toldailytopic: Same-sex marriage: for it, or against it?

[rexlunae]

I think a yes to your first question answers your second. If the subsidy is for producing children, not raising them, then the question is answered. The heterosexual couple provides a service to society that the homosexual couple simply cannot. See the third article for answers to questions about heterosexual infertility, I haven't finished all of the articles but I did read much of that one.

How exactly does collecting a deceased spouse's Social Security benefits subsidize procreation? That doesn't even make sense, in that, one of the spouses is dead by the time it occurs, and having children isn't even a necessary precondition for the benefit. No thinking person could possibly be incentivized to have children by such an offer when all you need to do to collect is marry someone.

 

[rexlunae]

Here are a number of secular arguments against gay marriage for those interested:

...and a few reactions.

1. A Secular Argument Against Gay Marriage

He seems to be arguing in favor of a very real and harmful prejudice to prevent a harm which is entirely speculative and theoretical, and I can't help but think he wouldn't make the argument but for his self-imposed religious limitations.

2. Judaism's Sexual Revolution: Why Judaism Rejected Homosexuality

All this really seems to do is attempt to cast a very imaginative narrative, with scant evidence, and with little indication even within the narrative how any of this is related to the origin of Western civilization in any important way. It also presumes that the prohibition of homosexuality and the advancement of heterosexuality was important to the moral development of human society, which isn't obviously true for any reason that I am aware of.

The real argument seems to start under the heading "Bible truth", and obviously fails to be secular in any appreciable sense.

3. What is Marriage? (Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy)

Interestingly, this article seems to argue early on that all religions and all societies define marriage as excluding homosexual unions, which explicitly contradict the claim by the previous article that the Jews invented the social norm against homosexual marriage.

This is too long for me to be interested in reading the whole thing in the hopes of finding something to object to, but the gist of it seems to be that the change here is more fundamental than the changes made to permit interracial marriage. While I don't dispute that this could be reasonably considered to be the case, it also doesn't make a lick of difference to the principles of our Republic, so the point is moot.

4. The Secular Case Against Gay Marriage

After pointing out that there are other cases where the state restricts marriage, generally for good compelling secular reasons (not that he mention this), he goes on to make the same sorts of arguments that have been made here many times, demanding that homosexuals must justify their desire to be viewed equally by the law in terms of a benefit to the state, after giving a free pass to all other non-procreative couples on the unsupported grounds that it's just too hard to figure it out in their cases.

 

[Lev Lafayette]

I have to say, the argument against same-sex marriage on the basis that marriage is supposed to be an institution for procreation strikes me as a little weird. Could someone please explain...

a) How the same sort of reasoning should not be used as a ban against infertile couples marrying.

and

b) How the institution of same-sex marriage would reduce the number of children procreated through other-sex marriage.

and

c) Why marriage vows, afiak, do not make any mention of "and go have lots of babies", and instead they seem to be more about a public declaration of love.

 

[Rusha]

I have to say, the argument against same-sex marriage on the basis that marriage is supposed to be an institution for procreation strikes me as a little weird. Could someone please explain...

a) How the same sort of reasoning should not be used as a ban against infertile couples marrying.

and

b) How the institution of same-sex marriage would reduce the number of children procreated through other-sex marriage.

and

c) Why marriage vows, afiak, do not make any mention of "and go have lots of babies", and instead they seem to be more about a public declaration of love.

ITA, Lev ... we have brought these points up, and they just get conveniently disregarded in favor of a religious POV.

 

[zippy2006]

Heterosexual couples are worth more to society than homosexual couples.

Not come fashion week. lain: Else, society once valued white men over any other and gave them perks in violation of the equitable principle that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator, etc. Seem like a good idea to you?

Cute, but it isn't an answer. My statement stands. If white men could procreate and black men couldn't then this might have approached an answer, but even that analogy is off because we are speaking of couples not individuals.

That's a point you won't unmake that serves as a basis for "inequity" (as you like to call it) from the get-go.

Not it at all really. Supra and prior.

Your assertions aren't good here.

1. The government has objective interest in traditional marriage as a means to a healthy society.

The government has a fundamental obligation to guarantee equal rights to its citizens.

