Good strictly secular argument against same sex marriage

[Peter_Plato]

Why should the capacity to engage in vaginal sex (as opposed to other kinds of sexual activities) after childbearing is no longer possible be a reason for the government to grant or deny civil marriage?

NOTE: Actually having vaginal sex is not a requirement for civil marriage. It’s perfectly legal to marry but never have any sex (like Joseph and Mary).

Why should any kind of sex be a requirement, then? Why not two brothers, two sisters, a father and son, mother and daughter, fishing buddies, platonic friends, etc. etc., Why not toss the entire institution?

The thing is there are very human, very biological reasons for what has always and consistently been referred to as “marriage.” The fact that infertile coupleship has been loosely called marriage does not mean the defining walls should “come tumbling down.”

There is just cause for calling the union of a man and a woman a marriage as distinct from other relationships. There is no good reason for ending that convention regardless of what “gay” individuals think.

Any definition of marriage that includes gay partnerships fails to exclude a large number of other relationships except on arbitrary grounds. Which is a very strong argument for NOT changing the definition.

 

[JimG]

Why should any kind of sex be a requirement, then? Why not two brothers, two sisters, a father and son, mother and daughter, fishing buddies, platonic friends, etc. etc., Why not toss the entire institution?

The thing is there are very human, very biological reasons for what has always and consistently been referred to as “marriage.” The fact that infertile coupleship has been loosely called marriage does not mean the defining walls should “come tumbling down.”

There is just cause for calling the union of a man and a woman a marriage as distinct from other relationships. There is no good reason for ending that convention regardless of what “gay” individuals think.

Any definition of marriage that includes gay partnerships fails to exclude a large number of other relationships except on arbitrary grounds. Which is a very strong argument for NOT changing the definition.

Indeed, if “marriage equality” is what is wanted, then no person or persons should be denied “marriage equality”–mother/son, father/daughter, two (or more) siblings, business partners, dorm roommates of same or opposite sex, polygamists—marriage equality for everyone. Of course, if the institution means everything, it means nothing, and that’s where we are headed.

Some proponents of same sex marriage have just said as much: Marriage equality is fine for now, but actually, there should be no marriage.

It is strange that a society should even desire to take two quite opposite unions, one intrinsically marital, one intrinsically non-marital, and attempt to make them the same.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Indeed, if “marriage equality” is what is wanted, then no person or persons should be denied “marriage equality”–mother/son, father/daughter, two (or more) siblings, business partners, dorm roommates of same or opposite sex, polygamists—marriage equality for everyone. Of course, if the institution means everything, it means nothing, and that’s where we are headed.

Some proponents of same sex marriage have just said as much: Marriage equality is fine for now, but actually, there should be no marriage.

It is strange that a society should even desire to take two quite opposite unions, one intrinsically marital, one intrinsically non-marital, and attempt to make them the same.

I find this argument from “exception” to be a very weak one.

I mean anyone who argues that because sterile married couples exist then that is a “good” reason for any inherently sterile relationship to be subsumed into the definition of marriage is making a gross error.

A parallel argument would be to claim that because egg laying mammals exist (platypus and echidna) then all egg laying animals should be included in the definition of “mammal” and the definition of “mammal” should be changed to allow those inclusions. It is a silly argument because it ignores all other aspects of what it means to be a “mammal” by focusing solely on the one in question.

 

[Stephen168]

In that post, you flatly asserted that “The procreative act [a.k.a., vaginal sex] is essential to marriage.”

Why should the government use the capacity to engage in vaginal sex with each other as a requirement for civil marriage if the couple is beyond childbearing age and can’t produce children?

NOTE: Actually having vaginal sex is not a requirement for civil marriage. It’s perfectly legal to marry but never have any sex (like Joseph and Mary).

Actually my “flat assertion” is
A) the purpose of marriage is to create, nourish, and educate the next generation.
B) children have a human right to be raised by their biological parents as a matter of justice.

A & B are natural human conditions which reflect human biology and have been part of humanity forever everywhere, and not an inventions of the Catholic Church.
A & B are why sociality/governments care about marriage and not baptism, communion, confirmation, feelings held between room mates, holy orders, or anointing of the sick.

So when I said the procreative act is essential to marriage I was just pointing out the obvious fact it was essential to creating children therefore essential to what marriage is. Reason tells us that if marriage is something; it can’t be nothing. I believe it is something as stated about.

