Yeah, give us an inch and we want the whole country. Which we will have, eventually. It’s not like we’ve been subtle about it…the ideal end place here is for all states to have marriage equality at some relatively near point in time. The side benefit will be pointing and laughing at the Neanderthal Right who fought us on it.
[quote=“Bryan_Ekers, post:1220, topic:492382”]
Anyway, the best argument for gay marriage isn’t some high-falutin’ sociology experiment cooked up by a bunch of ultra-liberal college professors at their weekly Educational Policy and How Best to Destroy America Roundtable brunch, but rather the relatively simple:
[ul][li]Individuals in a supposedly free society want to do something that other individuals already do.[/li][li]No reason exists for the exception.[/li][li]So let them do it.[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
We disagree on the second one. You want proof of it. You want evidence. Yet, as I have said repeatedly, and mswas (who is on your side, by the way) pointed out, it is unavailable, as this is the first time it will have been tried and the negative effects I fear are 40 years down the road.
And that doesn’t even get into the language issues.
Well, if you’d be happy deferring to the people, I’d have a lot more respect for you. Which, admittedly, wouldn’t take much.
I ask you, do you consider Obama part of this Neanderthal Right. Because he is of the same mind: that marriage is and should continued to be defined something between one man and one woman. So, why do you want Obama to fail in carrying forth his vision?
Well, my initial dismissal was perhaps overly curt. Allow me to expand.
The link you posted does not make any sort of rational or logical argument, aside from, “Sometimes predictions turn out to be correct.” Which, while an entirely valid observation, is also entirely meaningless, because it is equally well suited to any side of an argument. I could argue that refusing to legalize gay marriage will lead to a network of gay terrorist cells, who will wreak havoc across the country in bloody revenge for being denied their rights. Unlikely, you say? Ha! That’s just what they said about welfare queens!
You see how stupid that argument is?
Of course, this is only addressing the stupidities of that article on the terms you presented it, i.e, as support for an anti-marriage argument. Her examples are also poorly argued on their own merits, but that’s beyond the scope of this thread.
No proof yet exists, but if one expects terrible consequences, one should, at least, be able to offer up a reasonable theory linking cause to effect. You have yet to present an even half-way rational way for us to get from “Gays can be married” to “Society breaks down completely.”
Because his vision, on this issue, is morally and logically insupportable. Good Christ, man, just because we voted for him, doesn’t mean we have to agree with everything he says. We leave that bag to the Republicans.
I gotta, run but just wanted to quickly address this.
The point is that social policy, as well-meaning and sensible as it might be at the time, can have long term effects that are actually detrimental to not only society at large, and even to the specific group you’re seeking to help. I cited the article mainly because there seemed to be a notion that looking forty years down the road was unwise, unnecessary, ridiculous, etc. You seem to not hold that opinion. If doubt you held it before. But hopefully some of the participants in this thread will see the error they’ve been making. Just as my long-term concerns are being pooh-poohed here, similar concerns were pooh-poohed in the past. Of course, that does not mean I’m right and my fears will be realized, but it does validate a long-term examination.
See ya…
It’s always from the non gay perspective. What do gays want that is so threatening to marriage? Why should they not have the right to a legal and binding contracts that supplies them with rights any partner needs in life. The right to participate in the health decisions of their partner. The right to legal distribution of the accumulated wealth of the participants. The right to have adopted children taken care of by the estate. Simple things married people take for granted that are denied to others because they were born gay.
Gay marriage is absolutely no threat to standard marriage. It just gives a group of people the rights that the rest have had for decades.
Well, look on the bright side - you’ll probably be dead by then.
The only issue is that opponents don’t want a particular word used because they claim the word’s meaning is diluted. It’s no more a “language issue” than any occasion where a word’s meaning is expanded.
I’ve no objection to looking forty years down the line on any social policy. The problem I have with you is that you pull disaster scenarios out of your ass and say, “We can’t do it because this might happen!” without ever creating a remotely plausible chain of events that leads from gay marriage to your imagined horrible fate. You might as well be arguing that gay marriage will cause the moon to crash into the Earth. Certainly, preventing that would be an excellent reason to continue outlawing gay marriage, but there’s no rational connection between the two events, and therefore, it does not serve as a valid reason to oppose gay marriage. It is, in fact, so wholly disconnected from events that it can be used to support either side of the debate equally. It is, therefore, not a valid argument for either side, as it is an effect that cannot be logically tied to any one cause.
Heck, I’m curious how long-term an examination is required. Five years? Ten? Or do we have to go the full forty in fear of what might happen in forty?
You’re falsely characterizing what others have said. Nobody is discounting the value of foresight. Yes, we can and should talk about what may happen in 40 years. No, we should never just say it’s too scary to make big changes because we don’t know what will happen. Talk about exactly what those undesired outcomes may be, and we can assess whether those fears are logical or likely. So far all I’m getting from you - and correct me if I’m wrong - is that losing the traditional definition of marriage will make it more difficult to teach children that homosexuality is not normal (your word choice from earlier in the thread). Again, please feel free to expound on your fears and specifically how you think gay marriage will lead to them. Since you feel so strongly about this, I find it puzzling that you seem too shy to spell it out.
Well to know the demographic results we’d really need to look at about 50.
