Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Without reading the rest of the thread which I imagine is a flame war I am answering only the OP and will not be responding further. Been trying to stay out of these threads as I get pissed off about them easily.

"I do not believe in gay marriage." is not a bigoted statement in itself. Actually not accepting your co-workers belief is bigotry on your part. People are allowed to believe what they believe. Now if they were actively being slanderous about it then yes, you can throw out the B word. We live in a country where each of us has a say on how we want the country to be run and look like. Usually the majority wins, in this case it has not, the silent majority really didn't care enough to fight and the loud minority with Hollywood as its propaganda machine won and now we have gay marriage. Does not affect the marriage to my wife one way or the other and that's kind of how most people I know feel even if they are against it and thus isn't worth fighting it. Note at the time the fight was going on, they kept trumpeting a stat that the majority of Americans agreed with it. Well come to find out, the guy who did the research and came up with the stat purposely fudged the numbers in his favor. That man was castigated and will never work in academia again, that part wasn't publicized. In that community, his name is right up there with the guy who said vaccines cause autism and made up a study about it. My wife's career is with dealing with statistical research and while she does believe in gay marriage as does most of the ivory tower, the academic world takes number doctoring fanatically seriously.

Outside of a civilized debate, if he was trying to ram his opinion down your throat, telling you "you were wrong" then yes that's going a bit far. On the same token, trying to force your opinion down his throat and calling him names you would be wrong as well. Everyone is allowed an opinion even if you disagree with it, something the intolerant left needs to learn.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
That is absolute nonsense. In fact, virtually all claims of the structure "every X is Y" generally come down to just being a load of prejudiced nonsense.
To proof this claim you would need to list every single argument against gay marriage ever made in the history of man, and then prove for every single argument that it is either open hatred or absurd. Do you now see why this claim of yours is untenable?

Do you really think that nitpicking the ultra-literal definition of "every argument" is a persuasive argument?

Yes, because that was you claimed. If that wasn't what you wanted to claim, then you should not have said it.

 Peregrine wrote:
I suppose I will concede that it is theoretically possible that someone, somewhere in the world once made an argument that isn't either open hatred or absurd, but can we limit this discussion to the arguments that have actually been part of the political debate over gay marriage?

We can, but you'd still need to proof that. Not all arguments against gay marriage are born from hatred. Many are born from discomfort, concern or simply a different system of normative values than yours.
Take Pope Francis for example. He opposes gay marriage, but he most certainly does not hate gay people or anything. Can you proof that Francis' arguments are born from hatred?
http://irishcatholic.ie/article/same-sex-marriage-debate-5

 Peregrine wrote:

That is a red herring. Homosexuality and race are not the same thing, they are very much different issues.

Why? Do you actually have an argument for why they are different, besides "I don't like being associated with racists"?

Yes. The argument is really simple.
Race and sex are not the same thing. The circumstances and possible moral objections for marriage in relation to race and marriage in relation to sex are completely different. There is no real, significant difference between people of different race. Therefore there is no possible rational argument to be made against interracial marriage. Because a black man is fundamentally the same as a white man and a black woman is fundamentally the same as a white woman, interracial marriage is not any different from a not-interracial marriage. Between sexes on the other hand there is huge difference. Man and woman are very different. A marriage between a man and woman therefore is something fundamentally different than a marriage between two men or a marriage between two women.

I understood Manchu like that: You can find that something is "wrong", in the meaning of "going against the rules that I chose to live by".
That does not mean "I hate it".
It just means "for all people following my rules, or even only for myself, this is something that should not be done, i.e. I or we should not do that."
There is not necessarily a "THEY should not do that".

I think, in theory, it should be ok for a religious cult to say "we shall only religiously wed people if they adhere to our rules". As long as there is no discrimination in the socio-political, public sphere.The problem is: where does the private/religious end and the public start? And no proper religion can accept a limitation to the private.
And what about members of the cult who do not agree with the (full) dogma? Is religious dogma fixed or can it be fixed?

How can humans cope with that dilemma? With tolerance, common sense and pragmatism, i.e. with an agreement to disagree and not get all fussy about it.

