Refuting the infertility argument used to promote Same Sex Marriage

[HDLSeanWileyTin]

but not wearing shoes or shirt has nothing to do with gay marriage. your perspective of gay marriage being wrong is very much religious, whereas wearing a shirt and shoes for service has nothing to do with religion.

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

but not wearing shoes or shirt has nothing to do with gay marriage. your perspective of gay marriage being wrong is very much religious, whereas wearing a shirt and shoes for service has nothing to do with religion.

No. My perspective is entirely secular. Not dressing properly is a behavior problem. Likewise gay marriage is wrong because it promotes a dangerous sexual behavior.

 

[zamyrabyrd]

no but the church had no business in it, and since the church is like a government to you, the government had no business in it. a libertarian perspective is that government shouldn’t define marriage at all, so the libertarian way is actually traditional, and not the conservative way.

That’s not true. The church recognized the marriage once established.

 

[Peter_Plato]

maybe it’s time you started thinking the way you view marriage may not be right after all. as someone else said, the church didn’t do marriages for the first 1000 years. that alone is tradition, to me.

Someone else may have said that but merely parroting what someone else said does not make it true. Marriage has been a sacrament in the Church since the very beginning, following its existence in Judaism from several thousand years before Christ.

The earliest Church Fathers (Hermas of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Basil and Ambrose and a number of others wrote specifically about marriage as a sacrament even before notables such as Jerome and Augustine expanded theologically on its significance to the Church in the fourth and fifth centuries.

churchfathers.org/category/sacraments/marriage-and-divorce/

That is the real tradition whether you recognize it or not. If you want to make a compelling case, better to at least get the basic facts straight otherwise you won’t be taken very seriously with regard to everything else.

 

[Bradski]

Thanks, I really cringe when having to answer this sort of argument. Such people try to corner you into nitpicking technicalities that they won’t let go of while letting the bigger issues slide.

Well, if you keep coming up with idiotic statements such as this…

First of all, homosexuality is intrinsically disordered, usually the result of trauma, neglect, abuse or all three.

And this:

Also sexual “orientation” is ridiculous…without any scientific basis except in psychological terms, that is, the result of trauma or abuse.

…then you’re going to get some response. And must be pointed out, yet again, that you were the first person to bring up anything at all to do with what you describe as ‘unhealthy sexual practices’. Here’s the quote in post 46:

But not only that, their sexual practices are unhealthy and ridden with STD’s even after the abolition of discrimination or persecution.

So maybe you can take some of your own advice:

Whatever is not normal sexuality doesn’t have to be dragged into a civil discussion like putrid dead rats.

Let’s all bear that in mind, shall we? And despite this:

I don’t want to derail this thread (as much as I loathe discussing this subject seeing the kind of responses one gets)…

And this:

First of all I can’t tell you how much I despise discussing this subject…

…even a cursory browse through your posting history indicates that you spend most of your forum time in discussing it.

It is as though people are animals or plants with no control over what they are attracted to.

Maybe you skipped biology in class. People are animals. And yes, we have no control over what we are attracted to. Although we certainly have a choice as to whether we act on those attractions. If that is not the case, then pick something you are attracted to and change your mind about it. Let me know how you get on.

So it is your firm belief that feelings provide solid (and best) grounds for decision making, especially where lifelong commitments are involved?

Being in love with somebody is the basis for any marriage. Unless you are marrying for money or it’s an arranged marriage, then what other basis would you have? I can’t conceive of wanting to marry someone without actually loving them. Does it sound at all credible suggesting to a married couple that they must love each other very much to be told: ‘Oh, no – we’re not in love. It’s just that we found we have similar interests and thought it was a great idea to have a permanent relationship’.

A marriage made in heaven, no doubt.

 

[zamyrabyrd]

Maybe you skipped biology in class. People are animals. And yes, we have no control over what we are attracted to. Although we certainly have a choice as to whether we act on those attractions. If that is not the case, then pick something you are attracted to and change your mind about it. Let me know how you get on.

