ZEB, since you are so quick to forget, I’ve compiled a list of how I’ve made points to counter you and Lorisco, and your subsequent responses. As you’ll see, it’s a very frustrating exercise trying to keep the two of you within the boundaries of reasonability. For those wishing to verify my points, all direct quotations of ZEB and myself can be found in this thread. For the sake of completeness, some quotes are drawn directly from sources I posted earlier. At any rate…
SOME VERY GOOD REASONS FOR SAME SEX MARRIAGE (SSM):
ZEB said (quite recently):
/----------
“But I think that the pro gay marriage crowd needs desperately to find at least one good reason FOR gay marriage, which so far they have been unable to do.”
----------/
I posted these much earlier (others have posted similar sentiments to these, and more as well) and yet I have not seen anything addressing these points from the anti-SSM side:
/----------
"- marriage would conceivably prevent the transmission of STD in the gay population in that these vows would be not only socially upheld, but legally upheld as well.
-
health benefits that cover spouses would be extended to gay couples, thus also decreasing the risks of spreading STDs in the population.
-
provide stability in society by creating more instances of the primary or core family unit (2 adults who are both able to provide for the direct caring and raising of children while earning a living through employment) who could then go on and adopt otherwise orphaned children.
-
the effect of legally sanctioned unions between same sex partners would have a “normalizing” effect on the gay population as a whole and thus help to bridge the gap in understanding/association between homosexuals and non-homosexuals in general, while doing much to curb rates of the higher-risk lifestyles associated with homosexual populations at large."
----------/
ON COMPARING SAME-SEX MARRIAGES TO OTHER GROUPS:
ZEB countered the pro-SSM side’s argument that not granting rights to same-sex marriage is tantamount to discrimination with the following:
/----------
“If your comparison is correct then tell me why Polygamists should not have the right to marry how ever many people they choose? They are being discriminated against are they not?”
----------/
To which I had pre-emptively countered:
/----------
"in a legalized union, there is supposed to be equality, a sharing of all resources, but how is it possible to begin ensuring that all members of a polygamous marriage are protected equally if the relationship is hinged upon one point (usually the lone male) with all other parties (usually multiple women of varying ages, appearances, abilities, etc.) held together by this one, and therefore more inherently valuable, male “linch-pin”?
“No, polygamy by it’s very definition is not about equality at all and therefore cannot possibly be equated to any monogamous relationship (homosexual or otherwise).”
----------/
I might also like to add at this time that incest, a monogamous relationship between two closely-related individuals, is categorically wrong because of the fact that continual practice of incest will result in children being born with increasing genetic maladies and defects–incest is an unethical practice if practiced on any sort of multi-generational scale. To make a legal exception for only one couple and then not their children and then their children’s children is illogical.
But perhaps jsbrooks summarized it best:
/----------
“Here is an argument for society as a whole: we are better off as a nation and in keeping with our principles of liberty and equality when every non-criminal citizen has the same legal rights.”
----------/
And I think this source encapsulates what both jsbrooks and I are trying to say:
http://legal-dictionary.thefre…
http://legal-dictionary.thefre…
Polygamy and incest are considered criminally punishable offences, so it just makes no sense to allow legal benefits to extend to those unions.
At this time, luckily, simply being the same sex as someone else isn’t a crime–at least, I couldn’t find any sources saying that the act of being same sex as someone else is a crime.
So why does then follow that it is illegal for two people of the same sex to enjoy the same priviledges as two people who are of opposite sexes? No crime is committed!
If I stand next to another male, if I embrace him, hold him, tell him that I love him, provide support, encouragement, protection, advice, work together with him, live in the same dwelling, eat the same food as him, go shopping with him, etc. I have committed no crime. You could even be so bold as to say the same thing for two women.
Yes, some States have laws about consensual sodomy, but that has no bearing on whether or not we should allow two women or two men to be married–one man and one woman are as equally capable of committing the same crime of sodomy and yet they are allowed to marry. Additionally, homosexual males have recourse to oral sex, and external stimulation (hand job) to gratify each other sexually–so there is no presumption that the Government is somehow implicated as being in support of sodomy. In fact, two homosexual women are even less-likely than heterosexual couples to commit this crime.
http://legal-dictionary.thefre…
However, after all that is said and done, regarding the relevance of ZEB’s point in the first place, the onus isn’t even on the pro-side to prove that incest and polygamy shouldn’t be practiced because the pro-side can effectively counter the comparison by saying, “Sure, we discriminate against those people too–maybe they should have marriage rights as well.”
