homosexual marriage

[Joe_Corn]

a good read for secular argument against ss marriage: tech.mit.edu/V124/N5/kolasinski.5c.html

Thanks in advance for any and all responses,
My daughter will be debating homosexual marriage in school next week and I am helping her to prepare for the debate. She will be arguing against homosexual marriage. We would like to hear any good arguments that may assist her, biblical or not. She will be arguing mostly from a biblical perspective but it would be great to hear arguments that a non-religious person might find compelling.

Thanks and the peace of Christ be with you all,
WordHeavy

 

[Veritas_Et_Vita]

Without God, what do the words “entitled” and “rights” have to do with any law that are simply man-made decisions to impose a code of behaviour on a population? Obviously, the concept of being entitled or having a right is a figment of the imagination. Only with God, does the concept of being entitled or having rights have any force of logic. Your words only support anarchy logically. If you support law & order, then you support imposing the will of some over the will of others for no other reason than some, maybe but not necessarily including you, have the might to define, impose & enforce some notion of “right”. If you don’t have the might to define gay marriage as a “right”, if you support the concept of law, you support those with the might to impose their will over yours, even if their imagination with their silly beliefs is entirely different from yours. Of course, logically you don’t support law, because your statement only supports the concept of anarchy.

One thing that’s always bothered me about atheists is that they claim rights where none exist, because, to them, nothing exists to objectively define rights.

 

[Veritas_Et_Vita]

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.

'Nuff said.

 

[Hokomai]

So why should the state be involved in marriage at all? Why can’t it be simply a religious thing to those of us who wish to do it?

No one is imposing anything. Homosexual “rights” are already available, including by the use of legal force.

I put my mail friend down as a beneficiary on my IRA. It was all handled over the phone. No question was asked about orientation.

I put my same friend on my meager bank account as beneficiary. No orientation question.

I can will all my worldly possessions to my friend in a will, or my next door neighbor. No orientation is involved.

My friend will be given power of attorney or even guardianship if my health or mental capacity deteriorates.

By the use of legal force, Catholic adoption agencies have been required by conscience to close their doors.

I challenge anyone to point out where rights are not available to homosexuals the same as they are to heterosexuals.

I ask anyone to point out what responsibilities are involved in a homosexual marriage.

Many successful gay marriages do not include fidelity.

nytimes.com/2010/01/29/us/29sfmetro.html

And here’s another example where force was applied but failed.

lifesitenews.com/news/archive/ldn/2009/feb/09021808

Peace,
Ed

 

[Hokomai]

Without God, what do the words “entitled” and “rights” have to do with any law that are simply man-made decisions to impose a code of behaviour on a population? Obviously, the concept of being entitled or having a right is a figment of the imagination. Only with God, does the concept of being entitled or having rights have any force of logic. Your words only support anarchy logically. If you support law & order, then you support imposing the will of some over the will of others for no other reason than some, maybe but not necessarily including you, have the might to define, impose & enforce some notion of “right”. If you don’t have the might to define gay marriage as a “right”, if you support the concept of law, you support those with the might to impose their will over yours, even if their imagination with their silly beliefs is entirely different from yours. Of course, logically you don’t support law, because your statement only supports the concept of anarchy.

One of the things I enjoy about CAF is learning how inferences can be drawn from statements I make which contain no such implications. In my opinion, (and those who do not believe have not found it necessary to create organisations with doctrine) the idea of ‘rights’ is indeed drawn from social consensus. Since the enlightenment, and especially since the second world war, these ideas have become more and more developed, and entered into the legislation of many nations. Minorities, for example, are held to have rights even though they are not in a majority, and the majority, through its power, accepts and enforces those rights. This is not anarchy. It is disagreement with you that ‘rights’ derive from thoughts of a god(s), or from an alleged ‘natural law’ deriving from observation of things ‘he’ ‘created’. More than happy to debate what I said and actually think about homosexual marriage and rights. In this case my view is that the majority should accept that the minority have rights to secure civil registration of monogamous relationships in the same way as the majority.

 

[TarkanAttila]

So why should the state be involved in marriage at all? Why can’t it be simply a religious thing to those of us who wish to do it?

