Well of course I agree with the idea that straight parents should not teach hatred of gays either. But what the nation proposes is not that we should eliminate heterosexual marriage so that there won’t be any straight kids learning hate.
But are you actually arguing that it is ok for gays to indoctrinate their children with hate for heterosexuals in a tit-for tat fashion, as fair play? I was raised to “be the bigger person” and to repay hatred with kindness. Wouldn’t it help the gay cause more if they responded with kindness?
As far as my personal life, I certainly discourage mere hatred of gays. But I also feel a certain frustration caused by perceived manipulation. We did not order our society in any kind of way directed at gays. We ordered it by what appeared to work best, and that naturally excluded gays from marriage. It is historically a matter of an incedental, and not a direct promotion of anti-gay beliefs. I have denounced Phelps and the like every chance I get, and once even in person. (I live in Kansas) You know what? Phelps called me a fag. So one extreme side has me a fag, the other has me a fag-hater. Both are extreme ideology and neither is based on facts.
And there is the problem that gays tend to admit to nothing that is not in their favor, so that everything that a parent might teach is “hate.” For instance, it is an undeniable fact that anal sex carries increased risk of colo-rectal cancer, and a quite plausible one that male homosexuals are probably going to have an increased incidence of this. But a parent who teaches a child that they may not want to go down the gay path because of this health risk is labeled a hater. What is wrong with having concern about your child’s health risks? Don’t we teach them not to smoke because of increased chances of lung cancer, etc.?
That was by no means a rhetorical trick. It’s not like I picked some random “yes” out of his reply and pretended it was in response to something unrelated I had said - his “yes” was in response to a specific comment of mine. I point out the relevant exchange:
Bryan: Please. I stipulated to a point that was of no importance.
David42: Yes, and you also failed, now that you admit it, to cite to an authority that what you say is true, that the purpose or source of the right or the meaning of marriage is irrelevant.
Bryan: So you’re conceding your point was of no relevance?
Everything after the first comma in David42’s comment has no connection to my stipulation statement (or at best, he’s demanding I prove a negative) and was dropped for irrelevance, not an attempt at trickery. I’d like to point out that the rest of his sentence was quoted and addressed in my post. Nothing (except the comma itself, which didn’t strike me as that big a deal) was omitted.
I will gladly concede that my rhetorical reply should have been “So you’re conceding your point was of no importance?” My inconsistent substitution of “relevance” was simple sloppiness on my part and not an attempt at any kind of trickery.
I’m not sure I’d agree on views, but could certainly agree on well-being – but that’s hair-splitting to a degree and I basically agree with you.
Fair enough. “As soon as reasonable”, or “if possible” then.
While acknowledging that anecdote != hard data: the widow of my hypothetical wasn’t created from whole cloth. I am familiar with two different women with children from previous closeted marriages, each of whom then began a same-sex relationship (not with each other, just to be clear). One was a divorcee, the other a widow. Both are mothers of friends.
Between them they have 8 adult children. Of these a couple are happily married (with their own kids now), a couple in stable relationships, some have failed relationships, one has a failed marriage, and one is gay. Basically, a mixed bag and (IMHO) pretty normal.
Non-American, non-lawyer question: If DOMA doesn’t stand will the States were SSM is not legal recognize (be required to recognize?) SSM marriages made in States where it is? In the same fashion as the varying cousin marriage restrictions?
(Please correct me if I’m off base here; it’s my understanding that if I marry my cousin in California – where it’s legal AFAIK – and then move house to Oregon – where cousin marriage isn’t legal – we are still legally married for all purposes).
Thank you. <embarrassed> I agree that it’s a conversation that would benefit from less heat – I guess that it’s hard when one or more of the groups involved feel (rightly or wrongly) that their backs are to the proverbial wall and there are no compromises possible.
We haven’t really seen the same amount of strong feeling here in NZ when considering SSM… I’m not sure why although NZ is far less religious, and less politically polarised than the US (and we have many fewer people, so there are simply fewer zealots of every stripe). Even so, when Civil Unions were introduced in 2004 they were a compromise because there wasn’t quite enough support for SSM. Recently the issue has come up anew and polls now suggest some 70% support SSM and it will probably happen in the next couple of years.
We haven’t melted down yet (though I agree it’s not a generation or two of study… and nor are we the US).
I’m not sure the SC would agree, considering their ruling in Palmore: “Private biases may be outside the reach of the law, but the law cannot, directly or indirectly, give them effect.”
