Support for same sex marriage grows... ever stronger

[Ming]

Yeah... but remember, those child bonking and gay priests are what makes catholic marriages so much more meaningful... and the ONLY way that a couple can really get close... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHHAHA

[Tuberski]

And I like to know what happened to the catholic church. I guess since gays weren't really an issue when I was young there wasn't a focus for all the hatred. The catholic church I grew up in went out of their way to preach tolerance and acceptance. It was a higher moral ground that you could be proud of. Now I'm ashamed to admit I'm catholic (oh the child boinking priests are icing on the cake). No wonder their number is dropping.

The "child boinking priests" are probably the reason they stopped preaching tolerance and acceptance.

ACK!

[Q Classic]

That's the answer I expect from BK, but with slightly different attitude.

I guess that's my biggest problem and one that has never been really addressed.
If Asher wants to marry his SO, how does that impact my marriage. The answer is 0, and nothing he says will change that. I'm not going to immediately divorce my wife. I not going to scream out that my marriage is being demeaned. Now if it BK feels it will make his marriage less meaningful, he's the one with the problem, not the gays. But then based on 20 pages of this, everyone else already realizes this, and we're just waiting for him to figure it out. Futility at it's best, when logic is replaced by faith and bigotry.

No, see, don't you get it? If Asher marries his SO, you are going to immediately divorce your wife because legalizing gay marriage automagically nullifies all straight marriages.

It's part of a plan hatched by the gay gnomes of Zurich using some rainbow-wizardry.

They'll kill me for revealing that part of the gay agenda.

(And yes, I think the bigotry became quite evident and laughable when the "I've got gay friends" card was pulled out.)

[rah]

Yeah, I'm sure they were friends up to the point he called them heathen sinners that shouldn't even think about getting married. Yeah, those are the types of friend to warm your heart.

[Q Classic]

Yeah, I'm sure they were friends up to the point he called them heathen sinners that shouldn't even think about getting married. Yeah, those are the types of friend to warm your heart.

Indeed. Why, some of my best friends are gweilo ****s white people!

[rah]

and I'm sure. "the catholic church will accept you if you promise not to boink other men and find any ole woman and pretend to love her so she'll be suckered into entering into a sham of a wedding with you, I'm sure over time you will be cured" went over really big. See how tolerant the Catholic church is.

[MrFun]

So, the truth finally came out. Giving ten percent of population equal marriage rights will prevent the rest of ninety percent of population from marrying and thus, all procreation will cease and humans will become extinct from zero population growth!

[rah]

That's part of the masterplan. Catholics already married, without the benefit of any sensible birth control will repopulate the world.
Of course this would mean that BK could never get married since it would now be valueless. Females of the world rejoice.

[Alinestra Covelia]

If Asher wants to marry his SO, how does that impact my marriage. The answer is 0, and nothing he says will change that.

Wanda Sykes had a great satire of this argument.

One wife says to her husband "Man, look at how happy our gay neighbors are."

Husband says "Yeah, if you'd let me **** you in the *** once in a while, that could be us. Plain and happy."

Edit: Voted 5 stars on the thread vote thing to counteract the person who voted it 1-star.

[rah]

Hmm, I don't think catholics are allowed to do that either but I'm sure ben will know. And they wonder why so many people quit the church.

[Ben Kenobi]

And what do attribute the number 1 cause for this?

General breakdown of the family to which gay marriage is a contributing cause.

[Ben Kenobi]

Population growth in the urban and other socially diverse areas will necessitate a laissez-faire attitude towards personal choices. Expect to see the demographic shift some time before you see the political legislation changes, though - the elected officials will take a few years to realize that there aren't nearly enough votes to be won with the hardline social conservative agenda to justify the effort.

Actually, we are seeing just the opposite up here. The cities are dying. Most population growth is in the suburbs and the country.

Once you hit a certain percentage of urbanisation, the cities just can't grow any more. Toronto is the biggest loser right now, as even without expansion, they are losing their tax base.

What governments everywhere are facing is a cash crunch, and if they choose to raise their taxes to draw on the money, they will find themselves as a competitive imbalance to smaller and leaner municipalities.

[Dr Strangelove]

and I'm sure. "the catholic church will accept you if you promise not to boink other men and find any ole woman and pretend to love her so she'll be suckered into entering into a sham of a wedding with you, I'm sure over time you will be cured" went over really big. See how tolerant the Catholic church is.

Oh don't be silly. The Romasm Catholic Church will never force gay men to marry. They can always join the Christian Brothers and teach at an industrial school.

[Ming]

General breakdown of the family to which gay marriage is a contributing cause.

Another moronic gem...

Let's see... the general breakdown of the family has been happening for a LONG TIME... out of wedlock babies... single parent families... All of it starting LONG before gays were given the right to marriage in very selective places... Your attempt to blame gay marriages on the breakdown of the family are silly at best. If it is a "contributing cause"... it is close to insignificant.

[Ben Kenobi]

What BS... The closeness people feel has more to do with the people that are married than whether it's relgious or not. The actual commitment made when you get married gives you the strength to bear with the difficult times.

That may be true for you, but on average, people who go to church and pray together see negligible divorce rates.

You don't need religion for that. I'm sure there would be a lot of people who have been married outside the confines of some religion that would be insulted by the way you are dissing their commitments. To claim that they can't be as close simply because it wasn't religious is just total BS and ignorant.

