To the Readers' Forum:
When a debate has grown stagnant, people speak of beating dead horses. In the same-sex marriage debate, it appears the dead horse still desparately attempts to render the beating. Anti-gay marriage arguments are long stagnant, and based on nothing more than an antiquated prejudice against something they don't understand.
The garden variety cases against gay marriage are the following:
1)' 'My Bible defines marriage as one man and one woman"- Right. Your Bible also tells you that marriage can be one man and many women, or one rapist and his rape victim, or between one man slave and woman slave. So, the Bible doesn't seem a very reliable source, notwithstanding that we don't live in a theocracy anyway.
2) ''The old testament calls homosexuality a sin"- Right. It also calls eating shellfish and pork a sin. Again, not a reliable source by any standard.
3) ''The new testament says homosexuals shouldn't marry"- Right. The new testament also says that women should be silent and never challenge a man. Good luck in the dating scene if you follow that rule.
4) ''Jesus said homosexuality was wrong"- Nope. Jesus never mentioned it.
5) ''But they already have civil unions! They don't need to 'call it marriage'"- No, the difference between a civil union and a marriage is more than just a name. Civil unions lack many legal rights and benefits that marriages enjoy, such as being recognized in other states, gaining tax breaks, allowing spouses to immigrate from another country, and Social Security benefits, among others.
6) ''Gay marriage will 'Ruin Society'"- This one seems to be a transparent cry of desparation, lacking any logic or sense. If we want to concentrate on what really has a chance of harming society, we should focus on religious intolerance, domestic abuse, partison politics, the national debt, and child neglect, among many other real problems.
7) ''If we allow gay marriage, next we'll have to allow a man to marry his dog!"- Hardly. This is another desparate scare tactic. People used the same logic over a century ago when they tried to ban legalization of interracial marriage. Each case deserves to be looked at regarding its own merits, not the merits of unrelated 'slippery slope' imaginings.
So, please, folks, let's let dead horses stay dead, once and for all, shall we?
Ralph Kady
Jamestown