As an atheist I am opposed to gay marriage because there is no reason for it. Marriage is NOT a right, it is a legal status granted by the state for its good and welfare. Just like subsidies that are given to some companies for the public good, marriage is a contract granted by the state for its intrests and that of the couple. I can see NO benefit to the state for granting gay marriages.
Marriage is forbidden to other classes of people not just gays as well. You may not marry your mother or father, brother or other close relatives, except for some states it would appear such as Kentucky. You may not have more than one partner in a marriage. Bigamy is still a crime and should remain so since it is a fraud in the use of marriage. If the proponents of gay marriage are serious, I would hope that they would countenance polygamy as well since ALL of the same arguments for it apply just as well for gay marriage.
Not only that, but there are some religions such as Islam which allow for polygamy and you could also argue that restricting marriage to one man and woman is an abridgement of their religious freedoms. So if gays may marry, why not polygamy?
Marriage is just a word; who cares whether it is between same sex or not? The point is if you are in a long term loving relationship, your partner should be eligible for survivor benefits, medical etc. as they are paying the same fees, taxes, etc. as heterosexual partners. What they do in private, is their business. The measure is, “Do these relationships impact negatively on society?” I don’t think so…homosexuality normally occurs in a population. Bottom line, we survive as society with a homosexual element without ill effect. Prove me wrong…if you can prove recognizing homosexual marriages is going to have in increase in crime,
Marriage is not just a word, it is legal contract granted by the state for its benefits and that of the couple. I agree that consenting acts between adults should be their own business. They can live together and play whatever games they wish in the privacy of their bedrooms. That is not the question.
You have to prove the benefit to the state for granting this legal status, not that it has to be proven that harm would result. Also, you will have to grant the same status to Muslims who have a religious belief that all men have the right to more than one wife. Most Muslim countries allow for polygamy and they have survived for centuries with it. I know of no culture of a civilized society that has had legal gay marriage though for any period of time. There have been many cultures where homosexuality was almost the norm, but I am not aware of any that gave formal legal status to such liasons. Maybe somebody could let me know of such an example.
I am in favor of some kind of legal union being allowed such as Virginia has done for not just gays, but for all its citizens. It would then be possible to get loans for property without incorporating, and for people who want to buy a house together and live as just friends or otherwise.
What are the benefits that the state and the couple receive from heterosexual marriages, and why can these not also not be realized from homosexual marriage?
Speaking as someone who is adamantly pro-SSM, I really don’t give a shit about polygamy. If the polys want to get married repeatedly, more power to 'em. Now, can we move beyond this ridiculous attempt at a “gotcha” and focus on something actually relevant to the debate? Erik’s question would be a good place for you to start: what are the benefits derived from legally sanctioning heterosexual marriage that don’t apply to homosexual marriage? If your answer involves children, include reasoning as to why homosexual couples cannot raise children. Please show your work.
If your answer involves children, also include reasoning as to why the government should sanction childless heterosexual marriages, or heterosexual marriages in which there are no longer any children living at home, but not homosexual marriages. In fact, some state governments sanction certain marriages (usually between cousins), only if the marriage is incapable of producing biological children.
If your answer involves sex roles, include reasoning as to why the government should sanction heterosexual marriages in which the partners split up chores in ways that differ from the traditional sex role pattern, but not homosexual marriages.
I love these arguments that completely ignore any other country in the world. (The UK is guilty of the same thing regarding the smoking ban.)
Here in the UK we’ve had SSM over here in England for about 6 months now, and the decline in straight marriages is yet to occur. In fact, I don’t think it ever will.
In fact, I’ll bet you a ton it won’t. I’m serious. US$100. Total number of hetero marriages in the UK over the next year will not decline. I’ll do PayPal. You on for it?
you my ask what will be next?
Bigamy and other obscure relations formalized like a marriage
For all of human history, we have had an interest in raising children and having them. All children are born out of a sexual union of a man with a woman in some form. MOst children are still reared in families and that is the reason that the state benefits from heterosexual marriage. Unless you wish to go to the creche or orphanage method of child rearing. The function of marriage also is to secure the legal lines of property settlement for the children as well. Also it establishes the responsibility for who is to be the legal parent of the child and who may make legal decisions for it before majority.
Nobody now debates the merits of a two, man/woman parent family. We tried the single mom method and most studies I have seen reports on show it is definitely not the optimum home for the child. That is not to say that all other family arrangements cannot be used successfully. The point is that the optimum is the two parent family model. So the state has a definite interest in promoting such an arrangement. Other models while less good are better than some other alternatives. It is better to have a gay couple raise a child, than to leave the child in an institution. If there is an opportunity to have either a man/woman couple adopt a child or a gay couple, there is no question that the heterosexual will be the better choice. The gay marriage idea would put the gay couple on the same level as the heterosexual one.
