Separation of Church and State or Separation of People and their Faith?
Gay Marriage, Where do you stand?
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” First Amendment of the United States Constitution
It’s quite clear to me that once you read the First Amendment that you have every right to make a case for or against Gay marriage (the right to petition). But as it stands now, it’s not legal or a right. The debate of such an issue brings up many interesting questions, if it should be legal and if in fact it actually is a civil right not being met. The most important fact that the Gay community needs to recognize is that 79.8%, I’ll call it 80% of the American Population is Christian, 5.2% other religions and 15% have no religion. These stats are taken from wikipedia.org. Roughly 85% of Americans believe in a God. Now if they all believe that Marriage as it’s defined by the Bible in Gen. 2:24: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh”. Also in Gen. 2:28: “Be fruitful and multiply”. Make no mistake about it, this is meant to be man and woman and they are to bear children. There is no room for translation here. The gay community needs to understand what marriage is, not what they want it to be. Since we believe in democracy and that we as a nation vote for what we feel is right, then I guess the majority wins! As it should, that’s why we vote to begin with, to be heard.
You can support gays all you like, be your friends, etc., but when it comes down to the marriage issue, the 85% and their faith says no you can’t. Before I go further I would like to say I have some very close friends that are gay, both male and female. Some agree with me some don’t, but we still are friends. Back on topic, based on the biblical terms mentioned above, two men can’t give birth, and two women can’t give birth naturally, without other artificial methods. You can’t deny that, it just makes sense. The idea of marriage is to have a family, in order to have a family you need to produce kids. That is the main reason to be married, is procreation. There are couples who don’t have children by choice, but they can still have children if they choose. Those who believe and support gay rights don’t necessarily support gay marriage. More than half the country is against it.
My perspective is that marriage isn’t really the issue. It’s about rights and freedoms that the gay community feels denied. A Civil Union could be the answer, maybe not. We could come up with something new all together, or make changes to the co-habitation agreements already in place. But there is more to this than love. What do gays seemingly want? Good question? They want benefits, plain and simple. In their mind, having them able to get a marriage license cures a lot of what ails them. They should really focus on the reasons they are being denied their so desired benefits. After all, it’s not marriage that denies them, its insurance companies, laws and corporate entities that do. Like the following:
*The gay community should be going after healthcare providers to change their clauses and let you choose who should be on the family plan. Heterosexuals would also like to see this change, I’m sure. They would have their parents or adult children be covered in one form another, if they can’t get it themselves. But, let’s keep this focused on the homosexual aspects.
*Hospitals should change their rules about visits to see the patients, limiting
them only to immediate family, this is not fair to anyone. Patients should be able
to list who they would consider immediate family or not. Hospitals could get this from the patient’s health care provider if they were not able to make the list themselves when they are placed in the hospital.
*Tax benefits that they seek that married couples have can easily be met, by making amending co-habitation agreements to be recognized by the IRS and the government.
*Legal issues such as inheritance, no will and death benefits, could be dealt with under the co-habitation amendment and/or a law passed to encompass such needs. You may be able to allow some kind partnership clause on the lines of common law relationships like they have in California for hetero-sexuals.
*Rights in the work place. Here again the gay activists should be addressing
employers about things like Bereavement pay, employee discounts and benefits.
These are just a few examples, believe me there are plenty more. But so you can get an understanding of what some of their needs are. I think asking religion to change for them to be allowed to be married on their terms is going down the wrong road. As you can see from the points I listed above, it really doesn’t have to do anything with marriage as some claim it to be. Let me list some cons about the whole Gay Marriage issue:
*Allowing gays to be officially married will diminish religion and marriage for
what it stands for. Because once you allow same sex marriages, then Polygamists will be the next group that will want the “Marriage” issue adopted. It won’t just stop there, no, it will continue to have a downward spiral of what religious believers hold on a pedestal. You will see the likes of someone wanting to marry their dog or their mother or a tree. Trust me it would happen, alternative weddings will be the rage. This world has seen stranger things, mark my words it would happen.
*Traditional families would no longer mean anything. You would devalue the whole mom and dad principle. Explaining to children why they have two moms or dads, vs those who have one of each might be more of challenge. You can say that a family is based on love, but it has been proven that children develop better with a traditional set of parents vs those who don’t. In fact, the children would have to deal with a lot of pressure in school and have a lot hatred toward them, for nothing more that what their parents did. The children would miss the needed influence of an opposite-sex parent, in a family setting.
*Health care system has the potential to collapse. How you may think? All it would take is to start having HIV positive patients, that would most likely lead to higher premiums for everyone, and the rest of the medical issues that go along with that.
The list goes on, both pro and con. The debate of who defines what is constitutional or not. But the reality of it is, do we want minorities to over rule majorities in what is right or wrong? In a politically correct society, is it fair that we always have to give in to the minority? I think not. For example, should we remove God from everything just because a minority group of atheists think so, but I digress. Hopefully after reading the article, you would determine in your own mind what is right. But in a nation that the majority believes in God and marriage in a traditional sense, you won’t be seeing any changes to the laws that govern the land. You decide. Is it a marriage issue, a religious issue, a rights issue or just one that needs to have laws amended, and business change, for a small percentage of people. If you can’t wait for that then remember there is always Canada.