I am writing a paper on gay marriage and need a credible information on this topic
211200
The NGLTF is a superb resource for data, and is especially strong in its presentations of pro-marriage arguments.\n\nThe Religious Tolerance site is not as well done, but does a good job of including information relating to both sides of the issue.
322544
I've said it before, and I'll continue to say it. Sheer insanity is the ONLY force driving anyone to oppose Gay marriage, for there is NOT ONE consequence resulting from gay marriage that would harm anyone / anything anywhere in this universe.\n\nGays can make marriages worthy to be admired.\nGays can effectively lead children into adulthood.\nChildren raised by Gays are not harmed/damaged in anyway.\nGays have careers, own homes, participate civily in communities all over the place.\nGays pay taxes and contribute much to the economy all over.\nGay marriages will NOT threaten the human species.\nGay marriage will NOT affect "straight" marriages.\nGay marriages will NOT diminish the number of "straight" marriages commencing from year to year.\n\nTo be sure, Gay marriages will require levels of responsibility equal to all the tasks that come with the package. In many ways the scenario will be no different than heterosexual marriages.\n\nThis is NOT a religious matter.\nThis is a civil matter.\nThis is about love, affirmation, responsibility with family matters and life decision matters.\n\nThis is the 21 century of reality. Gay marriages will NOT contribute ANY harm to the life of things on planet earth. Only the insanely driven and/or sleep walking bigots would think otherwise.
149923
Go here: http://www.marylandgaywedding.com/readings.html  Congratulations, by the way. ^_^
354586
Go to the source links I provide below.  They should be helpful and informative.
591946
The gay marriage amendment, whether to put discrimination against gays into the constitution.  \n\nIt was a sham, a ploy, a ridiculous waste of time to divert the public's attention from real issues that Congress should be dealing with.  \n\nLike lately, Frist introduced a bill to ban flag burning.
575811
"The Gay Agenda" ? Have not read it nor have I ever seen it...interesting though. However, I am Gay and have been with my Partner, registered as we live in California,  for 10 years. Our agenda is to raise our 9 year old son, who is, by the way,  an honor student for all of you right wing crackpots out there,  and be a happy family. We work, do laundry, homework, take vacations, cleanhouse, spend time with Grandmas, Grandpas, cousins, Aunts and Uncles...not really exciting as far as an "agenda" goes. I'd say it's pretty much the same agenda a heterosexual family would have...I was raised in one you know.
430778
Here are some of the arguments that typically are made. (Note: I've posted the counter arguments. I cannot in good conscience leave them unanswered on this forum.):\n\n1. Marriage is largely used as the basis for raising children, and child birth is only possible with heterosexual couples.\n\nBUT: Marriage has many functions, in addition to raising children. Marriage also provides legal responsibilities and rights. Marriages between people who cannot bear children due to age or medical condition are just as valid and provide the protections available to those who can and do bear children.\n\n2. The institution of marriage has always been one-man-one-woman, and redefining it now will open it up to further revisions, including polygamy.\n\nBUT: Marriage that is entered into by consenting adults that does no harm to no one else is exactly the same, regardless of the gender of the couple. Polygamy has been shown to victimize younger boys, whose potential brides are taken up by their fathers and their uncles. The only thing gay marriage does is equalize the genders, not change marriage.\n\n3. It demeans the other gender by excluding it from the relationship.\n\nBUT: It seems to me more demeaning to have a gay man marry a straight woman, only to then later find that he has been cheating on her with other guys. No one wins in that situation.\n\nHomosexuality and heterosexuality each describe a particular capacity to love, and neither demeans either gender by embracing the other.\n\n4. Gay people aren't constitutionally able to commit to the vows of marriage.\n\nBUT: This is an argument from incredulity. I can tell you from my personal experience of living in a monogamous eleven-year relationship that ended when my partner died that gay people are equally capable of entering into marriage commitments.\n\n5. Religious objections (you can find those elsewhere) that marriage is primarily a religious institution.\n\nBUT: Marriage involves over 1000 Federal laws that govern rights and responsibilities. In order to become married, one must have a state license to do so, thereby making it a governmental function. The ceremony can take place before either a religious or governmental official. Plus, there are many churches that want to perform legal marriages but are currently prevented from doing so.\n\n6. Forcing state employees who because of religious objections, disagree with gay marriage to deal with it, thereby violating their religious freedom.\n\nBUT: The same could be said for people who are required to work on Sundays, sell meat or alcohol at a grocery store, or euthanize animals. If feelings run that strongly, they may have to get a different job. It is not the role of society to pay someone for their beliefs, but instead for the job they do.\n\nI hope this helps.
