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hazmat
Guest
preserving tradition and discouraging what you find silly may sound like good arguments for folks who want to do those things, but beyond them, they dont carry much weight.
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razredge
Guest
Oh really, well if gay marriage is allowed, what non-arbitrary reasons do you have for restricting marriage from say polygamists, or incestuous couples - why can’t a man marry his dog?
See in reality everyone’s a bigot to some form of alternative sexuality - we’re just more consistent.
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John21652
Guest
Your use of the word “silly” gives us a clue as to whose post you were referring to when you made your post. I used it to describe the abnormal sex practices of homosexuals.
You need to do two things. Either learn how to use the quote button at the end of every post, or, if you already know how to use it, learn to find the courage to respond directly to the posts of others. At the moment, all you do is post snide little remarks which, as well as carrying no substance, make it look as though you fear a head on debate with anyone.
To answer your post directly, preserving tradition is what helps constitute a society. All societies preserve certain traditions as a part of creating a common history. Without a common history, there is no social cohesion. So preserving tradition is a good thing for societies to do.
As for the topic at hand, we are talking about preserving an institution, marriage, which has been a foundation stone of all successful societies. Marriages beget children and promote the continuation and future growth of any society. Societies that don’t do that decline. So wanting to preserve it is not silly. There are very good reasons for wanting to preserve it. You, however, seem to be saying that wanting to preserve it carries no weight with some folks. Well, if that’s the case, then we must conclude that those “some folks” don’t care too much about the future of the society they live in. Maybe they are even right up there with traitors?
Seeing how marriage between two people of the same sex can’t possibly bring about any future generations for a society, and same sex marriage involves abnormal sex, doesn’t it seem silly to you to make it seem normal? It can never be normal and so it can only ever seem to be normal. All rather silly, don’t you think?
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hazmat
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john, i posted after only two posts following mine. it was obvious i was responding to you. no one is afraid to debate you–get over yourself. all im saying is tradition and silly arent what i would consider good arguments. plenty of silly stuff is legal, and breaking with tradition is also legal.
razredge, like gays, brother and sister should be able to marry as it falls under civil rights. no one currently has the right to marry multiple persons or animals however, so that wouldnt fall under civil rights. thats not to say it will always be the case though. if people eventually get the right to marry multiple persons, or animals, then that will be a civil right also. personally, i dont care if people marry multiple persons or animals.
razredge, like gays, brother and sister should be able to marry as it falls under civil rights. no one currently has the right to marry multiple persons or animals however, so that wouldnt fall under civil rights. thats not to say it will always be the case though. if people eventually get the right to marry multiple persons, or animals, then that will be a civil right also. personally, i dont care if people marry multiple persons or animals.
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luke2219
Guest
It is not a civil rights issue. People who identify as gay already have the right to marry. They choose not to because they want to marry someone of the same gender. The issue is about changing the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples. Everyone already has the same rights. People who identify as gay CAN get married. It’s just that they don’t want to because marriage is between one man and one woman and so they chose not to exercise their right to get married. Just because they choose not to exercise a right does not mean that they don’t have the right.
We are NOT talking about a civil rights issue. We are talking about changing the definition of marriage. Whatever side of the issue you fall on you are either for or against changing the definition of marriage not about giving certain people a right to marriage; they already have that right but choose not to exercise it under the current definition.
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hazmat
Guest
it is civil rights issue; there are gay citizens who cannot marry the same people other citizens can marry. building the discrimination into the laws themselves doesnt get around that, despite what people might think. if it goes to the scotus, you will probably be surprised and disappointed by their decision.
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luke2219
Guest
If it does go to scotus I doubt I’ll be surprised if I’m disappointed by their decision.
Citizens who identify as gay have the same choices of who to marry as everyone else. They are unsatisfied with those choices and they want marriage to include other options. If we say they are looking for the right to marry the same gender, fine, that is a way to look at it from a rights angle. But currently no one has that right in most states. This isn’t about giving rights to a group that another group has. Both groups already have the same rights. We are talking about giving a new right, that of marrying the same gender, to all people.
I’ll grant you that there may be discrimination built into the laws. But not all discrimination is wrong. Employers discriminate all the time on who they chose to hire. For example, a hospital will only employ someone who has completed medical school as a doctor. They discriminate against people who have not completed medical school and will not allow them to practice. This is a just and good kind of discrimination.
So, yes, I suppose the current definition of marriage has discrimination built in. It discriminates against those who want to marry someone of the same gender, or multiple people, or animals or inanimate objects, etc. Where we disagree is if that is just or unjust discrimination.
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hazmat
Guest
in light of the us constitution, this is unfair discrimination. you can keep them from marrying in church–thats fine–but churches dont have an obligation treat all citizens the same; the government does. you disagree, but i think youre looking at it from a religious perspective. religion aside, there is no us law requiring married couples to have children. if there were, then it would be easier to appreciate the rationale presented against gay marriage.
