“Hmm, I don’t know if I should support or oppose SSM. Let’s consider the evidence. Hmm, all I have is this newspaper, which says that 53% of Maineions oppose SSM. Does this mean that I should oppose SSM too?”
From here, I can see two potential thought processes:
“Well, I base all my decisions on the fear that other people will disapproove of me. So, I’d better go with the flow - ban SSM!” (turns page in newspaper.) “Hey, it looks like according to this poll, 6 out of the 10 people in this survey think the earth is flat. Time to throw out that globe!”
“Huh, I guess that 53% of people oppose SSM. That means that it don’t matter what I do, SSM isn’t going to happen. I might as well not worry about it then.” (Turns page on paper.) “Wow, this is a dumb survey here. Hey, here’s Ziggy!”
I can’t think of a rational thought process that extrapolates from “most people believe it” to “I should believe it” that isn’t also in the dictionary under “Argumentum ad populum”.
Flimsy. Demonstrating that our voting system is non-optimal doesn’t prove anything - especially since your proposed thought process doesn’t work in this situation.
(warning: numbers are of rectal origin, for illustration purposes only: )
“Huh, I normally would vote Nader, but this poll shows that 30% of voters want Gore, 31% of voters want Bush, 2% of voters want Nader, 4% want Batman, and 37% of voters don’t give a crap. Based on the majority, my vote goes to Bush!”
ETA: D’oh! On review: “Based on the majority, I’m staying home!” (Which is actually less irrational than it might be, I suppose…)
Oh, SNAP! Wow, you sure got us. I will certainly have to rethink my support for same sex marriage now that my blatant hypocrisy has been revealed.
Seriously, pick whichever one of your points you think is the best analogy for SSM, and I’ll happily debate with you whether or not there’s any relevance to the comparison.
Obviously, the subtext of the OP is, “…without a compelling reason.” Of course, that takes for granted that there are no compelling reasons to oppose SSM, and that’s arguably a flaw in the OP, but pointing out that “OMG, guys, there are other laws prevent people from doing stuff too!” is not a particularly valuable insight. Hell, why not add, “Laws against murder are infringing on the rights of serial killers!” It’s every bit as weighty an insight as anything else you’ve got on your list, after all.
Really? I took it as a psychological question: What is it about people that makes them want to control the behavior of others?
If we accept that many people opposed to same sex marriage think that it’s better for society as a whole to keep marriage between a man and a woman, then their motivation is every bit as valid as someone who wants to force people to wear seatbelts or abstain from smoking cigarettes, is it not? You can argue about whether or not their opinion is correct, but if in fact their opposition comes from a heartfelt desire to protect their society, then the motivation is pretty much the same.
The rest of this thread has been yet another boring excuse to demonize the right through the process of setting up straw men and knocking them down, or by studiously attempting to ignore or avoid the more substantive arguments against SSM in favor of shooting the homophobic fish in the proverbial barrel.
I say this as someone who fully supports gay marriage. But I do think the other side has some reasonably good points. Namely, that marriage is a bedrock institution that you mess with at your peril, and that the best social order for society starts with the traditional family and radiates outward. It’s best for the children, it’s the best way to protect the weak and infirm and the aged. Before the vast panoply of government services came along to fix everyone’s problems, family did it. This encourages social cohesion, gave children a better environment to grow up in, and by keeping charity close to home, helped strengthen communities and individuals.
Conservatives see their cherished institutions constantly under attack from all sides, and the stripping away of the sanctity of marriage is just another chip in the wall. They’re trying to protect the things they value. They don’t have to hate gays, and many people who oppose gay marriage support civil unions and equal rights for gay people. They just want to preserve marriage in its traditional sense.
Of course, there are plenty of homophobes and bigots out there as well - in both parties. But there are other people who have different motivations.
One argument is simply that marriage is special and sacred, and is the institution that codifies the family unit as that of a man married to a woman, plus their children. For thousands of years, this has been the fundamental social unit among most cultures. We give it special protection because we recognize its special status - primarily, it’s the best way to bring children into the world and to raise them.
