Make a purely secular argument for 1 woman & 1 man.

[jmvizanko]

The only arguments I have ever seen for forcing the definition of marriage to be only one woman and one man fall into 2 categories. One is an argument that is derived from somebody's religion, say for example, Christianity suggesting 1 woman and 1 man. The other is an argument from majority/tradition, say for example, most or many cultures throughout history defined marriage this way, so that's what it should be.

In America, we have a bill of rights that clearly states we should not have a state religion. Therefore the first argument does not suffice for a justification for making gay marriage, or polygamy, illegal in the US. The second argument seems to be used when the first argument fails, namely because of the above reason I just gave. But it also fails because we have a bill of rights that clearly states we have a right to practice religion freely. If your religion allows polygamy, the American government in no way has a right to deny your practice of it. And both fail in basic principle that they are based on ethnocentricity and are anti personal freedom, and I have no clue how anyone could put either argument forward and still spout that they love America because it stands for freedom.

The only convincing argument that wouldn't violate the first amendment or the respect of personal freedom would be one based solely on logic. I challenge anyone to present such an argument, that is not derived from their religion, their personal preferences, or the basis that their religion/culture should rule all others.

[Autodidact]

. . .because mixed gender marriage is the only gender-equal building block of society.

Gay marriage promotes an environment of gender bias. Children raised in such an environment are not being raised according to gender-equality.

Well that's a creative, bizarre and factually incorrect argument.[/quote]

Well, you actually need some conclusive facts to the contrary in order to correct my allegedly "factually incorrect" argument. You cannot coast on bald assertions to get you by.

Well, where to begin, the whole thing is some kind of alternative universe. I'll start here:

Marriage is the first, and the greatest guarantor of human equality in history. It is the only civil rights institution that eliminates all natural and culturally-imposed social, economic, physical, and gender disparities of men and women.

Recently, in some countries, marriage has begun to approach equality between the sexes. In most places and times, it's an institution in which men own one or more women. For most of its history, marriage has been completely unequal, in terms of property ownership, custody rights, and so forth, and it still is in many parts of the world.

Heterosexual marriage prevents segregation along gender lines.

What does this even mean?

I think part of what this bizarre man is saying is that marriage unites the two sexes, which he calls "integration." So since same-sex marriage doesn't integrate, it in effect segregates the sexes.

To use his analogy, permitting integration does not mandate it. If I happen to get together with some other women, I'm not imposing segregation, and requiring me to invite some men would in fact violate my rights.

In the same way, the fact that some gay people choose to marry each other will not in any way reduce the freedom of heterosexuals to "integrated" marriage.

In this writer's odd reasoning, permitting more people to marry somehow discriminates against someone, although I cannot for the life of me figure out who or how.

And then we have this flight of fantasy:

I call this arrangement [lesbian couples] a "super-family" because it would have six sources of income : the incomes of two married mothers, two sets of child-support orders, and two sets of welfare entitlements. Heterosexual marriages have only two incomes, and would clearly be an economically inferior choice.

This is simply false. Lesbian couples have the same number of potential incomes as heterosexual, and people with employment incomes are not eligible for welfare benefits. In reality, the income of lesbian couples is below the national average, because they have none of the higher earning male paychecks.

See here: http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.21.2.53

"lesbian couples and their families are much more likely to be poor than heterosexual couples and their families."
http://scholarworks.umb.edu/csp_pubs/34/

The author seems to suffer from an extreme insecurity, due to which he finds the idea of two-female couples threatening to him.

Apparently, according to that logic, intra-racial marriage must also be prohibited, as same-race marriage promotes an environment of race bias. Does that make a lick of sense to you?

Your argument makes no sense, because homosexuality is not a race. Thus, you're fronting a false analogy.

Wow, you didn't even understand your own article. The segregation he's talking about is sex segregation, not race. He's saying that because heterosexual marriage involves two genders, it is integrated. He calls same-sex marriage "segregated," because both partners are of the same gender. BY ANALOGY, then, same-race marriages must be racially segregated, and only inter-racial marriage should be allowed.

Does that make a lick of sense to you? That's about how much sense this whack-job makes.

[Thatguy]

Please look past the vitriol, and read the whole thing. Also, I'll thank you not to put words in the author's mouth.

Feminism really has crossed a line here, and gay males are being thrown under the bus.

All there is in the mensdaily article is vitriol and assertion, I see no factual basis for the assertions. What line has feminism crossed? What evidence is there that the National Organization "of" Women originated the demand that homosexuals be able to marry or that the gay males have demanded this form of equality because they were duped somehow by feminists?

No. I'm urging the government to get out of the marriage business altogether. The solution is DNOK contracts. Which is fair.

Furthermore, aping a patriarchal institution only makes one look like a hypocrite. If you're going to call yourself progressive, then remove marriage privilege altogether. Drop the double-standard.

We still have marriage. What laws we have need to be enforced equally. We cannot say that since some people want to do away with marriage altogether we'll continue to apply it unequally until such time as we may someday eliminate it altogether. Let's say you wanted to do away with food stamps and the current law allowed food stamps only for white people. Whether we should eliminate food stamps would be a separate issue, while food stamps existed they would have to be administered in a non-discriminatory way. The same works for marriage. not all homosexuals want to marry, but as long as the government recognizes marriage it must do so with equality.

you cannot make a universal case for hardwired genetic sexual attraction.

Nor do I think we have enough evidence yet to say that each person's level of sexual attraction is hardwired. It's enough that much of our sexuality is hardwired. Just because we have degrees of sexual attraction along a scale from purely homosexual to purely heterosexual does not mean that there's no genetic component to that attraction, nor does it mean that there isn't a point along that scale that we wouldn't label as "homosexual" and a point we'd label as "heterosexual."

It is not flip-flopping to say that there are homosexuals and heterosexuals, even if there are many people who would fall somewhere in between. There are also tall people and short people even though there are many in between. And there is a genetic element to height, though the genetic element does not determine all height differences. If marriage were limited to tall people it should be either eliminated or made open to people of all heights. It would be wholly insufficient to say that it should be eliminated but, since it still exists, it should remain only for tall people. It would not be correct to say that since there's a sliding scale of height, there's no such thing as tall or short so worrying about discrimination against tall people would be worrying about a myth.

[Paulomycin]

Recently, in some countries, marriage has begun to approach equality between the sexes. In most places and times, it's an institution in which men own one or more women. For most of its history, marriage has been completely unequal, in terms of property ownership, custody rights, and so forth, and it still is in many parts of the world.

And I am arguing for equality. I will not be misrepresented as arguing for something akin to chattel ownership of women.

What does this even mean?

It means that gay marriage is a segregation along gender lines. Homosexuality is an obvious sexual bias toward your own gender. Hello? Perhaps it was so trivially obvious that you took it for granted all along?

To use his analogy, permitting integration does not mandate it. If I happen to get together with some other women, I'm not imposing segregation, and requiring me to invite some men would in fact violate my rights.

A night out of dinner and drinks is a temporary arrangement. That's not what we're discussing. Marriage is a lifetime institution of familial bonding. This is the core building block of civilization at the household level.

But then this probably says more about your interpretation of commitment than anything else. Marriage is not some form of extended sleepover open to re-negotiation.

In the same way, the fact that some gay people choose to marry each other will not in any way reduce the freedom of heterosexuals to "integrated" marriage.

Obviously, that's not my argument. This isn't really a question of whether it threatens the straight couples down the block. The question is whether household gender bias should be institutionalized at all.

In this writer's odd reasoning, permitting more people to marry somehow discriminates against someone, although I cannot for the life of me figure out who or how.

Please be careful you're not resorting to an argument from personal incredulity here, i.e. "I don't understand it or comprehend it, therefore it's wrong."

This is simply false. Lesbian couples have the same number of potential incomes as heterosexual, and people with employment incomes are not eligible for welfare benefits. In reality, the income of lesbian couples is below the national average, because they have none of the higher earning male paychecks.

Not when it comes to child-support. Read it again. A woman can hold down a job and still receive child support from a divorce. So theoretically, yes, you can have a case where two divorced (formerly hetero) lesbians marry each other and receive child support along with their career income = 4 incomes for that lesbian household.

I know personal anecdotes don't count for much, but I also know more than one formerly hetero divorced male, who got the shaft when it came to paying out child support. Theoretically, if two divorced (formerly hetero) gay males marry each other and pay out child support, then there is a clear pay inequity when compared with the lesbian example above.

See here: http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.21.2.53

"lesbian couples and their families are much more likely to be poor than heterosexual couples and their families."
http://scholarworks.umb.edu/csp_pubs/34/

There is no possible way to data sample a gay or lesbian household on a long-term basis. Relationships change and none participating are guaranteed to remain gay or lesbian in the future. See: Hasbiens.

The author seems to suffer from an extreme insecurity, due to which he finds the idea of two-female couples threatening to him.

Can we please dispense with the motive fallacies and the armchair psychiatry? I think his anger is justified in this case, when pay inequity among gay males vs. lesbians is taken into account. Gay males would clearly suffer.

Wow, you didn't even understand your own article. The segregation he's talking about is sex segregation, not race. He's saying that because heterosexual marriage involves two genders, it is integrated. He calls same-sex marriage "segregated," because both partners are of the same gender. BY ANALOGY, then, same-race marriages must be racially segregated, and only inter-racial marriage should be allowed.

No, you are equivocating "segregated" according to gender and race when and where it suits you. Thus, your analogy is still false for the same reasons I gave above, as well as here. This is a question of gender inequality and gender segregation alone. This has nothing to do with race, and any comparisons with race constitute a false analogy.

Does that make a lick of sense to you? That's about how much sense this whack-job makes.

Again, you are not qualified to attempt any remote psychiatric diagnoses on the author, no matter how angry he may be.

[Paulomycin]

Please look past the vitriol, and read the whole thing. Also, I'll thank you not to put words in the author's mouth.

Feminism really has crossed a line here, and gay males are being thrown under the bus.

All there is in the mensdaily article is vitriol and assertion, I see no factual basis for the assertions.

See post #283. There is a disparate gender inequity here.

What line has feminism crossed? What evidence is there that the National Organization "of" Women originated the demand that homosexuals be able to marry or that the gay males have demanded this form of equality because they were duped somehow by feminists?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_O ... _for_Women

This brochure also states: "NOW is one of the few multi-issue progressive organizations in the United States. NOW stands against all oppression, recognizing that racism, sexism and homophobia are interrelated, that other forms of oppression such as classism and ableism work together with these three to keep power and privilege concentrated in the hands of a few."

See footnote with link attached.

The six core issues that NOW addresses are abortion rights/reproductive issues, violence against women, constitutional equality, promoting diversity/ending racism, lesbian rights, and economic justice.

See footnote with link attached.

Gay males have no equivalent.

We still have marriage. What laws we have need to be enforced equally.

You're not reading closely enough. You can still have marriage while abolishing government-sanctioned marriage privilege.

Nor do I think we have enough evidence yet to say that each person's level of sexual attraction is hardwired. It's enough that much of our sexuality is hardwired. Just because we have degrees of sexual attraction along a scale from purely homosexual to purely heterosexual does not mean that there's no genetic component to that attraction, nor does it mean that there isn't a point along that scale that we wouldn't label as "homosexual" and a point we'd label as "heterosexual."

This does not mean you can draw a conclusion of a genetic component according to wishful thinking. What's missing is consistency in sexual self-identification, of course. And that's the problem with labeling someone "gay" as-if it were a foregone conclusion. But that doesn't bother you, of course.

It is not flip-flopping to say that there are homosexuals and heterosexuals, even if there are many people who would fall somewhere in between. There are also tall people and short people even though there are many in between.

What absolute laws of nature are you referring to here? And how are they to be determined outside of your professor simply telling you so?

