Non religious reasons to oppose gay marriage

[LunarRay]

Carfax83,

Not to worry. Your position only becomes relevant when we adopt the notion that the majority properly have to right to decide the Rights of the minority.

To change your position the SCOTUS may determine that the Right to Marriage is a Fundamental Right of the Individual and that there is no provision limiting that to certain two individual decision makers.

You may continue to be a 28 yr old married fellow who believes it is reasonable to deny a Right rather than applaud another Right being sought and delivered. I suppose knowing that one does not choose to be Gay and that marriage is older than rocks and all that is nice but we live in a society of laws. Those laws tell us what we ought to think or how we should act... after all we've delegated our personal right to the ultimate and final answer to our SCOTUS. SCOTUS will decide to decide or not... at that point we'll know IF we are a Nation that denies a Right based on the Majority or provides a Right based on the Majority... Blacks in the deep south would not have the Rights if it were up to the voters of the deep south...
It is all about what is the right thing to do... and not what we personally feel about how we think about Gay Marriage... It is how do the Gay folks feel about Gay Marriage....

 

[Carfax83]

It's not off topic at all. In fact, your whole argument is contingent on it. Show me ANY evidence that a gay person in a monogamous relationship would be any worse of a parent than a straight person in a monogamous relationship.

LOL, if you believe all the garbage floating around about how "great" gay parents are, you'd believe they were even better than straight parents.

There is such an overwhelming degree of bias in those studies, that you could choke on it.

Here's an article about how the politicization of gay parenting has led to flawed and biased studies

From the article:

A significantly greater proportion of young adult children raised by lesbian mothers than those raised by heterosexual mothers say they have experienced sexual intimacy with a partner of the same sex. They were not, however, statistically more likely to identify themselves as gay or lesbian.

• Young girls raised by lesbians are more likely to be sexually adventurous and active than their counterparts raised by heterosexual parents. However the sons of lesbians exhibit "an opposite pattern" and are likely to be less adventurous and active than boys raised by heterosexual households.

• Lesbian mothers reported that their children behave in ways that do not conform to "sex-typed cultural norms." And the sons of lesbians are reportedly less likely to behave in traditionally masculine ways than those raised by heterosexual couples.

So what we have is that the children of gay couples are more likely to engage in same sex activity, whoa a complete surprise, who'd have thought?! :sneaky:

And sexual inversion is also more common among children raised by gay couples. Again, who'd have thought?

All of those studies suggest married parents are better than non-married parents. They make no comment on sexuality. So why not encourage gay people to get married and raise children?

You need to read more studies dude. Although there is an awful amount of bias in studies about gay parenting, so I can't say I blame you for taking that position.

That's a meaningless statement. In what way does it "create an understanding"? I don't magically understand women better by being married; I understand one person better. In fact, it would be a really bad idea to assume all women thought and acted like my future wife.

I didn't say it created an understanding. God knows there are times when I still don't understand my wife.

What it does do, is foster respect and cooperation between the sexes, and anyone with even a modicum of knowledge about human history would realize how important that is.

 

[Carfax83]

Says who? You mean the spouse that just hit the other one in the head. Somehow I think people that want to be mutually respectful can pull that off with or without being married.

Did I say that being respectful to a member of the opposite sex was dependent on being married?

No of course not, so stop twisting my meaning. I said marriage FOSTERS respect and cooperation between the two sexes..

Thats pretty clear isn't it?

 

[crashtestdummy]

LOL, if you believe all the garbage floating around about how "great" gay parents are, you'd believe they were even better than straight parents.

There is such an overwhelming degree of bias in those studies, that you could choke on it.

Here's an article about how the politicization of gay parenting has led to flawed and biased studies

From the article:



So what we have is that the children of gay couples are more likely to engage in same sex activity, whoa a complete surprise, who'd have thought?! :sneaky:

And sexual inversion is also more common among children raised by gay couples. Again, who'd have thought?

So? That's to be expected. When you don't have bigots for parents, you won't hide your true sexual orientation from them. I think you'll find that that similar trends exist for parents that call themselves "socially liberal".

