Secular argument against gay marriage

[inocente]

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.
tonyrey;10680680:

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…

Oh well, if children give you the impression.

Perhaps we could stick with what we know to be the case with adults.

 

[inocente]

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.

It’s worth checking your facts before attempting to rewrite history: Marriage Law in Ancient Mesopotamia very much resembled property law. As discerned from Hammurabi’s Code, wives were bought and sold in a manner very much resembling slavery. The legal institution of marriage, its rules and ramifications, show that in the Mesopotamian world, marriage and slavery were legal cousins. - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesopotamian_Marriage_Law

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.

So you’re saying the real agenda of opponents of gay marriage is to go back to Hammurabi and treat women as slaves?

 

[inocente]

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?

Marriage isn’t about sex. No one needs to get married for sex.

Once in a while could you maybe post about something other than sex.

 

[inocente]

To support a radical change to the nature of marriage implies that it has become outdated and needs to be altered to accommodate all forms of sexuality - which implies that the traditional concept of marriage is now defective.

Nope, not asking to change it, just extend it.

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.
tonyrey;10683403:

Others have proved that you are mistaken.

You’ll now see that others got it badly wrong. Others could not have been more wrong.

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…

You keep saying that, but it’s not a secular argument unless you can show that marriage is not a human institution while at the same time not bringing any deity into the equation.

 

[josh987654321]

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?

We say “Love the sinner and hate the sin.” if a loved one has cancer, would you love that cancer? it is a part of them isn’t it?

Or would you hate the cancer? and the more you love the person the more you hate the cancer.

The sexual acts of homosexuality are acts of grave depravity, they are a cancer to the soul, if I didn’t love the person I wouldn’t hate the sexual acts of homosexuality.

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

Yes it does, marriage is the full giving of oneself to the other, which includes mentally and physcially, the two complement one another, you think homosexuals want to get married just to mentally give themselves to one another and not physically? it would be naive to think that.

The issue here is the sexual acts of homosexuality that are being approved by society through the redfinition of marriage.

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

Im talking about your failure to separate a persons sexual orientation from their sexual actions.

You said this about homosexuals -

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.

My reply was this -

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.

Thank you for reading
Josh

 

[tonyrey]

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.

To extend heterosexual marriage to a homosexual relationship is a radical change no matter what euphemism you care to use. You are glossing over the fundamental physical and psychological differences between the two sexes, ignoring the importance of the complementarity of the male and female personalities in raising a family and seeking to destroy the basis of normal family life in a misguided attempt to compensate homosexuals for the injustice they have endured in the past and demonstrate that they have exactly the same rights as heterosexuals in every respect.

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.

•             *Others have proved that you are mistaken.*

You’ll now see that others got it badly wrong. Others could not have been more wrong.

Repetition is not a rational argument!

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…You keep saying that, but it’s not a secular argument unless you can show that marriage is not a human institution while at the same time not bringing any deity into the equation.

The simple fact that until recently the vast majority of atheists and agnostics have not advocated the destruction of the traditional family unit in order to accommodate homosexuals is powerful evidence that marriage has been regarded as a rational institution based on** a normal **human relationship which corresponds to the paternal and maternal instincts and promotes the physical, psychological and social development of children.

 

[Peter_Plato]

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

I am impressed by your evisceration of logic to make a point. According to this same thinking, getting a driver’s license has nothing to do with driving a motor vehicle because no one needs a license in order to drive.

 

[Peter_Plato]

It’s worth checking your facts before attempting to rewrite history: Marriage Law in Ancient Mesopotamia very much resembled property law. As discerned from Hammurabi’s Code, wives were bought and sold in a manner very much resembling slavery. The legal institution of marriage, its rules and ramifications, show that in the Mesopotamian world, marriage and slavery were legal cousins. - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesopotamian_Marriage_Law

Your point here has nothing to do with the argument. You were arguing that marriage was only recently recognized by any state with legal sanctions in order to claim that, since it was only recently invented by the state, the state has an assumed right to alter the conditions surrounding it.

