The Incest Argument and Same Sex Marriage

[ThinkingSapien]

While empirical evidence can be used in psychology, in the case of deciding homosexuality was no longer an abnormal behavior, …]

More specifically it was concluded there was not justification for classifying homosexuality as a sociopathic/psychopathic disorder. The idea was challenged by the research of Alfred Kinsey who found that homosexuality/heterosexual tendencies might not be as polarized as previously rumored. Evelyn Hooks findings showed that psychologist could not distinguish between nonpatient heterosexual and nonpatient homosexuals which challenged the view that homosexuality was associated with psychopathy.

 

[LisaA]

More specifically it was concluded there was not justification for classifying homosexuality as a sociopathic/psychopathic disorder. The idea was challenged by the research of Alfred Kinsey who found that homosexuality/heterosexual tendencies might not be as polarized as previously rumored. Evelyn Hooks findings showed that psychologist could not distinguish between nonpatient heterosexual and nonpatient homosexuals which challenged the view that homosexuality was associated with psychopathy.

The research of Mr Kinsey has been found somewhat lacking in credibility to say the least as have Ms Hooks’ conclusions. A psychologist could not “distinguish” between nonpatient heterosexuals and nonpatient homosexuals…OK and that proves what?

Again, I don’t question whether or not homosexuality is a pathology or not but the apparent arbitrariness in whether or not to include it in the DSM. It was voted on, not decided by empirical, double blind and repeatable studies. If it was included arbitrarily, then it was also removed arbitrarily or as I understand because an activist cohort pushed it through. Even then it lingered if the homosexuality caused the patient emotional and psychological distress before being removed.

 

[inocente]

You are simply expressing your opinion with respect to the slippery slope theory.

Nope. Look it up, it’s a fallacy for the reason I gave.

You also set up a straw man by saying “…claim gay marriage will lead to more incest…” No one tried to make that point. Instead the point is that once marriage no longer has a specific meaning, there can be no argument against any other relationships being eligible for recognition as “marriage”.

Are you saying you don’t care how much incest is going on behind closed doors, you only start to care when it’s recognized?

Natural marriage as it exists and has existed in societies for millenia, has required a man and a woman, something quite specific. The societal support for this marriage is that normally such relationships result in the birth of children and for society’s benefit, such relationships were given special status, support and legal recognition.

Nope. Civil marriage has only existed since the eighteenth century.

With the advent of SSM, marriage is no longer based upon the natural family but some ridiculous “marry whom you love” meme. Thus if judges and politicians decide that the ONLY criteria for a person or persons to be “married” is a declaration of love then plural marriage and incestuous marriage should be recognized as well…hence the slippery slope argument. In point of fact, this very argument has been used to sue for a plural marriage already. The slippery slope has already started.

Democracy doesn’t work like that. The argument for LGBT marriage is simply that a democratic State has responsibilities to all its citizens, and should seek to treat all law-abiding tax-paying adult citizens equally. Thus, whether you are male or female, straight or gay, black or white, Catholic or Mormon, atheist or theist, the State should apply the exact same rules on polygamy, incest, age of majority and so on.

Again, I don’t question whether or not homosexuality is a pathology or not but the apparent arbitrariness in whether or not to include it in the DSM. It was voted on, not decided by empirical, double blind and repeatable studies. If it was included arbitrarily, then it was also removed arbitrarily or as I understand because an activist cohort pushed it through.

73% of Americans identify as Christian, including 25% Catholic, so Christians must have majority membership of the American Psychiatric Association. If they agreed with you they would very easily have overturned that vote. But they haven’t, as their ethics do not allow them to forcibly treat people leading happy productive lives.

 

[DrTaffy]

If people would read the articles, I wouldn’t need the loud preface. Or to involve your mama - I mean the FMS - in it.

Wait, if the FSM is my Mommy, does that make me the Pastafarian Messiah?
…or just a very naughty boy?

Agreed. Definitely agreed. There’s already one good argument against forced incest: it does violence to the non-consenting party, at least.

I don’t think anyone here needs proof that forced incest is wrong. We all agree that Rape Is Bad.

The point is that even aparently consensual incestuous relationships often turn out to have an abusive side.

