Today's Question: Do you support same-sex marriage?

The redefinition of traditional marriage began about 250 years ago, when Westerners began to allow young people to choose their partners on the basis of love rather than having their marriages arranged to suit the interests of their parents. Then, just 100 years ago, courts and public opinion began to extend that right even to marriages that parents and society disapproved.

In the 1940s and 1950s, many states repealed laws that prevented particular classes of people—including those with tuberculosis and “the feeble-minded”—from marrying. In 1967 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional for states to prohibit interracial marriage. In 1987 it upheld the right of prison inmates to marry.

The path to same-sex marriage was further opened up when heterosexual couples began to push back against state control over their sexual and reproductive lives. Until the 1950s, some states forbade married couples from using assisted reproduction to have children, ruling that artificial insemination was tantamount to adultery and any resultant child was illegitimate. Conversely, until the Supreme Court ruled in 1965 that couples had a right to sexual privacy, many states refused to allow the sale of birth control to married couples who wanted to prevent or limit their childbearing.

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SavannahDare said:

Whether a couple is joined together in a church or not has zero bearing on whether they are recognized legally. I got married in a B&B by some dude who probably got the ability to marry people in some backwoods North Carolina speed course! The laws of this land recognize that union exactly the same way they recognize a couple joined in a Catholic church. That is what needs to be afforded to gay couples.

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RVTIDER said:

Simple question. Try to answer in a very short and direct manner. Even if you hate gay people to their core and think what they are doing is an abomination, why are you against gay marriage? They are not gonna stop what they are doing just cause they are single.

I know this entire thread has been about this, but I want just a short direct answer. I am opposed to it because.......

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92tide said:

i think a lot of the margin of defeat goes to the intensity of opinion of the folks who oppose gay marriage and the way that translates into them getting out the vote.

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CajunCrimson said:

I also think that people will answer one way in an open forum and then vote the other in the booth. Most people opposed will avoid discussions like this for fear of appearing to be a bigot or homophobic.....

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CajunCrimson said:

We need more like you

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Tide1986 said:

...and potentially the lack of intensity of belief/feeling in those who "support" such marriages.

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92tide said:

yes, that was what i was getting at. they may support it, but it may be pretty far down the list of things that will get you "off the couch" to go vote.

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CajunCrimson said:

I also think that people will answer one way in an open forum and then vote the other in the booth. Most people opposed will avoid discussions like this for fear of appearing to be a bigot or homophobic.....

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One could be forgiven for wondering how we are all supposed to keep up. Last month, as Indiana’s rather tame religious-freedom legislation was being torched by the mob, America’s more devout dissenters were informed that the price of participation in the marketplace was the subjugation of one’s conscience to one’s Caesar. “You can’t opt out of the law,” the agitators explained. “This isn’t the Jim Crow South!” Their core message? That if we all keep quiet about our views — and if we treat commercial transactions as commercial transactions — nobody will end up getting hurt. Or, put another way: “Cater my wedding, you bigot.”

In Dreher’s story, alas, the opposite case appears to obtain. “We can’t be expected to honor our contracts with companies that disagree with us,” the outraged couple is arguing, “for that might taint our nuptials.” The new message? That we can’t all get along by keeping quiet, but instead need to positively affirm one another or face the consequences. Or, put another way: “Even if I ask you to, don’t cater my wedding, you bigot.”

Would that the agitators could settle on a strategy.

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TideEngineer08 said:

Well the problem is, we have so many other topics we must consider when casting our vote. Gay marriage isn't that high on the list for me. Other matters which I consider to be critical for the future of our country are higher on that list. It's in those matters that I feel Obama falls woefully short. Of course, as is always the case lately, the other option doesn't inspire much confidence either.

Ah hell. Should have read the posts after. 92tide already said what I was thinking.

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There is “a spirit abroad in the earth,” under the control “of the Arch-foe of God and man,” a spirit known as “Radicalism.” “This ruthless, leveling Spirit” sees man as the all-encompassing idea and “wages war against the Family, the State and the Church” with “Titanic audacity.”

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Tidewater said:

Heard this yesterday.

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