why can't another label be used for same sex marriage?

[Giants]

Giant, I am, therefore, putting your question back to you. Perhaps it isn’t only a question of proving that same sex behavior is harmful or beneficial to human survival, but rather one of demonstrating that it is not a symptom and response to deeper psycho-social issues. Your stance may be ignoring that possibility by putting the onus in the wrong place. The reason we shouldn’t just “tolerate” same sex behavior and legalize a redefinition of marriage is precisely because we don’t understand the root causes and we may be ignoring those to our peril as a species. Legalizing it is the equivalent of pretending “everything is fine” with our social structure when in fact, everything is not fine and here is the symptom that demonstrates that.

In other words, it’s my job to demonstrate that your pet theory - originating from a study involving mice, which you can’t cite or remember in any detail, that you read 30 years ago, and that may have been published long before that - the onus rests on me to demonstrate this doesn’t hold water?

Yeah…I don’t think so.

I wouldn’t have guessed that this needed pointing out, but not all theories are made equal, just because someone had sufficient imagination to conjure one up. This is something I can demonstrate. As I’ve noted earlier, the precipitous rise in divorce has mysteriously coincided with an accompanying increase in sales of hybrid-SUVs. Just what are we to make of this phenomenon? Well, I don’t know about you, but isn’t it possible that the newly divorced single, suddenly relieved of the burden of an unhappy marriage, are looking for a “new lease on life?” And couldn’t that ‘lease’ be for a brand new, 2012 GMC Yukon? Think of the money they’d save on gas (rated 20 mpg city, 23 mpg highway)! And couldn’t the “breath of fresh air” of being newly single also lead one to want to the same for others - thus the purchase of an environmentally conscious, fuel-efficient vehicle?

It all make sense to me. I don’t know what the big deal is with divorce - when you consider how the inevitable increase in hybrid-SUV sales will jolt our economy, not to mention how these cars practically pay for themselves over the life of the lease, and stem the rise in pollutants in our atmosphere.

And perhaps the onus is on you to demonstrate that I’m not make a completely vacuous assertion, rife with armchair psychology and based on an assumed knowledge of both the national divorce rate and hybrid-SUV sales. Or else concede that divorce is actually, on balance, a moral good for society. Or else concede that you are, in equal measure, anti-capitalism, and anti-environment.

So tell us, why do you hate America?

 

[fix]

This issue needs to be treated with scientific neutrality and thoroughness, not turning a blind eye. Alcoholism, pedophilia and addiction to sexual urges are all properly considered manifestations of deeper psycho social issues. Same sex attraction has not proven itself not to be a similar “kind” of condition regardless of what those so “afflicted” declare. We would not accept that as a justification for alcoholism, why should we accept it here?

Investigators, like all moral people, out to start from a position of understanding right and wrong. If everything single aspect of life is merely a blank slate then we have what what have today which is utilitarianism and relativism.

We have to accept what health is and what pathology is.

 

[lizaanne]

why can’t another label be used for same sex marriage?

Because you can call a fish a sofa - but at the end of the day, you can’t sit on a fish for long or it will just stink and rot, because it’s not a sofa and never will be.

Same sex “marriage” is not now and never will be MARRIAGE. Period.

Really pretty simple.



~Liza

 

[Peter_Plato]

In other words, it’s my job to demonstrate that your pet theory - originating from a study involving mice, which you can’t cite or remember in any detail, that you read 30 years ago, and that may have been published long before that - the onus rests on me to demonstrate this doesn’t hold water?

Yeah…I don’t think so.

I wouldn’t have guessed that this needed pointing out, but not all theories are made equal, just because someone had sufficient imagination to conjure one up. This is something I can demonstrate. As I’ve noted earlier, the precipitous rise in divorce has mysteriously coincided with an accompanying increase in sales of hybrid-SUVs.

Except that this issue is about taking apart and redefining what it means to be a human being and foisting that upon future generations without adequate cause or justification.

