Any atheists against same sex marriage?

Great Debates
121

I think this is interesting, because here you’ve made explicit something that’s been implicit in your argument - you think that a person’s rights depend on what’s good for the state. Basically, you grant people rights and privileges only when it benefits the state.

Quite literally, you are arguing here for fascism. Living, as we do, in a democratic society, one of whose fundamental rules is that the state can’t restrict our rights unless there is a very good reason for it, you’re operating from a completely different set of axioms here. (And given issues like inheritance rights, the right to have one’s partner make medical decisions when it’s necessary, and so forth, you can’t honestly claim that gay people aren’t being denied rights that are fundamentally expected by straight people.) Your exultation of the state over the individual is literally the definition of fascism, and arguing politics in that context is quite foreign to me and, I suspect, to most people here. I don’t view it as particularly relevant, either, since I and most people I know will fight with you tooth and nail to prevent your dystopian ideals from becoming reality.

But that’s what this argument stems from.

So in total, we have three different viewpoints that lead to opposition to gay marriage: homophobia, heterophobia, and fascism.

Interesting.

Incidentally, this reasoning is entirely specious, as gay people do not have the right to marry the people they love, while straight people do. By an identical line of reasoning, allowing gay marriage clearly “benefits society”, as it confers a new right upon everyone, and all else being equal, society is better off when its population is more free (well, again, you might not see that as axiomatic, but everyone else here does.) The fact that that new right is only of interest to part of the population is irrelevant as long as you’re claiming that gay people have the same marriage rights as straight people, since that right is equally only of interest to part of the population.

Like I said, specious reasoning, as it’s not “special treatment” by your very own logic, as straight people get the same new right that gay people have.

Incidentally, your use of this bit of hedgery, “overturning all the history of civilizations,” is evidence either of an attempt to sneak religious beliefs in under the table or else simply crypto-homophobia. Perhaps we should strike “fascism” off the list anyway.

Given that your arguments about putting the state ahead of individual freedoms put you squarely in the right-wing extremist camp, is this a bit pot-kettle-black of you?

Those “many” include the Supreme Court, who are the final arbiters of Constitutionality in this society. You can have your own opinions, though they are repugnant. You can have your own political views, though they are moreso. But you don’t get to have your own facts, dearie.

122

A discriminatory law is like that of Virginia’s miscegenation law that was struck down by the Supreme Court. That law provided for it to be a felony with a five year prison term if a white and black were living together even with a legal marriage from another state as was the case in that ruling.
What you and others are asking for is not to not be thrown in prison for such living arrangements, but an affirmative law that goes against tradition and all previous laws in history. For that you need some compelling reason and state interest. So far in all this discussion I have seen no evidence of that. It is all emotion and heat with no such reason brought forward. As far as I have seen the basic argument is that it would be nice for them. Undoubtedly true. It would also be nice if I could get a pension based on my prior limited military service too. It is no reason to do so though.

There are plenty of reasons NOT to do it. Just as there are plenty of reasons not to grant me a pension from my military service. There is ample precedent in granting me such a pension or bonus in our history. There is none for gay marriage. I also do not claim it as a right either since other vets got such bonuses and I did not. I guess I should go to court and claim discrimination based on the fact that other vets from the Revolution to WWI got such bonuses and pensions and I did not? The GI Bill that I got was incredibly poor in comparison to that given the WWII vets, so I guess I should sue for discrimination? I think I would be laughed out of court.

123

Gays are a part of society. Passing the law benefits them. Therefore, gay marriage benefits society. The fact that a portion of society is small is no excuse to shit all over them.

Sure: it was an evil, oppresive, inhuman system. But it also made serious bank for the South, and getting rid of it damn near crippled the nation. The economy of the South was utterly destroyed. The cost, both in money and in human life, was staggering. Since, in your view, all public policy should be determined by how much it costs, and how much it benefits you personally, why should the slaves have ever been freed? Clearly, morality and ethics play no role in your view of government, so what are your arguments for ending slavery?

