What will it take for gays to gain acceptance in American society?

Great Debates
41

Your basis for objecting to allowing homosexuals to marry seems to be based on the belief that the only legitimate purpose of marriage is reproduction, yet your response to Guinastasia’s question raises this point:

What is the difference between “getting married” and being “granted a marriage contract”?

If (and I don’t agree with this by any stretch of the imagination) the only reason for legal marriage is to produce offspring, then my wife and I should not have been allowed to marry; she was 49 and even if she had still been fertile pregnancy would have been dangerous for both her and the potential child. Among the hoops we had to jump through in order for us to get married in a Catholic church we had to pretend that we intended our marriage to produce children. There was an interview with the priest who would be performing the ceremony where I was asked extremely leading questions on this matter, and when I started to say something about the unlikelihood of us having children he cut me off so fast I almost had whiplash.

And to address the OP, it seems to me that the fastest (but not necessarily the only) way for gays to gain acceptance in American society would be for God to come down and say something like:

42

First there are some posts here that are just mindless abuse. I have not characterized anybody in an attempt to discredit them. For people who expect tolerance you sure have some closed minds. I don’t agree with you but I don’t call you a lot of simpletons. What are you so afraid of? They’re just ideas.

If this gets thrown into the pit it won’t be because I sent it there.

—Life has no essential function. Do not confuse a desire or drive with a higher purpose.

Life by definition reproduces. If it does not it is not life, that makes it an essential function. It is essential to the process. I say nothing about drive or purpose those are metaphysical.

----As for the second “point”, perhaps you could explain, then, the presence of sterile worker castes in bees and ants?

All communal organisms, as anyone with your moniker should know, are so closely related as to make the reproduction of the queen their reproduction. If you read all the posts you’ll find I mention this but no one has demonstrated that homosexuals serve a function in human society similar to worker insects or mole-rats.

What is the difference between “getting married” and being “granted a marriage contract”?

This was part of an answer to a question on what I would do to remake marriage laws. I doesn’t really have much to do with the question. I suspect it was asked to provided ammunition so as to make me look ridiculous. If I could rewrite marriage laws you could still get ‘married’ in a church or whatever, the state would have nothing to do with this, but you would not get a marriage contract from the state until you had children and the state had an interest. I would abolish all that stuff about spouses getting special privileges, that’s part of the endorsement of marriage which makes it a scary social program in my book. Adoption (which homosexuals could do) would not be the same as this contract since the state as parent would have a closer regulatory interest in an adopted child. This is really beside the point of the thread.

Ahunter3:

You are welcome to think the world is overpopulated and to sacrifice your reproduction for the good of others, this could even be viewed as commendable. It is possible there is even some natural basis for this feeling but it’s tenuous. It doesn’t argue against my view either.

Once again I am merely trying to bring out two ideas central to the thread., first, which seems to now be agreed, is that what is being discussed is equivalence before the law not tolerance. Second, which is still in debate, a person can have legitimate grounds (beyond prejudice or dogma) for thinking homosexuality is perverse and that perversion should not be treated by the law the same as non-perversion. I am not proposing anyone change their mind about whether homosexuality is perverse only about whether someone else can hold a contrary view without it being oppression.

It seems a small thing. If your view prevailed tomorrow it wouldn’t matter a tinkers cuss to me. I accept the possibility that your world view can be legitimately different from mine. I accept all sorts of things which I think are wrong and prejudicial to my interests which are enforced on me by law because I recognize that the basis for the law is a legitimate alternate view held by at least 51% of the people. I might try to change their minds but not by agitation and not by pretending to moral superiority. Certainly not by ridicule and shouting down legitimate discussion .

43

I’m not going to hi-jack this, but Dangerosa -the Black Panthers were not and are not (they are right here in Cleveland now) a “lunatic fringe.”
Thank you very much.

Esprix: What is a Time Cube?

Uncle Toby: Whta about the problem of overpopulation then?
Don’t you admit homosexuality is a help to this (theoretically, I know gays can have children, my sons father was gay).

44

I’ve always been of the mind that the majority will always oppress the minority to a degree. That said, however, I believe that more and more states will allow for some sort of same-sex union, and the more that do, the better the standing of gays.

I currently attend school in Indiana, where the ACLU is challenging the government on who may and may not marry. We are one of the states where the codes actually state that “only a man may marry a woman and only a woman may marry a man.” Most people here are, predictably, decrying the “damned libb-rals attack on morality,” but the kick in the pants is that the ACLU has a pretty good case. If they successfully change the policies in a conservative state like Indiana, other states will be pushovers.

=}

45

“I don’t have to reproduce every time I have sex, and if my genes don’t like it, they can go jump in the lake.”

–Steven Pinker, PhD, How the Mind Works

46

Perhaps you need to read past the first two chapters of your Sociobiology course book, Uncle Toby. I don’t think you really grasp the concept yet.

