And it’s still wrong. I am certain that people in the 1950s had that as their sole criteria. It was my primary criteria when finding a wife.
Right, but you said no one. I am certain that there was a significant minority of people who married without the intent of having a family.
I cherry picked the ones that FIT THE CONTEXT. As we are not arguing about whether homosexuality is genetic or not, its genetic normalcy is irrelevant to a discussion of social mores. If SSM were normal, we wouldn’t even be discussing it.
Something like that.
“Marriage” is just a word, too, but this thread’s gone 22 pages and you show no sign of abandoning your assertion that whatever same-sex couples do, it ain’t marriage.
What I said was “No one married in the 1950s with procreation as the sole intent - and the sole test - of their marriage.” Please take note of the word “and” between references to intent and test.
But you are right, I’m sure, that some couple, somewhere, some time during that decade got married strictly to have kids, and then later got themselves un-married when kids did not happen. “Nyah, nyah, you said no one!” So you’ve really caught me out in a big one, huh? Still, the state surely didn’t take away their marriage; their affirmative actions were required to dissolve it.
This must validate all that other crazy slope slipping and sliding around your supposed argument has been doing, right?
Or shall I point out that you refuse to allow family to be defined by the marriage partners themselves, their partnership alone being sufficient to establish a family, without reference to any product of their genitalia? As family could have been defined for “a significant minority of people who married” as you now admit even in the 1950s?
I need to go do evening rounds. I’ll check in on the progress here some time later or tomorrow. I wouldn’t want to miss any further enlightenment!
But there are so many “facts on the ground”. Are they all the result of slippery slopes? Is everything someone perceives as a modern problem the result of a slippery slope from some bad decision made in the past?
I was not aware the existence of the “post-hoc” variety of slippery slope, and it seems sufficiently vague that accusing me of it is useless. In any case, “Heterosexuals already devalued marriage, so why shouldn’t we allow homosexuals a shot?” is not and never was my argument. My argument has always been “Homosexuals want to get married and there is no reason to stop them, especially in a country that views equal treatment under the law as an ideal.” My very first post in this thread was:
There’s nothing about marriage in there - it could apply to almost any civil-rights situation. Arguments about the alleged devaluation of marriage are only in response to those who exaggerate its value in the first place, claiming that marriage is some wondrous special child-producing concept that gay marriage must not be allowed to taint, while ignoring the realities of:
[ul][li]Hetero marriages that are childless by choice[/li][li]Hetero marriages that end in divorce[/li][li]Children born outside of marriage[/ul]All of these precede modern efforts to legalize gay marriage and it remains unclear that gay marriage could do damage to the concept of marriage in any way comparable to any of the above (or at all, outside the minds of people who are simply disgusted by homosexuals in general).[/li]
Please. You want the right to make baseless accusations and implications and yet disavow them when challenged. When you say:
…and later…
… this is not simply using the word “agenda” to mean “set of arguments” or “reasoning” or “position” or “stance.” It clearly means to imply (especially in proximity to the word “pretending”) some furtive motivation about which I cannot be honest, hence the need to cloak my intent. When has “agenda” ever been used positively in discussions like this one?
By the way, “marriage” is just a word, too.
Good gracious! Your primary criteria (sic), was it? Er, were they? Whatever.
Did you hold a casting call? Was it necessary to offer money? Did you line them all up and inspect their apparatus? Put them in the stirrups and probe for viable eggs? Draft a pre-nup specifying an alotted period wherin she had better drop you an acceptable offspring, and detailing the terms of dissolution should this not occur?
You lucky, lucky man, to have this much fortitude and this much foresight.
My primary criterion for proposing marriage to my wife was the fact that I loved her. What an asshole I must have been!
Well, I’m welcome to make that claim, so I have no idea why Bryan Ekers wouldn’t be able to make the same argument, and/or defend that argument. Since I’ve already made my argument, why don’t you tell my why the the courts shouldn’t consider sexual orientation a suspect classification? It certainly seems to fit the bill in every way.
Since I was around in the 1950s and attended weddings as a child during that decade, I can cheerfully say that your first point here is quite incorrect (to put it gently).
