Gay Marriage

[lucasa]

[quote]smh23 wrote:

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.[/quote]

1.) Wow are you dumb and 2.) I’m pretty sure you’re wrong.

First, the idea behind marriage is (or was) to create a biological family from non-familial biology, a means of continuing the bloodline as it were. Almost regardless of the religion and civilization the idea was to generate and propagate the inherent privileges enjoyed by family members to non-family members. Nobody’s supporting the idea that one sister marry another because siblings enjoy most of the ‘rights’ of marriage without the institution. An exclusively sibling marriage would be largely, if not wholly, redundant. Additionally, the illegal ACT of incest refers strictly to the sex, often regardless and/or in spite of marriage. I could go on about the assumptions of sex, incest, and marriage in Western Culture, but I think you have (at least in this situation) an inherently non-platonic POV and would misunderstand or misinterpret much of what I would say.

2.) As I said, and I think others agree. If a military unit consisted of two brothers, their sister, and nine other service members, and they all wanted to get married, a(n obviously polygamous) marriage of all of them would be completely permissible. Until a kid pops up with two identical X chromosomes or an X and Y identical to their dad’s, there’s no evidence of a crime. Many States currently have laws on the books that identify (and convict on) incest despite an obvious lack of genetic or clinical evidence of harm according to those definitions (e.g. consensual sex between an adult woman and her adult Uncle by marriage). Further, we don’t/can’t deny non-incestuous couples the right to marry even though we may know the coupling to cause harmful or even fatal disease to their offspring, why the presumption of guilt with ones arbitrarily defined as incestuous? Some may consider it morally repugnant, but, as gay marriage is teaching or has taught us, some moral repugnance (even a lot) is hardly grounds for “denying the fundamental right to marriage”.

[xXSeraphimXx]

[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?

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.

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.

3.)Decreases amount of resources used. Marriage promotes cohabitation, which is a huge relief on any societies resources.

Oh good grief.

Those seem like pretty clear benefits?
All of which can apply to polygamists as well.

You betcha. Not just polygamists but corporate groups of all sorts.

It seems to me, this really comes down to gays are ‘ruining’ marriage for some heterosexual people.

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]

Point 1 and 2, are there not already children being raised by homosexual parents? I do not like bringing up personal examples as someone will always say it is the exception but, I have known a few people who were raised by gay couples and all have turned out just fine.

[smh23]

[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]

http://www.bakpakguide.com/europe/traveltips/backpacking-101/how-to-do-drugs-in-amsterdam.shtml#.UVUmHhxQG8A

I trust that now that I’ve provided you with a single example of a slide toward moral laxity with regard to legal and illegal intoxicants, you’ll join me in pushing for alcohol prohibition.

It’s already been established by me, and gone completely uncontested by you, that alcohol poses not only a “slippery slope” danger but that the pharmacological differences between alcohol and cocaine are at the very least comparable to, but in reality extremely less consequential than, the social differences between gay marriage and polygamy.

So, I trust you’ll join me in pushing for prohibition?

No?

Why?

Ah. Because the sale of alcohol doesn’t necessarily prefigure hard drug distribution. Because there is nothing inevitable about a slippery slope, and most of them are bullshit anyway.

[smh23]

[quote]lucasa wrote:

[quote]smh23 wrote:

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.[/quote]

1.) Wow are you dumb and 2.) I’m pretty sure you’re wrong.

First, the idea behind marriage is (or was) to create a biological family from non-familial biology, a means of continuing the bloodline as it were. Almost regardless of the religion and civilization the idea was to generate and propagate the inherent privileges enjoyed by family members to non-family members. Nobody’s supporting the idea that one sister marry another because siblings enjoy most of the ‘rights’ of marriage without the institution. An exclusively sibling marriage would be largely, if not wholly, redundant. Additionally, the illegal ACT of incest refers strictly to the sex, often regardless and/or in spite of marriage. I could go on about the assumptions of sex, incest, and marriage in Western Culture, but I think you have (at least in this situation) an inherently non-platonic POV and would misunderstand or misinterpret much of what I would say.