No one is arguing against that :yawn:

Would you say the same thing about Catholics?

Yes I would, now take a third swing if you'd like

I have one. The fellow down the street has one. And if his says that Catholics shouldn't be allowed to vote or live in Protestant neighborhoods or marry because Protestant values are of greater importance to the nation I'll oppose the attempt in the spirit of equity under law.

Wonderful, let him cast it.

To summarize: it isn't a matter of favoring homosexuality or the notion of homosexual marriage; rather, I'm against the denial of right absent reasoned justification.

I've given you a justified reason, you just choose to ignore it.

:e4e:

:e4e:

 

[Town Heretic]

Cute, but it isn't an answer.

Of course it is.

My statement stands.

Without any legs? :think: How?

If white men could procreate and black men couldn't then this might have approached an answer,

Only if you're remarkably literal--and I can understand how you'd need to be here. Else, it's a comparison that rests on value and not right, in contravention of equality before the law.

Your assertions aren't good here.

When you wear a judge's robes your declaration of satisfaction will concern me...provided I have a client in the dock. Else, no kidding. :shocked: And a racist would find my views on race insufficient. That's the thing about bias that isn't rooted in the rational.

No one is arguing against that :yawn:

You are. You're just calling it something else. If someone can't eat at the lunch counter or contract between with another consenting adult for the purpose of marriage you most certainly are.

Re: popular denial of right.

Yes I would, now take a third swing if you'd like

No, that effectively ends the discussion, given you just made it clear you believe the majority should have the right to discriminate based singularly on its feeling. It explains your position and there's nothing to argue. That's the same opinion that allowed slavery, denied women the vote, etc.

Wonderful, let him cast it.

Supra. Mob rule. A horror of a notion.

I've given you a justified reason, you just choose to ignore it.

That's simply not the case. I've set out counter to every swing of your bat except that last one, which is just a fundamentally different context than we find at the heart of our Republic and disappointingly relegates right to a popularity contest.

:e4e:

 

[Town Heretic]

this nonsense started because town heretic said he would not want the Church to outlaw condoms, compared it to Sharia law,

No, Chrys. I didn't. Play obtuse all you like, but at least do it honestly.

 

[kmoney]

He is speaking of societal and moral norms. Traditional marriage acts as a moral and societal norm that encourages citizens to act responsibly in respecting and honoring the nature and purpose of sexual unions. Making marriage arbitrary--into a sort of contract as TH sees it--leads to "social indifference to the nature and purpose of sexual unions." #3 fleshes this point out quite a bit more.

I don't think it leads to an indifference. I think it is just a different purpose than you see marriage as having.

Now usher in homosexual "marriage" or polygymous "marriage" and the importance of that union is less well defined because the union itself is less well-defined, it is becoming arbitrary. It leads toward the view that marriage is more "me" based rather than "them" (children and spouse) based. More pleasure, less responsibility. I believe that is what he is saying, though I agree the point is rather vague. :chuckle:

I disagree with just about all of this. It may become less about children but I don't see how it becomes less about the spouse and more about "me", or that it becomes a selfish endeavor. More pleasure, less responsibility? If you have no children then the responsibilities in the marriage are certainly less, but you make it seem (or you are saying what you think he meant) like marriage becomes hedonistic.

Edit: I also think there is an undeniable link between marriage and children/procreation. As a society we make that connection quite clearly. It is fair game to joke or ask a married couple about when they will have kids, but it isn't fair game to ask an unmarried couple the question. We also make the association the other way: we find it odd when a couple has a child without marrying, and it is quite normal for a married couple to have a child, it is "right." That sort of healthy societal mindset with regard to marriage is what he is referring to. Homosexual "marriage" destroys the correlation and changes the societal view of the institution. It undoes the intuitive scenarios I just noted and divorces(!) the act of procreation from marriage itself.

I don't deny that there is a link between marriage and having children. A married couple is a stable foundation to raise children in and most people don't plan to have children unless they are in that state. I don't see how that goes away by allowing homosexual marriage. The primary focus might shift (though I think it already has), but the children element isn't gone.

