Social Consequence of Gay Marriage

[livingwordunity]

Originally Posted by Dale_M

BTW, there is no need to amend the US Constitution to allow gay marriage. The Constitution doesn't forbid it. That is why several states have been able to allow for such marriages.

When the US Constitution was penned, marriage only had one meaning - a husband married to a wife, just as it had been all through the human history of the world. 50 years ago so-called "same-sex marriage" was never even a concept anywhere in the world or in human history. Homosexual behavior had been around since ancient times, but it was always acknowledged as lust and never as marriage.

[CopticChristian]

Originally Posted by Brandon Rimmer

What do you think they will be?

Let's imagine the Constitution is amended to allow for gay marriage. What will be the cultural and political consequences, and why do you think that these things would happen?

http://downloads.frc.org/EF/EF11B30.pdf

Long-Term Effects
Fewer people would marry.

In the Netherlands, the first country in the world to legalize same-sex civil “marriage”, the figures are even more dramatic. A 2005 report indicated that only 12% of same-sex cohabiting couples in that country have married, with another 10% in what are called “registered partnerships.” 26 By contrast, 82% of heterosexual couples in the Netherlands (as of 2004) were married.27 This means that 78% of the same-sex couples in the Netherlands have seen no necessity for legal recognition of their relationships at all, while only 18% of opposite-sex couples have similarly rejected marriage.

These figures show that a large percentage, and possibly even an outright majority, of homosexuals—even those already living with a partner—neither need nor desire to participate in the institution of marriage. Legalizing same-sex “marriage” would be very effective in sending a message of endorsement of homosexual behavior. But the indifference of most homosexuals to “marriage” would send a message to society that marriage does not matter—that it is no longer the normative setting for sexual relations and child-rearing, but is instead nothing more than one relationship option among many, made available as a government entitlement program to those who seek taxpayer-funded benefits.

This is one of many of the problems associated with the notion of gay marriage...

[CopticChristian]

Originally Posted by Brandon Rimmer

What do you think they will be?

Let's imagine the Constitution is amended to allow for gay marriage. What will be the cultural and political consequences, and why do you think that these things would happen?

This is a problem

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21324241

Can J Psychiatry. 2011 Jan;56(1):35-43.
Sexual orientation and its relation to mental disorders and suicide attempts: findings from a nationally representative sample.
Bolton SL, Sareen J.

SourceDepartment of Community Health Sciences and Research Associate, Department of Psychiatry, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba. sbelik@hsc.mb.ca

METHOD: Data used were from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions Wave 2 (n = 34 653, response rate = 70.2%). Cross-tabulations and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to determine differences in rates of mental disorders and suicide attempts by sexual orientation. All analyses were stratified by sex.

RESULTS: Compared with their heterosexual counterparts, lesbians and bisexual women demonstrated a 3-fold increased likelihood of substance use disorders, and gay and bisexual men showed twice the rate of anxiety disorders and schizophrenia and (or) psychotic illness, even after accounting for mental disorder comorbidity. Suicide attempts were independently associated with bisexuality, with odds 3 times higher than in heterosexuals.

It appears that the homosexual population is at high risk for anxiety, mental illness and suicide. This exposes unsuspecting children to a higher rate of mental illness than the general population.

This is a consequence.

[CopticChristian]

Originally Posted by Brandon Rimmer

What do you think they will be?

Let's imagine the Constitution is amended to allow for gay marriage. What will be the cultural and political consequences, and why do you think that these things would happen?

This is a problem

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22035524

J Assoc Nurses AIDS Care. 2011 Nov-Dec;22(6):444-53. doi: 10.1016/j.jana.2011.08.004.
Human papillomavirus and anorectal carcinoma knowledge in men who have sex with men.
Blackwell CW, Eden C.

Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is a precursor to the development of anorectal carcinoma. Studies have indicated that men who have sex with men (MSM) have significantly higher rates of HPV and HIV than their heterosexual counterparts and are at greater risk for anorectal carcinoma.

