# Why should I care about gay marriage?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-care-about-gay-marriage/681766
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [February 20, 2014, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-care-about-gay-marriage/681766 "2014-02-20T02:37:39Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 13
### Author:  [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2014, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-care-about-gay-marriage/681766/242 "2014-02-25T01:56:38Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#):
>
> You do realize, I hope, that you’re simply defining the problem away instead of exploring it. Just like you pretend that banning same-sex couples from using the word “married” does not make them second-class citizens.
>
> But, after all these discussions, you’re obviously not going to be convinced by mere argument. Just recognize that you’re in a shrinking minority that future generations are going to wonder about.
The fallacy of inevitability. The fallacy of appeal to the popular sentiment. Keep going?
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### Author:  [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2014, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-care-about-gay-marriage/681766/243 "2014-02-25T01:57:43Z")
> [@Farin](#):
>
> Yes. My only hold up are the lawful determinations of inheritance and such for the social side of things. (Does it stay with the genetic parents, the married group’s assets at time of conception, drawn lots?, etc)
>
> ETA: I support ADULT polygamy. Any sort of “14 is old enough” I don’t support.
Why not? Give me one good reason!
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### Author:  [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2014, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-care-about-gay-marriage/681766/244 "2014-02-25T02:07:46Z")
> [@Melchior](#):
>
> Why not? Give me one good reason!
Um, age of consent ring a bell?
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### Author:  [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2014, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-care-about-gay-marriage/681766/245 "2014-02-25T02:09:31Z")
> [@Antinor01](#):
>
> And naturally that ends the discussion right there! There are absolutely no gay men in long term relationships. I personally am in the 13th year of a casual one night stand with the same guy. Several other members here have been having a fling with the same guy for over 20 years. Clearly the experience of your friends is the only one that is possible.
yeah, and they showed me the old ones too…and mentioned that I might be stared at…and what to do.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2014, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-care-about-gay-marriage/681766/246 "2014-02-25T02:34:33Z")
> [@Melchior](#):
>
> I have a degree in philosophy and know more about fallacies than the lot of you put together!
You’re an expert at _using_ them, granted. But you’re still using the words incorrectly.
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### Author:  [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2014, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-care-about-gay-marriage/681766/247 "2014-02-25T02:40:27Z")
> [@andros](#):
>
> Um, age of consent ring a bell?
Affirmation of the consequent. Age of consent laws rest on the presupposition that there is such a thing as being too young.
I am sure that in many societies there is or has been no such distinction.
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### Author:  [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2014, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-care-about-gay-marriage/681766/248 "2014-02-25T02:43:57Z")
> [@Marley23](#):
>
> You’re an expert at _using_ them, granted. But you’re still using the words incorrectly.
In my experience, most discussion groups are inhabited by people who use fallacious arguments. ‘15 years from now everyone will believe as I do’ is one of my favorites. It’s total garbage.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2014, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-care-about-gay-marriage/681766/249 "2014-02-25T02:48:19Z")
My experience is that people who can’t make an argument will change the subject at every opportunity. They start doing things like complaining about fallacies and boasting about their philosophy degrees. :rolleyes:
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### Author:  [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2014, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-care-about-gay-marriage/681766/250 "2014-02-25T02:52:10Z")
> [@Marley23](#):
>
> My experience is that people who can’t make an argument will change the subject at every opportunity. They start doing things like complaining about fallacies and boasting about their philosophy degrees. :rolleyes:
Fallacy of irrelevance (aka ‘red herring’).
[http://socsci.gulfcoast.edu/rbaldwin/15%20common%20logical%20fallacies.htm](http://socsci.gulfcoast.edu/rbaldwin/15%20common%20logical%20fallacies.htm)
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2014, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-care-about-gay-marriage/681766/251 "2014-02-25T03:01:39Z")
Yerp.
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### Author:  [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hershele_Ostropoler)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2014, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-care-about-gay-marriage/681766/252 "2014-02-25T03:09:53Z")
> [@Melchior](#):
>
> What about bigamy? What about marrying your sister? your niece? your dog?
The complications that would ensue if polyamorous marriages were to be recognized are properly ranged against the unfairness of not recognizing them. I find this a dispositive argument, but it doesn’t rest on tradition.
I don’t think there is a good reason to prohibit incestuous marriages (provided there is no coersion involved) and I’m not convinced there is a good reason to prohibit marriages between humans and animals (though it should not be legal to consummate those). I am open to reasons other than “we’ve never done it before,” which I’m not even sure is true.