They were acknowledging that a child raised in an interracial marriage would likely be impacted by the greater society’s racism, but that wasn’t enough to override the equal protection of the mother.
I think the parallels to not allowing petulant bigots and homophobes to hold marriage hostage lest they take their toys and go home are pretty obvious.
I was thinking more of well-being as in providing for the child. For example, a court can order me to pay child support, and garnish my wages to ensure this happens, because the well-being of the child takes precedence over me getting to spend that money on myself; having a child creates a responsibility to look after that child.
How does one even have this conversation with one’s child? “You know, son, before you choose to be attracted to other men, you might want to consider the increased cancer risk.”
Heck, I wish my parents had had the “left-handed” talk with me, before I went down the path of significantly increased risk of injury from using power tools.
Well just last week my brother had to have the talk with my niece explaining if she chooses to go down the heterosexual path she’ll be at increased risk for cervical cancer. Also she’ll have a much higher chance getting HIV.
If my brother actually had that conversation, I’d have a tough time not adding him to the list of ridiculously stupid people I know.
No. I am saying that the number, (or percent), of gay parents who are so rabidly opposed to heterosexuality that they would attempt to indoctrinate their children with that hatred is miniscule compared to hetero parents indoctrinating their children with hatred for homosexuality and that it is so miniscule as to be unworthy of consideration in a serious discussion.
This is silly. First, “going down the gay path” cannjot be taught or not taught. No one chooses to be gay. Next, among the various homosexual sexual customs, male penetrative anal sex is never performed among lesbians and is not nearly as common as sometimes claimed among men. (Without even getting into the aspects that condoms probably reduce the risk and why are you singling gays for this talk when heterosexual couples also engage in the same behavior?)
I suggest this implied middle-of-the-road positioning of your views is presumptuous, at best. I invite you to consider the following example, which I’ll venture is fairly realistic:
There’s a white person in a southern state in the 1950s who doesn’t hate blacks - it would never occur to him, the concept of hatred for them strikes him as sinful and irrational. However, he quite sincerely believes a number of pseudoscientific theories about the inherent inferiority of blacks, and he shows no interest in entertaining the notion that these beliefs are pseudoscientific, in fact resents the efforts of people who try to point this out and, in the larger scheme, resents the perceived interference of the Federal Government and other outsiders to push equal treatment, voter registration and integration. When his beliefs are questioned, he invokes other ungrounded theories and pulls in unrelated observations of questionable significance. He believes in what is “naturally best”, and since blacks are pseudoscientifically shown to lack the intelligence necessary to vote, various legal barriers preventing it are acceptable. He rejects the facts brought to him, scorning the bringers.
Along the way, a hardcore member of the local Klan calls him a “nigger-lover”, for disagreeing with the notion that blacks should be violently intimidated and ultimately driven out of the state.
Are the criticisms he is receiving equally if opposingly extreme? His views might indeed be popular in his time - he’s surrounded by other southern whites who agree with some or all of his beliefs, and there’s no doubt his beliefs are sincerely held, but ultimately he’ll be on the wrong side of history, his concerns shows as groundless, his views considered a byproduct of a more primitive era.
The obvious nature of the hypotheticals I framed is to avoid getting hung up on other details irrelevant to my point, not some kind of trickery. Your complaint of transpoarency is really nothing more than your admission that you know the answer but will not say it. The inference from that is that you don’t like the answer because it does not help what you say but does help what I say.
I framed the hypothetical simply and obviously enough that a third grader would understand. I suppose I could have made it plainer and said the fraudulent couple abandoned the baby on the road side with no cookies or juice, and then a first grader would understand it. it matters not how transparent it is. Is it accurate in law? Yes, (the obvious conclusion) the judge looks at the fraudulent couple that way because they had no real intent on forming a marriage, even if they made it look like they did for a short time. The other couple appears to have really meant it. So here the judge should rule that the couple who not only procreated but provided for him in a solid married family is the legitimate family, and the one who used procreation for a legal advantage is the fraudulent one. They had a right to get a green card becuase their right to procreate led to their right to marry which led to their right to seek a green card. They showed that the exercise of those rights was frivolous thing to them and therefore they aren’t being violated to proclaim the marriage a fraud.
no, in this case, when you answered (only one fourth of the questions) and I asked an additional question based on your answer, that’s called moving along.
