Beards and Gay Marriage

[Stephen168]

Now you are both being rude. And ‘he’

The Arapaho: Alfred L. Kroeber, The Arapaho, 18 Bull. Am. Museum Nat. Hist. 1, 19 (1902)
The Navajo: W.W. Hill, The Status of the Hermaphrodite and Transvestite in Navajo Culture, 37 Am. Anthropologist 273 (1935)
The Mohave: George Devereux, Institutionalized Homosexuality of the Mohave Indians, 9 Hum.
Biology 498 (1937)
Winnebago: Nancy 0. Lurie, Winnebago Berdache, 55 Am. Anthropologist 708 (1953)
The Pima: W.W. Hill, Note on the Pima Berdache, 40 Am. Anthropologist 338 (1938)
Zuni: Elsie C. Parsons, The Zuni La’Mana, 18 Am. Anthropologist 521 (1916)
Matilda C. Stevenson, The Zuni Indians, The Twenty-Third Ann. Rep. Bureau Am. Ethnology 3 (1904)
Will Roscoe, The Zuni Man-Woman 29-52 (1991)
Tahiti: Robert I. Levy, The Community Function of Tahitian Male Transvestitism, 44 Anthropological Q. 12 (1971)

Charles Callender & Lee M. Kochems, The North American Berdache, 24 Current Anthropology 443 (1983)
James S. Thayer, The Berdache of the Northern Plains, 36 J. Anthropological Res. 287 (1980)
Donald G. Forgey, The Institution of Berdache Among the North American Plains Indians, 11 J. Sex Res. 1 (1975)

Francisco Guerra, The Pre-Columbian Mind (1971) :
Cites many reports of same sex marriage, for example:
Francisco Lopez de Gomara, History of the Indies (1552)
Alvar Cabeza de Vaca , Narrative of the Expeditions and Shipwrecks of Cabeza de Vaca (1542)
Juan de Torquemada, Monarchia Indiana (1615)
Pedro de Magdlhaes, The Histories of Brazil (1576)

Siberia:
David F. Greenberg, The Construction of Homosexuality(1988)

Waldemar Bogoras, The Jesup North Pacific Expedition: The Chukchee 451 (Franz Boas ed., 1904-1909)

Similar traditions in Vietnam, India, Burma, Korea, Nepal, the Austral Islands, New Zealand, and the Cook Islands

Africa:
Ifi Amadiume, Male Daughters, Female Husbands: Gender and Sex in an African Society 48-49 (1987)
E.E. Evans-Pritchard, Sexual Inversion Among the Azande, 72 Am. Anthropologist 1428-34 (1970)

David F. Greenberg, The Construction of Homosexuality(1988)

Melville J. Herskovits, A Note on “Woman Marriage” in Dahomey, 10 Africa 335 (1937)
Eileen J. Krige, Note on the Phalaborwa and Their Morula Complex, 11 Bantu Stud. 357 (1937).
E.E. Evans-Pritchard, Kinship and Marriage Among the Nuer 108-09 (1951):

Denise O’Brien, Female Husbands in Southern Bantu Societies, in Sexual Stratification: A Cross-Cultural View 109 (Alice Schlegel ed., 1977)

Egypt:
Sifra Aharei Mot 8:8–9]

(Supported by burials of male same sex couples with stela depicting them in intimate poses. Including one king, Akhenaten)
See also the Siwa Oasis where same sex marriage traditions persisted into the modern era.
Walter Cline, Notes of the People of Siwah and el Garah in the Libyan Desert (Leslie Spier ed., 1936)
Edmund Leach, Marriage, Legitimacy, Alliance, in Social Anthropology 176, 210 (1982)

Hittite code of law covering male same sex couples:
Ephraim Neufeld, The Hittite Laws 8-11 (1951)

Rome:
Martial, Juvenal and Cicero all mention same sex (male) marriages taking place with the same rites and under the same laws as opposite sex marriages.

WHY would they want to play another game and call it baseball?

 

[stewstew03]

It is true for any assertion: merely repeating it does not make it true. So coming in halfway through a debate on gay marriage and merely repeating the Catholic view on marriage does nothing to explain or justify that view.

True – and merely asserting its falsity does not make it false. What is your point?

(And actually I started to participate in this thread before you did).

