Secular argument against gay marriage

[Peter_Plato]

I understand your view but disagree profoundly. I’m currently re-reading H G Wells A Modern Utopia, where amongst other things which raised eyebrows at the time he proposes the State cancels any marriage which is still childless after two or three years, and punishes the spouses. This is one of the logical conclusions of the State dictating how best to produce and raise children. Civil marriage is, thankfully, free of this socialist agenda. I think it would be a big mistake to go down that road.

You are ignoring romantic love. Civil marriage is primarily about love, we expect the spouses to be in love, otherwise we’re unhappy about it and call it a marriage of convenience or an arranged marriage, or say that he got a trophy wife or she’s a gold digger and so on.

As the old song has it: Love and marriage, love and marriage / Go together like a horse and carriage / This I tell ya, brother, you can’t have one without the other.

Indeed. And since you forgot all about love in marriage, you better put on your bib.

What makes you think marriage is an either/or kind of proposition?

It need not be only about romantic love and it need not be only about procreation. It can and should be about both but why stop there?

You seem to think it is only about romantic love and when that diminishes, the marriage is no longer appropriately called a marriage. A good marriage could have many facets. It might begin as a romantic relationship, then blossom into a much deeper and more profound union of being that brings about the “incarnation” of the relationship in new human beings, aka, offspring. It is that depth of relationship that can only be attained between a man and woman that is to be properly called a “marriage.”

You might protest that pretty well any heterosexual couple might produce biological offspring, but I am not speaking primarily of making biological babies, I am talking about whole human beings. The moral issue is about following through in the “creative” part by understanding that the process of creating human beings does not end when they are born in a biological sense, but in the entire process of becoming a whole human being.

If the creative love between a man and a woman is understood in the shallow sense of physical unity, then their offspring are going to be seen by the couple as mere physical entities. The depth of being of the couple will result in deeper, more profoundly formed human beings as offspring.

Perhaps the problem is that many people, like you seem to, have a very one dimensional view of marriage as romantic or sexual, when those aspects may be only phases in a greater reality that embodies divine aspects of love. It would be this profundity that is an even more crucial aspect of the marital unity in creating offspring.

Many relationships and families may go sour precisely because the individuals involved do not pass through these more preliminary stages into deeper love. Christ became incarnate, but the love he had for humanity passed through a refiner’s fire involving passion and perseverance to demonstrate to us a process required of us that will form us into holy and divine creatures. Human love becomes incarnate in offspring, but continues on in relationship through passion and perseverance towards sanctity. Our end is not simply to become romantic beings, it is to become divine beings and carry out the process of divinizing our offspring. Marriage is the ordinary means for that to come about. However, a couple would necessarily not understand nor experience that if they live out a shallow notion of the ends of marriage as romantic entanglement.

 

[tonyrey]

Yes I did - see post #286.

The fact that many children are in single-parent families does not imply that the traditional concept of marriage is defective.

How is civil marriage “a sacred institution”?

“But from the beginning of the world it was not thus; for then God only formed one man and one woman, that they might be exclusively and invariably attached to each other.
7 For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother; and shall cleave to his wife. Hence it is written, (Gen. ii. 24, and Matt. xix. 5.) A man shall leave father and mother, and adhere to his wife.”

How is civil marriage anything other than a human institution?

It is only a human institution for those who believe man is the measure of all things - which is not the case for many agnostics, let alone believers.

 

[tonyrey]

What makes you think marriage is an either/or kind of proposition?

It need not be only about romantic love and it need not be only about procreation. It can and should be about both but why stop there?

You seem to think it is only about romantic love and when that diminishes, the marriage is no longer appropriately called a marriage. A good marriage could have many facets. It might begin as a romantic relationship, then blossom into a much deeper and more profound union of being that brings about the “incarnation” of the relationship in new human beings, aka, offspring. It is that depth of relationship that can only be attained between a man and woman that is to be properly called a “marriage.”

