Gay marriage opponents, listen up: I've got a secret to tell you

[The_Weird_One]

@outlierrn

Hey Magellon01, it appears that nobody can support your optimum male/female parenting model.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081126/ap_on_re_us/gay_adoptions

That’s great news! Thanks for sharing it.

[magellan01]

@outlierrn

Hey Magellon01, it appears that nobody can support your optimum male/female parenting model.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081126/ap_on_re_us/gay_adoptions
‘A judge on Tuesday ruled that a strict Florida law that blocks gay people from adopting children is unconstitutional, declaring there was no legal or scientific reason for sexual orientation alone to prohibit anyone from adopting.’
‘Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union, who represent Gill, said the case was the first in the nation in which numerous experts in child psychology, social work and other fields testified that there is no science to justify a gay adoption ban.’

'Lederman rejected all the state’s arguments soundly.

“It is clear that sexual orientation is not a predictor of a person’s ability to parent,” the judge wrote. “A child in need of love, safety and stability does not first consider the sexual orientation of his parent. The exclusion causes some children to be deprived of a permanent placement with a family that is best suited to their needs.” ’

Wow. I don’t know what to say, except that from this point, on I will be someone who DOES support gay adoption.

Oh, wait—I’ve already stated numerous times in this thread and others that I support gay adoption. :smack: Never mind.

[magellan01]

@levdrakon

Good advice, and I’m trying to follow it, but someone in another thread linked to this article about trolling by none other than our own I don’t want to argue with Magellan. I really don’t. But I find it hard to let him get the last word in, lest some innocent wander by and think “that makes sense.”

Trolling? Too funny.

[magellan01]

@Helen_s_Eidolon

Am I correct is surmising that these paragraphs are the essence of your opposition to SSM? And that a convenient way to sum it up is that marriage is an institution that, for the good of society, should stay the same?

ETA: In other words, that marriage is an institution that HAS remained essentially unchanged for a long period of time and, in this immutable form, is the basis of all stable societies.

I might not say that it is complete, but what you quoted I stand by. I’d quibble though, by saying that it has been “immutable”.

[levdrakon]

@magellan01

Oh, wait—I’ve already stated numerous times in this thread and others that I support gay adoption. :smack: Never mind.

You still haven’t stated how you’re going to tell an adopted kid he’s not a real kid, or that his or her parents aren’t real parents. Are you ever going to articulate that, without really pissing off adoptive parents?

You also need to articulate how you’re going to tell the kid’s BIOLOGICAL parent and his or her mate are not married because marriage is only for you. Ever going to do that?

[outlierrn]

Did you maybe want to produce any kind of evidence to support your belief that a male/female marriage is a better parenting unit? That was the point of the post, the court couldn’t be convinced there is one.

[magellan01]

@Miller

Actually, in the last election, you’re the one who voted to change the marriage laws. So, really, the onus was on you to justify your fears of catastrophe if we legalize gay marriage. So far, all you’ve been able to come up with is that straights will feel less special if gay can marry, and won’t get married themselves. You haven’t explained why this would happen, or provided any evidence that anyone on the planet actually feels this way. You’ve just pulled it, wholesale, out of your ass and used it as an excuse to deny people their civil rights.

No, I don’t think so. You can claim that and be correct from a technical standpoint. But just because a few people overrode the desires and the wisdom of the people doesn’t mean they were Right, in a moral sense. Fortunately, the people took control of the situation. Unless you believe that what ever winds up on the books is automatically morally correct. I don’t think you want to make that argument, do you?

@Miller

A hundred years ago, you could have said exactly the same thing about women’s sufferage. Two hundred years ago, you could have said the same thing about democratic government. Thank God, voices like your own proved to be in the minority back then, else where would we be today?

I think you jump to a hasty conclusion here; that I would have argued against those things. Possibly, I really don’t know. But even if I did, I think that the subsequent discussion would have swayed me. Of course you realize that this is just the same fallacy I mentioned before, prettified in velvet.

But the fact is that a vote is a vote. (Particularly if you have a secret ballot!) The vote itself doesn’t live on from the day that is cast with any hint of sex or color attached to it. A marriage does. And that has consequences for society.

@Miller

Okay, the idea that homosexual marriage represents a risk to our culture? That’s inherently homophobic. So when you ask people why they keep calling you a homophobe for opposing gay marriage, you can look at that sentence and have your answer.

That’s the beauty of the word, isn’t it?! You can use it to cover a pretty wide swath of territory. SO we now have a built in litmus test for homophobia regardless if the person fears, dislikes, or finds gays icky. I gotta get myself one of those words.

