Citations of a Religious Matter

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Hey, its Amena again....
So its time for some citations. Im going off of Alex's recent post about gay marriage in the religious context. I found a couple interesting things on the subject including a scholarly article, a blog and a cartoon. So for the first...

The article's title is "Gay Marriage as a Religious Right: Reframing the Legal Debate over Gay Marriage in the United States". the article was written by Debra L. DeLaet and Rachel Paine Caufield, both professors at Drake university.

The article discusses the implications of framing the argument for gay rights around the idea of "religious rights" as opposed to "civil rights". The article talks about the definition of marriage in terms of religion, and discusses the advent of religious freedom in the united states and what that means for gay rights. The article also discusses the limitations of uaing the religious rights framework.

i think that this article is very useful. It thoroughly discusses the idea of religious rights in order to apply it to the arguments for gay marriage. Although looking at the agument for gay marriage with the religious rights framework has some limitations, it provides another evidence in support of the argument. Therefore this article is very useful because it provides plenty of credible sources to back up its argument.

The secound citation I found was a blog titled, "The Persuit of happiness: an inalienable right for the straight" written by Naomi Camilleri.

The blog discusses the definition of marriage in relation to religion. It discusses the definition of marriage as stated in scripture and other doctrines. The blog argues that the idea of marriage in religion has changed, and therefore could be still further changed to allow same sex marriage. It also argues that despite religious reasoning, freedom and rights of the constitution holds that everyone has the right to happiness despite any particular religious beleifs. furthermore, one's own religious beliefs should not be forced on others.

I think this blog is useful to the overall argument for gay marriage because it provides several good arguments, and provides evidence from scripture for the arguments given. This blog focuses on the right to happiness, which is a very strong point for the argument for gay marriage.

The third citation is actually a cartoon image. Although the cartoon doesnt comprise of much I think it says alot and makes a very good point. The cartoon was uploaded to toonpool.com and doesnt have a specified author.
The cartoon is making a point that religion and religious leaders, particularly catholics, do not have any right to make an argument against gay marriage stating that it is unnatural when they themselves practice an unnatural act. This cartoon discredits the religious argument against gay marriage.

This is very useful because it is putting things into perspective, and putting light on the double standards that comes with alot of arguments that are stated against gay marriage. I thought this cartoon was actually quite amusing.

Why Refute What Feels Right?

Hey there interweb readers!! Alex here. I have noticed that some of you don’t seem to like the way that I am writing. First off, let me say this out right. I am doing this for an assignment, not because I choose to freely. I am not a blogger, so this whole thing is brand new to me. Secondly, I am entitled to my own opinion, and if you feel otherwise, I am glad, it shows that you have free will. That is what the internet is for; everybody should be able to express themselves in what ever way that may be. If you want to use poor grammar, great; if you feel like cursing, awesome. Let me just say what I have to say and get this over with.

Ok, so for my second refutation of gay marriage, I found a blog called nosamesexmarriage.com. This site seems to be the most right wing, conservative site on the Internet about anti same sex marriage. I know that I have previously stated that I really have no opinion about the matter, but this site has gone overboard and are citing bible versus and personal opinions as reasons why people shouldn’t be allowed to marry the same sex.

Pros and Cons of Same Sex Marriage

Contact us and share your published or unpublished letters to editors. What are the pros and cons of same sex marriage.

Logical reasons for opposing same sex marriage:

1) thousands of years of traditional, male-female marriage, across numerous cultures and religions.

2) The public health catastrophe among homosexual men.

3) Numerous studies showing the importance to children of a father and a mother.

** But today let's look at biblical reasons for opposing gay marriages.

* These Scriptures may be meaningless to unbelievers.

* But these are the biblical reasons that should drive us who hold to the Word of God.

1 Corinthians 6:9 Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

(1) God defines homosexual offenders as among "the WICKED."

* Ephesians 5:11, KJV And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.

* The Christian's duty is to reprove, not to ignore, that which God calls wicked.

(Arguments Against Gay Marriage)

I have to admit that this blog has their opinions about why they don’t feel gay marriage should be allowed. But it goes against everything that our group is standing for on this blog. The use of biblical references makes me feel uncomfortable, because I am not too religious; I have to take what the blogger has written with a grain of salt.

I guess that’s all I have to say. I may have flip flopped a bit during this assignment, but I think in the end, I have reached a better understanding of why people thing same sex marriage should be ok.

