Good strictly secular argument against same sex marriage

[Hypnotoad]

Neither the government nor religion invented taking a mate for life (a.k.a: Marriage). It’s a tad silly when both sides claim to have created it.

Human beings (and any animal under the sun for that matter) do not have to be married to take a mate for life. If I take your logic, then any couple that chooses to stay with each other for life must automatically be considered as married. I know couples that are monogamous but do not want to be married. It would seem that marriage deals with a lot more than simply professing who you’re going to be sleeping with for the rest of your life and that its genesis is not in monogamy even though it plays a huge role in marriages.

Indeed, how dare Martin Luther King promote civil rights. He should have learned to accept his lot and bow before his white masters and not have challenged the status quo.

Does your statement sound ridiculous now? It should do.

Actually you comparing SSM with Martin Luther King’s fight for civil rights is what sounds ridiculous. Dr. King’s position that people of difference races should not be discriminated against by their government was a clear cut position proven on common sense. Marriage on the other hand is not because marriage was not created for everyone thus it was never discriminating against homosexuals because it was never created for them in the first place.

 

[Viewer]

We have established that your personal distaste for murderers is based in bigotry because you have no evidence for why you think they are wrong.

I think it wrong because I can observe with ease the chaos and distress it causes. Feel free to turn on any news report regarding uprisings or wars in Africa or the middle east to find proof of this.

While the Catholic Church agrees with your personal distaste it is not based in bigotry, but based in human nature/natural law/virtue. Many governments have also adopted this -]religious/-] virtuous idea that murder is wrong.

Incorrect, the secular world works on the principle that once we die that is it, and to cut a life short is a heinous act of pure malice.

If you were to want to support murderous activity, you could claim that the Catholic Church invented the idea that murder was evil and therefore a religious argument, and then dismiss it out of hand.

The Roman senate condemned it, I will happily pull out hundreds of examples such as Hammurabi’s code that also prove on a natural level murder was seen as chaotic and disturbing long before the Church ever came into existence.

We have also established that homosexual animal and human behavior is sterile. It will never produce offspring. Only heterosexual behavior will.

Incorrect and entirely irrelevant, go back and look at the example of the black swans.

As a matter of justice children have a human right to be feed and taken care of by their parents. .

Shall we euthanize all of the orphans then?

The Catholic Church shares this view. Many governments have also adopted this -]religious/-] virtuous idea and have created laws against child abandonment and abuse.

Incorrect, Hammurabi’s code long predates this and is widely regarded in tandem with the Justinian code (a secular document) as the absolute foundation of the legal system.

Of course you were you to want to support child cruelty, you could claim that the Catholic Church invented the idea that it was evil, and therefore a religious argument, and then dismiss it out of hand.

Irrelevant. We all acknowledge pederasty, exposure of infants and the like are not new practices.

I would suggest that a heterosexual union, which includes heterosexual behavior, is the place where children are created as a biological fact; not invented by the Catholic Church.

I don’t disagree but again, entirely irrelevant unless your proposing we take children away from single parents and widow/widowers.

I would also suggest that children have a right to their parents as a matter of justice; not invented by the Catholic Church.

Ideals are nice, but in the secular world they are just that. Ideals. Nothing more.

Marriage satisfies this critical human condition. same sex unions are not it.

50% of children born out of wedlock that otherwise grow into perfectly reasonable individuals in the UK argues against this. SSU’s adopting children suggests that they have taken the time to consider and prostrate themselves to scrutiny to be able to take a child to raise, rather than an accidental or unplanned pregnancy.

The purpose of marriage is to create, nourish, and educate the next generation. Marriage is not ‘neutral.’ Marriage is good, and same sex unions are not it.

True but entirely irrelevant. The Church’s view of a lifetime commitment regardless of any abuse and mistreatment that might take place within it and not providing for any escape (divorce) is viewed as oppressive, tyrannical and indeed evil in secular eyes…

 

[InSearchofGrace]

Grace & Peace!

