Marriage as Sacrament versus State Defined

[balto]

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.

Agreed, especially about the part with society’s loss of reasoning ability. We ditched reasoning a long time ago in favor of “feeling good.” Modern law only seems to be interested in promoting people’s fantastical lifestyles, whatever they may be, instead of promoting what is objectively good for society. Here’s something for everybody on this thread to consider:

There’s a lot of people in our country nowadays that don’t really like going to work all that much. They like staying at home and doing nothing productive all day long. That’s okay, because we wouldn’t want anyone to feel bad about their lifestyles. I think that we should revisit the definition of a “business” so that business contracts can be given to these people too. We wouldn’t want to discriminate, because a professional lifestyle is equal in every way to a lazy lifestyle. Look, they stay at home and play with those fake cash registers and fake merchandise like what your 5 year-old would play with and they use Monopoly money for transactions. It has all the same basic elements of a so-called “real” business and they feel like what they’re doing is the same as what real professionals do. How does it harm your business if we expand it to these arrangements?

The proponents of traditional business would argue “Why would we let people who stay at home all day doing nothing productive have a business? A business is when two or more people come together to produce something for society and sell it, thereby growing the economy and increasing the common good.” Not all businesses are productive though; a lot them go bankrupt and never turn a profit. So business obviously has nothing to do with success, productivity, and certainly not the common good. It’s really just a legal agreement between two people to have common ownership over various pieces of property.

But that’s not enough. It’s not that people involved in non-traditional business are bad with money, they just can’t make it naturally. So let’s start letting them receive money from the state so that they can have the last component of a so-called “real” business. Only a bigot would argue that although these people are not necessarily bad with money, a productive business environment is more conducive for responsibility with money. Look at all the corrupt businesses that rip people off and then end up dissolved with the leaders sent to prison! This is proof that we should redefine businesses and then subsidize modern business!

Why do you want to ban modern businesses? Should we outlaw staying at home and not working? Should the state break down the doors of every kindergarten and arrest anyone who’s playing with the fake cash registers? Your view of a traditional business is jaded by your nostalgia to the past and never actually existed in reality. If you want to have a traditional business you can still have it.

Where do you think the economy would be with logic like this? Well it’s already bad so why not redefine it even more?

 

[Catolico65]

Treaty of Tripoli:

That hardly changes the writings of the Founding Fathers and official documents of the US. The US was based on Christian values but with no association with a particular denomination, such as was common at the time.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

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?

What is incidental is** who** is opposed to the curriculum. What is not incidental is that there are many people who are opposed to that curriculum.

So what is the point of discussing it?

It was a straight-forward answer to your question, which was:

If you will not consider whether you have the right to force your views on others when voting on law, why should others not vote in laws forcing their views on you?

to which I said

They can force those view on me (and I am not just speaking of gay marriage here). But I don’t have to like it. Just as those in favor of gay marriage do not have to like it when gay marriage is denied.

If you think this question has no point, then don’t ask it.

You lot are being treated not just as you treated others, but a lot better, so what are you complaining about?

It is not a question of equal treatment. It is question about which policy should be adopted. For this to be a question of equal treatment you would have to accept that all policies are equally good, and therefore ought to be given equal weight. We both put forth our best arguments for the policies we believe in. We hope that the best policy will win, not that each policy will win an equal amount of the time.

Only if you accept your assertion that marriage was only ever about children. Which I don’t, and most of western society does not.

I was very careful to qualify that linkage as the historical reason for governmental recognition of marriage, by way of explaining why there is any recognition at all. I have admitted several times that this reason has been weakened in the modern world. But I disagree that most of Western society not see that linkage as still the most relevant among the various reasons for governmental recognition.

So humans are fallible.

You made the point that marriage was a benefit to society because it kept people together for life. I am showing that is not so much of a benefit to society since people quite often do not stay together for life. So where it the benefit to society of recognizing commitments that are not commitments?

You have done nothing to counter the assertion that the only thing all marriages have in common is two (or more) people committing to spend the rest of their life together.