“Having a family” does not necessarily mean “having the intent to bear/beget children of one’s loins”. A couple constitutes a family. Grandpa, mother, aunt, and three kids constitute a family. See next paragraph.
There was a relatively controversial case a few years back – I believe it took place in Cleveland, which would bean that tom~ or samclem might have specifics that I don’t. After a number of women with unmarried men living with them but undeclared on their welfare applications and recertifications had been discovred, and a number of cases of unrelated apartment sharers had come up, the City Council made an ordinance that the Housing Authority would rent to families, and that “family” meant a married couple or a single parent with children, no unrelated hangers on. At which point an elderly woman on a small pension with her grandchildren (for whom she was guardian because the mother had been committed for something, I think drug abuse) had to be evicted from her income-subsidized apartment, because they didn’t meet the definition of “family.”
You can continue to make your arguments, Erek, but IMHO you have said nothing that coheres to a logical reason of why gay marriages should not be legally recognized.
Sheesh. More of the same. I’m shocked. I’ve been out of town at a conference and just check this thread. Let me be of my usual stellar and grossly under-appreciated assistance wit the little time I have.
Bryan Ekers, you’ve done the best job presenting your case and and not just talking past mswas. But then you earn major demerits for the ridiculous claim:
Do you really think that there is no argument for the position that the acceptance of divorce has not loosened the idea of marriage in such a way as to set the stage for a loosening of broadening of “marriage”, that make SSM more of a possibility? That it’s as ridiculous as linking it to 3D movies and U2 flights? Please say it ain’t so…
Also, this:
…is exactly what mswas meant by the argument, (I paraphrase) “hey, marriage has already been beaten up, let’s beat it up more”. Hardly a compelling argument to those who think marriage to be a thing that should be valued and protected.
cwthree, If you think “marriage” is just a word, why do you care so much about it? I would think that by page 21 of this thread that everyone would agree it’s NOT “just a word”. Saying so at this point is a bit ridiculous, don’t you think?
CannyDan, pay attention to the words “all” and “no one”, and their omission, as well. mswas is right on the logic about the couples in the '50s.
And finally, to those who have danced around calling mswas a liar—which you have—is the only thing preventing you from just doing so plainly the respect for the forum or a lack of balls? I think it is telling that you cannot fathom how someone could argue a position counter to their own. Or how someone would want to win his point on the merits as opposed to resorting to sloppy logic and opportunistic reasoning. You see mswas as arguing fervidly FOR not legalizing SSM. I see him as arguing fervidly for honest and honorable debating tactics. Much of what some of you do you would jump all over another poster if he or she did it arguing a position counter to yours. But the investment in this issue is so great that your all to willing to abandon the rigor you’d usually display yourselves and insist upon in others .
That said, have fun. I’m heading to bed and won’t have much time this week. So, behave, all of you.
Oh—mswas, at the risk of tainting you further, I truly appreciate your participation in this thread. Partially for the support for my position, for which you’ve been playing devil’s advocate impressively. But even more so for the way what much of you have said applies to ANY debate. Well done.
'Nite.
Opps. Almost forgot:
Well, when you’re own reasoning is revealed to be inconsistent, you may want to rethink that. See Post #974.
My reasoning is perfectly consistent. Hell, I can come up with hundreds of reasons that SSM is already and/or should be allowed. I can’t come up with a single one why it shouldn’t, other than homophobia.
I was responding to mswas’ assertion in post #1080 that “agenda” is “just a word,” but I’m sure you knew that.
Personally, I don’t think that “marriage” is “just a word.” If it were, your “civil unions with all the blah blah blah of marriage” would be a satisfactory solution. But it’s been convincingly argued, IMO, that such an arrangement would simply perpetuate unequal treatment of legally-recognized partnerships.
Suggest you go back and read 1084 again. As was the case with earlier syntactic issues, it was **mswas **who failed to understand my original statement. He calls “gotcha!” on me for exaggerating ("…you said no one.") but then undermines his own claims by stating (correctly, I am sure) “I am certain that there was a significant minority of people who married without the intent of having a family.”
