Talk about jousting at windmills.  Traditional marriage is being undermined by a great many forces in contemporary society, but same-gender marriage is not one of them.  For the growing number of people who know same-gender couples and their families personally, and know what healthy, happy, productive lives they typically lead, the various arguments against legally-recognized civil marriages promoted by those claiming only to be interested in protecting traditional marriage just don’t mesh with reality.

It certainly is reality, David, for the idea of taking an essential oxymoron - that is the “marriage” of non-complimentary parts - and enshrining it in law is nothing short of declaring that the male-female union is no more than a happy accident.  It is also a declaration of sexual ambiguity and relativism as legal precedent.  I can therefore think of no greater “undermining” of traditional marriage.  In fact, your term - “traditional marriage” - is itself a misnomer.  There is marriage, and then there is counterfeit marriage.  What you are speaking of is the counterfeit.  ...And counterfeits remain counterfeits, no matter how attractive they may appear to a duped or ignorant beholder.

Your secondary argument does not make sense.  The fact that these “relationships” may be stable is no reason to call them a marriage.  In fact, one cannot go beyond the term “civil contract” without drifting into total moral relativism.  That is why I am one of many people who - despite fulfilling your personalistic standard of “knowing” gays and gay couples - simply cannot acknowledge the possibility of gay “marriage.”  It has nothing to do with hate, and everything to do with reality.

Dave please take your classic “disinformation campaign” to some gullible website; if you are selling stupid the Country is already “full-up”; nobody but a Cuomo or a Kennedy or a Pelosi or a Jerry Brown is buying any of it anymore. Genuine, real statistics clearly show that homosexual marriages are massively NOT healthy NOT happy and are manifestly NOT productive. They are taking a terrible toll upon those who are deluded into them and on society at large.
For the love of God and the sake of our children and their children this farce must stop NOW! Here is what the homosexual lobby is already teaching the children:

http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/compulsory-sex-ed-in-new-york/

Enough is enough so back off.

Ssm and abortion are the same. If you don,t like it don,t do it but do not force your beliefs onto others!

Dave,
I recommend you take the trouble to learn the fundamentals of logical (as opposed to emotional)debate. You do not argue from the particular to the general. This is how we got abortion on demand (by arguing from the particular of hard cases e.g rape, incest etc.) to a situation where millions of human beings are being terminated for the convenience of their mothers.

There is ample research to show that children suffer for the rest of their lives after being brought up in a family that lacks a mother(female) and father(male) in a stable relationship. SSM if it continues to become legal will result in multitudes of disadvantaged children so two people can satisfy their unnatural desire for a physical relationship.

Dear Dave,

What arguments do you mean?

LG

@Lawrence—a couple of examples have already come up in the comments here.  One is the assertion that statistics showing that children in stable households headed up by a mother and father do best as a group compared to all others can be interpreted as saying that children don’t do as well when raised by same-gender parents.  And that is just a bogus interpretation that confuses statistical correlation with causation.  It is true that children raised in stable households headed up by a mother and father do better in aggregate than the population of children raised under different circumstances, but that is because the statistics for the latter population are dominated by children who are the products of broken homes, or are being raised by single moms that (statistically) are more likely to be poor.  You can’t draw any conclusions about how a specific subgroup fares unless you actually tabulate and analyze statistics for that specific subgroup.  Studies that have actually looked specifically at how kids raised by same-gender parents fare show they do as well as, if not a bit better than, kids in general.

Another common argument is that same-gender couples ought not be allowed to get married because they cannot have kids that are biologically their own.  But that ignores the rather obvious truth that straight couples that have no intention of having kids, or are unable to, are still allowed to get married.  Traditionalists try to gloss over that with vague arguments about complementarity and potentiality, but the bottom line is that for most people such arguments just come across as forced, contrived rationalizations for opposing same-gender marriage.

And then there are claims that same-gender marriages are not typically healthy, happy, and productive.  Again, that just flies in the face of everything I’ve seen personally, and it flies in the face of what most people I know have seen in the lives of such couples.  And it flies in the face of the consensus views of the large majority of mental-health professionals; the major mental-health organizations all support the idea of same-gender marriage, specifically because of their benefits to the couples, to any kids they are raising, and to society in general.