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exnihilo
Guest
As others said Natural Law which is part of our legal tradition. The fact that there were crimes against natural demonstrates this.
The rest of the activities can be found wrong through Natural Law arguments which did make them illegal until courts acted to overthrow tradition and precedence.
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razredge
Guest
Why is it a civil right for someone to marry anyone they want regardless of gender?
Is it that just arbitrarily defined on a whim by the courts?
The issue with changing the definition of marriage to encompass homosexuals (or any other kind of alternative sexuality) is that it suggest that homosexual relationships are the same as heterosexual ones. Which they clearly are not.
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hazmat
Guest
its not arbitrary; its equal rights/civil rights under the constitution of the usa. if a male citizen has the right to marry a woman, then a female citizen must have that same right (to marry a woman).
LeafByNiggle
Well-known member
That depends on how you define the right. A more reasonable understanding of that right is that “a male citizen has the right to marry someone of the opposite sex”. With that understanding of the right the corresponding identical right for a woman is “a female citizen also has the right to marry someone of the opposite sex” (i.e. a man). It is hard to make the case that your interpretation of the meaning of the right is the correct one while mine is wrong.
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exnihilo
Guest
No because that does not correspond to what marriage is. Marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman for the creation and raising of children. Since members of the same sex can not create children this precludes marriage for them. Every person has the opportunity to marry. That necessitates that the two parties be of different sexes because that is what marriage is.
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hazmat
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the definitions dont really matter. it didnt matter when marriage was defined as between a man and woman of the same race–that was “equal” too. you can define stuff any way you want to; but the fact that youve defined it so its inherently discriminatory probably wont impress a supreme court.
LeafByNiggle
Well-known member
Of course definitions matter. Otherwise people cannot communicate with each other because they wont know what words mean.
As for interracial marriage, that was always understood to be a possible kind of marriage, even when laws made such a marriage illegal. Not so with same-sex marriage. That has never been considered a kind of marriage. You might just as well advocate for the right to marry an avocado. It makes as much sense.
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BobCatholic
Guest
Same-sex “marriage” is wrong because it promotes homosexuality which is wrong.
And it is wrong to promote a wrong behavior. We don’t tell people it is OK to rape, steal, or hurt others for obvious reasons.
I have a secular argument against homosexuality, which shows that it is not good. I use the “if it is good for the goose, it is good for the gander” argument. Suppose I were to have magic powers and snapped my fingers, turning everyone into homosexuals. After all, if it is good for one person to be homosexual, it must be good for all to be homosexual. The result would be simple: The human race would be extinct in 100 years.
And it is wrong to promote a wrong behavior. We don’t tell people it is OK to rape, steal, or hurt others for obvious reasons.
I have a secular argument against homosexuality, which shows that it is not good. I use the “if it is good for the goose, it is good for the gander” argument. Suppose I were to have magic powers and snapped my fingers, turning everyone into homosexuals. After all, if it is good for one person to be homosexual, it must be good for all to be homosexual. The result would be simple: The human race would be extinct in 100 years.
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exnihilo
Guest
Not being impressed by a body that found a right to murder in the US constitution is no dishonor.
Precisely. There were laws against interracial marriage precisely because it was a type of marriage. Even today there are laws against marriage based on age. And there are laws against multiple marriages e.g. bigamy or polygamy. Of course some will point to laws against ‘gay marriage’ but these have only come about recently because of the effort by some to recreate what marriage fundamentally means.
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hazmat
Guest
they dont matter in the context of us law. if you define a marriage as one between men and women of the same race, it wont make a difference that youve defined it that way to the supreme court. if you define it as one between a man and woman of the same religion, it wont matter to them either. to them, all is relative to the constitution; if they find it conflicts with the constitution, they wont allow it.
no one can marry avocados right now. youre talking about rights no one has. right now, men can marry women–thats a reality right now, so women need to have that same right for things to be equal. if a citizen was given the right to marry an avocado, then you could make a case for it being a civil right to marry an avocado, but not before then.
bobcatholic, abstinence is not good either. haha.
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exnihilo
Guest
You seem to regard the SCOTUS much more than I do. Sophists with agendas are not excluded from this body.
The right to marry is to a member of the opposite sex and everyone has this right. You want to create a new right which is to ‘marry’ a member of the same sex. There is nothing discriminatory about the current state of affairs because neither I nor a gay person can marry a member of the same sex. The law discriminates in no way because the rule is universal and not limited to one class of people.
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hazmat
Guest
their agenda is to uphold the constitution, whether you agree or not. i think they do a pretty good job. marrying men is not a new right. marrying women is not a new right. you can play the separate but equal game all you like.
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