I am pro-SSM, and anti-incest.
I do not believe children are capable of making the decision of who to sleep with - I don’t think they have matured to the point that 1) they actively want a sexual relationship and 2) are capable of sound reasoning and judgement.
Adults, generally, are capable of making that decision - as they are capable of deciding who is the partner for them.
Please point out the hypocrisy for me.
As I understand it, SSM advocates (including myself) are proposing that the same privilege be extended to persons wishing to contract a marriage with someone of the same sex as currently exists for persons wishing to contract a marriage with someone of the opposite sex – the right to marry the person with whom they are in love. There have been a number of cites demonstrating in part the list of inequities under law that prohibiting such marriage works on those who commit to an unrecognized marital relationship anyways.
Given that, I would say that the onus is on you to demonstrate that SSM is not a Civil Rights issue.
Rather than arguing against your second strongest reason, I’d like to hear the reasoning underlying your argument that such a stance is hypocritical.
It’s a matter of equal rights, therefore it’s a civil rights issue.
:dubious: What are you talking about ?
Just realised my above post made no sense :smack: please ignore it.
But these aren’t reasons for opposing SSM; they’re criticisms of the case for SSM.
A reason for opposing SSM would be a way in which, you believe, SSM would be reasonably likely to cause harm, either to individuals or to society as a whole—or rather, to do more harm than good.
Can you explain how it’s not a civil rights issue? The state grants certain priviledges to one section of the population, and not to another. That’s pretty much the definition of a civil rights issue, isn’t it?
But, let’s go with your definition and say that SSM is not, in fact, a civil rights issue. Why not let gays get married anyway? That’s not a reason to oppose gay marriage: at best, it’s a reason to not care very strongly one way or the other.
You’ll have to explain to me how this makes any sense whatsoever. First, SSM and incest are two entirely seperate issues. That’s like saying you oppose legal speed limits because murder is illegal. Second, wether or not some proportion of people supporting SSM may or may not be hypocrites (or political radicals, or worse) has no bearing on the justness of the concept of SSM. As a counter-example for people on your side of the fence: the KKK is also opposed to gay marriage, but that fact alone does not discredit the entire anti-SSM movement.
OK, but slavery was. Are you seriously going to argue that slavery was not morally wrong until the 13th Amendment was ratified?
Whether this is true or not depends on how you look at it, and how you define your terms. Since opponents of SSM tend not to look at it this way, I don’t think this is a useful argument. (The other way to look at it is that the whole population has the same privilege: to marry a member of the opposite sex, but not to marry a member of the same sex. Same rule for everyone.)
I hesitate to speak for Serket, but I’m guessing his reasoning is that, if you say that people should be able to marry whomever they want and they shouldn’t be prevented just because they happen to be the same sex, they also by the same reasoning shouldn’t be prevented because they happen to be close relatives. But I agree with you that this is irrelevant to the question of whether SSM is, in fact, just.
I agree that children are not capable of making the decision of who to sleep with; therefore, I am against same-sex marriage.
What’s that? Oh, you weren’t talking about same-sex marriage for children, but for adults? Oh.
Perhaps, then, the person mentioning incest was also talking about adults.
What I’ve yet to see, from someone who does look at it this way, is why interracial marriage is different from same-sex marriage in this respect. When interracial marriage was banned, everyone had the right to marry a partner of the same race, but not a member of another race, so everyone was living under the same rule.
Or explain why marriage between two people of different religions should be legal (the Bible has rather a lot to say about the unacceptability of marriage between people of different religions, after all) but same-sex marriage should be illegal.
Yeah, I know - I posted above that the post you quote made no sense. :smack:
I think you’re right that these are similar issues. But I’m not convinced that interracial marriage is an issue of discrimination or civil rights (at least according to Miller’s definition) either.
Let me be clear about what I’m saying. There’s nothing wrong with interracial marriage, and there are strong, valid arguments against making it illegal. But I don’t think those arguments involve civil rights, at least not until they get past the point of proving some things that need to be proven to convince anyone who’d oppose interracial marriage.
And the same, I think, could be said about same-sex marriage.
In fact, I’m not sure a “discrimination is bad” argument is ever useful, by itself. Why not just say it’s discrimination whenever you make anything illegal, because you’re denying the civil rights of people who want to do that thing?
Those are both valid points, but the problem is, Serket hasn’t made either of them. Saying, “SSM isn’t a civil rights issue,” isn’t productive: it’s not an argument, it’s just an assertion. It can’t be debated unless he presents his reasoning for why he feels its not a civil rights issue. What can I say to, “It’s not a civil rights issue!” “Is so?”
[ Moderator Mode ]
Serket, posting a series of one-line responses to other posts while failing to develop an actual argument on one’s own is not how we conduct debates in this Forum.
You appear to be posting without even considering the points to which you respond. For example, your response to Bryan Ekers regarding step-parenting in post #236 is not substantively different than my response in #218 regarding the evolutionary aspect of homosexual (presumably non-breeding) members of a group.
Odd claims such as that SSM is not a civil rights issue or interjecting odd claims of hypocrisy regarding the unrelated issue of incest without providing a coherent argument to support your positions gives the very strong impression that you are not interested in debate, or even discussion, but are posting simply to see how many responses you can garner.