Good question. I lean towards that kind of thinking myself, but allow me to help you understand why the state has “marriages”.

Now, you know in the RCC a marriage is a sacrament which brings man, woman, and God together to make their love for God stronger, and to bring children into the world.

The second point is of some concern to governments of all kinds. After all, with no people, there is no civilization. It has been in the best interests of the government to see that people produce children, and are able to raise them to be suitable, productive members of society.

When a husband and wife are bound to each other in the contract of marriage, this generally greatly improves the mental, physical, and spiritual health of a child.

Thus it is in their best interests to make sure marriages produce children, and stay together so that child has a better chance at life.

Since gay “marriages” are not conducive to this - they cannot produce life without a third party; the quality of mental health is somewhat lower that it is in children raised by a married man and a married woman of about the same conditions; and gay relationships are generally less stable than comparable straight ones - it’s not in the interest of the state to promote so-called “gay marriage” - any more than it is in the interest of the state to marry two people who are irreversibly sterile.

Gay “marriage” is basically an unproductive sexually active friendship given the blessing of the state. Without a third party - a male or a female - to add the missing parts, they are completely incapable of having children.

Real marriage is what it takes to produce children and raise them as they were meant to be raised. It requires not only affection between two people, or only a man and a woman. It requires a man and a woman who want to take care of children - to sacrifice themselves for their children. No two gay people can equal a marriage.

 

[Hokomai]

Good question. I lean towards that kind of thinking myself, but allow me to help you understand why the state has “marriages”.

Now, you know in the RCC a marriage is a sacrament which brings man, woman, and God together to make their love for God stronger, and to bring children into the world.

The second point is of some concern to governments of all kinds. After all, with no people, there is no civilization. It has been in the best interests of the government to see that people produce children, and are able to raise them to be suitable, productive members of society.

When a husband and wife are bound to each other in the contract of marriage, this generally greatly improves the mental, physical, and spiritual health of a child.

Thus it is in their best interests to make sure marriages produce children, and stay together so that child has a better chance at life.

Since gay “marriages” are not conducive to this - they cannot produce life without a third party; the quality of mental health is somewhat lower that it is in children raised by a married man and a married woman of about the same conditions; and gay relationships are generally less stable than comparable straight ones - it’s not in the interest of the state to promote so-called “gay marriage” - any more than it is in the interest of the state to marry two people who are irreversibly sterile.

Gay “marriage” is basically an unproductive sexually active friendship given the blessing of the state. Without a third party - a male or a female - to add the missing parts, they are completely incapable of having children.

Real marriage is what it takes to produce children and raise them as they were meant to be raised. It requires not only affection between two people, or only a man and a woman. It requires a man and a woman who want to take care of children - to sacrifice themselves for their children. No two gay people can equal a marriage.

I see common ground appearing before me! I hope it is not a mirage!

I would not see anything wrong with the state regulating relationships which involve, or are intended to involve children, and excluding non-childbearers or adopters from that. But so many homosexuals do have children (sometimes from previous relationships) such a restriction would not resolve the Catholic objection to gay marriage.

 

[edwest2]

Well most of us live in democracies, and homosexuals are a minority everywhere, so not only do they not have the right, they do not have the ability. They do however have a right to expect people who believe in fairness and equality before the law to accept their right to live as they wish without harming others.

Homosexuals are already doing this.

Peace,
Ed

 

[edwest2]

So why should the state be involved in marriage at all? Why can’t it be simply a religious thing to those of us who wish to do it?

So why are gay rights activists asking for the State to be involved? You can’t say the government should get out of the marriage business and at the same time, ask the same government for help to legalize gay marriage.

Peace,
Ed

 

[edwest2]

One of the things I enjoy about CAF is learning how inferences can be drawn from statements I make which contain no such implications. In my opinion, (and those who do not believe have not found it necessary to create organisations with doctrine) the idea of ‘rights’ is indeed drawn from social consensus. Since the enlightenment, and especially since the second world war, these ideas have become more and more developed, and entered into the legislation of many nations. Minorities, for example, are held to have rights even though they are not in a majority, and the majority, through its power, accepts and enforces those rights. This is not anarchy. It is disagreement with you that ‘rights’ derive from thoughts of a god(s), or from an alleged ‘natural law’ deriving from observation of things ‘he’ ‘created’. More than happy to debate what I said and actually think about homosexual marriage and rights. In this case my view is that the majority should accept that the minority have rights to secure civil registration of monogamous relationships in the same way as the majority.