You might protest that pretty well any heterosexual couple might produce biological offspring, but I am not speaking primarily of making biological babies, I am talking about whole human beings. The moral issue is about following through in the “creative” part by understanding that the process of creating human beings does not end when they are born in a biological sense, but in the entire process of becoming a whole human being.

If the creative love between a man and a woman is understood in the shallow sense of physical unity, then their offspring are going to be seen by the couple as mere physical entities. The depth of being of the couple will result in deeper, more profoundly formed human beings as offspring.

Perhaps the problem is that many people, like you seem to, have a very one dimensional view of marriage as romantic or sexual, when those aspects may be only phases in a greater reality that embodies divine aspects of love. It would be this profundity that is an even more crucial aspect of the marital unity in creating offspring.

Many relationships and families may go sour precisely because the individuals involved do not pass through these more preliminary stages into deeper love. Christ became incarnate, but the love he had for humanity passed through a refiner’s fire involving passion and perseverance to demonstrate to us a process required of us that will form us into holy and divine creatures. Human love becomes incarnate in offspring, but continues on in relationship through passion and perseverance towards sanctity. Our end is not simply to become romantic beings, it is to become divine beings and carry out the process of divinizing our offspring. Marriage is the ordinary means for that to come about. However, a couple would necessarily not understand nor experience that if they live out a shallow notion of the ends of marriage as romantic entanglement.

Many non-believers also regard traditional marriage as a uniquely unitive relationship between a man and a woman and are opposed to a distortion of its meaning.

 

[Peter_Plato]

God created homosexuals too, and with around 3% of the world population of 7 billion that makes 210 million homosexuals currently alive, everyone of them created by God. So it seems God doesn’t share your view.

And of course, it’s not a secular argument.

Is that how you handle every proclivity in behaviour? So when someone, perhaps even yourself, is tempted towards theft, alcoholism, addiction, anger, lust, jealousy, etc., do you apply the “everyone of them is created by God” reply and excuse it? So we should allow ourselves and others to engage in whatever behaviour we tend towards because God created us that way? We should, then, become very morally lax because that is what God wants regarding morality? Apparently, with all the murders, thefts, suicides, calumny, rage, torture, unkindness, etc., God doesn’t share a very moral view of humanity since he made so many transgressors.

I, for one, do not share your view of God and neither do I share your view of what it means to be human.

 

[markeverett49]

Au contraire, monsieur. You would have a point if family courts and the State didn’t get involved in child custody, etc., when unmarried couples split up. But they care just as much when unmarried couples separate, which adds weight to my argument that civil marriage has nothing to do with procreation.

Thanks for pointing that out.

Jeez, you’re slow. The state cares about CHILDREN and we all know where children come from: the union of a man and a woman.

 

[josh987654321]

That doesn’t sound like love, that sounds like a desire to dominate others.

No it isn’t, like I said before, same sex marriage doesn’t legalise a homosexual union it recognises it as equivalent to a heterosexual union and given the anatomy of a man and a woman and their sexual compatibility this is not the case at all.

The question at hand is not whether homosexuals are allow to love one another, of course they should, as should we all. And a marriage “certificate” is not required to do that. The approval of society is not required to do that.

The matter is the sexual acts that are being approved through same sex marriage.

Fair enough if you protest just as loudly at the much greater numbers of heterosexuals who get married and commit acts of grave depravity.

Heterosexuals who act just as immorally and disorderly sexually as homosexuals do are no different, however their union as marriage, has the sexual compatibility with one another that is only available between a man and a woman, thats why it’s a marriage, if homosexuals were capable of acting sexually moral and ordered in marriage than I wouldn’t have a problem with it, but they are clearly not.

There are far greater numbers of sexually immoral heterosexuals than homosexuals yet you seem fine with that. That manages to go unmentioned, there are no marches in the streets, no horrified threads. How come that’s tolerated then? What love is it that is completely tolerant of one but completely intolerant of the other?