The flaw in all of this is the assumption that keeping the kids in the closet means they're not really gay. They're still gay, but now they're relegated to a life of loneliness and despair.

I also reject your assumption that homosexual activity by children is a negative social outcome. As mentioned in the article, it doesn't increase their likelihood of being gay (although that would be fine as well), but rather whether they're willing to explore where along the broad spectrum of sexuality they lie on.

You need to read more studies dude. Although there is an awful amount of bias in studies about gay parenting, so I can't say I blame you for taking that position.

You're assuming bias for absolutely no reason. Show me actual cases of bias rather than "they're all biased". That article you posted didn't actually give any specific instances of bias in the research, it just suggested counterpoints to the generally accepted consensus.

I didn't say it created an understanding. God knows there are times when I still don't understand my wife.

What it does do, is foster respect and cooperation between the sexes, and anyone with even a modicum of knowledge about human history would realize how important that is.

Really? You spending the rest of your life with one woman gives you a respect for all women? If that is a goal, then polyamory would give you a much better respect for women as a population. Also, you use "respect" and "cooperation" as nebulous terms with no real meaning, then add an ad hominem attack to imply that we are stupid if we don't create a meaning ourselves that agrees with yours.

 

[Carfax83]

1) The rest of your posts up to this point have been about society only wanting to confer benefits on something it sees as beneficial.

Funny you should mention this, because Emperor Augustus was amongst the first rulers to recognize the importance and benefits of marriage and the family unit, by establishing legislation that encouraged both marriage and child bearing, ie tax breaks, outlawing adultery..

Either marriage is a set of benefits you only want to confer on heterosexual marriage because you think it's better, or you want to have full-rights civil unions you grant everyone. You can't have it both ways!

But as I told one person, the debate over gay marriage isn't about rights. Most, if not all of the rights given by marriage can, or have been granted by civil unions.

The debate about gay marriage, has much more to do with it's social acceptance or recognition.

2) Creating arbitrary lines of differentiation automatically makes the two sides unequal. That is the very basis of Brown v. Board of Education.

Equality under the law, and equality itself are two different things.

For example, men and women are supposedly equal under the law. However, in practice, it's far from the truth. For instance, women are specifically barred from serving in certain positions in the Military, and undergo a different set of standards for basic training.

There are very valid reasons for barring women from serving in front line combat, although according to the law, men and women are supposed to be equal.

Similarly with gay marriage, one can say that it is equal to heterosexual marriage under the law.....but as an actual concept, it's inferior.

 

[crashtestdummy]

Funny you should mention this, because Emperor Augustus was amongst the first rulers to recognize the importance and benefits of marriage and the family unit, by establishing legislation that encouraged both marriage and child bearing, ie tax breaks, outlawing adultery..

But as I told one person, the debate over gay marriage isn't about rights. Most, if not all of the rights given by marriage can, or have been granted by civil unions.

The debate about gay marriage, has much more to do with it's social acceptance or recognition.

If it is not about rights, then why bother making that entire massive post about why you only want to give benefits to straight couples? You're trying to make two separate, mutually exclusive arguments and when someone addresses one of them you simply shuttle over to the other one.

You need to pick one argument: If it is about recognition, then you should be saying that gay people don't make any difference as parents and you will offer all rights and benefits (including adoption) to those couples, as long as we don't call it marriage.

If it is about gay parents being inferior, than you must deny gay couples all adoption rights and the like, at which point their desire to adopt is about rights.

Equality under the law, and equality itself are two different things.

For example, men and women are supposedly equal under the law. However, in practice, it's far from the truth. For instance, women are specifically barred from serving in certain positions in the Military, and undergo a different set of standards for basic training.

There are very valid reasons for barring women from serving in front line combat, although according to the law, men and women are supposed to be equal.

Similarly with gay marriage, one can say that it is equal to heterosexual marriage under the law.....but as an actual concept, it's inferior.

As long as gay people are granted full civil marriage, I don't give a rat's ass if you sit there pouting that it's not the same. You're entitled to your opinions (although I'll continue to engage you on them if you post them here), but those opinions have not relevance in civil law.

