# 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:** 46
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/901 "2009-04-17T02:58:35Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Hey Johnny you’ve come lately, read the thread. I’ve read the thread (hell, I participated in the damned thing), and am very aware of your claimed stance. I’ve also read some of your other posts, such as “Certainly homosexuality should be irrelevant to getting a job, but why should they be able to get married?”. My point therefore stands. So, Johnny, feel like actually answering my question now? ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/902 "2009-04-17T03:04:26Z")
> [@DMC](#): > > I’ve read the thread (hell, I participated in the damned thing), and am very aware of your claimed stance. I’ve also read some of your other posts, such as “Certainly homosexuality should be irrelevant to getting a job, but why should they be able to get married?”. My point therefore stands. > > So, Johnny, feel like actually answering my question now? Oh, I was giving you the benefit of the doubt that your non-sequitur was merely a function of not having read the thread. In that case, your non-sequitur is a stupid question and not worthy of a response. Arguing about one particular change has nothing to do with the changing of other laws, which are argued on a case by case basis. Just as opposing a new law because it’s a new law is stupid, so is supporting a new law just because it’s new. You need to figure out whether or not the law is worth changing, judging it by whether or not we changed some unrelated law or social convention in the past is silly. I am getting sort of tired of having to explain these sorts of simple concepts, you’re supposed to be an adult arguing on an above average message board. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/903 "2009-04-17T03:08:17Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Radical? I disagree. Try to pass a law that makes it illegal to take the Lord’s name in vain, a well-established religious principal that has no secular value. Your supreme court will find it to be unacceptable. That is enshrining a particular religious viewpoint. You’re arguing that religious views should not have any place in the moral shaping of the law. > [@](#): > > There was a time when no right existed to marry someone of a different race and there were laws against it. Those laws were challenged. What’s your point? They were challenged on a basis. So what is the basis. Explain why homosexuality should be treated as equivalent to heterosexuality. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/904 "2009-04-17T03:13:01Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > That is enshrining a particular religious viewpoint. You’re arguing that religious views should not have any place in the moral shaping of the law. I am? And here I was hoping that a logical, reasoned and enlightened view should have they key place in the shaping of the law. If religion has a logical, reasoned and enlightened point to make, make it. > [@](#): > > They were challenged on a basis. So what is the basis. Explain why homosexuality should be treated as equivalent to heterosexuality. Why should it not? How much involvement does the law have in regulating consenting heterosexual sex? Shouldn’t it have an exactly equal influence in regulating homosexual sex? What’s the point of making the distinction? ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/905 "2009-04-17T03:13:39Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > I think forty years is a good number as the people coming of age to marriage will have grown up in a society in which the debate is old news. They will enter a society in which SSM is the default. I think that that generation will grow in a society in which marriage isn’t viewed as being so special, that it will not be viewed as strongly as it is now as being a special way in which to show the love you have for the person you want to go through life with and procreate. The problem is you don’t have a single shred of evidence to support this. Not proof, just any little piece of evidence. It seems totally based on , “I don’t have any reason I can explain to think this, I just do” OTOH I think logic and reason applies with history and does indicate the opposite is true. Every time society has resisted granting equal rights to some minority and tried to justify their reasons with some vague fear that society will somehow be made less or lose it’s moral foundation, history has shown those fears to be clearly wrong. There’s also no shred of evidence to indicate that hetero marriage is viewed as so special now. In fact the data indicates the opposite is more likely. > [@](#): > > A rational argument need to comport with the rules of logic, which mine certainly does. If you believe it does not, point to the specific problem areas. otherwise, we’ll just have to agree to disagree. I’m not sure you can call it logic when your only justification seems to be "I just feel/think this is true even with no supporting data and available data indicating the opposite. I asked a question posts ago giving you an opportunity to defend your position and it remains unanswered. Funny. I’ve been in dozens of religious discussions on this board in which the lack of evidence and logic is discussed. In them a lot is said about indoctrination which I think also affects attitudes about gays in this society. I think many spiritual people have some profound experience that they choose interpret as God mistakenly or not. At least they have some reason even if it turns out to be a mistake. I have yet to see _any_ foundation for your argument from the assumption about society, children, procreation, to this latest explanation about hetero marriage being so “special”. other than "you just think so and prefer to believe your version is true. I suppose we might say that feelings and beliefs based indoctrination rather than any evidence _might_ be seen as logical, then again maybe not. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/906 "2009-04-17T03:14:29Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > How? People in hetero marriages ending them to form new homosexual marriages? That’s already happening as people who’ve been closeted for years now feel free to “come out”. It’ll be the lessening of the stigma associated with homosexuality that will gradually increase this, and then it’ll fall off sharply, I figure, as homosexuals feel less pressured to form hetero marriages in the first place. I think you’re correct, that’s one way it might increase the divorce rate. Another way is that people might view it as a less special union than they thought, and if times are tough, be more inclined to say, aw, fuck it". > [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I don’t know how SSM will do this any more effectively than the dissipating stigma against living together already has. Can you elaborate? It would make it even easier for people to opt out of the traditional union. This seems self-evident. > [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > The inner-city trend you describe has been going on for decades. How gay marriage will aggravate it is unclear to me, especially since gay marriage, it has been argued, doesn’t even involve the birthing of children (it can, of course, but I’m playing along) My point was not that the problem in the inner city would increase, but that the incidence of unmarried people having children would increase. And that is not a good thing, as we can see in the inner cities. (Not that there aren’t other factors that make the plight worse than it would be in broader society.) > [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Well, conveniently, a five-year span is being dismissed as too short to be relevant, and a forty-year span is being dismissed as too long to be predictable, except that something bad is apparently sure to happen. Huh? What do you want me to say? You thew that number out. I think it way to short a timeframe to see what I fear happening happening. > [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Special relevance isn’t written in the law. How special a couple feels is entirely up to them. People who want to procreate will still be able to do so, straight or gay, married or unmarried. Yes. But we’re talking about is how much of a desire will those who wish to procreate also have to marry. That goes to what will come to define our society. And I absolutely believe that society has a right and a responsibility to encourage those behaviors it deems beneficial to that society. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/907 "2009-04-17T03:16:17Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Is it a _required_ ingredient? Do couples with children get additional privileges denied to couples without children? No. But the more closely associated with each other, the better. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/908 "2009-04-17T03:25:54Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Though I would say you are probably correct, your criteria are hardly ‘rational’ because you are making a broad-based assumption. I’m not part of the “rational” foofaraw. To summarize my views, (at least one of which will offend nearly every other participant in this thread): Marriage is intended to support families. Although that is not its exclusive domain, it tends to be the oprational definition in the overwhelming majority of societies throughout history. It established both an identifiable unit in which children could be raised as well as establishing rights and responsibilities of inheritance and caretaking (both of children when younger and of parents when older). Until 1960, the procreation of children was pretty much the default of marriage, (notwithstanding infertile couples or extraordinary efforts to prevent conception). In that year, the contraceptive pill was introduced, the ease of which use moved contraception from a special event based on condoms or timing to an action that could be carried out habitually. Until 1978, conception was still a matter of either natural insemination or, at best, the collection of sperm for artificial insemination. In that year, however, _in vitro_ fertilization permitted sperm and eggs from separate donors to be implanted either in the same mother after guaranteed fertilization or in a separate mother altogether. At this point, neither procreation nor contraception are necessarily tied to heterosexual activity. Coincident with these scientific developments, (and possibly related to them), social developments began reducing the cultural taboos against homosexuality. As part of the lowering of those taboos, the movement emerged to permit homosexuals to be recognized to be entitled to all the same rights as any other persons–including to choose a life-long, (or extended period), mate with whom to share their life and property with all the rights and responsibilities accorded to or demanded of heterosexual couples who marry. I think that enlarging the definition of marriage to include homosexual couples is a change. I see no reason to deny that it is a change from the concept of heterosexual marriage, whether monogamous or polygamous, as it clearly is a change in the language. I can find no reference prior to 1975 in which the word meant anytrhing other than some form of heterosexual union–and that usage was an explicit reference to a call to change the meaning to include homosexual unions. However, given that the issues of procreation and contraception have already been separated from the necessity of heterosexual couplings for over thirty years and that, as I have already provided citations, there is a clear movement in which some portion of homosexual couples become parents while some portion of heterosexual couples eschew children, it seems clear to me that viewing marriage only in the context of sexual procreation has already been abandoned by society. Whether we view it as the basis of a nuclear child-rearing family or as simply the legal recognition of a couple’s commitment to share the rights and responsibilities of mutual support, it is time to recognize the expansion of the meaning of the word. ---