Homosexual men are at higher risk for viral infection and anal carcinoma. Children adopted into this environment would be exposed to potential health risks that are not seen in a heterosexual counterpart. Childern would be exposed to knowledge of Cancer of the anus and the reasons for this cancer potentially causing emotional distress not seen in a heterosexual counterpart.

[Benay]

So very many comments and emotional responses to this thread.

On the issue of gay relationship being unstable, I wonder how stable are the heterosexual relationships of unmarried couples living together. There are fewer marriages and far more couples "shacking up." Both Protestant as well as Catholic. Just how stable and long-term are these relationships?

On the issue of gay paents as role models for sexual behavior, I wonder how many heterosexual families are good role models for sexual behavior? (ex extramarital affairs, married men keeping mistresses, heterosexual married men involved in prostitution (as well as heterosexual married women), married men involved in pornography, heterosexual married men practicing pedophilia, and on and on.

Seems to me that Gay men and Lesbians are not the only ones who are violating the commandments of the church.

When we point the finger at one group for something, we might remember there are four other fingers pointing back at us.

[Scott_Lafrance]

Originally Posted by Benay

So very many comments and emotional responses to this thread.

On the issue of gay relationship being unstable, I wonder how stable are the heterosexual relationships of unmarried couples living together. There are fewer marriages and far more couples "shacking up." Both Protestant as well as Catholic. Just how stable and long-term are these relationships?

On the issue of gay paents as role models for sexual behavior, I wonder how many heterosexual families are good role models for sexual behavior? (ex extramarital affairs, married men keeping mistresses, heterosexual married men involved in prostitution (as well as heterosexual married women), married men involved in pornography, heterosexual married men practicing pedophilia, and on and on.

Seems to me that Gay men and Lesbians are not the only ones who are violating the commandments of the church.

When we point the finger at one group for something, we might remember there are four other fingers pointing back at us.

The difference being that sacramentally married heterosexual parents retain the possibility of being proper sexual role models for their children. Homosexual ones can never be. The are improper by the very nature of their disordered sexuality.

[wynnejj]

Originally Posted by Benay

On the issue of gay parents as role models for sexual behavior, I wonder how many heterosexual families are good role models for sexual behavior? (ex extramarital affairs, married men keeping mistresses, heterosexual married men involved in prostitution (as well as heterosexual married women), married men involved in pornography, heterosexual married men practicing pedophilia, and on and on.

These heterosexual misbehaviors exist surely. There is little support in society for sanctioning and regularizing and making them an institution or hallmark of a better society due to superior tolerance in a pluralistic society (yet). Are you suggesting that you seek to legalize and regularize these practices for the good of the young?

Many gay relationships involve partners who had failed heterosexual relationships, received custody of their kids (and rightly so in some cases) but, changed their sexual orientation due to the psychological trauma they experienced. They raise their kids with a distrust of traditional marriage and, their kids are inclined to experiment (and sometimes encouraged) to explore homosexual relations. Of course, some come out of the closet with shame to exclaim "I think I'm heterosexual. I hope I am still marriageable in society.". To many heterosexuals ... the answer is NO. The thing about marriage in a free society ... you get to choose your partners and your right to be intolerant of core belief differences in a lifelong prospective partner.

Gay marriages seek to regularize immorality as proper behavior. Your citations of heterosexual misbehaviors are just that ... and there is no effort afoot to institutionalize these practices in society.

[wynnejj]

Originally Posted by Benay

On the issue of gay relationship being unstable, I wonder how stable are the heterosexual relationships of unmarried couples living together. There are fewer marriages and far more couples "shacking up." Both Protestant as well as Catholic. Just how stable and long-term are these relationships?

True. You highlight something that much of Christian society, in attempting to rationalize the use of contraception, will support gay relationships and even gay marriage - despite the clear proscription in the Bible against homosexual practices - to wit, Sodom & Gomorrah. It is a misguided attempt at avoiding that funny feeling of hypocrisy in the use of contraceptive practices. And, they generally turn a blind eye to their young "shacking up" which is equally as bad.

Heterosexual contraceptive co-habitation and gay relationships have the same thing in common. Two partners draw each other into the practice of mutual masturbation. Contraception & cohabitation - "shacking up" - are indeed grave sins on the same order as homosexuality.

