
An artist's depiction of an Extended Unit Death
My point was that gay marriage should not be equated to racial discrimination.
Denying gays marriage as a service should not be seen as discrimination like it would be if you denied someone service based on their race. That is why the two should not be equated.
Denying anyone a service because they are X is discrimination. You're right, gays today are not being oppressed exactly like blacks before civil rights, because those civil rights protect them today. However, this debate is irrefutably similar to one particular thing blacks had to go through:
interracial marriage. Many people fought against this marriage, and sure enough, religious entities were on the side to make interracial marriage illegal. Here's an example:
In 1963, Richard and Mildred Loving were arrested in Virginia for living together as an interracial couple. They had married in Washington D.C., where it was legal, and then moved back to Virginia, where it was not. The judge in their case gave the statement:
Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.
Is the judge right? Of course not, and we see that he clearly drew the wrong conclusion because we have recognized this discrimination as
wrong. However, it would sound completely rational and truthful to many of us if we lived in a time where this was still a serious issue in our society. Do we have a special term used for interracial marriage today? No. It's called marriage, as it should be.
The Bible (I believe) does not directly speak out against gay marriage, or say that marriage is strictly between a man and a woman. If someone knows a specific passage, please correct me.
Quote from Gen. 2:18, 21-24
The Lord God said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him' ...and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh.
Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, 'This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man.' For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
I read this as saying marriage is intended for companionship and intimacy, so why should homosexual Christians be denied this? (Don't use the Adam-And-Steve argument unless you also want to explain why interracial marriage is wrong, because it is heavily implied that these two are the same race, and not an interracial couple. Alternatively, find a passage that states that interracial marriage is acceptable.)
It seems like a collective opinion from the church manifesting the disapproval of same-sex marriage is the problem, much like how a collective opinion against interracial couples led some churches to believe it was going against the Bible.
Also note that the government must legally give a civil union to any couple.
Could you cite your source? As far as I've read, even civil unions for same-sex couples are
only allowed in 8 of the fifty states.