Posted by Dave on Monday, Oct 10, 2011 7:50 PM (EDT):

Talk about jousting at windmills.  Traditional marriage is being undermined by a great many forces in contemporary society, but same-gender marriage is not one of them.  For the growing number of people who know same-gender couples and their families personally, and know what healthy, happy, productive lives they typically lead, the various arguments against legally-recognized civil marriages promoted by those claiming only to be interested in protecting traditional marriage just don’t mesh with reality.
...
you know differnt folks than i do… i know one lady who fought hard for ssm, so if she died her partner would inherit the property… they separted two years later… then she “marry” second, who is preg… they raise baby as “theirs” for 7 years… they separte, the baby (little girl) goes with mom… her mom died, who has little girl now??? i ran into her, ask her about little girl, what school, etc… she looked at me and say “shes only 3, dont rush her!” she laughed… i had to ask another friend what happened? she wants baby, not “hers”... she went through 4 diff women before latest… this baby somebody elses daughter (mommy/daddy), in utero transferred to “mommy”... now, shes sick, but neither mom knows her real mom or dad to find out what she has… nor can they find adoption papers, cause she not adopted…
...
4 little girls… nobody knows who dad is - first one may, she preg when they “marry” - 2 of em dont even know who mom is, lawyer moved out of state… 4 girls… 3 sick, need transplant from “family”...
...
this is in louisana, home of covenant marriages, man-woman marriages… that is 1 - one - of many, many ssm-wannabes i know… and not one of them are happy, none are healthy, and kids… well, kids are all diff… one is 22 yr old, dont want anything to do with gay, dont have anything to say to “parents”... one is 18, has boyfriend and cant ask “moms” what to do about anything…
...
what is this??? this is “reality”...

I think real marriage will ultimately win. We may or may not lose temporarily, but Truth ultimately prevails.

Veritas, I agree with you.  I can’t even watch a lot of TV shows now because of the homosexual agenda being shoved down my throat.  And now I have to read that agenda being defended here in the comments.  I wish those people would go to National Catholic Reporter.

@sleepyhead—a couple of differences between where you live and where I live (NJ).  For one thing, the divorce rate in Louisiana is almost twice that of NJ ... so maybe dysfunctional relationships (for both straight and gay couples) are more common there than they are here.  Also, NJ has Civil Unions, and anti-discrimination laws that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation; Louisiana has neither of those things.  It is well-established that living in a hostile environment contributes to dysfunctional relationships.

@dave—louisiana doesnt count divorces/annulments…so, show where you have divorce info…?

sleepyhead—it’s data collected by the US Census Bureau:
http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/acs-13.pdf

@Dave
“It is well-established that living in a hostile environment contributes to dysfunctional relationships.
“

Then why don’t Evangelical Christians, who are widely despised, have dysfunctional relationships?

Also, even in super-bizarrely-unbelievably liberal Netherlands, homosexuals have a tiny “marriage” rate (they prefer to be polygamous even when “marriage” is available) and, when they do “marry”, they cheat on each other at abnormal rates and have higher rates of divorce.

There is nothing at stake in recognizing that gay Americans have the right to marry (via the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution).  To say otherwise is to have a fundamental misunderstanding of gay people, to promote bigotry and ingnorance and fear in light of no evdince justifying such attitudes.

Sleepyhead—it’s been a few hours since I submitted my response to your question and they haven’t posted it yet; I included a link to my source, but maybe they have problems with posts with links.  So to answer your question (without the link), my divorce information comes from data collected by the US Census Bureau.  If you goggle the name of the document—acs-13.pdf—it comes up.

