How do i come up with a good reason why governments shouldn't allow same sex marriage?

[MacQ]

MacQ;12104333:

I’m really confused… Its discriminatory to have two completely different legal contracts for two completely different purposes? I’m not talking about two different contracts for the same purpose, but one for the sake of ensuring the good of future generations of citizens and a separate one for dealing with all the issues that come up when people commit to share their lives together. The government also has legal contracts called pre-nups to protect people’s property when people split up, is it discriminatory to have pre-nups as well as marriage contracts? Of course not, they are two separate contracts each with its own completely different governmental purpose.

As for why not all unions being civil unions, iny proposed suggestion all people who commit themselves to eat h other would enter a civil union. Then, those that are going to bear and raise children together can also enter another contract for that purpose. There is nothing discriminatory in this at all.

I also do not understand why you claim this is intrusive…

I read your proposal to mean that a couple would enter one contract or the other…that they would choose one. That was what I meant by intrusive. (You’d have to declare your intentions for getting married, which is no one’s business, least of all government).

I still don’t get why people would need a contract to have kids or why that would be different…what would government be using it for? How would they make people sign one? Tell them they can’t have kids unless they do? What’s next, telling them how many they can have?

Good luck getting it passed anyway, even if it was a good idea. Doesn’t seem like one to me… I can’t see that it serves any purpose other than making you feel like you solved a problem (by having things both ways).

 

[MacQ]

Are you really claiming that an unborn child cannot be harmed? Are you sure you want to say that?

So a woman who is addicted to crack and alcohol, and gets pregnant – you’re saying that this woman ISN’T harming her child? Say it ain’t so!

And I’m guessing you support the laws that make desertion, divorce and unwed pregnancy possible – although I’d be happy to learn otherwise.

But you’re the one advocating for laws that deny children moms and dads.

.

I really don’t understand how you draw some of the conclusions you do from what I have said. It appears to be a deliberate twisting of what I have said.

Example:
You seem to be saying that if gay people are allowed to marry and adopt kids, it will “deny” kids a mom and dad. (Your words). I said if a gay person adopts a kid, that means the kid was already without a mom and dad.
The point: gay people are not causing lack of mom and dad homes.

Your interpretation of that is that means I think an unborn child can’t be harmed, and that I don’t think cocaine harms unborn babies.
HUH?

Example2:
I said that laws don’t keep people from deserting their families or divorcing their spouses, or having unwed pregnancies.
You say that means I “support laws that allow” desertion and divorce and unwed pregnancy.
Read slowly: I don’t support any of those things, but I don’t think laws stop them.
I just maintain that cultural values are not determined by legislation, and that these things are not controlled by laws…

Perhaps I have not clearly articulated my points.
I don’t know how to be clearer, so if that’s the case, we’re done.

It’s also possible that you think the way to refute something is to twist it onto something that was not said that is inane (not to mention insulting). That is not an intellectually honest way to discuss something, and it’s a tactic not unlike ad hominen attacks that I disdain in the extreme, so if that’s the case, we’re done.

Bottom line: I think we’re done.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

I said if a gay person adopts a kid, that means the kid was already without a mom and dad.
The point: gay people are not causing lack of mom and dad homes.

Yes they are. If they did not insist on the right to adopt the kid, there is a good chance the kid could be adopted by a couple who could be mom and dad to him.

Read slowly: I don’t support any of those things, but I don’t think laws stop them.
I just maintain that cultural values are not determined by legislation, and that these things are not controlled by laws…

Laws do** reflect **the cultural values. And it is entirely appropriate that they do so. If a society thinks highly of a particular value, it is natural that they would want to reflect that value in their laws. For instance, we have laws that allow abandoned mothers to sue the fathers for child support. Don’t you think that those laws deter at least some fathers from abandoning their family? We would not think much of the value of family unity if we left abandoned mothers to fend for themselves with no help from the law.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

I really don’t understand how you draw some of the conclusions you do from what I have said. It appears to be a deliberate twisting of what I have said.

Mac, I certainly didn’t mean to be insulting. I don’t think I twisted your words, but I did try to anticipate the logical path your words were taking. I am sorry if I made any errors. I certainly have not made any ad hominem attacks. If you think that I have, please show me where.