> [@Melchior](#):
>
> Dictionaries have picked up this ignorant usage. They record erroneous usage.
How are correct and erroneous usages distinguished?
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### Author:  [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2014, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-care-about-gay-marriage/681766/253 "2014-02-25T03:44:05Z")
> [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](#):
>
> The complications that would ensue if polyamorous marriages were to be recognized are properly ranged against the unfairness of not recognizing them. I find this a dispositive argument, but it doesn’t rest on tradition.
>
> I don’t think there is a good reason to prohibit incestuous marriages (provided there is no coersion involved) and I’m not convinced there is a good reason to prohibit marriages between humans and animals (though it should not be legal to consummate those). I am open to reasons other than “we’ve never done it before,” which I’m not even sure is true.
>
> How are correct and erroneous usages distinguished?
Ask me, for starters. Usages that deliberately blur once useful distinctions are always to be questioned. ‘Sex’ (male and female) and ‘gender’ (masculine, feminine and neuter in the linguistic sense) are useful as separate but related terms (related in the sense that ‘natural gender’ became grammatical gender). There is a poem in German which mocks the fact that genders and sex do not agree. I forget what it’s called. _Das Mädchen_ (the girl) is the commonest one cited. The word is neuter (\*das \*in the pronoun used). If you are interested in the study of the origin of gender in the German language you might want to consult Curme.
[https://archive.org/details/jstor-27699832](https://archive.org/details/jstor-27699832)
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### Author:  [@turtlescanfly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/turtlescanfly)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2014, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-care-about-gay-marriage/681766/254 "2014-02-25T03:49:22Z")
If I decide that I should be for something because someone I consider to be an idiot is against it, which fallacy is that?
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### Author:  [@Steely\_Dan\_Fan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steely_Dan_Fan)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2014, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-care-about-gay-marriage/681766/255 "2014-02-25T03:51:51Z")
> [@Melchior](#):
>
> I have a degree in philosophy
Where from, Bob Jones?
Because that would certainly explain your laughably superficial understanding of it.
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### Author:  [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2014, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-care-about-gay-marriage/681766/256 "2014-02-25T03:52:01Z")
> [@turtlescanfly](#):
>
> If I decide that I should be for something because someone I consider to be an idiot is against it, which fallacy is that?
I would imagine that would be the fallacy of Marx.
[http://youtu.be/DtMV44yoXZ0](http://youtu.be/DtMV44yoXZ0)
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### Author:  [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2014, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-care-about-gay-marriage/681766/257 "2014-02-25T03:58:53Z")
Melchior wat r u doin
melchiorstahp
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### Author:  [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2014, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-care-about-gay-marriage/681766/258 "2014-02-25T04:01:02Z")
nvm
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### Author:  [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2014, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-care-about-gay-marriage/681766/259 "2014-02-25T04:01:49Z")
> [@andros](#):
>
> You asked for a single reason. I offered one: we as a society have already determined that being 14 years old does not entitle one to marry. I’m sorry you find that lacking, but it’s entirely valid, your goalpost-relocation efforts notwithstanding.
In other words, it’s custom or tradition, but it is a recent and regional one. In parts of Asia it is not.
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### Author:  [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hershele_Ostropoler)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2014, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-care-about-gay-marriage/681766/260 "2014-02-25T04:05:12Z")
> [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](#):
>
> How are correct and erroneous usages distinguished?
> [@Melchior](#):
>
> Ask me, for starters.
That explains a lot. About your argumentation style.
I mean, you’re basically saying there is some Platonic essence of what words mean, and some dictionaries are getting it wrong. And now you’re saying you know what these Platonic essences are. How did you acquire this knowledge? How can you be sure?
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### Author:  [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2014, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-care-about-gay-marriage/681766/261 "2014-02-25T04:10:00Z")
> [@Melchior](#):
>
> Homosexuals are not a ‘minority’.
They are about 3% of the population. There is bigotry against homosexuals in parts of the country. Homosexuals get killed for being homosexuals at higher rates than Asians get killed for being Asian (also about 3% of the population). In what sense are they not minorities?
> [@](#):
>
> The word ‘discrimination’ is often misconstrued. We discriminate between children and adults, between humans and animals and furniture.
I think you are confusing the definition of discriminate, which means to differentiate and discriminate, which means bigotry.
> [@](#):
>
> It’s not ‘unfair’; that’s what marriage is.
That’s your opinion. Other opinions differ.
> [@](#):
>
> What many of us object to is the attempt to circumvent custom through judges.