I can see no benefit to society for gay marriage. Those who are in favor of it have the burden of proof to show that the state gains from it. If it were possible for two men to have children, then I would think that indeed gay marriage would be called for. So far I have not heard of such a thing. The other problem that we are running into with gay marriage is with lesbian couples who have a biological child of one of the partners. In the case of divorce, who gets custody? Are there visitation rights and child support payments required? In short we get nothing but headaches and legal problems and a requirement for more judges in family courts if gay marriages are allowed. I don’t think the cost justifies the lack of benefit. All the benefits I can see flow only one way.
All heterosexual marriages have the potential to produce children in 98% of the cases. THAT is why marriage is established for heterosexual unions. When you show me that two men produce a child through their sexual union with one another, then I will be in favor of gay marriage. Until such time we get nothing for it.
All of which applies equally to gay parents.
Which has nothing at all to do with gay couples raising kids.
Right. Which is what we’re talking about here: two gay people get married and have a kid, you’ve got a two parent family model. See, the problems with single parenthood isn’t the absence of a second gender, it’s the absence of a second person. Parenting is a time-consuming job. Often, too time consuming for one person to handle. Single parents who has significant help from their own parents, for example, fared much better than single parents with no support network at all. It’s not a matter of a proper gender balance, it’s simply an issue of manhours. You need a lot of them to raise a kid. It’s easier to do that with two people.
Actually, that’s a gigantic question, and one where the evidence is against you. Every study done on the children of gay parents has shown that the kids, on average, are better adjusted, healthier, have better grades, and go on to more successful careers than do the children of heterosexual couples. Now, there are other factors at work, here: gay couples aren’t going to have kids by accident. A gay couple that wants to raise a kid, particularly if their men, are going to have to invest some serious time, effort, and money in the proposition. They’re going to be people who are highly motivated to be good parents, and likely to be in a position of relative wealth and affluence. However, the fact remains that there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that a child raised by a homosexual couple is in anyway disadvantaged as compared to a child raised by a heterosexual couple.
But that’s all entirely beside the issue, because that’s about gay parenthood, not gay marriage. If you’re going to argue that gays shouldn’t be able to marry because they can’t have kids, you’re going to have to explain why we allow the infertile to marry. Or those who don’t plan to have kids. Or, as mentioned by a previous poster, those who are only allowed to marry if they can prove that they can’t possibly conceive, as is required by certain state laws regarding marriage between cousins.
Sorry, marriage isn’t about kids, although that’s a fair chunk of it. It’s also about the rights of next of kin, and property rights. Why shouldn’t gay couples have the right to be treated the same way as straight couples, when it comes to that?
Yes, that’s exactly right. Why do you have a problem with that?
Actually, we’re asking for something we want, which would cost you nothing. In this case, the burden of proof is on you, to show why you should be able to deny it to me.
Read this and get back to us.
Well, Jesus, God forbid we should try to address inequality! That would be, like, hard, and stuff!
I pay my taxes, too. Why shouldn’t I have equal access to the public largess?
Incidentally, do you think that society has any vested interest or responsibility to treat all its citizens fair and equitably? As regards your complaint that giving marriage rights to homosexuals would be a “legal headache,” what rights do you think we could eliminate as they cause too much of a “legal problem?” Assume, for the purposes of this hypothetical, that the rights will still apply to you and your relations, so there’s no self-interest to cloud the issue. After all, if the benefits are only “flowing one way,” there’s no moral or ethical reason to support them if they don’t apply to you personally, right?
The only way bigamy is going to get legalized is if we repeal the laws against fraud. I suspect you mean polygamy, and if so, I say again, “I don’t give a shit.”
And what do you mean, precisely, by “other obscure relations?” Let’s be specific, here, so we can make it absolutely clear how stupid your arguments are.
The reason is that it serves no public purpose or service, unless all gay couples adopt children as a condition of such marriage. I don’t think that is what you had in mind. We gave subsidies to railroads, airlines and any number of other enterprises that were deemed to be important to society. Marriage, like a drivers license is NOT a right and like any subsidy or other preferential item has to be justified in the public interst. THAT is why YOU need to justify the reasons for it.
And say what benefits to society will accrue. If you can do that, then I may well change my mind on it. Absent that, I will not.