Example:
You seem to be saying that if gay people are allowed to marry and adopt kids, it will “deny” kids a mom and dad. (Your words). I said if a gay person adopts a kid, that means the kid was already without a mom and dad.
The point: gay people are not causing lack of mom and dad homes.

Now you’re getting what I said wrong. I don’t (generally) have a problem with gay people adopting kids; I agree with you that these kids already don’t have a functional mom or dad. I have a problem with gay people choosing to have children biologically, and raise them in homes without a mom or a dad.

You said that “Likewise (as I said) if [gay people] undertake a pregnancy to birth a child, that child didn’t have a mom or dad either.” I took this to mean that the unconceived child was not harmed by being born into a family without a mom (e.g.). I disagree. I think it is possible to harm beings who do not yet exist. Therefore, when you bring another being into existence with the intention of depriving it of a mother, you are (in my view) doing something wrong.

Your interpretation of that is that means I think an unborn child can’t be harmed, and that I don’t think cocaine harms unborn babies.
HUH?

Explained above. There was no healthy baby harmed by the conception of a “crack baby”; only the crack baby was harmed. So clearly unconceived children can be harmed, and in the same way unconceived children can be wrongly deprived of mothers.

Example2:
I said that laws don’t keep people from deserting their families or divorcing their spouses, or having unwed pregnancies.
You say that means I “support laws that allow” desertion and divorce and unwed pregnancy.

I said “I’d guess” you support these things, and that “I’d be happy to learn otherwise”.

So let me ask: do you support no-fault divorce? Contraception? Freedom of choice? In my view, it’s pretty clear that these laws have been instrumental in increasing desertion, divorce, and unwed pregnancy. (I allow that I could be wrong about that. But my view is not uncommon, even among liberals.)

 

[MacQ]

Mac, I certainly didn’t mean to be insulting. I don’t think I twisted your words, but I did try to anticipate the logical path your words were taking. I am sorry if I made any errors.

Thank you for clarifying that you didn’t intend to be insulting. Your ‘anticipation of logical path’ was quite wrong, and did come off as deliberate twisting. Perhaps it would be better to ask for a clarification than to jump to a conclusion like that. It was not the first instance, so I surmised that was your style. I’m glad to hear it wasn’t intentional.

I certainly have not made any ad hominem attacks. If you think that I have, please show me where.
.)

I said that tactic was not unlike an ad hom attack. I didn’t say it was one. It’s pretty close tho.

Now you’re getting what I said wrong. I don’t (generally) have a problem with gay people adopting kids; I agree with you that these kids already don’t have a functional mom or dad. I have a problem with gay people choosing to have children biologically, and raise them in homes without a mom or a dad.

You said that “Likewise (as I said) if [gay people] undertake a pregnancy to birth a child, that child didn’t have a mom or dad either.” I took this to mean that the unconceived child was not harmed by being born into a family without a mom (e.g.). I disagree. I think it is possible to harm beings who do not yet exist. Therefore, when you bring another being into existence with the intention of depriving it of a mother, you are (in my view) doing something wrong…

Depriving it of a mother? In some cases, they get two mothers!
Are they worse off than kids who only have one parent?

Seems to me there’s a difference between harming a child in utero (as in your cocaine mother example), and choosing to conceive one in the first place who you know will not grow up in ideal conditions. Liberal pro-choice people use that argument all the time in order to justify abortion. I don’t buy it.
People grow up in all sorts of untoward circumstances, and most of them turn out just fine. Some people who came from the hardest knocks go on to do great things. I wouldn’t deny a child LIFE just because it wouldn’t have ozzie and harriet for parents.

Explained above. There was no healthy baby harmed by the conception of a “crack baby”; only the crack baby was harmed. So clearly unconceived children can be harmed, and in the same way unconceived children can be wrongly deprived of mothers…

Sorry I can’t make out what you’re saying there.

I said “I’d guess” you support these things, and that “I’d be happy to learn otherwise”.

So let me ask: do you support no-fault divorce? Contraception? Freedom of choice? In my view, it’s pretty clear that these laws have been instrumental in increasing desertion, divorce, and unwed pregnancy. (I allow that I could be wrong about that. But my view is not uncommon, even among liberals.)

