All I got out of that is you dislike gays, goths, and vegans.  And that nicer things cost more. 

Why can't gay lifestyle be normal.  I mean they will let second cousins Marry.

Oh so now your going after mentally disabled people...   It wouldn't effect the number of gay people.  Just the number of openly gay relationships.  If everyone around me went gay, then id still be looking for a woman.  Just because you can marry someone of the same gender doesnt mean straight people are gonna start marrying their buddies.

youd make hitler proud.

if being gay is a free choice and a mistake, then sometimes it's more important that society tolerates such mistakes by individuals than forcing them to correct it.

how does gay marriage/civil unions "encourage" gay lifestyle? it is what it is... it's not like it's a slippery slope where 100% of your population is going to end up gay in the long run

> East wrote:

> how does gay marriage/civil unions "encourage" gay lifestyle? it is what it is... it's not like it's a slippery slope where 100% of your population is going to end up gay in the long run

Actually the main issue has jack squat to do with being horny at the wrong buttocks.  Since the Founding nearly every state has had laws against homosexuality and sodomy.   1/2 our Supreme Court in its infinite wisdom hath decreed that somehow 100% of the United States has been bigoted and stupid and hasn't understood that the 9th Amendment, passed in 1787, has always guaranteed sodomy as a general liberty.  Now supposedly the 14th Amendment extends that to all the states, so since 1867 all states have been barred from constittuional exclusions of homosexuality as a protected class.  And now, possibly in 2011, they will agree with a federal judge in CA that since 1867 homosexual marriage has been a constittutional guarantee.

Of course we all know the "simplistic" answer is that the states and Congress in 1787 and 1867 did no such thing, and it's 5 judges making shit up in 2006, 2008 and 2011.  But you have to be adult enough to pretend with the rest.

When you imagine you are at liberty to ignore the decisions of 225 years of democracy and yet impose your new attitudes as the basic law of the country as misunderstood until your Revelation, then the sky's the limit.  When sodomy was decriminalized we brought up the imminence of gay marriage and polygamy under the same logic.  We were told that was the "slippery slope fallacy."  Now we've slid as far as gay marriage, and the arguments against polygamy--which is a consensual choice of citizens historically opposed on "religious morality" that is oh so verboten today-- seem clearly "unconstitutional", that is, contrary to the arbitrary whim of the guardians of the constitution.

whatever America decides will be decided by America and not by our "betters"

Also, another point avogadro which I already mentioned... Gay people can fall in love too you know.  As I have done in the past and am now. 

I know of heterosexual couples which do not get married.  That isn't because they don't love each other - on the contrary - but they just don't feel the need to get a piece of paper which says they are a couple.  By the same token...

"i can never get married, thats a detriment"

This should *never* be an issue.  If you love someone, you love them and will want to be with them irrespective of whether you can get an official piece of paper which says so.

Like I said it's not a slippery slope for our societies. In a modern society that allows homosexual intercourse but not homosexual marriage/civil union, the people who are actually gay will simply not marry or enter a civil union, those that do aren't gay but bisexual (or just confused). In the past when homosexual intercourse was actually prohibited and heavily frowned upon by society in general and religion in particular these people actually did regularly marry the opposite sex just to shake off social and legal punishments, but fortunately those shackles are pretty much gone now in modern western societies. None of the younger generations of gay people I know would ever marry a woman just out of some past form of peer pressure. Short of forcing them to have intercourse with women society simply does not have these people in the heterosexual marriage pool any longer, whether gay marriage is permitted or not is wholly irrelevant for the calculation of the actual (voluntary) birth rate potential.

and by the way should you not be able to marry if you or your girlfriend was infertile or she had her tubes tied?

> avogadro wrote:

> how wouldn't gay marriage/civil unions encourage gay lifestyles? hmmm, if i chose to live a gay lifestyle, i can never get married, thats a detriment, something that certainly would keep some people from living a gay lifestyle.  it doesn't have to be a slippery slope. first world countries are losing their populations with an extremely low percent of the population living gay lifestyles. if there was a significant increase in the people living gay lifestyles, the problem would increase significantly.

> [TI] Lateralis wrote:

"You've used the word "lifestyle" in the context of homosexuality in this thread, as have others.  You even use it in your post!  But it isn't a lifestyle. "

its a simple concept lat. there is being gay and there is living the gay lifestyle. its a very, very simple concept. if you can't understand the difference, then you simply don't belong in this thread. i have tried to use lifestyle in my posts when talking about the gay lifestyle.

"It isn't about choice for me.  I've already explained in a previous post.  If you are unwilling to believe me because it shakes your world view from foundations to rafters than that is fine.  You are entitled to your opinions and to your own thoughts.  But might I suggest that as you aren't gay you know nothing about what it *is* like to be gay. "

so you are saying you have no control over your actions? thats the only way the gay lifestyle isn't a choice.  its simple, there is being gay. there is the attraction to people of the same sex. then there is acting on that attraction, dating other men, having sex with other men, and all of that is choice. the only part that isn't choice is basic attraction to other men.

"
Er, no?  Would YOU be perfectly happy to live your life with someone of the same sex?  Probably not.  I would not be happy with a woman. 

This really is my point.  Sorry if you missed it, whizzing as it did, a million miles over your head.  "

there are heterosexual males that chose to abstain from sex, typically religious folk and they live perfectly happy lives; are you claiming gay people have some type of super sex drive that makes it so they can't be happy unless they're fucking?

> avogadro wrote:

> "and by the way should you not be able to marry if you or your girlfriend was infertile or she had her tubes tied?"

you are missing the argument. the argument is that society/government should not go out of their way to encourage a destructive lifestyle. legalizing gay marriage is going out of their way. a man marrying a woman has always been legal, so a man marrying a woman where one is infertile is not causing the government to do anything new, the government isn't going out of its way to let those two marry, its something that has always been legal. In contrary, it would be going out of its way to make it illegal.

... if your main argument against gay marriage is lack of fertility, then marrying infertile women is also a destructive lifestyle

no I've only seen you cling to arbitrary and outdated distinctions

>> "and by the way should you not be able to marry if you or your girlfriend was infertile or she had her tubes tied?"<<

Form != Coincidence. A man and a woman can't have a baby if the man's junk gets cut off. An ape and a woman can't have a baby no matter what, ever. Neither can have a baby, but there's still a significant difference between them.

>>if your main argument against gay marriage is lack of fertility, then marrying infertile women is also a destructive lifestyle<<

Also untrue, as has already been addressed in this thread. In addition to missing the point entirely. Which is ironic, in a post you opened by claiming he missed your argument.

This nonsense is addressed in any decent formal logic 100 level course... When someone's arguing about a form, pointing out a coincidence doesn't engage their argument. That an infertile person and an ape are both unable to produce children with a human being does not make them equivalent options as partners in society, nor does it make them deserving of certain status or incentivization by society. That men and women's junk works together is evidence of their roles in the natural order. That a particular man or woman lacks functional junk doesn't mean they cease to exist in the natural order. It just means that their junk happens not to function. It's a matter of coincidence with no bearing on the fact that men and women have certain natural roles and functions. That some cannot perform a particular function as a matter of coincidence doesn't change anything. It's not evidence of anything. It's not the basis for a sensible argument for anything.