Monogamous?

nytimes.com/2010/01/29/us/29sfmetro.html

Peace,
Ed

 

[Hokomai]

Monogamous?

nytimes.com/2010/01/29/us/29sfmetro.html

Peace,
Ed

Yes that is as far as I go. I am open in theory to the idea of other combinations, but do not believe there is evidence that the benefits of state registration of pairings would be transferable to larger combinations, or that human rights could be protected within them. I do not think such activity should be proscribed by law in itself. See how conservative I am really?

 

[wynnejj]

One of the things I enjoy about CAF is learning how inferences can be drawn from statements I make which contain no such implications. In my opinion, (and those who do not believe have not found it necessary to create organisations with doctrine) the idea of ‘rights’ is indeed drawn from social consensus. Since the enlightenment, and especially since the second world war, these ideas have become more and more developed, and entered into the legislation of many nations. Minorities, for example, are held to have rights even though they are not in a majority, and the majority, through its power, accepts and enforces those rights. This is not anarchy. It is disagreement with you that ‘rights’ derive from thoughts of a god(s), or from an alleged ‘natural law’ deriving from observation of things ‘he’ ‘created’. More than happy to debate what I said and actually think about homosexual marriage and rights. In this case my view is that the majority should accept that the minority have rights to secure civil registration of monogamous relationships in the same way as the majority.

According to you, “rights” are conferred upon people by social consensus. So gay marriage is in the process of being petitioned for the status of “right” where it has not already been conferred. If the majority decide NOT to accept the petition, then they are doing “right” and you were petitioning for a “wrong” … and of course, if they decide to accept the petition, they too are doing “right” and you were petitioning for a “right” that was a “wrong” for you to petition.

 

[Hokomai]

According to you, “rights” are conferred upon people by social consensus. So gay marriage is in the process of being petitioned for the status of “right” where it has not already been conferred. If the majority decide NOT to accept the petition, then they are doing “right” and you were petitioning for a “wrong” … and of course, if they decide to accept the petition, they too are doing “right” and you were petitioning for a “right” that was a “wrong” for you to petition.

No, social consensus does not mean the same thing as “outcome of a single vote”. It develops over time in democracies, largely in proportion to the degree of democracy and freedom of speech (not harming others) allowed. So I would include the various UN declarations on human rights, the US constitution, and even parts of some papal encyclicals as contributing to the consensus. Over time, a full consensus emerges. A good example is on capital punishment, which is now very rare in the world, and outside the US, virtually unknown in democracies. Particular votes are a part, but a small part of this. But well done on your deluge of homonyms!

 

[wynnejj]

No, social consensus does not mean the same thing as “outcome of a single vote”. It develops over time in democracies, largely in proportion to the degree of democracy and freedom of speech (not harming others) allowed. So I would include the various UN declarations on human rights, the US constitution, and even parts of some papal encyclicals as contributing to the consensus. Over time, a full consensus emerges. A good example is on capital punishment, which is now very rare in the world, and outside the US, virtually unknown in democracies. Particular votes are a part, but a small part of this. But well done on your deluge of homonyms!

If over time and many places where the issue was determined by popular vote, the preponderance of legislation denies gay marriage, then the people’s beliefs as determined by the ages, do indeed have the right to impose their beliefs on the minority. If you disagree, then are you not advocating anarchy based on your earlier statement? If you agree, then are you not contradicting your earlier statements?

 

[ACCT]

Morality (Western Bourgeois)

*In the domain of morality, is it not an accepted principle of our Western bourgeois world that there is no absolute distinction between right and wrong rooted in the eternal order of God, but that they are relative and dependent entirely upon one’s point of view? Hence when the Western world wishes to decide what is right and wrong even in certain moral matters, it takes a poll – forgetful that the majority never makes a thing right….**The first poll of public opinion taken in history of Christianity was on Pilate’s front porch, and it was wrong *(Bishop Sheen).”

