I’m not one of those folks who believes that homosexuality is evil. People are homosexual by God’s will, not by human moral choice. But I believe it is a bad idea to make homosexual marriage a legal institution .
This is a topic I’m interested in because I’ve thought about what a pure Deist church would be like. Would a Deist church have gay marriages? Up until recently, I thought it might, but after some reflection I changed my mind.
If you look at all the cultures of the world, very few, if any, have homosexual marriages. Why?
Homosexual marriage just does not have happen in nature. It isn’t because some global organization is conspiring to prevent homosexuals from marrying. It just isn’t part of the natural state of human affairs.
If you look at all the cultures of the world, you can see that there are homosexual relationships. Homosexual couples live together and often raise kids together. Sometimes a culture accepts that state of affairs, sometimes it doesn’t. But what you see rarely, if ever, is a culture with marriages for homosexuals.
So what is all this stuff about US states legalizing homosexual marriage? I can’t speak for homosexuals who want to be married, but I can point out some of the things I hear homosexuals asking for when they ask for marriage.
Marriage includes implied and culturally recognized social rights. Most of the rights seem to be rights of inheritance. Among the rights asked for are:
Acceptance: Marriage symbolizes social acceptance of the person’s homosexuality.
Financial rights: This would include things like Social Security benefits. In straight marriages, husbands don’t get benefits if their wife dies. Good luck getting Social Security benefits if you are gay and married. Other beneficiary arrangements can be handled with legal documents. Financial rights in most cases don’t require marriage.
Access rights: This includes things like hospital visitation rights that are limited to immediate family. Again, this can be handled by legal documents.
Child rearing rights: If one ‘spouse’ dies, the other may accept the obligation of raising the children.
What else am I missing?
The bottom line, homosexual marriage is unnatural as proved by the fact that . Our culture, or collective memory, knows that homosexual marriage introduces problems, and that those problems outweigh the benefits. When a society chooses to practice something that introduces problems, well, that society has to deal with those problems. Before passing laws allowing homosexual marriage, we need to have a clear understanding of what those problems are.
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6 users commented in " Why I’m against gay marriage "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackI would like some clarification on your point.
Are you asserting that we (in the U.S.) should continue with the traditional way we handle marriage — or are you only asserting that to adopt gay marriage would be wrong?
I ask because the current discussion about gay marriage is a misdirected one. In reality we should not be asking about whether or not to adopt a *specific* marriage-pattern, but rather we should accept *any* marriage-pattern at all.
By marriage-pattern I mean "state-sponsored and state-controlled marriage".
If we are going to accept *any* marriage-pattern (remembering that to do so, by my above-definition of "marriage-pattern", also means that that pattern is getting public-funding) then we must ask ourselves how committed we are to the principles of freedom of religion and freedom from government control of our morality — in other words, to what extent do we truly subscribe to the notion of "the free marketplace of ideas".
If we decide that we are truly committed to that notion then we must ask ourselves how we can:
A) Take money from Adam and Steve (by force, keep in mind)
B) Turn around and give that money to Adam and Eve (via officially-sanctioned marital benefits built into our system)
C) And then claim we are a nation which cherishes: limited government, individualism, fairness & equality, etc.
To use *force* against someone to take from them and give to another is wrong no matter how you cut it.
To use *force* to officially promote one person's religious beliefs over another person's religious beliefs is wrong no matter how you cut it.
Ayn Rand defined every legitimate role of gov't as stemming from the it's core: the monopolization of the use of force. But she also cautioned that we take great care to circumspect government sufficiently so as to limit gov't in their ability to initiate that force *only* against an aggressor.
A gay seeking to love their partner is certainly no aggressor worthy of public force.
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Instead of asking ourselves "what is natural?" or "what does God think of gay marriage?" or "how will seeing this affect the morality of future generations?" we should instead be asking ourselves if perhaps we went horribly askew when we decided to publicly (as in, officially, by the gov't) endorse marriage — of *any* flavor.
