Gay Marriage 2008- Topic revisited

[Liquid Blue]

I might have missed a recent topic in the search function, but it looks like the last big discussion topic on gay marriage was DTF's back in 2004. Two things happening recently (will explain in a second) made me wonder if any opinions from 2004 on gay marriage have changed now and what newer posters might have to say on the subject.

2 things -


CNN Topic- Chicago getting "gay friendly" highschool:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/13/gay...ool/index.html

Public school officials in Chicago, Illinois, are recommending approval of a "gay-friendly" high school because harassment and violence are causing gay students to skip class and drop out at alarming rates.

NY Times- Gay Marriage now legal in CT

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/11/ny...1marriage.html

A sharply divided Connecticut Supreme Court struck down the state’s civil union law on Friday and ruled that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry. Connecticut thus joins Massachusetts and California as the only states to have legalized gay marriages.

I'm glad CT has approved gay marriage but I don't know if having a "gay" highschool will really benefit the kids that are getting abused by their peers. With how mean-spirited people can be, I think it will only focus and enflame bigots and push them to more extreme measures to display their hate, specifically on teh student body and campus of said school.

But I'll save my thoughts more for late, I'd like to know what your opinion on having a "gay-friendly" highschool, and your thoughts on gay marriage.

Please don't just spam or post hateful remarks, I'm open to at least hearing everyone's opinion, but just posting some slur about homosexuals does not make you cool. The same goes for just yelling at people who you disagree with; there's no need to rail on them simply for having different views.

Let's get started!

[Da1andonly]

I'm a born Lutheran but an agnostic, been in church like 5 (?) times my whole life etc. so based on religion I don't care about gay marriage at all, whether it be girls or guys.

Religion aside, I still don't care. If they are happy being married, so be it. I don't see any reason (apart from religion, which is biased anyway) why it shouldn't be allowed...

I have feeling this will be an entertaining thread. What's your view, Liquid burger?

[HateTheFake]

From a religious stand point I feel its wrong.

From an evolution stand point its still wrong (if everyone turned gay, life would cease to exist)

[Noah]

Who the fuck cares, let them do what they want to do. Everything doesn't need to be justified to others. If I were fag I'd be as flamboyant and visible as possible, just to piss off those who would disrespect what I was born as.

[Nycle]

From a religious stand point I feel its wrong.

From an evolution stand point its still wrong (if everyone turned gay, life would cease to exist)

You sound like as if people choose to be gay. Right...

I'm glad I live in a more "rational" country when it comes to social policies like this and stuff like prostitution, drugs, euthanasia and abortion. The Netherlands legalized same-sex marriage over 7 years ago, the first country to do so, and public support for it remains at the highest level in the world with 82% of the population in favour. Sometimes I can't believe how some developed countries can be so biased about this subject and treat it as a taboo. I can see things are gradually changing though, as more and more countries start to legalize same-sex marriage it sets a precedent for other countries to follow suit and not be biased by irrational restraints such as religion.

[Zerzera]

From an evolution stand point its still wrong (if everyone turned gay, life would cease to exist)

Would you oppose to a fertil/infertil mixed marriage too then? If all fertile people would marry an infertil partner, life would cease to exist.

[Heroin Bob]

i think the ballot here in AZ has somthing about this


i believe prop 201? its set to restate the arizona constitution to read marriage is only between a man and a woman.



some more stupid bills to waste tax dollars on!

[Kolar]

There's no easy way for the schools to deal with it. A lot of public schools here are having problems with race and culture. A lot of these kids are coming from places like Afghanistan, Iraq, the Balkans, Syria ... and many of them just plain hate each other. The teachers are caught in the middle of it and most of them don't even have the knowledge or time to learn why there's an issue. The race issues and hatred towards gay people, all of it comes from the parents. If you try to make the schools more friendlier and tolerant many of them will either pull their kid out or cause all kinds of hell for the school administration. I think there has to be a less organized effort to root out these kids causing problems so the staff can keep an eye on their behavior. Anything beyond that point and you'll have parents burning the place down for "indoctrinating them". I think people get confused about the messages school programs like this put out. It's not about acceptance, no one is asking these kids to accept a certain life style or to take it up. They're asking for them to be tolerant of others, at the very basic level "put up" with it because we should respect the differences of others.

