Gay Marriage

[lucasa]

[quote]dmaddox wrote:

Is Heterosexuality a fundamental element of being, is Being Homosexual a choice, or a learned behavior?[/quote]

Your question creates a false dichotomy (state of being vs. learned behavior) and your phrasing predisposes an answer. Moreover, the law is far from definitive or predisposed regardless of the answer. Murder is neither a learned behavior nor a state of being but is highly illegal. Writing with your left hand was once rather cruelly prohibited as a state of being by the State and is now rigorously encouraged as a learned act by it.

Homosexual sex is, generally more learned than murder or smoking and less than handwriting. Homosexuality is a fundamental state of being akin to being a smoker, left-handed, or secular/spiritual.

HTH

[thunderbolt23]

[quote]smh23 wrote:

They start and stop when we decide that we want them to. See my above arguments for examples.[/quote]

Well, if what you say is true, you can’t claim its a “fallacy” when your opponent does it, but not when you do it - so which is it?

[thunderbolt23]

[quote]sufiandy wrote:

Interracial marriage was justified via discrimination laws as is gay marriage…[/quote]

False. When traditional marriage laws were passed, was the intent to promote heterosexual supremacy at the expense of gays? Of course not.

[dmaddox]

[quote]lucasa wrote:

[quote]dmaddox wrote:

Is Heterosexuality a fundamental element of being, is Being Homosexual a choice, or a learned behavior?[/quote]

Your question creates a false dichotomy (state of being vs. learned behavior) and your phrasing predisposes an answer. Moreover, the law is far from definitive or predisposed regardless of the answer. Murder is neither a learned behavior nor a state of being but is highly illegal. Writing with your left hand was once rather cruelly prohibited as a state of being by the State and is now rigorously encouraged as a learned act by it.

Homosexual sex is, generally more learned than murder or smoking and less than handwriting. Homosexuality is a fundamental state of being akin to being a smoker, left-handed, or secular/spiritual.

HTH[/quote]

Thank you for your reply. I have no clue about being gay. I am ignorant about it. I don’t undress a woman with my eyes anymore, because I had a gay guy do it to me while licking his lips and hooping and yelling at me. I felt so gross, and wanted to beat his brains in. I know that was a one time thing, but from all I hear and see is that being gay is not normal.

The average heterosexual has 6 sexual partners. The average homosexual has over 21 sexual partners in their lifetime. I worked for a homosexual male couple and the dynamics of that relationship was messed up. In that relationship you saw one of the guys having all the power, dominate partner, and when he was through with his partner, the submissive partner that did everything for the dominate partner, the dominant partner would just kicked the submissive partner out. It kind of reminded me of the 1970’s and early 80’s when heterosexual couples started getting divorced and the stay at home mother had no credit, and no way to make a living. This is happening in the homosexual community. This is just my opinion, but there needs to be a legal something that gives these homosexual partners the means to sue and get financial assistance, child support or alimony, from the dominant partner. I am 100% against calling it marriage. Maybe the government just needs to get out of the marriage business and just give every single person the same treatment. You will need a contract to pass assets when someone dies. This can happen now, but the government automatically allows assets to pass from one spouse to the other spouse at death without any taxes. This would take a big tax overhaul to make something like this happen. No more marriage penalty on dual income families, and the such.

This is a lot more of an issue than everyone here has a clue. It is just like Obamacare. Everyday something new comes out that no one had a clue the law would effect.

[smh23]

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

[quote]smh23 wrote:

They start and stop when we decide that we want them to. See my above arguments for examples.[/quote]

Well, if what you say is true, you can’t claim its a “fallacy” when your opponent does it, but not when you do it - so which is it?[/quote]

Well, I said above that it’s a fallacy because of its universal applicability.

But you’re right, the term fallacy as it’s formally understood is not appropriate here. Suffice it to say that it is an utterly impotent argument (because of its universal applicability).

Although I do think you’d be right to call an argument “fallacious” if that argument fails to correctly predict the outcome in almost every case where it is applied.

[smh23]

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]smh23 wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]smh23 wrote:
There is no harm done to society or to anybody on the planet by granting two men a marriage license. None…

[/quote]

There is no harm done to society or to anybody on the planet by granting three men a marriage license. None.

There is no harm done to society or to anybody on the planet by granting fifty men a marriage license. None.

There is no harm done to society or to anybody on the planet by granting two men and a Longhorn steer a marriage license. None.[/quote]

Then support the legitimization of those arrangements. Or don’t. It has no bearing on this discussion.

What’s in question here is gay marriage, on its own merits.

And see my previous posts re: slippery slopes for a full answer to you here.

[/quote]

Your previous slippery slope posts are essentially meaningless.[/quote]

No, they aren’t. They show you that the line of reasoning you’re peddling is impotent–because it is applicable nearly everywhere, and yet it successfully predicts the future next to never.

[quote]
Tell me why you would lobby against three men getting married, yes, a bona fide gay marriage. Let’s assume they are monogamous and that that’s a good thing.[/quote]

Monogamy: the practice or condition of having a single sexual partner or spouse.

A marriage between three men is by definition not monogamous.

