The Secular Case Against Gay Marriage

[exnihilo]

I am not discussing natural classifications. I am discussing secular legal classifications. Look again at the title of this thread.

I’m not a legal scholar but where else can the law get its classification from but nature? If the law is specifically secular then it cant make use of revelation. It would only have nature and reason to use. And if by secular legal classification you mean lacking in morality that would not make sense since the whole purpose of any law is to provide justice for acts that are wrong.

 

[rossum]

Pardon my “intrusion” here, Rossum--------

But do not the majority of the Buddhist scriptures (both Theravada and Mahayana) speak against homosexuality? (At least the PRACTICE of it; not necessarily SSA).

As far as I know from what I’ve read.

Just asking.

Don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.

Like Christianity, Buddhism has its liberals and conservatives. The liberals see homosexuality as fine, the conservatives do not. No surprises there.

Buddhist scriptures’ attitude to sex is biased because the great majority of the scriptures are directed at monks and nuns who are required to be celibate. The debate within Buddhism includes a large element of trying to determine which sayings are applicable to everyone and which just to bhikkus and bhikkunis.

rossum

 

[rossum]

First, how is natural law incompatible with secular lawmaking? It’s rationally unavoidable; it’s not as if it was disputably handed down on stone tablets from Mt. Sinai.

Natural law is a Catholic concept. For example, homosexual behaviour is observed in many animal species, yet this is not an example of the Catholic ‘Natural Law’. Such an ill-defined concept does not appear to offer a useful basis for secular lawmaking. It parts of the evidence can be conveniently be ignored as “natural, but not Natural Law” then I do not think the results will be good.

And second, it is highly relevant. As I said, the state uses sex as a proxy for fertility because it cannot assess fertility in a manner that is not (a) arbitrary and (b) grossly intrusive.

The state already uses age as a proxy for fertility on the young side. Why cannot it use age as a proxy for fertility on the old side? Both men and women have reduced, or zero, fertility as they get older.

rossum

 

[rossum]

I’m not a legal scholar but where else can the law get its classification from but nature? If the law is specifically secular then it cant make use of revelation. It would only have nature and reason to use. And if by secular legal classification you mean lacking in morality that would not make sense since the whole purpose of any law is to provide justice for acts that are wrong.

Humans are social animals. By and large we use laws to enforce social behaviour. It is up to the group to decide what social behaviour is acceptable. In a Democracy we elect legislators to enact laws that determine what behaviour is allowed. We used not to allow women to vote. Now we do. We are seeing another change in the law, reflecting changing attitudes to homosexuality.

rossum

 

[exnihilo]

Humans are social animals. By and large we use laws to enforce social behaviour. It is up to the group to decide what social behaviour is acceptable. In a Democracy we elect legislators to enact laws that determine what behaviour is allowed. We used not to allow women to vote. Now we do. We are seeing another change in the law, reflecting changing attitudes to homosexuality.

I dont see how that answered my question about the law. Can you explain how this relates to classification in the law?

It seems you are asserting that morality is just what we vote for. But no one approaches it like that. The people for gay marriage say it is right. They are appealing to objective morality. In the same way those against are appealing to objective morality. But if what is right and moral is simply what we decide it to be by vote then there really is no morality and those on either side are in using twisted reasoning. They are saying what is right is what we decide and we should decide this is acceptable because it is right.

 

[sw85]

Natural law is a Catholic concept.

Really? Because it precedes the Church.

For example, homosexual behaviour is observed in many animal species, yet this is not an example of the Catholic ‘Natural Law’.

Well, that stands to reason. “Natural law” doesn’t mean “occurring in nature” or else there’d be no such thing as immoral behavior. “Natural law” means "consistent with the nature of a thing.

Such an ill-defined concept does not appear to offer a useful basis for secular lawmaking. It parts of the evidence can be conveniently be ignored as “natural, but not Natural Law” then I do not think the results will be good.

It’s hardly ill-defined. By contrast, it’s the only objective means for discerning the good.

The state already uses age as a proxy for fertility on the young side. Why cannot it use age as a proxy for fertility on the old side? Both men and women have reduced, or zero, fertility as they get older.

rossum

The minimum age for marriage is not a proxy for fertility but for maturity – a couple cannot commit to a lifelong union if they’re not capable of grasping the implications of that commitment. That’s why couples under 18 can get married with parental permission.

Again, any “maximum age” is going to be arbitrary. There is no rational basis to pin that age at, say, 49. By contrast there is a very rational basis to use sex: male-female couples are intrinsically fertile. Same-sex couples are intrinsically infertile.

At any rate, if marriage is not about procreation then what valid social purpose does it serve? Why should we have it at all, much less expand it to include gay couples?

