I consider myself a conservative; most people who are classified with that label are not. To be conservative is to believe that government should get involved with people’s lives only to protect people’s basic rights (“life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”; or as I count them: health, freedom, and the right to be let alone). No, I’m not a libertarian.

A true conservative would not want to see any Constitutional amendment that has the effect of removing personal freedom. A true conservative would understand that it’s not the government’s business who I sleep with or fall in love with, or whom I form a contract with (save that said person must be willing and capable of understanding the contract). Marriage is a contract, so the government shouldn’t care who I marry, so long as everyone is consenting.

Keep your damned laws out of my bedroom, and off my body.

I suppose a better way to put it would be to say that any GROUP that professes belief in polygamy based on a commandment from God would be againts homosexuality. Again, there might be some small small faction somewhere that doesn’t fit that mold, but they will have broken off from a larger group that does.

I had made the incorrect supposition that, since the topic was based on religous beliefs, the arguments set forth would be viewed in that light and with that premise. If the God factor is taken out, then yes, I would bet that there are lots of groups that profess plural marriage, as well as sanction homosexual rights.

apestench, yes, many people would make that argument.

Sfurules said:
“Anyone who believes in polygamy will do so because of a belief that God has sanctioned said unions. That belief will also carry with it the belief that God has condemned homosexual relations. ”

That’s just not true. There are many reasons people might accept polygamy. Even religious basis for acceptance of polygamy does not require one to accept religious bias against homosexuality. I will accept that the preponderance of those using the religious justifications for polygamy stated in this thread would also be against homosexuality because of the religions involved, but it’s not 100%.

However, I will agree with this statement: “Furthermore, polygamy is not a sexual preferance, it is a way to EXPRESS a sexual preferance. ” Multi-partner unions can be structured with and without homosexual components.

And that’s exactly the kind of attitude some people don’t want you to have. Accident? Defect? Those terms carry a certain air that they don’t want applied to the term. It’s why some homosexuals frown on research into what causes homosexuality – the idea that they may be labeled as defective, or worse, that they must be cured.

Apestench, that’s a muddy topic. The initial laws were a clear violation of the First Amendment – actions taken by the government against Mormons for their religious beliefs. However, current unsanctioned* Mormon polygamies are a different situation, because they’re often not among consenting adults, but rather adult men and teenage girls.

But the question was about my reason for bringing them up.

*The LDS Church does not currently officially practice or sanction polygamy. Some self-proclaimed Mormons (LDS offshoots, sects) do.

Before the Berlin Wall came down, I saw a report on the evening news about an East German doctor who wondered why there was a spike in the percentage of homosexuals born to German women during and just after World War II. He theorized it might have something to do with stress-induced hormonal imbalances in the mother affecting the development of the foetus. He modeled his theory with pregnant rats, forcing them to swim in tanks to near-exhaustion and squeezing them into claustrophobic containers. The resulting litters showed homosexual behavior significantly exceeding the norm.

It’s strange, but since that report in about 1988, I haven’t heard the doctor’s findings discussed in any medium or forum. People seem to be extremely polarised in their opinions — believing that homosexuality is a “lifestyle” a “sin” or a genetic aberration. The scientific evidence indicates that it is none of these. Once one understands the underlying cause, it is seen simply as an unfortunate accident, like any other kind of congenital defect.

danika, if you think gay marriages are wrong, then don’t get one. They’re your religious beliefs, and not everyone shares them. Live your life by them, and let others live their lives the way they want.

The Black Cat gives many scripture references as support to why the Bible is not able to be used as an argument against homosexuality…unfortunatly, he (or she) forgot to notice that ALL of the references used came from the Old Testament. First off, remember that the Old Testament has been really messed up in the 1000′s of years that it has been around (not as a whole book…stop yelling at your screen!). Back when it was being translated and transcribed, the monks and others that were doing it didn’t have “Spell Check” to fix minor errors. Over that long amount of time, and due to being re-transcribed and edited by hand so many times, the Old Testament has indeed lost some of its original meaning.

Secondly, remember that the Old Testament is an account written about the Law of Moses, and the lesser commandments given to him by God (Remember the 10 commandmentments). The New Testament is an account given by many about the life of Christ (at least that is what the first four books are all about). He said in the New Testament that his purpose here was to “complete the law (of Moses)”. Therefore, when he finished his work he had replaced the old (and if you think about it, pretty dang easy to follow) law with a new, more difficult and powerful law (which is meant to bring about salvation, not prepare the way as the law of Moses was intended). Think about the Old Testament as John the Baptist, and the New Testament as Christ.

Therefore, the use of Old Testament scripture to refute the New Testament is not appropriate. I am willing to admit that the use of scripture here is not the right way to go about the topic anyways though. Those who believe the Bible and its teachings are 95% of the time going to be against Gay unions and will agree with the quotes. Those that do not believe in the Bible will refute it as “fairytales” and say that it is not truth, and therefore inadmissable as intelectual fodder. So, by logical deduction you see that scripture has no ability to sway people one way or another.

I am also interested about what Irishman was saying about Mormons and polygamy. I think it might be that I am tired, but I was unable to tell how that argument was related to. What do the Mormons beliefs on polygamy have to do with it? I am being serious here, I am not being critical. I just didn’t understand how it fit in.

Slavery is acceptable (Exodus 21.2).
You should kill your child if he strikes you (Exodus 21:15).
If you work on Sunday, you should be put to death (Exodus 35:2-3).
If you curse, you should be stoned to death (Lev. 24:14-15).
Happiness is smashing children upon the rocks (Psalms 137:9).
Disobedient children deserve to die (Romans 1:30-1:32).
A rebellious son should be stoned to death (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)
If you capture a women during battle, you can force her to be your wife, and then discard her if she doesn’t please you (Deuteronomy 21:11-14).