You are trying to do circular reasoning. You want to prove that gay marriage should count as a real marriage. You use as your argument the statement you made above. But that statement is prima facie false unless you first assume that gay marriages are in fact marriages, which is what you were trying to prove in the first place. That is circular. I feel no need to counter a statement whose only support is by way of circular reasoning.

a) We have covered many reasons why this is of benefit to society

But the only ones that I have accepted as true are those having to do with the raising of children. If there are others, you have not proven it yet.

b) you are back to asserting an extremist utilitarian philosophy. Note that your counter example to why the State should support the terminally ill, disabled or elderly only showed benefit to citizens, not the State itself.

That was never a distinction that I needed to make.

Marriage is a service the State offers (at least potentially) to all citizens

I agree. And gay people have just as much right to this service as straight people. Except they don’t want this particular service. They want a slightly different service, called gay marriage. The fact that it is similar in some respects to marriage does not make it the same thing.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

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 prefer to see this as a couple making a decision. But to me is looks a lot more like two people, each making decisions that take into account the feelings of the other. The result may look from the outside as if the couple has made a decision, but it is in fact just two coordinated decisions. Anyway, the whole purpose to discussing whether a couple can make a decision was to examine whether denying marriage rights to a gay couple was unfair because it was based on something they could not decide (to be a straight couple). But they did decide to become a couple in the first place. If they decided something that society says cannot lead to marriage, that is, kind of, their own fault.

You are discriminating against the couple for being a same sex couple.

As I said before, only individuals have rights against discrimination - not couples or other groupings not specifically recognized by society.

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.

Current laws in most countries allow that person to express that love in any way he or she personally chooses. They can move in together, do things for each other, share in life, spend oodles of time together. What more to they want? They want the rest of society to join them in their celebration.

 

[DrTaffy]

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

But noone is suggesting that men and women be prevented from marrying.

However the view that two men or two women cannot marry is fairly explicitly a product of religion, and indeed the judeo-christian religions in particular. Other religions, including many native American ones, explicitly included same sex marriage. So why should the judeo-christian view be forced on them?

Example: if you wanted to get married, your prospective spouse agreed, your two families agreed, your religion agreed, but some other religion (to which neither you nor your spouse subscribed) disagreed, is it fair that you be barred from marriage?

 

[DrTaffy]

That hardly changes the writings of the Founding Fathers and official documents of the US.

The Treaty of Tripoli is both written by a Founding Father and an official document of the US.

 

[Catolico65]

The Treaty of Tripoli is both written by a Founding Father and an official document of the US.

You need to read more my friend. I expect part of the problem is I expect they don’t teach comprehensive American history in England.

 

[Stephen168]

However the view that two men or two women cannot marry is fairly explicitly a product of religion,

What religion did Aristotle claim to be?

and indeed the judeo-christian religions in particular.

No other culture recognizes same sex marriage

Other religions, including many native American ones, explicitly included same sex marriage. So why should the judeo-christian view be forced on them?

Because the native American’s did not recognizes same sex marriage either.

Example: if you wanted to get married, your prospective spouse agreed, your two families agreed, your religion agreed, but some other religion (to which neither you nor your spouse subscribed) disagreed, is it fair that you be barred from marriage?

No religion would recognize a same sex couple as married.

Marriage is the creation, and raising of children. It is a human state, not one invented by the State or any religion.

 

[JimG]

But noone is suggesting that men and women be prevented from marrying.

However the view that two men or two women cannot marry is fairly explicitly a product of religion, and indeed the judeo-christian religions in particular. Other religions, including many native American ones, explicitly included same sex marriage. So why should the judeo-christian view be forced on them?

Example: if you wanted to get married, your prospective spouse agreed, your two families agreed, your religion agreed, but some other religion (to which neither you nor your spouse subscribed) disagreed, is it fair that you be barred from marriage?

I don’t agree that marriage is a product of religion. Rather I think it obviously proceeds from human nature—the fact that there are two sexes, that they are sexually complementary, that only opposite sex couples can engage in that act which is specifically marital, and which ensures the continuance of the species. It rather staggers the imagination to think that it would take religion to figure out the facts of life.

 

[DrTaffy]

What is incidental is** who** is opposed to the curriculum. What is not incidental is that there are many people who are opposed to that curriculum.

There are many people who are opposed to the Catholic doctrine that homosexuality is ‘disordered’ and same sex marriage is immoral.

Yet you seem to defend Catholic Schools’ right to force teachers to teach that, yet raised the possibility of another school forcing a teacher to teach the opposing view as a reason to ban same sex marriage outright. Which seems both hypocritical and disproportionate.

