[quote]Mick28 wrote:
And that if they are given the opportunity other equally perverse groups deserve that same opportunity.[/quote]
Just because you’re a bit squeamish about homosexuality, that doesn’t make it perverse.
[quote]Mick28 wrote:
The only argument for homosexuality is that two adults should be able to do whatever they like in the privacy of their own home. But if you think about it any other sort of behavior sexual or otherwise that even approaches the levels of homosexuality is called “deviant”.[/quote]
Two consenting adults can do whatever they like, provided it doesn’t harm anyone else, in the privacy of their own home.
You might call it deviant, but not everyone else does.
[quote]Mick28 wrote:
Statistically, as a group they are more promiscuous. P E R I O D![/quote]
You keep phrasing it in a way that is overinclusive. It’s not the entire group that is more promiscuous. How about instead saying something like:
“A larger percentage of gays tend to be promiscuous compared to straights, although there is a percentage that is not promiscuous at all.”
It’s not surprising if a larger percentage of gays are promiscuous, given that the stability provided by marriage is denied them. Marriage decreases the likelihood of promiscuity, so if you want to address the promiscuity issue with gays, let them get married.
You’re confusing cause and effect. Marriage reduces promiscuity. Without marriage, more straights would be promiscuous as well.
It’s a logical fallacy to claim gays are more promiscuous, while denying them the societal structures designed to reduce promiscuity.
I’m talking about your claim that very few gays would take advantage of the institution of marriage. If that is true, how could gays possibly pose a threat to the marriages of straight couples with such small numbers?
As noted in the quotes I provided from the leading medical and mental health organizations, it is healthy both for gays and for society to allow them to marry.
[quote]Mick28 wrote:
Politics appeared to play a role in eliminating homosexuality from the list of mental disorders.[/quote]
You only addressed one instance of homosexuality being removed from the DSM by the APA. How about all the other medical and mental health organizations, and all of their conclusions that go far beyond the diagnostic classification of homosexuality? Do you really expect people to believe that every single one of these organizations (American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association, etc.) is politically corrupt and thus their conclusions on sexual orientation should be ignored?
More importantly, politics are irrelevant when you consider that hundreds of peer reviewed scientific studies on sexual orientation support the conclusions of these medical and mental health organizations.
[quote]The only argument for homosexuality is that two adults should be able to do whatever they like in the privacy of their own home. But if you think about it any other sort of behavior sexual or otherwise that even approaches the levels of homosexuality is called “deviant”.
[/quote]
That statement tells me how ignorant you are when it comes to sexual orientation. Take the time to get to know some gay people. You will realize that sexual orientation is about much more than just the physical act of sex. It has to do with emotional intimacy, love, and who you choose to spend your life with. As much as I loved my wife, I was never able to experience the kind of intimacy at all levels with her that I now experience with my partner.
[quote]forlife wrote:
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.[/quote]
You would be incorrect, and you would do well to stop your abuse of the word “catastrophizing”. Truth is, we don’t know - and that is where the debate has been and will be.
It can’t possibly be a “dud argument”, because the jury is still out - you continue to confuse what you want to be with what is.
Incorrect - and this has been covered in the pages you can’t be bothered to read. Mixed-race marriages are a completely different animal, because the concern over them - rightly or wrongly - was whether it was a good idea for races to mix.
The institution of marriage w/r/t mixed-races was not the issue, because it continued to provide the social benefits related to binary heterosexual unions related to child bearing/rearing, sexual jealousy, etc.
You offer a red herring - the first of many. The analogy is a bad one, because the argument wasn’t that mixed-race marriages would destroy marriage broadly as an institution in society, but would negatively impact racial purity, etc.
Not deleted, but ignored. I try and live by the maxim that you don’t throw good money after bad - and you haven’t exactly shown yourself a good investment of time: witness how no matter how the debate develops, about every seven posts, you shriek out “how come there are no arguments against gay marriage???”.
But, I am bored, so here are the replies.
You continue to be oblivious to the very rights-based approach I keep trying to explain to you. Now you offer yet another red herring - I am not “proposing” anything. Moreover, my “proposal” doesn’t “trap” all miners: it liberates them from being victim to another miner having a privilege they don’t enjoy.
