# My mom, divorced 3 times, thinks gay marriage will "ruin" marriage. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 30, 2011, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-mom-divorced-3-times-thinks-gay-marriage-will-ruin-marriage/587381 "2011-06-30T13:59:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 17
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-mom-divorced-3-times-thinks-gay-marriage-will-ruin-marriage/587381/321 "2011-07-03T01:17:41Z")
> [@David42](#): > > My argument is that marriage is in such a state of disrepair after seventy years of consistent systematic legislation making it frivilous that we cannot afford to do anything else that might harm it. You have yet to provide evidence or even a plausible argument that SSM would harm it. For that matter, you have yet to show why SSM won’t strengthen it, which seems more likely. ---
**Author:** ![David42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-mom-divorced-3-times-thinks-gay-marriage-will-ruin-marriage/587381/322 "2011-07-03T01:19:45Z")
> [@Dusty\_Rose](#): > > I have read this entire thread with great interest. But I don’t understand this answer… if I’m reading correctly, **Der Trihs** and many others have asked you to explain exactly how SSM will harm heterosexual marriages. > > Your answer is that he/she thinks it is good to let people abandon their responsibilities for frivolous reasons and you don’t? > > Aside from fact that it appears you are pretending to know **Der Trihs’** motivation, (which upset you greatly a few pages back), I don’t understand how that answers the question. Could you perhaps rephrase it? about abandoning responsibilities is specific to no fault divorce. I don’t think I am getting into his motivation because I’m not making a suggestion as to why he thinks that. If I said he thinks thats good because he is an alien bent on world domination, or something else reflecting why, I’d agree with you. ---
**Author:** ![David42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-mom-divorced-3-times-thinks-gay-marriage-will-ruin-marriage/587381/323 "2011-07-03T01:21:42Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > You have yet to provide evidence or even a plausible argument that SSM would harm it. For that matter, you have yet to show why SSM won’t strengthen it, which seems more likely. Define harm for me. I guess you missed that post. But actually I think you are obstructing here rather than truly trying to understand me, and I believe I am going to go do something else now. Maybe tomorrow or later tonight, my back is aching. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-mom-divorced-3-times-thinks-gay-marriage-will-ruin-marriage/587381/324 "2011-07-03T01:22:09Z")
> [@David42](#): > > There certainly is an agenda. Are you saying that gays aren’t trying to normalize gay marriage and force a cultural shift in our concept of marriage. They are. > > Is my view invalid because it is popular? I hold the view that teaching kids gay is good is wrong. Let them figure those things out when it naturally occurs to them. Gay marriage is becoming normal and the culture is shifting on it’s own. We aren’t “forcing it” anymore than blacks did to get the right to vote or attend the same schools as whites. You still haven’t given a cite for you’re claim about “gay activists” encourging gays to adopt children solely to “normalize” SSM. Is it something you imagined like the Japanese fecal food? > [@David42](#): > > …But there is no need to make a little shoving or a broken dish a mandatory arrest, or throw one person out with no notice and no evidence. I guess your value system does not recognize disruptions like that to be harm. I do. Kids need stability, but they also need to see some arguments and how to resolve them afterwards… Anyone who really thinks men are being jailed in large numbers for simply for “a little shoving” is delusional. Anyone who thinks it’s in any way acceptable or excusable for a man to lay hands on his wife against her will is a monster. That is _never_ OK and any woman who doesn’t leave/kick him out after the first strike is a moron (at least according to my mother, who’s first husband started out with “a little shoving” and ended with shoving her down a flight of stairs during her 2nd trimester, she wasted years of her life telling herself she made a commitment and her son needs a stable home with his father at all costs). What kids need to see is that the second a man hits a woman he becomes worthless, irredeemable scum, and deserves to be cast out into the darkness and die forgetten & unmourned. > [@David42](#): > > …Nor would my job work out too well if I have to recognize it… What exactly is you’re job that having to “recognize” SSM would affect it so? Are you a civil registrar in charge of conducting civil weddings, a government clerk in charge of processing marriage licence applications, a wedding planner, cater-waiter, clergyperson, marriage counselor, or what? > [@David42](#): > > …Well I think there are people who encourage gay sex, but I don’t have a problem with them doing that if its amongst gays. But not around kids. Corophagia isn’t enough now you have to bring accusations of pedophillia into the mix? I’ll wager that alot fewer gay couples have sex in front of their children than straight couples (actually the latter was considered normal for millenia, is it’s unacceptance in modern culture part of the supposed decline of marriage you keep harping on about). ---
