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livingwordunity
Guest
For supporters of so-called “same-sex marriage”, how do you define marriage? Please give me a straight answer.
How do supporters of so-called "same-sex marriage" define marriage?
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fermat
Guest
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Student09
Guest
I don’t support same-sex marriage, but I used to. My answer would have been that marriage is a contract two adults willingly enter into, to love and care for one another for the rest of their lives.
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MidnightSun12
Guest
I suspect any arguments that you see will simply boil down to this: “Infallible Catholic teaching is wrong, therefore there is no Objective Truth, therefore have sex with whoever you want, MAN!”
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Crescentinus
Guest
And this: “LOVE IS LOVE IS LOVE IS LOVE NO MATTER WHERE YOU FIND IT YOU BIGOT!!!11111”
Sadly, I see this on sites such as FaceBook and deviantART.
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SaintPatrick333
Guest
That’s one of the guns they stick too yet if you mention that using their own logic one can justify adult-child relationships or incest relationships then you are “sick” and that’s “disgusting”. Why? They all are wrong and fall way short of the law of marriage so who are the progressives to “deny” pedophiles out there if they find willing underage kids (if its consensual than who cares right?) But their hypocrisy and double standards won’t allow them to accept that. Those are all still wrong and sick but homosexual relationships are ok because it’s two adults who love each other. Ignore the fact that that kind of relationship falls into the same depravity as my other suggestions. We’ll just pretend that never happened.
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Hokomai
Guest
Two adults (which does not include the14 year old girls allowed to marry under canon law if local laws allow it) who enter in to a committed relationship of indefinite duration for mutual support, comfort and love. For this to be a marriage there must be community recognition which can be de facto or de jure.
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Student09
Guest
It will be interesting to see whether all the comments here continue to ignore my definition and the definition Hokomai just provided.
Stephen168
New member
I was waiting for more definitions. So far I just have questions:
Why can’t a 14 year old be an adult either de facto or de jure?
Do we get to question the source of a de jure definition?
Why would society demand de jure recognition of a love relationship?
How would these definitions defer from a parent-child relationship?
What would limit the contract to two adults either de facto or de jure?
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trickster
Guest
Why would supporters of same sex marriage have to provide a definition of marriage? Who owns the term and who has the right to limit its meaning?
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trickster
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Consensus is one factor in the formula StPat…progressives also recognize that the ability to make decisions must be developed over a long period of time (growing up) and the idea that we all can make full decisions (with their consequences) at age 19 is an arbitrary guess on the part of lawmakers, etc., again, maturity is a relative term…so while things are not black and white, this progressive errors on the side of caution and does not agree with your generalization that those of us on the progressive side are looking only at consensus as permission to enter into relationships based on love.
Trickster
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edwest2
Guest
Here’s one:
beyondmarriage.org/
Some gays don’t believe in the institution of marriage:
nytimes.com/2003/08/31/world/now-free-to-marry-canada-s-gays-say-do-i.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
Or monogamy:
nytimes.com/2010/01/29/us/29sfmetro.html
Peace,
Ed
beyondmarriage.org/
Some gays don’t believe in the institution of marriage:
nytimes.com/2003/08/31/world/now-free-to-marry-canada-s-gays-say-do-i.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
Or monogamy:
nytimes.com/2010/01/29/us/29sfmetro.html
Peace,
Ed
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trickster
Guest
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Awesome Ed, those are excellent quotes that provide a background for what many in Catholic Answers minimize as wordly, non-Catholic and worse yet
progressive
Trickster
Stephen168
New member
Supporters of same-sex marriage want to include same sex couples which would change the definition mankind had used since day one. Yet, they also what to exclude other people from marriage. We are just curious what this new definition would be that would rationally include same sex marriages but which would exclude pedophilia, polygamy, or incest. I would assume that is why you missed post #9; or provide your own definition.
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NEPanther
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Pedophilia and incest relationships are not just based on vague notions of something being 'disgusting" and “sick.” There is hard, demonstrable evidence on how these relationships are harmful.
When it comes to pedophilia, scans of the brain clearly show that young children and teens do not have fully formed brain lobes that control things like impulse control and decision making. They are scientifically demonstrably less capable than adults in making decisions and assessing risk, and therefor have been deemed unable to give consent, because to give consent means that one is capable, mentally, of assessing their situation and agreeing to it. This is the same reason the Supreme Court does not allow things like the death penalty to be applied to juvenile offenders, it is also why juvenile records are sealed. Juveniles are not capable of decision making as adults. Juveniles are also demonstrably not physically ready for sex. The risk of death in childbirth, complications in pregnancy and childbirth, and birth defects for the infant is far higher in teens who give birth before the age of 18 because their bodies are not physically mature enough to handle the strain of childbirth.
Children are also very susceptable to being coerced into a sexual relationship by an adult who becomes like a parental figure. For instance, most young teens who get involved with muhc older men, statistically, come from broken homes where they are abused or neglected by one or both parents. Their abuser does not approach them as a romanti cpartners, as with adult relationships, they approach them as a parental figure the child becomes dependent upon, socially, emotionally, often financially. They child then can be pressed into a sexual relationship out of a desire to please the new parental figure. Jerry Sandusky is a prime example of this.
This is also why incest is a problem. If incest were legal, than that would give too much opportunity for a parent or relative in a position of authority over a child to raise them with the intention of making them a suitable sexual partner, then take advantage of that once the child reaches adulthood. In addition to this, there is of course the genetic problems that result from incest, as is widely seen in insular communites like Mormon fundamentalists, who suffer from large amounts of incestuous inbreeding.
