Good for France. I'm surprised there was so much opposition to this, cause generally French are not very religious people.

It's not that they are allowed to judge what is fine. It's simply that under the Christian faith and under what marriage is traditionally based on in a religious context then those marriages are null and void in the eyes of god, I would have thought,

As Torillian has pointed out to me though, I was simply arguing from the direction of the tradition - of course these days most people don't really think of the religous aspect however, the religious aspect did come before the purely physical union so many of the vocal Chrisitians would argue that we have no right to change what marriage is about. To some extent they are right but that doesn't change the fact that same sex couples deserve equal rights and an equal marriage.

Again, has previous post, bolded part that Torillian made, sounds like a much more logical idea. I'm not trying to push an agenda forward it's simply looking for a best solution that would satisfy most people.

Obviously the way things are now, it's neither here nor there. To many marriage is inherrantly rooted in a religious context and it would be very hard to please those people and keep the values and so forth. Think someone pointed out that marriage came before Christianity, that's news to me and if that's the case then it's ridiculous that Chrisitan vocal minority can be offended and feel that their religion is being abused/etc - I didn't realize that was the case at the time....will look into that as it's picked my interest.

I too don't believe in marriage, i believe in two people falling in love and living together, no need for a pathetic ceremony that looks more like an obligation. but if people want to do this shit then they can't be denied for any reason, especially pathetic religion. luckily i can feel the times are finaly changing towards the real future.

I am against gay marriage because I believe homosexuality is an illness.

And no, I'm not religious.

I do agree with you on the highlighted part.  Self center greedy people, gay or strait, are unfit to be parents.  However, I don't think a same sex couples have any less of a right to adopt than hetero couples.

I have news you are not going to like to hear.  Statically children raised in a two patents home with two mothers (in a Same Sex Relationship) have a higher degree of self esteem and success than in any other pairing. So if you just want to go by 'what's best for the children' it would be only placing them with female-female couples.  ( I don't think we should do this.)

You ideas about bullying are the same ones used against divorce in the 60s and 70's.  That the children will be teased and it's better for the parents to stay together, no matter how unhappy or under abuse, and have their separate lives and affairs.  We know now it was not a good thing.  Today with kids divorced parents are just something some deal with.  Just like some kids have same sex parents.

I think today Ginger kids have a tougher time of it.

As others have pointed out, Marriage is good deal older than Christianity. It was something they adopted.

Also, it really depends on which Bible and which translation/interpretation you use.  Here is a Bible Scholar that discusses Christen support for Same Sex Marriage.  We do know that they have been going on, even within the Christian Churches, throughout the ages.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RnqOOcTWEKk

But I want you to think about his point.  Medicine and medical care is older then Christianity too.  There are many religious hospitals - so they could argue that medicine comes from God.  So then is medical care a religious instruction?  Should it only be available to people that believe in whatever God or Gods that the Hospital approves?

Also, a word of caution, when you say someone or something is less than what others have you can, in effect, dehumanize people.  When women didn’t have the right to vote, own land, or work, they were legally less than me – and were often poorly treated –often as property.  Here in the State of Washington, USA, were same sex marriage is legal, an Iman is receiving death threats for performing a Muslim same sex marriage. 

Perform marriage shouldn't equal recieve death threats.

Because the right to vote was so HORRIBLY degraded by letting women do it... /sarcasm.

The people opposing gay marriage now are set to go down in history as the same as those who opposed interracial marriage back in the day.

I do have a habbit of sometimes being very clinical when it comes to discussing problems/issues/direction. It serves me well in a face to face situation, but defo can come across hard on forums. Shouldn't really have put things so directly but was doing so in the interest more of clarity than anything, I certainly don't think in those black and white ways on this and from a personal perspective definitely agree with you. I wasn't actually aware that marriage existed before Chrstianity until this thread and after reading Torillians post and another one after decided to look it up so it basically null and voided (as does your post) my previous argument and the people complaining from a religous perspective really don't have a leg to stand on.

I could understand an argument from the religious groups wishing same sex marriage not to be carried out in a church or by a practising religious person possibly, there's certainly a valid dicussion to be had there imo but as said, my previous comment came from ignorance on my part and have spent the last hour looking up this stuff only to find that religion and marriage are too completely seperate things going back and it's only been relatively recently that the Christianity has taken "ownership" of it in countries like the UK where I reside.

Quite interesting nonetheless, I'm no genius but certainly wasn't aware of this or made aware of this before this thread, which in itself is wrong because lay persons like myself might be lead to argue from a totally incorrect perspective. I guess we know who to blame for that, obviously my own ignorance isn't wholly excused but hey ho good to learn a thing or two every now and again :) Cheers.

Dude, seriously! This is why we Christians get a bad name. Read some texts from anything written BC. Christian marriage is just one of the main types of marriage.

Edit. Never mind. Glad you got informed

you havent heard of tax? and having the rights to be in your wife or husband if they were in an accident????? you have no idea why we want to practice marriage.... most of the time we cant adopt because we are consider as "single" because we can never be married in other states....