You want biology? Here’s biology, from a secular non-biased source:
cdc.gov/hiv/risk/gender/msm/facts/index.html

“Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM)a represent approximately 2% of the United States population, yet are the population most severely affected by HIV. In 2010, young gay and bisexual men (aged 13-24 years) accounted for 72% of new HIV infections among all persons aged 13 to 24, and 30% of new infections among all gay and bisexual men. At the end of 2011, an estimated 500,022 (57%) persons living with an HIV diagnosis in the United States were gay and bisexual men, or gay and bisexual men who also inject drugs.”

Now, just imagine in their commonly admitted “open” marriages what this pans out to be.
In my biology class we learned about the irreducible DNA of male and female. Did you skip class when they were talking about that? In psychology we learned (back then) that sexuality is a process that involves more than anything, social modelling.

It is not like a hormonal switch that is turned on with animals. If it is then there could not be reparative therapy. When there is abuse, it surely throws a monkey wrench into the process and is often the tipping factor why a child would have skewed opposite sex relationships. I could talk about my dead aunt who was beaten by her father and this wound never healed in her life.

 

[Bradski]

You want biology? Here’s biology, from a secular non-biased source:

Here we go again. A thread about marriage and you continuously want to bring in the subject of unhealthy sexual practices. So again, do you think that anyone, gay and straight, should not be allowed to marry if they indulge in unhealthy sex? You didn’t answer last time - how about this time?

And I asked you about anything at all to which you are attracted that you can decide not to be attracted to. If there is nothing, then feel free to retract your earlier statement in that regard.

Keep making nonsensical statements and people will keep asking you to back them up.

 

[zamyrabyrd]

Here we go again. A thread about marriage and you continuously want to bring in the subject of unhealthy sexual practices. So again, do you think that anyone, gay and straight, should not be allowed to marry if they indulge in unhealthy sex? You didn’t answer last time - how about this time?
And I asked you about anything at all to which you are attracted that you can decide not to be attracted to. If there is nothing, then feel free to retract your earlier statement in that regard. Keep making nonsensical statements and people will keep asking you to back them up.

From the last, seems that reparative therapy works for those who want it, especially by those who claim they were born again. But for those who want to stay that way, there are civil unions, no need to destroy the institution of marriage for a minute few. The guiding principle should be as it has been in the past “the greatest good for the greatest number”.
The initial premise about infertility, well, what do let’s say, non-reproductive practices produce? A heck of a lot of disease. Even straight people should watch out. That’s why the public should not be fooled by all the whitewashing this movement is covered with.
I did answer the question whether they should be allowed to and I said it is irrelevant as much as gluttony and substance abuse. There is a limit to what the State or Civil Authority can regulate but they are trying very hard to control everything a person does.
Do you finally understand, because you are really trying my patience?

 

[Bradski]

From the last, seems that reparative therapy works for those who want it, especially by those who claim they were born again.

You’re answering questions that no-one is asking. So I’ll ask mine again.

And I asked you about anything at all to which you are attracted that you can decide not to be attracted to. If there is nothing, then feel free to retract your earlier statement in that regard.

That’s quite a specific question that directly relates to what you have said. How about answering it?

I did answer the question whether they should be allowed to and I said it is irrelevant as much as gluttony and substance abuse. There is a limit to what the State or Civil Authority can regulate but they are trying very hard to control everything a person does.

So if sexual practices are, in your words, irrelevant, then why in heaven’s name do you insist on bringing them up? I am going to agree with you that anything of a sexual nature that any couple wants to do in the privacy of their own bedroom is utterly irrelevant in regard to marriage. If you insist on bringing this subject up again I am going to assume, and I think a lot of people are going to realise, that it’s just a reflection of your personal distaste.

Do you finally understand, because you are really trying my patience?

Gosh…another sleepless night beckons.

 

[frobert]

Likewise gay marriage is wrong because it promotes a dangerous sexual behavior.

How does gay marriage promote irresponsible sexual behavior? Is there a cause and effect?

I don’t think you would say that the denial of gay marriage would prevent or reduce irresponsible sexual behavior. If the goal is to reduce such behavior the best way is with targeted educational risk reduction programs.

 

[inocente]

First of all I can’t tell you how much I despise discussing this subject due to the twisted thickets I have take to time and energy to plow through. If I just look back on my development, it was just that, a process over many years of learning who I was, not like an animal that suddenly gets hormones to mate. Social modelling has a lot to do with a person’s view of himself and how he relates to others. So all this orientation malarkey is just that, bull hockey.

