# What is the rationale for opposition to same-sex marriage? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 8, 2009, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382 "2009-04-08T11:47:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 29
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/561 "2009-04-12T16:17:34Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > THIS would be separate but equal. You have two distinct things—buses and civil transportation units—that two different groups will be accessing exclusively, with the hopes of making them equal. The major problem with “separate with equal” is the acknowledgement that the different thing each group has access to will not/cannot be equal, as much as one might try. My opposition does not have two different things people will be accessing. It has one. One set of legal protections, rights, and privileges that each of the two groups can access equally and in full. . But the buses and civil transport units are identical vehicles. They run the same routes, follow the same schedule. If you were placed on one with no other passengers whose race you could check on, you’d never guess which vehicle you were riding. So Montgomery will have a perfectly equal system\*, just with two names. Sorta like your civil unions vs. marriage plans. \*Except for all those minor technicalities already pointed out by other posters; but you don’t seem to mind them existing for marriage, so I don’t know why you’d get upset over them existing for buses. > [@magellan01](#): > > I agree that it is not complicated. But, evidently, you’ve not been able to comprehend it, as evidenced by your first paragraph in this post. And your second . Do keep explaining how your separate but equal plan is in no ways a separate but equal plan. The contortions as you try to justify it are getting quite amusing. ---
**Author:** ![CannyDan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cannydan/32/548_2.png) [@CannyDan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CannyDan)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/562 "2009-04-12T17:11:27Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > You must not have read the thread. I’ve not tried to force that argument as you say at all. I did comment when a poster brought up the issue with the implication that the majority is always wrong in these cases and that we should ignore their desires. > > Feel free to read the entire thread, specifically, all my posts, before you think you know what I “keep trying to force the argument into”. I \*\*\*have \*\*\*read the entire thread, all (so far) 555 posts of it, including each and every one of your contributions. You have repeatedly referred to majority opinion, culminating in the specific lines I quoted, wherein you declaim that majority rule actually controls. Go back and read your own words. I corrected you in that regard. ETA-- now 562 posts Your separate but (not) equal plan continues to fail for the reason that all separate plans fail-- they are not equal. Disregarding for the moment all the hypotheticals about potential changes after initial implementation, your plan still fails because no matter how you style it, non-hetero couples are still denied the right to call themselves married. Under our Constitution’s equal protection, unless there is an overwhelming societal harm from so doing, this right cannot be denied. I (and others of us) repeat the request to you for an offer of proof of anything that rises to the level of an overwhelming societal harm to be caused by homo couples calling themselves married, and sharing all of the rights and responsibilities of hetero married couples. You cannot. Neither can anybody else. Except by reference, however artfully hidden, to some religious dogma. That, by the way, is the reason all those “activist judges” you keep complaining about continue finding fault (incrementally, I admit-- but more every year) with prohibitions against SSM. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/563 "2009-04-12T17:11:59Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Well, a palpable reason exists to treat criminals differently, and they get this treatment after (one hopes) due process of law. There’s no due process, nor is there any particular reason, for the state to treat homosexuals differently. > > Or if there is, I’ve yet to hear it. Surely that last sentence should be, “If there is, i’ve yet to hear one I agree with” - I would be very surprised if you have heard no-one give any reasons to treat gay people differently whatsoever. I’ve heard lots, most of which i’d disagree with. The problem is, here we’re talking about doing the will of the masses, and one of the reasons given for treating homosexuals differently is that a lot of people feel that they should be. I don’t agree, but I think it bears a relevancy to the criminal minority here in that it is apparently acceptable for the majority to be able to take away certain important rights from a minority, and for this to be considered a good idea. I can disagree with the reasons in this particular case, and so with this usage in terms of gay people, but there’s certainly a relevance there, because it’s the argument opponents are making. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/564 "2009-04-12T17:25:25Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Why? Because that is what the word means. That is what is was plainly understood to mean for ages. (Polygamy was the exception, but the fact that we have a distinct word for it points to the fact that people understood it to be a special case. One that has continuously lost favor in western civilization for the hierarchy it built in regarding men and women.) A union of a man and woman are capable of a special relationship. They can bring children into the world. Over the eons, people recognized that that a man and woman in love didn’t just fuck, but that they had a strong bond to each other. They also had a strong sense of protection over their offspring. You hear all the time people say that they could not fully appreciate the love they have for their children until after they have them. That they see it as overwhelming. While