Ignoring the LGBT issue, the “religious right” in this country is already trying to implement “Sharia” with regard to women’s rights to contraception, and yes, “abortion”, out to give “citizenship” to fertilized eggs no less. They sound like “Foghorn Leghorn”, but sadly, aren’t just cartoon characters.
Marriage has traditionally been a wide variety of things, in fact it’s been all over the map when you take the map into consideration. Men, women, multiples — if you think that the current definition is “it”, you’ve clearly never spent much time reading history or anthropology.
Nonsense again. I am looking up my reference (Sex, evolution, and behavior by Daly & Wilson), but as I recall a study of 847 human cultures found that 84% of them permitted polygyny (multiple wives), roughy 16% were monogamous, and four permitted polyandry (multiple husbands). Unlike most other species, the thing that stands out about humanity is its range of behavior.So your assertion that “marriage is between one man and one woman” simply does not hold up. And I’m not even getting into the question of homosexual marriages, which some studies indicate were held by the Catholic Church!Personally, I am happily monogamist, but I am not foolish enough to impose my preferences on the whole world and claim they are universal.
“The LORD GOD said it is SIN”According to your book of morals, not mine. Your same god said it’s perfectly OK to own slaves and beat them to near death. I shouldn’t have to abide by your beliefs to obtain equality any more than you should have to abide by mine.
Marriage is between one man and one woman, no Law will ever change thatThat is a stupid and false assertion. The definition of marriage has already changed several times in the US. Back in the dark days of slavery (which was perfectly okay according to your Bible), blacks were not allowed the benefit of marriage. Slave traders thought nothing of selling husbands and wives to different plantation owners. After slavery was abolished, inter-race marriages were illegal. Marriage was again redefined to include inter-race couples. The Bible’s King Salomon and King David both had many, many wives. Following suit, the Mormons originally defined marriage as between a man and as many women as he wanted. They redefined their idea of marriage in an attempt at wider public acceptance of their faith.All of that aside, you’re still judging marriage based on your faith. I have a right to my own beliefs and equality under the law.
Oh, just out of interest: speaking from a biology perspective, the idea that homosexuality “serves no purpose” is also either false or irrelevant, in much the same way that the idea that left-handedness vs. right-handedness “serves no purpose”. It appears that for some cases, at least, it is genetically linked to other traits that may be beneficial. For example, some genes associated with male homosexuality are also associated with greater female fertility (genes which have different effects in the different genders are actually common). Other studies have shown that homosexuality can be correlated with the fetal exposure to levels of hormones in the uterus — only partly genetic, but largely determined by fetal development. As such, it is entirely possible that it is a trait linked to fetal survival.
What I’m basically getting at is the fact that biology is complicated, and the trait is complicated, and evidence is complicated – and you can’t actually just claim that traits like this “serve no purpose.”
No, not circular – it’s a biologist way of underlining the fact that the behavior and the neurological underlay of the identifying behavior are two different things:
1. the neurological state exists independently of whether or not it is acted on (people can be sexually attracted to the same sex even if they never have that kind of sexual relationship, and even if they indeed have a sexual relationship with the opposite sex, but the neurology is still that of homosexuality),
2. and in fact (come to that) people can act out the behavior without having the underlying neurological state (see, for example, the faux-lesbian sex that features in porn).
The behavior is usually because of the neurological state, and it is how the neurological state is identified. But not the same thing. Does that explain it better?
Primarily and traditionally sexual attraction has been measured by relying on relatively crude measures of arousal, questionnaires designed to quietly trick people into revealing honest replies, and by self-reporting, and brain correlates have been examined by physiological measures usually only available at autopsy*; but these days that’s backed up by various and assorted slightly more sophisticated measures of sexual interest and arousal (plus fMRI, these days).
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*Actually, I really do recommend Chandler Burr’s book, it’s a fascinating read.
charliekane about 11 years ago
;^)
nz4m60 about 11 years ago
Huh?
Dtroutma about 11 years ago
Ignoring the LGBT issue, the “religious right” in this country is already trying to implement “Sharia” with regard to women’s rights to contraception, and yes, “abortion”, out to give “citizenship” to fertilized eggs no less. They sound like “Foghorn Leghorn”, but sadly, aren’t just cartoon characters.
