Arguments **against** gay marriage?

Great Debates
81

There is no right to have, ie possess children.

Depends on the law, see Buck v Bell and Skinner v Oklahoma.

If there is a right to procreate, it doesn’t follow that the government must guarantee the success of that procreation, they just can’t deny it by law. The right to keep and bear arms doesn’t require the government to buy us all guns, the right to free exercise of religion doesn’t require the government to build churches, and a right to procreate doesn’t mean the government has to subsidize artificial insemination.

That’s a subsidy of marriage, not procreation. You wrote:

In what way does procreation need subsidization? It pretty well takes care of itself, as the billions of unsubsidized humans alive at the moment can attest.

So what? The same is true of many heterosexual couples. This is a distinction without a difference.

82

As can those of unmarried couples; marriage provides no particular help or hindrance in this.

The point being that I can’t help but think that the state’s interest here should be in helping provide a stable environment in which to raise kids, rather than bear kids.

Or to put it another way, assisted vs. unassisted procreation is nothing more than a red herring. (And it’s past its “use by” date). :slight_smile:

83

I don’t get why the use of reproductive technology has any bearing on marriage. Heterosexual couples were using it first, and will continue to do so in higher numbers that homosexuals even after gay marriage becomes legal in the U.S., I expect.

84

What, explicitly, do you think is not equal between heterosexual and homosexual marriages? Throwing out bad analogies lets your audience know that you do not approve of one, but it provides no genuine explanation why you would hold such a belief. We see lots of people saying they don’t like the idea of SSM. We rarely see a reason posted why they hold that belief. In fact, the title of this thread is arguments against gay marriage, not fact free bad analogies to gay marriage.

85

This is simply not true. Children of first-generation incestuous unions have higher rates of some defects than those of non-incestuous unions, but the vast majority are perfectly healthy.

Also, cousin marriages are only prohibited in 25 states.

86

It’s been my experience that it boils down to one of two points (or both):

  1. My holy document says it’s a sin unto God (Insert like 4 smileys here.)

  2. Ew. That’s gross!

Your average person doesn’t seem to have much trouble copping to the first. But people rarely want to admit that the second is the main reason, even if it’s true–probably because they know how it makes them look. And a lot of the people convinced of #1 will have heard that homosexuals are all pedophiles, that homosexual couples will invariably raise homosexual children…all that drivel.

This issue seems pretty clear cut to me (although I disagree with the pro-lifers, at the very least I can understand that the question of ‘life’ is a muddier topic and might be debated.) Those who don’t want to be in a same-sex marriage shouldn’t get themselves into a same-sex marriage. And I guess, if they choose, pray for God to bless the sinners always. Idunno.

87

Disregard

88

I should have stated that the gov should support ‘publicly-committed and independently procreative relationships’ (ie: marriage).

The same is true, but only incidentally so, not necessarily.

89

I have made the proposition that there is an objective difference between the two. The analogy was to explain the proposition, rather than to stand as an argument. I don’t see why it is a bad analogy, or why it shows the audience that I favor one over the other. In the analogy, I stated no preference for a particular type of business organization; I simply stated that they were different.

90

But all marriages aren’t procreative ones, see the infertile and the childless-by-choice.

If the government wants to support public, committed relationships in which children are raised, that includes same-sex couples as well. They do raise children, so denying them marriage works against having those children raised in public, committed relationships.

It’s still a distinction without a difference. There is already a subset of marriages now in which the partners cannot conceive without outside assistance. Adding to that subset will do what, again?

91

You contradicted yourself here (note my use of the term ‘more likely’). Plus, you mentioned the offspring of first-generation incestuous unions, but if we apply the categorical imperative, then there would be no ‘first-generation’; each succeeding generation of boys would seek to marry their sisters. What would be the effects of that?

Shouldn’t it be explicitly outlawed everywhere?

92

Why?

93

Tradition?

94

Because they’re so attractive?

95

Well, regardless of what your experience has been, I fall into neither category. I consider myself a deist who approaches all human text with caution, and all the works of nature with wonder. While I do regard male-on-male sexuality as inherently unhealthy, I do not begrudge anyone his sensual pleasures.

If I am prejudiced, it is only against the idea that words and concepts have no meaning, and I believe marriage has meaning. To this end, I propose the following proposition:

If enough men didn’t want women, and enough women didn’t want men, human beings would not even exist. Any society that takes itself seriously must place the relationship of a man and a women above all other relationships. The fact is that modern societies great and small do indeed recognize the public commitment of a man and women to each other, under the obvious conclusion that they will have children and be committed to the care, education, and training of those children for life.

Indeed, that marriage exists as an institution independent of national, religious, linguistic, and cultural boundaries is evidence (circumstantial, yes) that this institution in fact predates the formation of these boundaries. This seems to be evolution at work; those societies that discovered marriage as a tool for establishing responsibility for the next generation are the ones that survived and prospered; societies in which every type of non-procreative sexual delight became normalized were not able to produce enough healthy children at replacement rates, and they presumably died off.

Marriage laws exist in every country on earth; every religious confession has rites confirming marriage; every language has a word for marriage; and every culture has special dishes, decorations, and sayings associated with the marriage ceremony.

One can offer every particular argument about how not every child comes from marriage, or that not every marriage produces children, but these do not detract from the phenomenon of this universal human institution.

I argue that civil unions are well within the common law tradition to provide a framework of special rights for gay couples who want take care of each other.

If you wish to accuse me of racism-grade bigotry for this view, I’m sorry to hear that, but my opinion will be changed only by reason, not by fear.

96

OK, what if only half of the boys continued this tradition?

97

Again, what makes you think this is a possibility? It’s like saying that people shouldn’t have toilets because “What if everybody flushed at the same time?”.

98

Because its where they came from.

99

If you’re not going to use reason in your arguments, asking us to use reason to rebut them seems to be just a bit…unreasonable, don’t you think?

100

Indeed, my first argument that they would all follow the example of what produced them doesn’t seem reasonable, but why shouldn’t half (or a sizable portion) of them wish to follow such an example? Should we expect them to think it was wrong?