Are there ANY arguments against gay marriage...

[bbernardini]

...that are a) not based on the Bible, or b) wouldn't be obviously bigoted if "white and black" or "Jews and Catholics" was substituted for "gay"? I can't think of a one.

[Captain Hilts]

1. Straights will use it as a means to get health/retirement benefits. It's ultimately about money.

There's a reason Canada has gay marriage - universal, single-payer healthcare.

[shadowknows69]

7. Can we please not throw around "Straights" as a generic, bashing term?

This "straight" (whatever that is) and many like me are allies, not enemies.

[JuniperLea]

10. Thank you!

I'm straight and I'm white. Fuck me all to goddamn hell these days. Jesus.

Edited to say, and a woman! Surely I don't know my ass from a hole in the ground.

[Captain Hilts]

22. The OP asked for the arguments being used. that's one of them. nt

[Ignis]

48. Why so defensive?

Re-read the post above. The poster was presenting one of the arguments used against gay marriage by bigots.

He was not attacking straights. No one here is. Settle down, Francis. :hi:

[Captain Hilts]

21. I'm straight too. The OP asked what are some of the rationalizations, and that is one. nt

[shadowknows69]

24. K, my apologies. I misunderstood your tone and intention.

[Captain Hilts]

25. Problemma nyet. But think about it. Is it a coincidence that Canada has universal

healthcare and permits gay marriage?

[shadowknows69]

26. Honestly I don't see the two being that related but I'll dwell on it

Canada had national health care long before they made same sex marriage legal.

[Captain Hilts]

57. Yes, but it took a lot of financial interests out of the debate. nt

[Spazito]

42. No, Canada believes in equality, that's why there is equal marriage....

The battle was over equal rights NOT over the right to universal, single-payer healthcare. Here is a link to the chronology leading up to the Canadian Supreme Court decision regarding equal marriage:

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1102628108228_98037308

[Ian David]

2. Because insurance actuarial tables will have to be updated.

It will cost about $10,000 per insurance company.

Other than that... no.

[Ohio Joe]

17. I'm not sure that is true

It may be for some insurance companies but I can think of several that would require no changes. I've worked as a contractor or employee at Nationwide, Colonial, Wausau and Liberty Mutual. They do have edits for gender but none of them have any cross edits to make sure that one is "M" and one is "F". Systems should work just fine.

[Ian David]

29. It will require a minor tweak to adjust the tables and re-print materials.

Included in my $10,000 estimate is printing costs.

[Ohio Joe]

34. I'm not sure what you mean

Back in early 03, I did the analysis for Nationwide/Colonial and worked with the guy that did it for Wausau (at the time both still owned by Nationwide though they all had their own systems). No changes were required. None of the tables exist as a "couple", they are independent for male and female and the programs that do the lookups do not do any cross checking to make sure the couples are of opposite gender. As far as printing/re-printing, all of the data that is generic, is stored in a forms library, variable data in a database. Titles (Mr. Ms. Dr. whatever), come from a table lookup during forms generation.

I did the actual work. I did the analysis, I created the test data, I ran the flows. No changes were needed. In real dollars, it probably cost them about $500 (in internal "funny money" it was probably about 2k).

I'll admit, other companies may need changes but my expectation is probably not.

[Ian David]

38. Oh! That's cool then!

I worked at one of those same companies, but way back in 1998 or so.

I did much of my work with pencil, rulers, and highlighter markers.

[Captain Hilts]

23. Right, it's about $$$$. nt

[shadowknows69]

27. Oh, my heart bleeds for the fucking insurance companies

[babylonsister]

3. Nope, not any legitimate ones, imo. nt

[Smarmie Doofus]

4. Something about we can't "naturally" conceive.....

... like the opposite sexers do.

Don't ask me.

[XemaSab]

9. Sounds like the BIble to me...

"WImmins should be in the home birthin' babies and not out at Lilith Fair with other wimmins."