@Miller

Except that every reputable scientific study on the effects of same-sex parenting on children has shown absolutely no discernable difference in the child’s development as compared to straight couples.

The studies mean squat if you ask me, as SSM hasn’t been around long enough for us to see the effects of it. Also, they are bound to do rather well. Even if the researcher is honest enough to seek enough random couples (and single parents, as many of them do), I would expect a random heterosexual couple to not do as well as a random gay couple. Why" Well we know that there are plenty of clueless hetero couples who might not be great parents. Gay parents, on the other hand, are a highly select group. They are highly motivated to become parents and have had to think about it long and hard and jump through many hoops. But, I’m already on board with gay adoption so I’m not sure why you bring this up.

[magellan01]

@Rubystreak

I would contend that oppressing gay people and denying/stripping them of rights presents a risk to our culture, and indeed to what American means.

Oh, please. “Oppressing” gay people? With Prop 8? Please explain to me how in the world Prop 8 oppresses gay people.

@Rubystreak

I certainly hope that at this point magellan01 can understand why we think he is a bigoted homophobe. If he continues to pretend that we have this impression of him due to our preconceptions, or our failures to comprehend his nuanced stance, I will have to assume he’s being disingenuous from here on out.

You really think I’m being disingenuous? At this point? Wow. Let’s see:

homophobe
bigot
troll
disingenuous

And that’s just from this page. Anything else?

By the way, extra points for slipping into group-speak. It’s been a pleasure.

[magellan01]

@MrDibble

There’s a combination of the fallacies of excluded middle and argument by assertion at work here, I think, along with a dash of special pleading.

It can just as easily be asserted that being more inclusive makes marriage more special, as anything more of the Human Family can share in is made more special -say, arbitrarily, the more countries enact Arbor Day, the more special that day becomes because of everyone who shares it. In other words, rather than equating “special” with “exclusive”, I’m equating “special” with “admirable”.

But that argument, I’d say, is easily dispensed with. While you are correct that something gaining critical mass can make it more special by having more people aware of it, we run into a problem with language and specificity. We move from the general to the more specific. We move from “shiny things” to “diamonds” to spectacular diamonds" to “the Hope Diamond”. Specialness is not tied to inclusion, but exclusion. The more things a word or a phrase omits, the more special the things (thing) it doesn’t not omit. Let’s say I ask you to buy a $1,000 raffle ticket for a car? Interested? How about a new car? A new Italian car? How about a new Lamborghini.

Sorry for belaboring the point, but you get the idea.

@MrDibble

And the excluded middle comes in when you say SSM means the sexes of the individuals play “NO ROLE” in our understanding. It may play a small role, but that role is entirely subservient to the love component. It will always be there - if Cow-orker Bob comes in and simply says “I’m getting married next month”, and we don’t know that Bob is gay, it will still be our natural first assumption that he’s marrying a Bobette. That’s always going to be the case, unless we have reasons to think different.

I love this post. You are correct about the excluded middle, but I think that some people here give it no weight at all. At least that what comes across in some of their posts. Yours is the first that seems to say that it’s okay to even acknowledge that there is a difference. Now having done so, we have agreement that marriage is understood to have two criteria that are taken into account:

1. love between two people strong enough that they wish to commit to each other
2. the fact that this union has been represented by couples consisting of one man and one woman

You, I assume, put all the weight on #1. Enough to easily override any weight you might give the first. But that, by your own admission is not zero weight. Fair enough.

Others weigh the two criteria differently. Maybe it’s as simple as saying that in the discussion I focus more on what marriage has been and you focus on what you think marriage should be. That would explain a lot of the discrepancy with our weighting. But I see it more as you seeing what a marriage could be. Obviously, it could. And that is up to all of us, is it not? To what degree does it behoove our society to expand the meaning of the word to include SSM? We both have ideas as to what marriage should mean from this point forward. That’s great. (Except for me, I guess. Because, for some, as soon as I take my side I’m a homophobe.:rolleyes:) I see this as an issue, like any issue that would alter one of our institutions, as one that should be debated.

