Is there a secular argument against civil homosexual marriage?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Startingcatholic
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
S

Startingcatholic

Guest
My friend and I were discussing Homosexual Marriage and my friend said that “if you don’t like homosexual marriage don’t marry a man.”. Kinda taken aback by this not because it was a good argument. But because it brought about another bit which is that if there is separation of Church and State in our country. We shouldn’t have issues be decided by our religion there has to be a secular aspect. I don’t really know what to say to this.
 
The only reason marriage exists is because humanity consists of men and women, and it takes one of each to generate children. Man and woman are of the essence of marriage, and united they are the essence of family and civilization.

There is nothing marital about two persons of the same sex. It’s a dead end.

Perhaps water should be declared to be a union of hydrogen atoms only. Call it what you want but it is not water. Two persons of the same sex can never constitute marriage.
 
The only reason I could think of for a secular argument is that it doesn’t promote the typical family unit. Civil marriage came with many legal benefits for this reason. One of the biggest reasons for gay marriage was because there were too many legal issues that would have to be attached to a civil partnership in order to make it separate but equal to marriage. It was much easier to just allow gay marriage than spend years attaching all the benefits granted in civil marriage onto civil partnerships. Otherwise it was separate but not equal…something very important to the gay community.

Really, there isn’t a secular reason to not have gay marriages. Plenty of religious ones, but not secular ones. The idea of a typical family unit being a man, wife and children broke down long before gay marriages were even on the radar.
 
Well, two men or two women are not sexuallu complementary. Thet cannot consummate a ‘marriage.’ They cannot generate children. They cannot generate a family, except by artificial means. They cannot form the basis of a society or of civilization. It’s like trying to populate the periodic table with only two elements which are the same. How could the earth be populated if marriage was not sexually complementary? Homosexual marriage is an ontological impossibility.
 
Pattylt said:
The idea of a typical family unit being a man, wife and children broke down long before gay marriages were even on the radar.
Click to expand...
Yes, and now that hardly anyone remembers what the purpose of marriage is, lots of people see marriage as a legal issue between two people. So naturally, now some people say why not gay marriage.

Now that the sociological experiments from the 1960’s and 70’s have bore their fruit, it’s fairly easy to see the benefits of preserving the institution of marriage as a “sacred” element of any healthy society. Preserving it would include an exclusion of marriages of brothers and sisters, or SSA friends, in order to emphasize the importance of the nuclear family. And also to emphasize that the purpose of marriage is not to gain certain “rights” that are afforded to families.
 
Last edited:
Pattylt said:
Really, there isn’t a secular reason to not have gay marriages. Plenty of religious ones, but not secular ones. The idea of a typical family unit being a man, wife and children broke down long before gay marriages were even on the radar.
Click to expand...
So imperfection proves that true goodness is not attainable and not worth pursuing?
 
Last edited:
1Lord1Faith said:
Yes, and now that hardly anyone remembers what the purpose of marriage is, lots of people see marriage as a legal issue between two people. So naturally, now some people say why not gay marriage.

Now that the sociological experiments from the 1960’s and 70’s have bore their fruit, it’s fairly easy to see the benefits of preserving the institution of marriage as a “sacred” element of any healthy society.
Click to expand...
Which you are viewing through a theological lens, not a civil secular society one. That’s fine to do and certainly your right. But, the OP was asking about a secular reason. Society absolutely went through changes about marriage, sex and gays. It was a predominately Christian society that did this. Trying to argue against it now from a secular civil perspective is hard to do without throwing in your religion. We are a secular society that includes religious as well as non religious or other religions. Finding a balance in secular law will never please everyone but should include basic rules that benefit the most people.

While gay marriage is objectionable to some religions, it isn’t mandating men or women to marry each other. It’s merely allowing it as a basic right. In spite of slippery slope arguments, the separation of church and state allows men/women to marry civilly and does not obligate any religion to do so.
 
goout said:
So imperfection proves that true goodness is not attainable and not worth pursuing?
Click to expand...
…according to your religious truth. Try defining true goodness without a religious slant but a purely secular one.
 
