Gay Marriage and the Social Issues Surrounding It

[vera_dicere]

Last night New Zealand had a bill to legalise gay marriage pass through parliament. From there it’ll go to a select committee and then another reading in parliament. If it passes then it’ll be law. Several years ago we had a “Civil Union” bill become law, they said it wouldn’t lead to SSM, yet, here we are. Last night’s reading passed 78 to 40.

Christians didn’t invent marriage. No religion did. It was simply a reflection by human society of a naturally occuring relationship.

SSM is damaging to society because it attacks the very foundation which that society is built upon. It corrupts children by denying them proper gender role modelling which they will only see effectively in a stong married straight couple. Homosexual unions are not normal, they are not natural, we evolved to be raised in relationships where we see male and female interaction.

Children are going to be screwd up because of the politically correct belly aching of adults wanting to to force society to acknowledge, legally, how they have sex.

No God. No religion. No mention of sacramental unions. This is simply as nature intended, and if we try to go against nature, we’re going to have trouble.

Well, actually, it won’t be “us” that has trouble, it’s going to be children.

 

[Bradski]

But since marriage would revert to being a religious custom, you’d have no reasons to want or be eligible for one. In fact, since it’s already a religious custom that’s been co-opted by the state, why would an atheist who’s truly faithful (sorry, it was just too good to pass up) in his lack of belief want to sully himself by participating in our unscientific mediaeval superstitious rituals?

Personally, I wouldn’t mind. It could revert to purely a religious ceremony and I’d be happy with that. But people do want a legal recognition of their ‘partnership’. If it’s also going to be called marriage then I don’t see a problem with that. So there needs to be some apparatus that grants legal recognition to a couple over and above a declaration of intent by the couple themselves or an assumption that they have become ‘de facto’ partners in life.

My wife and I were married because she felt she needed that legal recognition ‘for the sake of the children’. I felt it wasn’t needed and that she was being a little old fashioned but it was no big deal to go through with it to keep her happy.

It wasn’t religious – I would have drawn the line there because I would have felt I was being hypocritical, notwithstanding that it would demean a ceremony that means a lot to people of faith having someone just ‘go through the motions’.

 

[rossum]

Clearly you don’t know anything about how polygamous marriages worked.

And you do? How many polygamous marriages have you been involved in?

The wives were not married to each other, but to their husband.

How many marriages were there? One? 700? Some intermediate number? Where is the evidence to support your contention?

There was no sexual contact among the wives.

Given 700 wives (and 300 concubines) what is the probability that at least two of the women involves are going to be bisexual or lesbian?

Yeah, I don’t think contemporary examples from the past 10 years really establish any historical or cultural precedent, no matter how many countries/municipalities/geographic political groupings etc. you give.

How, erm…, convenient. You ignore all the contrary evidence. “Apart from all the evidence showing his innocence, the accused is guilty.”

Marriage has always been an institution in which biological children can be raised.

False. Adoption has been around a very long time. Post-menopausal women have been able to get married for a very long time. Infertile couples are still regarded as married.

In more modern times, a gay couple may raise the biological children of one of them.

It is also not the only institution in which children can be raised. A single unmarried parent can raise children.

You may not like it, you may think it should change, but you cannot deny an historical fact.

It is you who is ignoring inconvenient historical facts. Marriage has changed over the years, and is continuing to change. For instance, divorce laws have changed greatly in the last hundred years. There is no single thing that is marriage. There are many different things that share the same word.

rossum

 

[interestedman]

Last night New Zealand had a bill to legalise gay marriage pass through parliament. From there it’ll go to a select committee and then another reading in parliament. If it passes then it’ll be law. Several years ago we had a “Civil Union” bill become law, they said it wouldn’t lead to SSM, yet, here we are. Last night’s reading passed 78 to 40.

Christians didn’t invent marriage. No religion did. It was simply a reflection by human society of a naturally occuring relationship.

SSM is damaging to society because it attacks the very foundation which that society is built upon. It corrupts children by denying them proper gender role modelling which they will only see effectively in a stong married straight couple. Homosexual unions are not normal, they are not natural, we evolved to be raised in relationships where we see male and female interaction.

Children are going to be screwd up because of the politically correct belly aching of adults wanting to to force society to acknowledge, legally, how they have sex.

No God. No religion. No mention of sacramental unions. This is simply as nature intended, and if we try to go against nature, we’re going to have trouble.

Well, actually, it won’t be “us” that has trouble, it’s going to be children.