**Author:** ![Dusty\_Rose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ba8739/32.png) [@Dusty\_Rose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dusty_Rose)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-mom-divorced-3-times-thinks-gay-marriage-will-ruin-marriage/587381/325 "2011-07-03T01:23:03Z")
> [@David42](#): > > It was against common law and rape was a crime irrelevant of your relationship with the woman. Some states wrote statutes changing that, so a husband could rape his wife, because they took a different view. Some states didn’t need to write statutes because they held the other view and probably wrote them in the seventies to look good to women’s libbers and to show how different they were from other states. You don’t need a statute where there isn’t a problem. This is simply not true. Most states had a marriage exemption written into their rape laws. After the mid to late 70’s, some states had to re-write their laws to acknowledge spousal rape, but most just removed the exemption. I won’t go further because I don’t want to hijack this thread. I’ll consider this bit of ignorance fought. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-mom-divorced-3-times-thinks-gay-marriage-will-ruin-marriage/587381/326 "2011-07-03T01:25:00Z")
> [@David42](#): > > Define harm for me. I guess you missed that post. Why should I do that for you? You are the one claiming there will be unspecified harm by unspecified means. You’re just waving your hands and screaming “BEWARE THE GAYS” as far as I can tell. ---
**Author:** ![David42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-mom-divorced-3-times-thinks-gay-marriage-will-ruin-marriage/587381/327 "2011-07-03T01:26:56Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Because you apparently have no concern for the happiness or desires of others. Or the elimination of racism or the rights of women. > > I’m not interested in traditional values like racism, sexism, or religious dogma. > > I don’t recall ever claiming that. > > No you shouldn’t. It’s not your right to torment two people just so you can impose your fantasy of what marriage is supposed to be like on them. > > Yeah, like raping your wife. She should just shut up and spread her legs like a good slave, right? I’m talking about values like honesty and keeping your word and thinking providing kids a solid home is more important than seeking personal fulfilment and keeping families intact unless it is really bad. The rest of your post is just nonsense not worth addressing. Rape isn’t MINOR. I said minor stuff, like breaking a dish. ---
**Author:** ![David42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-mom-divorced-3-times-thinks-gay-marriage-will-ruin-marriage/587381/328 "2011-07-03T01:28:48Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Why should I do that for you? You are the one claiming there will be unspecified harm by unspecified means. You’re just waving your hands and screaming “BEWARE THE GAYS” as far as I can tell. Because I have no idea what you think the word means. So far I think “harm” to you means religion or having to keep your word and do what you promise if there is no compelling reason not to. Bye. ---
**Author:** ![Dusty\_Rose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ba8739/32.png) [@Dusty\_Rose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dusty_Rose)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-mom-divorced-3-times-thinks-gay-marriage-will-ruin-marriage/587381/329 "2011-07-03T01:30:16Z")
**David42** , it seems to me that what you are really against is divorce. ---
**Author:** ![David42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-mom-divorced-3-times-thinks-gay-marriage-will-ruin-marriage/587381/330 "2011-07-03T01:32:06Z")
> [@Dusty\_Rose](#): > > This is simply not true. Most states had a marriage exemption written into their rape laws. After the mid to late 70’s, some states had to re-write their laws to acknowledge spousal rape, but most just removed the exemption. I won’t go further because I don’t want to hijack this thread. I’ll consider this bit of ignorance fought. That’s the stautes I am claiming they wrote to abrogate the common law that held a rape can be committed. In the south they added in “not if she’s your wife,” because OTHERWISE the law was a rape can be committed against ANY woman, including your wife. Do you understand what common law is and the role it plays in our jurisprudence? ---