Non-traditional marriages don’t “die” by virtue of removing all public privilege for marriage - they still enjoy whatever private commitment, blessed by religion if so chosen, that they ever did. What they wouldn’t have is public recognition - and that makes them all equal - which is what you have already stated must be done as a matter of right.
You’d do well to actually get straight on your own rights-based approach you peddle as the driving force of why we should privilege gay marriage. And let the “trapped miners” scenario go - it is foolish.
There is a way to treat all miners that same - but I get it, you won’t admit it, because the rights-based approach you concocted as your primary argument undermines your desire to get gay marriage above all else, even if those with “rights” get left out in the cold.
A rights-based approach leads to that. You’re all over the map.
[quote]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. [/quote]
And now you want it both ways - when correlation hurts you, it is ignored. When you think it helps you, you brandish as evidence that can’t be ignored.
And, by the way, gay marriage opponents aren’t cherry-picking and ignoring the rest. That there is any concern on deleterious effects on traditional marriage - even evidenced as correlation - is a problem, because the stakes are so high.
Zealots don’t get this. Reasonable people do.
A worthless statement, because I said the same thing. My entire point was that science most surely informs policy. You ignore the pertinent issue - that we don’t experiment on our society in the same way a scientist would experiment in a controlled universe with the advantage of detachment.
You want to experiment as if society were that controlled universe, I explained why that was a bad idea. You haven’t added anything of value to that point, except for a banal “science helps inform policy” - when no one had suggested otherwise.
Of course I have a bias. Could you bothered to keep up your end of the deal here and review the pages preceding the birth of your Crusade - and incidentally, after that as well - I have repeatedly said that I do not believe that all relationships are equal and that no relationship deserves the status of binary heterosexual marriage.
I haven’t hidden that - in fact, it has been front and center as one of the major themes of my opposition to gay marriage.
I don’t subscribe to the rights-based approach, nor do I believe in equality of relationships. I’ve never suggested otherwise. My adventure into the rights-based approach was to demonstrate where it leads - something other gay marriage advocates understood, but you, willfully and ignorantly, will not.
That said, I have operated with an open mind, far more open than yours - I have noted that gay marriage would generate some benefits for some folks (which is self-evident - gay marriage advocates wouldn’t want it if it didn’t).
I have stated no general objection to homosexuality - and I have no problem with homosexuals (ask my gay friends).
What I have a problem with is silly and therapeutic public policy changes that do little to advance that public policy - gay marriage does nothing to advance the ball of the public policy benefits that traditional marriage provides on the broad level of society - and come with the potential of great costs and risks.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
It can’t possibly be a “dud argument”, because the jury is still out - you continue to confuse what you want to be with what is.[/quote]
My point is that you keep talking about the dire consequences of “experimenting” with gay marriage. The reality is that gay marriage has already been introduced into numerous societies, and so far all the fears about how the marriages of straight couples will suffer as a result have not eventualized. The sky hasn’t fallen, despite all the catastrophizing to the contrary.
You missed the point of the analogy. Opponents of mixed-race marriage had the same fears and complaints that opponents of same-sex marriage have. They claimed that mixed-race marriages were a threat to society, and that they were contrary to the bible.
Where would our society be today if people had listened to the fearmongers, rather than moving forward with equal marriage rights regardless of race?
The argument was that mixed-race marriages would hurt society, just like the argument is that same-sex marriages will hurt society. The means by which society would suffer is different, but in both cases the fearmongers claimed that sanctioning “nontraditional” marriages would not be in our best interest.
Fortunately, society moved forward with mixed-race marriage equality regardless of the fearmongering and the same is now happening with same-sex marriage equality.
It is disingenuous to sweep all the rights and responsibilities associated with civil marriage under the rug, and claim that civil marriage is only about public recognition. Clearly, that is not the case.
In the analogy, the trapped miners are those that don’t enjoy the rights and responsibilities available to miners that aren’t trapped. You’re proposing that the miners that are currently trapped should all be left there, because saving only some of the miners wouldn’t be fair to those that couldn’t be saved.
