[quote]
BostonBarrister wrote:
Yes, but the baseline assumption is you need to prove your accusation. Your reasons were all conclusions that included your assumptions without proving them or relied on the “If A then B equals if B then A” logical fallacy.
CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
No, my logic was “If A equals B, than B may equal A”, and have since been pointing out my reasons for believing that, in this case, B equals A.
Just because B does not always equal A does not mean that B never equals A. This is a fallacy in itself.[/quote]
I didn’t say it couldn’t be. I said you have the burden of proof - and you can deduce that I mean you haven’t met it. Your reasons rotate around the fact you think it’s true that bigotry is the cause. I cannot recall one independent fact - that does not involve assuming discrimination as a cause - that you’ve cited as evidence for the conclusion that bigotry is the cause; but please feel free to re-post if I’m mistaken.
[quote]
BostonBarrister wrote:
We’re not assuming the cause from the result again, are we? It’s no wonder we end up with quotas out of good intentions… I blame the public schools.
CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
No, we’re rightly assuming that bigotry will often be covered by other “rational motives” that are, in fact, actually irrational. Hence I pointed out all the double standard logic used against same sex marriage.[/quote]
Which is assuming your cause, given that your conclusion is that bigotry is the cause and you have no independent evidence of causation.
[quote]
BostonBarrister wrote:
Another bad analogy to race. Aside from the fact that race and sexual preference/gender aren’t analogous, what was the separate, non-racial and rational reason for the grandfather clause laws?
CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
I dont know, what was?[/quote]
There wasn’t one - that’s the reason the analogy is flawed.
[quote]
CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
The benefit can promote mixed-gender and same gender unions, to the same benefit for all. There is no rational reason to disallow the latter as it does not affect the former.
BostonBarrister wrote:
You keep mistaking stating your conclusions for making a persuasive argument.
CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
How would allowing same sex marriage or domestic partnerships for same sex couples interfere with marriage between mixed-sex couples?[/quote]
See the linked articles in my post above.
[quote]
BostonBarrister wrote:
These are all irrelevant to the question of whether the government has a rational basis to hand out a benefit to support mixed-gender couples that will tend to produce children.
CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
They are relevant to the question of if the government has the right to withold that same benefit from couples that tend to not produce or involve children.[/quote]
No they aren’t. The government does have the right to set limitations on eligibility for any particular benefit. The question is whether it is illegal/unconstitutional to exercise it in a particular case. And the questions were bad analogies, because they weren’t the same from the government’s perspective - both in terms of the effort of discovering the characteristics and in terms of possible effects on what the government is trying to promote with the benefit.
[quote]
BostonBarrister wrote:
The relevant question is that, in the aggregate, across society, is the policy reasonably likely to have the desired effect: the encouragement of the formation and survival of those unions.
CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
Again, allowing same sex couples the same benefits would not have a negative impact on enouraging the formation and survival of different sex couples.
BostonBarrister wrote:
Again, you keep mistaking stating your conclusions for making a persuasive argument.
CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
You keep saying that, as though making predicitions that people will suddenly be marrying sheep is a persuasive argument and not stating a conclusion.[/quote]
Who has made any conclusion about people marrying sheep? Of course, if marriage were defined Constitutionally as an individual right (which is has not been, FYI), then the burden of proof would switch to the government to prove that any restriction it had in mind was both necessary for an important government purpose and the least restrictive manner to accomplish that purpose, so one could imagine some interesting scenarios…
But for now, recall, the burden of proof is on your accusation - the government is exercising a legitimate right to set limits on a tax benefit. You need to prove that its reasons are irrational bigotry.
For this particular point, you’d need to prove - or at the very least show convincingly - that there would not be a negative effect.
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
Consider the fact that the government doesnt need to control the marriage habits of the sterile or infertile or impotent; even with those minorities in the picture, marriage benefits (as you said) still give just as much incentive and help to child rearing couples.
BostonBarrister wrote:
You’re going against your own point. Your point was that the fact the government didn’t stop sterile/infertile people from marrying proved the government was bigoted against homosexuals and did not care about promoting different-gendered couples for child-rearing purposes. That was and is flatly incorrect.
CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
No, my point was that promoting the formation of family units between citizens promotes child-rearing couples, EVEN IF that includes some couples that are inherently/generally non-child-rearing, as the elderly and sterile/infertile already are.[/quote]
That’s irrelevant to the specific question of whether allowing same-sex marriages might work at cross purposes to what the government is trying to encourage with the benefit, which is the promotion of the formation and survival of mixed-gender marriages that, across society, have a tendency to result in children.
[quote]
CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
Now, consider that homosexuals are what…6? 8 percent of the population? Also, the number of homosexuals who have kids from adoption or previous relationships… wouldnt gays just be another minority that has no bearing on the government helping people who want to have kids?
BostonBarrister wrote:
Again, the purpose is not “helping people who want to have kids” - it is encouraging, across society, the formation and survival a type of union that tends to produce children.
CappedAndPlanIt wrote
And that type of union would still be encouraged.[/quote]
That’s assuming your main conclusion.
[quote]
BostonBarrister wrote:
So, first, same-sex unions don’t qualify for the purpose. Second, if there is a rational basis to believe same-sex marriages would negatively affect the purpose, that is even more reason to keep them separate.
CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
What, besides personal bigotry on the part of people who would refuse to marry on the grounds that homosexuals now could, would be the “rational basis” to believe same-sex marriages would negatively affect the encouragment of citizens forming family units? This is the “rational basis” you’ve still yet to come close to proving, but, rather, keep stating your conclusions as though they are persuasive arguments.[/quote]
You’re mistaking the burden of proof - you need to prove the irrationality. The government does not need to prove its position is rational when it’s exercising its legitimate power - legally, it’s your job to prove the opposite. FYI, it’s a pretty tall order to prove something is irrational without proof that it’s based in unconstitutional bigotry - which you can’t just assume.
BTW, have you read the linked articles from the other post yet? I think there is a rational basis to worry about the effect on mixed-gender marriages - and it’s because they’re hard, and require adults to look past their own interests/desires in a lot of cases.
And before you make the claim, I’m not claiming anything at all about what same-sex marriages would be like, because it’s irrelevant.
[quote]
CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
The government has a rational reason to promote the practice of citizens forming social units, since they tend to lead to children. Promoting such formations, even in the minority cases where they do not produce children, encourages such practices.[/quote]
I never said it didn’t have a rational reason for promoting social units - though I’d probably be a bit more specific than that. Not just any social unit would lead to children. Some paramilitary mens club organizing as a social unit for tax benefits wouldn’t result in children, for example. It’s pretty much a given I agree with promoting other at least one other social unit if I support some form of domestic partnership for same-sex couples.
So, let’s summarize:
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Only one type of social unit tends to result in children, in the aggregate across society: mixed gender social units.
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If the government decides, on a rational basis, that it has a particular interest in promoting the formation and survival of that type of union, it’s well within its rights to do so.
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So unless you can prove that the government is promoting mixed-gender couples particularly because the government is bigoted against gays, rather than because it has a particular interest in promoting the formation and survival of mixed-gender couples, then the government is within its rights and thus its reason is “rational.”
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Because of this burden of disproving that the government is rational, you have the sub-problem of proving that simply changing marriage to open it up to same-sex couples would not harm the government’s objective of promoting the formation and survival of mixed-gender couples.
After you read the linked articles from my post above, we can start a separate discussion on why a lot of people think it might lead to a lesser number of mixed-gender marriages - suffice it to say, it’s not because people think that heterosexuals would react along the lines of “Gross, gays are marrying? I don’t want to do something gays are allowed to do…”