Disregarding that: This isn’t an argument about plural marriage or polygamy. If you have problems with polygamy, and if the number of people who come to hold a favorable view of it reaches a point at which it becomes a legitimate political issue with legitimate prospects for statutory legitimization, then have at it all you’d like. But this discussion is about gay marriage, and whether or not you can find a single reason why the issuance of a marriage license to two consenting adult males does a single ounce of harm to you or to any other citizen of the United States.

But in the interest of humoring you: how can we continue to deny marriage licenses to groups of thirty men and women who’d all like to get hitched in one big bisexual celebration if we’re going to allow two men to get married, you ask?

Well, how can we continue to criminalize cocaine if alcohol’s legal? There is no doubt that the pharmacological differences between alcohol and cocaine are far smaller and less consequential (and therefore more easily trampled in a progression toward licentiousness and absurdity) than the social differences between a monogamous marriage between two consenting adults of any gender and a non-monogamous union of multiple people.

How can we continue to outlaw the sale of the Browing .50 Caliber Machine Gun if we sell semiautomatic rifles? The differences between a gun that fires bullets of a certain size and requires one trigger pull per shot, and a somewhat larger gun that fires somewhat larger bullets and continues to do so as long as the trigger is held down, are far smaller (and therefore more easily trampled in a progression toward licentiousness and absurdity) than the differences between my gay neighbors, who are married, and King Solomon and his stable of ass.

Not doing it for you? Consider this:

How in God’s good name are we going to deny SNAP benefits to a family of four making $2,499/month when a family of identical size making $2,498/month–a single dollar less–is income eligible? How can we do that? The difference that those three pennies per diem have on the ability of a family of four to feed itself is absolutely, undoubtedly smaller and less consequential than the difference between a monogamous lesbian marriage and a non-monogamous marriage between four men and eight women.

Sophists enjoy pretending that every proposition codified by law must inexorably be brought to its logical conclusion, to hell with questions of degree and magnitude. If that were the case, government would either be totalitarian in a way that makes Nineteen Eighty-Four look like libertarian pornography, or it would not exist at all. Either every single narcotic and intoxicant known to man would be legally protected and available for purchase at RightAid, or caffeine would be a Schedule I controlled substance.

And that’s that.

[lucasa]

[quote]jjackkrash wrote:

For the most part I don’t really have a problem with polygamy between consenting adults, but it raises distinct issues separate from gay marriage. First and foremost, discriminating against polygamists isn’t discriminating against them on the basis of an immutable characteristic in the same way the ban on gay marriage discriminates against homosexuals based on an immutable characteristic. I think this distinction, while perhaps not of central or overriding importance, is, nevertheless, a material and important one.[/quote]

Bullshit, it discriminates against them in the most fundamental and similar ways it discriminates against homosexuals. Especially if you consider both DOMA and Prop 8. If a squad of Marines want to share and confer property, tax status, legal protection, immigration, custody, and hospital visitation before and after death without being burdened with acquiring these privileges individually, how do you grant that privilege to two homosexuals (or heterosexuals) who may never avail themselves of any of them? Let alone, say, two felonious homosexuals or heterosexuals who marry expediently for immigration purposes.

Polygamy also has a history of being used to create sex slaves out of underage girls, so I have objections to the way polygamy has been practiced in the past on the basis of lack of real or legal consent. Gay marriage doesn’t have the same history. Another important even if not an overriding distinction.

Borrowing the argument in kind, polygamy is no more responsible for sexual slavery than gay marriage is for pedophilia (or assault weapons are for mass murder). Polygamy is illegal and sexual slavery is still a problem.

Finally, as a practical matter, the legal bundle of rights–and how the rights get split in the event of a divorce–becomes exponentially more complicated with each person added to the marriage. I’ve been involved in partnership disputes with many partners and its a real legal clusterfuck sometimes. I imaging if kids were involved it might overwhelm the system having to solve these problems especially if the family couldn’t afford legal counsel.

Again, bullshit, corporations of tens to thousands of people perform mergers and splits routinely. When four, six, or eight people divorce, the odds that their kids will get a complete, competent, and full-time set of caregivers is much more likely than when two divorce. Moreover, when the state removes children from an unfit environment, the odds of finding an environment suitable for children is more likely with a wider array of family units.

And, as I said to Legionary, saying “We’d love to change the law but it would just be too tough” and passing moral judgement based on your perception of a sex act puts you in company with centrists (right-leaning liberals and left-leaning conservatives) and Dick Cheney 10-15 yrs. ago, just use the word ‘hedonism’ and you’re set.

I think these and perhaps other reasons I haven’t thought of are sufficient to justify treating polygamy differently than gay marriage, although, again, I really don’t have a problem with polygamy between consenting adults.

Gay marriage has a defense to this, denying someone a right (privilege) because of inconceivable consequences isn’t legal/rational.

I mean really, why should I give a fuck how other people want to organize their family unit, as long as there is true and legal consent?

Exactly, as long as they aren’t harming anyone else.