It was a straight-forward answer to your question, which was:

If you will not consider whether you have the right to force your views on others when voting on law, why should others not vote in laws forcing their views on you?

The question has a point, one which you seem to be avoiding. It is not the question but the discussion which seems pointless if you refuse to consider whether or not you have the right to force a particular view on others.

Do you not have some views which you hold to be true, but which you would not try to force on others? If so, how do you decide which views to force on others, and which are purely subjective personal views?

In other words, where is the reasonable accomodation in a society where some groups hold a particular belief and others do not? You seem to be asserting that your beliefs can justly imposed on others whenever you can and without justification, yet you scream blue murder when someone else’s views are imposed on you.

You made the point that marriage was a benefit to society because it kept people together for life. I am showing that is not so much of a benefit to society since people quite often do not stay together for life.

Simply encouraging couples to stay together for life is what I claimed, and is still a benefit to society. After all, marriage only encourages couples to conceive and raise children, it does not guarantee it, so your own alleged ‘sole purpose’ for marriage fails under your own rationale!

You are trying to do circular reasoning. You want to prove that gay marriage should count as a real marriage. You use as your argument the statement you made above. But that statement is prima facie false unless you first assume that gay marriages are in fact marriages, which is what you were trying to prove in the first place.

Nonsense. Even if you successfully argue that all the historical cases of same sex marriage were not ‘marriages’, the statement that “all marriages have in common two (or more) people committing to spend the rest of their life together” remains true.

Unless you are trying to argue that if you deliberately exclude all marriages that are not one man and one woman, then all ‘marriages’ have in common “being one man and one woman”? In which case that is explicitly circular reasoning - you are asserting the definition “one man and one woman” to prove the definition!

 

[DrTaffy]

What religion did Aristotle claim to be?

He believed in God, beyond that I don’t know that he ever went into more detail.

Mind you he also never said that two men or two women could not marry.

No other culture recognizes same sex marriage

Many Native American did, and do now, possibly with a hiatus when pressure from the Judaeo-christian invaders forced them to stop doing so for a while. Many other cultural examples exist

Because the native American’s did not recognizes same sex marriage either.

It is very well documented that they did.

George Devereux, Institutionalized Homosexuality of the Mohave Indians, 9 Hum.
Biology 498 (1937)
Charles Callender & Lee M. Kochems, The North American Berdache, 24 Current Anthropology 443 (1983)
Donald G. Forgey, The Institution of Berdache Among the North American Plains Indians, 11 J. Sex Res. 1 (1975)
W.W. Hill, Note on the Pima Berdache, 40 Am. Anthropologist 338 (1938)
W.W. Hill, The Status of the Hermaphrodite and Transvestite in Navajo Culture, 37 Am. Anthropologist 273 (1935)
Nancy 0. Lurie, Winnebago Berdache, 55 Am. Anthropologist 708 (1953)
Elsie C. Parsons, The Zuni La’Mana, 18 Am. Anthropologist 521 (1916)
Matilda C. Stevenson, The Zuni Indians, in The Twenty-Third Ann. Rep. Bureau Am. Ethnology 3 (1904)
James S. Thayer, The Berdache of the Northern Plains, 36 J. Anthropological Res. 287 (1980)
Harriet Whitehead, The Bow and the Burden Strap: A New Look at Institutionalized Homosexuality in Native North America, in Sexual Meanings
Alfred L. Kroeber, The Arapaho, 18 Bull. Am. Museum Nat. Hist. 1, 19 (1902)

 

[DrTaffy]

I don’t agree that marriage is a product of religion. Rather I think it obviously proceeds from human nature

Indeed - the fact that people naturally form couples. (And maybe larger sexual groupings occasionally, for the strange polygamy lobby out there)

But while heterosexuals, in the majority, naturally form heterosexual couples, homosexuals naturally form homosexual ones. As seen in nature.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

There are many people who are opposed to the Catholic doctrine that homosexuality is ‘disordered’ and same sex marriage is immoral.

Yet you seem to defend Catholic Schools’ right to force teachers to teach that, yet raised the possibility of another school forcing a teacher to teach the opposing view as a reason to ban same sex marriage outright. Which seems both hypocritical and disproportionate.