No fault divorce? I don’t “support” divorce at all, but it happens, and in cases where it happens, I don’t see what is gained by dragging people through nasty court battles and accusations, which is what used to happen when laws specified certain criteria for divorce. That harms the children by necessitating that the parents savage each other. Believe me, I know that to be true. Everyone is harmed anyway, but that part is unnecessary. Far better they just part and try to do their best for the children separately. Beyond that, divorce is a civil matter. I don’t think the government has any business demanding that you must publicly prove your spouse was unfaithful before dissolving the civil union. So yes, I agree with no-fault divorce. I fail to see how requiring fault in divorce would lead to more happy stable marriages…

Contraception? That should be a private matter of conscience within a marriage. It can be and often is abused and become a sin. Not sure that that has to do with this thread.

Of course, I do NOT support abortion. Nor do I consider it “freedom of choice”. Not sure what that has to do with this thread either.

 

[MacQ]

Yes they are. If they did not insist on the right to adopt the kid, there is a good chance the kid could be adopted by a couple who could be mom and dad to him.

Laws do** reflect **the cultural values. And it is entirely appropriate that they do so. If a society thinks highly of a particular value, it is natural that they would want to reflect that value in their laws. For instance, we have laws that allow abandoned mothers to sue the fathers for child support. Don’t you think that those laws deter at least some fathers from abandoning their family? We would not think much of the value of family unity if we left abandoned mothers to fend for themselves with no help from the law.

Law reflecting cultural values (what you said they do) is different from laws determining them (which is what I said they do not do).

While laws should reflect cultural values, I don’t think it’s probable that simply making a law would force a cultural value to follow. Culture is more complex than that.

In any case, that wasn’t the issue. You asserted that lax laws would deprive kids of a mother-father home. I will simply repeat that I have seen no evidence that laws make death, desertion, deadbeat parents, unwed pregnancies, or divorce less likely. Those are the factors that “DENY” a child a mom and dad. No evidence either that the children gay people manage to have or adopt deprives said child of your ozzie and harriet fantasy home. If they’re up for adoption, they’re already deprived of that, and if they have them through pregnancies, they’d not have otherwise existed.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Thank you for clarifying that you didn’t intend to be insulting. Your ‘anticipation of logical path’ was quite wrong, and did come off as deliberate twisting. Perhaps it would be better to ask for a clarification than to jump to a conclusion like that. It was not the first instance, so I surmised that was your style. I’m glad to hear it wasn’t intentional.

No, I’m actually quite surprised – and, as I said I would be – delighted to hear that your views are not as extreme as I feared. I sinned by presuming something about you that was false. I am sorry.

Depriving it of a mother? In some cases, they get two mothers!

And in some cases, they get two fathers. But they are either deprived of a father, or a mother. Either of these seem like serious losses, to me (speaking as a man who grew up without a father).

Are they worse off than kids who only have one parent?

No. But we do not set up single motherhood as an ideal, and give it a fancy name like “marriage”. We do not build a positive mythology around single motherhood.

I live in the US city with the most single mothers: Detroit. I can tell you right now there is nothing good about this situation. It is so bad that an extremely liberal columnist in the city has written a recent article encouraging people to start using shame to discourage single motherhood.

When you argue that gay parenting isn’t worse than single parenting, that sounds (to me) like arguing that Stalin isn’t worse than Hitler – it’s not exactly a ringing endorsement of Stalin.

(I actually think gay parenting is better than single parenting. But not better enough to make it the law of the land.)

Seems to me there’s a difference between harming a child in utero (as in your cocaine mother example), and choosing to conceive one in the first place who you know will not grow up in ideal conditions. Liberal pro-choice people use that argument all the time in order to justify abortion. I don’t buy it.

The liberals are right to argue that way – they’re just confused. You see, the child already exists. Being single **IS **a good reason to avoid getting pregnant, precisely because having a single mother will harm the child. But it’s not a good reason to kill an already existing person. If I agreed with pro-choicers that the fetus isn’t a person, I would agree with them that abortion is permissible.

People grow up in all sorts of untoward circumstances, and most of them turn out just fine. Some people who came from the hardest knocks go on to do great things. I wouldn’t deny a child LIFE just because it wouldn’t have ozzie and harriet for parents.