But marriage does nothing to assist or improve conception. It actually reduces the chances of conception. Certainly same sex marriage does nothing to affect the conception of kids by opposite sex couples, it just encourages same sex couples to conceive children - with outside help, of course, but so what? Many opposite sex couples need such help too.

Marriage does assist in raising children, but same sex couples do that, so this would be an argument in favour of same sex marriage.

And if you look at the various rights and responsibilities involved in marriage, most of them have little or nothing to do with kids, and everything to do with issues and problems facing all couples who choose to share their lives.

I’ll note that you haven’t actually responded to the claim that the secular justification for the state recognition of marriage is that there is a generative aspect associated with the conjugal union. The state has no interest in recognizing companionships.

It’s called the golden rule. If you can morally force your subjective views on others when you are in the majority, you cannot complain when they reciprocate when they are in the majority.

But what does that have to do with the “principal (sic) that any personal subjective beliefs can morally be forced on other religions”?

The other way around. You can have a valid marriage without sex.

Of course.

*Why? Compare it with sex. We agree, I hope, that incest, rape, child abuse and bestiality are wrong, yet I don’t see you trying to redefine ‘sex’ to exclude those acts. We accept that they are ‘sex’, but simply instances of ‘sex’ that are wrong.

So why do you feel the need to redefine marriage to exclude at least one variety of marriage that you oppose? Why not present objective reasons for why same sex marriage is wrong?*

I’ll try to be more plain. The state has an interest in recognizing the companionship between a man and woman who have agreed to live together and plan to build a family. Why is there an interest? Because when a man and woman who are romantically involved live together there is a high likelihood that they will engage in intercourse, which results in the possibility of children. It’s the old adage: “sex makes babies, society needs babies, and children need mothers and fathers.”

The state has no interest in recognizing “hook ups” or casual dating relationships. The state has no interest in recognizing “best friends.” Intimacy is not the state’s business, generally speaking. But when that intimacy flirts with the likelihood of procreation – it becomes the state’s business. I like this quote by David Blankenhorn:

If you’ve been trained, as anthropology field researchers typically are, to begin at the beginning—to start with the most fundamental issues—you will report a cluster of related facts: Humans are social; they live in groups. They strongly seek to reproduce themselves. They are sexually embodied. They carry out sexual (not asexual) reproduction. And they have devised an institution to bridge the sexual divide, facilitate group living, and carry out reproduction. All human societies have this institution. They call it “marriage.”

*Again, you are trying to equate the definition with what is morally right. And, in the process, you are massively misrepresenting my position.

I would point out that the definitions of ‘marriage’ proposed by Catholics in these debates also* do not generally exclude incestuous or polygamous marriages. Does that imply that Catholics support these forms of marriage?

If I’ve “massively misrepresented” your position – please correct the record.

 

[stewstew03]

Or Black Swans. 25% of pairings are male-male, they will use surrogate mothers to produce chicks, then raise those chicks with a 70% success rate, compared to 30% success rates in heterosexual pairs.

And they will not engage in sexual activity for pleasure. Are you suggesting we should base public policy on the behavior of Black Swans?

 

[stewstew03]

Now you are both being rude. And ‘he’

The Arapaho: Alfred L. Kroeber, The Arapaho, 18 Bull. Am. Museum Nat. Hist. 1, 19 (1902)
The Navajo: W.W. Hill, The Status of the Hermaphrodite and Transvestite in Navajo Culture, 37 Am. Anthropologist 273 (1935)
The Mohave: George Devereux, Institutionalized Homosexuality of the Mohave Indians, 9 Hum.
Biology 498 (1937)
Winnebago: Nancy 0. Lurie, Winnebago Berdache, 55 Am. Anthropologist 708 (1953)
The Pima: W.W. Hill, Note on the Pima Berdache, 40 Am. Anthropologist 338 (1938)
Zuni: Elsie C. Parsons, The Zuni La’Mana, 18 Am. Anthropologist 521 (1916)
Matilda C. Stevenson, The Zuni Indians, The Twenty-Third Ann. Rep. Bureau Am. Ethnology 3 (1904)
Will Roscoe, The Zuni Man-Woman 29-52 (1991)
Tahiti: Robert I. Levy, The Community Function of Tahitian Male Transvestitism, 44 Anthropological Q. 12 (1971)

