Had to share
Sep. 25th, 2003 12:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thebratqueenI'm not going to post where I found this debate because I don't want to come off like I'm trying to encourage a flamewar. But I came across someone who was arguing against allowing gay marriage here in the US and my rebuttal brought up a few points I've been meaning to make about that subject.
Also the limit on comments in LJ meant I had to trim my original post a little bit, so I'm putting the original, lengthy version here in all its glory ;)
so from a darwinistic standpoint, it is not a good place to go. (boy + girl = next generation of boys and girls, Boy + boy = NOTHING = girl + girl) basic math.
To deny gays the right to marry because society and/or the human race would crumble and/or cease to exist because gays cannot procreate with each other presupposes that gays would turn straight and start breeding without this approval. Gays are gays. They're going to continue to have sex with other gays because that's what they do. It's sort of their raison d'etre if you will. They don't need society's approval to be gay as can be seen by the fact that they haven't had it for centuries and yet here they still are.
Moreover, there's 6 billion people on this planet. I think the human race is doing fine. If anything, a few straight people should possibly be taking one for the team and thinking about sampling the gayness. Might free up some of those resources we keep running out of, like "space on this earth to put everyone".
Finally, the national premesis. For better or worse, this country was founded on Christian principals.
And yet now works under this quirky document called "The Constitution" which has a nifty little amendment in it about freedom of religion - which means we have to support those whose religious beliefs don't condemn homosexuality. I don't deny that the rules in this country are overwhelmingly Christian in origin but that doesn't make them right nor does the precedent set by them mean that we have to constantly follow them. If that were the case no store would be allowed to be open on Sunday either.
Then there is the tax part also.
Which is only a part of what gay marriage would be about. Moving aside the argument about our society needing to be all for the creation of children, since said argument would mean we would need to outlaw abortion, birth control and the marriage for any heterosexual couple who proved to be infertile, gay couples are currently denied all rights and priveledges that our society affords to heterosexual married couples of all shapes and sizes. Those rights are far more than just tax benefits (see the list that can be found here for more info). Saying that we should deny gay couples the right to marry because they don't deserve the tax benefits is like saying we shouldn't allow black people to shop in drug stores because they don't really need to use suntan lotion. There's a much bigger argument at stake here.
Family units are given tax breaks, largely because it is expected that they will procreate and make our next generation.
And said tax cut is based upon the actual creation of said children, ie citing dependants on your tax return. Since it is impossible to cite those dependants without actually having them, this sounds to me like a problem that takes care of itself. Gay couples without children are not going to be getting child-related tax breaks any more than straight couples who don't have mortgages won't be able to take advantage of any beneficial real estate taxes either.
The next bunch of Samuel Adams, Samuel Wilson, Audie Murphy, Colon Powell, Orvil and Wilbur Wright... all american children.
Winston Churchill, Mother Theresa, Einstein and Ghandi to you too. This is an irrelevant point. The human population is in no danger of dying out. Crunch all you want, we will make more. Neither America nor the world lacks for future candidates for great works. And considering that America was not only home of the Whopper but people like Son of Sam too it's pointless to argue that we need to keep having kids to make sure we get good ones since the odds are just as good we're going to get some bad apples too. Shouldn't we encourage childless gay couples since they're saving us from the next Al Copone, Jeffrey Dahmer or John Wayne Gacy?
Putting aside for a moment the issue of gay couples raising children, the only reason to deny gay couples the ability to marry is that of religion, and any religion that wanted to have a final vote on what does and does not define marriage in this country should not have allowed the government to ever get a say in it. But as long as a couple can be married in the eyes of the law but not the Church - as heterosexual couples can do - then no Church has a right to say what is and is not marriage in the eyes of the law. That's a matter for the courts to decide and there's really no legal reason to deny this.
Getting back to one of the original questions raised in the first post - speaking as a bisexual woman while I agree that it would be "separate but equal" to give gay couples all the legal rights and priveledges of marriage but not call it marriage, to me the semantics are such a small issue. The real thing to worry about is the actual rights themselves. If society wants to call the legal union of two gay people "Franklin Steve Watermelonhood" I say go nuts. I'm not going to quibble about words when I can have rights.
