Pro-Creation/Gay Marriage Debate

Over the past couple of days, I've gotten wrapped up in a debate on pro-creation and gay marriage and homosexuality. Below I am posting some of the replies of folks on the site and then my reply to them. I think that I put forth a lot of good points to refute the logic of these pro-creation and anti-gay marraige zealots. Click here to access the actual post on the site the debate is taking place. FYI, the block quotes point out where the site author quoted me or on occassion someone else who posted a comment, so that he could respond to specific things we said. All of my comments are bolded. What are your thoughts on the debate or on the topic itself? I'd love to hear comments for or against.

The Debate
“Makes me wanna holler, the way the do my life.” That sums it up. Two people of the same sex should not be afforded the same rights as my husband and I. Being gay is a CHOICE. I don’t choose to be black it is what I was born with. You don’t have to go around telling people that you are gay. When people look at me it is evident that I am black. There is absolutely no comparison in the civil rights movement and the behavior of being GAY!!!!

Comment by Saudia

"And it’s stuff like what I read here that usually drives us away from our communities and families — taking our gifts and our strengths with us."

What exactly?

"As for reproduction, I can reproduce. No, not with my partner, but there’s nothing to stop me from being a biological father thanks to modern science."

From day one, man did not need “modern science” to reproduce. A male’s body is not designed to carry a child–so don’t fool yourself.

Take away all the toys, condoms, and other tools that man has invented and sex is all about reproduction. Is the usage of such “devices” wrong? I’ll leave that up to the individual. But if we want to know the original intent of such an important part of love between a man and a woman, one should take away all these added man-made features for the answer.

If you were to read anything I have said on this issue in the past, I acknowledge the fact that:

a) The black community must do a much better job in addressing this issue–especially the church.Absorbing the skills of gays while expecting them to keep quiet is wrong.

b)Gays were a part of the civil rights movement.

On (b), while gays were a part of the civil rights movement–THE MOVEMENT WAS ABOUT BLACK EQUALITY–not the gay agenda.

What really gets me about this whole issue is while numbers of gay individuals will play down the fact that both a mother (female) and father (male) is needed to raise a child, many gay couples will still have one partner play the role of “husband” and the other will be the lesser dominate figure.

"Marriage isn’t for reproducing, but all that comes after reproduction, as it can create an environment of love, support and stability in which a child can grow."

So why bring children into your equation if it isn’t about reproduction?

Comment by Duane

I agree with many of the points Terrance made. I personally don’t think that gays are saying or I’ll speak for myself, that the gay Civil Rights movement is equal to the Black Civil Rights movement. However, injustice and discrimination are just that whether it’s based on race, sexual ORIENTATION or disability and as human beings we shouldn’t stand for injustice for any group of people.

Heterosexuals and religous zealouts always talk about marriage being for pro-creation, so does that mean 2 people are sinning if they get married and have no children? You mean they don’t deserve to be married? Does that mean that once a woman is past her procreation years she should divorce her husband? The answers to these questions point to one simple fact. Marriage is not solely about pro-creation, but about a much deeper bond, which includes love and companionship. This is the very SAME love and companionship that same sex couples have for one another. And Duane, please don’t be as ignorant to believe that just because Terrance referred to his “husband” that that means he thinks of himself as the “wife”. You have to move outside of a heterosexist mind set that many people hold. Two men in a relationship are just that, two men. Some may see themselves as more effiminate than their partner, but that doesn’t mean that all same sex couples operate that way.

In relation to marriage and heterosexuals, there are many who make a mockery of the institution. The divorce rate continues to rise and some heterosexuals make an even bigger mockery when they marry someone on live TV after knowing them for 3 months and competing against 20 other women to marry him for his money. You can’t expect same gender loving couples who have built strong, healthy relationships over years to sit back and not feel slighted over the lack of seriousness that many heterosexuals have made over marriage.

Bottom line is, marriage is about love, companionship and growing old with the person you love. That should not be limited only to a man and a woman. Homosexuality is not only about sex. Some gay men have mulitple sex partners as do heterosexual men. You have plenty of str8 men who have sex with as many women as they can, it’s more a “man thing” than a “gay man thing”.

I commend Terrance and his husband for stepping up and taking care of chldren that are left behind by damaged heterosexual relationships. It’s a fundamental injustice as Terrance pointed out to not be allowed to have the same legal rights that married couples have, especially if you’ve been with your partner for 5, 10, 15 years. Yes there are same sex couples who have been together for more than a decade and deserve the same rights as a legally married couple.

