C
CopticChristian
Guest
Ho,
Gays getting married harms no one, in your opinion, based on what you think and believe. This is your opinion. Help me understand how you believe that it harms no one.
- Status
Gays getting married harms no one, in your opinion, based on what you think and believe. This is your opinion. Help me understand how you believe that it harms no one.
H
Hokomai
Guest
Well I know a number of gay couples, some with children, some without, and I have yet to see harm result from these relationships, or at least, in no greater amount (less in fact) than in heterosexual unions. I have seen much good come from them. I know of no statistics on the overall results of homosexual relationships suggesting otherwise (or ones that withstand scrutiny). The act of getting married to Catholics is a sacrament. I think Catholics should be free to have their religious beliefs about marriage, and to practice them. But I do not think they should interfere with the laws regarding civil marriage. I think these should extend to all adults who are single either as a result of not being married, or divorce.
C
CopticChristian
Guest
Ho,
So you are emperical and rational. What you know based on what you experience and what you know based on what you have reasoned leads you to this conclusion. You know of no statistical data so then if I produce some your rational side has hope.
S
sedonaman
Guest
Good info. Thx.
H
Hokomai
Guest
Yes indeed. Demonstrate to me that homosexual marriage produces more harm than good to the people involved, their children, or wider society, and I will oppose it. Of course, it has to be harm I agree is harm, and it has to result from the marriage, not the relationship.Ho,
So you are emperical and rational. What you know based on what you experience and what you know based on what you have reasoned leads you to this conclusion. You know of no statistical data so then if I produce some your rational side has hope.
C
CopticChristian
Guest
Ho,
This is kind and generous. First let me ask you what the difference is between marriage and a relationship? Next let’s address something else.
Do you believe that people should be allowed to smoke cigarettes?
Do you believe that you were created or the big bang and no creation?
Do you believe in God or no God?
Do you believe life has a purpose or no purpose?
thank you…
H
Hokomai
Guest
Ho,
This is kind and generous. First let me ask you what the difference is between marriage and a relationship? Next let’s address something else.
Marriage is a formally recognised sexual relationship with some expectation of continuation. Beyond that marriage has varied in its exact form across human societies. I think that for society to exist without conflict needs some regulation of sexual behaviour, and that marriage is one way by which this is achieved.
Do you believe that people should be allowed to smoke cigarettes?
Yes, if adult, but they should be discouraged because nicotine is addictive, and cigarettes shorten life, and lead to a lower quality of physical life on average for n extended number of years.
Do you believe that you were created or the big bang and no creation?
In general I have not seen anything that requires the idea of a “creator” to explain it. I have no views on ‘the big bang’, although it is obvious the universe is expanding.
Do you believe in God or no God?
I know of nothing which requires the idea of a God to explain it, or for which the existence of a god(s) is the most simple explanation. I think that God and god(s) exist as a social reality, and that belief in them may be an inevitable result of the way our brains evolved, and may even have been adaptive. This does not mean I think such a being exists, just that it is possible we evolved in such a way that we tend to think god(s) exist. Sort of like we evolved to be subject to optical illusions.
Do you believe life has a purpose or no purpose?
If by ‘purpose’ you mean something thought up by a creator, then clearly no. I think that most life has clear functions and relations to other parts of life, and that much life is dependent on other life for existence. I think that as a result of our ability to be self-aware, humans are able to make choices within biological limits, and that we can form purpose. I certainly think I have a purpose, but it is one developed from my community, not given to me by a god(s).
thank you…
C
CopticChristian
Guest
Ho,
You editorialize and explain. Simple yes and no will do. Is this a good summary?
So you believe that marriage is a sexual relationship, should continue, and its purpose is to regulate sexual behavior.
You believe that smoking is OK for adults.
You appear not to believe in God and believe in evolution.
You do not believe life has purpose rather it has function. That function/purpose is externally determined.
Is this correct?
H
Hokomai
Guest
S
sedonaman
Guest
The problem with this requirement is that lightning almost never strikes someone the instant he commits a grave sin. An even if it did, there are those who would say it was just a coincidence. So this requirement cannot be met because the type of harm done by SS"M" will be over long periods of time, something we can’t prove using a scientific experiment, but using reason instead. Of course some will disagree with the reason, mainly because they want their own faulty reason to be true. However, look at all the liberal ideas, and tell me how many of them work.
