Obama on Gay Marriage

[trainedobserver]

Oh random demonic pseudo-deity...love your god and gods, it won't matter. All these deities are a 'thought-construct', at best, not to say that a 'thought-construct' with enough people believing in it, can't do or hurt ...things.

I think you are right. These imaginary realities become consensual realities were it is acceptable to put someone to death for dissing your prophet, picking up sticks on the wrong day, or whatever the case may be, as incredible as that may seem and it is all a product of the human imagination.

 

[mike]

Shakes head

 

[mike]

Here's another Cretin that thinks hes a genius..........

His "solution" doesnt even consider that every single gay and lesbian person was born of a male/female biological process.

He figures since they cant breed, the problem will be solved in a generation......
Where did they come from in the first place dummy...........?

 

[pixelsmith]

i would like to smite him.

 

[mike]

The stupidity is breathtaking, lock the lesbians and queers in seperate camps with electrified fences, and in a few years they will die out cause they cant reproduce ..........

How does he think these would be inmates came into the world in the first place ?

Thats religious thinking for you, dont let the obvious facts get in the way of the BS

 

[mike]

i would like to smite him.

Death...... by Unga Bunga would be approriate

 

[Bob Bovary]

Without reading any of the previous posts I just wanted to weigh in on the general issue. This was a well-planned campaign stunt by a politician who has shown strong aversion to gay marriage in the past. The only evolution that took place, in my estimation, was the idea that it would finally get certain segments of the population off his back. That being said, it's a good thing for civil liberties but is this a courageous stance from someone who has fully invested themselves in the advancement of rights for gay Americans? HELL no!

 

[mike]

 

[tyder001]

!

 

[tyder001]

While I don't share his worldview, I do like his straight talk. At least he's honest about what he does believe.

 

[mike]

Notwithstanding this little tard Turd, doesnt even know what a "homo" is, hes an example of the brainwashing the creation myth fools can inflict on a child

 

[Wade]

from How marriage has changed over centuries - The Week

i came across similar articles a couple of years back and it was issues such as these that changed my mind about gay marriages

Critics of gay marriage see it as an affront to sacred, time-tested traditions. How has marriage been defined in the past?

Since the ancient world, marriage has evolved from a preservation of power to a personal contract between two equals seeking love, stability, and happiness.

Has marriage always had the same definition?
Actually, the institution has been in a process of constant evolution. Pair-bonding began in the Stone Age as a way of organizing and controlling sexual conduct and providing a stable structure for child-rearing and the tasks of daily life. But that basic concept has taken many forms across different cultures and eras. "Whenever people talk about traditional marriage or traditional families, historians throw up their hands," said Steven Mintz, a history professor at Columbia University. "We say, 'When and where?'" The ancient Hebrews, for instance, engaged in polygamy — according to the Bible, King Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines — and men have taken multiple wives in cultures throughout the world, including China, Africa, and among American Mormons in the 19th century. Polygamy is still common across much of the Muslim world. The idea of marriage as a sexually exclusive, romantic union between one man and one woman is a relatively recent development. Until two centuries ago, said Harvard historian Nancy Cott, "monogamous households were a tiny, tiny portion" of the world population, found in "just Western Europe and little settlements in North America."

When did people start marrying?
The first recorded evidence of marriage contracts and ceremonies dates to 4,000 years ago, in Mesopotamia. In the ancient world, marriage served primarily as a means of preserving power, with kings and other members of the ruling class marrying off daughters to forge alliances, acquire land, and produce legitimate heirs. Even in the lower classes, women had little say over whom they married. The purpose of marriage was the production of heirs, as implied by the Latin word matrimonium, which is derived from mater (mother).

When did the church get involved?
In ancient Rome, marriage was a civil affair governed by imperial law. But when the empire collapsed, in the 5th century, church courts took over and elevated marriage to a holy union. As the church's power grew through the Middle Ages, so did its influence over marriage. In 1215, marriage was declared one of the church's seven sacraments, alongside rites like baptism and penance. But it was only in the 16th century that the church decreed that weddings be performed in public, by a priest, and before witnesses.

What role did love play?
For most of human history, almost none at all. Marriage was considered too serious a matter to be based on such a fragile emotion. "If love could grow out of it, that was wonderful," said Stephanie Coontz, author of Marriage, a History. "But that was gravy." In fact, love and marriage were once widely regarded as incompatible with one another. A Roman politician was expelled from the Senate in the 2nd century B.C. for kissing his wife in public — behavior the essayist Plutarch condemned as "disgraceful." In the 12th and 13th centuries, the European aristocracy viewed extramarital affairs as the highest form of romance, untainted by the gritty realities of daily life. And as late as the 18th century, the French philosopher Montesquieu wrote that any man who was in love with his wife was probably too dull to be loved by another woman.

When did romance enter the picture?
In the 17th and 18th centuries, when Enlightenment thinkers pioneered the idea that life was about the pursuit of happiness. They advocated marrying for love rather than wealth or status. This trend was augmented by the Industrial Revolution and the growth of the middle class in the 19th century, which enabled young men to select a spouse and pay for a wedding, regardless of parental approval. As people took more control of their love lives, they began to demand the right to end unhappy unions. Divorce became much more commonplace.