The special protections that marriage are given act as an incentive for men and women to marry, and this is good for society. If you redefine marriage as being a vow between any two people, you will lessen the incentive for men and women to marry. More children will be born outside of male/female nuclear unit, and that will be a bad thing for society.
And frankly, there are studies that show that children who have both mothers and fathers do better. Having a role model from both sexes gives them more balance, a more varied exposure to human differences, etc.
Then there’s the religious argument - marriage is a union sanctified by God and God specifically says it’s between a man and a woman. This is the position of the Catholic church. You can call it silly or stupid, but to religious people, it’s certainly a major aspect of their opposition.
Like I said before, I support gay marriage, which means I don’t find these arguments as compelling as the arguments for. But I don’t dismiss them lightly, and I don’t think that people who believe this way are necessarily motivated by bigotry or homophobia. They honestly think that it will be very destructive to society if marriage is extended beyond the bounds of the man/woman relationship.
That study was about single parenting vs two parents, it doesn’t appear to speak to opposite sex parents vs same sex parents. (at least as far as I could tell)
Like I said in my OP, I am opposed to religion but I have not tried to have any churches shut down.
People ban things because they are a threat. They can either be a threat to you as an individual (crime), a threat to society (environmental degradation), a threat to collective standards of living (minimum wage and labor laws), a threat to traditional values people get their sense of stability and identity from (gay marriage laws), a threat to public safety (assault weapons bans) etc.
Honestly, I haven’t even read this thread very thouroughly since it has gotten so long. But I’m glad I saw these criticisms because I never really considered them. I have a huge political bias, and that bias makes me blind to the values others see in upholding the perceived integrity of marriage laws. I do not feel my values are threatened by gay marriage. However that does not mean other people feel their values are not under threat. I guess fundamentally that is what motivates people who oppose gay marriage, the fact that they get psychological comfort out of tradition and will resist change to that tradition.
But the examples you give are not all the same thing as what I am referring to. Using legal force to uphold Jim Crow is not the same as using legal force to uphold integration.
The motive behind gay marriage seems to be ‘I gain psychological comfort from tradition. Certain people are trying to change those traditions. If I take their civil rights away, those traditions will remain’. That seems to be a large part of the motive behind opposition to minority rights, secularization and women’s rights.
However, I do not personally consider that the same as what you refer to. Buying CFL bulbs for sustaintability of the planet is not the same thing as forcing the shop owner to live a life he does not want to live because it is more psychologically comforting to you.
My point is that many of the bans you list are mostly about sustainability or health. And for whatever reason (probably my political bias) I do not categorize them in the same category as I would banning events that are bothersome to me personally because the psychological constructs I am dependent on are under threat.
If peopld obtain psychological comfort and security from tradition, even if tradition means living in a world where gays cannot get married, women cannot go to college and black people cannot find jobs, then that is wrong. However that seems to be the motive behind opposition to civil/human rights in these areas.
As I said, I like my secularism. And I like technology. But I haven’t tried to ban the building of new churches nor have I tried to forcibly disband the Amish.
Are there examples of left wingers trying to deny human/civil rights to other people merely because they obtain comfort from tradition? Leftists (like myself) do try to deny other people their rights when issues like health, sustainability or collective standard of living are issues. I will grant you that.
Maybe that is just a difference between liberals and conservatives. Liberals generally embrace change and conservatives resist it. So we do not get as much comfort from tradition and do not value it.
So maybe that was a massive flaw in my OP. We all try to take people’s rights away, we just have different motives. And for liberals like myself, obtaining psychological comfort and security from tradition is not something I am motivated by. If anything I am the opposite.
I support depriving people of certain rights on issues like sustainability (cap and trade) or collective standards of living (labor laws) but not because I obtain emotional gratification from tradition (gay marriage).