Peace Out,

Alex

A Storm is Coming (Informative Citations)

Source 1: NOM - Gathering Storm Ad [Video]. (2009). Retrieved April 18, 2010, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp76ly2_NoI

The National Organization for Marriage is a conservative, faith-based non-profit organization that seeks to prevent the legal recognition and acceptance of same-sex marriage. NOM's stated mission is "to protect marriage and the faith communities that sustain it." NOM worked to overturn gay marriage in California and in 2009 it came out with a controversial ad that suggests opponents of same-sex marriage are now being victimized for their beliefs. NOM spent 1.5 million dollars to air the spot to turn back the tide of gay marriage and the group does not back away from the ad's argument that same-sex marriage has a direct, negative impact on non-gay people.


I chose to feature this ad in our blog because I think it epitomizes the irrational argument that so many opponents of gay marriage (particularly conservatives) subscribe to; that allowing homosexuals to marry will adversely affect the rest of the population and is threat to us all. "There's a storm gathering," one woman says as the spot opens. Says another woman: "I am afraid." Later in the spot, a man says same-sex marriage advocates "want to bring the issue into my life." He is followed by a woman who says "my freedom will be taken away." Another woman says same-sex marriage advocates "want to change the way I live." A teenage girl intones, "I will have no choice." The commercial is full of these quotes from "citizens" afraid of what will happen to them if gay marriage is allowed... when in reality it likely won't affect them at all. Check out a CBS news story on the ad here.

Source 2: Colbert Report - The Colbert Coalition's Ant-Gay Marriage Ad [Video]. (2009). Retrieved April 18, 2010, from http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/224789/april-16-2009/the-colbert-coalition-s-anti-gay-marriag-ad

Following the release of the NOM ad featured above, Stephen Colbert came out with his own anti-gay commercial on the Colbert Report, of course making fun of the original while pretending he is a hard line conservative that actually believes its message. Colbert said of the original NOM ad, "It is like watching the 700 Club and the Weather Channel at the same time."Colbert claims he got riled up as a result of the recent wins for gay marriage in Vermont and Iowa, and when Governor David Paterson introduced gay marriage legislation in Stephen's home state of New York he took action. He made his own gay marriage storm ad because as Stephen says, "New York can't handle a flood of gay marriage. As it is it's impossible to get a wedding announcement in the 'Times.' I had to release Carbon Monoxide into an apartment building then work the wedding into the police interview."

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Colbert Coalition's Anti-Gay Marriage Ad
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Fox News

Interestingly enough, the National Organization for Marriage actually sent Stephen Colbert a letter of thanks for producing the commercial parody that depicts the NOM membership as closeted, dim nitwits. Apparently, they believe that Colbert has helped their cause, somehow. This is, as they say, ADORBS:

"I've always thought Stephen Colbert was a double-agent, pretending to pretend to be a conservative, to pull one over Hollywood. Now I'm sure," said Maggie Gallagher, President of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM).

"Thank you Stephen for playing our ad in full on national television--for free. HRC eat your heart out. Plus we all had a great chuckle, too!" said Brian Brown, NOM's Executive Director. "Where can I make a donation to the National Organization for Colbert?"

Yes. NOM appears to believe that pretending to not understand the central satiric conceit of the show constitutes a witty comeback. They are also under the impression that their opponents at the Human Rights Campaign were saddened, watching Stephen Colbert rip NOM a new one.
See the Huffington Post story about the NOM letter to Colbert here


Source 3: Cognition & Emotion. June 2009, Vol. 23 Issue 4, p. 714 - 725. Conservatives are More Easily Disgusted than Liberals by Yoel Inbar, David A. Pizarro, and Paul Bloom

According to the authors of this journal article, the uniquely human emotion of disgust is intimately connected to morality in many, perhaps all, cultures (Rozin, Lowery, Imada, & Haidt, 1999b). They report two studies suggesting that a predisposition to feel disgust (“disgust sensitivity”) is associated with more conservative political attitudes, especially for issues related to the moral dimension of purity. In the first study, they document a positive correlation between disgust sensitivity and self-reported conservatism in a broad sample of US adults. In Study 2 they show that while disgust sensitivity is associated with more conservative attitudes on a range of political issues, this relationship is strongest for purity-related issues—specifically, abortion and gay marriage. I reference this article because I believe it can shed some light on the conservative stance against gay marriage seen, among other places, in the National Organization for Marriage commercial. Perhaps it is disgust and/or a perceived sense of having no moral purity tied to religious and political values that conservatives see in homosexuals that allows them to put up such a fight and the most unfounded, ridiculous arguments against gay marriage. I've had enough of this slippery slope argument that if we let gays marry then what is next... incest, polygamy, loss of freedom, the end of the institution of marriage, lifestyle changes for all, or as Stephen Colbert said arma-GAY-don. It just doesn't work like that and conservative Americans want to pretend it does perhaps because they are driven by disgust.
-Adam

Critical Refutation: Huckabee Compares Same-sex Marriage to Incest, Polygamy

Our blog and its contributors have argued for the legalization of gay marriage, among others, on the grounds of equal social rights for all. Recently however, in an interview with college journalists in New Jersey, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee utterly advocated against equal social rights for homosexuals by reportedly comparing the push for same-sex marriage to an effort to accommodate drug abuse, polygamy and incest, and dismissing adoption by gay couples by saying, "Children are not puppies." The Perspective, a student publication at The College of New Jersey in Ewing, N.J., published an article from the interview and in response to claims from the Huckabee camp that his words were distorted and sensationalized, Michael Tracey, the student who wrote the story on the interview, posted audio of portions of the interview online (see below).