Just the Facts not “Feelings” “Dave”; your statistics are upside down; the facts are the exact opposite of the smoke you are blowing our way. Presuming that you are actually sincere I will lay out the facts for you.
Dr. Michelle Cretella, a Rhode Island general pediatrician, Board member of the American College of Pediatricians has patiently documented the flaws in the research studies that purport to find Homosexual “parenting” to be as “healthy” as heterosexual parenting. Dr. Cretella identified the key methodological flaw in those studies is that “they compared the well being of children in homosexual households to those raised in difficult circumstances such as single-parent households that resulted from divorce”. NONE of the studies compared children raised by homosexual parents to children with two heterosexual parents in a stable, loving marriage. Said Dr. Cretella, “Because if you do that, and we have decades of studies that have compared children in a traditional home with children of single mothers, children of single fathers, adoptive children, stepfamilies, children raised by a mother and grandmother, and across the board socially, emotionally, intellectually and physically children reared physically by their two biological parents do better across all those measures.”

Dr. Cretella has even cited a meta-study conducted by two “pro-homosexual” researchers. It found that girls raised in Homosexual households are more likely to be more aggressive, boys are likely to be less masculine and that both girls and boys engage in sexual experimentation at earlier ages and are more sexually promiscuous.” Naturally the Homosexual researchers who conducted the meta-study did not regard their findings as “negative”. Another documented consequence of same-sex parenting is an increased likelihood that children of same-sex parents will claim a Homosexual identity themselves. Dr. Cretella noted that multiple studies have found that Homosexually behaving teens and young adults suffer increased rates of depression, anxiety, eating disorders, addictions and suicidal thoughts. And in the case of boys who adopt a homosexual lifestyle because of the influence of their same-sex parents, Dr. Cretella said, they face a 30% chance of being dead or HIV-positive by the age of 30.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) documented that Homosexual men accounted for 65 percent of the nearly 12,000 cases of syphilis in the United States in 2007, making them the “primary driver” of increased syphilis rates overall.

These are facts Dave not your “feelings”. The facts are that raising children in Homosexual households is an overt form of child abuse and if our Society was truly healthy and functioning Homosexual parenting would never be allowed!

Dave, no matter how rational you try to call yourself, homosexuality is just wrong.  It is against Natural Law,  it is against Divine Law.  Animals have shown you the way. God created us all - male and female - with the sole purpose of procreation and protection of mankind and His other Creations, animal and plants. Abnormal sexual tendencies cannot be right.  They are an abberation; a physical, phsychological and emotional disorder.  A person with homicidal tendencies cannot be called OK. A person with stealing tendencies cannot be called OK. A person with incest tendencies cannot be called OK. No one hates homosexuals. What we all do is ask them to accept they need help because they are not OK. No matter how hard the fight to destroy Marriage by calling abnormal co-habitations “marriage” they will never be so - regardless of how the United States Judicial Processes try to sanitize them.  So sad to come across your comments on a Catholic Website.

lol
.
@dave - the source you used, which is indeed used by the census bureau, is derived completely by “selected addresses” to which american community survey “elects” to send them to, and they in turn elect to answer them…
.
in other words, the acs is the nielsen of americans… lol
>>>
“Is the American Community Survey legitimate?

Print | Share this page | Connect with us

Yes. The American Community Survey is legitimate. It is a survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Unlike the every-10-year census, our survey continues all year, every year. We randomly sample addresses in every state, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.

Answers are collected to form up-to-date statistics used by many federal, state, tribal, and local leaders. Some American Community Survey questions have been asked by the census since it first began in 1790.

If you have additional concerns about whether the American Community Survey is legitimate, call 1-800-354-7271 for additional confirmation.”

Nick—if you think Evangelical Christians are subjected to anything like the hostility that gays often are, then you are really out of touch.  Gays are shunned by their families, their faith communities, and by many of their peers; those that experience these kinds of ostracizing environments starting in adolescence often experience significant and lasting psychological damage.  Evangelical Christians, on the other hand, typically enjoy very strong support systems both from family and from those in their faith communities.  As for the Netherlands, marriage isn’t exactly in the best shape there even among heterosexuals.  And the very studies you refer to that discuss heightened divorce rates also attribute them to social stigmatization ... which exists there, in spite of what you say.  And FYI, the British version of the Census Bureau recently released statistics on divorce rates for both straight marriages and same-gender unions, and the rates for same-gender couples were actually smaller than those for straights, by about a factor of two.