Which happens all the time to gay couples, when one partner dies and his family doesn’t “approve” of homosexuality. That would be prevented by allowing gay marriage.

Gay couples have kids, too, in increasing numbers every year. Why shouldn’t society promote their marriage and grant them privileges?

I don’t think there are too many divorces. You’re the one who keeps insisting that public cost should circumscribe personal freedom, so why aren’t you out there trying to make divorce harder?

So because you got screwed over, that makes it okay to screw over other people? But you’re willing to sell off your principles if the price is high enough? You really have no ethics at all, do you?

124

This applies equally to same sex relationships.

Since the primary interests you’ve raised involve children, then why not reserve marriage for couples that produce a child? Make that a requirement, that they show that they have a child first.

I refer you to your own quote as shown above.

I would have no problem with divorce being more difficult.

Sorry, I don’t see how anything you’ve mentioned logically works to bar SSM.

125

Again with your own facts, different from everyone else’s!

And again with the crypto-bigotry. Interesting, though, that while you claim to be an atheist, you use terminology invented and invested with meaning by the American Theocratic Right. “Gay lifestyle” indeed.

You’re dodging the question. Actually, in case you weren’t aware, part of the country seceded over the slavery issue (rather a problem for the State, no?) and then there was a minor dust-up that cost just under a million lives; so what was the benefit to society - rather than to a small special interest group - of that entire mess? You’ll have to account for both the massive loss of life and the economic cost of labor provided by slaves in the South (which, as evidenced by the success of the very similar practice of sharecropping, was enormous and must be accounted for for around a century.)

You’re being very inconsistent here.

126

Why?

I disagree. I agree with opponents to SSM that allowing polygamy should logically ensue if SSM is allowed. So, it’s relevant.

If you find acceptable forbidding polygamy but support SSM marriage, then you must explain :

  1. Why they are different

  2. Why you think that allowing one will not result in the other being allowed too

3)Why your arguments in favor of SSM don’t apply to polygamy (or else it would by hypocritical to use them to support your cause without admitting that you should follow your own principles and support polygamy too)

But of course, more than logic, what shocks me is your “I don’t give a shit, but I sure hope that other people will give a shit about my problem, because somehow they should care about my wanting to marry while I don’t feel compelled to care about them wanting to marry”.

127

Incidentally, your use of this bit of hedgery, “overturning all the history of civilizations,” is evidence either of an attempt to sneak religious beliefs in under the table or else simply crypto-homophobia. Perhaps we should strike “fascism” off the list anyway.

In a fascist state all things go one way, to the state. If you would look at what I said, in our democratic society, we also have duties to the state as well. The state does indeed have some claims upon our lives such as the draft. In our society it is a two way street in that there are some rights that cannot be infringed as enumerated in the Constitution. If you will find such a thing as gay rights or gay marriage or gender discrimination in the Constitution I will grant that gay marriage is indeed one of those enumerated rights. So far you have not shown any such thing.

Given that your arguments about putting the state ahead of individual freedoms put you squarely in the right-wing extremist camp, is this a bit pot-kettle-black of you?

Actually you are in the right wing extremist camp since you have the libertarian point of view. That an individual has no obligation whatsoever to the state or society. The state has every right to limit a persons freedoms and does. I love to drive fast and do whenever I can. I am not going to cry discrimination when I get a ticket or call the cop a fascist for limiting my freedom. I guess you would. Also, I guess you would call the US military draft fascism as well since it takes away the most basic right of ones own person. I do not. Nor does even the Mass Supreme court.

Those “many” include the Supreme Court, who are the final arbiters of Constitutionality in this society. You can have your own opinions, though they are repugnant. You can have your own political views, though they are moreso. But you don’t get to have your own facts, dearie.
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My political views are that of Kerry and the Democratic Party I might add and that is who I worked for in the last campaign. I was also recently a delegate to the Texas State Democratic convention where I supported an open gay man for party chair, Glenn Maxey.

128

Why is that a benefit to society? And why is it not a benefit to society when applied to gay people?

