Homosexual Marriage

[Dirty Name]

Quote by: Dirty Name But what IS a requirement to gain a benefit is that you have the potential to have a child. And that makes all the difference."

Quote by: lsbskins1 Prove it.

It's self-evident. Speaking generally from the state's point of view, you cannot prove that anyone - even elderly or infertile couples - are 100% guaranteed not to produce offspring, unless you take extraordinary measures to examine health records or some other step that isn't currently part of the process. Thus, regardless of whether or not I can prove the INTENT of the law, that is the effect.

[Dirty Name]

Society gains the same things by encouraging stability and responsibility taking in the homosexual community as by encouraging it in the larger community.

How? In what way? You told me to refer to your response #2, but unfortunately, in that response you spent a considerable amount of time attacking a view I do not hold. My contention, again, is not that the state wishes to reward procreation via marriage benefits, nor is it that the state wishes to encourage procreation using marriage benefits. My statement, which I've said countless times, but which you and others continue to misunderstand or misrepresent, is that marriage benefits exist to encourage and strengthen the marital relationship BEFORE children enter the picture, because once the kids show up, it's too late.

More simply, the government recognizes that sexual relations occur by themsleves. There is no reason to encourage them alone. But the government believes that heterosexual relationships are SPECIAL. The state does not want to discourage procreation, because the state wishes to exist in perpetuity and procreation is the ONLY way that can happen. But since procreation is going to happen anyway, and because procreative activity outside of a marriage bond has been statistically proven to be a significant burden to the state, then the state has a compelling interest to reduce or at least manage that burden by attempting to maximize the percentage of children raised by their biological parents.

Contrast that compelling interest with your claim that the state wants "stability":

Quote by: lsbskins1 Stability = Greater productivity, kids or no.

How so? How am I more "productive" just because I'm in a stable relationship? I can tell you that many companies specifically look for single people because they can work later, travel more, etc. I directly challenge you to prove that people in stable relationships are any more productive than those who are not. What is your evidence for this?

Quote by: lsbskins1 Stability = predictability, kids or no. Predictability lessens societal upheaval and makes it easier for people to pursue economic and other goals.

Oh please. "Societal upheaval?" Give me an example where societal upheaval exists because too many single people were around. Further, please explain how it's "easier for people to pursue economic and other goals" just because they are in a stable relationship.

Quote by: lsbskins1 These answers, in and of themselves show a positive gain for society and do not depend on the pressence of children, actual or potential to be positive goods. Actual or potential children may enhance one's need or desire to have stability, but they do not create the only positive reason to seek stability. You keep insisting that that is the case, and you are just wrong.

First, you need to prove that your first two points have any merit at all. Once you do that, you then have to prove that there is not a direct correlation between "greater productivity" and "predictability" and the concept of parenthood. I believe that, generally speaking, parents are more responsible and mature than other folks, and you are attempting to transfer those traits onto society as a whole. Unfortunately, you'll either need to present a sound logical argument or some statistical evidence to prove otherwise.

[Dirty Name]

I could marry a lesbian and we could have a biological child. I could marry a straight woman and our children would have one gay parent. Pursuasion isn't always obvious.

I said: Then you would be a bi-sexual, not a homosexual.

No, I might be outwardly behaving as a heterosexual or bisexual, but I'd still be a homosexual. That would be like saying every prisoner or drunken sailor who has ever had a homosexual encounter must really be gay. Behavior does not always mirror preference or personality.

Um, OK. Whatever you say. Regardless, it has occured to me that my statement wasn't accurate anyway because there are rare cases where homosexual relatives may become the guardians of a child via events beyond the biological parent's control. So goody for you, my statement wasn't an "interesting aside" after all.

[lsbskins1]

http://www.family.org/cforum/fosi/ma...s/a0028316.cfm

Quote by: Dirty Name How so? How am I more "productive" just because I'm in a stable relationship? I can tell you that many companies specifically look for single people because they can work later, travel more, etc. I directly challenge you to prove that people in stable relationships are any more productive than those who are not. What is your evidence for this?