If you read the Mass Supreme Court decision on allowing gay marriage, they did NOT make the argument that all citizens must be treated the same. They specificaally stated that a military draft which takes only young men is perfectly legal and in accord with the constitution of Mass and the US. If the US Constitution specifically stated that ALL persons have the right to a legal marriage then I would agree with you. It does NOT and it is NOT part of the Bill of Rights either. The fourteeth amendment extended the rights of all to prohibit discrimination based on race or previous condition of servitude so that ALL persons of ALL races have the equal protection of those enumerated rights. If the amendment had included sexual orientation in it, then I would agree that gays indeed did have the RIGHT to marry.
So far as I can see so far, there is NO legal, or societal reason for having the state grant a legal license to marry to gays. It is an affirmative license, NOT a right that you are requesting and absent any pressing reasons for it, I can see no justification for it. As I said in the previous post, I do think that the state can and should give some relief along the lines of Virginias law so that the legal questions that create problems for gays can be addressed.
There is another factor which is troubling to me in this whole discussion. It is that it is assumed that the rights and loyalty only goes one way. That we as citizens have no DUTIES to our country or the state. I disagree with that strongly since I do feel that we as citizens do have to make sacrifices for the common good even though that may fall more on one part of our society than another, such as military service. There are many other things as well such as taxation which is unfair to some segments of society. We decide these things by the democratic process and by majority vote. That is part of being in our society. If you don’t like it you are free to leave and find one that is more to your liking or work to change what you don’t like about it. But is is OUR right to decide such things as well when it does not agree with your views by the majority vote.
OK, I’m over 40, straight, and sometime during the next few months I’ll be finding out if I can safely carry a child fathered by a certain gentleman to term (to clarify, I’m not pregnant; I’ll be finding out whether it’s a good idea to try to get pregnant). If it turns out that I can’t, randyjet should I still be allowed to marry the gentleman in question? If yes, what’s the difference between me marrying the gentleman of my choice and Miller marrying the gentleman of his choice? I would, after all, be entering into a marriage knowing I couldn’t have children.
As for bigamy and polygamy, as far as I’m concerned, they’re strawmen. Marriage and divorce involve the property of two people. Bigamy and polygamy increase the number of people involved and the complications thereof. If one person decides to leave a polygamous union, the assets of at least three people need to be divided, not to mention the complications which would arise if someone decides to divorce one party in the arrangement but not others, to use an example I’ve seen in this sort of thread before. People involved in such unions are free to make their own arrangements, and I could see something to be said for Heinlein-style line marriages, but the issues concerning arrangements in those unions are not identical to the issues involved in a union between two people.
You keep dodging this question: if marriage is all about children, should infertile couples be forbidden for marrying? Should post-menopausal women be forbidden from marriage? Should couples that have no plan to have children have their marriages dissolved?
Bullshit. I want to get married to another guy. Doing this costs you nothing. You tell me why I shouldn’t be allowed to.
I take it simple human decency has no currency with you?
Yeah, no shit, there’s no law requiring gay marriage. That’s why we’re arguing that there should be one. Let me ask you this: if you were around before the 14th ammendment was adopted, would you have supported it? Do you think there is any sort of ethical reason, beyond what’s been enshrined in law, to not discriminate against blacks? This isn’t a question of law, it’s a question of wrong or right. You’re saying it’s okay to discriminate against gays, and your only defence is that there’s no law against it. But that’s not the issue: we’re not arguing legal or illegal, we’re arguing right or wrong. How do you defend opposition to SSM on a moral basis?
Again, you overlook basic human decency.
Virginia’s law? Fucking Virginia? The state that voted to outlaw Civil fucking unions? That’s your model of how gays should be treated under the law?
This is entirely meaningless bullshit, and has precisely nothing to do with this debate.
Wrong. The Supreme Court ruled that marriage was a right almost 40 years ago. (They did not say that all forms of marriage or other unions were a right, thus the current discussions, but they clearly stated that all citizens have a right to engage in marriage. Marriage licenses are issued for the purpose of providing documentation in law that the event occurred, not for the purpose of limiting marriage to certain persons.)
This comment is irrelevant unless you address the issue of why the government permits the infertile, (whether due to age, trauma, surgery, etc.), to marry.
You are also wrong, in that it performs the very basic public service of assigning rights and obligations for inheritance, taxes, care, joint ownership, and other legal procedings for committed partners without the additional burden of providing individual contracts for each union. That would seem to be a major public service.
OK. Why should all married gay couples be required to adopt children, but that isn’t required of childless married straight couples?
And the Founding Fathers put in several safeguards to protect the rights of minorities against the tyranny of the majority. That’s why we have things like freedom of religion and separation of church and state.