47

A useful definition of ‘oppression’ is an important basis for this thread. The dictionary definition relies on concepts like unjust and wrongful. These in turn must be defined and the definitions take us deep into philosophy. One of the most widely accepted concept of justice comes from Kant’s ‘categorical imperative’ some have amended or redirected this, a few even dismiss it entirely. You’re never going to get everybody to agree about anything. All you can hope for is to have the overwhelming majority of reasonable people agree to some basic principles.

My own idea of oppression is something which violates a fundamental personal right, and I don’t see how denying homosexual equivalence does this. You have a fundamental right to be treated equally before the law with respect to arbitrary distinctions such as ‘race’. But if the distinction is not arbitrary the law can make it if the people choose. If marriage is defined by function (to produce the next generation) then people who cannot by definition fulfill that function can be treated differently and this is not oppression. I’m not saying you have to do it, just that it isn’t oppression and it falls into the category of distinctions a just society can make or not as the majority decides.

Homebrew; present a position please, ridicule belongs in the pit.

Gimmie that old time biology, it’s good enough for me. The ‘socio’ variety gets a bit silly out on the fringe.

48

Uncle Toby, you do realize that your entire argument is based on a deeply flawed premise, right? Marriage is not, and never has been, integral to reproduction.

Unmarried people get married all the time. Married people don’t unanimously reproduce. In this society, under this set of laws, (not some fanciful legal code in Uncletobyland), the infertile get the same treatment as the fertile. So, say it with me… reproduction is not the only goal of marriage.

It’s always fun to watch people try and use logic to support hatred.

49

Uncle Toby said, “If you don’t reproduce you are unhealthy.” I say that if you CAN’T reproduce, you are unhealthy. I have plenty of healthy friends that don’t have children by choice.

50

Just for the record, the interest of the state in marriage is as follows:

[list][li]A stable society demands that children be brought up in such a manner as will provide for them eventually living as adults as part of such a society. Human nature being what it is, parental example, nurture, and such provide a natural mode of such upbringing in most cases. (And we all know exceptions, but I speak in generalities.)[/li]
[li]It is customary for persons who form romantic relationships to wish to gift the beloved and to share one’s existence with the beloved, including one’s worldly possessions. State-recognized marriage provides a means whereby such provision can be recognized as automatically in place. The series of contractual activities which the thoughtful gay couple must go through when making a marital-equivalent commitment with each other in order to accomplish what saying “I do” at the appropriate time does for the heterosexual couple should be sufficient indication of what is at stake in even a childless marriage. (My wife and I have been giving consideration to what we wish to do as regards our wills, since while each of us wishes to leave our worldly goods to the surviving other, her contingent beneficiary if she survives me would be her blood nephew and mine would be the young man who was our ward, and neither of us wants to see our estate pass to the other one’s contingent beneficiary. We’re looking at life trusts with right of waste as a means of getting around that problem, so that she has total use of my estate if she survives me and vice versa, but what is left on the death of the survivor of us is divided according to who left what between our contingent beneficiaries.[/li]
And it doesn’t take children to make a marriage.

51

Marriage is not a biological function. Therefore your opposition to it is based on your facile grasp of sociobiology.

Wrong. Referring to an authority in the subject matter being discussed is valid.
Until you start with reasonable premises and show some understanding of the concepts you parrot, you don’t deserve the effort of a “position paper” from me. All you merit so far is derisive dismissal.

As I said in another thread, you don’t get to change the meaning of words, Humpty-Dumpty style to fit your whim. “Perverse” has specific moral connotations that you can’t get around by distorted semantics.

52

One pretty good way of taking baby-steps towards gay marriage is being proposed by the GOP candidate for the governorship here in CA. It would create a new type of partnership that wasn’t marriage, but still gave all the same benefits as marriage. It would apply to those who had a “special relationship”, including gays, close personal friends who wanted to live together, brothers and sisters, etc. I don’t know to what extent plans like this exist in other states, but if there are any, does anyone know how successful they are?

Also, Uncle Toby, I agree with you in much of what you said (so now I suppose I get to be labeled a bigot like you, ha ha, whee, even though I have nothing against homosexuality other than I think it’s kind of icky), but I disagree about the oddity of allowing the government to give out marriage contracts. The Constitution gives to the government the task of “promoting the general welfare” - basically, do things that encourage people to make healthy decisions, as long as you don’t force them to make these decisions. Given that it’s pretty much proven that strong families are extremely helpful in producing healthy, well-balanced children, encouraging marriage seems a good idea, especially as a legal institution. The fact that getting out of a married relationship is more difficult than just deciding to move out tends to keep married couples together.

Now, to really conjure up the bigot label, let me propose the following: There have been studies that show that children raised by normal, heterosexual couples grow up to be happier than either those raised by single-parent households, or those raised by same-sex households. IF this holds true, then I would have no problem with not allowing gay marriages on the grounds that it is generally better for children to not be raised by homosexual couples. Gays would still be allowed to acquire children by whatever means, and they could still get married under God, or Vishnu, or whatever, but the government wouldn’t be endorsing it. If these studies are NOT valid, then I can see no reason to not allow gay marriages, however.

stands back and waits for the razing to begin
Jeff

53

Cite?

