Let's say we all decide to allow for gay marriages, would you go out the next day and start "being gay"?

Of course not. It will happen over the long term. We're talking about changes in society, which you can't think about in terms of days, months, or even years. The damage will be done over decades and centuries.

Nope, but we can say that it's not going to decrease it.

I don't think you can even say that. But we'll see. Someone needs to measure the fertility rate in Massachusetts every year for the next 50 years (assuming they don't amend their constitution as well).

Time to make divorce and unwed parents illegal as well, then.....no basic family structure there, either, is there?

People should have the right to divorce. Unworkable marriages are bad for children, too. I do think we should reconsider "no-fault" divorce though, like in California, where divorce rates sky-rocketed once they made this change.

Unwed adults should also keep the right to have children, as that is every person's right (in the US at least). It's not about making bad behavior illegal, it's about society choosing to reward behavior it deems benefitial to society. It seems by the replies some of the commentors are missing this point.

...as was the 'family structure' issue. How many people do you know that are divorced? How many people do you know that are single parents, ie have a child but are not married to or residing with the parent of that child? On the street where I live there are 2 divorced parents and 2 single parents....and I live in white bread vanillaville, South Dakota. I think that the resons people are throwing out against gay marriage are somewhat trite, to be honest. I've heard arguments about it 'devaluing' the 'sanctity' of marriage...yeah, cheating on your spouse does that as well, and that's not illegal in most states. Nor is it as frowned upon as same sex wedlock.

Stating the fact that divorce and adultery is harmful to the family too doesn't do anything to negate the argument that heterosexual couples are harmful to the family. Of course, divorce and adultery are bad and should not be encouraged. Again, it's not about making harmful acts illegal, it's about refusing to encourage negative behavior by giving public rewards for it.

Show me where you got your stats, please, because those numbers seem skewed. Are you trying to suggest that most homosexuals are child abusers? Because that's what that sentence seems to imply.I'd really like to see where you got your numbers from.

The only places I've seen this statistic quoted online is on websites that you would probably reject as biased (please tell me if you want to see them anyways), but I believe they come from the following peer-reviewed journal article:

Freund, K, and Watson, R. J., "The Proportions of Heterosexual and Homosexual Paedophiles among Sex Offenders against Children: an Exploratory Study," Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy 18 (1992): 34.

It's not available online, but my library has it, so I'll try to copy it and post it as soon as possible.

And to answer your question, NO it doesn't mean that the majority of homosexuals are child abusers. I am surprised you implied this from what I wrote. It just shows when you look at the population of pedophiles by demographic group, homosexuals are WAY over-represented.

If homosexuals represent 3% of the population (this number is controversial, some say its as little as 1%, some say its as high as 10%), then one would expect 3% of the pedophiles to be homosexuals. Instead it is around 33%, so the rate of pedophilia among gays is roughly 11 times the rate other demographic groups.

If you wanted to know the percentage of homosexuals who are sex offenders, you would have to know the rate of pedophilia among the general population. Then multiply that number by 11, and that's the percentage of homosexuals who are pedophiles! (I say this with alarm not humor.)

I don't think it is necessarily reciprocal, though, to say that because a certain percentage of pedophiles behave homosexually, that the same percent of homosexuals are pedophiles. I have no idea why people would choose to pick kids of the same sex to abuse, but I am not willing to lay the blame for it on homosexuality. It wouldn't be any more valid than saying heterosexual pedophiles do so because they are heterosexual, since the majority of kids that are abused are vicimized by adults of the opposite sex...

Pedophiles don't "do it" because they are homosexual or heterosexual. They do it because they are sexually abnormal and ill. Homosexuality is also a sexual abnormality. It is NOT like having green eyes, as opposed to the norm of dark-colored eyes. Green eyes work just as fine as any other. Homosexuality does not work just fine. It might give sexual pleasure to engage in homosexual acts. It might also give emotional pleasure. In fact, I know it does. But rubbing your genitals against a dead chipmunk would also give sexual pleasure. And of course one can feel emotional attachment, love, and the desire to be near and intimate with members of the same sex.