As far as your 80 year old couple, see post 285 and

I would consider that what is essential and not present in a thing would render the thing broken. Because a thing can be broken doesn’t mean another thing can be called the thing. Because people are born blind does not mean that you can call my finger an eye because it can see as well as a blind eye.

 

[DrTaffy]

Why should the government use the capacity to engage in vaginal sex with each other as a requirement for civil marriage if the couple is beyond childbearing age and can’t produce children?

This is a question I have asked many times in other ways without any direct response, and this might be a better way of putting it.

It is not about whether Catholics (or others) are ‘justified’ or ‘allowed’ to believe that marriage is limited in this way, but why should they expect the State to endorse and enforce that view by taking a restricted definition of marriage that excludes others’ views of marriage?

Why should homosexuals (or heterosexual Unitarians, Quakers, Liberal Jews or others who believe in same sex marriage) accept that their taxes be used to give privileges to ‘married’ couples just because they are able to carry out one particular sexual act, even if they choose not to do so? And yet also be expected to accept that couples they consider to be married, and who may be raising children, be denied those same benefits?

Why should John Q Taxpayer pay out to a couple who could have children and choose not to do so, or who cannot have children due to age or physical defect, but not to a same sex couple who do have children (e.g. from previous marriages) and are actively raising them? If marriage is indeed about producing the next generation, the homosexual couple are doing far more towards that end than the two heterosexual ones.

And why should those who disagree that marriage is about producing the next generation have to accept your definition? You wouldn’t (I hope) expect legal protections for priests to be limited to male priests, even for other religions, just because you believe that only men can be priests, so why try to limit the definition of marriage even for other religions?

 

[Rau]

Originally Posted by BOProof
Why should the government use the capacity to engage in vaginal sex with each other as a requirement for civil marriage if the couple is beyond childbearing age and can’t produce children?

This is a question I have asked many times in other ways without any direct response, and this might be a better way of putting it.
…
Why should John Q Taxpayer pay out to a couple who could have children and choose not to do so, or who cannot have children due to age or physical defect, but not to a same sex couple who do have children (e.g. from previous marriages) and are actively raising them? If marriage is indeed about producing the next generation, the homosexual couple are doing far more towards that end than the two heterosexual ones.
…

You’re kidding right? This question has been asked and answered comprehensively in recent posts on this thread.

If you have an issue with the availability of child support payments, address that as the welfare question it is.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

This is a question I have asked many times in other ways without any direct response…

I thought I already answered that one for you. Society has decided, for reasons that seemed good to the members of that society, that the nurturing of children was important to the future of that society, and that such nurturing should best be done by the biological parents. The society has not decided to make all babies in test tubes and give them out to people that some bureaucrat thinks is the best nurturer. Society has not decided to take all babies from their biological parents and give them to others based on similar criteria. The ideal is that children should be raised by their biological parents. Now if you have an argument why this ideal should be changed to one of the other two I mentioned, or some other ideal, then I would be interested to hear your case for such an ideal. Until some better ideal comes along, the decision made by society to encourage children to be raised by their biological parents stands as justified by the decision of society.

Of course their are exceptions to this ideal. Some children are orphaned when their parents die. Some children are created through artificial means. Some children find themselves under the care of parents who are so bad that the society steps in and takes them away from those parents for their protection. And some children are conceived through rape, or without parents in a committed relationship. All of these children need to be nurtured by alternate means, such as adoption, or the care of a single parent. But all of these exceptions to the ideal case do not negate the value of keeping the ideal case as the goal. At least that has been the value judgment of society.

Now that we understand what society has decided is the ideal nurturing arrangement, how does society go about promoting that ideal? The institution of marriage is not a perfect implementation of that ideal. As you point out, some people that are married cannot or choose not to have children. But if you try to come up with a better implementation, you will see there are many difficulties.

If the recognition of marriage were limited to only those times when a couple was nurturing a child, that recognition would run out when the child became an adult. Couples anticipating marriage would anticipate this consequence and take it into account in their decision making. Marriage would not look so good to them. So the encouraging effect of the institution would be diminished.

There are also practical difficulties to making marriage more narrowly targeted. Couples might have to pass fertility exam before being allowed to marry. Such an exam is likely to be highly inaccurate.

About the only limitation that I can imagine being both practical and not too harmful to the job of encouraging the ideal nurturing situation is to disallow entry into marriage for couples who are both in their 80s. It is an easy criterion to administer. But it would apply to so few couples that is not worth enacting such a limitation.

