriage’ that gays and heteros alike can participate in, one that I would have a hard time arguing against. In fact, after thinking it over for some time, if society as a whole moved where all unions, hetero and homo, were based on contract (also referred to as ‘contract approach to marriage’), I would not disapprove, and I think it would be a solution both sides can agree on. To learn more about that view go here, and here.

Update: Minor typos corrected.