[Aji_de_Gallina]

@jayjay

Of course that’s my point. We’re the only ones who do make morality. Even people who claim God makes morality are only parroting the morality that someone several thousand years ago invented and passed off as God’s word. And they’re not even actually following that, mostly…even the morality of the strictest of mainstream Christian sects doesn’t really look a whole lot like that of the early church. Jewish morality has changed substantially since the Exile (a lot of the things that the general population “knows” about Jewish religious practice is Exilic and Talmudic in nature and isn’t actually found explicitly set out in the Bible). If anyone were to actually follow the morality of the Hebrews in the Old Testament era Western society would probably view them as barbarians: slavery, sexism, polygamy, genocide, etc. Very few live as Jesus did. Very few live as the early church did. Morality is not carved in stone.

I can agree with what you say, but in my hypothetical situation the Divine Being is real and has unequivocaly expressed what is right and wrong, the video is on YouTube, so to speak, it is an objective reality.

@Polycarp

Aji de Gallina – Much as I may regret this, let me engage you. What if your hypothetical divinity is on record as regarding actions towards other humans as done towards Itself? What if its moral code mandates treating another in the same manner as one would oneself want to be treated in the reversed situation?

Now, to move from the theoretical to the actual… What if 70% of the population, and a much higher percentage of theists in the population, belong to a faith tradition that claims to believe in that particular divinity?

Has the divinity been specific insofar as to what actions are acceptable and not? If SSM has been proclaimed as good, then good it is and I would support it.

@Der_Trihs

Garbage. Power doesn’t make what you say automatically right. Assuming there is a God, he has no better right to define right and wrong than I do. And if he sends people to Hell for any reason, FAR less of a right than I do.

So ? That makes it no less evil.

In this (hypothetical) case, the divinity wrote the rulebook, like it or not.
He defines what he thinks is evil and reward or punish accordingly, even if you/we don’t like it.

[Der_Trihs]

@Aji_de_Gallina

In this (hypothetical) case, the divinity wrote the rulebook, like it or not.
He defines what he thinks is evil and reward or punish accordingly, even if you/we don’t like it.

That still doesn’t make what he says evil, evil, or what he says good, good. And if he “writes the rulebook” then it’s not ethics we are speaking of, but commands. The commands of a torturer and bigot.

[magellan01]

@Musicat

If one group is called “married” and the other is not, no matter how similar their other rights are, they do not have the same benefits. One of the benefits of being married is to say that you are.

I don’t mean this to be callous, but direct, too bad. I may want to say that I am a woman, or an Adonis, or svelt, or a musical genius, or smarter than Einstein, or a hundred other things that I can not realistically claimed having been born the way I am. That is not fault of mine. There is no shame in it. All these things, like a gay person’s inability to be “married” is simply a function of the cards we were dealt. That doesn’t mean you can’t love someone as much, or more, than a heterosexual couple. Or grow old with them. Or have a thoroughly romantic and wonderful life with them. It simply means that you’re not going to participate in one institution.

@Musicat

And if you are proposing two groups differing in name only, why call them something different unless you are trying to artificially create a distinction that doesn’t exist?

But a distinction DOES exist. Look down your pants. I want to acknowledge that. i also want their to be no distinction with the rights and benefits the two groups gain by making a commitment of love to someone.

@Musicat

On the one hand, you’re saying marriage and civil unions are the same, and on the other, that they aren’t. That’s the “separate but equal” argument in a nutshell. It worked in 1898 (Plessy) but the absurdity caught up with it in 1954 (Brown).

Yikes. Have you read the last page of this thread. I’ve commented on that false analogy thoroughly. If you have a question on a specific point, or if you think I’ve overlooked something, please point it out. But at least acknowledge what I’ve said on the subject.

[magellan01]

@levdrakon

It may already have been mentioned somewhere over the last 15 pages but if not:

Some of you speak of some intangible, theoretical “damage” SSM may cause. You simply fear it though, and can’t seem to come up with any evidence.

I can come up with very real, tangible actually does happen-type damage that denying gays the word “marriage” does to straight marriages.

It’s the institutionalized homophobia that children learn growing up. Kids learn at a very young age that gay is bad and sinful. Many of them feel they have no choice but to hide who they are, and many of them go out and enter in “straight” marriages. And let’s talk about gay teen suicide.

Those of you who vote to marginalize gays still feel good about yourselves?

I do. Yes. And I’m not sure why you introduce this blatant appeal to emotion. I’ve advocated a scenario where gays would have all the opportunities as straight people, even the ability to adopt. More important, I believe that what I’ve been advocating would make gays more accepted by society at large. They’d be seen as arguing for rights, and being reasonable by leaving alone something that people, for a variety of reasons, hold sacred. I think that’s a much clearer route to acceptance and equality than persistently trying to force your beliefs on them.

