Neither can non-fertile heterosexual relationships. So what? What does the ability to naturally reproduce have to do with the entitlement to a civil right?
So do many, many many heterosexuals. So what?
What “problem?”
Or adopted children or same-sex partners.
That’s exactly what YOU are trying to do. You want to say that YOUR definition of “family” is the right one, and that you are therefore entitled to special rights that should NOT be granted to families which don’t fit your own, personal, arbitray, capricious, self-serving definition.
This is factually incorrect in every detail. Is a sexless marriage still a marriage? If not, then you can’t say sex is “integral.”
It’s also not true that any heterosexual sex has a chance to result in offspring. A woman who has had a hysteectomy, for instance, has no more theoretical chance of getting pregnant than I do. Should infertile or post-menopausal people be prevented from getting married?
Reproduction has fuck-all to do with the definition of marriage. It’s just an option that married people can exercise like buying a house or playing Scrabble. If you’re going to persist in this line of argument, you have to justify letting non-fertile heterosexual couple get married.
Now you’re just playing with language. If you want to argue that a chair is a desk, but I insist the desk is a desk and a chair is a chair, you don’t then get to argue that “there’s no evidence that anyone, including society, would be harmed by [calling] it [a desk].”
OKay, given that it will not hinder, according to your description of those differences is there any valid reason to deny gays that right any more than the elderly getting married or infertile couples getting married, considering jayjay’s post?
It’s not just about benefiting society by having productive offspring. Marriage laws are also about protecting and defining the civil rights of the individuals involved. That’s why there are laws about property rights, child custody and support. Protecting the right of individuals is not only a responsibility of the government it also promotes the best interest if society in general.
Nope, I’m saying that’s the appeal that will result in gay marriage being approved. In other words, I’m losing out to that emotional appeal.
Why would I? I’ve already answered this. We don’t mandate child-rearing. Society accords benefits to the relationship that will, all things being equal, produce children. Our society is so great, even, that we don’t demand the impossible, that the infertile become fertile and produce endlessly for the state. Why do you even bother with this line?
We’ve had same sex marriage in my state for several years now. It hasn’t affected my own marriage in the slightest. I haven’t heard a single peep from anyone else claiming theirs has, either.
How much longer should I wait for all these terrible, sky-falling, civilization-crumbling consequences I keep reading about?
Is there any evidence that switching the names of desks and chairs harms society? If I want to write a story or produce a movie in which the names are switched, is there any reason anyone should try to stop me? Surely I “get to argue” whatever I want, no?
So what is the harm to society posed by gay marriage and thus the rationale for opposing it? Quantify, please.
Lack of marriage harms same-sex couples. The documentation of actual harm is long and well recorded. Some of it is financial and some of it is basic human decency. A recent case saw a couple forcibly separated in a Florida hospital while one partner died. The hospital would not recognize same-sex marriage since it was Florida, and ignored the power-of-attorney documentation sent to them.
Lack of marriage puts couples in danger of financial woes if one partner dies, especially when the deceased’s family is itself bigoted. The surviving spouse has been left homeless. Marriage would have protected the interests of the couple.
Just because someone buries its head in the sand and doesn’t pay attention to or care about, real cases of harm due to the lack of marriage rights, doesn’t mean harm doesn’t and isn’t happening every day.
And not reference to the Constitution. Got nothing to do with it. Got it.
But all things are never equal. People do get married knowing they can’t, or won’t, have kids, and stay married long after they no longer can anyway. Why do we permit that?
Which means what, exactly? Agriculture means food in a localized area, which encourages humans to stay in one place. What does “foundational human unit” mean?
Thank you, this is at least an argument. And, yes, I’d say so. This ‘unification’ is nothing more than a contract. We have those already. I’m saying, *marriage is different. *
Never said it was “exactly impossible”. Never thought it, so, once more, please don’t put words in my mouth. I said that marriage provides a benefit to society and for this reason is rewarded in a number of ways by that society. Other relationships are, well, whatever they are, swell if you think so, but not the same. In those areas where they are the same, parenting being the obvious, all rights of parenting should be accorded them. That does not mean marriage.
Didn’t say it, so won’t argue it. I said, for the upteenth time, marriage is the framework for the family, a benefit to society. That’s why it is valued above other relationships.