Obviously, most people who are against gay marriage are anti-gay, i.e. they think it is wrong (for whichever reasons), they are intolerant to gayness and they think they are entitled to decide in that matter.

Still, there is a possibility that someone said "your style of life is your choice and I will not interfere with it" but think to himself "this is not how I would want to live my life".

Tolerance is not accepting things you agree with but accepting things you do NOT agree with (but that do not hurt other people or yourself either).

Obviously again, since gay marriage by definition does not hurt anyone else directly by any meaningful definition, the moral burden of tolerance is on the others.

Col. Dash wrote:
Without reading the rest of the thread which I imagine is a flame war I am answering only the OP and will not be responding further. Been trying to stay out of these threads as I get pissed off about them easily.

"I do not believe in gay marriage." is not a bigoted statement in itself. Actually not accepting your co-workers belief is bigotry on your part. People are allowed to believe what they believe. Now if they were actively being slanderous about it then yes, you can throw out the B word. We live in a country where each of us has a say on how we want the country to be run and look like. Usually the majority wins, in this case it has not, the silent majority really didn't care enough to fight and the loud minority with Hollywood as its propaganda machine won and now we have gay marriage. Does not affect the marriage to my wife one way or the other and that's kind of how most people I know feel even if they are against it and thus isn't worth fighting it. Note at the time the fight was going on, they kept trumpeting a stat that the majority of Americans agreed with it. Well come to find out, the guy who did the research and came up with the stat purposely fudged the numbers in his favor. That man was castigated and will never work in academia again, that part wasn't publicized. In that community, his name is right up there with the guy who said vaccines cause autism and made up a study about it. My wife's career is with dealing with statistical research and while she does believe in gay marriage as does most of the ivory tower, the academic world takes number doctoring fanatically seriously.

Outside of a civilized debate, if he was trying to ram his opinion down your throat, telling you "you were wrong" then yes that's going a bit far. On the same token, trying to force your opinion down his throat and calling him names you would be wrong as well. Everyone is allowed an opinion even if you disagree with it, something the intolerant left needs to learn.

So what guy did the research? without a name it seems highly doubtful just one man fudged the numbers. With all the polls being ran it is entirely likely that the majority of americans actually agreed with it and there was no need to fudge the numbers.

Yes the majority usually wins, that is why we have courts. Far to often the majority has tried to enact laws to discriminate against minorities.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
That is absolute nonsense. In fact, virtually all claims of the structure "every X is Y" generally come down to just being a load of prejudiced nonsense.
To proof this claim you would need to list every single argument against gay marriage ever made in the history of man, and then prove for every single argument that it is either open hatred or absurd. Do you now see why this claim of yours is untenable?

Do you really think that nitpicking the ultra-literal definition of "every argument" is a persuasive argument?

Yes, because that was you claimed. If that wasn't what you wanted to claim, then you should not have said it.

 Peregrine wrote:
I suppose I will concede that it is theoretically possible that someone, somewhere in the world once made an argument that isn't either open hatred or absurd, but can we limit this discussion to the arguments that have actually been part of the political debate over gay marriage?

We can, but you'd still need to proof that. Not all arguments against gay marriage are born from hatred. Many are born from discomfort, concern or simply a different system of normative values than yours.
Take Pope Francis for example. He opposes gay marriage, but he most certainly does not hate gay people or anything. Can you proof that Francis' arguments are born from hatred?
http://irishcatholic.ie/article/same-sex-marriage-debate-5

 Peregrine wrote:

That is a red herring. Homosexuality and race are not the same thing, they are very much different issues.

Why? Do you actually have an argument for why they are different, besides "I don't like being associated with racists"?

Yes. The argument is really simple.
Race and sex are not the same thing. The circumstances and possible moral objections for marriage in relation to race and marriage in relation to sex are completely different. There is no real, significant difference between people of different race. Therefore there is no possible rational argument to be made against interracial marriage. Because a black man is fundamentally the same as a white man and a black woman is fundamentally the same as a white woman, interracial marriage is not any different from a not-interracial marriage. Between sexes on the other hand there is huge difference. Man and woman are very different. A marriage between a man and woman therefore is something fundamentally different than a marriage between two men or a marriage between two women.

You are not getting the point. The point was not "sex and race are the same".

