Since when has religion cornered the market on morality. have they patented it?
No?
Im an atheist and im full of logical morals.
In that vein, we should probably ask TBC what exactly the relationship between religion and morality is.
By the way, xstime, in one of your posts you keep referring to our Doric friend as “TBR.” Freudian slip? 
Actually, he’s techinically right: while we’ve had great civil unrest in this country, and while we’ve had a lot of social changes, only one of them since the late eighteenth century was accompanied by a credible attempt at a revolution – the Civil War. And that’s arguably not a revolution, and, more importantly, the revolutionary army was fighting against the social change.
In other words, one of the benefits of a liberal society (I use the word liberal in an old-school sense) is that you can achieve change without massive military action.
And I even, surprising as it may seem, respect your viewpoint that, while you’re personally against gay marriage, you’ll go along with it in order to remain part of the liberal society. Have you ever read any Isaiah Berlin? His book The Crooked Timber of Humanity is one of the formative books of my philosophical outlook, and I’ll summarize a bit here, because it’s very similar to what you’re saying, I think.
He argues that humanity has developed multiple, discrete, and irreconcilable value systems. Macchiavelli wrote eloquently on this, delineating differences between classic Roman thoughts of virtue and contemporary Christian ideas of virtue. The Romans considered the virtuous man to be brave, loyal to family and state and gods, strong, and intelligent. The Christians considered the virtuous man to be humble, meek, self-sacrificing, and loyal to family and God. Not much overlap, and some serious contradictions: what would constitute glory to the Romans would look like vicious pride to the Christians.
This is all pretty straightforward; where Macchiavelli innovated was in stating that there was no real way to choose one set of values above another. Who could prove that Roman virtue was better than Christian virtue? Nobody, he answered; personally, he preferred the Roman concept, but a person who preferred the Christian concept wasn’t wrong so much as different.
Berlin expands on this: he states that, given a reality in which people don’t all work within the same set of values, there’s absolutely no way to achieve a utopia that’s going to make everyone happy. INdeed, attempts to achieve such utopias are (he argued) behind the worst horrors of the 20th century, from Nazi Europe through Communist Russia through Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge.
The best we can do is to try to create a society in which everyone is able to more-or-less live within their own values. It won’t be perfect – it cannot be perfect, given the contradictory values people have. But we’ll do the best we can, and bumble along in our imperfect system.
Does that make sense?
Daniel
Since our masonically monickered Opening Poster is by all accounts a politics undergraduate, I’ll give an answer he is familiar with.
The deliberate killing of sentient beings has negative utility, both to the victim’s loved ones and the panic spread to the wider population that they might, arbitrarily, be next. It can therefore only be sanctioned in order to prevent even more negative utility.
(Incidentally, I believe this is actually a thinly veiled anti-abortion thread like so many other Broken Columns. In which case, the foetus is of course not a sentient being.)
You’re not the only one thinking that.
I think you’re right – but I also think this is a conversation that may prove productive. It’s certainly a legitimate avenue of inquiry, even if Column’s ultimate question is about abortion; you gotta establish a baseline for argument before you can get into the details.
Daniel
So your saying you make up the entirity of the people? You believe murder to be wrong because “people think it’s wrong” in your own words, and for gay marriages you can’t say the same thing because “you dont think it’s wrong”?
Until you become the only ‘person’ on this planet, your statement is a complete contradiction in it self. I for one see no justification for the allowance of a gay marriage, and feel fair asking for a rational justification on that. Of course, I can’t see why anyone else would want to justify it just as you don’t see why anyone would think it wrong. Come back with a consistent argument next time.
For your information I’ll present reasons for saying the allowance of gay marriages is ‘wrong’.
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The primary and ONLY reasonable purpose of sex is reproduction. Any emotions and gratifications thereof are only side effects of our biological system wanting to propagate it’s genes. Gay sex CANNOT bring about reproduction and serves no purpose.
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The primary and ONLY reasonable purpose of marriage is for the protection of the newly propagated. Marriage and sex CANNOT be separated. In ALL societies where the infrastructure called marriage exists, it is directly linked with sex and reproduction. Some argue that this ‘was’ the case but no longer applies. I’ll say that they live in a little pond and should get out abit. Present me a reasonable argument explaining why marriage is neccessary for any other purpose and I may reconsider. reasonable being the key word here.
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Community and society tends to protect it’s young ones, hence benefits for married couples exist. To aid it’s young propagated. Some benefits do not aid the child directly, but will aid it indirectly.
