So you are saying that a seriously wounded veteran, with certain parts missing, cannot get married? What about a woman who has had a hysterectomy? Are you advocating a change to current law to prevent such people marrying? You are making a very weak argument here.
What is relevant here is the American Constitution, not “society”. Many activities have been “condemned for centuries” such as failing to obey the lawful monarch of Great Britain and all of its colonies. How long has failing to attend a Synagogue on the Sabbath been condemned? Another very weak argument. You really need to think these things through before you post them.
So, you are saying that you have no problem with two gay men using a surrogate mother to father children related to one or other of them or with a Lesbian couple bearing their own babies (with a little help from a male acquaintance)? In both of those cases the child is related to one of the parents. Another argument you appear to have failed to think through.
Your last paragraph has been challenged by others. The Church is not making this up out of thin air.
And what harm is that?
None of this actually challenges the premises of my argument.
Red-herring. Please stick to the argument I presented and attack that if you don’t accept the conclusion.
Sure they do. Again, you are confusing what’s *necessary *for something to be the case with what’s sufficient for something to be the case. The fact that homosexuals can’t procreate doesn’t mean they don’t have the parts required to procreate. Please attend carefully to this distinction.
I believe the most compelling legal argument in favor of gay marriage is the one I provided at the beginning of this thread: that prop 8 violates equal protection. When will you deal with it and challenge the premises? As for the contention that “marriage is essential to our existence and survival,” it trades on an ambiguity between “our way of existence and survival” and “our existence and survival.” On one reading, the claim is obviously false: procreation can continue without the institution of marriage. But perhaps the court meant that our American way of existence would not continue without marriage, in which case he was probably right (Btw, assertions made by Supreme Court justices aren’t true just because they made them. So there’s no problem if I disagree with them).
Repeating something over and over doesn’t make it true, and ignoring my responses won’t make them disappear.
Society is made up of individuals, and what “society wants” can’t be entirely divorced from “what the individuals want.” Homosexuals are members of society, so what homosexuals (and many heterosexuals) want is in a sense what “society wants.” But again, this is all beside the point since the relevant question is: does society have any legitimate reason for NOT extending marriage to same-sex couples? If not, then you cannot avoid the conclusion the prop 8 violates equal protection.
I addressed this objection numerous times. The fact that any man or woman can get married doesn’t mean homosexuals are permitted the same freedom to marry as heterosexuals. Unlike heterosexuals, homosexuals are not permitted the freedom to marry their partners. Hence the discrimination.
Whatever you say, Betty.
This, of course, is contrary to the spirit of Loving, which was to say that marriage is so important a right that it was unconstitutional to deny it to a class of citizens (blacks, in that case [uh, right… and you didn’t notice that black-white opposite-sex relationships do not suffer from an intrinsic impediment to being procreative?I reject your use of “ordered” (the ruling did not [did not what?]), and that it is fundamental in no way precludes other equally fundamental purposes,[the fact that no others are mentioned is an argument for thinking that there are no others] nor is their any suggestion in the ruling that procreation is a necessary requirement for marriage [that claim is equivocal between marriage as an institution and individual instances of marriage - you need to start noticing that distinction]. Both a “right” and a “fundamental” element are not “requirements”
]).Nope, I’m afraid you are:
you’re entire point has been procreation. You keep repeating it. I am not misreading anything.
These are statements about the general purpose of marriage. The do not entail your statement which suggests the regulation of individual marriages (“the ability to procreate is a necessary requirement for access to marriage”).
I’ve never “backed off” the legal nature of the case. I’ve consistently advocated addressing arguments about the truth of the matter, to which strictly ‘legal’ (i.e., jurisprudential) considerations may or may not be relevant. Understand?
Only for a couple centuries, it seems!
lol! - So if someone want to rub chocolate cake in his hair while sitting on wheel of cheese immersed in a bath of chicken noodle soup, maybe we should call that a form of eating - so what if such activities are not fundamental to survival?
Rossum, all of the bolded parts are entirely unearned instances of self-congratulation. Ironically, such comments make you and yours look like fools. You see, you need to give someone a chance to respond to your arguments before congratulating yourself on having refuted them. That’s just how mature dialogue works.
Neither my screen name nor any private nickname of mine is “Betty.” Seems as if you were deliberately “confusing” me with another poster. In any case, my points still stand: You reveal your ignorance about the spectrum of acquaintance and depth of knowledge of those who hold views contrary to your own.Whatever you say, Betty.
