Right wing nutbags CARM: "How could gay marriage harm anyone?" Well, you'd be surprised.

[Bolo Boffin]

Just saw this... this... stuff on Twitter and had to share. This is what we're up against.

First, let's define harm. Harm is damage to a person physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, financially, morally, etc. The definition is obviously broad and subjective, and this is problematic. People experience harm in different ways.

Here is a list of ways in which gay marriage can bring harm.

1. It can bring huge financial and emotional stress.
Homosexuals can sue people who are exercising their religious beliefs. For example, a heterosexual married couple with children who do not want to rent a room in their their own family household to homosexuals could be sued for discrimination based on "sexual orientation." This can incur significant financial and emotional stress upon the family, not to mention the "prior restraint" effect of the fear of being sued which results in a family not renting out a room.

CARM stands for Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry. This is what they led with when itemizing the way someone might be harmed if marriage equality was given to everyone. A family might not rent a room.

Insert every case you know of actual harm inflicted on gay couples here. And here one ignorant bunch of idiots is saying, fuck dat, a family might not rent a room.

I can't even put words together to express my utter disbelief of this page. And there's more!

6. Gay Marriage effects people spiritually.
Don't assume that people's spiritual beliefs are irrelevant. People consider spiritual issues to be extremely important, and the stress imposed on religious people by forcing them to "accept" and/or support homosexual practice and/or intimidate them into silence harms a person's spiritual and emotional health.

You know what else harms a person's spiritual and emotional health, Mr. Slick? Beating someone half to death and leaving him to die tied to a fence. So you'll excuse me if your stress at being forced to "accept" -- wait. There is no law being proposed to force anyone to accept homosexual practice. There is no law being proposed to force you to support homosexual practice. And there is no law being proposed to intimidate you into silence!

The only thing being proposed is that government must treat everyone equally. Feel free to trumpet your homophobia to the skies, Mr. Slick. Preach about it in your church, slap a hateful bumper sticker on your car, whatever. Just keep your damn Christian sharia law out of our government. That's all we ask -- that's all we CAN ask of you.

[baldguy]

1. There's only one appropriate response to shit like that.

[Bolo Boffin]

2. Bingo. n/t

[cindyperry2010]

3. You know if you don't want to marry a gay person you do not have to

but a gay person should have the righ to marry whoever they choose damn

[chickypea]

4. Can't Make This SH*T Up!!!

It is amazing how paranoid the right wing fruit loops have become.

[Moonwalk]

5. So what they're saying is they fear they'll be discriminated against...

...in exactly the way they're discriminating against gay? Be spiritually harmed as gays are spiritually harmed every time they're told god hates them?

[Johonny]

6. 6. How about the the stress imposed on gay people by forcing them to "accept" these ideas?

Oh wait the bigot is always the victim.

[intaglio]

7. Lets take it one point at a time

1 - has damn all to do with gay marriage and everything to do with discrimination. Are Carm advocating a return to a time when discrimination was legal? If so, f@*£ 'em.

2 - Has damn all to do with gay marriage and everything to do with a disease that is spread between hetro-, as well as homo-, sexuals. Not only that but by this argument lesbians are specially blessed by the "Lord".

3 - Is complete nonsense and has damn all to do with gay marriage. Watching a gay couple in a film does not force you to be gay even if they are married What this boils down to is they find homosexual couples icky (or hot).

4 - Has damn all to do with marriage, indeed if the accusations CARM is making were true (which it isn't) then it is an argument for a blessed marriage.

5 - Nothing to do with gay marriage and a statistics fail. The population of the USA is increasing so if they want it "stable" CARM should want more gay marriage.

6 - Damn all to do with gay marriage and everything to do with a nonsensical definition of "harm". Even if gay marriage did cause such distress then the way to reduce that stress is to normalise gay marriage, which has the advantage of reducing the spiritual harm to the gay couple.

7 - Nonsense, by this logic government can never make or change laws which affects everybody in society

8 - Nothing to do with gay marriage and everything to do with hateful acts against children. By this logic mixed marriages would be similarly denied

What a bunch of twonks!

[dairydog91]

8. Really quite compelling.

In turn:

1. Homosexuals can bring these suits because these suits are authorized under law. Such discrimination actions would exist regardless of whether the renter is married. Concerning renting rooms in your own home: There are usually exceptions giving the landlord more power. Second, if you don't want the government deciding who can and cannot live in a room of your own home, then you don't rent that room.

2. The health risks are enormous to themselves and others. So are the health risks of heterosexual intercourse. Add up the cumulative damage to society caused by all STDs among straights. Now add in the costs imposed by idiots having more idiots and raising them with stupid and cruel politics. Like yours, CARM.

3. Gay Marriage means having the morals of the minority forced upon the majority. Because tey gayz want to force straight people into gay marriages? Having gay marriages means that straights will be "forced" into homosexual relationships?

- The percentage of homosexuals in society is less than 5%, yet it is being forced upon the other 95% of society in movies, TV, literature, and political periods
Maybe, just maybe, a large percentage of that 95% tolerates and even embraces some of gay culture.

4. Gay Marriage means a redefinition of sexual morality, and with it other sexually related practices will be affected and this can be harmful.
- Sexual morality has been repeatedly redefined, and for good reason. Alternately, one could simply say that people just want the more freewheeling access to sex that was always afforded to white, straight males.

Of course, for hundreds of years, in traditional Christian marriages, there was no such thing as rape. The wife was property of the husband, and could not refuse him. Overall, the very idea that the man and a woman in a "Traditional" marriage are equal partners is a wildly modern concept, deeply out of sync with traditional views of marriage as the legal merger of a woman into the dominant legal identity of a man.

5. Gay Marriage reduces the number of children born in society and we need a stable population base to operate properly. Therefore, society can be harmed.
And preventing gays from marrying will do what, exactly? Cause them to rush into straight marriages?

6. Gay Marriage effects people spiritually.
Really, this seems just a more eloquent way of saying "WAAAAAAAH I HATE GAYS"

7. It forces government to get involved in changing laws...
Yes, governments have been known to be involved with laws. Actually, they are often their creators, modifiers, and enforcers.

8. It exposes adopted children within potential homosexual unions to ridicule from others.
Yes, and the children of interracial marriages may experience bullying from racist children, so interracial marriages should be banned! Also, the children of creationist parents would be exposed to crippling mockery in science class, so creationist marriages should be banned!

[Bolo Boffin]

10. 6 really takes the cake for me.

"Your intolerance of our intolerance hurts our fee fees." I'm amazed they could speak with that much paste in their mouths.

[treestar]

9. Looks like "affect" vs. "effect" is beyond CARM's abilities

And there are gay religious people - there is no ground to assume that religious people are always homophobes, either. If they are "intimidated into silence" that is social pressure that shows they know that their position is wrong. If they are so right, why do they feel "intimidated?" They know their position is the one society doesn't accept.

[maggiesfarmer]

11. #2 is the most easy to rebut...

if gays could marry, wouldn't they be less likely to engage in promiscuous behavior and thus less likely to get AIDS or other diseases associated with such?

[maggiesfarmer]

12. actually, on further thought, i'm interested in how they came to #5

are they suggesting that if gay marriage were legal that people currently engaged in breeding would stop doing so?

I'm very curious at what research and logic was applied to come to that conclusion.