Hence the call for any alleged incestuous couples who want to be allowed to marry to step forward and be counted. Just as same sex couples have stepped forward and shown that the accusations that they were more likely to abuse their children (for example, which would arguably have excused discriminating against them) were so much bigoted nonsense.

Add to this that banning incestuous relationships only bars you from marrying a few hundred people worldwide, even in a prolific family. Barring same sex marriage prevents you from marrying billions

You carefully trim out my point - added back in in red. While both cases are comparable in that you are being prevented from marrying the one you love and want to marry at that point in time, they differ in that only the homosexuals are prevented from marrying anyone they might ever find attractive or be in love with.

The incestuous couple can go off and find someone else with whom they can have a relationship, and arguably a healthier relationship and healthier children, to the benefit of everyone involved. The homosexuals can only be pushed into shallow short term promiscuous relationships, to nobody’s advantage.

In other words, while you must consider the benefit of a proposed restriction of liberty, you must also consider the downside. Banning gay marriage arguably has a much bigger downside than banning incestuous ones.

Isn’t there still question as to how many people with SSA developed it as a result of the same?

Lacking such stats, it is a non-argument.

The APA says that:

No one knows what causes heterosexuality, homosexuality or bisexuality. Homosexuality was once thought to be the result of troubled family dynamics or faulty psychological development. Those assumptions are now understood to have been based on misinformation and prejudice. Currently there is a renewed interest in searching for biological etiologies for homosexuality. However, to date there are no replicated scientific studies supporting any specific biological etiology for homosexuality. Similarly, no specific psychosocial or family dynamic cause for homosexuality has been identified, including histories of childhood sexual abuse. Sexual abuse does not appear to be more prevalent in children who grow up to identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual, than in children who identify as heterosexual

5.)How many good studies actually exist that prove raising a child with a SS couple is just a good as raising them with opposite-sex parents, all other things equal?

Quite a few.

Start with one study that actually supports the idea that same sex parenting has negative results:
High school graduation rates among children of same-sex households
Douglas W. Allen

While dissenting, it has the honesty to start by listing more than 50 studies that argue that same sex couples do just as well as opposite sex ones at raising kids.

And the following quote:

Children raised by gay or lesbian parents are as likely as children raised by
heterosexual parents to be healthy, successful and well-adjusted. The research
supporting this conclusion is accepted beyond serious debate in the field of
developmental psychology.
[Justice Vaughn Walker, section 70, Perry v. Schwarzenegger]

Or there is this more recent review article:
Child Well-Being in Same-Sex Parent Families: Review of Research Prepared for American Sociological Association Amicus Brief
Wendy D. Manning, Marshal Neal Fettro, Esther Lamidi

This article includes our assessment of the literature, focusing on those studies, reviews and books published within the past decade. We conclude that there is a clear consensus in the social science literature indicating that American children living within same-sex parent households fare just, as well as those children residing within different-sex parent households over a wide array of well-being measures: academic performance, cognitive development, social development, psychological health, early sexual activity, and substance abuse.

The other oft-cited anti-gay parenting study is of course the Regnerus study. Cited for completeness, you are probably already aware of the criticisms!

 

[LisaA]

Nope. Look it up, it’s a fallacy for the reason I gave.

Are you saying you don’t care how much incest is going on behind closed doors, you only start to care when it’s recognized?

Nope. Civil marriage has only existed since the eighteenth century.

Democracy doesn’t work like that. The argument for LGBT marriage is simply that a democratic State has responsibilities to all its citizens, and should seek to treat all law-abiding tax-paying adult citizens equally. Thus, whether you are male or female, straight or gay, black or white, Catholic or Mormon, atheist or theist, the State should apply the exact same rules on polygamy, incest, age of majority and so on.

73% of Americans identify as Christian, including 25% Catholic, so Christians must have majority membership of the American Psychiatric Association. If they agreed with you they would very easily have overturned that vote. But they haven’t, as their ethics do not allow them to forcibly treat people leading happy productive lives.

