Gay marriage bashers: have you actually MET any gay people?

Unfortunately, I don’t have evidence handy to present. It is speculation, as you pointed out, based on my view of how a successful society works. While I’m somewhat libertarian in my views, I have an extreme cynicism about the extremes to which the average person would go if left to their own devices.

As far as I can tell, this debate has gotten stuck on one fundamental point. One side holds that marriage is a religious institution that the government has wrongfully gotten involved in. The other side holds that marriage is a social institution that religions have wrongfully co-opted. These two views lead to fundamentally different conclusions on what should be done.

All other things aside, I still don’t see how you reconcile these two particular points, unless you believe that the government should not be granting any special rights to married/unioned couples that are not granted to single people. I’m sorry if I’m being dense. This argument is pretty complex, and I may have missed a better explanation somewhere.

Make sure you don’t put me on the side that says marriage is a religious institution: that is slightly but crucially different from what I’m saying. I’m saying that marriage has strong religious connotations and has religion entwined with it.

Not at all. As I stated earlier, I think the government has a vested interest in recognizing that human beings often form semipermanent partnerships with one another, usually but not always related to a sexual and emotional relationship. The government ought to have a simple way for people in such a partnership to attain a variety of related rights toward one another – hospital visitation rights, child rearing rights, tax filing rights, inheritance rights, etc.

What the government ought NOT care about are my reasons for entering into such a partnership. If I and my brother decide that we’re the only two people we can trust on this planet and want to attain such rights toward one another, the government shouldn’t have any reason to deny us that bundle of rights, or to make it difficult for us to achieve. If I decide my best friend and I are suited to such an arrangement, that’s between my best friend and myself.

Of course, people should be able to enter into unions with more than one other person. However, when that happens, there’s not an easy bundle of rights to give out – different “group marriages” (for lack of a better term) will want to handle property rights, visitation rights, inheritance rights etc. differently, and so there’s not an efficient one-size-fits-all structure the government can offer them. Folks wanting such a multiple-person union are gonna have to suck it up and apply for rights individually, therefore.

Daniel

Ok. Let me rephrase. You believe that the institution of marriage is strongly entwined with religion, and because of that the government can and should remove itself. The other side believes that the institution of marriage is a strongly social institution naturally regulated by the government, and because of that religion should not be considered to own the term.

I actually completely agree with you here.

In fact, I’ve argued a point very similar to this in other threads. While I like the idea as an ideal, unfortunately I don’t think that the replacement of marriage with civil union in the current homosexual marriage debate is the right way to go. It’s a much bigger step than I think most people would tolerate, which makes it much more difficult to accomplish.

Personally, I think it will be easier to remove religion from marriage and then work towards additional modifications than to remove government from marriage and set up an alternative pathway.

I’m not sure you’re right. Bricker, a conservative, has voiced opposition to federal mandating of SSM but endorses this approach. My father-in-law, a staunch but reasonable conservative, endorses this approach. In this thread, AdmiralQ, a self-described “hardcore conservative,” endorses this approach.

What I have NOT seen yet is someone that opposes gay marriage but that opposes this plan more. Assuming we can get the pro-SSM folks on board with this plan, from what i’ve seen, it’d have an easier time passing than a plan to write into law the SSM-allowing definition of marriage.

Admittedly, this is only anecdotal evidence, but I’ve not seen any evidence to the contrary.

Daniel

All of you gays who think otherwise need to get your head checked as well as go back to elementary school. Marriage is, always has been and always will be about reproduction and the rearing of their young. If you think it isn’t, you give me one good non-reproduction related reason why incestal marriage (a mother marrying her son, a brother marrying his sister, etc) is wrong. Don’t give me your pathetic excuse about infertile couples and overage marriages, because that’s what they are - pathetic excuses that take exceptional cases to be granted as the norm.

You want gay marriages, justify incest, beastiality, paedophilia etc. It’s no better.

[checks forum]

Excellent, I’m in the BBQ Pit. Permit me to beat you over the head with logic, you cretinous bigot.

You are currently equating gay marriage (which harms nobody and provides equal legal, financial, and medical rights to a large subculture that is frequently discriminated against) with incest and paedophilia (which cause permanent mental anguish and potentially genetic aberration in the case of incestual reproduction). Because of this, I am forced to conclude that you are a moron. The future will not remember your kind with much fondness.

You are incorrect. Please explain why marriage between couples who do not concieve or waive their rights to concieve are allowed to marry. Do you advocate taking away their rights to marry as well? Oh wait, you’ve anticipated my query–

See, the problem is, it’s a perfectly legitimate counterexample. An argument fails when one can provide an example that violates your conclusion. Look–

Premise 1: Marriage is defined by successful reproduction.
Premise 2: Homosexuals are incapable of successful reproduction.
Conclusion: Therefore, homosexuals may not marry.

This is your argument. It blows.

Infertility and adoption are instances where reproduction is unsuccessful, but our society still permits marriage. Therefore, your argument fails. Now come up with another one.

Do you have a reason that you do not approve of gay marriage besides bigotry? Because honestly, that’s about all I’m seeing so far.

Fuck you, you ignorant shitheaded excuse for a primate.

It doesn’t matter what anybody tells you about this issue, so stop pretending that you actually give a fuck about anybody elses opinions, facts, or positions. No matter what kind of evidence is presented to you, no matter what kind of argument is made, no matter how well it’s defended, you’re going to cling to your outdated and primitive beliefs until you die, your bigotry still clenched to your bosom.