 

[ACCT]

Here is a quote from Bishop Sheen on politics:

“*Our Constitution puts politics under theology, democracy under God. But **today, politics denies its divine foundation. **Politics is today the supreme and absolute science. We once lived in the age of the Theological Man; then cam the age of the Economic Man; now we are in the age of the Political Man. The Theological Man lived for God; the Economic Man lived for profit; the Political Man lives for the State…So important has politics become, that now men judge religion by its attitude toward politics, rather than politics by its attitude toward religion.” *

 

[TarkanAttila]

I see common ground appearing before me! I hope it is not a mirage!

I would not see anything wrong with the state regulating relationships which involve, or are intended to involve children, and excluding non-childbearers or adopters from that. But so many homosexuals do have children (sometimes from previous relationships) such a restriction would not resolve the Catholic objection to gay marriage.

Ah…

Do you know how sex works? Two gay men cannot have a child. Nor can two gay women. There must always be involved an outside party - a surrogate mother for one of the men to impregnate, or a sperm donor, respectively. Either way, though, the genes of the two men or women in question never pass each other. There is no child with YY chromosomes.

Part of a healthy bringing up includes knowing your mother and father wanted to have you. That, of course, raises some interesting questions. And somehow I don’t think it healthy to have to tell a child “we borrowed another woman’s womb” or “you were made from the sperm of a man that was neither of us”.

Another problem I have with IVF, sperm donation, and the like is that it seems to turn a child into a commodity - as if having a kid were like buying a pet in a pet store. I am of the opinion that children have the right not to be bought like goldfish. It makes them no less human. But… I almost see it as a sort of… slavery. Or objectification.

If a relationship’s purpose is not to bring life into this world, even if both parties bring 25 kids combined in from previous relationships, it’s not in the government’s interest to support it. In the first place, it’s not even in the government’s interest to support divorce.

Divorces should not be allowed, as they negatively affects the mental health of the husband and wife, and most certainly of any children involved. Divorce is rampant in this country thanks to all of the sexual dreck we’ve been weathering over the past 70 years. Is it any wonder, then, so many people have mental problems up the yin-yang?

Is it any wonder recent generations have grown so self-serving and near-sighted, if their parents were? People divorce because of money, because they found someone they wanted to screw instead of their wives, because they hated each other, what have you. Since when do people divorce for the good of the children - or of each other? It is rare - very rare.

 

[Hokomai]

If over time and many places where the issue was determined by popular vote, the preponderance of legislation denies gay marriage, then the people’s beliefs as determined by the ages, do indeed have the right to impose their beliefs on the minority. If you disagree, then are you not advocating anarchy based on your earlier statement? If you agree, then are you not contradicting your earlier statements?

Well, no, not anarchy, but there are many things I personally do not find acceptable (the right to protection from trespass when the only issue is presence on another’s land for example), in which I know my view is so insignificant that the majority are ever likely to accept it. So I accept theirs. In general in a democracy I accept the right of the majority. The US system, in which rights are protected by a written constitution is superior to that in most Commonwealth countries, in which constitutional protection is weak.

 

[Hokomai]

Ah…

Do you know how sex works? Two gay men cannot have a child. Nor can two gay women. There must always be involved an outside party - a surrogate mother for one of the men to impregnate, or a sperm donor, respectively. Either way, though, the genes of the two men or women in question never pass each other. There is no child with YY chromosomes.

.

I would have thought the Holy Family was the archetype of such a relationship. Is it not?

 

[TarkanAttila]

I would have thought the Holy Family was the archetype of such a relationship. Is it not?

Interesting way to look at it. Except that Mary and Joseph did not demand the child Jesus. He was the gift of God to Mary and Joseph, as every child is, born but under special circumstances.

Children borne normally to a mother and father are not demanded by the parents. The parents want a child, and do what they can to have said child, but it pretty much is left to Providence’s hands as to whether one comes or not. In that case, too, the child is a gift from God. And let us not forget it.

However in the case of gay couples and the sterile beyond repair who have IVF etc, they’re basically saying, “I’m going to have a baby, no matter what! Because I want one, and no one’s gonna stop me!”

Do you… kinda see the difference?