 

[YoungGun21]

Marriage isn't a right though. Marriage has always come with provisions, ie you can't marry someone thats too young, or more than one person, or someone of the same sex..

When you allow gay marriage, it opens up the path way to other relationships that are regarded as unlawful to occur as well..

All of what you say is true in Western cultures only. 75% of the world's cultures practice/recognize polygamy and/or same-sex marriages.

 

[cybrsage]

No, what he is saying is that if Gays married, all the Whites will stop breeding and we will be run over by Africans, Mexicans and Mormons.

Yeah, I don't know. I always thought Mormons were white too....

Mormons are their own race.

 

[LunarRay]

Carfax83,

You have responded to comments by moving from one side to the other of your 'Ladder' using on side to uphold the other and moving along the rungs as if that self justifies the rails....

There is no ladder... there is no analysis that can be applied...

IS there or is there not a Right... a Fundamental Right for all citizens to get married regardless of their sex. Then move to the question of does that Right include couples who are of the same sex wishing to enjoy that Right...

Any other issue taking one side or another is not relevant... Gay Marriage may produce what ever results it does.. but those outcomes have nothing to do with the Constitutionally provided Rights being considered... They either are or are not there...

 

[Carfax83]

Reason for less "gay" marriages throughout human history is that most humans are wired for hetero sexual intercourse. Not all, but a larger portion. As a result, there is going to be less gay marriages. That has NOTHING to do with any perceived benefit or lack of benefit to society.

You may want to add, that the perception of homosexuality being unnatural or at the least, taboo, may also have something to do with there being less instances of gay marriage.

And as far as your knowledge about past world cultures, it's laughable at best.

And you're going to enlighten me I suppose?

But the greeks, romans, many Asian, and African cultures all had "gay" marriages as legal rights. There are statues, documents, and artifacts they are still finding which shows the sexual promiscuity of humans in most of our history.

You should be more careful with the word marriage. I've researched this subject apparently much better than you have..

Wiki entry on same sex marriage.

In it, you'll find many instances of same sex unions, but examples of same sex MARRIAGE are RARE.

A quote from the entry:

It should be noted, however, that conubium existed only between a civis Romanus and a civis Romana (that is, between a male Roman citizen and a female Roman citizen), so that a so-called marriage between two Roman males (or with a slave) would have no legal standing in Roman law (apart, presumably, from the arbitrary will of the emperor in the two aforementioned cases

Your lack of knowledge astounding and your bigotry/zealotry is showing big time.

:sneaky:

 

[pauldun170]

So by that argument you should be able to marry your mom, or your sister, or more than one person, or your comely couch.

But I dont see any push for equality for those people

There are medical reasons why some incest laws are on the books.

Marriage laws must apply equally to all. that whole 1 to many database marriage crap some religions practice falls outside of it because NOONE is allowed to marry multiple people. In other words the law doesn't change based on some criteria.
Marriage is between two people and the laws apply equally to those two people no matter the sexual preference or the race. I'd go into more detail but your post is a little dicky.

I've fucked a couch cushion but I don't need to consider its constituional rights since couch cushions aren't protected by the constitution.

I do support everyones right to not like gays and to have the right to sling a gay slur whenever they want.

 

[Abraxas]

This whole analysis is poorly thought out horse crap. Even if we accept his premise, that same sex marriage doesn't offer the same level of benefits to a society that opposite sex marriage does, we have no reason to accept his conclusion. For that, one of three things would have to be true.

Either, first, marriage would have to be a limited resource and more for gays means less for everyone else (not as stupid as a lot of reasons we see in this thread), two, allowing gay marriage would discourage straight people from getting married (almost as stupid as number one), or three, if you legalize same sex marriage a bunch of people will turn gay. Since all of these things are not only stupid, but spectacularly stupid, I trust the OP has seen the error of his ways and embraced freedom, yes?

 

[Icepick]

I believe that the government has no place in stating who can and can't get married.

You brought up the possibility of gay marriage leading to other paths of coupling such as partnering with underage children. This is not relevant to gay marriage because it's already prevented due to pedophilia laws.

Overall, homosexuals getting married will have a net-benefit to society.

