Iceland permits homosexual marriage

[Hedgerider]

That would immediately give people a good reason to get rid of gay marriage and adoption by gay people. After all: if it is a sign of nature that they are not to have children why provide them with the means of legally doing so ?

I agree on the adoption, but "the marriage" is another matter IMO. While minority groups are paying money to certain institutions, those same institutions have no right to exclude them from their service.

[Beorn]

homosexuality is normal in all the animal kingdom.

No it isn't. 'Normal' would be adhering to the average.

Using your definition of 'normal', then it is normal for an individual to have sexual relations with a corpse, sexual relations with a child or inbreed.

People are always very keen to compare Humans to the animal kingdom for acceptance, but yet never willing to take the comparison to its logical conclusion.

"Oh, homosexuality is normal because Bonobos have been reported to have same sex relations."

That's fine. What about:

"Oh, paedophilia is normal because Baboons have been reported to abduct smaller Baboons and rape them."

Or perhaps:

"Oh, necrophilia is normal because Ducks have been reported to having had sex with deceased Ducks."

So what is 'Normal'?

[Murphy]

That volcano obviously wasn't violent enough.

[The Ripper]

That volcano obviously wasn't violent enough.

God hates Iceland?

[Murphy]

God hates Iceland?

Hell yeah! Westboro Baptists FTW!

[Äike]

Viking love! ...

[Lars]

Great, and a sane choice too.

[Loddfafner]

Religious marriage is a matter of community self-determination: shouldn't Unitarians have as much right to perform gay marriages as Catholics have to refuse them?

Civil marriage should be a matter of contractual freedom between free individuals. The state should be as neutral as is feasible.

That would immediately give people a good reason to get rid of gay marriage and adoption by gay people. After all: if it is a sign of nature that they are not to have children why provide them with the means of legally doing so ?

I take this as a serious argument. Arguments for homosexuality as a natural and benign phenomenon in the larger scheme of things assume that gay relationships are qualitatively distinct from those between males and females and that distinction carries positive functions for human communities. If gays get the legal right to marry, and if social pressures on gays to marry follow soon after, then those positive functions may be lost.

One counterargument is that at present, a major positive function of homosexuality is the extent to which gay have reclaimed historic urban cores from the period of postwar decay. Gay marriage, and more particularly the economic effects of the marriage industry, probably accelerate this process.

I suppose it would be helpful to distinguish between those biological functions that account for the very existence of homosexuality and the economic ones that account for the present historical moment.

[jerney]

Congrats to them. No reason two consenting adults who love each other shouldn't be able to get married.

[jerney]

Homosexual is IMO unnatural and can be correctedwith a hormonal treatment.