Pattylt said:
40.png
goout:
So imperfection proves that true goodness is not attainable and not worth pursuing?
Click to expand...
…according to your religious truth. Try defining true goodness without a religious slant but a purely secular one.
Click to expand...
Purely secular. purely secular. hmmmmmm
What is that? A bunch of people with no beliefs?
 
Pattylt said:
Which you are viewing through a theological lens, not a civil secular society one.
Click to expand...
I read the OP. I answered that the reasons for excluding certain types of marriages are apparent given what has happened in the last 50 years. I’m not making a religious argument at all. It’s not even necessary to do so in order to point out why gay marriage should not be accepted by any society, anywhere, at any time. It’s a simple matter of sociology.
Pattylt said:
We are a secular society that includes religious as well as non religious or other religions.
Click to expand...
No we are not a secular society. We are not a religious society either. Although most people in this country belong to some kind of religion.
Pattylt said:
It’s merely allowing it as a basic right
Click to expand...
What basic right? Marriage? Marriage isn’t a basic right. Son’s cannot marry their mothers. Brothers cannot marry their sisters. And same sex couples cannot marry each other. Same sex friends cannot marry each other.
Pattylt said:
the separation of church and state allows men/women to marry civilly
Click to expand...
There is no “separation of church and state”. There is an establishment clause which says that there cannot be a state religion. Two different things. And the establishment clause is not the reason that gay marriage is a thing now. The establishment clause isn’t new.
 
Last edited:
Startingcatholic said:
My friend and I were discussing Homosexual Marriage and my friend said that “if you don’t like homosexual marriage don’t marry a man.”. Kinda taken aback by this not because it was a good argument. But because it brought about another bit which is that if there is separation of Church and State in our country. We shouldn’t have issues be decided by our religion there has to be a secular aspect. I don’t really know what to say to this.
Click to expand...
You are correct. There is no secular argument against it. My own opinion is that we should get the state out of the marriage business entirely. Let people (and, by extension, churches) define marriage however they see fit; I don’t want the state imposing a single definition on anyone.
 
How about Biology?
Do you believe that anatomically speaking the rear end is suited to have the conjugal act performed in it?
There are many many serious consequences when people engage in such practices for extended periods of time.
The walls of the end of the intestine are not built to withstand that kind of abuse. Eventually they give out. This has been medically documented.
But it is not discussed, it’s taboo.

Peace!
 
JerryZ said:
Do you believe that anatomically speaking the rear end is suited to have the conjugal act performed in it?
Click to expand...
I’m not really sure if this is appropriate discussion material for this forum, but there are plenty of straight couples who see no problem with that sort of thing, and we don’t use it as a reason to invalidate their marriages.
 
As we are discussing secular argument here: it’s a religious belief, not a fact that:
  • marriage has any purpose other than formalising the natural tendency of humans to form long-term pair-bonds.
  • children are any sort of ‘purpose’ of marriage, as distinct from a result of the natural pair-bonding that occurred for hundreds of thousands of years before anyone thought of marriage.
  • pair-bonding in humans cannot occur with members of the same sex.
  • genitalia have a ‘purpose’
  • vaginal sex is more ‘natural’ than other forms of sex.
By all means believe these things if you wish, and by all means encourage others to share your beliefs. But please don’t argue they are ‘facts’ or a rational, rather than a religious, basis on which to form laws.
 
amt1985 said:
You are correct. There is no secular argument against it. My own opinion is that we should get the state out of the marriage business entirely. Let people (and, by extension, churches) define marriage however they see fit; I don’t want the state imposing a single definition on anyone
Click to expand...
I always wonder if we are all thinking of this wrong. The state has nothing to do with my marriage. They did not create it, they simply recorded it. What my marriage is is defined by me and my wife.

The only reason we are in all of this is due to the differences in how laws treat married ppl.
 
And the state allows married couples to file joint tax returns, which can be beneficial, but it’s not as beneficial now as it was in the past, because actual marriage was in effect a privileged institution, considered the basic building block of civilization.
 
Is the fact that human beings come in two sexually complementary types–men and women–is that a religious belief? I thought it was a fact of nature.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top