Where do you get the idea women were treated as cattle? Some of the most revered parts of scripture were written by women, do you see any quotes by cattle?
You may not realize it, but ancient hebrew women were sometimes leaders and could own property. Show where cattle did those things.
6,000 years throws up a GIANT red flag. That’s the age of the earth, approximately, give or take a couple of hundred years, to that very special band of science deniers known as “young earth creationists,” a subset of a subset of a subset of evangelical Christians who take everything we know about biology, chemistry, astronomy, geology, archaeology, anthropology and common sense and defecate all over it with a particularly noxious brand of fingers-in-the-ears, eyes-tightly-shut insistence that G-d told them something that no one else knows.
(Personal animus entirely owned, a result of trying to get a degree in Biology at a college where the head of bio & chem departments were both young earth creationists. I couldn’t transfer my 101 level credits to any accredited college in the country, gee, wonder why?)
It’s the generally accepted timeframe since the hebrews have been quoting the idea that marriage is about procreation. I admit I have taken issue with that number before in other contexts. I didn’t mean it hard and fast.
I should have said many millenia instead, sorry.
It doesn’t really matter what context you’re presenting this in, it’s irrelevant either way. We aren’t living in ancient Judea. Our modern matrimonial laws are clearly not based solely on the concept of conception: there are a ton of rights that are included in the marriage contract that having nothing to do with raising children, and there’s practically nothing in there that has to do specifically with conceiving children. The law, as it currently stands, creates no exceptions for infertility due to age or physical infirmity. It does not create distinctions between families where a child is being raised by both biological parents, by one biological parent and one step parent, or by two adopted parents. There is not a single test that you apply to gay couples in order to bar them from marriage, that you also apply to straight couples. This rather dramatically puts the lie to your claim that the important issue is the ability to bear children, because it is an issue that you only ever raise when the couple in question is gay.
I’m referring to the study referenced earlier in this thread.
Not my point. Iwas just meaning to date the book of genesis in some approximate fashion. I do not adhere to young earth creationist theology in any way, I think it is idiotic.
To rebut a claim that marriage has never been about procreation, it is ENTIRLEY relevant.
that study is not relevant to my claim, it examined something similar but different to the claim at hand.
You are incorrect. The study specifically examines the idea that the gender of parents influences the development of the child, and finds that the idea has no basis in fact.
It doesn’t matter what marriage has “always” been about. What matters is what marriage is about right now. And a cursory examination of contemporary marriage law shows that marriage has almost nothing to do with procreation specifically. And while *raising *children is a big part of marriage law, there’s no bar, legally or naturally, to gay couples raising children.
Most of the world holds religious beliefs. I don’t Yet I get by.
My mother is over 50 and has had both her uterus and both ovaries removed. My father has the exact same chances of getting her pregnant that I do of getting my boyfriend pregnant. I can say this with absolute certainty. The only artificial means availible to my parents would involve a hypothetical uterine transplant and daily hormone therapy. If that can be done to a woman it can be done to a man. In both cases donor eggs would be required.
Do you mind mentioning these gay activists by name and providing a link to their articles?
Unless somebodys forcing you to marry another man at gunpoint nobody’s forcing anything on you. You might also a small point if somebody other than your employer is forcing you to officiate at gay & lesbian weddings. If same-sex marriage didn’t exist she’d just give you a different excuse (like "Marriage is meaningless because people can get divorced over and over again). Unless she’s secretely a lesbian we are not why she doesn’t want to marry you.
What food do Japanese people eat that’s made from feces? Do you mind mentioning it by name and providing a link to an article describing it or a grocer that sells it?
Woman have a right to an abortion because they’re the ones who have a fetus growing inside them; if a man somehow became pregnant he’d have the exact same rights (admitedly he’d probally be offered a fortune to carry it to term). Abortion rights have everything to do with bodily intergrity, not having to support a child for 18 yrs. Pregnancy has no effects on a man’s body (unless you count Couvade Syndrome, and even that doesn’t have anywhere near the same effect as pregnancy does on a woman’s body). If artificial wombs were plentiful and the embryonic extraction process wasn’t any riskier to the woman than an abortion they probally wouldn’t have the right to an abortion.