For example, most people in the South in the 1960s were white. The idea of desegregating schools, repealing Jim Crow laws, and allowing blacks to vote was unpopular at the time. Does that mean it was wrong for the Supreme Court and the federal government to force them to do those things, and the Jim Crow laws were right because they were approved by a majority? :dubious:
You’re confusing the 13th, which ended slavery as you say, with the 14th, which establishes equal protection for *all * persons, no subgroups or exceptions, as well as defining some conditions for Reconstruction. Here’s the full text of the 14th, and note that Section 1 is the only relevant one for this discussion:
Thanks for the link, Azov. This was exactly the kind of thing I was looking for.
Whether you buy her causal link between welfare and the “destruction of the inner cities” or not, her point is valid. One should not blindly enact reform without examing potential unintended consequences. In fact, I think that’s a very good idea. It would drive the argument away from the “ick” factor and the Bible, and towards something upon which there can be meaningful debate.
So, what might the unintended consequences of legalizing (and therefore legitimizing) SSM?
Someone pointed out the possible decline in heterosexual marriage, as bisexual and closeted individuals feel more empowered to choose SSM than to engage in what could be described as their second choice. Now, let’s say this decline is significant. A decline in heterosexual marriage rate by itself doesn’t seem to be either a good or a bad thing. So what might be the unintended consequences of that? How about a decline in birth rate, as same sex couples may be less likely to produce children then heterosexual couples, as the expense required for in-vitro fertilization or surrogates may make adoption more prevalent in SSM than in heterosexual marriages. A decline in birth rate may lead to a decline in young population, leading to more of a burden on social security.
Recognizing this as a possible unintended consequence, I believe that equality for all outweighs a possible longterm social security drag.
I’m really not trying to be facetious here (okay, maybe a little) – I’m trying to come up with possible unintended consequences (leaving likelihood aside for the time being). One could argue that SSM will eventually lead to a social security burden. I don’t know if anyone would actually argue this, or if this is just a straw man that I’ve created. I’m willing to admit that this argument may be full of crap.
So, to reshape my original post: I’ll consider that “is there an argument against SSM that does not rely on the existance of God” has at least one answer – “it might have unintended consequences.” Okay. What might those be?
All ideas welcome, no matter how trivial or silly they might seem.
Except that its not. She doesn’t mention what those unintended consequences would be, only that they “might exsist.” Well, what the hell kind of an argument is that? Sure they might exsist, but unless you can come up with any evidence for them, we can’t really take them into account when we propose a change, can we? Any change at all, in any area of society or the law, could be argued against on the grounds that “something bad might happen, but we don’t know what.” That’s not a rational reason to take a position against something, it’s just paranoia and fear-mongering.
It strikes me as supremely unlikely that this effect could be at all significant. To the extent that it has any effect on the institution at all, I can only imagine it would be positive: what’s better, a closeted homosexual entering into a marriage with someone he doesn’t love for the sake of appearances, or an open homosexual entering into a marriage with someone he genuinely wants to spend the rest of his life with? Besides which, this isn’t an argument against SSM, it’s an argument against acceptance of homosexuality in general. It’s not like all the nation’s closet cases are just waiting for gay marriage to bust out and queer it up. I don’t see how gay marriage is going to increase the number of people coming out in and of itself, as opposed to it being a part of the incrasing mainstreaming of homosexuality. Which, of course, is precisely what a great deal of SSM opponents want in the first place.
As a consequence of the above, it seems that the chance of gay marriage significantly affecting birth rates to be pretty scant. But even if it does happen, it seems to me that this would be an unintended benefit, not draw back. But, again, it doubt it will happen, even if gays marry in significant numbers. Orientation and the biological drive to reproduce are not linked: a gay man is just as likely to want kids as a straight man. Again, this seems to be an area where any unintended consequences would be positive: more adoption is always a good thing: there are way more kids than would-be parents out there. In the area of articificial conception, the expense is largely going to be carried by the parents seeking the process, not society at large. And the more money that goes to these sorts of treatments, the more advances we’ll have in these treatments, leading to new developments in fertility treatments and related sciences.
Again, that’s not really an argument against SSM, unless someone can come up with a specific “unintended consequence” of which we need to be wary.
Not to belabor the point, because I do think I agree with your position, but I think dismissing it as “paranoia and fear-mongering” is too easy. I agree that leaving it at that is not a complete argument, but I do think it helps to reshape the question. I asked what turns out to have been too simplistic a question and received a simplistic answer.
The author of the linked blog hasn’t made up her mind about SSM, because she doesn’t feel that she’s thought through all the consequences. I think it’s perfectly rational to admit that, and to refrain from making a decision (as legalizing SSM would be an active decision) until the consequences have been explored. I think that’s healthy, as that it will hopefully push us to explore the consequences so that the fence-sitters and those wary of change will be able to get behind it.