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Originally posted by Woodencross:
Originally posted by bishop375:
Originally posted by Woodencross:
I can't believe you make me out to be the idiot, when you promote a lifestyle that is damaging to everybody.
And how, pray-tell, is it damaging to EVERYBODY? I can't wait to hear the answer to this one.
Again, I ask, have you ever heard of ROME?
The country destroyed itself because of its gluttony, homosexuality, abortion, laziness, etc etc etc...
Does that strike any similarities to our nation?
You have to be kidding me. Rome was destroyed for reasons completely unrelated to the things you mentioned.
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I have not seen a single scholarly work which places any form of moral decay, including homosexuality, as a real cause for the fall of Rome.
The most interesting I read was that Rome was simply not a long term sustainable model. Without places to expand and new peoples to plunder, there was no economy. As taxes increased and laws made life more restrictive, people simply left to the outlying territories, which increasingly ignored the dictates of Rome. It also made for insurgency which welcomed the "barbarians" versus defending agaisnt them.
The general studies state the weakening of the emperors, and fossilization into a series of static weak military dictatorships was the political collapse. The economy collapsed due to the above, and an overdependence on slaves. The population declined due to hardships from the prior two, and people emigrating (as said above). These items left Rome unable to defend itself against enemies growing stronger and learning from the Romans, who did not progress.
Lead in all the food and water supply had more to do with the fall of Rome than morality in general and homosexuality in particular.
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Originally posted by bishop375:
Originally posted by Woodencross:
I can't believe you make me out to be the idiot, when you promote a lifestyle that is damaging to everybody.
And how, pray-tell, is it damaging to EVERYBODY? I can't wait to hear the answer to this one.
There are many different issues and arguments that can be raised in the debate over so-called "same-sex marriage"--far too many to deal with here. So let me get right to what I think is the key question that must be answered.
The debate over whether homosexual couples should be allowed to legally "marry" is not about rights, equality, or discrimination, despite the often heated rhetoric to that effect. Still less is it about the allocation of an entitlement package of legal rights and financial benefits. Instead, this is a question of definition--how do we define the social institution we call marriage? To answer that we must ask, What is the public purpose of marriage?
Please note that I said the public purpose of marriage. The private purposes for which people enter into marriage may be as diverse as the people themselves. Homosexual activists sometimes argue that they want to marry for the same reasons heterosexuals do--out of a desire for love and companionship.
But I ask you--are interpersonal love and companionship really the business of government? Would we even tolerate the government issuing licenses and regulating entry and exit into relationships whose only or even principal purpose is emotional attachment? I submit to you that the answer is no.
So what is the public interest in marriage? Why is marriage a public, civil institution, rather than a purely private one? The answer, I would argue, is that marriage is a public institution because it brings together men and women for the purpose of reproducing the human race and keeping a mother and father together to cooperate in raising to maturity the children they produce. The public interest in such behavior is great, because thousands of years of human experience and a vast body of contemporary social science research both demonstrate that married husbands and wives, and the children they conceive and raise, are happier, healthier, and more prosperous than people in any other living situation.
Now, I know exactly what some of you will say. You will argue that reproduction cannot be the purpose of marriage, because opposite-sex couples that are elderly, infertile, or simply don't plan to have children are still permitted to marry. In fact, I would suggest that the actual, tangible public interest in childless marriages is not as great as the public interest in marriages that produce children.
However, to exclude non-reproducing heterosexual couples from marriage would require an invasion of privacy or the drawing of arbitrary and inexact lines. Instead, we simply define the structure of marriage as being open to the entire class of couples that are even theoretically capable of natural reproduction--namely, opposite-sex ones--and we exclude an entire class of couples that are intrinsically infertile--namely, same-sex ones.
I know you will say to this that some homosexuals do reproduce (with help, of course), and some homosexual couples do raise children. But let me suggest, as an analogy, another area in which the law places limits on the exercise of a fundamental right--voting. We have a minimum voting age because we presume that adults are wiser and better informed that children. The mere fact that some adults are actually foolish and ill-informed, while some children may be wiser and better informed, does not make the existence of a minimum voting age arbitrary or discriminatory. Distinguishing between opposite-sex couples and same-sex couples with regard to marriage on the basis of general differences is equally logical.