Please show me a thread or group that is currently trying to claim something like anal intercourse as moral and ordered, I will be in just as much opposition.

That kind of intercourse is intrinsically immoral and disordered regardless whether it’s done by heterosexuals or homosexuals, the question is ‘marriage’, if it were about certain types of intercourse than it would be targeted at heterosexuals and homosexuals who act in such ways, however it’s about the fact that a homosexual union isn’t capable at all of moral and ordered sexual relations.

God created homosexuals too, and with around 3% of the world population of 7 billion that makes 210 million homosexuals currently alive, everyone of them created by God. So it seems God doesn’t share your view.

God created me and I have many Immoral desires aswell, should we all just throw our hands up in the air, recklessly give into our every desire and say “If God didn’t want me to do this than he wouldn’t have given me the desire to do it?”

No offense but I hear that one alot and it’s a silly excuse, it’s primarily the basis for religious same sex marriage suppoters, just because we desire something doesn’t make it right, Jesus was tempted by human desires aswell you know.

And of course, it’s not a secular argument.

Doesn’t make it any less true.

Thank you for reading
Josh

 

[inocente]

The fact that many children are in single-parent families does not imply that the traditional concept of marriage is defective.

I think no one is arguing that.

"But from the beginning of the world it was not thus; for then God only formed one man and one woman, that they might be exclusively and invariably attached to each other.
7 For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother; and shall cleave to his wife. Hence it is written, (Gen. ii. 24, and Matt. xix. 5.) A man shall leave father and mother, and adhere to his wife."

It is only a human institution for those who believe man is the measure of all things - which is not the case for many agnostics, let alone believers. There are even atheists who believe some things are sacred…

The thread title is Secular argument against gay marriage.

 

[inocente]

What makes you think marriage is an either/or kind of proposition?

I don’t. I’ve been arguing all along that marriage is about the vows - for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part.

*You seem to think it is only about romantic love and when that diminishes, the marriage is no longer appropriately called a marriage. A good marriage could have many facets. It might begin as a romantic relationship, then blossom into a much deeper and more profound union of being that brings about the “incarnation” of the relationship in new human beings, aka, offspring. It is that depth of relationship that can only be attained between a man and woman that is to be properly called a “marriage.” *

No, I said you were ignoring romantic love, and that “civil marriage is primarily about love”.

I’ve been arguing all along that marriage is about the vows, and the vows are about love and commitment.

*You might protest that pretty well any heterosexual couple might produce biological offspring, but I am not speaking primarily of making biological babies, I am talking about whole human beings. The moral issue is about following through in the “creative” part by understanding that the process of creating human beings does not end when they are born in a biological sense, but in the entire process of becoming a whole human being.

If the creative love between a man and a woman is understood in the shallow sense of physical unity, then their offspring are going to be seen by the couple as mere physical entities. The depth of being of the couple will result in deeper, more profoundly formed human beings as offspring. *

Here you seem to be arguing against those on your own side who have tried to redefine marriage to make it about biology, procreation, compatible body parts, certain kinds of sex or whatever. But I will carry on arguing that those are an irrelevant debasement of marriage - they are not mentioned in the vows, and the vows speak of higher matters.

I can see why opponents of gay marriage need to redefine marriage, it must be very inconvenient that the vows apply just as well to same-gender spouses.

Perhaps the problem is that many people, like you seem to, have a very one dimensional view of marriage as romantic or sexual, when those aspects may be only phases in a greater reality that embodies divine aspects of love. It would be this profundity that is an even more crucial aspect of the marital unity in creating offspring.

Again you seem to be arguing against your own side. The vows speak of a lifelong commitment to each other no matter what happens in the future, and that is a very profound ideal.

