01) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.
02) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.
03) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.
04) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn’t changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can’t marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.
05) 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.
06) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn’t be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren’t full yet, and the world needs more children.
07) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.
08) Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That’s why we have only one religion in America.
09) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That’s why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise 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.
Blatantly stolen from craigslist via LinkFilter.
You left out the reason Santorum opposes gay marriage.
11) Gay marriage undermines too many of our nation’s most precious institutions like gay orgies and anonymous same-sex liaisons.
Nice site.
I say this all the time, but I just don’t know why anyone wants to get married. What’s the diff between getting married and living together? I’ve done both and prefer the second.
But anyway, as long as gay marriage opens the door, I want to marry my poodle. He’s the most loyal, consistent companion I’ve ever met.
Marriage does several things. It carries along a whole raft of legal consequences - power of attorney, shared property, inheritance, etc. etc.
Entirely apart from that, it’s a promise, in public and in front of witnesses, that you are making a lifetime commitment. That’s a big step and really differentiates the mindset of living together from being a married couple (at least for me).
Finally, it’s a ritual, one involving family and friends, and celebration. Rituals are important to humans, it’s how we tell each other something is important.
I’ve seen some really shitty marriages, marriages that made a mockery of the institution. I don’t see why a loving, caring, commited same-sex couple CAN’T take that step, when there is absolutely no filter on the kinds of marriages anyone else can jump into.
And finally, because I want to get off this soapbox, it seems to me that although dozens of arguments are thrown up against it (biblical, pro-family, etc.) they all seem to smack of hindsight rationalization: People have decided they just don’t want gay marriage, because it’s icky, and so they find reasons to justify their prejudice from whatever source they can.
My $0.02.
Yes, I saw that list on “The Drunken Lagomorph” blog… it is very good. I don’t get the “opening the door to marrying animals” part, though — some actually believe this argument! How insulting to equate marrying a human of the same sex to marrying, say, your pet dog!
I had a big argument with a friend of mine about gay marriage. He said he was against it, but he couldn’t give me a good reason why.
Finally he admitted that he just didn’t like thinking about two guys “being together.”
I looked over at him, almost 300 pounds, and his wife who’s even bigger… “I don’t really want to think about you two together, either.”
They didn’t think that was funny at all. Looks like I’m not getting invited over there again any time soon.