OUR BLOG: 2015 SEP



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The flaw in the blood test arguement is that a license from another state that doesn't have that legal requirement is still recognized in states that have those laws about venereal disease

A marriage license can also give you another right that, in Dave's opinion, is way more important that the need for procreation, and what really defines what marriage is to him, and he's not talking about property rights, but the right to make decisions for the other person when they aren't able to.

When you get a marriage license, you have to ask yourself, do you trust this person enough to allow them to make life or death decisions for you when you aren't able?

Because, once you get that license and the ceremony is performed, your partner immediately becomes more than an immediate member of the family, in most cases, they legally become more important than your partners parents or siblings. A marriage license does that for legally married couples everywhere in the United States, and in most countries around the world.

Civil Unions were tried, which were an attempt to give same-sex couples the same legal rights as marriage except without the license, or without having to call it marriage, but they weren't always valid in other states.

In some states, one way to get the legal rights of marriage without the license was through common-law marriage, but in order to access the legal rights of a marriage, you usually had to go to court to prove your marriage meets the common-law requirements of that state, and even then, they weren't always legal in other states, especially same-sex common-law marriage.

A marriage license is the only thing that shortcuts around most, if not all, of that legal bullshit.

The obvious question then becomes, why is that so important, in other words, why should I or anyone care about that? It's a good question, and Dave explains it this way. Let's say you or your partner are in a car accident, outside your home state, and someone has to make life or death decisions for them. Without a marriage license, that falls to the parents, or the closest living relative, usually a sibling. In some states, unless you have a marriage license, your opinion mean\s diddly.

With a marriage license, you become the one who makes those decisions, especially now that the Supreme Court has declared same-sex marriage legal in all fifty states.

This is Dave's major arguement for why marriage should be defined as the joining of two consenting adults together as one for as long as is legally required, rather than just between a man and a woman for procreation purposes only.

It's a good arguement, but even so, I still wonder about the religious arguement a little bit, if not a lot, and that will be what Dave takes on next.

THE RELIGIOUS ARGUEMENT
Somehow, the anti-same-sex marriage arguement always comes back to the religious arguement. God is suppose to be the supreme being after all and his opinion should count for something.

The biggest problem with the religious arguement, Dave says, is that it infers that their interpretation of what God meant is the right one.

Dave believes, to put it kindly again, that many supposed "religious" people don't like gays to begin with, for reasons that have nothing to do with the Bible, and they then use the Bible to justify their actions toward gays.

In other words, many religious fanaticist don't hate gays because their religion says so, but because they just hate gays and are using the Bible to support their hate. It's as simple as that, Dave says.

Which brings us to what exactly does God say about all this? The major arguing point can be found in Matthew and Mark. Both say almost the exact same thing word for word, so here is Matthew's version:

Matthew 19:3-6, ^[3]"The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?"

^[4]And He answered and said to them, "Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female.'

^[5]"and said, 'For this reason ^{[AND ONLY THIS REASON]} a man shall leave his mother and father and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?'

^[6]"So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no man separate."

That's what their whole arguement boils down to, Dave says.

He also added that there was one part that was missing that he added above, in red, because that would than give their arguement more validity, because only than would it mean what they think it means, except for that one little thing which he kindly added for them.

Because than it would really mean that the only reason a man could leave his parents was to join up with a woman, but even then, same-sexes joining up is not specifically disallowed. Of course, Dave assumes that joining up means marriage, but he isn't absolutely sure about that.

Just like everything else in the Bible, this whole passage is open to interpretation and thus subject to biases and perceptions, but that doesn't mean anyone's interpretation is the right one, or the wrong one, including Dave's.

Theoretically, according to those who believe in it, the Bible is suppose to be the word of God, with one caviat. It is actually an interpetation of the word of God, and not what he said word by word. Even if it was, how could you possibly prove that it was the actual words of God? That's where the faith part comes in. You just have to have faith that the Bible is the word of God. But, does that mean you can then use that faith to stop others from doing what your "faith" tells you is wrong, even though you can't prove that your faith is right?

"And don't forget," Dave adds, "if you're reading the Bible in English (or any language for that matter, except in the original Hebrew, I think), it means it has been translated (or interpreted) once again on top of the original interpretation, and add on to that your own interpretation, and who the fuck knows what God really said or meant."

Which brings up the apostle. If the anti-crowd's interpretaion of the Bible, because it seems most of the most vocal anti-crowders, Christians seem to far out number all the other religions combined, if their interpretation is correct than shouldn't joining up with a woman be the only reason a man can leave his parents. What then about the apostles? Didn't they leave their parents, not to join up with a woman, but to follow (join up?) with a man to spread the word of God?

But, I do think he's right that no where in the Bible does it specifically say that two sexes can't join as one also. Sure, it's called an abomination, because, if I remember correctly, sex is not to be used for pleasure alone, but for procreation purposes only, which is why same-sex, sex is such an abomination, because it's obvious that it's only being used for pleasure and not for procreation, although who knows what the future holds in that area. I wouldn't be surprised if someone somewhere wasn't working on that right now. It's not unnatural really, some animals and plants can do that already, fertilize themselves when the opposite sex isn't available, and it's not really that big a leap from that to same sex species fertilizing each other in the same way, not in Dave's opinion anyway.