I think this has been a main point all along. I think it is clear that the state encourages marriage, both through benefits as well as a 'high' societal view of the institution (which is what I think 1 was getting at).

Don't think I have any quibbles here.

I think a yes to your first question answers your second. If the subsidy is for producing children, not raising them, then the question is answered. The heterosexual couple provides a service to society that the homosexual couple simply cannot.

You surely cannot mean that the government only cares about the procreation of children and not the raising and nurturing of them. Society doesn't need children in and of themselves. They need children that will be productive members of the society. So while heterosexual couples are the only ones that can biologically produce children with each other, that is only part of the story. Homosexual couples can adopt and everyone knows that there are many children in need of adoption. If a homosexual couple decides to start a family in that way, should they not receive the same benefits as a family that has biological children?

Of course, this is where you will argue that you don't favor homosexual couples adopting, but that is a different topic.

See the third article for answers to questions about heterosexual infertility, I haven't finished all of the articles but I did read much of that one.

:e4e:

Is that the 43 page one? I looked at that and then closed it when I saw the length. :chuckle:

:wave2:

 

[zippy2006]

Of course it is.


Without any legs? :think: How?


Only if you're remarkably literal--and I can understand how you'd need to be here. Else, it's a comparison that rests on value and not right, in contravention of equality before the law.


When you wear a judge's robes your declaration of satisfaction will concern me...provided I have a client in the dock. Else, no kidding. :shocked: And a racist would find my views on race insufficient. That's the thing about bias that isn't rooted in the rational.

You are. You're just calling it something else. If someone can't eat at the lunch counter or contract between with another consenting adult for the purpose of marriage you most certainly are.

I don't address chrys when he is being difficult and I won't address you either, at least any further. There is a difference between the objective ability to procreate between two couples and the skin color of two people. You're smart enough to see the difference, I leave the rest to you.

Re: popular denial of right.

No, that effectively ends the discussion, given you just made it clear you believe the majority should have the right to discriminate based singularly on its feeling. It explains your position and there's nothing to argue. That's the same opinion that allowed slavery, denied women the vote, etc.


Supra. Mob rule. A horror of a notion.


That's simply not the case. I've set out counter to every swing of your bat except that last one, which is just a fundamentally different context than we find at the heart of our Republic and disappointingly relegates right to a popularity contest.

:e4e:

Then you have no reason except, ironically, your whim, to demonstrate the point you require, namely that there is an objective methodology to come to decide which law should be and which shouldn't. ...which is to say your claim that it "isn't a voting matter" falls to pieces.

:e4e:

 

[zippy2006]

I don't think it leads to an indifference. I think it is just a different purpose than you see marriage as having.


I disagree with just about all of this. It may become less about children but I don't see how it becomes less about the spouse and more about "me", or that it becomes a selfish endeavor. More pleasure, less responsibility? If you have no children then the responsibilities in the marriage are certainly less, but you make it seem (or you are saying what you think he meant) like marriage becomes hedonistic.


I don't deny that there is a link between marriage and having children. A married couple is a stable foundation to raise children in and most people don't plan to have children unless they are in that state. I don't see how that goes away by allowing homosexual marriage. The primary focus might shift (though I think it already has), but the children element isn't gone.

The primary focus has shifted and is shifting, in the process creating a very depraved society. Clearly we disagree on much here, and I guess "we'll see" who is right. :idunno:

You surely cannot mean that the government only cares about the procreation of children and not the raising and nurturing of them.

Didn't say it, didn't mean it, even noted quite the opposite a number of times

Society doesn't need children in and of themselves. They need children that will be productive members of the society.

They need both.

So while heterosexual couples are the only ones that can biologically produce children with each other, that is only part of the story.

It is clearly and objectively enough to give them an elevated status, especially when we consider the government's perspective.

Of course, this is where you will argue that you don't favor homosexual couples adopting, but that is a different topic.

It's irrelevant. My Subaru can start and move, your Toyota can start. I say the Subaru is worth more, you say "but my Toyota can start toO!"
:chuckle:

Is that the 43 page one? I looked at that and then closed it when I saw the length. :chuckle:

:chuckle:

:wave2:

:e4e:

 

[Zeus]

Zipster,
Would it be wrong to impose parts of sharia law on society if the majority willed it? Is your answer to that logically consistent with prohibiting gay marriage?

