First, let me say that I didn't go through all 28 or so pages of responses. After the first 10 or so, it just seemed like everyone was talking in circles and rehashing everything. I apologize in advance if someone has already covered anything I'm about to say. I also apologize for having such a long reply.
Yes, I think that gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry, join the military (and be open about their sexual orientation without fear of reprimand) and adopt children.
To address the responses that I know come with the territory:
"But if all the world was gay/the current marriage definition is for the survival of the nation..."
If all the world was vegan, we'd have a lot more cows, too. The thing is, just like it'd be absurd to think that all the world would suddenly go vegan, it's absurd to think that all the world would suddenly turn gay. A small percentage of the population is gay, and with people like the Duggars, who are pushing 20 kids, the human race is not in danger of going extinct because 5-10% of the population is gay. It's more likely that we'll very soon be facing problems stemming from overpopulation than from a decrease in the number of people having kids.
And what about people who are heterosexual but cannot or choose not to have kids? Should they not be allowed to get married? After all, they're not reproducing and therefore defying evolution and the (supposed) purpose of marriage. And if the survival of the species or nation were at stake, wouldn't it make at least as much sense for us to be polygamist?
"Being gay is a lifestyle choice..."
So, when did you decide to be straight? If being gay is a choice, then so is being straight.
For that matter, when did you decide to fall in love with the person/people you've fallen in love with over the course of your lifetime? You may not have chosen to marry all of them, but that doesn't mean you didn't love them.
"Marriage is defined as one man and one woman..."
Historically speaking, marriage has been defined a dozen different ways, including (but not limited to) two men, two woman, a man and many women, a woman and many men, a man and a teenage girl, and a man and a woman.
"The sanctity of marriage will be compromised..."
So...the 50+% divorce rate, abusive marriages, and things like Brittany Spears' 55-hour marriage are somehow more sacred than two women or two men marrying or otherwise not destroying the supposed "sanctity of marriage"?
"Children need influence from both male and female parents..."
While I agree that it's good to have balance in everyone's life, and it's good to have a male and female parent figure that are on equal grounds, I don't believe it's the only "right" way.
I was raised without a respectable father figure to speak of. My biological father, while caring and wanting to be more involved, couldn't because of his psychotic wife/ex-wife/mother-of-his-two-youngest and because of my mom's abusive live-in boyfriend. Even after my mom broke ties with her abusive boyfriend, she soon got married (when I was a teenager) to a man who was a poor father (not bad as a person, just sucked at parenting) and we moved far enough away that I couldn't see my father more than about a week out of the year. I turned out to be an intelligent, capable, resourceful woman.
The fact of the matter is, the mother-and-father "Cleaver" household is a pie in the sky dream, for all intents and purposes. Yes, there are a number of mother/father households, but the number of single-parent, grandparent raising the kids, stepfamily, abusive, and other "alternative" situation households far outnumber the households where the mother and father in the house are also biologically related to all the kids, or where there's even a respectable mother/father team at all.
Kids can have a respectable adult influence in their life that can serve as a father (or mother) figure or male/female influence without being raised in the "ideal family setting."
Unfortunately, the vast majority of children in the adoption system don't get adopted at all. Is it really better that they grow up "in the system," without a loving, adoptive family, than to be adopted by a gay couple?
And no, being raised by gay parents will not make a child gay. If that logic held up, then all children raised by straight parents would be straight.
"Gay people already have the right, it's called civil union..."
First of all, I have three words for this line of thinking: "separate but equal," and yes, I am comparing it to the civil rights movement, because it's the same principle (and as some have already mentioned, Dr. King's right hand man was gay, what some haven't noted is that Mrs. King upholds that Dr. King's dream ultimately also included the rights of gay people).
"Separate but equal" didn't hold water then, and it doesn't hold water now.
I know some people on here used "marriage" vs "civil union" to differentiate between religious marriage and civil marriage, but there are, in fact, two different civil institutions of union-- (civil) marriage and civil union. And, yes, there is a difference between the two, not the least of which is that civil unions are state-level and civil unions are not always recognized across all states, not to mention the lack of federal benefits to those joined in civil unions.
They are most definitely not equal.
I've seen a couple "so just move to states where gays can marry," as well. To which I say, California should be ample enough proof that, as it stands, gay marriage is at the mercy of the whim of the masses in each of those states. There is also the fact that a gay married couple can't really travel out of state without risking being separated in the event of a crisis, because even though they're married in one state, other states currently don't have to recognize the validity of the marriage (and many don't), so the couples are, effectively, legal strangers in those states.
"Gay people shouldn't be able to have more rights/gay people already have the same rights as straight people..."
I really don't understand the logic behind this one. To me, it's like saying "but everyone in the British colonies had to pay taxes to the King of England, but couldn't vote/weren't represented, what's the issue? By asking to vote/be represented, you're asking for more rights than what anyone in the colonies has."
Straight people effectively have the right to marry whomever they want only because "whomever they want" happens to be people of the opposite sex. As soon as "whomever they want" extends beyond that, the "right" to marry stops in its tracks.
As long as they are consenting adults, the government shouldn't care who marries whom.
"If we allow gays to marry, then people will want to marry children and sheep and..."
I'm sure they said that about interracial marriages, too. Aside from the fact that there wasn't a sudden surge in people wanting to marry their pet dogs, the key to the marriage issue is "consenting adults." Children are not adults (and, according to the law, cannot consent), and animals cannot consent.
Yes, that means I support polygamy. Personally, polygamy is not my cup of tea and I don't practice it, but I know several people who are poly and are perfectly happy in their choice. As long as all parties involved are aware of, and agree to, the situation (and, therefore, are consenting), then I don't see an issue.
Incest is a little bit trickier. There are medical reasons for why close relatives should not have children together (extremely high rate of chromosomal defects), for one. Also, there tends to be an inherent power imbalance between the individuals of most incestuous relationships that doesn't typically exist between non-related couples (to the point that the APA considers incest to be abuse), especially when talking about a parent and child or siblings. However, if it is possible for the relationship to be completely consensual among adults, then I don't feel it's my (or the government's) place to stop it. One also has to remember, too, that incest was also a common marital practice in history. Royalty often married cousins to cousins "to maintain the family line."
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, our nearest cousins.
