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KarenNC
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The last anti-miscegenation laws in the US were finally taken off the books when Alabama removed theirs in 2000.
historycooperative.org/journals/lhr/20.2/novkov.html
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historycooperative.org/journals/lhr/20.2/novkov.html
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RyanL
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On a different thread I might assert that you can’t have a moral argument without absolutes, and moral absolutes make no sense apart from God. But not on this thread. Rather, I’d simply quote Freud:I see no mention of religion in the definitions you provided, but if you believe that morality is solely based in religion, then I am not sure why you choose to introduce it into a discussion on “non-religious arguments”.
And post-Christian moderns “intuit” that whatever you do in your own bedroom is your business and it would be fundamentally unjust for the state not to incentivize it. So what does that mean?In the early days of our country, people who made the laws “intuited” that Catholics should not be allowed to hold public office…they “intuited” that because the color of the skin and form of civilization were different that they were inferior, in fact not really human and without souls. [Actually, I don’t think anyone asserted that they don’t have souls. That sounds like modern day propaganda.] …Women were not allowed a representative voice in government because men “intuited” that women were physically, mentally and emotionally too weak and fundamentally disordered to be able to make a decision for themselves.
God Bless,
RyanL
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blessedtoo
Guest
Actually, you are the one who introduced morality into this debate, which raised for me a red flag as well.I see no mention of religion in the definitions you provided, but if you believe that morality is solely based in religion, then I am not sure why you choose to introduce it into a discussion on “non-religious arguments”.
*
No one has alluded to morality in this thread, except for the one or two who have been roundly chastised for their attempt to bring “religion” into the discussion.What is the non-religous basis for saying that same sex sexual relationships are immoral?
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blessedtoo
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So you are asserting that prior to Loving, the argument used against interacial marriage was that such unions were not inherently procreative? If so, can you provide the data to support this?Yes, courts are still upholding the old laws using the old legal reasoning. The same was true of the race-based laws
Please explain how it is possible for homosexual couples to procreate as do heterosexual couples.But it will be hard to continue to deny same sex marriage based on procreation and stable homes when the state requires neither for heterosexual marriages, and both are possible in homosexual marriages.
Sorry, that’s just silly. SSM has been legal in MASS for three years. Social experiments like the overhauling of a social institution require more than three years to track for results. But the limited data available from similar experiments in Scandanavian countries should give one pause.This is the beauty of the Federal system. The states that have adopted gay marriage have not experienced any of the terrible results that were predicted.
[
](http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/660zypwj.asp)
weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/660zypwj.asp
The separation of marriage from parenthood was increasing; gay marriage has widened the separation. Out-of-wedlock birthrates were rising; gay marriage has added to the factors pushing those rates higher. Instead of encouraging a society-wide return to marriage, Scandinavian gay marriage has driven home the message that marriage itself is outdated, and that virtually any family form, including out-of-wedlock parenthood, is acceptable.
Once again:As the years roll on other states will see that and change also. If you take religious objections out of the mix, there is no longer any good argument. The reasons for allowing heterosexual couples special rights and recognition - promoting family stability, promoting monogamy, stable home for children, encouraging home buying, increasing support in old age, and whatever else you can come up with, all apply to homosexual marriages, also.
A homosexual relationship is INHERENTLY infertile and will never bear natural, biological children. It will never naturally produce more little citizens who required longs periods of nurturing and care. It will never, by it’s very nature, solicit the state’s interest because the state is not concerned with validating “love” for it’s own sake, but rather for the sake of society’s best interests, which in the case of procreative unions (heterosexual) means the LIKELY POSSIBILITY of more little members of society.If human beings were not sexually embodied creatures who reproduce and give birth to helpless, socially needy offspring who remain immature for long periods of time and depend on the love and support of both parents who brought them into existence, **the world would have no need for the institution of marriage. **
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blessedtoo
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I can appreciate how important “wishful thinking” is to the pro-ssm crowd. But the trend seems to be in favor of traditional marriage.As the years roll on other states will see that and change also.
cbsnews.com/stories/2004/02/24/national/main601828.shtml
cnn.com/ELECTION/2006/pages/results/ballot.measures/
seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/278896_samesex26ww.html
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AgnosTheist
Guest
I too am in favor of traditional marriage. Gays who want a public & lawful recognition of their partnerships should invent their own term for it. Just dont call it ‘marriage’ please.