The onus should be on same sex promoters to lay out a completely convincing and documented case for why a wholesale revision of what marriage means ought to be attempted at this stage in human history. Why is it not?

Drug and food manufacturers must conduct convincing research on additions or changes to their products to demonstrate without a doubt that these additions are, in the least, not harmful.
Yet we are passing legislation to mandate wholesale changes on how we will teach our children about primary human relationships that will determine the future course of humanity and you are suggesting it is up to opponents to demonstrate possible harm.

That position is identical to food and drug companies insisting that they should be free to add and change their products at whim until proof is provided that these changes are indeed harmful. That suggestion, certainly, would not be allowed by the FDA and would be met with shock and contempt by consumers concerned about the trustworthiness of companies who would attempt to get away with that strategy.

Yet here you are trumpeting precisely that position!

Why no reaction in opposition on the part of the government and the “consuming” public. Something is radically wrong here, if humans can just stand back and let this happen without adequate proof (longitudinal studies) that any and all potential harms have been accounted for. In addition, prior to conducting research there should be a thorough list of what potential harms are being assessed so we know what we are looking for.

Why wouldn’t we require this kind of assurance when that is the standard procedure for imposing any massive change on the future welfare of human beings? True concern for humanity would allow nothing less than that kind of assurance.

The burden of proof should rest squarely on the shoulders of those who wish to impose change, not on those who support leaving well enough alone.

 

[Giants]

Except that this issue is about taking apart and redefining what it means to be a human being and foisting that upon future generations without adequate cause or justification.

Really? That’s what we’re talking about? I have to say - this is news to me. All this time I thought we were talking about re-defining civil marriage. When it turns out, we haven’t even settled on whether gay people were human in the first place.

For the sake of simplicity, I think we should continue under the general assumption that gay people qualified as human beings. Even if they eventually turn out to be aliens or warlocks, we can always re-evaluate our position later on.

The onus should be on same sex promoters to lay out a completely convincing and documented case for why a wholesale revision of what marriage means ought to be attempted at this stage in human history. Why is it not?

There’s nothing in the Constitution that gives you the right to drink vanilla-flavored coffee. There’s nothing in the Constitution that gives you the right to climb a tree on a Thursday afternoon. There’s nothing in the Constitution that gives you the right to learn to play shuffleboard instead of lawn bowling.

Yet, you have these rights. How did that happen? It happened because these rights, to say nothing of countless others, are presumed to exist in the first place. The government doesn’t grant you any of them. At the most, it can affirm certain pre-existing rights, like the right to free speech, free press, to peaceably assemble, etc - so there’s no confusion later on. But the proper exercise of the U.S. government’s legislative authority, from the Congress to the state/local governments, to the judiciary, is only to limit certain rights, and only then where there exists a compelling State interest to do so.

Needless to say, there are many historical examples where the government initially got it wrong. It shouldn’t have taken the 15th Amendment to say black people could vote or the 19th Amendment to say that women could too. A government whose founding document pledged to “to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity” should have gotten some of this stuff right from the beginning. But it didn’t, and luckily there was a corrective mechanism in place that eventually allowed them to fix it.

But here lies an important distinction. In amending the Constitution for the 15th and 19th times, the government wasn’t creating the right for black people and women to vote. It was affirming what was true all along - that the right always existed, and they were wrong to ever have denied it to them.

That’s why the onus is not on SSM promoters to demonstrate that SSM won’t cause harm to society. The right for gays to marry is already assumed to exist, and its for opponents of SSM to demonstrate a compelling state interest to deny it. Not just the first time, but every single time the question comes up.

SSM promoters don’t even have the demonstrate that life would be better if SSM were legalized. It’s of no relevance to the debate. Just like you’d be under no burden to demonstrate that allowing people to drink vanilla-flavored coffee would make the world better off than it would without it. That right is assumed to exist until somebody demonstrates a good reason to deny it.

If this all seems quite unfair to you, consider this: You don’t need to produce a brand new argument against it, not if the old argument still serves convince an objective, unbiased listener. But does it?

