Good strictly secular argument against same sex marriage

[LeafByNiggle]

For that matter, even if you can argue that not discriminating against gay people will lead to more gay people, what is wrong with that unless you again assert that homosexuals are evil?

Our children are too precious to be subjected to irresponsible social experiments.

But making same sex couples equal to opposite couples in law only removes an active message, it doesn’t send one.

Again, consider my smoking analogy. A law celebrating smoking certainly would send a message, especially to impressionable kids, that smoking is good.

Similarly, one of the consequences of societies restrictions on smoking is to make those who do smoke feel like second class citizens. They have to go outside the building where to work to have a smoke, instead of smoke indoors like in the old days. This consequence, however, is not reason enough to stop discouraging smoking with public policy.

 

[Peter_Plato]

The data shows that same sex marriage dramatically reduces mortality, especially in gay men. Now do you actually agree that this is a good thing, or do you argue that gay men dying is a good thing?

The data shows that same sex marriage repairs to some extent the self-inflicted damage done by gay men and women engaging in an unhealthy lifestyle. It doesn’t show any actual benefit that wouldn’t anyway be the case simply by having gay men and women give up their lifestyle and behaviour. That isn’t a positive benefit, it just corrects (if that) self-inflicted harm.

Even that, however, is a dubious result because the sampling in the study is skewed by the probability that those initially entering gay marriage are likely to be an elite sample group.

 

[Peter_Plato]

It possible to have something be legal and still in the interests of society to discourage. Consider smoking. If the government started offering subsidies to people who smoke, don’t you think that would make more kids want to smoke? Of course it would. Even the tolerance of smoking by government sends a mixed message to kids. They think “if it is so bad, why do they sell cigarettes?”.

So yes, if it good to discourage young people from experimenting with homosexuality, then gay marriage works against this goal.

However, public education policy does not warn children and young adults of the risks associated with gay behavior. Instead it positively promotes “gayness” as a viable choice and, in some states, makes it illegal for anyone to seek help to overcome the proclivity.

Perhaps twenty years hence we will have law suits, similar to those against tobacco companies, filed by middle aged adults against government officials who were negligent in their duty to warn the young about “gay” behaviour choices but instead portrayed them as being just as conducive to good health as traditional lifestyles. Perhaps responsible researchers should be collecting impeccable data in order to supply it to lawyers who are now standing in the wings waiting to find just cause for holding politicians and education policy writers accountable for the mess they will create. Perhaps, this “shot across the bow” will make irresponsible politicians a little more wary of incorporating unsubstantiated ideology into what ought to be responsible concern for the welfare of all citizens.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Of course they do. The echidna and the platypus are sufficient to disprove the assertion that “no mammals lay eggs” and thus to counter a definition of “mammal” that included “not laying eggs”.

There is no such assertion that “no mammals lay eggs.”

However, a typical definition of mammals includes the phrase “live-bearers.” That does not preclude a few rare exceptions such as the echidna and platypus which, by the fact that they are exceptions, prove the rule that live bearing is an important characteristic of mammals and that the “egg-laying” traits of a few is inconsequential. The vast majority are live-bearers and sufficiently so that this is an important definitional aspect of what it means to be a mammal.

The exceptions, because they are rare exceptions prove the rule, they do not render it inconsequential.

Similarly, the fact that infertility does occur in marriages shows that, as an exception to the typical state, infertility demonstrates that fertility is an important definitional aspect of marriage. The exception proves the rule that marriages are typically and optimally fertile, NOT that fertility is inconsequential and that any inherently sterile arrangement ought to be counted as equal to inherently fertile pairings regarding the married state, as SSM advocate argue.

 

[JimG]

However, public education policy does not warn children and young adults of the risks associated with gay behavior. Instead it positively promotes “gayness” as a viable choice and, in some states, makes it illegal for anyone to seek help to overcome the proclivity.

Perhaps twenty years hence we will have law suits, similar to those against tobacco companies, filed by middle aged adults against government officials who were negligent in their duty to warn the young about “gay” behaviour choices but instead portrayed them as being just as conducive to good health as traditional lifestyles. Perhaps responsible researchers should be collecting impeccable data in order to supply it to lawyers who are now standing in the wings waiting to find just cause for holding politicians and education policy writers accountable for the mess they will create. Perhaps, this “shot across the bow” will make irresponsible politicians a little more wary of incorporating unsubstantiated ideology into what ought to be responsible concern for the welfare of all citizens.

A sobering thought indeed. There could be lots of claims. (“They told us that it was okay, that it was safe, that it was healthy, that it was even necessary!”)

 

[clem456]

“Good strictly secular argument against same sex marriage”

I opt for the obvious one.
Human existence and flourishing… ummmm… require human beings?
And if we are going to have human beings, we need men and women in stable relationships to help produce them?

Think about how absurd this discussion is…
It’s like asking for justification for the sun to rise in the morning. Without it, we wouldn’t exist. It’s simply the only way things work, similar to heterosexual union being the only way for humans to flourish.