How is this a false assumption? I have explained the reason for this fundamental orientation and you have not shown it to be false.
No, as a matter of logic that’s not necessarily what it means. Your statement that procreation is not necessarily the fundamental purpose of marriage means that it is logically possible that marriage could have a different fundamental purpose… which is true, but irrelevant. The fact remains that marriage does not have a different fundamental purpose.
So it appears you disagree with yourself. [The fact that I clarified my position hardly indicates that I disagree with myself.] As I pointed out, many heterosexual partnerships “are fundamentally alien to this [alleged] fundamental purpose” and yet are recognized as marriages. Whether those partnerships “should be” recognized as marriages is a different issue from whether those partnerships “are” or “can be” recognized as marriages. You’re making an -]invalid/-] **VALID **inference from:
Fixed that one up with some editting.
Correct. But the formal consideration of procreation is nonetheless not violated by sanctioning opposite-sex (think “mommy-daddy”) pairings.
When you think “procreation” you should naturally think “mommy-and-daddy.” If a couple can reasonably be said to embody, even just symbolically, that procreative notion, then there is reason to think that their desire to be recognized as belonging to the basic procreative institution of society will not harm that institution. (Obviously there are many other practical reasons, but probably they are not of much interest here.)
I’ve addressed these points already.
You certainly have ignored a few things. Let me give you an analogy: Let’s say women want a right to be sperm donors and enjoy the rights that other sperm donors enjoy. A bunch of them get together and get a ruling that they are being discriminated against by all the sperm banks on the basis of their sex. Now it’s true that there is some sex-based ‘discrimination,’ but that discrimination is entirely unintentional, it is simply a corollary of the real reason that is relevant in the case. Understand?
No eating requires ones to put food in his or her mouth, masticate, and swallow little bundles of (hopefully!) tasty goodness. What you describe here is what my mommy and daddy called “playing with your food” which as an adult I find terrible.lol! - So if someone want to rub chocolate cake in his hair while sitting on wheel of cheese immersed in a bath of chicken noodle soup, maybe we should call that a form of eating - so what if such activities are not fundamental to survival?
(I’ll let Paul address the rest of your blustery claims.)
They were not self-congratulation, they were criticisms of PaulinVA’s arguments. Did you think that those arguments were well thought out? The example of a woman with a hysterectomy is an obvious refutation of the “parts required to procreate” argumenet. Since it was obvious then it should have been countered.
It is a false assumption for precisely the reasons I stated: marriage isn’t only or mainly about procreation (duh), nor is it a requirement that people be able to procreate before they can get married (duh), nor is it a requirement that partnerships must, by their very nature, be oriented towards procreation – whatever that means – before they can be recognized as marriage (duh). So far, you have failed to challenge any of the premises of my argument.
I’m afraid that as a matter of logic, you are incorrect. Read in context, the statement that procreation is not necessarily the fundamental purpose of marriage doesn’t mean merely that marriage could have had a different fundamental purpose. I was clearly indicating that for many marriages, the fundamental purpose is not procreation. Thus the fact remains that not all marriages have the fundamental purpose of procreation.
If this is your argument, then it is entirely irrelevant: it does nothing to challenge the premises of my original argument. Under current law, there is no requirement that before partnerships can be legally recognized as marriages, they must not be fundamentally alien to procreation. You are confusing “should not” with “is not.”
This argument isn’t even valid. From the fact that partnerships that DO “meet a minimal requirement of conformity to the fundamental purpose of marriage can be recognized as marriages,” it doesn’t follow that partnerships *must *“meet a minimal requirement…and so on” before they can be recognized as marriages.
Before I address this, it is important to note that we have moved the discussion to a side-issue. The fundamental challenge remains: what are your objections to my argument that prop 8 violates equal protection? Nothing you say here challenges the premises of my argument. With that said, I’m willing to point out fallacious reasoning where I see it.
How is your example even remotely analogous to the point I made? Women, as a matter of biological fact, can’t be sperm donors. It is not a matter of biological fact, or any fact, that homosexuals can’t marry people of the same sex. Are you claiming that prop 8 doesn’t intentionally discriminates against homosexuals? If so, you are asserting a blatant falsehood. Not only does prop 8 prevent homosexuals (but not heterosexuals) from being able to marry their partners, that is its intended purpose - the reason for which it was enacted.