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Comment by tlogan | Hacker News Reader

Today, if somebody does not support interracial marriage, they are considered as racists. Is that wrong? If somebody does not support gay marriage - do they hate gays? Why do they want to disallow marriage benefits to these people?

In other words, if somebody is advocating that certain benefits should not be given to certain group of people (and they are part of that group not by own choice), the first question should be: Who is going to get harmed if we give that benefit to that group of people? If there is no answer on that question... then...

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Yes, "who is going to be harmed" should be the question, not anything about sexuality. Unfortunately most people, both pro-gay and anti-gay miss that point and continue to hold arbitrary prejudices against the sexualities and activities which don't fit what their peers tells them to believe. I can't enumerate them on HN without creating hostility but to get a feeling for the hypocrisy of strongly pro-gay advocates, see Paul Graham's "What You Can't Say" essay http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

Here is another viewpoint:

A lot of people oppose gay marriage, because of the kids that the couples would undoubtedly have/adopt. We all agree that homosexuality is not a choice, right? Most people are heterosexual - I dug around for the exact percentage of gay people and most sources cite between 2% and 5% - and this means most kids born will be hetero. It's not an unpopular opinion to say that a heterosexual kid needs a role model(parent) from the same gender and with the same sexual orientation in order to develop a healthy and balanced personality.

It's also not an opinion borne out by facts. Many children grow up with single parents and somehow manage to live healthy, balanced lives. Many children of gay couples also are well-adjusted and do very well for themselves. While having same-gendered same-oriented parental role models generally doesn't hurt children, its also not a necessity for them to grow up to be good people.

I was raised by a single mother, and had no problem finding male role models, I fail to see how this would be different to a child raised by two men or two women

I doubt that's actually a reason many people hold. It's more of an excuse. The basic reason is probably common to most anti-gays - simply that gay sex is disgusting and weird and they can't bare to imagine it. If it wasn't that, they'd be supporting gay marriage but trying to restrict effeminate males, "butch" women and single parents from raising children. The "it's disgusting and weird" reason also explains the extreme prejudice against minority sexualities even from members of the pro-gay community.

"We all agree that homosexuality is not a choice, right?"

Scientific proof with reproducible results, please. We all agree in science, right?

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