Really, who is arguing in circles here? Not I.
As for my understanding of debate and the ability to advocate for a position I do not actually support, I’ll just note that this is not a rare skill. Both lawyers and research scientists use it as a tool.
**mswas **claims to be debating in good faith as a Devil’s Advocate taking the contrary position against SSM. He claims some purity of heart in so doing, and you compliment him for that. In point of fact, he claims in post 209 to actually support SSM. But in post 299 he withdraws that claim and supports civil unions, and only civil unions, for everyone. Where exactly his personal opinions lie, and what exactly his advocacy position is, seems to change as we go forward (yes SSM, no SSM but OK civil unions, maybe neither, maybe both). His later statements throughout the thread seem equally contradictory and self serving but I don’t feel the need to go back and ferret them out.
I do not impute to him the epithet “liar” not because I lack balls or merely out of respect for the forum. Instead I suggest that **mswas **becomes confused by his own emotional investment in this issue, like the almost unbelievable claim that procreation was his personal “primary criteria when finding a wife”. It isn’t necessary to be a liar when operating under this level of cognitive dissonance.
I think the fact that two concepts are related does not prove that one caused the other. If there are references to hetero divorce as a justification in any of the pro-gay marriage court cases, I’m prepared to modify my statement. Until then, it’s just something else mswas threw into the argument without any supporting evidence.
Well, they say it should be valued and protected, but they’re being very selective in what to protect it from and it remains unclear that this new modification will have any effect other than making people upset, let alone nearly as much as other concepts that have been casually accepted for decades.
In any case, I don’t buy the “beaten up” argument. A hetero couple could get legally married in 1909 and one can get legally married in 2009 and we have no reason to assume one can’t get legally married in 2109, so where is this beating coming from?
I can fathom it. I’ve even done it on other occasions. I simply expressed some doubts.
You see much that I do not. Seriously… accusing me of having an agenda, that I’m “pretending” and using “propaganda”…? If that can be called honourable, then it’s another case for the dictionary police.
Your own post #903:
The Constitution *says *why. Because they’re persons.
You already knew what the Constitution says. So why did you ask for that “explanation”?
Well, I guess if marriage had been a federal jurisdiction all along, gay marriage would certainly have been supported by the 14th Amendment alone. The states could and did vary in their local marriage laws, of course.
Hmmm… under the 14th alone, could gay marriage have been legal in the District of Columbia? What is the authority on marriages in DC?
This is not a valid answer. ‘They are persons’ does not explain why the definition of marriage should be changed to encompass homosexuality.
The constitution says nothing about sexuality.
What’s that saying that involves anecdote, plural and data again? You were not at every wedding. All there has to be is a single exception to disprove his statement that ‘no one’ ever got married for that reason.
Sad story, but the way Cleveland organizes its public housing is again just another anecdote.
Irrelevant.
Ok, I can accept clarification.
Clarification breaks circles easily.
Good, then why the need for ad hominems?
Right.
You made this up, ‘purity of heart’, is ad hominem hyperbole.
So I can’t support one thing in the real world and prefer an ideal solution that is unlikely to occur?
Here’s the hierarchy of what I support:
Absent that
But procreation WAS my primary criteria in finding a wife. Being a good Mother was the most important quality I wanted in a mate. Why do you find that so hard to believe? I’ve been married twice. My first wife would have made a good Mother, and my current wife IS a good Mother. But it’s always nice to know there are those out there who know my mind better than I do who have my own best interests at heart. Now if you’ll excuse me I am going to try and figure out how you can simultaneously know my mind better than I can regarding my marriage criteria and yet not understand when I speak plainly on other things.
I see two separate issues. One is a moral issue which as a believer is firm. Homosexuality is a sin. Argue all you like it is what it is.
Morality and law are different. I am also libertarian. As such, I have no
ground for outlawing any form of behavior that does not directly impinge upon
my rights to live as I please.
Do whatever you like just don’t expect me to pay for it. I will also stand with anyone who is just wanting to live their life as they please.