males of all species don’t stick around and care for their mate and offspring, many do. For whatever reason, our species does better when the mating pair forms a “family”. This was recognized in very early societies, and those societies gave that special relationship special recognition. Marriage-type ceremonies exist it almost all ancient cultures. True, the institution (and the rights and privileges it afforded) was then seized upon by people in order to take advantage of those rights, sparking arranged marriages for some type of gain. This can be viewed as a bastardization of marriage, but it doesn’t erase the reasons it sprouted up in the first place. Or erase the fact the the vast number marriages performed in the United States have been due to desire of the heart, not the pocketbook. Marriage has been viewed as a societal good and has shown itself to be a great way to raise future generations. Look where marriage has suffered the most, in the inner cities. While many single women due an amazing job in a poor situation, the incidence of single-family households and rampant premarital sex among adolescents dooms not only millions of young women and their babies, but those mini-societies themselves suffer greatly by having an abundance of adolescent males who do not have fathers to keep them in line and act as role models. This is something nature counts on. Look at adolescent lions or bull elephants and the havoc they can cause if there is not a strong dominant male present to keep order. Marriage is the societal recognition of that which nature causes on her own. True, economics plays a large role in the inner city communities. But previous generations who lived in Harlem and similar areas shared the same poverty, but not the chaos caused by young males fucking their way through adolescence without consequence for themselves. It is in society’s best interest to encourage that which benefits it. It is it’s obligation. Marriage is a societal good, so it is right for it to be encouraged by the state. When two people are in love, they want to demonstrate their love by proclaiming it publicly and formalizing their relationship. Both herteros and gays want to do this. And they should and can. BUt society’s interest (beyond the equal rights and privileges all participants should enjoy) is in encouraging men and women to get married. Now, getting married makes the participants happy, and that’s great. But society’s interest goes beyond that. It benefits us to have men and women want to get married (and stay married), and have as many children as possible be raised by their natural parents, assuming they are fit and willing to do so, of course. The laws we currently have, and the gut feeling many of us have show a strong bias for a child to stay with their biological offspring. We “see” that there is a bond their that can be approximated, but not duplicated. Not easily or often, anyway. So, if a young hertero couple twenty years from now fall madly in love, we want them to view marriage as a bond that is both special and relevant. They’re looking to demonstrate their love, AND, the vast majority of time, start a family. The more “marriage” stands for that, and exclusively that, the more attractive a decision it will be to them. By having marriage include gay relationships, the idea isn’t AS special, AS unique, not AS appropriate for them. The concept is diluted. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/565 "2009-04-12T17:33:16Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > By having marriage include gay relationships, the idea isn’t AS special, AS unique, not AS appropriate for them. The concept is diluted. Only if you accept that Gays are somehow filthy, unclean and degenerate. That’s your baggage. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/566 "2009-04-12T17:36:29Z")
Apologies for making a point i’m sure you’ve heard before, **magellan** , but by that logic shouldn’t we call marriage between an infertile couple something different, so as to further strengthen “true” marriage? By including infertile couples, the term isn’t AS special, and so on, so doesn’t it behoove us to seperate them out to stop them diluting this special meaning? The same logic would hold also for those couples who do not want to have children, or who do not want biological children but plan to adopt, or who already have children they plan to raise from prior relationships. Perhaps we could have a something like a “proto-marriage” when a couple of any type get married, which is then upgraded to true marriage upon the birth of their first biological child. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/567 "2009-04-12T17:41:04Z")
> [@42fish](#): > > .But the buses and civil transport units are identical vehicles. They run the same routes, follow the same schedule. If you were placed on one with no other passengers whose race you could check on, you’d never guess which vehicle you were riding. So Montgomery will have a perfectly equal system\*, just with two names. Sorta like your civil unions vs. marriage plans. The separate but equal argument, as it applies to schools, mean that (let’s take a small community) you can’t have two different schools—School A on the east side of the tracks and School B on the west side of the tracks and expect them to ever be equal. Correct? I’ll assume you agree. Now if you do, were talking about two populations, blacks and whites, and two different schools. The solution, for example, is to have one big school where all kids can go. One where all kids can take advantage of all the classes, teachers, classrooms, equipment, everything, equally. I draw a perfectly aligned analogy, with two groups accessing ONE “school”, ONE set of legal protections, rights, and privileges. Yet you continue to say there are two “schools”, two sets of laws. This is not representative of my idea. This has been pointed out numerous times. Now, I cannot prevent you from sticking your fingers in your ears and obstinately lalalalalalalala your way to “two buses—two sets of laws”, but I can leave you to do it on your own. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/568 "2009-04-12T17:42:19Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Only if you accept that Gays are somehow filthy, unclean and degenerate. That’s your baggage. Ok, I disagree with **magellan** on this, but your particular point here is utter bullshit. Dilution of a concept does not mean the diluting party are “filthy, unclean and degenerate”, nor have I seen **magellan** claim that anywhere. And to insinuate what you have based on such a bullshit point is yet further nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![CannyDan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cannydan/32/548_2.png) [@CannyDan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CannyDan)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/569 "2009-04-12T17:45:02Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > \ …getting married makes the participants happy, and that’s great. But society’s interest goes beyond that. It benefits us to have men and women want to get married (and stay married), and have as many children as possible be raised by their natural parents, assuming they are fit and willing to do so, of course. \ Here is the heart of the matter. Finally. The words “ **be raised by their natural parents** ” are key. Read your entire missive, but remove those few words, and it becomes a \*\*\*support \*\*\*for SSM. Only by ignoring the fact that SSM couples often desire and certainly can create children, just not necessarily biologically with each other, and making this an absolute requirement of marriage, can your argument be sustained against SSM. You’ve made this offer before. And you were contradicted on it before, because it necessarily ignores all the children presently being raised inside and outside today’s “marriage”, by people who are not the biological parents of those children, whether by adoption, infidelity, plan, or accident. And all those married couples who remain childless as well. (Like my wife and I.) Requiring marriage to be “all about making and then raising only your own children” is an idea whose applicability was lost in the dust of history long before you ever raised it here. Your apparent desire for an unlamented and well departed past should not influence our present, let alone our future. So, still no demonstrable societal harm from SSM? ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/570 "2009-04-12T17:46:29Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > ONE set of laws for all marriages would be superior. Any two people of marriageable age can marry. Why isn’t that superior to the current state of affairs? One set of laws for all unions certainly is one option. It ensures that all participants enjoy the same legal protections, rights, and privileges. But it is not the only way. My plan does that as well. I think my plan is superior because it allows that to happen while not changing/diluting the definition of the word “marriage”. Which I described I view as a benefit to society. Also, it allows the legal protections to be expanded to one group without pissing off the other. I view it as win-win. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/571 "2009-04-12T17:47:31Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > Ok, I disagree with **magellan** on this, but your particular point here is utter bullshit. Dilution of a concept does not mean the diluting party are “filthy, unclean and degenerate”, nor have I seen **magellan** claim that anywhere. And to insinuate what you have based on such a bullshit point is yet further nonsense. How does their inclusion into the concept of marriage dilute it unless it is somehow less _concentrated awesome_ than heterosexual marriage? ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/572 "2009-04-12T18:00:21Z")
> [@CannyDan](#): > > You have repeatedly referred to majority opinion, culminating in the specific lines I quoted, wherein you declaim that majority rule actually controls. Nope. You are incorrect. I venture that you and I have different understandings of the word “repeatedly”. Did I mention it more than once? Likely. Did I do it as a thrust of my argument, which is how most people would take you characterization, no. > [@CannyDan](#): > > Disregarding for the moment all the hypotheticals about potential changes after initial implementation, your plan still fails because no matter how you style it, non-hetero couples are still denied the right to call themselves married. It fails not. They also can’t legally call themselves giraffes, or bicycles, or saucers. And neither male in a gay union can call himself a woman. Legally, anyway. So what? > [@CannyDan](#): > > I (and others of us) repeat the request to you for an offer of proof of anything that rises to the level of an overwhelming societal harm to be caused by homo couples calling themselves married, and sharing all of the rights and responsibilities of hetero married couples. > > You cannot. Incorrect. I have. You might not find it convincing, but I have supplied it. That’s not the same thing. > [@CannyDan](#): > > That, by the way, is the reason all those “activist judges” you keep complaining about continue finding fault (incrementally, I admit-- but more every year) with prohibitions against SSM. Yeah, maybe. And maybe it’ll be reined in. Welfare was a darling at one time, too. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/573 "2009-04-12T18:02:44Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > A union of a man and woman are capable of a special relationship. They can bring children into the world. Over the eons, people recognized that that a man and woman in love didn’t just fuck, but that they had a strong bond to each other. They also had a strong sense of protection over their offspring. You hear all the time people say that they could not fully appreciate the love they have for their children until after they have them. That they see it as overwhelming. While males of all species don’t stick around and care for their mate and offspring, many do. For whatever reason, our species does better when the mating pair forms a “family”. This was recognized in very early societies, and those societies gave that special relationship special recognition. Marriage-type ceremonies exist it almost all ancient