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TMC
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This is not what I said, as the quote you use makes plain. Prior to Loving one of the principle reasons used to uphold the anti-miscegenation laws was that mixing the races was against God’s will. The other was “scientific” evidence that blacks were inferior and that mixing was diluting and damaging the white gene pool. The “scientific” argument was refuted before the religious one, which was still being used in the 1960’s. The point is that outdated science and unconstitutional appeals to religion will continue.So you are asserting that prior to Loving, the argument used against interacial marriage was that such unions were not inherently procreative? If so, can you provide the data to support this?
Many heterosexual couples cannot procreate by merely having sex. Neither can homosexual couples. They are just like a heterosexual couple that avails themselves of in vitro, sperm or egg donation, surrogates, or adoption. They are precisely as procreative as those couples. If this is bar to their marriage, it should also be a bar to a similarly fertile heterosexual marriage.Please explain how it is possible for homosexual couples to procreate as do heterosexual couples.
You may notice that I said it would take 10 or 20 years. Let’s check back then instead of cherry-picking foreign studies of dubious validity.Sorry, that’s just silly. SSM has been legal in MASS for three years. Social experiments like the overhauling of a social institution require more than three years to track for results. But the limited data available from similar experiments in Scandanavian countries should give one pause.
%between%
Many heterosexual relationships are INHERENTLY infertile. Many families have children that are not “natural” or “biological”. Are they not real families? If we limit marriages to those with the LIKELY POSSIBILITY of “more little members of society” then why can old people marry? Why can the infertile marry? Why can the terminally illl marry? Why can the seriousy disabled marry? The reason is that procreative union is not the only social benefit of marriage.A homosexual relationship is INHERENTLY infertile and will never bear natural, biological children. It will never naturally produce more little citizens who required longs periods of nurturing and care. It will never, by it’s very nature, solicit the state’s interest because the state is not concerned with validating “love” for it’s own sake, but rather for the sake of society’s best interests, which in the case of procreative unions (heterosexual) means the LIKELY POSSIBILITY of more little members of society.
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AgnosTheist
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but all heterosexual marriages were made with the assumption that the couple would be able to procreate naturally. thats part of the core idea of ‘marriage’. the assumption of natural procreation.Many heterosexual relationships are INHERENTLY infertile. Many families have children that are not “natural” or “biological”. Are they not real families?
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TMC
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Really. How does the marriage of two octogenarians presuppose natural procreation? How does the marriage of a seriously disabled person that cannot copulate presuppose procreation? Would you ban those marriages?but all heterosexual marriages were made with the assumption that the couple would be able to procreate naturally. thats part of the core idea of ‘marriage’. the assumption of natural procreation.
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AgnosTheist
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nice thought. The way i see it, such marriages honor the idea of natural procreation.Really. How does the marriage of two octogenarians presuppose natural procreation? How does the marriage of a seriously disabled person that cannot copulate presuppose procreation? Would you ban those marriages?
My main concern is the preservation that the idea of marriage. Gays should make up their own idea for their legal/public partnership and use a different term.
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TMC
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Well, there may be some ground for agreement. Not on the “idea of natural procreation” thing, but on a different term. I would prefer a solution wherein the state approved partnership was called a civil union or civil partnership or something like that for everyone, gay and straight. Marriage would be a religious term and not used by the State at all. But I don’t think we will get there.nice thought. The way i see it, such marriages honor the idea of natural procreation.
My main concern is the preservation that the idea of marriage. Gays should make up their own idea for their legal/public partnership and use a different term.
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KarenNC
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That is not a specific social need or list of such. It is a statement that social institutions meet social needs. The only social need you are currently discussing is procreation and we have dealt with that repeatedly.What social need does ssm meet?
