Good strictly secular argument against same sex marriage

[polytropos]

Here is an argument against the infertility argument for same-sex marriage.

 

[lux_in_tenebris_1]

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!

Actually believe it or not, yes! I am in medical school so I have to do those things every day in anatomy lab, in clinic and in the ER. That include looking up the anal canal, feeling around for foreign bodies and confronting people with my findings. We had this one lady with persistent UTI, denied everything but ending up finding a water bottle cap up there. If I had just written it off as UTI without probing her, she could have died of sepsis later. I have been trained to prove things by examination and dissection. People are all sorts weird things mon frere

 

[Rau]

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.

Should the matter now be resolved in the UK, so be it. But the only compulsion on the State to decide such was that the majority of UK citizens required it. C’est la vie.

 

[Rau]

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.

Nicely put. Note also that the State elects to give recognition to marriage unions not because love is sweet and cute, but because of the societal significance of heterosexual unions. Homosexual unions don’t have such significance. So the gay lobby has argued for a completely new reason to acknowledge unions, whilst retaining the same name for the institution. Quit impressive social engineering!

 

[Stephen168]

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. 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.
Viewer;11603169:

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.

War is not necessarily murder. Murder is always murder and your answers were:

My personal opinions come from church teaching, however the law of the land also defines murder as a grave crime.

I would say it is evil because it is, it causes destruction and despair. I think that because it does and not because anyone tells me it is so.

So you just ‘feel’ that murder is bad or God (the Church) told you so, which is the same thing you said about Catholics who don’t believe same sex unions are marriage.

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.
Viewer;11603169:

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.

No it is correct; the Catholic Church teaches that murder is evil because it is not just. The secular world believes in justice. That is why the secular world supports punishing murderers. Your response is a knee jerk statement that makes no sense. My point is you claim things are invented by the Catholic Church therefore religious (not secular) so you can dismissed them out of hand. “Out of hand” means to dismiss without thinking about it. When they are actually human ideas and rational which is why governments have adopted them.

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.
Viewer;11603169:

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.

So we agree. While the Catholic Church did not invent the idea that murder is evil, it teaches that it is.

As a matter of justice children have a human right to be feed and taken care of by their parents.
Viewer;11603169:

Shall we euthanize all of the orphans then?

No, you might want to because you don’t have any reason for murder being evil, but the secular society believes in justice. And justice requires that children have the right to be feed and taken care of by their parents. If a child loses a parent, they don’t lose their right. Their rights have been violated.

The Catholic Church shares this view. Many governments have also adopted this -]religious/-] virtuous idea and have created laws against child abandonment and abuse.
Viewer;11603169:

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.

No, it is correct. The Catholic Church, like the Code of Hammurabi, and other governments believe justice requires that children should be taken care of by their biological parents. We do seem to agree that the Catholic Church did not invent this

Of course if 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.
Viewer;11603169:

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

No, it is relevant in that as you pointed out, You can’t just dismiss ideas because the church teaches it.

 

[Stephen168]

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.
Viewer;11603169:

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

It is relevant in that it is a fact; only heterosexual behavior can create children and this fact was not invented by the Catholic Church. Taking children away from their parents is not just; because they have a right to their parents.

I would also suggest that children have a right to their parents as a matter of justice; not invented by the Catholic Church.
Viewer;11603169:

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

But the secular world believes in justice and the Catholic Church agrees with the secular world. Children have a right to their parents.

Marriage satisfies this critical human condition.
Viewer;11603169:

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.

Children born out of wedlock is unjust to the children. Children not raised by both their parents do not turn out as well as they could. As a society we want the best for children because it is just. I hope keeping a child alive until it can keep itself alive isn’t the goal in the UK. It isn’t in the USA.

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.
Viewer;11603169:

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…

We are not talking about the Church remember. Again, the purpose of marriage is to create, nourish, and educate the next generation. It is biological and it is just. Same sex unions are not marriage.

Yes, in secular eyes humans are animals, so are you saying that homosexual behavior/] in animals does not create and raise offspring?

No, it does not.

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.