The religious right are completely correct when they assert that marriage is a sacrament and was instituted by the church. In my view, it should have been left that way. Instead, Kings sought to control who married whom and usurped that power from the church and the people. And here in America we continued that tradition; wrongly, I believe.
Instead, there should be no public-record of marriage. Churches should run that show. The gov't should have nothing to do with it. Leave it up to the church to decide who marries who.
My tax dollar should not be going to Adam and Steve -NOR- to Adam and Eve… it should stay right here in my pocket for *my* family: Dave and Linda!
On the issue of things like inheritance and children… those issues are solved easily enough with the state controlling an aspect of the spiritual: simply rewrite the laws to dictate that a simple and cheap contract can be drafted to handle all matters of inheritance, and tighten the leash on establishing parental claims. Unwed people have children all the time, and determining who the father is in this day and age is a pretty common and simple thing to do.
We don't need to sully the sacred by having the profane govern over it.
And 'gay' has nothing to do with it. It's all about individual freedom and limited gov't. I'm a married straight-guy and I detest that the gov't has *any* business in my marriage.
I have to add one more comment.
A portion of your post has been sitting in my head all day… it has sat there feeling a bit… disturbed. At first I couldn't quite put my finger on it. But finally I think I might have.
You said: "I’ve thought about what a pure Deist church would be like. Would a Deist church have gay marriages? Up until recently, I thought it might, but after some reflection I changed my mind… [because I came to the realization that our] collective memory, knows that homosexual marriage introduces problems…"
A couple of points:
1) There is no such thing, to my understanding, of *A* "Deist". There is no Deist "church". There is no Deist "religion". There is no Deist "philosophy" (short of the extremely generic and limited one that basically states that we believe nature provides evidence of a greater power). Every Deist, in essence, is their own religion, their own preacher, their own philosophy. To "imagine a Deist church and how a Deist church would address gay marriage" is to perform an impossible task; precisely because no two Deists are alike, no self-respecting Deist church should seek to embrace such a complex/multi-faceted question with a firm answer. To do so denies the very fundamental aspect of Deism: that each person is capable of comprehending and understanding the Divine in their own unique way and on their own power.
2) The claim that gay marriage brings some great harm to society is a common one; but I have yet to hear anyone properly substantiate that claim with sound logic and solid examples. To be clear, we are not talking about wanton public lusting and whoring, nor pedophilia. We are talking about two grown adults of the same gender wanting to live together as a family and enjoy a relatively normal and stable life. Assuming that to be the case, what are the great evils this brings on a society? How do those come about? Can you provide concrete examples? And are we certain that other accepted lifestyles, whether chosen or not, don't bring on the same problems?
3) I cannot accept the argument that gay marriage is "unnatural" simply because we observe little to no cultural support for it around the world. For hundreds of years there was no support for science, either. Around the known world no one believe the world was round. At various times in history slavery was the modus operandi of nearly every important culture. For hundreds of years the entire world thought that kings ruled by "divine right". I mean, the list goes on and on of examples throughout history where the masses thought they had the right idea — and were eventually proven wrong. To assert that the masses can somehow *define* what is natural or unnatural… doesn't sit well with me. I don't think that's at all a correct way of determining what is natural and what isn't.
Moreover, the individual is morally superior to the collective — how then does the collective have a right to define what is "natural" with respect to the individual? If we accept that the collective can define what is "natural" — and then force the individual to live within that system — aren't we back to majority rule? ie: the tyranny of the masses? ie: a pure democracy? ie: mob rule?
I have deep reservation for adopting a system of government which is based on the logic of using sheer numbers to overpower a smaller subset of my society in order to force the smaller group conform to my view of life. It seems to me that if my view *is* the correct view then I should be able to win most people over to my side in the free marketplace of ideas.
As Ezra Taft Benson once said, "If pioneer-A wanted pioneer-B's horse, could he just walk over to pioneer-A's house and take his horse? No, of course not. So why do we accept the notion that it is somehow right if pioneer-A employs the town sheriff to go take pioneer-B's horse?"