The point was "the argumentative structure / logic of people opposed to same-sex marriage is similar to those who oppose(d) interracial marriage".

I.e. people claiming that it was unnatural, against their belief and leading to moral bancruptcy of society, that it was leftist ideas destroying the moral foundations, etc pp.

There are no scientific reasons against one or the other. There are only moral (or moralistic) reasons for or against it.

 redleger wrote:
I am opposed to you going to church. I do not think religion is a good thing. I fail to recognize your right to go to church.

TBH I can imagine non-hateful motivations for that position. But even so - it's the wrong analogy. The key issue is legal rights, not private relationships. So a correct analogy would be, for example: "I am opposed to churches having tax exempt status." And that position surely does not require a hateful motivation.

 treslibras wrote:
There is not necessarily a "THEY should not do that".

When we're talking about the religious side of things, yes that accurately reflects my views except that I would go so far as to say, well even if my co-religionist wants to do XYZ, fine - but don't expect the community of all the faithful to validate that. Personally, I have no interest in judging anyone's "sins"; that's solely a matter of their conscience, so far as I'm concerned, not to mention far beyond my capacity. But - when it comes to the realm of politics and creating and expanding legal rights, that's where things become a matter of concern for the society at large.

 treslibras wrote:
The point was "the argumentative structure / logic of people opposed to same-sex marriage is similar to those who oppose(d) interracial marriage".

No - the point is an ad hominem attack. Here's another example: "Peregrine argues like a Nazi and if he doesn't like being associated with Nazis then he shouldn't make the same kinds of arguments." See, the point of this kind of rhetoric is to discredit the character of the poster rather than the substance of their posts. Notice the same posters who use that tactic also like the "unless you agree with me on X, you are a bigot" tactic.

 Manchu wrote:

 redleger wrote:
I am opposed to you going to church. I do not think religion is a good thing. I fail to recognize your right to go to church.

TBH I can imagine non-hateful motivations for that position. But even so - it's the wrong analogy. The key issue is legal rights, not private relationships. So a correct analogy would be, for example: "I am opposed to churches having tax exempt status." And that position surely does not require a hateful motivation.

 treslibras wrote:
There is not necessarily a "THEY should not do that".

When we're talking about the religious side of things, yes that accurately reflects my views except that I would go so far as to say, well even if my co-religionist wants to do XYZ, fine - but don't expect the community of all the faithful to validate that. Personally, I have no interest in judging anyone's "sins"; that's solely a matter of their conscience, so far as I'm concerned, not to mention enormously complicated. When it comes to the realm of politics and creating and expanding legal rights, however, that's where things become a matter of concern for the society at large.

 treslibras wrote:
The point was "the argumentative structure / logic of people opposed to same-sex marriage is similar to those who oppose(d) interracial marriage".

No - the point is an ad hominem attack. Here's another example: "Peregrine argues like a Nazi and if he doesn't like being associated with Nazis then he shouldn't make the same kinds of arguments." See, the point of this kind of rhetoric is to discredit the character of the poster rather than the substance of their posts. Notice the same posters who use that tactic also like the "unless you agree with me on X, you are a bigot" tactic.

except no legal rights were created nor expanded. That's a lie known bigots use to deny rights to others. This is where I start to suspect your motives for your position. People have the legal right to get married, no new rights were created nor expanded.

for your nazi example the proper analogy would be "X doesn't think he's a nazi, he just quotes mien kamph as justification for his ideas." While X might not be speaking from a position of hatred, it's does call into question the motives by quoting hitler.

Yes I would consider him bigoted. He is really saying I don't like Gay people in a indirect sort of way. LGBT is the new scapegoat for what's wrong with society.

In another generation people won't care as much. Might as well say "I don't believe in multi-racial marriage" as people said two generations ago or "I don't believe in non-segratated schools" as my grandparents generation said.

sirlynchmob wrote:
except no legal rights were created nor expanded

False. Same-sex couples formerly did not enjoy the right to legally marry. Now they do. This is either a creation of a right or an expansion.

sirlynchmob wrote:
for your nazi example the proper analogy

It wasn't an analogy. You failed to address the actual analogy:

 Manchu wrote:

 redleger wrote:
I am opposed to you going to church. I do not think religion is a good thing. I fail to recognize your right to go to church.