Yes, the children will have tons of problems by knowing that gay people exist and that they are recognized by the law. And they will also have tons of problems by being raised by gay people. I don’t know if you know this, but bad parents come in all races, faiths, and sexualities…as do good parents. Also, in America a whole lot of kids don’t even have two active parents so I can only imagine that that is much worse for the child than having 2 loving parents, even if they are the same sex.

 

[interestedman]

I’d say that if you aren’t religious that you don’t need to get married. Chances are, if you’re not religious then you aren’t seeking to marry for the reasons any Christian religion (other than the extremely heterodox ones) would support. So atheists wouldn’t marry, given that marriage would be solely a religious custom, like baptism. There is no baptism for atheists, no Eucharist for non-Catholics, so no marriage for two non-Christians. The state would have no role.

But since marriage would revert to being a religious custom, you’d have no reasons to want or be eligible for one. In fact, since it’s already a religious custom that’s been co-opted by the state, why would an atheist who’s truly faithful (sorry, it was just too good to pass up) in his lack of belief want to sully himself by participating in our unscientific mediaeval superstitious rituals?

I am an atheist and marriage is not some superstitious ritual. Also you are making it seem that atheism is a religion which it is not…it is just a lack of belief. To be an atheist all you need to do is not believe in God. It has nothing to do with any other belief. So you can’t be a “faithful” atheist and you can’t say that atheists all rely on science.

I am married to my wife to show my love and devotion to her. It is a commitment I made to her and I wouldn’t change it. A whole lot of marriages are not religious.

 

[markeverett49]

One marriage, 700 women. That’s not what it looks like from where I’m standing,

The text is clear that Solomon had 700 wives, not that out of 700 people who were married one was Solomon. If the women were married to each other, they wouldn’t be counted as wives of Solomon, now would they?

 

[markeverett49]

Also, in America a whole lot of kids don’t even have two active parents so I can only imagine that that is much worse for the child than having 2 loving parents, even if they are the same sex.

You would think this claim—that many children don’t have two ‘active parents’—would lead to a call for a greater commitment to traditional marriage and the raising of children by their actual parents…

 

[interestedman]

You would think this claim—that many children don’t have two ‘active parents’—would lead to a call for a greater commitment to traditional marriage and the raising of children by their actual parents…

Well it would be ideal…unfortunately not everyone is a good parent or a good person for that matter. So no matter what you did to promote traditional marriage, there would still be a large number of broken homes and unfortunate children.

 

[RobbyS]

Last night New Zealand had a bill to legalise gay marriage pass through parliament. From there it’ll go to a select committee and then another reading in parliament. If it passes then it’ll be law. Several years ago we had a “Civil Union” bill become law, they said it wouldn’t lead to SSM, yet, here we are. Last night’s reading passed 78 to 40.

Christians didn’t invent marriage. No religion did. It was simply a reflection by human society of a naturally occuring relationship.

SSM is damaging to society because it attacks the very foundation which that society is built upon. It corrupts children by denying them proper gender role modelling which they will only see effectively in a stong married straight couple. Homosexual unions are not normal, they are not natural, we evolved to be raised in relationships where we see male and female interaction.

Children are going to be screwd up because of the politically correct belly aching of adults wanting to to force society to acknowledge, legally, how they have sex.

No God. No religion. No mention of sacramental unions. This is simply as nature intended, and if we try to go against nature, we’re going to have trouble.

Well, actually, it won’t be “us” that has trouble, it’s going to be children.

And to this generation, children are placed at the margins of society, with little regard for their actual natures. How this works out in practice are the gangs in such places as Los Angeles and Chicago. If boys can’t have fathers, they will have brothers, older brothers who will teach them ways to save their masculinity. Sadly, those ways are often barbarous.

 

[markeverett49]

Well it would be ideal…unfortunately not everyone is a good parent or a good person for that matter. So no matter what you did to promote traditional marriage, there would still be a large number of broken homes and unfortunate children.

Curiously, changing views of the nature and importance or marriage coincide with an explosion of children raised in one-parent households. Coincidence? I think not. That children fare best when raised by their (biological) parents is all the reason the state should need to FAVOR that arrangement over all others because the state has an interest in the well-being of children.

That not all such marriages result in admirable child-rearing by good parents is no proof that any other arrangement is as good.

 

[RobbyS]

I am an atheist and marriage is not some superstitious ritual. Also you are making it seem that atheism is a religion which it is not…it is just a lack of belief. To be an atheist all you need to do is not believe in God. It has nothing to do with any other belief. So you can’t be a “faithful” atheist and you can’t say that atheists all rely on science.