Charles Callender & Lee M. Kochems, The North American Berdache, 24 Current Anthropology 443 (1983)
James S. Thayer, The Berdache of the Northern Plains, 36 J. Anthropological Res. 287 (1980)
Donald G. Forgey, The Institution of Berdache Among the North American Plains Indians, 11 J. Sex Res. 1 (1975)

Francisco Guerra, The Pre-Columbian Mind (1971) :
Cites many reports of same sex marriage, for example:
Francisco Lopez de Gomara, History of the Indies (1552)
Alvar Cabeza de Vaca , Narrative of the Expeditions and Shipwrecks of Cabeza de Vaca (1542)
Juan de Torquemada, Monarchia Indiana (1615)
Pedro de Magdlhaes, The Histories of Brazil (1576)

Siberia:
David F. Greenberg, The Construction of Homosexuality(1988)

Waldemar Bogoras, The Jesup North Pacific Expedition: The Chukchee 451 (Franz Boas ed., 1904-1909)

Similar traditions in Vietnam, India, Burma, Korea, Nepal, the Austral Islands, New Zealand, and the Cook Islands

Africa:
Ifi Amadiume, Male Daughters, Female Husbands: Gender and Sex in an African Society 48-49 (1987)
E.E. Evans-Pritchard, Sexual Inversion Among the Azande, 72 Am. Anthropologist 1428-34 (1970)

David F. Greenberg, The Construction of Homosexuality(1988)

Melville J. Herskovits, A Note on “Woman Marriage” in Dahomey, 10 Africa 335 (1937)
Eileen J. Krige, Note on the Phalaborwa and Their Morula Complex, 11 Bantu Stud. 357 (1937).
E.E. Evans-Pritchard, Kinship and Marriage Among the Nuer 108-09 (1951):

Denise O’Brien, Female Husbands in Southern Bantu Societies, in Sexual Stratification: A Cross-Cultural View 109 (Alice Schlegel ed., 1977)

Egypt:
Sifra Aharei Mot 8:8–9]

(Supported by burials of male same sex couples with stela depicting them in intimate poses. Including one king, Akhenaten)
See also the Siwa Oasis where same sex marriage traditions persisted into the modern era.
Walter Cline, Notes of the People of Siwah and el Garah in the Libyan Desert (Leslie Spier ed., 1936)
Edmund Leach, Marriage, Legitimacy, Alliance, in Social Anthropology 176, 210 (1982)

Hittite code of law covering male same sex couples:
Ephraim Neufeld, The Hittite Laws 8-11 (1951)

Rome:
Martial, Juvenal and Cicero all mention same sex (male) marriages taking place with the same rites and under the same laws as opposite sex marriages.

This stands against the mountain of evidence in favor of the traditional view of marriage, so…

 

[Stephen168]

This stands against the mountain of evidence in favor of the traditional view of marriage, so…

Accepting homosexual relationships in a culture doesn’t mean they were considered marriage. People don’t play two different games in a culture and call them both baseball.

 

[Stephen168]

Or Black Swans. 25% of pairings are male-male, they will use surrogate mothers to produce chicks, then raise those chicks with a 70% success rate, compared to 30% success rates in heterosexual pairs.

What is the success rate of the female-female pairs?

 

[stewstew03]

Accepting homosexual relationships in a culture doesn’t mean they were considered marriage. People don’t play two different games in a culture and call them both baseball.

Correct.

 

[GaryTaylor]

Just like the Swans and Flamingos stealing eggs wasn’t cool nor was Caligula and his choice behavior. We followed that path we’d be running around on all fours by now. Talk about subjective. Course we don’t want to raise our moral standards and be persecuted, subjective is good enough.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Again, the view that marriage is for the opposite sexes and designed to promote family life and the rearing of offspring is a distinctly heterosexual view. That is the objective functionof marriage from time immemorial everywhere on earth…

It is the homosexuals who are imposing their subjective view of marriage on an objective institution. There is nothing in nature or in society to prevent homosexuals from living together, loving each other, and committing as much sodomy as they can handle.

But same-sex marriage is a joke on the institution of marriage, and an obscene one at that.

