Whoa, what? Are you kidding? How does giving another group the same rights as you make you inferior in comparison to them? You would only feel an inferiority comparing yourself from a state where you had immoral superiority. Unless your view on gays is that they are beneath you, you would just see it as equality.

Atheism means that you do not believe there is a God or higher power. If you believe in a God or a higher power, you are not an Atheist.

The issue isn't identifying the characteristics or gender of a person, but denying their rights. It would be like not allowing women to vote, and then debate, "Well, we can let them vote, but let's call them 'Women Votes' because it's not the same as regular votes." Can you see the negative influence this has? I don't mean to go into the whole Separate but Equal argument into detail, but this essentially has those same issues.

And you're right, the religious term isn't identical to the legal term, so why not legalize the marriage for same-sex couples? They won't be married "in holy matrimony." As you say, it's not your problem.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Jul 1 2011, 8:57 pm by Roy.

We have Civil Unions in New Zealand, which can be used to join any 2 individuals no matter their sex. "Marriage" is preserved for opposite gendered couples only. Although in NZ you can get most of the rights/recognition of a married couple by simply living together for 3 years anyway, so many couples these days don't see any particular need to do the formal marriage dealie. In fact my mother recently told my sister and her boyfriend that they should just get married (after 10 years) because she's sick of saying "daughter's boyfriend" and it'd be much easier if she could say "son in law".

In the UK, "marriage" is available to all.

If the US doesn't want to go the UK route, I can't see any reason why they can't go down the civil union route.

Sorry i use the wrong words when i meant that statement. I meant to say "religious orientation"

I'm not trying to be overly rude/trollish, but why does your english get messed up so badly? (Bolded example above) I feel like you could emphasize a lot more professionalism if you would just quickly proofread.

I can speak about 4 languages and i get confused with rules on them, i know so many languages mostly becuase of my parents. But i do agree i need to proofread better.

Lol, so if a man and a woman can't have a child, can they get married?

Of course they can so this why can't a same sex couple get married. Most all people trying to gain rights are stomped on becuase they are "inferior" and trust me in a long history of many groups or ethnic divisions of people were called sub human or "inferior" so they can be abused for whatever reason.

Mildly on-topic.

I saw a person on facebook post on a poll about gay marriage something along the lines of "Gay people cannot procreate, therefore they shouldn't be able to marry"

I thought about it for a second and I realized that plenty of people can't procreate. Women over ~50... People born sterile... and I was tempted to put also, just to be a cool person "If I were to punch you hard enough in the balls, you wouldn't be morally allowed to marry?"

Just food for thought.

Edit: fixd "should be able to marry" to "shouldn't"

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 3 2011, 3:50 pm by TiKels.

What Rantent and Tikels said is such an extremely narrow-minded interpretation of any legitimate argument against this that it hurts my brain.

Hint: You're not smart for finding loopholes that go against the spirit of what is said by someone.

First off, rantent asked a question... he asked COULD a person get married if they can't have children.

Second off my statement was a lulz thought that I was reminded of upon seeing rantent's question, not something I considered a legitimate rebuttal. I disagree, I think that the statement "Not naturally able to have kids? No marry" funnels down marriage to be an act that is about having children. That procreation is the reason for anyone to get married. Whether or not procreation (the way we understand it) caused marriage to exist is another thought altogether.

Of course, I'm not saying it is or it isn't the root reason people get married, but it shouldn't have to be.

Oh wow shit I just realized I typoed and said "should be able to marry" instead of "shouldn't" in my previous post. Fixing...

If the argument is "gays cannot procreate and therefore should not marry" then it is hardly attacking a loop hole. That IS the argument. And, if that is their argument, they have to accept that, by their own logic, sterile heterosexual couples should not also be able to marry.

Now, if they are not accepting the latter, then they have to admit their argument is flawed. Which, of course, it is. In fact, I've yet to see an argument against gay marriage that ISN'T flawed.

I am more for sorting out a difference between a religious marriage and a, I don't know what you call it, non-religious marriage. Eg. If a Christian states gays can't have a Christian marriage, well, that's their prerogative. But Christian can't then say that gays aren't allowed have any type of marriage. Though, I imagine Christians would say if it is not a religious marriage then you should not even be calling it marriage, but that is just their flawed assumption (stopping to avoid religious de-rail). I guess we have to start going into all the details of defining what 'marriage' is. I'm all for marriage being completely stripped of any religious connotation.

Could this argument be simplified to "for straight-only marriage" and "for equal rights"?

Just because two people can't have proper sex, that means they can't marry? We don't have penises/vaginas to decide who we can and cannot marry; we have them for the simple purpose of reproduction. That shouldn't matter at all when it comes to marriage. Anyone who uses the inability of a couple to give birth as a reason as to why they shouldn't be allowed to marry is extremely narrow-minded.

300,000th POST!!!!



Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Nov 25 2011, 10:05 pm by Dem0nS1ayer.

Well, for the religious, marriage is something extremely official that has prerequisites that need to be met. Homosexuals don't met these prerequisites.

For the non-religious, marriage is a right. A human construct, not something created by a deity. Therefore, exclusion from this construct is considered a form of prejudice.


Come to think of it, I know no arguments against homosexual marriage that are from non-religious people. It is only ever religious people. If someone knows a non-religious argument could they kindly link me because I would be very interested to read it.

This might be off-topic, but I find necessary to say.

Basically, I scanned through this topic to remove any flames and off-topic discussion, and actually found none. This sort of discussion is a major improvement from what has been happening the past couple months (unless I missed something).

This is because marriage is religious. The state should never have got involved with something which is the church's domain.

I don't know exactly why homosexuals, and straight atheists for that matter, even want to get married (beyond the tax benefits and other state-related advantages). I have the feeling there are plenty of homosexuals who don't want to get married simply because they don't want to be seen as copying the hetereosexual way; perhaps lanth could confirm or deny this.

Why did your parents want to get married? Why does anyone want to get married?

Because the Bible told them to? ;0

Call me a romantic, but I was under the impression that most people get married for love, then the government breaks, then lastly because perhaps the Bible said so.

All my gay fiends who want to get married want to do so for love.

That's why people live together, have kids together, etc., but why marriage? It's the standard accepted thing to do but, in its current form, it's very religious, and plenty of people (in NZ at least) don't bother with it anymore.