Charlemagne, you would do well to read more carefull.y.

There’s a reason why the CDC uses the label “men who have sex with men” or “MSM”: because there are men who have sex with men who do not identify as homosexual. The MSM population would likely include: male prostitutes and male sex workers of all stripes; heterosexual men who engage in situational homosexual behaviors (such as men in prison); heterosexual men who experiment with homosexual sex or who enjoy homosexual sex but do not identify as homosexual; homosexual men who have homosexual sex. The CDC is pretty clear in its terminology that its statistical commentary is not regarding the entire male homosexual population (many of whom may be celibate or may not engage in risky sexual behaviors such as penetrative intercourse of any sort with other men), but it* is* regarding all folks in the MSM population, whether homosexual or heterosexual.

So while there is certainly some overlap between the homosexual male population and the MSM population, they are nonetheless not identical. Categorical statements regarding the one population may not be completely applicable to the other–though a lazy journalist or someone afflicted momentarily by lazy thinking may say otherwise…

Under the Mercy,
Mark

All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!

You should be the one who should be reading more carefully, Mark.

From the CDC, why and where it uses the term MSM.
For assessing disease risk, the term MSM is often used instead of gay, homosexual, or bisexual because it refers to a risk behavior, rather than an identity that may or may not be tied to a behavior.

From the CDC, stating that
***Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM) of all races and ethnicities remain the population most profoundly affected by HIV.

In 2010, the estimated number of new HIV infections among MSM was 29,800, a significant 12% increase from the 26,700 new infections among MSM in 20082.
Although MSM represent about 4% of the male population in the United States, in 2010, MSM accounted for 78% of new HIV infections among males and 63% of all new infections2. MSM accounted for 52% of all people living with HIV infection in 2009, the most recent year these data are available.***

Also from the CDC, how their staff identified respondents to the study of sexual behavior of Men Who Have Sex With Men.
*Identification of Venues Frequented by MSM

In each city, a team of staff members familiar with the local community conducted formative research to establish a list of venues frequented by MSM (9). To identify possible venues for inclusion in the venue list, the team consulted local publications, online media, members of the local MSM community, business owners, staff members at community-based organizations, key health department staff members, and persons providing medical and social services to MSM. If a venue did not exclusively serve MSM, the team observed and conducted brief interviews at the venue. Brief interviews were used to assess the eligibility of male patrons for NHBS and their sexual history with other men. If the information from these brief interviews indicated that the venue would yield a sufficient number of MSM (i.e., ≥75% of men approached would meet the eligibility criteria and reported sex with other men), the venue was included on the venue list. Clinics and other health-care settings were specifically excluded because of the potential for introducing bias in several key indicators (e.g., HIV testing history and access to health care).

*Venues on the list were categorized as a bar, dance club, fitness club or gymnasium, Gay Pride event, park or beach, large dance party (e.g., rave or circuit party), café or restaurant, retail business, sex establishment or sex environment, social organization, street location, or another venue type, such as an event hosted by the local house ball community.

---

It does not appear that the CDC sent their information gathering team to the prisons. Understandably, I would think, because inmates would not classify as a random sample.
,

 

[lux_in_tenebris_1]

If six people came up to you and said that a table has 4 legs and squeals, you don’t think they would have some obligation to prove it?

Well I guess this shows you that I have a different sense of thinking than you . Assuming that I’ve known the table in that room had none of those qualities, I would say I would prove them wrong. I would go to that table myself flip it over and count the legs aloud and check the joints all in their audience to prove that it does not squeak.

 

[Viewer]

Human beings (and any animal under the sun for that matter) do not have to be married to take a mate for life. If I take your logic, then any couple that chooses to stay with each other for life must be automatically be considered as married.

Where I live in the UK with the co-habitation laws this is correct.

