new thread
I was wondering about everybodies opinion on gay marrige? Also, I've noticed gay men tend to have short hair, why? Just asking
Luna
Marriage is a relationship. It's really not about politics. If it were only to bear children or only for the religious then many straight people would be/should be banned from being able to marry.
Who is going to decide who can have a relationship and why would they want to do that to other people?
Marriage is not a mandate, it's an option that can be/is adjusted across societies and ages. People don't have to get married although some religions try to require it's adherents to follow that practice.
Gay men tend to prefer short hair because that is the stereotypical image of a man in this current society, which other gay men like.
You can do what you like with your life and if a government is going to go out of it's way to recognize and support the marriage choice for one group of people then in a democracy it will need to do the same for other groups as well.
Being only 15, I have only a small idea of the world so...don't critize me harshly.
First, I agree with the idea that "gay men tend to perfer short hair because this is the stereotypical image." But always remember stereotypes are often misleading and inaccurate.
Second, I'm surprise to be reading this kind of a topic on a long-hair board.
Now, it's time for me to put my 2 cents worth in.
I live in Canada and we have had "gay marriages" around for a little more than a year. I think the protests are starting to settle down, but it was a very hot topic before with politicans. It even looked before that it would even become a election issue.
I follow the (Catholic) church very closely, and I had a lot of reading before I could really understand what they were coming from. But this is a hair hyperboard and not a religious or political board so I'm not going to explain it (unless you really want to hear the real deal in which I have to go look up all the books again). But the church has to support what it thinks is moral and to make it's voice heard.
The Catholic church doesn't recongize gay marriages.
I still don't think the government had the right to change a deeply religious term...that marriage is a union between two persons. That the government should have simply created another term and given the same rights and freedoms as do married people.
I agree with Bush when he said that it would be uncontiutional for marriage to be two persons.
If it were only to bear children or only for the religious then many straight people would be/should be banned from being able to marry.
At our church, before you can be married you have to complete a marriage course and be aproved I think. Have to check on that.
~~Rich
Men tend to be attracted to stereotypical women as opposed to women who don't "fit the social ideal".
Female bodybuilder vs. cheerleader, Russian farm worker vs. fashion model, computer geek vs. party girl...etc.
Not so much here but we are people here too and the act of growing one's hair long tends to go against social norms enough that it can touch on other topics at times.
That's pretty good if you have an understanding of where the CC is coming from because there are a great many things that the CC does and says that don't make a lot of sense to me.
You are correct that this is not a religious board but religion does weigh in often enough as there are many religious and many non-religious people here who from day to day can run into issues that where their hair seems to clash with religious beliefs in their communities.
Religions can support what they like for themselves but have no right and "morally" should not try to force those ideals/morals/beliefs on other people who don't share their intrest in a mythical diety.
The CC supposedly doesn't recognize divorce, having sex other than to reproduce, or (as the pope put it) the right for a man to lust after his wife...and a host of other things that has to do with only the choices thay want for their own lives. There are a great many different people in this world and not all of them are from the CC. The CC isn't the only belief system/culture/etc. that practices marriage.
Marriage isn't just a religious term. You can go and get married by a justice of the peace without a bit of religion involved.
Why make up a new name if it's the same thing? So you can tell the difference and then not treat it the same?
Again you assume that marriage is and can only can be a religious thing. Church courses are meant only for their own adherents and can be strange (criteria that may or may not mean much or address real issues)as well as not very effective (wrong people get together and people still do "bad" things) .
Many straight people, religious and non-religious, get married without the intention of ever having children...and then there are those who cannot reproduce (which was my point before). There are even a good number of people who get married who don't even want to (for a variety of reasons).
You are right to realize that you are still young and have a lot to learn about the world but it seems that at this time in your life the CC is a major part of your reality and that is fine but you may need to step away from it at some point to get a better view of other things than the CC around you. It's nothing to be afraid of.
Very well said m'love. :)
Wow...a lot to respond to.
Sure. But personally, I'd rather talk to someone like a computer geek than a party girl. It's always hard to come up with a nice set of rules for society.
Social norms are always changing. I think I would have received more critism if I grew my hair out 2 or 3 years ago.
You never know when short hair will go against social norms.
You know, I never really understood everything they were talking about in the papers. The papers aren't going to publish the long explainations. They just want to make money. It's important to read it from the source instead of reading distorted reports. Think of it as a photocopy. When you make a copy of copy and repeat the process over and over, eventually the quality is gone.