I am married to my wife to show my love and devotion to her. It is a commitment I made to her and I wouldn’t change it. A whole lot of marriages are not religious.

Atheism always has a positive content. It is a way of looking at the world. It may be cynical, but as often as not, it is an idealism inverted. And for many, that idealism turns to politics as a way of saving the world from apparent chaos. Hence the likes of Hegel, who deifies the State. and Marx his dissident pupil.

 

[interestedman]

Atheism always has a positive content. It is a way of looking at the world. It may be cynical, but as often as not, it is an idealism inverted. And for many, that idealism turns to politics as a way of saving the world from apparent chaos. Hence the likes of Hegel, who deifies the State. and Marx his dissident pupil.

Atheism has no positive content. Many atheists might share views but the ONLY view that makes someone an atheist is disbelief in God.

 

[interestedman]

Curiously, changing views of the nature and importance or marriage coincide with an explosion of children raised in one-parent households. Coincidence? I think not. That children fare best when raised by their (biological) parents is all the reason the state should need to FAVOR that arrangement over all others because the state has an interest in the well-being of children.

That not all such marriages result in admirable child-rearing by good parents is no proof that any other arrangement is as good.

So you are saying that acceptance of gay marriage is the reason why there are so many single parents? Is that right?

 

[markeverett49]

So you are saying that acceptance of gay marriage is the reason why there are so many single parents? Is that right?

No, I am not saying that. I think many factors have contributed to the weakening of marriage over the past half-century. The litany is well-known to anyone conversant with the social-science literature, which I shall assume you are.

Recognizing same-sex unions as marriages would only contribute to the problem. I highly recommend the paper “What is Marriage?”, which I’ve posted a link to in another thread hereabouts. Or the Witherspoon Institute’s executive summary “Marriage and the Public Good: Ten Principles.”

 

[RobbyS]

Atheism has no positive content. Many atheists might share views but the ONLY view that makes someone an atheist is disbelief in God.

Atheism,like agnosticism is a word that described a person’s opinion about his relationship with God. It is bound to inform his ideas and his actions. But an atheist like Hume founded his “disbelief” on his notion of science. Rejecting God as a hypothesis is not the same as rejecting him as a person.

 

[SgtSchultz]

And you do? How many polygamous marriages have you been involved in?

Seriously? What kind of sophistry is this? I don’t have to be in a polygamous marriage to understand what they are any more than I have to have been a Frenchman to understand the French Revolution, a germ to understand germ theory, a Marxist to understand Marxism, etc.

How many marriages were there? One? 700? Some intermediate number? Where is the evidence to support your contention?

I was not the one who claimed that women were married to each other. That is your claim. The burden of proof is on you, not me.

Given 700 wives (and 300 concubines) what is the probability that at least two of the women involves are going to be bisexual or lesbian?

Nice red herring here. Whether there were any “lesbian” or “bisexual” women married to the one man in an ancient polygamous marriage is beside the point. Whether they had relations or not with other women, they were not “married” to the other women, but to the lone man.

How, erm…, convenient. You ignore all the contrary evidence. “Apart from all the evidence showing his innocence, the accused is guilty.”

You provided no contrary evidence. Only a flimsy assumption that women in polygamous marriages of the past must have been having sex with each other because…hey, that’s what women who live together without enough men do, right? It’s a scientific fact!

False. Adoption has been around a very long time. Post-menopausal women have been able to get married for a very long time. Infertile couples are still regarded as married.

Again, you’re missing the point and trying to erect a strawman. The fact that kids were adopted does not negate the fact that marriage was an institution for biological parents to raise their biological children.

It is you who is ignoring inconvenient historical facts. Marriage has changed over the years, and is continuing to change. For instance, divorce laws have changed greatly in the last hundred years.

These are extremely modern, and all of these things are deviations from the preceding two millennia. One cannot state that something that happened in the last 50-100 years out of a 2000+ year period is an “historical fact” to be used in presupposing the alleged eternal nature of marriage being whatever a relativist wants it to mean at any given time.

There is no single thing that is marriage. There are many different things that share the same word.

Now the relativist agenda is really shining through. Tell me, if what you say is true, then way should two people of the same sex want to get married? I mean, marriage doesn’t really mean any one thing, right? So why all the fuss? Why ask the state to recognise and endorse something that doesn’t really have a clear-cut definition anyway?

I am an atheist and marriage is not some superstitious ritual.

I agree. What kind of a ritual is it then?