I know couples that are monogamous but do not want to be married. It would seem that marriage deals with a lot more than simply professing who you’re going to be sleeping with for the rest of your life and that it’s genesis is not in monogamy even though it plays a huge role in marriages.

It’s a public profession of devotion and a union of financial assets. On a secular level I fail (as the legal system does) to see why this cannot take place.

Actually you comparing SSM with Martin Luther King’s fight for civil rights is what sounds ridiculous.

Nope, when I teach citizenship classes they are held with equal weight as a battle against discrimination.

Dr. King’s position that people of difference races should not be discriminated against by their government was a clear cut position proven on common sense.

Not to the authorities of the day it wasn’t, feel free to draw parallels to today as many LGBT supporters do.

Marriage on the other hand was never discriminating against homosexuals because marriage was never created for them.

Incorrect, please refer to the Greek “Sacred Band” of Thebes. Gay unions long before the churches time.

 

[LongingSoul]

Originally Posted by Charlemagne III
For consistency’s sake, then, incest marriages and polygamy should also fall outside the realm of faith. Will those also now be honored as civil unions as opposed to religious ones?

Just to clarify… polygamy is the umbrella term for either polygyny (one husband/several wives) and polyandry (one wife/several husbands).

In terms of Church teaching, this from Fr Hardons Catholic dictionary…

Polyandry: The simultaneous marriage of one woman with two or more men. Historically, where the practice existed, it was often accompanied by female infanticide, as a logical counterpart to a marital system in which there was a plurality of potential husbands. Polyandry was never permitted or tolerated either throughout the period of the Old Testament or among the pagan peoples of ancient times, even among those who widely condoned prostitution. (Etym. Greek polyandros, having many husbands.)

So while polygyny was tolerated in less civilised times as a condition that didn’t flout natural law, polyandry flouts natural law by its condition as inherently under creative.

Incest flouts natural law by virtue of the genetic incompatibility of blood relatives and same sex unions, exceeding all the above natural law arguments, are fundamentally barren in every instance of sexual exchange. To the wellbeing of the species, these unions are detrimental and meaningless. Nature rejects them. The species is not enhanced by them but is diminished by them.

 

[Hypnotoad]

Where I live in the UK with the co-habitation laws this is correct.

Wouldn’t they recognize them as civil unions, not as marriages? The two are different.

It’s a public profession of devotion and a union of financial assets. On a secular level I fail (as the legal system does) to see why this cannot take place.

Marriage is actually a public profession to God, to yourself, to your spouse, and also to your neighbors. As Fulton J Sheen said; it takes three to get married.

Nope, when I teach citizenship classes they are held with equal weight as a battle against discrimination.

So what? You follow a poor curriculum, not the first time I’ve heard of this happening in government run facilities.

Not to the authorities of the day it wasn’t, feel free to draw parallels to today as many LGBT supporters do.

Your point? Does one of the laughable parallels claim that they’re being discriminated against over something they are born with?

Incorrect, please refer to the Greek “Sacred Band” of Thebes. Gay unions long before the churches time.

What does that have to do with the price of tea in Thebes?

 

[Rau]

Actually they do, incestual marriages are currently ruled against on the grounds of genetic faults in potential offspring and polygamy on sheer economics (as can currently be observed in certain mormon communities in Utah).

Neither the government nor religion invented taking a mate for life (a.k.a: Marriage). It’s a tad silly when the church claims to have created it and hold absolute control over it in secular eyes.

Indeed, how dare Martin Luther King promote civil rights. He should have learned to accept his lot and bow before his white masters and not have challenged the status quo.

Does your statement sound ridiculous now? It should do.

Also, regarding the sources that couldn’t be checked on google. I ran a few searches through the archives and aside from one which I couldn’t read (Haven’t got a subscription for that database) they’re legit.