 

[stewstew03]

Again, the view that marriage is for the opposite sexes and designed to promote family life and the rearing of offspring is a distinctly heterosexual view. That is the objective functionof marriage from time immemorial everywhere on earth…

It is the homosexuals who are imposing their subjective view of marriage on an objective institution. There is nothing in nature or in society to prevent homosexuals from living together, loving each other, and committing as much sodomy as they can handle.

But same-sex marriage is a joke on the institution of marriage, and an obscene one at that.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[DrTaffy]

(1) All arguments are subjective. Give me an example of an objective argument.

How about any mathematical proof?

Take any of the proofs of the Pythagorean theorem, for example.

But hang about - a moment ago you were chiding me for suggesting that religious based arguments are subjective, now you are arguing that all arguments are subjective. How is this not self-contradictory?

(2) Can religious beliefs be true? If so, then truths embodied in religious beliefs DO have a role in public policy.

They can be. The golden rule is not invalidated just because many religions state it as part of their philosophy.

Surely you see the difference between a truth that can be shown objectively, but which you hold for religious reasons, and one that rests solely on the authority of your religious beliefs?

(3) Do you know of any non-religious justification for the view that all people are of equal worth?

Let’s not divert this whole thread into an attempt to derive a moral system from first principles in the limited format of a bulletin board. This is a topic best covered in a book, or at least in a chapter or three of a book.

Not that long ago I came across a book that covered a formal proof of the golden rule. If that would be close enough for you I can try to dig up the title.

Thank you for the citations, which prove that the practice is not unheard of, maybe even not abnormal.

If you accept that there have been many cultures where marriage included same sex marriage, I don’t see what is left that you object to and that I actually said? That Christianity has been trying to impose its own narrower definition of marriage on these cultures?

But you made several statements that suggested that same-sex marriage was a normal aspect of most cultures, until Christians came onto the scene. Those statements are unsubstantiated.

This, for example, I never said. Or show me where I did. Us delusional types may be prone to dodgy memories!

 

[DrTaffy]

True – and merely asserting its falsity does not make it false. What is your point?

Quite simply that repeating the assertion with no attempt to justify or explain it is a waste of time. How is this not clear? :ehh:

I’ll note that you haven’t actually responded to the claim that the secular justification for the state recognition of marriage is that there is a generative aspect associated with the conjugal union. The state has no interest in recognizing companionships.

Yes I did. In that bit you quoted and failed to respond to. Marriage does nothing for the actual conception of babies. And not only can same sex couple conceive, with a little help, but they do, and they also raise kids and do all the other things that heterosexual couples do.

Also, in a token tip of the nib back to the original ‘natural law’ topic of this thread, if you look at marriage laws themselves they don’t look as though their purpose is to promote conception. They seem mainly to be a sensible set of arrangements to accomodate the needs of people who choose to spend their lives together, sharing house and income and property.

I’ll try to be more plain. The state has an interest in recognizing the companionship between a man and woman who have agreed to live together and plan to build a family. Why is there an interest? Because when a man and woman who are romantically involved live together there is a high likelihood that they will engage in intercourse, which results in the possibility of children.

By that argument, a same sex couple who do produce and raise children are more deserving of marriage than a heterosexual couple who do not.

If I’ve “massively misrepresented” your position – please correct the record.

Already done, in the bit you quoted and did not respond to. I never said that every ‘marriage’ that fits the definition is morally right. That seems to be your position, for ‘marriage’ but not for ‘sex’.

 

[DrTaffy]

And they will not engage in sexual activity for pleasure.

Yes they do. And courtship and affection displays.

This stands against the mountain of evidence in favor of the traditional view of marriage, so…

Noone is suggesting that heterosexual marriages be banned. There is no ‘mountain of evidence’ opposing same sex marriage.

 

[PRmerger]

Also, in a token tip of the nib back to the original ‘natural law’ topic of this thread, if you look at marriage laws themselves they don’t look as though their purpose is to promote conception.

They look as though their purpose is to promote childbearing and childrearing.

They seem mainly to be a sensible set of arrangements to accomodate the needs of people who choose to spend their lives together, sharing house and income and property.

Actually, no. The above could include polygamists, college roommates, fathers and sons…

 

[DrTaffy]

Accepting homosexual relationships in a culture doesn’t mean they were considered marriage.

