@ OCHF
I appreciate your recognition of the poor premise regarding my letting another speak for me. You introduced this issue of gay marriage to this threat and you will find in your initial post that you attacked Conservatives, called us thieves, and presented a poorly expressed and poorly thought out notion of our hijacking the institution of marriage from the Left. The spirit of your post is what called up the various arguments against your views and I think you should consider your role in initiating the form the dialog has taken. I would argue that many other of your ideas were expressed with similar shortness of thought and depth of understanding as the point you tried to make regarding my intelligence. You assumption that we are all sheep is just one more instance of irrational prejudice.
As Conservatives we are prone to maintaining tradition. We respect the wisdom of our elders. We realize that the institutions they created were based on lessons learned in their time. We find that many of those lessons still apply today and radical changes to said institutions should have an extremely important, even critical reason for changing them. We are talking cost-benefit.
It is our argument that gay marriage nullifies the meaning of marriage. Marriage is a universal tradition. Cannibal-primitives, Communist-Chinese, Hindu-Indians and ancient Egyptians all consider marriage to be a vow between the families of one man and one woman to consider each other responsible for certain aspects of the care of that couple and their children. That couple is also bound to care for each other, their children and for members of each other’s family. Each culture defines for itself what care is taken by whom and for who. Each culture defines for itself the degree of care given to various members of the family. These will reflect the values of each culture. But, every culture defines marriage as between man and woman, not just religious ones. Marriage is such a primary institution that it reaches to the core of cultural, civic and religious aspects of the human condition.
Divorce has been made very easy in the last 20 to 30 years. I remember when being divorcées was a stigma of sorts. Being the child of a divorced couple was a stigma as well. I argue there is good reason for this. A couple who has taken a vow such as marriage and then breaks this vow has shown itself to be irresponsible, selfish and lacking in principled commitment. The example of the parents will not be long in being emulated by the children. A divorced family is far less likely to provide personal care for the children. The father will often be busy working to pay of alimony. He will often have a new family he needs to care for. This new family will inevitably be more important to him as they are living in his home and seeing him everyday. Keeping peace in his home will come before the care taking of his children from a previous marriage. Take the position of the wife in the initial marriage. She will probably have to work. She will be leaving her children to her parents or siblings, maybe an aunt, all of whom, if they too are divorced, will have various other children and step-children to help care for, all of whom are living in various parts of the country, none of whom have an easy time coming together as a family should. So, what was once a family that took care of each other is now a splintered crystal that needs help in caring and raising the next generation. Lacking a clear and consistent source of support the children will be sent to daycare and then school. This is expensive for a single parent. Who should take on this task? The government, of course. This will then cost us more in taxes. The budget already spread too thin must be given to a government who, as we see in the public school system, never has enough money to properly care for, educate or protect children. We put 30-60 kids in a room with one or two adults. I wonder how it is that ignorant people (which is what a child is. You are born not even knowing how to suckle) outnumber what we suppose are the knowledgeable, to at best, 15-1 and they are supposed to come out of the experience as well developed and knowledgeable adults? The worst people to learn from are your peers. The best teachers are those who know allot, behave well, and are honorable. I don’t see that in our school system.
How does this apply to gay marriage? I will start by saying that gays can and should have the right to commit themselves to a life together. If this commitment is desired then the state should recognize this commitment with a civil union which confers the rights married couples have. The traditional right of inheritance (next of kin) should be maintained unless stipulated in a contract, in which the couple designate each other as the sole heirs and beneficiaries of each other’s estate. If the couple wishes to adopt, one more form they will have to fill out will be some sort of marriage license which establishes all the rights of care and inheritance on the partner and children upon the taking of custody for the child. If the parents give up their rights to the child then the child will continue to receive compensation from the couple and will have inalienable inheritance rights. This aught to keep vanity adoptions down to a minimum. The key point here is that the child requires parents who are both committed to the family and will commit fully to raising a decent human-being.
This is a much more complicated issue then the simple rights of an individual to do what they please at all and any time. Marriage is not an activity that two people decide to participate in. It is the assignment of family status upon a couple, by society, not for the happiness of the couple but so that society knows what to expect from the couple and what the couple is responsible for as regards the care of their family. Family is about reproduction. Gay sexual relationships are not. It is contra the purpose of marriage to confer that status to couples who cannot naturally create new members of the family. I think a fair compromise to individual freedom is civil union and special marriage status to homosexual couple who are adopting.
“I can’t do that. I cannot give up trying to convince you. This is because your opinion is currently in the majority. Nothing will change if I can’t get you to change your opinion.”
Somtimes the majority understands the point better then you do. It could very well be that you can’t change my mind because my ideas are more sound then yours. You are free to engage anyone in your conversation but at some point you might want to learn to concede to wisdom.
Before you jump down my throat on all this, read it, think it over, read it again, make sure you’ve put aside a fair portion of your prejudice, read it perhaps once more and then rip me a new one. Also, go back and read your posts. See if you can make a list of all the things which you wrote but meant something different then what was written. You did keep beating on the Christian bongo. How were we to know you meant any set of beliefs which you disagree with? Your posts are filled with poorly articulated ideas. How are we too know if its the idea or the articulation which you’ve poorly drafted?
Let me make one more point. Nazis were anti-Semitic. They hated Jews and I have no real problem with that. We should be free to hate whom we wish. Sometimes hate is justified. Calling an anti-Semite a Nazi is foolish as what differentiates a Nazi from a typical anti-Semite is what they were allowed to do with their hatred. Intelligence is better gleaned in the distinctions we can make rather then how well we recognize the similarities. I have actual reasons for being against gay marriage. That does not make me a bigot and frankly, your form of communication and ideas do not imply any innate or nurtured talent at naming phenomenon and judging the tones of anyone’s heart.