It is a ridiculous argument, because it makes no sense not to save as many people as you can. Refusing to save some of the miners in the name of “fairness” would be inhumane and unjust. It also ignores the “rights-based” approach we’ve been discussing, because it doesn’t restore equity between the miners that are trapped and those that are not.
I don’t want it both ways. I’m happy to ignore the correlations entirely, because I know they say nothing about causation.
I’m simply asking for consistency on your end. If you are going to handpick positive correlations, you need to acknowledge the reverse correlations that also exist.
Again, you can’t have it both ways. If you are going to use positive correlations as evidence for the potential “deleterious effects on traditional marriage”, you equally need to use the negative correlations as evidence for the potential “advantageous effects on traditional marriage”.
But you failed to acknowledge the benefits that could come from same sex marriage. You’re only focusing on a possible negative outcome while ignoring the evidence for beneficial outcomes. That is hardly scientific or unbiased.
Glad to hear you admit it. Given that, it would be hypocritical for you to accuse others of operating under their own bias.
I see…your bias is better than my bias so it is ok.
Fortunately, the biased people in favor of mixed-race marriages didn’t give up the cause for obtaining equal rights and neither will I.
You may not have stated an objection to homosexuality, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have one. Can you state for the record that you don’t consider homosexuality to be a perversion or a sin?
That’s simply incorrect. As noted in the quotes I provided by the leading medical and mental health organizations, gay marriage provides health and financial benefits to gay couples and their children, and it fosters the stability and well being of society as a whole.
[quote]forlife wrote:
My point is that you keep talking about the dire consequences of “experimenting” with gay marriage. The reality is that gay marriage has already been introduced into numerous societies, and so far all the fears about how the marriages of straight couples will suffer as a result have not eventualized. The sky hasn’t fallen, despite all the catastrophizing to the contrary.[/quote]
Enough with “catastrophizing” - I realize you picked up in a brochure or somesuch, but it is getting old.
Here is the problem - you continue to peddle the falsehood that if trouble were going to show up, it would have shown up overnight, and since it didn’t…no trouble!
Dumb. You even use the word “eventualized” - that’s right, we measure based on what we think will happen eventually. There is no “catastrophizing” - and get some new material.
No, they didn’t, because there is a moral/qualitative difference in what is being “feared”. I can irrationally fear that a broken satellite will fall on me today - that doesn’t mean that such an irrational fear means that gay marriage is an irrational fear.
The claim was in fact that mixed-race marriages were a threat to society - but for none of the reasons that gay marriage would.
You foolishly continue to treat unlike things alike, so it tells me one of two things: either you haven’t thought about this much, or you don’t give a damn about consistency in the name of your Crusade.
Either way, it’s silly.
Not all fears are the same - so stop pretending they are. Each must be measured on their own independent merits. You are making no qualifications on “fearmongering”, but even someone as narrow-minded as you must realize not all fears are irrational or bad choices.
Wow. It’d getting worse.
Completely false, and completely ignorant of history.
See above - they aren’t the same. But I get it - trying to hitch your wagon to race-based evils of the past is, in your mind, the surest way of validating your arguments. Your problem is - people aren’t buying it, for the reasons I pointed out above.
Trying to drown me in hackneyed phrases like “fearmongering” is getting you nowhere - mixed-race marriages were a different phenomenon occupied by different concerns. They aren’t the same - and you know who agrees with me? A good deal of the old civil rights lions of the 60s, who completely reject the comparison.
Then get married in a private ceremony - and so, who cares? If you don’t care about the public recognition, including all the rights and benefits mandated by law, then why are you here trying to be the Joan of Arc of gay marriage?
Recognizing gay marriage in law is all about public recognition - the rights, the benefits, and the social status. Any argument to the contrary is a fabrication.
Good Lord. The miners aren’t “trapped” in a gay marriage context, because the law is not preventing them from indulging in whatever relationship they want. Not having public recognition of their relationships isn’t akin to being “trapped” in a mine - it’s more like being denied admission into a country club: your life is ok, but someone else gets some perks you don’t, but your inadmission to the country club isn’t causing you demonstrable “harm” - like ultimately expiring in a cave because of lack of oxygen.