No, we did establish it, so you are not being honest. I’m not too keen on conversing with people who have to resort to dishonesty, but it does give me confidence in my argument when someone has to resort to that.

 

[Stephen168]

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.

No, I don’t think you do want to see a secular argument. I can understand how it would have to be explained to someone when socialist governments have replaced fatherhood in the role of raising children, and technology has replaced the role of fatherhood in creating children, but once explained to someone who really wanted to understand, they would understand. But when someone agrees with a point and then denies it later, that person doesn’t what to understand.

 

[Stephen168]

Actually believe it or not, yes! I am in medical school so I have to do those things every day in anatomy lab, in clinic and in the ER. That include looking up the anal canal, feeling around for foreign bodies and confronting people with my findings. We had this one lady with persistent UTI, denied everything but ending up finding a water bottle cap up there. If I had just written it off as UTI without probing her, she could have died of sepsis later. I have been trained to prove things by examination and dissection. People are all sorts weird things mon frere

But do you know where babies come from?

 

[Stephen168]

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.

And then they show you a pig

 

[GraceSofia]

I reckon at some point in time somebody already whacked the head over the dead horse on this topic but this is something I don’t really have a good answer to.

I work in a pretty scientific environment and I have to debate with people who have no bearing in faith. I usually have no problem getting the upper hand on occasion with debates on abortion. You can argue on developmental milestones, DNA, and appealing to a solid base of morality that most people have. Even the most militant atheist will admit that there is something fundamentally wrong with punching a pregnant woman in the stomach.

But gay marriage is a whole different animal, and outside of arguments that reference a divine creator and scripture, I haven’t found any argument that could hold much water scientifically and even ethically that sounded convincing enough to support a governmental ban on gay marriage. Any thoughts?

I’m coming to this thread late… and don’t want to read through all these several pages, so forgive me if these resources have already been given.

The French have a huge movement against homosexual marriage, and it is embraced by secularists as well as religious people. You may find their secular reasoning of help:

The Heart of the Matter (The web site has English plus four other languages).

In addition, these discuss the issue:

Marriage: What It Is, Why It Matters, and the Consequences of Redefining It

The Marriage Debate: The conjugal view of marriage leaves us just as free for companionship

THIS is a pdf that is long but worth reading.
harvard-jlpp.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/GeorgeFinal.pdf

 

[InSearchofGrace]

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.

…

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.*

Facts are facts, indeed. However, you seem to be reading the same paragraphs that I am reading with a different angle or focus. The CDC did not mention male prostitutes, male sex workers performing homosexual sex, and men in prison, but you deemed it necessary to put such categories in the front of your list, followed by heterosexuals experimenting in homosexuality, with sexually active gay men, as last. Your list, verbatim, of MSM was:

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.

Of course, homosexuals who are celibate or not having sex with other men are excluded from the study, as if that is not clear. Those that do are known to engage in risky behavior, i.e., unprotected anal sex.

The CDC report has a portion that says
Unprotected anal intercourse with a male partner was reported by 54% of the participants; 37% reported having unprotected anal sex with a main male partner (someone with whom the participant had sex and to whom he felt most committed, such as a boyfriend, spouse, significant other, or life partner), and 25% reported having unprotected anal sex with a casual male partner (someone with whom the participant had sex but with whom he did not feel committed, did not know very well, or had sex with in exchange for something such as money or drugs).
Note that active homosexuals with a main male partner (which does not necessarily mean the partner is faithful) has a higher percentage of participants, with those with casual partners comprising a lower percentage.

The male prostitutes or male sex workers performing homosexual sex, which you mentioned, would just be a part therefore of the second lesser category.

It seems that you wish to emphasize the point that not all homosexuals act out their inclination or are having sex with other men. Or perhaps that partnered homosexuals are mostly monogamous. This may be the important message you take away from the CDC report. The important message for readers is, I think, what the quoted paragraphs say. In short, there are many active gays among MSM who engage in risky homosexual behavior; hence, it is the population that remains to be infected most of all by HIV.

