Re: POLITICS -- Marriage defined - Fern

[Guest guest]

> From: " Christie " <christiekeith@e...>

>

> > >> If someone wants *marriage*

> > then they need to find someone of the opposite gender to marry. But

> if

> > they want a partner of their same gender, then please call it

> > something else, because it's not a marriage. <<

> >

> > See, I think you're dead wrong. It IS a marriage, even if your brain

> can't grasp that or it just makes you feel icky or it blows your mind

> or whatever your problem with it is. Your reaction doesn't change what

> it is.

>

> And neither does YOUR saying it's a marriage make it a marriage.

> Actually, I do have a basis for defining marriage and it's the Bible.

> Now maybe you don't believe it and don't give any credence to it, but

> I do. You've had your say on this list, and now I'm sharing mine also.

>

>

> > >> But then you say you want to change

> > the basic elements of what that is, and call it the same thing. <<

> >

> > I have no idea what this means.

>

> Let me reword it: you want to change the basic elements that make a

> marriage a marriage (a man and a woman in procreative sexual union),

> and then still call it marriage. If you change everything about the

> basic framework of something, how can it still be the same thing? It's

> like taking the head off a dog and putting it on a cat, then changing

> its legs for bird legs, and putting an elephant's trunk on it, and

> still calling it a cat. Even if you could do it it still wouldn't be a

> cat.

>

>

>

> > >> Yes, homosexual partnerships

> > have existed for a very long time, but they have never been

> described

> > in any society as a marriage. <<

> >

> > So if that changes, if a society, let's say, an urban area of

> several million people like, oh, the San Francisco Bay Area, or a

> state like, oh, say Massachusetts, does describe it as a marriage,

> you'll drop your opposition?

>

> Of course not, for the reason I gave above. I ascribe to a higher

> Being than the government or society, and no matter what they call a

> homosexual partnership, it doesn't change what it is, nor does it

> change what marriage is as God not only defined it, but created it to

> be.

>

>

> > >> Certainly that can be pursued without messing with the whole

> > institution of marriage, which has been well established and defined

> > since the beginning of time. <<

> >

> > We've had a lot of things since the dawn of time, like slavery,

> which we now find unconscionable, and wars of imperialism, and

> religous intolerance, and the oppression of women, and infanticide.

> >

> > If you mean that " no other society in history has given lesbian and

> gay couples the same legal protection as heterosexual couples, " then I

> have to ask, are you seriously suggesting that the United States

> should never offer a freedom or right that no other nation ever

> offered before? Or that if I could find one example from antiquity of

> a legal gay marriage you'd abandon your objections? That makes no

> sense at all as the basis for your argument. There was a time when

> mixed race marriage was illegal. Was the first state that legalized it

> wrong, because no other state had ever allowed it before? Women didn't

> used to be able to vote. Was the first country that gave women the

> vote wrong, because they'd never had it before?

> >

>

> These things are completely different than what you're proposing.

> Again, you want something that someone else has but you want to change

> what it is. A mixed race marriage still involves a man and a woman in

> procreative sexual union. Women voting didn't change the definition of

> voting. And so on.

>

>

> > To say there have " never " been same-gender marriages is just plain

> wrong. I've known a large number of lesbians and gay men who were

> married. I've been to their weddings. Some churches marry lesbians and

> gay men identically to heterosexual couples. Wedding gift registries,

> chuppas, families in attendance, bad cover bands, and all.

> >

>

> Going through all those motions don't make two people of the same

> gender married. They can pretend that it does, but no matter what they

> do, they'll never be able to do what a man and a woman can: unite in

> such a way to create another life without anyone else involved.

>

> ~ Fern

Amen! You could not have said it better, Fern.

Sharon