My counterpoint was to show that marriage as a relationship was recognized by governing bodies throughout human history because, as a biological and social reality the state was impacted by how and why biologically fecund couples entered the relationship. The “state” has always acknowledged that the institution of marriage impacted the interests of the state and therefore controlled marriage as a social reality in order to make it conducive to the interests of the state. Whether women were treated as property or slaves is neither here nor there as far as the point being made.

Never has any human government made a whiff of a motion to legitimize homosexual relationships because these have always been recognized as being moribund or detrimental in terms of state interests. It is only twisted liberal politics that has created positive state “interests” in the matter.

Your slippery logic is back at work attempting to denigrate a point by associating it with perceived negative qualities such as slavery or chattel ownership.

So you’re saying the real agenda of opponents of gay marriage is to go back to Hammurabi and treat women as slaves?

Your logic is not only fuzzy, but downright slippery. We ought to coin a new term for your brand of argumentation. Let’s call it EEL logic. I have never seen anyone use EEL logic so masterfully; your slippery and evasive points are so difficult to pin down in terms of actual substance that you have even fooled yourself into thinking you are stating something meaningful.

 

[tonyrey]

Your point here has nothing to do with the argument. You were arguing that marriage was only recently recognized by any state with legal sanctions in order to claim that, since it was only recently invented by the state, the state has an assumed right to alter the conditions surrounding it.

My counterpoint was to show that marriage as a relationship was recognized by governing bodies throughout human history because, as a biological and social reality the state was impacted by how and why biologically fecund couples entered the relationship. The “state” has always acknowledged that the institution of marriage impacted the interests of the state and therefore controlled marriage as a social reality in order to make it conducive to the interests of the state. Whether women were treated as property or slaves is neither here nor there as far as the point being made.

Never has any human government made a whiff of a motion to legitimize homosexual relationships because these have always been recognized as being moribund or detrimental in terms of state interests. It is only twisted liberal politics that has created positive state “interests” in the matter.

Your slippery logic is back at work attempting to denigrate a point by associating it with perceived negative qualities such as slavery or chattel ownership.

Your logic is not only fuzzy, but downright slippery. We ought to coin a new term for your brand of argumentation. Let’s call it EEL logic. I have never seen anyone use EEL logic so masterfully; your slippery and evasive points are so difficult to pin down in terms of actual substance that you have even fooled yourself into thinking you are stating something meaningful.

It is ironic that a Christian is rejecting all non-Christian concepts of marriage as if they are worthless!

 

[markeverett49]

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?.

This is backwards. The moral injunction against homosexual acts does NOT-----and no one ever thought it did----ask that the person who hears it submit to the person who says it.

Being equal in the eyes of the law does not entail that everyone’s moral judgments are of equal value. (Since they vary, they can’t be.)

But you do provide an opening for a good point to be made by bullies on your side: the proper response to claims of “hate” and “bigotry” by proponents of same-sex marriage (-hurled at anyone who disagrees) is, “Says you, and frankly, I have better sources for moral truth.”

 

[markeverett49]

Marriage isn’t about sex. No one needs to get married for sex.

Once in a while could you maybe post about something other than sex.

Actually, conjugal sex is the only proper sort. Gay couples are incapable of the proper human sexual relation.

You argue that marriage has nothing to do with sex, that no one gets married to have sex (-which is false for some heterosexuals but perhaps true for all homosexual, I don’t know) and of course having children isn’t an option for homosexual couples (-unless one half of a lesbian couple becomes pregnant through a donation of male sperm) so really, the argument seems to be that the main reason for marriage is civil benefits, and this silliness is based on the notion that such benefits are Just There and not that they are a society’s way of encouraging natural marriage and the raising of children by their parents.
(It’s funny that proponents of same-sex marriage think every aspect of marriage is arbitrary EXCEPT civil benefits, as if those are etched in stone and THEY are the main reason anyone ever marries and that everyone who wants those benefits must be allowed to marry because those benefits are what makes something a marriage.)

This is the same sort of silliness one hears in liberal social policy which always assumes that vast wealth is Just There and the only question is how Smart Liberals are to divide it up.

