Illinois Senate Passes Same-Sex Marriage

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

What JCL, and many of my fellow Christians tend to forget is that we are made in God’s image. If God did not want Homosexuals, we would not have any. Homosexuals exist. As pointed out, homosexuality is found among animals in nature, who for all we know, are not affected by human sin at all. That shows that homosexuality was prevalent in nature before the fall of man, and should thereby be recognized as a legitimate love between two human beings in Christianity. It’s a shame that so many evangelicals don’t recognize this.

Actually, many evangelicals tend to hold that animals were also affected by the fall.  After all, there was no death, and hence no carnivores in the Garden of Eden.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

This is not Saudi Arabia. Policy makers do not get to impose their religious beliefs on the public. If they cannot accept this, they have no business being policy makers in this great nation.

How is being opposed to same-sex marriage a religious belief and being in favor of it is not?  They are both religious beliefs memphis.  It just is that one of them is yours.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

My grounds for supporting gay marriage have absolutely nothing to do with any religious principles. I support it because it is a just policy. Are you arguing that every political belief is a "religion?" That's a rather silly perversion of the term.

If you're arguing for a particular position because it is the moral thing to do, then yes, you are inserting religion into it.  I'm not saying that morality should be kept out of politics.  Even if such a thing were possible, I don't think I'd care to live in a country that did.  I have no problem with you basis your politics on your sense of morality, so long as you don't bash others for doing the same. Go ahead and bash what you view as a warped sense of morality, but not that they are using it.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

On the question of religion in general, though this is going wildly off topic. Anyone who uses religion as shield or a staff to oppose granting rights to their fellow man is weak. It's a weak argument used by weak men particularly when faced with people they know who loose out because of this every day. There's no strength or courage there and I can never respect it.

And what should be a "right"?  Should state-recognized marriage with state-enforced privileges, whether for straights or gays, be a right?  Is couplehood alone the only basis on which marriage should be recognized by the state?

My own personal view is that marriage generally receives too many state privileges these days as a hold over from the days when one of the pair involved was considered legally inferior to the other and thus those privileges served as a means of protecting the inferior member of the pairing.  I rather doubt that in your own marriage that either of you considers himself to be inferior to the other.

Since I doubt that the state will get out of providing benefits to married people anytime soon the next best thing from my own sense of morality is to have the state recognize a marriage between any two people.  However, I won't be so arrogant as to think that I'm not imposing my own sense of morality on others in doing so.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Uh-oh… this is not good.  Why not let the people vote?  And this is a classic example of how ideology hacks in the GOP, including the Tea Partymovement, have damaged America.   If it weren't for them nominating an unelectable candidate like Bill Brady to run against Quinn, Jim Ryan would be governor today, and although he's more liberal/moderate on social issues, he might have vetoed this bill.

Once 'putting it to a vote' stops getting the result you want (which is starting to happen already) what will you be advocating then? You also know that at the time of Loving v Virginia support for interracial marriage according to Gallup was around 20%. Should inter-racial marriages have been put to a vote?

Loving v. Virginia didn't change the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman, either.  Give homosexuals the rights, but don't define something as a marriage that my religion says is not.

Why should your religion affect public policy to stop me being being able to join my husband in America when neither of us subscribe to it?

Why should America be required to subscribe to the POV that same-sex marriage is good public policy?  Also, even if same-sex and opposite-sex marriage were treated the same here, why should the fact that you've married an American give you priority in immigration to this country?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Why should America be required to subscribe to the POV that same-sex marriage is good public policy?

Because a majority of Americans support it?

I'm kidding, of course, in regards to the validity of that as a sound argument, but once you lose the cajones of having the popular opinion against same-sex marriage, that line of reasoning becomes antiquated.

Obviously, America 'subscribes' to whatever point of view the federal government provides it, and we only argue against the fashion in which it is prescribed (i.e. centrally) when we have no remaining credible defense.  Otherwise, we are left to pretending that the countries and states which have already adopted this policy are suffering from some type of catastrophic ruin.