In fact, I would suggest that the argument in favor of same-sex marriage can only be logically sustained if one argues that there is no difference between men and women--that is, if one argues not merely that men and women are equal in value and dignity, a proposition I'm sure we all agree with, but that males are females are identical, and thus can serve as entirely interchangeable parts in the structure of marriage. This contention is biologically absurd, and "same-sex marriage" is thus an oxymoron.
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This material was borrowed from author Peter Sprigg, he put it about as good as I could have, so why retype it. 
Last edited by cjbaldw; 11/11/05 12:49 AM.
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Originally posted by Woodencross:
Originally posted by bishop375:
Originally posted by Woodencross:
I can't believe you make me out to be the idiot, when you promote a lifestyle that is damaging to everybody.
And how, pray-tell, is it damaging to EVERYBODY? I can't wait to hear the answer to this one.
Again, I ask, have you ever heard of ROME?
The country destroyed itself because of its gluttony, homosexuality, abortion, laziness, etc etc etc...
Does that strike any similarities to our nation?
Now that I have a few minutes, I will tell you why you are wrong.
First of all, the collapse of the Roman empire took a long time. Many things have been suggested that perhaps contributed to the fall. The military reforms that granted Roman citizenship to all that served in her armies was one. As Rome grew more Christian, it's citizens also became more pacifist. Unwilling to battle for Rome, the armies of Rome became less Roman and they began to consist of men of the outlying provinces. Men that identified themselves not as Romans, but as English, German and so on. Even the lead that Romans used to create their plumbing system has been blamed. I beleive that all of the factors that have been suggested played a part. But the most critical contributors were constant infighting and the strenthening of the barbarians that surrounded Rome.
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Originally posted by Beowulf:
Originally posted by Woodencross:
Originally posted by bishop375:
Originally posted by Woodencross:
I can't believe you make me out to be the idiot, when you promote a lifestyle that is damaging to everybody.
And how, pray-tell, is it damaging to EVERYBODY? I can't wait to hear the answer to this one.
Again, I ask, have you ever heard of ROME?
The country destroyed itself because of its gluttony, homosexuality, abortion, laziness, etc etc etc...
Does that strike any similarities to our nation?
Now that I have a few minutes, I will tell you why you are wrong.
First of all, the collapse of the Roman empire took a long time. Many things have been suggested that perhaps contributed to the fall. The military reforms that granted Roman citizenship to all that served in her armies was one. As Rome grew more Christian, it's citizens also became more pacifist. Unwilling to battle for Rome, the armies of Rome became less Roman and they began to consist of men of the outlying provinces. Men that identified themselves not as Romans, but as English, German and so on. Even the lead that Romans used to create their plumbing system has been blamed. I beleive that all of the factors that have been suggested played a part. But the most critical contributors were constant infighting and the strenthening of the barbarians that surrounded Rome.
I didn't say that there weren't other reasons. What I did say was that the downfall of the moral values played a part. You can compare our nation today to exactly what you wrote above. Amazing how my argument still stands. Pacifist people, unwilling to fight, men and women not identifying themselves as AMERICAN, etc, etc etc.
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woodencross, can I ask you a personal question? Could you tell me the story about how you chose to be straight?
The public purpose of marriage is to provide social and economic stability in the form of family units. That stability also assists in the rearing of children, but that is an added benefit rather than the core one. Removing the artificial gender restriction from marriage would enable that stability to reach more sectors of society.
Marriage is not a human equivalent of a breeding mill. It is an institution of love and commitment that two people have for each other. How many people proposed by saying "I want to raise children with you?"
Marriage is a social institution, not a private club for heterosexuals. Two people are making the same commitment to each other and professing the same love for each other, no matter the gender of the participants. It is an insult to demean some of those commitments with a different name because of artificial gender restrictions.
The civil rights movement of the sixties was that blacks wanted to be considered people. Why didn't they just settle for another term which was legislated to have the same rights? Because a separate name is never equal. That is why I won't settle for a term other than Marriage.
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I'm pretty much a hard core conservative, but I think my anti-gay marriage friends are all wet.
Not because I'm for gay marriage, I'm not. But instead, I really think their effort should be focused on protection of the traditional marriages already out there.
Where are these folks when it comes to doing away with "No Fault" divorce? Where someone can just say, I didn't really mean my vows, I want to go off and boink someone else and not lose any of my stuff.
If my fellow conservatives want to protect marriage, make it much harder to get a divorce.
I'm not saying if a man or woman is married to an abusive partner, they can't get a divorce. What I'm saying is stop women (or men, but it's mostly women) from just saying I'm unhappy, so I want half of your stuff, no I will not consider working on the marriage.
