A Conservative View of Gay Marriage

[Gothampc]

Posted: 11/9/04 at 9:30pm

A look at gay marriage from the other side.

"There is something to be said for cultural respect," US Representative Barney Frank remarked. "Showing a bit of respect for cultural values with which you disagree is not a bad thing. Don't call people bigots and fools just because you disagree with them."

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/jeffjacoby/jj20041108.shtml

[TRUEBWFan]

Posted: 11/9/04 at 9:40pm

Great article. Thanks for posting it! It should be made known that as a nation, America DOES NOT WANT same-sex marriages. America does not want homosexuals and their agenda to advance. America wants the traditional family. by an overwhelming majority.

[spiderdj82]

Posted: 11/9/04 at 9:41pm

"Showing a bit of respect for cultural values with which you disagree is not a bad thing. Don't call people bigots and fools just because you disagree with them."


Ok, this is a double-edged sword here. Don't call people wrong and sinners just because YOU disagree with them.

[MaTakeALookAtMe]

Posted: 11/9/04 at 9:44pm

I would love to just yell right now... where does this guy get off comapring homosexuality to incest? And then he has the gall to say that we need to show respect? wow...

The view that majority makes right is so offensive to me. In the 1940 and before a majority of Southerners, if not the entire nation, would have said interracial marriage was so offensive and unnatural that it should be illegal...yet we do not argue that now...

perhaps in 20 years this point wil have been settled too

[Ellie3]

Posted: 11/9/04 at 9:47pm

Ah! Some people are such morons, I would rather not know of their existence! Keep our boards clean.

[MaTakeALookAtMe]

Posted: 11/9/04 at 9:52pm

A convicted child molester may marry a woman with children. A wife beater can marry. People can marry for money. All of these things go against the "traditional" ideal of marriage, yet they are legally protected.

The current laws regarding marriage neither protect nor sanctify the union, the love and devotion shown by the married parties does. I do not neeed a legal standing to confirm my love or to justify it... what I do want is protection from discrimination. I want to know that the person that I love will be the person that is entrusted to care for me in case of emergency and that the person I have made my life with is the person who will benefit from all my hard work when I pass, etc...

[JohnPopa]

Posted: 11/9/04 at 9:54pm

I would never call someone I disagree with a bigot simply because I disagree with them. I call them a bigot when they engage in behavior preventing specific groups of people who are, by their own admission law-abiding and capable citizens, from sharing in the same legal and social life experiences other Americans are able to enjoy. That's what bigotry is and don't get mad at me if I call you on yours. I don't care what rationale you have for said bigotry, bigotry is bigotry and telling me your bigotry is something I need to respect because either a) lots of other people share it or b) you read that it's OK in some book of myths isn't good enough. It's not even close to good enough.

The opposition has no problem instantly and ludicrously linking homosexuality with deviant behavior, they have no problem demonizing a person as having made a 'lifestyle choice that the majority does not approve of' but we dare not call them on it, dare not make them put their money where their mouth is when they say 'they don't have a problem with the homosexual lifestyle' even though furiously pass laws stating that they most certainly do, for fear of being called intolerant or incapable of respecting their cultural decisions or imposing morality on them (obviously ignoring that their entire stand is based on nothing more than their imposing morality on others.)

The majority does not rule. Those of us in favor of granting freedoms to all Americans, with no petty exceptions, will not be beaten down by religious brow-beating or specious claims of intolerance.

We're fighting to grant people freedom and protection, not keep it away from them. We're on the side of goodness, on the side of righteousness, on the side of our fellow man. And I'm not going to sit around and allow those on the side of exclusion and bigotry tell me they have spoken and that I should therefore listen. You're wrong; we're right. The 'debate' won't stop until the laws support that stone cold truth.

What people think in their bedrooms and in their churches is their own business, naturally.
Updated On: 11/9/04 at 09:54 PM

[kissmycookie]

Posted: 11/9/04 at 10:54pm

Just to toss your own quote back at you, Goth:

"Showing a bit of respect for cultural values with which you disagree is not a bad thing. Don't call people bigots and fools just because you disagree with them."

Considering people you disagree with second class citizens and denying them equal rights is not respectful.

[Mattio98]

Posted: 11/9/04 at 11:06pm

"Great article. Thanks for posting it! It should be made known that as a nation, America DOES NOT WANT same-sex marriages. America does not want homosexuals and their agenda to advance. America wants the traditional family. by an overwhelming majority."

Are you saying you back this statement?

[grownupgroupie]

Posted: 11/9/04 at 11:09pm

Doesn't Goth know who Barney Frank even is??!! Helloooooo.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/9/04 at 11:24pm

An "overwhelming majority" of Americans opposed interracial marriage at the time the Supreme Court struck down anti-miscegenation laws in Loving v. Virginia back in 1967 -- roughly the same percentage (70+) currently against gay marriage and squawking about the "homosexual agenda" today. Those opposed in 1967 also spoke stridently and passionately about the immorality and the evil of nontraditional families and the upsetting of societal norms and their own personal revulsion at the sight of such couples and of the irreparable harm that would be done to the children within such families and cited biblical precedent in condemnation (the story of Ham was often invoked).

Funny how bigotry and ignorance never disappears and it just takes on different forms and finds new targets. This too shall pass.

