Heck, I don’t understand why “why not?” is being spoken of dismissively. Asking “why not?” forces lawmakers to explain their reasoning. If they can’t, change the law or discard it.
Women can’t vote? Why not?
Blacks can’t sit at the front of the bus? Why not?
Whites and blacks can’t intermarry? Why not?
Gays can’t marry? …
I accept that Magellan honestly believes that the purpose of marriage is biological reproduction [in simple terms], and that he doesn’t accept the arguments that establish that to be incorrect.
That being said, whatever his belief, it is fairly plain to see that the current institution of marriage, as defined in the United States, is not tailored in any real way to the ability to have or raise children. To wit [reasoning more or less borrowed from the Iowa supreme court decision]:
If the purpose of marriage is to encourage biological kid-making, its current definition is outrageously overinclusive-- There is no bar to infertile couples marrying. (similarly, those who don’t want kids, intend to adopt [and hence won’t have biological children], and so on).
If the purpose of marriage is to encourage “having” children whether the old-fashioned way, through in-vitro fertilization methods, or through adoption, its definition is both over- and under-inclusive. It again excludes couples incapable/unwilling to do so, and does not include same-sex couples, who are just as able to adopt or to parent children through artificial insemination/surrogacy as heterosexual couples are.
If the purpose of marriage is to encourage “raising” children, the same criticisms of the current definition apply–a lot of people we allow to marry are terrible at raising children, while there are plenty of very nice gay families with lovely, well-developed children.
Similarly, and much more importantly, excluding same-sex couples doesn’t further these goals:
It doesn’t make it any easier for fertile couples to get married and raise children. So far as I understand it, I haven’t heard about anyone who became more or less fertile because gay marriage was legalized.
Not being able to marry doesn’t make any difference to the ability of a gay couple to adopt a baby, or to have a baby in the same ways many straight couples with fertility issues do.
Not being able to marry doesn’t make gay couples bad parents. Nor does barring gay couples from marrying suddenly make straight couples better parents.
It’s also important to note that same sex marriage advocates don’t want to limit which heterosexuals can marry–they want to participate. Some argue that this is exactly like the fact that we let those incapable of having children marry.
I’d take it a step further, and argue that today, if we define the purpose of marriage as bringing about and raising children, a young gay couple is in fact pretty well suited to further that purpose–they can adopt, they can have children through surrogates–it’s not an “exception”, it’s that they actually can support and further the rationale of marriage supporting the creation and raising of children.
And that fact just makes the question you are asking Magellan, and that I’d hope to second much more pressing–now, not only are same-sex couples no more of an exception to the “purpose” of marriage than (say) my grandparents, but they aren’t really an exception–they are more capable of having and raising children than my grandparents are.
Like you, I’d honestly like to know how Magellan responds to that. I don’t think we will, but who knows?
I am of course willing to be corrected. What are the other options again?
I see only the two options. He doesn’t think it’s based on the raising of children. So the only thing he has is that they just don’t belong in the group based on his unique notion of what it makes people to be marriageable.
The move went OK, and I’ve been around, but minimally, since then. Thanks for asking. Believe it or not, that was six months ago! :eek:
You might very well have been eager for your French teacher to want you. Did it ever occur to you that your female co-students might also want their teachers? In this country, the law is blind to which sex it is, even though the culture lags, and you go “ick” at the idea of a male adult seducing a teenaged girl, while going “hey yeah!” at the idea of a female adult seducing a teenaged boy. They’re still the same in the eyes of the law, and so they should be.
Again, the question you’re asking here is “why should we grant this right to homosexuals?” The question that most here are asking is “why should we *not *grant this right to homosexuals?” Most of us in America think that anything should be allowed that is not specifically prohibited for a good reason, and that those “good reasons” should be examined from time to time to make sure they’re actually good; that’s what we consider freedom.
The other odd thing is that you seem to feel that marriage is a privilege and therefore an incentive to a particular type of behavior. While marriage grants a few privileges, it is mostly a codified set of obligations; it’s a contract between two people, no more, no less. There’s no “specialness” about it, except that invested by the people who engage in it (which is by no means inherent in the legal concept). The government has no interest in encouraging marriage; it has interest in encouraging people to support their children, which it does, independent of marriage. We have no national need to encourage people to reproduce; lord knows, they do it plenty on their own!
Phwew!! More than a hundred posts to read, just to catch up! But really nothing different.
**Magellan01 **still striving for *status quo ante *in the stereotypical caveman fantasy-- You, me, go cave. You, me, screw, make baby. You, me, baby now family, we become the only definition of marriage acceptable for all time, despite the enormous number of exceptions to this artificiality seen around us every day.
When I left, I asked that **magellan01 **bring facts to support societal damage from SSM. So far, score remains:
facts by others demonstrating neutrality or societal benefit from SSM - many
facts by **magellan01 **demonstrating societal damage from SSM - a big, whopping zero
number of times **magellan01 **has asserted societal damage from SSM, “down the road” somewhere - too many to count
All we are left with is the many times repeated claim that “traditional” (i.e., homophobic) marriage is somehow better for society because **magellan01 **says so.
Magellan01, you complain that everyone turns your one bus analogy into two buses. Not me! I’ll happily envision your single bus. All us happy couples riding on it together. All sharing the same civil rights. But my friends, Jane and Ruth, want to sit on the seat labelled “married”. If they’re allowed, all well and good. If they’re not, though, you’ve got an equal protection violation on your bus.
A hundred posts later, what else have I missed? Oh, yeah-- the ick factor. Can’t forget that.
He doesn’t see it that way–for some reason, addressing his analogy in this entirely reasonable way (and I genuinely want to hear his answer) led Magellan, to conclude that I was obstinate, and made him not want to talk to me anymore. Hope you have a better result.