I get the problem - you have no idea what you are talking about. We are talking about - well, you were talking about - marriage equality. There is no one to “save” - the needed end result is not “rescuing” anyone, but rather making sure all are treated the same. Privatizing marriage gets every relationship on the same playing field - which, and I will type slowly, is required under a rights-based approach.
It actually would be inhumane to not save other miners from dying if you could, but that isn’t what is happening here. No one is dying, and rescue isn’t the issue - equalization is the issue.
Again, I get it - you couldn’t give a damn about being consistent in the interest of principles larger than your selfish desires. You advance a rights-based approach when you think it hurts you, but when you see that it undermines your claims, suddenly you couldn’t care less if all other non-traditional relationships get left out in the cold - as long as Forlife gets his wishes fulfilled.
As such, it is clear you care nothing about “rights” - you care about what gets you what you want. You lose no sleep at night if gay marriage gets “more equal” status than other non-traditional relationships.
Hey, will you look at that - now Four Legs stands on Two Legs. How about that?
And this is why no one can take you seriously in a discussion on public policy.
As I stated earlier, who did this?
And? Who didn’t do this?
As I said in my last post - conveniently ignored - was that any evidence of deleterious effects on traditional marriage can be enough to raise serious questions, because…wait for it…the stakes are so high if we turn out to be wrong.
Good correlation, bad correlations - all go into the mix. No one has suggested otherwise, so stop indulging in that straw man.
Wait, wait, wait - when I have repeatedly noted that I think gay marriage can produce some benefits? Even as long ago as my last post?
You see why I don’t take you seriously?
-
Straw man - I never ignored evidence of beneficial outcomes. Show me where I did.
-
All public policy is biased. Yours is, mine is - all based on value judgments. You’ve proven to be the least “scientific” of us all on this thread, no matter which side of the issue anyone has been on - Zealots rarely are - so you may want to consider a different criticism.
I know you have a bias - recall you were the one bellyaching that gay marriage opponents weren’t operating with an “open mind”, not the other way around.
I merely pointed out your hypocrisy - I never said I didn’t have a bias. But then, I wasn’t whining about “open mindedness”, correct?
So I fail to be hypocritical - I was instead pointing out the silliness of you getting upset that your opponents don’t have an open mind when you, of course, do not yourself - your hypocrisy, not mine.
Nope - open-mindedness doesn’t mean “no bias”. It means being willing and able to absorb and understand the different arguments to come to your conclusions. It doesn’t mean being a blank slate.
That said, my evidence of your lack of open-mindedness? Your trainwreck of an understanding on the very rights-based approach you advocate (when convenient). Even gay marriage advocates Makavali and CappedAndPlanIt understood the argument on the rights-based approach. You obfuscated to the point of frivolousness on the issue - which tells me you aren’t interested in the merits of that argument.
Continue down this silly road, and continue to shoot yourself and your message in the foot. They aren’t the same - and gay marriage isn’t due for “its turn” after interracial marriages.
They are different - and the arguments for and against are very different. Trying to shoehorn your Crusade into that mold makes you look uninformed and desperate.
Interesting - did you miss the part where I told you I had gay friends?
Or skip it in a fit of convenience, as you do most else?
I have no objection to homosexual relationships. It is not as “good” or “normal” as heterosexual relationship, but I don’t have a religious objection to it.
And I have stated as much. I don’t object to it, I just don’t think it is “equal” to a heterosexual relationship, just as I don’t think a bigamous heterosexual relationship is “equal” to a binary heterosexual relationship.
I wouldn’t put much stock in your vaunted “medical organizations” - one of them, of course, famous for a “study” that demonstrated an adherence to conservative politics as being a form of mental disorder.
That said, this has been typed too many times over 40+ pages, but I will hit the quick and dirty - it does nothing to promote the social ordering of fathering children, it does nothing to reinforce the fundamental aspect of marriage as conservator of children rather than fulfillment of coupling, it incentivizes having children outside of the union of the biological parents, and it opens the door to de-privileging marriage as a public institution broadly under the “equality” theory.
Gay couples of course benefit - they wouldn’t be urging it if they didn’t. That isn’t enough to warrant tinkering with an institution that serves such great social importance and, if anything, needs to be repaired rather than experimented on.
