You can disagree with it all you want. I can respect that. Perhaps you find the concept icky. What I can’t respect is using the force of law to mandate others to follow your beliefs.
I don’t sauerkraut. I think it is the most filthy, vile, disgusting “food” ever devised by man. But does that mean I’m going to force my personal opinion on everyone else and vote to outlaw it for everybody? What gives me that right?
What if you thought that sauerkraut was bad for the environment, that eating it made everybody evil and, oh I don’t know. You just thought that it was bad for civilization. Now I know I’m stretching things a bit. No way sauerkraut is bad for civilization, but I think that ssm and a lot of common practices today ARE bad for civilization. So I will vote to protect civilization whenever given the choice.
Ok. I’ll give you that. And?
Perhaps some people might think that sauerkraut is bad for the environment and so on. But the fact is, it’s not, and we know it. Eating sauerkraut harms nobody, other than perhaps the person ingesting it if they eat too much.
In just the same way, you think SSM is bad for civilization. But unless you can offer up conrete factual evidence to support that thought, there’s no reason to impose your thoughts on others.
Like I said, “No way sauerkraut is bad for civilization.”
But that’s exactly what Card and I were trying to do, offer up reasons why we believe that it is bad for civilization. Now as far as FACTS. Not really possible without doing both or running some awful human experiments. But you are doing the same thing, you have the opinion that SSM is better for society than outlawing it. Why is your opinion any better than mine? Sure you might feel that I am personally against you. But I’m not allowed to get angry at you for weakening the sacredness of marriage and doing what I feel is ruining the world? So it’s your opinion vs. mine. And that is why we vote. Majority rules.
I can only find one single example in Card’s ENTIRE essay where he actually presents any argument that SSM would be harmful.
He argues that the Massachusetts court has overstepped its bounds. I think he’s wrong, but some agree. However, that does not in any way form an argument that SSM would cause harm.
He argues existing marriage law is not discriminatory. That’s simply wrong, but even if it were right, again, it does not present any argument that SSM causes harm.
He claims “marriage” as traditionally defined would not include SSM. True, albeit missing the point, but there’s no argument there of social harm.
He argues that divorce is up. He makes some silly, anecdotal and false statements here (“it seems almost as rare to find someone whose parents have never been divorced”) but okay, divorce is bad. How does that have anything to do with SSM? If marriage is GOOD, then logically, isn’t having more people married a good thing? If a 50% divorce rate is bad, isn’t a 100% never married rate also bad? He never even attempts here to argue SSM causes harm.
He argues (absent any supporting evidence) that there’s some sort of war against the family. Again, no argument here about the harm SSM will cause.
This goes on for some time, but at the heart of it Card’s only argument that SSM is bad is his claim that lacking male and female role models will harm children. This is linked in with the notion that SSM will cause a “loss of trust” in the family.
You know, that might be true. Or maybe it isn’t. Can you provide objective evidence it’s true?
Except that Card’s “arguments” have already been shredded in this thread, and you haven’t defended your viewpoint from those counterarguments. And as for “awful human experiments”, feel free to keep an eye on our society up here to see if it crumbles into nothingness, since gays have been getting married for a while now.
I have been. I’ve been watching as kids kill each other in schools. I’ve been watching the streets become more and more dangerous at night. I’ve been watching halloween change from a light and fun filled candy filled night for the kids, to a night where kids aren’t allowed outside. I’ve been watching as selfish people sue companies for millions for spilling their own coffee on themselves. I could go on but you get my meaning. Now of course SSM isn’t to blame for any of this since SSM didn’t really exist until now. But the devaluation of the family, lack parental supervision, and reduction of good role models IS to blame. SSM continues that trend, IMO.
I had a reply all ready to go but, on preview, Gorsnak makes my exact point.
I do have one thing, though, that I do not believe has been addressed in this thread: most of Card’s article doesn’t even attempt to argue against gay marriage. Instead, he often argues against gay adoption, a completely different issue. The argument that gay parents may not be the best for children is completely and totally irrelevent to the debate over gay marriage.
Now, on to prisoner:
Cite?
Cheese. Is that you guys’ answer to anything you disagree with? Of course there’s no cite. But what else would be at the root of children murdering one another?
Ummmmm.
Okay, how’s about this. Go back, read what I read again. Then try to respond to it in such a way as to address what I said. Okay?
Or perhaps just continue reading, and I’ll restate my point. Canada has legally recognized same-sex marriages. Not quite everywhere yet, but getting close, and federal legislation should be coming down the pipes within a few months. Moreover, full-fledged legal marriages have been going on in some locations for a year and a half now, and gay couples have been able to get de facto common law status for rather longer than that.
Hence, you don’t have to run any experiments to see what the results of legally recognized civil marriages for gays will be. You can just watch us.
As for your incoherent rant about how society is going down the tubes, if you want to be taken seriously, you need to (1) establish that crime rates, etc, actually are getting worse. In other words: Cite? I believe crime rates, teenage pregnancy rates, etc., are actually mostly on the decline. (2) You need to identify the causes of these purported trends. And (3) you need to demonstrate that legal recognition of same-sex relationships is related in some way or other to those causes. You need to show how recognizing gay marriages will devalue families. I mean, gays have families too, you know. Recognizing them legally would strengthen their families, and have essentially no impact on any other families. So on the face of things, it would appear that support for gay marriage is actually pro-family. If you want to assert otherwise, you have to explain to us how legally recognizing same-sex marriages is going to result in negative consequences. What sociological mechanisms are involved? Where is the cause and effect?
