Cont: http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1145300

This article is referenced:
http://www.rightsidenews.com/2014012233778/life-and-science/culture-wars/marriage-matters-and-redefining-it-has-social-costs.html


For those who don't consider reading the article worth your time - don't blame you - in summary the article claims that gay marriage undermines marriage in 3 ways:

1) First, it fundamentally reorients the institution of marriage away from the needs of children toward the desires of adults. It no longer makes marriage about ensuring the type of family life that is ideal for kids; it makes it more about adult romance. If one of the biggest social problems we face right now in the United States is absentee dads, how will we insist that fathers are essential when the law redefines marriage to make fathers optional?


2) Second, if you redefine marriage, so as to say that the male-female aspect is irrational and arbitrary, what principle for policy and for law will retain the other three historic components of marriage? In the United States, it’s always been a monogamous union, a sexually exclusive union, and a permanent union. Here’s the question: if I were to sue and say that I demand marriage equality for my throuple (marriage with 3 people in it), what principle would deny marriage equality to the throuple once you say that the male-female aspect of marriage is irrational and arbitrary?


3) Finally, I’ll mention liberty concerns, religious liberty concerns in particular. After Massachusetts, Illinois, and Washington, DC, either passed a civil union law or redefined marriage, Christian adoption agencies were forced to stop serving some of the neediest children in America: orphans. These agencies said they had no problem with same-sex couples adopting from other agencies, but that they wanted to place the children in their care with a married mom and dad. They had a religious liberty interest, and they had social science evidence that suggests that children do best with a married mom and dad. And yet in all three jurisdictions, they were told they could not do that.


-------------


So there are the arguments set out that gay marriage will undermine marriage.

What do you think?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/23/2014 05:05PM by The Oncoming Storm - bc.

I think you're just looking for a fight. Marriage has been constantly evolving since the beginning of time. Mormons and former Mormons should be better aware of this fact than anyone else in the nation or we are huge hypocrites. Not playing. Equality already won.

I think I am on the same side of the argument that you are on and find the statements above rather ridiculous excuses.

I'll play a little on #2 & #3.

2) Marriage already is often not exclusive and permanent. Those are just silly arguments. As far as defining marriage as being more than 2 people, the biggest challenge is the cost to redefine it that way would be huge and complicated. The bottom line is people already live how they live - gay couples, polyamorous couples, etc. Giving gays equal legal rights in no way changes your personal definition and commitment to marriage.

3) So your answer to this is to use the law to take away the rights of others and impose your religious agenda on them? I believe gay marriage being legal actually helps ensure religious freedom - because it is the case of the minorities rights being protected regardless of popular beliefs.


Note: My reason for continuing the thread is there was very little discussion of the article in the initial thread since the original OP did so much complaining about gays on RFM that it garnered all the attention.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 01/23/2014 06:26PM by The Oncoming Storm - bc.

The Oncoming Storm - bc Wrote:

>
> 3) So your answer to this is to use the law to
> take away the rights of others and impose your
> religious agenda on them? I believe gay marriage
> being legal actually helps ensure religious
> freedom - because it is the case of the minorities
> rights being protected regardless of popular
> beliefs.


Can I get an amen? Prayers in schools, religious displays on government property, and the like used to be common place. One day certain individuals asked an important question, why? Since that day the War on Christmas and the War on Religion has been aggressively pursed by religionists that wish to institutionalize something that never existed. Were they to just shut up and be thankful for what they have they wouldn't have so much "taken" from them.

1. Children in the past have been chattel used, abused and given away for other commodities. Even today many children are simply possessions of an adult. That is not a society that I want to live in.

2. Dumb argument, I used to be single, now I'm not. When I married there was no act of Congress that gave me certain rights. Those rights were inherent with the certificate.

3. I don't understand some people's willingness to ignore important facts to illustrate a point. For all those who wish to exercise their liberty in this regard you only have to do one thing.....DON'T TAKE THE GOVERNMENT'S MONEY, AND THEN WHINE WHEN THEY TELL YOU HOW TO SPEND IT....With issues like this, taking government funds is tantamount to being the government, which is constitutionally prohibited by the establishment clause and the equal protection amendment.

You know what redefined marriage? Feminism

If women didn't work, they wouldn't have the money to support themselves. As soon as they could strike out on their own, they started getting divorces. Then we had child custody, step parents, second families, etc. It has also meant fewer children per family, daycare, latchkey kids, etc.