Sleepyhead - you say the ACS surveys are sent to “selected” people, and then quote the Census Bureau which says they are sent to “random” people.  Big difference ... and the Census Bureau is right.  You may dismiss the results because you don’t like them, but you haven’t provided any rational reason as to why the results might be invalid, particularly as far as state-to-state comparisons go. 

veritas—Michelle Cretella is an officer of NARTH, which has a long history of demeaning homosexuals using flawed studies, distortions of other studies, and outright fabrications.  The claim that studies of kids raised by same-gender couples have only compared them to kids raised in difficult circumstances is simply false. 

Mary42—if people only wanted to hear from people they agree with in these forums, then why even bother having such forums??  If you want to understand why public opinion is shifting in favor of same-gender marriage as rapidly as it has been, maybe you would do well to listen to some opposing viewpoints.  Or perhaps you (and many others here) prefer to exist in a vacuum and simply tell each other what you all want to hear, and lament how sad it is that nobody is as discerning about God’s will as you are.

Misinformation: Studies that have actually looked specifically at how kids raised by same-gender parents fare show they do as well as, if not a bit better than, kids in general. Look it up. DOn’t get snowed.

More misinformation: “There is nothing at stake in recognizing that gay Americans have the right to marry (via the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution).  To say otherwise is to have a fundamental misunderstanding of gay people, to promote bigotry and ingnorance and fear in light of no evdince justifying such attitudes.” Look at the court cases regarding the 14th Amendment. Don’t get snowed.

@Mary42—just a couple other responses to your last comment.  First, you are free to believe that loving, committed, same-gender relationships are wrong, but there arguably is nothing in the Bible to support that claim; most verses commonly used to condemn homosexuality are probably about different things altogether.  (Even the US Conference of Catholic Bishops acknowledges the fact that the key NT passages in Paul’s letters were likely talking about things like pederasty; see the 3rd footnote in the following: http://www.usccb.org/bible/1corinthians/1corinthians6.htm )

As for animals, homosexual behavior has been seen in a huge number of species.  There is nothing particularly abnormal or unnatural about it.  The fact that sexuality exists as a range of orientations, going from strongly homosexual to bisexual to strongly heterosexual, is typical of the normal diversity of human characteristics.  The large majority of mental-health professionals, and again most people who actually know typical homosexuals, will tell you there is nothing disordered about it.

While our God-given purposes here may be summed up as procreation and protection of God’s creation, not everybody is called to procreate.  There are many married straight couples who cannot, or choose not to, have kids for various reasons.  Many others have kids via, for example, adoption.  They are no less involved in the protection of God’s creation than couples whose kids are biologically their own.  And none of that is any less true for same-gender couples.  They are just as capable of working to protect God’s creation as anyone.

Finally, murderers, thieves, and people who sexually assault young kids are people with extremely destructive behaviors/attitudes motivated by a desire for self-gratification.  The kinds of same-gender couples we are talking about here are not acting out of a desire for self-gratification, and having two people in a loving, monogamous relationship is anything but destructive.  Christ defined sin as the failure to love God and the failure to love others with a selfless, self-sacrificing love.  It is easy to see why murder, thievery, pedophilia, etc., are sinful from that perspective.  Same-gender couples in loving union??  Not so much.

@Dave
> “Nick—if you think Evangelical Christians are subjected to anything like the hostility that gays often are, then you are really out of touch.”

Try converting to Evangelicalism in an anti-evangelical family.

> “As for the Netherlands, marriage isn’t exactly in the best shape there even among heterosexuals.”

Still it is much worse among homosexuals.

> “And the very studies you refer to that discuss heightened divorce rates also attribute them to social stigmatization”

Oh please.

> “And FYI, the British version of the Census Bureau recently released statistics on divorce rates for both straight marriages and same-gender unions”

In Britain there are no same-sex “marriages”; there are same-sex civil unions, and they have been approved for too short a time for such studies to have any significance.

