Why is SSM such a big deal?

[bedstuy]

1.  Marriage is a civil right granted by the government.

2.  Everyone should have the same civil rights under the law, regardless of their sexual orientation.

3.  Same-sex marriage hasn't been recognized in every state, so it is not settled. 

4.  Same-sex marriage has come to symbolize the greater struggle for acceptance and legal equality for LGBT people.  It raises the basic question of whether it's OK to treat people differently because of the sexual orientation and whether being gay is wrong/a choice.  So, the fight for SSM has advanced acceptance and equality for gay people across the board. 

5.  The US still has tons of homophobia and mistreatment of gay people so we have a lot of work to do in general to make acceptance of homosexuality a social norm.  We've come a lot way in the past 10 years, but there are still anti-gay hate crimes, conversion therapy and bullying of gay kids going on.  We can't accept second-class citizen status on any issue or be complacent even when we've had some political success in recent years.  As if it's OK to be homophobic or legally discriminated against in some states.  It's never OK and we shouldn't have to take it any longer.

[bedstuy]

The idea that marriage is granted by the government doesn't really sit well with me though. It should be a religious sanctum

So non religious people shouldn't be allowed to get married, or religious people shouldn't be allowed to get married if no church wants to marry them?

Atheists wouldn't want a Christian marriage, anyway

The government doesn't recognize Christian marriage or Jewish marriage or Hindu marriage.  There's just marriage.

And, that makes no sense whatsoever.  What religious definition do we use for marriage?  Christian?  Well, some Christian churches recognize same-sex marriage.  And, what about if I want to start my own church where I declare everyone is married to everyone else.  Does that mean the government needs to give everyone on earth a green card because they're all part of the same family.  Not to mention, religious doctrine can't be the law.   That makes no sense. 

[bedstuy]

1. People don't understand the law or civil rights. Gay people can get married in all 50 states.

You can take your "but gay people can still get married to the opposite sex!" argument right back to the trash can where it belongs. Thanks.

Until I saw AD's reply below I was thinking he was using a frame of reference similar to mine. Mine is that ever since Lawrence SSM has been legal in all fifty States, and that the current legal and political struggle has been over giving all marriages the same degree of legal recognition and privileges. After all, he's been vocal about his odd view that how governments treat marriage amounts to discrimination against single people.

Ugh.  During slavery, everyone was equal under the law, some people were just more equal than others.  Right?

[bedstuy]

What Christian teachings say about homosexuality is 100% irrelevant to this discussion because we have  a secular Constitution and government. 

[bedstuy]

1.  Marriage is a civil right granted by the government.

2.  Everyone should have the same civil rights under the law, regardless of their sexual orientation.

3.  Same-sex marriage hasn't been recognized in every state, so it is not settled. 

4.  Same-sex marriage has come to symbolize the greater struggle for acceptance and legal equality for LGBT people.  It raises the basic question of whether it's OK to treat people differently because of the sexual orientation and whether being gay is wrong/a choice.  So, the fight for SSM has advanced acceptance and equality for gay people across the board. 

5.  The US still has tons of homophobia and mistreatment of gay people so we have a lot of work to do in general to make acceptance of homosexuality a social norm.  We've come a lot way in the past 10 years, but there are still anti-gay hate crimes, conversion therapy and bullying of gay kids going on.  We can't accept second-class citizen status on any issue or be complacent even when we've had some political success in recent years.  As if it's OK to be homophobic or legally discriminated against in some states.  It's never OK and we shouldn't have to take it any longer.

I have a reasonable counter here.

1. Marriage and the family was instituted before the concept of human government. Thus goes beyond civil rights. (Look at Genesis 2-4 on this)

2. Those who want to change that are trying to undermine cultural and societal norms that have always existed. Thus the burden of proof to change roughly the whole of human history is on the ones trying to change that incontrovertible fact.

3. The Founders to a man agreed with the Biblical view of marriage and family life and shouldn't we at least consider the wisdom of the founders even if many of you want to cast off the Bible and its role in American jurisprudence.

4. For the courts to undermine the will of the people specifically expressed through their legislatures or through voter referendum to codify traditional marriage as the only acceptable marriage in said state is a stain on the very courts themselves

5. The state's who had bans on SSM who had them overturned by federal courts (yes I'm looking at you too California and Prop should have said bans restored and all said "unions" voided from the state records at minimum.

That's nonsense. 

You're wrong for two basic reasons.

One, we have a secular government and a secular Constitution.  What a specific religion has to say about marriage law is irrelevant. 

Two, "we can never change anything!" is a horrible argument.  Marriage law was not static for all of human history.  Women used to be treated like chattel.  We used to have child marriage, polygamy, dowry, dower, no divorce and arranged marriages.  All that has changed and evolved throughout history because society has changed and progressed. 

This is an issue of the shifting of what is an accepted fact.  At one point in America, it was an accepted fact that black people were inferior and deserving of slavery.  It was an accepted fact that women could never be full citizens with equal rights.  Eventually, opinions changed based on a continued national discussion. 

This same process happened with homosexuality.  There has been a national discussion on homosexuality, especially since the 1960s.  My side has won the underlying argument here, since most Americans acknowledge:
1.  Homosexuality is not a choice.
2.  Homosexuality is not immoral or harmful to society.

If you oppose same-sex marriage, you have to convince people on those underlying points.  Because, if you concede those two points, opposing same-sex marriage is nonsensical.

[bedstuy]

Unfortunately, this is a textbook example of the left using division and hatred as a political tactic.

The only losers to be made out of the SSM debate are Americans who honestly and ardently believe in the sanctity of traditional marriage.  Now, this isn't to say that opponents of gay marriage have good reasons for their opposition - because, quite frankly, they don't.  However, the narrative that opposition to SSM is rooted in hatred and bigotry of homosexuals is just plain wrong:  if that were the case, we'd be seeing calls for the criminalization of homosexual activity, et cetera.

Rather, the American left is much more comfortable using gay marriage as an issue to drum-up electoral support among the hopelessly young and mindlessly cosmopolitan for an agenda that actually comes at the expense of the working poor, racial relations and the environment.  Such is the problem when a center-left party tries to build a base by appealing to conservatives.

You can't talk about hatred and intolerance when you want your hatred and intolerance not only tolerated, but enshrined into the law for everyone.  People can't still believe homosexuality is wrong, immoral and that same-sex marriage is evil.  They just don't get the government to abide by their beliefs.

They can take comfort in the fact that marriage is a voluntary act among private citizens so they don't need to get a same-sex marriage unless they want one.

[bedstuy]

If two gays kissing non-gratuitously in a restaurant is flaunting their homosexuality, did my wife and I flaunt our heterosexuality?

Yes, tho most places, yet not all, tolerate such flaunting.

If two straight people kiss in Chelsea or the Castro, nobody is going to scream at them or attack them.  That could absolutely happen to two gay people in many, many places around America.