Your posts are more comprehensive and more lucid than mine. If I was supporting the counter-position, I’d prefer not to reply to you myself!
I learned that trivial isn’t trivial if you write it as TRIVIAL.
He hasn’t responded to the issue any of the other times it’s been raised, so don’t get your hopes up. My current theory is the appearance of “same sex couple” and “children” in the same post strikes him with hysterical blindness and short term amnesia leaving him unaware such a phenomenon exits. The only other reason I can think of for him never addressing the issue is that he realizes his “but marriage is meant to promote the raising of children” argument has been blown out of the water. However, if that was the reason, you’d think he’d stop basing his opposition on it.
I’d like to see someone write a dystopian novel about a future where gay marriage has destroyed everything. Call it Fabulous New World.
The compliment is greatly appreciated–though it would be a loss if you stopped replying—I may be lucid and thoughtful, but I’m not always right, and have no problem with being convinced by valid arguments I initially disagree with–it’s just more fun if people engage with the issues they’re trying to support.
That’s because it’s not reason that he’s basing his opposition on.
*“And society limped along, trying to cope with the damage dealt it. Until, the day the true gay agenda came into view. They made gay marriage mandatory!”
*
I personally have a strong antipathy to anyone defining what a marriage “is for” – people marry because they choose to marry. The one definition I think is not outrageous is that people marry because they choose to commit in marriage to each other. You can live together, comprise a family, screw, have children, without marrying – what you can’t do without marrying is (almost tautologically) to commit to marry. It’s a contract, a covenant – different in kind and form from most other contracts and covenants, but still within the general framework.
Magellan is correct that the norm – i.e., the statistical mode – is for married couples to have children. What he fails to take into account, IMHO, is that couples who cannot conceive, or at least have not conceived, by the normal method of having unprotected intercourse including when the woman is fertile, and who want children, will either resort to seeking medical help (e.g., fertility clinics, in vitro fertilization, host mothers, sperm donors, etc.) or adopt or foster children to raise as their own.
And that those latter two methods are equally accessible to, and employed by, gay couples just as much as they are by opposite-sex couples.
I notice he’s already used the “Some of my best friends are gay” line – which if true says a great deal for their patience and tolerance. I wonder if they privately hold the same opinion about his views as most interested Dopers seem to?
To be fair to magellan01, he had just been asked “do you even know any gay people?” So it’s not like it was the usual “but I can’t be bigoted - some of my best friends are [insert appropriate group here]” protest.
(Thank you for responding - I know you are being deluged here.) I’m not trying to be obtuse, really, but I do not understand how you reconcile this contradiction. Either same-sex relationships are relevant to hetero relationships (and thus have some effect) or they’re not. Is it a specific vs. general difference you’re claiming?
That same wikipedia article cites the following: “Internationally, the most comprehensive study to date on the effect of same-sex marriage / partnership on heterosexual marriage and divorce rates was conducted looking at over 15 years of data from the Scandinavian countries. The study by researcher Darren Spedale found that 15 years after Denmark had granted same-sex couples the rights of marriage, rates of heterosexual marriage in those countries had gone up, and rates of heterosexual divorce had gone down – contradicting the concept that same-sex marriage would have a negative effect on traditional marriage.” (bolding mine) There is a link to the pdf of the study there.
This study covers a 15 year period, which is shy of your 20-40 year time frame, but is close to the low end and certainly a longer time frame than we have to examine in the US. And, of course, you are correct that European culture is different than US culture. However, I think it is fair to say that marriage customs among European nations are quite similar to those in the US, given that the latter derived from the former. Let me ask you some questions:
[ul]
[li]Would you disagree with that statement (the one just above about marriage customs)? [/li][li]Can you point to anything specific about European marriage customs/mores that differs substantially from the US? [/li][li]Can you say why these differences would cause us to think that the effects of SSM in the US would be different?[/li][/ul]
From where I’m sitting, the best available data suggests the exact opposite of your claim about SSM diluting hetero marriage. As far as I can tell, your claims are backed up by nothing other than opinion. Do you have any facts or data to contradict those I cited?
Thanks, ShadowFacts. We can now increment the running tally of factual citations by others demonstrating neutrality or societal benefit from SSM by one. Making the running total, what, some dozens at least?
We await the submission of a single fact by **magellan01 **demonstrating societal damage from SSM.
I believe I stated earlier that the ethical ground belongs completely to the pro rights side. When the issue was first brought to my attention, it was by a very conservitive friend who wanted to “save marriage”; my first thought was to wonder how gay people getting married would harm my marriage. Obviously, it doesn’t, and it doesn’t take much refelection to see how not being able to get married hurts them.
I have a deep dislike of not being able to understand both sides of any issue, and I believe there are interesting things to be learned from people who have different takes on the world than I do. This issue frustrates me in the first sense because I can see no way to hold that worldview on examination. I’m not interested in specious reasoning of thugs out beat people for being different, I’m interested in the reasoning of people who’ve given the issue more deliberation.
I find that the arguments against gay marriage to be so weak that they collapse under the least stress, and I want to understand how someone can hold that position. I simply want the environment to be such that those who hold the negative view will participate and that their ideas will not get drowned out by the castigation of those on the same side I am.
If you know then why do you keep misrepresenting my position? Why do you insist on saying I believe something I don’t believe? What do you gain by claiming something about me that is false?
You’re not clever, you’re not holding up some mirror that shames me. You’re just some simpleton on the net who is spraying his aggression about randomly.
Homophobic, prejudiced straight people want to remain “special” and “better” than gay people. If gays are permitted to fully participate in every aspect of society and legitimize their relationships with the same set of rules, then that “legitimizes” being gay itself, and there are a lot of straight people, 99% of them religious, who can’t stand that idea.