A Summary From the CCCB.
-homosexuals do not chose their "condition"
-"They must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity."
-"Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided."
-they are called to fulfill God's will in their lives
-homosexuals are called to chastity
-"By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer, and sacramental grace, they can and should gradualy and resolutely approach Christian perfection."
I don't really agree that it's a "condition". And what is God's will? I don't have it written down.
But do you notice, that the CC calls for no discrimination.
You're right.
Then how come people can force other political opinions on either other (because some opinions can be morally based).
This is going out of the scope of the topic of gay marriages.
The CC doesn't recognize divorce. They only believe in having one marriage. You have a marriage annuled meaning that it never existed. The judgment is made by a panel of priests. For example, the Anglican church was founded by King Henry VII because he wanted to remarry (I believe that would be his first wife because she couldn't bear a child), but the CC would not grant the annulment.
But didn't marriage orignate from religion? Then the government wanted you to register?
You make up a new name because it's not the same thing. But of course, then you get discrimination. You can't justify that, but we find this all the time in the government. The police departments now have racial profiling. Isn't that discriminating?
I do know that you can get married not in a church. For gay marriages, they have to get married and register at City Hall.
I think the reasoning for the marriage courses is to prepare the couple. To help improve conflict resolution, trust, and communication skills. All which we can improve upon.
I talked to my teachers about it, of course people get married for different reasons. I remember one stating that society shouldn't put so much stress on getting married. That you can live a full and happy life not married. And people shouldn't think in stereotypes of the bachelor or a single female.
Of course the CC is important to me. It fulfills an important aspect to me. But even though I'm involved, I still like learning about other religions, and I am part of groups in other churches. I even did a documentary for telelvision.
Unfortunately, (right again) you have caught at the wrong year. Next year would be world religion studies so I don't fully understand middle eastern religions very well. But I'm sure they are full well founded virtues. Many of these religions have been around longer than the CC.
I wonder what other religions say about it?
Hopefully, people will not attack again. I didn't mean to strike a nerve. I guess I can be controversal. Do I fall under a stereotypical right-wing, religious freek which is only an annoyance to the public? (Of which the Toronto Star stated CC was...an annoyance for speaking out)
No one here is attacking you, just respoding to your post. Anyone who posts here can get responses.
You don't have to respond to everything but I like that you do because in some threads people will say things and they never follow up or respond to any of the relevant questions asked of them.
That can vary from community to community and country to country (even religion to religion).
Nothing is the same for everyone across the board and there are many opinions about everything. But calling for no descrimination and treating people like they are different and need to change are two different things.
They can only do that because they live in a democracy...or if they are in power in something other than a democracy. Asserting you opinion and forcing it can be different but if it is a "moral" opinion then they should make sure that their "morals" are really what people would call good and not just convienent for their belief system.
Maybe it did and maybe it didn’t. If you are talking about the CC marriage ceremony then that may be true but there have been thousands of other religions over time that were different and other cultures and civilizations that didn’t do things like some of us do things now. I don’t think that anyone can trace it back to anything. What it boils down to is that marriage is just a form of a relationship between people. Whether is started as the simple survival instinct to reproduce (male-female sexual relationship) or in the spirit of companionship or ownership/economic survival, the idea of marriage keeps changing to suit human’s needs. Only in recent times has the idea that a government can be separate from the church come into being. Even in the United States the government, though set up to function apart from a ruling religious body, has not been able to always separate itself from religious influence due to many of it’s people and most of it’s politicians wanting their religious values to be followed by everyone else. We are in changing times (as always).
Mmmmm, yes. Life is never black & white but things can get better or worse little by little.
One would hope but the statistics don’t really say much about it’s success. Not that it’s faulty but maybe the instution of marriage just isn’t really all that natural for humans although they keep trying to fit themselves in it.
I agree, I reject the idea of marriage for myself for a couple of different reasons.
Stereotypes will never go away, they provide a simple if poor way for some people to try and understand other different people.
That is good, you should know more about what other people believe. World religion classes don’t always get very deep into material because it tries to cover so much (of the main religions at least) but it is still useful knowledge as long as it doesn’t try to compare them to the beliefs of the people in the class.
Know also that there is the option of non-belief in deities. Some people don’t tell you that you have this option in life and if I do say so myself it is a good option to explore (if you are interested in learning lots of stuff).