[quote]Catastrophize:
To Catastrophize is to make a situation seem worse than what it actually is.[/quote]
Tell you what, I will stop accusing you of catastrophizing when you stop doing it.
Hardly overnight. Same sex marriage was legalized in the Netherlands seven years ago, let alone existing in older countries and cultures like the Roman Empire.
Even restricting yourself to current history, seven years is far longer than most drugs are tested, before being approved by the FDA as safe for general distribution to the public.
The fear of negative social effects stemming from mixed race marriage wasn’t seen as irrational at the time, any more than the fear you have about gay marriage.
The point is that fearmongers opposed social change on the basis of what could happen to society, but the fears were unfounded and social change proceeded despite their best attempts to the contrary.
The reasons are irrelevant. Again, the point of the analogy is that people had fears about social change and used those fears to oppose the change. They didn’t succeed then, and they won’t succeed now.
As I’ve said repeatedly:
You have failed to provide a single compelling reason why my marriage would have any effect whatsoever on your marriage. It is a ridiculous argument that has absolutely no logical foundation as an explanatory mechanism.
The best you can come up with is a lame attempt to tie marriage exclusively to children, which ignores the fact that gay couples can and do have children, as well as the fact that many straight couples do not ever have children. By the standard of “independent merits”, your fearmongering falls far short of the mark.
No, I get it. Bigotry against blacks, misogyny, and anti-gay bias are all born of ignorance and a stubborn refusal to see things as they really are. Despite the scientific conclusions of hundreds of peer reviewed studies, people continue to tout their own preconceived notions and stereotypes as fact.
That is blatant bias, whether or not you want to admit it, and as such it is comparable to bias based on race or gender.
Public recognition is irrelevant, at least to me. Rights and benefits are the material facts being discussed, and are the basis for discrimination which I am addressing in the miner analogy.
It may make you feel better to tell yourself that, but the medical and mental health organizations disagree. As noted above, these organizations:
Then why aren’t you suggesting that marriage be privatized for straight couples? Is that your idea of a rights-based approach?
Wrong. It’s not just about equalization. It’s about taking action that is to the benefit of the individuals, as well as of general benefit to society as a whole.
That’s what you’re not getting about the miner analogy. Some of the miners are out breathing clean air, and some of them are trapped. The humanitarian choice is to save as many of the miners as possible, rather than letting them rot because you are unable to save them all.
I think other non-traditional relationships should receive the same benefits, as long as they don’t hurt society and it is possible to grant those benefits.
Lol, you’re the one misquoting statistics not me. Get back to me after you graduate from stats 101.
You did. You continue to tout the positive correlations, without balancing it against the negative correlations that also exist. Honesty requires both. Science requires neither. You fall short on both counts.
Then quit making catastrophic statements that only address the positive correlations. Frame your statements to include the possibility that gay marriage actually benefits society, and more importantly acknowledge the scientific conclusions to this effect by the major mental health and medical organizations.
That is a straw man, because in your next breath you hyperventilate about how gay marriage could destroy society despite producing some benefits.
I was only asking for an honest acknowledgment of your own bias.
Which brings us full circle. You’re playing semantics. Now you are accusing me of being closed-minded, while touting yourself as being open-minded. It’s true that I am close-minded when it comes to advocating equal rights for gays. I’ve said as much several times in this thread. Can you do the same?
You can have gay friends while still considering their sexual orientation a sin or a perversion.
So you consider homosexuality to be a perversion, but not a sin?
Regardless, you’ve now openly denigrated gays by saying their relationships are not as “good” or “normal” as heterosexuals. Given that, your lack of open-mindedness isn’t surprising.
How about the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and every other major mental health and medical organization in the world?
You deny the conclusions of all of these organizations, yet you vaunt yourself as having an open mind? Seriously?
False. I am a father, and my children would benefit from my partner and I being married. I have several gay friends who have adopted children and are providing good homes for them.
See above.
It provides a loving home environment for children that would otherwise grow up in a foster facility, which statistics show is not in their best physical, mental, and emotional interest.
De-privileging marriage is a good thing, as long as those receiving the same privilege similarly benefit and as long as society similarly benefits from the change. Both of those can be demonstrated in the case of gay marriage.