I am married to my wife to show my love and devotion to her. It is a commitment I made to her and I wouldn’t change it. A whole lot of marriages are not religious.

Why should the state be involved with your devotion and commitment to your wife? The state doesn’t exist to make people feel good about themselves.

Yes, the children will have tons of problems by knowing that gay people exist and that they are recognized by the law.

Puh-lease, what a non-sequitur. One can acknowledge that people with same-sex attraction who participate in same-sex acts exist without needing to have the state change the definition of marriage to include two people of the same sex.

 

[Bradski]

Why should the state be involved with your devotion and commitment to your wife? The state doesn’t exist to make people feel good about themselves.

Personally I don’t think it should. I agree with you. But some people would like an event where they could make a committment to each other before friends and family. Followed by an afternoon and evening of Bachanalia of course.

I don’t see why that couple couldn’t then fill in some sort of form as you do when you make a will so that legal matters could be covered. No need for any secular or religious organisation to get involved, although churches could get involved if they wanted to. But no compulsion.

That would solve the gay marriage problem, wouldn’t it?

 

[Slavonic]

Again, you’re missing the point and trying to erect a strawman. The fact that kids were adopted does not negate the fact that marriage was an institution for biological parents to raise their biological children.

Marriage was an institution for biological parents to raise their legitimate and biological children. It was especially important for medieval aristocrats. Only children born of the king and his wife could be counted as heirs. Any child fathered by the king but with another woman who was not his wife was not an heir and was considered illegitimate, despite being the biological child of the king.

These are extremely modern, and all of these things are deviations from the preceding two millennia. One cannot state that something that happened in the last 50-100 years out of a 2000+ year period is an “historical fact” to be used in presupposing the alleged eternal nature of marriage being whatever a relativist wants it to mean at any given time.

First, why discount our present time? Why dismiss the nearest 50-100 years? They’re our 50-100 years? Second, marriage does mean different things in different cultures at times. There are many kinds, polygamous marriages (which exists in the Old Testament), arraigned marriages, child marriages, marriages that were used to exchange property, marriages made to seal political alliances between nobles…the list goes on. I don’t mention these to start a discussion on what’s right/wrong about these marriages, but to note that the societies these marriages existed and were acceptable in their places and times. Further, marriage being between man and woman for raising children is also a relativistic statement.

 

[RobbyS]

Marriage was an institution for biological parents to raise their legitimate and biological children. It was especially important for medieval aristocrats. Only children born of the king and his wife could be counted as heirs. Any child fathered by the king but with another woman who was not his wife was not an heir and was considered illegitimate, despite being the biological child of the king.

First, why discount our present time? Why dismiss the nearest 50-100 years? They’re our 50-100 years? Second, marriage does mean different things in different cultures at times. There are many kinds, polygamous marriages (which exists in the Old Testament), arraigned marriages, child marriages, marriages that were used to exchange property, marriages made to seal political alliances between nobles…the list goes on. I don’t mention these to start a discussion on what’s right/wrong about these marriages, but to note that the societies these marriages existed and were acceptable in their places and times. Further, marriage being between man and woman for raising children is also a relativistic statement.

Marriages of whatever sort always the relationship of a woman to a man. THAT relationship may be relative but it must always take into account that she is a female and the person with whom she enters into relationship is a man. You are not taking into account the absolute demands of biology. The whole anatomy of a woman, her whole physical and psychological make-up centers on the act of bearing children. Likewise, the male is designed to impregnate the woman and his physical and psychological make-up centers on this ability. It is for this reason why homosexuality has always been regarded as bizarre and why it is associated with bestiality, which is regarded as even more bizzare under the name Sodomy.

 

[rossum]

Now the relativist agenda is really shining through.

I have no “relativist agenda”, I have a truthist agenda. Marriage has changed over time, or was what Solomon had not marriage?

Tell me, if what you say is true, then way should two people of the same sex want to get married?

Taxation, inheritance rights, social recognition, residence rights for foreign born spouses for starters. Basically the same as the reasons a lot of heterosexuals get married.

I mean, marriage doesn’t really mean any one thing, right? So why all the fuss? Why ask the state to recognise and endorse something that doesn’t really have a clear-cut definition anyway?

Does marriage in the US have no value because the law in Texas is not the same as the law in New Hampshire? There is no “clear cut” definition of marriage in the USA. There is not even a “clear cut” definition of Christian marriage because many Protestants disagree with Catholics over the treatment of divorce and remarriage after divorce. Does that disagreement invalidate all Christian marriages?

Marriage has always meant different things to different groups of people.

rossum