The church - catholic or otherwise - is free to hold whatever opinion it likes and its followers choose to abide by its teachings and rules. The church however, should have no say (other than that any of us have through lobbying and the ballot box) in governance of the country. I am not a believer - therefore it would be wrong for religious groups to use the law to impose their "morality" on me just as it would be for me to expect to impose mine on others. The French have it absolutely right - religion is kept separate from secular government. In other words, the opposite of what you are saying. The government must be free to operate without interference from the church. If you want an extreme example of how this can go horribly wrong, look no further than the middle east.
Bottom line - it is not up to the church to decide who will or will not have permission to marry - it doesn't have the authority. If gays wish to marry, so be it.
lol...I didn't think I would have to sit down and actually have to argue the point. (I really don't have the time for it...but I'm sure you really want a reply.)
The church doesn't have any power in the government, it is more as you put it, a lobbying group. However, in the foundings of Canada, the Church would have even had more of an influence. A prime example of this would have been Quebec before the Quiet Revolution. (There is no longer the bishop.)
I love how you say that the government should be seperate from the Church, although on every piece of US currency there is "In God WE trust."
The church doesn't have a say who the government can marry, but the Church has a say of whom can be married in the Church.
In the U.S. religious groups have quite a bit of power. They form lobby groups and back politicians...all of who are religious (except for the Governor of Minnesota), and almost across the board are Christian (there used to be and still are a few now out of date laws on the books here that forbid Atheists from holding government positions).
Keep in mind too that in the United Nations (countries of the world represented) the Vatican (religious group) has it's own seat. Does that make sense? They are not a country and they are the only religious group out of thousands around the world that is "represented".
That is an issue in itself. (time for some U.S. history)
This is the result of a religious group taking clear control of the government. Have you heard of McCarthyism? This is the name give to an effort during a time period (the 50's) when some very motivated Christian politicians pushed their religious agenda on the American people under the guise of the Cold War.
A strict sense of "moralism" was put into policy and anyone who didn't fit that was put under suspicion and even arrested. This included Communists, Atheists, homosexuals, film makers, artists, photographers, etc.
The line was that it was to combat Communism (the new word for devil) and anyone who didn't go along was a Communist sympathizer and could be blacklisted and/or jailed. Of course most Atheists, homosexuals, film makers, artists, and photographers were not Communists but that didn't much matter. Lives and careers were destroyed regardless.
Anyway, to make a long historical account short, one of the things that McCarthy and his crew put into place was labeling all our money with "In God We Trust" AND putting the words "under god" into the already existing Pledge of Allegiance, also encouraging it to be a daily ritual for school children.
That is where that came from and not all Americans agree with it but when the government even favors a religion things like this start to happen and it's difficult to reverse when there are so many religious people who support it and often don't even know how it came to be.
It goes on and on. The ultimate problem with church and state being intertwined is seen in countries such as Iran and Afghanistan were there has become no separate distinction and the government enforces and prosecutes individuals who violate religious laws. If you think that this isn't so bad then just imagine if it was not your religion in power. The separation in our democratic government allows all religions to practice what they want...and also allows for those who don't want to practice your religion or that religion over there.
And that is as much as the church should be concerned with. Let those who don't share their particular set of beliefs have their own marriage so supposedly committed relationships can be equal.
But the government shouldn't be able to say who can get married either , it's not their business...but right now they ARE saying who can and cannot get married.
That is nothing new. In US history, there was a big dispute when the government attacked the Mormon church for practicing polygamy--a husband to have more than one wife. The government considered it criminal and made polygamy a crime. I wonder when the government started keeping records on marriage? It seems the local church was the one doing that until the US government decided to get involved. It probably started with the local and state governments making marriage laws, but now the issue may grow into having the federal government make the marriage laws.
Unfortunately (as HR points out) the church does have power in government. I recall George Bush playing the Jesus hand during his election campaign and our own dear Tony does likewise. Also our monarch is the defender of the faith - that is; protestant christianity. It invades our political landscape and influences political decisions. George Bush's recent pronouncements on gay marriage is both religious and political. Yet it is no one's concern but those involved. Why should there be a law against it, if not motivated by religious fundamentalism?
Fortunately in the UK the church of England is becoming increasingly irrelevant and having less direct effect on policy. Not least because it can't come to terms with the prospect of gay bishops. Now, come on, the church has been around long enough for a few of those to have slipped through - it's just that they didn't come out before. There is a common sence answer to this, but the bigots can't overcome their bigotry, so the hand wringing will go on, and on, and on....
Unfortunately, the vacuum created by its decline is in danger of being filled by more extreme religious groups.
