are you for or against? & make sure to explain why!
Who established our rights? Either God established inalienable rights to all humans created in His image and we merely discovered these rights and try to respect them as God wants us to, or natural selection developed the sense of rights within us to preserve the species (or at least those of us that deserve to continue living, excluding the weak), or we as (wo)men created these rights (and can therefore take them away by majority rule).
Since we all have that feeling that it is wrong to take away rights even from the weakest of society, these rights must be inherent. Now the question is, do these rights include the "right" to marry? If we look to the Creator of rights as he revealed himself in his Word, we see that marriage was implemented as a union between a man and a woman (Gen. 2:24). We also see in both old (Lev. 20:13) and new (I Cor. 6:9) testaments that God abhors the act of uniting man to man (or woman to woman--Romans I:26). Why do I even mention the Old Testament? Because our God is an unchanging God, and though he now can forgive ANY sin and receive anyone into the kingdom who professes the name of his Son, his attitude toward sin does not change. Now we have to understand that the moral law of the Old Testament still stands (Jesus said, "I did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it" in Matthew 5:17)--and no, that does not include nit-picky details about mismatched threads and shellfish that belong to the ceremonial or civil law that pertained only to the pre-Christ Israel. So it is no surprise that this moral standard should be repeated in Paul's writings (and remember Paul was a lawyer and knew very well which laws belonged to which category). Anyway, since the Creator of rights instituted marriage as between one man and one woman, that is the way it should stand, and it is this institution that we as a society should protect, and only as this paired union between man and woman.
Hello!
1. You first started out with three possibilities. These possibilities were under the assumption that whatever caused the inalienable rights to exist then that cause dictates who gets those rights.
1.1 Something created our inalienable rights.
1.2 The 'it' in 1.1 dictates the control of the inalienable rights.
2. There are three possibilities, three 'it's' that created our inalienable rights.
2.1 The God of the Judeo-Christian faith is the first possibility
2.2 Natural Selection (I.E. Genetics, "instincts") is the second possibility.
2.3 Man (Human Mind) is the third possibility.
This is what you state.
Now we need a legal basis. The constitution is the obvious choice. I hope I don't have to spend my time debating why the constitution is the obvious choice.
Who wrote the constitution? Many people. Our founding fathers to be exact.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_wrote_the_US_ConstitutionThe constitution outlines our inalienable rights by way of The Bill of Rights.
First Amendment – Establishment Clause, Free Exercise Clause; freedom of speech, of the press, Freedom of Religion, and of assembly; right to petition,
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.Taken from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_RightsAs far as the U.S. constitution says about gay marriage, not much. In fact, is has no virtually no writing on the subject at all.
http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_marr.htmlLegal view point summarized:
3.1 Man created the legal inalienable rights for the United States.
3.2 The Constitution will have not pass a law favoring a religion, or religious idea.
3.3 States decide what the constitution does not.
3.4 The constitution does not dictate anything about gay marriage.
3.41 Because 3.3 the state decides laws on gay marriage.
Legal view point crossed with what you said:
1.1 Something created our inalienable rights. - True
1.2 The 'it' in 1.1 dictates the control of the inalienable rights. - True
2.1 The God of the Judeo-Christian faith is the first possibility - Irrelevant because of 3.2 (Unless a state constitution has no such decree, like the constitution does.)
2.2 Natural Selection (I.E. Genetics, "instincts") is the second possibility. - ...
2.3 Man (Human Mind) is the third possibility. - Yes, our founding fathers by way of the constitution.
What we have now are the following:
4.1 Man created our inalienable rights. (Founding Fathers.)
4.2 The constitution dictates our inalienable rights.
4.3 The constitution will not bear a law that is in favor of a religious belief.
4.4 The constitution does not define civil unions in terms of sexuality.
1. God has nothing to do with this issue.
2. It is entirely up to the state to decide.
Please refrain from putting God in Law. They don't mix well. As far as I am concerned, marriage is an old ritual that is meaningless to anyone outside of the marriage.
Civil Unions on the other hand affect all of us.