It is one thing if Eve eats the forbidden fruit. It is an additionally grave matter for Eve if Eve draws Adam into eating the forbidden fruit. It is an additionally grave matter for Adam if Adam validates Eve's misbehavior by joining her in the eating the forbidden fruit.

The teaching against masturbation -- which would include mutual masturbation -- has its biblical roots in Matthew 5:27-30.

http://www.usccb.org/bible/mt/5:27

[peace2u2]

Originally Posted by LostChemist

And all I see in your post is the notion that you think that you are right, that homosexuality is wrong, and won't even entertain the possibility of anything else.

Because, God says homosexuality is wrong.

[InSearchofGrace]

Originally Posted by rossum

Do you have a link to comparative divorce rates for countries/states which recognise same sex partnerships?

rossum

You directed your post to Elizabeth, but perhaps I can help.

You could google this (I would provide the link, but to cut/paste of links on iPad is a challenge).

Does the Legalization of Same-Sex Marriage or Civil Unions Affect Divorce Rates?
Jonathan Eggleston University of Virginia

As you will note, the analyst finds preliminary evidence suggesting that the marriage and divorce decisions of heterosexual couples are not affected by whether or not same-sex couples are allowed to form legal unions, basing on statistics in states with recognized same sex partnerships.

At the most, it appears, correlation, not causation, can be claimed.

Of interest is what the gay divorce data reveals, this one from

Learn how gay divorce affects the gay marriage debate and read about the first gay divorce cases in Massachusetts and Canada.

(I can't cut/paste the link but you can plug the phrase or sentence above in your search engine field.)

Massachusetts Gay Divorce**

Gay couples began seeking gay divorce around seven months after same sex marriages were legalized in Massachusetts. The concept of gay divorce was so unprecedented in the state that couples had to fill out obsolete forms that still read "husband" and "wife." The first gay divorce case in Suffolk County, which includes Boston, was filed a male couple who married five days after same sex marriage was legalized. The couple, a 33-year-old religious educator from Boston and a 39-year-old professor, were based in Washington. The couple cited that their relationship had 'irretrievably broken down' as the reason for divorce, stating that their interests had grown in different directions. The settlement focused on custody of their three cats, who will live exclusively with the professor. As part of the settlement the professor agreed to provide his ex-husband with regular updates on the cats 'in recognition of the emotional hardship of such relinquishment'. Hampshire County reported a divorce filing within two months of the first gay weddings. The state's largest county, Middlesex County, had its first gay divorce three months into the legalization, involving a 38-year-old and a 27-year-old. The older partner cited 'cruel and abusive treatment' as the reason for the break-up.*

Gay Break-Up Rates

There are no reliable gay divorce rates worldwide, as not all counties keep track of which divorce filings are from heterosexual and homosexual couples. In Massachusetts, when couples applied for divorce two months after gay marriage was legalized, opponents of gay marriage said the divorces, occurring so soon after the weddings, confirm that gay couples are not suited to marriage. One group stated that the gay men were too 'promiscuous' to make a marriage work.

The national divorce rate in the US is near 50 percent. Gay rights groups argue that mentioning gay divorce is a cheap shot. The gay divorce rate has little to do with gay marriage, as gay divorce is another rights issue.

Canada's First Gay Divorce

Canada's first gay marriage divorce was filed by one of the first gay couples to be married in Ontario. The couple was married a week after same-sex marriage was legalized in Ontario. They had been together for five years but separated five days after their wedding day.
Divorce laws had not been amended by that time to apply to same-sex couples, and still referred to spouses as 'a man and a woman who are married to each other.' The court had to defer the case until the Canadian Supreme Court ruled on the legality of gay marriages nationwide.

A media ban was instituted by the court to prevent publication of further details of the case.

Why Gay Couples Divorce

Many gay couples who married shortly after same sex marriage was legalized in their country waited years for their chance. Such couples might be thought to have a higher than usual level of commitment and stability. Yet gay and lesbian couples were divorcing just months after they married – or less.