The facts are simple:
1) Homosexual pairs don’t even want to marry; where same-sex “marriage” has been approved, the same-sex “marriage” rates are tiny. The whole same-sex “marriage” agenda is just about acceptance (they want to redefine our culture to say the homosexuality is OK), not about legal rights.
2) Research shows that homosexual coupes are EXTREMELY promiscuous and adulterous.
3) HIV rates among men-who-have-sex-with-men are 50-60 times larger
4) Other venereal diseases soar among homosexuals
5) Their life expectancy is 10-20 years shorter
6) In most of the world, they can’t donate blood. Why? See point 3,4 and 5 above
7) Normal sex results in new life and love. Sodomy results in blood, feces, and HIV and death.

See http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive/ldn/1950/60/5060606

@Dave

> “but there arguably is nothing in the Bible to support that claim; most verses commonly used to condemn homosexuality are probably about different things altogether.”

There are 7 condemnations of homosexuality in the Bible. They come from VERY different backgrounds. Both in the Old Testament (and not just Israel, but several pagan places too), New Testament. There is absolutely no room to say that sodomy “was only wrong in early Israel” or any other B.S. interpretation.

> “As for animals, homosexual behavior has been seen in a huge number of species.”

So what some animals practice sodomy? Animals also practice cannibalism, incest, extreme polygamy and polyandry, etc. I __strongly__ advise you against imitating the moral behaviour of animals!

>“There is nothing particularly abnormal or unnatural about it.”

When we say sodomy is “unnatural”, it does not mean “animals don’t do it”. It means “it is against natural law”. Natural law is a part of philosophy.
For example, some animal eat their own offspring, but we still can say that eating babies is unnatural - because it is against natural law.

> “The large majority of mental-health professionals”
Since 1973, when they were heavily lobbied into removing homosexuality from the DSM.

>”, and again most people who actually know typical homosexuals, will tell you there is nothing disordered about it.”

Nothing disordered about getting 50-60 times more AIDS, other venereal diseases, 10 years less lifespan?

>“The kinds of same-gender couples we are talking about here are not acting out of a desire for self-gratification, and having two people in a loving, monogamous relationship is anything but destructive.”
Sodomy brings you 50-60 times more chance of AIDS, gives you other venereal diseases, and reduces your lifespan. It is self-destructive. It brings death, not life. And since these things are contagious, it is also destructive, and it is most destructive to the person you have sodomy with - precisely the person you claim to love.

Well - it’s been an interesting set of exchanges, but I see little point going on if you are going to twist what I said, and even more so if you folks are getting your information from places like Lifesite and Paul Cameron ... both of whom (to put it mildly) have credibility issues.  Like I said earlier, if you folks want to sit in a corner and feed each other distortions, falsehoods, and misinformation, you certainly have that right.

@Dave

> “I see little point going on if you are going to twist what I said, and even more so if you folks are getting your information from places like Lifesite and Paul Cameron”

I didn’t twist anything you said. And the LifeSiteNews data is well sourced (from the CDC, from example).

>” misinformation”

Misinformation? Can you dispute the data I provided you? For example, do you dispute the solid fact the men-who-have-sex-with-men aren’t allowed to donate blood in much of the world, due to their immense rate of venereal diseases? Do you disagree with the CDC that AIDS is 50 times more prevalent among men-who-have-sex-with-men?

Don’t define “misinformation” as “politically incorrect information”.

The reduced lifespan of men-who-have-sex-with-men is well supported by scientific data.

http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/26/3/657.abstract

Also, the CDC states that men-who-have-sex-with-men are 50-60 times more likely to have AIDS:

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive/ldn/2009/aug/09082609

(this is a report from the CDC).

If you want something directly from the CDC, see:

http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/basic.htm#incidence

It says the 61% of new HIV infections come from gay/bisexual men (and remember that gays/bisexuals are only 2-3% of the total population, and gay/bisexual _men_ are only half that - 1-2% of the population- so they should comprise
1-2% of AIDS infections).

Reality doesn’t fit political correctness constraints.

Will now someone say that the CDC and the International Journal of Epidemiology are unreliable?

“Sodomy brings you 50-60 times more chance of AIDS, gives you other venereal diseases, and reduces your lifespan. It is self-destructive. It brings death, not life. And since these things are contagious, it is also destructive, and it is most destructive to the person you have sodomy with - precisely the person you claim to love.”