But accepting homosexual relationships, calling them marriage and covering them with all the same laws and customs, that does rather mean that.

People don’t play two different games in a culture and call them both baseball.

They do play two different games and call them both football.

What is the success rate of the female-female pairs?

Not sure. I’m not sure that there even were female-female pairs reported in that study.

 

[GaryTaylor]

“Marriage is far more profound than our contemporary culture would lead us to believe. It is a life-long commitment that restrains self-centeredness, self-indulgence and self-gratification. It is the one relationship that effectively prepares and conditions us for community. By restraining self-centeredness and promoting love of another, marriage becomes the foundation for social order. When this commitment labeled “marriage” is reduced to nothing more than a mere contract between two consenting persons, or worse just another option, it ceases to restrain our self-centered passions. Self-centeredness harms not only that relationship but also others as well until it spreads throughout society like ripples in a pond. Abandoning the “others before self” concept of marriage for the self-serving concept of contractual relationships between autonomous individuals makes us increasingly narcissistic, ultimately leading toward moral and social collapse.”

battlefortruth.org/ArticlesDetail.asp?id=165

 

[Stephen168]

But accepting homosexual relationships, calling them marriage and covering them with all the same laws and customs, that does rather mean that.

Which doesn’t apply to the references you provided. At least the few I read until it was clear accepting same sex unions and marriage were not the same thing in those cultures.

They do play two different games and call them both football.

In my culture (the USA) we only have one game called football. Some other cultures call soccer; football, but I don’t think they have another game also called football.

Not sure. I’m not sure that there even were female-female pairs reported in that study.

If male-male pairing has a higher success rate (lower mortality rate) for raising offspring, than male-female pairs, and there are no female-female pairs then I would concluded that pairing is not sexual but is a more successful way to raise black swans, while male-male pairing has a zero success rate in creating black swans. It is the nature of the swan. Very interesting, but humans are not black swans, we have our own nature where male-female pairs create and raise offspring at the highest success rate.

 

[orang]

All relationships require perseverance.

The traditional relationship ( marriage) is an expression to the whole species in the frame in which the species is able to survive and continue.

So if the society feels survival is not an issue and there is no need to recognize the traditional male female relationship in its perseverance and surviving as an absolute law for its survival, then maybe it could be another idea to re-think.

Traditional marriage express’s the boundaries in which the species is able to be a species. A law regardless until the human becomes infinite and is able to consider other options.

 

[GaryTaylor]

It just seems rather odd to me the moral high road would be placed at risk. That doesn’t make sense.

Even if I was to step outside myself and view this entire dilemma from outside. I can’t behavior wise see a higher standard for natural family planning. Even the animals are running a close second to the Catholics, the rest “skeptical philosophy” at best. Even aside from Sacrament. the Lord, etc. The article is absolutely right about behavior choice, self-centeredness, self-indulgence and self-gratification.

I concede people are going to act off their feelings and all the above, I concede the family structure in the west has been demoralized, its no reason to continue on some social experimental path to who knows where.

I don’t want to split hairs on the behavior choice process though its rather clear.

The fact that their are homosexual, lesbians and so forth within a "normal "model doesn’t excuse the behavior “because” they are within the acceptable model. But they are responsible for their behavior within the model and to whom-procreation-LIFE?. So too are the heterosexuals responsible for - self-centeredness, self-indulgence and self-gratification, and yes there are “slight” variations here also, but these are wild animals.

We are talking morally responsible, intelligence of a higher order than the animals?

Doing “like” fluffy isn’t the goal? We want to do “better” than fluffy and pals.

 

[orang]

Its interesting animals are brought into the discussing frequently.

I was thinking the other day about the instinctive order in which they are able to harmonize themselves and the needed environment in which to exist. Maybe something for another thread idea , on the go. . Animals behave and experience the order which allows them to exist. An instinctive experience, a term I don’t think can be argued alongside an active nervous system. They instinctively know the order within the experience of their lives, so they are not able to question choice and the subjective opinion of the origin of the order itself, and instinctively for it , could be said the critters instinctively know God exists in a general way, which seems to be what man often arrives at if the theist. We may have an adamant animal theist . Well I gotta get back to work and good to see the half decent weather for a change.