Now, if you claim that couple A is the fraudulent one and couple B is the legit one, (and that means the judge saw B taking their procreation seriously so that a real marriage had happened) and I had then added some other facts so that A=fraudulent and B=legit was made no longer true, and then accused you of erring, THAT’S moving the goalposts. I didn’t do that. You’re just being contrary becuase you do not like the answer.
I am not talking what I beleive. I am pretty much, on this point, explaining how the courts tend to see marriage. I believe you already realize, as I said above, that the judge calls couple A fraudulent, because even though they procreated, their actions afterwards show they had used procreation as nothing more than a way around immigration law, and therefore their marriage is a fraud, while couple B has a legit marriage because they meant it when they ahd a child, proved by their actions afterwards.
And this is to illustrate the larger point that the primary purpose, source of the right, meaning, (whatever you wanna call it) in the eyes of the courts is procreation, and especially procreation followed by raising the child appropriately.
Well it’s not like the cops will drag you off.
It’s just that the quality of your debate suffers when you quibble over things like the issue of how easy it is to see the answer (hypo is simple to decide) (transparent) as if that proves I have nothing but malice for several posts instead of straightforwardly saying “Yes, it is obvious that the courts would favor couple B,” whereafter you might say “But how does that change anything” or “But I fail to see how that means…” or “I see what you are getting at, maybe I should think this through a little further,” or whatever else, maybe “next question?”
You could have demonstrated how I’d made a mistake, if so, but you got hung up on being able to clearly see the difference between the two couples for some reason.
Yeah right. What pseudo-science did I promote? You’ll note i have been mostly talking about the law.
Your southern idiot is closer to what you’re doing, insisting that as a point of law the meaning or purpose or the source of the right to marry is irrelevant. I have cited, and I can even show more if there’s a need–and every single last dang court that has considered the issue has contemplated what that is, and none have said it is irrrelevant, so I’d like your citation to that please, or recognize that you are closer to illustrating yourself and your fantasy that the purpose of marriage is found within the requirements of a statute.
If you’re going to get back to the cite I gave which you claim to be FoF but isn’t, I will explain your fallacy again: POISONING THE WELL. The paper found in the link has much valid information in it, contains data against its conclusion even though the overwhelming data favors the conslusion, and some of the data is admissions by gay researchers themselves.
You see, if Adolf Hitler says “The sky is blue” and I cite him on it, the fact that the sky is blue is not wrong just because Adolf Hitler said it, especially if Adolf pointed to an authority in science to back it up.
Your claim that anything found on a website that is run by people who collect data that favors their position is false is not sustainable.
On the other hand, rather than trying to paint my argument with the broad brush of hate, you could have said, “it would be better to look at the original source, so, in looking at study X cited by (not) FoF, I’m noticing that the methodology of only looking at gays who wear ballerina suits in public is somewhat lacking…” (of course I made that up).
See? I keep asking you to cite! cite! cite! fight my ignorance, man! but all you give me is rhetoric and some half baked analogy about race and comparing me to the willfully ignorant southern bigot who feels no ill will against blacks but knows they are in ferior because he turns a blind eye to the facts.
I will tell you what, Bryan, there are a lot of lying manipulating gay activists out there, and you might think that repeating their tactics that seem to work on the least educated and least experienced segment of our population the best, but they are NOT going to work with me.
See? I KNOW there’s no credible evidence that 10% of the poulation is gay. How? I looked it up, and one thing I found is an admission of the activist who started the claim saying that it was done to increase the public perception that gays are everywhere around us (and therefore are the decent people we all know and love)! I also found that all the gay-friendly briefs to the courts stick to the “around” 2% figure.
Now, if I had found that the Census said 10% and the CDC’s research said 10%, and no admission by gay activists that they lied, I’d believe it. So start citing facts, if facts are relevant, and if you are going to claim no information from an anti-ssm website is good, keep to that principle and don’t cite from any pro-ssm website either.
I use reason, Brayn, and I do not like the insult of saying I’m like a southern racist who wants to keep blacks down.
It’s people like you who make me want to withdraw the support I have given gay groups in the past. But I am (thankfully for some gays) NOT drawing the conclusion that they are all like you.
That’s cause you are counting a parent cautioning their child on the drawbacks of gay BEHAVIOR is counted as hate (As though a parent is supposed to go, Oh, you’ve chosen behavior which increases your risk of cancer! I’m so glad for you!) which is unwarranted. It’s unwarranted if it’s a good faith religious viewpoint (even though you might not agree with that view) and it’s unwarranted even if it’s just the good faith traditional viewpoint that marriage has always been for men and women. it’s hate if there’s no reason for it except dislike of homosexuals for the sake of it. And the courts see it that way too. They courts are careful to respect all viewpoints except animus alone.