2.) As I said, and I think others agree. If a military unit consisted of two brothers, their sister, and nine other service members, and they all wanted to get married, a(n obviously polygamous) marriage of all of them would be completely permissible. Until a kid pops up with two identical X chromosomes or an X and Y identical to their dad’s, there’s no evidence of a crime. Many States currently have laws on the books that identify (and convict on) incest despite an obvious lack of genetic or clinical evidence of harm according to those definitions (e.g. consensual sex between an adult woman and her adult Uncle by marriage). Further, we don’t/can’t deny non-incestuous couples the right to marry even though we may know the coupling to cause harmful or even fatal disease to their offspring, why the presumption of guilt with ones arbitrarily defined as incestuous? Some may consider it morally repugnant, but, as gay marriage is teaching or has taught us, some moral repugnance (even a lot) is hardly grounds for “denying the fundamental right to marriage”.
[/quote]

What?

Take a look at the arguments that have been unfolding. You jumped in in the middle of one, quoting a post of mine which was directed at a very specific anti-marriage-equality argument. I’m happy to argue with you, but none of this so much as approximates a reasonable entry into the discussion.

[smh23]

[quote]lucasa wrote:

1.) Wow are you dumb
[/quote]

Also, and judging by the quality of the post that followed this scintillating exemplar of skill in debate, and by the quality of your just-barely-intelligible, maybe-English-isn’t-his-first-language “Harvey Milk High School” rant the other day, I suspect that I was just called black by a teapot.

[smh23]

[quote]iVoodoo wrote:

Well, it’s my assumptions vs. yours then…

[/quote]

Not really. Your assumptions are far, far, far more reasonable and far more easily arrived-at by logic than his are.

[Severiano]

[quote]smh23 wrote:

[quote]lucasa wrote:

1.) Wow are you dumb
[/quote]

Also, and judging by the quality of the post that followed this scintillating exemplar of skill in debate, and by the quality of your just-barely-intelligible, maybe-English-isn’t-his-first-language “Harvey Milk High School” rant the other day, I suspect that I was just called black by a teapot.[/quote]

He’s right, not that you are dumb obviously but his argument highlights a certain point. Just because something can happen with one group, you don’t penalize that group if the base group already has the same problem.

Take marriage in the Military for example. You get hitched and you qualify for things like base housing and some other benefits, and guess what? Folks get married FOR those benefits, and it may be platonic.

Just because this happens it doesn’t make it an argument against potential homosexual folks getting married, since the base group already has this problem, you have to assume the other groups will have the same problem. But YOU CANT, it is absolutely ignorant to claim this is an argument against gay marriage. It’s a argument that highlights a problem with all marriages.

It’s not a reasonable thing to deny people rights for what they might do, especially when there are other people who are already doing that thing you fear. Hope that helps clear up the reasoning. Cheers and hope this makes sense.

[lucasa]

[quote]smh23 wrote:

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]

I wouldn’t presume to know push’s answer, but it’s a well known fact (see any of various national institutes of health and/or major journals/reports on sexual health and/or major journals/reports on violence and crime) that homosexuals suffer domestic abuse and suicide differently and in larger proportional numbers than heterosexuals and that these issues persist even in countries that are and ‘traditionally’ have been more tolerant.

Additionally, heterosexism (the belief, without malice, that heterosexuality is the norm because, well, more people are heterosexual) persists regardless of the status of homosexual marriage. The only ways to overcome heterosexism with regard to marriage would be compulsory homosexual quotas to ‘normalize’ the population or to entirely cleave sexuality from marriage in a platonic plural fashion so that the definition of one man and one woman becomes and irrelevant assumption compared to everything else.

It’s bit of a known fact that homosexuals need to bring their marriage license to the emergency room while heterosexuals do not even though hospitals have policies designed to prevent discrimination based on orientation. Homosexuality just isn’t usual enough in the arbitrary Bayesian filter most people use to decide if a relationship is usual or unusual.

Hell, it wouldn’t surprise me one iota if you tore into customized spam filters of open homosexuals and found the filters are heterosexist/anti-homosexual (kinda immaterial for a machine who has no intent or no intent other than blocking spam). Further, it wouldn’t surprise me if those same individuals preferred it that way (I think I just found a project for this weekend).