TBH I can imagine non-hateful motivations for that position. But even so - it's the wrong analogy. The key issue is legal rights, not private relationships. So a correct analogy would be, for example: "I am opposed to churches having tax exempt status." And that position surely does not require a hateful motivation.

 Manchu wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:
except no legal rights were created nor expanded

False. Same-sex couples formerly did not enjoy the right to legally marry. Now they do. This is either a creation of a right or an expansion.

sirlynchmob wrote:
for your nazi example the proper analogy

It wasn't an analogy.

you mean True, same sex couples were being discriminated against just like multi racial couples were just a few years ago. Did allowing interracial couples to marry create a new legal right?

No, as an american, you have the right to marry, even if you drink pepsi.

That's incorrect. But I can understand your confusion (considering the Obergefell majority opinion). The issue was never quite a "right to marry" (as opposed to in the case of anti-miscegenation laws) - it has always been about the legal definition of marriage and who benefits from the legal rights that follow from being married. The legal term is "element" - that is, the legally required factors. Elementally, marriage formerly was between a man and a woman only. That is no longer the case, thereby expanding who may benefit from the legal rights of being married.

 Manchu wrote:
That's incorrect. But I can understand your confusion (considering the Obergefell majority opinion). The issue was never quite a "right to marry" (as opposed to in the case of anti-miscegenation laws) - it has always been about the legal definition of marriage and who benefits from the legal rights that follow from being married. The legal term is "element" - that is, the legally required factors. Elementally, marriage formerly was between a man and a woman only. That is no longer the case, thereby expanding who may benefit from the legal rights of being married.

It has always been about the right to marry.

The legal term was exclusionary, hence unconstitutional

granting benefits to couple A, and not couple B is discriminatory.

all they did was drop the exclusionary text, so all couples can exercise their right to marry.

that didn't expand the rights, it stopped denying the right to same sex couples. You can view that as expanding, but that's not what happened. Everyone has the right to marry, to deny that right based on some arbitrary criteria (like race or sex) is unconstitutional.

No, that is still incorrect. Marriage as a legal status under the common law comprehensively requires certain elements. Generally speaking, those elements are present in an interracial marriage between a man and a woman who are both legally able to consent, and in fact do so, and who are not related within the prohibited degree of consanguinity. Certain laws were enacted to criminalize certain marriages on the basis of preventing miscegenation. The case of gay marriage is different - one of the necessary elements (that the marriage be between a man and a woman) is not present. In order to expand marriage to same-sex couples, the legal definition of marriage needed to be changed. That is not what anti-miscegenation laws accomplished; to the contrary, they criminalized what would otherwise be legal marriages. The difference comes down to an illegal marriage on the one hand and something not being a marriage on the other.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Man and woman are very different. A marriage between a man and woman therefore is something fundamentally different than a marriage between two men or a marriage between two women.

Marriage is the joining of people into a single legal entity. The gender of the people involved makes absolutely no difference to the process, or to the ongoing maintenance of the partnership.


The only reason that a marriage between a same-sex couple and a male/female couple is any different is because an arbitrary law says so.

 insaniak wrote:
an arbitrary law

By "arbitrary" - do you mean, "for no reason that I can/will recognize"?

I mean - that's potentially a fine argument ... but of course, others can and do recognize reasons why the definition of marriage is not arbitrary. What I'm getting at is, as throughout the entire thread, is that reasonable people of good will can differ on these issues. It doesn't have to be a conflict between those who "want to destroy morality" against those who "hate gay people."

 Manchu wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
an arbitrary law

By "arbitrary" - do you mean, "for no reason that I can/will recognize"?

Pretty much, yes.

Nobody here or elsewhere has provided a reasonable explanation for why the requirements of any given religion should apply to those who don't follow that religion, nor for why same sex couples should be treated any differently by the law than anybody else.

 Manchu wrote:
By "arbitrary" - do you mean, "for no reason that I can/will recognize"?

For no better reason than the previous laws requiring the married couple to have the same race. Neither is an essential requirement for the marriage to function, it's something added on to satisfy moral beliefs about who should be allowed to marry.

 insaniak wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Man and woman are very different. A marriage between a man and woman therefore is something fundamentally different than a marriage between two men or a marriage between two women.

