It’s usually something about how having two fathers or two mothers isn’t ideal. Then they ignore all the families that consist of children and one mother or one father.
Both the Soviet Union and Communist China, which were and are officially atheist, objected to homosexuality that it was “bourgeois” “decadent” and other terms I forget.
I guess those count as secular if you don’t consider communism a religion.
These are all post-hoc rationalizations, not reasons. If the you tried to pass a law that said “necrophilia is OK as long as you take reasonable precautions against disease” it still wouldn’t pass. Same with a law that said, “Bestiality is legal, but only with obviously consenting animals (male dog, female human, say).”
Maybe I’m debating semantics, here, but all of our laws are based on our morals - many of which are derived from traditions (religious or otherwise). It’s not “right” to murder. It’s not “right” to lower someone else’s enjoyment of the world by littering. It’s not “right” for gays to marry.
To the OP: I think your question is unanswerable. Every argument for or against a law is always going to be religious at some level, in the sense that our morals are shaped by our environment - which includes religion*.
*I’m probably going to get people saying that they’re atheists and still have a moral code. Well, sure, but where did that code from? Your environment, including religious forefathers, neighbors, etc.
Just find a secular argument against all marriage, I’m sure there are some out there.
Since you admit you probably don’t understand their point correctly I’m not sure I can intelligibly respond, but let me boldly preempt a direction I think you might be headed in.
Currently a marriage is between two adults of different genders, homosexuals believe as adults any government has no business discriminating against their gender. How any of that has to do with any other type of relationship is beyond me.
Which still puts them above the anti-SSM crowd, which has nothing. They’ve been given the chance repeatedly to come up with something better than “God and icky”, both in court and out of it, and failed.
Opposition to same sex marriage is an example of pure malice, unlike those other examples. It has no purpose whatsoever except to persecute homosexuals.
Nonsense. Religion is not a source of morality, it corrupts morality; morality exists in spite of religion, not because of it. If my morality was based on religion I’d do what the religious always say they’d do if they didn’t believe in god, and go rape, pillage & burn.
Except for the last sentence I notice your examples don’t include consenting adult humans. It’s also not ‘right’ to codify your opinion as law on the private life of American citizens. So where does that leave your morality driven laws?
Also, the situation with incest laws today is fairly similar to the state of sodomy laws immediately before the Lawrence case-- virtually never enforced when between two consenting adults and when there’s no procreation.
What purpose does banning incest between consenting adults serve? I still maintain that law, and any gay ones exist, at their root, because people think ‘ew.’
I guess it depends on how you define morality. But as far as I can see, you’re arguing that morals are something we’re born with and not molded by our environment (only potentially corrupted?). But this is clearly wrong: see the fact that two atheists will not have the same set of moral values.
OK, fine. Take an example of something icky that is involved between consenting adults - incest, or heck, necrophiliac sex. What’s the reasoning behind banning these? (For the former, if you’re going to bring up deformed babies, we have abortions and we already let people who are going deformed babies carry them to term. For the latter, if you’re going bring up the spread of disease we already let people with VDs have sex.)
The editors of The American Conservative can’t even stand Jews. Gays are right out.
The standard argument is the danger of inbreeding. While it’s a questionable argument, it’s far, far better than anything the anti-homosexual crowd has come up with.
No; I’m saying that “do what this holy book/priest/the voices in your head tell you to do” is incompatible with morality. The mindless obedience and equally mindless self indulgence that characterize religion are incompatible with genuine morality. Genuine morality requires that you base your decisions on the effects you have on the real world and actual flesh-and-blood people; not an imaginary god, and imaginary afterlife, and imaginary souls. It requires you make judgements, and don’t just mindlessly obey dogma regardless of the results. And it requires that you don’t just declare every whim and desire you have to be “God’s Will” and trample over everyone else.
Sitnam:
I think those who follow that line of logic believe single parenthood to be non-ideal as well.
But it still fails as an argument given that under no other circumstances is being “ideal” considered a requirement for parenthood. Because if it was, no one would be allowed to be a parent.
More to the point, single parenthood is not against the law. Nobody’s proposing passing amendments to force single parents to marry somebody, anybody, to provide that supposedly ideal second parental unit.
How does a male dog “consent”? How do you clearly and unequivically communicate to the dog what your intentions are? How does he do the same with his consent?
Or are you under the mistaken notion that any time a male creature gets an erection that he is consenting to sex?
Even between humans who can clearly communicate intention and consent, that is not enough. Remember, to “consent” you have to do more then just say “Yes”, it has to be a fully informed consent that is clearly understood by both parties in both intents and consequences. That is why most human societies understand that children can’t give consent. How can a dog?
Exactly.* Since conservatives believe laws regarding a persons relationship are morally justified and effective it’s interesting to note ‘defenders of marriage’ aren’t seeking to make it illegal to be a single parent or to get a divorce. While legislating against those would be absurd, it is equivalent to their tack on SSM.
To get anywhere with a secular argument they need to prove or at least find evidence that strongly indicates a homosexual upbringing is detrimental to the child in some way (are children raised in a same-sex household more likely to commit murder, use drugs, get STDs, cheat on their taxes). Then we can have a discussion on whether or not that should trump two adults rights. But as far as I know they haven’t been able to do even that.
*Just trying to answer the OP, regarding SSM you’re preaching to the choir here.
Jenaroph:
Of course not, but there’s a difference between a government coercing someone to action and a government not offering to put official sanction on a non-ideal situation.
I agree with you on this.
I think many people may be offended by such comparisons, because they’re often the start of a slippery slope argument. But in my case, I would have no issue at all with incest being legal (I do think it would be wise to have requirements that, say, contraceptives must be used).
I really don’t care what consenting adults do in private that doesn’t affect me.
It’s ironic that some people think “Incest…eww! Homosexuality is not like that”. Well, sure it’s not like that, but the argument “Eww!” doesn’t work any more now than it did when it was used against homosexuality.
Disagree here though, and I’m not sure what conclusion you are drawing from two people having different moral values. Pretty much everything we’re born with shows variation.
All indications are that humans do have an instinctive “morality” or at least, an instinctive bad or good “feeling” when seeing certain acts. e.g. Pretty much every culture that’s ever existed has considered stealing from a member of one’s own tribe wrong.
And if you give a sweet to a child, then give its sibling two sweets, even very young infants will notice and care intensely about the unfairness of it. We really are wired that way.
These simple feelings however, aren’t a concrete ethical system – they don’t tell us exactly what we should do in many real-world situations – and so society (and yes, religion) can inform that. But they aren’t the source of our morals.