Same-Sex Marriage, Three Points of View

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Family

The way I see it there are three points of view when it comes to same-sex “marriage.” There’s the one the homosexual activists support — the government should sanction their marriages the same way they sanction traditional marriage. Then there’s the Focus on the Family view — same-sex “marriage” should be banned because it’s an idea that comes straight from the pits of hell. The third view is one that isn’t talked about very much — the government shouldn’t be in the business of sanctioning marriage at all, it’s a private religious matter.

The Homosexual Activist View

Homosexual activists say their marriages and families would be just like heterosexual marriages. There’s no difference between a family headed by two men and a family with a man and a woman. In their view, two women can raise children just as successfully as a mommy and a daddy. They want to force their moral views on the rest of society.

Homosexual couples want to have the same rights as heterosexual couples when it comes to making medical decisions for their partners, inheriting property and bank accounts, etc. I maintain that they can have all those things without marriage. All they have to do is draw up legal documents stating who is to make their medical decisions for them if they become incapacitated. A simple will would take care of inheritance and if they buy property with both their names on the survivor will automatically get the property in most states.

The Focus on the Family View

The Focus on the Family crowd wants the government to ban same-sex “marriage” and sanction only heterosexual marriages. They say the family is the building block of society and if you allow homosexuals to marry it will erode the family. The family started to erode long before homosexual activists started demanding special rights.

The advent of no-fault divorce started the downward spiral of the family unit. Lots of kids already live in a household that does not contain both their biological parents. Southern Baptists, who are some of the most outspoken opponents of gay marriage, have a divorce rate just as high as the rest of society.

The Libertarian View

I don’t agree with either of these views.

I happen to believe the government shouldn’t be in the business of sanctioning marriage at all. It’s a private religious matter between a man, a woman and God. As a Christian that’s what I believe. As a Libertarian, I say you’re free to believe differently if you want. If your god will sanction a different kind of marriage, then that’s between you and your god.

If you don’t believe in a god, then you should have the option of creating a legal document that says you’re committed to one another for life. (But you can’t call it marriage, because that’s a religious term. “Separation of church and state.”)

One last note:

[I]s it possible for a Christian couple to avoid the state’s machinery of control and still marry before God? Yes, according to pastor Matt Trewhella. “What’s recorded in a family Bible will stand up as legal evidence in any court of law in America. Early Americans were married without a marriage license. They simply recorded their marriages in their family Bibles. So should we.”3

References:

  1. Supporters of constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage rally
  2. Ban Same-Sex “Marriage” By Letting People Vote
  3. Stay single, young man!
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  • The Blue Barn

    You , uh. O.K. there are some people mormons who believe polygammy is the way God made so your view that it is between a man, a woman, and God (basically Focus on the Family way, except minus the Government) would not work. The government will always be involved in marriage because it involves money. And when straight couple are getting better treatment than other citizens, its discrimination. Second of all things change and evolve. Marriage doesnt mean exactly one thing and it can change, like it always has. Marriage is not religous!

  • http://jason.trommetter.org/ Jason

    Marriage is an institution created by God, see the first few chapters of Genesis.

    If we had a sensible tax system in this country, there would be no financial advantage to marriage. (Read up on the Fair Tax.)

  • The Blue Barn

    That was then this is now, like I said things change. You are also assuming that the Bible is real. And thats a whole different arguement.

  • The Blue Barn

    Who is forcing whos morality on who then? You accuse others of that but you are doing the same thing

  • Joseph

    Blue Barn, you are correct that mormons believe that God endorses polygamy. However, many born-again Christ-followers believe that mormanism is a cult.

    Jason references the Genesis verses, however many people will claim if we should follow those, we should not eat pigs or shrimp. Ok, I’ll give them that.

    However, Jesus reaffirms the same verses in Mark 10:6-9 “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ 7′For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, 8and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one. 9Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

    There are many who believe that when Jesus quoted old testament laws, those were in fact still valid.

    Jason also makes valid points regarding the financial aspects of marriage. Remove them with a fair tax system, and the government has nothing to do with it. Therefore if you wish to ‘marry’ your dog, you will be free to do so.

    Blue Barn, your comments regarding belief in the Bible are also valid. Because you do not believe it, you should be subject to it. If we were living in a theocracy, you would have a point. However we are not. This is a free society, nobody is forcing you to believe or accept the Bible. However, there have got to be moral absolutes and someone has to decide them. Who should that be?

    YOU??? Please no, you don’t believe.
    Focus on the Family? Heaven forbid we have a theocracy.
    The government? Hell no!! They can’t even deliver a letter without problems.