No, sodomy does not cause or increase AIDS and/or other venereal diseases.  Promiscuity and unprotected sex does—and that holds true for everyone, regardless of sexual orientation.  That is why we should all be encouraging a marriage culture, for gay men in particular, and for all citizens in general.  And why all the focus on what men do?  Apparently you must have no problems with women because lesbians have the lowest rates of STDs of all.

Not certain who this discussion turned into a discussion re sexually transmitted disease among gay men.  If the rate of sexually transmitted diesease is somehow a criteria for marriage and parenting, then the best marriage partners andparents would by gay women—who have far less sexually transmitted disease than either straight people or gay men. 

The real issue here is that there is deep-seated misunderstanding of and/or hatred toward gay people expressed in this forum and by the “advocates” of “traditional marriage” (which straight people do not do a very good job with judging by the divorce rate around the world.  And this hatred, lack of knowledge about and misunderstanding of feeds the idea that gay people should not be permitted to marry as is our right as human beings (i.e be discriminated against) and cannot be good parents.

The truth is that gay people are just like straight people:  we go to work, we pay taxes, we pick up the dry cleaning, we own homes, we go to church, we give to charity, we vote, etc.  And just like straight people, some of us are better at marriage and better parents than others. I spent 10 yrs as a lawyer doing divorce work for stright people (that made for a very handsome income) and as guardian ad litem for dependent, neglected and abused children in juvenile courts—all of those children came from homes with straight parents.  Being a good marriage partner and good parent has ZERO to do with being gay or straight.  Being a good marriage partner is all about love, commitment, maturity—which are not soley the attributes of stright people.  Being a good parent is all about wanting children, loving children, being a good role model—again not the attributes of straight people only.

Nick, the reduced lifespan study takes into account the 80’s and early 90’s, focusing on an urban center and including a large number of subjects with HIV/AIDS.  With the advent of many forms of treatment since then, life expectancy of all peoples with HIV in the developed world are much higher.  It is deceitful of you to utilize a study whose time-span ends in 1992 and projects a BIG IF into 2011.

For your second point, you fail to realize that we aren’t talking about huge numbers.  We’re talking about 50k a year.  The solution to this is not to vilify gay men, but to always teach and teach and teach the reasons for safer sex, promote monogamy and even encourage gay couples to seek marriage as the end-goal of a pursuit of monogamy.

No one is saying the statistics are wrong, but the problem with HIV/AIDS isn’t gay men, but a symptom of social persecution: where gay youth are not taught about the necessities of condom use.  Instead they receive lessons in health class on the necessity of condom use for pregnancy prevention.  They are often left without a support system to foster and encourage the pursuit of healthy relationships and, as young adults, often hide romantic/sexual activity for fear of vilification - leaving them more open to depression, drug use, and high-risk behavior.

Of course… it doesn’t take a study or rocket scientist to determine that encouraging monogamy and making marriage an option will directly reduce the number of gay/bisexual men contracting HIV.  After all, for a man to have sex with another man doesn’t create HIV.  It isn’t a divine punishment.  Instead, to have unprotected sex with someone with a positive status puts one at high risk of contracting HIV. 

As for your earlier snip about gay couples not wanting to marry because a small number of them do marry when marriage equality occurs in a state or country… that’s just silly and intentionally deceptive on your part.  A number of gay couples residing even in the most gay-friendly of states are not centered around urban areas and thus, are more prone to being in the closet, not willing to put their relationship on public record, not having anyone to celebrate their relationship with.  Furthermore, we recognize the significance and importance of marriage.  It should be approached seriously and not jumped into because it is available.  For instance, my boyfriend and I (I am a man) have been together for a year now.  We’re not ready to get married, but will when we are ready both emotionally and financially. 

You are right about one thing: We want to live in a culture where we are accepted instead of vilified.  That has never been a secret and never will be a secret.  We want to be able to hold hands in public without having pejoratives thrown at us.  We want to be able to be open and honest without running the risk of physical or verbal assault.  We like being employed, but it is statistically less likely that a gay man or woman who is open will be hired (and in many cases, can even be fired).