I still don’t see a secular argument. As far as the law is concerned homosexuals can have sexual relations (how could a gay man be charged with rape otherwise?), the sex act is now irrelevant to civil marriage and there are no substantiated reasons as to why formally acknowledging a gay partnership is harmful…

Feel free to acknowledge it, but don’t label it marriage.

 

[LongingSoul]

A thing that has to be acknowledged first I believe, is that marriage, even in our promiscuously diverse era, is a condition that affords one a measure of esteem. It seems to make many people feel both lovable and successful to have secured a marriage partner above and beyond a friend of defacto partner. I think it is this aspect, more than any other aspect such as the financial benefits and rights issues, that drives the gay lobby in wanting the right to marry.

We have to ask ourselves then, why does marriage hold this key to esteem among our contemporaries? I believe that it is deeply naturally honourable by virtue of the human instinct to create babies and raise them under the most prime of conditions. I don’t believe that the esteem of the marriage condition arises at all out of the state of being ‘in love’ or the security and social benefits it affords a person… although these are ancilliary functions. From the beginning of time, women have wanted babies and it is only due to the feminist illusion that a career trumps motherhood, that women have begun to ignore that natural instinct and see marriage more as the anciliiary function to love rather than the other way around. Perhaps feminism is the biggest culprit in the misconceptions about marriage that we hold now?

Marriage is like a University doctorate in the sense that to have it, one must meet fundamental conditions since it affords that person the privilege of actually practicing medicine or the law or some other important role in society. Sure sometimes random people are awarded an ‘honourary’ doctorate that affords them some measure of esteem by proxy and opens a few doors, but lets face it, it’s a meaningless piece of paper. An ‘honorary’ doctor can never be a real doctor unless he goes back to basics and qualifies to produce the output that society relies on and expects from their doctors of whatever. Doctors are esteemed by virtue of their creative output… not by their title.

 

[Deo_Volente]

Grace & Peace!

You should be the one who should be reading more carefully, Mark.

From the CDC, why and where it uses the term MSM.

For assessing disease risk, the term MSM is often used instead of gay, homosexual, or bisexual because it refers to a risk behavior, rather than an identity that may or may not be tied to a behavior.

Hello, InSearch. Check out the language you quoted. “The term MSM is often used ***instead of ***gay, homosexual, or bisexual because it refers to a risk behavior, rather than an identity that may or may not be tied to a behavior.”

I just want to make sure you read what you quoted correctly, because what it says supports what I wrote: the MSM population is not interchangeable with the homosexual population.

Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM) of all races and ethnicities remain the population most profoundly affected by HIV.

Here, too, I want to make sure you read what you quoted: “Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM).” Look at that construction. It could just as easily have been written: “Gay men who have sex with men, bisexual men who have sex with men, and other men who do not identify as gay or bisexual but who have sex with men (MSM).” Because that’s precisely what it’s saying.

I don’t understand how simple logic or paying attention to what you read can be a matter of contention or controversy. Not all gay men have sex with men: that’s just reality. Some heterosexual men have sex with men: that’s reality, too. So if we’re going to be talking about a behavior (see your first quotation above), we’ll want to study the population that engages in that behavior (see your second quotation) regardless of how they self-identify (see your first quotation again). How can that be controversial? * It’s just sensible.*

What is not sensible, however, is lazy thinking that refuses to recognize these distinctions because doing so is not directly supportive of the lazy thinker’s politics or polemics.

Also from the CDC, how their staff identified respondents to the study of sexual behavior of Men Who Have Sex With Men.

*Identification of Venues Frequented by MSM

In each city, a team of staff members familiar with the local community conducted formative research to establish a list of venues frequented by MSM (9). To identify possible venues for inclusion in the venue list, the team consulted local publications, online media, members of the local MSM community, business owners, staff members at community-based organizations, key health department staff members, and persons providing medical and social services to MSM. If a venue did not exclusively serve MSM, the team observed and conducted brief interviews at the venue. Brief interviews were used to assess the eligibility of male patrons for NHBS and their sexual history with other men. If the information from these brief interviews indicated that the venue would yield a sufficient number of MSM (i.e., ≥75% of men approached would meet the eligibility criteria and reported sex with other men), the venue was included on the venue list. Clinics and other health-care settings were specifically excluded because of the potential for introducing bias in several key indicators (e.g., HIV testing history and access to health care).