This reminds me of the fallacy of the heap, only more conceptually vague. What percentage of "hetero proclivity" must one lose before officially being known as "gay?" There is no measurable ratio here, and your argument is purely an imaginary one.

You have no "gay ratio" gene, and you can't simply go on faking it.

[Angel]

It means that gay marriage is a segregation along gender lines. Homosexuality is an obvious sexual bias toward your own gender. Hello? Perhaps it was so trivially obvious that you took it for granted all along?

I disagree with you here although I wonder why you don't also consider sexuality bias an issue, as well. Gay marriage is limited to same-sex relations only when it comes to marriage, but life involves more than just marriage. Just because a woman loves a woman doesn't mean she hates men or would never hang out with them in any other area of life. I'd find it more harmful to be with a gender who you find yourself having trouble carrying out a love sexual relationship with than to deny gays the chance to marry unless you have a better alternative.

I'd also like to see evidence that kids raised in gay parent homes come out not being able to function with the opposite gender.

This is simply false. Lesbian couples have the same number of potential incomes as heterosexual, and people with employment incomes are not eligible for welfare benefits. In reality, the income of lesbian couples is below the national average, because they have none of the higher earning male paychecks.

Not when it comes to child-support. Read it again. A woman can hold down a job and still receive child support from a divorce. So theoretically, yes, you can have a case where two divorced (formerly hetero) lesbians marry each other and receive child support along with their career income = 4 incomes for that lesbian household.

I know personal anecdotes don't count for much, but I also know more than one formerly hetero divorced male, who got the shaft when it came to paying out child support. Theoretically, if two divorced (formerly hetero) gay males marry each other and pay out child support, then there is a clear pay inequity when compared with the lesbian example above.

I understand that's how the law is now where women are favored for child-support over men and perhaps the situation you described can arise, but are you saying this issue is not fixable? It would obviously take some changing of the laws to safeguard against a couple getting more child support than what's needed. Some of these things are already conditional or negotiable under current laws.

[Autodidact]

It means that gay marriage is a segregation along gender lines. Homosexuality is an obvious sexual bias toward your own gender. Hello? Perhaps it was so trivially obvious that you took it for granted all along?

I disagree with you here although I wonder why you don't also consider sexuality bias an issue, as well. Gay marriage is limited to same-sex relations only when it comes to marriage, but life involves more than just marriage. Just because a woman loves a woman doesn't mean she hates men or would never hang out with them in any other area of life. I'd find it more harmful to be with a gender who you find yourself having trouble carrying out a love sexual relationship with than to deny gays the chance to marry unless you have a better alternative.

I'd also like to see evidence that kids raised in gay parent homes come out not being able to function with the opposite gender.

This is simply false. Lesbian couples have the same number of potential incomes as heterosexual, and people with employment incomes are not eligible for welfare benefits. In reality, the income of lesbian couples is below the national average, because they have none of the higher earning male paychecks.

Not when it comes to child-support. Read it again. A woman can hold down a job and still receive child support from a divorce. So theoretically, yes, you can have a case where two divorced (formerly hetero) lesbians marry each other and receive child support along with their career income = 4 incomes for that lesbian household.

I know personal anecdotes don't count for much, but I also know more than one formerly hetero divorced male, who got the shaft when it came to paying out child support. Theoretically, if two divorced (formerly hetero) gay males marry each other and pay out child support, then there is a clear pay inequity when compared with the lesbian example above.

I understand that's how the law is now where women are favored for child-support over men and perhaps the situation you described can arise, but are you saying this issue is not fixable? It would obviously take some changing of the laws to safeguard against a couple getting more child support than what's needed. Some of these things are already conditional or negotiable under current laws.

This is not the case. Custodial parents get child support from non-custodial parents, regardless of gender. A heterosexual couple, both on second marriages, raising children from each marriage, would receive child support from both ex-spouses, and therefore have up to 4 potential incomes for 2 children. There is no difference if the two spouses are female or male or both.