 

[Sherman]

Zipster,
Would it be wrong to impose parts of sharia law on society if the majority willed it? Is your answer to that logically consistent with prohibiting gay marriage?

Red Herring...

 

[zippy2006]

Zipster,
Would it be wrong to impose parts of sharia law on society if the majority willed it? Is your answer to that logically consistent with prohibiting gay marriage?

Define "wrong."

I don't think there is anything demonstrably wrong with sharia law being voted in by the majority (absent similar undemonstrable value-laden axioms). It is no different than anything else we vote in, we just appeal to a higher and objective moral authority and then argue in order to convince the majority that we are correct. That is simply the way society works. If Sharia law was voted in I would not like it, but there is no agreed-upon authority on earth that would allow me to convince everyone that it is wrong.

But note that this is a side-conversation with TH, not the heart of my argument.

 

[Zeus]

Here are the requirements for marriage:

The man who is not currently a fornicator may marry only a woman who is not currently a fornicatress or a chaste woman from the people of the Book.

The woman who is not currently a fornicatress may marry only a man who is not currently a fornicator.

The fornicator may marry only a fornicatress.

The Muslim woman may marry only a Muslim man.

Permission for a virgin female to marry must be given by her guardian, usually her father.

Any Muslim woman may demand her guardian marry her to a Muslim male, provided he is suitable. If the guardian refuses, a judge will effect the marriage.

The father, or in some cases the paternal grandfather, may choose a suitable partner for a virgin girl.

The guardian may not marry the divorced woman or the widow if she did not ask to be married.

It is obligatory for a man to give bride wealth (gifts) to the woman he marries – "Do not marry unless you give your wife something that is her right."

--wikipedia

Would you be able to marry your woman given these laws?

 

[Zeus]

Townie is right and you are wrong, Zip.

A secular government protects the rights of people equally.

Laws tainted with relgious bias leave the system open via precedent to be turned against each person's individual freedom given simple demographic shifts in a population in the future.

Start separating church and state now for your own good!

 

[zippy2006]

I completely understood the video, and pointed out that the distinction is entirely imaginary. Saying that all heterosexual couples can procreate "in principle" is not a statement of any reality. You could have said that women weren't fit to do the same work as men "in principle", and it wouldn't have been any more a statement of reality.

In fact it is. Take a survey of construction crews, note the giant difference between men and women working, and then note that the reason we don't see this as discrimination against women is because men are physically stronger than women in principle.

Heterosexuals can reproduce, homosexuals cannot. That is a generalization that holds true (in general) whether you admit it or not. At best your contestation that it is an abstract statement is a metaphysical argument rather than anything else, but the empirical evidence simply doesn't support your view. The end of this addresses your actual counter argument.

Ok. Then lets get the facts straight first. First of all, the DOMA was passed during the Clinton administration because it became obvious that homosexuals were going to start gaining civil rights, such as equal access to marriage. It only impacts the federal government, and it attempted to seize from the states the right to define and regulate marriage, probably running afoul of both the Tenth and the Fourteenth amendments. I would be shocked if it were not thrown out when it gets to court. It does not even attempt to ban gay marriage in general. It just bans the federal government from acknowledging it.

Currently, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, and New Hampshire permit gay marriage, as does the District of Columbia. California permitted gay marriage for a while before Prop 8 passed, and once the courts finish throwing out Prop 8, ironically on the basis of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, they will do so again, and the marriages certified during the period where they were legal are still considered valid. So, gay marriage is already here in this country, and it's not going anywhere.

Edit: Here's a more complete list: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0...t-issue-marriage-licenses-to-same-sex-couples

Okay :thumb:

Well, no, not if you understand my argument, which is simply that you cannot withhold marriage rights from any group of people on the basis of a standard which is not applied to to anyone else without running afoul of the standards of equal treatment before the law enacted in our Constitution. Your fertility "in principle" is an appeal to imagination, not reality.