 

[JEDIYoda]

It's not difficult to understand. Do you honestly believe gay relationships and heterosexual relationships are EQUAL in importance?

Only an incredulous fool would believe that...

Only an incredible fool would believe that gay relationships and heterosexual relationships are NOT EQUAL in importance?

 

[nehalem256]

I believe that the government has no place in stating who can and can't get married.

You brought up the possibility of gay marriage leading to other paths of coupling such as partnering with underage children. This is not relevant to gay marriage because it's already prevented due to pedophilia laws.

Overall, homosexuals getting married will have a net-benefit to society.

If government cannot say who can get married then no one can get married :\

It is relevant to things like incestuous marriage, polygamous marriage, object marriage.

 

[SMOGZINN]

As far as I know, incidents of gay marriage have been extremely rare throughout human history....and for good reason, because gay marriages do not offer the equivalent benefit to Society that heterosexual marriages offer.

Actually, I think there are two reasons for this, and neither are the ones you think. The first is that homosexuals are just rare, therefore homosexual marriage would be equally fair, especially considering that the idea that the majority is not always right is very new. The second is probably even more important, sociologists have traditionally simply not labeled a union between two men or two women as a marriage, even when they have all the same characteristics as a marriage they are very often given a different name (also, a lot of 'marriages' in other cultures hold almost none of the same characteristics that we consider marriage, making this entire point circumspect.) Social Scientists are products of their culture as well, and have a tendency to overlay their beliefs on their findings, much more so in decades past then today.

My arguement however, hinged upon whether homosexual relationships are equal to heterosexual ones in terms of their benefit to Society..

I don't believe they are, and as such, should not have the same recognition that heterosexual marriage carries..

I wonder if we can take this a very small step farther. What says that all heterosexual relationships are good for society? If it really is meant to foster better relationships between the sexes, then there is no reason that two people that already get alone well should be allowed to marry. The government should appoint people to marry in order to maximize this benefit. Nice caring women should be appointed to a total misogynistic jackass so that they can learn to better understand the other sex.

Children aside, the other beneficial aspect of marriage is that it fosters mutual respect and cooperation with the opposite sex.

This statement is shown untrue by two other statements you made in your argument.

First off, let me state that Marriage as an institution is not only practically universal throughout the human experience, but is VERY old as well. It pre-dates recorded history in fact, and thus, pre-dates organized religions.

This is extremely important, because women comprise half of the human population, yet throughout much of human history, have been relegated to being second class citizens with far less privileges and rights than men.

Your argument is inconsistent. If marriage is very old, and women have been treated as property though most of history, then marriage could not be promoting this cooperation and understanding between the sexes. It seems that marriage is actually an institution for enslaving women by making them, and their reproductive organs, the property of men.

Why is government involved in marriage contracts? Because marriage needs to be regulated to ensure that the judeo-christian model that our Society (and Western Civilization in general) has embraced, remains the only valid option.

I thought you were not a religious man?

I am not a religious man

so faith has no part in my decision to oppose gay marriage.

Sounds like faith might be informing your decisions after all.

Without government regulation, other unwanted marriages and relationships ie incest, polygamy etc would essentially become legalized as there would be no government entity to regulate these things..

All these things are Judeo-Christian, and figure prominently in the Bible.

 

[SMOGZINN]

LOL, if you believe all the garbage floating around about how "great" gay parents are, you'd believe they were even better than straight parents.

There is such an overwhelming degree of bias in those studies, that you could choke on it.

So, you are going to just dismiss the science because you don't like it? You have proof of bias? If so, I'm sure that the peer reviewed journals would be most interested. Most of them are run by old stodgy men that don't like this research any more then you do, but they print them anyway because as long as they are relevant and pass peer review, they have an ethical responsibility to.

Here's an article about how the politicization of gay parenting has led to flawed and biased studies

Fox news is spinning that pretty hard. The actual article, which I have read, only looks at children that have a homosexual same sex biological parent, and almost exclusively female. In other word, a lesbian raising her own biological daughter. It says almost nothing about the effects of gay marriage, because the same sex biological parent is such a stronger factor to eclipse any effect from the marriage.

