As a slightly snide aside - that's been my view on many of the so-called arguments against letting adults choose who they wish to marry!
Marriage Debate
- Thread starter Hardenbergh
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As a slightly snide aside - that's been my view on many of the so-called arguments against letting adults choose who they wish to marry!
HeavyAaron
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You know, I agree with you that government should not recognize ANY marriage (I've said as much a number of times.) But it's difficult to take any of your arguments seriously when you so frequently resort to such language or by calling people bigots or hateful. Perhaps that's a hangup of mine. But it causes me to lose respect for the person far too quickly.
In any event I appologize for the derail.
Aaron
thaiboxerken
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Style-over-substance.
HeavyAaron
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As I said, perhaps it's a hangup of mine. However, my reasoning goes something like this, "this person uses offensive language, that is unlikely to prove persuasive, therefore this person has questionable judgement." As thus my respect for the person's judgement falls appropriately. When evaluating the weight of that person's other oppinions their appropriate respect is factored in. It wouldn't effect my evaluation of a geometry proof by said person. But an argument laced with assertions and oppinions it would greatly effect. And since that's my own internal mechanisms, which may or may not be efficient, there's little likelihood of them changing based on YOUR (a person holding low respect) oppinion.
Aaron
Ziggurat
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Social security benefits change depending on your marital status. Changing the number of people covered by marriage will change the amount of money social security pays out. I thought that was obvious to everyone.
It's not style that you're lacking. It's class.
thaiboxerken
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He was starting a debate over if social security should exist or not. That debate has nothing to do with marriage.
Same difference. I can't help it if telling bigots that they are bigots is considered rude on your part.
Beth
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If this has been covered elsewhere, my apologies. I have no problems with same sex marriages myself. Or polygamy for that matter. IMO, adults should be able to choose their relationships. However, I live in a state that recently voted for (by a massive margin) a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage when it wasn't even legal here to begin with. This means that the majority of people in my state do not wish to live in a society where same sex marriage is recognized as being the equal of heterosexual marriage. Living in a democracy means that the majority get to make that call.
The civil union approach seems a reasonable compromise to me. A way of allowing most, if not all, of the legal benefits of marriage to same sex couples while still preserving traditional marriage for those who object to same sex couples. However, both sides seem to feel this compromise is unacceptable. I don't understand why same sex couples object to this compromise. Would anyone here care to enlighten me? Is there some reason that this compromise is worse than a total defeat on the issue?
The civil union approach seems a reasonable compromise to me. A way of allowing most, if not all, of the legal benefits of marriage to same sex couples while still preserving traditional marriage for those who object to same sex couples. However, both sides seem to feel this compromise is unacceptable. I don't understand why same sex couples object to this compromise. Would anyone here care to enlighten me? Is there some reason that this compromise is worse than a total defeat on the issue?
thaiboxerken
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Because the civil union approach offered by the anti-SSM people doesn't carry the same benefits, rights and priviledges of marriage. It also adds a distinct segregation that implies that same-sex unions aren't the same as marriages. It would be like saying that asian votes in an election will be called "yellow marks" but carry the same weight as regular votes.
Roadtoad
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(Don't mind me. I'm just posting here to subscribe to the thread. Can't seem to get it to work any other way...)
HeavyAaron
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From those I have spoken with the preference order is:
1) SSM
2) civil union
3) status quo
You are claiming the following preference order is common:
1) SSM
2) status quo
3) civil union
Mind you, all I have is conversations not a national pole. But I'm curious why you believe this.
Aaron
edited to remove redundant language
thaiboxerken
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Another concern for me is that calling same-sex marriage, civil unions, automatically labels people. On job applications and other forms, these people would check "civil union" instead of "married' or "single". Thus enabling discrimination based solely on homosexuality. Such labels might not seem very harmful at first, but there was a time and place where yellow stars were used as labels.
Beth
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Yes, though I don't know if that preference order represents a majority, it certainly seems to have a number of adherents. I can understand why SSM would be preferred to a civil union, but not to the status quo.
Meadmaker
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What's more, if you do make those vows, in public, in front of witnesses, there's no longer any requirement to acknowledge them as being of any significance. They are cheap sentiment, right?