 

[rossum]

It seems you are asserting that morality is just what we vote for.

No, I am not asserting that. According to Christian morality it is contrary to the First Commandment to worship Vishnu in a Hindu temple. Such an action is not illegal in most places. What is moral and what is legal are different things, though they may coincide, as with murder.

Here I am discussing what is legal, which is a secular category. Morality is not decided by legislators; what is legal is decided by legislators.

rossum

 

[rossum]

At any rate, if marriage is not about procreation then what valid social purpose does it serve?

Ask a 70 year old newly wed woman. Ask any infertile couple. Ask any of those same sex couples just married in New York.

How about “the pursuit of happiness”, which seemed important to the Founding Fathers of the USA.

rossum

 

[sw85]

Ask a 70 year old newly wed woman. Ask any infertile couple. Ask any of those same sex couples just married in New York.

How about “the pursuit of happiness”, which seemed important to the Founding Fathers of the USA.

rossum

Happiness is a government handout? Why does their right to “pursue happiness” require anything like the involvement of government?

I ask again, what is the actual, material, common good-promoting basis for the existence of marriage, if not procreation?

 

[exnihilo]

Here I am discussing what is legal, which is a secular category. Morality is not decided by legislators; what is legal is decided by legislators.

I agree on the role of legislators. But I still dont understand your issue with classification and natural purpose. That can be completely secular so why do you rule out using those in your moral reasoning?

 

[InSearchofGrace]

Ask a 70 year old newly wed woman. Ask any infertile couple. Ask any of those same sex couples just married in New York.

How about “the pursuit of happiness”, which seemed important to the Founding Fathers of the USA.

rossum

In your worldview, if homosexual couples are prevented to marry, the state should also prevent all infertile couples, in the name of ‘equality’ and ‘non-discrimination.’ You argue that heterosexual couples should pass qualifications or testing for infertility, inspection of men who might have orchiectomies (not orchidectomies, by the way) and a determination if women have (not) reached menopause. You find equivalence of natural procreation with laboratory methods and progeny / parenting detached from biology.

I say that is indifferentism and laissez-faire. Systematic apathy. The exception is the rule. A recipe for anarchy.

Taken to the extremes of what you propose, we should test for all those things, calling for impractical and intrusive procedures on the general population. This is your argument so that homosexuals are free to pursue their happiness, is that it? As if they are not free to pursue whatever makes them happy already in places, including in the country where you live.

As for ‘pursuit of happiness’ in the Declaration of Independence, below is how Carol Hamilton from History News explains the phrase you seem to favor and narrowly interpret:

Jefferson plucked “the pursuit of happiness” from the prose of a Tory like Dr. Johnson. Jefferson’s intellectual heroes were Newton, Bacon, and Locke, and it was actually in Locke that he must have found the phrase. It appears in the 1690 essay Concerning Human Understanding. There, in a long and thorny passage, Locke wrote:

The necessity of pursuing happiness [is] the foundation of liberty. As therefore the highest perfection of intellectual nature lies in a careful and constant pursuit of true and solid happiness; so the care of ourselves, that we mistake not imaginary for real happiness, is the necessary foundation of our liberty. The stronger ties we have to an unalterable pursuit of happiness in general, which is our greatest good, and which, as such, our desires always follow, the more are we free from any necessary determination of our will to any particular action, and from a necessary compliance with our desire, set upon any particular, and then appearing preferable good, till we have duly examined whether it has a tendency to, or be inconsistent with, our real happiness: and therefore, till we are as much informed upon this inquiry as the weight of the matter, and the nature of the case demands, we are, by the necessity of preferring and pursuing true happiness as our greatest good, obliged to suspend the satisfaction of our desires in particular cases.

The "pursuit of happiness” is not merely sensual or hedonistic, but engages the intellect, requiring the careful discrimination of imaginary happiness from “true and solid” happiness. It is not merely a matter of achieving individual pleasure. That is why Alexander Hamilton and other founders referred to “social happiness.”
,

 

[Soldier_Of_God]

ppp

 

[ComputerGeek25]

Happiness is a government handout? Why does their right to “pursue happiness” require anything like the involvement of government?

I ask again, what is the actual, material, common good-promoting basis for the existence of marriage, if not procreation?

And that’s the million dollar question.

 

[Elizabeth502]

How about “the pursuit of happiness”, which seemed important to the Founding Fathers of the USA.

The pursuit of happiness is: (1) not a guarantee of an outcome of happiness, merely the freedom to pursue an individual notion of happiness within the laws of the land, not outside those laws; (2) not associated with social approval of such an individually pursued path. The latter is not a constitutional concept and would never be able to be defended under constitutional law.

