[quote]Sloth wrote:
forlife wrote:
Sloth wrote:
I shouldn’t have said single. I was thinking more like couples who don’t want to be “married” but wouldn’t mind cohabitating.
Couples who want to cohabitate aren’t the same as couples that want to make the commitments and receive the benefits of being married.
Why?[/quote]
Because living together is different from being married. Marriage includes a set of legal responsibilities and benefits that are lacking when a couple simply cohabitates.
[quote]forlife wrote:
Sloth wrote:
forlife wrote:
Sloth wrote:
I shouldn’t have said single. I was thinking more like couples who don’t want to be “married” but wouldn’t mind cohabitating.
Couples who want to cohabitate aren’t the same as couples that want to make the commitments and receive the benefits of being married.
Why?
Because living together is different from being married. Marriage includes a set of legal responsibilities and benefits that are lacking when a couple simply cohabitates.[/quote]
Why though? Why should a couple living together have to adopt a societal imperative to “marry” in order to recieve government benefits?
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Why though? Why should a couple living together have to adopt a societal imperative to “marry” in order to recieve government benefits?[/quote]
It’s not just about benefits. It’s also about responsibilities. If you want the benefits, you should also assume the responsibilities.
The reason government even provides the benefits is to encourage unions that benefit society in some way.
[quote]forlife wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Why though? Why should a couple living together have to adopt a societal imperative to “marry” in order to recieve government benefits?
It’s not just about benefits. It’s also about responsibilities. If you want the benefits, you should also assume the responsibilities.
The reason government even provides the benefits is to encourage unions that benefit society in some way. [/quote]
What responsibilities wouldn’t be assumed by two hetero roommates (and committed lifelong bachelors)?
[quote]Mick28 wrote:
You’re not like that perhaps, and your friends lalaboy and fijiguy may not be like that but so what…that proves nothing.[/quote]
It proves that your stereotypes are overgeneralizations that don’t reflect reality. What you’re doing is akin to saying that all blacks are a certain way, or all southerners are a certain way. There are individual differences in all these groups, and you can’t just sweep those differences under the rug.
That is naive, and it ignores the benefits and responsibilities marriage is designed to provide. By your “logic”, marriage shouldn’t be provided to straight couples either since they would still be in stable relationships without it.
I never suggested otherwise. I did suggest that married couples are more likely to be monogamous than couples that aren’t married. If you disagree with that, take it up with your anti-gay friends in this thread, since they have said you are wrong.
If gays don’t want to marry, then what is your problem with giving them the choice? Obviously, those that choose to marry will do so and those that choose not to marry won’t.
It’s nice to hear you at least acknowledge that I’m a person, rather than a stereotype.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
What responsibilities wouldn’t be assumed by two hetero roommates (and committed lifelong bachelors)?[/quote]
When a legally married couple divorces, there are laws dictating how their possessions should be divided, custody issues for those with children, etc.
[quote]forlife wrote:
Sloth wrote:
What responsibilities wouldn’t be assumed by two hetero roommates (and committed lifelong bachelors)?
When a legally married couple divorces, there are laws dictating how their possessions should be divided, custody issues for those with children, etc. None of that is in place with a cohabitating couple.
[/quote]
Could be, if they previously made the choice to accept government benefits.
No, because marriage benefits are by definition only available through marriage.
I don’t even know what you’re trying to argue here. What is your point?
[quote]forlife wrote:
No, because marriage benefits are by definition only available through marriage.
I don’t even know what you’re trying to argue here. What is your point?[/quote]
That it’s discriminatory.
[quote]forlife wrote:
I’m still waiting for a single compelling reason that gay marriage would threaten straight marriage.[/quote]
In all the time you have been “waiting”, you could have availed yourself of all the previous discussion you keep claiming you haven’t the time to be bothered with.
No, I have the 30 seconds available, it’s become a matter if I think it is worth it to spend the 30 seconds on a reply to you.
After having a back and forth over several pages, it always ends up the same with you: you demand a “restart” and claim that no one who opposes gay marriage has put up an argument.
Mick28 is right - you behave like a child.
You are intellectually dishonest - even I, as an opponent of gay marriage, said that such an institution produced some benefits and wasn’t inherently some “evil” hangup. You, on the other hand, can’t bring yourself to cogently deal with the arguments you have been presented with.
How do we know? Despite the reams of arguments and analysis offered up against gay marriage, you declare that no one has produced even a single, solitary shred of argument against your Life’s Crusade.
You have measured yourself a Zealot, and Zealots can’t be bothered with the heresy of opposing opinions.
“Redo! Redo!”
Heh - thanks for making my point.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
That it’s discriminatory. [/quote]
You’re saying marriage is discriminatory, and shouldn’t exist for straight or gay couples?
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
After having a back and forth over several pages, it always ends up the same with you: you demand a “restart” and claim that no one who opposes gay marriage has put up an argument.[/quote]
Actually, I’ve addressed every point that has been made since I joined the thread. If I missed something, feel free to point it out and I’ll respond to it.