Whether you believe being gay is right or wrong doesn't matter. There are kids out there who commit suicide over their parents and community rejecting them. You can't socially condition someone to change their sexual preference, there isn't anything to fix. You can subject people to the right conditioning so they will conform to some subjective (majority) social norm but that is repressive and unnatural.

[Izor]

Like Ive said numerous times this is not really important to me - that is until it starts affecting our youth. I believe kids get influenced by their friends in high school and sometimes do something stupid to try and be 'unique' or different. Exhibit A - Xog. I really dont believe young kids truly know if theyre gay or not, at least not some of them. Xog for example, would outwardly appear to be straight now, although those of us who have been around for any length of time would question that.

Liquid Blue your people should know better than anyone the negative effects of segregation. Although this school claims not to be segregating, I believe everyone here knows better. This is 1) a waste of tax dollars that are already spread very thin and 2) harmful to our next generation. It is just something else that adds to the sissification of our kids that has been plaguing our society. I mean seriously, you're teaching kids that they shouldnt stand up for themselves cause they can just go somewhere else. What happened to the days where if someone picked on you you just knocked them out? I remember 2 or 3 fights going through grade school and then one in my freshman year of high school. Of course all but one was after school off of school property, but nowadays if word of that gets back to the school you'll still get suspended. Kinda off topic rant I guess, but my point there is that at some point we need to teach our children, even if they are little faggots, that at some point they need to stand up for themselves. Otherwise we're no different than france or canada

EDIT: my dad may have made a couple racial comments while I was growing up but making fun of gays is just...straight people's nature. It has nothing to do with parents

[Nycle]

The race issues and hatred towards gay people, all of it comes from the parents.

I agree that the way how parents raise their children undoubtedly plays a large role in the shaping of their children's feelings towards certain issues, but it doesn't all come from the parents. A society's failure to change its attitudes more rapidly will have people caught in a wrong vision for far too long and will discourage change all together. Other than that I largely agree with what you said and you wrapped it up nicely.

I think there has to be a less organized effort to root out these kids causing problems so the staff can keep an eye on their behavior.

If the situation really is how the article describes it, with gay people obviously being limited in their potentials, then I think having less organized measures to try and change people's mentality might not be enough. I'm not saying a school like this is the best solution, but at the end of the article it says something that I believe will make this at least worthy of an attempt:

"The choice they are making is not should we have this kind of school," he said. "The question is 'Are we going to do anything we can to get these kids an education?' And there's only one right answer -- yes."

[Squeezer]

From a religious stand point I feel its wrong.

From an evolution stand point its still wrong (if everyone turned gay, life would cease to exist)

Because if there's one thing we suck at it's populating the Earth.

It's on the ballot for Seattle (not WA state, that failed 5-4 in 2006) again this year and it's likely to pass. Which means it's only a matter of time before Cali, Oregon (also close) and my great home state of Washington will have legalized gay marriage, making the West Coast homoland. That thought makes me happy and hopeful for America

This is not a right or left issue. This is a civil rights issue and they deserve the same rights pertaining to civil unions as straight couples. They should also have the right to hold their own marriage ceremonies. Thus they should be allowed to have gay marriage.

Religion should not even enter the question. I'm okay with the evangelicals disagreeing with their lifestyle and being able to deny gays to marry in their churches, but if the situation were to come up I feel that they would legally have to recognize the civil union (IE doctors could not keep partners out of ERs).

Like Ive said numerous times this is not really important to me - that is until it starts affecting our youth. I believe kids get influenced by their friends in high school and sometimes do something stupid to try and be 'unique' or different. Exhibit A - Xog. I really dont believe young kids truly know if theyre gay or not, at least not some of them. Xog for example, would outwardly appear to be straight now, although those of us who have been around for any length of time would question that.

