Is The Gay Marriage Debate Over?

Dude, I appreciate this post. And I get it. Honestly, I really do. I disagree with it, but I get it.

There are two issues, in specific, with which I disagree, and where I believe your argument fails.

Firstly, you say:

I understand where you’re coming from, but there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that this is true. I literally cannot grok how expanding the definition of marriage to include same sex couples will make straight people less likely to marry.

Look, I get that you see “traditional” marriage as a fundamental and essential building block of society. I understand that you are concerned about its continued decline. Fewer people are getting married, especially young people. But that’s been happening for a long time, and began well before the very concept of gay marriage entered the public consciousness. There are a lot of reasons for it, but so far, gay marriage has not been among them.

And your fears that legalizing SSM will contribute to this decline, while understandable, are based purely on emotion, with no evidence, or even a viable hypothetical mechanism, to support them.
Secondly, you say:

The “traditional” marriage arrangement is not recognized to be the ideal child-raising situation. Not by the evidence, at least. You believe it is, and you want it to be, but the facts on the ground do not back it up.

But leaving that aside, it’s your latter point that I challenge. I absolutely agree that marriage embodies a commitment to one another, to family, and to society. I agree also that it symbolizes a continuance of family and relationships and societal bond.

I fail to see how SSM changes that symbolism.

Any couple who chooses to become married, in the eyes of God or the State, is *embracing *that symbolism, that continuance. They believe that it is important, for themselves and their family and their society and their posterity. They are perpetuating the symbolism you support, and are doing so when fewer and fewer people choose to. Your argument that societal acceptance of “nontraditional” marriages somehow damages that symbolism is not one based in evidence, but your gut feeling.

Again, I understand the idea that “lifetime marriage between mommy and daddy is the ideal way to raise kids” and should therefore be what we, as a society, encourage. I disagree with it strongly, but I understand it.

But you want to take it one step further, and say that it should be the model we encourage to the exclusion of all others. And your arguments why we should do so are based entirely in emotion, and not fact. You recognize this, and I appreciate that you do. IMO there’s nothing wrong with arguing from opinion, even when it’s contradicted by fact, provided you acknowledge that it is opinion. But I hope that you will come to change your opinion in time.
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This is really what your objection to SSM comes down to. The idea that SSM will in some way devalue OSM. This view is inherently bigoted. You are effectively saying that same sex couples don’t really love each other as much as opposite sex couples do, and that it is impossible for them to do so. The act of requiring a different word for marriage is just going to enshrine this bigotry into law.

By mandating a different word, you are having the government publicly declare that these two things are not the same, and thus are unequal. If the southern schools agreed to be integrated, but decided that while white students received a diploma upon graduation, black students would receive a “certificate of completion”. I doubt that the supreme court would let it stand, even if the schools made it clear that the two degrees were equivalent.

Yes, there were people who felt that way. But as you note, there was also the belief that the races just weren’t supposed to mix and the white race was supposed to be in charge and needed to make sure it stayed in charge. And from what I can see, society at that time reflected that view- not the view that this was best for black people.

I don’t have much time, but…

You are 100% wrong about this. I assume and fully believe that the love felt between two SS people is real and profound, the same as the love between OS people. I have no qualms about that. I don’t see their love as lesser. And I’m not trying to hurt them. I’m trying to protect something I view as valuable: the traditional notion that marriage is comprised of man + woman.

Oh, it’s exactly the same, except for the “separate” part.

Newsflash: than it’s not "exactly the same is it?

Here let me help you: NO.

There are two separate classes: opposite-sex (married) couples, and same-sex (civil unionized) couples. This could not be any simpler, but it’s page 16.

What about my analogy concerning voting? For many years only men could vote. This tradition was written into law. Did this tradition of voting need protection from women wanting the same right. Should women have been given the same rights, but not be allowed to call what they do at the polls “voting”?

tap tap Hey, is this mic on?

After 770+ responses, I think we can answer the OP’s question.

No.

You think what’s still going on here is a debate?

I really don’t feel so that the discussion is over. People still find it unnatural.

Arguments for protecting the tradition of male-only voting, from the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage, about 100 years ago:

More arguments on the “Risk of Woman Suffrage”:

All that…and yet we survived, despite the right to vote being “weakened”.

What do you mean? It’s a valid proposal. A valid idea. The argument for it is also valid, but one that you find unpersuasive. It would be nice to keep the two straight. Trust me, I have no illusions about persuading anyone here.

You’re confusing the status that qualifies people to be able take advantage of a set of legal benefits and privileges with the set of legal benefits of privileges itself. This mistake is being made rather often in the thread.

I couldn’t disagree more. The notion of our genes commingling with the person’s we love and creating another person that is both of us, that will look like us, is deeply powerful. While the best adoptive parents might love their children with all their heart and sole, it is not the same feeling that one has for their own offspring. I have friends with both biological and adopted children who they say they love equally. Yet even they admit that there’s additional thing that happens with their own offspring. I don’t see this as denigrating anything or anyone. It’s biology.

Similarly, a mother has a bond with a child that I, or any male cannot ever have. Ever. It matters that there was a being growing inside her for 9 months. It doesn’t lessen the love a father might have. It’s just different. Again, this is biology, and I do not feel it denigrates me or my love in any way.

Additionally, I’m not trying to do redefine marriage, you are. Up until this recent contortionism, marriage has always been compromised of man + woman. That’s not an opinion, that’s a fact. The least you could do is acknowledge that.

Neither of us KNOW that. But let’s assume you are correct. But’s not that all by itself. As has been pointed out, fewer couples, even those with children, are choosing to not get married. I do not view that as healthy for society’s longterm welfare. So for me, the more we can reinforce the unique and special nature of the relationship, the better. I really don’t care if large swaths of single people get married or not. I do care if large swaths of couples planning to have children. I think our society would suffer if the institution waned.

…16 pages later. I would say the debate is not over. :slight_smile:

I mean traditional western marriage: which have always been comprised of man + woman.

This explains a lot. The layers of things you’re wrong about make quite a puzzle.

Gotta run. Thanks to all who are at least attempting to understand what MY proposal is and addressing it on those terms.

Andros, I appreciate you thoughtful post and will respond later.

And I will repeat yet again what others have said. Protect it from what? The fact that you feel so strongly that allowing Gay relationships to be called marriage will diminish marriage, inferior to (or at the very least fundamentally different) from OS ones. Otherwise there is no way that their inclusion could diminish OS marriages.

To quote your words again, you say

Everything in that sentence (except possibly that bit about children*) applies to same sex couples. So how is including them diminishing to traditional marriage, unless you feel that they don’t.

  • As for this, I suspect that many same sex couples would also have the same wish, but are not able to for biological reasons. The same applies to many infertile couples. But if you are going to tell my wife an me that we’re not as married as other couples because for various reasons having children is not an option for us, then I’ll sic my wife on you and she’ll take you to the cleaners.

What Fallacy is it when someone says that the only reason you disagree with them is because you do not understand them?