*Venues on the list were categorized as a bar, dance club, fitness club or gymnasium, Gay Pride event, park or beach, large dance party (e.g., rave or circuit party), café or restaurant, retail business, sex establishment or sex environment, social organization, street location, or another venue type, such as an event hosted by the local house ball community.

---

It makes sense that if you’re going to engage in or study a behavior, you’ll want to go to where people who engage in that behavior tend to gather…If the population you’re studying is men who have sex with men, you’ll want to go to places where men (regardless of their orientation) can find each other for sex. Nothing controversial here.

It does not appear that the CDC sent their information gathering team to the prisons. Understandably, I would think, because inmates would not classify as a random sample.
,

No. You’re right, that’s unlikely.

However, think about it for a moment and answer me this–which do you imagine is more likely to be classified as belonging to the population of men who have sex with men: a man in prison who identifies as heterosexual but who has sex with men because his only available sexual partners are, in fact, other men; or a gay man who’s celibate?

I honestly have no idea why you would want to argue over this. Facts are facts. Reality is reality. If you’re a man who has sex with men, then you’re part of the MSM population, regardless of your sexual orientation. If you’re a man who doesn’t have sex with men, then you’re not part of the MSM population. Simple. Very very simple.

Under the Mercy,
Mark

All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!

 

[Viewer]

Wouldn’t they recognize them as civil unions, not as marriages? The two are different.

No, it’s counted as a separate level of commitment and obligation.

Marriage is actually a public profession to God, to yourself, to your spouse, and also to your neighbors. As Fulton J Sheen said; it takes three to get married.

This is Theology, we cannot use any faith-based argument in a secular legal process. The secular process is largely atheistic, we might as well quote the Church of the flying spaghetti monster for all the good a faith based argument will do.

So what? You follow a poor curriculum, not the first time I’ve heard of this happening in government run facilities.

I teach in a Catholic school, one that is by law obliged to follow a national curriculum.

Your point? Does one of the laughable parallels claim that they’re being discriminated against over something they are born with?

Because they are being discriminated against?

What does that have to do with the price of tea in Thebes?

The sacred band was an entire army regiment composed solely of homosexual married partners. Read that last bit, married. Not house sharing, not casual sex partners, married.

 

[Viewer]

Feel free to acknowledge it, but don’t label it marriage.

After March 14th in the UK I have to, less I be subject to legal action for discrimination. I don’t have to attend such ceremonies nor do I have to undertake one, but to deny that it is a marriage will come with consequences.

 

[SuperLuigi]

I know I’m late to the party but to sum this up; you want a secular argument to help defend a sacrament?

I think the point of the thread is finding secular arguments (easily done) against so-called gay “marriage”.

There can be a difference between state recognized marriage and Sacramental marriage.

Just because the state says two people are married doesn’t mean they are in the eyes of God.

 

[SuperLuigi]

After March 14th in the UK I have to, less I be subject to legal action for discrimination. I don’t have to attend such ceremonies nor do I have to undertake one, but to deny that it is a marriage will come with consequences.

If you were a Muslim, you could oppose it over there all you like.

 

[Viewer]

Just because the state says two people are married doesn’t mean they are in the eyes of God.

And this is what so many people seem to miss.

Secular = Atheistic. You might as well quote an imaginary friend for all the authority it will lend you.

Seriously people, I would like to see a secular argument against SSM as much as anyone else here but stop bringing Theology into it, it’s entirely unusable in the field.

 

[Viewer]

If you were a Muslim, you could oppose it over there all you like.