Many relationships and families may go sour precisely because the individuals involved do not pass through these more preliminary stages into deeper love. Christ became incarnate, but the love he had for humanity passed through a refiner’s fire involving passion and perseverance to demonstrate to us a process required of us that will form us into holy and divine creatures. Human love becomes incarnate in offspring, but continues on in relationship through passion and perseverance towards sanctity. Our end is not simply to become romantic beings, it is to become divine beings and carry out the process of divinizing our offspring. Marriage is the ordinary means for that to come about. However, a couple would necessarily not understand nor experience that if they live out a shallow notion of the ends of marriage as romantic entanglement.

But again, the vows speak of higher things, so you are not debating me here.

btw I think many would find your argument here confusing, since “human love becomes incarnate in offspring” seems to conflict with the celibacy of priests and so means you need to further complicate your argument.

 

[inocente]

Is that how you handle every proclivity in behaviour? So when someone, perhaps even yourself, is tempted towards theft, alcoholism, addiction, anger, lust, jealousy, etc., do you apply the “everyone of them is created by God” reply and excuse it? So we should allow ourselves and others to engage in whatever behaviour we tend towards because God created us that way? We should, then, become very morally lax because that is what God wants regarding morality? Apparently, with all the murders, thefts, suicides, calumny, rage, torture, unkindness, etc., God doesn’t share a very moral view of humanity since he made so many transgressors.

I, for one, do not share your view of God and neither do I share your view of what it means to be human.

You are very good at jumping to the wrong conclusion.

We all know that we can decide whether to rob and murder, and we all know that we cannot choose our sexual orientation, we cannot be straight one day, gay the next, straight the next day and gay the next, any more than we can choose to vary our height or skin color. If we discriminate against gays in the name of God then we have no moral case whatsoever against those who discriminate against short people or those with a different skin color, no case at all.

 

[inocente]

Jeez, you’re slow. The state cares about CHILDREN and we all know where children come from: the union of a man and a woman.

Insulting other posters does your case no good at all

Jeez is a euphemism for Jesus and many find it blasphemous, try to show some respect to Christ, this is after all a Christian forum.

And finally, I think you’ll find that a man and a woman do not need to be married to have children.

 

[tonyrey]

The fact that many children are in single-parent families does not imply that the traditional concept of marriage is defective.

You are arguing that the traditional concept of marriage is defective because it does not include homosexuals…

The thread title is Secular argument against gay marriage.

Marriage is only a human institution for those who believe man is the measure of all things - **which is not the case for many agnostics, let alone believers. There are atheists who believe some things are sacred.

**Religious people don’t have the monopoly of objective moral values…

 

[inocente]

No it isn’t, like I said before, same sex marriage doesn’t legalise a homosexual union it recognises it as equivalent to a heterosexual union and given the anatomy of a man and a woman and their sexual compatibility this is not the case at all.

Err… you said “love wants what is best for the other even if they don’t or refuse to see it, it is not love to encourage others to condemn themselves or commit harm towards themselves when you know better”.

Contrast your pride in knowing what’s best for others with 1 Corinthians 13.

The question at hand is not whether homosexuals are allow to love one another, of course they should, as should we all. And a marriage “certificate” is not required to do that. The approval of society is not required to do that.

None of us need a certificate to do that.

*The matter is the sexual acts that are being approved through same sex marriage.

Heterosexuals who act just as immorally and disorderly sexually as homosexuals do are no different, however their union as marriage, has the sexual compatibility with one another that is only available between a man and a woman, thats why it’s a marriage, if homosexuals were capable of acting sexually moral and ordered in marriage than I wouldn’t have a problem with it, but they are clearly not.

Please show me a thread or group that is currently trying to claim something like anal intercourse as moral and ordered, I will be in just as much opposition.

That kind of intercourse is intrinsically immoral and disordered regardless whether it’s done by heterosexuals or homosexuals, the question is ‘marriage’, if it were about certain types of intercourse than it would be targeted at heterosexuals and homosexuals who act in such ways, however it’s about the fact that a homosexual union isn’t capable at all of moral and ordered sexual relations.*

You might like to argue that one with Peter Plato, as he says marriage is not only about sex.

