And you do not provide a correction in his position, so I would have to agree with him.
Which has nothing to do with the Catholic understanding of marriage or a correction in what you claim to be a misrepresentation. It does seem like irrational name calling on your part.
Does that mean you see no purpose for marriage?
Recall that my statement was in response to “A same sex couple cannot choose not be a same sex couple.” A same sex couple cannot choose anything. A couple of any kind cannot choose anything. Only individuals can choose things. And in the case of getting married, it is individuals that first chose to become a couple. And if that couple happens to be a same sex couple, then those individuals did choose to become a same sex couple. They didn’t just wake up one day and find themselves paired up. So I am not discriminating against people just for being who they are.
Please clarify.
I don’t get the point.
That is exactly the point that I was arguing against. The inherent benefit you describe that comes from a couple living together in long term relationship is not much of a benefit to society at large. It is a benefit primarily to the couple involved. So society does not have much reason to take steps to encourage long term relationships just for the sake of their being long term relationships.
Whatever “poor societal health” means, assuming gratuitously that it is a true statement, the state already does not validate any religious belief or require its citizens to accept them as true. The same cannot be said for this gay “marriage” issue, which has already seen courts insisting citizens recognize the dogmatic beliefs of such “marriages,” such as in the cases of the florist and the photographers sued. So this point is irrelevant. At any rate, you are dodging the evidence that it is not in a society’s best interest to normalize this arrangement, along with the ill-effects of easy divorce, cohabitation, etc… To simply ignore the evidence is not a strong counter-argument.
No, it doesn’t. The definition of the term is misapplied. A bigot must have unreasonable cause to deny another their proper dignity based on some arbitrary characteristic. That obviously does not apply in this case, because there is natural and statistical cause to be opposed to the normalization of a gay “marriage” arrangement.
It is also irrational to think if someone does not directly use a “state” program of some kind, that such a person must therefore support its existence. The idea of a gay “marriage” is detrimental to all interested parties because it de facto denies the uniqueness of stable marriages of men and women as societal pillars. That is a consequence of pretending to redefine marriage, as the state has done. Whether or not any specific person avails themselves of the state’s decree is irrelevant.
So why are you focussing on that issue solely in order to say that it is incidental, rather than clarifying why you complained about something you then say you agree with?
So what is the point of discussing it? You lot are being treated not just as you treated others, but a lot better, so what are you complaining about?
Only if you accept your assertion that marriage was only ever about children. Which I don’t, and most of western society does not. So why should you feel justified in forcing your view on the rest of society?
So humans are fallible.
a) We have covered many reasons why this is of benefit to society
What position? That dismissing your arguments as ‘just’ bigotry, I explicitly agree that that is an unfair description - but earlier in the same post he gave a far more direct and simplisitic mischaracterisation of the arguments against your position.
I am sorry you feel that way. But I called noone any names, just called for everyone to stop calling names and misrepresenting their opponents’ arguments.
Obviously not, I have never said any such thing. All I have said is that raising children is not the only purpose of marriage.
Which was Aristotles assertion.
of course not
When?
Because it is an ancient rational view.
Of course they can, they do it all the time. Indeed I would say that if you and your (hypothetical?) spouse cannot make decisions as a couple, then it is my turn to doubt the worth of your marriage.
You are discriminating against the couple for being a same sex couple. And unless you deny the existence of homosexuals you are discriminating against them just for who they are as individuals as you are deliberately structuring the law so that they can never marry anyone they might genuinely fall in love with or be attracted to.
What is unclear? Your hypothetical refuseniks have the right to marry eachother, no-one is denying that to them, they have simply chosen not to do so. The hypothetical gay couple are being denied that right, by you, even if they want to marry.
Clarified above?
I described concrete benefits to society. And I reject your idea (apparently?) that the State should not do things just because they make life better for its citizens - I see that as a core puropse for the State.
While I pretty much agree with what you say here, I don’t think that the recognition of marriage as between man and woman was a product of religion. It was recognized simply as a result of how men and women are built. They are made to be sexually complementary. Whatever religion one might profess, that basic biological fact has been pretty much recognized as a matter of nature—at least until the most recent societal loss of reason.
The position given to you in post #107, which you claimed misrepresented you, but then failed to clarify.
Actually, I was asking for clarification of your position.I am sorry you feel that way. But I called noone any names, just called for everyone to stop calling names and misrepresenting their opponents’ arguments.
As typified by your next post:
So you agree that creating and raising children is at least one of the purposes of marriage.Obviously not, I have never said any such thing. All I have said is that raising children is not the only purpose of marriage.
I didn’t think I inferred it as such, rather was pointing out the principles on which the US was founded.
Low levels of things like homicide, teenage pregnancy, STDs, suicide, abortion and so on.
Really, you’d never even heard of this before?
It validates a lot of religious beliefs and require it citizens to respect them. The obvious example in this debate being the religious sacrament of marriage, but also protections offered to the sela of the confessional, or laws against blasphemy or religious discrimination all give legal weight to religious views.
No, that was anti-discrimination law, not legalisation of same sex marriage, and even took place in a place where same sex marriage was not legally recognised. Nor did it require the photographer to believe anything, just to offer the same service offered to other couples.
Right back atcha - I gave many examples of how legal recognition of same sex marriage would benefit society, and a good illustration of why the basic argument is invalid.
No definition of ‘bigot’ or ‘bigotry’ exempts those who use statistics to justify their intolerance. If anything I would say that citing statistics or sacred texts is a very common component of bigotry.
But the mere fact that you (hypothetically) do not wish to avail yourself of a government institution is no argument for demanding that it be abolished. So the libertarian argument that a formal State institution of marriage should be replaced by private contracts has, in my opinion, no place in this debate.
Nor is it a priori a reason to discriminate against them.
That article (or more to the point the study it references) actually undermines your argument on two points:
Sorry, but that is an hour long video. Even if I did not live in Darkest Wales where telephone companies think broadband is something to hold your gut in, that is too long for me to want to watch.
These explicitly counter your attempt to caricature the argument for gay marriage as just so that “2 people can love each other” as it gives many other exciting new caricatures of gay marriage arguments.