It is good, I don’t buy the bad rap discrimination has collected over the years. Allowing only opposite genders to marry is a funny way of describing the fundamental definition of marriage as it existed for millennia.

Stretching the definition of marriage makes it in the end meaningless.

There is a difference between saying certain practices are unhealthy, even statistically proven to be, without having to draw pictures. Whatever is not normal sexuality doesn’t have to be dragged into a civil discussion like putrid dead rats. This thread is about the essential infertile nature of same sex arrangements, therefore they do not deserve the appellation of marriage. What passes for expression of sexuality is even unhealthy. This should serve as a warning at least.

Exactly, anyone can get married if they conform to the requirements already mentioned 1) opposite sex 2) of age 3) in some places to prove no venereal disease 4) not already married 5) not close blood relatives. When the first requirement is dropped, everything else will be permissible in time, including incest.

You don’t like talking about anal sex, yet you introduced the subject to the thread. You despise talking about sexual attraction, yet you introduced the subject to the thread. No doubt you hate talking about incest too, a subject you just introduced to the thread.

There’s nothing in the marriage vows about mating or hormones or fertility, or about what people do in the privacy of their own home, because marriage isn’t about any of the biological or animal stuff you keep referring to.

It’s about two people wanting to stand in front of their family and friends, and declare their commitment to each other, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death parts them.

 

[inocente]

The only such argument that could possibly work is the logical one commonly stated as “Treat like things alike.”

The problem for you applying that logic to a “fair society” is that glaring differences exist between conjugal marriages and same sex “marriages.” These two are NOT alike AND not alike in VERY relevant ways where the concept of what a marriage actually is is concerned. You have to put on some very vision-restricting blinkers to claim alikeness in these two relationships.

So you say a civil marriage between two adult law-abiding citizens is different from a civil marriage between two adult law-abiding citizens.

*Which of course is why “fairness” isn’t really the issue here. If it were, then the same human rights that would protect the livelihoods and human dignity of gay people (those fundamental human rights owed to gay individuals because they are human) would, likewise, now stop gays from persecuting and threatening the livelihoods of those who have a different view of marriage than they do. Again, this isn’t about fair mindedness or a fair society, it is about foisting one perspective on everyone and making all conform to one view by coercion using punitive means. *

So you say 4% of the population is persecuting the other 96%. I think you have that exactly wrong, it’s the gay minority who get bullied, it’s gay people who commit suicide due to constant bullying.

A fair society treats all law-abiding citizens equally. A society which treats any minority as inferior is sanctioning bullying.

*When a traditional view of marriage is in jeopardy of being criminalized, that ought to be taken as “things have gone too far.” The fact some cannot see this means they suffer from the exact same blindness that led to the persecution of gays now but is now leading them in the opposite direction. Our society is like a drunken sailor overcompensating for a fall in one direction by listing heavily in the opposite.

The only alternative isn’t criminalizing homosexuality, and since homosexuality is a completely different issue than the redefinition of marriage, keeping the legal definition of marriage from being revised does not amount to treating gays unfairly. In order to be unfair (not equal) treatment you would need to demonstrate that gay “marriage” is identical in all relevant ways to conjugal marriage which produces, by its very nature, the new human beings which become the citizens of tomorrow. As such, the state has an interest in supporting and safeguarding conjugal marriages that it does not have in the case of those engaging in same sex behaviour, which is infertile by its very nature.

Again the basic law of logic which grounds your “fair society” argument is "treat alike those things which are alike in all relevant ways. Since gay “marriage” is clearly not the same as conjugal marriage, fairness does not make us abandon logic and treat unalike things alike merely for the sake of assuaging the “feelings” of those who make demands.

The so-called “argument” for fair treatment is a bogus one since it requires essentially different things be treated as if they were alike without sufficient warrant.*

Let’s apply your new rule more generally. Society must not treat male and female citizens equally, on the grounds that women are clearly different to men. Nope, I think your new rule doesn’t work too good.

Here in Spain, a majority Catholic country, equal marriage was approved by a majority of the population ten years ago. In the local town, moms have their hair done by a married gay couple, and take their children to them to have their hair cut for confirmation. Seems very Christian to me.