**Author:** ![David42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-mom-divorced-3-times-thinks-gay-marriage-will-ruin-marriage/587381/331 "2011-07-03T01:33:14Z")
> [@Dusty\_Rose](#): > > **David42** , it seems to me that what you are really against is divorce. Big time, and anything that casts a frivolous light on marriage. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-mom-divorced-3-times-thinks-gay-marriage-will-ruin-marriage/587381/332 "2011-07-03T01:33:53Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > Is it something you imagined like the Japanese fecal food? That’s not imaginary, some Japanese scientist turned feces into food. There was a thread on it recently I believe. > [@David42](#): > > Because I have no idea what you think the word means. So far I think “harm” to you means religion or having to keep your word and do what you promise if there is no compelling reason not to.. Again, you are the one claiming harm. Demonstrate it. > [@David42](#): > > I’m talking about values like honesty and keeping your word and thinking providing kids a solid home is more important than seeking personal fulfilment and keeping families intact unless it is really bad. > > The rest of your post is just nonsense not worth addressing. Rape isn’t MINOR. I said minor stuff, like breaking a dish. No, you keep saying you want to bring back the old traditional ways; and the legal rape of wives is one of those traditions that you think were so much better. And keeping a miserable marriage together doesn’t teach honesty, it teaches self destructive behavior. ---
**Author:** ![David42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-mom-divorced-3-times-thinks-gay-marriage-will-ruin-marriage/587381/333 "2011-07-03T01:37:15Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > Gay marriage is becoming normal and the culture is shifting on it’s own. We aren’t “forcing it” anymore than blacks did to get the right to vote or attend the same schools as whites. You still haven’t given a cite for you’re claim about “gay activists” encourging gays to adopt children solely to “normalize” SSM. Is it something you imagined like the Japanese fecal food? > > Anyone who really thinks men are being jailed in large numbers for simply for “a little shoving” is delusional. Anyone who thinks it’s in any way acceptable or excusable for a man to lay hands on his wife against her will is a monster. That is _never_ OK and any woman who doesn’t leave/kick him out after the first strike is a moron (at least according to my mother, who’s first husband started out with “a little shoving” and ended with shoving her down a flight of stairs during her 2nd trimester, she wasted years of her life telling herself she made a commitment and her son needs a stable home with his father at all costs). What kids need to see is that the second a man hits a woman he becomes worthless, irredeemable scum, and deserves to be cast out into the darkness and die forgetten & unmourned. > > What exactly is you’re job that having to “recognize” SSM would affect it so? Are you a civil registrar in charge of conducting civil weddings, a government clerk in charge of processing marriage licence applications, a wedding planner, cater-waiter, clergyperson, marriage counselor, or what? > > Corophagia isn’t enough now you have to bring accusations of pedophillia into the mix? I’ll wager that alot fewer gay couples have sex in front of their children than straight couples (actually the latter was considered normal for millenia, is it’s unacceptance in modern culture part of the supposed decline of marriage you keep harping on about). Do you speak English? ---
**Author:** ![David42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-mom-divorced-3-times-thinks-gay-marriage-will-ruin-marriage/587381/334 "2011-07-03T01:39:20Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > That’s not imaginary, some Japanese scientist turned feces into food. There was a thread on it recently I believe. > > Again, you are the one claiming harm. Demonstrate it. > > No, you keep saying you want to bring back the old traditional ways; and the legal rape of wives is one of those traditions that you think were so much better. And keeping a miserable marriage together doesn’t teach honesty, it teaches self destructive behavior. You’re an obstructionist. I’m ignoring you. ---
**Author:** ![Dusty\_Rose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ba8739/32.png) [@Dusty\_Rose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dusty_Rose)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-mom-divorced-3-times-thinks-gay-marriage-will-ruin-marriage/587381/335 "2011-07-03T01:43:26Z")
> [@David42](#): > > That’s the stautes I am claiming they wrote to abrogate the common law that held a rape can be committed. In the south they added in “not if she’s your wife,” because OTHERWISE the law was a rape can be committed against ANY woman, including your wife. > Do you understand what common law is and the role it plays in our jurisprudence? This is what you said: I know of murder convictions and other punishments for wicked husbands that are pretty old. **Many of the northern states immediately made raping or seriously abusing your wife illegal, as it was in england before.** It is minor stuff that was largely ignored as it should be. Invaluable to teach kids about conflict and resolution. Sir. That is not true. I ask for a cite. Most states had an exemption written into their rape laws that excluded protection for spouses. This did not begin to change in the US until the mid 1970’s. You may consider that “pretty old” or “immediate” - I don’t. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-mom-divorced-3-times-thinks-gay-marriage-will-ruin-marriage/587381/336 "2011-07-03T01:44:20Z")