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Gay couples cannot propagate under (1) and hence cannot have children. If you want to bring in adoption here, I don’t see any reason why gays should be allowed to adopt children. For that matter, I don’t see any reason why straight singles should be allowed to adopt for that matter. Present first why they should be allowed, and then talk about those adopted to debunk this point.
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Gay marriage does not meet (2) and hence should not be recognized as marriage. With respect to (4), they sould not receive the benefits described in (3).
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Gays have a differing objective for marriage than (2) and hence it is justly prohibited.
If you can justify gay marriages, you should be able to justify the government providing me with financial benefits for going to a club and having a one night stand with some chick.
One last thing, an argument someone has presented: ‘If your not hurting anyone, then you should be able to do whatever you want.’
But then I can say that the ‘existance of gays’ actually hurts society as a whole, and hence hurts all within. Then is it OK to say gays should be exterminated? Of course, I know your asking “How does it hurt society?”. I’ll tell you. The ONLY purpose of gay sex is gratification. Hence sex is reduced from being a propagation method shared by a couple devoted to raising the propagated to a leisure activity. This reduces the fidelity standards of not only gays but also straights in the same community because of the lowered ‘inherent value’ of sex. Hence gays are harming all in the community.
:o cough cough I didn’t think anyone would notice this.
I have to agree with Left Hand of Dorkness, that TBC is technically and even essentially correct in his assessment of America’s ability to change and adapt some of its past more distressing and aggregious social morals and mores without revolution. The fact that it took a long time doesn’t take away from the fact that it DID happen. The fact that people fought and even died for those changes also doesn’t take away from the fact that it happened without a large scale revolution (though I suppose you could call the Civil War such, technically).
Such core change is possible in todays world without revolution, but it certainly wasn’t at the founding of the US…or even at the turn of the century. It can be argued that such change is possible because of America…among myriad other reasons.
Personally I find it bewildering that TBC can acknowledge this facet of America, yet decry the right of people to choose for themselves about issues such as abortion…which IS legal in the US. To me thats what America is all about…the freedom to, within certain constraints set out in law, choose your own path as an individual in freedom…the freedom of choice.
Again, I was in that discussion. We ‘bitched’ at your analogy because it was full of holes…as we pointed out numerous times. It was faulty, and we simply pointed that out. I know you are enamored of that analogy so I won’t go into it again, but to an unbiased mind it fell pretty flat.
-XT
Apparently we are broadening the scope of the thread.
This is not correct in the higher mammals. There are bonding issues that are as essential as procreation, especially in humans. The emotions and gratifications that you call side effects are essential in this bonding. So, your assertion is incorrect that this invalidates gay marriage.
Again, this is incorrect. The PRIMARY ‘reason’ for ‘marriage’ in very early human societies was to set out sexual access and pair (or multi) bonding to eliminate or at least tone down discord within groups…i.e. it was a survival trait. Simply look to our primate cousins and how THEY opperate sexually in the wild related to the cooperative hunting and gathering societies of our early ancestors for an idea of how and why we evolved the institute of ‘marriage’.
As pair bonding can also occur as easily in homosexual relationships as in heterosexual relationships, again your assertion does not ‘prove’ that gay marriage is invalid. Marriage is necessary in homosexual relationships as much (today) as heterosexual ones…namely residual pair bonding and commitment, and legalistic reasons concerning property. I could make an arguement that even HETEROSEXUAL marriage isn’t essential today…thus the rise in people who chose NOT to have a heterosexual marriage these days, or get one only for the tax breaks and other legalistic reasons.
This is really the same as number 2. Certainly ONE reason for marriage was the protection of children…however, what about childless marriages for example? Are they NOT marriages? There are other pair bonding issues involved in marriage, and these remain valid for homosexuals as well as heterosexuals.
The rest of your reasons are kind of getting repetative at this point so I’ll break off here. I’m not sure how much we want to dig into this hijack anyway. For myself, I equate the current frenzy over gay marriage/no gay marriage to earlier times with bans on interracial marriage. You could probably (then) make similar ‘logical’ reasons why not to allow interracial marriage. My own marriage would not have been allowed or sanctioned 100 years ago in the south west of the US (I’m hispanic, my wife is white). To me it boils down to…this is America, it hurts no one to allow this, its not your or my business, and its a travisty that these peoples rights are being trampled on IMO. I find your reasons faulty from an anthropological stance for not allowing gay marriage…but even if I agreed they were valid I’d STILL say that it should be allowed and these people should be giving the same rights and freedoms as the rest of us.