Now a lot of women want to work, and few people are going to tell them no. Do you want else have affected the family? Stagnant wages for the middle class.

Many women (or men) would like to stay home and have kids but they can't afford food, rent, health care, student loans, etc. on modern wages. Maybe if we made it easier to make ends meet, families would be more likely to stick together and have more kids.

Oh, BTW, gays have had very little to do with the 50% divorce rate. Unless you are married to a gay man or woman in an opposite sex marriage, or have gay children yourself, gay marriage will no more impact your life than Justin Bieber's DUI.

Great points - if you reaaaally think about it "traditional" marriage essentially defined women as the property of their husbands.

The rate of divorce is much over 50%!! The conservatives should be concerned more with this than the issue of gay marriage. Indeed, gay marriage may help prevent the heartbreak of straight women marrying gay men or men marrying women who would rather be with women.

The underlying reason for opposition is the feeling about gay sex. Period.

First, I need a citation. Show me the numbers that the rate of divorce is over 50% and more like 80%.

Next, so what?

If we set aside religious arguments, what difference does it make if marriage has a 100% divorce rate?

I mean, I get that children need a stable environment in which to grow up, but sometimes divorce makes the home MORE stable, especially in cases of addiction.

I've long believed that marriage should be a legal contract like a business deal. You lease a spouse for 1, 3, or 5 years at a time. At the end of the lease, you have the option to renew or walk away, no harm, no foul. If you have children together, you can continute to renew until the children are grown, or you can exercise your divorce option.

I really don't think that marriage and divorce is the cause of all the world's troubles. I lay that at the door of poverty. Raise the minimum wage to over $10/hour and see what happens to the stability of lower-income homes. I bet the marriages will be much happier when people are less worried about where the next meal is coming from.

>"You know what redefined marriage? Feminism"

Great point. For all the talk about how the institution of marriage has crumbled - particularly how divorce rates have gone up - it seems no one is talking about how this could be a POSITIVE thing.

How many of those marriages that lasted forever were happy ones? How many were abusive? How many women stuck in marriages 50, 60, 100 years ago desperately wanted to get out but had no options? They didn't have the education, they couldn't work. They couldn't support themselves.

Why do these traditional marriage proponents seem to think it's better for a marriage to last a long time, period, regardless of how successful or happy it is? Isn't it better for two miserable people to be able to separate amicably and get on with their lives then to stay in it for the long haul? As hard as divorce is on children, is it really worse then being raised by two parents who don't love or support each other - or worse, who are violent or verbally abusive to each other?

I say hooray for divorce, when it's handled well! Hooray for step families and blended families and families who are actually just close friends who love each other dearly. The one man, one woman, two and a half kids model doesn't work for everyone. Let's stop trying to pretend that it's the ideal, shall we?

+1,000

Another +1000.

This has sadly been a recent realization for me. Why the hell is never getting a divorce, whats best for everyone? The more people have the freedom and ability to control their own lives, the more our world evolves and progresses, IMHO.

"Oh, BTW, gays have had very little to do with the 50% divorce rate. Unless you are married to a gay man or woman in an opposite sex marriage, or have gay children yourself, gay marriage will no more impact your life than Justin Bieber's DUI."

I'd love for my ex to be able to get married. He deserves to do whatever he wishes with his relationship, just like all the gay friends I have do.

And with gays, at least when they have children, they are wanted. They weren't just an "accident." I actually believe gays would be better parents than many of the straights.

There is NO ARGUMENT that makes any logical sense. It's coming . . . I took note that during the days that gays could marry in Utah, nothing happened. Everything just went on as usual except we got to view a lot of happy couples finally getting married.

I would just like to say that after three plus decades together, it was a real pleasure to file a joint tax return. Oddly enough, heterosexual couples can also still file joint tax returns as they always have. And isn't it funny how we gays have no plans at all to try to stop them from doing so?

I was also looking in the New York Times on Sunday and was very surprised to see that straight couples are still getting married even though there were gay couples there too. What a crazy world!

Hmmm for the first time in 18 years I am not filing a joint tax return. Maybe it's your fault? ;)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/23/2014 06:13PM by The Oncoming Storm - bc.