 

[Peter_Plato]

Really? That’s what we’re talking about? I have to say - this is news to me. All this time I thought we were talking about re-defining civil marriage. When it turns out, we haven’t even settled on whether gay people were human in the first place.

For the sake of simplicity, I think we should continue under the general assumption that gay people qualified as human beings. Even if they eventually turn out to be aliens or warlocks, we can always re-evaluate our position later on.

Reframing my position into something unrecognizable is not arguing against it. That is merely evading the point. There is no doubt that gay people are human. However, what is under dispute is whether gay behaviour is harmful or beneficial to the well-being of humans in general. That has not been demonstrated sufficiently.

If a food manufacturer concocted some substance that could be ingested, that fact alone does not make it food. Lobbying the government to redefine food to include some non-nutritious compound in the definition is one approach. However, corporations bear the burden of proof to demonstrate, with careful longitudinal studies that the new compound is, minimally, not harmful. Even then it is not called “food” in the ingredients list, but rather an “additive” or by some other equally vague name.

This isn’t about whether same sex practitioners are human or not, but it is about whether same sex behaviour promotes the well-being, psychologically and physiologically, of humans. That has yet to be demonstrated and the government is being derelict in its duties by not requiring sufficient demonstration of that. Merely because some humans practice a behaviour is not sufficient to warrant that it be added to the list of behaviors that promote human good rather than to the list that is harmful to it.

There’s nothing in the Constitution that gives you the right to drink vanilla-flavored coffee. There’s nothing in the Constitution that gives you the right to climb a tree on a Thursday afternoon. There’s nothing in the Constitution that gives you the right to learn to play shuffleboard instead of lawn bowling.

There is in the constitution the right of the government to protect its citizens from harm. I do not have a right to misrepresent a potentially harmful product by claiming that it is something that it is not in order to deceive others into accepting it.

To say that same sex behaviour is an essential part of what it means to be human without demonstrating

1. that such behaviour is indeed naturally conducive to human well-being
2. that such behaviour isn’t positively harmful

requires extensive demonstration that has not been done, except by insistence.

Yet, you have these rights. How did that happen? It happened because these rights, to say nothing of countless others, are presumed to exist in the first place. The government doesn’t grant you any of them.

All citizens have the right to assume that government decisions, as coded in the law, are not inherently harmful. Therefore, the government has a responsibility to assess the consequences of its laws to guarantee that harm will not result. To whom else can appeal be made when the government willfully itself acts in a manner that is contrary to human well being.

Continued…

 

[Peter_Plato]

… From previous

At the most, it can affirm certain pre-existing rights, like the right to free speech, free press, to peaceably assemble, etc - so there’s no confusion later on. But the proper exercise of the U.S. government’s legislative authority, from the Congress to the state/local governments, to the judiciary, is only to limit certain rights, and only then where there exists a compelling State interest to do so.

The interest of the state is to ensure that no preventable harm is done to its citizens. The rights of any individual only go so far and are limited by direct harm done to others. The government is the neutral arbitrator between the rights of some vs harm to others. It cannot ever presume that rights are always to be protected to any extreme merely because they exist. The limits of rights are always determined by harm done.

Needless to say, there are many historical examples where the government initially got it wrong. It shouldn’t have taken the 15th Amendment to say black people could vote or the 19th Amendment to say that women could too. A government whose founding document pledged to “to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity” should have gotten some of this stuff right from the beginning. But it didn’t, and luckily there was a corrective mechanism in place that eventually allowed them to fix it.

But here lies an important distinction. In amending the Constitution for the 15th and 19th times, the government wasn’t creating the right for black people and women to vote. It was affirming what was true all along - that the right always existed, and they were wrong to ever have denied it to them.

That’s why the onus is not on SSM promoters to demonstrate that SSM won’t cause harm to society. The right for gays to marry is already assumed to exist, and its for opponents of SSM to demonstrate a compelling state interest to deny it. Not just the first time, but every single time the question comes up.