The studies you allude to on promiscuity and open relationships are mistranslated, as the authors of the study have stated.  The sample populations are exclusively focused on the San Fran Bay area, with volunteers being gathered from gay clubs, bars, and gyms.  Of course these studies show a low rate of relationship longevity and promiscuity.  The same would be true if a similar study were sampled outside of otherwise straight clubs/bars.

As for the blood ban: It is simply unnecessary given modern technology.  All blood going into the blood bank system in America is tested for HIV, with a true positive/negative accuracy window of 2 weeks.  A lifetime ban is beyond excessive given that there are a large number of gay men who know that they are HIV negative/STD negative who, even in the case of an emergency, cannot legally donate blood to a spouse, child, or family member. 

It was a policy legitimately established in the 80’s before anything was known about HIV/AIDS.  It has no place existing in the modern world after HIV testing has improved 100 fold. 

The blood donation questionnaire should be normalized for gay and straight men and women: “Have you had any vaginal or anal sex with a partner of unknown or known HIV positive status in the last month?”  That when combined with modern testing mechanisms, will guarantee a boost in the blood supply at an extremely low risk of HIV positive blood contamination.

After all, I haven’t had unprotected sex with anyone.  My boyfriend and I use protection and are both HIV negative/STD free.  Why, then, do I have this absurd lifetime ban on blood donation applied to me?  Because I’m gay and because the policy has translated from a sensible one in the 80’s to a discriminatory one in 2011.

@Lisa Kaiser

>“Not certain who this discussion turned into a discussion re sexually transmitted disease among gay men.  If the rate of sexually transmitted diesease is somehow a criteria for marriage and parenting,”

The destructiveness of a lifestile is certainly a criteria. Not the sole one, but an important one.

>” then the best marriage partners andparents would by gay women—who have far less sexually transmitted disease than either straight people or gay men. “

Wrong. They fail by other criteria. And, their lifestile is still (mentally) destructive.

> “traditional marriage” (which straight people do not do a very good job with judging by the divorce rate around the world.

Normal marriage is still far more prevalent (even on a relative basis) and successful (specially by the fidelity criteria) even in places that have instituted same-sex “marriage” such as the Netherlands.

> “And this hatred, lack of knowledge about and misunderstanding of feeds the idea that gay people should not be permitted to marry”

It is not about “permitting” same-sex pairs to marry. Speaking of “permission” for same-sex pairs to “marry” is like speaking of “permission” for water to become dry. _There is no such a thing_.

> “as is our right as human beings”

What? Do you think the redefining marriage is a universal right? They you should also support this “right” for polygamous groups, for incestuous couples, etc.

Please name one argument for accepting same-sex “marriage” that does not work for polygamous “marriage”. Or incest.

@Nick—I wasn’t going to respond further, but I just had to point out two things regarding the two of your three linked sources that have credibility. (Again, I don’t give Lifesite any credibility at all.)  First, regarding the 1997 article by Hogg et al. in the International Journal of Epidemiology—I would also refer you to a subsequent article in the same journal by the same authors (“Gay Life Expectancy Revisited” from 2001) which criticized exactly the kind of manipulation of their data that you are guilty of.  And as for the CDC data, it is much the same thing ... you totally ignore the epidemiological context and the social stigmatization issues the CDC says contributes to the problem, you confuse statistical correlation with causation, and by comparing incidence rates without consideration of just how small those rates are in both gay and straight populations, you greatly exaggerate the significance of the statistics.  And you ignore the rather obvious fact that, as noted by another recent comment, that these diseases are a consequence of promiscuity and not homosexuality per se, and that encouraging the development of committed relationships among homosexuals will help reduce these incidence rates ... which is why the major mental-health organizations all support same-gender marriage.

@RJS

> “Nick, [...] with the advent of many forms of treatment since then, life expectancy of all peoples with HIV in the developed world are much higher.”

So what (even assuming that is true)? You are still admitting that sodomy leads to a 50-60 times higher chance of AIDS. For this reason alone (there are many others, such as fecal incontinence, anal cancer, the dirt and disgust inherent in the act, and more) it is a destructive lifestyle. And please don’t jump into the AIDS-is-harmless-because-of-antiretrovirals bandwagon. AIDS is a horrible disease.

