First, a thank-you to Aineo for cleaning up and re-opening this thread. I hope everyone still interested in participating is also interested in staying on-topic. A suggestion, if I may: If at any point you find yourself quoting Scripture, the thread is most likely derailed... or about to be. I have no desire to challenge the belief that homosexuality is Biblically prohibited. What I would dispute is the idea that any existing religious prohibition(s) justify <i>legal</i> discrimination against homosexual people.
Alpha,
I may have free will, but I don't have the legal right to marriage anywhere in the United States -- which is why I assumed your "go somewhere else" translated to something like "move to Canada." Sorry for taking you the wrong way... and the subsequent rant.
My state (Massachusetts) may soon be the first to grant marriage rights to homosexual couples. We're waiting on a Supreme Court decision that's gone well past the usual deadline. If we win, the anti-gay faction will be pushing for an amendment to the state constitution, to redefine marriage as being between one man and one woman, and to specifically prohibit any other interpretations. So yes, there are people looking to take away my freedom to marry... but I'm glad to hear you're not one of them.
Marty,
Did you really not care about gay marriage until I brought it to your attention that yes, marriage is a tradition?
I suspect not.
But I would be interested in hearing why you feel marriage is a tradition which cannot possibly be broadened to include people like me... and perhaps you'll answer the question I asked Aineo earlier, concerning interracial marriages? Those certainly broke with tradition... would you call that wrong?
More to the point, would you have called it wrong back then?
Crystal,
Some excellent points, as usual.
Aineo,
Well, we've already legalized homosexuality... in fact, I suspect we're at least tolerant of homosexuality, from both legal and cultural standpoints, as the cultures you can point to that later "fell." So... aren't we already doomed? May as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, right? (Sorry... I just have trouble taking this line of argument seriously, despite the fact that you seem sincere about it. I just can't imagine believing in a God that smites gay-friendly cultures, nor do I see any sort of non-supernatural cause-and-effect going on. Like I said, cultures evolve, and cultures fall... it's really not so strange that they sometimes fall after a particular point in their evolution.)
I find your line "I will not compromise my faith so 3% of the population can feel good about themselves" to be very telling. Again, I can only point to the First Amendment. You don't have to compromise anything... nobody is going to force you to marry a man. But you can't dictate your faith to me. If you oppose my right to marriage because it compromises your faith... then where does my faith, or rather, my lack-thereof, enter the picture? It's not "compromised"... because it's not even considered.
I'm fortunate enough to be a citizen of a country where that sort of thing isn't supposed to happen... but in this one area, that principle seems to have been disregarded. But I take comfort in knowing that whenever there's been a dispute between equality and "tradition," equality has always won out in the end. I have faith in people, if nothing else. In our bumbling two-steps-forward-one-step-back way, we seem to keep heading in the right direction.
Now, if I could just convince some of you as to which way is "forward"...
Linda,
You said: "We don't have to compromise our beliefs or feelings for anyone."
One question: who does "we" refer to?