Strawmen set ablaze throughout. “Identify” as Christian means nothing. Given the Torah, the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament are filled with prohibitions against homosexuali acts, one of the few called an abomination, that members of the APA might (and do you have any support for your theory?) might self identify as Christian but their vote to support homosexuality as normal behavior indicates their faith did not inform their consciences. Nor does biology seem to inform their consciences but then I maintain psychology is a soft “science” at best.

Further most of the “gay marriage” laws have not been voted on deomcratically. In fact the democratic process has resulted in “gay marriage” being specifically disallowed. It has been the action of unelected judges, bureaucrats and politicians who have forced “gay marriage” despite this thwarting the will of the people.

As to giving everyone the same “rights” you actually prove the slippery slope theory in saying that once marriage no longer requires a man and a woman, then all parties can call whatever arrangement they wish “marriage.” It has been rendered meaningless in the secular or contractual context. There has never been a right for anyone to marry “whom they love” without other constraints or restrictions. Homosexualists have simply tried to carve out a sympathetic approach in order to foist the charade of equivalence upon a compassionate but ill informed public.

 

[DrTaffy]

You actually make my point. The reference to relativism isn’t with respect to Islamist practices

Mine was. You made the very clear explicit assertion that “Relativism is necessary to make the disgusting acceptable”, but then gave an example involving religious moral absolutists and no relativism yet making the disgusting acceptable!

Again you make my point, a nine year old is clearly not physically or emotionally ready for sexual relations but relativism would render this reality irrelevant. Allah wills it

“Allah wills it” yet again is another religious moral absolutist argument, not a moral relativist one.

Granted, one childishly naive caricature of moral relativism might be that we should accept that religious point of view as valid ‘for their culture’, but the fact remains that time and time again your example of immoral behaviour has been drawn from theist moral positivists, not atheist moral relativists! :ehh:

I am not arguing that all moral relativist systems are necessarily valid, nor that all moral positivist ones are necessarily invalid, just pointing out that your examples disprove your own point.

 

[TarkanAttila]

Inocente, thank you for not reading the post.

Have a Snickers bar.

 

[TarkanAttila]

Wait, if the FSM is my Mommy, does that make me the Pastafarian Messiah?
…or just a very naughty boy?

In my Dr. Cox voice: Jeeeuuu-heu-heu-heu-HEU-st a slip of the tongue.

I don’t think anyone here needs proof that forced incest is wrong. We all agree that Rape Is Bad.

Granted. But is force always bad? What makes force bad?

And before you look at me like I’m a moron, one example that force needs to be qualified: forcing a child to eat his vegetables. You can probably think of a thousand from there.

The point is that even aparently consensual incestuous relationships often turn out to have an abusive side.

Well, duh. But I’m asking, logically, what’s the abuse?

Hence the call for any alleged incestuous couples who want to be allowed to marry to step forward and be counted.

You know, it does seem that there is an infinitesimally small number of real incestuous couples, never mind ones who want to get married. I can’t even find a news story.

But, while it does push it back a ways, I do find it nevertheless disturbing that incest is a popular topic in fiction. It’s one of the most written about and sought out things on Literotica.com. And you know why people go looking for stuff there. Or at least I do.

Once again, I’m not saying it’s likely. I’m just saying, in the very, very slight chance it does happen in the future, what are sane people going to defend themselves with? Popular opinion? Not then! That was once the biggest thing keeping pornography and contraception out of this country, and slavery in. The democratic fallacy is really the only “argument” against it, and it’s a very, very bad argument.

While both cases are comparable in that you are being prevented from marrying the one you love and want to marry at that point in time, they differ in that only the homosexuals are prevented from marrying anyone they might ever find attractive or be in love with.

Well, if “love” means “mutual sexual and emotional attraction”, then I would concede your point. Those things never last long; hell, I may even “love” my dog or my desk or a jar of peanut butter some day.

But I’m only going to get into what love actually constitutes insofar as this: if love can be so capricious for anyone, heterosexual or homosexual, why bother with a civil institution for it? It’s not going to last long. Now, we Catholics have a different understanding - or ought to have a different understanding - of love as something much harder, much more concrete. But it’s not the popular conception. Marriage makes sense in the context of Catholic “love” (more properly, agape). Does it make sense in the common understanding?

The incestuous couple can go off and find someone else with whom they can have a relationship, and arguably a healthier relationship and healthier children, to the benefit of everyone involved.