But don’t you see that this argument seems to allow that a woman with a crack addiction isn’t wrong to conceive a baby? After all, this baby could go onto do great things. And not conceiving – on your view – would be “denying a child life”.

(Please realize: I am not trying to put words in your mouth. I am simply saying that your argument, if correct, could be applied to other cases – presumably cases where you would disagree with the conclusion.)

No fault divorce? I don’t “support” divorce at all, but it happens, and in cases where it happens, I don’t see what is gained by dragging people through nasty court battles and accusations, which is what used to happen when laws specified certain criteria for divorce. That harms the children by necessitating that the parents savage each other.

You talk as if there would be the same number of divorces, with or without no-fault divorce laws. But the fact is divorces have increased exponentially since no-fault divorces became legal. Hence my feeling that supporting these laws encourages divorce.

I don’t think the government has any business demanding that you must publicly prove your spouse was unfaithful before dissolving the civil union. So yes, I agree with no-fault divorce.

I don’t think a person who isn’t willing to stay with a spouse for better or worse has any business bringing children into the world.

Contraception? That should be a private matter of conscience within a marriage. It can be and often is abused and become a sin. Not sure that that has to do with this thread.

The legalization and moralization of contraception has led to increased promiscuity and (ironically) increased abortion rates.

Of course, I do NOT support abortion. Nor do I consider it “freedom of choice”.

 

[RandomRhino]

TBH there’s no good reason because marrying another consenting adult should be a right recognized by all governments worldwide. Your own discomfort with gay marriage doesn’t give you the right to deny other consenting adults the right to marry who they love and receive government benefits just because they love the same-sex.

I’m sad you’d want to deny my right to marriage. We live in a secular state with freedom of religion and separation of church and state.

 

[JimG]

Here’s an article from Catholic World Report about same sex marriage and same sex parenting:

catholicworldreport.com/Item/3172/samesex_marriage_and_parenting_four_big_myths_debunked.aspx

 

[SyroMalankara]

TBH there’s no good reason because marrying another consenting adult should be a right recognized by all governments worldwide.

Except in every single country throughout the world, that privilege to marry is not without constraints. The US for example, forbids two consenting adults who are related to marry, while a Saudi could find that this is discriminatory. Also, it is discriminatory for the same Saudi to legally have 10 wives, recognized in 15 Middle Eastern nations, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, some African nations and Indonesia - but not in Europe, Australia, or the Americas.

Your own discomfort with gay marriage doesn’t give you the right to deny other consenting adults the right to marry who they love and receive government benefits just because they love the same-sex.

See the above.

I’m sad you’d want to deny my right to marriage. We live in a secular state with freedom of religion and separation of church and state.

Secular means anything goes? What does this have to do with a hill of beans - most folks aren’t arguing that the ecclesial law should become the civil standard, only that the natural law exists and should be the civil practice. Many advocates of same sex marriage deny a natural law exists and prefer law by popularity.

 

[Abu]

Fr John F Harvey O.S.F.S. establishes that homosexual behaviour is always condemned in the Scriptures, (The Truth About Homosexuality, Ignatius, 1996, p 138:
Gen 19:4-11; Lev 18:22, 20:13; Rom 1:26-27; 1 Cor 6:9-11; 1 Tim 1: 8-11, and Jude 7.

Fr Harvey (ibid p 134-138) shows that the act of homosexual intercourse lacks the two components that make sexual intercourse natural:

1. The gastrointestinal tract is a hole running through the body – oral or anal intercourse remains on the surface and is not inside the human being, whereas vaginal intercourse is about a real physical union.
2. Since the homosexual act cannot be procreative it cannot unify those engaged in it by tending toward a child who will have characteristics of both parents.

“Homosexual acts are ipso facto unnatural.”

Researchers Peter Bearman and Hannah Brückner, from Columbia and Yale respectively, studied data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, and found even lower concordance rates of only 6.7% for male and 5.3% for female identical twins. In fact, their study neatly refuted several of the biological theories for the origin of homosexuality, finding social experiences in childhood to be far more significant.

If it was not clear in the 1990’s, it certainly is now—no one is “born gay.”
[Peter S. Bearman and Hannah Brückner, *Opposite-Sex Twins and Adolescent Same-Sex Attraction, American Journal of Sociology Vol. 107, No. 5, (March 2002), 1179-1205].

