99SESPORT, you took what I said, and really took it out of context. However, you proved exactly why morals should not be used as a basis for legislation.
The reason I state the rules on sodomy and gay marriage are artificially created by the morality of some is that there are no victims. I have sex with a man, marry him, even adopt children with him. I have not harmed you or anyone not consenting to the relationship more than if a heterosexual has sex, marries, and has/adopts children. Some zealots just wrongly believe they know how to live my life better than I do, an infringement I have traditionally laid squarely with liberals.
Murder, theft, abortion, bestiality, rape, statutory rape, assault, battery all share something in common that sodomy and gay marriage don't: they all have a victim who either did not consent or was unable to consent. That is what laws should be about. That is not morality.
The age of consent for sex is not based on Christian morality, but on a standard where a person is considered able to make a decision on sex, or at least be responsible for the consequences. For centuries, the age of sexual/marital consent for females was 12 in many Christian countries. England kept the standard into the 1700s.
I wouldn't examine the morality of many of our forefathers too closely... they weren't particularly moral.
I'll not get into prostitution, drinking laws, and speed/traffic laws. Those are several more huge topics.
I'll put it simply, my belief is that the legal system should be along the lines of the ancient Wergild systems, where you must pay restitution for harm done to others, but doesn't get involved beyond that.
Tony, I totally agree with your statements, though I do not see where that extends to sodomy laws or gay marriage. Neither raises your tax bill, or is expecting a government program to subsidize it. In fact, with homosexual men being the second largest concentration of wealth in this country, we subsidize a lot more than we have subsidized for us.