In the meantime, however, they don’t know that’s going to happen. Is it statistically probable? Yes. But they could die tomorrow. Their relationship could last forever. It certainly feels like it could. Just as it does for homosexual (and heterosexual) couples.

In other words, you’re thinking in the long-long-long-term. Trouble is, most people who want to “get married” because they “love” each other aren’t really thinking that far ahead. That goes all the way around, even for “traditional” marriages. Even these, as you know, do not last very long. Should we prohibit even straight couples from getting married, just because their relationships are statistically capricious?

In other other words, double standard.

Quite a few.

Thank you for keeping us posted, Doc.

 

[cena]

Wait, if the FSM is my Mommy, does that make me the Pastafarian Messiah?
…or just a very naughty boy?

I don’t think anyone here needs proof that forced incest is wrong. We all agree that Rape Is Bad.

The point is that even aparently consensual incestuous relationships often turn out to have an abusive side.

Hence the call for any alleged incestuous couples who want to be allowed to marry to step forward and be counted. Just as same sex couples have stepped forward and shown that the accusations that they were more likely to abuse their children (for example, which would arguably have excused discriminating against them) were so much bigoted nonsense.

You carefully trim out my point - added back in in red. While both cases are comparable in that you are being prevented from marrying the one you love and want to marry at that point in time, they differ in that only the homosexuals are prevented from marrying anyone they might ever find attractive or be in love with.

The incestuous couple can go off and find someone else with whom they can have a relationship, and arguably a healthier relationship and healthier children, to the benefit of everyone involved. The homosexuals can only be pushed into shallow short term promiscuous relationships, to nobody’s advantage.

In other words, while you must consider the benefit of a proposed restriction of liberty, you must also consider the downside. Banning gay marriage arguably has a much bigger downside than banning incestuous ones.

Lacking such stats, it is a non-argument.

The APA says that:

Quite a few.

Start with one study that actually supports the idea that same sex parenting has negative results:
High school graduation rates among children of same-sex households
Douglas W. Allen

While dissenting, it has the honesty to start by listing more than 50 studies that argue that same sex couples do just as well as opposite sex ones at raising kids.

And the following quote:

Or there is this more recent review article:
Child Well-Being in Same-Sex Parent Families: Review of Research Prepared for American Sociological Association Amicus Brief
Wendy D. Manning, Marshal Neal Fettro, Esther Lamidi

The other oft-cited anti-gay parenting study is of course the Regnerus study. Cited for completeness, you are probably already aware of the criticisms!

So what about people who only “fall in love with” their family members. Are we denying them love? If they’re sterile then they won’t have kids, and maybe there are misconceptions about incest and we are just famiphobes or whatever term they want to come up with. You could argue that the bisexuals can stop their same sex relationships and find a healthier one, how many people of the LGBTQ community fit under the B? How many people will always only be attracted to the same sex?

What about people who end up in abusive relationships that stay in them because they think the other person will change? I’m not talking about rape, what if they are only verbally abusive and the other person refuses to leave them? Are we not to judge because it is activity between two consenting adults?

Incest is morally wrong regardless of the feelings of the individual. The same goes for homosexual actions

 

[Isabel_08]

A rather biased view. Why is it the same sex unions that are blamed for the division, rather than the anti-same-sex-marriage views of the dissenting relatives?

The point I was making, that incestuous “marriage” is, right now, a cause for division because of the views of the family/society. Given enough time, it could very well come to be an accepted “alternative” lifestyle. Basically, it’s okay for gays to marry in spite of this (because the families are the ones not up to speed with the times, right), so why wouldn’t it be okay for a brother and sister, or grandmother and granddaughter? The arguments used in support of SS marriage can be just as easily be applied to incestuous relationships. The author admits this, but backs off on condemning SS relationships because of the lack of “proof” that those so-called marriages do harm to the family unit…even though he admits that there is no real proof that incestuous relationships between consenting adults are harmful in the modern sense, he still condemns those.

 

[LisaA]

Mine was. You made the very clear explicit assertion that “Relativism is necessary to make the disgusting acceptable”, but then gave an example involving religious moral absolutists and no relativism yet making the disgusting acceptable!

