# Could empirical evidence change your position on gay marriage? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 21, 2015, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-empirical-evidence-change-your-position-on-gay-marriage/725742 "2015-07-21T00:56:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-empirical-evidence-change-your-position-on-gay-marriage/725742/41 "2015-07-21T19:16:35Z")
> [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](#): > > Do you mean that marriage is not any of the government’s business, that it is your position that marriage should not be any of the government’s business, or that empirical data is not any of the government’s business? I definitely think empiricism has a place in policymaking (and that, as long as people are going to pair off, the state should acknowledge this fact) I see the marital contract as just that, a contract. To restrict who can sign any contract based _strictly_ on sex violates the “equal protection” clause in the 14[sup]th[/sup] Amendment, with a few exceptions (like monitoring the high school’s girls’ shower room). It’s none of the government’s business which sex the co-signers are. Thank you for pointing out my poorly stated position, my bad … ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-empirical-evidence-change-your-position-on-gay-marriage/725742/42 "2015-07-21T19:17:42Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > We’ve done the studies, and we already know that B is true. The response to the OP should be “Can empirical evidence change _your_ position?” ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-empirical-evidence-change-your-position-on-gay-marriage/725742/43 "2015-07-21T19:25:56Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > There’s no need to fight the hypothetical. For example, were academic research to establish a scientific consensus that same-sex marriage ceremonies were actually dark rites involving the sacrifice of infants to Cthulu in order to bring on a millennium of darkness and pain to the entire planet, I would definitely reconsider my position on the matter. Sure, but pro or con? ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-empirical-evidence-change-your-position-on-gay-marriage/725742/44 "2015-07-21T20:21:01Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > Wow, out of 50 states, Mississippi ranks 51[sup]st[/sup] in life expectancy … I guess that relates to the education rankings. Ah! District of Columbia…I was a tad confused. [Infant Mortality](http://www.statista.com/statistics/252064/us-infant-mortality-rate-by-ethnicity-2011/), too! Go Mississippi! ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-empirical-evidence-change-your-position-on-gay-marriage/725742/45 "2015-07-21T20:25:50Z")
> [@Construct](#): > > a) children raised by same-sex parents have worse life outcomes in a number of universally accepted measures of life quality than children raised by heterosexual couples. I’m not sure this matters, even if it were true. Plenty of characteristics can have a correlation with worse life outcomes for children (history of alcoholism, criminal record, lack of education, poverty, being from Mississippi, having short or ugly parents, etc). We don’t prevent those people from getting married. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-empirical-evidence-change-your-position-on-gay-marriage/725742/46 "2015-07-21T20:29:32Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > There is empirical evidence that people over the age of fifty tend to make bad parents due to the fact that one or both of the parents are likely to die off before the child turns 18. Should people over the age of fifty be allowed to marry? Dead people do typically make bad parents. ---
**Author:** ![Lowdown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Lowdown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lowdown)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-empirical-evidence-change-your-position-on-gay-marriage/725742/47 "2015-07-21T20:45:39Z")
I’m late to the party. Since A and B really don’t have anything to do with marriage (gay or otherwise), no, it would not change my position. That was easy! Next question! ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-empirical-evidence-change-your-position-on-gay-marriage/725742/48 "2015-07-21T20:50:08Z")
I’ll fight the hypothetical - as I don’t believe you could have or find sufficient evidence on either side of the coin that wasn’t biased by what the researcher(s) intended to prove. Beyond that, there are _plenty_ of examples now in real life where heterosexual parents have had detrimental impacts on the lives of their children, yet we don’t question their rights at all. And no - it would not change my opinion one bit . ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-empirical-evidence-change-your-position-on-gay-marriage/725742/49 "2015-07-21T23:27:14Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > I’m curious as to what the OP would suggest in the event that children raised by same-sex parents turned out to have significantly **better** life outcomes in a number of universally accepted measures of life quality than children raised by heterosexual couples. Would this change your position on opposite-sex marriage? Should this then lead to same-sex couples getting preference in adoptions? It would prove that Hetero Sex is an Abomination unto THE LORD, just as God Himself told us at Genesis 19:8 > [@Genesis 19:8 KJV](#): > > Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof. Wherefore THE LORD sent Lot had his family forth from Sodom, and He did rain Hell Fire and Brimstone upon the city to destroy it, because Lot offered his virgin daughters to the rapacious masses of Sodom that they might do to them as was good in their eyes: Then did God destroy Sodom because of the Hetero Sex that Lot offered in his virgin daughters unto the rapacious masses, which is an Abomination. And that’s why, to this very day, they don’t let children have Sex Education in school. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-empirical-evidence-change-your-position-on-gay-marriage/725742.md?page=2)