Potentially, it could be considered sexist on the basis that it supposes men can’t do something a woman can (love a man in such a way as to warrant marriage rather than just sex or cohabitation), and women can’t do something a man can (love a woman in such a way as to warrant marriage rather than just sex or cohabitation). Obviously, lactating and peeing while standing up are exceptions, but only because they are purely physical. If a man can be a schoolteacher, a woman can deserve to marry a woman.
Tiny? Since when is somewhere between 1 in 10 and 1 in 5 people (depending partly on the source and partly on whether an adjustment to the estimate is made for closet cases) a tiny minority?!
Isn’t this entire debate kind of irrelevant, though? Prohibiting same-sex marriage is wrong. Now, maybe the reasons why it’s wrong fall under the umbrella of sexism, and maybe they don’t, but does it matter? Whether it’s sexism or not, it’s still wrong.
Only by population numbers, which aren’t inherent. They flux. Take WWI, for example, in which many men died; since the number of women, comparatively, increased, did that make them more worthy of anti-discrimination practices? Take the Holocaust; many Jews were murdered. Since the number of Jews, comparatively, decreased, did that make them less worthy of anti-discrimination practices?
Only by cultural convention - and even then, only assuming inherent percentages. If that gay person was the only one because all the other had been killed, then they wouldn’t be a medical mystery.
That’s way too vaguely defined for an “as we all know”. It’s also irrelevant for the purposes of determining what rights people are entitled to. And it doesn’t matter how many gay people act in whatever way for that purpose.
As i’ve said, the question is what is the measure by which these rights are granted? By what measure do we grant the right to marry a man to a woman, but not to another man?
Probably there’s little point. But I would say that there may be some people who, if confronted with the notion that their ideas are homophobic, wouldn’t be particularly bothered, but would be concerned if it was suggested that their ideas were sexist. This is purely a gues,s but I would think that sexism by and large would be less socially acceptable than homophobia, so it may well be that an argument from sexism is more likely to capture someone’s interest (negative or positive).
Sure. But you don’t let a mentally competent man marry a woman who is mentally retarded, do you? No. So if there were one gay person in all of humanity, we’d assume they were super fucked up.
What’s not correct about what he said? You can’t actually be suggesting that people who have unique medical conditions don’t deserve rights, but since that was RT’s entire point, I’m not sure what you mean when you say he’s not correct.
Didn’t we just have a thread where you were arguing just the opposite: that most gay people did follow mainstream social norms, and that gay pride parades were presenting a distorted view of homosexuality?
If you’re not trying to justify discrimination, what’s the purpose in citing the article about the prevalence of open relationships among gay couples?
That’s poor reasoning. One non-normative condition is not others. We don’t allow a mentally competent man to marry a mentally deficient woman (or vice-versa) because we consider informed consent to be vital in such a decision. Not because we consider the mentally deficient person to be* rare*.
I mean, I personally have a very rare biological oddity about me. It doesn’t affect my competence. On the grounds that I am a medical mystery, would you deny marriage to me?
Why is it wrong? I mean, other than the basic absurdity of the situation (if there’s only one gay person on Earth, who would they marry?) I can’t really think of any arguments for SSM that rely on the number of homosexuals in the country. All of them seem equally valid if there’s one gay person in American, or one million. And apply to all rights, or is marriage a special case? How much smaller would the gay population have to get before you decide that we don’t deserve rights any more?
Is that what you were doing in this thread, where you brought up (out of nowhere) a link to an article about how gay people sleep around a whole lot? Why did you think that was necessary, exactly? What argument, in this thread, did you think that article served to rebut?
Really? That’s interesting. What would you need to rethink, precisely?
No, you weren’t. At least, no one else in this thread was.
Because being gay would be so outside the human experience that it would be akin to bestiality. beastiality ? my spellcheck is not liking this.
This is not the same as, ‘You were born without ears and toes, therefore, you cannot get married.’
This is, ‘We are going to buck the entire legal system for a freak.’ Because if there were no such thing as being gay, then, well, that one dude wanting to sleep with another dude would be a freak.
A freak with no one to have sex with.
You can’t argue against marriage law unless you understand why it exists in the first place…hell, why marriage exists in the first place, even though it goes against biological norm.
If gay people do practice polyamory more than their hetero counterparts, it just means that they’re a bit more natural than the rest of us in the west.
Gay prides say, “We love sex. We love sex so much that we’re OBSESSED with it beyond any healthy level and all humans are meant for my desire! FUCK YOU! Damn it!”