I've watched you try to carve out a case with the distinction, but it's irrelevant to the Fourteenth Amendment in both letter and spirit. You seem to be under the impression that the fact that I don't accept your distinction means that I don't understand it. I do. You just don't seem to understand why it doesn't matter as several here, including TH, have tried to explain.

By definition it can't be, since we're referring to infertile couples, and eugenics is about engineered reproduction. But it seems like you've abandoned the standard that you seem to think is so important where it regards homosexuals. Kinda forces me to suspect that your position is determined by something other than the argument you're trying to present as the reason...though you've all but admitted it in your "Religion" asides.

So your only argument is that heterosexual couples should be tested for fertility. The problem is not eugenics per say, but it falls under the same category. Testing heterosexual couples for such a thing would undeniably lead to invasions of privacy, and in the broader context of my argument those couples are fulfilling a societal service with their marriage. Such testing would not be feasible or just for the government to carry out. There is a section on this in the third article I gave.

:e4e:

 

[zippy2006]

Townie is right and you are wrong, Zip.

A secular government protects the rights of people equally.

Laws tainted with relgious bias leave the system open via precedent to be turned against each person's individual freedom given simple demographic shifts in a population in the future.

Start separating church and state now for your own good!

Your questions and assertions have evidenced nothing but the fact that you haven't read much of this thread at all. :e4e:

 

[zippy2006]

How exactly does collecting a deceased spouse's Social Security benefits subsidize procreation? That doesn't even make sense, in that, one of the spouses is dead by the time it occurs, and having children isn't even a necessary precondition for the benefit. No thinking person could possibly be incentivized to have children by such an offer when all you need to do to collect is marry someone.

Your criticisms are in general far too narrow-minded. All you are seeing are specific incentives while failing to see the overall cultural tendencies being promoted. The fact that civil marriage is not solely for procreation is part of that fact.

You teach a man to be productive at work by instilling a sense of productivity, not by giving a number of specific incentives for him for everything he does. You are looking at something which exists to promote that general productivity and wondering why it seems to fail as a perfectly legitimate specific incentive...:idunno: The third article gets to the heart of this imo.

 

[Town Heretic]

I don't address chrys when he is being difficult and I won't address you either, at least any further.

Can't blame you. If I had your part to advance I wouldn't either.

There is a difference between the objective ability to procreate between two couples and the skin color of two people. You're smart enough to see the difference, I leave the rest to you.

You're smart enough to recognize the principle in play was the point and not the spot specific thing being discriminated against. Likewise, you're bright enough to understand many homosexual couples find a way to biologically reproduce. And some adopt children, rearing them as productive and contributing members of society.

Your objection remains a purely religious one, however you attempt to drape it.

Then you have no reason except, ironically, your whim, to demonstrate the point you require, namely that there is an objective methodology to come to decide which law should be and which shouldn't.

If you consider the foundation of our Republic's law whim or the Constitution whimsical...okay. lain:

...which is to say your claim that it "isn't a voting matter" falls to pieces.

Like most of your responses here, you rest on declarations as though they manifest an authority that could only come with an actual, rational argument not actually presented.

You're in favor of abandoning the foundational support of the Republic and it's law in favor of your religious notions. Okay. It's a position, but it's dangerous one and objectively inferior as a stable platform for a just society.

:e4e:

 

[zippy2006]

If you consider the foundation of our Republic's law whim or the Constitution whimsical...okay. lain:

I asked you quite a long time ago, quite a few times, to justify why it is not. You were silent.

Like most of your responses here, you rest on declarations as though they manifest an authority that could only come with an actual, rational argument not actually presented.

You're in favor of abandoning the foundational support of the Republic and it's law in favor of your religious notions. Okay. It's a position, but it's dangerous one and objectively inferior as a stable platform for a just society.

That is in no way an argument. I've specifically asked for the objective line you claim to be capable of drawing, and you've shied away from that demonstration. Probably you understand that you are not up to the task and that the "objectiveness" you proclaim simply isn't there. But whatever it is, it would be quite nice if you stopped with the bare assertions and actually produced some substance in favor of your position.

:e4e:

:e4e: