A non-religious argument against same-sex marriage

[jmac2112]

Greetings! Back on October 22, Joeyknothead started a debate with the following OP:

Many folks object to homosexuals having a right to marriage based on religious reasons - duh.

For debate:

Is there a qualitative difference between the message of the Westboro Baptist Church and "moderate" Christians / theists who oppose homosexual marriage?

I jumped in and started trying to nail Joey down on certain terms, and trying to find out what his theory of rights was. To make a long story short, I eventually started developing my own argument against gay marriage based not on religion or revelation, but on reason. I certainly didn't convince anyone, but I got some interesting responses, and I want to follow up on them. The original thread is now of page 39, and has gone off in a direction that has little to do with what I was attempting, so I thought I would start a new thread to deal with this issue.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am a practicing Roman Catholic, and I will not try to pretend that my views have not been shaped by my faith, and by my experience of living out that faith to the best of my ability. However, I adhere to St. Anselm's ideal of "faith seeking understanding", so I try to explore issues like gay marriage from a non-religious point of view, especially on a site like this. I've never seen the point in arguing about specific Christian beliefs with someone who doesn't believe in God.

Anyway, I'm going to start by quoting part of what I wrote in response to Joeyknothead's challenge, and then take on Autodidact's criticisms of my argument. This will be very lengthy, but I would appreciate it if people would take the time to read the whole thing before weighing in with a response. Also, I realize that there were others who commented on my argument as well, and I hope at some point to get around to addressing the points they raised. I've been really swamped with responsibilities at work and at home lately, so it may take a while for me to formulate my replies.

One final note: I apologize in advance for the fact that my arguments will be offensive to some. It is not my intention to offend, but I believe in what I'm saying, and so I'm not going to pull any punches. In return, I expect nothing less from Autodidact or anyone else on the other side of this issue.


So, without further ado, here is the bulk of my exchange with Joeyknothead:


I wrote:

Other arrangements can be called "family" insofar are they bear some resemblance to the norm, but only recently have people wanted to "decenter" the norm.

Joey replied:

Who determines the "norm" and are they the same bunch who determines who ain't in the center of it?

I replied:

History does not record their names, but they would be the same people who also determined that food, clothing, and shelter would be a good idea.

Joey replied:

Does marriage feed folks? Does it clothe folks? Does it shelter folks?

No. Humans provide these things. Marriage is not required for a human to do any of the above.

I replied:

My point was that marriage is a natural arrangement that has existed since before the dawn of history, and probably for as long as there have been human beings like us. It was obvious to these ancestors of ours that they needed food, clothing and shelter to survive, and it was just as obvious that a situation in which men could have sex with whomever they wanted whenever they wanted without any responsibility was going to lead to a situation in which a) all women would be in danger of getting pregnant with children by men who would abandon them, b) a man would have no incentive to stay with any particular woman, c) that even if a man did have a liking for a particular woman, he would have no natural bond to her children, since they very well might not be his, d) many children would be raised fatherless, and e) as a result there would be chaos. You can actually see a pretty close approximation of this very situation in some areas of large cities today.

Stable society is a good thing. It really does help when it comes to feeding, clothing, and sheltering folks, not to mention protecting them from murder, theft, rape, etc.

To my point that

Men and women have sex,

Joey replied:

So do men and men, and women and women, and men and women and women, and men and goats, but I swear, it was just the once and we were both drunk.

I wrote:

I was talking about the kind of sex that is able to have direct consequences for social harmony. Your kind of sex might upset a few goatherds, and result in low self-esteem on the part of the goats.

To my point that:

sex leads to babies,

Joey replied:

Sometimes. Sometimes it doesn't.

I replied:

True enough, but I suspect you know what I mean. If you got pulled over for driving 100 miles an hour in a residential zone while drunk, I dont think youd get very far with the judge if you argued that such behavior doesnt always end in disaster. Some actions have predictable consequences that occur often enough to warrant broad statements about them.

To my point that:

and some stability must be imposed on this situation for the good of the women, the children, and society as a whole.

This is the reason that governments have always had an interest in sanctioning marriage.

Joey replied:

I propose what would be most "stable" is not oppressing our fellow human beings.

I replied:

I agree that oppression is bad. But again, you are accusing me of oppression without explaining yourself. Its not enough to keep repeating the charge. The fact that I oppose this novel idea that two men or two women have a right to be married does not make me an oppressor. What is oppressive is being accused of oppression by people who dont give any good reason for their opinion.

I dont see what possible interest the government could have in sanctioning the union between gays as marriage, just as I hardly see the point of heterosexual marriage as it is defined and practiced today. Thats why I wrote:

It is only recently that marriage has come to be viewed as Dating Plus, i.e. a relationship of indefinite duration that exists primarily for the emotional well-being of the adults involved, and can be called off at any time for any reason by either party. The kids? Oh, I'm sure they'll be fine with it.

Joey replied:

Are you the sole 'determinator' of what constitutes a valid marriage?

I replied:

Exactly the opposite. Marriage is a long-established social (not primarily religious or political) institution rooted in the nature of men and women; not just in their biological nature but in the way they are known to behave where sexual relations and child-rearing are concerned. For example, theres the saying that men play at love to get sex, and women play at sex to get love, and the fact that in the absence of any incentive, men are often reluctant to make any commitment to women, or to take responsibility for children, especially if they are not sure the children are actually theirs.

As I said, marriage is a social institution, in this case a contractual agreement that develops naturally in any community in response to certain undeniable facts about the way that men and women and children relate to one another. From the establishment of marriage it quickly and necessarily follows that there has to be some way of enforcing the contract, or at least providing strong incentives to abide by it. In a primitive society, this might take the form of an understanding that the male relatives of the bride will (ahem) diminish the grooms manhood if he abuses their daughter/sister/cousin, or runs off with another woman, or refuses to support the children. In a more developed society, there will be legal penalties for such behavior, and perhaps incentives to promote marriage, such as tax breaks. In any case, the point of government sanction of marriage between men and women has always been and should always remain the promotion of stable families which can produce good citizens, as well as provide for the legitimate desires of men and women for sex, companionship, and economic security.

A lot of societies, especially Christian societies, have seen marriage as in institution ordained and sanctioned by God (or the gods), and when we think of marriage in the Western world we usually form an image of the bride and groom walking down the aisle of a church. But marriage has been around a lot longer than Christianity, and in America, at least, it has long been possible to go down the courthouse and get hitched by the Justice of the Peace. My point in all of this is to dispel the notion that marriage was somehow invented by a group of politicians or priests. To borrow the saying attributed to Diderot, you could strangle the last king with the entrails of the last priest, and marriage would still survive. So would kings and priests, for that matter, and it wouldnt be long before they were in on the act.

But as I said earlier, our notion of marriage has degenerated to the point of being largely meaningless for the purpose of promoting and maintaining stable unions between men and women and protecting children from the effects of divorce. People have come to accept that marriage is largely about feelings, and maybe about getting your mom to stop making snide comments about shacking up. Im not knocking feelings, but contrary to The Captain and Tenille, love will NOT keep most people together for the long haul, at least not love defined as emotional attachment.

I read somewhere that the divorce rate is declining, which sounded like good news, but then I kept reading. It seems that fewer people are bothering to get married to begin with. Who can blame them? Everywhere they look, marriages are falling apart. The popularity of pre-nups is a pretty good indicator of how couples view their chances. No-fault divorce might sound like a good idea at first, but it greatly reduces the incentive to work things out that couples used to have. Im not suggesting that divorce should be outlawed. Not even the Catholic Church holds that position (Catholic belief is that a valid sacramental marriage ends only with the death of one spouse, but civil divorce is permitted in certain cases, like physical or emotional abuse, or one spouse running off with someone else). Im just saying that our current divorce laws reflect our anemic vision of what marriage is. Many couples still use wedding vows that say until death do us part, but ten years down the line, the husband discovers that his wife doesnt seem to understand him any more, but his secretary does, or the wife meets someone who fills her once more with the thrill of being alive, and pretty soon the rationalizing starts. People want to feel loved and respected, they want harmony, they want fulfillment in their relationships, but in even the best of marriages these things are going to be missing at least some of the time. As my uncle facetiously says Men and women are not compatible. Get over it. He and my aunt have been married for 55 years, because they have been able to accept the level of happiness and harmony that is possible between two people with very different but complementary natures.


Now to the big question, Why not let gays join the party?

1) Two homosexuals living together is not and never has been a social institution, i.e. it is not an arrangement that has any special implications for society. It involves no special duties toward society, and for that reason it has no special legal sanction or legal rights. At one point before I got married, I lived with another man in an apartment. The fact that we shared living quarters did not elevate the status of our relationship beyond friendship. Even if we had been in love and inclined to have sex together, in terms of our relationship to society it would not have changed the fact that we were just two men living together.

2) If sex between men and women never led to babies, the situation of a man and a woman living together would be the same as the two examples above as far as the interest that government would have in it. Society would never make a big deal out of it, and governments would have no more interest in promoting or regulating it than they would in the case of any other roommates. The nature and intensity of the feelings between two people, the sex they have (or dont have), the vacations they take together, and, in a word, all the shared aspects of their lives, are of great interest to the couple in question, but do not have any social ramifications that would cause the government to promote, sanction, or regulate such a relationship.

3) Some heterosexual couples cant have children, some choose not to have children, and gay sex never produces children (barring some cases involving surgery that I think I read about in the National Enquirer; who knows what may become possible through science). On the other hand, legitimate government interest in marriage is due to the fact that most marriages between men and women produce children, and the children need stable, nurturing families. So what about cases where a heterosexual couple cant have children, or choose not to? Should their unions be recognized as marriage by government? Yes, because a) it would involve intolerable government intrusion in order to ascertain the facts, b) sometimes couples change their minds and decide to have children after all, c) sometimes infertile couples find out that they arent actually infertile, and d) infertile couples can adopt.

4) So, why not let gay couples adopt? If you disagree with what Ive written so far, then believe me, THIS is the true impasse. What seems blindingly obvious to those who take my position may be totally denied by those who disagree, namely that the family situation which is has always been the norm among human beings is also the situation which is the best for children. What it takes for a boy to become a well-adjusted man, and what it takes for a girl to become a well-adjusted woman, is largely determined by socialization, and a child needs a father and a mother in his or her life in order to be properly socialized. Other arrangements have always existed due to necessity, such as when children are raised by a mother and grandmother, or a father and an uncle, but who would argue that such arrangements should be positively encouraged by government, enshrined in law as having a status equal to marriage? And yet this is exactly what the proponents of gay adoption argue for, with the added complication that the two men or two women have a sexual relationship with one another. This raises serious questions as to how the children will be affected. Will the parents try to raise the children as straight? How successful are they likely to be in this attempt? Or will they try to raise them as gay? This seems unlikely, since from what Ive heard, most gays would have found life much easier if they were attracted to the opposite sex. Will they allow the children to find their own way? In any case, is it fair to allow this sort of social experiment to be performed on children?


This post has gotten quite lengthy, so I'd better stop soon. But I hope that even those who disagree with me will find my position "qualitatively different" from that of people who scream "God hates f_gs!" at people mourning the death of a family member.

So, that's about as far as Joey and I got with the matter. I will now put up a separate post containing Autodidact's criticism of my argument, and my replies to each point.

[jmac2112]

Replying to Autodidacts response:

Autodidact wrote:

I would further add that human beings come in two distinct flavors: men and women. When a man and a woman come together in the stable union that we call marriage, they are in a position to contribute greatly to society by producing and raising children as mother and father. Sort of like the way sodium and chlorine come together to make something beneficial to human life, whereas they are poisonous by themselves. Yes, I know"the analogy is not exact. Unmarried people are not poisonous to society. But there are a great many of us who believe that man and woman are not interchangeable units of humanity, and certainly are not interchangeable as constituent element of a marriage. If you wish to persuade us, you could start by offering evidence that men are likely to provide everything a mother can provide a child, and that women are likely provide everything that men can provide a child. In the meantime, I dont think any child should be raised as a social experiment. Better by far to promote the perfection of a system we know can work beautifully than to try to torture a new arrangement into approximating the traditional system.

If you are asserting the children raised in heterosexual families in any way turn out better than children raised in homosexual families, that assertion is factually incorrect. I will glad to provide extensive scientific support for my assertion.

Please do. Any information is welcome. Much turns on that word better, of course, and I suspect that Ill be able to find scientific studies proving the opposite. How long have people been researching this, anyway?

Autodidact wrote:

To what then would you appeal in an attempt to persuade the majority, or to persuade any individual? Or, stated another way, what is the source of the rights we enjoy, including the rights of gays to marry, if there proves to be such a thing? It is abundantly clear that JoeyKnothead believes that gays have a right to marry, but I have yet to hear JoeyKnothead give a reason for that position other than the fact that JoeyKnothead believes it to be so.

The law.

As determined by whom? The majority? Have you checked the stats on that? Heres an interesting Wikipedia page that includes animation showing The adoption of U.S. state constitutional amendments banning legal recognition of same-sex unions over time:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U. ... ns_by_type


According to an article on nytimes.com dated June 27, 2011,Twenty-nine states have constitutional amendments that define marriage as being between a man and a woman, and 12 have laws that ban recognition of same-sex marriage:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/us/po ... .html?_r=1


If I were you, I dont think Id be appealing to the law to persuade the majority that gays have a right to marriage. Youll have better luck with activist judges who like to circumvent the will of the people.

Autodidact wrote:

Stable society is a good thing. It really does help when it comes to feeding, clothing, and sheltering folks, not to mention protecting them from murder, theft, rape, etc.

Yes, it is. Does allowing same-sex marriage somehow make society less stable? if so, how?

One of my basic theses is that the meaning and force of marriage has been greatly diminished over the last 50 years or so as men and women have sought to expand their personal freedom (especially sexual freedom) to the detriment of their children and, by extension, society. If marriage really is what most people think it is (which I have detailed earlier), then it may be hard for some people to see any reason not to extend it to gays. I think thats the only reason that gay marriage has made the headway that it has. There's also the fact that there has been a blurring of the distinction between masculine and feminine as people have tried to achieve "gender equality", to the point that we have this weird sort of cognitive-dissonance thing going on whereby, at least some of the time, we pretend that men and women are really the same except for the plumbing, 'cause after all gender is just a social construct, while deep down inside we know that's not true. Any preschool teacher can tell you that.

So, given that most people have absorbed, in some vague way, these very modern notions about marriage and gender and are already acting accordingly, the answer to your question is that no, allowing same-sex marriage would not have the immediate effect of making society less stable. It would, however, signal a huge victory for all those (mostly heterosexuals) who have long promoted (or at least followed) the dream of sex without consequences and marriage without true commitment. Whatever may be the reasons that gays and lesbians want gay marriage, the reason that many heterosexuals are enthusiastic about promoting gay rights and gay marriage is that gay sex represents the ultimate divorce of sexual pleasure from procreation and responsibility. This is also why youll hear some people in the U.S. talking solemnly about how we need to be responsible about the number of children we have due to the danger of overpopulation, even though according to the CDC report Births: Final Data for 2009, The total fertility rate (estimated number of births over a womans lifetime) was down 4 percent to 2,007.0 per 1,000 women. That means that each woman is producing two children, and since there are almost exactly as many men as women (I believe 49% to 51%, respectively), our fertility rate is right at the replacement level. Except that its not, because the replacement level in the developed world is 2.1 children per woman due to premature death. So, the population of the U.S. will be in decline if this trend continues, unless the difference is made up through immigration. If you want some interesting reading, research demographic trends in Europe.

The more I think about it, the more Im convinced that gay marriage doesn't really have all that much to do with gay marriage. Well, thats a tendentious overstatement.. But consider: gays make up a fairly small percentage of the population by anyone's estimate. According to The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute estimates the
LGBT population " that is people who identify as LGBT or create family or sexual affiliations that involve people of the same sex " as somewhere between 5"10% of the general population (http://www.thetaskforce.org/downloads/r ... munity.pdf).
The following Gallup poll website notes that The Family Research Report says "around 2-3% of men, and 2% of women, are homosexual or bisexual:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/6961/what-pe ... n-gay.aspx. Given that the one group has a motive to overestimate and the other group has a motive to underestimate, my own guess would be around 5-6%. The percentage of gays who are truly interested in getting married appears to be small, although I can't seem to get any firm figures on this (I see polls and estimates ranging from 5% to around 15%). My point is, this issue would never have gotten off the ground if it weren't for a LOT of help from heterosexuals who have their own reasons. The biggest supporters seem to be the Hollywood types who change spouses the way other people trade in cars. This attitude has trickled down to the young and hip, for whom effective contraception has made it possible to engage in serial monogamy, as Ive heard it described. In my experience, most young supporters of gay marriage have never given the matter much thought. Ask any high school or college kid why he supports gay marriage, and hell mumble something about equality. If you push for a reasoned defense of a right to gay marriage, youre likely to find that he subscribes to the I wanna = I have a right mentality that I mentioned earlier. I think that most of these young people arent supporting gay marriage the way a lot of young people in the 60s supported the black civil rights movement. That is, rather than being positively supportive of what they view as a fundamental issue of justice, I think they support gay marriage and gay rights in general because they a) have the impoverished view of marriage that I have described elsewhere, and b) they intuitively grasp that the gay rights agenda is in sync with their own attitude toward sex, and/or c) theyre afraid of being called homophobic, hater, etc.

Autodidact wrote:

If you got pulled over for driving 100 miles an hour in a residential zone while drunk, I dont think youd get very far with the judge if you argued that such behavior doesnt always end in disaster. Some actions have predictable consequences that occur often enough to warrant broad statements about them.

Bad analogy. In any case, the overwhelming majority of sex people are having in the U.S. today will not result in any babies.

I don't see why it's a bad analogy as far as certain actions having predictable, though not consistent, consequences. In retrospect, I regret that I compared having sex to a committing a crime, and babies to accidents, but beyond that, Im still OK with it. I think I can explain.

Here are some stats from the CDC for births within the U.S. during 2008:

--Number of live births to unmarried women: 1,726,566
--Birth rate for unmarried women: 52.5 births per 1,000 unmarried women aged
15-44 years
--Percent of all births to unmarried women: 41%

source: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/unmarry.htm

So, 5.25% of unmarried women of childbearing age had children that year (and this figure represents only the ones who did not abort their children). Being unmarried, I'll bet a lot of them were trying not to get pregnant. The other 59% of births in 2008 (births to married women who did not abort their children) adds up to 2,484,570, for a grand total of 4,211, 136 babies born in the U.S in 2008. Now, wed have to come up with some data on the number of acts of sexual intercourse between men and women during 2007 in order to compute a ratio of babies to sex acts, and that kind of information might be hard to come by. If we were trying to come up with a ratio of conceptions to sex acts, that would be even harder to estimate, but it would surely be significantly higher. According to the CDC, For 2006, a total of 846,181 abortions were reported in the United States:

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtm ... ss5808a1_e

Due to a lag in collecting data, it seems that information for 2006 is the latest available. Keep in mind that this is only the number of reported abortions, and also does not include conceptions that were terminated by abortifacient drugs.

Now if were defining sex as every act involving sexual release, then the ratio of babies to sex acts would be much lower. Thats misleading, though, sort of like a target shooter computing the ratio of hits to shots fired, when most of the shots were deliberately fired into the ground, into the air, backwards into the parking lot, etc. Its not that the ratio isnt true; its just that it misses the point of what ratio of hits to shots fired means when it comes to target shooting. Ive been concentrating on the only kind of sex acts that could possibly lead to babies. Perhaps youre including all the intentionally misdirected shots as well. I wouldnt call that target shooting, though.

Then theres contraception. Hmmm Thats more like aiming at the target, but setting up barrier in front of the target, because you know that otherwise bullets tend to hit targets. That would drive the ratio even lower.

In any case, in the U.S. alone in 2008, there were 4,211,136 live births, who knows how many miscarriages and stillbirths, at least 846,181 abortions (somewhat more, in reality), and untold millions spent on contraception by individuals and government in an attempt to keep the well-known result of sex from happening (I cant seem to find a source that adds up the all the condoms, pills, implants, diaphragms, surgeries, and whatever else Im leaving out). Im going to stick to my original, sweeping statement: sex leads to babies, similar to the way drunk driving leads to accidents. Not every time. Not by a long shot. As I said, the only problem I have with the analogy is that I have inadvertently compared sex to a crime and babies to accidents. Thats how a lot of people think of babies.

[True story: When my wife was pregnant with our first child, she stopped by a McDonalds after work, still dressed up nicely. She got to chatting with the teenage girl at the drive-through window, and at one point patted her belly and made reference to the fact that she was pregnant. The kid at the window seemed amazed, and said Really? Why, you dont even look like the type who would be! Awkward silence.]


Autodidact wrote:

and some stability must be imposed on this situation for the good of the women, the children, and society as a whole.

This is the reason that governments have always had an interest in sanctioning marriage.

I dont see what possible interest the government could have in sanctioning the union between gays as marriage, just as I hardly see the point of heterosexual marriage as it is defined and practiced today.

If you believe that marriage makes relationships, and therefore society, more stable, than it does so for same-sex couples as well as opposite sex couples.

Im not just arguing that stable relationships make society more stable, although thats certainly true. Stable relationships between men and women who raise boys and girls to be the sort of men and women who form stable relationships so that they can raise more boys and girls who form stable relationships, etc., etc., etc.--thats what makes for a stable society. And I dont see how marriage as defined and practiced today (resulting in approximately a 50% divorce rate) would make gay relationships any more stable. Marriage today often means I promise to stay with you forever until I decide I dont want to be with you anymore. The problem isnt that a small percentage of a small percentage of society wants to get married. The problem is that the majority of heterosexuals arent serious about marriage. The gay marriage issue is just a symptom of a larger problem. To the extent that it is implemented, gay marriage helps to take us further away from a healthy understanding of marriage which understands the centrality of child-rearing and the importance of permanent commitment in terms of ones duty toward spouse, children, and society. Again, the problem isnt the mere fact that some small fraction of a small fraction of the population may be allowed to enter into a union that a state government dignifies with the name marriage. The problem is that such a phenomenon serves to legitimate and further the current heterosexual notion of marriage as a quasi-permanent, quasi-sterile lifestyle that exists mainly for the benefit of the adult parties.

Autodidact wrote:

Now to the big question, Why not let gays join the party?

1) Two homosexuals living together is not and never has been a social institution, i.e. it is not an arrangement that has any special implications for society. It involves no special duties toward society, and for that reason it has no special legal sanction or legal rights. At one point before I got married, I lived with another man in an apartment. The fact that we shared living quarters did not elevate the status of our relationship beyond friendship. Even if we had been in love and inclined to have sex together, in terms of our relationship to society it would not have changed the fact that we were just two men living together.

Uh, o.k. This has nothing to do with same-sex marriage.

At first I was tempted to reply to this based on what I thought you might mean, but instead I think I should wait for an explanation. Would you agree to the proposition that my friend and I in the example above, both being heterosexual, should be allowed to marry one another? What if we were doing so only to gain some legal or tax advantage? Where would you draw the line? What is necessary for a marriage to exist? Can there be more than two people in a marriage? If not, why not? Is your thinking on the issue of rights similar to that of JoeyKnotthead, who seems to think that I wanna = I have a right? Or does the right to marry have anything to do with the nature (or number) of parties involved, and/or their responsibilities toward one another, toward any existing or future children, toward society? Why do you think governments have always taken an interest in marriage? Does marriage constitute a contract? If so, what purpose is served by having a contract that can be broken at any time by either party without cause? (remember, this is the sort of marriage that gays are fighting to obtain). Ive gotten a little carried away here, but these are some of the things Id like to have answered, not only by gay promoters of gay marriage, but by they great majority of heterosexuals who are responsible for our current thinking and laws concerning marriage.

Autodidact wrote:

2) If sex between men and women never led to babies, the situation of a man and a woman living together would be the same as the two examples above as far as the interest that government would have in it. Society would never make a big deal out of it, and governments would have no more interest in promoting or regulating it than they would in the case of any other roommates. The nature and intensity of the feelings between two people, the sex they have (or dont have), the vacations they take together, and, in a word, all the shared aspects of their lives, are of great interest to the couple in question, but do not have any social ramifications that would cause the government to promote, sanction, or regulate such a relationship.

Lesbian and gay families are families. Get over it.

Your analogical use of the word family prevents me from getting over it. I agree that there are many arrangements that can be called family because they approximate the real thing, i.e. the social arrangement, cemented by marriage, that has always and will always continue to spring up independently of religion or government, though usually with their blessing. Some alternate family arrangements are forced on people by necessity, as when, say, children are raised by their mother and their aunt when their father dies, goes to jail, runs off with another woman, etc. The situation of an AIDS orphan in Africa raising his younger siblings could be called a family. A grandfather raising his grandchildren could be called a family. Any two (or more) random people thrown together by necessity could form a family of sorts. But every time we say family when speaking of such arrangements, we know the standard were comparing them to, and we know whats missing. No society, or religion or government thereof, has ever before had the idea that any two people of the same sex, with or without dependent children, should be allowed to enter into a marriage. Do you base your argument for gay marriage on the fact that the two people involved are romantically involved? Is that the defining difference? Should any two people of the same sex be allowed to enter into a marriage regardless of romantic involvement? If so, why?

I understand the idea of marriage that involves boy meets girl, and in which boy and girl (especially girl) want to bind themselves together legally in order to ensure the sort of mutual fidelity and support that will be necessary not only for a complementary life together as husband and wife but for the raising of children as mother and father. In other words, I understand a theory of marriage rights based on human nature, human biology, natural consequences, and resulting obligations to spouse, children, and society. And I understand the reason that a society, through the power of its government, would want to promote and defend this arrangement. I can also understand why government would bless, for example, a marriage between a man and a woman who are too old to have children. Their situation is no different from that of any couple who manage to stay married long enough to grow old. They may be coming apart at the seams, but theyre still men and women, and their marriages dont make a statement that goes contrary to a healthy understanding of marriage.

What I dont understand is how the fact that boy meets boy or girl meets girl in any way involves any sort of biological complementarity with natural consequences and resulting obligations that would lead society to have any interest in using government as a means to cement such a relationship. Nor do I understand the related claim made by some that a masculine woman is somehow an acceptable substitute for a father, and that a feminine man is an acceptable substitute for a mother, and that therefore gay/lesbian couples should be able to adopt. The very fact that those making such claims have to use the words masculine and feminine in forming their argument shows where the truth lies. And in any case, such a family is NOT the same as the examples which I cited above as alternate family arrangements, because the gay/lesbian family formed by adoption is a matter of choice, not the unfortunate but necessary consequence of some disaster.

Autodidact wrote:

3) Some heterosexual couples cant have children, some choose not to have children, and gay sex never produces children (barring some cases involving surgery that I think I read about in the National Enquirer; who knows what may become possible through science). On the other hand, legitimate government interest in marriage is due to the fact that most marriages between men and women produce children, and the children need stable, nurturing families. So what about cases where a heterosexual couple cant have children, or choose not to? Should their unions be recognized as marriage by government? Yes, because a) it would involve intolerable government intrusion in order to ascertain the facts, b) sometimes couples change their minds and decide to have children after all, c) sometimes infertile couples find out that they arent actually infertile, and d) infertile couples can adopt.

And often, gay and lesbian couples have children. So why treat them any different? How does it help anyone?

I would never suggest that anyones biological child should be taken away based on the fact that the parent is having a sexual relationship with a member of the same sex, if thats of what youre suggesting. It does create a less than ideal situation for the child if he or she is not being raised by a mother and a father, and I have argued above, and I dont think it serves anyones interest for the government to certify the relationship of the two adults as a marriage. Government sanction of marriage should be for the purpose of protecting the time tested norm, not for the purpose of making some adults feel good about themselves. Yes, I know there are bad men and women out there who make bad parents. Its because they are not living up to their responsibilities as husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, not because theres a problem with traditional marriage.

Autodidact wrote:

4) So, why not let gay couples adopt? If you disagree with what Ive written so far, then believe me, THIS is the true impasse. What seems blindingly obvious to those who take my position may be totally denied by those who disagree, namely that the family situation which is has always been the norm among human beings is also the situation which is the best for children. What it takes for a boy to become a well-adjusted man, and what it takes for a girl to become a well-adjusted woman, is largely determined by socialization, and a child needs a father and a mother in his or her life in order to be properly socialized. Other arrangements have always existed due to necessity, such as when children are raised by a mother and grandmother, or a father and an uncle, but who would argue that such arrangements should be positively encouraged by government, enshrined in law as having a status equal to marriage? And yet this is exactly what the proponents of gay adoption argue for, with the added complication that the two men or two women have a sexual relationship with one another. This raises serious questions as to how the children will be affected. Will the parents try to raise the children as straight? How successful are they likely to be in this attempt? Or will they try to raise them as gay? This seems unlikely, since from what Ive heard, most gays would have found life much easier if they were attracted to the opposite sex. Will they allow the children to find their own way? In any case, is it fair to allow this sort of social experiment to be performed on children?

All of the above is factually false. I will be happy to provide evidence to support this assertion. Gay and lesbian adoption is good for children. That is why every national child welfare and adoption association promotes it and same-sex marriage.

Ill wait for the evidence. However, dont expect me to believe that the facts that you cite are above suspicion, or that politics cannot play a part in the decisions of child welfare and adoption associations.

Autodidact wrote:

This post has gotten quite lengthy, so I'd better stop soon. But I hope that even those who disagree with me will find my position "qualitatively different" from that of people who scream "God hates f_gs!" at people mourning the death of a family member.

It's certainly a lot longer.

And getting longer..

[Flail]

It would help if you could at least summarize your argument in the OP or present a coherent question for debate. That said, I find no reason in your argument that would compel me to have the slightest legitimate interest in what my neighbors are up to in their loving relationships or their bedrooms, regardless of the body parts involved.

[Goat]

If I were you, I dont think Id be appealing to the law to persuade the majority that gays have a right to marriage. Youll have better luck with activist judges who like to circumvent the will of the people.
..

You mean, like the folks in NY state did. Oh wait.. no. I forgot. That was done by legislation, and not through the courts.

[jmac2112]

Goat wrote:

You mean, like the folks in NY state did. Oh wait.. no. I forgot. That was done by legislation, and not through the courts.

And then there are the other 41 states that I mentioned....which was the point...

My hope is that maybe someone will take the time to read the whole argument and present a counter argument, or a critique of part(s) of the argument. I admit that it's long, but I don't think a summary would do much other than make it even longer. In any case, if my argument is going to be opposed, I hope it draws more than random sniper fire.

[JoeyKnothead]

From the OP:

Does marriage feed folks? Does it clothe folks? Does it shelter folks?

No. Humans provide these things. Marriage is not required for a human to do any of the above.

My point was that marriage is a natural arrangement that has existed since before the dawn of history, and probably for as long as there have been human beings like us. It was obvious to these ancestors of ours that they needed food, clothing and shelter to survive, and it was just as obvious that a situation in which men could have sex with whomever they wanted whenever they wanted without any responsibility was going to lead to a situation in which a) all women would be in danger of getting pregnant with children by men who would abandon them...

"All women"?

This notion is insulting to the many men who take their commitments seriously.

b) a man would have no incentive to stay with any particular woman

Of course, NO man who's ever been married has left their old lady.

c) that even if a man did have a liking for a particular woman, he would have no natural bond to her children, since they very well might not be his,

This is insulting to the many men who adopt children.

d) many children would be raised fatherless

This is insulting to the many children who would prefer their father wasn't in the picture.

e) as a result there would be chaos.

"Chaos" here, in light of my responses above, is a relative term.

Stable society is a good thing. It really does help when it comes to feeding, clothing, and sheltering folks, not to mention protecting them from murder, theft, rape, etc.

Of course, no married person has ever gone on to murder, theft, rape, or etc.

I was talking about the kind of sex that is able to have direct consequences for social harmony.

This is insulting to the many folks who engage in homosexuality who find much "social harmony" in being with the one they love.

Your kind of sex might upset a few goatherds, and result in low self-esteem on the part of the goats.

My kind of sex may be more upsetting to the goat than the herder

I'm a heterosexual who happens to believe that sex is not the evil thing so many theists believe it to be.

sex leads to babies,

Sometimes. Sometimes it doesn't.

True enough, but I suspect you know what I mean. If you got pulled over for driving 100 miles an hour in a residential zone while drunk, I dont think youd get very far with the judge if you argued that such behavior doesnt always end in disaster. Some actions have predictable consequences that occur often enough to warrant broad statements about them.

I'm just not hearing of a lot of folks getting pulled over for having sex at 100 mph in a residential zone while drunk.

We can create any analogy we wish to support our position, and I find the use of such here to be rather inflammatory.

Only by outlawing homosexual sex does your analogy even come close.

and some stability must be imposed on this situation for the good of the women, the children, and society as a whole.

This is the reason that governments have always had an interest in sanctioning marriage.

I propose what would be most "stable" is not oppressing our fellow human beings.

I agree that oppression is bad. But again, you are accusing me of oppression without explaining yourself. Its not enough to keep repeating the charge. The fact that I oppose this novel idea that two men or two women have a right to be married does not make me an oppressor. What is oppressive is being accused of oppression by people who dont give any good reason for their opinion.

It is my contention that refusing to offer to others what we reserve for ourselves is oppressive.

I dont see what possible interest the government could have in sanctioning the union between gays as marriage, just as I hardly see the point of heterosexual marriage as it is defined and practiced today.
...

Sure, your whole "marriage as stabilizing" wouldn't apply to teh gehys!

It is only recently that marriage has come to be viewed as Dating Plus, i.e. a relationship of indefinite duration that exists primarily for the emotional well-being of the adults involved, and can be called off at any time for any reason by either party. The kids? Oh, I'm sure they'll be fine with it.

This is insulting to the many kids who love their homosexual parents, whether those parents are married or not.

Are you the sole 'determinator' of what constitutes a valid marriage?

Exactly the opposite.
...

Yet here you go trying to debate a position that does just that.

Marriage is a long-established social (not primarily religious or political) institution rooted in the nature of men and women...

Do you deny that homosexual men and women have a "nature".

Your comment de-humanizes a broad swath of humans.

...not just in their biological nature but in the way they are known to behave where sexual relations and child-rearing are concerned.

Of course, no homosexual couple has ever raised a productive member of society.

For example, theres the saying that men play at love to get sex, and women play at sex to get love

There's also the saying, "some folks are just gonna be bigots, regardless of how their bigotry affects others".

and the fact that in the absence of any incentive, men are often reluctant to make any commitment to women, or to take responsibility for children, especially if they are not sure the children are actually theirs.

This is insulting to the many men - and women - whose divorces have caused them much grief and anguish over not seeing their child often enough.

As I said, marriage is a social institution, in this case a contractual agreement that develops naturally in any community in response to certain undeniable facts about the way that men and women and children relate to one another.

Of course, no homosexual can relate to their own child.

From the establishment of marriage it quickly and necessarily follows that there has to be some way of enforcing the contract, or at least providing strong incentives to abide by it.

I contend that one of the best ways of "enforcing" the contract would be to quit denying that contract to folks.

In a primitive society, this might take the form of an understanding that the male relatives of the bride will (ahem) diminish the grooms manhood if he abuses their daughter/sister/cousin, or runs off with another woman, or refuses to support the children.

Thus, we see many folks are trying to drag the anti-homosexual crowd out of their "primitive society".

Your comment is insulting to the many divorced folks who struggle to support their children, and / or who accept their responsibility with pride.

In a more developed society, there will be legal penalties for such behavior...

I propose that in a "developed society" there should be legal penalties for oppressing our fellow human beings.

and perhaps incentives to promote marriage, such as tax breaks.

And we all know homosexuals ain't deserving of tax breaks!

In any case, the point of government sanction of marriage between men and women has always been and should always remain the promotion of stable families which can produce good citizens, as well as provide for the legitimate desires of men and women for sex, companionship, and economic security.

Of course, there's never been a stable homosexual family!

A lot of societies, especially Christian societies, have seen marriage as in institution ordained and sanctioned by God (or the gods)

They've also thought it was a good idea to go about killing folks for not being Christian.

Do you miss the good old days?

and when we think of marriage in the Western world we usually form an image of the bride and groom walking down the aisle of a church.

Gee, it couldn't be that homosexuals've been denied the right to get married that make that image so pervasive, could it?

But marriage has been around a lot longer than Christianity, and in America, at least, it has long been possible to go down the courthouse and get hitched by the Justice of the Peace. My point in all of this is to dispel the notion that marriage was somehow invented by a group of politicians or priests.

Yet so many or willing to allow politicians and priests to determine what constitutes a valid marriage.

To borrow the saying attributed to Diderot, you could strangle the last king with the entrails of the last priest, and marriage would still survive. So would kings and priests, for that matter, and it wouldnt be long before they were in on the act.

"Just as long as we don't let teh gehys in on the act!"

But as I said earlier, our notion of marriage has degenerated to the point of being largely meaningless for the purpose of promoting and maintaining stable unions between men and women and protecting children from the effects of divorce.

"Degenerated" and "changed along with society's understanding" look a lot alike.

People have come to accept that marriage is largely about feelings, and maybe about getting your mom to stop making snide comments about shacking up. Im not knocking feelings, but contrary to The Captain and Tenille, love will NOT keep most people together for the long haul, at least not love defined as emotional attachment.

Nor will refusing folks to get together keep 'em together.

I read somewhere that the divorce rate is declining, which sounded like good news, but then I kept reading. It seems that fewer people are bothering to get married to begin with. Who can blame them? Everywhere they look, marriages are falling apart. The popularity of pre-nups is a pretty good indicator of how couples view their chances. No-fault divorce might sound like a good idea at first, but it greatly reduces the incentive to work things out that couples used to have. Im not suggesting that divorce should be outlawed. Not even the Catholic Church holds that position (Catholic belief is that a valid sacramental marriage ends only with the death of one spouse, but civil divorce is permitted in certain cases, like physical or emotional abuse, or one spouse running off with someone else). Im just saying that our current divorce laws reflect our anemic vision of what marriage is. Many couples still use wedding vows that say until death do us part, but ten years down the line, the husband discovers that his wife doesnt seem to understand him any more, but his secretary does, or the wife meets someone who fills her once more with the thrill of being alive, and pretty soon the rationalizing starts. People want to feel loved and respected, they want harmony, they want fulfillment in their relationships, but in even the best of marriages these things are going to be missing at least some of the time. As my uncle facetiously says Men and women are not compatible. Get over it. He and my aunt have been married for 55 years, because they have been able to accept the level of happiness and harmony that is possible between two people with very different but complementary natures.