I should also add. Polygamy converts the distinctions (or parallels depending on POV, I guess) between race, gender and sexual orientation from a ‘liability’ to an ‘asset’. Homosexual marriage, at least in some part, is meant to combat heterosexism. It has repeatedly failed to do so just as affirmative action failed to prevent ‘incidental racism’ before it. You can’t overcome inherent bias or behavior as the result of fact by direct rule of law, you have to fundamentally change the underlying fact. Gay marriage will never be the norm and the assumption that two men with wedding rings in the emergency room aren’t married to one another will prevail based on statistical frequency alone. Only by fundamentally changing the statistics and frequency (which polygamy could do and do quickly) will this inherent bias be removed. Unlike race or gender bias, which you can’t easily inherently change, marriage bias can be inherently changed with the stroke of a pen. Like making everyone mixed race or genderless within a generation or two. I don’t mean to promise a utopia (viral epidemiology certainly gets more difficult), but if only two people get married and 50% of the population is married and 5% of the population is homosexual, it’s reasonable to assume that two (wo)men aren’t married to each other but if 50% of the population is married and, relatively any number of people can be married to one another, the presumptions become null and void.

[thunderbolt23]

[quote]smh23 wrote:

There is no harm done to society or to anybody on the planet by granting two men a marriage license. None.

And that’s what really matters here.[/quote]

I don’t know that you or anyone else can say that definitively - there is a chance it can harm society. Example? It might not be beneficial for kids to be raised in a gay marriage, and enactment of gay marriage would encourage more children to be raised in that structure. Whether this is true is unclear - no one knows. But what we all do know is that experiments can have both positive and negative results. Pro gay-marriage advocates - self-titled rationalists, all - have put on ideological blinders in the name of skipping this most basic observation.

But, that’s an aside to a different point I want to make. Even if a law “doesn’t hurt anyone”, that isn’t a reason to enact it. We pass laws because they (conceivably) further some good for society - we receive some collective “good” based on the public policy of the enacted law.

Even under the assumption that gay marriage doesn’t “hurt” anything, there is no reason to pass such a law (or any law) unless it “helps” something. And it most assuredly does not help society.

Is society better off if gays (generally speaking) are married, as opposed to not married? No.

Is society better off if straight people (generally speaking) are married, as opposed to not? Unquestionably, yes.

There is your difference. It is not an issue for the res publica - it is a solution in search of a public problem.

[lucasa]

[quote]smh23 wrote:

But this discussion is about gay marriage, and whether or not you can find a single reason why the issuance of a marriage license to two consenting adult males does a single ounce of harm to you or to any other citizen of the United States.[/quote]

Then…

[quote]smh23 wrote:

Well, how can we continue to criminalize cocaine if alcohol’s legal?

…

How can we continue to outlaw the sale of the Browing .50 Caliber Machine Gun if we sell semiautomatic rifles?

…

How in God’s good name are we going to deny SNAP benefits to a family of four making $2,499/month when a family of identical size making $2,498/month–a single dollar less–is income eligible?

…

Sophists enjoy pretending that every proposition codified by law must inexorably be brought to its logical conclusion, to hell with questions of degree and magnitude.[/quote]

Slippery slopes aren’t just fallacy. They do exist and sometimes they’re lots of fun!

Declaring those espousing platonic views of marriage as Sophists? How sophisticated of you!

[lucasa]

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

But what we all do know is that experiments can have both positive and negative results. Pro gay-marriage advocates - self-titled rationalists, all - have put on ideological blinders in the name of skipping this most basic observation.[/quote]

I know this was an aside, but I would go even further to say that we all know experiments inherently DO have positive AND negative results. Saying, “Hetero- and homosexual marriage and nothing else. Perfect. Done. No further questions. Debate over.” is patently ideological and borderline pathological. Unless you’re some kind of whacko hard-line Keynesian, exceedingly rare is the occasion when incurred risk is the only negative result, opportunity cost is constant.

There are children of service personnel who are being forced into single-parent families because polygamy is illegal and ‘progressives’ can only conceive of a homosexual ‘right’ to marry.

[smh23]

[quote]lucasa wrote:

[quote]smh23 wrote:

But this discussion is about gay marriage, and whether or not you can find a single reason why the issuance of a marriage license to two consenting adult males does a single ounce of harm to you or to any other citizen of the United States.[/quote]

Then…

[quote]smh23 wrote:

Well, how can we continue to criminalize cocaine if alcohol’s legal?

…

How can we continue to outlaw the sale of the Browing .50 Caliber Machine Gun if we sell semiautomatic rifles?

…

How in God’s good name are we going to deny SNAP benefits to a family of four making $2,499/month when a family of identical size making $2,498/month–a single dollar less–is income eligible?

…

Sophists enjoy pretending that every proposition codified by law must inexorably be brought to its logical conclusion, to hell with questions of degree and magnitude.[/quote]

Slippery slopes aren’t just fallacy. They do exist and sometimes they’re lots of fun!

Declaring those espousing platonic views of marriage as Sophists? How sophisticated of you![/quote]

Nobody is espousing a platonic view of marriage here. If marriage were a platonic matter it would be perfectly suitable for sisters to marry each other.

None of the rest of what you’ve written makes any sense or is any kind of criticism of what I’ve said.