Gay marraige and the end of the world

no, really, don't gang up on riverrat now. we've been talking in our great debate thread about this subject a bit. i don't think he was very wise to bring this out into a more open forum -- he knew he was going to get jumped on.riverrat is dealing with a very common bias, partly religious partly cultural, partly who-knows. i don't think he hates gay people, he mentioned having gay friends.i'm trying to convince him of a more "tolerant" position based on the teachings of christ. it might work, too.

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precisely. i really do not think that he's trying to espouse a prejudiced or hateful view. that reminds me, i should answer his last post soon.

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-philia is "love of" more or less. he insists that it was partly pre-christianity, but in general it's a largely christian phenomenon. i'm not going to debate the point here, really, because i'm already occupied in a great debate with him which partly covers this precise topic -- i'm just agreeing with the idea that we shouldn't jump on him for it. lol. it's a style preference. and laziness. i used to think i was capitalizing when i wrote papers for school and whatnot. turns out i was only doing it about half the time, and the my word processor does it automatically.old habits die hard.

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that's all well and good. i've kind of avoided answering here because i've got you in the great debate as well, and i'm not really into the dog-pile game. especially since i really do think you're trying here. but you play to a couple really really common fallacies here, ones i see repeated alot. this was a pretty common way to express the concept of natural rights in the 1700's. had they wanted to say "jesus" i'm sure they would have -- people weren't exactly squeemish about it then. the abscence of the specific, in this case, should lead on to believe they did not intend any specific religious connotation.we've had a few threads about this before; you're welcome to go and look at what we've covered there. many of the founding documents of the nation (ie: the constitution, as opposed to the declaration of independence) explicitly state that government should stay out of religion, as do many founding fathers. even the ones that went to church. a monkey is not a human being. it cannot sign a marriage licence, or express in human language its consent. well, to paraphrase the declaration, the rights given to him by his creator: free will.there are a lot of things in this world that rely on technology that you're not against. you're reading this post on a few of them right now. and what gives us the right to stay up past sunset anyway? the electric lightbulb, or maybe fire, but that's about it. not all technology is neccessarily evil. technology lets us help the sick, feed the hungry, and generally live the lives we do. if it makes someone happier with their body, why is that wrong? or any of our business?in another post or two: jesus seemed to be the inclusive sort. he preached to people that were excluded from the temple, the undesirables. i don't think jesus would have been about denying anyone anything. so when jar says we're worshipping different jesus's, that's why. we can't see jesus NOT having compassion, and NOT helping those in need. when brennakimi refers to her boyfriend, it's because she is indeed straight and is dating a member of the opposite sex.i will vouch for the fact that she really is female, and i'm pretty certain she was born that way.This message has been edited by arachnophilia, 01-17-2006 12:50 AM

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twice, dear. i have pictures of the other time somewhere...

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we can't legislate love. that leaves consent. this is a good question, though not especially on-topic. the anti-gay marriage crowd likes to bring up examples like this to propose a slippery-slope kind of idea.

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i promise you, she is not gay. she is currently dating a man -- in fact, everyone she's ever dated is a man. at the very most she is bisexual, but i suspect her "interest" in women is mostly playful.

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right. but our laws cannot force religion on anyone. yes. it is ridiculous. there is such a thing as a sign language. i'm sticking up for it too -- and i'm not gay either.

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what bothers me is when people attempt to disallow, legally, differences of opinion. most gay people happen to hold the opinion that they should be allowed to marry someone of the same gender.you can hold your opinion that it's not a marriage -- but can you legislate that opinion?

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quite. i'm not paying too close attention to this thread, and it's a bit long. where did you prove it? can you give a me a brief rundown of the argument?

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