-XT
IMO, the advantage a society has in outlawing any kind of wanton violence against one another, including killing, is that its citizens don’t have to spend all their time and resources arranging for their own security.
well, i was paraphrasing what i speculated was TBC’s position on law and morality. then i got twisted into another line of thought, and injected an idea that probably didn’t belong. anyway, i shall attempt to clarify. it seemed to me that TBC was saying that the force of the vast majority of the populace believing something is wrong is what makes it wrong. what i meant when i said “for the most part, that is probably true” was that i kind of think the reason most people think something is wrong (such as murder or gay marriage) is because, well, most people think it’s wrong. i personally try to find more justification. so where exactly did i contradict myself? and what does what i said have to do with me thinking i’m the only person (incidentally, by axiom, i am the only person, but that’s neither here nor there)?
by the way, please try to keep your temper; there’s no need for it here.
as to the rest of your post, i think we let this one get away enough, but i’d be happy to respond in a thread pertaining to that topic (i haven’t yet been a part of the “non-religious reasons against gay marriage” thread), so if you happen to post in one, please let me know.
I realize that this is not a gay marriage thread, but since the post was in this thread, I felt that it was better to respond here as well.
The primary and ONLY reasonable purpose of eating is nourishment. Any affinity to certain flavors is merely a side effect of our biological system wanting to ingest certain required nutrients. Eating flavorful yet nutrient-free food CANNOT nourish the body, and serves no purpose.
Now are you going to say that eating something non-nutritious just because it tastes good is a bad thing, and that society should not sanction it? Or are you going to admit that even if your assessment of the purpose of sex is correct – and it isn’t, as sex serves purposes other than reproduction – but even if you were correct, your argument still falls flat?
Gay marriage would be linked with sex, as well. And in our society, through birth control techniques, we have fairly successfully de-coupled reproduction from sex, so a gay marriage would be no different from a marriage in which the participants used birth control in that regard.
What about infertile couples? Should they be allowed to enjoy the benefits of marriage when they will obviously never have children?
What about gay couples who have children from prior relationships with the opposite sex, from artificial insemination, or from adoption? Shouldn’t they be granted the protections of marriage for the young ones’ benefit?
Incorrect. See above.
You don’t see why it should be allowed?! What, exactly, do you suggest we do with all those abandoned children who are wards of the state? Do we deny infertile couples the opportunity to be parents and deny the children the opportunity to have a normal home? To what purpose?
Infertile couples do not meed (2) either. Thus, in the interest of fairness, you must deny them the right to marry as well.
Unsupported assertion. Do you honestly think that every heterosexual married couple gets married to have kids? My aunt and uncle never wanted kids, and never had them (and never will). I would say that their objective for marriage is exactly the same as a homosexual couple. If you wish to deny homosexual couples the right to marry based on their reasons, then you’d have to nullify my aunt and uncle’s marriage as well (or not allow people who don’t want children to marry, if you don’t want to be retroactive about it). Are you prepared to do that?
Huh? I’m not following you here. The whole point of gay marriage is that it’s not a one night stand.
The only purpose of sex with a contraceptive is gratification. In fact, I’d be willing to wager that the vast majority of people out there having sex are doing it for the gratification, and not to have children.
How does having sex for fun reduce fidelity standards? And even if it does, how does reducing fidelity standards harm society? I mean, if people are having sex for fun (and not to reproduce), then being unfaithful does no harm since, according to you, the only purpose of marriage (and, by extension, fidelity) is to raise children. Sex without conception = no children = no need for fidelity = no harm done to society.
And straight sex by an infertile couple, or a couple past reproductive age with no children or no children at home serves no purpose? You need to get out more. 
Would it be permissible to ban sex, even between married straight couples, in these cases?
I don’t recall getting a fertility test when I got married to make sure I could reproduce. After my mom died, my dad remarried well past reproductive age. By your argument, banning such marriages is equivalent to banning gay marriage, and we should do both.
Check your tax code, please. Benefits for children (the exemptions) are orthogonal to those for being married. Married couples without children get the marriage benefits, unmarried people with children get the child benefit. Our society protects its young without regard to the marital status of their parents.
By the same argument, infertile married couples should not be allowed to adopt, not being able to propagate.
As should marriages of the elderly, or the infertile by your argument.
One might argue that if straights were not allowed to marry there would be more one night stands.
As a very straight guy married for over 25 years, I can only imagine that you are very young and unmarried, and probably a virgin. Not an insult, I rather think you don’t understand sex very well. Sex is for a lot more than reproduction and gratification. Sex is a way a couple bonds. I happen to think that a society works better with stable couples, and I can’t imagine how encouraging the forming of more such couples could be bad.
Then there are the celibate couples. Perhaps we shouldn’t let such a dreadful marriage stand.