This just in! Respect and equality is financially sound too!
Gay marriage can help with the deficit!
So, according to this report, the U.S. can save about a billion dollars a year if it were treat opposite and same sex couples equally. This probably doesn't even include the boost it would add to the various service industries involved in weddings and honeymoons, and to the retail industry for wedding gifts. Perhaps someone should tell this to Bush, after translating it into the monosyllabic pigeon language, Bushspeak.
So, we have sound financial reasons for allowing gay marriage. We have these silly principles about equality and what not, you know, that thing about everyone being created equal and being able to pursue life, liberty, and happiness, yea, that thing... so that's another reason for gay marriage. And since we are supposed to be promoting stable, healthy, happy relationships, then allowing gay marriage helps with that too.
So what's in the way? The religious right and their self-serving selective interpretation of their collection of ideas about life, death, love, and morality, mostly told through exemplary stories, which they refer to as the Bible. Now, this is just a guess, but I imagine that the average theist either doesn't see anything really wrong with gay marriage, or they really don't care one way or another. And that's fine, and understandable, and rational. My problem is with the rather scary religious right, who often take the position that their way is the only way, and it is their right to inflict that on others, and punish those that resist, and judge all by their own standard, in the name of the God that is supposed to be doing all the judging on his/her/its/their own. It hurts my brain.
Now I'm not saying that ReligiousTolerance.org is completely unbiased, as they are obviously trying to promote tolerance and counter the intolerance of others, but they do try to examine each issue from both sides and provide excerpts from the Bible and other religious documents to support those ideas. If you read through the section regarding homosexuality and gay marriage... they examine many of the often selected passages that the religious right uses, as well as many others that they conveniently ignore... all in all, they more or less conclude that there really isn't anything in the Bible against a committed, healthy same sex relationship... they warn against prostitution, pedophilia, et cetera, which they also do for opposite sex couples too... the point is, that if the whole point is that we have free will for a reason, and it's not so that we can all be the same... the whole message is about love and respect, and that's with all the diversity... and the failure to afford the same rights and respect to all the humans on this widely diverse Earth is a far worse affront to that message than any biproduct of a loving gay marriage.
So, according to this report, the U.S. can save about a billion dollars a year if it were treat opposite and same sex couples equally. This probably doesn't even include the boost it would add to the various service industries involved in weddings and honeymoons, and to the retail industry for wedding gifts. Perhaps someone should tell this to Bush, after translating it into the monosyllabic pigeon language, Bushspeak.
So, we have sound financial reasons for allowing gay marriage. We have these silly principles about equality and what not, you know, that thing about everyone being created equal and being able to pursue life, liberty, and happiness, yea, that thing... so that's another reason for gay marriage. And since we are supposed to be promoting stable, healthy, happy relationships, then allowing gay marriage helps with that too.
So what's in the way? The religious right and their self-serving selective interpretation of their collection of ideas about life, death, love, and morality, mostly told through exemplary stories, which they refer to as the Bible. Now, this is just a guess, but I imagine that the average theist either doesn't see anything really wrong with gay marriage, or they really don't care one way or another. And that's fine, and understandable, and rational. My problem is with the rather scary religious right, who often take the position that their way is the only way, and it is their right to inflict that on others, and punish those that resist, and judge all by their own standard, in the name of the God that is supposed to be doing all the judging on his/her/its/their own. It hurts my brain.
Now I'm not saying that ReligiousTolerance.org is completely unbiased, as they are obviously trying to promote tolerance and counter the intolerance of others, but they do try to examine each issue from both sides and provide excerpts from the Bible and other religious documents to support those ideas. If you read through the section regarding homosexuality and gay marriage... they examine many of the often selected passages that the religious right uses, as well as many others that they conveniently ignore... all in all, they more or less conclude that there really isn't anything in the Bible against a committed, healthy same sex relationship... they warn against prostitution, pedophilia, et cetera, which they also do for opposite sex couples too... the point is, that if the whole point is that we have free will for a reason, and it's not so that we can all be the same... the whole message is about love and respect, and that's with all the diversity... and the failure to afford the same rights and respect to all the humans on this widely diverse Earth is a far worse affront to that message than any biproduct of a loving gay marriage.