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

The point is the CDC did not get participants from prisons as the stats would have an over representation of a certain category of people engaging in homosexual acts. The big criticism of the Kinsey study on homosexuality principally revolved around the over-representation of prison inmates and male prostitutes in his sample.

In close, I will respond to a part of what you posted. It seems to be a re-phrase of the end of your post [165] to Charlemagne, as below

…
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…

To me, as below

…
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. …

Oh, my. Lazy thinking and lazy thinkers, eh? Rather, what I would say is that the thinking is simply not ignoring the cold fact as reported by the CDC.

What is not sensible is when single track thinking so protective of homosexual proclivity that it dilutes this fact: active gay men more than other MSM also engaging in risky homosexual sex, remain to be the most affected by HIV.

It’s simple. Really.
,

 

[Stephen168]

The Secular Case Against Gay Marriage

What is Marriage?

Homosexual “Marriage” and Civilization

Dr. Morse’s testimony to MN Senate Judiciary

A Secular Case Against Gay Marriage?

Check Your Blind Spot: What Is Marriage?

77 non-religious reasons to support man/woman marriage

Marriage = Biology (Not Bigotry)

Excellent reading for anyone who wants a secular argument for marriage. I had read “What is Marriage?” before, and the others were great.

My favorite ideas for the reading:
Proponents of same sex marriage are more against something than for something
Fatherhood is reduced to a check-off box
If children were produced asexually and could survive on their own, there would be no such thing as marriage; yet every society, in all time, has marriage between men and women.

 

[JimG]

I’m coming to this thread late… and don’t want to read through all these several pages, so forgive me if these resources have already been given.

The French have a huge movement against homosexual marriage, and it is embraced by secularists as well as religious people. You may find their secular reasoning of help:

The Heart of the Matter (The web site has English plus four other languages).

In addition, these discuss the issue:

Marriage: What It Is, Why It Matters, and the Consequences of Redefining It

The Marriage Debate: The conjugal view of marriage leaves us just as free for companionship

THIS is a pdf that is long but worth reading.
harvard-jlpp.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/GeorgeFinal.pdf

These are excellent resources; thank you. Interesting that in France the opposition to same sex marriage includes secularists. This is not just a matter of concern to the religiously inclined. It concerns the entire society, because family structure is at stake.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Clearly, marriage was instituted to protect children produced by members of the opposite sex. It was instituted not only to protect children, but also to protect the woman from being thrown upon her own exclusive resources to survive and rear her children. And marriage was instituted to protect men (if faithfully engaged in) from the adulterous urges of other men upon their wives, as well as women from adulterous urges of other women upon their husbands. The ring says it all, being a symbol of eternal devotion. “I belong to her. She belongs to me. Our children belong to us.”

Only over the last generation or two in the West have perverse men and women sought to adopt the institution as their own. This shows nothing else but the moral decline of the West into a sewer of sexual promiscuity (particularly with older men sexually exploiting younger men) unparalleled since the days of degenerate Rome. What is most dismaying is that some Catholics willfully defend this decline into degeneracy and demand a secular reason why it should be opposed, because they cannot think up one reason of their own with their own God-given common sense.

 

[Deo_Volente]

Grace & Peace!

First, let me clarify that I am *not *arguing with the CDC’s findings regarding the susceptibility to HIV infection among the MSM population which, I have been clear, includes men who identify as homosexual and who have homosexual sex.

What I am arguing against is the idea that the MSM population is co-terminus with the homosexual population and that anything said of the one is applicable to the other. It seems you think I’m arguing something I’m not. That’s not surprising. It’s happened before.

The CDC did not mention male prostitutes, male sex workers performing homosexual sex, and men in prison, but you deemed it necessary to put such categories in the front of your list, followed by heterosexuals experimenting in homosexuality, with sexually active gay men, as last.

You’re not thinking, InSearch. If I have a category called “men who knit,” the folks I will place in that category are men who knit. It doesn’t matter if they don’t like knitting. It doesn’t matter if they haven’t spun their own wool. It doesn’t matter if they can’t talk about knitting to their families, or if they don’t like wearing knit jumpers. If they’re men and they knit, they’re in the category. Men who spin wool but don’t knit? Not in the category. Men who like knit things or may think they might enjoy knitting but who do not knit? Not in the category.