The issue of public schools being forced to teach the normality of same sex parenting was raised to illustrate that the adoption of same sex marriage had consequences on the rest of society, a point that you were at one time denying. And for that one purpose in this debate, that example has served well.

The question has a point, one which you seem to be avoiding. It is not the question but the discussion which seems pointless if you refuse to consider whether or not you have the right to force a particular view on others.

I will answer your question in as straight-forward and honest a manner as I can. If you mean “me” as one individual forcing my views on others, no, I do not have that right. If you mean “me” as part of a majority in the society that has decided through the democratic process that same-sex marriage should not be legally recognized, then yes, I and we have that right.

Do you not have some views which you hold to be true, but which you would not try to force on others? If so, how do you decide which views to force on others, and which are purely subjective personal views?

Whatever views I have that I choose not to try to make into the law of the land, my reasons are my own, and I do not feel obligated to share them. They have no relevance to the this public policy debate.

In other words, where is the reasonable accomodation in a society where some groups hold a particular belief and others do not?

An example of a reasonable accommodation is allowing gays to relate to each other as they wish in private and not throwing them in jail, as was done not too many years ago in the USA, or not beheading them, as is still done in some places. Not doing those terrible things is reasonable.

You seem to be asserting that your beliefs can justly imposed on others whenever you can and without justification, yet you scream blue murder when someone else’s views are imposed on you. :roll eyes:

I should be rolling my eyes instead, since I have done none of those things.

Even if you successfully argue that all the historical cases of same sex marriage were not ‘marriages’, the statement that “all marriages have in common two (or more) people committing to spend the rest of their life together” remains true.

In the requoting of yourself, you left out the most important word: “only”. Let me requote you more precisely:

the only thing all marriages have in common is two (or more) people committing to spend the rest of their life together.

Your argument is still circular.

Unless you are trying to argue that if you deliberately exclude all marriages that are not one man and one woman, then all ‘marriages’ have in common “being one man and one woman”? In which case that is explicitly circular reasoning - you are asserting the definition “one man and one woman” to prove the definition!

That was never my argument for what marriage means. You are trying to use a shortcut to get to your understanding of what it should be by that circular argument. My understanding of marriage comes from seeing the usage that has existed across time and space. This goes back to our very first exchanges, which were never resolved.

If you really believed in the rights of gays to be married, here is what you should do. Don’t try to prove it as a tautology, because that just isn’t going to fly. Instead do the harder thing. Admit that gay marriage is something new, and put forth a convincing argument why this new thing should be adopted. But please, no more shortcuts!

 

[Stephen168]

He believed in God, beyond that I don’t know that he ever went into more detail.

Mind you he also never said that two men or two women could not marry.

He said married people create children. Two men can not do that and neither can two women.

Many Native American did, and do now, possibly with a hiatus when pressure from the Judaeo-christian invaders forced them to stop doing so for a while. Many other cultural examples exist

It is very well documented that they did.

George Devereux, Institutionalized Homosexuality of the Mohave Indians, 9 Hum.
Biology 498 (1937)
Charles Callender & Lee M. Kochems, The North American Berdache, 24 Current Anthropology 443 (1983)
Donald G. Forgey, The Institution of Berdache Among the North American Plains Indians, 11 J. Sex Res. 1 (1975)
W.W. Hill, Note on the Pima Berdache, 40 Am. Anthropologist 338 (1938)
W.W. Hill, The Status of the Hermaphrodite and Transvestite in Navajo Culture, 37 Am. Anthropologist 273 (1935)
Nancy 0. Lurie, Winnebago Berdache, 55 Am. Anthropologist 708 (1953)
Elsie C. Parsons, The Zuni La’Mana, 18 Am. Anthropologist 521 (1916)
Matilda C. Stevenson, The Zuni Indians, in The Twenty-Third Ann. Rep. Bureau Am. Ethnology 3 (1904)
James S. Thayer, The Berdache of the Northern Plains, 36 J. Anthropological Res. 287 (1980)
Harriet Whitehead, The Bow and the Burden Strap: A New Look at Institutionalized Homosexuality in Native North America, in Sexual Meanings
Alfred L. Kroeber, The Arapaho, 18 Bull. Am. Museum Nat. Hist. 1, 19 (1902)

No they never did, as proven to you on another thread.

 

[Stephen168]

Indeed - the fact that people naturally form couples.

