You made a point that it is an “objective” fact that we need male and female to procreate.
I note that raising children does not require that children be limited to the specific male and female whose gametes were used to produce them.
You then made a claim that “subjective” facts (whatever they are) are used to give “validation” for self-esteem.
I noted that two of your talking points have been “subjective” in that anal sex is not limited to homosexuality (and is not universal in homosexual relations) and that your opinion regarding Roman orgies was not supported by facts.
So you have presented one irrelevant fact regarding gametes and two subjective opinions regarding sexual activity. When you then claimed that “objective” facts are necessary for the discussion, I pointed out that your use and misuse of “fact” condemned your own argument.
You have no need to defend same sex marriage simply to prove you are not a hateful person. However, if you wander into a thread that seeks legitimate arguments against same sex marriage and offer nothing more than the claims you have made, you would probably have been better off to simply avoid the thread rather than displaying the paucity of your arguments.
So we appear to be left with the three arguments I have already noted:
It’s icky;
We never did it before;
God said “No.”
In previous threads, we have already established that medical advances have removed the necessary connection between male-female union and procreation. Since that is no longer a necessary connection, there does not appear to be any reason why the law should limit recognition of pair-bonding to heterosexual couples.
(If you have separate issues with the law granting “subsidies” to childless couples, they are really not germane to this discussion, but currently the law does grant rights and benefits to couples who choose to marry and there has been no good argument put forth to explain why that recognition should be limited to heterosexual couples. And, of course, homosexual couples do not need to be childless, so even if the “subsidies” are limited to families with children, there is no reason to exclude homosexual couples from that situation, either.)
Also, as I pointed out earlier, your proposal from 281 is inadequate, inasmuch as it doesn’t explain to the county clerk who should get which license, which is a key part of your proposal. It’s a little silly to ask us to make your proposal for you; at this point it’d be helpful if you’d expand your proposal to include whatever instructions the county clerk should follow. (If the county clerk can follow the law while issuing a marriage license to Bob and Steve, then your proposal doesn’t need modification–but at that point we need to back the truck up).
A) Definitions are not statutes. They define the language used in the statutes.
B) My position is, and always has been that there be one set of statutes describing the legal benefits and privileges that people can enjoy, if they belong to one of two groups. Search in this thread alone and you’ll see that I used that explicit phrase probably around twenty times.
C) You say “three sets of statutes”. But you list only three items, not three sets of items.
D) The defining aspects of my idea is 1) that there one one set of statutes that list the benefits and privileges the two groups enjoy, and 2) that we freeze them together so it remains that way. That any change to any benefit or privilege =for one group affects the other identically. Might there be other statues doing other things? Of course.
E) Ask yourself, why in your #3, you used the term “statute” singular. It’s almost as if you’re beginning to understand my position: One set of statutes that outline all the benefits and privileges that can be enjoyed by the two groups in question.
I admit that you did a much better job then Miller. Thank you.
They are part of the statutes, but honestly, this is irrelevant.
First, I didn’t use “statute” singular; I used “set of statutes,” singular, which is an important difference. SEcond, I did so because I literally C&Pasted from your earlier post, because I was typing while making French toast for my daughter, which is kind of a dad fail anyway :).
A set of items may be divided into smaller sets, of course. So, a single set of statutes may say (for example) that gay people get unioned and straight people get married, but you can divide that into two smaller sets. This is axiomatic to set theory, thus my earlier supposition that we needed this diversion before returning to the main argument.
Now, I said that definitions are part of the statutes; as pointed out earlier, when I asked you where the definitions occurred, you pointed to a set of statutes. They are legally binding language written by and voted on by the legislature, and if someone representing the state does not follow their language, they’re violating the law. Saying they’re not statutes is frankly a bizarre assertion unsupported by an legal history.
But I’ll concede that, because I don’t think it matters. Let’s say for a minute that they’re not statutes. Is it your position, then, that the separate-but-equal language appears in the definitions, not in the statutes?
