Ten years of "gay marriage"

[Ariarates]

For almost 10 years now, everybody over the age of 18 can get married before the law in my country, regardless of sexual orientation. One in five homosexual couples have gotten married during that time, as compared to four in five heterosexual couples. The legal and financial implications of having children are the main reason for getting married in my country. That would explain why fewer homosexual couples get married, as they tend to have fewer children. In most other respects (e.g. divorce, when and where to get married, age at marriage, etc.), there are no statistically relevant differences between homosexual and heterosexual couples.

For those who fear gay marriage is a threat to straight marriage, yes, the absolute number of marriages has gone down more than 16% between 2001 and 2011. However, marriage rates in my country have been going down since the 1950s and the rate of decline hasn

[Duncan]

For almost 10 years now, everybody over the age of 18 can get married before the law in my country, regardless of sexual orientation. One in five homosexual couples have gotten married during that time, as compared to four in five heterosexual couples. The legal and financial implications of having children are the main reason for getting married in my country. That would explain why fewer homosexual couples get married, as they tend to have fewer children. In most other respects (e.g. divorce, when and where to get married, age at marriage, etc.), there are no statistically relevant differences between homosexual and heterosexual couples.

For those who fear gay marriage is a threat to straight marriage, yes, the absolute number of marriages has gone down more than 16% between 2001 and 2011. However, marriage rates in my country have been going down since the 1950s and the rate of decline hasn

[Jaybear]

People who claim that gay marriage undermines traditional marriage are fast becoming a parody, as fear mongering gives way to reality. Here is an interesting observation:

Since 2003, states that haven't banned gay marriage have seen an 8 percent drop in divorce rates. States that have passed gay-marriage bans, by contrast, have seen their divorce rates edge upwards. Does this prove causation? No. Does it prove that opponents of gay marriage rely on some ridiculous arguments? Yes. Source: Ezra Klein.

Ariarates: Do you live in Canada?

The Netherlands legalized gay marriages ten years ago. If our fear mongering, slippery slope friends know as much as they pretend, then I would suspect that polygamy, father/son marriages, and marriages to pets are now all legal and common there as well.

[Mordecai]

...as fear mongering gives way to reality...

Yet, the rate of marriage has continued to decline in his country. Some of us merely claim that it, at least, cements the lack of value placed on marriage. Furthermore, I think you've presented a strawman. The same "reasoning" or lack thereof, to be more accurate, that opens the door to "gay marriage" would also lead to other perversions of marriage. That doesn't mean it will literally happen. If you can use the legal system to have the gov't adopt your known-to-be-false dogma that a gay union=marriage, why not other nutty distortions of reality? It may not happen but if the justice system is unjustly adopting obviously false political dogmas, we don't know what else to expect from it, pathetically. Not a good justice system, when it is no longer just and becomes so erratic.

Lastly, give the "gay marriage" dogma a few years to fester. Young people are the most susceptible to societies idiocies. Ten years isn't enough time for the most impressionable of the youth to even reach marrying age. Furthermore, the children of the most profoundly indoctrinated may be even more effected. Give it another ten, then we can debate this again and see how your mad social experiment has gone.

[Jaybear]

Yet, the rate of marriage has continued to decline in his country. Some of us merely claim that it, at least, cements the lack of value placed on marriage.

There you go again. Gay marriage undermines the value of marriage. ... Meaningless fear mongering rhetoric, devoid of any specificity or substance.

Gay marriage only "devalues" marriage in the mind of those who oppose gay marriage. And they only claim that it devalues marriages, because to them, it sounds like a great argument. Who doesn't love and respect marriage, apple pie, and motherhood.

The wonderful thing about the internet is that 30 years from now, it will be real easy to show just how absurd the arguments were for those opposing marriage equality.

Some people never learn from history. Here is the same fear mongering rhetorical argument made about interracial marriage:

Allowing interracial marriages

[TAO]

O the vainness and the frailties and the foolishness of men =(.