 

[MacQ]

And in some cases, they get two fathers. But they are either deprived of a father, or a mother. Either of these seem like serious losses, to me (speaking as a man who grew up without a father).:

People grow up without mothers and father for lots of reasons. To recap, those reasons are death, desertion, divorce, unwed pregnancies.
None of them have to do with gay people adopting or begetting children. And laws won’t stop any of them either.

But we do not set up single motherhood as an ideal, and give it a fancy name like “marriage”. We do not build a positive mythology around single motherhood.

That appears to be you jumping to extremes again.

No one, certainly not I, has proposed that single motherhood is desirable or even hinted that. No one proposed that it is good. NO one proposed building a mythology.
And no one that I know of has proposed naming single motherhood “marriage”.

When you argue that gay parenting isn’t worse than single parenting, that sounds (to me) like arguing that Stalin isn’t worse than Hitler – it’s not exactly a ringing endorsement of Stalin.

(I actually think gay parenting is better than single parenting. But not better enough to make it the law of the land.)

You seem to have contradicted yourself there.

And no one proposed making gay parenting the law of the land. Only that the law should apply to people equally.
No one proposed single motherhood as the law of the land either. And good luck outlawing it.
All I’ve said is that it’s possible that a kid might have a better chance in a stable two-parent gay home than in a single parent home.

The liberals are right to argue that way – they’re just confused. You see, the child already exists. Being single **IS **a good reason to avoid getting pregnant, precisely because having a single mother will harm the child. But it’s not a good reason to kill an already existing person. If I agreed with pro-choicers that the fetus isn’t a person, I would agree with them that abortion is permissible.

But don’t you see that this argument seems to allow that a woman with a crack addiction isn’t wrong to conceive a baby? After all, this baby could go onto do great things. And not conceiving – on your view – would be “denying a child life”.

(Please realize: I am not trying to put words in your mouth. I am simply saying that your argument, if correct, could be applied to other cases – presumably cases where you would disagree with the conclusion.)

Liberals are right to argue that way? That if a kid won’t come into ideal circumstances it should be aborted? Sorry, I disagree. I also don’t think they are confused. I think they think it somehow makes sense because they have few ways to defend baby killing.

Of course it’s wrong for a crack addict to conceive a child. But welcome to the real world, it happens. And I never said crack addicts should conceive children. There are a lot of people who probably should avoid conceiving children, but I don’t see that laws would stop that, and I don’t see what that has to do with gay people conceiving one they want. Unless they’re crack addicts.

You talk as if there would be the same number of divorces, with or without no-fault divorce laws. But the fact is divorces have increased exponentially since no-fault divorces became legal. Hence my feeling that supporting these laws encourages divorce.

Divorce has increased for a lot of reasons. Society and cultural norms have changed (for the worse in many cases, including that). I think attributing it to no-fault divorce is simplistic.
I don’t think forcing a public decree of fault would result in more happy marriages.
Further, divorce is a civil (state) issue. For government purposes, any marriage is a civil union, and is on a par with a contract. The government (state) has no business demanding a reason why people enter civil unions nor does it have any business knowing why people end them.

I don’t think a person who isn’t willing to stay with a spouse for better or worse has any business bringing children into the world.

Well of course. But again, welcome to the real world.

The legalization and moralization of contraception has led to increased promiscuity and (ironically) increased abortion rates.

Probably so…it certainly facilitates it. But I don’t see what that has to do with gay unions.

 

[MacQ]

“Homosexual acts are ipso facto unnatural.”.

According to his definition, they are unnatural. But that suffers a logical fallacy: you make up a definition as your basic assumption to fit your conclusion. To accept this, one must assume his definition is complete. Many would say it’s not.

One might also say that homosexual acts are common in the natural animal world, and that means they are IPSO FACTO natural.

Instead of trying to argue they are not natural, I think you’d be better off just saying that they are not theologically acceptable, because they are not procreative.

Researchers Peter Bearman and Hannah Brückner, from Columbia and Yale respectively, studied data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, and found even lower concordance rates of only 6.7% for male and 5.3% for female identical twins. In fact, their study neatly refuted several of the biological theories for the origin of homosexuality, finding social experiences in childhood to be far more significant.

