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Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru
Why are some people so against officiating the life-long friendship of two people whose only difference from traditional married couples is that they're both of the same sex?
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I must be a masochist, because for some reason, I have spent a lot of time debating this issue on more conservative and even religious forums recently. There really is this self supporting propaganda machine when it comes to homosexuals... I guess for the benefit of many of these people who never actually met a real live homosexual.
If you look at conservative/Christian news sources you will find non-stop demonizing articles and stories about misdeeds of homosexuals... especially if the story can in any way conjure up fear regarding what they feel is an ever increasing persecution of their religion/beliefs. Some place, somewhere, a homosexual forgets to say "God bless you" when a Christian sneezes its all over their media. Another place, some place a homosexual says "God bless you" to a child who sneezes and he's a paedophile trying to abduct your kid. Endless supplies of these hit pieces get posted and passed around the conservative/religious media sphere.... over and over. It's all designed to reinforce anti-homosexual feelings while propping up religious beliefs. It's really no wonder they are so afraid.
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More important, why is this friendship compared to the acts of bigots, pedophiles, and the incestuous? They aren't the same. There are already many healthy homosexual relationships in the world; the same cannot be said, necessarily, about the other things brought up here, especially within the context of the legitimacy of marriage.
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To many, paedophilia is a severe case of 'homosexuality'. I've talked with many who literally would be afraid to leave their children etc alone with a gay man because of this. You act gay long enough, and you'll become a paedophile... I can't tell you how many times I've run across that myth and they will argue with me till we're both blue in the face. They'll trot out some hit piece article from a bigoted site as proof of their claim and I'll show them dozens of peer reviewed studies about paedophilia and sexual orientation and they still don't believe it..
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Gay marriage is far closer to heterosexual marriage than any of these other things. People need to get their head around that.
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With all the imagery and protests against the churches after the prop 8 pass, I've seen more end-of-days rapture conversations than I can believe myself. Even I didn't think the absurdity could get as extreme as it did... and its still going on, but at least it seems to have died down a bit. I really don't know how such madness can be defeated.
-----Added 28/11/2008 at 10 : 18 : 37-----
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Originally Posted by timalkin
Do I come off as religious? I'm conservative, sure, but not overly religious. My viewpoints have nothing to do with religion. That's a strange assumption that a lot of liberals make, probably from watching too much TV. I don't assume that all liberals go around handing out other people's money to vagrants and criminals, throw red paint on fur coats, or wish that communists would take over the American government. Your broad brush may be too broad sometimes.
I don't think incest, bigamy, bestiality, or pedophilia should ever be legally recognized as marriage in this country. If gays can marry, why wouldn't these other minority groups try to gain the same thing in the future? I'd love to hear a logical argument that discredits this idea. Incest, bigamy, bestiality, and pedophilia are illegal now, so you would think they could never result in marriage because they are illegal. But homosexual behavior used to be illegal and is still on the books in some places.
I don't care what other countries do with their citizens. I don't live in other countries. Personally I'd love to import some ideas from the Middle East, like cutting off the hand of a thief. The problem is that we in the West have certain values and constituitional rights that don't allow such things.
-----Added 27/11/2008 at 10 : 39 : 14-----
Who says that children and animals can't give consent? What is consent? Who determines what consent is? Are you relying on the opinions of a bunch of senior citizens dressed in black (judges) who hand down these opinions? If that's the case, change the senior citizens and the opinions can change.
Maybe one day some combination of senior citizens will say that children and animals CAN give consent. I mean, there were plenty of guys fucking kids in the ancient world right? This was socially acceptable behavior and those civilizations did OK, so why can't we go back to the good ole days of kid fucking?
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If the only reason, as a society, we can come up with to keep paedophilia and bestiality illegal... is that gays cannot marry.... well, then we are just screwed. That's basically what you are saying here... there are no good reasons against paedophile marriage and animal marriage if we allow homosexuals to marry.