Are you arguing that a male prostitute who has sex with men or a man who identifies as heterosexual but who nonetheless has sex with men are somehow not men who have sex with men? Because that’s the impression I’m getting. If the order of my list of examples of men who have sex with men is what’s stopping you from realizing that not all men who have sex with men are sexually active self-identified homosexuals, then feel free to re-arrange the order of the list–I gave no indication that the list order was indicative of the relative size of those groups within the MSM population. I just made a list, InSearch.

Of course, homosexuals who are celibate or not having sex with other men are excluded from the study, as if that is not clear.

Of course that’s clear. It’s abundantly clear. So what are you arguing about?

Those that do are known to engage in risky behavior, i.e., unprotected anal sex.

Some, yes, but not all. I have known a number of homosexual men who would be classified as sexually active MSM but who were not interested in (or actively disliked) penetrative sex and who would not engage in it.

There’s a lot of black and white thinking going on here. That’s problematic. Back to the point I’m making: just because someone is homosexual doesn’t mean they’re part of the MSM population or vice versa. And if someone is in both populations, it doesn’t mean their sexual behaviors suddenly or automatically conform to a given standard of risk, simply because they’re in both populations and regardless of the actual risk involved in their behavior.

The logic of Charlemagne III’s comment to which I originally responded proceeded thus: here is an article that shows that men who have sex with men are much more susceptible to HIV infection; that shows that sodomy is at the heart of all relationships that homosexuals have, and it proves, moreover, that same-sex marriage is just about sodomy. Are you honestly having trouble seeing the flaws in that logic?

The CDC report has a portion that says
Unprotected anal intercourse with a male partner was reported by 54% of the participants; 37% reported having unprotected anal sex with a main male partner (someone with whom the participant had sex and to whom he felt most committed, such as a boyfriend, spouse, significant other, or life partner), and 25% reported having unprotected anal sex with a casual male partner (someone with whom the participant had sex but with whom he did not feel committed, did not know very well, or had sex with in exchange for something such as money or drugs).
Note that active homosexuals with a main male partner (which does not necessarily mean the partner is faithful) has a higher percentage of participants, with those with casual partners comprising a lower percentage.

Note that the CDC does not identify those men as homosexual. Chances are most of them would, in fact, identify as homosexuals (particularly given how they described their “main male partner”), but that’s not the CDC’s point. I’m thinking now of the community of men who are “on the down low,” most of whom would identify as straight, have girlfriends, etc., but who may also have a secret boyfriend or significant other to whom they go for homosexual sex. Also, “main male partner” does not say anything about the fidelity of either of the partners involved.

At any rate, the takeaway is not: having a main male partner is more dangerous than having casual sex. The takeaway is this: having a “main male partner” can lead to a situation of trust or familiarity in which the usual precautions (such as condoms) are done away with–a feeling that you are safe engaging in risky behaviors. Doing away with those precautions is not statistically advisable. I.e., it’s not because you have a main male partner that you’re at risk, it’s because you’re engaging in risky behavior (unprotected sex) that you’re at risk.

[CONTINUED…]

 

[Deo_Volente]

…CONTINUED AND COMPLETED…]

The male prostitutes or male sex workers performing homosexual sex, which you mentioned, would just be a part therefore of the second lesser category.

For the most part, yes (and let’s not forget the heterosexual experimenters, the down low folks, or the homosexuals looking for quick sex who are all part of this group too). But I imagine there’s some overlap with the first category as well. There’s no way to definitively tell, given the data. I mean, surely you realize that sex workers (and guys on the down low, and homosexuals looking for quick sex and confused heterosexuals) are also capable of having “main partners”?

At any rate, the statistics show that the people in the second group are generally more cautious than those in the first, but still not as cautious as they should be.

What, though, is your point here?

It seems that you wish to emphasize the point that not all homosexuals act out their inclination or are having sex with other men. Or perhaps that partnered homosexuals are mostly monogamous. This may be the important message you take away from the CDC report. The important message for readers is, I think, what the quoted paragraphs say. In short, there are many active gays among MSM who engage in risky homosexual behavior; hence, it is the population that remains to be infected most of all by HIV.

