Same-Sex Households
Two*True
member
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Need to sway an opinion - need your help
My high school boyfriend and I have started up a FB dialouge about same-sex marriage. He is against redefining the word marriage and believes that the CA domestic partnership laws give people equal protection. He is mormon so I know his belief is rooted strongly in his faith. However he stated his mind is open and he could change it if he ever heard an arguement he considered valid.
So this is where you ladies come in....please post or PM me with a link to any article on this topic that you found particularly well written. Or one that you think might appeal to a person of faith.
TIA!
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Re: Need to sway an opinion - need your help
This was published in Dec 2008 and I thought it had some good references that might help a person of faith
http://www.newsweek.com/id/172653
Two*True,
This doesn't quite get at marriage, but here is an excerpt from a writing of Homosexuality and the Bible. If this gets at what you are trying to say, I will send the link. (Where this came from is rather long with a lot of history.) This piece comes from: Spong, John Shelby. Living in Sin: A Bishop Rethinks Human Sexuality. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1988.
"That is all that Scripture has to say about homosexuality. Even if one is a biblical literalist, the biblical references do not build an ironclad case for condemnation. If one is not a biblical literalist there is no case at all, nothing but the ever-present prejudice born out of a pervasive ignorance that attacks people whose only crime is to be born with an unchangeable sexual predisposition toward those of their own sex."
"If new knowledge about the cause and meaning of homosexuality confronts us, then we must be willing to relinquish our prejudice and the prejudice of Holy Scripture and turn our attention to loving our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, supporting them, and relating to them as a part of God's good creation. That will inevitably include accepting, affirming, and blessing those gay and lesbian relationships that, like all holy relationships, produce the fruits of the spirit?love, joy, peace, patience, and self-sacrifice?and to do so in the confidence that though this may not be in accordance with the literal letter of the biblical texts, it is in touch with the life-giving spirit that always breaks the bondage of literalism."
Two*True,
I needed to add that I know the Book of Mormon differs slightly from the Bible, but they are similar in a lot of ways. With that said, I don't know if a Biblical argument is the best approach.
I've swayed people by comparing the rights of domestic partnership to the rights of marriage. For some it just comes down to the very little things that you can't do with a domestic partnership.
I just tell people that even though I still have a domestic partnership, I have to pay a lawyer to grant me the right to have the same rights out of state. You only have one peice of paper well, I have ten. I don't know if that's the most effective in this case, but Julie brother is mormon, and they only way we swayed the was not trying to define marriage to them, they already had a pretty clear belief we just pointed out everything that we couldn't do with our domestic partnership, and how difficult it was.
Financial Aid, Name Changes, Insurance (<---- this is what actually swayed them, was the having to claim it on taxes as income), etc, etc.
Good Luck! Every person counts!
Okay I had my friend clarify his beliefs:
"I 100% completely agree that same sex couples should have every right both state & federal that married couples do.
Yes it is just the word marriage that I am opposed to sharing. I try to explain it like this. All people communicate with words. Words need to have definitions so people know what you are talking about. So if the definition of marriage was changed then it leads to questions when one is speaking. Say for instance I am having a discussion and say that I am married. With the current definition of Marriage in CA there is no question that I am married to a female. Now if the definition was changed there would be a question as to whether I was married to a male or female. So that is where I get my basis for this. I have spoken to numerous people that would change there point of view if the gay and lesbian community wasn't going after the word marriage. This even includes my deeply religious parents and their friends."
So for him it really is about the word....hmmm...gotta go dig up info on that....
It may be an exercise in futility if he is stuck on one word.
But I think the real issue is with this: "Now if the definition was changed there would be a question as to whether I was married to a male or female." This is not only a completely homophobic statement, but it is outright silly. How many conversations would he actually have where he would use the word "married" but be unable to follow it up with "my wife..."? There are other ways to shout that you are a (more valuable? ok? not "bad"?) straight person than denying an entire population the right to use the word "marriage".
Oooh, sorry, that last bit from him got me a little hot under the collar!
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It probably isnt the case (and i'm honestly not trying to be snarky here) - but from that description, it feels as though he's more concerned with people possibly thinking he might be married to a man than making sure that all people are ensured their basic rights. and that blows my mind.
But, if the word really is the issue, would he be supportive of the French model in which gay and straight couples alike are issued civil unions by the government and then it is their choice to then have a religious marriage ceremony?
I really appreciate the way that model makes a clear separation of church and state.
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ITA!! I think there is definitely some underlying homophobic issue but I'm not going to take that up with him. I love the French model and think it would be an ideal system for the US too.
I'm bummed I missed this - I was busy at work this afternoon.
Y'all pretty much covered it
Long ago, my mom pulled that whole "I don't want to give up my identity" thing with me too - of course, in her case, it's laughable that anyone would assume she were gay 
When people use that excuse, there is definitely underlying homophobia.
I think the best response to "But why does it need to be called marriage" Is: "Would you trade your marriage for a civil union?"
For me it all comes back to the very simple idea that separate is not equal. During segregation, black americans drank from different water fountains and used different bathrooms - the water fountains and bathrooms were the same, but segregation was NOT a system of equality. To me, we are dealing with the same principal here.
Also, as far as "redefining" marriage, anyone with any sense of history knows that marriage has been defined in many different ways over time as the human race has evolved. It very much annoys me that some christians try to claim marriage - when marriage predates christianity! If we were to go by the "biblical" standard of marriage, polygamy would be the gold standard. Even after monogamy came into vogue, marriages were property agreements and stategic polital moves - the kind of country x marries his daughter to the son of the kind of country z, or the wheat farmer marries his daughter off to the son of the blacksmith for trade, etc, etc. Our modern idea of a man and woman falling in love and getting married is a relatively new and dare I say radical idea in the grand scheme of history. If we want to talk about the tradition of what the word marriage means - it has meant a lot of things!
sahm ~ toddler breastfeeder ~ cloth diaperer ~ baby wearer
His point about the all-powerful clarity of the English language isn't very convincing. Sorry, but there are thousands and thousands of words that are ambiguous alone, and only clear through the use of context. The word "present" is a noun, a verb, and an adjective and has at least 10 meanings. I just don't buy it.?
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