Please look at the above link to back up this contention. More later. Really busy today. Later should have more time for the fun...

Note, these benefits are nowhere stated as being dependant on the married couple having children...

Note, even if these people never will and never can have children, society benefits...

[Cephus]

Quote by: Dirty Name It's self-evident. Speaking generally from the state's point of view, you cannot prove that anyone - even elderly or infertile couples - are 100% guaranteed not to produce offspring, unless you take extraordinary measures to examine health records or some other step that isn't currently part of the process. Thus, regardless of whether or not I can prove the INTENT of the law, that is the effect.

That's ridiculous, of course. Women beyond the age of menopause medically cannot have children, ever. Both men and women who have been medically sterilized cannot breed. People who choose not to breed are not going to have children, yet all of these people can legally get married.

The fact of the matter is that producing offspring is not the primary function of marriage and you haven't got a shred of evidence to prove that it is. You're just blowing smoke out of your ass.

[YourTokah]

Thought I smelled something. :)

[Boetie]

People who define marriage as being between a man and woman do so based on their religious belief. The question shouldn't be "how does one define marriage?", the question should be "is it right to force a religion onto an individual in our society?".

But how do we balance the claims of the individuals with those of society and culture?

How does one define marriage as being only between a man and a woman absent of any religious tie in? The answer is you can't. If you try to point to nature you are forgetting that the human is nature and therefore nature does practice same sex love.

Those who try to rationalize marriage by pointing to the past, i.e the ancestors has written that blah, blah, blah. But why can we not write our own book? To live someone elses script, someone elses life, is living an unexamined life.

People of religion will do anything dirty to force their beliefs on others i.e ban on same sex marriages and if you have to do something dirty how clean is that religion?

[Dirty Name]

Women beyond the age of menopause medically cannot have children, ever.

Only one problem with your little train of thought... the state can't verify if someone's been through menopause without getting into medical privacy issues. You people continue to take individual situation and hold them up for scrutiny. What you fail to do is look at the big picture - marriage recognition by the state requires a top-down view. There are always exceptions to rules, but we are speaking generally here, about millions of people, and we are debating public policy that will impact those millions.

Looking at individual cases is an absurd approach and must always be considered using a cost-benefit analysis. Excluding gays from marriage because they are infertile makes a whole lot more sense that exclusing heterosexual infertile couples. With same sex couples, no invasion of privacy is required. It's just obvious the plumbing won't work.

[Dirty Name]

People who define marriage as being between a man and woman do so based on their religious belief. The question shouldn't be "how does one define marriage?", the question should be "is it right to force a religion onto an individual in our society?". But how do we balance the claims of the individuals with those of society and culture? How does one define marriage as being only between a man and a woman absent of any religious tie in? The answer is you can't. If you try to point to nature you are forgetting that the human is nature and therefore nature does practice same sex love. Those who try to rationalize marriage by pointing to the past, i.e the ancestors has written that blah, blah, blah. But why can we not write our own book? To live someone elses script, someone elses life, is living an unexamined life. People of religion will do anything dirty to force their beliefs on others i.e ban on same sex marriages and if you have to do something dirty how clean is that religion?

Don't go away, Boetie. I will deal with you soon enough - but my opposite sex life partner is making me clean the house. We have company coming over.

[belverron]

Dirty Name, you're giving no more credence to arguments for homosexual marriage not based on simple equality than others are giving to your arguments against it not based simply on religion.

[Dirty Name]

Dirty Name, you're giving no more credence to arguments for homosexual marriage not based on simple equality than others are giving to your arguments against it not based simply on religion.

Proof please. I have laid out my case regarding the equality argument, including what I believe to be the logical fallacy the equality argument relies upon. Now please do the same to prove my argument is based on religion.