Marriage is the joining of people into a single legal entity. The gender of the people involved makes absolutely no difference to the process, or to the ongoing maintenance of the partnership.


The only reason that a marriage between a same-sex couple and a male/female couple is any different is because an arbitrary law says so.

The (legal) definition of marriage has always been a union between man and woman. This is true for pretty much every law or custom regarding marriage since the first known one until the present day. It is only in the past few years that in a number of countries this (legal) definition has changed to include all people regardless of sex.
The reason that a marriage between a same-sex couple and a different-sex couple is different is not because of an arbitray law, but because of milennia of social traditions and customs.

 Manchu wrote:
No - the point is an ad hominem attack. Here's another example: "Peregrine argues like a Nazi and if he doesn't like being associated with Nazis then he shouldn't make the same kinds of arguments." See, the point of this kind of rhetoric is to discredit the character of the poster rather than the substance of their posts. Notice the same posters who use that tactic also like the "unless you agree with me on X, you are a bigot" tactic.

That's a terrible analogy because you haven't said anything about why my arguments are Nazi-like, or even defined what "argues like a Nazi" means. There's no connection between the two, aside from your desire to say "you're a Nazi". There is, on the other hand, a connection between arguments against gay marriage and arguments against interracial marriage, and the comparison makes sense as more than a lazy "you're a racist" insult.

 insaniak wrote:
Nobody here or elsewhere has provided a reasonable explanation for why the requirements of any given religion should apply to those who don't follow that religion, nor for why same sex couples should be treated any differently by the law than anybody else.

That's not the topic. The topic is, can "I oppose gay marriage" be something other than a statement of hatred. So, you just made the argument, the former legal definition of marriage arbitrarily excludes same-sex couples and should be changed to include them. I don't assign any malice or hatred to your perspective that the definition is at least partially arbitrary - even despite the fact that I disagree with that argument. And neither does my disagreement necessarily entail any malice or hatred.

 Peregrine wrote:
you haven't said anything about why my arguments are Nazi-like

I thought you would have connected the dots. Nazis use fallacious arguments to bully and slander their opponents. You do the same. Following through with your ad hominem argument implicitly calling me a racist, you should therefore be associated with Nazis.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
The reason that a marriage between a same-sex couple and a different-sex couple is different is not because of an arbitray law, but because of milennia of social traditions and customs.

The trick is, some people blankly assume that "culture" and "values" are arbitrary (not even realizing that the assumption is a cultural value judgement). But the point is, they aren't necessarily making that assumption from hate anymore than those who disagree with them do so out of hate.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

The (legal) definition of marriage has always been a union between man and woman.

That's not even remotely close to being true.

Hey you know what would be cool, if we didn't call each other nazis or inferring association (soupnazis maybe but thats a different topic). We can discuss the topic without losing our minds no?

When Frazzled is the voice of reason, something is wrong...

 Iron_Captain wrote:

The reason that a marriage between a same-sex couple and a different-sex couple is different is not because of an arbitray law, but because of milennia of social traditions and customs.

Sure. But 'We've done it this way for a long time' is not a valid reason by itself for insisting that others follow your arbitrary rule.

 Frazzled wrote:
Hey you know what would be cool, if we didn't call each other nazis or inferring association

Oh dear Frazzled, I certainly wouldn't be calling Peregrine a Nazi any more than he would be calling me a racist:

 Peregrine wrote:
And sorry if you don't like being associated with racists, but maybe you should stop using their arguments?

 Manchu wrote:
And neither does my disagreement necessarily entail any malice or hatred.

Except it does, because there is no legitimate argument against gay marriage that doesn't include malice or hatred. Every argument presented is either open hatred ("GOD WILL BURN THIS SINFUL COUNTRY!!!!") or so obviously absurd that it can only be a flimsy pretense of politeness covering up the real reasons ("MARRIAGE IS ABOUT CHILDREN AND GAY COUPLES CAN'T MAKE CHILDREN"). You can say "it's not hatred" all you like, but in the end it comes down to "I don't like gay people and don't want them using 'my' label".

