The way you’ve worded that, I’m a little confuse to exactly what you’re looking for. But I’ll give it a shot. I agree that homosexuality is naturally occurring and that gay couples can be just and in love as heterosexual couples. Based on that, it is my default position that the two groups should be treated equally. That is why I support extending the complete set of legal rights and privileges to each group through Civil Unions. I think that that should be that. But then the issue of “marriage” comes up. To me, that’s like wanting to call that which is not X, X.
Still, people point out, that gays will be happier. Okay, that’s a plus. People point out that gays can provide a healthy environment for the raising of children. I agree, but that’s more of an argument for gay adoption (rights and privileges), so it’s neither a plus or a minus in regards to “marriage”. People say that by allowing them to call it marriage, we can help erase the line between gay and straight. I think that is correct. They view that as a plus, but I view it as a negative. I don’t not equate a group receiving the same rights with that group necessarily having zero difference, or having a difference that is insignificant. I’ve given analogies along these lines.
I’ll stop there, as I feel I’m going off on a tangent with what I just wrote and deleted, due to that.
Tomndebb As I have already conceded there are probably plenty of people who think Fags are Yucky, but does that delegitimize any of the other reasons? You are making an argument based on knowledge of intent of not just a few people but a whole demographic. Though I would say you are probably correct, your criteria are hardly ‘rational’ because you are making a broad-based assumption.
Wait, you’re wanting me to debate a specific claim you made prior to post 824? I assume you’re stipulating that the post I linked to is in fact without merit then, right?
Look, I appreciate that the only option you have is to try to bog down the debate with delaying tactics, but c’mon. I’ll tell you what, give me a post number for anything at all you’ve argued against SSM in this thread and I’ll tear it down for you. As for the one I linked to, if you need the specific fallacy, it’s an appeal to probability.
Christian civilization is falling to secular civilization. It is inevitable but I do not think there is something wrong with mourning what is lost in the process. That is not the same as thinking that civilization as a whole will fall into oblivion.
Yeah, apologies for not being all that clear - I was trying to say that i’ve seen a lot of debate about whether the arguments you’ve brought to the table are right/wrong, but I hadn’t seen much in terms of your opinions of arguments being brought from others. Which I don’t really blame you for, since overwhelming numbers pretty much force anyone to focus more on defence, as it were.
But you’ve answered it in the way I was hoping, so thanks! I think it may have given me a bit of insight into at least part of your views; would it be right to say that, in your opinion, by making marriage include both straight and gay couples, the dilution of the concept of it as “for procreation” (to some extent) is potentially bad because it might mean that (for example) heterosexual couples who decide to have kids will be less likely to get married, because it has that connotation less for them now?
I also wonder if it’s an unspoken objection to gays having children and raising them and what unspoken moral corruption that means for future generations. It’s the same unreasonable fear when people discover a teacher is gay. “OMFG, what’s he teaching our children?”, as if being gay is something you can be talked in to.
My oldest sister married a black man in the early seventies and we quickly found out which family members were bigots. When they had kids I remember some saying, “What they want to do together is their business but bringing innocent children into it is wrong”
The concept being that since other people were horrible bigots and they knew their mixed race kids would feel the effects of their prejudice my sister and her black husband shouldn’t have kids and it was irresponsible to do so. It didn’t make sense. So, because some people are bigots others are wrong to not recognize and acquiesce to their bigotry.
It’s like the folks who say, I don’t mind what the gays do in private just don’t make a public display of it. So, straight couples are allowed to hold hands, cuddle and kiss in public but gay couples are being offensive. It’s all bullshit. Hey, when I see two guys sucking face in public my reaction is Yuuuccckkkk! but I realize that’s my problem, not theirs.
I don’t think this would happen in the short term. Though over time, I think it would play a small role in the divorce rate.
Yes, they do this already. I do not view this as a societal good. I also think that SSM would definitely increase this. So, naturally I wouldn’t be for something that I think would increase what I perceive to be a negative.
Yes, they already do. But I don’t see SSM increasing or decreasing this.
This is like #2. But much more important, as children are involved. It definitely does not help society to lessen the link in young people’s minds (especially young males) between sex, the birthing of children, and the serious, long term responsibility that comes with them. I just look to the inner cities and see what happens when the relationships between these things are decoupled.
While I think you choose the wrong timeframe, I think this is a very important point. As I said, I view traditional marriage as a great societal good. Now, while I don’t see anything happening in the very short term you use, I do see it affecting the marriage rate further down the road. Let’s look just at those people who might want to get “married” because they fully expect to have children and want to become part of that institution. The degree to which the link between marriage and procreation is lessened, people will find the institution less special, less of specific relevance to them.
Because two people want to be married and gain the various rights and privileges that entails, regardless of how many children they might have, or might not be able to have.
Yes, and in prior times, heretics were burned at the stake. In modern times, though, fertility is not a requirement of marriage. Was it ever, in the history of the United States?
Yes, and individual states will gradually recognize gay marriage (New York may be next) and under the well-established full-faith-and-credit principle, other states may have to choose to recognize out-of-state gay marriages even if they don’t perform them. Refusal puts them in violation of Article IV of the Constitution. I’m sure many court cases will follow in the next decade or so while it all gets sorted out.
The only rhetoric I’m using is already written in U.S. law. Is the 14th Amendment rhetoric? Is citing antidiscrimination law rhetoric?
Well, so were women who wanted the vote. Of course, so is NAMBLA, so what’s your point? Laws should never change?
I believe your first amendment addresses this.
My “religion” is equal treatment under the law, as written in your constitution. Why shouldn’t it apply in this case? Your fellow citizens want a right enjoyed by others. Why stop them?
I think that’s fair. I just commented along these lines to another poster. Also, I believe that there is an ideal situation in which to raise children, and it behooves society to send that signal to future generations. However subtly. Just to clarify, I am pro gay adoption. I have seen first hand the wonderful environments that can be created by both single-parent households and same-sex households.
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?
I’m not sure that I necessarily agree your point works through, then, mainly because of what marriage would stand for for people if it didn’t have the connotations of procreation.
I mean, my concern would be that if for many people “marriage” is tied to procreation, then couples aren’t going to get married until they decide to have kids - certainly there’s the implicit idea that marriage should come before kids, but i’d be worried that the tighter that connotation is, the more likely it is that people see marriage as just a stepping stone to having kids, rather than the considerable commitment and change in circumstances that it is. A minimization of marriage as a method to something, rather than a thing unto itself. And that in turn might lead to more divorces afterwards, since people might find marriage isn’t for them, by which point there may well be kids, and it’s a bit too late for them.
Whereas on the other hand, if marriage becomes less about procreation, the obvious question is “What would it then stand for, instead?”, and i’d have to wager that it would be more about that commitment and dedication in and of itself. And that would benefit children and society in turn, because it would mean that a couple have more time between marriage and having kids to get used to the whole thing, and beyond that marriage is recognised more as “marriage”, and less “the thing you do when you want kids”.
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 don’t know how SSM will do this any more effectively than the dissipating stigma against living together already has. Can you elaborate?
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).
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.
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.
No. I have a lot to deal with, without one of the many posters I’m trying to respond to moving the target. 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.
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.
It says nothing of the kind. It says the state will not make an official religion, not that religious principles will cease to affect the shaping of the law. Your interpretation is a radical one that favors your ideology.
No, they want a right that no one previously has enjoyed.
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.
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?