But just because it's an abomination, doesn't mean that joining up by two people of the same sex isn't allowed. Murder is pretty much an abomination also, instead of creating life, you are destroying it, but murderers are allowed to join up in most religions and in the legal system. Some murderers even keep murdering after they get married. Does that mean they aren't really married either? It doesn't say in the Bible either that murderers can't get married, maybe because murder can be forgiven, but to continuously butt-fuck or stimulate your partner into orgasm is not forgivable, except maybe on your death bed? And further more, although it's true that same sex marriage, to know someone else, is frowned upon, as a matter of fact, it's called an abomination, but again, no where does it say that it is a reason two people can't be joined as one.

The funniest part about not allowing same-sex marriage is that Dave thinks most gay partners are already having sex, before they are even getting married, so according to the Bible (or as many interpretations of the Bible also say), that they are going to burn for all eternity in hell anyway, how could getting married makes things any worse for them?

Maybe there's a special, special place in hell for them. With a "Having same-sex, sex while married" section, with it's own special tortures and fires that never end division? We don't know. Even Dante Alighieri, writer of the "Divina Commedia" (Divine Comedy), of the infamous phrase "Dante's Inferno" ("Inferno" being the first of three parts of an amazing and enormous body of work), which was all one long poem with a very rigid structure and is remembered mostly for it's depiction of different parts of hell depending on your sin, but I don't remember he even wrote anything about a same sex, sex while married section? That would certainly fix them. And what about a section for those that allowed it to happen, even if you didn't know for sure it was really going on, or those that knew but didn't say anything or even cared. I wonder though who will be left to get into heaven? They won't have to rent a big hall for their Christmas Parties, that's for sure. The Holy Trinity would be the only ones allowed to go.

But, what if, as recent research has found that homosexulaity might be genetic after all? What then? What's God gonna say then? That it was all a joke, and isn't it funny as hell and everyone would laugh and slap their knees right along with him, all except for the gays. Oh excuse me, Dave adds, what are God's representatives gonna say then?

They'll probably just deny it's true. That's science for ya, always making stuff up to make our God look bad, and makes them look bad too.

Maybe it's not the getting married part that the "against" crowd are really against, but against being forced to validate a practice that God will send the participants to hell for, maybe their worried that if they help validate these unions, they themselves are doomed to follow them into hell also? It's an interesting thought.

If it weren't for their biased misinterpretation of the Bible, that might actually make a good arguement, but it doesn't specifically say in the Bible that two people of the same sex can't be joined. What they should say is, "I don't believe my God would allow me to be any part of this act of sin." Their God being their interpretation of what God is trying to say in the Bible, or inspire others to write in his name. Of course, most of the time, weirdly enough, it's right in line with what they already believed to be true anyway. That's a hell of a coincidence, even in my opinion.

"And what the hell does God mean by 'joined' anyway?" Dave then ask. Is he talking about marriage or sex, or both? Or maybe, as Dave says is possible, that the original text says some things differently than what our English version says today. Maybe in the original version, God is talking about sex and only sex, but he still doesn't say specifically say that same sex partners can't also join. The worse that could happen was to burn in hell forever, which was gonna happen anyway, whether they were married or not.

Interestingly enough, the Bible only mentions the joining of a man and woman, and leaves out the "knowing" part, maybe because it's implied in the "joining" part, that there will be some "knowing" going on, but for procreation purposes only. "Knowing," of course, meaning sex.

The arguements for both sides come down to what does "joined" mean? Is it marriage or sex, or both? According to those against marriage for same-sex couple, "joined" means marriage, between a man and a woman only, which bring up the most obvious question of all, what does sex mean?

Does sex mean what goes on between a man and a woman, or does it mean the actual act itself, whether implied or otherwise, with the results being orgasm?

But God doesn't say that specifically as Dave has explained upstream a bit. So, who's right?

That brings us back to here, which goes to prove that both arguements are also both circular.

Dave is having a hard time getting past the idea that God doesn't specifically say that God said that gays couldn't get married, and that's important to him, while the "against" crowd believes in their heart of hearts that gays can't get married according to God.

I wonder about that though, about their heart of hearts. This applies to Dave also.

Is it just a coincidence that many religious people chose a faith to follow that believes a lot of the things that they already believe to be true in their heart of hearts, or is it something else, something called "perception bias"?

Where you only perceive or acknowledge things that prove your biases right.

To his credit, Dave believes I'm right in my perceptions here. He's the first to admit when he's wrong though, but sometimes it takes days of debate before he'll do it.

Which is why Dave asked me to write this, a disinterested party.

I could care less about stopping gay marriage. I think both sides should be concerned with more important problems, like missing persons, serial killers, violent crime, terrorism, homelessness and other things like that.

But, that's me.