Hearts and Minds.

[g_whiz]

There's much to discuss. Several nights prior, before I left for video games and drinks, I stumbled onto a livejournal post by a guy who quite deftly attempted to articulate the anti-gay marriage argument via his religious belief system. I’ll post it here. All and all, an enjoyable conversation that left me, as ever, thinking about the greater

Comments

In Response

[anonymous]

I don't know that we can truly expect any majority to ever vote on a minority and have the minority win. There would have to be some serious mental overhaul for the gays to win the right to marry by a vote from everyone in the country

Re: In Response

[ianvass]

"One of the main reason that Prop 8 was passed was that the people who wanted it passed lied to the public and said their preachers would be forced to marry any gay couple. This fed into the idea that you have to have a preacher and you have to get married in a church. This idea seems stupid, and if you don't have the right information you will believe what you are told

Re: In Response

[ianvass]

Update!

Yes, this is really happening.

Is it so hard to imagine, in a world where lawyers who do not actively support the gay agenda cannot receive a license to practice, that it will eventually creep towards the source of those beliefs? Arizona may not decide this direction, but the very fact that it is being CONSIDERED lends credence to the fear of religions being forced to accept gays eventually. It might take 50-100 years, but hey...

Re: In Response

[g_whiz]

You know, I see your point, and, as someone who was raised Christian, I have an inkling of what your talking about, but...I don't harbor any misconceptions about the idea that the most widely practiced religion type in the United States is Christianity. If anything, the campaign against Proposition 8 indicates quite clearly that the Christian Right has a very powerful, very wealthy voting bloc. I don't think this is a simple senario, and as we've discussed previously there is much that complicates rational discussion about this issue. But what you're suggesting about the infringement of rights on your side (i.e- People of a particular religion who object to homosexuality, I presume) seems to have more in common with some of the problems I'm arguing about as well. Nobody likes to be told by decree or by the so called people what they have to do. Christan fundamentalists, and the Church can have every right to demonize me until the cows come home. Really, couldn't be bothered, and its within their rights to do so. But to say that

Very thought provoking

[ianvass]

I also am a fan of Peggy Macintosh, and white privilege is an interesting and mostly accurate analogy. As a black man, you are certainly able to testify to the validity of white privilege, and as a gay man, you can see how it translates across. I will disagree with you on one of them (the rest I believe are an accurate assessment

Re: Very thought provoking

[g_whiz]

*smiles* Agreed, on the Britney debacle. And given the "gay marriage= continued marital erosion" argument, I've been curious about how people with this stance feel about divorce in general. I don't see social conservatives trying to disallow legally the right of couples to get divorces. Granted, getting an annulment can be difficult in some faiths, but the argument about gay marriage being a further erosion I find to be lacking. Only because if nearly half of all marriages end in divorce, sans having gay couples be able to have civil unions or whatever we're to call them, the problem with marriage starts and ends there. I think we agree on that, but I don't quite understand how not allowing people who are comitted to having their relationships to marry does anything to improve or weaken the trends we're speaking about.