One always has to consider the rationale behind a law to determine if it is sexist or discriminatory.
Why is it not the same? In what way do the two cases diverge? If one person is a freak of nature because he, unlike everyone else on Earth, likes other dudes, and someone else is a freak of nature because he, unlike everyone else on Earth, has giant growths all over his face, why is discrimination against the first party acceptable, but not discrimination against the second?
Sure you can. The historical precedents of marriage are not necessary to an understanding of the inadequacies of the current model, although such knowledge certainly helps one craft a stronger argument against the laughable traditionalist arguments. But that’s rather besides the point, because it still renders that link a total non-sequitor. You failed to show any relevance to the data to the concept of homophobia-as-sexism, or any relevance to anything that was being said in the thread at the time. The only context in which that interjection makes any sense, would be if you were arguing against the concept of SSM itself. Which you keep insisting you aren’t doing, despite the alarming frequency in which you keep dropping anti-gay rights rhetoric into your posts.
You’ve already established that you think this is the message of gay pride parades, so this is pretty much a non-answer to my question. Which, to reiterate, was: Precisely what would you have to rethink if it were established that this was, in fact, representative of the gay population in general?
I’m not a lawyer, but I’m pretty sure a law can be struck down for being discriminatory in effect, even if it can be demonstrated that it was not discriminatory in intent.
Because someone with growths all over his face isn’t going to be considered clinically insane.
But you cannot say, That’s morally wrong! and expect to win in a court of law. This is a government ‘of laws, and not of men.’
Huh? What data? You want me to provide data that the law isn’t sexist? What?
Right, because anyone that disagrees with your militant viewpoints is irrelevant. I’ll step out now.
I’m saying that the proponents of SSM have some flaws in their arguments. They could stand to drop a few.
Opponents of SSM may be wrong on many counts, but some ideas - even if they’re sorely misrepresented - aren’t wrong.
There is currently many double standards here. Going rogue and Anne Heching it is mean but not screwed up, but a known-straight women all of the sudden liking women is a man-hater. Cheating on your husband with a woman is sometimes acceptable in Friends-land (poor Ross), and cheating on your wife with a guy is ‘disgusting and morally wrong and how could you do that to her in modern times? liar!’ and hetero couples with a cheater is super bad, but gay couples with a cheater is ‘how it goes’. taking your kid to a gay pride parade in NYC is liberal and open minded, but showing them the cover of your porn videos is child abuse.
Two chicks fucking each other is awesome. Two dudes: not so much. *
Then I would determine that the gay rights movement is more about sex and less about human rights, and that gay couples do threaten straight ones (especially women), and that the pride movement is more about taking advantage of gullible half-naked people than liberty.
You’d have to argue that the law was in any way discriminatory re: natural rights and public good.
Oh. In order to argue that laws are sexist, you’d have to look at the law’s function. Since marriage laws and family laws revolve around the concept of a nuclear family and social norms (and they do: all laws serve a function), opponents are more likely to talk about the break down of the nuclear family and social disorder that SSM would bring. So, if you want to refute that argument, the best way to do it is to say that gay couples are just like straight couples. As the NYT article pointed out, they maybe aren’t, and the SSM movement has tried to squash that in fear of giving the other guys some ammo.
that’s why the article is relevant. the marriage laws are based on social and biological norms (though sometimes they contradict each other) and order. DOMA didn’t get support from a zillion Democrats for nothing.
SSM advocates have worked hard to change the image of the free-loving 70s gay man…but like you pointed out in the Pride thread, gay people aren’t usually Banana Republic wearing Leave it to Beaver types.
edit: this is similar to the internal conflict of the women’s suffrage fight and the post-modern women’s movement.
You’ve conflated two points, here. I’m saying it’s poor reasoning to compare against a mentally deficient person in the way you’re doing here, because your point is one about treating people a certain way because they’re rare, when in fact people are treated that way because we don’t believe they can give informed consent. You’re picking up on the wrong data point.
Besides, your argument is still wrong, because as I said it presumes that being the lone gay person is the inherent percentage. Population changes as a result of factors other than nature aren’t taken into account by your theory.
So? We don’t require a practical situation in order to establish a principle. There are plenty of people in the world who others won’t want to marry. I mean, pick one - utter bastards. People won’t want to marry an utter bastard, yet, we don’t have a law singling them out because of it.
Edit: Might I request you address my question on the previous page as to whether my medical mystery status should mean i’m unworthy of the right to marry?