Here, I’ll remind you of the social need that the institution of marriage meets:
"A social institution is not a “bundle of rights”, but a pattern of rules and structures intended to meet social needs. "
Yes, quite true. That does not mean that institution is only about meeting that one human need, nor that that institution is going to take the same form in all societies. Marriage is a reasonable example----there are arranged marriages, polygynous marriages, polyandrous marriages, marriages of siblings, marriage of cousins, barriers to marriage within a clan, marriages of convenience, open marriages, etc.An institution that exists everywhere on the planet is obviously meeting at least one primary, cross-cultural human need.
aaanet.org/press/an/0405if-comm4.htm
"It is true that virtually every society in the world has an institution that is very tempting to label as “marriage,” but these institutions simply do not share common characteristics. Marriage in most societies establishes the legitimacy or status rights of children, but this is not the case, for example, among the Navajo where children born to a woman, married or not, become full legitimate members of her matriclan and suffer no disadvantages. “Marriage” around the world most often involves heterosexual unions, but there are important exceptions to this. There are cases of legitimate same-sex marriages as, for example, woman-woman marriage among the Nuer and some other African groups. Here, a barren woman divorces her husband, takes another woman as her wife, and arranges for a surrogate to impregnate this woman. Any children from this arrangement become members of the barren woman’s natal patrilineage and refer to the barren woman as their father. Among some Native American groups, males who preferred to live as women (berdache) adopted the names and clothing of women and often became wives of other men.
Marriage usually involves sexual relationships between spouses. Yet this was not true of Nuer woman-woman marriages and we find in European history cases of “celibate marriages” among early Christians. Often spouses are co-resident but very often this is not the case. A separate residence of husbands in “men’s houses,” away from their wives and children, has been common in many places. Among the polyandrous/polygynous Nayar of India, wives and husbands remained in their own natal groups with husbands periodically “visiting” their wives and with children raised by their mothers and mothers’ brothers. Indeed the only feature of marriages that is apparently universal is that they will create affinal (in-law) relationships, or alliances, a fact that Lévi-Strauss and others considered to lie behind the origin of human marriage. But even here, affinal relationships are themselves quite varied in their nature and importance across societies. Thus, in terms of child legitimacy, sex of spouses, sexual activity, residence and so on, what we see around the world in terms of marriage is most notable for its variation."
The remainder of the article (from the American Anthropological Association) is well worth reading.
discovermagazine.com/1992/apr/reversaloffortun23 is interesting about the role of mating patterns in animals and humans.
Heterosexual marriage meets a wide variety of human needs. The only of those human needs that I can see that same sex marriage does not also meet is that of being able to produce a child that is the biological offspring of both partners. Marriage in this country is not and has never been restricted only to the biological parents of a specific child or of any child, for that matter. If that is not the sole criteria for allowing heterosexual civil marriage, I see no basis for claiming it should be the sole criteria for allowing homosexual civil marriage.
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KarenNC
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When you can show some support for a requirement that heterosexuals must be physically able to produce children who are the biological offspring of the two people involved in order to obtain a civil marriage in the United States and only under those circumstances, then we can have a meaningful discussion.Please explain how it is possible for homosexual couples to procreate as do heterosexual couples.
politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/50/Sorry, that’s just silly. SSM has been legal in MASS for three years. Social experiments like the overhauling of a social institution require more than three years to track for results. But the limited data available from similar experiments in Scandanavian countries should give one pause.
%between%
slate.com/id/2100884/
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RyanL
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Have you ever heard the old legal addage “hard cases make bad law”?When you can show some support for a requirement that heterosexuals must be physically able to produce children who are the biological offspring of the two people involved in order to obtain a civil marriage in the United States and only under those circumstances, then we can have a meaningful discussion.
Riddle me this: is there a difference between driving (which typically gets you where you want to go but sometimes leads to death) and shooting yourself in the face point blank with a 12 gauge?
Now this conundrum: is there a difference between life-long, monogamous heterosexual sex (which typically gets you kids but sometimes is infertile) and life-long, monogamous homosexual activities?
God Bless,
RyanL
Edited based on pathia’s post below.
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pathia
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Not comparable in the way you’re given.Now this conundrum: is there a difference between life-long, monogomous heterosexual sex (which typically gets you kids but sometimes is infertile) and homosexual activities?
God Bless,
RyanL
Life-long monogamous heterosexual sex versus life-long monogamous homosexual sex should be the comparison. Not ‘homosexual activities’ alone.