 

[zamyrabyrd]

You don’t like talking about anal sex, yet you introduced the subject to the thread. You despise talking about sexual attraction, yet you introduced the subject to the thread. No doubt you hate talking about incest too, a subject you just introduced to the thread.

I said unhealthy practices but did not specify what they were. As for your other accusations they are ridiculous.

 

[zamyrabyrd]

Here in Spain, a majority Catholic country, equal marriage was approved by a majority of the population ten years ago. In the local town, moms have their hair done by a married gay couple, and take their children to them to have their hair cut for confirmation. Seems very Christian to me.

When a country is going down the tubes, the idea is to give the people more distractions as in “panem et circences”. I am not so sure that the majority of the population was supportive or it was passed in a Bolshevik coup the way it has been in almost any other place.

 

[zamyrabyrd]

How does gay marriage promote irresponsible sexual behavior? Is there a cause and effect? I don’t think you would say that the denial of gay marriage would prevent or reduce irresponsible sexual behavior. If the goal is to reduce such behavior the best way is with targeted educational risk reduction programs.

The sexual revolution started it all. Contraception was supposed to reduce adolescent pregnancy which increased and later on medicines to eradicate STD’s and HIV which are an all time high in gay communities. (re: my recent post citing the Center for Disease Control)

 

[zamyrabyrd]

Here we go again. A thread about marriage and you continuously want to bring in the subject of unhealthy sexual practices. So again, do you think that anyone, gay and straight, should not be allowed to marry if they indulge in unhealthy sex? You didn’t answer last time - how about this time?

And I asked you about anything at all to which you are attracted that you can decide not to be attracted to. If there is nothing, then feel free to retract your earlier statement in that regard.

Keep making nonsensical statements and people will keep asking you to back them up.

People can be attracted or addicted to drugs and alcohol, also unwanted sexual attractions with a lot of work, therapy, and spiritual health many have overcome.
Keep making nonsensical questions and people will get fed up with you. Bye!

 

[zamyrabyrd]

When the state forces a baker to bake a cake, the state has just made that baker a slave.

I am going to answer your post since you seem to have a voice of reason in this discussion.
The cake, flowers and wedding pictures scams actually have a common denominator somewhat hidden behind the scenes. I read a very interesting article about a gay couple who did not want to stop at having the pieces of paper that made their marriage equal to everyone else’s but they wanted the community to actively celebrate it. Get my drift?
If they can’t have complete moral acceptance they will literally force it down the throats of those who disagree and go on a suing rampage just to make a point.
I wrote before about other perceived oppressed groups and they had to EARN respect, not bully or sue to get it. The cake scams just prove that they are not in it for just lovin’ one another but want to remake society in THEIR image. This was actually set out as an agenda 30 years ago by Erastes Pill, in “After the Ball”, how to desensitize society, to appear as victims, as the guys and gals next door, etc. There was also a communist manifesto in the 50’s on how to destroy the West by imploding the family unit.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Maybe you skipped biology in class. People are animals.

Perhaps people are animals in the sense that we share many common traits. However, people have capabilities which go beyond those of animals, which means we are not ONLY animals. I have to side with Aristotle’s notion that we are rational animals. We can be motivated by reasons, ends and goods, not purely animal appetites

And yes, we have no control over what we are attracted to. Although we certainly have a choice as to whether we act on those attractions. If that is not the case, then pick something you are attracted to and change your mind about it. Let me know how you get on.

This has to be the most simplistic and errant thing you have ever written. You forget that humans are attracted to many things not merely on the basis of physical appetite or need, but also on the basis of sensible qualities (beauty) and the intelligibility of the object (truth.)
So, there are things (which appeal to purely physical appetite) which cannot become unattractive to physical appetite merely by “changing one’s mind.” There are also sensible and intellectual things, humans are attracted to or not, based upon their qualities of beauty (or lack, thereof) and truth (or falsity) which we can come to realize are not what we supposed them to be and we CAN change our minds about them - even things which we may have, at one time, found physically attractive.

I do, by the way, know that it is entirely possible to “change one’s mind” about what a person finds attractive. Aligning oneself to the truth has a way of revealing the true nature of things and revealing things (or illusions) for what they are, even those which appear attractive on the basis of physical appetite alone. A wise man in once said, “Do not judge by appearances.”