So I guess the real debate is is it ok to categorize psychological gratification from tradition (which I feel people should not take each other’s rights away) differently than sustainability or collective standard of living (which I feel we should be able to take each other’s rights away).
Nonsense. That special and sacred tradition you speak of has consisted of man as owner, woman as servant and sex toy. Just by allowing women equal rights we’ve gone against tradition far more than SSM ever will. Would you consider “it’s traditional” a good excuse for a husband beating or raping a wife? If no, then why is tradition a defense for opposing SSM?
Traditional society was barbaric. “It’s traditional” is more of an argument against something; not for it.
A ridiculous and baseless claim. About the only people to whom that would apply would be people who are so rabidly homophobic that they sabotage their own personal relationships as some sort of symbolic blow against homosexuality; and those are hardly the people we want to raise children.
And? I can guarantee you that very few people have grown up in some sort of perfect, ideal family. Should we sterilize single women who have children then? To protect their children from the terrible trauma being raised by a single parent, or worse two women?
And I hereby declare that it is the will of God that only same sex marriages be allowed, and all hetero marriages should be dissolved. A position with exactly as much basis for it. Why should one be the law and not the other?
A law to wear a seatbelt or not smoke is restricting YOUR rights. It directly impacts YOU. Whether such laws are ok can be debated. That said the government is restricting everyone equally. It is not only white people can smoke or only black people have to wear seatbelts.
A law that allows someone else to marry someone of the same sex does NOT affect you in any way. It is specific to a minority of the population.
I think they are mostly. People who are frightened of black people hide that fear behind strong opposition to street crime and welfare. That doesn’t change the true motive.
The fact that most people who oppose gay marriage do not oppose all the other damage inside of marriage makes me question their motives. If the goal of marriage is raising children in a stable environment then they’d be opposed to divorce and marriages among the elderly as well as gay marriage. But they only oppose gay marriage.
In some ways. For example, I think an employer and employee who I have never met should have the right to bargain for wages lower than the minimum wage taken away. However I do not think two gay people I have never met should have their right to marry taken away.
Again, I guess it comes down to what motives and boundaries you consider valid or not. And that would be a complex debate, but a good one to have.
They are? We have had 17 pages in this thread looking for this and so far no one has provided one.
What does that mean? I am not being snarky. I ask in all serious what that means and how “special” and “sacred” are defined. Once that is done tell me why your “special and sacred” should be mine? Lots of people hold all sorts of things as special and sacred to them. I am willing to bet you do not find most of them to be either.
Off the top of my head I can think of an American Indian society where all women took turns breast feeding the tribe’s babies. Children, while knowing their parents, were deemed children of the tribe and everyone called the adult women “mother” as they viewed them that way.
So, a distinctly different means of raising families and one that sounds rather nice.
Other societies put their baby girls out in the wilderness to die because they were deemed a liability. They had a mother/father who were married.
And of course if you want to stick with this special status and the importance of it all do you argue we should take babies away from single mothers to give to adoptive, married hetero parents? It is special and important afterall. How about families that divorce? It is special to have a nuclear family, nevermind that the divorce rate in the US approaches 50%.
But hey…this is a special and sanctified institution which we dare not mess with.
Oh…ever notice that divorce rates are higher in Red states than Blue states where all them fussy libruls live? Seems the libruls are better at this than the conservatives who proclaim its value.
Why are SSM bad for society? Indeed everything points to it being good for society. You provide the same protections for a group of people that others enjoy. If it is good for one group it is good for the other (certainly in this case anyway). Why is denying the ability to deal with estates when a person dies harmful to hetero couples if same-sex couples get the same thing? Why is it better for society that a same-sex couple cannot make medical decisions for their partner? Why is it better for society to deny a same-sex couple access to a divorce court should they split and need to divide assets?
I’d argue denying them those and making them struggle is harmful to society as a whole. Curious why you think the opposite.