No–my point is this: the homosexual population is not co-terminus with the MSM population, and it is inaccurate to assert that things predicated of the one population can, in an identical way, be predicated of the other.

Now, again, I don’t argue with the CDC’s findings. Nor would I argue with the assertion that sexually active homosexual men are at a greater risk for HIV infection as that particular group of homosexual men most likely comprises the greater number of people who fall within the MSM population.

But let’s be accurate: the CDC’s findings regard the MSM population. Yes, it is highly likely that sexually “active gay men” make up the lion’s share of the MSM population. But the degree of risk that homosexuals have compared to the rest of the MSM population is not part of the CDC’s analysis in what you quoted. The CDC doesn’t care about identity. It cares about behavior. Whatever you call yourself, if you’re a man who has sex with men, you’re at a certain level of risk for contracting HIV depending on your sexual behavior. Various factors may exacerbate that risk. In the end, if you’re going to continue to have sex with men, you would do well not to have unprotected sex: that’s the CDC’s actual message.

The point is the CDC did not get participants from prisons as the stats would have an over representation of a certain category of people engaging in homosexual acts. The big criticism of the Kinsey study on homosexuality principally revolved around the over-representation of prison inmates and male prostitutes in his sample.

That’s fine. You didn’t answer the question, though…

What is not sensible is when single track thinking so protective of homosexual proclivity that it dilutes this fact: active gay men more than other MSM also engaging in risky homosexual sex, remain to be the most affected by HIV.

It’s simple. Really.
,

Are you suggesting that I’ve been “protective of homosexuali proclivity” in this thread? Would you mind providing evidence that I’ve been “protective of homosexual proclivity” in this thread?

Perhaps this needs to be repeated: I take no issue with the CDC, it’s methods, or its findings. What I take issue with is claiming in one way or another that somehow the terms “MSM” and “homosexual” are interchangeable. Moreover, I take issue with eisegetical assertions regarding the CDC’s findings, such as those that inappropriately insert identity markers that the CDC specifically avoids. Such eisegetical assertions inevitably suggest that the CDC is not dealing with a behavior (men having sex with men), but is instead dealing with a population of people that identify in a certain way (men who identify as homosexual). Why is such an assertion problematic, even if (as in this case) the CDC’s findings are, or should be, of some importance to the folks who participate in the behavior studied and who identify themselves in a certain way? Because such assertions subtly suggests that the risk factors the CDC identifies are greater in the identity population (homosexual) because they are that identity, and not because some of them engage in risky sexual behaviors.

In other words, these eisegetical assertions suggest that homosexual people are reckless vectors of disease by virtue of their homosexuality, as if the study is saying: if a homosexual man has sex with another man, he is at greater risk of contracting disease because he’s same-sex attracted; homosexuals attract disease by virtue of their experience of same-sex attraction–they are miasmas of pestilence. It’s an old old old idea that’s lurking in the background of many conversations on homosexuality, whether on these forums (as in this thread) or in the public at large. And it’s precisely the sort of thing the CDC is trying to avoid when it ignores how people in the MSM community identify themselves.

Under the Mercy,
Mark

All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!

 

[HelenRose]

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?

Where is the line to be drawn by society for all this immoral madness? Nowhere?

I agree. There is no secular arguments against polygamy, marriages between related consenting adults, brother to brother marriages or sister to sister marriages. If so what are they?

 

[JButky]

The secular argument in favor of Gay “marriage” is grossly in error, but no one challenges it.

The challenge created fell under equal protection, equality, under the law. But in reality, there is no applying a right equally. Where the argument fails is in that they are seeking something the government can not inherently give… a NEW right.

Civil unions were created as a means to extend civil benefits of legitimate marriage and dealing with issues related its benefits (or failures) to everyone. Technically, it could follow that anyone equally under the law can transmit their benefits/ consequences in a similar legal fashion, Common law marriage, significant serial fornicating others, etc, use your imagination.