And these couples produce and raise children. Same sex unions can not do that.

… homosexuals naturally form homosexual ones. As seen in nature.

It is contrary to nature.

 

[DrTaffy]

The issue of public schools being forced to teach the normality of same sex parenting was raised to illustrate that the adoption of same sex marriage had consequences on the rest of society, a point that you were at one time denying. And for that one purpose in this debate, that example has served well.

As I have pointed out before, it is not the legalisation of same sex marriage that gives schools the right to dictate what their teachers should teach, nor that gives the State the right to dictate what schools must (or must not) teach. At most the legalisation of gay marriage would require schools to teach that gay marriage is legal - so unless you are arguing for a right to teach falsehoods to children, the school issue is irrelevant.

Also as you appeared to concede earlier, in the case of the Jew wanting to ban all butchers from selling pork, banning a group from living according to their beliefs merely so another group never has to face reasonable compromise (where their rights clash) is simply insane!

If you mean “me” as part of a majority in the society that has decided through the democratic process that same-sex marriage should not be legally recognized, then yes, I and we have that right.

Now we are getting somewhere. So you think the majority (or at least those who win a democratic contest) always has the right to force a view (any view) on a minority? That it should not consider whether or not that view should be imposed on others or kept personal?

If so, what are you complaining about? You lost, you face the consequences and that is as free of moral value as if you had won and forced your views on the opposition. So in complaining about other peoples’ views being democratically imposed on you, you are apparently being inconsistent.

Personally, I feel that the majority does not always have the right to oppress the minority, which is why I feel justified in challenging your views even if you manage to win a referendum or election.

Do you not have some views which you hold to be true, but which you would not try to force on others? If so, how do you decide which views to force on others, and which are purely subjective personal views?

Again, you avoid the question. Which was not what subjective views you hold (although I am now ragingly curious about what dark secrets make you so defensive!), but the criteria you use to decide whether or not you have the right to impose them on others.

Remember - I don’t expect to change your mind on any of this. I just hope to understand your reasoning.

If it will help I’ll give a brief example of some of my own thoughts:
I would look at:

1. 
   *]whether I have objective reasoning and evidence to support my views
   *]whether the subject only effects the person holding that belief (e.g. masturbation only effects the sinner) or if it involves others (e.g abortion involves the baby as well as the mother)
   *]whether the matter is serious or trivial
   

   An example of a reasonable accommodation is allowing gays to relate to each other as they wish in private and not throwing them in jail, as was done not too many years ago in the USA, or not beheading them, as is still done in some places. Not doing those terrible things is reasonable.

   Seriously? Your idea of a reasonable compromise with gay rights is for you to not imprison or behead homosexuals?:bigyikes:
   

   You seem to be asserting that your beliefs can justly imposed on others whenever you can and without justification, yet you scream blue murder when someone else’s views are imposed on you. :roll eyes:

   Not you, personally, but you, catholics and other christians.
   
   In other words, why do you think Native Americans were forced to stop recognising same sex marriages (at least openly) if not because of the imposition of christian values? Why do you think Quakers, Lutherans, Humanists and liberal Jews are prevented (in many parts) from holding legally recognised same sex weddings, if not because the conservative anti-SS marriage lobby is forcing its views on them?

 

[DrTaffy]

Even if you successfully argue that all the historical cases of same sex marriage were not ‘marriages’, the statement that “all marriages have in common two (or more) people committing to spend the rest of their life together” remains true.

Heh, actually I didn’t requote that I retyped it. The point was that that statement remains absolutely true, in contrast to the previous assertion that marriage was about either conceiving or raising children, which is not universal to all marriages.

And I dealt with the word ‘only’ in the following paragraph. So you are trying to make the circular argument that if you eliminate all examples of marriage that are not heterosexual, all the remaining cases are heterosexual!

So, while accusing me of making a circular argument, you are making a circular argument. I have provided numerous examples of marriage from history that were not one man and one woman, you just assert that marriage is only heterosexual. Or can you provide objective proof that the Native American marriages of two-spirited individual either:

1. 
   *]never occurred
   *]were not marriages
   *]were between a physical man and a physical woman
   
   hmm? :ehh:

 

[DrTaffy]

He said married people create children. Two men can not do that and neither can two women.

