Christian Group has bank account removed due to "unacceptable views"

However, it is your assumption that there was a better time. It comes part and parcel with your claim that "we" have been in social decline....we cannot have declined from a lower point, right?

As you point out marriage was not always about love and romance. It was about social connections and property, to include money and power as well as survival (financially and through help from relatives). Under these basic guidelines gay marriage does not threaten heterosexual marriage.

The claim to reproduction as a necessity does not really exist any longer wouldn't you agree?

I don't get it - sexual liberation means those things should be raging out of control! I'm so confused......

...Today STDs are at unprecedented and epidemic proportions. Thirty years of the sexual revolution is paying an ugly dividend, and those most at risk are teenagers ...... The information I am about to share is from data gathered by the Medical Institute for Sexual Health in Austin, Texas.(1)...Today, there are approximately 25 STDs. A few can be fatal. ...It is estimated that 1 in 5 Americans between the ages of 15 and 55 are currently infected with one or more viral STDs, and 12 million Americans are newly infected each year. That's nearly 5% of the entire population of the U.S.! Of these new infections, 63% involve people less than 25 years old.... most of these diseases were not around 20 to 30 years ago. Prior to 1960, there were only two prevalent sexually transmitted diseases: syphilis and gonorrhea. Both were easily treatable with antibiotics.In the sixties and seventies this relatively stable situation began to change. For example, in 1976, chlamydia first appeared in increasing numbers in the U.S. ...In 1981, human immuno-deficiency virus (HIV), the virus which causes AIDS, was identified. By early 1993, between 1 and 2 million Americans were infected with HIV or AIDS, over 12 million were infected worldwide, and over 160,000 had died in the U.S. alone. Then herpes was added to the mix. This STD now infects 30 million people.In 1985, human papilloma virus (HPV) began a dramatic increase. This virus can result in venereal warts and will often lead to deadly cancers.By 1990, penicillin-resistant strains of gonorrhea were present in all fifty states, and by 1992 syphilis was at a 40-year high.As of 1993, pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), which is almost always caused by gonorrhea or chlamydia, was affecting 1 million new women each year. This includes 16,000 to 20,000 teenagers. This infection can result in pelvic pain and infertility and is the leading cause of hospitalization for women between the ages of 15 and 55, apart from pregnancy....

Maggie Gallagher's newest book, The Abolition of Marriage, is a tough, passionate account of the thirty-year dismemberment of what she calls our most heroic human institution, marriage. In often heartbreaking detail, she tours America since the 1960s, exploring the collapse of marriage and the "culture of divorce. ..."The collapse of marriage, Gallagher shows, is not a natural and inevitable disaster, but rather the result of systematic dismantling by "divorce advocates"-the winners in the sexual revolution, lawyers, therapists, and social scientists. Armed with a barrage of statistics and case studies, she convincingly demonstrates that marriage is an indispensable public institution, the best and safest environment for raising children. Single parenthood, whether brought about by divorce or illegitimacy, is no substitute for the intact family with a mother and a father. The raising of our nation's children is the driving force behind this book.Exploding the optimistic myth of the "good divorce," Gallagher demonstrates that children of divorce have higher than average levels of youth suicide, lower intellectual and educational performance, more mental illness, violence, and drug use. But even for those families who seem to have weathered divorce, there is "the first and most enduring loss . . . the one that is almost never mentioned, the loss that affects children, parents, and spouses equally: the loss of the family story." Such observations-simple, true, and heartbreaking-are what make this book so compelling.

I am trying to point out that my focus is on HOW WE THINK ABOUT WHAT MARRIAGE IS, rather than on specific things like "What gay marriage will do to so-and-so's marriage."

Extending marriage to gays will change that PRINCIPLE in people's minds.

Even though the United States is among those countries with a falling teen pregnancy rate, it still has by far the highest rate of teen pregnancy throughout the western industrialized world.In 2000, the total number of teen pregnancies in the United States was 821,810 (84 pregnancies per 1,000 people). Compare this with Canada whose total rate of teen pregnancies for 2000 was 38,600 (38 pregnancies per 1,000 people). Many other western industrialized countries, such as Sweden and France, have even lower teen pregnancy rates than Canada. When compared to other countries, it easy to understand why the United States is considered to have a serious problem when it comes to teen pregnancy.In the United States, the 18 - 19 year-old age group has the highest rate of pregnancy followed by the 15 - 17 year-old age group. However, 15 — 17 year-old pregnancy rates dropped by as much as 23% between 1992 and 2000, while the rate for 18 to 19 year-olds only dropped by 11%.Teen pregnancy is viewed to be the cause of many problems. Teen mothers are more likely to not finish high school or college. Additionally, it is estimated that as much as 80% of unwed teen mothers end up welfare. Compared to 25 years ago, pregnant teens are also far less likely to be married.
BestSite: Statistics Teen PREGNANCY

You are right, since the sixties the principle has already been destroyed, which is why gay marriage is even considered.

Faith writes:What it threatens is not any particular marriages, but the IDEA of marriage, the CONCEPT of marriage, the MEANING of the concept of marriage. The ideas a society is based on have more impact than any particular situation or event or actuality. The consequences of such ideas probably won't show up right away. It may take a generation or two.