 

[stewstew03]

…
Your logic is not only fuzzy, but downright slippery. We ought to coin a new term for your brand of argumentation. Let’s call it EEL logic. I have never seen anyone use EEL logic so masterfully; your slippery and evasive points are so difficult to pin down in terms of actual substance that you have even fooled yourself into thinking you are stating something meaningful.

I literally laughed out loud when I read this part…

:clapping:

 

[Acrossthedesert]

Marriage isn’t about sex. No one needs to get married for sex.

Once in a while could you maybe post about something other than sex.

The word matrimony comes from maternal. Marriage is all about the kids and family.

It’s interesting to see your interlockers envelop themselves within the premise of this thread. We are all formed in a Christian society, and we fail to recognize that all morality is based on fundamentally Judeo-Christian ethics. Think of the 10 commandments.

FOR EXAMPLE: Go to a prison and try to explain to a thief why stealing is wrong. The discussion will be useless unless you begin with forgiveness and salvation (i.e. devine revelation or/and providence). note: Kant’s categorical imperative lacks motivation and therefore lacks creedence at the individual level.

We have the same difficulty in explaining why homosexuality is a sin.

When you know Jesus, you will be formed more into the body of Christ and you will understand. Jesus is Lord.

What is the Gospel? It’s not about the right answers, it’s about asking the right questions.

REMEMBER: Avoid the father of lies.

 

[gavanhe]

Not having read all the posts just wonder whether the issue of polyarmory has been raised. Surely society cannot condone the reduction of the meaning of marriage to the level of any number, permutation and combination of consenting adults. This is precisely the result that will ensue should society go down this road, after all polyarmorists have rights as well.
Heaven help our children who are born with a right to one mother and one father.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Not having read all the posts just wonder whether the issue of polyarmory has been raised. Surely society cannot condone the reduction of the meaning of marriage to the level of any number, permutation and combination of consenting adults. This is precisely the result that will ensue should society go down this road, after all polyarmorists have rights as well.
Heaven help our children who are born with a right to one mother and one father.

This is one of the major issues with the redefinition of the legal term 'marriage." Once it becomes defined as a loving, committed relationship, it ipso facto becomes a fuzzy, nebulous term that is wide open to more revision.

If SSM advocates are successful in changing a word that for millennia was specifically about a biologically unique relationship, what will ensure that this new definition can withstand assault from any new form of “committed relationship” since, by definition, these will all be included under the umbrella definition that cannot legally exclude any relationship owing to its nebulosity.

 

[stewstew03]

This is one of the major issues with the redefinition of the legal term 'marriage." Once it becomes defined as a loving, committed relationship, it ipso facto becomes a fuzzy, nebulous term that is wide open to more revision.

If SSM advocates are successful in changing a word that for millennia was specifically about a biologically unique relationship, what will ensure that this new definition can withstand assault from any new form of “committed relationship” since, by definition, these will all be included under the umbrella definition that cannot legally exclude any relationship owing to its nebulosity.

Additionally… what’s to prevent the notion of “consent” from being challenged? I’ve argued before (on other threads), that groups like NAMBLA (pederasty) and ZETA (zoophilia) can make just as “convincing” arguments that…

• They promote the well-being of the children/animals;
• What they advocate is legitimate, has been around for centuries and is found across cultures;
• What they do can be beneficial for children/animals;
• People of all stripes should be free to practice their chosen activity;
• The legal system unjustly discriminates against them, persecutes them, and labels them as “evil sinners”;
• Their chosen activity is misunderstood because it’s not really ‘sex’ (procreative intercourse).

An appeal to history or cultural norms won’t work for advocates of “marriage equality”, and neither will it work for these groups.

Of course, opponents will argue that there is harm in paedophilia, for example, but I’ve already pointed out that there are some cultures in which the mother will felate an infant in an effort to soothe him. And – isn’t sex “natural”? And aren’t animals considered property? Animals don’t have any rights, so consent is not an issue.

Of course, today this seems rather extreme and absurd. But did we not think the same thing about same-sex marriage just a decade ago…?

.

 

[Acrossthedesert]

Obviously my Catholic perspective means nothing to non-Catholics and especially to the many people who are not religious. Is there a strong secular argument against gay marriage? It seems like a lot of the non-religious arguments I’ve read were either pretty weak or had slightly Christian undertones.