You can “support gays” while denying use one of the most basic human rights there is.
Nobody’s suggesting you ever try gay sex again.
accordingly, any argument about whether electric or diesel cars are better is invalid because it was only made when the issue arose.
There was NO COMPELLING NEED to examine whether a couple could bear a child before large numbers of guaranteed not to produce children began claiming so called rights. Nor did I ever argue that all straight couples are entitled to all marriage benefits and have always argued that there is all kinds of stuff wrong with our system. In some cases I’d end some of those rights, particularly for people who play marriage games specifically to get a benefit that wasn’t intended in their situation. Loopholes and insufficiently prosecuted crimes abound.
The entire thing is a ruin and If I had my druthers I’d change the whole thing around so only people who NEED benefits get them, rather than acting like small children, though well fed, cry when they see a child who has a lollipop they do not have. I guess a feeling of entitlement starts young, perhaps, or are these brats far wiser than I? (Alright, I know it’s coming) It isn’t fair, Joey has a lollipop! is no freaking way to govern a country.
I’m in favor of extending any assistance with any need for any sexual orientation, but I’m not going to redefine what a marriage is in order to acheive it.
We all know marriage is something more than government ever has any business messing with, though some of it is in the best interest of the country. Making sure that a couple with unexpected triplets doesn’t starve is a pretty good interest, and cutting those guys some slack through taxes is good. I’m against any couple that plans a child with insufficient funding knowingly and then demanding a break from the government when they can’t afford it of themselves.
We know it has something to do with love but never required it.
In practical application basing marriage on love is idiotic. I’m all for love, don’t get me wrong, I’m just not for basing the concept on it. First of all, its notoriously undefinable. Every attempt seems to have something lacking, though some good attempts have been made. Its intangible. There one moment and gone the next, even when people are oh-so-sure.
If it is entirely not the business of government, then by default it must turn to the churches. I’m open to other suggestions, but what? But our law is well accepted that you can’t just go and start a church to do something you otherwise can’t do, if it’s not the purpose of a recognized religion. Its no secret that gay churches are for the convenience of gays and its not really a religion. I’m not sure what you’d call it. Its just Like the cannabis church, clearly not a religion but created for another purpose. But it is awfully difficult what becomes legitimate or is when it comes to religion. I think if a group survives several generation with the same spiritual beliefs it should qualify. I think you should prove sincerity in order to be a recognized religion and that takes time.
And at this point in time, especially on the verge of a complete national financial disaster, I’m against most nearly any kind of benefit to just about freaking anybody because we simply do not have the money to do it any longer.
Its conceivable that someday I’d promote gay marriage. But first we’d have to undo a lot of the legal damage that’s been done, shore it up a bit first. And it would have to be at a time when our finances as a whole are better, and I have seen few Americans who could not stand to tighten their belt. Some, but not too many. I know a lot of us already have gone to a minimum. I’m afraid it is going to worsen.
Got no problem with recognizing two people love one another and want to be together and shouldn’t be barred from one another. But I can’t find historical references that that is the core essence of marriage either.
Actually, they kind of *are *- he’s being forced to recognize gays as being just like him. That’s what *really *sticks in some craws, I suspect.
This is the part where “It’s discrimination to keep us from discriminating!” gets argued, btw.
Which has been for a long, long time. People have been marrying for love or financial reasons or political alliances instead of just breeding for millennia.
Marriage law wasn’t written to make you happy.
Marriage is a government defined arrangement between two people.
Nonsense. Religions have no right to define what marriage is about outside of their own followers.
What in the world is a “gay church”? :rolleyes: And assuming such a thing exists, where’s your evidence that it has any more or less validity than any other church?
You still have provided no evidence that SSM is a threat to marriage in any way. Nor do I agree that most of what you think of as damage, is damage.
No, treating women as property was. And good riddance.
Dial it back. Calling an argument “dumb” isn’t constructive and it’s more insulting than anything else, and the personal comment about pity doesn’t contribute anything either.
