What Do Same Sex Marriage Advocates Want?

[Matt Hummel]

I am reminded of the scene in Gandhi after the Amritsar massacre.  One of the Raj bureaucrats (and we know how eeeevull bureaucrats can be!) says something to the effect that "His Majesty's Government totally repudiates that actions of the general who ordered the shootings.  They are in opposition to everything we believe in."  And Gandhi says, "On the contrary, they are the logical conclusion of the British policy in India."

So too with abortion.  The pro-abortion "extremists," of whom there are more than you would care to think, are not some monstrous spin-off from an otherwise rational policy.  They are the logical end-product of a culture of death.  Don't care to believe me? Fine.  Just ask yourself, "What happened to 'Safe, legal and rare?'"

[Steven Tibbetts]

P.S. to Mr. Culpepper:
I have great respect for the way the Roman Catholic church has expanded its pro-life concerns to such things as capital punishment. I personally watched the National Conference of Catholic bishops be (reluctantly, I must say) driven to these other issues back in the 1970s by some bishops who might at the time have been considered "liberal". Can you imagine?!!!

So, 1312 since 1976 is broad-minded, while 55,000,000 since 1973 narrow to the extreme.

[Matt Hummel]

P.S. to Mr. Culpepper:
I have great respect for the way the Roman Catholic church has expanded its pro-life concerns to such things as capital punishment. I personally watched the National Conference of Catholic bishops be (reluctantly, I must say) driven to these other issues back in the 1970s by some bishops who might at the time have been considered "liberal". Can you imagine?!!!

So, 1312 since 1976 is broad-minded, while 55,000,000 since 1973 narrow to the extreme.

Yup- that's how the game is played. Plus missing the fact that it was not "liberal" Bishops.

[Steven Tibbetts]

Regarding the question of the subject, if reports of local county officials in the states that offer them can be taken seriously, they are not all that interested in actually registering in same-sex marriages.

[Brian Stoffregen]

Regarding the question of the subject, if reports of local county officials in the states that offer them can be taken seriously, they are not all that interested in actually registering in same-sex marriages.

I believe that the advocates of same sex marriages are folks who have married when it has become legal in their states.


It is not only homosexuals who don't make use of marriage laws where they exist; how many heterosexual couples live as husband and wife without marriage? One couple my wife knows finally got married after living together for 38 years. They decided, "It was time." The last two baptisms I had were the children of couples who are not married; but are having children together.

[Steven Tibbetts]

I believe that the advocates of same sex marriages are folks who have married when it has become legal in their states.

What do you base your belief on, Brian?

Writes the conservative gay political activist, Doug Mainwaring, last February:

Heading into Sunday July 24, the first day that same-sex couples could legally wed in New York City, officials devised a lottery system to handle the projected 2,500 couples they thought would want to marry on that auspicious day. However, by the time the 48-hour lottery had closed on the preceding Thursday, only 823 couples had signed up, slightly less than one third (33%) of the anticipated demand. And of course that number is further diluted because it reflects the availability of same sex marriage not only to New Yorkers, but to anyone from another state.

In Massachusetts, more than 6,200 gay and lesbian couples were married during the first year that same sex couples were permitted to marry. That number dwindled to just 1,900 marriages the following year – about 5% of the total number of marriages performed in the state.

In Iowa, between April 2009 and March 2010, 2,020 same-sex couples were married, (about 10% of all marriages in Iowa during that time period). 815 couples were from Iowa (about 4% of all Iowa marriages), and the rest were mostly from surrounding states.

These statistics are not indicative of stampedes. With the number of same-sex couples now on a trajectory to cross over the one million mark, this means that only about 5 or 6% of same-sex couples have availed themselves of the ability to marry in this country. Further, if there are around ten million adult gays and lesbians in the US (about 3.5% of the population according to a Williams Institute Poll), then only about 1 in 100, or 1% have chosen marriage so far, statistically a fairly negligible amount. If the true number of gays and lesbians is closer to 10% of the population (as many have held for so long), then the number of gays choosing marriage is only 1 in 300, or about 0.3%. Wherever the actual percentage is on this spectrum, it seems that gay marriage is treated as far from mainstream even within the gay community.

Charitable giving by the LGBT community also tells a tale: The 2011 National LGBT Movement Report: A Financial Overview of Leading Advocacy Organizations in the LGBT Movement, (December 2011), states, “Even an optimistic estimate concludes that fewer than 3% of LGBT adults give to national LGBT organizations.” This means that more than 97% of self identified gays and lesbians haven’t made a financial donation toward the cause of same sex marriage. Since the Movement Advancement Project Report covers giving by gays and lesbians to all LGBT “social justice advocacy, legal, public education, research and academic organizations,” the actual percentage of gays and lesbians who have contributed specifically to same sex marriage efforts is far less than 3% of the LGBT Community.