In response to Plato’s deeply creepy version of a ‘free love’ society, he certainly extolled the virtues of the nuclear family. No dissent there from me.

But saying that it is good for a heterosexual couple to marry and have kids is not the same as saying that a homosexual couple cannot marry.

So back to my original question - do you actually have a citation where Aristotle opposed gay marriage? Genuine question, and I may well change my view if you have a quote I’ve not seen (or not thought enough about) before.

[long list of references about Native American same sex marriages from me]
No they never did, as proven to you on another thread.

Nope, I think you are wrong. Sure you are not confusing me with someone else?

Either way, I’ve given you a list of historical references to support my assertion, the least you could do would be to post a link to the alleged thread where this was ‘proven’ according to you.

DrTaffy;11582238:

Indeed - the fact that people naturally form couples.

And these couples produce and raise children

Not all of them. Certainly the same sex ones, which do form naturally, tend not to produce them (alone) but can and do raise them.

It is contrary to nature.

Yet it happens in nature. A lot. Especially in our closest relatives.

No religion would recognize a same sex couple as married.

A few that do:
Quakers
Liberal Jews
Unitarians

And, before you respond to any of those, a timely reminder, from the Forum rules:

Members are not allowed to be disrespectful of anyone’s faith or religion, whether it is Catholicism or not.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

As I have pointed out before, it is not the legalisation of same sex marriage that gives schools the right to dictate what their teachers should teach, nor that gives the State the right to dictate what schools must (or must not) teach. At most the legalisation of gay marriage would require schools to teach that gay marriage is legal - so unless you are arguing for a right to teach falsehoods to children, the school issue is irrelevant.

Nevertheless, the consequences in Canada on their public school system was more than this.

Also as you appeared to concede earlier, in the case of the Jew wanting to ban all butchers from selling pork, banning a group from living according to their beliefs merely so another group never has to face reasonable compromise (where their rights clash) is simply insane!

You try to equate opposition to gay marriage with opposition to pork. They are different because unlike pork, gay marriage has secular reasons for its opposition. If I thought that eating pork was making people physically sick, then it would be entirely proper for me to campaign for its prohibition, whether I was a Jew or not.

So you think the majority (or at least those who win a democratic contest) always has the right to force a view (any view) on a minority? That it should not consider whether or not that view should be imposed on others or kept personal?

If that majority feels strongly that it is right, then yes. If the minority wants a different outcome in a democratic society it is their job to convince the majority of their error - a right that I have never denied to anyone.

If so, what are you complaining about? You lost, you face the consequences and that is as free of moral value as if you had won and forced your views on the opposition. So in complaining about other peoples’ views being democratically imposed on you, you are apparently being inconsistent.

There is no inconsistency. If those who share my view become the minority, then we have the right to continue to voice our opposition. It is very simple. Everyone has the right to use the democratic process to campaign for what they believe is right, and continue doing so forever. Nobody ever loses their right to complain.

Personally, I feel that the majority does not always have the right to oppress the minority, which is why I feel justified in challenging your views even if you manage to win a referendum or election.

Of course you have the right to continue challenging my or anyone else’s views, regardless of the outcome of an election. But I object to your use of the word “oppress”. Look it up. It carries the meaning of “unjust”, which you have tried but not succeeded to pin on opposition to gay marriage.

Again, you avoid the question. Which was not what subjective views you hold (although I am now ragingly curious about what dark secrets make you so defensive!), but the criteria you use to decide whether or not you have the right to impose them on others.

I avoid answering that question because it is irrelevant to the discussion of “should gay marriage be legal”. We should be discussing ideas, not personalities.

Seriously? Your idea of a reasonable compromise with gay rights is for you to not imprison or behead homosexuals?:bigyikes:

Not doing those things is certainly more reasonable than doing them.

Not you, personally, but you, catholics and other christians.

Forms of bad behavior by some that share my view does not prove anything one way or the other about the view itself. If you want to support gay marriage, that support must be on its own merits, not as some kind of reparation for bad behavior on the part of those whose oppose it.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

So you are trying to make the circular argument that if you eliminate all examples of marriage that are not heterosexual, all the remaining cases are heterosexual!

This is nothing more than a restatement of the definition of marriage, for in “eliminating all examples of marriage that are not heterosexual”, we have not actually eliminated any marriages.