Ok, so this is a topic that I find very personal so I cannot begin to be impartial on most aspects. However, I will do my best, and will rely on others in order to provide clues that may have slipped by me.
To begin, I support same sex marriage. Hell, you could same that I relish and fight for the concept, not just support it. More than any other issue in this past election, it encouraged me to go out of my way to post an absentee ballot for the state of Maryland so I could vote to legalise it. Of course, the same cannot be said for many people, and I'd like to understand why so I can begin to respond.
Most of the arguments that I've heard against same sex marriage tend to be based on morality. Whether this morality arises from a religious belief or tradition, the idea is that same sex couples are fundamentally wrong. For most people who hold these views, there is the idea that same sex intercourse is a sin, so any extension of recognition to those in "sinful" relationships only encourages that behaviour and thus must be forbidden. In Christianity, most of the objection seems to come from the purity laws in Leviticus and a couple of passages in the New Testament. Going through an in depth refutation of those arguments is a bit beyond the scope of this post, and I could not do as well as the following long video. For a cliff notes version, I'll say that the purity laws no longer apply, and the New Testament arguments seem vague or taken out of context. However, my problem is that religious arguments should not be enshrined into law in most democracies (my main experience is in the United States) . I haven't heard a secular argument against same sex marriage that doesn't relate mostly to homophobia, and I would invite anyone to prove me wrong. All of them have stated that same sex marriage will lead to any number of other social ills, without offering any proof for why that might be.
From November 2012
To begin, I support same sex marriage. Hell, you could same that I relish and fight for the concept, not just support it. More than any other issue in this past election, it encouraged me to go out of my way to post an absentee ballot for the state of Maryland so I could vote to legalise it. Of course, the same cannot be said for many people, and I'd like to understand why so I can begin to respond.
Most of the arguments that I've heard against same sex marriage tend to be based on morality. Whether this morality arises from a religious belief or tradition, the idea is that same sex couples are fundamentally wrong. For most people who hold these views, there is the idea that same sex intercourse is a sin, so any extension of recognition to those in "sinful" relationships only encourages that behaviour and thus must be forbidden. In Christianity, most of the objection seems to come from the purity laws in Leviticus and a couple of passages in the New Testament. Going through an in depth refutation of those arguments is a bit beyond the scope of this post, and I could not do as well as the following long video. For a cliff notes version, I'll say that the purity laws no longer apply, and the New Testament arguments seem vague or taken out of context. However, my problem is that religious arguments should not be enshrined into law in most democracies (my main experience is in the United States) . I haven't heard a secular argument against same sex marriage that doesn't relate mostly to homophobia, and I would invite anyone to prove me wrong. All of them have stated that same sex marriage will lead to any number of other social ills, without offering any proof for why that might be.
From November 2012
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