Gay couples divorce for many reasons. Gay couples experience strong cultural pressures. Gay couples are also more likely to be two-income families with no children, which in the straight population have a higher risk of divorce. One of the less-thought-of reasons for gay marriage is to ensure that a couple in the process of break-up can access divorce courts.

As gay marriage is a relatively recent phenomenon, the gay divorce rate will not stabilize for a long time. Gay couples can only now access the streamlined legal processes that marriage and divorce provides. A study showed that the gay divorce rate for Dutch lesbian couples was higher than gay male couples, although the reason wasn't clear. Data from Nordic countries, where gay civil unions have been legal for more than a decade, also showed a slightly higher divorce rate for lesbians.

[St Francis]

Originally Posted by LostChemist

And all I see in your post is the notion that you think that you are right, that homosexuality is wrong, and won't even entertain the possibility of anything else. If you have a problem with what I think, then why are you responding?

Do you think you are right? Do you think those who disagree with you are wrong? In that case, why are you responding to us?

Times will change and what will happen to your beliefs if suddenly the Pope comes out in favor of gay marriage? I'm serious here. Let's say that one day he approves of it. Will you?

This cannot happen. It is like asking how we would react if 2+2 suddenly were to start equalling 5.

If you were to study the history of Catholic thought, you would find a consistency unequaled even in science, because not only is the Catholic Church dedicated to truth, it is protected by the Holy Spirit.

Being tolerant of others is not being lost. I choose not to condemn people for the choices they make. Just because I don't agree with it doesn't mean that I'm going to try to convince others that it's wrong. It right for them.

There are certain areas in which I am sure that you are happy that others in society refuse to tolerate any choice made by any person. Some choices are wrong. I bet that you would not "tolerate" your banker's taking money from your account whenever his gambling debts rose too high, would you? And you probably would not "tolerate" someone's stealing your car. And I bet you probably would not tolerate someone's beating a child on the street. You may even be happy about the fact that so many people have dedicated a lot of time to convincing people that those types of activity are, indeed, wrong.

I am willing to tolerate, in the Catholic sense which I described earlier, people's sexual activity when conducted in private. The unfortunate thing is that in requesting or demanding that homosexuals be able to marry, they are bringing their behavior out in public.

You are responding on this thread, presumably to convince us we are wrong, no? so you do sometimes forgo tolerance of other people's choices to try to convince them they are wrong.

Why do the rest of us care so much? Are they infringing upon your rights? How?

If you were to read the entire thread, you would find out.

[CopticChristian]

Originally Posted by LostChemist

To play devils advocate: what does society gain from marriage in general? To answer your question, I don't think that society has anything to gain (that I know of).

Lost,

You are. Do you believe in God?

Do you believe you were created?

Do you believe that there are truths that cannot change?

Do you belive in Magic?

Do you believe in the music that warms my soul?

[JimG]

What does society gain from marriage?

For one thing, it gains the next generation. Without the next generation, society dies out pretty quickly. With the next generation, there are future citizens and taxpayers. Because the next generation is conceived by a man and woman coming together in a marital union, mom and dad become their first educators. The family unit provides a great service to society. Without it, society melts into chaos, as it is now beginning to do with the continuing collapse of the family.

For an in-depth study of family and civilization, I'd recommend a book of the same name:
"Family and Civilization," by Carle C. Zimmerman.

[ekk1]

Originally Posted by livingwordunity

When the US Constitution was penned, marriage only had one meaning - a husband married to a wife, just as it had been all through the human history of the world. 50 years ago so-called "same-sex marriage" was never even a concept anywhere in the world or in human history. Homosexual behavior had been around since ancient times, but it was always acknowledged as lust and never as marriage.

When the Constitution was penned, women had no vote and African Americans could not enter the contract of marriage.

Is your point that women should be relieved of the right to vote, and that all marriages entered by African Americans should be annulled?

[InSearchofGrace]

Originally Posted by ekk1

When the Constitution was penned, women had no vote and African Americans could not enter the contract of marriage.*

Is your point that women should be relieved of the right to vote, and that all marriages entered by African Americans should be annulled?

