Thanks for the thoughtful response Faith Seeking. I'll make some comments on items in the last two paragraphs.
Faith Seeking Understanding wrote:
The difference with straight and gay people is that straight people would more likely grow up with sexual boundaries and continue through the rest of their life with them, but gay people begin by exploring beyond these boundaries, where they may at some point settle this down, but lust may never get questioned as society encouraged it and it is what helped them chose homosexuality.
This is making some assumptions about gay people versus straight people that I am not sure are justified. The biggest unjustified assumption concerns choosing homosexuality.
Secondly, even if these assumptions are correct, why should that affect laws on gay marriage?
I would agree that general societal attitudes can affect the behavior of individuals. I am a propenent of lessening the "sexualizing" trends in our society. However, I think this applies to both orientations (or all if you think there are more than two) equally.
To be selfless is a matter of the heart and so is lust and for us to debate this will take time and a deeper study, but it is one of my points.
I won't say too much on the topic of lust and whether it is always bad or not. I would question assumptions that lust has signficantly different dynamics among gays versus straights.
And again, with respect to the law, lust should be irrelevant.
With respect to family values, each couple, gay or straight, and each individual are free to deal with "lust" or other sexual feelings in their own way. I would agree, such feelings could pose a threat to monogamous relationships if not handled maturely.
However, I fail to see how allowing gay marriage increases this threat. Why would it not decrease the threat? Consider that Paul recommends widows and even others remain unmarried as he is, but that he says it is better to marry than to burn with lust. Even disregarding the legal issues, it seems to me bad religion to allow heterosexuals to marry in order to deal with their sexuality in a healthy way and then not allow the same for gays.
Im not here to label gay people or even separate them, but we do need to look into the effects of being gay and societies imapact before we can come to any conclusion. We cannot jump the gun so to speak with stubborn selfish view's and just say, yeh go for it.
I guess I would challenge you to provide specifics. In my view, if we allow a behavior for one group that poses a threat to society in the name of freedom or practicality, we should do the same for others. Is there any even potential societal harm you can point to that might be caused by gay marriage that we do not allow heterosexuals to cause?
At the end of the day we all think that we are so smart that we can make this choice without even doing studies on both sides and then coming together in non confrontational group studies, to freely explore why and whats happening. But because it has to do with peoples sexual lustful drive, we want them to freely chose for themselves because then our own lustful drives can be accepted in society all the more.
What laws do we have against lust at the present time?
I also don't buy the notion that allowing gays to be married somehow encourages others to be more lustful or to have more sex. This seems to be a big assumption.
ANd, I have to say again, even if it did, how does this justify banning gay marriage?
"As long that it doesn't hurt people its ok?." Or is it that we may hurt ourselves and our families, that should be the question.. We all need to take a good look at ourselves and realise why we debate this and lets humble ourselves to love each other enough to selflessly see the truth in love.
I agree that supporting and promoting stable families and monogamous relationships is a good thing. This could be done through legal means, but some of what you are alluding to would seem to me to be outside the realm of what government can do or should even attempt. Humility is a virtue that can be fostered individually or in a religious setting. I am not sure how the government should be involved in such an endeavor, though.
I am also not sure why any efforts along these lines need to be different for gays than for straights. Humility, to the extent it is a good thing, would apply to both groups, would it not?
We should pull down the social wall of only giving gay people two choices. Your gay or your not. Lets have that 3rd choice for them to choose, not us. My point is that its when we see the affects of being gay do we see whether gay marriage affects family values.
I am not following you here. Gays do not choose to be gay any more than heterosexuals choose to be heterosexual. All the evidence indicates orientation is not a conscious choice for the huge, huge majority of people, including most of those who self-identify as gay. I also am not sure what you mean by "us" choosing.
On your last sentence, I'll again ask for specifics. What do you mean by family values? What effects do you see of allowing gay marriage on these values?
" . . . the line separating good and evil passes, not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart . . . ." Alexander Solzhenitsyn