Meanwhile, in reality, custodial parents are actually poorer than non-custodial parents, but our correspondent does not seem overly concerned with reality.

[Angel]

This is simply false. Lesbian couples have the same number of potential incomes as heterosexual, and people with employment incomes are not eligible for welfare benefits. In reality, the income of lesbian couples is below the national average, because they have none of the higher earning male paychecks.

Not when it comes to child-support. Read it again. A woman can hold down a job and still receive child support from a divorce. So theoretically, yes, you can have a case where two divorced (formerly hetero) lesbians marry each other and receive child support along with their career income = 4 incomes for that lesbian household.

I know personal anecdotes don't count for much, but I also know more than one formerly hetero divorced male, who got the shaft when it came to paying out child support. Theoretically, if two divorced (formerly hetero) gay males marry each other and pay out child support, then there is a clear pay inequity when compared with the lesbian example above.

I understand that's how the law is now where women are favored for child-support over men and perhaps the situation you described can arise, but are you saying this issue is not fixable? It would obviously take some changing of the laws to safeguard against a couple getting more child support than what's needed. Some of these things are already conditional or negotiable under current laws.

This is not the case. Custodial parents get child support from non-custodial parents, regardless of gender. A heterosexual couple, both on second marriages, raising children from each marriage, would receive child support from both ex-spouses, and therefore have up to 4 potential incomes for 2 children. There is no difference if the two spouses are female or male or both.

Meanwhile, in reality, custodial parents are actually poorer than non-custodial parents, but our correspondent does not seem overly concerned with reality.

I understand what you mean. I just don't agree with labelling a behavior as bad just because it doens't square well with certain laws involving benefits/income,etc. Those particular issues don't speak for the behavior itself of consenting adults being able to love each other and raise good kids. If government gets in the way of those primary functions of marriage then perhaps there's too much government strings and government should step back from marriage when it doesn't involve real harm.

I also question why doesn't Paulomycin consider that lawmakers can fix the issue he brings up (assuming he's correct) since they are paid to fix/amend laws everyday. If I had a good salary and had access to insider trading like some politicians did then I'd work on it myself but that aint the case.

[JoeyKnothead]

From the OP:

Make a purely secular argument for 1 woman & 1 man.

They're just so proud about it they's fixin' to bust.

Make a purely secular argument for 1 man and 1 man.

They're just so proud about it they's fixin' to bust.

Make a purely secular argument for 1 woman and 1 woman.

That :censored: is hot.

And... they're just so proud about it they's fixin' to bust.

Make a purely secular argument for any combinational number of males and females.

They're just so proud about it they's fixin' to bust.

If a government is to be "of the people", I propose that sittin' there being "of the people" is a good way to accomplish the task.

[East of Eden]

99percent, two quick questions for you:

How does two men or two women getting married affect your life? How will it impact your standard of living?

How does two men or two women getting married affect anyone's life other than their own?

How does maintaining traditional marriage impact your life? Should marriage be whatever someone says it should be?

[Autodidact]

99percent, two quick questions for you:

How does two men or two women getting married affect your life? How will it impact your standard of living?

How does two men or two women getting married affect anyone's life other than their own?

How does maintaining traditional marriage impact your life? Should marriage be whatever someone says it should be?

By "traditional marriage" you mean denying same-sex couples the right to marry? Actually, what we're advocating is maintaining and extending traditional marriage to same sex couples. How does it impact my life? I'm glad you asked. There are children whose mothers must return to work rather than stay home and care for them, because they cannot get health insurance under their working parents health insurance. There are elderly widows who cannot collect social security survivor benefits, because they were denied the right to marry. There are husbands and wives of service members who are denied all the rights accorded to such spouses, because the military does not recognize their marriage. There are children languishing in foster care because caring families are denied the right to adopt them. There are couples torn apart by geography, because they cannot sponsor their spouses to immigrate. There are people who die alone, because the hospital denies the right to visit to their spouses. There are literally over 1000 ways this affects actual human beings, purely based on prejudice with no rational justification.