  • The Blue Barn

    So, you Christians take it upon yourselves to the the “deciders”, for everyone else. You guys decide that there are absolute moral truths. Even though you may be wrong in some cases?

  • Joseph

    Blue Barn,
    I don’t believe you read my last post thoroughly. I do not want groups like focus on the family being the deciders.

    Who would YOU prefer be the ones who decide what is right and what is wrong??

  • Lloyd

    But the state already has a legal ‘function’ (for lack of a better word) called marriage. So you’re not going to get the state ‘out’ of marriage. There are so many legal aspects of marriage that your idea of simply drawing up a few documents doesn’t even come close to covering what marriage provides. As a simple example, if 2 people marry and 1 dies, all assets are automatically transferred to the surviving spouse tax-free. This is not true in any other situation, even if you wrote a will.

    Nevertheless, it seems like you are getting caught up in semantics. The state calls it ‘marriage’. The church calls it ‘marriage’. One is a legal function, the other is a religious function. Nobody is going to force a church to marry 2 people if the church doesn’t want to. Is that what you are worried about? How about if the state called it a ‘union’? Would that make everything ok?

  • The Blue Barn

    Look, what i’m about to say, just don’t generalize it to much or blow it out of proportion, there are no right and wrong. I mean there are obviously right and wrongs, killing people for no reasons or not good enough reasons (self defense), you know what I mean? I believe in solutions to problems that are harmonous, in sync you know.

  • The Blue Barn

    I would prefer, Al Gore to make the decisions. I seriously doubt, your comment that we are NOT living in a Theocracy.

  • The Blue Barn

    Thats why we need to make marriage a non-religous function. And some religions marry gay people. But taking ones religion over the other is the state endorsing that religion. which just seperates people instead of bringing them together.

  • http://jason.trommetter.org/ Jason

    I’m not the one trying to impose my morality on other people. I’m the one who said the government should get out of the marriage business all together. If you want to define some other kind of partnership for yourselves, then go ahead and do it. Just don’t force me to accept it as “marriage.”

  • The Blue Barn

    I also you don’t even know me, nothing about me. To say i can’t make decisions is insulting, for all you know I may be the smartest guy who lived or haave really good ideas. See thats your guys problems, you guys believe you are right no matter what. Thats dangerous and ignorant, but ignorance is bliss. To say that I don’t believe I am somehow a more less of being not able to make decisions or allowed not to is very Nazi. I am waiting for apology.

  • The Blue Barn

    Well, don’t force me to accept it as marriage.

  • Lloyd

    So your real worry is that the government uses the term ‘marriage’? If the state changes all its documentation so that the word ‘marriage’ is replaced with the word ‘union’, would you have a problem with 2 men undergoing a ‘union’?

  • http://jason.trommetter.org/ Jason

    As I said, the government shouldn’t endorse “marriages,” “unions” or whatever you want to call such partnerships. So it doesn’t matter what’s on the government documentation, there should not be any government documentation at all. How can I make it clearer to you?

  • Lloyd

    Ok, that’s pretty clear. Now, how about something practical? What you are proposing is not going to happen.

  • Lloyd

    Actually, it’s not so clear. Your final line in the libertarian view says “… you should have the option of creating a legal document that says you’re committed to one another for life.” (Is that considered ‘government documentation’?) Just so we don’t get confused, let’s call this ‘legal document’ a ‘union’. Also, let’s say that this ‘union’ confers the exact same rights that current government-sanctioned ‘marriage’ confers. Now, would it be ok for two men to obtain a ‘union’? Sorry for being pedantic. I’m just trying to figure out exactly what it is that you oppose.

  • KG

    I agree with the Jason, somewhat.

    Let’s look at marriage historically. The sanctity of marriage was bastardized by the liberalization of the divorce laws in this country. It was further bastardized by the domestic partnership laws adopted. Those things do more to harm the “sanctity” of marriage.

    The “gay marriage issue” isn’t a federal issue, at MOST it could be a state issue, much like the interracial marriages before the civil rights movement when one state sanctioned the marriage and if the couple moved to another state, it was not sanctioned by the STATE government.

    I say, fine, let them have a STATE sanctioned union–let them have tax advantages and (more often than not) disadvantages. Stand before a judge and say you’re married. YAY. Wow. You gained………nothing you couldn’t have done anyway!

    And as for the issue of assets after death, there is a little thing they call living trusts. Everyday they work for married people, non-married people, old people, young people, children, anyone who takes the time to sit down and fill out the paperwork. There are even places on the internet where you can draw one up for free then take it to a notary and sign. Notaries cost around $10 in my area. If the person can’t afford $10 to have a document notarized, then they haven’t got much of a reason to sign a living trust anyway.