The anti-SSM side might then counter in the exact same way that the pro-SSM side does, by stating the illegality of those acts as currently defined by law… but it wouldn’t apply to the act of being the same sex.
The pro-side is not concerned about polygamists or those who engage in incest. The pro-side only cares about making same-sex marriage legal. Those who practice polygamy, incest, or sodomy are already addressed by separate and unique laws. SSM is not adequately addressed by law… yet.
ON DISCRIMINATION BASED ON RACE AND GENDER VERSUS SEXUAL BEHAVIOUR:
ZEB and others have ridiculed my use of the NAACP, but they do not understand why I quoted them as a source in the first place. Perhaps they will understand from the following.
ZEB said:
/----------
“Any comparison to African Americans struggle for equality is an insult to Blacks everywhere. And the same goes for the womens suffrage movement, before you go there.”
----------/
But ZEB’s personal notion of what constitutes an insult flies in complete contradiction to this, taken directly from the NAACP website from an article dated November 23, 2005:
/----------
“Speaking before Maryland’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) civil rights organization, Bond [the NAACP Chairman of the Board] said that marriage is a fundamental institution of civilization…”
“People of color ought to be flattered that our movement has provided so much inspiration for others, that it has been so widely imitated, and that our tactics, methods, heroines and heroes, even our songs, have been appropriated by or served as models for others.”
----------/
Now, if anyone wishes to still counter that the NAACP has no authority to speak when it comes to “African Americans struggle for equality” then I would like to hear from other African American sources equally or better equipped to speak about the “struggle for equality”. No one has provided any better source of this representation than I have to this point.
As I see it, and have presented throughout my other posts, there is much to be compared between various “struggles” for equal and fair treatment, whether they have been based on gender, race, or sexual orientation.
But granting my own bias, perhaps ZEB still does have a point in saying that race and gender are different from sexual orientation in that it is a behaviour, something that due to its changeable nature, cannot be used as a basis for discrimination.
Well, let me first clarify that the issue at hand, as it is presented to the courts, is about SAME-SEX marriage, and not just gay marriage. Yes, perhaps the vast majority of people who are seeking same-sex marriage are gay, but it erroneous to believe that they are the only ones involved in this issue–there is another population that is as equally interested in the outcome of this battle, and they are transgendered people. For those possibly confused by the term “transgendered”, this refers to all persons who have or are currently undergoing a biological and psychological process whereby their gender identity has been changed. I have tried to use the example transgendered individual’s to show that ZEB’s (and other people’s) notions of defining marriage as being “one man and one woman” is still sorely lacking when it comes to real world application.
ZEB said:
/----------
"In this case you want to take an infinitesimal example of some sort of mistake at birth and turn it into a reason to sanction gay marriage.
I would wager that every reader will recognize the weakness of your pro gay marriage argument with this one.
In fact, you have won the award for the silliest reason to sanction gay marriage!"
----------/
And, in another instance:
/----------
"Well, as you know race and gender are not “behaviors.”
I want to know where we stop once we begin special rights for certain behaviors. When you equate behavior with race and gender you insult those who really are (factually) born that way!
How many behaviors can you name? Where would you like to draw the line?
Behavior: comportment, conduct. Actions in general or on a particular occasion.
One more time: Race and gender are not a behavior!"
----------/
Without going over every detail, let me now pull key quotes from a rather exhaustive source that I had previously provided to illustrate the applicability of transgender issues for the pro-SSM argument, specifically in regards to gender:
(All quotations provided are indexed with documented legal and statistical sources in the original, the link for which is provided at the bottom of this section.)
/----------
“Same-sex marriages already exist in the transgender community. Such trans-marriages exist when one or both partners in a legal marriage are transgendered.”
“In many states, the marriage laws state that you cannot get married if you are of the same sex. Legally married couples have remained married even after one partner has changed sex, thereby creating a legal quandary.”
“In the second paragraph of the opinion in Littleton, Chief Justice Hardberger wrote: “The deeper philosophical (and now legal) question is: can a physician change the gender of a person with a scalpel, drugs and counseling, or is a person’s gender immutably fixed by our Creator at birth?” Compare that question to the pronouncement of the trial judge in Loving:
‘Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.’”
“Then the court made law by announcing that genitals were no longer the legal standard for determining an individual’s sex, and that the legal standard is now predicated upon an individual’s chromosomes.”