[Dirty Name]

Especially for you, Boetie

Quote by: boetie People who define marriage as being between a man and woman do so based on their religious belief.

Sorry, but you are covering a lot of ground here, and you don't get to simply leap over the hurdle of proof for one premise just so you can use it to attack another.

The religious institution has indeed traditionally defined marriage as between "one man and one woman." However, there is a secular component to marriage as well. In the United States, and particularly in the individual states themselves, our government has decided that marriages should be legally recognized, and in many cases, economic incentives should be granted to encourage and strengthen the institution.

The real question here is WHY? Why does the government offer incentives for people to marry? Is it because the government is controlled by "religious zealots" who wish to stamp out anything remotely resembling a sin? Of course not. Our government has very sound, secular reasons for offering those economic incentives. Reasons that I've already discussed in the previous 80+ pages. Reasons that have NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with religion.

The question shouldn't be "how does one define marriage?", the question should be "is it right to force a religion onto an individual in our society?".

This is a false premise because it assumes that the suggested question hasn't already been answered. The fact is, our society has already agreed that we don't get to "force a religion onto an individual or society."

The real question that needs to be answered is: "What is the compelling government interest in the legal recognition of homosexual unions?" If we are to elevate these relationships above those of incestuous and multi-partner unions, what compelling interest is the government attempting to protect by doing so?

How does one define marriage as being only between a man and a woman absent of any religious tie in? The answer is you can't.

How wrong you are. Despite your arbitrary rules that we can't look to tradition or history is to say we might as well ignore the advice given to us by teachers, parents, grandparents and great leaders throughout history. Such a statement is just as absurd as claiming "Those who try to rationalize marriage by pointing to the past, i.e the ancestors has written that blah, blah, blah."

Oh, wait. That whole sentence you wrote was a fragment anyway. None of your post makes much sense, and the sentence quoted above encapsulates your position quite well - a perfect metaphor, mocking your position with it's glaring incompleteness.

If you try to point to nature you are forgetting that the human is nature and therefore nature does practice same sex love."

But gee, boetie, humans also steal and cheat and lie and all that. But do we embrace those behaviors? The fact is, gays ARE allwoed to marry if they want to. They aren't prevented from loving one another, having all the anal intercourse they want to have, and they are allowed to live together, exchange wedding vows and wedding rings, have a church ceremony, etc.

They just aren't allowed to claim that they are truly, literally equal to heterosexual couples, because THEY AREN'T. And you know what? There isn't a single hateful, discriminatory thing about what I just said because I didn't say anything negative about homosexuals as people. I'm merely comparing homosexual couples to heterosexual couples, and "couples" are a completely different entity than individual people. Couples aren't granted "philosophical equality" like people are.

Those who try to rationalize marriage by pointing to the past, i.e the ancestors has written that blah, blah, blah. But why can we not write our own book? To live someone elses script, someone elses life, is living an unexamined life.

Society HAS written it's own book. In states where the issue of banning homosexual marriage is allowed on the ballot, it typically passes with an overwhelming majority. Thus, I am not clear on what your complaint is.

People of religion will do anything dirty to force their beliefs on others i.e ban on same sex marriages and if you have to do something dirty how clean is that religion?

Proof please. Don't make these ridiculous claims unless you can back them up with tangible proof that there is a shred of religion in my argument. Implying that "religion" exists in my secular case against gay marriage is easy. Proving it is impossible. I could just as easily claim that the pro-gay marriage movement is really driven by a secret desire to overthrow western society as we know it - but without proof, that doesn't get me very far, does it?

[belverron]

Quote by: Dirty Name Proof please. I have laid out my case regarding the equality argument, including what I believe to be the logical fallacy the equality argument relies upon. Now please do the same to prove my argument is based on religion.

I was referring to the arguments made against your case not based on equality.

[belverron]

I finally decided to go with "A celebration of diversity," simply because it's happy and whimsical.

[Dirty Name]

I was referring to the arguments made against your case not based on equality.