[Kevin Christensen]

MARRIAGE IS SLOWLY DYING IN SCANDINAVIA. A majority of children in Sweden and Norway are born out of wedlock. Sixty percent of first-born children in Denmark have unmarried parents. Not coincidentally, these countries have had something close to full gay marriage for a decade or more. Same-sex marriage has locked in and reinforced an existing Scandinavian trend toward the separation of marriage and parenthood. The Nordic family pattern--including gay marriage--is spreading across Europe. And by looking closely at it we can answer the key empirical question underlying the gay marriage debate. Will same-sex marriage undermine the institution of marriage? It already has.

Read the full article here:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/660zypwj.asp

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

[Ariarates]

Yet, the rate of marriage has continued to decline in his country. Some of us merely claim that it, at least, cements the lack of value placed on marriage.

I think you are right that people place less value on marriage than they used to. However, the reasons for the decline in marriage rate are also demographical: people get married at a later age, the population is shrinking and there are legal alternatives to marriage (at least in my country). So there you have it: less people start marrying at a later age and have more choices.

The same "reasoning" or lack thereof, to be more accurate, that opens the door to "gay marriage" would also lead to other perversions of marriage. That doesn't mean it will literally happen. If you can use the legal system to have the gov't adopt your known-to-be-false dogma that a gay union=marriage, why not other nutty distortions of reality? It may not happen but if the justice system is unjustly adopting obviously false political dogmas, we don't know what else to expect from it, pathetically. Not a good justice system, when it is no longer just and becomes so erratic.

While you are entitled to express your opinion as a series of moral judgments, that doesn't mean your opinion or anybody else's must be enshrined in secular law. The law needs to treat people equally.

Lastly, give the "gay marriage" dogma a few years to fester. Young people are the most susceptible to societies idiocies. Ten years isn't enough time for the most impressionable of the youth to even reach marrying age. Furthermore, the children of the most profoundly indoctrinated may be even more effected. Give it another ten, then we can debate this again and see how your mad social experiment has gone.

In my country, 2% of all marriages are between homosexual couples. What are you afraid of? Four out of five heterosexual couples still get married over here (see the OP). Surely there are more pressing issues to worry about than this?

[Ariarates]

The wonderful thing about the internet is that 30 years from now, it will be real easy to show just how absurd the arguments were for those opposing marriage equality (...) Some people never learn from history. Here is the same fear mongering rhetorical argument made about interracial marriage

While Apostle Mark E. Peterson's remarks about the negro may not be in vogue anymore as they apply to the race issue, they can be seamlessly adapted for the present discussion:

I think I have read enough to give you an idea of what the homosexual is after. He is not just seeking the opportunity of sitting down in a cafe where heterosexual people eat. He isn't just trying to ride on the same streetcar or the same Pullman car with heterosexual people. It isn't that he just desires to go to the same theater as the heterosexual people. From this, and other interviews I have read, it appears that the homosexual seeks absorption with the human race. He will not be satisfied until he achieves it by same-sex marriage. That is his objective and we must face it. We must not allow our feelings to carry us away, nor must we feel so sorry for homosexuals that we will open our arms and embrace them with everything we have. Remember the little statement that we used to say about sin, 'First we pity, then endure, then embrace' ... In spite of all he did in the pre-existent life, the Lord is willing, if the homosexual accepts the gospel with real, sincere faith, and is really converted, to give him the blessings of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. If that homosexual is faithful all his days, he can and will enter the celestial kingdom. He will go there as a servant, but he will get celestial glory.

Even the theology fits...

[Questing Beast]

"The Law" can treat everyone equally without subjecting the word "marriage" to a complete makeover. An overarching term, such as Tasmania's "Domestic Partnership" could cover the lot; leaving "marriage" to mean man and woman as it has since recorded history began....

[oats]

This could be Canada's solution to push more people to get married, or to push people away from any long term relationship:

Quebec alimony case to go before top court

[caudicus]

Other than for religious reasons, what value does being married have over living together in a monogamous relationship?

[Duncan]

People who claim that gay marriage undermines traditional marriage are fast becoming a parody, as fear mongering gives way to reality. Here is an interesting observation:

The Netherlands legalized gay marriages ten years ago. If our fear mongering, slippery slope friends know as much as they pretend, then I would suspect that polygamy, father/son marriages, and marriages to pets are now all legal and common there as well.

