[quote]pushharder wrote:
Why is the number 2 so special? Why should it be protected?[/quote]
Because being married to one person is shitty enough.
Off the top of my head.
Gay marriage benefits:
1.)Promotes adoption, helping the HUGE problem of parentless children. No matter how skeptical you are you must admit that a stable homosexual home is preferable to foster care.
2.)Promotes familial values, such as safe sex, financial responsibility, and a sense of commitment to the community. No matter how you slice it, married people are better citizens.
3.)Decreases amount of resources used. Marriage promotes cohabitation, which is a huge relief on any societies resources.
Those seem like pretty clear benefits?
All of which can apply to polygamists as well.
Someone help me out here…
It seems to me, this really comes down to gays are ‘ruining’ marriage for some heterosexual people. I don’t understand why other groups and orientations being allowed marriage in anyway cheapens your marriage, or the institution as a whole.
Exclusivity does not equate to importance.
Any group of people engaged in cohabitation, and the raising of productive citizens, is good for society and should be afforded some benefits to reflect that.
How can this be disputed?
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Is society better off if gays (generally speaking) are married, as opposed to not married? No.
[/quote]
I don’t mean to excerpt because the rest of your post is worthy of response, but the speculation about whether or not gay marriage might have harmful effects upon, for example, the raising of children is just that: speculation. Change my claim from “harm” to “demonstrable harm” and this particular objection is circumvented. I will say, though, that I do believe that every single person engaged in this conversation knows intuitively that two happily-married, good people with stable finances will in general raise children well regardless of the number of penises they have between them. I also think that if it becomes the business of the government to grant marriage licenses to people based upon statistical assumptions regarding sociological data–which is not to concede that the said data does in fact work against gays, because that is far from true–then we’ll be approaching utilitarian tyranny.
As for the piece I quoted, which is more or less the heart of your objection–which is that extension of marriage rights is frivolous because it does not confer benefit to society.
I disagree, for the following reasons:
Full joint adoption of children by same-sex couples is currently legal in twenty states (with a number of others that allow essentially the kind of thing). The benefit conferred by marriage upon children who are raised under its aegis has been documented to the point that it is just about self-evident. Since kids living with gay parents aren’t going to be whisked away by the state “because we just don’t have all the data yet” anytime soon, the best way to ensure that they’re given the same chances of happiness, health, and success as their peers being raised by “normal” parents is to ensure that they’re given the same damn chances and let their parents marry.
It is in the clear interest of the state to encourage the normalcy and stability that is realized by monogamous marriage. Every new HIV infection costs the public hundreds of thousands of dollars. Married people–gay or straight–are tremendously less likely to contract HIV and other sexually transmitted infections than are unmarried people.
And lastly–if a bunch of people really want to do something, and the allowing them to do it poses no demonstrable harm to anybody else in the country, then let them have at it. Do I agree with you that it’s frivolous? In certain ways, though I stand steadfastly by the claim that it’s clearly in the state’s interest to encourage monogamy and stability.
But either way, if the opposition to gay marriage is honestly reducible to, “it’s frivolous,” then it’s all over already, isn’t it? Surely it’s frivolous to continue fighting against something that does no demonstrable harm to anybody and that is only objectionable by virtue of the fact that it’s frivolous. And anyways, I’m sure you’ve watched C-SPAN. If frivolity were extracted from politics, most politicians would have nothing to say at all.
It seems odd to go after frivolity the one time that it is something that a significant group of people actually care about, whether you approve of that care or not. If frivolity were anywhere close to the worst characteristic you could come across in contemporary politics, we’d be much better off.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]smh23 wrote:
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.[/quote]
Who cares? This is about love.[/quote]
A single line mocking a point of view that I haven’t espoused doesn’t excuse you from coming to terms with substance.
Your argument is that gay marriage represents a slippery slope.
My retort is that the slippery slope argument is impotent by virtue of the fact that it is universally applicable and with an impressive amount of consistency, bullshit.
Tell me why the slippery slope argument in which you have oh-so-much faith does not compel you to fight for alcohol prohibition. Tell me why it hasn’t brought on universal welfare benefits and the legal sale of heavy machine guns. Surely–surely–the jump from monogamy to nonmonogamy is infinitely greater than the jump from $2,498 to $2,499.
Deal, in other words, with this:
But you won’t, because you can’t. Because the slippery slope argument is meretricious nonsense and its often a veil for some other kind of objection.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]iVoodoo wrote:
Off the top of my head.
Gay marriage benefits:
1.)Promotes adoption, helping the HUGE problem of parentless children. No matter how skeptical you are you must admit that a stable homosexual home is preferable to foster care.
[/quote]
This is pure speculation on your part. You have no freaking idea how it will turn out. How could you when gay marriage is illegal in 41 states and too young in the other nine?