No the onus is on promoters to demonstrate SSM isn’t harmful because they are initiating the change. The so called null position is the current definition. If it is to be altered the burden of proof is on the lobbyists. Just as the burden of proof is on the food manufacturer who wants to alter the definition of food to include his concoction before it is foisted on society.

SSM promoters don’t even have to demonstrate that life would be better if SSM were legalized. It’s of no relevance to the debate. Just like you’d be under no burden to demonstrate that allowing people to drink vanilla-flavored coffee would make the world better off than it would without it. That right is assumed to exist until somebody demonstrates a good reason to deny it.

So you are saying I have an inherent right to sell whatever I want under the description, “vanilla-flavored coffee” and it is others who bear the burden of proof to show that it isn’t? False advertising is permissible until you are caught doing it?

If this all seems quite unfair to you, consider this: You don’t need to produce a brand new argument against it, not if the old argument still serves convince an objective, unbiased listener. But does it?

Agreed. The crucial question I am asking is why are apparently “objective, unbiased listeners” unconvinced? Perhaps because they are either not being objective or their unbias has been neutralized by social compulsion. Nobody likes to be branded “homophobic” especially when they aren’t. Two options remain for them. Abdicate their position because they cannot articulate it or run the risk of being tarred and smeared when they themselves have no particular and immediate interest in defending it. Very few individuals would resist the strong social pressure from the persistent media hyped assault on their beliefs when they can’t even articulate their own position and why they hold it. They are accepting an option they intuitively believe is wrong because they cannot find the right words to defend themselves so they have difficulty resisting when that would mean ridicule and contempt from a very vocal minority. It is not reason that is driving this, it is the abdication of reason under the guise of tolerance.

Brilliant chemists could easily foist all kinds of products on an unsuspecting public that is ill-equipped to argue otherwise if the government merely distanced itself from the whole affair. The point is that the government should assume a position of watchdog and bring protective resources to bear to protect the established rights of the majority until those with the burden of proof (SSM advocates) provide unassailable evidence that SSM is conducive of human well-being and not positively harmful. Since that evidence is lacking, the government, clearly, is derelict in its duties by allowing the addition without positive proof.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Because to homosexual couples, they want their “union” to be called a marriage because they don’t want to be treated as second-class citizens, but want it to be a marriage like straight couples have, but of course, i don’t agree with this. God bless

+1

This is all part of the gay agenda to make homosexuality appear “normal”. Changing the terminology used to discuss ANYTHING related to the gay lifestyle affects whether it is viewed positively or negatively; consequently, homosexuals have a strong motivation to alter the language.

“Marriage” sounds normal while “union” is awkward.

 

[InSearchofGrace]

…

That’s why the onus is not on SSM promoters to demonstrate that SSM won’t cause harm to society. The right for gays to marry is already assumed to exist, and its for opponents of SSM to demonstrate a compelling state interest to deny it. Not just the first time, but every single time the question comes up.

SSM promoters don’t even have the demonstrate that life would be better if SSM were legalized. It’s of no relevance to the debate. Just like you’d be under no burden to demonstrate that allowing people to drink vanilla-flavored coffee would make the world better off than it would without it. That right is assumed to exist until somebody demonstrates a good reason to deny it.

If this all seems quite unfair to you, consider this: You don’t need to produce a brand new argument against it, not if the old argument still serves convince an objective, unbiased listener. But does it?

Except that vanilla flavored drinking, which has zero social impact on the future generation, to prove your point, leaves much to be desired as an example.

Is it not true all along that adults (including you and me) started as child from a mom and dad, the configuration ideally in marriage that promotes appropriate sex role identification and differentiation, notwithstanding imperfect marriages and parenting skills? That even with SSM couples who claim parenting rights by adoption or creative egg / sperm donation and womb-for-hire schemes, at the gamete level, a male and female remain as the only biological partnership that such would be possible?

