Stephen168
New member
Therefore, the state has an interest in children
Good strictly secular argument against same sex marriage
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Deo_Volente
Guest
Grace & Peace!
I wonder if you would characterize being attracted to one woman as discriminatory against all other women, with the consequence that dating only one woman or marrying only one woman amounts to a form of hate speech. After all, choosing one woman over the others means that you are actively rejecting all the others because you find them comparatively repulsive (and repulsive as women!), with the result that choosing one woman to love is an exception to an otherwise general and consistent repulsion.
Perhaps you would agree that it’s not so much the case that we’re drawn to a particular sex (or category of person), but that certain people who exhibit particular characteristics are more or less attractive to us. It is, after all, difficult to be attracted to or to marry a category as opposed to a person.
Moreover, your claim that not desiring to produce one’s own genetic offspring is a sign of the inability to move beyond oneself in love can only be seen as radically facetious. Surely adopting and loving as one’s own a child that does not share *even half *of one’s own genetic makeup is a greater step beyond oneself as it more completely embodies the idea of “loving the other” or “loving the stranger.”
Anyway…
Under the Mercy,
Mark
All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!
Peter, your post was absurdly hyperbolic, and therefore difficult to respond to: it is difficult to assume that a reasonable conversation or discussion can be had over premises that are unreasonable. For instance, your characterization of sexual attraction not as a drawing towards but as repulsion against betrays not only some weird and debunked Freudianism concerning sexual attraction (and/or a misuse of Hegelian dialectic), but does not seem to admit the reality that most homosexual men and women experience no repulsion toward the opposite sex, and many of them have quite happily produced children via the conventional procreative ways (i.e., not under duress or in sham marriages).
I wonder if you would characterize being attracted to one woman as discriminatory against all other women, with the consequence that dating only one woman or marrying only one woman amounts to a form of hate speech. After all, choosing one woman over the others means that you are actively rejecting all the others because you find them comparatively repulsive (and repulsive as women!), with the result that choosing one woman to love is an exception to an otherwise general and consistent repulsion.
Perhaps you would agree that it’s not so much the case that we’re drawn to a particular sex (or category of person), but that certain people who exhibit particular characteristics are more or less attractive to us. It is, after all, difficult to be attracted to or to marry a category as opposed to a person.
Moreover, your claim that not desiring to produce one’s own genetic offspring is a sign of the inability to move beyond oneself in love can only be seen as radically facetious. Surely adopting and loving as one’s own a child that does not share *even half *of one’s own genetic makeup is a greater step beyond oneself as it more completely embodies the idea of “loving the other” or “loving the stranger.”
Anyway…
Under the Mercy,
Mark
All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!
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Deo_Volente
Guest
Grace & Peace!
The rest, no doubt, marry for convenience of one sort or another.
Under the Mercy,
Mark
All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!
Of course not. I would imagine that most people, after all, marry for love.
The rest, no doubt, marry for convenience of one sort or another.Under the Mercy,
Mark
All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!
Stephen168
New member
See post #179
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Deo_Volente
Guest
Grace & Peace!
Under the Mercy,
Mark
All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!
Insofar as the state has an interest in children, it is not for their own sake, and not in the (relatively well-meaning or beneficent) way you seem to suggest. For the state, children are recognized as a potential means to an end–the state recognizes that an individual or a couple may use children to accomplish certain ends (that may also be accomplished by other means).
Under the Mercy,
Mark
All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!
Stephen168
New member
No suggestion were ever made
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Peter_Plato
Guest
There should be no problem then, with the existing definition of marriage since, as you claim, homosexual men and women have no real impediment to procreating and raising children. There is, then, nothing to argue about, since if they do wish to create and raise a family they are just as capable as anyone else. Sexual “attraction” is an irrelevant issue.
I’m glad we agree.
Stephen168
New member
I know
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Peter_Plato
Guest
You have a rather twisted and, I would suggest, crippled view of how the state should function - by treating its citizens merely as a means to the ends of whatever governance decides. No need for the state to act from sound ethical principles towards meaningful human ends, but rather governance means treat humans, not as ends in themselves, but merely as means to whatever ends the state decides.
Why does your view of the state need to be the accepted one? The state IS nothing more than the human beings who run it, after all. Each of those individuals is a moral agent who ought to think and act ethically and humanely.