As it turns out, the pent-up demand for same-sex marriage was never all that pent-up, and the demand in general for marriage among gays and lesbians appears to be quite anemic.

Since the gay community is not digging into its collective pockets to fund the battle to institute same sex marriage, and since gays and lesbians are not racing to get married, who then is actually behind the massive push for same-sex marriage in our country?

[Coach-Rev]

My suspicion is that, much as it is in the heterosexual community, the "prohibition" on promiscuity by "marriage" is neither wanted nor desired.  Lets face it folks:  society in general is an a-moral one.

To quote Battlestar Galactica:  "This has all happened before, and it will all happen again."

To quote Winston Churchill (and others):  "Those who repeat history have failed to learn anything from it."

To quote the Old Testament:  "In those days, Israel had no king and everyone did what was right in their own eyes."

[Charles_Austin]

The people in my parish, Pastor Cottingham, are not wholesale a-moral, promiscuous, do-whatever-you-want libertines. Neither are the people in the parishes around mine. Neither are dozens of the non-parish people I know. Neither are the alcoholics I work with weekly. The partners in every marriage I have ever attended and 99 percent of the people in the marriages I know about desire to be faithful and the vast vast majority of them succeed in being faithful.
I see no point in howling about and denouncing "society in general"  and making apocalyptic pronouncements.
Your "suspicion" about people not wanting faithful relationships is wrong.

[Coach-Rev]

Riddle me this, then batman:  Why is it that 2 out of every 3 marriages fail today?  Why is it that 84% of marriages that begin with cohabitation fail within 7 years?  Why is it that increasing numbers simply want to live together and shack up, rather than formalizing and solemnizing their sexual relationship?  Why is it that promiscuous behavior on college campuses (i.e. multiple sex partners is at an all time high?

Sorry,Charlie.  - it is your airy, pie in the sky ideal that is completely off base.  You cannot see what is going on in the world around you, and I truly feel sorry for you.  And yes, this is even in parishes. 

The people in my parish, Pastor Cottingham, are not wholesale a-moral, promiscuous, do-whatever-you-want libertines. Neither are the people in the parishes around mine. Neither are dozens of the non-parish people I know. Neither are the alcoholics I work with weekly. The partners in every marriage I have ever attended and 99 percent of the people in the marriages I know about desire to be faithful and the vast vast majority of them succeed in being faithful.
I see no point in howling about and denouncing "society in general"  and making apocalyptic pronouncements.
Your "suspicion" about people not wanting faithful relationships is wrong.

[Brian Stoffregen]

Riddle me this, then batman:  Why is it that 2 out of every 3 marriages fail today?

I don't believe that statistic is quite right. From what I've read, more than half of marriage succeed. The half that don't often fail many times. So when one adds up all the marriages and adds up all the divorces, the group that fails many times skews the statistics.

Why is it that 84% of marriages that begin with cohabitation fail within 7 years? 

There's also been refinements to that statistics. Folks who have cohabited only with their future spouse succeed in marriage as well (or better) than couples who have not cohabited. The failure rate for folks who have had multiple cohabitants is quite high - or, in other words, the practice of promiscuity does not make for a good life-long, monogamous marriage.


Frankly, I see almost no promiscuity and few divorces happening among my active church people. Perhaps your congregation is quite different.

[Donald_Kirchner]

[After calling Mr. Hummel a bureaucrat] There is nothing contemptible about a bureaucrat, Mr. Culpepper. I have been one. It is merely descriptive. I happen to believe in bureaucracy - and having lived in Switzerland - have seen the best of the best when it comes to such. There was no disrepect to Mr. Hummel, he works apparently in an administrative position for a Roman Catholic agency; hence he is a Roman Catholic bureaucrat. And he seems (rightly) to be proud of what he is doing.

Admissions are better late than never.

...church officials (known derisively as "bureaucrats").

No longer merely descriptive?

[Charles_Austin]

And Robert Johnson's postings here are usually just two or three lines (maybe four or five) of sarcasm.
But, he seems to be "genuine" in his sarcasm. 
I have reported his unsubstantiated accusations of my not being honest here to the moderators.

[Tim Schenks]

To quote Battlestar Galactica:  "This has all happened before, and it will all happen again."

That's also from Ecclesiastes.  "There is nothing new under the sun."