623910
When hate-mongering 'christian' bigots stop campaigning against basic equal rights.  \nWhen you, and others like you, start demanding that your representatives remove all barriers to two people in love being able to marry.\nWhen New York upholds the founding principle of the separation of church and state this country was founded on.\n\nIn short, hopefully soon!  :o)
308918
Your first misconception is that the burden is on people who want to keep marriage the same.  It is not.  The burden is on those who want to change it.\n\nI am not convinced more than a tiny fraction of homosexuals actually want to get married.  Aside from highly publicized stunts in which hundreds engaged in fake marriage ceremonies they knew to be non-binding, how many homosexual couples have actually gotten married in Vermont since it became legal?  Do you have any facts?  Not anecdotes, actual numbers from official sources.\n\nEvery reason I have ever heard offered in favor of homosexual marriage is disingenuous.  Gays have a right to pursue happiness.  Good, go, be happy.  But no one has a right to do just as he pleases to be happy.  I might find joy in robbing banks, but they won't let me anyway.  Gays want to live together.  Well, they live together now.  Gays want to express their eternal love and commitment.  Fine, do so.  Write poems to one another; exchange golden chains; get matching tattoos.  Gays want to own property in common.  Nothing could be simpler.  You merely have to both sign the car title or the deed.  Gays want to control each other's medical treatment.  Just give each other a medical power of attorney, or better yet, prepare a living will; you should do that anyway, its a lot cheaper than getting married and much more exact and likely to be honored than simply showing up in an emergency and saying you are married.\n\nYour second misconception is that the Constitution guarantees a right to marriage to all.  It does not.  It does not even guarantee equal rights to all.  Can a minor buy alcohol?  No.  Can just anyone practice medicine or law? No.  Can you carry a gun anywhere you choose?  No.  Can just anyone operate a motor vehicle?  No.  The \nConstitution permits, and even contemplates, the states to regulate all aspects of life in ways deemed reasonable by them.  Marriage is one of those aspects of life.  The states get to define it and they get to regulate who may participate.  In some states you can marry at 16, in others not until you are 18.  The 16-year-olds in the latter state are not thereby denied their constitutional rights.\n\nThere are perfectly valid, non-religious reasons to limit marriage to one adult man and one adult woman.  The principle public policy reason for marriage is the promotion of stable families.  When the institution of marriage breaks down, children tend to get inadequately supervised, poorly educated, badly acculturated, and insufficiently cared for.  A sad example of this in the US is in the black community where 2/3 of the babies are born out-of-wedlock and the crime and unemployment rates are horrible.  The state, therefore, has a vital interest unrelated to any religious stricture in regulating marriage in a manner calculated to strengthen rather than weaken the institution.\n\nCan you think of any principled reason to stop at homosexual marriage, once the monogamous, heterosexual line is broken?  If two men is OK, why not three men?  Three women?  Two men and one woman?  One man and 27 women.  Two men, a girl and a goat?  One man, three women and all their children (as sexual partners, not merely as a family)?  Don't they all have a right to be happy?  Should we permit our moral insecurities to interfere with that quest?\n\nYou want to open marriage to homosexual couples.  But what non-Biblical, non-religious argument would limit it to just couples?  There are, in fact, religious arguments for polygamy.  Mormons and Muslims both believe, for religious reasons, polygamy is a good thing.  Why not polyandry?  Why not pedophilia?  Why not bestiality?  What is your principled argument that would exclude these practices once gay marriage is allowed?\n\nThere is a wealth of sociological information demonstrating that children raised in a stable, heterosexual marriage are much more likely to be healthy, well-adjusted, well-educated, happy, productive adults.  Dr
643220
What are some of these people talking about?  Citations to the Weekly Standard?  Now there is a reliable source, full of articles that have no references to studies or research or anything!  Must be true, right?  Perhaps marriage rates have dropped in Scandanavia because people realize that most marriages end in divorce so why bother?  Or perhaps they are just more evolved than we are (imagine that!).  Just because it is in print or on the Internet doesn't make it true.\n\nMarry your cat?  When your cat has the legal ability to consent to the marriage, then I'm happy to allow you to marry your cat.  Do people not understand what a b.s. argument that is, and how distinguishable it is from reality?  The point of gay marriage is that two consenting adults want to be recognized under the law as equal citizens.  This is why 8 year old children cannot marry, nor can anyone or anything that is incapable of CONSENT.  \n\nHomosexuality is not a hard topic.  Nor is equal rights.  There is simply no compelling reason to continue to deny the gay community this unbelievably important civil right.  Not even the bible is compelling enough--if your religion doesn't approve, your church doesn't have to perform gay marriages.  The government is separate from religion, and it must protect the rights of all, not just the many.