Did marriage change in the 20th century?
Dramatically. For thousands of years, law and custom enforced the subordination of wives to husbands. But as the women's-rights movement gained strength in the late 19th and 20th centuries, wives slowly began to insist on being regarded as their husbands' equals, rather than their property. "By 1970," said Marilyn Yalom, author of A History of the Wife, "marriage law had become gender-neutral in Western democracy." At the same time, the rise of effective contraception fundamentally transformed marriage: Couples could choose how many children to have, and even to have no children at all. If they were unhappy with each other, they could divorce — and nearly half of all couples did. Marriage had become primarily a personal contract between two equals seeking love, stability, and happiness. This new definition opened the door to gays and lesbians claiming a right to be married, too. "We now fit under the Western philosophy of marriage," said E.J. Graff, a lesbian and the author of What Is Marriage For? In one very real sense, Coontz says, opponents of gay marriage are correct when they say traditional marriage has been undermined. "But, for better and for worse, traditional marriage has already been destroyed," she says, "and the process began long before anyone even dreamed of legalizing same-sex marriage."

Gay 'marriage' in medieval Europe
Same-sex unions aren't a recent invention. Until the 13th century, male-bonding ceremonies were common in churches across the Mediterranean. Apart from the couples' gender, these events were almost indistinguishable from other marriages of the era. Twelfth-century liturgies for same-sex unions — also known as "spiritual brotherhoods" — included the recital of marriage prayers, the joining of hands at the altar, and a ceremonial kiss. Some historians believe these unions were merely a way to seal alliances and business deals. But Eric Berkowitz, author of Sex and Punishment, says it is "difficult to believe that these rituals did not contemplate erotic contact. In fact, it was the sex between the men involved that later caused same-sex unions to be banned." That happened in 1306, when the Byzantine Emperor Andronicus II declared such ceremonies, along with sorcery and incest, to be unchristian.

 

[boomerang]

Some cheap analysis:

That large numbers of Americans are collectively invested in this kind of issue is the part I find most worrisome. It seems a kind of psychological projection of deeper anxieties.

I would suggest that issues like these gain significance when people are insecure about things that really do matter: i.e, money, jobs, a confident culture improving its standard of living.

Bring back a booming economy and see how quickly the issue of who is sleeping with whom becomes moot.

 

[nameless]

Some cheap analysis:

That large numbers of Americans are collectively invested in this kind of issue is the part I find most worrisome. It seems a kind of psychological projection of deeper anxieties.

I would suggest that issues like these gain significance when people are insecure about things that really do matter: i.e, money, jobs, a confident culture improving its standard of living.

Bring back a booming economy and see how quickly the issue of who is sleeping with whom becomes moot.

yeah, ignorance, poor education , insecurity are contributing factors too.
but the money thing is the killer. throw it all into the mix and you get a breeding ground for facism.
Mosley and his brown shirts tried it but were too stupid to understand that britain is built on migrants particularly right where they live and so they rightly got their heads kicked in.

most anti-gays are gay anyway. its like priests and paedophiles, not dealing with their fucked up issues turns into politizisation of emotional and sexual insecurities and neurosis.

 

[nameless]

bump

 

[Goggs Mackay]

Shakes head

These morons are just taking the bible literally to the nth degree. If you are gonna believe in that book, I say believe it 100% otherwise you are just picking and choosing and that can't be God's intention!

So as much as I don't care what's in the bible and these guys are idiots, they make their own twisted sense, which is only what the book is telling them and it's there in black and white.
'Nice' religious people are ones who choose 'to pick and choose', which is nice in a way, to take away the bad bits but then where does that leave the matter of whether there is any truth to the bible at all? Surely if it is the word of god, you don't get to pick which bits to ignore?

 

[nameless]

haters gonna hate

Light Lovers Love The Light!

paedophile

 

[Goggs Mackay]

I agree that most vehemently anti-gay people are often gay. There is zero actual reason to actively hate gay people so there must be some psychological reason why some do. Being unable to accept either being gay or having bi-sexual feelings could indeed cause someone to be outwardly be anti-gay.

If you are gay and happy or straight and happy, there is no reason to really care one way or the other if someone is gay. I am worried about the recent trend in some parts of Africa to pass very draconian anti-gay laws. Medieval is the word I'd use. The funny (strange) thing is, not too long ago it would have been unthinkable to be openly gay in many parts of the world and most certainly Africa. But now, with the much of the world having come a long way in ridding itself from the ridiculous fearing or hating of gay people, it is actually the openness of the gay world that is now exposing them to the very people now victimising them. It is really sad that in some places the safest thing for a gay man to do is go right back into the closet.

I only actually know a few openly gay people that well but the thought of them having to be in fear for their freedom, or even life, by the government of their own country - well that is just plain horrible.

 

[Goggs Mackay]

What's really funny is when you see the very small congregation at these very extreme christian churches and you have to wonder do they actually think that in all the world of christianity, they are the TRUE kind with the correct beliefs? Like there are less than a hundred of them against millions, but no, no, no, they are the few chosen ones and everyone else is totally wrong etc?

Although, worryingly, all religions have a bit of that about them, otherwise they'd be no point eh?

 

[nameless]

people coming together under one shared belief: fascism.

most modern religions were the coporations of their day. like corporations now, its about brand loyalty, marketing, advertising, indoctrination etc..