Why is endorsing gay marriage/civil unions bad?

[deacon blues]

Originally Posted by MissBrattified

Personally, I have two main thoughts on this issue, and they are surprisingly liberal:

1. I wish churches had jurisdiction over marriage ceremonies. Religious ceremonies should be held for those who want them, and everyone else can form secular (civil) unions. Giving this power back to the church and having the state only take care of paperwork and names and dates is the way it should be, IMO.
2. I don't really care WHO wants to form a civil union--whether its for the sake of sharing a household, sharing incomes, sharing dependents or sharing a bed--I really don't care. That's a legal issue that has nothing at all to do with the sanctity of God-ordained marriage between a man and a woman. IMO, if roommates want to file a civil union for the 4-8 years they attend college so they can share household expenses, etc., they should be able to do so. It's a practical matter.

When I was about 13, we lived next door to a monogamous gay couple. One of them worked at the hospital as a nurse, the other one was a businessman. They had two very fat, spoiled, sweet basset hounds. I don't remember my parents ever being rude to them or complaining about them living next door. I certainly was never bothered by them, and I find it interesting that my parents didn't seem particularly bothered by them either.

My point is: I don't see the point of Christians digging in their heels and trying to prevent people from sharing bank accounts and filing joint income tax returns.

You can allow for shared bank accounts and filing joint tax returns without defining the relationship as marriage. And I don't know many Christians who are arguing that.

[Aquila]

Originally Posted by deacon blues

You can allow for shared bank accounts and filing joint tax returns without defining the relationship as marriage. And I don't know many Christians who are arguing that.

Marriage is a binding social contract. Traditionally, it didn't even require the approval of those being married. It only required an agreement between the parents of the two families. If you examine history, culture, and religion you'll find that there isn't a set "definition" of marriage. Many cultures have polygamous marriage. Ancient Rome had "gay marriages".

This problem has been with us since the most ancient of times. This isn't anything new.

The truth is... YOU define your own marriage. The Government doesn't define your marriage. You do.

In fact, it can be argued that the problem IS the Government meddling in marriage. Perhaps we should "privatize" marriage. Allow private citizens and families to make notorized private contracts. If someone violates their marriage contract, take the offender to court over breach of contract and "divorce" them.

[MissBrattified]

Originally Posted by deacon blues

You can allow for shared bank accounts and filing joint tax returns without defining the relationship as marriage. And I don't know many Christians who are arguing that.

So you're wanting to make sure that homosexuals don't have the legal right to say that they're married? That's it? That's the whole point? It's all about what they can call themselves? Why would I care if two gay guys want to say they're married and throw a party to celebrate it? They can do that now, if they want to--it won't be recognized by the state, but they can still have a "wedding" and wear rings. Gays already have the ability to have the party portion of a marriage. This debate is really only about the legal side, and the legal side is the side I don't care about. Let them have their joint-filing status.

[jfrog]

Originally Posted by MissBrattified

So you're wanting to make sure that homosexuals don't have the legal right to say that they're married? That's it? That's the whole point? It's all about what they can call themselves? Why would I care if two gay guys want to say they're married and throw a party to celebrate it? They can do that now, if they want to--it won't be recognized by the state, but they can still have a "wedding" and wear rings. Gays already have the ability to have the party portion of a marriage. This debate is really only about the legal side, and the legal side is the side I don't care about. Let them have their joint-filing status.

This is exactly what I've been trying to say the whole time.

Here's another thing to think about. There is no better term for gays that wish to mimic a traditional heterosexual style marriage ceremony complete with the legal benefits than to call it a gay marriage. What else could you call that? The thing is we don't have any words to describe that type of thing. It's a language problem and the way we solve our language problems is to typically take the term most closely associated with whatever we are trying to label and expand it's definition to include the new thing that closely resembles it. We may even take the traditional term and modify it with an adjective to denote the new thing, for example a gay marriage.

Here's the thing, if we give gays civil unions then there is nothing stopping them from asking each other to marry and having large ceremonies and even referring to the whole process as marriage and the thing is their union would even be a legal union. At that point it's really no different than calling it a gay marriage.