LOL

"1) First, it fundamentally reorients the institution of marriage away from the needs of children toward the desires of adults. It no longer makes marriage about ensuring the type of family life that is ideal for kids; it makes it more about adult romance. If one of the biggest social problems we face right now in the United States is absentee dads, how will we insist that fathers are essential when the law redefines marriage to make fathers optional?"

Using this irrational logic, I shouldn't have been allowed to marry my second husband because neither of us could have any children. I'd had a hysterectomy and he'd had a vasectomy.

Absolutely ridiculous. Marriage is not about having children. It's about two people who love and care for one another who want to share their lives together AND have a legal (not religious) right to do so.

The question I ask all my married friends is this. Since approx 1300 gay couple got married during that short window in Utah. How many of them have had the authority's show up at their home or place of employment and order them to get divorced.


Not one of my straight married friends has had this happen.

I then ask if they feel they have to get divorced. Again I'll I hear is crickets.

So to finish this. There appears to be no threat to a man and a woman getting married if two men or two women get married.

I wrote this as a reply on saviorself's thread that closed just as I tried to post.

From the article at this link on saviorself's thread:
http://www.rightsidenews.com/2014012233778/life-and-science/culture-wars/marriage-matters-and-redefining-it-has-social-costs.html

"Marriage exists to unite a man and a woman as husband and wife to then be equipped to be mother and father to any children that that union produces. It’s based on the anthropological truth that men and women are distinct and complementary. It’s based on the biological fact that reproduction requires a man and a woman. It’s based on the sociological reality that children deserve a mother and a father. "

Reproduction requires a man and a woman, but it doesn't require that the man and woman be married and our laws certainly do not demand that the donor of the sperm and the donor of the egg that created the child be the ones who raise the child. If this "traditional marriage" model is so shiny and perfect, why is adoption necessary? Sperm donor marries egg donor and raises the child. No exceptions. Why do orphanages exist? Of course there are tragic circumstances where the sperm donor and egg donor are killed but where are the perfect, shiny heterosexual couples who rescue these abandoned children to raise them in the glossy utopia of a traditional marriage family?

Gay couples adopt unwanted children all the time. Do you think these children are better off left in the foster system or in an orphanage?

And what of heterosexual couples who because of fertility issues cannot reproduce? Do you take us to the town square and force us to divorce because we do not meet your prime directive for marriage? Maybe chop off our ring finger--the equivalent of a scarlet letter for the useless infertile--as a warning to others that we are not worthy marriage material.

One of my uncles had mumps (or maybe it was measles) as a child and it made him sterile. He was shooting blanks but was allowed to get married. They adopted children, one of whom is my favorite cousin. Too bad you and your ilk weren't there to prevent them from getting married and creating their family in a non-traditional way, a way in which many gay couples create their families--the abomination to traditional families known as adoption.

If the main purpose of marriage is raising children, what happens to empty-nesters who remain married after their children are raised? Are they forced to get divorced because their reproductive years--according to you, THE one true reason to be married--are over? Maybe you just put the woman on an ice float and find her husband a still-fertile woman so he can use up any remaining swimmers to fulfill your one true purpose of marriage. Once he can't shoot or the remaining swimmers give up the ghost, put him on an ice float, too.

What of children in orphanages or in the foster care system? Maybe you and your traditional marriage pals can pass some laws forcing traditional marriage parents to adopt these parentless children so they can be raised in a perfect, shiny traditional family. If it's the one true purpose of marriage, just keep dropping off kids at the empty-nesters' homes until the parental units drop dead from exhaustion or old age.

If you've got this traditional marriage thing figured out so perfectly, why are there sooooooooooooooo many problems with it? Why are so many children produced in these heterosexual unions neglected, abused, and abandoned? Figuring out how to fix those issues would be a much more noble issue than hiding behind "but the children" as a scare tactic to fan the flames of prejudice against marriage equality.

Quote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> 1) First, it fundamentally reorients the
> institution of marriage away from the needs of
> children toward the desires of adults. It no
> longer makes marriage about ensuring the type of
> family life that is ideal for kids; it makes it
> more about adult romance. If one of the biggest
> social problems we face right now in the United
> States is absentee dads, how will we insist that
> fathers are essential when the law redefines
> marriage to make fathers optional?

My father had too many kids and too many commitments back when traditional marriage reigned and divorce was rare in my neighborhood. Like non one.

