The Results of the US elections..., Obama wins!

Unfortunately for McCain, his chance at the White House came eight years too late.

It would have been a perfect case of the right man, in the right place, at the right time.

Well, on a more local level, my state passed a same-sex marriage ban. I thought California was smarter than this- the last one was struck down in the courts, you'd think the backers would realize that this one won't last either. There are already three legal challenges to the amendment, all based on different problems with the proposition. Fortunately, the state constitution already has a provision saying all citizens of the state are to have equal rights, so the ban should get struck down in short order on constitutional grounds. Though I'm still frustrated that people would vote to take away the already existing rights of another group of people.

I very much disagree with same-sex marriage (though knowing I'm a Mormon, you could probably have already guessed that), but not for the knee-jerk reasons so common among Christians. I feel that, if someone is homosexual, fine. Their choice. But they shouldn't ask society to support them in the form of economic benefits. Heterosexual, married couples and families give a greater benefit to society than homosexual couples, and so it is right and proper that society support them to a greater extent.

This post has been edited by BeRzErKeR on Nov 7 2008, 10:32 PM

How so?

_________

Anyways on the US Presidency Issue I met this really interesting Hacker on Crysis Wars whose opinion on the issue was:
"Anyone who voted for Obama that f***ing Muslim N***** is a f***ing wh*** N*****".
And I'll be honest that annoyed me allot and not just because of the rascist BS attached, because on the other side of the fence we've some got African American folk on TV street interviews saying:
"I'm voting for Obama because I want to see a guy who looks like me in office".

A person in my opinion should be voted for not because of the way they look but on what they are going to do with the office and it's saddening to think how many votes were for / against Obama / McCain because of such a superficial reason (I also blame Opra using her fame to push her fans into choosing Obama because "Opra supports Obama").

Now I'm not a US citizen but to be honest my support was for Obama to win but it had nothing to do with the above factors.

Honestly, at least to me, the whole same-sex marriage debate is nothing more than semantics.

Marriage is by technicality, a religious right, yes? And citizens, which homosexuals are, are entitled to equality under the law, right? As far as I remember from high school civics, church and state are supposed to be separated from one another. So why the hell should is it a political issue? Just grant blanket equality for both heterosexuals and homosexuals in terms of their rights, and don’t call it by marriage at all. Now that you’ve gotten your rights from the state, you can be more than free to pursue your marriage from whatever church you please.

And I do think it is a bit hasty to automatically label a heterosexual family better than a homosexual couple, at least without understanding the individuals who make the union. It is just about a guarantee that there are plenty of terrible heterosexual parents, I’m sure we could all think of a family that fits that mould.

Homosexuality isn’t a choice. I can point you towards some interesting articles regarding research into that area, including cases of homosexuality in animals. Think about it this way- do you wake up every morning and decide to be straight? Probably not. Gays don’t decide to be gay, either. It just happens. My grandfather was gay (long story), and he knew from a very young age that he liked boys instead of girls. I knew from puberty I liked both genders. Even if it was a choice, why would discriminating based on that choice be a good or fair idea? If two men or two women want the kind of legally recognized, secular commitment that’s available to straight couples, why would you want to stop them? What do you mean by “Heterosexual, married couples and families give a greater benefit to society than homosexual couples.”? A greater benefit to society? Please elaborate.

I'd be fine with having civil unions for all couples, and marriages being issued by religious organizations. If I had my way, it would be like that. I don't care what they call it as long as the government calls it the same thing for both heterosexual and homosexual couples and it gives both the same rights.

But marriage is endorsed, regulated, and codified in the law as marriage, and not many people will support removing the term 'marriage' from government. So marriage gets two definitions- the license issued by the state, and the religious one. With separation of church and state, the religious definition is ignored and the civil one stands for the purposes of court rulings and law. The California state constitution states that all the citizens are equal under the law, so marriage licenses must therefore be issued to any two people, regardless of their genders.

Homosexuality isn’t a choice. I can point you towards some interesting articles regarding research into that area, including cases of homosexuality in animals. Think about it this way- do you wake up every morning and decide to be straight? Probably not. Gays don’t decide to be gay, either. It just happens. My grandfather was gay (long story), and he knew from a very young age that he liked boys instead of girls. I knew from puberty I liked both genders. Even if it was a choice, why would discriminating based on that choice be a good or fair idea? If two men or two women want the kind of legally recognized, secular commitment that’s available to straight couples, why would you want to stop them? What do you mean by “Heterosexual, married couples and families give a greater benefit to society than homosexual couples.”? A greater benefit to society? Please elaborate.