In America, about 75% of divorces are filed by women. Not all of these are for their husbands infidelity or abuse. I've read where upto 60% of men and 40% of women are unfaithful to their marriage partners.
So if you assumed that all women who were cheated upon filed for divorce (which they don't) then there is a large number of women who file just because they are not happy anymore.
If you want to protect traditional marriage, then make it nearly impossible to get a divorce.
Make infidelity count in the divorce, in child custody decisions and for alimony. I.E. if you cheat, you forfeited alimony. If you cheat and your partner was faithful, you are NOT going to be the custodial parent.
Enforce Covenant Marriages. Couple can choose to have a marriage governed by their religious beliefs. This would not be manditory, but rather if a couple chooses, at the time of their wedding to be bound by the rules of their religion regarding marriage, then that is the only body that can grant a divorce.
I know, you can't force people to love each other and treat each other with care and respect. But you can even the playing field and make those who make a mockery of their marriage vows by cheating pay a heavy price for their part in the destruction of marriage in America today.
Tony
"Seems like our society is more interested in turning each successive generation into cookie-cutter wankers than anything else." -- Jato 8/24/2004
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Originally posted by Woodencross:
Amazing how my argument still stands.
If I remember correctly, it really doesn't, and was disproven twice.
Why must all of you have this FEAR of gay marriage? What will it really do to YOUR marriage? How will it change how you look at your wife?
Can you please answer that?
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Originally posted by BOFH:
I'm pretty much a hard core conservative, but I think my anti-gay marriage friends are all wet.
Not because I'm for gay marriage, I'm not. But instead, I really think their effort should be focused on protection of the traditional marriages already out there.
Where are these folks when it comes to doing away with "No Fault" divorce? Where someone can just say, I didn't really mean my vows, I want to go off and boink someone else and not lose any of my stuff.
If my fellow conservatives want to protect marriage, make it much harder to get a divorce.
I'm not saying if a man or woman is married to an abusive partner, they can't get a divorce. What I'm saying is stop women (or men, but it's mostly women) from just saying I'm unhappy, so I want half of your stuff, no I will not consider working on the marriage.
In America, about 75% of divorces are filed by women. Not all of these are for their husbands infidelity or abuse. I've read where upto 60% of men and 40% of women are unfaithful to their marriage partners.
So if you assumed that all women who were cheated upon filed for divorce (which they don't) then there is a large number of women who file just because they are not happy anymore.
If you want to protect traditional marriage, then make it nearly impossible to get a divorce.
Make infidelity count in the divorce, in child custody decisions and for alimony. I.E. if you cheat, you forfeited alimony. If you cheat and your partner was faithful, you are NOT going to be the custodial parent.
Enforce Covenant Marriages. Couple can choose to have a marriage governed by their religious beliefs. This would not be manditory, but rather if a couple chooses, at the time of their wedding to be bound by the rules of their religion regarding marriage, then that is the only body that can grant a divorce.
I know, you can't force people to love each other and treat each other with care and respect. But you can even the playing field and make those who make a mockery of their marriage vows by cheating pay a heavy price for their part in the destruction of marriage in America today.
Tony
Tony, great to see you here brother! Didn't know you were still around...I do in fact lobby my Congressman Mike Castle, and my two senators Joe Biden and Tom Carper for advocacy for traditional marriage at both the federal level and the state level. I also actively participate in local Delaware politics and take every opportunity to express my views to my state and local politicians. I'm all for covenant marriage and the dissolution of no fault divorce however these two issues seem to get little attention to date. I will keep at it though.
I know you yourself went through a rather unwelcome divorce and it's after effects. What are you up to these days, still working for Sun? IIRC you've got a new special someone...
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Originally posted by BOFH:
If you want to protect traditional marriage, then make it nearly impossible to get a divorce.
Make infidelity count in the divorce, in child custody decisions and for alimony. I.E. if you cheat, you forfeited alimony. If you cheat and your partner was faithful, you are NOT going to be the custodial parent...
...But you can even the playing field and make those who make a mockery of their marriage vows by cheating pay a heavy price for their part in the destruction of marriage in America today.
Tony
THANK YOU.
More damage is being done to the institution of marriage by those who are already married and think if it as a game.
Your energy going into preventing a vast minority of the population from BEING married would be far more well spent fixing what's already wrong with what you've got.
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