Is Hindu Marriage Moral

I have been reading the Is Gay Marriage Immoral thread with some interest. Now I understand that Christians think that homosexuality is immoral. What I don't understand is why homosexuals are being persecuted over this more than many other people who lead equally immoral lifestyles according to the bible.The first commandment clearly states that "you shall have no other gods before me". Hindus not only have other gods before "him", they have upwards of 3 million other gods at the exclusion of "him"!. Why are hindus allowed to marry with no fuss whatsoever? Are the Hindus allowed to flout that commandment?Now I'm sure you can claim that Hindus aren't Christian and so would obviously not pay that Commandment any heed, but then gay people aren't Christian either (well not exclusively). Why are they forced to Christian standards when other groups aren't?(Note that this isn't the place to discuss whether or not gay marriage is immoral, that more suited to the Is Gay Marriage Immoral thread )Edited by happy_atheist, : Added url tags around "Is Gay Marriage Immoral"

Well my main point in this thread is why are no groups trying to make these other things illegal? I've never heard of any serious opposition to Hindu marriage. I've never even heard any opposition to people being Hindu.Now sure forced marriage is frowned upon (and rightly so in my opinion), but that is completely different to frowning on people being Hindu. That is no less immoral than homosexuality as far as I can tell from the Bible. If anything I'd say it is more so (and the same goes for just about any other religion). But these other religions get all the same support and tax breaks and rights as Christianity. I'm just surprised there is no objection to this.

Your objections are very different to the objections I saw in the other thread. The objections I saw there were basically "We can't legalise homosexual marriage because it is immoral".

Right, so in reality your rejection of something has nothing whatsoever to do with changing something that has been fairly constant throughout history. You've admited that if slavery were legal, and had been legal in most societies through recorded history before this one, you would still object to it being legal!So by inference this leads to the conclusion that the reason you object to homosexual marriage has nothing to do with the definition of marriage throughout history, but rather because you think homosexual marriage is evil or sinful or immoral (as was the reasons given against it in the other thread).

I sure can, but since homosexuality and homosexual marriage aren't making my list of evil or immoral things I think it's safe to say we're going to have to agree to disagree on that one.But my point was, your argument against gay marriage had nothing to do with tradition but with what you thought was good and evil. In that case surely Hindu marriage, where people are openly worshiping other gods, would qualify as just as evil? (And not just Hindu marriage, but many other things too).I just wonder why no people rally against the rights of Hindus to marry in the name of the wrong gods. The way people fight against homosexual marriage, it just seems a little blinkered as if the only thing they thought was important was gay marriage and nothing else.The only reason I can think why there are no cries for outlawing hindu marriage is that people recognise the rights of Hindus to marry even if they don't agree with their religion, but then I fail to see why the same recognition isn't made for homosexuals and their rights to have their relationships recognised to give them security and self respect.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean here? How is a group that wants to marry homosexuals not an exception to the "rule" of "no groups throughout history married homosexuals"?Also, what relevance is past history? You implied yourself that you would be more than will to change cultural traditions if you thought that those traditions were wrong. This shows that past tradition is not relevant to anything. There always has to be a "first time", otherwise we would be no different to early civilizations 5-10 thousand years ago.

Oh I know you think it's wrong, that's why we're having this discussion But my point was that we're getting sidetracked on past tradition. People think you're implying that we shouldn't change the rule because of past tradition, so they are busy trying to show you where it was allowed in the past.But that isn't impressing you, because I get the impression that even if every culture in the past had allowed it you still wouldn't want it happening now. So our time would be better spent discussing exactly why you don't think homosexual marriage is acceptable, rather than getting sidetracked on this red-herring.

Wow, fast reply lol. Anyway I think you'd be giving up too easily by giving in to past occurences. If you have a rational reason to be against homosexual marriage then the number of people doing it in the past wouldn't alter that. The only reason I can think of for giving in because of how many people did it in the past is if your only/main argument is "We shouldn't do it because no one did it before".

Well as you rightly pointed out before, if you don't agree with something (even if it has always been considered the norm before), then pointing out that it was always normal before doesn't seem very convincing. Your example of slavery is a good one, and there are also things like voting rights etc that have been changed. This would probably make a good topic in another thread. How (if at all) is the west deteriorating. What (if any) are the causes? would be interesting to see what people think. Well this is something I was going to bring up actually. Appealing to Leviticus is a perfectly valid reason for not allowing homosexual marriage in christianity. I certainly never expect to see churches performing homosexual marriages, and since I'm not a christian I don't think I've got the right to tell them to. Your rules are yours to make. And bringing this thread a little back on topic, I'd never expect to see a priest performing a Hindu marriage in a christian church either.I think our problem is that we have differing views of what marriage is. But whenever i'm arguing for homosexual marriage it's only ever secular marriage, which certainly shouldn't be affected by what is in Leviticus just because it's there. However if there are rational (secular) reasons given then those would certainly be valid in the secular debate. Well that is up to you of course. You don't have to if you don't want to

How isn't it a religious matter? People from different religions will differ over what the one true god (or many varied gods, depending on the religion) say(s) the laws are. Since our two countries are made from a huge mix of all these people (plus people who aren't from any religion at all) we need some kind of objective method of deciding what our laws are.

You're doing better than me at steering the thread back on topic

Well yes Hinduism is certainly going to be immoral according to the bible, as is homosexuality. But from what I've gathered, homosexual marriage is fought against because it is a legal acknowledgement, acceptance, and promotion of something that is seen as being wrong. In the same sense, Hindu marriage is a legal acknowledgement, acceptance and promotion of something that is seen as immoral by the same standard.It would be very hard to make homosexuality or hinduism illegal because then you'd have to mind read. They are things that people are. But it's easy to deny legal recognition of these things, with marriage being one of those.

I certainly see your point. And yes, if Hindus got married using a Christian ceremony then it wouldn't be immoral. But Hindu marriages have Hindu content, with all the worshipping of other gods that that entails. That aspect of it is what I would expect to be considered immoral...But changing the argument to include Hinduism in general certainly doesn't change anything. If that would makes things easier to discuss then I have no problem with that at all. Edited by happy_atheist, : Wrote the wrong name in the quote...appologies