I'd be fine with having civil unions for all couples, and marriages being issued by religious organizations. If I had my way, it would be like that. I don't care what they call it as long as the government calls it the same thing for both heterosexual and homosexual couples and it gives both the same rights.

But marriage is endorsed, regulated, and codified in the law as marriage, and not many people will support removing the term 'marriage' from government. So marriage gets two definitions- the license issued by the state, and the religious one. With separation of church and state, the religious definition is ignored and the civil one stands for the purposes of court rulings and law. The California state constitution states that all the citizens are equal under the law, so marriage licenses must therefore be issued to any two people, regardless of their genders.

I can also point you towards some articles refuting the argument that homosexuality is predetermined or "not a choice". Quite frankly, none of the research is conclusive, nobody actually can prove it's one way or the other, and everybody is prejudiced on the matter, including both you and I. So I'd rather not get into a long argument about that aspect; neither of us will convince the other, and the whole thing will stir up bad feeling. I will merely say that I, personally, believe that homosexuality IS a choice (although perhaps mainly a subconscious one), and I know a number of other people, including several homosexuals, who believe likewise. Actually, to a degree I DO "wake up every morning and decide to be straight." I have occasionally wondered what homosexual sex would be like; I think if I wanted to, I could quite easily be homosexual. But I have never acted on it, and never intend to, because of both my religious views and my views of the benefits to society of heterosexuality and heterosexual marriage.

As to why I would "want to stop" two people of the same gender from getting a marriage; that's because under current USA law, a "marriage" comes with certain economic benefits, tax credits and the like. Those incentives to marry are there because marriage and families help society as a whole. Married, monogamous couples are, in general, more productive, more emotionally stable, and happier than unmarried people. The children of such couples are also generally more stable and satisfied with their family life than children of a single parent or unmarried couple. Unfortunately, none of this is true for homosexual couples, or at least it is true to a significantly smaller degree. Homosexuals have a much higher rate of STDs than the general population. Homosexual couples, those who have gotten civil unions or marriages, have a much higher divorce rate. Children adopted by such couples, statistically speaking, do worse in school and are more likely to drop out. Domestic abuse rates among homosexual couples are much higher than among heterosexual, married couples.

Now, all of this is statistical data. None of this is necessarily applicable to any given couple; there are plenty of heterosexual parents who have awful relationships, and there are plenty of homosexuals who are great people and happy together. But in general, heterosexual marriages are better for the participants and, through them, for society at large. That's why heterosexual marriages receive economic incentives, and why I believe that those benefits should be restricted to heterosexual marriages.


Some sources;
http://marriageandfamilies.byu.edu/issues/...pril/myths.aspx
http://www.catholic.com/library/gay_marriage.asp
http://www.probe.org/site/c.fdKEIMNsEoG/b....l_Marriages.htm

Note; Some of you may disregard these sources because at least two of them are obviously "Christian". I would suggest you simply ignore the parts that reference the Bible, "God's will", or claim divine guidance. You will still find plenty of purely secular evidence that homosexual marriages are not nearly as good for society as heterosexual ones, if not actively harmful.

This post has been edited by BeRzErKeR on Nov 9 2008, 12:07 AM

I tried being gay for about half a year. Didn't work.

This all really smacks of the segregation during most of the 1900's. Black people were give fewer civil rights, worse facilities, etc. This was justified because the consensus was that black people were more prone to crime, were less educated, were unhelpful to society, etc. This was later struck down because none of this was an excuse to ignore civil rights. It isn't right to take rights away from an entire demographic just because they have a higher tendency to be worse at it. That would be like putting all males under surveillance, because they have a higher tendency for murder and rape. We don't, because it is unconstitutional, unamerican, to be so prejudiced. Of course, it's all a moot anyhow, because gender is something that can be altered relatively easily.

Please explain to me exactly which right I am proposing we take away?

The homosexual marriage argument is an effort to add a "right" to the Constitution. As it now stands, homosexuals and heterosexuals have exactly the same rights in states where gay marriage is banned. It's not like I'm advocating we stick "Straight Only" signs on water fountains, people.