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KarenNC
Guest
While a very pivotal figure in the history of psychology, Freud is not considered the be-all and end-all of psychological theory. Not all of his theories are still considered equally valid nor as applicable to our current society as the one in which they were formed. Context is important.On a different thread I might assert that you can’t have a moral argument without absolutes, and moral absolutes make no sense apart from God. But not on this thread. Rather, I’d simply quote Freud:
Freud prolly only said that because he was such an adamant Catholic. Oh…wait…he was an atheist. Nevermind.
webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/freud.html
"But Freud’s emphasis on sexuality was not based on the great amount of obvious sexuality in his society – it was based on the intense avoidance of sexuality, especially among the middle and upper classes, and most especially among women. What we too easily forget is that the world has changed rather dramatically over the last hundred years. We forget that doctors and ministers recommended strong punishment for masturbation, that “leg” was a dirty word, that a woman who felt sexual desire was automatically considered a potential prostitute, that a bride was often taken completely by surprise by the events of the wedding night, and could well faint at the thought.
It is to Freud’s credit that he managed to rise above his culture’s sexual attitudes. Even his mentor Breuer and the brilliant Charcot couldn’t fully acknowledge the sexual nature of their clients’ problems. Freud’s mistake was more a matter of generalizing too far, and not taking cultural change into account. It is ironic that much of the cultural change in sexual attitudes was in fact due to Freud’s work! "
bbcactive.com/BroadcastLearning/MediaSupportFiles/Racism%20Synopses.pdf. [Actually, I don’t think anyone asserted that they don’t have souls. That sounds like modern day propaganda.]
“But in the post-Darwinian scientific and intellectual context, the gloves came off. In Europe, race theorists sought to prove that man’s origins were polygenic, and that (for example in the work of the American writer Samuel Morton), Africans belonged to an entirely different species from Europeans.”
asamst.ucsb.edu/courses/readingslawso194/72_menand.pdf
You are suggesting that there was a widespread belief that multiple species have souls?
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KarenNC
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Entirely depends on the people in question. There are same sex couples whose “life-long sexual activities” are incredibly conservative and tame compared to the “life-long sexual activities” of some heterosexuals, even if the couples are monogamous. As I said before, there are possibly two or three specific sexual interactions that I can think of in which homosexuals may choose to engage that heterosexuals really can’t because of anatomy.Now this conundrum: is there a difference between life-long, monogamous heterosexual sex (which typically gets you kids but sometimes is infertile) and life-long, monogamous homosexual activities?
Again, we do not base the availability of civil marriage in this country on a questionnaire about the specific sexual activities (current or potential) of a heterosexual couple, so why should we for a same sex couple? In neither case are any of the potential sexual activities illegal when between unrelated consenting adults in private.
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KarenNC
Guest
Nope, that would have been Tim Kirchoff in post #4Actually, you are the one who introduced morality into this debate, which raised for me a red flag as well.
No one has alluded to morality in this thread, except for the one or two who have been roundly chastised for their attempt to bring “religion” into the discussion.
“Most basically, morals and religion cannot logically be separated. In some cases, the state or the society is the religion (communism, etc), but without some form of religion, morals dissolve totally.”
MCL (post 7)
"The laws of the state are enacted as moral laws and boundaries "
Whatevergirl in post 9, ljprevo post 21, and so on.
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KarenNC
Guest
It seems a very reasonable solution to me. It acknowledges that religious marriage and civil marriage are two entirely different contractual arrangements, with different criteria, responsibilities, means of dissolution, etc. It is entirely possible to have either without the other. There is no requirement that either entity (religious or governmental) necessarily recognize the arrangement according to the other’s criteria as binding upon their arrangement.Well, there may be some ground for agreement. Not on the “idea of natural procreation” thing, but on a different term. I would prefer a solution wherein the state approved partnership was called a civil union or civil partnership or something like that for everyone, gay and straight. Marriage would be a religious term and not used by the State at all. But I don’t think we will get there.
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RyanL
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That’s not why I quoted him. You were going on about all moral objections being religious, so I presented a non-religious figure with a moral objection. Since it’s not terribly relevant to the thread, I’d just as soon dismiss the matter.While a very pivotal figure in the history of psychology, Freud is not considered the be-all and end-all of psychological theory.
Again, it’s not terribly relevant to the thread, but yes. You really should read Aquinas on this point, or at least think about common words like “animate” (anima = soul in Latin) and the implications it might have. You also might consider looking into the works of Suarez (1548-1617), since his works were hugely influential in forming the basis of modern conceptions of social justice.You are suggesting that there was a widespread belief that multiple species have souls?
God Bless,
RyanL
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