There is no political license that says, “When you become an agent of the state you are free to become an immoral or heartless cad.”
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Deo_Volente
Guest
Grace & Peace!
Under the Mercy,
Mark
All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!
I was not addressing how the state should function–I was addressing how the state does function. How I think the state should function is (for good or ill) immaterial to the actual business of statecraft.
That sounds like an accurate assessment of the way things are to me.
My view of the state doesn’t need to be the accepted one–in fact, it isn’t: lots of folks appear to be very myopic when it comes to such things. However, my view of the state goes pretty far (as far as I can tell) to accounting for the current condition of the state, which is more or less darkly Spenglerian with a touch of Baudrillard’s sense of pataphysical absurdity.
There are, indeed, lots of things we ought to think and do. Ought is not is, however. If when we’re trying to think the world we begin not with trying to think the world-as-it-is (however difficult or unsavory that may be) but the world-as-we-think-it-ought-to-be, we will not be thinking the world, but our fantasy of the world. And our subsequent efforts to approach or apprehend the world-as-it-is will be doomed from the start.
There is no such political license, no. But there doesn’t need to be. Crime is meaningless in a culture in which everyone’s a criminal. License to behave like a politician isn’t needed in a culture of politicians. Or, as Spengler might say it: if the political machine in which the politician finds himself is immoral and heartless, it is his duty to history to be as immoral and heartless as he can be. I don’t agree with it, but that’s how it is. C’est la vie. Consequently, I put no faith or hope in the state. None at all.
Under the Mercy,
Mark
All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!
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GEddie
Guest
The end for which the state sees children as a “means” can be achieved in no other way; namely, the generational prolongation of its existence.
It is true that a couple can raise children without physically begetting them. The state cannot with its citizens; if the State cannot propagate itself, those who come in to fill the gap will end by overturning the State.
ICXC NIKA
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
One cannot begin to think of the world as it ought to be without already having thought of the world as it is. Who in this forum is thinking of the world as it ought to be without having first thought of the world as it is?
As Aquinas said:
“Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu.”
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Peter_Plato
Guest
This is bizarre. The state is a “non-entity” without the humans that empower it.
What you seem to be claiming is that humans are immoral when they function as agents for the state and the immoral state of humans who make the state immoral is merely “the way it is.”
Why does the state take on a life of its own - a life which you feel is simply to be tolerated as “the way it is” just because it is “the state?” But, the state is nothing without the human beings that make it what it is.
The fact that humans make “the state” means the actions of the state are not excusable - not to be accepted with a blithe “C’est la vie.”
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Deo_Volente
Guest
Grace & Peace!
Am I saying love and attraction are necessary for marriage, at least historically conceived? Absolutely not. Are they* important* for marriage as it has been relatively recently conceived (i.e., largely for the last 200 or so years, but beginning with the invention of romantic love with the troubador tradition)? Yes, they are important. Has that importance been interpreted as being definitive? Yes. Is it, in fact, definitive? Unlikely. But them’s the breaks. The situation is what it is.
Want to change the situation? Advocate for a return to arranged marriages! Few things say, “marriage is about what’s necessary for society or for the local community” than the arranged marriage.
Under the Mercy,
Mark
All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!
Homosexual men and women have no real impediment to procreating and raising children–that’s basically what I said, yes. But what does that have to do with the “existing” definition of marriage which, at least on the federal level in the United States, includes same-sex marriage?
When it comes to procreation, yes–attraction is largely irrelevant (or rather, it’s relevant only to the degree to which it might affect sexual performance, but pharmaceuticals can remedy that potential difficulty relatively easily). But regardless of sexual orientation, it’s more of an issue if you wish to form a household and share your life with someone to whom you’re actually attracted and in love (and who reciprocates that love and attraction).
Am I saying love and attraction are necessary for marriage, at least historically conceived? Absolutely not. Are they* important* for marriage as it has been relatively recently conceived (i.e., largely for the last 200 or so years, but beginning with the invention of romantic love with the troubador tradition)? Yes, they are important. Has that importance been interpreted as being definitive? Yes. Is it, in fact, definitive? Unlikely. But them’s the breaks. The situation is what it is.
Want to change the situation? Advocate for a return to arranged marriages! Few things say, “marriage is about what’s necessary for society or for the local community” than the arranged marriage.
