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Politics : Polite Political Discussion- is it Possible? An Experiment. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rambi who wrote (462)	8/2/2006 8:17:37 PM
From: epicure	Respond to of 1695

Someone posted me a fascinating article once about the early Christian church and same sex marriage between two of the saints, or two important priests, or something of the sort. My memory is terrible with regard to who posted what- but I do remember the article (so if you sent it to me, my apologies for not remembering.)

To: Rambi who wrote (462)	8/3/2006 1:13:50 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1695

I understand that you know and like nice gay people and feel compassion for them & wish they could have what married people have. But I think people on the other side of this issue should acknowledge that it is a profoundly radical change they seek? I think that it is reasonable to see same-sex marriage as a camel's nose under the tent which will utterly change the nature of marriage (allowing polygamy, group marriage, incestuous marriage, marriages for convenience and gain having nothing to do with a union of a man and a woman committed to one another) and that this is readily admitted by most advocates of same-sex marriage. Do advocates acknowledge the risk that traditional institutions, like churches, which transmit our highest values will likely be targeted for legal sanction, demonization, and destruction as the BSA already has been? I think it is also reasonable to ask whether, since marriage is a vital institution of human civilization, can we really play around with it, abandoning the traditional meaning and utterly changing the meaning and not have bad consequences? Universality of Man - Woman union could easily be eviscerated by someone with historical knowledge and more indepth exploration of the evolution of marriage. I completely disagree. It is my belief - and I challenge anyone to show me exceptions - that every human society we know of has had marriage and has defined marriage as the union of man and woman. A few have allowed polygamy. Even in those cultures that did allow it, it has been seldom practiced. So polygamy has been a very rare variation on the man-woman union definition of marriage. The way marriage was arranged - by choice of the parties or being families has varied. The rights of women within marriage have varied. In patriarchial societies, women were chattel with little or no rights of course. First they are the property of their father, then the husband. Of course, male children were also the property of their father, until they became heads of families too. But not all human societies have been patriarchal. Many of the agricultural peoples of north America for example, like the Pueblos and Iroquois, family descent was traced along the female line and the wife owned the home and everything in it. When marriages broke up, the husband would go back to his birth family with nothing but his clothes, weapons and tools. There has been a continuum within human societies re. the rights of women. But whatever the rights of women within or oustide of marriage, marriage has been a man-woman union. ALL human societies have had marriage and always defined marriage as the union of man and woman. Read the journals of explorers who visited Indian tribes unknown to the western world - they will all soon mention something like "the chief's wife brought us food". Inevitably explorers found man-woman marriages very similar to what they were familar with in Europe. Read the Bible or other ancient historical accounts - you will find marriages and weddings that are recognizable to modern people. Did the Greeks and Romans really do anything to formalize marraige? Only in one respect - these were literate societies and had written codes of laws. Most human cultures have been non-literate and in these oral custom and tradition functioned in place of formal written laws. Even today, custom and tradition govern much of our idea of marriage. There is no legal requirement that married couples ever have sex with one another, that they love one another at all, that they be faithful to one another - yet that is all part of our expectation of what marriage is supposed to be. Though it may trouble some people to know there are perfectly decent gays unable to marry a person of the same sex, I it is more important that we do as much as we can to: First, preserve the ideal that every child ought to begin life with a mother and father, that is with a female mother and male father. Yes, I know lots of children are born out of wedlock and marriages break up. But while we can't prevent unwed parenthood and marital breakup, we can at least preserve the institution of marriage as it ought to be. So that it can work as it should some of the time. I'm sure some will say, well the people who want to preserve the tradtional institution can do so on their own. But I don't think they can be successful, when the rest of society goes in an opposite direction and when children are taught in school the opposite of the traditional view of marriage. We haven't even gotten same-sex marriage yet, yet already we are seeing childrens books like 'King and King' and 'Heather Has Two Mommies' being used in schools. It's pretty clear the goal of the other side is total radical universal change. Why else would they want to introduce such radical propaganda to little children? We should preserve the ability of teachers, both secular and religious, to inform young children about marriage in the traditional terms of a man and woman union and not confuse the majority of children who are still forming their vision of the world and human sexual relations. Second, we should honor the will of the vast majority of Americans, both secular and religious, to preserve the man-woman marital ideal, and not allow that ideal to be destroyed at the whim of a judge. I acknowledge that if same sex marriage advocates are able to persuade a majority of the population of a state to vote for their new ideal, then it should be so. But I think the other side should make the same commitment. Let's not force radical civilization changes on an unwilling populace.