I was just asking of they are from Canada because I am and its cool to see Canadians on here!

[Mordecai]

...Gay marriage undermines the value of marriage. ... Meaningless fear mongering rhetoric, devoid of any specificity or substance...

Many people on this forum have been very specific on this point on many occasions. You just choose not to remember, apparently. Do we have to go back to talking behavioral science and linguistics... AGAIN? As a professor of mine once pointed out, the more important something is to society, the more words we tend to have for that thing.

If gold were not valuable, we might just call lead, "grey gold," and pyrite, "light gold." Or just call them all "gold," because we don't care one way or another. The implications here are obvious, if you just put a little thought into this and put aside your political ambitions for a brief moment.

Gay marriage only "devalues" marriage in the mind of those who oppose gay marriage. And they only claim that it devalues marriages, because to them, it sounds like a great argument. Who doesn't love and respect marriage, apple pie, and motherhood.

No, it devalues it for those who value it more than you do or perhaps we just value it in a different way. After all, you're willing to say that relegating marriage to sociological irrelevance is fine. We both know that "gay marriage" has played no part in the building up nor the sustaining of society, historically.

The wonderful thing about the internet is that 30 years from now, it will be real easy to show just how absurd the arguments were for those opposing marriage equality.

Really? OUR arguments are absurd? You have already admitted that there are relevant differences between a gay union and a heterosexual union, and yet you still want the gov't to PRETEND they're the same. In other words, you know "gay marriage" represents the gov't adopting a false dogma, but you want it anyway. That is what is absurd, and we don't need 30 years to see it! We all know it's absurd, including even you, on some level. No hindsight needed.

Make up your mind. Are we going to slide down that slope or not?

I have personally never argued that it will necessarily lead to other perversions of marriage. I've always said that it does open the door, at least a crack, to it. My mind is made up that we can't predict the future, so we shouldn't screw around with the mortar that holds society together. You want to introduce human whims into our justice system in place of reason and tear down the concept of what a real marriage is, thereby speeding the deterioration of society as people's behaviors start to reflect their lack of understanding of what a real marriage is.

It apparently doesn't matter to you that we're removing reason from justice (unreasonable-justice... an oxymoron) and removing biological parents raising their own children from our society's understanding of how to make a family work best.

[Mordecai]

While you are entitled to express your opinion as a series of moral judgments, that doesn't mean your opinion or anybody else's must be enshrined in secular law. The law needs to treat people equally.

Moral judgments based on the basic and fundamental laws of justice. Treating significantly different behaviors as if they're exactly the same is the opposite of justice, which is why I keep describing the gay-marriage dogma as "unjust."

...Surely there are more pressing issues to worry about than this?

Yes, more pressing. But not too many that I can think of that are more important. Keeping society stable and keeping the ideals in place that keep families functional, facilitating the creation of environments that are best for children, is about as important as you can get. Without societal understanding of the importance of children being raised by both of their biological parents, the breakdown of society will be hastened. That's a promise. This "gay marriage" dogma will undermine societal understanding and prioritization of effective and true family values.

If you think it's fine to have more dysfunction in society, where children are unhappy and insecure and their children end up even worse off, I don't know what to tell you.

[Ariarates]

If you think it's fine to have more dysfunction in society, where children are unhappy and insecure and their children end up even worse off, I don't know what to tell you.

Maybe you can tell me about abuse, neglect and violence within the confines of heterosexual marriage. Family dynamics are a hotbed of dysfunction.

[Calm]

This could be Canada's solution to push more people to get married, or to push people away from any long term relationship:

Quebec alimony case to go before top court

Kirouack said if the court supports the lower court ruling, many couples may break up to avoid the financial obligations.

Must be true love....

[Calm]

Other than for religious reasons, what value does being married have over living together in a monogamous relationship?