"Some heterosexuals ain't so good at staying married, so let's don't let teh gehys do it!"

Now to the big question, Why not let gays join the party?

1) Two homosexuals living together is not and never has been a social institution, i.e.

Denying homosexuals the right to get married, and then saying "they've never been a part of this particular social institution, so let's don't let 'em in on it" is as goofy a notion as I've ever known.

it is not an arrangement that has any special implications for society...

At least not to a society that disregards homosexuals.

2) If sex between men and women never led to babies, the situation of a man and a woman living together would be the same as the two examples above as far as the interest that government would have in it.

"And all y'all heterosexual couples that don't want to have, or can't have babies, y'all need to be divorcing, or not getting married to begin with!"

...d) infertile couples can adopt.

"But since we've often outlawed homosexuals adopting, well, it's just a crying shame that since they can't adopt they don't deserve to get married."

4) So, why not let gay couples adopt?
...

This is insulting to all those homosexuals who've adopted, and who've raised great kids, as well as being insulting to those great kids of those homosexual parents.


I find nothing qualitatively different in your insulting, fear mongering post, and those folks at WBC who absolutely refuse to accept that homosexuals deserve an equal place in society.

[jmac2112]

Joey,

In no way am I trying to be insulting to you when I say that I simply do not know how to have a debate with you. I am not saying (as I wrongfully said last time) that you are misunderstanding my arguments on purpose, but I AM saying that your comments reveal that you have consistently missed every single point I have made. I will not be commenting further on your post, as I did last time, because I have no reasonable expectation of making any headway. I did feel that I should make some reply acknowledging that you did read my post, and thanking you for responding.

[Autodidact]

4) So, why not let gay couples adopt? If you disagree with what Ive written so far, then believe me, THIS is the true impasse. What seems blindingly obvious to those who take my position may be totally denied by those who disagree, namely that the family situation which is has always been the norm among human beings is also the situation which is the best for children. What it takes for a boy to become a well-adjusted man, and what it takes for a girl to become a well-adjusted woman, is largely determined by socialization, and a child needs a father and a mother in his or her life in order to be properly socialized. Other arrangements have always existed due to necessity, such as when children are raised by a mother and grandmother, or a father and an uncle, but who would argue that such arrangements should be positively encouraged by government, enshrined in law as having a status equal to marriage? And yet this is exactly what the proponents of gay adoption argue for, with the added complication that the two men or two women have a sexual relationship with one another. This raises serious questions as to how the children will be affected. Will the parents try to raise the children as straight? How successful are they likely to be in this attempt? Or will they try to raise them as gay? This seems unlikely, since from what Ive heard, most gays would have found life much easier if they were attracted to the opposite sex. Will they allow the children to find their own way? In any case, is it fair to allow this sort of social experiment to be performed on children?

The fact is that gay and lesbian adults do give birth to, foster and adopt children, and that those children do quite well, at least as well as those in heterosexual families. They do so well, in fact, that some people are starting to look at these families to determine what straight families can learn from them to be more effective parents. When you factor in the many children of heterosexuals who are not wanted, not planned for and not cared for, it is clear that gay and lesbian parents make a significant positive contribution to society, and one that deserves all the support we can give it.

That's why the American Academy of Pediatrics supports equal rights for gay and lesbian families, and why every major child welfare organization supports same-sex adoption and legal equality for gay and lesbian families.

Are you suggesting that gay and lesbian people be prohibited from bearing children until you feel comfortable that we can be adequate parents?

[Sonclad]

My non-religious arguments against this are as follows:

1) Hyopthetically, imagine that tomorrow everyone in the world wakes up homosexual. The human species would not survive past the youngest generation, which would be evolutionary genocide.

2) When a life-threatening virus appears in society, we do everything possible to eradicate it in order to preserve the species. We alter behaviors when those behaviors lead to life threatening illnesses.... Except when sexuality is involved. Only then do we desire to continue with the destructive behavior. It is a well known fact that the homosexual lifestyle has introduced diseases as a direct result.

3) The plumbing doesn't work! Imagine going to the hardware store to get a replacement garden hose and only finding 1) hoses with 2 male ends or 2) hoses with 2 female ends. Try connecting that!

[Flail]

My non-religious arguments against this are as follows:

1) Hyopthetically, imagine that tomorrow everyone in the world wakes up homosexual. The human species would not survive past the youngest generation, which would be evolutionary genocide.

2) When a life-threatening virus appears in society, we do everything possible to eradicate it in order to preserve the species. We alter behaviors when those behaviors lead to life threatening illnesses.... Except when sexuality is involved. Only then do we desire to continue with the destructive behavior. It is a well known fact that the homosexual lifestyle has introduced diseases as a direct result.

3) The plumbing doesn't work! Imagine going to the hardware store to get a replacement garden hose and only finding 1) hoses with 2 male ends or 2) hoses with 2 female ends. Try connecting that!

There appear to be more than enough heterosexuals to overpopulate the planet, so not to worry.
Why is it that loving relationships have to be about the cycle of human reproduction? Humans have many loving relationships wherein having children is not on the table. And as far as sex and orgasms and such between consenting adults, how is that any of your business? I think homosexuals think the plumbing is absolutely perfect. Has heterosexuality ever caused disease? Once we kill off the planet with overpopulation, perhaps homosexuality will become the preferred norm.