Please begin providing substantive support for your positions or I wlll shut down this thread.
[ /Moderator Mode ]
Since you have provided nary a cogent reason as to why you believe that SSM is not a civil rights issue, it’s not worth arguing with you. Regardless of whether you believe that SSM is or is not a civil rights issue, however, I think I’ve done a fairly thorough analysis in my several posts on this thread as to why forbidding SSM is certainly a violation of the Establishment Clause, and you haven’t responded to that rationale in any fashion whatsoever. If you have a reasoned argument, make it.
With regard to your second blandishment, though - that I and others who support SSM are hypocrites, I shall respond. As Miller already pointed out to you, your assertion doesn’t make sense, as SSM and incest are no more related than heterosexual marriage and incest (and, if I had to guess, probably less so). And since we are talking about marriage, I presume that we are of course limiting the discussion of “incest” to consenting adult relatives, as child abuse has no relevance to this discourse.
There are excellent and sound scientific, biological and medical reasons to legally forbid incestuous marriage, and you don’t need to be Oppenheimer to understand those reasons. There is no hypocrisy whatsoever in believing that there is a solid legal foundation in support of SSM while at the same time still denying marriage licenses - and, thusly, implicit “permission” for procreation - to closely-related individuals.
Peanut50
I would be reluctant to use this particular argument in this day and age, to be honest. There are certainly sound medical reasons why an incestuous couple should be advised against having children. Does this mean that the State should prevent them from having children? If one answers “yes” to this question, it’s difficult not to concede any other arguments that may be made in favour of eugenics, which (I hope) we all agree is a bad thing. Also, one of the main issues in the SSM debate is that inability to procreate should not be a criterion for denying a couple the right to marry - and, after all, marriage isn’t necessary for procreation in the first place, short of measures (compulsory administration of contraceptives to unmarried women, forced abortion) that no democratic state should consider adopting.
Am I arguing in favour of incest here? I think I may be. Well, it’s better than being a hypocrite. 
Hi, Tevildo:
Hmmm…I deliberately steered away (I thought) from the concept of eugenics, or for that matter, the idea that the State actively “prevented” incestuous couples from having children by declining marriage licenses. I used the phrase “and thus, implicitly, ‘permission’ for procreation,” in an attempt to distinguish the difference.
Having resided in Alaska for a few years a while back, and having viewed the residents of a not-to-be-named bush village where inbreeding was rampant (primarily due to isolation and no cultural taboo against it for first cousins and equivalently close relations), I can say with some assurance that incestuous breeding is a seriously bad idea. The volume and level of mental and physical defects was flatly staggering. Am I arguing in favor of forced sterilization or active prevention? NO, the libertarian in me can’t live with that, but I am saying that the reasons to try to prevent the results of incest aren’t limited to religious arguments that it’s “wrong.” In this aspect, it cannot be rationally compared to the arguments against SSM, which in my experience, are all religiosity-based, no matter how couched.
I had considered - and for a variety of reasons had discarded - the idea of briefly touching upon the murkier issue of adult incest in a non-procreative couple in that post. In short, I think the problem with trying to level that playing field is that it gets into policing the minutiae of individual’s lives…I mean, in reality, you would either have to license all incestuous couples who wished to marry, and HOPE that they wouldn’t reproduce, or not license them at all (and, again, hope for the best, as incestuous couples certainly still produce offspring), because attempting to distinguish those couples that would or could reproduce from those that wouldn’t or couldn’t…that’s just entirely too complex, convoluted, and logistically nightmarish.
The incest question is an interesting one. I believe it is wholly distinguished from the SSM question, as the prohibition has more to it than religious beliefs or societal mores. Perhaps, like you, I am in one sense arguing in favor of legally-allowed incestuous marriage, but I will have to give the matter some more thought.
Peanut50
[Dr. Emmett Brown]
You’re not thinking fourth-dimensionally!
[/DEB]
No reason to tie the two together. Why not simply limit incesteous marriage to infertile couples? If an incesteous couple can show surgical sterilization, would you then concede they should be permitted state recognition of their marriage?
We’ve just spent page after page arguing, either implicitly or explicitly, how irrelevant procreation is to recognizing marriage. Why does it suddenly become a reason for denial?
I hope, at least, that this can demonstrate to the OP that support of SSM doesn’t necessarily entail support for incest, and that the two issues can be separated.
As I’ve said before, I think the state ought to begin rationalizing the law by:
If your elderly sister is confined to a wheelchair and needs 24-hour care, it may be very helpful to you to be able to gain a civil union with her, so that you can easily gain visitation rights, power of attorney, and so forth. It wouldn’t be an incestuous relationship, but it’d be helpful to the two of you.
Eventually, maybe we can create models for multiple-person civil unions. We’re not at that stage right now.
serkut, the principle of justice requires that you treat people in a relevantly similar situation in a relevantly similar fashion. I would argue that when a man wants to marry his male partner and a sixty-year-old woman wants to marry her male partner, the relevantly similar aspect of the two cases is that a person wants to marry the person they love.
Do you disagree with that assessment? If so, why–what relevant characteristic distinguishes the two cases, so that the government may justly apply different treatment to them?
Daniel