What are your opinions on Gay Marriage?

Just to be a bit of a devil's advocate: what reasons you can give pro gay marriage that couldn't be used pro polygamy?

No idea, but as long as all people involved are consenting adults I dont see a problem with it. Its none of my business anyway.

In terms of the law, I believe most legislation and regulations related to marriage goes against the 1st Amendment and the people's right to religion.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"
The problem with legislation and regulations on marriage is that they tend to "respect" or support one groups beliefs while infringing on other people's beliefs and exercise of those beliefs.

No idea, but as long as all people involved are consenting adults I dont see a problem with it.

In terms of the law, I believe most legislation and regulations related to marriage goes against the 1st Amendment and the people's right to religion.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"
The problem with legislation and regulations on marriage is that they tend to "respect" or support one groups beliefs while infringing on other people's beliefs and exercise of those beliefs.

There are non-religious arguments against it which are what people say are the "real" reason disallowing Gay Marriage does not make it unconstitutional.

It's apparently claimed that gay marriage will hurt children (EG 2 dads/moms can't raise a child), or a gay couple can ruin a neighborhood, etc....

Here's a good list of these "arguments"

Please Note: I'm for Gay Marriage I'm just showing some of the other side's arguments

Well, law isn't religion and gays are restricted from marriage by law. Those laws shouldn't be there.

Islamism is religion AND law. And I think we would all agree that muslim governments that follows islamism are faggots(with the exception of malaysia because everything else fine other than gay marriage/sodomy) who dont give a pomegranate about human rights.

Anyway, marriage is a right and gay people are still, people.. so i dont think they should be stripped off that right just because its considered socially unacceptable.. i voted for option 3, because frankly i dont give a shit because i know im not going to marry another guy anyway. :f6:

I can't think of any reason why gay marriage/gay couples would impact me negatively, so if a gay couple can be happy by marrying each other then I'm all for it.

I don't think there should be any government decision when it comes to marriage in a church. Marriage in a court house, government do whatever you want there.

But, if the marriage is happening in a church or religious facility then it should be up to that church if they will allow it.

The principle problem with "Gay Marriage", as its colloquial name, is not of recognition in the church but from the government. Only in America are the two highly intertwined when back hundreds of years ago it was not (get married in the church - go to the courthouse to acknowledge the marriage within the state). As far as Gay Marriage, it should be up to churches whether to accept the marriage. But the government should allow gay couples equal rights even if it necessarily isn't before God. I think civil unions are the way to go.

I don't really care. If gay people want to get married then what reason is there for me to object. I cannot think of any reasons that do not relate to religion to object to gay marriages and because I do not practice religion to that obnoxious extreme, go get married!

At the end of the day I'm a straight male and gay marriages are at the very bottom of the list of things I care about. I have gay friends that have a problem with people who look down on gay marriages and I don't blame them, but it's not like I would defend them because there's no way to win an argument against a religious extremist

their problem not mine

Fiel, good point. Any homo or heterosexual couple can file for a civil union through a government office, but they should use the marriage term maybe more inclined to a religion or spirituality instead. Give a person everything in your pocket only to help him/her out and he/she will still want more than you can possibly give. We could reduce all "marriages" down to being a government recognized civil union and term "marriage" only in religious aspects, and people somewhere, somehow would still find something to whine and groan about.

Doesn't bother me. Let them have the pursuit of gay marriage. They should have the right.

The only issue I see with it is getting the majority of society to accept the changes to the norm of society as a whole. As stated, calling and classifying all homo and hetero sexual couples all as Legal Civil Unions would be a good start and leave being Married as a religious aspect only to be referred to in reference, but it's going to take a lot of work to get the majority of society to agree to that aspect and it may or may not work.

While it would be nice if everything worked out perfectly, but rarely does anything work out perfectly, if even work out at all. Social changes take lots of time and even more patience. Even the simplest answer to one problem creates a unfathomable amount of questions and even more problems to deal with. And the majority of the time, people just don't have, or aren't willing to have that level of patience.

From a strictly legal perspective in America there should have never been any question about it. Marriage is a legal status and denying it to same sex couples is unconstitutional. On the other hand i understood where people who were opposed to it were coming form. they saw it as a perversion of traditional and traditional values. It was about the origin of marriage especially for religious fundamentalists and for a major part of this i think the issue was in semantics. They didn't want to necessarily deprive same sex couples of their rights, but to keep something they saw as a tradition they were particularly vested in to remain apart. So a semantic difference with the same legal status should have possibly been considered as just saying lolno to the people who wanted and in their own way had reasons for wanting traditional marriage to remain separate for the same reason gay marriage should exist.

EDIT: also itt deannim talking about something he doesnt entirely understand.

"islamism" To quote a movie, Read a f'ucking book for once.

Oh and as far as the legalizing part of the topic goes, it is already legal in some states. including my current state.

I didn't vote because i don't like the term restrictions and i think the way it is being implemented is stepping on too many toes that wouldn't been very hard to move around.

There's a missing poll option: "Gay marriage is already allowed in all civilized countries".

Come on... It's already introduced in The Netherlands in 2001... 10 years later and still not in the USA??