No, those are the reasons you wish we had.
Nobody’s said icky
Nobody’s argued God (even if, for me, it’s the main reason)
“Never before” is, at most, a part of a bigger argument.
I’m sorry that the anti-SSM crowd has other ideas.
Unless, of course, you claim the ability of reading minds and gleaning our true, dark secret intentions.
The problem here is that the passage I have italicised sounds good but is actually completely ineffectual. If a subsequent statue were to grant rights to marriages but not to civil unions, it would be taken to have implicitly repealed that passage. An ordinary statute cannot bind subsequent legislators unless it is somehow entrenched (as a constitutional amendment, for example).
EDIT: also, I think the “separate statutes” issue is irrelevant. The problem is not “separate but equal” statutes, but “separate but equal” types of relationship status, whether it is in one law or two separate laws.
The Hague Marriage Convention is something of a red herring, since the only parties to the convention are Australia, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. The international recognition of marriage is mostly based on the principle of comity. That being said, the international (or inter-state) recognition of civil unions is an unsettled area of law, which is all the more reason that same-sex marriages are better than civil unions.
(There are some cases where countries have recognized foreign civil unions despite the absence of any statutory law on the issue - for example Steyn v Steyn in South Africa and Hincks v. Gallardo in Canada. But people should not be required to get special rulings from superior courts just to have their relationships recognized.)
Wow! So a tiny, tiny, tiny group is a good sample of the arguments at the SDMB?
Deliciously desperate almost as fun as the episode of Total Wipeout I’m watching.
Heck, Lefty, I tried a similar breakdown of magellan’s proposal nearly two years ago:
And you replied with:
And that thread ended without further comment from magellan.
I’m starting to think progress on this issue is unlikely. At the very least, he doesn’t seem to get (or at least is studiously avoiding the concept of) legal definitions, where something affected by law must also be defined by law. I suppose we could leave the issue undefined, on the assumption that every county clerk in America will understand which couples get the marriage certificates and which get the civil union certificates, rather like voter registration clerks in the South in the 1960s were assumed to know which voters needed to take literacy tests and which ones didn’t.
Every argument presented in this thread and in every other boils down to one of those claims.
No actual argument explaining why same sex marriage is a bad idea has been presented. Certainly, nothing you have posted has stepped outside those lines. (Actually, while disputing statements made by other posters, you have presented no reason to oppose SSM.) steabo thinks its icky and presents self-contradicting or factually inaccurate “reasons” for his opposition. magellan01 opposes it because we have not done it before. You made a claim for God, but ducked away from an actual discussion at the same time.
I make no claim to read minds and really don’t care what your intentions are. I am addressing only the arguments presented.
If you have an argument that differs from the three I have noted, we would love to see something new in these discussions.
The above, finally and Thank God, is a valid objection. It actually looks at what MY idea is and argues against it. Yes, laws can be changed or repealed, directly or indirectly. But that is true of any law. Even one that grants marriage rights to SS couples.
I know you need and find comfort in being a member of the majority. I’m happy to report that I don’t suffer from that affliction. My presence here should have tipped you off to that. But, you do miss a lot.
I’m sure you can point to comments made by me that are even remotely close to “God hates fags”.
You seem to be confusing “no arguments that convince me” with “no arguments.”
Also, you seem to be confusing “no arguments that convince me” with “it, therefore makes it false”.
The claim for God, when I mentioned, was to indicated that it convinces me. it would be silly for me to go there on a board like. I’m not ducking away.
Post 346 ends with a question; I’d appreciate an answer to it. Again, not at all trying to trick you, and I hope my prose remains as transparent as Saran Wrap; just trying to figure out where our disagreement is.
Edit: to save time, here’s the question:
Let’s say for a minute that they’re [i.e., definitions’re] not statutes. Is it your position, then, that the separate-but-equal language appears in the definitions, not in the statutes?