Please stick to commenting on David42’s arguments rather than his intent. And David42, please stop junior moderating. Continue to report posts if you think people are breaking the rules, but stop arguing about the rules within the thread. It’s a distraction.
Well do it first and then we’ll talk. I think you’ll find its a bit more than a uterus implant and an egg, but I agree in the hypothetical maybe someday this might be done.
Haven’t read any in a while. But you’re free to discount it if you like if you really believe it isn’t so, since I don’t have a reference at my fingertips.
You’re asking that the nation by law recognize your marriage in all applicable matters. This would force a shift in my thinking about marriage which I disagree with and personally find repulsive, though I am willing to let others do as they please. Nor would my job work out too well if I have to recognize it. Law is force, my friend, and all laws impose something. You are entirely wrong here.
You’re right about the gf. Maybe deep down she doesn’t want kids and I do. She had an abortion and has some issues. It bugs her, and I’m not quite sure what she thinks. I think she thinks it would be a reminder of the other. But she is fundamentally honest, so I believe her when she says marriage is trashed already.
I was heading off an irrelevancy before somebody idiotically said “But they do eat feces…” Its not part of my argument, and as such, I feel no compulsion to look it up again. I saw it on CNN and Yahoo news, both, and heard some newscaster somewhere but don’t know the channel. Google it. I don’t think it is marketed yet if ever. I had the idea of dogfood since they eat it anyway, that won’t bother anybody, right? (Probably wrong) They are extracting proteins and reconstituting them. Tastes like chicken they say. I’m not buying it!
Righto all the way. Now, if a gay suddenly becomes preganant by his gay lover he’s got those rights with the gay lover too. IF. You do see the IF?
Benefits for self-gratification? That’s what I’m against.
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.
:rolleyes: What a cliche. First you start with the “gay agenda”, and now you say they intend to Corrupt The Youth.
“Its better because it is modern” is a well recognized logical fallacy. Sorry, but ineffective argument. It remains you have no business redefining marriage.
Yep. And my argument is we need to change that so marriage means something again. For seventy years it has been dealt blow after blow.
No there isn’t. But they either got the kids heterosexually or planned for them. I’ll support them in the heterosexual endeavor. But planning to get kids to make a showing of your societal value is a thing to be condemned.
I’m sorry, I don’t follow this analogy.
“Large number?” Gays make up about 2% of the population of this country, tops. People over 65 make up around 12%. With a few very rare exceptions, couples in their sixties are every bit as infertile as gay couples, and they out number us by a factor of six to one. And people have been openly old in this country for a lot longer than they have been openly gay. Add to that the number of couples who are infertile for reasons other than age, and you come up with a population in which gays are, once again, a tiny minority.
If you think our entire system of marriage needs to be changed so that it is solely focused on child rearing, fine: make that argument. You don’t even need to use the word “gay” to make it. But we’re not talking about your hypothetical ideal, we’re talking about a system which, as currently designed, is not, at any level, concerned with the ability of a citizen to reproduce - unless that person is gay. If you want to chuck the whole system, fine. But until that happens, you need to find a better reason to exclude gays from the system we have. Because the one you’re using just doesn’t work.
I don’t know that at all, at least in part because I’m not entirely certain what it’s supposed to mean. To the extent that I can derive any meaning from it, I’m pretty sure I still disagree.
You know the great thing about gay parents? They pretty much never exist, except through careful planning. Sounds like the sort of thing the government ought to be encouraging, to me!
It’s also never required children.
Kind of like the specific benefits gained by children from being raised by two married heterosexuals?
There’s lots of things in this world that are neither the business of the government or the church. Just because you’ve (poorly) demonstrated that something doesn’t belong in one sphere, it doesn’t automatically mean it belongs in the other.
Which is nothing to do with the question of marriage, which clearly belongs as part of the government sphere.
How about this: the state lets any two adults who want to get married, get married.
Say what now? Where do you get this from?
I’ve seen a lot of poor arguments against gay marriage, but never one that actually suggested that we don’t have enough money for gay marriage.
Do you have any sort of evidence for that at all?