**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 17, 2009, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/909 "2009-04-17T03:26:47Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > 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.) Utterly useless. Marriage has changed constantly throughout the ages. In America alone the rules have shifted greatly. Your assertion here is nothing more than a childish Package Deal Fallacy. > [@](#): > > 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. A remarkably stupid Naturalistic Fallacy. You assume based on nothing that the “natural order” has some kind of magic. > [@](#): > > 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. I’m not sure what this is, but it’s simply not thought out well. Homosexuals can have families. Your argument is dead on the face of it. Not to mention, your desire for children to have families to limit “fucking around” is an argument \*for \*SSM. > [@](#): > > 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. You simply state that your argument is true without backing it up. No evidence, just your ignorance trumpeted loudly and without nuance. > [@](#): > > 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. Again, assuming that homosexuality is innately disgusting. Using your unabashed bigotry as the reasoning behind the \*dilution \*of marriage. > [@magellan01](#): > > No. I have a lot to deal with, without one of the many posters I’m trying to respond to moving the target. I’m not moving the target, you’re helplessly flailing, trying to divert the conversation because you can’t back up your assertions. > [@](#): > > I also want to pin you down as to the repeated claim you’ve made regarding a lack of logic on my part. > > So, that claim you made in #824 referred to something, right? Or were you just blubbering some baseless generalizations that you’re so sure of in your mind? Since you would never do that latter, well, let’s see it. Let’s see you point to this argument you were referring to and to the logical flaws in it. > > No. I’m giving you the opportunity to simply pointing to the specific argument you had in mind. You know the one that preceded #824 that you had no doubt evaluated and deemed to be “illogical”. > > I’ll wait. Again. > > If you are unwilling to do so, you’ll understand if I write you odd as being unserious about really wanting to discuss this. First off, you don’t want to discuss this. You want to decree by fiat what marriage should be. Based on your bigotry. I took the first post of yours I found on a random page of the thread. Look, you are simply stomping your feet and demanding that marriage must be what you think it should be. You’re arguing from emotion and completely without thought. I trust you’ll admit to the flaws in the other post I linked to now, right? ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/910 "2009-04-17T03:29:25Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Sometimes I feel like I live in an alternate universe. In my world the objection to gays raising children doesn’t go unspoken. Well I haven’t read all your posts. Where did you mention it? > [@](#): > > Heh, I had an experience with my step-Mother who said it was mean to bring a mulatto child in the world because of all the discrimination she’d face. evidently she convinced you. to bad. > [@](#): > > Generally the same people don’t approve of heteros sucking face on the street corner either though. but the reaction is usually “that’s inappropriate” rather than “That’s gross” The line of acceptable public affection is quite different from SSC to OSC which is why I mentioned holding hands and cuddling. ---
**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 17, 2009, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/911 "2009-04-17T03:29:45Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Where we differ I think is that you seem top be assuming that marriage would start to be associated exclusively with the begetting of children. If that were the case, I think you would be correct in pointing to that danger. I’m not advocating that we tie marriage to the getting of children exclusively, only that it be an ingredient. I’m not saying that marriage would eventually become entirely about having kids, just that having it be about having kids at all is potentially a danger - to the extent that there is one. Being an ingredient is still a risk; you can’t make a BLT with only bacon, but if you do still need bacon to make it a BLT. By making procreation an important point of marriage - important enough that requires addressing when considering whether gay couples should be admitted - it links marriage and kids\* too\* closely, to the extent that marriage is deprived of meaning against the meaning of having kids. Whereas if marriage is not about procreation, then the other meanings of it will be forced to the fore, and it will be seen more as a legitimate and meaningful step in its own right. I think that keeping the two connected means a couple would be essentially building the foundation of a home and the ground floor at the same time, whereas keeping them seperate would mean a foundation laid considerably earlier than the actual house, which I think helps better with one of the things you’re concernd about. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/912 "2009-04-17T03:30:58Z")
**tomndebb** Well stated. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/913 "2009-04-17T03:32:29Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > Well I haven’t read all your posts. Where did you mention it? I didn’t, I mean I’ve heard it said. > [@](#): > > evidently she convinced you. to bad. What an odd assumption. > [@](#): > > but the reaction is usually “that’s inappropriate” rather than “That’s gross” The line of acceptable public affection is quite different from SSC to OSC which is why I mentioned holding hands and cuddling. Agreed ---
**Author:** ![hobscrk777](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a6a055/32.png) [@hobscrk777](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hobscrk777)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/914 "2009-04-17T03:34:23Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > I think you’re correct, that’s one way it might increase the divorce rate. Another way is that people might view it as a less special union than they thought, and if times are tough, be more inclined to say, aw, fuck it". Boy, I am a self-avowed misanthropic cynic, but I think you have an even dimmer view of humanity than I do. Let me spell it out for you - any couple who decides to divorce because their union is less special in the aftermath of same-sex marriage legalization isn’t a couple that was going to last long _regardless_ of what the legal environment is. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/915 "2009-04-17T03:34:34Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > I’m not part of the “rational” foofaraw. > > To summarize my views, (at least one of which will offend nearly every other participant in this thread): > > Marriage is intended to support families. Although that is not its exclusive domain, it tends to be the oprational definition in the overwhelming majority of societies throughout history. It established both an identifiable unit in which children could be raised as well as establishing rights and responsibilities of inheritance and caretaking (both of children when younger and of parents when older). > > Until 1960, the procreation of children was pretty much the default of marriage, (notwithstanding infertile couples or extraordinary efforts to prevent conception). In that year, the contraceptive pill was introduced, the ease of which use moved contraception from a special event based on condoms or timing to an action that could be carried out habitually. > Until 1978, conception was still a matter of either natural insemination or, at best, the collection of sperm for artificial insemination. In that year, however, _in vitro_ fertilization permitted sperm and eggs from separate donors to be implanted either in the same mother after guaranteed fertilization or in a separate mother altogether. > > At this point, neither procreation nor contraception are necessarily tied to heterosexual activity. > > Coincident with these scientific developments, (and possibly related to them), social developments began reducing the cultural taboos against homosexuality. > > As part of the lowering of those taboos, the movement emerged to permit homosexuals to be recognized to be entitled to all the same rights as any other persons–including to choose a life-long, (or extended period), mate with whom to share their life and property with all the rights and responsibilities accorded to or demanded of heterosexual couples who marry. > > I think that enlarging the definition of marriage to include homosexual couples is a change. I see no reason to deny that it is a change from the concept of heterosexual marriage, whether monogamous or polygamous, as it clearly is a change in the language. I can find no reference prior to 1975 in which the word meant anytrhing other than some form of heterosexual union–and that usage was an explicit reference to a call to change the meaning to include homosexual unions. > > However, given that the issues of procreation and contraception have already been separated from the necessity of heterosexual couplings for over thirty years and that, as I have already provided citations, there is a clear movement in which some portion of homosexual couples become parents while some portion of heterosexual couples eschew children, it seems clear to me that viewing marriage only in the context of sexual procreation has already been abandoned by society. Whether we view it as the basis of a nuclear child-rearing family or as simply the legal recognition of a couple’s commitment to share the rights and responsibilities of mutual support, it is time to recognize the expansion of the meaning of the word. Gosh that’s good. You’re my hero **Tom** ---
**Author:** ![Rubystreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/916 "2009-04-17T03:39:12Z")
If marriage is so special, so important, so foundational, so natural, then how could gays getting married diminish it in any way? I don’t understand why that would happen. Also, straight people who would be so easily discouraged from it by the example of gays getting married probably should not get married in the first place. No one else’s marriage affects how I feel about the institution or my own marriage. Only the most insecure and impressionable of people would be so affected, if at all, which I doubt. If marriage is so precious, then it will still be precious, even if gays are allowed to marry. After all, they can’t be worse than some of the heteros who have attempted to disgrace the institution. The “marriage will be less special if it gets the gay on it” argument is laughable. It’s based on pure, trumped up speculation with no basis in fact or reality. It is an unprovable conjecture and a pathetic reason to deny people the right to marry. Try again. ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/917 "2009-04-17T03:39:38Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Oh, I was giving you the benefit of the doubt that your non-sequitur was merely a function of not having read the thread. In that case, your non-sequitur is a stupid question and not worthy of a response. Perhaps you might want to look up “non sequitur.” I’ll happily repeat your statement and my response, so you can see them all close together and stuff. [QUOTE=mswas] Right, but you are seeking to redefine those laws. You use rhetoric as though your side is the default and that the status quo is the radical one. It’s clever language, but you are on the side seeking a change in the laws of the land. [/QUOTE] To which I responded… [QUOTE=DMC] I recall not too many years ago where your side was the one seeking to change the laws of the land, in a very big way. Hell, most states didn’t actually have anything on the books that would have prohibited same sex marriage. Did you bitch when those laws were changed? [/QUOTE] Seems to follow just fine. Now, care to answer the damned question, or plan on continuing the dodging? [QUOTE=mswas] I am getting sort of tired of having to explain these sorts of simple concepts, you’re supposed to be an adult arguing on an above average message board. [/QUOTE] No, I’m not supposed to be, I am. If you wish to imply stupid shit like this, take it to the Pit. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/918 "2009-04-17T03:40:31Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > I didn’t, I mean I’ve heard it said. So the posters objecting to SSM in this thread haven’t spoken it you just heard it someplace. Well yeah. Pardon me for lacking specific qualifiers Mr nitpicker. > [@](#): > > What an odd assumption. well based on your posts in this thread I decided to yank your chain. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/919 "2009-04-17T03:43:03Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > So the posters objecting to SSM in this thread haven’t spoken it you just heard it someplace. Well yeah. Pardon me for lacking specific qualifiers Mr nitpicker. I thought you were talking about in general not just in this thread, sorry. > [@](#): > > well based on your posts in this thread I decided to yank your chain. 🙂 Ahh, ok carrion then. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/920 "2009-04-17T03:44:33Z")
**DMC** Alright, I’ll bite. Yes I did object to amending the constitution for such things. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382.md?page=45) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382.md?page=47)