In this discussion, who are playing the roles in Benson's allegory?
Pioneer-A: the straight members of society
Pioneer-B: the gay members of society
Sheriff: the gov't
Pioneer-B's Horse: Pioneer-B's money, earned through his labor
Thank you for responding, Bane. You gave me way too much to respond to.
OK, back to basics of pure theoretical American government. Pure theoretical American government is based on Natural Law. In Natural Law all people are created in a state of nature equally free of social encumburances. We could, if we wanted to, go around killing and raping and taking stuff from other people without their permission. But we have been created in such a way that we are drawn to relationship with others. We find our greatest happiness in our relationship with others. To achieve that happiness we willingly give up certain freedoms and accept certain obligations in order to have and to hold the benefits of those relationships.
To belong to a society, whether a society of two people, or a society of billions, we accept the obligations of that society to get the benefits that come with being a member of that society. If we fail to accept the obligations of society, we give up the right of benefits in order to be a part of that society. Perhaps we may lose our membership in that society.
That is Natural Law in a nutshell.
In American society, we the people have accepted certain obligations and benefits. We have accepted the benefits of marriage, and also accepted obligations to support marriage. Those rights and benefits are encoded in law and supported by government established by law. By "law" I mean the consent of the governed.
If someone doesn't like that, they are invited to leave the society, and if they don't, society has the right to reject or force sanctions on that person.
Our American society, not a dictator, has created that state of affairs. So whether marriage is "state sponsored" isn't a concern. The benefits and obligations of marriage come with membership in our society; like it or leave it. No one is a slave, being forced to stay.
That is the pure theoretical American form of government, and its relationship to marriage. So back to your comments:
"Are you asserting that we (in the U.S.) should continue with the traditional way we handle marriage — or are you only asserting that to adopt gay marriage would be wrong?"
I am asserting that I would expect problems to emerge in a society that practiced homosexual marriage. Think of it as an experimental new drug, one that has been tried many times before and never been shown to cause more good than harm.
When I consider the possibility of an actual new and theoretical church and whether I would I want it to perform homosexual marriages, I have decided that I would not want it to perform homosexual marriage, because I would not want the church to be a source of likely problems.
The question is: What are the problems that homosexual marriage causes? In reality, this is a long list. Just a few:
1. The legal and technical adjustments. All of our existing laws were made with heterosexual marriage in mind. Changing all of the laws from a heterosexual to hetero-homosexual perspective would take a lot work and create a lot of temporary legal and technical problems. By technical problems I mean things like billions of lines of software code that would have to be changed to work with the new marriage arrangement.
2. There are problems within the relationship itself. What are they? I can't say. There are probably as many problems as there are relationships. I've never been in a homosexual relationship, and I've never been close to someone in a homosexual relationship. I hate to bring up people like Rosie O'Donnell because she isn't the norm.
3. Children, when they grow up, follow the models their parents set. If children grow up without a man-woman marriage, they don't have that model to follow when they grow up. What aspects of marriage will the kids miss if they don't grow up with the influences of an existing man-woman relationship?
The bottom line is that few, perhaps no, societies have found that the social benefits of homosexual marriage are greater than the costs that come from the social obligations. The proof is in the pudding, not in the theory.
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Addressing your second note:
1. I disagree for the most part. Deism is a broad category of beliefs. Something that is "of" that broad category of beliefs is Deist. The American Unitarian conference is a group of churches that accepts God, but does not accept Jesus as the living word of God.
http://www.americanunitarian.org/
The Unitarian churches are effectively Deist churches. They are not "the religion of Deism." But they are Deist churches.
2. I've discussed.
3. Marriage itself is unnatural, at least in the sense that it is a legal construct. The legal understanding of marriage is, by definition, artificial. What is natural is that we are drawn to monogamous relationships, and that those relationships center around raising kids.
What is natural is that which can be observed in nature. In nature, societies tend to create slave classes. In nature, societies create systems of laws. In nature, people are religious. In nature, dictators are always trying to take control of society. In nature, people always want to be free from dictators. In nature, societies create laws regarding marriage.