1. Would you think that a child’s right to be raised by a mother and a father is less important than ‘rights’ of adults to legal SSM and gay parenting? In a case of a little boy who is unexpectedly orphaned, with no relatives to step up as parents, what deceased parents would wish for their boy to be placed in a home with two ‘married’ fathers? What kind of society through the state would promote such a policy that allows a social experiment, thinking harm need only be immediate and injury be just physical, before it can be deemed or manifest as harm?
2. What living parent or grandparent with biological connection to kids in school would want them to be taught by teachers in a state ordered curricula that homosexual acts are normal?
3. What citizen would like to be sued, to be silenced in effect, in speaking or writing that homosexual acts are not normal and cooperating with legalization of SSM is wrong?

You raise fairness at the end of your post. Do tell us how SSM would be fair to the rest of us.
,

 

[Giants]

1. Would you think that a child’s right to be raised by a mother and a father is less important than ‘rights’ of adults to legal SSM and gay parenting? In a case of a little boy who is unexpectedly orphaned, with no relatives to step up as parents, what deceased parents would wish for their boy to be placed in a home with two ‘married’ fathers? What kind of society through the state would promote such a policy that allows a social experiment, thinking harm need only be immediate and injury be just physical, before it can be deemed or manifest as harm?

If it was my little boy, and the choice was between being a ward of the state, or having a loving home, I would choose the loving home, and it wouldn’t matter to me if it was two men and two women.

And the answer to your second question is “Our society would.”

1. What living parent or grandparent with biological connection to kids in school would want them to be taught by teachers in a state ordered curricula that homosexual acts are normal?

Maybe I was born to late for this, but I don’t recall learning anything about what sorts of sex acts were “normal” when I was in school. Maybe its been added as a class since then.

In any event, if my children are taught something that helped them grow up to not think of gay people as inferior or sick, then I would be for that too.

1. What citizen would like to be sued, to be silenced in effect, in speaking or writing that homosexual acts are not normal and cooperating with legalization of SSM is wrong?

None. And none will.

You raise fairness at the end of your post. Do tell us how SSM would be fair to the rest of us.
,

If you consider the current situation “fair” to you, than legalizing SSM would change nothing about it. This the flip side of the fatuous argument that I hear so often - that gay people already have “equal rights” - they can marry any one of the opposite sex they like, just like straight folks. This is silly to the point of being insulting, but it also ignores the converse argument. Once SSM is legalized, straight people will be able to marry any same-sex partner they like, just like gay folks. So there’s your fairness and equal rights.

 

[Giants]

Plato - hypothetically, if your side can’t produce a viable argument that legalizing SSM would lead to greater societal harm, and my can’t produce an argument to demonstrate that it won’t, where does that leave us?

BTW, the food analogy doesn’t work because we have an underlying scientific knowledge that certain chemicals, taken into the body, can be quite harmful, even deadly. Even generally understood food items, like peanuts, can be deadly if the wrong person ingests them. That’s why the onus shifts to the food or drug manufacturer to prove that its product is safe.

In the civil marriage debate, what your side is lacking is the equivalent foreknowledge, that civil marriage can even potentially be a bad thing. And it hasn’t been helpful that your side has been telling us since forever that marriage and families are the building blocks of healthy society.

But back to my question, if neither one of us can produce a viable argument for our respective position, why should your side win that stalemate? Because if you don’t have a viable argument now, it means one of two things. Either your side never had a viable argument, or maybe it did once, and our current understanding of reality invalidates it. But in either case, your side advocates denying people their civil rights based on a faulty argument.

And anticipating your next point, that my side deals principally with the civil rights of a group of people is the reason why this sort of stalemate should favor my side.

 

[fix]

In the civil marriage debate, what your side is lacking is the equivalent foreknowledge, that civil marriage can even potentially be a bad thing. And it hasn’t been helpful that your side has been telling us since forever that marriage and families are the building blocks of healthy society.

Sure it is bad, that is common sense. Do we need studies and philosophical proofs to point out what any rational person already knows?