Barrister has articulated an explanatory mechanism that we can debate. I don’t think it is a compelling reason at all, but at least we can discuss it.
Yet you don’t support granting full equality to gay couples. I do appreciate your willingness to concede that gay marriage could benefit society in some ways.
I’ve made several points during our discussion which you have ignored. I assume you didn’t address them because you didn’t have an answer, but feel free to close the gap.
I know it’s easier for you to just dismiss me as an “intellectually dishonest child”, but instead of name calling how about actually addressing the points like Barrister is doing?
[quote]forlife wrote:
Besides, if you want gay relationships to be stable and long term doesn’t that make the case for allowing gay marriage? If people are bound by legal benefits and consequences, they are more likely to stay together.[/quote]
I am just not buying into your angruement with this…
Shouldnt people who are married not need consequences as reason to behave. Married people SHOULD not be cheating for love of other individual, not fear of punsihment?
[quote]forlife wrote:
Actually, I’ve addressed every point that has been made since I joined the thread. If I missed something, feel free to point it out and I’ll respond to it.
Barrister has articulated an explanatory mechanism that we can debate. I don’t think it is a compelling reason at all, but at least we can discuss it.[/quote]
Precisely - and much of which you ask has already been covered.
Nothing new here - I already noted this prior. Can you admit that there is a risk in experimenting with our seminal institution of marriage to the point of hurting it?
No, I have addressed them, only for you to stomp your feet, cross your arms and claim no one has made an argument against gay marriage.
At some point, it’s no fun - because we run in circles.
Was that not done over pages and pages of back and forth? At what point did I not engage in a “discussion” with you?
Is your short-term memory that bad?
[quote]tg2hbk4488 wrote:
Shouldnt people who are married not need consequences as reason to behave. Married people SHOULD not be cheating for love of other individual, not fear of punsihment?
[/quote]
I agree with you. However, it is naive to think that people always do what they should do. If they did, there would be no reason to grant any benefits/responsibilities to marriage in the first place.
Marriage fosters stable, long term relationships. It doesn’t guarantee, but it increases the probability of people staying together.
Society benefits from that stability, for both straight and gay relationships.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Can you admit that there is a risk in experimenting with our seminal institution of marriage to the point of hurting it?[/quote]
Other countries (and two of our own states) have already granted equal rights to gay couples, and society hasn’t been destroyed in the process. We’re fortunately past the point of catastrophizing about gay marriage. It has proven to be a dud argument.
In any case, by your logic mixed race marriages would never have been allowed in the first place. All the henny penny arguments about society being destroyed if blacks were allowed to marry whites came to naught, and the same is true for gay marriage.
Maybe your response to my earlier points was deleted on accident. Here it is again:
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Your scenario involves a choice of essentially moral pragmatism - it’s morally better to save one, than none. That isn’t our scenario with non-traditional marriages - we have a way out of the back of the mine where both miners can get out and both live, if we take your analogy seriously: completely privatize marriage.[/quote]
Are you proposing that straight couples should no longer enjoy the privileges and responsibilities of civil marriage? Your proposal is akin to achieving equality by trapping all miners. It’s not about trapping anyone; it’s about freeing as many as you can.
You’re ignoring the reality that other countries (and two of our own states) are already running the mice through the maze. In some cases, gay marriage has been in place for many years.
Despite that, the best critics of gay marriage can come up with are cherry picked non-explanatory correlations. However, they conveniently ignore the cases where there is a reverse correlation between gay marriage and the divorce rate.
I don’t. However, true wisdom is informed by things as they really are rather than by things as people might wish or fear them to be. It is the job and contribution of science to help us understand things as they really are.
It’s not so much your lack of openmindedness that concerns me. I’m just looking for an honest admission that you have your own agenda, whether overt or covert. Your comments and your interpretation of existing “evidence” lead me to believe that you have a preexisting bias against gay marriage despite your claims to the contrary.
Mick,
I had a detailed response to your post, but it looks like it didn’t go through. In a nutshell:
Please don’t overgeneralize by making sweeping statements like “homosexuals are more promiscuous than heterosexuals”. You’ve already admitted that statement isn’t actually true. Provide caveats where an honest discussion of the facts requires it.
Nobody said marriage guarantees monogamy, only that it improves the probability of the couple staying true to each other (regardless of whether they are gay or straight).
You can’t have it both ways: if so few gays would actually marry as you claim, then all the dire warnings about society being destroyed by gay marriage are overblown and incorrect.
The American Psychiatric Association confirms:
The American Academy of Pediatrics, American Psychological Association, American Psychoanalytic Association, and American Psychiatric Association:
[quote]Endorse civil marriage for same sex couples because marriage strengthens mental and physical health and the longevity of couples, and provides greater legal and financial security for children, parents, and seniors.
[/quote]