The modern liberal will invariably side with evil over good, wrong over right, and the behaviors that lead to failure over those that lead to success.
C
CopticChristian
Guest
Ho,
you ask for demonstration that homosexual marriage produces harm, etc is this correct. A simple yes or not.
Homosexuals exist and have existed in the world. Yes or no?
Homosexuals have raised children. Yes or no?
You contend that there is no demonstration or study that provides evidence for harm as you explain. Yes or no?
Try to clarify and not editorialize. I ask you to avoid the red in between with the quotes. It makes it difficult to read.
W
WordHeavy
Guest
To all who have responded, I thank you. My daughter is using all the information she has acquired and is very appreciative of the support, from both sides of the spectrum. The information you have provided is amazing. God bless you all.
The peace of Christ be with all of you,
WordHeavy
The peace of Christ be with all of you,
WordHeavy
S
sedonaman
Guest
Marriage is heavily regulated, and for good reason. When a state recognizes a marriage, it bestows upon the couple certain benefits which are costly to both the state and other individuals. Collecting a deceased spouse’s social security, claiming an extra tax exemption for a spouse, and having the right to be covered under a spouse’s health insurance policy are just a few examples of the costly benefits associated with marriage. In a sense, a married couple receives a subsidy. Why? Because a marriage between two unrelated heterosexuals is likely to result in a family with children, and propagation of society is a compelling state interest. If it weren’t for children, there would be no need to have marriage; groups of people of whatever composition could draw up legal documents expressing their agreement and merely cohabit. …
Homosexual relationships do nothing to serve the state interest of propagating society, so there is no reason for the state to grant them the costly benefits of marriage, unless they serve some other state interest. The burden of proof, therefore, is on the advocates of SS"M" to show what state interest these marriages serve. Thus far, this burden has not been met. IOW, the burden of proof is not on the opposition to prove harm will be done.
The indispensable condition for our personal spiritual survival is that we say NO to the prevailing values of the liberal order and that we KEEP saying NO.
H
Hokomai
Guest
These are examples of United States policies in relation to marriage. They are in no way universal, and in many places there are no monetary benefits to marriage at all.
H
Hokomai
Guest
Yes, yes, not that I know of.
S
sedonaman
Guest
Even if true, I don’t see that it shifts the burden of proof away from advocates of SS"M". Evidently you couldn’t come up with some benefits to society; ergo, there are none.
The indispensable condition for our personal spiritual survival is that we say NO to the prevailing values of the liberal order and that we KEEP saying NO.
C
CopticChristian
Guest
Ho,
Lets set some ground work for discussion.
I ask you to consider the work of Alfred Korzybski, Science and Sanity and Manhood of humanity. He says that humans time bind. In other words the reason we can do what animals cannot do is because we look to the past and add information. A good example would be Astronauts. Who would have thought that we would have airplanes and with that technology, by time binding, or adding past knowledge to present technology we time bind and sent Astronauts into space. I ask you to consider this notion of time binding or learning from the past. Computers and the information added to computer technology would be another example of time binding. OK. Next,
If you believe in creation then there must have been a first man and a first woman.
I don’t know how you percieve the beginning if you believe in evolution. I studied evolution however I might imagine that you would agree that somehow, someway there must have been a first man and a first woman.
Is this agreeable to you?
S
sw85
Guest
If you have time, go to a local library and find a copy of Ed Feser’s “Aquinas.” Read the first couple chapters. It is a moral but non-Biblical argument.
There is also a purely public-interest based argument I advance here: forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=9278385#post9278385. I reply to some objections farther on in the same thread. That argument is strictly amoral but simply asks the question of what possible public interest could arise from gay “marriage.”
Shoot me a PM if you have any questions.
F
FaithBuild18
Guest
It is threatening and dangerous to society to facilitate “marriages” without the possibility of procreation. Granted, not all heterosexual marriages are capable of producing offspring, I understand that fully. But that is not due to the marriage being heterosexual. Contrastingly, all homosexual marriage is incapable of producing offspring, solely because they are homosexual.
The only reason the state offers benefits to married couples is because it’s a smart investment on their part. They try to encourage people to marry because married people produce healthy, well raised children. These children grow up to pay taxes and be functional hard working members of society. This is the reason why married couples get benefits. Homosexual couples are naturally incapable of this and thus should not receive any sort of benefits. It would be a foolish move on the state from a purely economic perspective, because the state gets 0 payoff.