So are you in favor of those things as well?

I’m not attacking Christianity, I am a Christian myself, but there are certain rules in the bible that are simply unacceptable today. Societies do not stay the same, they evolve and develop over time. Literal conservatives and reactionaries simply have to learn to accept that. Things that were appropriate 2000 or 3000 years ago are sometimes simply not appropriate today.

Besides, we don’t live in a theocracy, we live in a constitutional republic. There is no justification under our system of government for the oppression of groups of people, no matter what any religious book states. Our rules are based on equality under the law for ALL people, not only those people certain religions approve of. It is so annoying when fellow Christians complain about how Christians are oppressed in other countries because of those countries’ religious ideas, and then proceed to try to oppress people in this country that they don’t like based on their own religious ideas. Oppression is oppression, plain and simple, and NO religion can justify oppressing others under ANY circumstances.

The larger question is what is “marriage”? Is it, as christians claim, a contract by God? If so, what business does the government have in paying any attention to it?

The Libertarian answer, one that I actually support, is making a formal split between the state’s interest in unions (if indeed there is a legitimate role for the state, which would be all the associated privileges, such as inheritance rights, designated next-of-kin, joint property rights, child custody, etc.) and the religious marriage. Let religions decide for themselves who they want to perform ceremonies for. From the government’s standpoint, register anyone who wants as a licensed union.

This, of course, is constrained to the legitimate legal distinctions of Consenting Adult Humans. Actually, you bring up the point about minors, and some states already do allow minors to marry with the consent of their parents. State’s set their own age limits – I believe the youngest is 14, but I’m not certain.

That just leaves consenting and humans. I think the consenting is largely agreed to – forced marriages are out, aren’t they? What about marrying someone in a coma? Is that allowed? Should it be? (Okay, I’m being facetious.) I would suggest, however, that “consenting” and “human” are redundant. Well, maybe KoKo the gorilla can consent, but do we really expect any animal to have the understanding above a 5 year old human?

Furthermore, the government has already been in active force against religious freedom for marriage – the Mormons. So if you believe marriage is a sacred covenant of God, then why do you fight polygamy, when one religious group says that God approves of polygamy? Heck, Islam also allows polygamy, so again, the God angle is not a good defense. Unless you claim that your religion and it’s views are somehow special and the only ones we should allow anyone to follow. Oh, wait, there’s that Pesky First Amendment to the Constitution again.

You wave the strawman of pedophilia and bestiality. The issue here is not about sex, despite that preference playing a role in the distinctions between the groups. The issue is about marriage, and all the ramifications and consequences that status brings. Humans will have sex with or without marriage, even counter to marriage, in whatever manner they fancy, despite laws, despite religious injunctions. “Marriages” and “Civil Unions” and whatever other titles you want to use are about commitments and obligations and privileges.

I see no reason to deny homosexuals the right to marry each other.

They want legal definitions to be changed for their personal benefit. If we start changing definitions for them, we must allow every personal belief to have the same “rights.”

One last thought on the subject of “gay rights,” homosexuals have all of the rights that heterosexuals have. What they want is more rights. Homosexuals cannot marry someone of the same sex, neither can heterosexuals. This is not like the civil rights struggle. Homosexuals do not want to be able to do the same things that heterosexuals can do, they already can. They want legal definitions to be ch

Otherwise, people with strong pro-marriage convictions would rally ON the side of allowing homosexual couples to marry

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In fact, is there any point left in marrying?

I am talking about the civil side of marriage, obviously, as what people want to do religiously is their own business

On the one side, “civil unions” are going to become a sort of “marriage lite” (same rights, fewer committments), by a matter of course

No Constitutional scholar would argue against that. You simply cannot state that all people are equal and then prevent a group of them from enjoying the rights given to another group

On the other side, marriage has lost much of its social significance. There is no scandal anymore when unmarried couples have a holiday, or go living together.

There is actually quite some pressure TO live together BEFORE committing to marriage, in order to avoid the dreaded “messy divorce”.

Children born “out of wedlock” are too numerous to count (and too good for anybody to believe that there is something wrong with not being married)

Marriage is left then as a “life committment in front of the law”, i.e. the establishment of mutual legal chains that should prevent the “other” from running away one evening after claiming to go and buy some cigarettes.

We all know how things work in that case…Still, if things go wrong for some reason the State feels obliged to make it difficult for people to go their own ways (6 months to 1 year of wait for a divorce in the UK, up to 5 years in Italy, and so on)

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Therefore, gay marriage opponents may actually be actively killing their beloved “heterosexual marriage”: because if gay people can opt for civil unions who in their right mind would not do the same?

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Methinks “marriage” will become more and more a contract between 2 people, of whatever gender, with little supervision by the State: something of the order of nowadays’ “pre-nuptial contracts”.

Keep in mind that all of this does not prevent “marriage parties”, presents, etc: it only makes the State mind its own business, instead of interfering in the private lives of its citizens…all in all, a return to the Romans’ more uxorio and a step surely to be saluted by all libertarians

See the SOHO web site: http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/

As for how the color of a star can represent both the element of the star and the temperature of the star, here is a brief introduction into stellar temperature from spectroscopy.
http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery;jsessionid=3ekg8qiq4lole?method=4&dsid=2222&dekey=Stellar+classification&gwp=8&curtab=2222_1&sbid=lc03b

In a quick google search, I was unable to turn up a more detailed explanation. From what I gather the temperature of the star effects the energy states available for photon emission, which controls the wavelengths emitted, i.e. the color.