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[Mictlantecuhtli]

Why are Athiests not banned from being married?

Isn't a marriage between two non-believers more of an insult than a marriage between two legitimately god-fearing Christian gays? [I know the numbers are small, but the point stands]

I'm curious to hear the answer from the opposing side, but any opinions/conjecture are welcome. I'm not a biblical scholar but I can't help but think that this is a pretty glaring hole in the argument that gay marriage is unholy and dangerous to society since they aren't following 'Marriage Law,' while those who are the anathema to any religion are allowed to marry freely, spitting in the face of whatever holy doctrine claims precedent over the marriage.

[Johnfalcon99977]

Maybe you should realize that not everyone is married via Christan Priest, and that it is not a solely christan concept.

[Aequor]

Atheists don't marry, obviously without god they can't form the stable and loving bonds needed for marriage.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Maybe you should realize that not everyone is married via Christan Priest, and that it is not a solely christan concept.

No way, thank you for opening my eyes. You obviously don't understand the opposition to gay marriage in the USA if you think it's anything other than a Christian-morals based issue.

[Putnam]

Let's be honest, it's also kind of an eeeew, icky issue and a cultural issue, due to openness in homosexuality being a recent development. It would be nice for people to not be persecuted for a part of them, and for separate-but-equal to be, you know, actually gone, but AMURRCA, I guess.

[kaijyuu]

There are more reasons than the "sanctity of marriage" for banning gay marriage.

Other reasons I've heard:
- Continuation of the species (No, I don't understand this one either)
- It's "gross"



If you want to attack the religious faction that supports banning gay marriage, all you really need to do is point out separation of church and state, along with the fact we're talking about legal documents that are 100% secular to begin with.

State recognized marriage is not sacred; marriage rituals performed by a religious figure are, and they are not being forced to marry anyone they don't want to marry. If they don't want to marry two atheists, two homosexuals, two whatevers, they wouldn't have to. Not today, not tomorrow.



tl;dr: the religious arguments against gay marriage are full of holes and this is just one of many.

[Putnam]

Oh, yeah, the "continuation of the species" thing comes from this bullshit idea that you can "turn gay" and that it isn't just a fairly uncommon event in the populace.

[Leafsnail]

I think if people did want this it'd be arrived at via "We don't want there to be secular marriage" (and thus all churches can reject atheists from being married).  The problem for them being that secular marriage is so firmly entrenched as a concept it'd be extremely difficult to remove - and thus it's easy to just buckle down and defend the status quo against same-sex marriages.

Oh, yeah, the "continuation of the species" thing comes from this bullshit idea that you can "turn gay" and that it isn't just a fairly uncommon event in the populace.

Although it should be noted that if people can turn gay it doesn't support their position at all.

[kaijyuu]

Oh, yeah, the "continuation of the species" thing comes from this bullshit idea that you can "turn gay" and that it isn't just a fairly uncommon event in the populace.

Although it should be noted that if people can turn gay it doesn't support their position at all.

Yep. It's not 100% out of one's control, but that's not in any way a problem.

[Flying Dice]

Yeah, you can have a completely secular marriage with the ceremony performed by a public official (don't remember exactly what office is responsible, though)-it's how my parents were married, for example. Christians try to pretend they have a leg to stand on with their opposition to gay marriage because of bullshit reason 1 (It's against our religion and 'MURRKA is a Christian nation) and bullshit reason 2 ('eeew'); secular marriage is already ingrained in our culture.

[penguinofhonor]

My view on this has always been that it's not actually a religious issue at all. The only reason marriage is a "sacred institution" is because that's something they can use to defend it that sounds like it has authority.

I feel like there's an alternate version of America where gays aren't allowed to have funerals, and funerals are kept from them with the excuse that the funeral is the most ancient and important Christian institution.

[Mr. Palau]

Oh, yeah, the "continuation of the species" thing comes from this bullshit idea that you can "turn gay" and that it isn't just a fairly uncommon event in the populace.

Although it should be noted that if people can turn gay it doesn't support their position at all.

Yep. It's not 100% out of one's control, but that's not in any way a problem.

Well once you lift a taboo like homosexuality then people will begin to explore their sexuality more. Some poeple who might have formed heterosexual relationships are now bi or homosexual. 

that doesn't really matter though because then to maintain the population all we need is for the vast majority of people (heterosexuals) to have more sex. Which I'm not exactly aggainst... 

[Putnam]

Hell, there's really no need to maintain the population (it's growing as-is and is really big enough), and besides that, most people just aren't gay[/i.] It shouldn't ever become a problem.

[Ancre]

I'd say it poses less of a problem because, while being atheists, the atheist couple from your example is still following society's general rules toward marriage, which are still heavily influenced by christian morals or something - or, if you prefer, it's not marriage that atheism challenge. They may not believe in God, but they still do everything by the book, if I can say. Atheism will probably be bashed for other things, like, I dunno, slowly destroying morals in general by challenging the source of morals which is religion, or something.

At least, it's my interpretation. I still don't understand the american christians' reaction really, I mean, it never goes beyond emotional reaction, and never brings any kind of intelligent reflexion. Christians can have intelligent reflexions, and they can even have intelligent reflexions against gay marriage, I've seen it happens. But nooo, apparently we're just going to scream and rage and frothe in the mouth or something. Maybe there is, and I'm just blind and I can't see it. I don't know.

[Leafsnail]

Well if anyone's interested in opposition to Gay Marriage there was an article today about it

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/17/justice-equality-same-sex-marriage

...Damn that was so boring.  Other than the amazing understatement in the first sentence it's just classic argument by waffling endlessly (if you try to tease the argument out it's that marriage is built on men and women being different with no supporting reasoning, I think).  I can see why Rowan Williams (former Archbishop of Canterbury) quit - he was a cool and tolerant guy who was surrounded by homophobes and sexists.