Odon Premium Member about 11 years ago
Chuckle, chuckle…
Mickey 13 about 11 years ago
I presume this means same sex relationships are a violation of Sharia law? That wouldn’t surprise me…
lbatik about 11 years ago
Marriage has traditionally been a wide variety of things, in fact it’s been all over the map when you take the map into consideration. Men, women, multiples — if you think that the current definition is “it”, you’ve clearly never spent much time reading history or anthropology.
lbatik about 11 years ago
YOUR god, YOUR rules. Leave the rest of us out of it.
Motivemagus about 11 years ago
ZING!!!
Motivemagus about 11 years ago
Nonsense again. I am looking up my reference (Sex, evolution, and behavior by Daly & Wilson), but as I recall a study of 847 human cultures found that 84% of them permitted polygyny (multiple wives), roughy 16% were monogamous, and four permitted polyandry (multiple husbands). Unlike most other species, the thing that stands out about humanity is its range of behavior.So your assertion that “marriage is between one man and one woman” simply does not hold up. And I’m not even getting into the question of homosexual marriages, which some studies indicate were held by the Catholic Church!Personally, I am happily monogamist, but I am not foolish enough to impose my preferences on the whole world and claim they are universal.
Jason Allen about 11 years ago
“The LORD GOD said it is SIN”According to your book of morals, not mine. Your same god said it’s perfectly OK to own slaves and beat them to near death. I shouldn’t have to abide by your beliefs to obtain equality any more than you should have to abide by mine.
Jason Allen about 11 years ago
Marriage is between one man and one woman, no Law will ever change thatThat is a stupid and false assertion. The definition of marriage has already changed several times in the US. Back in the dark days of slavery (which was perfectly okay according to your Bible), blacks were not allowed the benefit of marriage. Slave traders thought nothing of selling husbands and wives to different plantation owners. After slavery was abolished, inter-race marriages were illegal. Marriage was again redefined to include inter-race couples. The Bible’s King Salomon and King David both had many, many wives. Following suit, the Mormons originally defined marriage as between a man and as many women as he wanted. They redefined their idea of marriage in an attempt at wider public acceptance of their faith.All of that aside, you’re still judging marriage based on your faith. I have a right to my own beliefs and equality under the law.
Motivemagus about 11 years ago
How many states still have sodomy laws on the books?
markjoseph125 about 11 years ago
“My interpretation of the holy book of the religion I’ve chosen says that it’s a sin.”There, FIFY.
lbatik about 11 years ago
Oh, just out of interest: speaking from a biology perspective, the idea that homosexuality “serves no purpose” is also either false or irrelevant, in much the same way that the idea that left-handedness vs. right-handedness “serves no purpose”. It appears that for some cases, at least, it is genetically linked to other traits that may be beneficial. For example, some genes associated with male homosexuality are also associated with greater female fertility (genes which have different effects in the different genders are actually common). Other studies have shown that homosexuality can be correlated with the fetal exposure to levels of hormones in the uterus — only partly genetic, but largely determined by fetal development. As such, it is entirely possible that it is a trait linked to fetal survival.
What I’m basically getting at is the fact that biology is complicated, and the trait is complicated, and evidence is complicated – and you can’t actually just claim that traits like this “serve no purpose.”
lbatik about 11 years ago
Oh, right, I forgot. Same as the whole issue of evolution or climate change, right.
lbatik about 11 years ago
Oh, yes, of course. Anything which suggests that trickle-down economics doesn’t work MUST be wrong.
lbatik about 11 years ago
No, not circular – it’s a biologist way of underlining the fact that the behavior and the neurological underlay of the identifying behavior are two different things:
1. the neurological state exists independently of whether or not it is acted on (people can be sexually attracted to the same sex even if they never have that kind of sexual relationship, and even if they indeed have a sexual relationship with the opposite sex, but the neurology is still that of homosexuality),
2. and in fact (come to that) people can act out the behavior without having the underlying neurological state (see, for example, the faux-lesbian sex that features in porn).
The behavior is usually because of the neurological state, and it is how the neurological state is identified. But not the same thing. Does that explain it better?
lbatik about 11 years ago
Primarily and traditionally sexual attraction has been measured by relying on relatively crude measures of arousal, questionnaires designed to quietly trick people into revealing honest replies, and by self-reporting, and brain correlates have been examined by physiological measures usually only available at autopsy*; but these days that’s backed up by various and assorted slightly more sophisticated measures of sexual interest and arousal (plus fMRI, these days).
-———————————-
*Actually, I really do recommend Chandler Burr’s book, it’s a fascinating read.