EDIT: Speaking to the last paragraph, (apparently) heterosexual women claim civil rights violations when Siri can’t find Planned Parenthood or an abortion clinic, nobody has a problem with Siri’s insane ability to find strip clubs and escort services, and everybody gets a chuckle when you ask Siri about lesbian bars/hangouts and she finds Subaru dealerships.

[lucasa]

[quote]Legionary wrote:

College girls?[/quote]

Technically, it’s usually the boys. For exclusively paired (as in one sex act involves only two people) heterosexual individuals and acts, it should be obvious that the girls can be no more promiscuous than the boys.

Really boring people and their rules aside, the numbers come down to %age of members willing to participate in sex with the members of the gender and the general tendency of the members to consume that capacity. Women generally have the higher capacity but men generally tend toward higher consumption. More men and women want to have sex with women, but more men and women tend to actually have sex with more men.

All those boring people and rules aside, the only wildcard would be large very lopsided-gender sex acts where inconsistencies in definition can creep in, for example, a woman might perceive herself as being engaged sexually with two men and non-sexually with two men while all four may be perceived as being sexually engaged with the woman.

Your answer certainly represents desire, but not practice.

[lucasa]

[quote]iVoodoo wrote:

Maybe though, something that fails as often as it succeeds, deserves a bit of mockery.[/quote]

More people have died forcing agnostic equality on people or having agnostic equality forced upon them in the last century than all the other man-made causes of death combined. Religion’s bloodiest historical moments were done to make other people’s beliefs equal to their own.

[lucasa]

[quote]smh23 wrote:

[quote]lucasa wrote:

1.) Wow are you dumb
[/quote]

Also, and judging by the quality of the post that followed this scintillating exemplar of skill in debate, and by the quality of your just-barely-intelligible, maybe-English-isn’t-his-first-language “Harvey Milk High School” rant the other day, I suspect that I was just called black by a teapot.[/quote]

Wait are we getting ready to go down an ad hominem slippery slope or do those not exist?

Now, since you clipped the rest of the post and didn’t really make any counter arguments; were we discussing the fallacy of slippery slopes, cocaine and firearms, or non-traditional marriage?

[smh23]

[quote]lucasa wrote:

[quote]smh23 wrote:

[quote]lucasa wrote:

1.) Wow are you dumb
[/quote]

Also, and judging by the quality of the post that followed this scintillating exemplar of skill in debate, and by the quality of your just-barely-intelligible, maybe-English-isn’t-his-first-language “Harvey Milk High School” rant the other day, I suspect that I was just called black by a teapot.[/quote]

Wait are we getting ready to go down an ad hominem slippery slope or do those not exist?

Now, since you clipped the rest of the post and didn’t really make any counter arguments; were we discussing the fallacy of slippery slopes, cocaine and firearms, or non-traditional marriage?
[/quote]

You haven’t presented to me a single cogent thought in counterargument, so no, we’re not.

[lucasa]

[quote]smh23 wrote:

[quote]lucasa wrote:

Wait are we getting ready to go down an ad hominem slippery slope or do those not exist?

Now, since you clipped the rest of the post and didn’t really make any counter arguments; were we discussing the fallacy of slippery slopes, cocaine and firearms, or non-traditional marriage?
[/quote]

You haven’t presented to me a single cogent thought in counterargument, so no, we’re not.[/quote]

Umm… I can’t post a counter-argument to non-arguments. I previously posted an argument and you chose to focus on ad hominem attacks. When I attempted to steer the discussion back to the topic(s) at hand you declined. I can only assume you’re either unable to understand or address the issues I raised

(Hint: They were numbered 1, 2, first, second… you chose to focus on the largely irrelevant number 1.) Sisters don’t want/need to marry and/or effectively are married is wrong because… You’re really not defending your cause very well if I have to drag you to it.

[groo]

[quote]lucasa wrote:

[quote]smh23 wrote:

[quote]lucasa wrote:

Wait are we getting ready to go down an ad hominem slippery slope or do those not exist?