18429
While I don't agree with it, if it is something you 'personally' are interested in learning more about, I will post the contact information for -3- of them I found on the www.family.org website: \n\nExodus International\nP.O. Box 540119\nOrlando FL 32854\n(888) 264-0877 \nWeb Site: www.exodus.to \n\n\nDesert Stream\nP.O. Box 9999\nKansas City MO 64134\n(866) 359-0500 \nWeb Site: www.desertstream.org \nE-Mail: info@desertstream.org\n\n\nCrossOver Ministries, Inc.\nP.O. Box 23744\nLexington, KY 40523-3744\n(859) 608-7176\n\n\nCoaching Confidant (Life Coaching)\nWeb Site: www.coachingconfidant.com \n\n\nMy mother has also indicated that there are various books out on the topic of going from gay to straight.\n\n(If you are looking for this information for someone else; to change them...shame on you.) \n\nIf your thinking about making the change because of what other people think: don't be stupid.\n\nIf your thinking about making the change because of what the bible says: read the bible and you will find many other things which you should not do.\n\nEither way, I wish you luck in life.
226430
I think legal marriage is just a peice of paper. Being married is really in your heart.  whats stopping you from throwing a big party, exchanging vows and rings accompanied by your family and close friends? i believe there are churches geared toward the gay and lesbian community that can give you guidance. Either way. congratulations on finding that special someone in your life.
664773
I believe that you will find this link somewhat useful as it does have dates that if you take the time might help you to track down the information that you are looking for because it seems that none want to put that information out where it can be found.  I even called the research department of the library on this - and they couldn't find the information.  Link is here:\n\nhttp://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/opinion/14298154.htm\n\nYou will find the link in the "source" portion pretty informative.  Something that I ran into when I was trying to find it on my own on the net.
425686
it depends on how much deep you go on the subjects if its going to be innapropiate. i mean some homosexual people dont really have a cause but others do..like if they were abused when they were infants.\n\nyou can talk about the adoption of a child in a married couple that is really a struggle.\nmaybe talk  about the reaction of their families when they tell them the truth \nanother topic could be the homofobic people in the sociery and how they degrade them,\n\ni hope this work for you, good luck\nps: dont forget to choose me as best answer...lol
191539
I beleive that if the supreme court decides, (not sure about the NEW supreme court or future) they would choose FOR same sex marriages. Popularity isn't the issue here. Honestly coast to coast right now if people voted in a private booth for or against civil rights, sadly I don't think our country would choose it. It ws decided because it was the right thing, dispite the prejudiceness of the country. Straight marriages are not going to crumble because of it. It would remove one argument of gay sin as sex -when married. It would give us equal rights (no special rights) for property and visitation (upon sick or dying) and the other 1700 rights and privilages given straight married couple automatically imposed or implied when legally married. I beleive I'll see the day. At least the hope of it keeps me going and the faith in our legal system.
533409
There's some really bad scholarship claiming the Christian rite of brother- or sister-making, adelphopoiesis, was gay marriage, but it's utterly laughable.\n\nJuvenal mocked a homosexual "marriage" in Roman times:\n\n"I have a ceremony to attend," quoth one, "at dawn to-morrow, in the Quirinal valley." "What is the occasion?" "No need to ask: a friend is taking to himself a husband; quite a small affair." Yes, and if we only live long enough, we shall see these things done openly: people will wish to see them reported among the news of the day. Meanwhile these would-be brides have one great trouble: they can bear no children wherewith to keep the affection of their husbands; well has nature done in granting to their desires no power over their bodies. They die unfertile; naught avails them the medicine-chest of the bloated Lyde, or to hold out their hands to the blows of the swift-footed Luperci!"\n-Juvenal, Moralists without Morals
379174
Republicans realized it could be a wedge issue and capitalized on it. Interesting definitions of "marriage" given by responders above. They all sound religious. The topic, I believe is civil marriage -- marriage as recognized or performed by the state. \n\nThere are children in US institutions and foster care who need 2 parent homes. Gays should be allowed to adopt such hard-to-place children. This would probably occur defacto. Mothers giving up their babies  and agencies with young, easy to adopt children would continue to choose straight adoptive couples.