OK, my bad. But if there are arguments out there in favor of gay marriage that aren't based on equality, what are they based on? Sadly, equality is all you have to argue, and my very point is that the equality argument is weak.

If not for reasons of "equality," why should society recognize gay marriage as worthy of "equal" benefits? I don't think you can avoid having "equality" in your argument.

But no matter what, you can't get around these facts:

1) While philosophical equality applies equally to gay and straight individuals, there is no legal precedent to apply it to any other entity, such as a couple.

2) Gay couples are not literally equal to heterosexual couples in terms procreative benefits realized by society via responsible, biological, married parents.

3) Regardless of actual vs. philosophical equality, a logical case can be made that illegal discrimination does not exist in marriage laws that preclude same-sex couples from legal marriage recognition and benefits.

Because philosophical equality does not apply to couples, because literal equality does not exist between same-sex and opposite sex couples, and because no case can be made for illegal discrimination, I simply cannot fathom any reason why society would deem same-sex unions to be the legal equivalent of opposite-sex traditional marriages.

Please let me know if there is some other basis for the argument that I am missing.

[belverron]

Quote by: lsbskins1 http://www.family.org/cforum/fosi/ma...s/a0028316.cfm Please look at the above link to back up this contention. More later. Really busy today. Later should have more time for the fun... Note, these benefits are nowhere stated as being dependant on the married couple having children... Note, even if these people never will and never can have children, society benefits...

I thought lsbskins1 was doing a pretty good job of avoiding the simple equality for all approach (which I still don't see a major flaw in, btw).

[Dirty Name]

I thought lsbskins1 was doing a pretty good job of avoiding the simple equality for all approach (which I still don't see a major flaw in, btw).

What was her basic premise for gay marriage, again? I thought it was equality in some form or another. Please set me straight.

And If, when you say, "Equality for All," you are speaking of philosophical equality, you run into several problems:

1) Couples are not granted "equal rights."

2) There is logically no illegal discrimination taking place.

3) Once we grant "philosophical equality" to any two (or more) people, then logically no one can be excluded from qualifying for marriage benefits. This in turn means that the government basically has to grant benefits to any two people who file for them. "Legal Marriage" as we know it will become lost, to be replaced by a life-partner type of society, where men and women might still get married in the committment sense, but where their life-partners may or may not be the person they married. After all, if Uncle Sam doesn't really care who we live with anymore, why do I have to live with the woman I knocked up, but cant really stand being around? Why not just knock a few women up, let them shack up together and raise the kids, collect the child tax credits, while me and my buddies whoop it up in our bachelor pad and collect our life-partner benefits?

Surely you see how the "anything goes" approach will eventually alter the society in radical ways, and not necessarily for the good? Just think of how society might change over the course of two or three generations. It's not hard to see how marriage will revert back to become a purely religious term, while life partners could be formed in any imaginable way.

The philosophical equality argument is the worst of all of them because it opens the floodgates to an anything goes society, whereas at least a literal equality approach (assuming it could be proven) means that at least the possibility remains that we could still exclude other types unions that we deem harmful or not worthy of recognition.

But of course, before we can get to #3, we have to prove one of the first two premises.

[Boetie]

Quote by DirtyName They just aren't allowed to claim that they are truly, literally equal to heterosexual couples, because THEY AREN'T. And you know what? There isn't a single hateful, discriminatory thing about what I just said because I didn't say anything negative about homosexuals as people. I'm merely comparing homosexual couples to heterosexual couples, and "couples" are a completely different entity than individual people. Couples aren't granted "philosophical equality" like people are.

You are being hateful and discriminatory. It's one thing to sit around the coffee table and tell everyone your beliefs, to which everyone can respond with, "who cares about your beliefs," It's another thing when you drag same sex couples into the political arena for the sole purpose of denying same sex couples equal rights.

Your posts are all after the fact, which is not the same as the fact.