Oh, yea, and their conclusion is that the differences are slight, and positive. The children are on average MORE well adjusted.

 

[nehalem256]

Your argument is inconsistent. If marriage is very old, and women have been treated as property though most of history, then marriage could not be promoting this cooperation and understanding between the sexes. It seems that marriage is actually an institution for enslaving women by making them, and their reproductive organs, the property of men.

Its about making sure her kids dont starve.

Given how many social programs liberals have needed to create to primarily take care of the children of single mothers it should seem obvious why this is necessary.

And you seem to be repeating some bizarre feminist myth where men want to go work 10 hours in the coal mines and then come home and oppress their wife :hmm:

Instead of "enslaving" women to their husband (and by enslave we mean her husband provides for her and her children...:hmm. Liberals want to "enslave" men to provide for women and receive nothing in return... wait that sounds kinda like actual slavery.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Its about making sure her kids dont starve.

Given how many social programs liberals have needed to create to primarily take care of the children of single mothers it should seem obvious why this is necessary.

And you seem to be repeating some bizarre feminist myth where men want to go work 10 hours in the coal mines and then come home and oppress their wife :hmm:

Instead of "enslaving" women to their husband (and by enslave we mean her husband provides for her and her children...:hmm. Liberals want to "enslave" men to provide for women and receive nothing in return... wait that sounds kinda like actual slavery.

It is no myth that for large portions of our history women had pretty much no rights, and were literally sold to a man for a bride price, this is still done in many cultures.
I'm not just saying this either. I'm quoting the OP. He is the one trying to say that these two things somehow prove that marriage is about understanding.

 

[nehalem256]

It is no myth that for large portions of our history women had pretty much no rights, and were literally sold to a man for a bride price, this is still done in many cultures.
I'm not just saying this either. I'm quoting the OP. He is the one trying to say that these two things somehow prove that marriage is about understanding.

Well that explains why same-sex marriage doesnt make sense. If 2 men get married who gets the bride price?

 

[SMOGZINN]

Well that explains why same-sex marriage doesnt make sense. If 2 men get married who gets the bride price?

The bottom :biggrin:

 

[LunarRay]

What happens when folks place their belief over a principle of Rights...

As everyone knows The Federal District Court found Prop 8 to be in violation of The Constitutional provisions of at least the EP clause of the 14th... Then it was appealed to the 9th Circuit and they in early Feb of this year sustained the District Court in a 2-1 decision and the Proponents of Prop 8 asked for an en banc hearing on the matter [full court] Then in March they petitioned the 9th to NOT hear it en banc at all...

Why?

The short answer is they don't want to open the door to a National decision by the SCOTUS.
They don't want the SCOTUS to hear it at all.. They want to simply let California's law to allow same sex marriage to go ahead and be allowed and at the same time continue to allow the States to have their way on the subject without SCOTUS saying that gays have the right to marry.
They know that all the focus is on Justice Kennedy and he would probably vote with the 4 liberal Justices on this issue. After reading his similar opinions I think this is true.

If and when this case gets to SCOTUS I'll wager 2 cups of french roast Starbucks coffee and a sticky bun to a penny that they will NOT hear it. They will simply say... Not a Federal Issue... and the narrowly tailored 9th decision dealing with California only and only because Prop 8 sought to deny a Right previously granted... [that is important] the decision of the District Court and the 9th was correct.

So to those of you who populate States who've denied the Right to Marry to Gays should send flowers and gifts to the Prop 8 folks... they may very well have enabled your State's Law on this issue to continue to fester in the hearts and minds of folks who see Freedom as being provided by Rights and sustained by law.

 

[LunarRay]

Well that explains why same-sex marriage doesnt make sense. If 2 men get married who gets the bride price?

What about two Girls... are Lesbians more palatable a proposition regarding same sex marriage for you?

 

[IGBT]

why not..and lets legalize incest and beastliality too. You know that will be next. Get it all out of the way now.

 

[soulcougher73]

First explain to me why government is involved in marriage contracts in the first place. If you can convince me of that necessity, I'll entertain your gay marriage discussion.

This has been gone over a millions times its not even funny anymore.