I have wrote several responses to your thread, but it just dawned on me what you were actually asking.

Does the Truth exist without God? Can we truly have a secular argument that is valid?

**At the individual level, I would say no. **

In general (anthropologically speaking) you could use Kant’s categorical imperative.

Categorical Imperative:
If you want to test if an action is moral, try adopting the action as a universal rule. If the universal rule does not undermine itself than most likely the action is moral.

For example, say stealing was universally adopted. If everyone steals than nobody would even think of a right to ownership, and therefore the action (stealing) would not truly exist. Stealing depends on most people believing in ownership and a few stealing what the others have accumulated (owned).

Say that gay marriage was universally adopted. If everyone had a gay marriage then no children would be had and the human race would cease to exist. The universality of gay marriage undermines the idea of gay marriage and therefore, gay marriage is not moral.

Keep in mind from a Catholic perspective… couples who use contraceptives have already “gayified” their union. Gay marriage is simply removing the possibility of children from a union. This has been occurring among heterosexuals since people decided to ignore **
Humanae Vitae**

vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html

 

[inocente]

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?
josh987654321;10690375:

We say “Love the sinner and hate the sin.” if a loved one has cancer, would you love that cancer? it is a part of them isn’t it?

Or would you hate the cancer? and the more you love the person the more you hate the cancer.

The sexual acts of homosexuality are acts of grave depravity, they are a cancer to the soul, if I didn’t love the person I wouldn’t hate the sexual acts of homosexuality.

You’re evading bro. The lesbian atheist doesn’t share your morals, she doesn’t agree she is doing anything depraved, she doesn’t agree she has anything to hate. So why do you think you can tell her what to do? We live in a democracy, you and she are equal, so how come you get to be the dictator, how come you get to dominate her, why should she or anyone else submit to you?

The rest of your post makes the same assumption - that if you say something is wrong then everyone else must magically agree with you. Even then your argument is discriminatory - you don’t care what “grave depravities” married heterosexuals get up to, yet you assume the worst about homosexuals. Even then it’s irrational - unmarried people can get up to just as many “grave depravities” as married people.

No doubt your argument sounds great in your head but it needs work when written down, currently it’s real easy for your opponents to drive several coaches and horses through it.

 

[inocente]

To extend heterosexual marriage to a homosexual relationship is a radical change no matter what euphemism you care to use. You are glossing over the fundamental physical and psychological differences between the two sexes, ignoring the importance of the complementarity of the male and female personalities in raising a family and seeking to destroy the basis of normal family life in a misguided attempt to compensate homosexuals for the injustice they have endured in the past and demonstrate that they have exactly the same rights as heterosexuals in every respect.

Nope, no change to civil marriage is being asked for, none whatsoever, it is just being extended to some new folk.

Your repeated argument for male and female parents is utopian, it’s unconvincing in the real world where we’re all aware of many single-parent families.

In any event the argument may not even apply. For instance, for many years in Spain (and for all I know currently in the UK) the law has allowed single people to adopt. Thus before gay marriage a gay couple would adopt in one of their names, but if that person died the other had no parental rights. Thus gay marriage didn’t open a door to adoption, it just provided for those rights by allowing adoption in joint-names.

The simple fact that until recently the vast majority of atheists and agnostics have not advocated the destruction of the traditional family unit in order to accommodate homosexuals is powerful evidence that marriage has been regarded as a rational institution based on* a normal ***human relationship which corresponds to the paternal and maternal instincts and promotes the physical, psychological and social development of children.

Not one of your best arguments, as we can see by making a simple substitution. The simple fact that for many a long year many people saw nothing wrong in discriminating against those with a different color skin is NOT powerful evidence that the status quo was based on normal human relationships.

 

[inocente]

I am impressed by your evisceration of logic to make a point. According to this same thinking, getting a driver’s license has nothing to do with driving a motor vehicle because no one needs a license in order to drive.

That maketh no sense whatsoever. You get arrested for driving without a license, it’s against the law. You don’t get arrested for having sex without a marriage license, it’s not against the law.

It would save both of us a lot of time if you validated your own arguments before posting.

It remains that no one needs to get married to have sex.