You can only base ANY of that on heterosexual marriages. You’re just hoping and wishing, Dorothy, that Oz really is down at the end of that yellow brick road.
Oh good grief.
You betcha. Not just polygamists but corporate groups of all sorts.
It’s not. It’s ruining it for society in general. The man and woman being the smallest, most efficient, most exemplary family unit to build a strong, robust society is simply being mocked. That’s all this really is – mockery.
[/quote]
Good god.
“Uhhhhh, well, marriage is awesome for society. It allows people to live longer, it allows children to flourish, it is economically desirable, it discourages the spread of sexually transmitted infections, and it encourages fiscal responsibility. But that’s only because there’s one penis and one vagina. It’s a special combo. If you upset the balance by throwing in two penises, you’ll disrupt the delicate Qi and the magical marriage-cauldron will bubble over. And then you won’t get any of the benefits. Sorryyyyy.”
No. If you’re going to argue that marriage is not going to confer the benefits upon gays that it confers upon heterosexuals–despite the fact that I’m pretty sure you’re not that dumb and instead are simply holding on for dear life at this point so as to avoid having to walk back after a battle lost–then I’m sure we’re all interested to hear the line of reasoning that brought you there.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
Vouching for monogamy’s benefits by citing THE most promiscuous demographic there is? Priceless.[/quote]
College girls?
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]smh23 wrote:
Your argument is that gay marriage represents a slippery slope.
My retort is that the slippery slope argument is impotent by virtue of the fact that it is universally applicable and with an impressive amount of consistency, bullshit…
[/quote]
Really now? Impotent, huh?
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/301
[/quote]
Hahahaha. Oh lord. As if something out of Brussels has any bearing on any of this.
This is the United States. The issues I presented are slippery slopes. Why aren’t we slipping down them, huh?
Or would you rather run around looking for evidence that Europeans are comfortable with sexual and social experimentation?
Again: address substance or give in. This flailing is beginning to become strange.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]smh23 wrote:
Your argument is that gay marriage represents a slippery slope.
My retort is that the slippery slope argument is impotent by virtue of the fact that it is universally applicable and with an impressive amount of consistency, bullshit…
[/quote]
Really now? Impotent, huh?
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/301
[/quote]
From the link.
"It is not Marriage
Submitted by aka1 on Wed, 2006-09-27 16:44.
Marriage is not an institution or a design of the State or of mankind for that matter. The Designer of marriage is the Creator of heaven and earth.
In Genesis 1 God brought all things into existance. In Genesis 2 we have a detailed view of the creation of mankind. Adam realizes, as he names the animalkind, that there is not one like him. Upon this realization, God creates for him Eve. Then God pronouces their union, and the pattern for mankind ever after, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his WIFE, and they shall become one flesh.” (Gen. 2:24).
God did not give Adam the choice to have a male OR female OR both OR other. God made a woman for the man. The apostle Paul also teaches, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that marriage is a picture of the unity Christians (the Church, also called the Bride of Christ) are to have with Christ.
We can believe all we want about making marriage any combination of people we want, but we deceive only ourselves if we think that anything other than God’s design is going to please Him. Those who want other than God’s will are pleasing only their flesh and carnal nature.
Homosexual marriage is not going to lower the rate of HIV/AIDS cases, adultery, abortion, or divorce. In America, the gay-marriage issue is not about being treated equal, or marrying the one you love, it is about trying destroy the family and rebel against God (like that ever ends well). I believe I have read that in those European countries where homosexual marriage is legal that the marriage rates for the country decline, while the rate of cohabitating couples increase. That seems to indicate that the homosexual marriage agenda isn’t really about getting married after all.
God is not mocked, if we sow to the wind we will reap the whirlwind."
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]iVoodoo wrote:
Off the top of my head.
Gay marriage benefits:
1.)Promotes adoption, helping the HUGE problem of parentless children. No matter how skeptical you are you must admit that a stable homosexual home is preferable to foster care.
[/quote]
This is pure speculation on your part. You have no freaking idea how it will turn out. How could you when gay marriage is illegal in 41 states and too young in the other nine?
You can only base ANY of that on heterosexual marriages. You’re just hoping and wishing, Dorothy, that Oz really is down at the end of that yellow brick road.
Oh good grief.
You betcha. Not just polygamists but corporate groups of all sorts.
It’s not. It’s ruining it for society in general. The man and woman being the smallest, most efficient, most exemplary family unit to build a strong, robust society is simply being mocked. That’s all this really is – mockery.
[/quote]
Well, it’s my assumptions vs. yours then…
I suppose we’ll see who’s proven right some day.
Maybe though, something that fails as often as it succeeds, deserves a bit of mockery.