So if we look at your objections, they do indeed show that the societal implementation of marriage does not perfectly accomplish the goal of fostering the ideal child-raising environment. So what is your solution? You want to change the society implementation of marriage so that it is even worse at accomplishing the stated goal. It seems that is a wrong-headed reaction to the problem you posed.

If you reality think that gay people should be given the benefit of marriage just because some of them end up taking care of children, then why not give equivalent benefits to single caregivers of children? And why not limit gay marriage to only those couples who actually do take care of children? You see, the problem you posed cuts both ways. If child-raising is not a sufficient basis to grant marriage status to heterosexual couples, then it is also not a sufficient basis to grant that status to gay couples. The only argument that I see as really a good one for you to make is to say that societal marriage is worthless, so let’s give it to everyone.

 

[Catholic_775]

** A Catholic totally destroys the protestant arguments in this recent Youtube debate. Here is the link…

youtube.com/watch?v=Qn1vC1Ez-OI **

 

[InSearchofGrace]

I thought I already answered that one for you. Society has decided, for reasons that seemed good to the members of that society, that the nurturing of children was important to the future of that society, and that such nurturing should best be done by the biological parents. The society has not decided to make all babies in test tubes and give them out to people that some bureaucrat thinks is the best nurturer. Society has not decided to take all babies from their biological parents and give them to others based on similar criteria. The ideal is that children should be raised by their biological parents. Now if you have an argument why this ideal should be changed to one of the other two I mentioned, or some other ideal, then I would be interested to hear your case for such an ideal. Until some better ideal comes along, the decision made by society to encourage children to be raised by their biological parents stands as justified by the decision of society.

Of course their are exceptions to this ideal. Some children are orphaned when their parents die. Some children are created through artificial means. Some children find themselves under the care of parents who are so bad that the society steps in and takes them away from those parents for their protection. And some children are conceived through rape, or without parents in a committed relationship. All of these children need to be nurtured by alternate means, such as adoption, or the care of a single parent. But all of these exceptions to the ideal case do not negate the value of keeping the ideal case as the goal. At least that has been the value judgment of society.

Now that we understand what society has decided is the ideal nurturing arrangement, how does society go about promoting that ideal? The institution of marriage is not a perfect implementation of that ideal. As you point out, some people that are married cannot or choose not to have children. But if you try to come up with a better implementation, you will see there are many difficulties.

If the recognition of marriage were limited to only those times when a couple was nurturing a child, that recognition would run out when the child became an adult. Couples anticipating marriage would anticipate this consequence and take it into account in their decision making. Marriage would not look so good to them. So the encouraging effect of the institution would be diminished.

There are also practical difficulties to making marriage more narrowly targeted. Couples might have to pass fertility exam before being allowed to marry. Such an exam is likely to be highly inaccurate.

About the only limitation that I can imagine being both practical and not too harmful to the job of encouraging the ideal nurturing situation is to disallow entry into marriage for couples who are both in their 80s. It is an easy criterion to administer. But it would apply to so few couples that is not worth enacting such a limitation.

So if we look at your objections, they do indeed show that the societal implementation of marriage does not perfectly accomplish the goal of fostering the ideal child-raising environment. So what is your solution? You want to change the society implementation of marriage so that it is even worse at accomplishing the stated goal. It seems that is a wrong-headed reaction to the problem you posed.

If you reality think that gay people should be given the benefit of marriage just because some of them end up taking care of children, then why not give equivalent benefits to single caregivers of children? And why not limit gay marriage to only those couples who actually do take care of children? You see, the problem you posed cuts both ways. If child-raising is not a sufficient basis to grant marriage status to heterosexual couples, then it is also not a sufficient basis to grant that status to gay couples. The only argument that I see as really a good one for you to make is to say that societal marriage is worthless, so let’s give it to everyone.

:clapping::clapping::clapping:

 

[InSearchofGrace]

Grace & Peace!

You may wish to moderate your initial assertion here, InSearch–the articles you reference appear to deal with male homosexuals, not same-sex couples generally.

The first article is about gay couples. As for the second article, it indeed inserted promiscuous proclivity of homosexuals not necessarily in the context of same sex relationships. However, it contains links or leads to links to articles or studies on the non-monogamy in long term gay relationships, notably

Relationship Innovation in Male Couples.