As far as marriage equality is concerned, homosexuals are already equal in the eyes of the law in that THEY SHARE THE EXACT SAME RIGHT AS ANY OTHER PERSON. That right is that a man can marry a woman, or a woman can marry a man and yes, that is the exact same right given to homosexuals. Marriage is not a right of choice to marry who or what you want. It is the right to marry or not marry, and if you do marry, then your rights are EQUAL to everyone else in marrying one of the opposite sex.

Instead, what the Homosexual community seeks is a brand NEW right created by government. They want to “marry” a same sex, and even though that is strictly oxymoronic, they incorrectly claim that it is an unequal form and discriminatory. It is simply a desire to create a right that does not exist of which the government has no power to authorize as the constitution recognizes that it does not “create” rights.

In mathematical terms, everyone understands that 1+1=2. What the homosexual crowd is attempting is to say that 1+1=3 (or anything but 2) and they want us to understand the absurdity that both equations are exactly equal. Because they are inherently different, secular authority provided civil unions to legally dispense with benefits or problems that should arise from such a venture. And these are somewhat more limited as the inherent form of a civil union and a marriage are not inherently equal. (despite that the homosexual community simply wants them to be equal through some bizarre form of logic )

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I agree. There is no secular arguments against polygamy, marriages between related consenting adults, brother to brother marriages or sister to sister marriages. If so what are they?

There is absolutely no secular argument against polygamy that I have ever heard.

The secularists might argue that incestuous marriages should not be approved because of damage to the health of the offspring. But then following that logic it seems that sodomy has produced enough health damage among homosexuals (AIDS and rectal tearing, etc.) to be an adequate secular argument against same-sex marriage.

Society knows it cannot stop what goes on the bedroom. However, it also knows that it does not have to encourage or honor or license suicidal behavior. Sodomy (which is the only kind of sex for same-sex couples) because it is unnatural is playing Russian roulette with one’s body and one’s life. No sane society should think of that as a right embedded in the Constitution or one that society ought to create to encourage and ratify abnormal behavior.

 

[LongingSoul]

The secular argument in favor of Gay “marriage” is grossly in error, but no one challenges it.

The challenge created fell under equal protection, equality, under the law. But in reality, there is no applying a right equally. Where the argument fails is in that they are seeking something the government can not inherently give… a NEW right.

Civil unions were created as a means to extend civil benefits of legitimate marriage and dealing with issues related its benefits (or failures) to everyone. Technically, it could follow that anyone equally under the law can transmit their benefits/ consequences in a similar legal fashion, Common law marriage, significant serial fornicating others, etc, use your imagination.

As far as marriage equality is concerned, homosexuals are already equal in the eyes of the law in that THEY SHARE THE EXACT SAME RIGHT AS ANY OTHER PERSON. That right is that a man can marry a woman, or a woman can marry a man and yes, that is the exact same right given to homosexuals. Marriage is not a right of choice to marry who or what you want. It is the right to marry or not marry, and if you do marry, then your rights are EQUAL to everyone else in marrying one of the opposite sex.

Instead, what the Homosexual community seeks is a brand NEW right created by government. They want to “marry” a same sex, and even though that is strictly oxymoronic, they incorrectly claim that it is an unequal form and discriminatory. It is simply a desire to create a right that does not exist of which the government has no power to authorize as the constitution recognizes that it does not “create” rights.

In mathematical terms, everyone understands that 1+1=2. What the homosexual crowd is attempting is to say that 1+1=3 (or anything but 2) and they want us to understand the absurdity that both equations are exactly equal. Because they are inherently different, secular authority provided civil unions to legally dispense with benefits or problems that should arise from such a venture. And these are somewhat more limited as the inherent form of a civil union and a marriage are not inherently equal. (despite that the homosexual community simply wants them to be equal through some bizarre form of logic )

That’s a really good point that is hidden in plain sight, JButky. I might challenge the law that defines male and female right at the beginning. From now on I want to be known as a male because males get to grow lovely long beards and urinate standing up! Why shouldn’t I have the right to those lovely privileges! From here on forth, I demand the right to be called Mr. and I want it recorded on my birth certificate too!