 

[Giants]

Sure it is bad, that is common sense. Do we need studies and philosophical proofs to point out what any rational person already knows?

Hey there, thanks for coming out.

 

[fix]

Hey there, thanks for coming out.

You are banging your head against a brick wall. There is no good argument for normalizing bad behavior.

 

[Giants]

You are banging your head against a brick wall. There is no good argument for normalizing bad behavior.

I know that. But you don’t see me trying to make the Church’s discrimination against gay people out to be a good thing, do you?

 

[Peter_Plato]

Plato - hypothetically, if your side can’t produce a viable argument that legalizing SSM would lead to greater societal harm, and my can’t produce an argument to demonstrate that it won’t, where does that leave us?

BTW, the food analogy doesn’t work because we have an underlying scientific knowledge that certain chemicals, taken into the body, can be quite harmful, even deadly. Even generally understood food items, like peanuts, can be deadly if the wrong person ingests them. That’s why the onus shifts to the food or drug manufacturer to prove that its product is safe.

In the civil marriage debate, what your side is lacking is the equivalent foreknowledge, that civil marriage can even potentially be a bad thing. And it hasn’t been helpful that your side has been telling us since forever that marriage and families are the building blocks of healthy society.

But back to my question, if neither one of us can produce a viable argument for our respective position, why should your side win that stalemate? Because if you don’t have a viable argument now, it means one of two things. Either your side never had a viable argument, or maybe it did once, and our current understanding of reality invalidates it. But in either case, your side advocates denying people their civil rights based on a faulty argument.

And anticipating your next point, that my side deals principally with the civil rights of a group of people is the reason why this sort of stalemate should favor my side.

The problem with your answer is that there is no “data” for the implications of changing the institution or definition of marriage in such a radical way. We do have a great deal of data that shows that a homosexual lifestyle shortens life span and is, more often than not, transient in nature. Given those indicators, to go ahead and legislate without complete assurance to the contrary is negligent and irresponsible.

The equivalent position when dealing with new drugs would be:

We are thinking about introducing a new drug in the market. So far, we know

1. It will shorten your life by 20 years.
2. It is ineffective in what it is intended to do (create and care for new life).

Let’s just overlook those two little details and go ahead anyway. Sounds reasonable to me.

 

[Giants]

The problem with your answer is that there is no “data” for the implications of changing the institution or definition of marriage in such a radical way. We do have a great deal of data that shows that a homosexual lifestyle shortens life span and is, more often than not, transient in nature. Given those indicators, to go ahead and legislate without complete assurance to the contrary is negligent and irresponsible.

The equivalent position when dealing with new drugs would be:

We are thinking about introducing a new drug in the market. So far, we know

1. It will shorten your life by 20 years.
2. It is ineffective in what it is intended to do (create and care for new life).

Let’s just overlook those two little details and go ahead anyway. Sounds reasonable to me.

Even if all of this were true (it’s not), all you’ve done here is present an argument against allowing gay people to behave like gay people. You haven’t presented an argument against gay marriage at all. Again, the drug analogy fails - because while your hypothetical drug will shorten life spans by 20 years, allow gays to marry won’t do any such thing. Not to gay people, and certainly not to straight people.

The “homosexual lifestyle,” so termed, is not the issue. Having unprotected, promiscuous sex is a problem. Getting sucked into the accompanying drug culture is a problem. These are not problems that gay people have a monopoly on. To say nothing of their “transient” relationships (what is the national divorce rate, again?). I fully expect that, with the full legalization of SSM, we’ll see gay couples jumping into relationship commitments they aren’t ready to make. But again, this is not about them being gay. It’s about them being “human” - as the number of drive-thru wedding chapels in Las Vegas will illustrate.

What never ceases to amaze me is how all the long-touted benefits of marriage - as a stabilizing force for society, for families, and for individuals - all of that goes by the wayside when you broach the possibility of SSM. It’s like the possibility that a stable relationship in legally recognized marriage might make a gay person less likely to act irresponsibly is completely unthinkable.