Stephen168
New member
I don’t think it is true, and it has nothing to do with post #179.
Good strictly secular argument against same sex marriage
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GraceSofia
Guest
One anecdote isn’t the basis of statistics.
“By an avowed anti-gay organization?” It’s not just one study.
I’d be wary of thinking you can win arguments by labeling something hookum[sic] and conjecture. I’m sure that intimidates high school kids, but not adults.
Anyone with google will find lots of evidence that homosexuality is associated with a shorter lifespan and health problems.Here is an article by researchers who got a lot of grief for their findings from the homosexual lobby. They certainly weren’t funded by an “anti-gay organization.”
ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/6/1499.full
Does homosexual activity shorten life?
Vanderbilt School of Medicine can hardly be considered a bastion of anti-gayness.
Key Health Concerns for Gay Men
Medical associations have said that homosexual acts are connected with health risks. I mean, come on, AIDS and HIV tell you this. You don’t really need studies.
This thread is about secular arguments against homosexual marriage not homosexual acts, but health concerns and healthcare costs of promoting homosexual activity should be a concern for society.
As I said, it’s odd that the government makes laws to limit smoking because it shortens the lifespan 7 years, but some governments are promoting homosexuality in spite of it shortening the lifespan 24 years. Think about that. Think about what’s at work when political correctness trumps common sense.
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Rau
Guest
Grace, is there a medical downside associated with female homosexual relations?
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
It would be the sodomites who salivate and drool over a description of anal sex.So why are you interrupting this thread to salivate and drool over a gratuitously detailed anatomical description of anal sex?
Your logic is getting really strange. I will not be reading any more of your posts.
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GEddie
Guest
Because gay behavior only affects the bodies involved, while smoking affects every breathing body around. No mystery there.True.
It’s odd that the government makes laws to limit smoking because it shortens the lifespan 7 years, but some governments are promoting homosexuality in spite of it shortening the lifespan 24 years.
There is no “secondhand gay” effect, even theoretically.
ICXC NIKA.
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DrTaffy
Guest
That, to be clear, is your conclusion, not mine. I am not implying anything about your sexuality.
Suit yourself. But I only asked questions, I don’t see that I presented any logical arguments?
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Deo_Volente
Guest
Grace & Peace!
You may, however, be interested to know that a recent study in Denmark (which has had same sex marriage since 1989), has shown that men in same-sex marriages have lower mortality rates than men who are either single or divorced (see livescience.com/27796-same-sex-marriage-mortality-rates.html). It looks as if the health benefits of marriage that have been noticed in heterosexual married couples can also be observed in homosexual married couples.
Under the Mercy,
Mark
All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!
You are misreading some studies if you believe that any study has shown that being same-sex attracted (i.e., being a homosexual) shortens life expectancy by as much as 24 years. For instance, the team behind a study of “gay and bisexual life expectancy in Vancouver in the late 1980s and early 1990s” issued a 2001 statement in the International Journal of Epidemiology expressing how alarmed they were that individuals and groups (like the Family Research Council) were mis-reading and mis-applying their study to suggest things about homosexual mortality and “lifestyle” that were not actually consistent with the study or its methodology (see ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/6/1499.full). You will also note that the 1994 Paul Cameron study (“The Lifespan of Homosexuals”) for the Family Research Institute as been soundly debunked on account of its ludicrous methodology (i.e., studying newspaper obituaries).It’s odd that the government makes laws to limit smoking because it shortens the lifespan 7 years, but some governments are promoting homosexuality in spite of it shortening the lifespan 24 years.
You may, however, be interested to know that a recent study in Denmark (which has had same sex marriage since 1989), has shown that men in same-sex marriages have lower mortality rates than men who are either single or divorced (see livescience.com/27796-same-sex-marriage-mortality-rates.html). It looks as if the health benefits of marriage that have been noticed in heterosexual married couples can also be observed in homosexual married couples.
Under the Mercy,
Mark
All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!
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GraceSofia
Guest
Good point about the second-hand smoke. And also there are a lot more smokers. In some countries, adult male smokers are 40, 50% of the population.
Still, with all the evidence that leading the homosexual lifestyle is a health risk, governments should not be promoting it. The health care costs for AIDS and HIV are astronomical.
That’s the same link I gave before. “In our paper, we demonstrated that in a major Canadian centre, life expectancy at age 20 years for gay and bisexual men is 8 to 21 years less than for all men.” They didn’t say their research was wrong; they said they didn’t like how the information was used. And yes, I see that people are living longer with HIV now.
But only if you eliminate the first few years of marriage for male homosexuals.
And *
r than opposite-sex women in Denmark," he said. Their mortality rates may even be increasing, he added.*
Here’s more on the Danish study: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2636618/
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DrTaffy
Guest
So if same sex marriage reduces HIV and other causes of death in SS couples, isn’t it a good thing? At least from the secular utilitarian point of view?
In other words promoting same sex marriage would not be promoting the harmful aspects of ‘the homosexual lifestyle’ but rather trying to reform teh lifestyle to eliminate or reduce those harmful aspects.