@levdrakon

Back to marriage. A lot of those gay teens that manage to not kill themselves will go on to seek this “ideal” of marriage you speak of. They will get married to an opposite sex partner, they will have kids, and those marriages will eventually be damaged.

You just gave a couple of generations of gay youth a reason to kill themselves or remain closeted and enter into an opposite sex marriage for all the wrong reasons.

I hope you sleep soundly at night knowing what you are doing, protecting this nebulous “ideal” of marriage, that doesn’t actually do any real damage but leads to very real actual damage not only to marriage, but to society.

[quote=“levdrakon, post:724, topic:471496”]

My beliefs on this issue does not keep me up at night, no. You see, I believe my idea will make society a more welcoming place for gay people as it will dissolve the hatred of and resistance to gay people. So I don’t agree with your premise. But your “A lot of those gay teens that manage to not kill themselves” wins the Drama Queen of The Thread Award. Come on man. Does it really help the discussion to be so over the top?

[magellan01]

@storyteller0910

I have tried to withdraw from this discussion as much as possible, because it was causing my blood pressure to shoot through the roof. But I’ve been reading, and I’m delurking for a moment to say that, independent of all other considerations, this:

Is the fucking stupidest argument I have heard in this arena in my life. I think it’s even stupider than the “God hates fags” argument.

Where are these mythical straight people who would choose not to get married because gay people get married, too? And are they brain damaged? Who the fuck is ever going to say some variation on, “Well, I say, Emma, I love you with the hot burning passion of a thousand suns, and I want to spend my life with you, and raise children together, and ordinarily I’d propose that we enter into the state of marriage, but ever since Arthur and Wayne tied the knot I just don’t think that marriage is special enough for us to bother with it?”

This is a bizarre scenario that will never, never, never happen. You’d be better off worrying that aliens from the planet Zoort will arrive and steal all our polyester if we allow gay marriage, because that’s actually more likely than what you propose.

Jesus, this subject brings out the fucking stupid in people.

Based on the lines that precede it, I’ll have to agree that your last line is absolutely correct.

[outlierrn]

I, for one, welcome our new Zoortian Overlords.

Still waiting for you to cite your claim that it’s 1000% more reasonable to believe that a child is best raised by a mother and a father, in light of the Florida decision

[storyteller0910]

@magellan01

Based on the lines that precede it, I’ll have to agree that your last line is absolutely correct.

Ah, trying unsuccessfully to be a clever dick; the last resort of the desperate.

I’ll ask in simpler terms since evidently you’re very, very stupid: are you married?

Would you have gotten married if gay people could?

Do you know any person, any single person in the whole world, who wouldn’t have?

[MrDibble]

@5-4-Fighting

Not disagreeing with the excellent point you’ve made (especially the 1st para. above), but I think in this thread “special” is being equated to “exclusionary.”

By magellan, sure. But there’s no reason to let the obvious implication go unsaid - to him, marriage is defined as something “special” mainly because it’s a closed club. In other words, an unashamedly selfish stance. By offering my alternative reading of specialness, I hope to highlight how … Grinch-like that attitude comes across.

[Aji_de_Gallina]

@Der_Trihs

That still doesn’t make what he says evil, evil, or what he says good, good. And if he “writes the rulebook” then it’s not ethics we are speaking of, but commands. The commands of a torturer and bigot.

Yes, it does.
There’s nothing inherently wrong about two forward passes on the same play, but for the NFL it is wrong.
One may not accept a rule and think it is wrong, but a rule it is anyway, it is not dependent on our will, unless the meaning of wrong is “I don’t like it”.

[Larry_Borgia]

@Larry_Borgia

I know I’m late to the thread but could one of the two or three anti-SSM people here please explain to me the social harm gay marriage will cause? Harm to people, that is. In other words, who will be harmed by gay marriage and how will they be harmed?

I’m not very bright so please explain in detail, with examples.

Thanks.

Still patiently waiting.

[Der_Trihs]

@Aji_de_Gallina

Yes, it does.
There’s nothing inherently wrong about two forward passes on the same play, but for the NFL it is wrong.

Not wrong as in immoral; wrong as in against the rules. God can declare his set of rules; so can I. I see no reason to consider his as any more moral than mine, and plenty of reason to consider them inferior to mine.

@Aji_de_Gallina

One may not accept a rule and think it is wrong, but a rule it is anyway, it is not dependent on our will, unless the meaning of wrong is “I don’t like it”.

We are speaking of morality, not rules.