I think the USA needs to start realizing they live in the 21st Century now...

The only issue I see with it is getting the majority of society to accept the changes to the norm of society as a whole. As stated, calling and classifying all homo and hetero sexual couples all as Legal Civil Unions would be a good start and leave being Married as a religious aspect only to be referred to in reference, but it's going to take a lot of work to get the majority of society to agree to that aspect and it may or may not work.

While it would be nice if everything worked out perfectly, but rarely does anything work out perfectly, if even work out at all. Social changes take lots of time and even more patience. Even the simplest answer to one problem creates a unfathomable amount of questions and even more problems to deal with. And the majority of the time, people just don't have, or aren't willing to have that level of patience.

It'd be much easier to do this if the public were to jump heavier on the separation of church and state ideology.

In favour of legal marriage between any 2 humans who are legally able to consent to it. No exceptions. Having a child a separate issue though.

There's a missing poll option: "Gay marriage is already allowed in all civilized countries".

Come on... It's already introduced in The Netherlands in 2001... 10 years later and still not in the USA??

I think the USA needs to start realizing they live in the 21st Century now...

First, the federal government has no power over marriage. Its the states that have this power, and a few of them have legalized gay marriage, some legalized civil unions and some refused to legalize it. While I would prefer the government stay out of people's bedrooms, I think that this is far better than the entire country legalizing gay marrirage. This way there is variety between the states and people can choose the set of laws they want to live under by moving to a different state.

Also, keep in mind that gay marrirage is a very minor issue in this country. Whether people can even marry legally isnt going to drastically affect the country's futire, but out massive debt, failing economy, the federal reserve illegally printing money, the CIA poisoning our citizens, our troops dying overseas, and many more issues are of a higher priority.

Marriage or civil union. Marriage is a union recognized by the church. Civil unions are recognized by the government and allow the sharing of bank accounts, etc. I support civil unions but not marriages.

This is the fundamental issue, as Fiel said. The bottom line is that people can "get married in City Hall." By the government. A marriage like that is something all LGBT should have access to, whereas a "marriage" within the foundations of religion is up the religion.

In other words, it doesn't matter what you call it so long as any LGBT couple can be united under the law and receive all of the same rights and responsibilities of marriages in the United States as all other "married" couples. Another way to think about this is to say that the end result, legally, should be the same for all couples, regardless of gender/sexual orientation, but the path of obtaining such legal results (whether under the name "marriage" in religious institutions, or "marriage and/or civil union" in legal) is up to the person.

As a personal comment, I find it sad that people are too hung up on the idea of "marriage" to allow two definitions of the term. I wish the world could sit down and agree that there are two forms of "marriage," which both legally give them same benefits and responsibilities, but one that is conducted in the foundations of religious institutions, and the other in the halls of government. It's frustrating to me, though being a confirmed Catholic I can understand the animosity towards dividing the term of marriage into two separate yet equal entities, when it's a sacred sacrament in many religions.

So this more disorganized post in conclusion: call it whatever you want so long as at the end of the day marriage in religious institutions and marriage in government institutions are seen equal with regards to legal rights, and highlight the unconstitutionality of forbidding certain groups from marriage in government institutions within the democracy of the United States. If all that was done the only sadness that would remain would be for highly religious LGBT couples unable to get married within their faith, but unfortunately that's not up for the people to decide.

Oh, and best video ever on this debate:

[video=youtube;dCFFxidhcy0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCFFxidhcy0[/video]

And there's where I disagree with you, Frozzy.

Getting married is something that is done before a deity. The two being able to be treated as one pair is done legally. You can still get married today before God and never file marriage papers. You will be married before God and not men. Likewise, you can get a civil union and be together legally but not in the eyes of God (or whatever deity you believe). It is possible that these two things can become separate. But it takes a whole hell of a lot of political wrangling for it to happen. This is what conservatives mean when it "destroys the sanctity of marriage" because it really does change the definition of what a marriage means in America (married before both God and man).

So getting married is wholly different from a civil union. A civil union is not marriage in the slightest.

But since we're only arguing over definitions and not actually each other's arguments, I suppose my definitions are rather pointless.

@Fiel: There's a third kind of marriage, partially bridgeing the gap. I believe the English term is "common-law marriage". In Hebrew we call it "publicly known [as married]". It's where two people just move in together and live in one household, sometimes raising children and so on, and "everyone knows" they are a family unit, even though they never got married, either by clergy or by clerk. (Humans being complicated, the opposite also exists: people who are still formally married but have, in fact, parted ways).

When such things go to court, it's sometimes debated whether any given couple does indeed qualify for this odd status, which gives all or some rights and responsibilities of those formally married. Many gay couples have to resort to these things to get things like inheritance or child visitation rights. Needless to say that is a waste of the court's time and a lot of wear and tear on everyone's nerves and bank accounts. Things would be much simpler by just letting them register in City Hall.

I picked D, I honestly don't have strong feelings for either sides, I'm mostly a bystander yet if it affects my daily life. I'll just move away from it. I'm neüder pretty much §=

Oops, accidentally clicked "should not be allowed".
Anyway, I think this is a case where people have to mind their own business.