“Allah wills it” yet again is another religious moral absolutist argument, not a moral relativist one.

Granted, one childishly naive caricature of moral relativism might be that we should accept that religious point of view as valid ‘for their culture’, but the fact remains that time and time again your example of immoral behaviour has been drawn from theist moral positivists, not atheist moral relativists! :ehh:

I am not arguing that all moral relativist systems are necessarily valid, nor that all moral positivist ones are necessarily invalid, just pointing out that your examples disprove your own point.

No you simply do not understand what I am saying. It takes relativisim on the part of society to accept things that from the perspective of Natural Law, tradition, theology, or even biiology are anathema or at least abnormal and not ordered toward protection and creation and sustenance of life.

The phrase “Allah wills it” was tongue in cheek. It may be the basis for egregous Islamist practices but it’s relativism that allows non-Islamists to accept such actions as equally valid…who are we to judge (this is also tongue in cheek).

Natural marriage was never based on such a frivolous idea as “love” which in the usual sense means companionship with some kind of sexual attraction…As TA noted, this is as transitory as one’s sexual preferences and often not lasting very long.

Marriage has been codified into law, supported and in a sense promoted as a societal good not because society has the slightest interest in supporting who winds up your clock but because NATURAL marriage is designed for and gnerally results in the birth of children. Society DOES have a vested interest in supporting the best enviornment for the next generation as well as in its current stability. Society really doesn’t care whom you sleep with, live with or with whom you share your bank account. It has no vested interest unless you break the law.

Homosexualists have been very effective in couching their claims in flowery language, avoiding the EWWWW factor that accompanies these and incestuous sexual relationships. In doing so, they open the door to demanding that any sort of sexual relationship be given equal billing. If the criteria is simply who gives you a buzz, then who are we to say that brother and sister, father and daughter or three men and a baby aren’t to receive the same recognition?

 

[DrTaffy]

No you simply do not understand what I am saying.

Right back at you.

It takes relativisim on the part of society to accept things that from the perspective of Natural Law, tradition, theology, or even biiology are anathema or at least abnormal and not ordered toward protection and creation and sustenance of life.

Yet you have now, repeatedly, given concrete examples of society accepting exactly that based not on relativism, but on religious positivism.

The phrase “Allah wills it” was tongue in cheek.

And still a concrete example of what you claim does not exist.

Marriage has been codified into law, supported and in a sense promoted as a societal good not because society has the slightest interest in supporting who winds up your clock but because NATURAL marriage is designed for and gnerally results in the birth of children.

No, marriage has been codified into law because humans naturally tend to pair up into family units, both same sex and opposite sex, and this raises a number of legal situations that are addressed by the social and legal institution of marriage. These include but are not limited to raising children - which same sex couples do, and apparently do very well, TYVM.

Homosexualists have been very effective in couching their claims in flowery language, avoiding the EWWWW factor that accompanies these and incestuous sexual relationships.

For the vast majority of the population in modern day western society the EWWWW factor applies to homophobes, not homosexuals. So be very careful about using ‘EWWWW’ as an excuse for state discrimination. :ehh:

 

[LisaA]

Right back at you.

No, marriage has been codified into law because humans naturally tend to pair up into family units, both same sex and opposite sex, and this raises a number of legal situations that are addressed by the social and legal institution of marriage. These include but are not limited to raising children - which same sex couples do, and apparently do very well, TYVM.

For the vast majority of the population in modern day western society the EWWWW factor applies to homophobes, not homosexuals. So be very careful about using ‘EWWWW’ as an excuse for state discrimination. :ehh:

Family units have for millenia and in all societies, been based on man/woman = children. To claim that same sex partners have traditionally created a family unit is to ignore basic biology. Same sex adventures will never result in the bearing of children. Never. While same sex couples can breed, buy or adopt children depending on the country in which they live, they cannot produce a child. Society has zero reason to invest iin your completely sterile sex life. It does have a vested interest in people adhering to their contractual obligations but again, contracts are available to all legal parties. They don’t have to be engaged in sex to purchase a home or operate a business. Basically you (the homosexualist cohort not you specifically) think your sex choices should be given equivalency to man/woman marriage despite the biological reality that they are not.