Since you have in fact done none of these things, your position here is no better than Blalron’s sauerkraut hater. The SKH denounces the eating of sauerkraut, but can’t articulate how, exactly, the horrible consequences of sauerkraut-eating he rails against are actually caused by the eating of sauerkraut. In exactly the same way, you have this list of horrible things happening, and you say that gays marrying will make them worse, but you haven’t provided the least bit of evidence that gay marriage actually will make them worse. Heck, you haven’t even suggested a plausible causal mechanism for how it could make them worse.
Sorry, I was trying to keep my opinions out of this discussion. This discussion is supposed to be about OSC’s article. I suggest you start with the 3 links in the OP. I described at great length my own personal opinions.
And let’s not forget, this is about personal opinion. I have a right to vote. And so do you. You should be ashamed of trying to force me to vote your way.
Hm. Speaking of facts, I know a number of people who refuse to get married because the laws enshrine discrimination against same-sex couples, and who, in fact, will try to persuade other people not to get married – or even, in extreme cases, to get divorced – because of said marriage discrimination. At the same time, I know of no marriages that were weakened or destroyed due to same-sex couples gaining marriage equality; the closest I can come are cases of same-sex couples later divorcing, and as counterarguments go, that’s a touch on the specious side.
Evidence, admittedly anecdotal: marriage discrimination damages marriage itself. Me, I’m in favor of marriage; I have personal experience that marriage discrimination is destroying marriage. Therefore, I oppose marriage discrimination.
“Cite” isn’t just an offhand comment, though, it’s an honest question.
You seem to be saying things are worse in that kids are running amok, but I’d honestly like to see evidence that it’s true. Here in Canada, where SSM has gone further than it has there, youth crime ISN’T up. It’s actually quite a bit lower than it has been in times past. Youth crime (and crime overall) in the USA was down too, last I checked, from its peak in the late 70’s and early 80’s.
The streets are NOT more dangerous at night than they were 25 years ago by any objective measure. They’re safer.
If you’re going to claim that the breakdown of the family is destroying society, you at least have to prove that
A) Families and breaking down, and
B) Society is worse off.
What some folks are trying to tell you is that they may not necessarily believe either of those claims are true. 100 years ago, there was vastly more drug abuse than there is now, truly devastating poverty was far more common (I’m talking USA here) and teenaged pregnancy was commonplace. The Good Old Days weren’t really as good as we like to remember them.
On top of that, even if you DO provide some evidence things are worse off, you then have to prove they’re specifically worse off because the “family” is under attack, and then you have to prove SSM will continue that attack.
It may just be that I’m stupid, but wouldn’t creating more marriages create more family units?
You seem to still be suffering from confusion. Mr. Card’s “arguments” have been shredded by multiple posters in this thread. He has nothing. And you have offered no rebuttal to those posters who have responded point by point to Orson’s diatribe.
Second, I’m not trying to force you to vote my way. I’m trying to convince you to vote my way. I won’t coerce you in any way to vote in ways that I approve of, though if you vote based on the sort of thinking that you’ve tacitly approved of by linking Card’s article, then I admit I will have a low opinion of your critical thinking abilities, given that the article in question is filled with more holes than the New Orleans Saints’ defense.
And you should be ashamed to use democracy as a way of denying people their civil rights!
Nope, sorry, it’s not “majority rules.” If THAT were the case, the South would still be segregated. The vast majority of people in the South prior to the Civil Rights Act and beyond thought that allowing blacks to have the same rights as whites would be the “end of civilization” and “harmful to society.” Almost EVERY single argument you offer against same-sex marriage has been used by people who were against desegregation. It was wrong then, and it’s still wrong now.
Your religious beliefs should have no bearing on CIVIL LAW. No one is forcing your RELIGION to recognize SSM. The Catholic church is not forced to marry two divorcees, even though civil divorce is legal. Likewise, they would not be forced to perform or support SSM.
You have given absolutely no concrete, specific, direct evidence of HOW SSM is harmful. None whatsoever. All you have offered are vague platitudes such as “marriage will be degraded” or “the family is weakened and threatened.” How? Be as specific as possible, por favor.
Nope. Not gun’ duhit. That dead horse is a bloody pulp. Read the links in the OP. That’s why I posted OSC’s article. I thought he would be able to explain it better than me. I guess I was wrong.
Guin, you may want to consider using more honey and less vinegar. When you start off your side of the argument with “you should be ashamed,” even smart and decent people will tune you out pretty much right off the bat.
Oh, but I will say this. It’s not about any specific single family. It’s about society in general and the moral condition of that society. (And I’m not saying that homosexuality is immoral). The change in society over the past 30 years has been very subtly moving away from family and moral values. You probably didn’t even realize it was happening. But I have. And I don’t like it one bit. I feel that same sex marriage continues the trend towards a different less structured family. It’s not that I feel that it’s immoral, but… for example, I am very opposed to pre-marital sex. I think that it playing a huuuge part in our society’s problems, particularily abortion. I believe that same sex marriage would continue to, well, not encourage it, but it wouldn’t discourage pre-marital sex. That’s not to say that homosexual fathers or mothers couldn’t encourage their kids to practice abstinence. But why should the kids listen to their homosexual parents? Or how about the kid’s friends? Their parents might be heterosexual christian parents. But with a homosexual friend’s family as an example, apparantly healthy too, you might ask, “why wouldn’t they listen to their parents?” For one, because of stereotypes. Like it or not, they exist. The friends would be less likely to listen to their parents because they have an example of another family that is headed by sexual “deviants”. And sexual deviants that live a healthy life and appear to be good parents. And why is that a bad example? Because that the belief (however wrong) that the homosexual couple is a sexual deviant sort of gives permission to the friend to practice pre-marital sex. I have another example in the links of a street that is largely populated by homosexual couples.
He was just fighting back at me starting it. I don’t blame him. And I know you guys aren’t “forcing” me to vote your way.