Mostly religion and homophobia vs secularism and well-adjusted people, or something like that.

I'll just let Steven explain it all.

I support either (A) legalizing gay marriage or (B) de-governing marriage all together.

Why is this an issue though?

I'll tell you why... (begin rant 3 of the day)

See, the religious wackos make a bunch of noise. They are told that anal and oral sex are bad. That laying with a person of the same sex is bad. They work, get married young, and their idea of a night out is Wednesday Night Fun-ish Church. Some are closeted, jealous and angry. Others are infuriated by the idea that people live by a code of morals other than what their pastor tells them the bible says.

Then there's a very small portion of the gay community that act like idiots. They are zealous PDA'ers, loud and obnoxious, and make the rest of the gay community look bad.

Then a portion of gay people act like being denied the right to marry is equivelant to mass lynchings or an organized slaughter like the holocaust. Even more equate it to not being able to have access to the degree in which black people suffered. Or comparing mockery of homosexuality to being enslaved or called a N***** by every single white person around for 3 ceturies.

Then about half of the "normal" people are too ignorant, stupid, lazy, or miserable to understand why someone with different desires might deserve to give a shot at living the way they want to. I mean, they don't get to do what they want. Maybe their wives don't give'em head. Maybe their husbands don't make them cum. They bitch and moan and don't get what they want, so they figure: why should anyone else. But of course they rationalize it.


What a crazy world we live in, huh?

I have an idea, let's start being considerate to one another.

Maybe if church goers would focus on feeding the poor and helping those who hurt emotionally and spiritually instead of passing judgement and if "gay organizations" would do something to contribute with all their collective "power" (instead of exaggerating their situation as a civil rights revolution or a new Holocaust) we might all get along a little better and have a little better world.

Oh and all of the straight people in the middle who are in that third category. They need to get off their asses, turn off the TV, and do something useful.

That's taking it way too far...there is a big difference between two adults consenting to something and an adult and a child doing something, even if the child "consents" to doing it.

You heard it here first, us gay rights supporters are going to turn into pedophile supporters!  Sounds a bit racier...I can't wait!  We're moving up from PG-13 to R, baby!

Wikipedia can explain better than I can why the state should control marriage, not religious institutions. You want to talk about something that will lead to a lot of pointless litigation about small things (such as people claiming there marriage was never valid since the standards for marriage licenses are decentralized) this is it.  Not to mention the government needs uniform records for tax purposes, census purposes, and all kinds of other things:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_license

Every state in the United States has a requirement for marriage licenses to be obtained. A marriage is not valid, if the marriage ceremony is performed without a marriage license being previously obtained.

The requirements for obtaining a marriage license vary between states. In general, however, both parties must appear in person at the time the license is obtained; be of marriageable age (i.e. over 18 years; lower in some states with the consent of a parent); present proper identification (typically a driver's license, state ID card, birth certificate or passport; more documentation may be required for those born outside of the United States); and neither must be married to anyone else (proof of spouse's death or divorce may be required, by someone who had been previously married in some states).

Many states require 1 to 6 days to pass, between the granting of the license and the marriage ceremony. After the marriage ceremony, both spouses and the officiant sign the marriage license (some states also require a witness). The officiant or couple then files for a certified copy of the marriage license and a marriage certificate with the appropriate authority.

The requirement for marriage licenses in the U.S. has been justified on the basis that the state has an overriding right, on behalf of all citizens and in the interests of the larger social welfare, to protect them from disease or improper/illegal marriages; to keep accurate state records; or even to ensure that marriage partners have had adequate time to think carefully before marrying.

Man is the measure of all things. I think that's what your argument is. You're making an argument against relativism I think. Is that it? So delightfully droll.

Humanity has already been doing that for years. All one has to do is look at what the Belgians did in Rwanda with the creation of the Tutsi caste to see an example of illogical biases at work.

I doubt I will ever understand why people care so much about what others do in their free time or in their bedroom. Today, it's gay people. Tomorrow, who knows? Could be me.

One thing I do respect though is the church's ability to protest gay unions. While I don't agree with it, any infringement on church rights should be respected when (not if) homosexuals are granted the same rights as the rest of us. No church should be forced to accept something they believe to be fundamentally wrong (no matter how fiercely I disagree with them on it).

100% agree. I'd take it one step further and privatize marriage entirely. Make it a contract between any two consenting adults and leave the government out of it entirely. That way the churches maintain their "sanctity" regarding homosexuals getting married (obviously the contracts would be different), everybody who wants to can be married, and the government would be able to wash its hands and not have a damned thing to do with it.

See my post on the first page; I was referring to my reasoning that morality today depends on the number of supporters.

@fkusmot

Yeah, that's about it :/

The usual reason giving by nonreligous people for deciding what is moral is whether or not it harms someone else: if it doesn't it's good, if so, it's bad.  Yet, at the same time, many also accuse the religous (the conservative Christian, in this situation) of forcing our morality upon someone else (which is, apparently, bad).  The hypocrisy of it is is that holding others to the standard of harmlessness is just as much a forcing of standards as is the Christian movement against homosexuality.  For instance, I could ask the nonreligious, "Why is hurting people wrong".  If he says "Well, it just is", he is no different than the Christian.  If he says, "It's wrong because we must preserve the human race" which merely leads to the question "Why is the preservation of the human race the right thing to do".  After enough questions, it eventually comes down to "I just want it that way", which therefore reveals that the ir forcing their preferences on others, which is what the Christian is accused of doing.

This is too often a red herring issue is the problem.  You don't have cases of gay people showing up to churches demanding to be married.  If a church wants to do that, it is fine.  But the government has in no cases forced a church to do so.  Besides, gay people have an alternate venue through the state which is just as good.

Not to mention churches have pissed off gay people a long time ago, so its not like very many gay people are religious to begin with.

I hear this cited pretty frequently as a reason to be against gay marriage when it is just an illusory issue.

You are throwing around the word morality like there should be a consensus on what is and is not moral.  Isn't that as much a personal issue as it is a social issue?  Why should everyone believe that everything has the same moral consequences when there is reasonable grounds for disagreeing whether or not something is even immoral at all?

Too many people assume that Judeo-Christian morality is the type of morality everyone should have.  That is fundamentally against what this country was founded on.