Now merely because you may have difficulty getting beyond pure animal desire does not mean everyone suffers from that same incapacity. You are more than your glands.

Being in love with somebody is the basis for any marriage. Unless you are marrying for money or it’s an arranged marriage, then what other basis would you have? I can’t conceive of wanting to marry someone without actually loving them. Does it sound at all credible suggesting to a married couple that they must love each other very much to be told: ‘Oh, no – we’re not in love. It’s just that we found we have similar interests and thought it was a great idea to have a permanent relationship’.

A marriage made in heaven, no doubt.

The part of the explanation you seem to have left out of “marrying for love” is the accounting for why one person “loves” another in the first place. That “love” does not simply exist a se, it exists because there are reasons and motives (grounded on reasons) for loving the person that come into play. It is those reasons that form the basis for “love.” Therefore, people do not marry BECAUSE they “love” the other person, but because they are moved (emotivated) to do so - ultimately - by the reasons they have to do so.

Your accounting that people “must love each other” is simply shorthand for saying people have an overall “warrant” to commit themselves to the other person which they refer to as the “love” they have for the other person.

It would seem bizarre, actually, to claim that love purely grounded on emotion (sans any rational basis) is sufficient for entering into marriage. It denies the rationality of human beings and makes marriage the most irrational thing any two people could possibly do - commit to each other purely on the basis of some unknown and uncontrollable emotional “attraction.” Marriage, viewed in this way, is not a responsible choice, but an inevitable fate one falls into or capitulates to.

I might allow that I could safely show a preference for chocolate ice cream over strawberry based upon pure emotion devoid of thought or sound reason, but to risk the future happiness of other people (whose well-being I ostensibly care about) purely for some unknown, blind, emotional draw seems - pardon my candor - idiotic, at best.

Personally, I married (over 31 years ago) because I cared deeply about the well-being and future happiness of this woman I came to know and understand, and subsequently made a thoughtful and responsible commitment to that end. Another consideration which came into the decision was the understanding that our marriage wasn’t just about us, but also about the people connected to us whose happiness was also at stake - including our children who, at the time, were unknown participants in that decision. It is this “bigger” view of marriage as a responsible commitment which seems to be unaccounted for in your “being in love is sufficient” POV.

Love isn’t primarily about “attraction.” In Catholic parlance, love is a virtue - one that has the power (grounded in truth) to make both you and the beloved all that you can possibly be. That is why God is Love and, at the same time, Pure Act, the fullness of Being. Love is essentially teleological in that it aims for an end beyond itself, which is why love cannot be purely an attraction, since attractions (in particular physical ones) are concrete and tethered to maintaining the current state of things.

This, by the way, is why SSM is a faux “marriage” since the end of a same sex relationship is, at best, to sustain itself. Real marriage has, as one of its ends, the creation of new life, both in the calling of the couple beyond themselves to become something more than they currently are (complementarity, not sameness, does that) and by bringing into existence new human beings who will challenge all involved to go beyond themselves even more.

 

[Bradski]

I said unhealthy practices but did not specify what they were.

Here’s your chance then. Would you like to list all the unhealthy sexual practices that would preclude anyone from getting married?

And worried about the Bolsheviks in Spain? I think the answer to the question ‘can we have a fairer society’ was ‘Si, podemos’ long before Podemos even existed. And nearly 90% Catholic, too. Look, the writing is on the wall!

 

[Peter_Plato]

Here’s your chance then. Would you like to list all the unhealthy sexual practices that would preclude anyone from getting married?

And worried about the Bolsheviks in Spain? I think the answer to the question ‘can we have a fairer society’ was ‘Si, podemos’ long before Podemos even existed. And nearly 90% Catholic, too. Look, the writing is on the wall!

Not sure what is “fairer” about a society that fines decent, law-abiding individuals to the tune hundreds of thousands of dollars merely for disagreeing about what marriage essentially is - for the sake of pandering to the sexual proclivities of a very small minority.

The issue isn’t, any longer, about restricting or punishing those sexual proclivities, it is about punishing those who merely have a different and legitimate view on the issue in an attempt to make THAT view illicit and illegal.

The same mind set that ostracised and persecuted gays for being different IS the disturbed psychology that now persecutes and ostracises individuals who simply and legitimately disagree that a gay lifestyle is all that it is trumped up to be.