I don't think you can remove the religious aspects from these studies as religion may be the reason for marriage as opposed to living together as I don't know if any of these studies controlled for that variable, but the vast majority of studies show that those who marry (and especially those who marry without cohabiting first) tend to stay together longer. Add that to studies also show the marriage increases one's life expectancy (especially for males, not sure how much for females) and increase overall happiness.

[Calm]

Maybe you can tell me about abuse, neglect and violence within the confines of heterosexual marriage. Family dynamics are a hotbed of dysfunction.

FWIW, abuse, especially violent abuse, is higher in homosexual relationships than heterosexual relationships.

[Mordecai]

Maybe you can tell me about abuse, neglect and violence within the confines of heterosexual marriage. Family dynamics are a hotbed of dysfunction.

As is typical in this debate, you miss the point. It's not about homosexual unions. They are irrelevant. It's the gov't adopting a dogma, which will influence the way people think, feel and consequently, behave.

This is like the gov't adopting the official position that pyrite (aka "fools gold") equals gold, and then you say, "Well, prove to me that pyrite is harmful! It's not!" Of course, I never claimed pyrite was harmful. I only claimed the gov't shouldn't manipulate the gold market in such a way.

All the pyrite investors will be very happy, but of course, the gold investors will be unhappy, regardless of whether pyrite in itself is harmful or not.

That said, if you really want to see abuse of children by homosexuals, just start promoting adoption and loosening adoption rules for homosexual males. That would not be pretty.

[jskains]

Canada was (is) having court battles over polygamy. The wording for homosexual marriage can be used in perfect harmony with polygamy. So can the wording be used to support the adult man and his adult daughter that admit to having sex and wanting to get married. "We can't control who we fall in love with." or "how is it the government's right to tell us who can and can not get married".

Most of us who oppose gay marriage worry about the harder to track splash damage that will occur once homosexuality is mainstream.

It's a far more complicated issue than the pro-gay marriage people want to admit.

And the DNA/genetic argument went out the window when science started hinting at cheating spouses possibly inclined to cheat due to genetics. At the rate we are headed, all behavioral patterns will be out of the range of judgment because none of this will be any of our faults.

JMS

[Mordecai]

Canada was (is) having court battles over polygamy. The wording for homosexual marriage can be used in perfect harmony with polygamy.

Uh... oh. I thought it was all rhetoric. Apparently, the "slippery slope" claim, in this case, isn't a fallacy at all.

[zelder]

Read the full article here:

http://www.weeklysta...03/660zypwj.asp

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

On my mission, one of my companions was from Sweden. He said that the tax code penalizes you for getting married. A lot of people do not get married because they would be taxed more.

[zelder]

FWIW, abuse, especially violent abuse, is higher in homosexual relationships than heterosexual relationships.

I'm interested in knowing more about this. Where can I read up on it?

edit

I didn't realize they are so violent. Now I'm even more opposed to aboption by gay and lesbian couples.

http://www.conservap...mestic_Violence

[BookofMormonLuvr]

While Apostle Mark E. Peterson's remarks about the negro may not be in vogue anymore as they apply to the race issue, they can be seamlessly adapted for the present discussion:

I think I have read enough to give you an idea of what the homosexual is after. He is not just seeking the opportunity of sitting down in a cafe where heterosexual people eat. He isn't just trying to ride on the same streetcar or the same Pullman car with heterosexual people. It isn't that he just desires to go to the same theater as the heterosexual people. From this, and other interviews I have read, it appears that the homosexual seeks absorption with the human race. He will not be satisfied until he achieves it by same-sex marriage. That is his objective and we must face it. We must not allow our feelings to carry us away, nor must we feel so sorry for homosexuals that we will open our arms and embrace them with everything we have. Remember the little statement that we used to say about sin, 'First we pity, then endure, then embrace' ... In spite of all he did in the pre-existent life, the Lord is willing, if the homosexual accepts the gospel with real, sincere faith, and is really converted, to give him the blessings of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. If that homosexual is faithful all his days, he can and will enter the celestial kingdom. He will go there as a servant, but he will get celestial glory.

Even the theology fits...

Fail.

Blacks can't choose to change their skin color, people with homosexuals feelings can choose not enage in homosexual behavior.