If it was not clear in the 1990’s, it certainly is now—no one is “born gay.”
.

Again, your assumption is flawed (and therefore so is your conclusion.
The genome of identical twins is NOT actually identical.

scientificamerican.com/article/identical-twins-genes-are-not-identical/

 

[MacQ]

TBH there’s no good reason because marrying another consenting adult should be a right recognized by all governments worldwide. Your own discomfort with gay marriage doesn’t give you the right to deny other consenting adults the right to marry who they love and receive government benefits just because they love the same-sex.

I’m sad you’d want to deny my right to marriage. We live in a secular state with freedom of religion and separation of church and state.

I agree. (Except for the governments worldwide part…only because not all governments worldwide are secular with freedom of religion and separation of church and state)
But in the US, that is the case.
Therefore, in the US, government has no business dictating who can form a civil union (which is what marriage is for state issues).
It also means that government and law cannot dictate to Churches…ergo, no church can be forced to confer their marriage sacraments.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

I agree. (Except for the governments worldwide part…only because not all governments worldwide are secular with freedom of religion and separation of church and state)
But in the US, that is the case.
Therefore, in the US, government has no business dictating who can form a civil union (which is what marriage is for state issues)…

That might be true if forming a civil union was something that could be done without a government. But a civil union (as understood in the current debate) is a government action. And government certainly does have a say in what it enforces by law.

If you want to take the law away from civil union, then civil union becomes an agreement between two people to live together and do whatever else they like together. It does not need government to exist. It does not place any obligations on anyone else. No one else is forced to recognize their union. With that kind of civil union the government should not interfere. As you said, it has no business to do so. But that is not what the debate is about. It is about what the government compels the rest of society to do in recognition of that civil union. You can’t really expect government to enforce something like that on the rest of society and at the same time say the government has no business setting the limits on what that relationship can be.

 

[MacQ]

That might be true if forming a civil union was something that could be done without a government. But a civil union (as understood in the current debate) is a government action. And government certainly does have a say in what it enforces by law.

If you want to take the law away from civil union, then civil union becomes an agreement between two people to live together and do whatever else they like together. It does not need government to exist. It does not place any obligations on anyone else. No one else is forced to recognize their union. With that kind of civil union the government should not interfere. As you said, it has no business to do so. But that is not what the debate is about. It is about what the government compels the rest of society to do in recognition of that civil union. You can’t really expect government to enforce something like that on the rest of society and at the same time say the government has no business setting the limits on what that relationship can be.

I think either I wasn’t clear or you didn’t read.
I never said civil unions were not the purview of government.
They certainly are. I say that all marriages are civil unions for state/govt purposes.
That’s what civil unions ARE. They are legal unions conferred by law (the government).

I said government should not dictate WHO enters into them (or why). For the purposes of government (which are taxation, legal affairs, inheritance, next of kin, benefits etc), it should not matter.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

I think either I wasn’t clear or you didn’t read.
I never said civil unions were not the purview of government.
They certainly are. I say that all marriages are civil unions for state/govt purposes.
That’s what civil unions ARE. They are legal unions conferred by law (the government).

I said government should not dictate WHO enters into them (or why). For the purposes of government (which are taxation, legal affairs, inheritance, next of kin, benefits etc), it should not matter.

How can you say that government has no business determining who gets a tax break? To paraphrase Ben Parker, with great power to do something comes great responsibility to do it right.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

People grow up without mothers and father for lots of reasons. To recap, those reasons are death, desertion, divorce, unwed pregnancies.
None of them have to do with gay people adopting or begetting children. And laws won’t stop any of them either.

Are you suggesting that two women who have a child together (with assistance, of course) are not depriving that child of a father?

That appears to be you jumping to extremes again.

No one, certainly not I, has proposed that single motherhood is desirable or even hinted that. No one proposed that it is good. NO one proposed building a mythology.
And no one that I know of has proposed naming single motherhood “marriage”.

Um, I didn’t suggest anyone proposed any of these things. Please read my writing more carefully.

You seem to have contradicted yourself there.

Really? Show me the contradiction.

All I’ve said is that it’s possible that a kid might have a better chance in a stable two-parent gay home than in a single parent home.