Updated On: 11/10/04 at 11:24 PM

[Mattio98]

Posted: 11/9/04 at 11:28pm

Unless the bigots win...

[grownupgroupie]

Posted: 11/9/04 at 11:34pm

Yep. Margo, as I've been hearing a lot in the city of late: "gay is the new black."

[Westopher]

Posted: 11/9/04 at 11:36pm

So I should carry a gun incase the queen down the hall gives me a glance when he runs out of makeup?

[Gothampc]

Posted: 11/9/04 at 11:48pm

grownup, yes I know who Barney Frank is. In your liberal fury to always be right, you've missed the point of why I've highlighted Frank's quote.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 11/9/04 at 11:50pm

Westworld, that's the second time you posted that joke and the second time it landed with a dull, empty thud. Here's hoping there's a three strikes and you're out rule around here.

[kissmycookie]

Posted: 11/9/04 at 11:52pm

then enlighten us, Goth

[grownupgroupie]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 12:00am

I'm not sure how a clarification re: your context (irony generally doesn't come through the screen) substantiates a liberal fury to always be right. Did I negate or deny anything you said? I think not. For that matter, how does a fact check identify me as either liberal or furious?

However, Barney Frank's words re: bigotry apply to BOTH sides of the equation, and--perhaps I'm wrong--I don't believe that was your purpose in quoting an openly homosexual U.S. representative to support your own agenda.

I think all of us can agree to the right to hold opposing opinions. However, it seems the right is far more interested in IMPOSING a prescribed lifestyle, while the left seems to desire the FREEDOM (it's on the march, remember?) to follow their pursuit of happiness on their own terms and at the expense of NO ONE. The cries of bigotry aren't about others having a different morally-based opinion. They're about others' desire to LEGISLATE that opinion to opress or deny the rights of others. Oh, and speaking of that, here's a fun quote from that article you cited:

"Men no more have a fundamental human right to marry other men than fathers have to marry their daughters, and no one ought to be called a bigot for saying so."

classy.

It's been on other threads, but I think it bears repeating that those regions who've actually had to deal with terror and a thriving gay sub-culture (NY, DC, PA...) voted for Kerry, while those in the "heartland" for whom these are theoretical wedge issues with no real impact on their lives, voted for Bush. Intersting that 83% of MY city--the city whose horror was pimped out by the RNC in August--voted against your supposed leader who's so strong on terror. The terror that struck us HERE!

There's your liberal fury Updated On: 11/10/04 at 12:00 AM

[Gothampc]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 12:14am

"Did I negate or deny anything you said?"
"Doesn't Goth know who Barney Frank even is??!! Helloooooo."
Are you saying hello to me or being sarcastic? Sarcasm negates!

The point of highlighting Frank's quote is that he points out that people with different viewpoints (that's me) don't have to be called bigots (I've been called that at least 3 times on this board). He understands what a lot of people on this board don't: just because someone disagrees with you doesn't give you the right to call them names.

[grownupgroupie]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 12:18am

"He understands what a lot of people on this board don't: just because someone disagrees with you doesn't give you the right to call them names"

Ahem: "liberal fury."


(Not that I consider "liberal" an epithet, but your team does--for you, that's name-calling.)

*ringring*
"hello?"
"Hi Kettle, this is pot. You're black!"

[MaTakeALookAtMe]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 12:21am

unfortunately, when either side is unreasonable and resorts to name calling, nothing good is accomplished.

I do not know Goth, so I don't know if he is a bigot, just opinionated, or just on the opposite side of the political fence. I can say with a certainty, though, that the gentleman who worte the artcile that goth quoted is a bigot and a hypocrite. On the one hand, he calls for reasonableness and respect from his opponents, but, on the other, he slanders and belittles them. It's mighty hard to respect that or listen to anything he says afterer that point. His credibility is ruined..

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 12:27am

Thank you, Goth, for that wonderfully written article.

You sincerely made me sick to my stomach.

[grownupgroupie]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 12:29am

Ma: word.

I imagine Goth feels marginalized on this board, but I neither called him a name nor a bigot--nor, I believe, did anyone on this thread.

I agree--the issue is the bigotry he is promoting by default by linking to the article.

I guess the line between opinion and bigotry is between theory and practice?

(But then, by that token, is a "non-practicing" racist--who never says or does anything based on his/her prejudice, but merely hates in his/her heart--not a bigot? But merely one who holds an opinion?)

It's tough. We are all so emotionally charged right now, and it's difficult when people seem to be deliberately inflammatory. (Like twisting the words of a Gay congressman to support the bigoted words of a conservative column?)

I think the real key may eventually be the separation of civil marriage and religious marriage.

But it all makes my head and heart hurt! (And that sentence makes me feel like Tammy Faye...who is an excellent example of a loving, tolerant, Christian woman with a HUGE gay following!!)

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 12:35am

Exactly. It's something I will never comprehend. How would gay marriage make straight marriages less of a marriage?

[Westopher]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 12:36am

" Westworld, that's the second time you posted that joke and the second time it landed with a dull, empty thud. Here's hoping there's a three strikes and you're out rule around here."
That's the second time someone posted a statement comparing a God given race to a sociobiological sexual orientation. But hey, who's counting?