If marriage is all about "adult romance" then do away with "love marriages." They are a rather recent development in human history anyway. Get really really traditional and outlaw all marriages which aren't arranged and/or considered acceptable by the community instead of the individuals.

LDS Inc. would love that. Oh, and throw in illegality for abortion and you will have the big factories (as opposed to the little ones) running full steam again.

"Redefining marriage" is a propaganda term. Nobody is defining YOUR marriage! Couples get to define it themselves. No rights are being taken from hetero couples whatever. There aren't very many gay people. A small percentage of gay marriages will ever exist. It hurts no one whatever. "But the CHILDREN!!!" is another red herring. Gay couples who have children probably have a better record of caring for them, actually.

"Whenever a child is born, a mother will always be close by. That’s a fact of biology"

Actually, before modern medicine, a probable scenario was that a mother would die from the effects of child birth. A fact of biology is that human evolution has not been kind to mothers... Should we redefine child birth to limit it to the "natural way" and stop Cesarians. Some would argue in the long term this is good for the species...

Everything in the article has been raised and discredited time and time again. The original OP is just repeating a lie hoping it will some day be believed.

Now the standard way to address all three of the major points:

1: The USA has never had a procreation test for marriage. If procreation is so important, there should have been a push to not allow infertile people to marry. The fact that infertility is only important when it comes to gays getting married just shows that it is not a fertility issue, it is about gays, and their dislike of gays.

2: Um, anyone that looks at the state of marriage today knows that the institution of heterosexual marriage is not really exclusive, or permanent.

3: The Catholic shutting down adoption centers just showed that Catholics would put their religion above the needs of Children.

And add also the fallacy that just because something is legal means you as an individual must morally approve of it or do the same yourself. I don't drink or smoke but alcohol and nicotine are legal drugs. If people want to use them that's their business.

I'm honestly wondering if saviorself is my dad..... this is the exact argument he keeps trying to bring up whenever the family gets together.

From the last thread, "The key of marriage, as I stressed it once, should not be "gay" marriage but the re-establishment of marriage as a permanent union. Today one half of those reaching marriage age get married and of those who do get marriest the real reate of divorce is 80%. This does have substantial negative results for the society. Back in 1958, for example, in New York only five percent of marriages were ending in divorce and 95% of people eventually married. A light difference...."

Does the poster who put this up have any citations for this?

Same-sex marriage will destroy the sacred institution of
marriage. All my ex-wives believe that as does my current trophy
wife, and both my mistresses.

Baura, I had no idea you were so busy. My my my - what with all the intelligent, heavily researched postings - I can't believe you still have time for so much SEX! I'm impressed.

Yes, "traditional" marriage was about children -- but not in the way that you might think. Families decided who would marry whom to cement alliances, transfer property, and preserve wealth via legitimate offspring. The sexuality of the individuals involved didn't matter as long as children were produced. Western history is replete with stories about how relatives of the bride and groom would watch newlyweds on their wedding night (as seen recently on "Game Of Thrones") to ensure the marriage was consummated. Modern concepts of romantic love and child-rearing have absolutely nothing to do with traditional marriage.

Before the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries what we would today call cohabitation and common-law marriage was commonplace especially in the lower classes. The state as an institution did not care who was married.

The Catholic Church forbade clandestine marriage at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), which required all marriages to be announced in a church by a priest. The Council of Trent (1545–1563) introduced more specific requirements, ruling that in the future a marriage would be valid only if witnessed by the pastor of the parish or the local ordinary (i.e., the bishop of the diocese), or by the delegate of one of said witnesses, the marriage being invalid otherwise, even if witnessed by a Catholic priest. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common-law_marriage)

The religious arguments and status quo nonsequitors are NOT the point in the gay marriage issue: legality is. The point revolves around civil rights, and the religious ilk are a bunch of idiots who want to impose their will on others using god and religion as a basis for not having to own their bigotry.

The point is that in the United States the 14th amendment guarantees equal protection.

State amendments codifying discrimination are not constitutional. They never have been. It just takes them a long time and a lot of money to run them through the judicial system.

The divorce rates are highest in states that are the ones that have the highest numbers of religious conservatives. They should clean their own fouled nests before they legislate against the workings of my heart.

The OP trots out three dead arguments from living bigots and asks for commentary. To what end? The point is elsewhere, and the religious argument can't sustain itself in the states where it is most ardently practiced.