How can you compare SS'M' rights to the legitimate struggle of African Americans for equality or by women in their movement to secure voting rights?

Sexual behavior or orientation, the latter a recent construct, is not equivalent to skin color pigment and sex as distinction between men and women, the basis that blacks and the fair sex had been separated as a class to discriminate.

The civil right of equal treatment cannot constitute social reality by declaration. Civil rights protections function to assure every citizen equal treatment under the law depending on what the material dispute in law is all about. Law that is just must begin by properly recognizing and distinguishing identities and differences in reality in order to be able to give each its legal due.

To argue that two same sex people who have not in the past been recognized as marriageable should now be recognized as marriage partner eligible, you must demonstrate that marriage law (not civil rights law) has overlooked or misidentified something that it should not have overlooked or misidentified.

Marriage law for thousands of years has concerned itself with a particular kind of enduring bond between a man and a woman that includes sexual intercourse—the kind of act that can, not always, lead to the woman's pregnancy. A homosexual relationship, regardless of how enduring it is as a bond of loving commitment, does not and cannot include sexual intercourse leading to pregnancy. Thus it is not marriage.

Political scientist James Skillen explained: to recognize in law the distinct character of a marriage relationship, which entails sexual intercourse, involves no discrimination of a civil rights kind against those whose bonds do not include sexual intercourse. Those who choose to live together in life-long homosexual relationships; or brothers and sisters who live together and take care of one another; or two friends of the same sex who are not sexually involved but share life together in the same home—all of these may be free to live as they do, and they suffer no civil rights discrimination by not being identified as marriages. A marriage and a homosexual relationship are two different kinds of relationships and it is a misuse of civil rights law to use that law to try to blot out the difference between two different kinds of things.

The question behind marriage is a structural one that precedes lawmaking. The argument about the structural identity of marriage is not a legal argument about how people should be treated within the bonds of that structure. Rather, it is about whether homosexual relationships should be identified as having the structure of marriage, and only after that can civil rights considerations emerge about how citizens should be treated fairly with respect to marriage.

Homosexual activists say that many aspects of their relationships are like marriage—having sexual play, living together, loving one another, etc.—and therefore they should be allowed to call their relationships marriages and be recognized by law as marriage partners. But this cannot be a proper legal matter until the empirical case has been made that a homosexual partnership and a marriage are indistinguishable. Otherwise, the appeal amounts to nothing more than a request that homosexual partners be allowed to call themselves what they want to call themselves regardless of the differences that exist in reality. The answer they want is for law making and adjudicating authorities to change the law based on the principle that reality is defined by the will and declarations of individuals, all of whom should be treated without discrimination.

Gays appeal for judges and lawmakers to ignore distinctions between homosexual and heterosexual relationships in order not to deny citizens the right to call things what they want to call them. It is a version of an appeal for the protection of free speech, and in this case it is a demand that the speech of particular persons carry the authority to define the structure of reality without regard to the basis of past legal judgments. The antidiscrimination principle is appealed to not in order to show that some married couples have previously been denied the recognition of their marriage. Rather the antidiscrimination principle is being used to ask that no citizen be denied the right to call something what he or she wants to call it.

If this happens, we will need to pay close attention to consequences. Judges and public officials will be required to recognize as a marriage any sexually intimate bond between two people who want to call themselves married. There will be no legal basis for restrictions against a homosexual couple obtaining children in ways that they choose. It will mean that when a mature mother and son, or father and daughter, or trio or quartet of partners come to the courts or to the marriage-license bureau to ask that their sexually active relationship be recognized as marriage, there will be no legal grounds of a non-arbitrary kind to reject the requests. Because if it is now arbitrary and unjust to recognize heterosexual marriage as something exclusive and different from homosexual relationships, then it will be arbitrary and unjust not to grant the request of other partners to call their sexually intimate and enduring relationships marriage.

Since legal declarations cannot turn reality into something it cannot become, a variety of conundrums, contradictions, and anomalies will inevitably arise.

Society as a whole needs to answer if SS'M' would be doing justice to reality and wishes to face the consequences.