When you guys finally agree what you think marriage is, come back and post to me. I’ll carry on arguing it’s about the vows.

*God created me and I have many Immoral desires aswell, should we all just throw our hands up in the air, recklessly give into our every desire and say “If God didn’t want me to do this than he wouldn’t have given me the desire to do it?”

No offense but I hear that one alot and it’s a silly excuse, it’s primarily the basis for religious same sex marriage suppoters, just because we desire something doesn’t make it right, Jesus was tempted by human desires aswell you know.
*

You cannot choose to be straight today and gay tomorrow any more than you can choose to be white today and black tomorrow. We all know this is the case, and we all know it has nothing whatsoever to do with desire.

 

[inocente]

You are arguing that the traditional concept of marriage is defective because it does not include homosexuals…

Nope, I’m not arguing that. I don’t think there is a traditional concept of civil marriage. History is not my strong point but I think it’s not been long since the very first civil marriage (maybe 1792 after the French Revolution?), and the institution has varied and continues to change. It’s a myth that civil marriage is an age-old cast-in-stone institution.

Marriage is only a human institution for those who believe man is the measure of all things - **which is not the case for many agnostics, let alone believers. There are atheists who believe some things are sacred.

**Religious people don’t have the monopoly of objective moral values…

Sure, but the OP asks for a secular argument and secular means not having any connection with religion.

 

[josh987654321]

Err… you said “love wants what is best for the other even if they don’t or refuse to see it, it is not love to encourage others to condemn themselves or commit harm towards themselves when you know better”.

Contrast your pride in knowing what’s best for others with 1 Corinthians 13.

I am very glad you brought that up, because you are dead right, however it’s you that has miss understood love in that passage.

6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

I don’t delight in the evil of sexual relations between same sex, I rather rejoice in the truth that God created men and women with such sexual compatibility, which is only for marriage in the full giving of one self to the other mentally and physically and the physical part is only capable between a man and a woman.

None of us need a certificate to do that.

Exactly.

You might like to argue that one with Peter Plato, as he says marriage is not only about sex.

When you guys finally agree what you think marriage is, come back and post to me. I’ll carry on arguing it’s about the vows.

Well, you are both right according to me, it isn’t just about sex and it isn’t just about the vows, they both compliment one another, however the sexual acts of a homosexual union are in no way complimentary to the union like heterosexual sexual relations are.

You cannot choose to be straight today and gay tomorrow any more than you can choose to be white today and black tomorrow. We all know this is the case, and we all know it has nothing whatsoever to do with desire.

With all sincerity, I really think you missed what Peter Plato and I were saying.

I cannot choose to have no sexual desire today and have strong heterosexual desires tomorrow any more than I can choose to be white today and black tomorrow, you are dead right, we all know it has absolutly nothing to do with the desire of same sex attraction, instead it has everything to do with the sexual acts of homosexuality, with giving into those desires.

Is it wrong that I have desires for fornication, pornography or masturbation? of course not, what heterosexual doesn’t have these desires?

Is it wrong for me to act on these desires? Absolutely.

Do heterosexuals occasionaly fall into weakness and give into these desires? Yes.

Do we tell heterosexuals when they fall into weakness and this happens that it was morally right what they did? Absolutely not.

Do we redefine a word to include all of these with something like celibacy to appease our conciences? Of course not.

What I thought I was clear in saying, is that we oppose the sexual acts of homosexuality being viewed as moral and ordered through the redefinition of marriage.

I would never throw stones if out of weakness a homosexual gives into their disordered and Immoral desires, but of course I will be in opposition when people try to encourage such acts by claiming that such acts are moral and ordered, which is what they are doing in trying to legalise same sex marriage, it’s trying to recognise acts that are Immoral and Disordered as acts that are moral and ordered, Love does not delight in such a lie.

Remember like you pointed out Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

Thank you for reading
Josh

 

[tonyrey]

You cannot choose to be straight today and gay tomorrow any more than you can choose to be white today and black tomorrow. We all know this is the case, and we all know it has nothing whatsoever to do with desire.