Pedophilia and incest aren’t illegal and shunned because “they are icky.” They are illegal because they involve predatory relationships, and in the case of minors, relationships in which minors CANNOT consent. Your use of the word “consent” does not apply for children, as they have been found neurologically incapable of informed consent. There is no scientific findings which demonstrate people who consent to homosexual relationships are overwhelmingly doing so due to abusive relationships or pressure, or that homosexuals have less brain development and thus are less capable of giving consent than an adult heterosexual.
For homosexual relationships, while they CAN be abusive or predatory (as can heterosexual relationships), this is not the default state, as with pedophilia and incest.
For me, the definition of marriage is two consenting and unrelated adults entering into a social and financial contract. This can also have a religious component, depending on the beliefs of the individuals getting married.
Polygamy is an interesting category because while I am not against polygamy inherently, it would take a great deal of finagling to make it workable in the United States. One reason is that so many people get benefits from their spouse. It could potentially create great strain on the system if people were able to not just have their employer cover their spouse and X number of kids on their various benefit plans, but instead their 6 spouses and 28 children. There also is the question of how is child visitation and alimony decided in cases of divorce? Do non biological parents get visiting rights, and if so, how much? What if you have a case where a man has 3 wives, and one of those wives is the main breadwinner for the entire family. If that bread winning wife wanted a divorce, what would she be responsible for financially? Just her husband and their biological children, or her sister wives and their children as well? I don’t know if these issues are insurmountable or not, but they would need to be figured out before we even approached polygamous marriage.
The other problem with polygamous marriage is that in the United States it is often an abusive practice, in which children are raised in strict authoritarian clans and isolated from the rest of soceity. They are threatened with damnation and exile if they refuse a polygamous marriage. In a case like this, the parties involved cannot be said to be truly consenting to their relationships, especially as many of these marriages are arranged when the women are still minors.
It is appalling to me that people here HONESTLY BELIEVE that “it’s icky” is reason enough to deny marriage. I think the idea of morbidly obese people or the elderly having sexual relationships is about ten times more disgusting than two attractive gay people having sex, but I don’t go around saying that the elderly and the ugly should not be allowed to marry because it grosses me out.
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NEPanther
Guest
No, it boils down to have sex with whoever you want, so long as they are capable of informed consent as legally defined, and you are not breaking the law by knowingly exposing your sexual partner to a sexually transmitted disease such as HIV. Catholic teaching on the subject is completely irrelevent because we live in a society with freedom of religion, not a theocracy in which the population is somehow beholden to Catholic beliefs, therefor what Catholics teach on the subject is not taken into account one way or the other when discussing marriage rights in the United States. After all, Catholics do not recognize marriages following non church sanctioned divorce, yet people are perfectly legally able to marry multiple times. The fact that Catholics don’t approve of this has not (nor should it) resulted in laws that prevent multiple marriages from being legally recognized.
Animals, children, insane people, those who are mentally underdevloped, and those who are severely intoxicated are unable to give informed consent, and thus it is (and should be) illegal to have sex with such individuals and animals.
The only exception to this, for me, is in the case of monogamous individuals who do not have a previously established open marriage that is accepted by both parties. If a person is cheating on their partner, and their partner believes them to be monogamous, that partner is then potentially being exposed to sexually transmitted diseases by the cheating partner. If there is a marriage contract between the two, than the cheater is violating not only their social agreements but legal agreements as well. I think this is still a matter of consent, because if you are having a relationship with a person, and he is having a relationship with another person without your knowledge, there are consquences for you. You may be exposed to an STD. Your partner may get this other person pregnant, or may become pregnant by this person, and you may end up now having to deal with a child you had nothing to do with creating because they are your partner’s child as well. So a person being cheated on is not giving their consent to be involved in this other relationship, yet can suffer the consequences for said relationship. I think this is wrong and I approve of adultary laws, even if they are rarely enforced.
Now, just because I think people should be ALLOWED to have sex with whomever they want (minus the caveats listed above) does not mean they should. Promiscuity, particularly with unprotected sex, can be very risky. Just because I think someone should be allowed to do something doesn’t mean I agree with them. I think it’s really wrong to raise a child in a religion because it presses beliefs on a child whent hey are too young to have the reasoning abilities to judge the information they are being given. It’s why children are typically their parents’ religion. They didn’t have a real choice, it was foistered upon them as kids, when they are at the most impressionable of ages. But even though I think you should not raise a child as Catholic (or any other religion), I don’t think that this should be illegal either.
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edwest2
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“progressive” is in the top five in my list of words that are bad - in context of course.4
Awesome Ed, those are excellent quotes that provide a background for what many in Catholic Answers minimize as wordly, non-Catholic and worse yetprogressive
Trickster
Peace,
Ed
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Student09
Guest
I’m going to play devil’s advocate.
In this respect I really don’t see the difference between a Catholic saying “But incest and pedophilia shouldn’t be allowed” and a same-sex marriage supporter saying “But incest and pedophilia shouldn’t be allowed.”
How does the definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman exclude pedophilia, polygamy, or incest? I suppose if you say “one man and one woman” that excludes polygamy, but not the other two. The requirement of being open to life could also be met in a pedophilic or incestuous “marriage.”
In this respect I really don’t see the difference between a Catholic saying “But incest and pedophilia shouldn’t be allowed” and a same-sex marriage supporter saying “But incest and pedophilia shouldn’t be allowed.”
Stephen168
New member
you skipped post #9
Stephen168
New member
Keeping with the suject of the thread: Can we say this is your definition of marriage?
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