But afleitch wasn't arguing that we should recognize same-sex marriage because a majority support it.  Both he and memphis are arguing that the moral thing to do would be to have the government recognize same-sex marriage while at the very same time decrying that those who are objecting to the policy on moral grounds.  Since I don't think they have been consciously realizing what they have been doing here, (Indeed, it seems memphis still doesn't.)  I would characterize their thoughts there as irony rather than as hypocrisy. They are doing the very same thing they are castigating the opponents of their position of doing, treating their morality as objective reality. It's their method of castigation I'm opposing here, not the policy they want.

Also, even if same-sex and opposite-sex marriage were treated the same here, why should the fact that you've married an American give you priority in immigration to this country?

Totally unrelated debate? (Also, it's pretty obvious why--even if we don't care about the foreign member of the couple as such, we should pretty clearly support the relationship of the US citizen member of the couple by allowing unification of the couple.)

Why is it pretty clear?  A policy to oppose such relationships would be a way to end the practice of mail-order brides.  So long as we choose to have a limited amount of immigration, might there not be ways more productive to our country to choose who we allow to immigrate than who wins the lottery of love?  Indeed, if we ended marriage preferences and went by skills and aptitudes, it sounds like afleitch would likely already have his green card.  And of course, if we didn't have numerical limits on immigration (or at least no limits on those who speak English) then he'd have no problems at all coming here.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

But afleitch wasn't arguing that we should recognize same-sex marriage because a majority support it.  Both he and memphis are arguing that the moral thing to do would be to have the government recognize same-sex marriage while at the very same time decrying that those who are objecting to the policy on moral grounds.  Since I don't think they have been consciously realizing what they have been doing here, (Indeed, it seems memphis still doesn't.)  I would characterize their thoughts there as irony rather than as hypocrisy. They are doing the very same thing they are castigating the opponents of their position of doing, treating their morality as objective reality. It's their method of castigation I'm opposing here, not the policy they want.

I don't actually mind if people object to gay marriage. I just disdain at them wishing public policy to reflect their opposition to it rather than allowing it to co-exist. Many faiths have issues against divorcees remarrying and do not allow it, yet the state does. 14% of Americans still oppose interracial marriage; a sizeable minority. They can still choose personally not to marry or to recognise them, but the state does. Those are examples of differing and in one example abhorrent views on marriage still being allowed to exist within a larger system. Now we have same sex couples who are attracted to their same sex partner in the same manner as opposite couples are attracted to their partner and they wish to marry to express their love and to be granted the same rights as other couples. Many religious groups want to be allowed to celebrate those marriages too and provide a sense of stability to people's lives.

Ever since Lawrence v. Texas. everyone throughout the United States has had the right to be in a same-sex marriage.  So the right to be married is not what you are arguing for.  What you are arguing for is that same-sex marriages be given the same state privileges that opposite-sex marriages are, and only a few states do that at present.  Of course I come at this from the perspective of someone who rejects the concept of "positive rights" that is, that the state is morally obligated to do certain things on behalf of its citizens.  The actions associated with the so-called positive rights are generally good public policy, but I don't consider them rights as I do what are often called the negative rights which involve the government leaving people alone to do their own thing.

At most, one can argue that government should offer the same benefit levels to both same-sex marriages and opposite-sex marriages, but that presumes that marriage is solely a relationship contract between two adults and hence it is impossible for there to be a substantial difference between the two that would create a valid state interest in treating the two differently.  By and large opponents of granting same-sex marriages the same benefits as opposite-sex marriages reject that presumption, tho the way opposite-sex marriage is treated under the law these days, that is a difficult argument to make.  However, to be fair, those opponents generally would like to revert the marriage laws to the days when that argument could be fairly made.

I don't see anybody objecting to same sex marriage on moral grounds. Instead people are saying it's against my religion. Those are not even close to the same argument.