You’ve missed a step. Suggesting that laws have a function is not equal to laws having that particular function.
Beyond that; why, then, do we not disallow infertile couples from marrying? They are even more incapable of creating a family than are gay couples; both may resort to adoption, but a gay couple could use surrogacy to ensure that at a child has at least one of their genetic material.
As far as social norms go; they must first be proved to be valuable social norms. Then we need to look at whether or not gay couples may embody such social norms. Then we need to decide whether there is a right above such social norms (I am under the impression that, legally, marriage is considered a right). A law, after all, may follow a social norm yet betray a right; slavery in the past, for example, was socially normal yet I doubt you’d argue that people’s right to freedom does not surmount that social norm.
Neither would someone who was entirely unique in being sexually attracted to his own gender. He’d be considered a medical oddity, but (all else being equal) he’s very unlikely to get locked up over it, because absent a significant minority of homosexuals, you don’t have any homophobia, either. But this hypothetical is getting too absurd to provide any useful information.
Excellent news for us, then, because that’s about all the anti-marriage side has going for them. But as a point of interest, we are not, in fact, in a court of law. If anything, this forum is in the court of public opinion, and in this court, “That’s immoral!” can be a very persuasive argument.
Sorry, that should have been “of the data.”
Which of views of mine would you consider “militant,” and why?
I agree entirely. I’ve never cared for the “it’s natural, so it should be legal” argument, for example. Lots of natural things are dangerous and unhealthy. Uranium is completely natural. I’m not about to stick my dick in it, though.
However, you haven’t shown how that link was relevant to bad arguments put forward by SSM supporters. I’m not aware that anyone has argued that gays should be allowed to marry on the basis of our extraordinary commitment to monogamy, for example. So, how does bringing that article up, in this thread, show a flaw in a pro-SSM argument? From where I’m sitting, all it does is lend credence to a popular anti-SSM argument: that gays are too promiscuous to be allowed to marry. And, again, the only reason I can see to introduce that argument, at that point in the conversation, is to argue the anti-SSM side.
Which you say you are not doing.
Which ideas do you think the anti-SSM side is correct about?
I’m… really not at all sure what 90% of this is referring to. By the double standards being “here,” do you mean the SDMB specifically? Or in American society at large? Who’s been defending Anne Heche? And from what? Who’s the recently-out woman who’s being called a man-hater? Who’s been excusing closeted women getting married, while excoriating closeted men getting married? What porn videos are you talking about?
Fair enough. One last question: what would the threat be, here, and how would it apply especially to women?
Actually, infertility was grounds for divorce not too long ago, and impotency is grounds for annulment in some states. (Including Iowa. It got my marriage annulled.)
I did outline the rationale behind marriage laws. I never claimed they shouldn’t change.
I did in my next post. I think I understood (later) what you meant.
The concept of ‘gay people are just like straight people re: need for recognition of LTRs’ has been around for awhile. Hey, remember that awful movie, If These Walls Could Talk? Whatever version that was, but the two old women living together? That was my first exposure to the idea that :smack: ssm not only ‘kinda maybe’ should be legal, but ‘wtf was I thinking ever being on the fence?! marriage has nothing to do with religion!’
i think i was 14.
The idea that SSM forces heterosexual couples to rethink their normative values.
Because if straight men look at gay couples and think, “Look at how sexually ‘free’ they are. Why am I doing this [hetero marriage] again? And you’re telling me that a large portion of chicks really DO like dudes and chicks? How come that couple gets to have an ‘open marriage’ and I’m a jerk for wanting the same thing?” then, unfortunately, women will be threatened. Try as we may, we can’t change our biological disadvantage in this world without becoming…something we’re not.
There is a value to the social norms of marriage. I’m surprised that one didn’t come up in the poly thread…it’s the #1 best argument against poly marriage.
We’ve often commented that we’re not biologically wired to mate for life, but we create marriages and partnerships out of protection, logic, and need for order.
I’m confused. If the function of marriage law is family, then why is it these examples of couples who can’t have children are in the past or outside the norm?
You pointed out the rationale behind marriage laws in the context of explaining that in order to determine whether they are sexist, we have to look at their function. If you’re saying they *should *change, then why do we need to look at the current rationale, when it’s flawed?
Given that you said that marriage laws are based on social and biological norms, is it your suggestion now that, since you’re claiming they should change, that we shouldn’t look at social and biological norms to determine rights?
