About a year ago I was assigned, in my English class, to write a paper on a controversial topic. This meant nothing to me until I began to think of what affected me the most. I realized that homosexual marriage was sore subject in our country and after some objections by my mother I began my research on the subject. When I first began I believed that gay marriage should be allowed but I realized that when allowing gay marriage you infringe on the rights of all religions.
If the government, let alone the states, were to legalize gay marriage you would be taking away the tradition of the church, in my case the roman catholic church, which even though I do not agree, is extremely disapproving of homosexuality. But! If states were to impose a law, or even better, congress created an amendment, legalizing civil unions all the “hullabaloo” would be solved. This amendment of course would have to include all the rights and benefits of married couples but it would lack the title of “married”. (I forget where I heard it but there are more than 1400 rights and benefits that homosexual couples are denied in civil unions) Whether you like it or not this is the way would is and people have t be accepting of diversity. In this situation our country does need change because it is not fair to dissatisfy a large majority of people just because a few grumpy old senators think that “the kids these days” are out of control.
gay marriage and the seperation of church and state
By ashley nicole09 - Posted on October 8th, 2008
Tagged: seperation of church and state
I think gay and lesbian marriage should be allowed as well. Even if religions don't believe in it, the church and state are supposed to be separate. I liked your view point.
I agree 100%. People need to stop stepping on the rights of others simply because they disagree.
Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.
I agree that allowing all civil unions (between two human beings) would be a good compromise. But gay marriage being legalized would not infringe upon the rights of religions, because religions don't have rights. The people have the right to choose and practice any religion of their choice, but religions don't actually have rights, because that would be giving them power, and that disagrees with the principle of seperation of church and state. Another point is that laws aren't allowed to regulate the actions of the people unless the benefits of public good that the law would provide would exceed the individuals' rights. The law regulates that gays aren't allowed to marry yet all I've seen are bullshit arguments on the side of the 'public good' that if gays are allowed to marry eventually a man can marry his dog, or that gays will only raise gay children (sorry, OT). Yet another point is that our laws are not allowed to discriminate or prefer any individual or group of individuals over any other individual or group of individuals. By not legalizing gay marriage you are denying homosexual individuals rights granted to straight people, which is discrimination against a group of individuals.
hmm...you know your stuff lol i think its to late for me to totaly uunderstand what your saying but what i meant about the church having rights is that "marriage" is the union under which a religious ceromony takes place uniting a man and women. if gay marriages were leagalized then it would be required by law that churches preform marriages between homosexual couples regardless of what the churches stance is on the matter
If the government legalized gay marriage, it would have absolutely no effect on churches. Freedom of religion ensures that churches can continue to deny gays and lesbians the opportunity to marry. It's not any different than a Catholic person who wants to marry a Baptist or a Jew. The church does not have to marry them, but the government can't deny them that right. So they can go to the courthouse. It would be exactly the same.
"Never go with a hippy to a second location."
~Jack Donaghy
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
If the government, let alone the states, were to legalize gay marriage you would be taking away the tradition of the church, in my case the roman catholic church,
I'm sorry, but the roman catholic chruch doesn't have any unique or special claim on the term "marriage"...neither legally nor historically. To limit the use of the term marriage as you suggest would be a plain violation of the First Amendment. Other people have religious freedom too, you know. Historically, marriage is a secular institutions. It is only in recent centuries that many religious institutions began to jump onto the marriage wagon. Prior to the 10th Century, roman catholic marriages took place wholly outside the confines and authority of the christian church. The church claimed retroactively that it had "always" been a sacrament (in the Council of Trent, 1545 C.E.), but historically speaking this simply isn't true. In reality, marriage was declared an official institution and sacrament of the catholic church at the Council of Florence in 1431 C.E., though to be fair the move to do this had been slowly growing for several hundred years prior.
TTFN,
Blackout
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"Vi Veri Vniversum Vivus Vici." ~ V.
Thanks for that bit of history, I had heard that marriage wasn't exclusively the churches before, but I've never had all the details.
ok well you could by all means be right, just fom my understanding and the reasearch that i did, it seemed that marriage was between a man in the woman. in the dictionary i used, at least, it said that. but i just want to say that i dont want to ake anyone angry by my blogging, to be honest this is for the sole purpose of the schlorship
...if you use this opportunity to educate yourself.
fom my understanding and the reasearch that i did, it seemed that marriage was between a man in the woman.
This assumption is also inaccurate. There are numerous examples of the relationships of same-sex couples being recognized as "marriage" in a great many historical--and in a growing number of modern--societies. For example, from the African continent we know of the Yoruba, the Ibo, the Nuer, the Lovedu, the Zulu, the Sotho, the Kikuyu, the Nandi and the Azande peoples (just to name a few of the more well-known), all of whom have traditionally recognized same-sex marriages since ancient times. Closer to home, there are similar marriage arrangements that are historically associated with a number of Native American tribal groups, including the Mohave, the Lakota and the Zuni peoples. These Native American examples are particularly interesting, due to the wealth of sociological literature from the colonial era regarding the study of the "berdache." Heck, the U.S. government even accepted We'wha--a Zuni "lhamana" (or "man-woman")--as an ambassador in 1885-86.
And yes, We'wha was biologically male and had a "husband" in her tribe.
More examples include the Safavidi Dynasty (of the Middle-East), the Melaneians and Papua New Guineans (in the South Pacific), the people of the Song, Ming and Qing Dynasties (historical China), and the Samurai who practiced Shudo (in Japan). These cultures also demonstrated a wide-spread accepted same-sex marriages in their midst. And let's not forget the Ancient Greeks and Romans. The Spartans (for example) practiced same-sex military marriages, and the Emperor Nero publicly entered into a marriage arrangement with his male lover, Sporus (and many other similar relationships are well documented in the historical records of the Empire). The simple fact is that the idea of accepting same-sex couples is neither a recent nor a particularly unusual societal affectation. On the contrary, when you step away from the always ego-centric myopia of Western judaeo-christianity and islam---and the often quite imaginary versions of redacted history that they tend to espouse--the rabid opposition same-sex couples and their relationships that we see today seems more than a little odd.
TTFN,
Blackout
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"Vi Veri Vniversum Vivus Vici." ~ V.