Making Sense of Varying Statistics on Gay Monogamy

Maria Xiridou, et al, “The Contribution of Steady and Casual Partnerships to the Incidence of HIV Infection among Homosexual
Men in Amsterdam,” AIDS 17 (2003): 1031.

Gay couples likely to try non-monogamy, study shows: Separate research shows lack of ‘gay-boy talk’ hampers safe-sex

… Would you honestly be heartened by an upswing in monogamy among same-sex attracted relationships, or would it be the case that the fact of the relationships would remain repugnant to you…so repugnant that whether or not a same-sex attracted person is faithful to their partner is a rhetorical distinction that has no real moral value to you? Just curious.

Of course it would be good to see an upswing in monogamy among gay couples from the public health perspective. Hopefully it translates to a reduction of morbidity and mortality among MSM comprised mostly of gays according to the CDC report. If that happens, government resources can be devoted to address other public health concerns.

In many past threads in this forum in which you participated on the morality of homosexual relationships, you have always challenged Catholic theology, even as you have gone through the reasoning of the teaching (that it is immoral) with a fine tooth comb. I get that you reject it, that it is not a code you believe and live by, but I don’t get why you think the faithful Catholic has to come around to your justification and same explanation over and over. Just because a homosexual is faithful to his partner does not make his same sex relationship moral. While a homosexual relationship may be entered with good intention (sincerity, out of love) and the right circumstances (right or permitted by time and place) it does not pass the test of the act itself being inherently moral. If a homosexual relationship includes sex, in any and all forms, it is still immoral, as with other inherently immoral acts, e.g., an adulterous relationship and the practice of euthanasia. A moral act takes into consideration the three fonts of morality.

Since you are curious to know, neither do I have a knee jerk disbelief that gay couples are capable of having faithful long term relations, nor do I use “repugnant” as a descriptive for a same sex attracted person and same sex relations. I would be dishonest though if I say I don’t look away if / when I see open display of kissing and holding hands of same sex couples. What or how else is the conclusion of gay romance? The sex part of gay relations, sexual activity between two men or two women up to and including anal sex, is not a wholesome picture to see or to imagine. It is the reason that even Hollywood, which is happy to include gratuitous sex scenes, studios are still reluctant to produce films that include a depiction of raw gay sex. Take for example Behind the Candelabra, the movie based on the five year “love” story of flamboyant gay entertainer Liberace and his younger male lover Scott Thorson. None of the major movie companies (not gay porn producers) wanted to finance it. It was too gay.

No, larger society does not wish to dwell on such thoughts. The reason it (the sex part of gay relations) finds its way in forum discussions like this is because the legalization of same sex “marriage” and the goal of LGBs to normalize homosexuality are under scrutiny, as they should be for being radical social experiments that satisfy desires of a segment of adults without contribution to the social good. The homosexual movement has succeeded in injecting the (homo)sexual orientation concept in the culture’s stream of consciousness as though it is so different, miles and miles away from homosexual behavior. They are not, they are close to each other, the dividing line made invisible, inconsequential, by the unrelenting push by the gay culture that all same sex attracted people or straight people so tempted need to give in to homosexual urges for transitory happiness. And that there is nothing wrong or immoral about it.
,

 

[BOProof]

making references to a same sex union millennia ago as if that “proves” the world was once “AOK” with same sex “marriage”.

The point with referencing historical same-sex was that your assertion that “Marriage has always and everywhere been established as a recognition of opposite sex unions” is false. Native American same-sex marriages were much more recent than millennia ago anyways.

The (secular) State values the potential that opposite sex unions - as a class - offer.

That potential does not exist in two people in their 80s who are considering getting married. Yet the state does allow those couples to enter into a new marriage, even though such a marriage cannot produce any new children.

It recognises the union of barren opposite sex couples because their union models the types of unions that the society depends on.

So you’re saying that it is not about what marriages can produce children, but about what marriages model those marriages.

How does a new marriage of a man and a woman in their 80s model a type of union that produces children any more than a same-sex marriage? After all, both relationships are different from relationships that might produce children based on unchosen physical characteristics. Furthermore, Why should that matter as a criterion for determining whether or not to deny couples same-sex marriage?

The State exercises discrimination where it is just and sensible to do so eg. the State makes family assistance payments to couples with children, and not those without.

