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RSS FeedMarriage should be a sacred institution between only a woman and a man
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| Agree | 51% | 2716 votes | Total: 5277 votes | |
| Disagree | 49% | 2561 votes |
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Add to FavoritesI love my neighbors two doors down. They moved right in and started fixing their place up. Rick drove me to the towing place to pick up my car when I parked it in the wrong place and came outside to find it gone. They got us involved in the Community Watch program and I got Paul linked up with my scrap-booking class. But when they came over to the house asking that I add my name to the petition they were circulating to give gay marriage - their own union - sanctity, I had to say 'no'.
I am far from a homophobe. I'm hardly a gay-basher or any of the other names one might confer on someone like me. I don't think that every gay man is out to lure some little boy, or that every lesbian wants to dominate and humiliate some man. I've run into homosexual men who have treated me like dirt - and others who have treated me like the princess I am; the same with 'straight' men. It's just that I see in the universe the dual nature of just about everything in existence, I cannot help but feel that it is the interaction of opposites that holds the world together: left and right, up and down, front and back, top and bottom, dark and light, north and south, east and west. Electrons circulate around protons, positive and negative close circuits and give us light.
I see male and female in everything: the positive initiating force, the negative responding force. When one looks over the Biblical mandate, Genesis 1:28, one reads that "God blessed them, and told them to 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it'. Animals, including the human animal, exist as male and female. And in the world of reproduction, male and female couple together with parts that fit perfectly well together. They also have the power of perpetuation, lacking in the same-sex couple.
Can two consenting partners of the same sex forge a meaningful relationship? Of course. Every day one may see friends of the first magnitude relating, closer than brothers or sisters. Are there women in my life who are closer to me than my husband? In some arenas, yes. My husband spends an hour or more per call with one of his buddies from the Midwest. But when we desire sexual love, the attraction is to each other.
Because we feel a thing does not mean it is what should be; as an old friend once said, "It's just a feeling and it will pass." We can witness firsthand the issue of global warming, for instance. We feel the desire to live a certain lifestyle: to drive fast cars and have air conditioning and use hairspray and aerosols. Only now are we realizing that doing so goes against the natural order of the universe and places us in danger of losing control of the world in which we live. I wasn't willing to give up my hairspray until I stood on a beach in Uruguay and found myself staring up into a circle of black sky and stars at noon. Yes, there was really a hole in the ozone layer that keeps us from being cooked like hamburgers in a microwave oven. I threw out everything aerosol in my house and begged my friends to do the same.
What is the unknown 'ozone hole' that may accompany wholesale defiance of the male/female laws? I always fear when humans take natural law into their own hands. The Chinese decided some years ago to allow only one child to be born in a family in order to control population growth. When the decision became strictly-enforced law, the traditional national value of a male child over a female child led to forced abortions and the murder of newborn or even preexisting female children. Efforts to disguise the conception of a second child led to miscarriages. A generation later, men outnumber women eight to one in China, leading to kidnappings of women from border nations and internationally, a rise in homosexuality, a skyrocketing of infidelities and divorces as hopeful men try to offer already-married women more than their current husbands can, and murders of rivals. Prostitution in a nation once 'cleansed' by Chairman Mao has returned with a vengeance, with foreign women bringing in STDs. As quiet as it's kept, China has an AIDS problem.
Perhaps Paul and Rick are good for each other; perhaps not. I would never compel either of them to go out and find a woman if they do not feel that. But whenever I hear that someone has again taken up the campaign of legalizing - no, sanctifying - same-sex marriage, I cannot help but feel that the plan flies in the face of Biblical and traditional religious teachings, which were inspired from somewhere, and I fear to look up, lest I see above my head yet another black hole and stars at noon.
Learn more about this author, Sandra Lowen.
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Disagree
What is marriage and who should be allowed to marry? Is marriage a union between a man and woman only? Is it a union between two men or two women? The answer is yes to all of the above. Marriage is not a question of gender, but a question of commitment.
What people against same sex marriage often say is that marriage is a sacred union between a man and a woman for the purposes of expressing their love, procreating, and living the traditional lifestyle as defined by our founding fathers. What they sadly often fail to realize is that the word marriage is defined as: "The state of being united to a person in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law. It does not say only a man and woman, and even in dictionaries where that is stated the second definition states it is a same sex relationship in place of man and woman. Nowhere does it ever make mention of it being sacred.