Marriage is pretty much whatever you decide what you want it to be.
It's better that way, isn't it?
thaiboxerken
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Unless you are homosexual.
Meadmaker
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I've looked into studies of same sex marriage and the influence of recognizine same sex marriages on traditional marriage. It is unquestionable that legalization of same sex marriages, or domestic partnerships equivalent to marriage, in European countries has coincided with declining heterosexual marriage rates and a rise in out of wedlock births. It's sociological data. Good luck getting anyone to agree about whether they are cause, effect, or coincidence.
For me, there was a real big eye opener in those statistics. While the probability that a child would be born to unmarried parents rose measurably, the probability that a child would be raised from birth to adulthood by his natural parents, living with them in their house, was unchanged, and that probability was higher in free-wheeling Scandinavian countries than here in the USA. That was unexpected by me.
In other words, a child in Scandinavia is more likely to be raised in a stable nuclear family than a child in the US, despite the fact that mom and dad are less likely to be married at the time of the child's birth.
For me, there was a real big eye opener in those statistics. While the probability that a child would be born to unmarried parents rose measurably, the probability that a child would be raised from birth to adulthood by his natural parents, living with them in their house, was unchanged, and that probability was higher in free-wheeling Scandinavian countries than here in the USA. That was unexpected by me.
In other words, a child in Scandinavia is more likely to be raised in a stable nuclear family than a child in the US, despite the fact that mom and dad are less likely to be married at the time of the child's birth.
Meadmaker
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You hold others to a very high standard.
Your own arguments tend to be "It's all about equality." It's not something that would get a good grade in English class when I was in school.
I think it's all about values. Some people have different values than others. When people try to describe their values, and you call it a logical fallacy, you've missed the point.
If someone says, "This is the way it has always been, so it should always be this way," they are committing a logical fallacy. If someone says, "This is the way it has always been, and I like it and think we should keep it," they are not committing a logical fallacy.
thaiboxerken
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It is. Some people value freedom and equality, others would rather carry on with a tradition of bigotry and intolerance.
ImaginalDisc
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If they are making a statement of opnion, it's fine. If they are are attempting to use that as a rational arguement, it is as useful as a ten pound trout in a boxing match.
Incidentally, you still haven't actually made any case against same sex marriages without appealing to imaginary people in the sky, or tradition.
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Meadmaker
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1. Procreation may occur as a result of sexual conduct between two persons.
2. The possibility of procreation creates a situation where the two parties engaging in sexual intercourse require legal protection against each other, in order to coerce a reluctant partner to keep promises he or she made, which promises were made as a condition for consent to engage in sexual intercourse.
3. To facilitate those sorts of agreements and enable those legal protections, it is in the interest of the state to create a standard legal agreement between two people that protects those interests.
4. Eligibility rules for that agreement need to be established such that all potentially procreative couples may enter into that standard agreement.
5. No harm is done if non-procreative couples are allowed to enter into the standard agreement, but no state interest is served by allowing them to do so.
6. The common law definition of marriage, as being between a man and a woman, serves those purposes by allowing all potentially procreative couples to enter into the state defined standard agreement.
7. No change in eligibility requirements should be made unless the change is necessary to include a potentially procreative couple . Doing so would suggest that the state has an interest in regulating sexual behavior of people, as opposed to their procreative tendencies.
8. Therefore, addition of same sex couples into marriage agreements serves the interests of neither the state, nor the individuals. It suggests that the state should regulate sexual behavior independent of its ability to create children.
OK. There it is. I see a few potential lines of argument against it. First, you could argue that a gay couple is "potentially procreative", because of artifical reproductive technology, or by arguing that adoption is, legally, pretty much the same as procreation. That's pretty much Scot's argument, and I've pretty much bought into it.
Or, you could assert that the state has a legitimate interest in regulating sexual behavior independent of procreation. Does anyone really want to go there?
Or, you could assert that the state interest in marriage is about property sharing, not procreation, but if that's the case, then why are we only talking about sexual unions. If it's property sharing, there's no reason I can't marry my brother.
Or you could babble about equality.