[quote]forlife wrote:
Tell you what, I will stop accusing you of catastrophizing when you stop doing it.[/quote]
I’m not catastrophizing - I’m being wise and cautious based on the available information. It is the classic “look before you leap” approach - and your hysterics about “catastrophizing!!!” are missing the good debate on what we see when we “look”.
Preposterous. There was no broad institution in ancient Western cultures. Secondly, what happened in the Netherlands is not what happened in Norway. The conclusion? “Seven years” is a silly defense - look at the wages we are paying [/i]now[/i] for the consequences of the 1960s assault on family and the marriage. Do you think your arbitrary “seven year” test would have saved us the woes we face now?
Be serious.
If you want to make that analogy, were you a man of science, you’d know that one “study” won’t get you regulatory approval, and a second “study” like Norway would likely shelve your “drug” indefinitely
And? What “fear” wasn’t? This is meaningless.
But you miss the point - there is nothing “irrational” about not wanting interracial marriages. It is perfectly rational to want to protect racial purity if you think that it is a moral good to protect racial purity. You see, we didn’t change our mind on mixed-race marriages because they were “irrational” - we changed our minds on the moral worth of preserving racial purity.
Again, here is where you come up short - the situations aren’t the same. It isn’t a matter of being “irrational” - it is a matter of pegging certain public policy to moral goods.
As such, you must present an argument that satisfies the same “moral good” question that interracial marriages did - and you haven’t come close.
Bad logic, and worse history. The “fears” of mixed-race marriages were - wait for it - realized, exactly in the way that white supremacists feared. They were right - mixed race marriages have “polluted” “racial purity” - their fears weren’t irrational at all.
The question was whether “mixed races” were bad for society on a moral level. White supremacists still no doubt think that mixed race marriages are bad - it’s just that everyone else thinks that is ludicrous (and rightfully so). But, they weren’t irrational to fear it.
Fast forward to the present - the fears aren’t irrational. They are founded on a general skepticism of the hubris that accompanies such experimentation of an already fragile institution, something you won’t even acknowledge as a fair concern.
Instead, you try and impugn the motives of those that argue against you - the (predictable) “I am in possession of the Unvarnished Truth and the Right and Just Way, and those that oppose me don’t do so in Good Faith, they are motivated by more sinister or superstitious reasons”.
Get over yourself - folks like you who peddle “Progress” are on every street corner. There’s nothing special to your attacks on your opponents, and you’d do well to recognize, even if you don’t agree with them, a rational concern with messing with traditional marriage.
You won’t - fundamentalists like yourself never do.
The most preposterous thing you have written. Of course the reasons matter - surely someone like you can appreciate that not all change is good, and that for every change that is good, there is a change that would be worse?
Ah well, nevermind - the zealotry thing again.
And so. Let me reply this way:
You have failed to provide a single compelling reason why gay marriage would have any positive effect whatsoever on traditional marriage and society generally. It is a ridiculous argument that has absolutely no logical foundation as an explanatory mechanism.
See what happens when the blade cuts both ways? What is stopping me from declaring that you have advanced not even a decent argument in support of gay marriage?
Well, then so be it - you haven’t advanced one single compelling reason why gay marriage would improve and strengthen marriage generally. You haven’t provided a compelling reason to shift from the status quo. The end.
This has been covered - let me guess, you want a “restart”?
Gay couples don’t have couples within the binary relationship they want privileged as marriage. And, since traditional marriage works hard to incentivize the coupling of the biological parents of a child, why in the Hell would we adopt a form of marriage that incentivizes having children outside of the coupling? No, we want children to be procreated and raised by a union of their biological parents - one of marriage’s biggest public policy drivers. Gay marriage, which will produce no children, would incentivize children outside that coupling. That undermines the very incentive marriage provides - so, bad idea.
Further, as I have stated over and over, but you can’t be bothered to read, couples that never have children still serve the function of ordering child raising because they tie men to their wives that, even if they choose to have no children of their own with their wife, they aren’t out siring children outside of the marriage.
I’ve gone over this more times than I can count - learn to read, and stop wasting my time.