The question, here, though, is not should gays be married in church, but should they marry. I did not marry in church as to do so would have been arrant hypocricy (I despise the church and all that it represents) and I have no problem with the church not wishing to marry me in their establishment. I would have a huge problem if it decided that I should not marry at all because I do not conform to its principles. That is what is happening here with government and church deciding that sexuality is a bar to marriage.
Ya, I heard one Christian fundamentalist who is always one the cable news shows say in regards to gay marriage, "Let's not make marriage about sex".
If I had been drinking something at the time I might have choked.
I just choked on my coffee reading that :-)
The real question is why should anyone give a damn about two people of the same sex being recognized as married under the law? If that can't be answered without resorting to theology or morality based on religious principles, then it's illogical to even try and prevent gay marriage.
The problem is that the political desire to protect the "sanctity" of marriage is based entirely on moral principles, which are derived from Judeo-Christian teaching and mythology. Unless I'm mistaken, that's a violation of church and state.
As for my own opinion, I say we should allow gays to marry.
I agree
Totally Agree!!!
In Ancient greece it was perfectly fine to be gay. Actually, it was encouraged to be have a same sex partner for men, because to them women were inferior to them. SO, it seemed 'proper' to be with someone who was an equal to you, which would be a male. Read Platp's the Symposium, they discuss that.
SO IMHO I think that two people showing their love to one another is not wrong. This whole fiasco has come about because of the insecurity and close mindedness of the amrican public.
I think it should be allowed, and since it's now allowed in Canada, that will force the US and other countries to at least recognise it. I think the ancient Greek justification for it is about as bad as the Judeo-Christian line against it, though.
Maybe taxes need to be rethought as well, as I'm not sure two gay men really merit a married tax break. Nor do a childless straight couple either, IMHO.
BTW, I'm straight. I think that if only gay people posted this viewpoint it might not carry much weight.
What, pray tell, could have possibly given you the impression that I or any of the others who've contributed to this topic, so far, are gay?
That's what I was thinking...
Maybe he didn't mean the discussions that were happening on this board, but on other discussion boards. Could be?
This is a free country (U.S.A.). as are many other.....
To each their own way of life.
I am divorced now, was married for 28+ years.
I am not gay. I am me. I am growing out my hair.
Currently I am 52+ years of age.
I have thoughts of my sexual life with my former spouse, a female of
comparable age as I am.
I have interesting thoughts of what I would be like if I was gay.
Not bad either.!!!!!!!!!!!!
Each to their own way of life.
Nothing. I just think that pointing out that I'm not gives my point of view more weight. I didn't mean to offend anyone.
None taken, but the sexuel preference of anyone voicing an opinion on this issue shouldn't have any more or less weight than that of anyone else.
You said it. 'Land of the Free' my @$$. In my country, one can be arrested for slandering the name of God; laws like these FORCE everyone to live as Judeo-Christians regardless of their personal beliefs, values, and concepts of morality.
This is a sensible question.
Every one has the right to believe in religion or reject religion. Gay mariages are a religious issue.
I guess marriage can't be cheerful, bright and gay. Will weddings have to be somber, sad, and gloomy, thus depression forever after?
I don't care about same-sex marriage issue. If you are gay wanting to marry, go to an attorney to put all your and your spouse's property in common property, and find a church that recognizes same-sex marriage to do the wedding--Since when did the government get into the business of keeping marriage records anyway?
This gay marriage thing is only a political issue being driven for television addicted popular audiences that can't get enough action (violence) and sex (rape). Just shut the damn boob tube (television) off!
For starters, here are some real issues to study:
1, Whether to protect jobs and wage equality in the USA (at the expenses of a trade deficit, weak dollar, more expensive gas and major shortages of goods) or continue globalization allowing the average person to get more goods for less money (at the expenses of more jobs competition, wage inequality in the USA and other developed countries until developing countries reach our standard of living).
2, Whether we should direct the "diversity mania" give some attention to Italian, French, Spanish, Dutch, Irish, Finnish, Swedish, Greek and Russian (so we could do better at marketing American-made products to Europe, balance trade and keep the dollar stable), or if we should continue to forget European culture (at the expense of not being able to market US-made goods to Europe, thus allowing the trade deficit with Europe to get worse, the Euro to get stronger, the dollar to get weaker and the price of gas to go up to $7.50 per gallon).
3, All people should have freedom of choice of hair styles, hats and headdress, regardless of marital status, sexual orientation or religious beliefs.