Wisdom Without Zealotry - Same Sex Marriage

A vocal portion in the United States are arguing against making it legal for another portion of the population to have the same rights and privileges as themselves; namely same sex marriage. Sounds weird as America has been touted the land of the free...the place of equality and liberty. It appears that this vocal portion would rather have a system where everyone is equal but some are more equal than others...the others they don't like.

Under the rule of Voltaire (I may abhor what you say but will defend with my life your right to say it) I must permit them to say what they feel using bizarro world logic and emotion. It is when that vocal portion uses religion to determine law, that I have have a problem.

 

Its not difficult to exclude the writings of religion from being used exclusively to make laws, as religion does not have that right in an egalitarian democracy. To dance around using religion as a reason, or in some instances outright declaring it as the reason, this vocal portion says it is against "traditional marriage". This is laughable as I'm not sure which of the many forms of marriage that is depicted in the bible that they are referring to as "traditional" and which their biblical god is ok with. For example:

Monogamy in Titus 1:6
Polygamy: Abraham and David and loads of others.
Same Sex relationship: David and Johnathan, Ruth and Niomi and David and Ashpenaz (1 and 2 Samuel, Ruth and Daniel 1:9)
Male Adultery: Its alright for a married man to have sex with unmarried women (Exodus 20:13 and Deuteronomy 5:17)
Rape: The female victim must be forced to marry her rapist (Deuteronomy 22:28-29)
Marrying Sister-in-law: A man must marry his sister-in law when she becomes a widow regardless if he is married or not (Deuteronomy 25:5-10, Genesis 38, Ruth 2-4)
Celibacy in Corinthians 7:8 and 28
Castrating yourself "for the kingdom" (Matthew 19:12)
Forbidding marrying foreign women (Erza 10:2-11)

And here...

(image from an article on The biblical world website.)

There are also the ones described in the image above. They are all "traditional" if the vocal portion against same-sex marriage use the bible as their guidebook for defining it. The bible also says slavery and stoning people who work on Sundays are alright and we do not practice either of those two things in democracies. Only in theocracies.

There is a last point. A logical point using the old and new testaments of the bible. If you were in charge of a group of people who you viewed as special and wanted their bloodline to carry on, you might want rules and laws forbidding anything that could interfere with that. These laws and rules would prevent same sex relations and would promote any other relationship that would make more babies. After a while you sacrifice a part of yourself to yourself to forgive everyone from the sin you didn't stop them from committing in the garden when the project started. Now everyone can get down with worshipping you, not just those of a particular bloodline. The rules you made against a man laying down with another man no longer applies to proliferation of your special people. Now...what does it matter that two people who want to spend the rest of their living lives with each other and also want to be legally recognized for it by the government?

I do not expect those who base their decisions and outlook on life by emotion and outdated writings, rather than logic, to change their mind immediately. The above two things can at least get them thinking that the reasons why they think it are false. And many religious groups that accept same sex marriage so do not label them all with the same brush of disappointment.

References
Patheos.com
Religious Tolerance.org and here
rebjef.com