Dreadsox said:
I think the statement you are referring to is one god awful blanket statement to make about the topic. In my opinion, it borders on a personal attack on people who are opposed to "gay" marriage.
For anyone who missed it, Dread's talking about my comment:
I suspect that many of those who oppose gay marriage do so out of nothing more than homophobia.
Why do I say this? Because frankly most of the arguments against gay marriage are based on the logic that it's wrong to be gay therefore it's wrong for gay people to marry. That
is homophobia. Homophobia is believing that it's wrong to be gay, it's believing that there is something wrong with a person because of their sexuality, it's believing that it is acceptable to discriminate against a person because of who they fall in love with.
Some people have said that they disagree with gay marriage because their religion leads them to believe that it's wrong to be gay. Do I disagree with them? Of course. Do I respect their right to believe that? Yes I do. I do not, however, respect their right to make their RELIGIOUS opinion into law.
What other arguments are there for forbidding gay marriage? The argument that two women or two men can't have a child together? I don't consider that a valid argument. For it to be valid the people making it would also have to oppose the marriage of any two people unable to have children together. They'd have to oppose the marriage of anyone who is unable to have children due to infertility, they'd have to oppose the marriage of anyone who made the decision that they do not wish to have children, they'd have to oppose the marriage of anyone who is too old to have children. The argument reduces marriage to nothing more than a means to produce and raise children and I'm sure everyone here has the sense to realise that a marriage based solely on that principle would be a miserable excuse for a marriage.
What are the other arguments? That gay marriage is harmful to society? How exactly? Produce your evidence, produce your statistics, produce some form of logical coherent argument, please. And since nobody has so far, forgive me for thinking the argument baseless and irrelevant.
Dread, it makes me laugh to see you call my comment a personal attack. A personal attack on who? Any sentence beginning with "I suspect" and referring not to
all but
many people is a pretty feeble personal attack if it even counts as such. You know what the real personal attacks in this argument are? The numerous occassions I've been called a "f**king dyke" or "dirty lesbian" because I dared to argue that people should not be discriminated against on the basis of who they fall in love with. The friend of mine who was punched in the face because she dared to stand up in a meeting and ask the people there why they believed she shouldn't be allowed to marry her girlfriend. Another friend who was attacked both verbally and physically as he was putting up posters advertising a lecture on the subject. Those are the personal attacks, not someone suggesting that homophobia is a motivation for
some of those who oppose gay marriage.
I'd go as far as suggesting that it's actually a fact that
some people who oppose gay marriage do so because of their homophobia. There are many people who argue that gay marriage is wrong because it is intrinsically wrong to be gay. Their argument is homophobic. And that's all I was suggesting, that
some people oppose gay marriage because they're homophobic. How that is a blanket statement, let alone a personal attack is beyond me.