I'm not saying they can't be close. I'm saying that on average, those who attend church together are closer then those who for whatever reason do not.

Divorce happens in both civil and relgious marriages, so what's your point?

Divorce is far less likely when you have two people who take their religion seriously, and practice together.

What are you talking about... there have been different forms of marriages for centuries.

The change in the marriage definition in the last 5 years.

Pretty sexest on your part here... and again, you are ignoring that religious people divorce as well.

I could just have easily switched the sexes around.

How do you know what works best for society.

Now, there's a good question. If we start from the assumption that homosexuality has always been around, why haven't we seen nations change their definition to accommodate homosexuality? My answer is that it has been tried, proved to be disastrous, and the nations quickly revert or they die. Simple, stark choice.

You would need some really highly controled tests to prove anything, and they haven't happened.

This is the question those willing to change the definition need to confront. They should be ready to test before screwing everything else up. You don't conduct an experiment on people without knowing what's going to happen. Absolutely poor science.

I'm not going to be convinced that the experiment is worthwhile unless I start hearing some better arguments. Jon Miller saying, 'we don't know what the results are going to be, doesn't inspire confidence. "We don't know what the harms are going to be" scares the **** out of me when I realise that those in power and making decisions haven't got a clue for the radical societal changes they are introducing.

Some would call it an evolution and not a social experiment. And frankly, what's stopping you from have the same life as your parents. Allowing gays to get married has no impact on how you choose your life. All they want is the right to make the same choice.

I resent being a guinea pig. Honestly, I'm looking forward to the coming social changes, when we see euthanasia introdroduced. Then you'll get a chance to see what change feels like when other people do it to you.

Change is such a wonderful word is it not? Oh, you'll say, 'you have filial duties'.

Speculation at best... no proof. There are so many factors that come into play that it is impossible to point to single thing that causes success or failure.

Speculation? The statistics are a disaster wrt to fatherlessness, gang activity and out of wedlock births. Coincidentally, they all seemed to rise when no-fault divorce had been introduced, and all these social changes initiated.

Even a simple search proves how stupid that statement is.
Marriage was possible without religion in both ancient Greek and Roman societies... so why don't you man up and simply say you are making this stuff up as you go along.

I don't see any Romans around anymore. We should be emulating dead societies?

I'm not asking you to marry man... but you are saying two men can't get married... who's the one doing the cramming here.

You are changing what the definition means. It's like buying box seats to the cubs game, and finding out that the head office has redefined the meaning of 'box seats' to include bleachers so that the bleachers aren't left out.

So when it does get approved by a vote of the people, you will then think it's ok?

I would disagree, but it would be the legitimate law of the land based on democratic principles, and I would accept that it was the true will of the people, for good or for ill.

I'm not even sure what you are tying to say here

The way the law up here works is that it is automatic. If you move in with your girlfriend, and live with her for longer then 2 months, you are considered married. If you subsequently break up with her, or she breaks up with you, she's entitled to alimony and child support as she is considered to be married to you. No consent required, no public commitment.

And allow gays to get married... there is no universal truth. So why not let people choose, as they should. We call that relgious freedom. The same right that allows your church to deny gays marriage allows other to accept it.

So we should allow anything to go? Why not allow people to marry children? Some cultures have a huge role for child marriage. Why not let people choose to do what they want to do?

If you remember, the middle ages weren't to hot either, with the majority of marriages having nothing to do with love, but purely economic reasons... arranged by families between people who had never met. Would you call that love?

The standard trope. The middle ages and the church sucked out all the fun out of marriage.

When I read folks like Chaucer who actually wrote in those days, I hunger for that society. I wish there were more people like Chaucer today who saw marriage and love in the same way.

We don't even know how to love properly these days. We have lost our touch badly. Perhaps I'm wrong to look for a Griselda, but they are still out there.

And why should you be the one making the ground rules for others that don't share your particular fantasy of god?

Why should we have rules like thou shalt not kill, to others who don't share my understanding of God? That's a commandment. If you don't believe in God, why do you believe that murder is wrong?

The same is with marriage. Take religion out of marriage, and you have the shell.

Again... please explain how gay marriage would have any effect on your choice to marry a woman.

Well first you have to get a woman who's not been scarred by the crap that's gone on. Then you have to hope they still have enough hope in them to go for marriage despite everything.

We should be building marriage up, not watering it down.

Yeah... like in the middle ages when the Church went along with no love marriages.

Have you ever read any medieval literature? Amazing, amazing stuff. Blows anything we do today out of the water, particularly on love. People knew how to love in those days, and I find it hilarious in a culture starved for true love that we pass judgement on their 'loveless marriages'. What would they think of all the folks shacked up, not even trusting their hearts to each other?

When the "sacrament" meant that two people who had never met before were forced to spend their lives together. That's real freedom for you.

Do you have evidence that the church forced people into marrying?

The relgious way is just as crappy. Again... are you trying to say that divorce doesn't happen in Christian marriages...

It's far less likely to occur.

Yeah... the Christians were so enlightend... are you forgetting the crusades.

Yeah, it sucks to be a Christian when your home gets overrun by Muslims.

And are you also forgetting all the great wars that occured in Christian Europe... War has occured through out history. But please, go ahead and blame wars on polygamy. That's pretty typical of someone who is as enlightened as you claim to be.

I don't claim to be a product of the 'endarkenment'.

And I honestly am worried about the state of Canadian society. It's been a good run for the west, what 300 years?