Also the limit on comments in LJ meant I had to trim my original post a little bit, so I'm putting the original, lengthy version here in all its glory ;)
so from a darwinistic standpoint, it is not a good place to go. (boy + girl = next generation of boys and girls, Boy + boy = NOTHING = girl + girl) basic math.
To deny gays the right to marry because society and/or the human race would crumble and/or cease to exist because gays cannot procreate with each other presupposes that gays would turn straight and start breeding without this approval. Gays are gays. They're going to continue to have sex with other gays because that's what they do. It's sort of their raison d'etre if you will. They don't need society's approval to be gay as can be seen by the fact that they haven't had it for centuries and yet here they still are.
Moreover, there's 6 billion people on this planet. I think the human race is doing fine. If anything, a few straight people should possibly be taking one for the team and thinking about sampling the gayness. Might free up some of those resources we keep running out of, like "space on this earth to put everyone".
Finally, the national premesis. For better or worse, this country was founded on Christian principals.
And yet now works under this quirky document called "The Constitution" which has a nifty little amendment in it about freedom of religion - which means we have to support those whose religious beliefs don't condemn homosexuality. I don't deny that the rules in this country are overwhelmingly Christian in origin but that doesn't make them right nor does the precedent set by them mean that we have to constantly follow them. If that were the case no store would be allowed to be open on Sunday either.
Then there is the tax part also.
Which is only a part of what gay marriage would be about. Moving aside the argument about our society needing to be all for the creation of children, since said argument would mean we would need to outlaw abortion, birth control and the marriage for any heterosexual couple who proved to be infertile, gay couples are currently denied all rights and priveledges that our society affords to heterosexual married couples of all shapes and sizes. Those rights are far more than just tax benefits (see the list that can be found here for more info). Saying that we should deny gay couples the right to marry because they don't deserve the tax benefits is like saying we shouldn't allow black people to shop in drug stores because they don't really need to use suntan lotion. There's a much bigger argument at stake here.
Family units are given tax breaks, largely because it is expected that they will procreate and make our next generation.
And said tax cut is based upon the actual creation of said children, ie citing dependants on your tax return. Since it is impossible to cite those dependants without actually having them, this sounds to me like a problem that takes care of itself. Gay couples without children are not going to be getting child-related tax breaks any more than straight couples who don't have mortgages won't be able to take advantage of any beneficial real estate taxes either.
The next bunch of Samuel Adams, Samuel Wilson, Audie Murphy, Colon Powell, Orvil and Wilbur Wright... all american children.
Winston Churchill, Mother Theresa, Einstein and Ghandi to you too. This is an irrelevant point. The human population is in no danger of dying out. Crunch all you want, we will make more. Neither America nor the world lacks for future candidates for great works. And considering that America was not only home of the Whopper but people like Son of Sam too it's pointless to argue that we need to keep having kids to make sure we get good ones since the odds are just as good we're going to get some bad apples too. Shouldn't we encourage childless gay couples since they're saving us from the next Al Copone, Jeffrey Dahmer or John Wayne Gacy?
Putting aside for a moment the issue of gay couples raising children, the only reason to deny gay couples the ability to marry is that of religion, and any religion that wanted to have a final vote on what does and does not define marriage in this country should not have allowed the government to ever get a say in it. But as long as a couple can be married in the eyes of the law but not the Church - as heterosexual couples can do - then no Church has a right to say what is and is not marriage in the eyes of the law. That's a matter for the courts to decide and there's really no legal reason to deny this.
Getting back to one of the original questions raised in the first post - speaking as a bisexual woman while I agree that it would be "separate but equal" to give gay couples all the legal rights and priveledges of marriage but not call it marriage, to me the semantics are such a small issue. The real thing to worry about is the actual rights themselves. If society wants to call the legal union of two gay people "Franklin Steve Watermelonhood" I say go nuts. I'm not going to quibble about words when I can have rights.