Remember what I said about your own facts? Common law marriages are not recognized in all jurisdictions (some states don’t even operate on the basis of common law; Louisiana, for instance, operates under the Napoleonic Code, while much of the southwest operates under civil law ultimately of Spanish origin.) Further, while a common law marriage is not solemnized, that’s literally the only difference between it and a regular marriage. Instead, it’s recognized when a couple cohabitates and presents themselves as husband and wife (in some jurisdictions, only after they have done so for a certain period.)

There is nothing whatsoever in the common law formulation of marriage that requires that children be present or recognizes a marriage because children were produced.

Okay, remember the quote earlier in the thread demonstrating that marriage is a right, not a privilege? Have you been paying attention at all?

129

Whoops, wrong again. Many localities have specific laws preventing unrelated people from living together; such laws have been used on a number of occasions to prevent gay people from obtaining housing together. So gay people don’t have the same rights as straight people to live together.

The fact that people have not argued within the narrow context of your own views of government does not mean that they haven’t brought forth evidence or reason. Like I said, fundamentally this is an impossible argument because you are arguing from the perspective of a fascist, and the rest of us are arguing from the perspective of those used to free, democratic government fundamentally based upon the rights of the citizenry.

130

And if that is a laudable goal, it shouldn’t apply to homosexual partners because…?

It’s even more interesting since this is precisely one of the main issues homosexuals have as a result of not being allowed to marry.

I can’t comment about american law. What you say maybe true. Though, honestly I’m going to say that I don’t think it is. For instance, if some guy fathers a child, and as a result has to take responsability for this (by participating financially, for instance), he’s considered legally married to the mother, and for instance can’t marry anybody else until he gets a divorce?

I’m willing to wait until someone more informed clarify this issue, but meanwhile I’m going to say the following : in the country where I live, what you say doesn’t apply. Actually, the concept of “common law marriage” doesn’t exist. Somehow, despite this lack of marriage, children’s rights and parent’s responsabilities are still defined by law. The lack of marriage, common law marriage or otherwise, doesn’t prevent from passing laws about parental responsability.

So, that’s the reason why, according to you, spouses (and not children) should be granted priviledges? Because they make children. If that’s true, you have to tell us (again, many posters asked you to) why women past menopause, infertile men, etc… should get these priviledges too. Or why homosexual couples with children (that they adopted, for instance) shouldn’t.

I don’t feel that. You do. And apparently, your answer to the issue of too many divorces is to limit the number of marriages. And you limit them by forbidding those marriages more likely to fail in your opinion : homosexual marriages. Once again, why not extending this prohibition to people who have proved to be unable to handle a stable commitment, like already divorced people? Or to people marrying at a too early age, since their divorce rate is higher?
So, no marriage for people who are too young (they could divorce) no marriage for people who are too old (they can’t have children), only one marriage allowed in a lifetime, no benefits like keeping the house, inheritance, pensions, power of attorney, for married couples that don’t have children, etc… but a marriage with full rights for undivorced homosexuals between 27 and 42 who want to adopt children? Would this system be to your satisfaction?

131

You speak explicitly of the needs of the state and of rights as mere benefits conferred by the state, according to its needs. That is, simply and literally, fascist reasoning. The glorification of the states above the citizens, and denying rights to citizens based upon the needs of the state, is a fundamentally fascist attitude.

You make the mistake of ignoring the Constitution in your Constitutional argument. To whit:

Besides, of what relevance is the Constitution in addressing a fundamentally moral question? No one is arguing that gay people do, in fact, have the legal right to marry in the United States (outside of Massachussetts, of course.) The argument, one you’ve done a poor job of responding to in your constant - if poorly-grounded - legalism, is that it is a morally right thing to do.

Wrong. Libertarianism is fundamentally not leftist or rightist; the traditional formulation of left and right is along these lines: the right protects economic freedom while restricting social freedom, while the left protects social freedom while restricting economic freedom. Libertarianism is not the product of either of those philosophies, and thus is not right-wing at all. Further, my argument for social freedom is hardly exclusive to libertarianism - in fact, I am quite thoroughly leftist in my attitudes. Fascism, on the other hand, is traditionally regarded as an extremist right-wing position, as it fundamentally requires an extremely strong state and the restriction of social freedoms - precisely what you’re arguing.

