Why the obsession with abortion and homosexuality?

Point well made.

Polygamy, mostly.

I invoke Moore's Open Question. Why is it moral to act according to God's wishes? If God commanded you to rape the next person you see, would you consider the act to be clearly and unambiguously the right thing to do regardless of other circumstances?


I propose a simple answer: The religious or secular origin of an idea should be screened off by its actual merits.

Meaning, focus on what the law actually does, if it is considered a good idea aside from the fact it's religious, go with it.

(I realise this is is simple, not easy, but it is the fundamental concept at work. I'd argue that any other criteria to determine the extent to which religion should factor into law must be consistent with the one described above.)


Marriage, in the sense relevant to this discussion, is a specific legal contract between two people. As of now, most jurisdictions have an exception in which two people of the same sex cannot enter this contract, an exception founded on no real reason besides the fact that marriage once began as religious/social institution.
Marriage_legal and Marriage_social are two entirely distinct entities, related but separate. The rules determining Marriage_legal should be based on legal principles. Marriage_social can have any rules the people involved want.

Allowing Marriage_legal to include same-sex couples is based on the simple fact that there's no good reason for the exception. It's obsolete legacy. And removing that exception does not harm the people who want to keep it, but keeping it does harm a significant part of those that want to remove it. Which is why we aren't forcing you to accept our views, same-sex marriage being legal does not affect you. You are not worse off, there's no limited amount of marriage to go around that you're losing, no change to your daily lifestyle unless you happen to deal with the legal aspects of marriage for your job.

In summary:
Complete redefinition: No, slight amendment by removal of one exception.
Forcing beliefs: No, a minor change in the legal environment that at worst will affect you only trivially, and probably not at all.


Assuming being interested in your same gender is a lifestyle (it certainly didn't change much of my life when I realised I liked both):
How does the non-mainstreamness of someone's lifestyle affect their right to enter a contract?
I am legally allowed to marry any consenting adult, the law does not ask me if I wrestle pigs for a living or whether at night I put on a cape and give stern looks to people jaywalking. Even if intend to ask my spouse to become my sidekick, we call ourselves The Married Avengers, zie visits me at the hospital after getting beaten the crap out of by a jaywalker, zie carries on my legacy after a die since zie inherited the cape and my copy of "The Art of Stern Looks", or our new tax advantages allow us to devote more money to fund our eternal struggle, no law says that I cannot marry because it would be giving my non-mainstream lifestyle special status. "Non-mainstream lifestyle" is irrelevant to the point, even in jurisdictions with the silly "no same-sex" exceptions.

Mrs. A has succeeded in getting me to re-think my position on same sex marriage. Kudos to her.

Really? Well, I'm happy that you've taken my points into consideration. For what it's worth, I appreciate that you've been open minded enough to partake in this discussion. A lot of people don't have the gonads to expose themselves to alternative viewpoints, so I think you deserve a kudos as well. I'm actually glad that you've joined the forum -- it's always good for us to have our views challenged from time to time, whether liberal, conservative, atheist, agnostic, theist, etc. Plus, it's refreshing to take part in a polite debate about gay marriage, rather than the flame wars I'm used to.

I have asked you a direct question. What do you want to accomplish with a gay marriage ban?

Okay, that was unexpected.