Now, since you clipped the rest of the post and didn’t really make any counter arguments; were we discussing the fallacy of slippery slopes, cocaine and firearms, or non-traditional marriage?
[/quote]

You haven’t presented to me a single cogent thought in counterargument, so no, we’re not.[/quote]

Umm… I can’t post a counter-argument to non-arguments. I previously posted an argument and you chose to focus on ad hominem attacks. When I attempted to steer the discussion back to the topic(s) at hand you declined. I can only assume you’re either unable to understand or address the issues I raised

(Hint: They were numbered 1, 2, first, second… you chose to focus on the largely irrelevant number 1.) Sisters don’t want/need to marry and/or effectively are married is wrong because… You’re really not defending your cause very well if I have to drag you to it.[/quote]

Think a bit about cause and effect. If I were to call you an intellectually deficient dwarf in my point one it might color any response you give to me. As well if later I were to decry the terrible way our argument devolved into mudslinging I’d not only be a hypocrite I’d be a bit of a fucking moron no?

[lucasa]

[quote]groo wrote:

Think a bit about cause and effect.[/quote]

Um, okay. Determinism, live with it or don’t. Thanks.

If I were to call you an intellectually deficient dwarf in my point one it might color any response you give to me. As well if later I were to decry the terrible way our argument devolved into mudslinging I’d not only be a hypocrite I’d be a bit of a fucking moron no?

What if I were to declare a putative argument or even an honest assertion, rather inherently, a fallacy and then execute the phenomenon I declared fallacious to a t? Would that be hypocritical? What if, while executing the phenomenon I claimed were fallacious, I repeatedly refuted, declared pointless, and mocked those who posited it? What if, I was largely unaware or misunderstanding of the fact that the assertions (that I was declaring as fallacious) being presented weren’t being presented speciously or spuriously but as an honest and pretty obvious solution or compromise to a wider a variety of problems that everyone wholly acknowledges exist and need solving?

At what point do I slide down the slope from being specious or contrary to obtuse and dumb?

[smh23]

[quote]lucasa wrote:

[quote]smh23 wrote:

[quote]lucasa wrote:

Wait are we getting ready to go down an ad hominem slippery slope or do those not exist?

Now, since you clipped the rest of the post and didn’t really make any counter arguments; were we discussing the fallacy of slippery slopes, cocaine and firearms, or non-traditional marriage?
[/quote]

You haven’t presented to me a single cogent thought in counterargument, so no, we’re not.[/quote]

Umm… I can’t post a counter-argument to non-arguments. I previously posted an argument and you chose to focus on ad hominem attacks. When I attempted to steer the discussion back to the topic(s) at hand you declined. I can only assume you’re either unable to understand or address the issues I raised

(Hint: They were numbered 1, 2, first, second… you chose to focus on the largely irrelevant number 1.) Sisters don’t want/need to marry and/or effectively are married is wrong because… You’re really not defending your cause very well if I have to drag you to it.[/quote]

People tend to respond to direct and unwarranted insults to their intelligence. Just one of those things.

As for the rest of it: take a look at what Push and TB have been writing in this thread. I don’t agree with them, but their arguments and mine are of the same nature and stripe, i.e. they get at the same logical and/or evidential propositions, and this are appropriate to each other and to this debate.

An example, our first contact in this thread:

[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]

You said, in other words, nothing.

From there, I made the point to you that you were misguided in using the term “platonic” with a throwaway line that included the example of two sisters marrying each other, which never had a shred of relevance to my actual argument in this thread, which is about slippery slopes. And yet it was the “platonic” red herring–introduced originally, of course, by you yourself–that caught your eye, despite the fact that it’s not a central or even a remotely peripheral part of anybody’s argument in this entire thread. And so you decided to compose a couple of rambling, just-barely-intelligible posts designed to refute the then in an if…then proposition whose if is dead wrong by anybody’s reasonable definition of marriage, right or left [which, in case you’re not getting this, obviates the need to fight over the then].

In closing, the arguments that I’ve made are here for you to see. If you post a cogent criticism of the substance of one of them, as other have done, then I’ll respond. Otherwise, this thread is already taking up too much time and it simply isn’t worth it for me to box with somebody who thinks he showed up for a pole vault.