Bingo - you’ve shown your cards again. You don’t engage your opponents in good faith. In your mind, they can’t have a rational reason for standing in the way of your True Faith - and so, they must be motivated by “bigotry”.
That makes all of this unnecessary - you aren’t interested in seeing the other side, even if you would come to a different conclusion.
Ultimately, the world is divided into two camps in your limited mind - those that agree with you, and Paleolithic bigots. The height of intellectual laziness.
Again, my mistake for taking you as a good faith opponent. You have taken the easy way out time and again, and you can’t unring that bell.
We are interested in gay marriage broadly, not whether the tax breaks allow you personally to get a new car. Public recognition is the debate.
[quote]It may make you feel better to tell yourself that, but the medical and mental health organizations disagree. As noted above, these organizations:
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]
Don’t indulge in the logical fallacy of Appeals to Authority. It is headed nowhere.
Because, as I have said over and over and over, I personally do not believe in the rights-based approach. It isn’t my theory. I have no reason to privatize straight marriage because I am all for privileging it above all other relationships in law and public policy.
I am telling you where a rights-based approach leads, which is toward the equalization of marriage by removing any public privilege. This isn’t a novel idea - libertarians (some) have been advocating gay marriage for precisely these end results: they want gay marriage because they see it as a way of getting government out of marriage completely. I agree with them on the end result - I disagree with them whether that end result is a good idea.
You see, the rights-based approach is reasonably straightforward - the debate is over whether the dissolution of government involvement in marriage is good or bad. You aren’t even up to speed on this debate, yet you peddle the rights-based approach as the central pillar in your True Faith.
Changed your mind again? “Equal rights” has everything to do with “equal treatment” and “equalization” - that is the entire point of “equal rights”.
And now, behold - you have moved the goal posts again, trying to deflect your inconsistencies. It’s clear you have no idea what you are talking about.
“Equal rights” not about “equalization” - priceless. I suppose you really do believe that some relationships - i.e., yours - is “more equal than others” under your own theory.
But no one is rotting. The miners aren’t “trapped”. I realize you continue to press this overwrought, melodramatic scenario, but be serious - we have a way to treat all relationships the same (the goal of a rights-based approach, of course), and no one will be “trapped” if all get treated the exact same way and get rid of all privileges.
And, you never address the pertinent issue - if you believe in equality for all relationships as a principle outside your own narrow interests, what is your hangup over comprehensive privatization? Everyone would pay the same taxes, everyone would govern their affairs by contract (freely), everyone would be paid the same as individuals under Social Security, etc.
Why is that so bad, if you are interested in “equality for all”? Or did I answer my own question - you couldn’t care less about that principle?
I think comparing academic resumes would be inappropriate, but more to the point, I never “quoted” any statistics. I can’t think of typing a single number related to this issue.
I never ignored “positive correlations” - you continue to peddle that lie. Secondly, science is very interested in correlations, because it leads to new hypotheses, new experiments, collection of more data, and qualified conclusions.
Don’t believe me? Plenty of “correlative” data is what is starting a regulatory fight over the introduction of nanotechnology in the natural world. Someone alert the Nature Conservancy and the EPA that wanting to restrict nanotech products from being introduced into the environment based on the current information available that shows “correlations” between problems, not “causations” isn’t good science, according to our local zealot Forlife.
Maybe they would laugh as much as I did - science cares a great deal about correlation.
I don’t need to frame an argument I disagree with - I don’t think gay marriage would benefit society. I think it would be benefit a small demographic of society, and have a general negative effect on the society as a whole.
Far from hyperventilating, I note that the risks/costs outweigh whatever benefits we can conceive of. And, definitionally, that is not a straw man. I maintain - as I always have - that gay marriage can produce some benefits in certain areas, but those benefits do not override the damage done more broadly.
Stop wasting my time. If you are admittedly closed-minded, then why keep asking others to be open-minded?
I have admitted my bias, and never shied from it - my point wasn’t that I am some paragon of “open mindedness”, my point was that I was more open-minded than you, which is true, and ironic, given that you seem to want others to be something that you, admittedly, are not and have no desire to be.
If so, who cares? Do you ever stop this laughable nonsense about open-mindedness? If I am not open-minded on the matter, how could you possibly complain that is a bad thing?