I really think you’re still standing on a tit-for-tat argument–“I’m not supporting those negroes civl rights until they quit all that crime, they deserve it.” (Even though a legitimate inquiry into civil rights might include a rational discussion of whether it would lead to increased crime, if there was one. Yes, the government can deny civil rights if it has a good reason!)
Since you claim it has no place in the discussion, I’d like a cite on how many parents teach hatred in either case, and I want to know the methodology of determining “hate.”
“You know son, if you are convinced you are a homosexual, before you choose to act on it, I want you to know the risks of certain behaviors, and that you do not have to act on everything your loins tell you. I’ve done my best so that you think with your big head instead of the other.”
“Well son, if you insist you should be a carpenter I feel I should show you some of the risks of power tools and what not to do.”
“You know son, there’s increased risk of dying young and violently if you decide you really have to be a gangsta.”
“I want to support you whatever your course in life, but I have to admit some courses have me a bit concerned.”
One chooses to ACT on their attractions. Many people are increasingly satisfied being single and watching internet porn. (another factor in the exceedingly thorny problem of why marriage rates are declining.) I’d NEVER teach a kid he has to act on any sexual urge. What if I teach him his sexual urges are very important to follow up on, and then his urge is for a rpae or a child molestation?
Freud said that civilization sin’t even possible without repressing sexual urges, and he was right.
Cite on how frequent anal sex is amongst male homosexuals compared to heterosexuals.
I do not care what is sometimes claimed or whether another number is less. How about the facts on whether male homosexuals frequently engage in anal sex?
You’ve got to be kidding! You really don’t understand how what you did changes the fact I was clearly challenging your shift to irrelevant! (And if it was so irrelevant, why did you spend probably five pages in this thread challenging me?)
DISCLAIMER: The following truncated posts are not meant in any fashion to deceive any poster or lurker into believing anything Bryan Ekers said is anything other than what he said, and is purely for the point of clearly illustrating that “Yes” only agrees to the fact that he conceded the point, and the rest of my statement clearly challenges your reasoning that it is irrelevant.
See? I’m agreeing that you conceded the point. That point being that the reason/source of the right/meaning/purpose of marriage is primarily procreation, specifically, an incentive to encourage maximum responsible procreation by getting married.
You didn’t even give me the benefit of the freaking comma after Yes.
Cite that heterosexual women have higher cervical cancer than lesbians, please. And make sure it’s not a cite to women who take the pill.
The fact is the #1 cause of cervical cancer is HPV. it is also a fact that lesbians also spread HPV.
but I didn’t know that lesbians are more likely ot be obese, to not eat vegetables and fruits, and to smoke cigarettes, which I don’t recall seeing as a factor in the “good parenting” studies. I wonder why they would think that giving these examples to children is a “good” home? Conveniently ignored, or it did not occur to them in good faith? I’d sure look at things like that.
I’m not claiming it’s a perfect analogy, but the point is that the hypothetical white southerner (I don’t think he’s that hypothetical - it wouldn’t surprise me if the description fit hundreds of thousands of people in the 1950s - and arguably applies to a currently-active poster whose racial theories are being discussed in another thread) is using questionable justifications for his position.
I didn’t say he was an idiot. I don’t even think I implied such - rather that his beliefs are the unfortunate (arguably pitiable) circumstances of his environment.
Until and unless you can demonstrate that “purpose” = “requirement”, I don’t see the need. The courts are free to describe the justifications of their decisions at length, but why does what they describe as a purpose considered the only purpose; why can’t someone who doesn’t care about that purpose get equal protection of the law anyway; and indeed why are homosexuals who can take advantage of now-commonplace technologies to actually fulfill that purpose still not eligible?
FoF? And which cite was that? The post number will do. I’ll address your comments after I’ve had a chance to review.
I’m not convinced that any of the empirical observations you’ve made (i.e. like “the sky is blue”) about homosexuals have anything approaching that degree of self-evident correctness.
I don’t know where I claimed that. I don’t see anything suggesting it in the text you quoted. Since you’ve already confused me and rat avatar at least twice, I have my doubts yours is an accurate recollection.