In nature, societies do not support homosexual marriage.
Does that mean that no society will ever be able to institutionalize homosexual marriage and do so in such a way that brings greater benefits than harms? No. But if a society just jumps in headfirst without full awareness that they are experimenting and trying to do something that has never worked before, that society will most likely find out first hand what the harms are.
Without a firm understanding of the consequences and how those consequences should be addressed, I would not to push for change. I would not try to build on unsupported hope.
We can see consequences from 'gay marriage', just look at Scandinavian countries that have been doing this for a while now. First, a tiny percentage of gays actually end up getting married, whether marriage is extended to them in Europe or in the States. So it's not even a popular demand once the rainbow ceiling is cracked. Second, marriages as a whole go down because suddenly marriage has changed, it's now strictly a cold, legal document that means nothing whereas before it was a means of society putting importance on the kinds of relationships that build society. Thirdly, and most dramatic, are significant rises in out of wedlock births.
And the scenarios that are created show how ridiculous this concept is. Example: right now we have a woman who married another woman in New Jersey. They than 'manufactured' a child and the biological mother of the child suddenly discovered that she wasn't gay and she divorced her partner and moved to VA and now there is a custody battle going on between one woman who thinks because she was there she is the mother and the actual mother who doesn't want to raise her kids as part of the homosexual environment that twisted her own life around. It's a sad situation.
Applying marriage to homosexual couples is like giving a drivers license to the blind – it might feel good to do so but it is nonsensical.
Wow….where do I begin on these comments. First and foremost you guys, for the most part, show zero real knowledge of what a homosexual relationship is actually like. Understandable, but the assumptions being made are well outside the realm of common sense. Homosexual relationships have no more or less problems than their counter part as one person claimed. The idea that marriage equality would suddenly change the union into a cold, legal document is simply in your own mind. Whether or not two men marry in MA has no bearing whatsoever on anyone else's marriage. None.
My grandmother spent nearly 30 years with her "wife". She had two kids. They did quite well. My uncle became a journalist, my mother a pastors wife who spent 20 years giving to her community. My mother would disagree with anyone who claims so ignorantly that her family (or any non-traditional family) has had no positive impact on society or is any less valuable than anyone else's in society. They put in their time to the betterment of society just as everyone else does. Did their non-traditional family effect you in any way? Nope. Society's still here handing out marriage certificates to Brittany and the Kardashians. (But don't worry, I'm not holding a few foolish people's actions against you like the comment involving the two women in Jersey).
Seriously, guys. Your ideas are simply not based in reality.
In reality, government recognition of gay marriage has numerous affects on me. One simple example is social security benefits. If the Federal government suddenly recognized gay marriage, there would be costs related to social security benefits. I would have to help pay those. What part of the national debt do you and I owe? Somewhere in the neighborhood of $500,000 each? That is reality. Do you really want to increase the size of that reality?
Requiring companies to recognize gay marriage also requires changes in numerous HR related computer programs. Who would pay those costs? You and I, the consumers of the products those companies make.
Those are just two simple examples in reality of how gay marriage effects each of us. There are numerous costs associated with any social change.
If two people want to live together as if they were married that has little effect on the people around them. I really don't care whether the gay people I know, even the ones in my own family, live together as couples.
The first problem with gay marriage is that it creates more costs when we can't even afford the debt we have now. A lot of demand for gay marriage is really a demand for government benefits, which the rest of us have to pay for.
The second problem is just the reality that human cultures grow to reject gay marriage for some reason. Culture in general evolves naturally and organically. In reality, cultures do not develop gay marriage. When we look at the reality of human cultural history, we recognize that formal gay marriage is culturally inorganic; it is unnatural. Formal gay marriage only occurs when driven artificially by utopian statists. Please, tell me; what is the natural and organic reason that cultures have never evolved systems of formal gay marriage. Is culture protecting us from some harm? Or does the institution just lack something that is necessary for cultural inclusion?
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