The only reason the state offers benefits to married couples is because it’s a smart investment on their part. They try to encourage people to marry because married people produce healthy, well raised children. These children grow up to pay taxes and be functional hard working members of society. This is the reason why married couples get benefits. Homosexual couples are naturally incapable of this and thus should not receive any sort of benefits. It would be a foolish move on the state from a purely economic perspective, because the state gets 0 payoff.
S
sw85
Guest
Also, one thing to be aware of is that her opponent is almost certainly going to say at some point that homosexual “marriage” is a “right.” This needs to be challenged and firmly, especially because gay “marriage” proponents are probably disproportionately likely to be atheist liberals who deny all the metaphysical bases from which “rights” could be said to arise.
So, if confronted with this claim, she needs to ask, and vigorously demand an answer to, these questions: what right? Where does this right come from – what is it’s source? Why is it no one noticed it existed until approx. 5 minutes ago?
Here it’s worth looking at the historical consensus about where rights come from. For far-rightists like me, rights derive from our duties. This is the natural law take. A right is the “can” to duty’s “ought.” But natural law furnishes absolutely no basis for a “right” to gay marriage, precisely because you have a duty to avoid that which goes against the natural law and therefore a duty not to have gay sex entirely. So clearly, this “right” to gay “marriage” doesn’t come from natural law.
For center-rightists, including most of Protestantism, “rights” come from God; they are revealed by Him directly or else derive from the duties He has proscribed for us. Here, too, there is no basis for saying there is a “right” to gay marriage, especially if her opponent is either an atheist (doesn’t believe in God) or a secularist (doesn’t believe God should have anything to do with the ordering of civil society). God, at least the God of the Bible, has clearly and repeatedly condemned sexual immorality of all sort, including punishing it with fire and ordering His subjects to punish it (e.g., the specifically-mentioned killing of Canaanite temple prostitutes). The only form of sexual arrangement we know with certainty that God has endorsed is heteronormative marriage, and as St. Paul suggests, this was only a grudging concession. So, clearly no “right” to gay marriage comes from God, either.
I have heard it said before that this “right” comes from the “innate dignity” of the human person. I would defy that person to explain what this “innate dignity” is, what it means, and how/why a “right” to “gay marriage” derives from it. Incidentally, the person I heard this from was a leftist atheist who had just denied my natural law take against homosexuality on the grounds that “human nature” is a subjective fiction, that the phrase “humanity” is a mere heuristic for describing a large mass of dissimilar people with no correspondence to objective reality. Well, obviously, if he believes this, there is no reason to believe in anything like the “innate dignity” of the human person, anyway. You can derive an understanding of “innate dignity” from a Christian or Aristotelian understanding of human nature, but both of these systems explicitly deride homosexuality as contrary to man’s dignity. Man’s dignity consists in him doing that which is consistent with his nature, i.e., in becoming an excellent, exemplary human. This is clearly inconsistent with homosexuality in general. You certainly can’t derive such an understanding from a system that denies there is such a thing as “humanity” or “human nature,” much less “God.”
Finally, there’s the “social contract” approach. Rights derive from social consensus. Obviously, though, they don’t believe this, or they would never have started their push for gay “marriage,” since support for was in the single-digits when they started demanding that this “right” be recognized. You can’t claim the social contact yields a right when trying to renegotiate the social contract to make up that right in the first place. The best that can be said is that they want to renegotiate the social contract because they think it would produce a better arrangement of things than the current arrangement. In that case, her opponent needs to stop talking about “rights” entirely and start talking about whether or not gay “marriage” is good or bad. Insisting that it’s a “right,” in that case, is tantamount to mutilating the language in order to endow his/her position with a moral normativity it simply doesn’t warrant.
Once her opponent is forced into this position, she can start asking what, exactly, constitutes “good” and “bad.” Here, she must point out, we cannot divorce our discussion from what is moral, since morality is, by definition, a coherent understanding of “good” and “bad.” With some finesse she can compel her opponent to admit that she is a consequentialist and utilitarian, i.e., she wants gay “marriage” because her opponent thinks happiness is the highest good and doesn’t care what means are used to achieve an increase in happiness. Here, she can simply point out the horrors that would arise from such a system, rigorously applied. For instance, it would furnish no basis for objecting to a doctor murdering one patient and harvesting his organs in order to transplant them into five others, saving their lives. Such a thing would, indeed, produce an increase an happiness, yet no one thinks it would be desirable. On the contrary such an act would be a moral abomination and such a system which endorsed that kind of behavior would be utterly reprehensible. Once she’s got her opponent backed into this corner, she’s basically won the debate.