It is not as cut and dried as you make out. In the UK children are often given the impression that they can decide for themselves…

 

[Peter_Plato]

Nope, I’m not arguing that. I don’t think there is a traditional concept of civil marriage. History is not my strong point but I think it’s not been long since the very first civil marriage (maybe 1792 after the French Revolution?), and the institution has varied and continues to change. It’s a myth that civil marriage is an age-old cast-in-stone institution.

Sure, but the OP asks for a secular argument and secular means not having any connection with religion.

Civil marriage dates back to at least Hammurabi (1750 BC), which doesn’t argue against marriage as a social institution that existed long before that.

Speaking of myth-making, there is the modern (but false) one that only humans of the past century have been capable of any real and meaningful advance. That myth exists to support the disordered notion that anything we decide to change today will be for the betterment of humanity because we moderns are so smart while the ancients were so primitive. Owing to their not knowing better, anything they dreamed up couldn’t be of value. Today, however, it is a different story. We are so indulgently smug we can even alter basic biology without a hint of wariness.

 

[markeverett49]

The thread title is Secular argument against gay marriage.

You seem to act as if the sexual complementarity of male and female is something true only for religious people. But it isn’t. What biologist DOESN’T see a real difference between opposite-sex couplings and same-sex couplings?

 

[markeverett49]

Speaking of myth-making, there is the modern (but false) one that only humans of the past century have been capable of any real and meaningful advance. That myth exists to support the disordered notion that anything we decide to change today will be for the betterment of humanity because we moderns are so smart while the ancients were so primitive. Owing to their not knowing better, anything they dreamed up couldn’t be of value. Today, however, it is a different story. We are so indulgently smug we can even alter basic biology without a hint of wariness.

I agree. One of the oddest aspects of the sexual revolution is that the social science generated by it is largely negative: divorce is harmful, the increase in children born out of wedlock is harmful, the sexual exploitation of women (and children) by predatory men is harmful, not to mention the demographic Armageddon due to the decline in birth rates. For all the talk about the sexual revolution liberating women, they are less happy than their peers of previous generations.

 

[tonyrey]

You are arguing that the traditional concept of marriage is defective because it does not include homosexuals…

To support a radical change to the nature of marriage implies that it has become outdated and needs to be altered to accommodate all forms of sexuality - which implies that the traditional concept of marriage is now defective.

I don’t think there is a traditional concept of civil marriage. History is not my strong point but I think it’s not been long since the very first civil marriage (maybe 1792 after the French Revolution?), and the institution has varied and continues to change. It’s a myth that civil marriage is an age-old cast-in-stone institution.

Others have proved that you are mistaken.

Sure, but the OP asks for a secular argument and secular means not having any connection with religion.

Marriage is only a human institution for those who believe man is the measure of all things - which is not the case for many** agnostics**. There are also atheists who believe some things are sacred. Religious people don’t have the monopoly of objective moral values… .

 

[inocente]

I don’t delight in the evil of sexual relations between same sex, I rather rejoice in the truth that God created men and women with such sexual compatibility, which is only for marriage in the full giving of one self to the other mentally and physically and the physical part is only capable between a man and a woman.

That’s not love, that’s moralizing, that’s holier than thou. Why should an atheist lesbian pay any attention to what you’re saying? You are both citizens, both equal in the eyes of the law so how come you get to be better than her, how come you get to decide and she has to submit to you?

Well, you are both right according to me, it isn’t just about sex and it isn’t just about the vows, they both compliment one another, however the sexual acts of a homosexual union are in no way complimentary to the union like heterosexual sexual relations are.

It’s nothing to do with sex, no one needs to get married to have sex.

*Is it wrong that I have desires for fornication, pornography or masturbation? of course not, what heterosexual doesn’t have these desires?

Is it wrong for me to act on these desires? Absolutely.*

What are you talking about now bro? The thread is about marriage.