cultures. True, the institution (and the rights and privileges it afforded) was then seized upon by people in order to take advantage of those rights, sparking arranged marriages for some type of gain. This can be viewed as a bastardization of marriage, but it doesn’t erase the reasons it sprouted up in the first place. Or erase the fact the the vast number marriages performed in the United States have been due to desire of the heart, not the pocketbook. > > Marriage has been viewed as a societal good and has shown itself to be a great way to raise future generations. Look where marriage has suffered the most, in the inner cities. While many single women due an amazing job in a poor situation, the incidence of single-family households and rampant premarital sex among adolescents dooms not only millions of young women and their babies, but those mini-societies themselves suffer greatly by having an abundance of adolescent males who do not have fathers to keep them in line and act as role models. This is something nature counts on. Look at adolescent lions or bull elephants and the havoc they can cause if there is not a strong dominant male present to keep order. Marriage is the societal recognition of that which nature causes on her own. True, economics plays a large role in the inner city communities. But previous generations who lived in Harlem and similar areas shared the same poverty, but not the chaos caused by young males fucking their way through adolescence without consequence for themselves. > > It is in society’s best interest to encourage that which benefits it. It is it’s obligation. Marriage is a societal good, so it is right for it to be encouraged by the state. When two people are in love, they want to demonstrate their love by proclaiming it publicly and formalizing their relationship. Both herteros and gays want to do this. And they should and can. BUt society’s interest (beyond the equal rights and privileges all participants should enjoy) is in encouraging men and women to get married. Now, getting married makes the participants happy, and that’s great. But society’s interest goes beyond that. It benefits us to have men and women want to get married (and stay married), and have as many children as possible be raised by their natural parents, assuming they are fit and willing to do so, of course. The laws we currently have, and the gut feeling many of us have show a strong bias for a child to stay with their biological offspring. We “see” that there is a bond their that can be approximated, but not duplicated. Not easily or often, anyway. > > So, if a young hertero couple twenty years from now fall madly in love, we want them to view marriage as a bond that is both special and relevant. They’re looking to demonstrate their love, AND, the vast majority of time, start a family. The more “marriage” stands for that, and exclusively that, the more attractive a decision it will be to them. You were doing so well, and then you had to reverse your astoundingly good argument for same sex marriage with the following _non sequitur_. > [@magellan01](#): > > By having marriage include gay relationships, the idea isn’t AS special, AS unique, not AS appropriate for them. The concept is diluted. With adoption, IVF pregnancies, and surrogates, there is no reason in the world why a gay couple who want to raise a family cannot do so and the best way that we can provide cultural and societal support for their union is to recognize it as a marriage. Conversely, with the prevalence of multiple forms of birth control, large numbers of heterosexual couples have chosen to eschew children and we do not penalize them by giving them a separate name for their union, so those gay couples who do not choose to have children have diluted nothing. [How Many Children Have Gay Parents in the US?](http://adoption.about.com/od/gaylesbian/f/gayparents.htm) > [@](#): > > [ul][li]There were an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 gay and lesbian biological parents in 1976.[/li][li]In 1990, an estimated 6 to 14 million children have a gay or lesbian parent.[/li][li]Between 8 and 10 million children are being raised in a gay and lesbian households.[/ul][/li] > Latest statistics from the U.S. Census 2000, the National Survey of Family Growth (2002), and the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (2004) include: > > An estimated two million GLB people are interested in adopting. > An estimated 65,500 adopted children are living with a lesbian or gay parent. > More than 16,000 adopted children are living with lesbian and gay parents in California, the highest number among the states. > Gay and lesbian parents are raising four percent of all adopted children in the United States. > Adopted children with same-sex parents are younger and more likely to be foreign born. [Childless By Choice](http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4021/is_2001_Nov_1/ai_79501204/) > [@](#): > > It’s a trend that applies to all age groups: For the 25 to 29 bracket, 28 percent were childless in 1998, up from 16 percent in 1976; for 30- to 34-year-olds, it was 20 percent, compared with 11 percent in 1976; for 40- to 44-year-olds, 19 percent were childless, up from 10 percent in 1976. The 2000 census figures on fertility weren’t available at press time, but Amara Bachu, co-author of the Census Bureau’s 1998 report, “Fertility of American Women,” says: “From the data we’ve gathered so far, it looks like childlessness is continuing to go up.” (The article is over seven years old, so the numbers are higher, now.) ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/574 "2009-04-12T18:11:25Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Only if you accept that Gays are somehow filthy, unclean and degenerate. That’s your baggage. Although this has already been pointed to for what it is, let me help. Let’s say I have a club, called the Cool University Alumni Club. But there are some people who attended the school for two or three years and either transferred out or quit, who have lots of friends from their days on campus. So this group petitions the Alumini Club to allow these non-alumni to join. The Alumni Club, for whatever reason, agrees. The club membership of alumni will be diluted, right? This is just a fact, it doesn’t say that the non-alumni are “unclean” or “degenerate”. But the fact is that the club is no longer as “pure”, as “homogeneous” (:)) as before. (For what it’s worth, this is a real life example. I am a member of an online college alumni group of a college I transferred from after two t=years. I requested it to the board and it was approved.) Another example, simpler: A Men’s social club suddenly is forced, or decides, to accept a few women. Is not that membership diluted in regard to it being a men’s club? Of course it is, But that doesn’t mean that the women are “unclean” or “degenerate”, rights? Hope that helps. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/575 "2009-04-12T18:13:23Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > How does their inclusion into the concept of marriage dilute it unless it is somehow less _concentrated awesome_ than heterosexual marriage? Because it makes it a more inclusive definition, a definition that many more types of couples would be able to be included in. **magellan’s** “concentrated awesome” appears to be the ability for the couple to have biological children; that’s just one of I imagine many possible reasons why the definition of marriage might be “diluted” without saying the party in question is filthy, unclean, or degenerate, as differing from your idiotic point that those things are a certainty in such matters. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/576 "2009-04-12T18:15:54Z")
I have to run now. But I am eager to come back to respond to Rev and others worthy of a reply. Have a nice day. ---
**Author:** ![CannyDan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cannydan/32/548_2.png) [@CannyDan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CannyDan)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/577 "2009-04-12T18:37:31Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Nope. You are incorrect. I venture that you and I have different understandings of the word “repeatedly”. Did I mention it more than once? Likely. Did I do it as a thrust of my argument, which is how most people would take you characterization, no.. OK, I’ll let you slide on how much emphasis you now wish to place on your own argument. > [@magellan01](#): > > It fails not. They also can’t legally call themselves giraffes, or bicycles, or saucers. And neither male in a gay union can call himself a woman. Legally, anyway. So what? Well, yes, actually they can. These are not legally protected classes of things, and as long as the purpose isn’t fraud, people can call themselves pretty much anything they want. Except, we must recall, if they are a same sex couple, they can’t call themselves married (except in certain enlightened places). > [@magellan01](#): > > Incorrect. I have. You might not find it convincing, but I have supplied it. That’s not the same thing. I still see nothing other than backhanded references to the ecckk factor, appeal to religious authority, and a supposed “definition” that has been shown to be somewhat less (or somewhat more) than you wish it to be. > [@magellan01](#): > > Yeah, maybe. And maybe it’ll be reined in. Welfare was a darling at one time, too. Strawman. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/578 "2009-04-12T18:54:53Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > Surely that last sentence should be, “If there is, i’ve yet to hear one I agree with” - I would be very surprised if you have heard no-one give any reasons to treat gay people differently whatsoever. I’ve heard lots, most of which i’d disagree with. > > The problem is, here we’re talking about doing the will of the masses, and one of the reasons given for treating homosexuals differently is that a lot of people feel that they should be. I don’t agree, but I think it bears a relevancy to the criminal minority here in that it is apparently acceptable for the majority to be able to take away certain important rights from a minority, and for this to be considered a good idea. I can disagree with the reasons in this particular case, and so with this usage in terms of gay people, but there’s certainly a relevance there, because it’s the argument opponents are making. Criminals are not relevant as a minority in this thread because they have to commit a criminal act to join that minority. The restrictions of their rights is due to an action they take rather than an innocent unavoidable part of their being. Clear? ---
**Author:** ![CannyDan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cannydan/32/548_2.png) [@CannyDan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CannyDan)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/579 "2009-04-12T18:55:42Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > I have to run now. But I am eager to come back to respond to Rev and others worthy of a reply. > > Have a nice day. OK. I have a dinner to attend, myself. When come back, bring those compelling arguments demonstrating societal harm from SSM. Or don’t, since there aren’t any. I’m getting bored with the present landscape of handwaving. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/580 "2009-04-12T19:05:21Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Really? One might suspect otherwise based on these statements: > > Does it make sense to you? Is being a “good Christian”, as you define the term, truly consistent with relegating others of God’s children to a lesser status? Is there something more positive to your attitude than a reluctant acceptance of the inevitable? > > Try this: > Great. But how about if the love is equal? Do you have a preference then? Why or why not? Oh and here I thought you wanted to know what I thought. As you are content to bail straw there is no point. You ask me my opinion I state it straight out then you call me a liar then make up an argument to put in my mouth. You seem like you are doing a fine job with both sides of the argument and neither need my participation nor will you listen if I offer it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382.md?page=28) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382.md?page=30)