Original Video - More videos at TinyPic

Huckabee's claims rely on faulty reasoning, unwarranted comparisons and reveal his negative view of homosexuals that underscore the values of the traditional family unit and what is in childrens' best interests that his argument is based on.

Huckabee displays his faulty reasoning and unwarranted comparisons when in discussing same-sex marriage in the interview he says, "You don't go ahead and accommodate every behavioral pattern that is against the ideal. That would be like saying, well, there are a lot of people who like to use drugs, so let's go ahead and accommodate those who want who use drugs. There are some people who believe in incest, so we should accommodate them. There are people who believe in polygamy, so we should accommodate them." Huckabee's reasoning here is that supporting same-sex marriage is akin to supporting drug users, as they are both behaviors that go against the ideal. Not only does this show a belief inherent in Huckabee that homosexuality is against the ideal, but to compare a behavior that one is born with (homosexuality) to a behavior one chooses to engage in (drug use) just doesn't make any sense or hold any weight. Furthermore, Huckabee compares supporting same-sex marriage to supporting other behaviors like incest and polygamy. However, homosexuality is a widely accepted behavior in America whereas incest and polygamy, which are both illegal, are not, and even if Huckabee puts these behaviors in the same "against the ideal" category, most Americans wouldn't. Also, even the most conservative estimates suggest that 1 - 5% percent of America's population is homosexual, equating to 2.7 million to 13.5 million people, which is undoubtedly a greater number of people than the number that engage in fringe behaviors like incest and polygamy. Therefore it is just asinine and ridiculous to compare pushing for same-sex marriage to accomodating behaviors like drug use, incest and polygamy.

In the interview, Perspective reported that Huckabee said he backs the Arkansas law barring same-sex couples from adopting or becoming foster parents. "This is not about trying to create statements for people who want to change the basic fundamental definitions of family," Huckabee said. "And always we should act in the best interest of the children, not in the seeming interest of the adults." "Children are not puppies," he said. "This is not a time to see if we can experiment and find out, how does this work?". When asked if it was preferable for children to stay in foster care rather than be adopted by a same-sex couple, Huckabee said, "No, its preferable to have men and women who actually give consideration to their sexual activities... when people use another person as their sexual object of pleasure without any regards to the ultimate consequences that may result from it. That's not mature sexuality, that's immature, selfish lifestyle." In these statements, Huckabee shows that he believes allowing homosexuals to adopt foster children would be a risky experiment and foster children should always go to a man and a woman. Furthermore, he hints at stereotypes, such as homosexuals being sexually promiscuous and immature which reveal his underlying negative view of homosexuals. Huckabee uses faulty reasoning and unwarranted comparisons to make his point on same-sex marriage. He also espouses the values of the traditional family unit and childrens' best interests as a guise for the negative view of homosexuals that actually drives his sentiments. All of these factors combines make his argument against same-sex marriage hold little, if any, weight.
-Adam

Blog Refutation: It’s more than just rights.

Hey all. Well as I was browsing the net for some nonsense written by people who are against gay marriage, I came upon a blog called “Killing the Gay Marriage Movement Obama-style”. The blog pretty much said that the move by Obama to grant gays and lesbians a bunch of rights, particularly medical rights, completely destroyed “the fundamental argument for gay marriage”.

I followed up on the info, and the blog was referring to an article in the Washington Post. Obama “mandated Thursday that nearly all hospitals extend visitation rights to the partners of gay men and lesbians and respect patients' choices about who may make critical health-care decisions for them.” Although it’s a step in the right direction, it is only that, a step. The blog stated that now that gays have gained a couple more rights they can leave the whole idea of marriage alone. It said that now that gays have gotten these rights the issue that the whole argument for gay marriage stands on is no longer viable and we no longer have any argument.

Anyways, the blog incorrectly summed up the whole of the arguments for gay marriage to be about getting the equal rights that only comes with marriage. This is totally incorrect. Gay marriage is not only about getting access to the rights that come with marriage. It’s about more than that. It’s about the principle of the thing. Giving gays rights but still refusing them marriage is not equality. We do not just want pieces, we want the whole package. Marriage. The fight for gay marriage goes beyond just attaining rights, which this blog completely misunderstood. This is a failure on their part; you can’t make an argument against an argument if you don’t understand their whole argument. Since medical rights aren’t the fundamental arguments behind the fight for gay marriage this blog is far from a valid point.