> “For your second point, you fail to realize that we aren’t talking about huge numbers.  We’re talking about 50k a year.”
Still means it is a destructive lifestile. And AIDS is just ONE of the myriad of diseases that are transmitted by sodomy but not (not with the same likelyhood) by normal sex.

> “The solution to this is [...] , but to always teach and teach and teach the reasons for safer sex”

Do you live in Mars? We have bombarded children as young as 10 with condoms, condoms, condoms and yet more condoms, for decades. Didn’t solve the problem.

“, promote monogamy and even encourage gay couples to seek marriage as the end-goal of a pursuit of monogamy.”

See the Netherlands. Same-sex pairs don’t want to marry.

“where gay youth are not taught about the necessities of condom use”
WHAT!? You must be living in another planet, because I can’t spend 10 minutes without seeing a government condom ad.

> “After all, for a man to have sex with another man doesn’t create HIV.”
Wrong. According to studies, sodomy is far more likely to transmit HIV than normal sex.

> “As for your earlier snip about gay couples not wanting to marry because a small number of them do marry when marriage equality occurs in a state or country… that’s just silly and intentionally deceptive on your part.  A number of gay couples residing even in the most gay-friendly of states are not centered around urban areas and thus, are more prone to being in the closet, not willing to put their relationship on public record, not having anyone to celebrate their relationship with.”
Oh please. We are speaking of sexually active people. They have lots os people to have sodomy with, but no one to marry. Right.

And please stop blaming everything on persecution. We are not that naive. How come ethnic of religious minorities, even in countries like Iran, show none of the homosexual behaviors that are attributed to persecution?

” Furthermore, we recognize the significance and importance of marriage.  It should be approached seriously and not jumped into because it is available.”
Then I understand you are abstaining from sex in the meanwhile. You are NOT using “marriage is serious” as an excuse to have no-commitment sex. Right?

It is the duty of us parents to teach christian values to our children. The sacredness of family,the faith in Jesus teachings on marriage, family, sexual morality etc. have to be inculcated in them   Modern forces for pleasure culture and abandonment of all family values should be rejected in toto. Prayerful life,scripture reading only can strengthen us

@Dave

>“regarding the 1997 article by Hogg et al. in the International Journal of Epidemiology—I would also refer you to a subsequent article in the same journal”

Have already read it. It seems the authors were bullied by the homosexual lobby. Anyway, they DONT DENY the information of the initial article. They just say that they still defend human rights of gay people, which is beside the point (I also defend human rights of everyone). So, your point was?

> “you confuse statistical correlation with causation”
In this case, the causation is obvious, and also it has been _confirmed_ by other studies. There are other studies that confirm that sodomy is far more likely to transmit AIDS.

> ” which is why the major mental-health organizations all support same-gender marriage.”

The same ones who were bullied into taking homosexuality of of the DSM in 1973?
They themseleves admit the pressure was strong. The removal was absolutely not scientific.
Also, statements by mental-health professionals often reflect the moral assumptions that they hold. If they are in favor of homosexulity, they will (consciously or not) bend their studies to defend it.

Dave, I have just read your response to my comments. The Holy Bible - that is, the Old and the New Testament is EMPHATIC that homosexuality is a grave aberration and sinful. Your attempt to justify homosexuality by quoting the US Conference of Catholic Bishops is invalid since the Doctrine of the Catholic Church on these evil and abnormal sexual orientations has not changed these 2,000+ years. Homosexuality is condemned by nearly every culture and all World Religions, such the Muslims, Hindus, etc. and every world traditional culture.  The fact that the present so-called Civilized Generation - particularly in the Western World - which has kicked God out of their lives and enthroned the god of “Me, I and Myself and the Creed of Personal Gratification - are pushing for a Religious and Moral Revolution aimed at destroying the very foundation of human dignity by rejecting the very reality of sin and evil, shall never make any type of sexual abnormality acceptable.  And homosexuality, lesbianism and other bestialities are abnormal.