1st gen legalization 2nd gen normalization so we’d need to look at the 2nd gen and 3rd gen breeding patterns.
Assuming the big fear is ultimately that heterosexual marriages and breeding will significantly decrease, I’d like to know how one filters out the social factors that are already making this happen. Does anyone have any idea how to even theoretically look at breeding patterns two generations from now and say “X-percentage of the drop was due to gay marriage” ? How would the link be established? Compare states that pass gay marriage today with those who might grudgingly pass it ten years from now?
And even then, is what our grandchildren might do a valid response to a current civil-rights issue? I can see why this line of argument is tempting because since nobody knows what happen 40 or 50 years from now, it’s easy to spin various doomsday scenarios, but is that a reasonable thing to do?
I doubt you could make a link, though you can definitely see a direct link between recent changes in our sexual culture and a dramatic decline in birthrates all across the first world.
Yes, and I can also see a direct link between declining birthrates and higher standards of living, i.e. wealthier couples with better educations and more security have fewer kids. Would that justify enforced poverty and ignorance?
And for that matter, is a lowered birth rate automatically bad?
And for that matter, how is gay marriage going to lower the birth rate even more? Could it not be a countering effect, i.e. people who want kids but don’t like heterosexual sex may now consider having some because the protections offered by marriage allow more security?
If so, then it should be possible to at least speculate about what those adverse consequences might be, even without getting into their probabilities. But neither you nor anyone else on the pro-discrimination side can do even that, short of some lamentations about loss of respect for the form of “Christianity” that some of them claim and an increase in “immorality” (as if sexuality were a moral issue). Can you actually provide something that is not only realistic but specific enough to discu
Meanwhile, the adverse consequences of continuing the present policy are known, definable, and real.
Of course it isn’t. But you aren’t doing it. Those of us who recognize that a wrong being perpetrated in the present will still be a wrong in forty years most certainly *are *looking that far ahead.
Wrong. How can we pooh-pooh something that hasn’t even been articulated? What is being pooh-poohed is your claim to have any such concerns that you both understand and are willing to assert publicly.
So I go away for over a week without internet access, and come back to the same nonsensical statements.
First, please stop confusing proof with evidence. We have not attempted to hold anyone to a demonstration of proof. We have merely requested any offering of evidence. Show, not that unforseen consequences of various actions are possible, but that some specific consequence will befall society.
The refrain remains
1 - allow SSM
2 - ???
3 - society degenerates
Give us the mode of action by which #2 operates. Is it merely this vacuous “dilution” thingy whereby marriage somehow becomes thinner and more watery, like circus lemonade, by the addition of numbers without substance? But then you still have to show that (a) same sex marriages are indeed lacking the same ethereal “substance” characteristic of other marriages. And you’d still have to (b) offer some theory or mechanism by which this diluted version of marriage was actually leading society towards some pitfall. Finally, you’ll be expected to (c) provide any tiny little bit of evidence.
So far all the available evidence, both from other countries and even from certain states in the USA, demonstrates no such societal harm. Your reply to this? Move the goal posts once again, this time back to fifty years.
“We ain’t gonna accept SSM, until you can show us a full 50 years of proof that nothin’ bad is gonna happen!! 'Cause we just know it’s gonna! You just wait and see!!”
I’ve followed this now through more than 1200 posts. Surely somewhere someone could point to, or present de novo, a reply to a, b or c above. I’ll continue to follow it to the inevitable heat death of the universe, but if I were taking bets I think I’m on the safe side here.
There is (reference to a) no substantive difference between SSM and the other kind.
There is (reference to b) no viable theory or logical chain of consequences by which legalization of SSM leads to societal degradation.
There is (reference to c) not one scintilla of evidence that SSM, where legal, has had any harmful effect on that society.
It really, truly, is about the *ecckkk *factor.
Maybe not proof and I have not looked it up but I am willing to bet some people made such arguments when anti-miscegenation laws were tossed out.
That was 42 years ago so not quite the 50 years asked for but I feel comfortable saying society has not degenerated as a result of that nor will it in the next eight years as a result of that.
No, but that doesn’t make it a non-issue.
Depends. The German/Japanese birthrate definitely bad, very bad, American birthrate? Nah, that’s pretty good.
Maybe, maybe not. Maybe they’ll stop having contempt for ‘Breeders’ if their relationships are normalized. But in general there is a disturbing anti-breeding trend amongst western seculars. Sure the extremes get made fun of a la the epic BBQ Pit thread about it, but it’s pretty uncontroversial to say that real human beings should never have been born if their last name happens to be Duggar.
Miscegenation continues to be an inapplicable example, because white people and black people can produce children, two males or two females cannot.
True but same-sex couples can (and do) have children. There are a variety of routes to achieve this.
I also simply do not understand how SSM changes this in any way. Today, and throughout recorded history, there have been homosexuals. How does SSM change anything? Even if a same-sex couple is not married today they are still homosexual so your issue with having children remains unchanged. Or are you trying to suggest that if SSM was allowed heterosexual people would for some reason opt for SSM?
Indeed, allowing SSM would likely see some homosexual couples actually choosing to try and have children that they otherwise wouldn’t because they (currently) lack the legal structure that supports a couple having children (e.g. if one dies the other is still the legal parent or if they divorce a legal framework to determine custody exists and so on).