Gay Marriage: Can Gay be the Way?

Hey there readers!!! Alex is signing in once again. I know that I have previously made it clear that I am weary of this subject, but do to scholastic reasons, I am going to try my best to fulfill the requirements of this assignment.

So here it goes.



Gay marriage is still a young item in regards to religion and what not. The idea that two people of the same sex are able to come together and have the same tax breaks and social status as other heterosexual couples sounds like a good idea, in theory.
As I was surfing the web, I came across a blog that was bashing the idea of gay marriage. The post that I looked at was just 10 statements, all of them bashing the idea of same sex marriage. Some of the statements include:
5. Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britany Spears’ 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.
7. Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.
10. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven’t adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.
(Bligbi Blog)
The entire post bashes same sex marriage in this way. I personally could care less about same sex marriage, but because this assignment is supposed to go for a cause, I will go along with the rest of my group. If two people of the same sex want to get together and have the same last name or something, I say that we should let them do it, just don’t let me know what you are doing behind closed doors.

Deliberative Democracy Part 2: Family, Love, and Commitment

Hello! So, I'm using deliberative democracy again here for this post. But this time, it's not all about equal rights for homosexuals. I want to show you how deliberative democracy can be a useful way to argue about same-sex couples with the ideas of family, commitment, and love.

Katrina


More reasons that we should legalize homosexual marriage is that the number of child adoptions should increase since gay couples cannot pro-create. Like any heterosexual couple relationship, a same-sex marriage may fuel the desire for a family. Since gay couples cannot have kids naturally, this will likely increase the desire to adopt. This can be a wonderful thing for those children who are born into families and households where they aren’t wanted, or just aren’t able to have them. Homosexual couples can litterally save lives of those unwanted children. Since there are so many kids around the country in need of adoption, this is a good thing. However, others believe a child reared in a same-sex marriage do not develop ideally. Evidence at this point is inconclusive since same-sex adoptions have yet to become widespread. Being able to adopt and have a family definitely encourages people to have strong family values and give up high-risk sexual lifestyles, especially if they are legally committed to one partner. One of the main arguments against gay marriage is that it would further erode family values; however, the opposite is true. According to www.loveandpride.com, “In considering the pros and cons of same sex marriage, the cultural pressures on gay couples are rarely mentioned. Gay couples face a wealth of prejudice, including the assumption that gay men and lesbians are promiscuous and incapable of sustaining a committed relationship.” The problems related to sexuality in our society such as sexually transmitted diseases that stem from carefree, frivolous lifestyles; in other words, having frequent, unprotected sex with many partners. Marriage encourages people to settle down and to give up that type of lifestyle. Married people commit themselves to one partner and work to build a life together. Isn't that the type of behavior we as public group of people want to encourage? Deliberative democracy can be the voice to show the world that the United States cares about everyone who lives here, and it doesn’t matter what lifestyle they live. This would help set our country even further ahead to show the rest of the world how much we are advancing. These are two more reasons why we should bother to legalize homosexual marriages throughout the entire country.

Most importantly, the only thing that should matter in marriage is love. I feel that the whole debate should be based on this one emotion. The number one reason that heterosexuals marry is not to establish legal status, allow joint filing of taxes, or protect each other in medical decision-making. No, they marry because it is the ultimate expression of a person's love for another. Marriage is a commitment that says that it is a bond between two people that can conquer anything. It shouldn’t matter that the couple doesn't fit into what society is used to or think is normal. Some people talk about living wills and other legal contracts that can give homosexuals essentially the same rights as a married couple. If that is the case, then why shouldn’t all heterosexual couples use these legal maneuvers instead of getting married? Just maybe there's something more to it than legal matters and benefits. It is completely unfair to deny these privileges to homosexual people because their relationship doesn't fit the state's definition of a relationship, or marriage.

In conclusion, deliberative democracy recognizes a conflict of interest between the citizen participating, those affected or victimized by the process being undertaken, and the group-entity that organizes the decision. Therefore, it usually involves an extensive outreach effort to include marginalized, isolated, ignored groups in decisions, and future predictions of consequences of actions. On the other hand, many practitioners of deliberative democracy attempt to be as neutral and open-ended as possible, inviting people who represent a wide range of views and providing them with balanced materials to guide their discussions. I feel that deliberative democracy can be a very effective form of voting, passing, or denying laws. It should be how we vote overall because the Electoral College is so outdated and doesn’t really give us what we vote for. I think a lot more of bills and laws would pass, because people would get results of what they really want to happen and to be legal in our country.