Saudia- get a life, you are stuck in the stone ages and need to open up your mind so that you can see the beauty in all human beings, not just the heterosexual ones.

Comment by Absolutelee


Absolutelee,

"I personally don’t think that gays are saying or I’ll speak for myself, that the gay Civil Rights movement is equal to the Black Civil Rights movement."

Then you have not read the article or kept up with their campaigns in the black communtiy. These groups do not represent all gays no more than the NAACP represents all blacks, but they do regularly take such leaps to make their point.

"And Duane, please don’t be as ignorant to believe that just because Terrance referred to his “husband” that that means he thinks of himself as the “wife”. You have to move outside of a heterosexist mind set that many people hold. Two men in a relationship are just that, two men. Some may see themselves as more effiminate than their partner, but that doesn’t mean that all same sex couples operate that way."

I have met and know many gays for years now and I can tell you that my observation of these roles have been pretty consistant. I’m not speaking about Terrance’ situation because I have not met him or know him. I am just asking the question because those roles do exist in the homosexual community.

"Bottom line is, marriage is about love, companionship and growing old with the person you love."

And it is about having children (for those who are able to do so). This has been one of the most important parts of the institution of marriage since day one. Hey, we can beat around the bush all we want with this, but anatomy does not lie. Remember, it was a heterosexual relationship that brought you into the world.

Might I ask what are “rising” numbers of committed homosexual relationships?

Peg,

I am not understanding your point here. Should we talk about the outrageous comparisons to the holocaust, or is that different?

Again, treating ANYBODY regardless of race, religion, class, or sexual preference in any way except as a human being is wrong. Let’s not forget that a bulk of this issue has nothing to do with the right to marry–it has everything to do with this ideology that suggests that if you do not personally condone or agree with the homosexual lifestyle, then you are a bigot.

Comment by Duane

Duane, you are corrrect on the point that it is a heterosexual relationship that bought this beautiful human being into this world and I don’t suggest that heterosexual relationships are not valid and that procreation isn’t a needed things, of course it is. What I am saying is that I don’t believe that pro-creation alone makes the basis of a valid relationship.

When you tell a group of people (gays and lesbians) who have history, historical significance and contribute in every way to this society (just as Black’s have and still do), they deserve the rights that everyone else has.

I think heterosexuals just don’t understand how much freedom and power you have that gays don’t. If I were to die and have tons of assets that I want to leave to my partner, and some of this depends on state law, but my partners family can come and take all that or legally contest it more easily than if I were married. If you’re married and you put that in your will, law will respect that and family can’t do anything. There have been cases where gay couples have been together for years, and family has disowned them. One dies and plans to leave his assets to his partner, but then here comes the family trying to get compensated from a life they chose to deem insiginificant to them prior. How do you think that would make you feel if you put 10 years into a commited loving relationship to have this happen to you and you have no REAL legal protection? I have no legal protection stating that if my partner were in the hospital in the emergency room to see him if the hospital staff sticks to a “family only” policy. I can’t legally deem my partner family if we can’t marry.

And don’t think that heterosexuals who are in committed relationships and choose not to marry don’t get shafted by the Right Wing Homophobic biggots. All these laws about sodomy and banning second parent adoptions has impacted heterosexuals too.

What’s more disturbing is that much of the propeganda that so called religous moralists espouse they themselves don’t live up to! This has been seen time and time again in the anti-gay preacher who gets caught dating or having sex with men secretly. This happens with preachers who steal money for their own gains from their hard working congregation who THOUGHT they were giving to the church programming fund. This happens when a presidential administration gives lip service to improving the lives of the poor, but then allows many of them to be washed away with a hurricane and have their lives utterly destroyed because they chose not to act on information they had that told them that was going to happen in enought time to have made a huge difference in the mortalilty rate of Hurricane Katrina.

THESE are things we need to worry about. We need to stop focusing so much money and attention on banning same sex marriages and civil Rights, when the real fight needs to be about decreasing poverty, dealing with the very real problems of violence in our communities, the decline of young Black males in America and the list goes on. Preachers in Black churches should be focusing more on these REAL social epidemics rather than kissing the presidents ass to get money, favors or whatever else they feel they are gaining. While they attack gays, Blacks continue to suffer. Don’t get me wrong, I realize that Black preachers ARE doing something about these social epidemics, but they could do more if their attention wasn’t diverted.

The real sin that is created by homophobic bigots has to do with the after effects of homophobia and bigotry which can be seen in the lives of some Black Gay men every day. This is in part what is fueling the HIV epidemic among us and contributing to men not feeling they can be open about their same sex attractions.