> [@Melchior](#):
>
> It doesn’t have to. It’s a custom. Customs have some force. Most laws are ultimately based on custom and nothing else. Our law is based on British law and Roman law. You must understand what I mean by ‘custom’ here is not the same thing as throwing rice at a wedding ceremony.
And that law (common law) has customs about how laws can be changed. By legislation and by the courts. Our courts are finding that our constitution (which imho is much more fucking important than any custom) requires that we allow gay couples to get married. I don’t know if we have yet had a case that tried to overturn a law that limited gays to civil unions but that is probably not a much harder case to make.
> [@Melchior](#):
>
> Those were hardly widespread laws and are quite different, as you know. (But it would be nice to have some blondes for the next generation, you know!)
Its not like we are requiring blonde people to marry black people, we are merely permitting them to do so. And how are anti-miscegenation laws any different than anti-gay marriage laws? They are both born out of bigotry to prevent people from doing something that harms noone.
> [@Melchior](#):
>
> I said ‘ultimately based on’. In the past, couples were engaged first, and when a child was conceived they could marry. Offspring (especially males) were important, particularly after the Black Death reduced the population of Europe by roughly half. King Henry VIII went through several wives, you may recall, because he wanted a son.
I would think that women are much more important to repopulating than men. Women are the bottleneck resource in repopulation. Men were more valued because of… … … custom.
> [@Marley23](#):
>
> You couldn’t be more wrong. A law that discriminates (especially against a protected class) is not going to survive a legal challenge if customs are the only basis for the law.
Since when are gays a protected class?
> **[Protected group](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class)**
>
> A protected group, protected class (US), or prohibited ground (Canada) is a category by which people are qualified for special protection by a law, policy, or similar authority. In Canada and the United States, the term is frequently used in connection with employees and employment and housing. Where illegal discrimination on the basis of protected group status is concerned, a single act of discrimination may be based on more than one protected class. For example, discrimination based on antis...
> [@Melchior](#):
>
> It’s not bigotry. What about laws forbidding bigamy? What foundation is there for them but custom?
I think the answer you keep getting from people in this thread is, let the polyamorists have their multiple spouses. My response is that the legal structure necessary for polyamorous marriages are far more complicated than the legal structure we have in place right now. For example, Husband A marries Wives A, B, and C and has a child with each of them. Wife A also marries Husband B, C and D. And has a child with each of them. Husband B Marries Wife B but not Wife C. husband D how are the marital rights assigned?
> [@Melchior](#):
>
> Why not? The only basis for forbidding it is custom!
There is also the notion that until recently polyamory meant polygamy. And there was a presumption of coercion in polygamous marriages, it was a paternalistic view but it was one of the arguments against it.
> [@Melchior](#):
>
> Then why have marriage at all?
Thats the better question. Why have marriage at all? Why not just give everyone civil unions and let churches call them marriages or mind melds.
> [@magellan01](#):
>
> For marriage you just need one male and one female. That’s it. The coming together of man and woman is race/skin color agnostic.
And why can’t it also be gender agnostic?
> [@Melchior](#):
>
> Dictionaries have picked up this ignorant usage. They record erroneous usage.
Its in American Heritage, Mirriam-Websters, the Oxford English Dictionaries. Is ANYONE right on this other than you?
> [@Melchior](#):
>
> Where did you get the idea that homosexuals are just as desirous as heterosexuals of forming ‘long term pair-bonds’? In college (late 1960s to early 1970s) I was involved in a student organization which just happened to have several male homosexuals, and we were all good friends. I had no knowledge of the fact, but eventually one of them told me what was what. He also told me about the homosexual life style, and of the fleeting nature of homosexual relationships. Since AIDS was discovered, things have changed to some extent, but more out of necessity. I am not an expert on homosexuality, but I believe it would be a mistake to \*assume \*that homosexual relationships are ‘just like’ heterosexual ones.
When I was in college and for about 10 years after that, I wasn’t particularly interested in long term pair-bonding. I wanted to get my seed in as many women as possible without any of that seed taking root. Should I be banned from marriage when I settled down? Why should gay men be any different? Does it matter if gay women don’t live la vida loca even in their youth.
I am just going to guess but a lot of gay men want to settle down with that one special someone after they have sown their oats just like straight men.
I don’t think you find the same level of living la vida loca as you would among 40 year old gay couples as you would among 20 year old gay couples. Compare a 40 year old gay couple (gay and lesbian) with a 40 year old heterosexual couple and I don’t think you will find much lower levels of commitment.
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