But the state and society are fundamentally different things, outside of the strictly fascist view that identifies “society” with the state. Your argument falls quite flat when measured against the needs of society, because society includes the specific people you’re repressing for very little reason at all - all you’ve come up with are a couple very minor costs in such things as court fees.

But it a democratic society, that is only done when it is necessary to prevent some greater evil. You’ve done a poor job proving that paying for a couple more city officials is a greater evil.

Basically, you don’t believe people should have rights unless it is beneficial to the state; not only is that flatly contradicted by the ninth amendment, it is an attitude in inherent opposition to the values of democratic government. Your entire argument has been based upon asking what gay marriage does for the state - but in a democratic society, the question is, “What good reason is there to restrict this freedom?” You have argued only that there’s no good reason not to restrict it - demonstrating that you don’t believe greater freedom is essentially a good thing in itself.

That’s a sickening view to most people.

You would be greatly misusing the term if you did. I am using the term in its proper context.

Only if he demanded that I act in the best interests of the State. Because, once again, that is the essence of fascism. You don’t know much about political science, do you?

When did I do that? You’re putting words in my mouth once again, demonstrating the weakness of your argument. Nothing that I said equated the simple restriction of people’s freedoms; this is a strawman argument on your part and you would do better to give up such a juvenile style of debate.

You may have worked for the Democratic Party, but your view that human freedom is properly limited to the minimum that benefits the state is fundamentally in opposition to the values of the Democratic Party and democratic society.

Incidentally, I will not discuss this matter further if you persist in mixing in quotes with your own text rather than properly using quote boxes. It makes it extremely hard to read your writing.

132

clairobscur, if you want to debate polygamy, open a new thread, and stop hijacking this one.

Right, and like Excalibre said, in facism, the citizen owe duty to the state above everything else, so you haven’t rebutted his claim, there, you’ve reinforced it.

You know that the draft has been abolished, right?

Wow, that’s mighty big of you. “If you can prove that it’s the law, I’ll admit that it’s the law.” Of course, no one is trying to prove that it’s the law, we’re trying to prove it should be the law, so once again, your point is spectacularly… pointless.

Right, because if there’s one thing that defines a libertarian, it’s demanding for more government regulation!

You don’t actually know what a libertarian or a fascist is, do you?

Well, that goes a long way to explaining why we have Bush for a president today.

133

Well, it is hard to argue with reason and logic against raw emotion. Since your entire argument is simply that you do not want homosexuals to have a specific right based only on your emotional need to maintain the status quo, your “argument” amounts to nothing more than an emotional appeal.

Homosexuals can have their rights to emergency medical care, life support, disposition of their body after death overridden by blood relatives who may have no idea what they actually desire or who may choose to deliberately go against their wishes because those wishes are given voice by a companion who has been denied the right of matrimony to assert their wishes. This is an explicit harm visited upon only homosexuals.

Homosexuals can be prevented from living together in communities where “multi-family” housing is prohibited based on the fact that they are prohibited from being recognized as a married couple.

These are explicit rights that are denied them that are based solely on your claim that they have the right to marry people only of the opposite sex.

Your claim that more marriages will cause more problems due to an increase in the number of divorces should be taken to its conclusion that the state should recognize no marriages, since that would eliminate all divorce. Your claims regarding the protection of children are not logical, since homosexuals also have children–but your policy interferes with the families in which children are present if the parents are the same sex.

And your claims are based on nothing but wishful thinking on your part, since you have provided no actual facts to support your contention that a greater number of divorces would actually cause more problems for society than the elimination of the problems of inheritance, medical directions, cohabitation, insurance, and other issues that same sex marriage will resolve. If you do not have actual numbers to present, you are relying on emotional arguments based on your personal beliefs, and ours are better than yours, because we are defending rights while you are opposing them.

