Originally posted by: alphatarget1
Originally posted by: Pandaren
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOL...10/31/gay.marriage.ap/
The proposed amendments in Mississippi, Montana and Oregon refer only to marriage. Those in Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma and Utah would ban civil unions as well, and those extra provisions have generated extra controversy.
Recent polls showed support for the amendments at 76 percent in Oklahoma and Kentucky, 65 percent in Arkansas, 60 percent or more in Michigan, 59 percent in Montana and 57 percent in Ohio.
The message is clear: the majority of people in those states hate gays. They see them as freaks to be relegated to second-class citizens. Congratulations on perpetuating bigotry in our great nation! /sarcasm. :|
This makes a mockery of civil rights.
banning gay marriage =/ hatred of gay people.
You are absolutely right. But, being against gay marriage would likely be closely associated with those who morally oppose homosexuality. And many (but not all, by any stretch) of those who believe homosexuality to be a sin are the sort who hate gays. One must not fall prey to opposing a position just because you find odious some of those who support it.
Frankly, if one were honestly of the position that one whould love the sin, yet hate the sinner, as well as beleiving that in a free society every one should be free to act as tthey wish, so long as that act doesn't impinge on the rights of others, then I can't see how they could advocate using laws to restrict the rights of others.
The best arguments I've heard against it are:
We don't want the state tacitly endorsing homosexuality. My question is this: why not? The fact that it is a sin in your religion is not a good enough reason to legislate in a secular democracy. And the growing number of those with non-Christian faiths, as well as atheists require the state to be secular.
Or,
The state has no business legislating one way or another wrt marriage, a religious institute. OK, I'll give you that one. In that case, there should be no legal definition of marriage whatsoever, which would allow any church in the land to marry homosexuals if it so wishes, de facto legalizing it. I actualy like this one, leaving the proper definition up to those with a true stake in it, and replacing all of our legal definitions of it with some kind of administrative (and likely gender-blind) equivalent for the purposes of contract law and pensions.