Oh, and while you’re at it, please come up with a study that says that children raised by unmarried homosexual couples are happier than children raised by married homosexual couples. In light of the fact that this is hard to obtain, I’d let you get away with a study that says that children raised by unmarried heterosexual couples are happier than children raised by married heterosexual couples.

And about the razing comment… it’s generally considered to be gauche to set yourself up as a martyr quite that early in the argument. The standard tactic is to wait until people bring up arguments you can’t defend against, and then start saying that people are mean because they’re attacking you. Just for future reference.

54

----------Uncle Toby, you do realize that your entire argument is based on a deeply flawed premise, right? Marriage is not, and never has been, integral to reproduction.

Unmarried people get married all the time. Married people don’t unanimously reproduce. In this society, under this set of laws, (not some fanciful legal code in Uncletobyland), the infertile get the same treatment as the fertile. So, say it with me… reproduction is not the only goal of marriage.

It’s always fun to watch people try and use logic to support hatred.----------
First of all I never said integral, this is a strawman. Integral means being required for the whole. As you say you don’t have to be married to reproduce. As far as UncleTobyland goes I agree with you, this is a fanciful place but I was asked about it directly. I did say I thought the reason I was asked was probably to hold me up for ridicule, thank you for not disappointing me. UncleTobyland is not necessary for my argument.

-----reproduction is not the only goal of marriage

Goal is a different matter I did say something close to that, though not exactly. Please give some reasoning to support your position.

-----It’s always fun to watch people try and use logic to support hatred.

So, We’ve descended from ridicule to direct abuse. What’s next, threats?

-----Uncle Toby said, “If you don’t reproduce you are unhealthy.” I say that if you CAN’T reproduce, you are unhealthy. I have plenty of healthy friends that don’t have children by choice.

If you can’t reproduce you ARE unhealthy if you don’t reproduce you are acting in an unhealthy manner.

—And it doesn’t take children to make a marriage.

Of course not, society can define marriage to mean painting yourself green and eating nothing but rutabagas. What I said is if you define marriage by reproduction then in is allowable in a just society to not treat homosexuals with legal equivalence in the matter of marriage.

55

You knew it was coming, Jeff.

Cite?

56

Which no legal entity does, therefore you’re presenting another false premise.

57

ElJeffe, please refer to UncleToby’s post above for a classic example of argumentative martyrdom.

58

Homebrew:

-------Marriage is not a biological function. Therefore your opposition to it is based on your facile grasp of sociobiology.

Strawman never said it was. Read the posta carefully.
.

-----Wrong. Referring to an authority in the subject matter being discussed is valid.

Referring to authority is only an argument under two conditions. First that it is germane second that both parties agree as to the value of the authority to the argument. Neither applies in this case. Read the posts or define the area of confusion and I’ll try to clear it up.
------Until you start with reasonable premises and show some understanding of the concepts you parrot, you don’t deserve the effort of a “position paper” from me. All you merit so far is derisive dismissal.

Please support this thesis with argument otherwise it is ridicule.

--------As I said in another thread, you don’t get to change the meaning of words, Humpty-Dumpty style to fit your whim. “Perverse” has specific moral connotations that you can’t get around by distorted semantics.

Strawman, I do not change words I just use them in one of their senses and not others, I generally point this out if I think I’m likely to be misunderstood. If I say, “he had a bay horse” it is understood I do not mean the horse was a body of water.

59

No. People who do not produce life are still alive. People who actively take life are still alive. I don’t know what you are inducing from.

This is how you define perverse?

60

Uncle Toby, you asked

?

Due to a rather unfortunate set of circumstances, I managed to reach adulthood believing that I was incapable of being loved and that no one would accept any love I had to offer. I even believed I did not need simple, human contact, a belief which persisted into my mid-30’s. If homosexuality is considered unacceptable and a “perversion”, to use your word, you are condemning people to those circumstances. Speaking from first-hand experience, that is not healthy and can lead to depression and death. Depriving a human being of love, affection, and companionship is what’s unhealthy. By the way, I am straight and single, but do not plan on having children. Does that mean that, by your standards, I should not marry?

Getting back to the OP, I’m with those who are saying that as people get to know people who are gay, tolerance will spread. The other factor is, I’m afraid, time. My parents know an old friend of mine is gay but are not, and probably will never be comfortable with it, which saddens me greatly.

There is one other thing we must do, not only on this sanctuary of a board, but in real life. Educate, educate, EDUCATE! Ignorance surrounds us, folks. We can choose to combat it by saying “They (or we) are not like that, and I don’t appreciate you saying so.” It can be said politely, not always militantly, but it must be said!. If I wound up battered because of my circumstances, I also wound up idealistic with the notion that no battle is too big, especially with allies like you.

Respectfully,
CJ