Now I'm gonna say some things that are going to make me reeeealy unpopular with some of the people here.

The facts are, homosexual marriage supported by the state would just be a bad idea. Most of the research done so far has indicated that a homosexual marriage, and in fact homosexuality in general, does very little good for either the participants or society, and may well in fact hurt both. Virtually all of the research saying otherwise has been done by homosexual scientists looking to justify themselves, and most of it has been discredited already. In fact, most of the claims of the homosexual community about homosexuality have been discredited. For instance, the really famous one is simply not true; homosexuality is not genetic.

And you know what? That makes a big difference. If homosexuality was, in fact, genetic and predetermined, then I would have to agree; homosexuals would be a minority, like blacks, and anti-gay marriage legislation might be portrayed as bigotry.

But since they aren't, the inescapable conclusion is that homosexuals are simply making a choice which does not benefit society. Now, that happens all the time, with all kinds of people. But society is certainly NOT obligated to pass laws that support non-beneficial behavior, any more than it is obligated to pass laws that support excessive drinking or smoking. Those are behaviors which damage society; they are not in themselves illegal (and shouldn't be), but since they do not make a positive contribution to society, they are discouraged. And that is as it should be. If you want to call that discrimination, go right ahead. Nothing stopping you.

This post has been edited by BeRzErKeR on Nov 9 2008, 03:08 AM

What about torture or Guantanamo bay? How about the Geneva conventions? Both of these involve laws to help protect those who are trying to harm society.



Now for some links of my own.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_of_same-sex_marriage

and the following link, I include it because its scary that people think like this:
http://www.conservapedia.com/Homosexual

What about torture or Guantanamo bay? How about the Geneva conventions? Both of these involve laws to help protect those who are trying to harm society.

The Geneva Conventions are an attempt to restrain the barbarity of warfare, which is inherently harmful to society. War without them would be even crueller and more inhumane than it already is. They are a necessity, not an ideal. Attempts to legalize torture of any kind or degree are despicable, as is what happened at Guantanamo Bay. That's all I have to say about those.

What was your point about the Conservopedia link? Were you put off by the Biblical quotes?

So should someone or something that harms Society have legal protection or not? You can't have it both ways

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,...1815538,00.html is an article about a study of the size of the hypothalamus, which controls, among other things, sexual hormones, in straight women, straight men, and gay men. Straight men’s hypothalamuses were approximately twice the size of women’s, while gay men’s were the same size as women’s. I’d say that’s a pretty convincing argument for there being a biological difference between gay men and straight men. Whether it’s genetic or congenital, I don’t know, but it conclusively points towards homosexuality not being a choice, at least for men.
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/brain/dn3008 is the same study, with the same results, but done on sheep. I don’t think sheep make subconscious choices about their sexuality.

News flash- Gays who are getting married want this sort of thing. They want monogamous, stable, committed relationships that they can raise their kids in. They want the same rights and the same responsibilities inherent in your average heterosexual marriage.

I would like the sources for those statistics you mentioned. If they are from the articles you linked, then I will summarily toss that entire paragraph of yours out the window for being based on incredibly biased sources. Find articles in science journals, or at the very least secular publications. Government statistics will do, as long as they’re reported by a reputable source.

All three of those articles are published by or associated with Christian ministries. I looked through the support and authors of those articles, and they all have a religious axe to grind. Those publications and websites are not unbiased, and I will not take them as evidence. Even the supposedly peer-reviewed one is hosted by Brigham Young University, which is owned by the Church of Latter-Day Saints. I will not ignore references to ‘God’s will or divine guidance. They reveal any writings of the websites to be inherently religious and unscientific. Link me to peer-reviewed articles from secular science journals, and I’ll give them some weight.

There are no straight guys I know who do this, and I’ve asked around. See Mukkin’s comment about trying to be gay. Most of them, no matter how tolerant, can’t imagine liking other men sexually. The reverse is true of the gay guys I know. There’s a hypothesis that people who believe homosexuality is a choice are the ones who actually do have to wake up each morning and decide to be straight, because they having some bisexual leanings, or are even in-denial homosexuals. It’s just a hypothesis, obviously, but it makes sense to me. I have no idea whether or not it applies to you, but it's something to think on. If you have homosexual feelings, why haven't you acted on them? What will you lose if you do?

How is homosexuality a detriment to society?

How is our society hurt by homosexuality?