The abnormality is that this desire is replaced or confused with the sexual desire that is felt in sexually healthy humans to be intimate and have a sexual, romantic relation with a member of the opposite sex. This desire was developed by the processes of evolution so that humans will reproduce. There is no known biological mechanism to preferentially select individuals for homosexuality, just as there is no known mechanism to select individuals who have sickle cell anemia. Both are devastating abnormalities when considered from th point of view of evolution. Yet, at a certain rate biology sometimes gets it wrong and produces humans with unique challenges to life.

This is exactly how we should view homosexuals. They have a unique challenge to living a sexually normal life (I don't use the word normal in the vernacular sense--being eccentric is not a burden but rather a gift--I use it in a medical sense, like my lungs are normal if they provide me with enough oxygen for normal respiration).

As decent, moral humans, we should support homosexuals in their journey of life. Five of my close friends are homosexual. They are wonderful people, and when they are happy with their boyfriends, I am happy for them (unfortunately one is not out of the closet, and he struggles greatly to find romantic companionship, sincerely attempting to be "straight," but I fear that it may never happen). Sad but tellingly 4 out of the 5, I know have suffered from severe depression, two of them having recently had nervous breakdowns, one having to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital and physically protected from killing himself. One of the hardest things I ever had to do was visit my friend locked up in a psychiatric ward. When are we going to start recognizing this condition as the tragic disorder that it is?

I say this about my friends, who will remain anonymous, so that hopefully when people read what I write about homosexuality, they will know it is not out of despisement, but rather out of my sincere desire to help them, mostly help them fight the damage they do to themselves, but also to guard against the negative effects that homosexuality has on society as a whole. Again: mostly to help them. And trust me, many are asking for help.

I'd like to know how 2 people of the same sex getting hitched makes my marriage any less valid or sacred.

If I win an award, let's say, the Nobel Peace Prize, for caring for the orphaned children of Bolivia for 50 years of my life, I'd take pride in having acheived an award that others, such as Mother Teresa, Desmond Mpilo Tutu, and Nelson Mandela.

Then, the next year Osama bin Laden wins the Nobel Peace Prize for rallying distraught Muslims to violent uprisings and liberation from the "oppresion of the West"...I'd probably protest and not go to bin Laden's award ceremony. I'd keep my award though because I'd be proud of the work I did.

If the next year, Fidel Castro wins for "fighting the oppresion of democracy for over 50 years," I'd probably again, protest the award ceremony, but keep my award and start petitioning the Nobel committee to refuse to give the award to those who use violent or oppresive methods to further their cause.

If in the following year, Kim Jong II won the award for "keeping child pornography off the streets of P’yŏngyang by buying up all the porn and keeping it in his personal collection" ....I'd start using my Nobel as a doorstop or something.

That, to me, is like saying that a person is schizophrenic by choice, or near sighted by choice.

  A classic analogy. Your question is timely and constructive.

Robert:  I still don't see it that way.  If I won a Nobel prize for outstanding work, then year after year the standards dropped...well, it wouldn't mean MY Nobel was worthless.  It would just mean the the criteria changed after I'd won mine. 

Steven:  Thank you!

Robert: I still don't see it that way. If I won a Nobel prize for outstanding work, then year after year the standards dropped...well, it wouldn't mean MY Nobel was worthless. It would just mean the the criteria changed after I'd won mine.

It most certainly would mean that the institution of the Nobel Peace Prize has become less noble, and I would no longer wish to be associated with it. If you feel otherwise, that's your opinion, and I probably can't change that. As another example...if I say the word Cuba, what are first three words that pop into your head? ....possibly Castro, Communism, and Cigars. 50 years ago, people's impression of Cuba would have been totally different. Therefore, Fidel Castro and his opressive, harmful form of communism has caused harm to the entire "institution" of Cuba. Doesn't change the fact that it is still a beautiful country with wonderful people. But it most certainly effects how people think about Cuba, and it changes the issues one thinks about when considering whether or not to "go there."