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Rau
Guest
Were SSM a non-sexual contract, maybe so. I posed the proposition earlier that such relationships ought not be sexual.
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=11612885&postcount=230
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davidv
Guest
Doing evil with the intention of doing good is immoral. Not only that, the intended good cannot outweigh the negative effects of the evil perpetrated. Your conclusion is not warranted as it is based on false premises.
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GraceSofia
Guest
The lower death rates from AIDS/HIV are attributed to the new antiviral medicines not to homosexual marriage.
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GraceSofia
Guest
Back to secular arguments against homosexual marriage…
I am starting to lose track of what we’ve covered
but here is a short paper by the Iona Institute in Ireland, concentrating on the benefits to children.
Part I Made for children: Why marriage has special status
Part II The evidence for marriage: in this section we take quotes from a number of studies and publications testifying to the benefits of marriage for children.
I am starting to lose track of what we’ve covered
but here is a short paper by the Iona Institute in Ireland, concentrating on the benefits to children.Part I Made for children: Why marriage has special status
Part II The evidence for marriage: in this section we take quotes from a number of studies and publications testifying to the benefits of marriage for children.
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BOProof
Guest
So you consider allowing same-sex couples to marry to be a greater evil than HIV!
It seems rather extreme to prefer that a same-sex couple be barred from marrying and with HIV rather than permitted to marry and HIV free.
Stephen168
New member
When you say ‘against,’ do you mean against the legalization of same sex marriage or do you mean against the existence of same sex marriage?
The reason I ask is because if you believe same sex marriage can exist than banning people from it is harder to justify. Claiming that it doesn’t exist, I find easier to understand.
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Rau
Guest
Every person has the identical right to civil marriage. The State chooses to recognise opposite sex unions (via marriage) because of their unique, society-building potential. Same sex unions have no such potential and thus don’t meet the conditions for recognition.
It is wrong-thinking to talk in terms of “barring”. The SS union does not offer the potential that civil marriage seeks to recognise.
To argue for SSM is to argue that the State should be recognising, not the society-building potential, but something different, and by calling same sex unions “marriage” one argues that same sex unions offer society the same benefits and potential as opposite sex unions - which is plainly not the case.
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DrTaffy
Guest
You seem to be confusing two issues here. The advent of HAART did indeed reduce mortality among gay men, and came along during the period covered by this study, so the researchers had to take account of that.
But that is seperate from the main finding being reported in this study that the mortality in same sex couples reduced the longer they had been married. So the simplest conclusion (and they do caution against taking too naive a view of this) would be that same sex marriage resulted in a reduction in the risky behaviour (promiscuity, drink, drugs, stress from discrimination) at the root of this higher mortality of gay men.
Which can only be a good thing, surely?
LeafByNiggle
Well-known member
There are several ways in which this issue is more complex than you intimate. First, the choices are presented as a dichotomy: allow same sex marriage and reduce promiscuity or disallow gay marriage and accept increased promiscuity. This dichotomy ignores other possibilities, such as convincing people that promiscuity is bad for them. Without this dichotomy, the conclusion is not valid.
Secondly, the analysis in your argument only considers the effect on the gay couples who might get married. It ignores the effect on the rest of society. Among other things, it is entirely possible that societal acceptance and endorsement of gay sex (which gay marriage does implicitly endorse) might encourage more young people who are still forming their value systems to experiment with gay sex. You might actually get more risky behavior, not less, by endorsing gay sex.
For both of these reasons, one cannot say for certain that the overall benefit to people would be positive by this change.
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BOProof
Guest
But you think that persons should be barred from civil marriage when the person they want to marry is of the same sex.
What “unique, society-building potential” that is essential to marriage do opposite-sex marriages have that same-sex marriages do not? Certainly it isn’t the ability to generate new children, since people too old to have children are permitted to enter a civil marriage.
That is exactly what passing legislation banning civil same-sex marriage does; It bars those couples from civil marriage. If that’s what you advocate, then you should own up to the fact that that is what you advocate.
…that no sufficiently good reason has been presented to bar same-sex couples what the state offers to opposite-sex couples.
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Rau
Guest
You have this around the wrong way. Civil Marriage is not a pre-existing idea. Unions of people are the pre-existing idea, and civil marriage is a recognition of the special merit of opposite sex unions - their society building potential.
Marriage has always and everywhere been established as a recognition of opposite sex unions. Legislation is not pursued to arbitrarily “ban” anything, though in some countries, it may be the case that the prior marriage legislation was insufficiently clear as to intent, and so is to be made clear. In other countries, the intent is explicitly expressed in the legislation, and so some seek legislation to broaden the scope to include same sex unions.
States (with the support of the majority of people) choose to offer recognition of opposite sex unions, for the reason I’ve given, by way of civil marriage. If the people wish to change what is being recognised, and hence the criteria for civil marriage, that is their democratic right. But there is no basis for an arbitrary same sex couple to “demand” that they have some right now.
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