Freedom of association is guaranteed as a liberty. Homosexuals are free to associate.

 

[rossum]

Happiness is a government handout? Why does their right to “pursue happiness” require anything like the involvement of government?

No, happiness is not a government handout. The pursuit of happiness is written into the Declaration of Independence so it is to some extent required that the US government allow its citizens the liberty to do just that.

I ask again, what is the actual, material, common good-promoting basis for the existence of marriage, if not procreation?

Again I say, the pursuit of happiness. Would you rather live in a country full of happy people or a country full of unhappy people?

rossum

 

[rossum]

I agree on the role of legislators. But I still dont understand your issue with classification and natural purpose. That can be completely secular so why do you rule out using those in your moral reasoning?

Please give a purely a secular objective definition of “natural purpose”. Please remember that I am Buddhist, so appeals to God or similar will not be accepted.

rossum

 

[rossum]

In your worldview, if homosexual couples are prevented to marry, the state should also prevent all infertile couples, in the name of ‘equality’ and ‘non-discrimination.’

Since the state does not prevent the marriage of infertile heterosexual couples then it cannot use infertility as an excuse to prevent the marriage of homosexual couples. That is a double standard, which I hope no-one will accept.

Since pretty much everyone accepts infertile heterosexual couple can marry it is incumbent on the opponents of same sex marriage to come up with a different secular reason to oppose such marriages.

The "pursuit of happiness” is not merely sensual or hedonistic, but engages the intellect, requiring the careful discrimination of imaginary happiness from “true and solid” happiness. It is not merely a matter of achieving individual pleasure. That is why Alexander Hamilton and other founders referred to “social happiness.”

Again I will refer you to heterosexual marriages. I will accept any restrictions on “sensual or hedonistic” same sex marriages as are also equally applied to “sensual and hedonistic” opposite sex marriages. You are free to apply exactly the same restrictions that currently exist for heterosexuals to homosexuals.

Can you please explain the restrictions that are currently in place for heterosexual marriages.

rossum

 

[sw85]

No, happiness is not a government handout. The pursuit of happiness is written into the Declaration of Independence so it is to some extent required that the US government allow its citizens the liberty to do just that.

Again I say, the pursuit of happiness. Would you rather live in a country full of happy people or a country full of unhappy people?

rossum

With due

 

[sw85]

No, happiness is not a government handout. The pursuit of happiness is written into the Declaration of Independence so it is to some extent required that the US government allow its citizens the liberty to do just that.

Again I say, the pursuit of happiness. Would you rather live in a country full of happy people or a country full of unhappy people?

rossum

That’s a really poor argument. For one thing, we’re not talking about the government “allowing” people to marry but “extending civil recognition” to their unions. Homosexual couples are perfectly free to bugger one another all they like; they can even go into churches and exchange vows and rings and walk around telling people they’re “married” and no one can stop them. All that’s being said is that this union is not sufficiently compelling to justify certification by the state. You are saying that their happiness actually materially depends on their being issued this certificate, and moreover that happiness itself is a sufficiently compelling reason to justify issuance of it. I hope you can see the absurdity in that.

For another, this argument, followed to its logical conclusion, would justify the government handing out endless amounts to stuff to anyone who claims their happiness depends on it. Where does it end?

Since the state does not prevent the marriage of infertile heterosexual couples then it cannot use infertility as an excuse to prevent the marriage of homosexual couples. That is a double standard, which I hope no-one will accept.

Since pretty much everyone accepts infertile heterosexual couple can marry it is incumbent on the opponents of same sex marriage to come up with a different secular reason to oppose such marriages.

I already explained this and you failed to furnish an objection to the argument.

We use sex as a proxy for fertility because fertility itself cannot be measured in a manner that isn’t arbitrary or grossly intrusive. And we use sex as a proxy because the male-female union is innately fertile (that is, male-female couples that are not fertile are a departure from normality) while same-sex unions are innately infertile. And since same-sex unions can never materially produce children of their own, there is no compelling rationale to extend marriage rights to them.

 

[ComputerGeek25]

I already explained this and you failed to furnish an objection to the argument.

We use sex as a proxy for fertility because fertility itself cannot be measured in a manner that isn’t arbitrary or grossly intrusive. And we use sex as a proxy because the male-female union is innately fertile (that is, male-female couples that are not fertile are a departure from normality) while same-sex unions are innately infertile. And since same-sex unions can never materially produce children of their own, there is no compelling rationale to extend marriage rights to them.

Your points here remind me of something I heard: Corner cases make bad law.

Your points about fertility are right on - that fertility is the normal state as well as being good for the species.

I know of several women that were told that it would be impossible or very hard for them to have children - but the doctors give them very conservative guesses.