This has become plain silly.
Homosexual relationships aren’t as “good” or “normal” as heterosexual relationships. Neither is polygamy as “good” or “normal” as the union between one man and one woman. Thus, there is no reason to privilege them to the same status.
[quote]How about the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and every other major mental health and medical organization in the world?
You deny the conclusions of all of these organizations, yet you vaunt yourself as having an open mind? Seriously?[/quote]
I don’t dismiss them out of hand, I just don’t reflexively take their word as Gospel on issues of public policy.
True - gay relationships do not produce children. Gay marriage incentivizes the production of children outside of the marriage itself - completely the opposite of what we want out of marriage.
Gay relationships don’t produce children - so the primary motivation can’t possibly be a conservatorship of children. Gay marriage doesn’t incentivize children being raised by their biological parents - so, no, definitionally, gay marriage isn’t the same kind of conservatorship as traditional marriage.
See above - it encourages creation of “new” children outside of the coupling of biological parents.
Incorrect, and we are back to the beginning - a good place to end.
The rights-based approach certainly does de-privilege marriage, glad that you have seen the light, despite your wanderings all over the place that it does, then it doesn’t, then…
And, de-privileging is a bad thing - we’ve already seen the ill effects of the weakness of marriage since the 1960s, no need to finish off the slow suicide by engaging in therapeutic politics with no appreciable strengthening of traditional marriage.
As such, since you have not provided one single compelling reason to put gay marriage on the same footing as traditional marriage, I see little point in moving forward.
[quote]Mick28 wrote:
I’m not sure about that…I think if enough people feel squeamish we can certainly tell something about the activity. We do have a built in “squeamish meter” you know. Don’t be so quick to write it off.
When people look at a crushed animal with maggots crawling inside the eye socket many happen to get squeamish.
If you walk past a drunk on the street and he pukes up little corn bits along with a disgusting beer smell, all over your shoes…it’s easy to get squeamish.
When you see two men kissing…many of us feel pretty squeamish.
Okay…no one trained you to be squeamish it just happens. And I think it is a good indicator.
So…go peddle your politically correct bullshit somewhere else. The fact is that activity makes a lot of people sick.
Again what two guys want to do in the name of love or lust is none of my business. But, on the same token that doesn’t mean society has to embrace it by giving them marriage rights.[/quote]
Right. So your upbringing has nothing to do with your dislike of gays?
[quote]Mick28 wrote:
You are saying that a lack of marriage rights actually CAUSES gay men to be more horny.[/quote]
No he’s not. He’s saying that gay men/women are on the same level as heterosexuals would be if there were no heterosexual marriage.
It doesn’t make them any more or less horny than straight men/women.
Thunder, we are now writing treatises to each other so I’m going to condense my response to a few key points of disagreement:
-
You make a good point on mixed race marriage ultimately being a moral issue. The same is true for gay marriage. It is a moral issue, and will be decided not by doomsayers predicting the end of straight marriage, but by the moral conscience of the democratic majority.
-
Despite your claim to the contrary, I have provided a very compelling reason that gay marriage would be good for the same sex family, and for society in general. As noted by every major medical and mental health organization in the world, gay marriage fosters health and social stability. These organizations unanimously and unequivocally sanction gay marriage. You, however, have not provided a real reason…only vague conjectures that run contrary to common sense.
-
You said that marriage is only helpful as an incentive for couples to have children. I contend that marriage is also helpful as an incentive for couples to provide stable, loving homes for children that would otherwise experience significant negative outcomes.
-
Marriage benefits aren’t constrained to tax breaks so I can get a new car (although that would be nice!). There are over 1,000 benefits not available to same sex couples, for example hospital visitation and the ability to apply for a visa so you can be with your partner. Most importantly, as I pointed out earlier, same sex marriage provides long term stability and fosters health which ultimately benefits the couple, any children they may be raising, and society in general.
[quote]Mick28 wrote:
I think if enough people feel squeamish we can certainly tell something about the activity.[/quote]
Kind of like girls feeling squeamish about spiders, or Hindus feeling squeamish about eating cows, or conservative southerners feeling squeamish about having a black President?