134

You mean that only the laws punising these living arrangements with a jail sentence have been struck down? That black people still can’t marry white people in Virginia? Would you agree with mixed couple not going to jail but still being prevented from marrying because allowing them to would be “an affirmating law going against all previous laws in history” ?

135

He’s right, you know. If you don’t care about other people’s marriage rights, it’s a bit hypocritical to expect them to care about yours.

136

Interesting that someone brings up common-law marriage. While I’m a hard agnostic and thus not the ideal answerer for this, I’d be against SSM if combined in a state that recognizes common-law marriage.

Why? Because platonic roommates of the same sex are a lot more common than those of opposite sex. With common-law marriage in the first place, the welfare state has a vested interest in assuming cohabiters are married even if they are not common-law spouses in order to deny them benefits or force alimony. With common law SSM this temptation increases exponentially: there was a thread about a year ago about a case in Canada where the government, along with a lesbian roommate, ruled that the richer hetero woman she was rooming with platonically was her common-law wife, in order to force alimony payments and lessen their welfare burden. (Of course, even the poorer partners in legit homosexual cohabiting couples who are not common-law spouses can take advantage of this, and probably even easier since they are actually in a romantic relationship.)

Of course, this is more of a problem with common-law marriage than with SSM, but combining the two would make everyone considering taking in a roommate to double-think it.

137

Again, under common law as it’s practiced in the U.S. at least, you have to publicly present yourselves as a married couple to be married under common law.

I really have to doubt whether that case went down the way the media claimed.

138

I don’t expect anyone to care about gay marriage. By not caring, however, I mean “being neither in favor or opposed.” I don’t demand that everyone in the country become passionately devoted to The Cause. Voting in favor of a law banning SSM is not “not caring,” it is active opposition. A person who, faced with such an law, simply leaves the box blank, I have no particular quarrel with. I’d like him better if he voted “no,” but I don’t demand that he do so.

So no, I’m not actually being hypocritical. And again, if someone wants to try to convince me that I should vote “yes” to legalize polygamy, they are free to do so, but this thread isn’t the proper place.

139

I already stated why I think it’s not a hijack. The argument made against SSM marriage in relation with polygamy is a valid one. You can’t just dismiss it as a strawman and/or a slipery slope argument and refuse to adress it.

It’s not a strawman because I at least, and probably others, do advocate both. It’s not a slipery slope argument because most of your arguments in favor of SSM could also be used in favor of polygamy, so allowing SSM provides a strong basis to allow polygamy too. Actually, I fail to see how you can legitimately advocate one and refuse to advocate the other on the basis of the arguments, in particular moral arguments, that you use.
You’re not going to make me go away by just stating “it’s not the same issue, I don’t care about this, it inconveniences me and doesn’t help my cause to discuss it. I’d rather ignore completely the argument”.
Once again, if you want to dismiss the argument, explain why it’s not the same thing, why allowing one won’t give a strong argument in favor of the other, why your arguments don’t apply to both. If you’re unwilling to, then concede the point to the anti-SSM crowd (and to me) and admit to them that they’re right and that indeed allowing SSM marriage might lead to eventually allowing polygamy too. “It’s a strawman, I won’t answer” doesn’t cut it.
I strongly suspect that your refusal to discuss this or to respond to the argument made (SSM OK ====> Polygamy OK) is due to the fact that saying so would hurt your cause, and you’d rather not. Another possibility would be that indeed you couldn’t care less about other people’s issues, but only about your own. A last one, that you only apply your arguments and principles when it’s convenient for you, or only can notice a moral issue when it hurts you personnally. None of these possibilities seem very appealing to me. The best case scenario would be that you just don’t comprehend there’s an actual issue here, but then you’d better off not criticizing others when they equally fail to notice a moral and/or logical issue in the illegality of SSM marriage, either.

140

I just explained why it is the proper place.

And as for convincing you, you don’t need the help of anybody. The arguments you use show clearly that you can comprehend this kind of issue, assuming that your not arguing by parroting a “how to argue in favor of SSM for dummies” book without understanding the content. “This sort of marriage shouldn’t be allowed because it’s just not right”. Doesn’t ring any bell, really?