    However, do NOT try to tell me that I should support nor allow the unions to occur in my church. At that point, you infringe upon my rights to freedom of religion and cross the line of separation of church and state.

  • The Blue Barn

    KG, some churches allow gay marriage. If your church does not want to marry me, i’ll find a different church! Its about getting the same rights as everybody else being an equal, not well your different from me so i’m going to give you a seperate rules you have to abide by. Its like a baseball game with two sets of rules! Allowing me to marry does not make it legal to make churches marry me! Also the seperation between church and state has been crossed already.

  • KG

    Did you even read my comment? Let me say it really s-l-o-w-l-y then:

    “I s-a-y, f-i-n-e, l-e-t t-h-e-m h-a-v-e a S-T-A-T-E s-a-n-c-t-i-o-n-e-d u-n-i-o-n –l-e-t t-h-e-m h-a-v-e t-a-x a-d-v-a-n-t-a-g-e-s a-n-d (m-o-r-e o-f-t-e-n t-h-a-n n-o-t) d-i-s-a-d-v-a-n-t-a-g-e-s. S-t-a-n-d b-e-f-o-r-e a j-u-d-g-e a-n-d s-a-y y-o-u-’r-e m-a-r-r-i-e-d. Y-A-Y. W-o-w. Y-o-u g-a-i-n-e-d………n-o-t-h-i-n-g y-o-u c-o-u-l-d-n-’t h-a-v-e d-o-n-e a-n-y-w-a-y!”

    Meaning, go right ahead. Marriage was already bastardized and it doesn’t matter anymore. Call it marriage…call it whatever the hell you want. But I can guaran-teeee you that the next thing will be ACLU lawsuits against the churches refusing to marry gays in the churches. Certain of it. At that point, all bets are off.

  • http://jason.trommetter.org/ Jason

    Lloyd, the only reason a same-sex couple would need a legal document was so that they could make medical and end-of-life decisions for each other. Call it a living will. You might also need a legal document, a will, to determine inheritance of property, but if you have joint bank accounts and all property lists both partners on the deed, that shouldn’t be a problem. Both of those documents are currently allowed under our legal system, so why does anybody need a government sanctioned marriage.

  • Joseph

    Jason, they don’t NEED a government sanctioned marriage…

    they WANT to be ‘equal’ to heterosexual marriages.

  • The Blue Barn

    Actually its a need. Joesph.

  • http://trommetter.us/patriot/ Adam

    The biggest problem I have with state-sanctioned same sex marriage is that once it’s in place, some activist judge will eventually force all churches to perform ceremonies for same sex couples. I can see the slippery slope coming because in MA, they’re forcing adoption agencies to consider same sex couples just the same way they consider other couples.

  • Lloyd

    KG, if you are so certain that the ACLU will be filing lawsuits against churches that refuse to marry gays, how come there have been no lawsuits in MA? It’s been over two years.

    And by the way, a living trust does not exempt you from estate taxes.

  • Joseph

    Lloyd,
    in reading your comment regarding taxes, it appears that you are more interested in the money, than the mate.

    Get the government OUT of the marriage business, and you won’t have the tax issues.

  • Lloyd

    Joseph — in my comment regarding taxes, I was pointing out that a living trust does not exempt you from estate taxes, and therefore differs from the benefits granted by marriage. Feel free to assume whatever you want about my interests.

  • http://www.thecontemplation.com Maria

    1. The problem is that marriage is not created by god. Biblical scholars agree, Moses wrote Genesis via oral tradition, in other words “whisper-down the alley”.

    2. There is no mention of marriage? It just joins these two people together. There is other oral tradition written that has Eve being his third wife. So does that mean each man marry, divorce, marry, divorce and marry? Every religion, even older ones that that of Judea and Christianity, have an Adam and Eve. But this is not exageratted into a definition, it is only a freaking story passed on to the next generation orally until someone decided to write it down. Which was the Egyptians . . . which Moses was raised as Egyptian until his exhile. The stories are not just similar but exactly alike. Anyone who believes in Genesis is believing in Egyptian Relligion. Egyptian documentation is much older than the Bible. Looks like Moses copied!!!

    3. Bible has nothing to do with Politics. The colonists came to the ‘new world’ to get away from Religion and Politics constantly rulling together. Laws were made against certain religions (Lutheran) while other religions (Catholic) were celebrated. People were beheaded, burned and tortured because the Politics of the land were in bed with Religious ideals. Now we are here generations later spitting on their graves.