What's Your Opinion on Same-Sex Marriage

I guess were all kinda biased in a forum like this but i think youll find most, if not everyone here is more than supportive of it

 

In favour. It's not as if monotheists own the concept of marriage as it is older than them.

 

My gf already said she can see herself marrying me, so I have one opion. Yay to us getting equal rights with that part

 

It's as important as opposite sex marriage. No more, no less.

Marriage itself contains 2 parts. The civil section and the ritual section. Civil involves all the legal aspects, and is completely removed from any form of faith or belief. In essence it is a contract between the pair and the government saying that they are not entitled as a married couple to certain things, usually financial.

The ritual part is basically 'how' it's done. Church wedding, registrars office, married on a boat by a voodoo priest, whatever, it's 'ritual'. This is where things get difficult, because people assume that this part must be affected by the civil part.

So imagine for a moment that you are religious, and completely adamant that 'marriage' is a practice that belongs to your religious movement. You also, for religious reasons, think that gay marriage is wrong. So as far as you are concerned, performing the religious marriage ceremony of your faith for a gay couple would obviously be wrong.

The problem with this is two-fold. First, we have our civil agreement. This being an agreement between the couple and the government, a legal agreement without any thoughts as to HOW the ceremony will go. This is basically how we end up with things like 'civil partnerships', which are claimed to be 'good enough' for gay people because it's 'basically the same thing'. But of course it ISN'T the same thing.

The second is that basically all the people claiming same sex marriage is against their religious beliefs ignore the fact that people of other religions and of no religion get married all the time, which proves almost categorically that there is not specific legal link between any one religion and the institution of marriage.

Rambled a bit there. Angry is what I am.

 

I'm in favour of same-sex civil marriage. As for religious ceremonies, I think that should be up to the church in question, but hopefully over time fewer and fewer churches will object to marrying same-sex couples. And I think civil marriage should be the only kind that has any legal standing, and whether you choose to celebrate your civil union in a religious manner should be completely irrelevant to the law.

 

I'm all for same-sex marriages, some churches will even do the ceremony! with a blessing to the union if that's your thing

 

Absolutely in favor of it. ElliaOtaku said it amazingly. I don't want a part in the religious aspect of marriage. I just want the same treatment by the government.

It's coming. We know it.

 

I take a dual-sided view on the marriage debate as well, legal and ritual. From a legal perspective there's no rational basis for discriminating against who may legally join in a partnership, whether it's gender, race or any other intrinsic aspect of our personhood. It is none of the government's business, as long as both parties are capable of giving informed consent in agreeing to the partnership. The government interest in the partnership is primarily economic and also in protecting the interests of children produced or adopted in the course of the partnership. From a ritual perspective, that can be a simple legal ceremony at the clerk's office, or a huge wedding at a church with a reception and the whole works, or anything in between. The problem comes in with the religious ceremony aspect of the ritual. In the US, the government cannot dictate to a church how it conducts its own affairs on religious grounds, so some churches may never recognize or perform religious marriage rituals that do not conform to their belief system. That is their right... no one is required to be a member of those churches. At the same time, churches owe it to themselves to treat their beliefs consistently; some have already reconciled to accept LGBT as co-equal members in faith and practice, others are moving slowly. The point is, there is no one church that holds a monopoly on defining who qualifies to be worthy of religious blessing of their union. If the church you belong to does not accept you as a co-equal member in faith and practice, ask yourself if you really are a member of that church, or do you just keep going there out of a sense of duty or obligation?

 

This!!

 

All excellent comments above, and a great analysis by EliaO.

I would add that marriage is fundamentally a public event. This is why it requires witnesses. But more importantly, it is a public declaration that this person and this other person will make a profound commitment to each other, to the exclusion of anyone else.

A public event assumes that there is a community to whom this commitment is announced. With our high degree of mobility, our "communities" such as they are, are rather fluid things that don't last as long as they used to. Nevertheless, we have replaced local communities with communities of interest, which, with the internet, can now span the globe. Our "tribe" as it were is the new community.

And this is where it gets interesting, because our communities overlap in both space and time, we are still part of the larger social structures and embedded in the wider cultural milieu.

I think this is why same-sex marriage is so threatening to those who oppose it. This declaration, this public event is an announcement to the world: same-sex marriages are legitimate and loving commitments made by two human beings, sanctioned by law (the "software" of our democratic civilizations") and the state, which everyone must share.

 

At the very least, the legal part of marriage should 100% be available to ANY couple (regardless of orientation). Of course, it would be great if the religious or ceremonial part could also be available to same sex couples, but small steps first I guess. It's tricky with religion because, with Christianity at least, I don't think major institutions are going to change their views any time soon because they're so engrossed in their beliefs that they think letting same sex couples marry is going to send them all to hell or something...
Eh... it's tricky...

 

I'm with the 2-part people. I think that in all the legal language, all instances where the legal, secular aspect of marriage is referred to, "marriage" should be changed to another term (for this example, let's say "civil union"). The term "marriage" can then be used to refer specifically to the completely-optional ceremonial aspect. "Civil union" (the-institution-formerly-known-as-marriage) can be equally available to any pair of consenting adults, who can have whatever kind of "marriage" ceremony they want. Religious conservatives can keep defining their version of marriage however they want-- it just won't have any legal backing.

 

So if that were the case, how do you address all the people who are already married who suddenly don't have a marriage any more, they have a 'civil union'.

Also, if you keep the term 'marriage' only for the ceremonial side, who get's to decide WHICH ceremonies get to use it?

 

Obviously in favour of it.

 

Why would the already-married people not have a marriage any more? If they're joined in the eyes of the law, they'd have a "civil union". If they also had a marriage ceremony, they'd also have a "marriage". Heck, if they went and had drinks with some friends after signing the paperwork, they could consider themselves "married".

No one would decide which ceremonies get to use the term "marriage"-- that's the point. If it's not strictly defined by law, then "marriage" becomes like any other word in the English language. What constitutes "marriage" is between the couple and their religious (or non-religious) group. Sure, someone could argue that a "marriage" between two men isn't "valid", just the same as I could argue that "literally" does not mean the opposite of its own primary definition. We'd both be wasting our breath.

ETA: Sorry, I should point out that I'm from the US. I would also be totally in favor of same-sex marriage (as the word is defined now). I just think that what I've described has a better chance of actually happening in the US any time soon.

 

I'm all in favor of it, on the basis that all people (straight, gay, lesbian, bi, asexual, trans, gender- fluid, queer, etc.) deserve the same rights and privileges in the eyes of the law. Whether or not that couple wants to call it "marriage" is up to them, but in my mind, being committed to the point of wanting to get "married," the only thing really missing is the legal status, seeing as the emotional bond is already there. So someone can be "emotionally married" to a person without being "legally married" to said person. The emotional part is already there and already happens; it's the legal part that I'd like to see become the norm. As far as I'm concerned, two guys can be married without having the legal status to back it up, because they're emotionally connected in that way. Granted, that won't hold up in court, which is why we need the change.

 

"Why would the already-married people not have a marriage any more?"

Because terminology matters. Because now the legal term is 'civil union'. So having a being 'married' doesn't mean anything legal now. Instead of opening up the existing term, we shift everyone over to this new one. Doesn't matter if it means the same thing legally, a significant amount of people are going to argue quite rightly that their 'marriage' is now invalidated.

 

Everyone should have the same rights. But for myself I would choose a civil union or something like that. I think that traditional marriages are a very old-fashioned institution that in many cases hasn't anything to do with the world as it is now.