Liquid Blue your people should know better than anyone the negative effects of segregation. Although this school claims not to be segregating, I believe everyone here knows better. This is 1) a waste of tax dollars that are already spread very thin and 2) harmful to our next generation. It is just something else that adds to the sissification of our kids that has been plaguing our society. I mean seriously, you're teaching kids that they shouldnt stand up for themselves cause they can just go somewhere else. What happened to the days where if someone picked on you you just knocked them out? I remember 2 or 3 fights going through grade school and then one in my freshman year of high school. Of course all but one was after school off of school property, but nowadays if word of that gets back to the school you'll still get suspended. Kinda off topic rant I guess, but my point there is that at some point we need to teach our children, even if they are little faggots, that at some point they need to stand up for themselves. Otherwise we're no different than france or canada

EDIT: my dad may have made a couple racial comments while I was growing up but making fun of gays is just...straight people's nature. It has nothing to do with parents

People that follow Izor's logic are probably the same people that couldn't understand why we were attacked by terrorists "all of the sudden."

[Izor]

meh school isnt where you just learn booksmarts. It's where you learn social skills, and unfortunately part of social skills is coping with things like bullying. There would have to be something pretty fucked up like that one cheerleader getting stomped out to catch my attention and say it went too far. The problem with you people here is that instead of changing the individual to conform to the standards of society, you want society to be more 'accepting' of the individual.

before I get jumped with "but izor these people cant help that theyre gay!" let me add to that comment that these people dont need to go to school dressed like rod roddy or mr slave. No one needs to announce the fact that theyre gay. and if they dont, people wont know about it to make fun of.

[Liquid Blue]

just checking in for a bit

Liquid Blue your people should know better than anyone the negative effects of segregation.

Izor where would I be without you

you make my time at these forums extra special

[Nycle]

Like Ive said numerous times this is not really important to me - that is until it starts affecting our youth. I believe kids get influenced by their friends in high school and sometimes do something stupid to try and be 'unique' or different. Exhibit A - Xog. I really dont believe young kids truly know if theyre gay or not, at least not some of them. Xog for example, would outwardly appear to be straight now, although those of us who have been around for any length of time would question that.

What a perfect example! A person you "know" on the internet, someone you've never met in real life, and have no clue about his or her true behaviour in real life either. Taking Xog as an "exhibit" is therefore useless to discuss problems that do occur in real life. I'm guessing your phobia for anything "out of the ordinary" will never have allowed you to become acquainted with "different people" either, so Xog is pretty much the only flawed example you can put forward.

I mean seriously, you're teaching kids that they shouldnt stand up for themselves cause they can just go somewhere else. What happened to the days where if someone picked on you you just knocked them out? I remember 2 or 3 fights going through grade school and then one in my freshman year of high school.

I guess you courageously fought off these bullies for being inherently different than them, and that difference was something you could not change. Also, I guess it would be really easy to stand up against a group that will always be larger than yourself and have them shut up and leave you alone once and for all. If that method of yours works so great, then why are we even talking about this problem? It surely should have been a thing of the past by now.

[Squeezer]

meh school isnt where you just learn booksmarts. It's where you learn social skills, and unfortunately part of social skills is coping with things like bullying. There would have to be something pretty fucked up like that one cheerleader getting stomped out to catch my attention and say it went too far. The problem with you people here is that instead of changing the individual to conform to the standards of society, you want society to be more 'accepting' of the individual.

And your problem is you assume everyone holds your set of values. You said that if you saw a cheerleader getting stomped out, whatever altercation would have gone too far. Some people would say it didn't go far enough. Others would try to avoid the altercation altogether. I understand that you're implying that when someone is being physically harmed you would step in (as would I), but the point remains that different people take different approaches to different situations.

The difference is that you want your values to reign over everyone (IE everyone follow the norms already established...MAKE FUN OF THE QUEERS!) instead of allowing people to decide for themselves and deal with it. Essentially, you're the pussified one because you can't tolerate a mindset outside your own so you make fun of it or speak out against it instead of letting others do their own thing. They aren't harming anyone like your cheerleader example above (and don't give me the "it turns straight kids gay," crap because I, and others I know have plenty of gay friends and most of us are still straight as a dotted line), so what does it matter to you.

Although I guess you stated above that you aren't really proactive about this issue and I am, so maybe I'm writing too much :P

edit: And by teaching young kids to come out and declare themselves gay you're empowering them in ways that some fight never could. It takes a lot of courage to go against hard headed assholes that wont let you live without knowing how much of a fuckup you are to society.