[shadowknows69]

14. I'd rather have hung with Lilith than Eve any day.

[Control-Z]

28. Then fertility treatments should be outlawed.

A heterosexual woman who conceives through fertility treatments has not conceived "naturally".

Most woman are able to conceive these days with help of medical science (and enough money), no matter their sexual orientation. For that matter, a man can have an equally "unnatural" biological child with a willing surrogate and a doctor's help.

And as far as I know, a marriage license is not required for anyone to conceive in the US.

The repigs don't have a single reasonable argument. Not one.

[JuniperLea]

31. That always pissed me off...

So, God made some people sterile... and he gave others both sets of genitalia, but neither work... so I guess all those people who cannot naturally have babies but are hetero shouldn't be allowed to marry either.

Idiots.

[sakabatou]

41. Stupid.

What do they think invitro is? And what about couples who one or more is sterile?

[JI7]

45. but there is no requirement that heteros have kids once married either

so that's not a real argument. also there are men and women who are unable to have kids. going by that reasoning they shouldn't be allowed to marry either.

[JerseygirlCT]

59. Easily dealt with:

so infertile couples, older couples, those who are child-free by choice... all out too then, right?

[shadowknows69]

5. Wedding planners would be overwhelmed with business?

That's the only thing I can come up with. Not enough caterers maybe?

[XemaSab]

6. The Amish argument

"We did it that way in 1850, so that's the way we're going to keep on doing it." :banghead:

[shadowknows69]

12. That's not a terrible thing in some respects

Where the disconnect is, is the stupid religious bullshit they let themselves get hindered by. Being able to grow your own food, tend your own flock, build your own house. Those are skills many of us are going to wish we kept in touch with. Some of the "old" ways are the best ways but religion has inevitably thrown the balance toward holding on to the bad things instead.

[XemaSab]

16. I went to school with a bunch of hippies

who believed that everyone should grow all their own food.

My response to that was to say that my great-grandparents grew most of their own food, and I was going to school so I didn't have to live like that.

Some things about that lifestyle are attractive, but other things are hypocritical and just not compatible with a modern lifestyle. (Example: try telling your boss you need time off from work to go help your neighbor build his house. Unless that's how you care to spend your vacation time, the boss is unlikely to let you go.)

[sakabatou]

20. That's called "Appeal to Tradition"

and it's a logical fallacy.

[Cronus Protagonist]

8. I heard one....

"Copying straights isn't a good thing to do... we gay people need to come up with our own solutions, not just blindly go where straights have gone before."

[SemiCharmedQuark]

11. I can't think of one that's not based on the Bible.

[Ohio Joe]

13. Valid ones? No

It is a clear violation of civil rights.

[HopeHoops]

15. Yeah, Leviticus just SO has to be followed literally.

"For a man to lay with a man is an abomination".

The fundies LOVE to quote that at their church clam bake - forgetting that "To eat shellfish is an abomination" is just a few pages to one side or the other.

[XemaSab]

18. To wit:

http://www.godhatesshrimp.com/

[sakabatou]

19. There are NO logical arguments against gay marriage.

NONE. Every argument that I've seen against gay marriage involves some sort of a logical fallacy.

[Johonny]

30. Slippery slope arguement

That allowing gay marriage is a slippery slope that would result in States being required to allow people to marry animals, children, inanimate objects, and abstract logical constructs. It's not very convincing. Although there are probably a lot of people that would marry their dogs if they could.

[JuniperLea]

32. Typical GOP strawman

[sakabatou]

37. I see this one a lot

I keep asking these people, "How much Teflon are you going to use?"

[Enrique]

33. because instead of asking little Susie what kind of boy she's going to marry

we're going to have to ask her if she's going to marry a boy or girl.

Seriously, I heard this lameness on a radio show and heard one of the show's listeners repeat it to me as their own thought.