I couldn’t say yet since there is increasing anti-islamic feeling, but I’m not a muslim so that doesn’t bear thinking about.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Well I guess this shows you that I have a different sense of thinking than you . Assuming that I’ve known the table in that room had none of those qualities, I would say I would prove them wrong. I would go to that table myself flip it over and count the legs aloud and check the joints all in their audience to prove that it does not squeak.

Would you be likewise inclined to look at how the anus and the penis are formed, and how the insertion of one into the other was not really intended by nature? Why should you even have to examine the matter or prove it? Common sense, old man!

 

[Charlemagne_III]

And this is what so many people seem to miss.

Secular = Atheistic. You might as well quote an imaginary friend for all the authority it will lend you.

Seriously people, I would like to see a secular argument against SSM as much as anyone else here but stop bringing Theology into it, it’s entirely unusable in the field.

Well then, how about the fact that while sodomy was practiced in ancient Greece, both Plato and Aristotle did not have much to say to commend it. Do you think they were Catholic theologians?

Laws 8.836c-e, in which Plato discusses what laws should regulate sexual conduct. It’s plain that Plato sees a historical decline in morals since the time of Laius.

“Suppose you follow nature’s rule and establish the law that was in force before the time of Laius. You’d argue that one may have sexual intercourse with women but not with men or boys. As evidence for your view, you’d point to the animal world, where (you’d argue) the males do not have sexual relations with each other, because such a thing is unnatural. But in Crete and Sparta your argument would not go down well, and you’d probably persuade nobody. However, another argument is that such practices are incompatible with what in our view should be the constant aim of the legislator - that is, we’re always asking, ‘which of our regulations encourages virtue, and which does not?’ Now then, suppose in the present case we agreed to pass a law that such practices are desirable, or not at all undesirable - what contribution would they make to virtue? Will the spirit of courage spring to life in the soul of the seduced person? Will the soul of the seducer learn habits of self-control? No one is going to be led astray by that sort of argument - quite the contrary. Everyone will censure the weakling who yields to temptation, and condemn his all-too-effeminate partner who plays the role of the woman. So who on earth will pass a law like that? Hardly anyone, at any rate if he knows what a genuine law really is.”

Plato, Laws [636c] “And whether one makes the observation in earnest or in jest, one certainly should not fail to observe that when male unites with female for procreation the pleasure experienced is held to be due to nature, but contrary to nature when male mates with male or female with female, and that those first guilty of such enormities were impelled by their slavery to pleasure.”

Aristotle
*Nichomacean Ethics *Book 7, Section 5:
“Some things are not naturally pleasant, but can become so through injury, habit or congenital depravity. And for each unnatural pleasure there is an abnormal state of character. There is the brutish character, as in those tribes around the Black Sea who eat human flesh. Also, morbid states, like nail-biting or homosexuality … may have been acquired by habit, for instance if someone has been sexually misused as a child.”

 

[LongingSoul]

And this is what so many people seem to miss.

Secular = Atheistic. You might as well quote an imaginary friend for all the authority it will lend you.

Seriously people, I would like to see a secular argument against SSM as much as anyone else here but stop bringing Theology into it, it’s entirely unusable in the field.

I’d be interested to know what facility you got your Phd in Theology from. This is so untrue on so many levels.

Natural law is known to people through the light of human reason. Being that Thomas Aquinas says that divine law presupposes natural law, the divine law could never overturn natural law. It gives it greater meaning. It’s far easier to understand at a purely human level that nature doesn’t support intercourse between two males or two females. The mechanics simply don’t work.

 

[SuperLuigi]

Seriously people, I would like to see a secular argument against SSM as much as anyone else here but stop bringing Theology into it, it’s entirely unusable in the field.

I’m just annoyed that even though we’re “losing” on the marriage issue in many places, people still insist on only quoting Scripture.

It’s absurd, because Catholicism is also rooted in natural law.