Let's be honest for a moment, if marriage was a truly sacred institution it would have to be conducted by a recognized spiritual leader correct? Why then can a ships captain, a judge, or non-religiously affiliated persons conduct such a sacred ritual? Why then could I, if I chose to, apply for and buy a license to marry people and have no religious affiliation whatsoever? It is really quite easy to do as long as you are over the age of eighteen and have the money to pay for it. Something like heart surgery requires a very specific person with advanced training and abilities, but to simply have a wedding you can have any number of recognized officials do it. Does that sound sacred? I will say the ritual, the ceremony of marriage itself can be sacred if (If is a big word here) the couple chooses it to be. The reality is that marriage is simply a contract, albeit a very powerful contract. To say marriage is sacred and/or for the purposes of procreation is to say every marriage not conducted by a religiously affiliated figurehead is void. It is to say every marriage that does not produce an offspring is void. It is to say every couple that has married with no intention of producing an offspring has entered a contract fraudulently and therefore should be subject to punitive damages against the governement. It is to say each half of those relationships has no legal rights concerning their partner.
What this contract allows is for the couple to enjoy legally recognized rights and benefits concerning health care, gaurdianship of minors, tax advantages and other financial considerations among a myriad of other issues. Why should these rights be allowed only for heterosexual couples? Quite frankly they shouldn't be. Imagine for a second being a heterosexual couple in a union for some twenty years, unmarried but desiring to be, and having no rights as a common law couple. Your partner falls ill and needs medical care. You cannot legally play a role in how this will be carried out. Forbid that person passes away, you have no right to decide their eternal resting place. You have no rights to assumed inheritance and the estate you have built together can be legally carved up by your partners survivning family. Even if you were appointed as the persons medical proxy and the entire estate is willed to you legally, it can be contested and you will usually lose to their blood relations. Is that fair? For the vast majority of gay and lesbian couples in the U.S. that is a fact of we are forced to living in the confines of.
Now you may say we are not forced to do so, but the fact is we must if we want to be together. Could we move to Massachussets or California to get married? Sure we could, but why should we be forced to do so when a heterosexual couple does not? As a heterosexual person ask yourself what you would do in the same situation if the roles were reversed and it was heterosexual marriage which was being denied. Would you resign yourself to living alone, deny your sexual identity, or live as best as you could and hope everything works out? How would you feel if this was done to you yet you were expected to live up to the same legal responsibilities such as paying taxes, jury duty, selective service enlistment for males, and all the other aspects of being a part of society?
Marriage is not really the sacred institution many people have kidded themselves into believing it is. It is really at it's base a legal contract. The day each state began dictating at what age you could marry, how many people you could marry, and assorted other requirements people must meet in order to be married any hint of religion had to be removed from being mandatory under the contractual requirements. It became a government issue. Seperation of church and state is paramount here. They set the rules, they collect the fees, and if you try to circumvent them you are legally liable to the repercussions. As the governent is based on the premise of such mantras as equality and no taxation without representation, does their flouting of the rights of this segment of society allow gay and lesbian persons to flout their laws? No it doesn't, not in the least. In fact if you try it you'll wind up in jail most likely. It is sad that the LGBT in regards to marriage is so disgustingly marginalized and so many people think it is okay. It is a sad commentary on society. Suppose the laws were re-written to deny bi-racial marriages, imagine the outcry! It would make no more sense to do that than it does to continue to deny same sex marriage.
Look into our nations history over the last hundred or so years and notice the inequitable treatment of people based on perceived differences. Women could not vote at one time because it was thought they did not have the capacity to understand politics and even if they could their opinions were invalid as they were inferior to men. People of color were denied the vote along with the most basic of human rights and decencey because they were considered inferior and incapable of having the capacity to contribute to society aside from the most basic forms of tasks. While most people knew this to be untrue a small group of predjudiced people in positions of power managed to hold these people back for no valid reason, even when public opinion began calling for equality. Imagine where we would be now without the invaluable contributions of those people. Now it is the LGBT which is being discriminated against based on nothing more than the fact they are attracted to the same sex. Does that not smack of outright predjudice? Why is it that even in states where the public has voted in favor of gay marriage the legislators have denied it? Is America a government of the people, or a governemnt of the legislators and their personal opinions? If you are against prejudice, you are against it in regards to everyone, it is not something which is randomly doled out, it is a blanket state of thought.
The simple fact is for the vast majority of people opposed to gay marriage this is an argument of semantics. Read any number of opinions against it and many will say that while they oppose gay marriage they are just fine with it being a civil union or legally recognized domestic partnership, or anything except marriage. They say they are fine with people being gay. They say all this yet when they say no to gay marriage, they say we gay and lesbian people are inferior and not deserving of the rights they enjoy because they find the opposite sex attractive. Why is that? It is because in reality they are not really okay with gay and lesbian people. Not to be cruel but in all honesty it reeks of flawed logic and warped thinking. I would however be willing to make this deal, allow me and every other gay or lesbian person the right to enter a legally bindiing union with every, and I do mean every single legal right a heterosexual married couple has, and those opposed can call it a civil union or tapioca for all I care. I will know it is marriage and call it such.
Learn more about this author, Amanda Fox.
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