Actually, the point I was trying to make (and I cheerfully admit my effort may not have been perfect) is that I don’t need to paint your argument as one of hatred, but rather one that is simply misguided and ignorant. I specifically said the hypothetical white southerner is not guided by hatred, but he is guided by ideas that would not stand up to scrutiny, if he applied it.
I don’t know how “half-baked” it is. I don’t think it’s a stretch that attitudes such as yours will eventually be viewed in the same negative light as the attitude of the southerner.
My overarching cite, in any case, is that Canada has gay marriage, there are no negative effects resulting from it, the U.S.'s 14th Amendment calls for equal protection, and if homosexuals are not now considered worthy of this degree of equal protection in most U.S. states, a series of recent decisions such as Lawrence are heading in that direction.
To be clear, are you accusing me of lying, or just repeating? In any case, I have no confidence that any argument will move you - to me this is just an intellectual exercise.
And I’m moderately confident that someone reading both sides of our conversation who is not already set in their opinions will find my arguments more persuasive than yours. I don’t think they’ll like the implication that they are less educated and experienced, for example.
Of course, it’s probably far more likely that nobody other than you and me is paying attention to this extended exchange.
So? Does it matter if the actual figure is 2%, or 1%, or half a percent? I don’t personally recall citing the 10% figure at any time in this thread. I might have used it in previous threads, making a casual comparison between the rates of homosexuality and left-handedness.
Okay, I’ll assume this isn’t about specific numbers but about cites. Well, the cites I’ve used that were most directly on point weren’t about the prevalence of homosexuality, or really about homosexuality at all. They were cites of the marriage laws of Utah and Vermont (which I’ll assume can be considered as politically divergent as two U.S. states can be) and how they lacked any mention of a procreation requirement, thus undercutting (indeed, demolishing) any argument that gays shouldn’t be allowed to marry because they can’t reproduce. Your earlier “facially fertile” argument was particularly tenuous, almost comically so - a blatant attempt to ignore the existence of artificial insemination and surrogacy, like a bureaucrat who might deny a driver’s license to someone who is near-sighted, in total ignorance of the concept of glasses.
I’m not convinced that you do, and the analogy wasn’t some backhand attempt to insult you (presumably in evasion of GD rules), but actually isn’t any different from comparisons of moderns laws against same-sex marriages being as groundless as past laws against mixed-race marriage. Further, the mere fact that you were called a “fag” by Fred Phelps (and that the hypothetical southerner might be called a “nigger-lover” by a contemporary Klansman) does not mean your position is a moderate one. As far as I can tell, Fred Phelps calls everybody a fag - it’s hardly a badge of honor, let alone a meaningful metric of one’s position on a spectrum.
I have little doubt that this is meant as an insult. Well, sooner or later I figure SCOTUS will agree with my position and undercut yours. That will be sufficient retaliation, as far as I’m concerned.
Well, I may as well stop - as far as I’m concerned all your “purpose of marriage” arguments are of no relevance, a position I’ve maintained since the discussion started. I’ve run out of ways to say “I don’t care” and “It’s not relevant.” I’ve described the necessary conditions to change this (i.e. a cite of a current U.S. law that makes procreation a requirement of marriage, though even a past U.S. law or a current non-U.S. law could be interesting), so I can wait patiently until those conditions are met or a suitable alternative
The only disclaimer I’d add to your disclaimer is to dispute your earlier description that I “in the end grudgingly conceded.” I believe the use of “grudgingly” gives the false impression that I tried to evade something I would not admit was true. My actual position is that I conceded (I earlier said “stipulated” - I’ll leave it to the grammar Nazis to debate which is more accurate) a point that I didn’t (and don’t) care about and saw (and still see) as irrelevant. I will cheerfully and happily agree with a parade of dancing musical unicorns that the purpose of marriage is procreation, has always been procreation and will always be procreation, because I don’t care.
Now address the issue of the legal requirements of marriage, please, and explain the legal theory that says a homosexual couple cannot satisfy them.
Don’t care. “Primary” doesn’t mean “Mandatory”, and no amount of repetition will make it so. I’ve given cites that procreation is not mandatory (and in the Utah cousin instance, actively discouraged). As far as I’m concerned the onus is on you to demonstrate otherwise, and until you can do so, all procreation-based arguments against gay marriage are as irrelevant as weather-based arguments or astrology-based arguments. I gather continuing to point this out will be a waste of time.
I agree that it’s a conversation that would benefit from less heat – I guess that it’s hard when one or more of the groups involved feel (rightly or wrongly) that their backs are to the proverbial wall and there are no compromises possible.