[sakabatou]

39. Riiiiight, like a child can really give consent.

[BR_Parkway]

35. Well, if we could collect a partner's social security that may drain the

coffers a little sooner - as it is now, most of us pay in to it, but if we die there's no spouse to collect

[sakabatou]

40. Nor are there insurance benefits in some places

[RufusH]

46. Yes, we feed the monster and don't benefit. We also pay MORE taxes than STRAIGHTS

I have a spouse who is jobless right now, and if we were able to file taxes together we would receive THOUSANDS of dollars back in taxes I paid. In addition, I pay THOUSANDS of additional taxes for the domestic partner insurance BENEFIT that STRAIGHT people don't pay.

Apologies to any straight people who refuse to benefit from all that extra money and send those thousands of dollars back to the government. My bad for making a blanket statement about how better off you are than I.

[Spazito]

36. Nope, not a one, imo n/t

[Dappleganger]

43. "Because then it'd be ok to marry a turtle..."

or something along that line.

:bounce:

[devilgrrl]

44. YES! I'm sick of not being invited to gay weddings!!!!!!

:cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry:

[pipi_k]

49. I went to a gay wedding before they were even legal here

It was the most fun I ever had at a wedding.

seriously

:7

[devilgrrl]

50. I don't doubt that they are the most fun ever - why do you think I'm so upset?

:cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry:

[NMMNG]

47. There are none

The RRRW got crafty, realizing their "The Bible says" wasn't working anymore and started coming up with all sorts of pseudo-scientific and pseudo-sociological bullshit. They distort legitimate research, they fear monger, they outright lie. The simple reality is there are no sound arguments against same-sex marriage.

[HughMoran]

51. A right-wing associate only cares about the word "marriage"

They believe all of the rights should be the same, but that "marriage" had traditional religious implications. I said "I don't care what you call it, so long as my gay family members who've lived together for longer than I've been alive have all of the rights of "married" people (whatever it's called).

[bbernardini]

52. I just posted a variation of this on my blog. Should be interesting.

I already know which Facebook "friends" are going to respond...

[kenny blankenship]

53. If gay people can get married just because they love each other and not to have children

then straight people will stop getting married because marriage will have lost the obligatory sense of being for the purpose of having offspring and exchanging DNA between families. ,Or so says some schlub at The Weakly Standard. He couches his analysis strictly in terms of freshman anthropology, describing the function of marriage as glue between "kinship groups" and so forth, instead of relying on the usual argument that supposes a link between our founding fathers and the patriarchs of Biblical traditions, so beloved by the millions of Walmart shoppers who know neither the Bible nor the Constitution. Keeping his axe grinding scrupulously secular, he warns us that the damage to the original, unblemished, universal, and transhistorical concept of marriage as a permanent, even eternal institution, will be so severe from the liberal state's extension of matrimonial rites to homosexual couples, that some straight people may even begin to -get this- file for divorce from each other! Yeah, you heard right - he did just say that.

You let gays start marrying each other, just wait a few years, and you could see civilization destroying effects like a 10%, or ZOMG who knows? maybe even 20% rate of divorce among heterosexuals! Don't say it can't happen! Game over, man. Game OVER.

[Kablooie]

54. Gay marriage is wrong because marriage is supposed to be a gloomy, unhappy affair.

So says the henpecked husband.

[armyowalgreens]

55. My former teacher argued that gay people are naturally deviant.

He argues that their lifestyles are naturally deviant and that homosexuality can be socialized. Which means that he thinks that homosexuality will spread to more and more children if we teach them that it's okay. He think that will eventually lower the number of children born in the US and will, in the end, cause the country to collapse.

Crazy shit.

[proteus_lives]

56. I can't think of any legitimate ones.

If it were up to me, it'd be legal in all 50 states.

[JerseygirlCT]

58. Are there any legal, civic, arguments?

None. None at all.

It's sort of interesting actually, to watch people tap dance around it all. Stutter, stutter... well, marriage is about having children! (Ok, then infertile, older, or child-free by choice couples shouldn't get that license either, right?)

There is no argument. Not even no good argument. There's nothing.