You come into a five-page long thread without having read a tenth of it, and parade your ignorance and prejudice like you’ve just gotten first prize at a shiteating contest. You have no intention of ever changing your mind on this issue, so why don’t you just start frothing at the mouth and yelling “Kill gays! Kill gays! Gays bad! Gays evil! AAAAAAA!” until they come to give you your meds again.

I’m sick and tired of you bigoted snots coming out of the woodwork every time this issue is discussed, and showing off your ignorance and hatred as if it’s the first time we’ve ever seen it, as if you’re the only creature on the planet who’s survived despite being brainless and heartles. Unfortunately, your type is all too common, and you’ve got nothing new to add, so why don’t you find some folks who’ve maybe never thought about this issue before, and have their heads as firmly sphincterlocated as you do, and maybe you can impress them if they’re no smarter than a retarded armadillo on quaaludes.

Fuckwad.

Who says it IS wrong? Provided both the individuals involved are over the age of consent and there’s no element of coercion, what grounds are there for legally forbidding such a relationship?

YOU’RE the one who feels incestuous relationships are “obviously wrong” - so the burden of proving that assertation falls on YOU.

(Oh, and as long as we allow known carriers of genetic diseases to marry each other and freely reproduce, arguing that we shouldn’t allow incestuous unions because of possible genetic risks to the potential offspring of such a union is a load of crap.)

“Exceptional cases”?! What rock have you been living under, anyway? Approximately one in five couples today is childless - that’s hardly rare. Plenty of older people marry, too. And as for reproduction - lots of people have children without ever marrying. Marriage and reproduction are not so tightly linked as you seem to believe; historically, marriage has been more about defining which adults have sexual access to each other in order to reduce sexual tensions in the community, establishing kinship ties between unrelated families (very important in the days before welfare or banking, when you looked to kin for aid in times of trouble), and ensuring orderly inheritence of property than it has been about reproduction.

Incest - see above. Bestiality and pedophilia are red herrings; they can easily be forbidden while allowing same-sex marriages on the grounds that neither children nor animals are capable of giving meaningful consent to such a relationship.

I think it’s you who needs to go back to elementary school. You obviously need to take a few basic logic classes.

Then go advocate incest to be legalized and viewed as ‘right’ first.

You are one to define meaningful consent? You cannot, so you cannot define them as red herrings. Sex with same sex and sex with an animal and sex with a pre-puberty consenting child all results in non-reproductive sex. Ok?

No… I really DONT give a fuck’s ass about what gay fucks think. OK? Because you are freaks that go against our own biological makeup but refuse to acknowledge that fact. You want your ‘thoughts’ to be acknowledged, then acknowledge the obvious first. You are FREAK SECOND CLASS CITIZENS.

And there you have it folks. The first honest straight supremacist I’ve seen around these parts.

Have fun becoming extinct, now.

Read this bit of your quote again… “which cause permanent mental anguish and potentially genetic aberration in the case of incestual reproduction”… and again… “which cause permanent mental anguish and potentially genetic aberration in the case of incestual reproduction”… and again… “which cause permanent mental anguish and potentially genetic aberration in the case of incestual reproduction”. Where could you have gone wrong.

Hmm…
Dumb fuck.

Look! A new argument!

Premise 1: If one thing and another thing have the same end result, they are equally right/wrong
Premise 2: Homosexual sex and bestiality have the same end result (no reproduction)
Conclusion: Therefore, homosexual sex and bestiality are morally equivalent

To begin with: you are a fuckhead.

Hey! Murder and self-defense end in the same thing–a dead body! They are both illegal LOLOMGWTFBBQ!

Look, try banging your head against something until you get this–

Homosexual sex has negligible social harm.

Pedophilia and incest arguably do social harm.

If you can make a coherent argument that proves that homosexual sex is a threat to society, I’d love to hear it. Until then, eat a dick.

Since you’re basing your objection to gay marriage on the “fact” that they’re non-reproductive, I think your “point” falls flat.

You know, that is, almost verbatim what I was thinking.

Homosexuality, paedophilia, incest, beastality, necrophilia all do what social harm? You persist that homosexual sex has negligible? then what of the others? No… I bet you cant answer, because if social harm resultant from homo sex is negligible, then all the rest are as well.

Leonard “J.” Crabs will be contacting you as soon as he overcomes his hangover and remembers who he is.

No, I’m sorry, that would be a non-reproductive sex act, and completely disallowed in the New America.

In the absence of the reproductive argument, I would conclude that incest is acceptable. But you are absofuckinglutely backwards if you expect me to make an argument without the reproduction clause. That’s like saying, “Tell me why murder is wrong, but don’t give me a reason that bases it on killing being immoral.”

You are a sad, sad individual. You have no place in a modern society. You’re a fucking anachronism, a throwback to a less tolerant and backwards era. Bigots like you inevitably fade away. I think you know this.

Good riddance.

Hey, why the hell are you still pretending you care what anyone else says about this? Your mind is made up! It’s shut to new input, you’re invulnerable to facts, opinions, statements or questions. Just state your position, keep stating it, and leave it at that; all this pretense at actual argument is disappointing, coming from you.

I thought you were a whole new brand of straight supremacist, a bigot who’s not afraid to trumpet his ignorance loudly and widely. It was disgustingly refreshing, like carbonated sweat. If you keep acting like you actually care what people say, someone might mistake you for a run-of-the-mill bigot, and that’d be a shame.

Your ignorance deserves to be celebrated. You contemptible piece of rodent crap.

I’m sorry, are you actually asking what (social) harm is done by child molestation?

Do you have a brain, or is all thinking done by the enormous pile of rat shit in your skull?

carrot, I wonder how many simulposts in the history of the SDMB have independently come up with rodent feces analogies?

This moron certainly is inspiring.