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Gay Marriage

What best represents your views on gay marriage?

I am in favour and I am a CHristian
15
24%
I am in favour and I am not a Christian
6
10%
I am not in favour and I am a Christian
30
48%
I am not in favour and I am not a CHristian
4
6%
other
7
11%
 
Total votes : 62

Gay Marriage

Postby jo » June 7th, 2007, 2:48 pm

I don't want this to be about homosexuality per se because that has been done to death and always gets ugly but I'd like to know how people feel in general about gay marriage. I realised that although I've heard a lot about it, I don't know what percentage of people generally approve or disapprove.
"I saw it begin,” said the Lord Digory. “I did not think I would live to see it die"

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Postby jo » June 7th, 2007, 3:14 pm

I think maybe I am oversimplifying the options here cos some people may oppose gay 'marriage' but have no problem with gay civil unions in which the partners have the rights of heterosexual married couples. I can't change it now though or I'll mess it up :(

ANyway please do stay civil and please, let's not debate homosexuality itself, if that can be avoided.
"I saw it begin,” said the Lord Digory. “I did not think I would live to see it die"

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Postby robsia » June 7th, 2007, 5:12 pm

Personally I don't see the difference between marriages and civil unions in anything other than the name.

A rose by any other name etc . . .
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Postby Leslie » June 7th, 2007, 5:33 pm

I was hoping there would be an option for "I'm a Christian and I don't exactly know." Although the issue may tear apart my church (the Anglican Church of Canada), I'm sitting firmly (for now, anyway) on the fence. I lean toward tolerance, though. I know a few men who are legally married to other men (one I know from church), and honestly, it doesn't make a difference to me if they are married or living together or whatever. God loves them all. I respect their desire to be together, and if the state wants to extend to them the privileges that go along with marriage, I won't argue. There are so many things that are more important than this.

But I'm not sure that "marriage" is what I would call it, since I think that there is a basic reproductive element to marriage. Even if a particular male-female couple are physically unable to have children, the normal state is that male-female relationships naturally produce children.

So I guess I would have liked a "yes to civil unions, no to marriage" option.
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Postby jo » June 7th, 2007, 5:36 pm

Hi Leslie and Robsia, thanks for your replies :). Leslie I am interested that you have a married man - ie one married to another man - in your church, does anyone object?
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Postby Leslie » June 7th, 2007, 5:38 pm

"What are you laughing at?"
"At myself. My little puny self," said Phillipa.
--Rumer Godden, In This House of Brede
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Postby Karen » June 7th, 2007, 6:07 pm

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Postby Guest » June 7th, 2007, 6:15 pm

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Postby jo » June 7th, 2007, 6:47 pm

At what point do we say that society wants a change though? When over 50% of people want one? :). I don't know what percentage of people approve of gay marriage which is why I am asking, though obviously, this forum is not really representative of UK society as a whole.

I don't really know the history of marriage but nonetheless, I would say that human beings lived without male/female marriage for longer than we have lived with it :D.
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Postby Guest » June 7th, 2007, 6:59 pm

And I have no idea about UK society. I was speaking specifically of American society. Currently (according to a recent poll) opposition to gay marriage is much stronger that support (59% to 32%). As far as what percentage equals a desire for society to change, I don't know. But I still think it would have to be fairly overwhelming to redefine a term and an institution that has had the same basic definition for millennia.

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Postby jo » June 7th, 2007, 7:11 pm

I dunno .. I mean, how many people wanted slavery to continue, when a minority wanted it scrapped? :) Or segregation in the SOuth? I am not trying to equate the two things because they are different but nonetheless I am not sure that I would agree that things should not change until society 'overwhelmingly' wants them to. Maybe society sometimes needs a nudge in the right direction? ;).
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Postby Guest » June 7th, 2007, 7:20 pm

I competely understand your point. I've thought of the same thing in regard to abortion and pornography. Is it right for courts or legislatures to force morality (or their version of morality) on a population that disagrees?

At least in American society (the only one I'm intimately familiar with), such legistlated "morality" would be neither justified nor tolerated.

Even with slavery, society was not nudged by the courts or legislature, so much as it was nudged by churches and by secular abolitionists. The majority of Americans were anti-slavery by the time slavery was officially abolished.

Even if laws were changed, that does not mean society would accept the new definition anyway.

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Postby Guest » June 7th, 2007, 7:20 pm

I competely understand your point. I've thought of the same thing in regard to abortion and pornography. Is it right for courts or legislatures to force morality (or their version of morality) on a population that disagrees?

At least in American society (the only one I'm intimately familiar with), such legistlated "morality" would be neither justified nor tolerated.

Even with slavery, society was not nudged by the courts or legislature, so much as it was nudged by churches and by secular abolitionists. The majority of Americans were anti-slavery by the time slavery was officially abolished.

Even if laws were changed, that does not mean society would accept the new definition anyway.

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Postby jo » June 7th, 2007, 7:24 pm

Again, it could be the differences in our respective societies, but I believe that most people in the UK are in favour of at least some legalised abortion. I would guess that the majority were in favour of pornography too though I am not sure about that one ;)

Society might not accept a new definition immediately but in a generation, two, three ... then it would. Eventually I believe that society will entirely accept gay marriage. Would it not be better for it to accept it sooner rather than later?
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Postby Guest » June 7th, 2007, 7:48 pm

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