(Duane, I haven’t read your site, so I don’t know what your previous posts say about your feelings on gays in general, so I’ll say to you “If it doesn’t apply, let it fly”. But I do know from what I’ve read of other comments on this post that there are people who can benefit from my soapbox speech.)

Bottom line is, I don’t need anyone to tell me that I am going to meet Lucifer because I love a man. Don’t judge me based on my sexual ORIENTATION, and worry about the sins you may be committing and rectify those!

Comment by Absolutelee

"What I am saying is that I don’t believe that pro-creation alone makes the basis of a valid relationship."

Okay, that is what you choose to believe. But pro-creation has always been a part of the cornerstone of marriages in general. What many (not all) the the gay movement do on a regular basis is to minimize this part of marriage by doing things like seeking to remove “father” from a child’s birth certificate (see one of the articles that I refered to earlier).

"I think heterosexuals just don’t understand how much freedom and power you have that gays don’t."

Again, homosexuals enjoy just as many freedoms as anybody else in this country. Like one of the commentors said earlier, he has knowingly “…employed both homosexuals, and transgendered people…” because they were right for the job, not sexual preference. If a person is right for the job, MANY (including me) in this country do not care. Only the media and gay activist groups focus on the few that do.

I have lived in communites where gay couples owned homes. There were no signs of protest. Like most developments, everybody kept to their own business. A very dear friend of mine lived next door to what I believe were two homosexual couples. He would always try to be friendly with them, but unfortunately they were not the same to him. Should I generalize and say ALL homosexuals are like that? Of course not. But I’m not buying the victim card here either.

Just like I am not generalizing with the homosexual community on bad encounters, please don’t do the same with groups that do not agree with you when you talk about the religious community. I can point to MANY in that community that will wholeheartedly love and embrace homosexuals without “soapboxing” them to death. I myself have had friends that I knew were homosexual. They knew where I stood, but we still had respect for each other.

"The real sin that is created by homophobic bigots has to do with the after effects of homophobia and bigotry which can be seen in the lives of some Black Gay men every day. This is in part what is fueling the HIV epidemic among us and contributing to men not feeling they can be open about their same sex attractions."

No, what fueling the HIV epidemic is a society that says you can have any kind of risky sexual behavior you choose because its all about “me”. But when diseases emerge, its all about “society” paying for the cleanup. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the necessary reseach to eraticate sexually-transmited diseases, just let it be non-government funded. And yes, this applies to both homosexual and heterosexual communities.

And lastly, on your example of legally having the ability to leave your assets to anyone you wish, I agree with you. But again, this barely make up a fifth of this ongoing issue.

Eugene- What the hell are you saying? I don’t understand!

The one part I do understand I’ll reply to: The reason heterosexuals don’t need to go around saying they’re hetero is because this hetersexist society assumes everyone IS or SHOULD be heterosexual. Most marginalized groups of people make their causes overt, because they need to educate and let the majority know that “we’re not takin’ your oppressive ways without a fight”. What do you think the Black Power movement was all about?

Saudia- You need to remove the hate from your heart. If you are a Christian and believe in morality, then you should also believe the old saying “live and let live”. You don’t have to agree with homosexuality and you don’t have to understand it, all you need to do is mind your own business and you won’t have to worry about seeing two men kiss. I’m sure you have more valuable things to do with your time. What you should worry about with your 2 year old son is that he grow up to be a productive citizen and not get caught up in the negativity and path of destruction that so many young Black men today seem to fall victim to.

Oh and one last thing, have you ever heard of Anita Bryant? If not here’s my point: She was vehemently opposed to homosexuality and went across the country on her crusade to demonize homosexuals. Well guess what the spokeswoman for homophobia had to deal with? A GAY son! God has a way of teaching people lessons who don’t have unconditional love in their heart.

Brian- What are you talking about?? You and Eugene must hang out 2gether.

Just so you know, mental instability is a human trait, many heterosexuals suffer from it to, so what’s your point? Another thing, homosexuality exists in nature among animals, and as much as we want to think we’re not animals, we are, just higher level and with greater intelligence. Do you mean to tell me that you believe that humans taught two male monkeys how to engage in same sex behavior? I don’t think so!

For all you pro-creation zealots- have you ever thought that maybe God thought that there would be an overpopulation problem on the planet and that same sex couples who choose not to have children not only help with population control, but also adopt the children that have been abondoned by heterosexual creations? After all, s/he created sterility too!

Comment by Absolutelee

What are your thoughts on this topic for or against?