To paraphase an old song concerning marriage, "Morality and religion, you can't have one without the other."  But then it is clear you see morality as an objective truth and that any religion that does not share your morality cannot possibly be moral.

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Actually, I'm all for returning to more generally treating adultery as a crime.  If you want to engage in a relationship either side can abandon at will without cost, well then that's not a marriage as far as I'm concerned and it certainly should not get the state benefits that are provided marriage. (Just to be clear, since there are varying definitions of adultery, my definition requires one of the participants be married. Fornication between consenting adults should not be a crime.)

There are also some solid social benefits to having a day on which non-essential work is not done, tho I will agree that stoning is an excessive penalty for not doing so. Tell me, does your opposition to sabbath laws include an opposition to California's law mandating that employees be paid time-and-a-half overtime for working on a seventh straight day, even if their total work week remains under forty hours, or are you selectively anti-sabbath?

Also to be fair, in those Biblical days of weak state authority, social sanctioned mob violence probably was the only way such socially desirable goals as preventing adultery or keeping people from working excessively could be achieved. This doesn't bother me too much, since I don't worship a book as if it were God and thus consider the Bible to be a work of ethnic and religious history written by men rather than an inerrant and unchanging set of guidelines for how human society should be organized for all time.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Ever since Lawrence v. Texas. everyone throughout the United States has had the right to be in a same-sex marriage.  So the right to be married is not what you are arguing for.

That is an absurd semantical argument. You define marriage a certain way, but many of us as well as the various U.S. legal codes define it another way, and the latter definition is what matters for public policy.

Besides, I do not have the right to be in a same-sex marriage according to the Catholic definition of marriage, and I am not fighting for that right.

Unless you live in the Vatican, then the Catholic Church is not your government.  Rights set the ground rules for interactions between people and their government, not their church.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I find your notion that morality and religion must be innately conjoined both puzzling and offensive. Just to be clear, you are saying that those who chose not to affiliate are, by definition, immoral? Morality need not be objective but, to be at all meaningful, must be based on some sort of cognition. Blindly accepting an institution like religion (which does see morality as objective) is a completely amoral act (though not necessarily an immoral one).

Who said religion must be blindly accepted?  Granted, there are people who do, but in doing so they miss the point.  Also, I use an expansive definition of religion, a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, so even a belief system such as atheism is a religion.

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My reasons for being opposed to adultery are not dependent upon Abrahamic doctrine.  At its best, marriage is a lifelong commitment. If for some reason, that commitment is one you are unwilling to keep any longer, then divorce before boffing the one you want next.  Sneaking around behind the one to whom you pledged eternal devotion is for cowardly frauds, and to me fraud should be a crime, not a civil tort.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Ever since Lawrence v. Texas. everyone throughout the United States has had the right to be in a same-sex marriage.  So the right to be married is not what you are arguing for.

That is an absurd semantical argument. You define marriage a certain way, but many of us as well as the various U.S. legal codes define it another way, and the latter definition is what matters for public policy.

Besides, I do not have the right to be in a same-sex marriage according to the Catholic definition of marriage, and I am not fighting for that right.

Unless you live in the Vatican, then the Catholic Church is not your government.  Rights set the ground rules for interactions between people and their government, not their church.

Ok, then I'm really confused in what way everyone has "the right to be in a same-sex marriage." In 40+ states, I see no way in which that is true in light of your recent statement.

Because marriage need not be a construct of the state.  If two people wish to live together and consider themselves to be married, they can be no matter their sexuality.  There are no laws now such as the ones that the Lovings ran afoul of and were struck down in Loving v. Virginia in which they were sentenced to a year each in prison (suspended if they left the Commonwealth for twenty-five years) for the crime of living together in marriage.  No one is banned from being married in the US.  It just is that not all marriages are recognized.  It's a subtle difference, and I do not claim that there is still an inequity, but the scale is not the same.