As to the EWWWW factor, the state has no capacity to feel disgust. However the citizens of the state and specifically those forcing these ideas upon the citizens do have an EWWWW response to certain sexual practices including incest, sodomy, and multiple partners. Thus the real agenda of elevating a specific sexual choice and elevating gay “marriage” must overcome this with fuzzy bunnies and butterflies by calling it “love.” But back to the OP, once two men or two women are given the privilege of state sanction of their sex lives, there is no valid reason not to extend the same privileges to any person or persons or groups.

Presumably you are down with incest, polygymy, polyandry, and removing all other impediments to sanctioning a sex life and calling it “marrige.” We must be consistent after all…or is it all relative

 

[DrTaffy]

In my Dr. Cox voice: Jeeeuuu-heu-heu-heu-HEU-st a slip of the tongue.

So, no noodly crown for me then?

Granted. But is force always bad? What makes force bad?

Force requires justification, as per the golden rule. Otherwise we have anarchy where at any one point in time the strongest forces his/her/their will on everyone else.

And before you look at me like I’m a moron, one example that force needs to be qualified: forcing a child to eat his vegetables. You can probably think of a thousand from there.

And justify them. Hence the field of moral philosophy.

Well, duh. But I’m asking, logically, what’s the abuse?

That those who survive such relationships often report that they were, in fact, being abused against their will?

You know, it does seem that there is an infinitesimally small number of real incestuous couples, never mind ones who want to get married. I can’t even find a news story.

Hence one reason that I dismiss the ‘Incest Argument’.

Furthermore, from a purely philosophical point of view, if your argument is that you have no argument against incest, and so should be allowed to ban any arbitrary behaviour without justification, as the requirement for justification would prevent you from banning incest, then you have no argument.

Well, if “love” means “mutual sexual and emotional attraction”, then I would concede your point. Those things never last long;

Ninety-year-old gay couple marries in Iowa after 72 years together
Seems like ‘lasting long’ to me.

hell, I may even “love” my dog or my desk or a jar of peanut butter some day.

In a sexual way?

In any case how did we get from my point about how many people you are banned from marrying to some sort of point about how long that marriage might last?

As an analogy - say you are madly in love with Alice. Sadly, before you can marry, she is vaporised by the villainous Dr Taffy. Years later you fall in love with and marry Barbara.

Does this mean that you did not love Alice, or that your marriage would not have endured? No, of course not.

Likewise, if I wish to prevent your marriage to Alice, even by nonlethal means, I need good justification.

If I want to ban you from marrying any one of a list of 300 women, I need better justification.

If I want to ban you from marrying anyone with a different star sign, 92% of humanity, I require exceptional justification. But at least you can still hope to marry.

Finally, assuming that you are100% heterosexual, if I want to ban you from marrying anyone of the opposite sex I am effectively condemning you to a lifetime of celibacy. I cannot, honestly, dismiss your complaints by saying that there are still 3.5 billion people who you could marry, as I know jolly well that you will never want to marry someone of the same sex as you. So this requires the greatest justification yet. As does banning same sex marriage for homosexuals.

 

[DrTaffy]

So what about people who only “fall in love with” their family members.

What evidence do you have that such people exist? People who can only fall in love with family members?

Are we denying them love?

If they exist, then banning incestuous marriages is denying them a loving, genuine marriage. Which requires justification.

Produce these people and we will talk.

Incest is morally wrong regardless of the feelings of the individual. The same goes for homosexual actions

Prove it. Objectively

 

[Bradski]

It was voted on, not decided by empirical, double blind and repeatable studies. If it was included arbitrarily, then it was also removed arbitrarily or as I understand because an activist cohort pushed it through.

Then you understand it incorrectly. It was removed on the basis of clinical evidence and the vote (as if you could actually vote on deciding a clinical matter) was demanded by a group who opposed it’s removal. This from another post I made on another forum:

Well before the ‘vote’ took place, it had already been decided, the year previously, to remove homosexuality from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatric Disorders (DSM) based on scientific criteria.

This procedure took 11 months and passed through 4 separate committees before reaching the board of trustees where it was ratified. No-one had ‘voted’ to have it removed. It was a scientific decision based on scientific findings. Were you aware of this?

