+1

You can chose to marry or have relationships with anyone you want. But the true attraction you have to a person or type of person is always going to be an underlining sub-conscience urge.

If I could chose to be attracted to fat chics, I would. I'd certainly get a lot more action that way. Problem is, they don't turn me on.

Anybody can chose to go for one person or the other, but I dont think they can chose to be attracted to them. They either are or aren't.

I certainly dont chose to be horny, but I do chose how to control it or not control it...

 

I'm Mormon. We're pretty low key Christians in most ways. Our view on gay marriage is a political hot button, although it's been the same forever. I'm going to catch hell for trying to explain the view of the Church, but I'll still try in case anybody really wants to understand... please don't slander me too badly.
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First, the Mormon church doesn't care about Democrat or Republican, and it doesn't care who we vote for or what we vote for. But it does care about abortion. It does care about adultery. It does care about marriage. It's a church--IT SHOULD!

The Mormon church has no issue with homosexuals as people. None. People are people, and we as Christians are trying to learn charity for everyone, no exceptions. We're supposed to love even our enemies, so obviously homosexuals (who are friends in my mind) should be loved and respected as our brothers and sisters. It's not a deliberate strike against homosexuals. The issue is with marriage and the sanctity of the family unit.

We are trying to become like the God we worship, or like the Christ we read about in the New Testament. To become like God the Father, we have Christ as an example. In many ways, we have small steps in our life that help us become like Him. We are reborn as commanded through baptism. Our personal challenges may equate to a small Gethsemane. We make sacrifices, we try to have charity and love others, we try to quash the weakneses (ie 7 deadly sins) in ourselves. We try to become like the God we have as a role model. We believe He is our Father and we are His Children.

If we want to become like God, we need to understand God. To understand God, we need to experience life in ways that will let us glimpse what our God is, we will try to live in the way God would and see things as he does. Having children will naturally parallel to God having us as His children. Being a parent is a good way to learn about and develop divine nature!

Homosexual couples are, by definition, incapable of sexual reproduction. Therefore, they cannot naturally have a family save by adoption, insemination, etc. Placing homosexual marriage on the same level as a traditional marriage degrades the sanctity of the traditional family (+their own kids) unit. Yes, there are exceptions for infertile people and yes, I do think they should adopt. But infertile couples are different--exactly the same way as a blind person is different from someone who can see.

The Mormon Church has no issues with homosexuals being together as couples, voting, riding together with us on the bus, owning property, or anything at all. Homosexuals are fellow citizens and our brothers and sisters. They should be treated just the same as anyone else. But putting marriage of homosexuals as an equivalent to traditional marriage is seen by our Church as a degradation of the societal view the sanctity of the family (parents+their kids) unit. This perceived degradation of the importance of family is the issue for the Mormon Church.

And I'm just a lay member of the church, so please don't take this as Mormon Doctrine. It's not. It's how I see it and how I think the Chuch sees it as someone who has been an active member all my life.
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On how much funding dollars were raised, I have no idea. I had heard the homosexual rights groups were much better funded than the oppostion, so (assuming that's correct) I think it's a moot point.

And it's funny to me that blacks voted so strongly against gay marriage. I wonder where that stems from.

 

Interesting, im happy a Mornom chimed in on this and informed me more of their views. I do see about the religious view of marriage and its importance within reproduction. From my experiences with the Mormon community, having kids is a very, very important event. But what about lesbian couples who can be artificially inseminated, is this an exception or do the same rules still apply within the idea of gay marriage?

 

Especially in the Los Angeles area, there are a lot of very large Christian churches with predominantly black congregations (e.g., Crenshaw Christian Center). Their view on marriage is identical to yours.

I believe that the Hispanic vote in favor of Proposition 8 was quite high as well (though not as high as the black vote in favor of it). I believe that this stems from the large proportion of Hispanics being Catholics, with views on marriage that are identical to yours.

 

Since when has being homosexual been considered a race?

Anyway, I, too, voted No on Prop 8, but .

 

From a biological standpoint only, homosexuality makes no sense at all. Homosexuals cannot reproduce without medical intervention, and if we look at homosexuals as a group from Darwin's viewpoint, one can not help but wonder what mysterious process is at work in the gene pool that predisposes certain individuals to be gay. Yes, I do believe it is a predisposition; it is not a switch that makes you either "gay" or "straight".

Having said that, our society has reached a point--philosophically, medically, and morally--where homosexual couples should enjoy the same rights and protections as any heterosexual couple. Modern medicine has allowed for reproduction. Homosexual couples form family units every bit as strong and loving as heterosexual couples. We are at a point that we can admit that the ability to reproduce unassisted by science need not dictate who can form a family unit any longer. Yet, we would not be at that point today without our civilization. Our civilization, not our biology, came up with this "marriage" concept. In the thousands of years of recorded history our civilization has evolved, adapted, changed to meet the challenges that existed at any given time. Marriage, as a cornerstone of our civilization, should be no different. In short, it needs to catch up to society's acceptance of homosexuality. When marriage grants rights to committed heterosexual couples that homosexual couples are not eligible for because of their partner's sex, that's wrong. It is the most plain form of discrimination. And upholding Proposition 8 on the basis that you want to keep marriage for straight couples only, while claiming that you accept homosexuals and feel they are your equals, is pure hypocrisy.

 

Pardon me Ace but your whole post just oozes intolerance.

 

Insemination and adoption are both similar in my book. For a traditional couple who is infertile, insemination/adoption are solutions that are viewed as corrective of a medical issue. In a homosexual couple, it's more like a workaround for not having the proper plumbing.

But you must know--in case I did not make it clear--homosexuality in the Mormon church is discouraged, along with fornication, adultery and other things traditionally discouraged by Christian churches. So what to do about a family when you have a lesbian couple is not something that gets much discussion in church, as becoming a couple in the first place was discouraged, so getting comfortable together and having a family was automatically discouraged by that same logic.

This is why sometimes when you ask Christians why they view it that way they have a hard time explaining the nuts and bolts--it's not always taught, and not everybody and not every religion thinks about why things are right and wrong. Some are content to use religion as a guiding light to follow; I try to use my religion as a light to illuminate the way.

But on that concept, it's important to remember that church teachings often will focus on defining (and achieving/becoming like) the ideal. On the pulpit, churches rarely delve deep into the shades of gray. That's where religion/morals really get interesting to me, and that's part of what we're all here to learn, IMO. When a decision is not as easy as black or white but rather dark and less dark, what do you choose when nobody is watching? That's where real faith starts.

 

Is tolerance a virtue?

Is intolerance a vice?

 

Homos need to get back in the closet where they belong, organizing their dresses and shoe collection.