Likewise, if homosexual marriage leads to further erosion of marriage as an institution which is enacted in order to bring new life into the world, people will not make the same considerations when thinking about whether to lead a married life, and people in general will not view marriage in the same way as before.

Divorce, especially no fault divorce, did the same thing to marriage. Widespread premarital sex did the same thing to marriage. Widespread extramarital affairs did the same thing to marriage. Where will it end? What's to stop anybody from calling anything a "marriage"? I love a 12-year old, why can't I marry her? I love my dog and no one else, why can't I marry it? I am bisexual, and I love both a man and a woman, why can't I marry them both?

People are mistaken when they think that marriage is just about love. Marriage is about more than sharing love. Marriage is even about more than living one's whole life with someone. Marriage is about uniting two distinct and different beings to create something greater than what is a man or that which is a woman. And this is the most ideal way to create new life.

It is certainly not the only way, as modern society has developed many other ways to bring children into the world (think: single mother with absent father, think Michael Jackson choosing women to inseminate and carry his children then the mother having nothing to do with the child, think of all the other excuses given for lack of responsibility taken for caring for what you bring into the world...) Nobody is saying we should make these otherways illegal. We're just saying (society already has said for hundreds of years), we want to encourage people to strive for that ideal. We're also saying that we are NOT going to reward people for choosing the less than ideal.

I tend to agree with R.G. on #99. I'm not all that interested in arguing it, but each time you change the definition of the institution, the institution itself changes. How people function within it also changes, as we have seen as divorce laws and their mechanics have been streamlined. No one really knows how gay marriage will change marriage, but it would be short-sighted to say that it won't. At best we don't know.

If nothing else, cultural traditions are being lost. Some applaud it and say that those traditions were meaningless anyway, but to others they had meaning. Some of the most social, liberal nations in the world have populations that oppose homosexual marriage, so we can't characterize it as a local problem with American conservatism.

If this many people around the world feel strongly about it, we need to at least take their concerns seriously, and show them the same respect that is being demanded of them.

Stating the fact that divorce and adultery is harmful to the family too doesn't do anything to negate the argument that heterosexual couples are harmful to the family

Nope, it sure doesn't....it actually SUPPORTS it, since that was our point all along!

and he struggles greatly to find romantic companionship, sincerely attempting to be "straight," but I fear that it may never happen

I don't understand how anyone could think this would ever be possible. There are an unlimited amount of analogies you could use to illustrated this. How do to 'change' what you prefer... what you're attracted to? Personally, I can't stand the taste or smell of onions. This hampers me a great deal when it comes to the food I choose, since most cooks use onions pretty regularly. I was in Korea for 2 weeks awhile ago, and I was going to take it as an opportunity to try and 'get over' my hatred for onions. I tried REALLY hard. I was at the point of throwing up many times... but was unable to even stomach the damn evil little things. Let's say I WAS able to overcome my hatred for onions. Do you think I would ever be able to turn that into a love for onions? Would onions ever be one of my favorite things? q

and he struggles greatly to find romantic companionship, sincerely attempting to be "straight," but I fear that it may never happen

I don't understand how anyone could think this would ever be possible. There are an unlimited amount of analogies you could use to illustrated this. How do to 'change' what you prefer... what you're attracted to? Personally, I can't stand the taste or smell of onions. This hampers me a great deal when it comes to the food I choose, since most cooks use onions pretty regularly. I was in Korea for 2 weeks awhile ago, and I was going to take it as an opportunity to try and 'get over' my hatred for onions. I tried REALLY hard. I was at the point of throwing up many times... but was unable to even stomach the damn evil little things. Let's say I WAS able to overcome my hatred for onions. Do you think I would ever be able to turn that into a love for onions? Would onions ever be one of my favorite things? I would have to believe they never would...

We're just talking about onions here, but I'm guess that in order to live a happy life with a 'partner of choice', that person would have to become your favorite thing. I know my wife is my favorite

...and let's say this was all revervsed, and that being straight was the situation that needed to be corrected. Do you think you could learn to sexually love people of the same sex?