I’ll take this as an implicit agreement that the state should discriminate if, and only if, there is a sufficiently good secular reason. The whole point of this thread is to discuss whether there is such a sufficiently good secular reason to discriminate against same-sex couples by denying them civil marriage.

(1) Should the State recognise by way of marriage, same sex unions? It is evident to me that the answer is no - for the simple, unemotional and just (secular) reason that two same sex persons do not represent the type of union that the State values for society’s benefit, and which the State has an interest in encouraging.

What major societal benefit is there in an 80 year old woman and an 80 year old man marrying that a same-sex marriage cannot offer, such that discriminating against the same-sex couple is justified?

I wonder if you think the entire purpose of civil marriage is only to benefit the rest of society, as opposed to being good for the couple. If some people wish to make it known that they intend to live for the rest of their lives as a couple, that seems to generally be a good reason for the government to treat them as such unless there is a good secular reason not to.

And yet, the class of unions where that is possible, **is rather special ** (for society) isn’t it?

I don’t see a union between a man and a woman without vaginal sex any more or less special than a relationship between two people of the same-sex without vaginal sex.

Why do you see a secular reason why a relationship between a man and a woman without vaginal sex as much more special than a similar same-sex relationship such that the government should allow the former to enter a civil marriage, but deny the latter?

 

[BOProof]

Nero? Known for his perversion, cruelty and insanity.

So Nero wasn’t a good guy. That’s irrelevant to the fact that he was in a same-sex marriage, thereby disproving Rau’s assertion that “Marriage has always and everywhere been established as a recognition of opposite sex unions.”

We are not concerned with aberrations of a few but with what has been accepted as normal in society throughout history.

So if incestuous marriage were “accepted as normal in society throughout history,” would you then say that such marriages should be allowed?

I don’t care that much what societies of the past considered moral, since I’m generally not swayed by fallacious appeals to historical precedent. I will, at times, counter false assertions which people use to launch such fallacies upon, such as the assertion that, “Marriage has always and everywhere been established as a recognition of opposite sex unions.” Even if such an assertion were true, I wouldn’t be swayed because whether same-sex unions have been excluded from civil marriage is a different question than whether same-sex unions should be excluded from civil marriage.

 

[BOProof]

Why should any kind of sex be a requirement, then?

Engaging in sexual activity is not a requirement for civil marriage.

Why not two brothers, two sisters, a father and son, mother and daughter, fishing buddies, platonic friends, etc. etc.,
. . .]
Any definition of marriage that includes gay partnerships fails to exclude a large number of other relationships except on arbitrary grounds.

Each discrimination by the government needs to be considered on its own merits. Whether civil marriage should be denied on the basis of being relatives is a different question from whether civil marriage should be denied on the basis of the sexes of the couple.

For example, you can simultaneously think that there is no sufficiently good secular reason to deny civil marriage on the basis of race while also thinking that there does exist such a reason for denying marriage because one or more parties is a minor. The same thing can be done with same-sex marriage. There are no slippery slopes in either case.

BTW, platonic friends are allowed to enter into a civil marriage, which often happens between elderly widows and widowers.

There is just cause for calling the union of a man and a woman a marriage as distinct from other relationships. There is no good reason for ending that convention regardless of what “gay” individuals think.

You can still keep that convention going within your church, but convention alone is a very bad secular reason for the government to decide who may or may not enter a civil marriage.

 

[BOProof]

Actually my “flat assertion” is
A) the purpose of marriage is to create, nourish, and educate the next generation.

By that criterion, a same-sex couple can fulfill the purpose of marriage as well as an 80 year-old man and an 80-year old woman who have just entered into a relationship. In fact, a same-sex couple would probably be better fit to nourish and educate the next generation than two people in their 80s for health reasons.

B) children have a human right to be raised by their biological parents as a matter of justice.

…except when those parents are unfit as parents or dead.

What does that have to do with the government allowing same-sex civil marriage, since same-sex civil marriage doesn’t remove children from their biological parents and some who enter a same-sex marriage already have biological children?

So when I said the procreative act is essential to marriage I was just pointing out the obvious fact it was essential to creating children therefore essential to what marriage is.

If the ability to be vaginal sex is essential to marriage because it is “essential to creating children,” then being young enough to create children (at least at the start) should be essential to marriage because it is “essential to creating children.”

The government currently does not use such criteria for deciding whether couples can marry when it comes to age. Why should the government consider this relevant to banning or allowing civil marriage on account of the sexes on the couple?