I would laugh if this was not so absurd. Cite? Logic even? Evidence that other countries that have adopted SSM are experiencing this? This assertion is laughable on the face of it. I can say, without doubt, some dude marrying another dude has ZERO impact on my decision to get with a woman, marry her, have children and so on.
There should be a movie where a man and woman meet, fall madly in love and then he dumps her because homos are getting married somewhere. :rolleyes:
Children benefit from two parents. I would say it would be better to have a man and a woman for the different perspectives but that is an ideal and not a requirement. Any two people though help provide a balance and share the burden of raising a child. Loads of kids are raised in single family homes. We should be thrilled to allow another segment of the population get together and raise children.
Separation of church and state. I guarantee your god is not my god and you want me pushing my Flying Spaghetti Monster down your throat and mandating what you can and cannot do as a result anymore than I want you to do the same to me with your god.
You have been around the SDMB long enough I thought that should be obvious to you by now.
I don’t doubt some think this.
I also don’t doubt that some think 2012 will bring some Mayan apocalypse down on us.
Belief is not reason and is especially obnoxious when it is used to deny other people rights.
Again, as I said, I support gay marriage, so ultimately I agree with you guys. I think if you stack up arguments on their side vs the ones on our side, they lose.
What I’m arguing is not that gay marriage is wrong, but that the other side has their reasons, and they aren’t ridiculous and they aren’t necessarily borne out of bigotry or ignorance. I happen to feel that they don’t measure up, but I think reasonable people can disagree, and therefore have to be convinced in a serious way by addressing their real concerns, rather than through mockery or attacking straw men.
My view is most of the arguments against gay marriage are based on the concept of people who are more emotionally invested in tradition trying to uphold those traditions (even if doing so is anti-egalitarian and deprives others of some civil rights).
People with more conservative worldviews tend to have (from what I’ve read of psychology) a strong response to threats. Some methods of dealing with these threats are an intense reliance on protective, aggressive authority figures who keep the threats at bay (conservatives tend to be very supportive of the military and police) and a reliance on tradition since change in and of itself can be stressful and unpredictable. Stressful, threatening situations tend to make all people more conservative (9/11 as an example and the way the nation rallied around Bush).
Personally I think the arguments against gay marriage (it will violate 1000+ year traditions. It is necessary for healthy children. It will damage society as a whole) are fundamentally all smokescreens against the true opposition, the fact that allowing gays to marry will violate a cultural tradition conservatives have grown emotionally attached to. If the sanctity of marriage were the real motive then issues like the high divorce rate, multiple marriages, marriages among the elderly or infertile, etc. would also be issues for anti-gay marriage advocates. But they do not have any serious interest in those issues from what I can tell.
In my view it is like saying a good reason to oppose women’s liberation movements is that it will create unemployment (by having more people in the workforce). That is more of a smokescreen reason. The real reason is discomfort with changes to tradition.
I’m not saying it isn’t a valid reason with a valid motive. However whether that motive deserves to be respected by society as a whole is another story. Opposing gay marriage because someone is emotionally invested in tradition, and will suffer emotional stress if those traditions are destroyed is a valid reason to do or not do something. Whether society should respect that motive is something else. If I suffer anxiety attacks everytime I see someone wear a green shirt it is not the responsibility of everyone I see out in the street to avoid wearing green shirts. That doesn’t mean I don’t suffer anxiety, but whether it is the responsiblity of society to restrict itself to fit my needs is a different issue.
I think the major debate isn’t that most of us feel we should be able to take each other’s rights away. It is a question of who, what, when, where, how and why. Even libertarians think the police should be able to stop battery and theft. So even they support some restrictions.
And I disagree. It’s all homophobic, and all stupid and/or ignorant. Just like the reasons for segregation were all based on racism and stupidity.
And I don’t think that this is something reasonable people disagree on; it’s the un-reasonable ones who disagree. And their “real concerns” are their homophobia, religious fanaticism and general malice. You aren’t going to reason them out of their position, because they are not reasonable people.