I’m not sure how you can have a ‘vote’ to decide whether or not homosexuality is a disorder anyway. You look at the evidence, from a scientific perspective, and reach a decision. One could argue about the methodology or the data collection or any number of practical issues, but these were never brought up.

Charles Socradides headed a group that demanded a ‘vote’ (which strikes me like demanding a vote on whether evolution is true or not). Why would he want the decision reversed I hear you ask. Well, OK, I’ll tell you.

It’s because he had built a career out of ‘curing’ homosexuals. That was his job. That’s what he did when he went into work. That’s how he paid the bills. He went on to set up NARTH which has the same aims. The AMA in 1973 was effectively telling the world that his work had no value. It had no scientific basis. There was nothing to ‘cure’. He was the equivalent of a homeopathy practitioner.

And the majority of the AMA didn’t bother voting because the decision had already been made. You can bet your bottom dollar that they all knew which way the vote was going to go in any case. Less than 1 in 5 members stuck with Socradides – and please bear in mind that this was the early 70’s. Homophobia was everywhere and the medical professions were not exempt from it. Yet less than 17% wanted to reinstate homosexuality as a disorder.

 

[cena]

What evidence do you have that such people exist? People who can only fall in love with family members?

If they exist, then banning incestuous marriages is denying them a loving, genuine marriage. Which requires justification.

Produce these people and we will talk.

Prove it. Objectively

Incest is a violation of the roles of the two. Family members are not supposed to be sexually attracted to each other. Homosexual actions violate the natural order of things. Heterosexual sex has an end, procreation. Even infertile couples are still participating in the natural act even if the end does not happen

 

[TarkanAttila]

Force requires justification, as per the golden rule. Otherwise we have anarchy where at any one point in time the strongest forces his/her/their will on everyone else.

And justify them. Hence the field of moral philosophy.

Very good, very good. And, particularly in parenting, what would justify force?

That those who survive such relationships often report that they were, in fact, being abused against their will?

Is that statement verified by anything you’ve already posted in this thread?

Hence one reason that I dismiss the ‘Incest Argument’.

Oh, I don’t know. You feel the need to criticise the existence of a supposedly non-existent Being. Why not also take shots at a supposedly non-existent demographic? Whether it is an imaginary demographic now or not, it’s not one anyone wants to see actually appear. Can we agree to that much?

Furthermore, from a purely philosophical point of view, if your argument is that you have no argument against incest, and so should be allowed to ban any arbitrary behaviour without justification, as the requirement for justification would prevent you from banning incest, then you have no argument.

Oh, that wasn’t my argument. But what I am saying is that modern, secular society has no argument against it, except for capricious popular opinion.

My argument against incest goes back to the Resurrection and to the Church. I would find it very difficult to logically forbid incest without it. But that’s another topic for another thread. Probably dozens if not hundreds of threads on this forum alone.

Ninety-year-old gay couple marries in Iowa after 72 years together
Seems like ‘lasting long’ to me.

yourlogicalfallacyis.com/anecdotal

Doc, I expected better from you. You’re not running a cheesy advert trying to sell something on TV. We’re asking about what the norm is for society regarding marriage. Now while there are studies that say that, at least here in America, homosexual divorcees are less common than in “traditional” marriage, gay marriage is still in its infancy in this country. On the other hand, tracking of divorce is an art form almost 150 years old in this country. And from what I can tell, divorce looks like a reasonable prospect for many future marriages - both “gay marriages” and “traditional” marriages.

divorce.lovetoknow.com/Historical_Divorce_Rate_Statistics

Well. At least for those couples who do get married:
infoplease.com/ipa/A0005044.html

In a sexual way?

I guess you’ve never heard of the woman who wants to marry a roller coaster, and other tales of objectum sexuality? It is possible, if unlikely.

In any case how did we get from my point about how many people you are banned from marrying to some sort of point about how long that marriage might last?

The link between the two is this question: “what exactly is marriage supposed to mean?”.

So, in your mind, Doc, what is that word supposed to mean?

Likewise, if I wish to prevent your marriage to Alice, even by nonlethal means, I need good justification.