I hope this helps. I think it’s really cool you’re supporting your daughter and helping her to prepare for her debate this way.
So, if confronted with this claim, she needs to ask, and vigorously demand an answer to, these questions: what right? Where does this right come from – what is it’s source? Why is it no one noticed it existed until approx. 5 minutes ago?
Here it’s worth looking at the historical consensus about where rights come from. For far-rightists like me, rights derive from our duties. This is the natural law take. A right is the “can” to duty’s “ought.” But natural law furnishes absolutely no basis for a “right” to gay marriage, precisely because you have a duty to avoid that which goes against the natural law and therefore a duty not to have gay sex entirely. So clearly, this “right” to gay “marriage” doesn’t come from natural law.
For center-rightists, including most of Protestantism, “rights” come from God; they are revealed by Him directly or else derive from the duties He has proscribed for us. Here, too, there is no basis for saying there is a “right” to gay marriage, especially if her opponent is either an atheist (doesn’t believe in God) or a secularist (doesn’t believe God should have anything to do with the ordering of civil society). God, at least the God of the Bible, has clearly and repeatedly condemned sexual immorality of all sort, including punishing it with fire and ordering His subjects to punish it (e.g., the specifically-mentioned killing of Canaanite temple prostitutes). The only form of sexual arrangement we know with certainty that God has endorsed is heteronormative marriage, and as St. Paul suggests, this was only a grudging concession. So, clearly no “right” to gay marriage comes from God, either.
I have heard it said before that this “right” comes from the “innate dignity” of the human person. I would defy that person to explain what this “innate dignity” is, what it means, and how/why a “right” to “gay marriage” derives from it. Incidentally, the person I heard this from was a leftist atheist who had just denied my natural law take against homosexuality on the grounds that “human nature” is a subjective fiction, that the phrase “humanity” is a mere heuristic for describing a large mass of dissimilar people with no correspondence to objective reality. Well, obviously, if he believes this, there is no reason to believe in anything like the “innate dignity” of the human person, anyway. You can derive an understanding of “innate dignity” from a Christian or Aristotelian understanding of human nature, but both of these systems explicitly deride homosexuality as contrary to man’s dignity. Man’s dignity consists in him doing that which is consistent with his nature, i.e., in becoming an excellent, exemplary human. This is clearly inconsistent with homosexuality in general. You certainly can’t derive such an understanding from a system that denies there is such a thing as “humanity” or “human nature,” much less “God.”
Finally, there’s the “social contract” approach. Rights derive from social consensus. Obviously, though, they don’t believe this, or they would never have started their push for gay “marriage,” since support for was in the single-digits when they started demanding that this “right” be recognized. You can’t claim the social contact yields a right when trying to renegotiate the social contract to make up that right in the first place. The best that can be said is that they want to renegotiate the social contract because they think it would produce a better arrangement of things than the current arrangement. In that case, her opponent needs to stop talking about “rights” entirely and start talking about whether or not gay “marriage” is good or bad. Insisting that it’s a “right,” in that case, is tantamount to mutilating the language in order to endow his/her position with a moral normativity it simply doesn’t warrant.
Once her opponent is forced into this position, she can start asking what, exactly, constitutes “good” and “bad.” Here, she must point out, we cannot divorce our discussion from what is moral, since morality is, by definition, a coherent understanding of “good” and “bad.” With some finesse she can compel her opponent to admit that she is a consequentialist and utilitarian, i.e., she wants gay “marriage” because her opponent thinks happiness is the highest good and doesn’t care what means are used to achieve an increase in happiness. Here, she can simply point out the horrors that would arise from such a system, rigorously applied. For instance, it would furnish no basis for objecting to a doctor murdering one patient and harvesting his organs in order to transplant them into five others, saving their lives. Such a thing would, indeed, produce an increase an happiness, yet no one thinks it would be desirable. On the contrary such an act would be a moral abomination and such a system which endorsed that kind of behavior would be utterly reprehensible. Once she’s got her opponent backed into this corner, she’s basically won the debate.
I hope this helps. I think it’s really cool you’re supporting your daughter and helping her to prepare for her debate this way.
- Status