Under the Mercy,
Mark
All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!
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Deo_Volente
Guest
Grace & Peace!
Under the Mercy,
Mark
All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!
I think if we’re going to start talking about immigration and adoption as analogous to each other (which is an interesting and analogy, and where your reasoning seems to be going), then it would be better to approach it in a thread dedicated thereto.
Under the Mercy,
Mark
All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!
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GEddie
Guest
Maybe so, but I do not care enough about the issue to start such a thread.
My whole point was that States **do **have an interest in the procreation of children, am interest that nothing else can fulfill.
So redefining a civil institution historically devoted to that, just because a vocal subculture wants it, is not in the State’s interest.
ICXC NIKA
D
Deo_Volente
Guest
Grace & Peace!
Independent of any one agent, all of those ideas produce a certain kind of citizen because they produce a certain kind of culture.
(It should be pretty clear by now that I put no faith or hope in the modern liberal/enlightenment democratic state and the culture(s) it produces.)
Does that mean the state has a life of its own? No. It just means that ideas have consequences.
But I’ve a feeling our political speculations may be better served by another thread. This is all a bit off topic here.
Under the Mercy,
Mark
All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!
My claim is more to do with political culture than anything else. I don’t take such a dark view of humanity generally–I tend to believe that Zimbardo (the architect of the Stanford prison experiment) is correct: as far as human behavior is concerned, it’s not so much the case that a bad apple spoils the barrel, but that a bad barrel spoils the apples. Put a good apple in a bad barrel, you’ll eventually wind up with a spoiled apple.
I’m not suggesting the state has a life of its own. I’m suggesting that the state has a political culture that is largely independent of any one agent. A state will be founded upon certain principles which will eventually come to dominate political discourse in one way or another. For us and for the states that are modeled after the liberal/enlightenment democracy model, the pillars of the state are self-interest and consent (see Hauerwas here, A Community of Character). Consequently, the state produces “citizens” that are self-interested (because it assumes that that’s what they are to begin with), and concerns itself mostly with the Chomskyian “manufacture of consent.” As a corollary to these pillars, there is an inability for the state to actually affirm anything as bindingly true–because that would imply that there’s something beyond consent which is actually compelling and that the compulsive nature of this compelling force trumps anyone’s individual desire regarding self-determination. Consequently, truth isn’t so much relativized as it is gutted–it becomes impossible to talk about truth in the public/political sphere in anything like a meaningful way.
Independent of any one agent, all of those ideas produce a certain kind of citizen because they produce a certain kind of culture.
(It should be pretty clear by now that I put no faith or hope in the modern liberal/enlightenment democratic state and the culture(s) it produces.)
Does that mean the state has a life of its own? No. It just means that ideas have consequences.
A rather sobering thought, no?
Sometimes a blithe “c’est la vie” is precisely what’s needed in order to maintain some degree of level-headedness and sanity in a political situation which is characterized by neither. One must choose one’s battles, after all. Happily, though, it’s a mercy that no human empire lasts forever.
But I’ve a feeling our political speculations may be better served by another thread. This is all a bit off topic here.
Under the Mercy,
Mark
All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!
Stephen168
New member
Yes it does appear you two agree. Marriage is for the creation and raising of children. Homosexuals can marry someone of the opposite sex, and procreate just like heterosexuals can.
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Deo_Volente
Guest
Grace & Peace!
But regardless, an interest in the procreation of children does not mean that everyone should procreate, nor does it mean that any given person must procreate, nor does it mean that marriage is the best way to ensure that procreation occur (according to the state and its actual understanding of marriage).
Under the Mercy,
Mark
All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!
Likewise.
Except, of course (and again), immigration if what we’re talking about is actually population growth.
But regardless, an interest in the procreation of children does not mean that everyone should procreate, nor does it mean that any given person must procreate, nor does it mean that marriage is the best way to ensure that procreation occur (according to the state and its actual understanding of marriage).
Once marriage became about the couple and not about the society in which the couple lived, the writing was on the wall for “traditional” marriage. This isn’t about a vocal subculture. This is about a long-running trend regarding what marriage means. The state’s interest is still served by same-sex marriage–its interest in taxes, fees, property management. The state has long since given up being interested in the welfare of children in anything other than a mere rhetorical way…if it ever was interested in the first place.
Under the Mercy,
Mark
All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!
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