Reason tells us that if marriage is something; it can’t be nothing. I believe it is something as stated about.

Is a committed, lifelong relationship between two people of the same-sex something or nothing?

As far as your 80 year old couple, see post 285 and
Stephen168;11628435:

I would consider that what is essential and not present in a thing would render the thing broken. Because a thing can be broken doesn’t mean another thing can be called the thing. Because people are born blind does not mean that you can call my finger an eye because it can see as well as a blind eye.

So if I understand you correctly, you think that what Deo Volente called a “Josephite marriage” (marriage without vaginal sex, like Joseph and Mary’s marriage) to lack what is essential to marriage, and is therefore broken.

What secular reason is there for the government to enforce your view on others, which would discriminate against Mary and Joseph if they lived in our society today?

 

[Peter_Plato]

So if I understand you correctly, you think that what Deo Volente called a “Josephite marriage” (marriage without vaginal sex, like Joseph and Mary’s marriage) to lack what is essential to marriage, and is therefore broken.

What secular reason is there for the government to enforce your view on others, which would discriminate against Mary and Joseph if they lived in our society today?

It is the capacity to have vaginal sex that is important because by that capacity children are born into the world.
If that capacity is present the government has no reason to prohibit a couple from marrying precisely because the government cannot force a couple to have children. Marriage is merely the acknowledgement that there is no barrier on the part of the government to prevent the couple from having children if they so choose.

The other part of it is that biological pairing is sexual in nature, a nature which is built around reproduction as its integral aspect. All higher life forms reproduce sexually.

Your claim that same sex partners are as capable of raising children as any healthy heterosexual couple is questionable. An important aspect of loving another human being is to be willing to “go beyond” one’s own desires, wants and needs for the sake of the other.

Yet, a hallmark of same sex oriented individuals is that these individuals, themselves, claim to be incapable of rising above their desires. Their choice is to refrain from creating and loving their OWN offspring ostensibly BECAUSE they cannot overcome an orientation that keeps them from the natural act of creating their own offspring.

Why should gay couples be permitted to raise children if they cannot muster the consistent control over their own psychological and emotional state that would, if they did successfully master their sexual drives, allow them to naturally create their own flesh and blood offspring?

There is something more than a little odd about someone who claims to want to love and raise children but refuses to participate in the natural process of doing so with another complimentary human person who could create with them flesh and blood offspring which would, in fact, share the physical and genetic makeup of both. These would be their own natural children, but sufficient “love” to overcome a self-fixation and replace it with concern for the sake of “other” cannot be mustered by these individuals to bring about that naturally ordered state.

There are gaping fissures in your account of things. Fissures that all your “rationalizing” does very little to repair.

 

[GraceSofia]

So Nero wasn’t a good guy. That’s irrelevant to the fact that he was in a same-sex marriage, thereby disproving Rau’s assertion that “Marriage has always and everywhere been established as a recognition of opposite sex unions.”

No, it doesn’t disprove it because as explained ad nauseam in these theads, the mock marriage of an insane emperor was not recognised by the society as the same as regular marriage.

I don’t care that much what societies of the past considered moral, since I’m generally not swayed by fallacious appeals to historical precedent. I will, at times, counter false assertions which people use to launch such fallacies upon, such as the assertion that, “Marriage has always and everywhere been established as a recognition of opposite sex unions.”

It is not a false assertion.

Even if such an assertion were true, I wouldn’t be swayed because whether same-sex unions have been excluded from civil marriage is a different question than whether same-sex unions should be excluded from civil marriage.

Then why do you bother bringing up historical nuggets that are basically red herrings?

 

[Rau]

BOP - you traverse old ground again and ask questions that have already been answered. So I guess we’re wrapping up.

At the end of the day, the State has long valued opposite sex unions for reasons that we all understand and have been stated many times in the thread. Introducing distractions such as - what if they don’t have vaginal sex, what if they get too old (or are too old), kind of suggests the debate has run its course.

A question that I do think has merit is: "For what reason ought the State to value and recognise same sex unions? " If we can capture what the value (to the State) is in such relationships, then we can go on to propose how such relationships ought to be recognised. And I promise not to pose silly questions such as “what if the same sex couple are old or don’t adopt”?

My thanks to you and all other posters for the debate. cheers.

 

[GraceSofia]

BOP - you traverse old ground again and ask questions that have already been answered. So I guess we’re wrapping up.
…]
My thanks to you and all other posters for the debate. cheers.