Lets take facts, the state of Vermont. Vermont recognized same sex unions. In response to this, Nebraska became a testing ground to see if a state can be manipulated into adding a ban on same sex relationship into their Constitution.

Over a quarter of a million dollars was poured into that state to fund ads, petition drives, town talks and so on. That money did not come from the people within the State of Nebraska it can from donations from around the country.

The opposition was out moneyed and taken by suprise.

Advocates of initiative 416 did everything from whipping up hysteria to outright lies and was entirely focused on same sex couples. The outspoken advocates of initiative 416 during the campaign were Church organizations and not a single member of the secular community was even involved in advocating 416.

Initiative 416 passed and it went way beyond the marriage issue, it barred same sex couples from the political process.

As of now the federal courts rendered 416 void because it barred same sex couples from the political process.

The movement against same sex couples is a purely emotional movement, entirely on religious grounds, and ignorance.

What happened in Nebraska was not a result of a grassroot movement, was not a civil movement, it was a religious movement. The end result created a second class status for same sex couples. No one whom advocated 416 discussed basic rights such as health care for the spouse, the estate of a deceased spouse etc. The advocates of 416 talked only about the sexual practices of same sex couples.

All the above it a fact

[Dirty Name]

Quote by: lsbskins1 http://www.family.org/cforum/fosi/m...ts/a0028316.cfm Please look at the above link to back up this contention. More later. Really busy today. Later should have more time for the fun... Note, these benefits are nowhere stated as being dependant on the married couple having children... Note, even if these people never will and never can have children, society benefits...

I find it amusing that you cite a study touted by Dr. James Dobson, one of the leading opponents of same-sex marriage, as proof for your case. The study specifically talks about marriages involving one man and one woman. It says nothing of the benefits of same sex marriages, nor were they even included in the study.

[Dirty Name]

It's another thing when you drag same sex couples into the political arena for the sole purpose of denying same sex couples equal rights.

The only people dragging same sex couples into the political arena are the same-sex couples themselves. I assure you, if those folks would simply form their partnerships quietly and stop demanding to be regarded as equal to a heterosexual couple, nobody on my side would care.

Lets take facts, the state of Vermont. Vermont recognized same sex unions. In response to this, Nebraska became a testing ground to see if a state can be manipulated into adding a ban on same sex relationship into their Constitution. Over a quarter of a million dollars was poured into that state to fund ads, petition drives, town talks and so on. That money did not come from the people within the State of Nebraska it can from donations from around the country. The opposition was out moneyed and taken by suprise. Advocates of initiative 416 did everything from whipping up hysteria to outright lies and was entirely focused on same sex couples. The outspoken advocates of initiative 416 during the campaign were Church organizations and not a single member of the secular community was even involved in advocating 416. Initiative 416 passed and it went way beyond the marriage issue, it barred same sex couples from the political process. As of now the federal courts rendered 416 void because it barred same sex couples from the political process. The movement against same sex couples is a purely emotional movement, entirely on religious grounds, and ignorance. What happened in Nebraska was not a result of a grassroot movement, was not a civil movement, it was a religious movement. The end result created a second class status for same sex couples. No one whom advocated 416 discussed basic rights such as health care for the spouse, the estate of a deceased spouse etc. The advocates of 416 talked only about the sexual practices of same sex couples. All the above it a fact

I can't testify as to what happened in Nebraska. I can only give you MY personal view on the subject, and if you can prove it's based purely on religious views, then go ahead. The important fact here is that you cannot do so. You are just running your mouth, calling names and using the LAMEST tactic ever invented in debate - attacking your opponent's person rather than his argument. So forget what you THINK you know about me and my position and try - just for a moment - to make your case based on logic and reason rather than simply dismissing it because you think (erroneously) that it's a religious argument.

And just to make you think, I'll ask you this question:

If the cure for cancer were found in a diary written by Adolf Hitler, and you had cancer, would you let the doctor treat you with that cure?