Exactly what I’m asking for in the case of an incestuous brother and sister. You have provided none at all.

Finally, assuming that you are 100% heterosexual, if I want to ban you from marrying anyone of the opposite sex I am effectively condemning you to a lifetime of celibacy.

All of this assumes that marriage is a privilege given to us by the state. It also assumes marriage, as you understand it, is any of the state’s business.

Which brings us back to the fundamental question: what is marriage supposed to be?

 

[edwest2]

Then you understand it incorrectly. It was removed on the basis of clinical evidence and the vote (as if you could actually vote on deciding a clinical matter) was demanded by a group who opposed it’s removal. This from another post I made on another forum:

Well before the ‘vote’ took place, it had already been decided, the year previously, to remove homosexuality from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatric Disorders (DSM) based on scientific criteria.

This procedure took 11 months and passed through 4 separate committees before reaching the board of trustees where it was ratified. No-one had ‘voted’ to have it removed. It was a scientific decision based on scientific findings. Were you aware of this?

I’m not sure how you can have a ‘vote’ to decide whether or not homosexuality is a disorder anyway. You look at the evidence, from a scientific perspective, and reach a decision. One could argue about the methodology or the data collection or any number of practical issues, but these were never brought up.

Charles Socradides headed a group that demanded a ‘vote’ (which strikes me like demanding a vote on whether evolution is true or not). Why would he want the decision reversed I hear you ask. Well, OK, I’ll tell you.

It’s because he had built a career out of ‘curing’ homosexuals. That was his job. That’s what he did when he went into work. That’s how he paid the bills. He went on to set up NARTH which has the same aims. The AMA in 1973 was effectively telling the world that his work had no value. It had no scientific basis. There was nothing to ‘cure’. He was the equivalent of a homeopathy practitioner.

And the majority of the AMA didn’t bother voting because the decision had already been made. You can bet your bottom dollar that they all knew which way the vote was going to go in any case. Less than 1 in 5 members stuck with Socradides – and please bear in mind that this was the early 70’s. Homophobia was everywhere and the medical professions were not exempt from it. Yet less than 17% wanted to reinstate homosexuality as a disorder.

Your history is incorrect. Radical gay activists and closeted gays in the APA arranged everything. It’s all here:

amazon.com/Homosexuality-American-Psychiatry-Politics-Diagnosis/dp/0691028370

This was repeated with Transgered persons:

"BOSTON — The term “gender identity disorder” has been eliminated from the new edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s official guide to classifying mental illnesses, known as the DSM-5.

“Whereas previously a man who “self-identified” as a woman (or vice versa) could have been classified as mentally ill, now the DSM-5 uses the term “gender dysphoria,” which means it is only a mental illness if you’re troubled by this self-identification. Elated activists in the “LGBT” community had lobbied the APA for the change for years.”

Read more: ncregister.com/daily-news/psychiatrys-new-normal-transgendered-persons#ixzz3NoYnE8pk

Lobbying is not a scientific way to change a diagnosis.

Ed

 

[edwest2]

You are simply expressing your opinion with respect to the slippery slope theory. You also set up a straw man by saying “…claim gay marriage will lead to more incest…” No one tried to make that point. Instead the point is that once marriage no longer has a specific meaning, there can be no argument against any other relationships being eligible for recognition as “marriage”. Natural marriage as it exists and has existed in societies for millenia, has required a man and a woman, something quite specific. The societal support for this marriage is that normally such relationships result in the birth of children and for society’s benefit, such relationships were given special status, support and legal recognition.

With the advent of SSM, marriage is no longer based upon the natural family but some ridiculous “marry whom you love” meme. Thus if judges and politicians decide that the ONLY criteria for a person or persons to be “married” is a declaration of love then plural marriage and incestuous marriage should be recognized as well…hence the slippery slope argument. In point of fact, this very argument has been used to sue for a plural marriage already. The slippery slope has already started.

Yes it has. Why shouldn’t an adult brother marry his adult sister? In this case, judges wouldn’t stop them. The slippery slope is gradually deforming the reality regarding marriage. And it’s been in the planning and implementation stages for a while.

firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2006/08/robert-george-beyond-gay-marri

Ed