My feelings, too.
A lot of good resources have been posted for those who are interested.

 

[Peter_Plato]

By that criterion, a same-sex couple can fulfill the purpose of marriage as well as an 80 year-old man and an 80-year old woman who have just entered into a relationship. In fact, a same-sex couple would probably be better fit to nourish and educate the next generation than two people in their 80s for health reasons.

…except when those parents are unfit as parents or dead.

The problem here is that you forget that an elderly couple in their 80s who choose to get married are in exactly the same position relative to each other as a lifelong married couple in their 80s who have birthed and raised numerous children. Are you claiming the lifelong married couple should have their marriage legally terminated when they can no longer bear children?

What does that have to do with the government allowing same-sex civil marriage, since same-sex civil marriage doesn’t remove children from their biological parents and some who enter a same-sex marriage already have biological children?

One issue that never is raised is the fact that a same sex oriented individual is formally guilty of discrimination against persons of the opposite sex merely because of a distaste with regard to an identifiable physical feature - their gender.

Just like any card carrying white KKK member in good standing who will not live beside black families because of his “personal distaste” for members of the black race, same sex oriented individuals will not live with or bear children with persons of the opposite sex because of a personal physical abhorrence towards them. Being unwilling to have sex and have children with opposite sex individuals seems very like discrimination against other classes of “people” based upon an identifiable physical trait.

Perhaps the reason many right thinking people find this “ploy” concerning redefining marriage on the part of SSM advocates disconcerting is that implicit in its justification is that “personal aversion” is being invoked as a warrant for allowing institutional discrimination by gays and lesbians against the opposite sex, when we rightly cringe at the same “personal aversion” reasoning being invoked to justify other forms of discrimination.

Same sex orientation itself, perhaps, should be viewed in terms of being discriminatory against a whole class of people because of “personal aversion.” Seems to be a very inadequate and, in fact, indefensible reason for advocating same sex marriage.

Perhaps the baker is “fighting the good fight” against discrimination after all. It’s just that now the class (SSM advocates) doing the discriminating, like pre-civil war slave owners, have the judicial system on their side. They have succeeded in blinding the majority behind a smoke screen of pity in order to squirrel in their prejudices and make them appear licit, when, in fact, they are not.

 

[Stephen168]

By that criterion, a same-sex couple can fulfill the purpose of marriage as well as an 80 year-old man and an 80-year old woman who have just entered into a relationship. In fact, a same-sex couple would probably be better fit to nourish and educate the next generation than two people in their 80s for health reasons.

…except when those parents are unfit as parents or dead.

What does that have to do with the government allowing same-sex civil marriage, since same-sex civil marriage doesn’t remove children from their biological parents and some who enter a same-sex marriage already have biological children?

If the ability to be vaginal sex is essential to marriage because it is “essential to creating children,” then being young enough to create children (at least at the start) should be essential to marriage because it is “essential to creating children.”

The government currently does not use such criteria for deciding whether couples can marry when it comes to age. Why should the government consider this relevant to banning or allowing civil marriage on account of the sexes on the couple?

So if I understand you correctly, you think that what Deo Volente called a “Josephite marriage” (marriage without vaginal sex, like Joseph and Mary’s marriage) to lack what is essential to marriage, and is therefore broken.

What secular reason is there for the government to enforce your view on others, which would discriminate against Mary and Joseph if they lived in our society today?

All of your response has already been answered in the posts I have referred you to (#274 and #285) and post #302 with maybe one exception.

Maybe I have not been clear on the fact that government does not define marriage; it supports what already is. I did suggest it here:

A & B are natural human conditions which reflect human biology and have been part of humanity forever everywhere, and not an inventions of the Catholic Church.
A & B are why sociality/governments care about marriage and not baptism, communion, confirmation, feelings held between room mates, holy orders, or anointing of the sick.

It has also been pointed out by others with the question, “Why should the government support a couple which, by design, can never product children;” a question never answered.

Reason tells us that if marriage is something; it can’t be nothing.
BOProof;11636688:

Is a committed, lifelong relationship between two people of the same-sex something or nothing?

It is not marriage. You seem to believe marriage can be whatever the government decides it is, which means, to you, marriage is nothing. If you can call anything a chair, then ‘chair’ has no meaning, it is nothing. This is why one of the links in post #179 suggested

Proponents of same sex marriage are more against something than for something