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.
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.
They were challenged on a basis. So what is the basis. Explain why homosexuality should be treated as equivalent to heterosexuality.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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".
It would make it even easier for people to opt out of the traditional union. This seems self-evident.
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.)
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.
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.
No. But the more closely associated with each other, the better.
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.
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 remarkably stupid Naturalistic Fallacy. You assume based on nothing that the “natural order” has some kind of magic.
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.
You simply state that your argument is true without backing it up. No evidence, just your ignorance trumpeted loudly and without nuance.
Again, assuming that homosexuality is innately disgusting. Using your unabashed bigotry as the reasoning behind the *dilution *of marriage.
I’m not moving the target, you’re helplessly flailing, trying to divert the conversation because you can’t back up your assertions.
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?
Well I haven’t read all your posts. Where did you mention it?
evidently she convinced you. to bad.
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.
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.
tomndebb Well stated.
I didn’t, I mean I’ve heard it said.
What an odd assumption.
Agreed
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.
Gosh that’s good. You’re my hero Tom
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.
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.
To which I responded…
Seems to follow just fine.
Now, care to answer the damned question, or plan on continuing the dodging?
No, I’m not supposed to be, I am. If you wish to imply stupid shit like this, take it to the Pit.
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.
well based on your posts in this thread I decided to yank your chain. 
I thought you were talking about in general not just in this thread, sorry.
Ahh, ok carrion then. 
DMC Alright, I’ll bite. Yes I did object to amending the constitution for such things.