I’m fine with that. But you seem to be suggesting that, since single motherhood is allowed, gay marriage should be allowed – even though you admit that single motherhood is a bad thing. Doesn’t that strike you as a strange argument?

Liberals are right to argue that way? That if a kid won’t come into ideal circumstances it should be aborted? Sorry, I disagree.

Liberals are right to argue that there are some circumstances that justify not bringing children into the world. They are wrong to suggest that there are any circumstances where it is OK to kill children.

Of course it’s wrong for a crack addict to conceive a child. But welcome to the real world, it happens. And I never said crack addicts should conceive children. There are a lot of people who probably should avoid conceiving children, but I don’t see that laws would stop that, and I don’t see what that has to do with gay people conceiving one they want. Unless they’re crack addicts.

Your argument seems to be that if law cannot do everything to make life as good as possible for children, it should not do anything to make life as good as possible for children. Or rather, more charitably, that it should not do one particular thing – attempt to guarantee that the largest number of children have both a mom and a dad. And yet you admit that having a mom and a dad is the best thing.

I guess you think you’re just “being realistic”. But for thousands of years, laws were not “realistic” about this point, and for thousands of years, 85%+ of children had both a mom and a dad.

Divorce has increased for a lot of reasons. Society and cultural norms have changed (for the worse in many cases, including that). I think attributing it to no-fault divorce is simplistic.

It’s a vicious cycle. Norms change, then laws change, causing norms to further change, causing laws to further change. Meanwhile, people (not you) say “realistic” things like “increasing contraceptive access will reduce abortions”. But these things are FALSE. And yet, contraceptives get handed out like candy, and norms change even more. Like it or not, gay marriage is a part of this steamroller. Even if you support gay marriage, you must feel like a lot of your fellow supporters are pretty seriously disturbed, no?

I don’t think forcing a public decree of fault would result in more happy marriages.
Further, divorce is a civil (state) issue. For government purposes, any marriage is a civil union, and is on a par with a contract. The government (state) has no business demanding a reason why people enter civil unions nor does it have any business knowing why people end them.

The government certainly does have an interest in making the terms of the marriage contract fixed and semi-permanent, and in enforcing these terms. Why? Because the government ought to care about the welfare of children.

Well of course. But again, welcome to the real world.

Well, gee, if the real world involve laws that intentionally leave kids fatherless and/or motherless, I’m not interested in the real world.

 

[MacQ]

How can you say that government has no business determining who gets a tax break? To paraphrase Ben Parker, with great power to do something comes great responsibility to do it right.

For the record, I didn’t say that. I said the government has no right to know why someone forms a civil union, or why they want to dissolve one.

I don’t know where you got tax breaks out of that.
But since you ask:

Do you think government exercises that responsibility “to do right”? Been paying attention to the IRS lately?

Do you think legislators are acting fairly when they invent tax breaks for industries that line their own pockets? Or when they impose taxes to discourage a business (that happens to be a competitor of their cronies)? I think you would be surprised at how much of the tax code lines some politicians’ pockets.
Sorry, but I think taxes should be fairly and equally imposed under very rigid constraints. When you give the state the power to choose winners and losers, and put the power of taxation as a weapon or tool in their hands, you have corruption waiting to happen.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

For the record, I didn’t say that. I said the government has no right to know why someone forms a civil union, or why they want to dissolve one.

I don’t know where you got tax breaks out of that.

Taxation is one of the things you mentioned that government has a say in regarding civil unions.

But since you ask:

Do you think government exercises that responsibility “to do right”? Been paying attention to the IRS lately?

We are talking about what government should do, not what it may or may not be doing now. Current IRS actions (or misdeeds) have no bearing on deciding what civil union policy should be, unless you think that such policy is in reparations for past misdeeds…but I think that is a very poor basis for deciding policy for the future.

Sorry, but I think taxes should be fairly and equally imposed under very rigid constraints. When you give the state the power to choose winners and losers, and put the power of taxation as a weapon or tool in their hands, you have corruption waiting to happen.

In that case there should be no tax benefit at all for civil unions or marriages for that matter, because such benefits would be making “winners” out of those who choose to enter a civil union and “losers” out of those who are not in such relationships. And you said government picking winners and losers was a bad thing.