“Incredibly, by choosing a chromosomal standard, the Fourth Court also ignored the highly publicized evolution within sports medicine. Neither the International Olympic Committee (I.O.C.), nor the International Amateur Athletic Federation (I.A.A.F.), perform the so-called ‘chromosome femininity tests’ today, but only require a physical examination by a qualified physician.”
“Due to the Fourth Court’s presumptions, Mrs. Littleton was put in the position of having to defend herself by presenting test information in violation of state law and of the American Medical Association Code of Medical Ethics.”
“The Fourth Court’s legal sex test, which defined chromosomes to be the only immutable characteristic, ignores everyone whose chromosomal make-up is not XX or XY. It also failed to consider that some women are XY and some men are XX. This population is considered ‘intersexed.’”
“Are those individuals with XO, XXY, XXXY, XYY, XYYY chromosomal sequences to be classified as a new gender type?”
“The estimated percentage of intersexuals among the general population ranges from one to four percent. In the United States, with a population exceeding 266 million, anywhere from 2.7 million to 10 million people are intersexual, according to the most recent medical science. With the population of Texas exceeding 20 million, there could be from 200,000 to 800,000 intersexual Texans. In addition, the Fourth Court’s ruling can considerably affect all of the people who have married or plan to marry someone without knowing for certain if that person is intersexed, and the children who are born to or adopted by those people.”
----------/
http://www.transgenderlegal.co…
Can anyone say, after seeing the court decisions and statistics of which these quotes speak of, that the question of transgendered individuals has no bearing on the question of same-sex marriage?
Surely we need to take a closer look at how we determine who is a man and who is a woman before we can even say that the Bible’s definition of one man and one woman should be used. And, if the basis of the “one man, one woman” definition is tradition, society has not traditionally had the medical ability to identify a person’s chromosomes.
Even if that were true, saying that a person with XX chromosomes is legally a woman and that someone with XY chromosomes is legally a man fails to address the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people living in the US alone who carry genes that defy this definition.
Resorting back to physical appearances or the presence of genitals to determine gender is equally problematic for many reasons that may be best illustrated by the many medical cases of surgical and hormonal gender re-assignment documented throughout the last century.
Doubting that, Julia Sweeney, developed a recurring character named Pat Riley (from “It’s Pat!” fame) which plays with the problem on a level anyone can understand.
So, I think it’s fair to conceded that gender is really a behaviour based largely, but not exclusively, on genetics.
If you still need an example of what I mean when I say how gender is a behaviour, just look at the difference in women’s fashions versus men’s fashions and ask yourself if Fashion is derived through genetics or an expressed behaviour.
And if gender is a behaviour (a choice that one can make) then, by ZEB’s logic, we can’t protect people with special laws if they are discriminated against because they are a woman or a man.
ZEB said:
/----------
“I want to know where we stop once we begin special rights for certain behaviors. When you equate behavior with race and gender you insult those who really are (factually) born that way!”
“Behavior: comportment, conduct. Actions in general or on a particular occasion.”
----------/
What ZEB fails to notice is that there are already many behaviours which are currently granted special rights.
The practice of a Religion is a behaviour (by ZEB’s own definition), and there are many special legal rights extended to this protect this behaviour (deservedly so, I might add), with one notable one being that the US government offers religious institutions a very generous tax-relief scheme so that they can afford to operate and function with minimal economic hindrance.
It’s definitely no stretch for anyone to say that a person’s Religious convictions can change over time, so any point about “changeability” or “choice” being a determining factor for whether or not people can be discriminated against is really without any merit.
In fact, it might be said that religion and sexual preference share the commonality of being a “choice” and so are equally worthy of being protected by legal rights.
SUMMARY:
I have provided logical reasons why SSM is a good thing. I have shown why it is illogical to lump to people who want to practice illegal acts in with groups of people who are not yet adequately addressed by current laws. I have shown that same-sex marriage is not an attack on or belittlement of those groups who have already fought for their rights. I have shown that many problems arise when trying to apply the traditional/biblical definition to marriage–problems that would be fixed by extending the same rights to SSMs.
I have shown many critical flaws in the case against SSM, as it has been presented, while at the same time showing how SSM is a beneficial social change that should be welcomed by society.
If I have made a mistake in my logic, I fail to see it–I can only hope that ZEB, Lorisco, and any others will take due care in pointing it out to me, just as I have attempted to point out the problems in their logic.