> [@David42](#): > > You’re an obstructionist. What does that even _mean_ in this context? ---
**Author:** ![Dusty\_Rose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ba8739/32.png) [@Dusty\_Rose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dusty_Rose)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-mom-divorced-3-times-thinks-gay-marriage-will-ruin-marriage/587381/337 "2011-07-03T01:46:46Z")
> [@David42](#): > > Big time, and anything that casts a frivolous light on marriage. How does same-sex marriage cast a frivolous light on marriage? ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-mom-divorced-3-times-thinks-gay-marriage-will-ruin-marriage/587381/338 "2011-07-03T01:52:23Z")
> [@David42](#): > > It was against common law and rape was a crime irrelevant of your relationship with the woman. Some states wrote statutes changing that, so a husband could rape his wife, because they took a different view. Some states didn’t need to write statutes because they held the other view and probably wrote them in the seventies to look good to women’s libbers and to show how different they were from other states. You don’t need a statute where there isn’t a problem. Actually no state outlawed marital rape until [South Dakota](http://www.nytimes.com/1987/05/13/us/marital-rape-drive-for-tougher-laws-is-pressed.html) did, in _ **1975** _. It wasn’t illegal in all states until [1993](http://www.ncvc.org/ncvc/main.aspx?dbName=DocumentViewer&DocumentID=32701). Under common law rape was defined as a man having carnal relations with a woman, _not his wife_, against her will. [QUOTE=Michael Hale, Lord Chief Justice of England] …for by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract the wife hath given up herself in this kind unto the husband which she cannot retract. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![David42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-mom-divorced-3-times-thinks-gay-marriage-will-ruin-marriage/587381/339 "2011-07-03T01:53:21Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > I’m not arguing that it’s better because it’s modern, I’m arguing that because it’s modern, its different from what is ancient, and therefore, the reasoning used to support its ancient form does not apply to its modern incarnation. > > Furthermore, that’s a pretty laughable post coming from someone who posted this: > > If “It’s better because it’s modern” isn’t a good argument, then neither is, “It’s better because it’s old.” > > Right. But gays are a _tiny_ part of the problem. Yet your focus (and the focus of people who think like you) is entirely on gays, and never on infertile couples, elderly couples, or deliberately child-free couples. It’s always about gays. Which, again, indicates that the problem isn’t couples who can’t have kids, the problem is couples who are gay, and the who fertility thing a smoke screen to make your prejudices sound reasonable. My “focus” is on a current event. The headlines talk about gays this and that, so I talk about gays when relevant. In another thread, I’d discuss other things. In this thread infact I have addressed a host of other concerns about marriage. Wanna open a thread on whether deliberately childless couples deserve tax breaks? I never said it was better because it is old. A thing can be better or worse irrespective of whether it is old or new is the idea. Not, “No old idea is good” or “No new idea is good.” When someone argues something has never been done, I can rebut with a historical reference, and that’s all it was. ---
**Author:** ![David42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-mom-divorced-3-times-thinks-gay-marriage-will-ruin-marriage/587381/340 "2011-07-03T01:57:49Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > Actually no state outlawed marital rape until [South Dakota](http://www.nytimes.com/1987/05/13/us/marital-rape-drive-for-tougher-laws-is-pressed.html) did, in _ **1975** _. It wasn’t illegal in all states until [1993](http://www.ncvc.org/ncvc/main.aspx?dbName=DocumentViewer&DocumentID=32701). Under common law rape was defined as a man having carnal relations with a woman, _not his wife_, against her will. It’s Blackstone who is viewed as the authoritative statesman of the common law, not Hale. Judges have said so many contrary positions to one another you can find all kinds of rulings for and against the same things all over the place. Source for definition of rape, and when it was the definition for rape, please? I’m talking mostly about the united states and immediately before the revolution. I never said that it was never legal. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-mom-divorced-3-times-thinks-gay-marriage-will-ruin-marriage/587381.md?page=16) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-mom-divorced-3-times-thinks-gay-marriage-will-ruin-marriage/587381.md?page=18)