I thought you would have connected the dots. Nazis use fallacious arguments to bully and slander their opponents. You do the same. Following through with your ad hominem argument implicitly calling me a racist, you should therefore be associated with Nazis.

Calling it "bullying" over and over again doesn't make your claim true.

 Peregrine wrote:
Every argument presented is either open hatred ... or so obviously absurd that it can only be a flimsy pretense of politeness covering up the real reasons ...

 Peregrine wrote:
Calling it "bullying" over and over again doesn't make your claim true.

The same old conclusory declarations. My mistake for humouring you.

insaniak wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

The (legal) definition of marriage has always been a union between man and woman.

That's not even remotely close to being true.

Could you elaborate on that?

insaniak wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

The reason that a marriage between a same-sex couple and a different-sex couple is different is not because of an arbitray law, but because of milennia of social traditions and customs.

Sure. But 'We've done it this way for a long time' is not a valid reason by itself for insisting that others follow your arbitrary rule.

No, and I am not saying it is. I am merely saying that it is reason for the fact that we have these "arbitrary" rules. The rules come from the tradition, not the other way around.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

insaniak wrote:But 'We've done it this way for a long time' is not a valid reason by itself for insisting that others follow your arbitrary rule.

No, and I am not saying it is. I am merely saying that it is reason for the fact that we have these "arbitrary" rules.

Good distinction in two ways: Most obviously, the law in this case was not arbitrary. More importantly, the argument was never really, we should do X because we have always done X. Rather, it's more like, the reasons that we have done X are still valid today. Now, whether someone finds that argument to be persuasive or not is one issue - but that's not the issue of this thread. The issue is, simply taking that position is not the same thing as hating gay people.

 Manchu wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

insaniak wrote:But 'We've done it this way for a long time' is not a valid reason by itself for insisting that others follow your arbitrary rule.

No, and I am not saying it is. I am merely saying that it is reason for the fact that we have these "arbitrary" rules.

Good distinction in two ways: Most obviously, the law in this case was not arbitrary. More importantly, the argument was never really, we should do X because we have always done X. Rather, it's more like, the reasons that we have done X are still valid today. Now, whether someone finds that argument to be persuasive or not is one issue - but that's not the issue of this thread. The issue is, simply taking that position is not the same thing as hating gay people.

Manchu, I really don't understand what you're arguing. "The reasons we have done X are still valid today"? What reasons are those, assuming we're still talking about gay marriage? And I really have to disagree with your last statement. I've met plenty of people who think like that, hence the phrase "Hate the sin, not the sinner", and I think it's just rather asinine. Sure, you can not agree with gay marriage and not hate gay people, but that makes me inclined to think that you're against something because it's different and non-traditional.

As an instructor I deny Trainees certain normal rights everyday. I do so because that is my job, within local regulations, service wide regulations, and policy. All of the above can be contributed too either safety and well being of said trainees, or to good order and discipline, based on the job at hand. A job like no other in civilian life. I feel no malice in enforcing these rules, because that is my job, and I understand why they are in place. Sometimes I have to enforce a stupid rule, and I feel gakky about it, but I still do it because its my job. I will speak my peace, say its not smart to do so, but at the end of the day, I lose(usually).

There is no public safety issue with same gender marriage, there is no other explanation that I have heard for the denial of same gender marriage within this thread that is other than an opinion that it is wrong. That same is true for those that make the laws. They quote a religious text, say it is against their beliefs and force that belief on the masses. That is where a lot of the anger comes from. Now to hear I don't believe in gay marriage, as it is understood(since I know the person understands that it does exist) is a kin to saying I don't like what your doing, I oppose it. Fine and dandy, he can't stop it. But the same politician saying I don't believe in same gender marriage can force that opinion on the masses and there for is oppressive. There is no real reason given to not allow it. I know its legal now, but how many years did it take to make it wrong to use the N word in the south. I actually still here it more than I would like. I hear it when I go home because no one says anything about it. Allowing rhetoric does damage society, whether you want to believe it or not.

I have a hard time understanding how I don't believe in gay marriage doesn't equate to an exclusionary stance on someone's rights, vs I don't believe gay marriage is for me, and there fore would not partake in such an activity.