Rainbow Academy!Follow

Just give them all guns and let natural selection take its course.

Over time, if the homosexuals win, there will finally be an end to this whole stupid "reproduction" idea

What amuses me about this argument is that I was married to a man for ten years so he could have health insurance. We had separate bedrooms, and if one of us was seeing someone it wasn't uncommon to have them over for a bite and a movie. We were roommates with a very fancy certificate and a nice tax break.

But now if I were to fall in love with a woman and want to spend the rest of my life with her, we couldn't marry because it would "violate the sanctity of the institution."

I don't agree that THE CRITERIA for marriage has to do with THE possibility of that couple generating a child. There are many different reasons now for getting married, and there used to be many different reasons for getting married. Only some of them have to do with children, in both cases. Marriage as a social institution has evolved greatly over the past 2000 years.

Over time some of the other reasons for marriage have notably included moving in with the person that you are in love with, moving in with someone for companionship, and/or moving in with someone for your own physical and financial security.

Some of the historical events, movements and social changes that have changed how marriages operate are the Protestant revolution, Enlightenment philosophies, the industrial revolution, the final liberation of all peasants from the old feudal laws in the 1700's in America and France, and the 1830s in Britain, the introduction of standing police forces and application of law to all people of whatever class equally, the womens' liberation movement, WW1, WW2, and of course mass-produced condoms and the contraceptive pill.

We have moved waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay beyond the old institution of marriage, and most of the old reasons for marriage, and the old traditions around marriage. Can you imagine some-one locking their spouse up in a Scold's Bridle these days? I like to think that modern marriages are generally much, much, much nicer institutions than they used to be.

First, homosexuals can certainly hire a surrogate or get artificially impregnated. They are capable of reproducing. Second, another answer to this is to allow homosexuals to adopt. It's a damn shame that, because you like to thump your bible, a lot of kids are stuck in the foster system that could be adopted by homosexual couples and raised in a happy environment instead of feeling neglected and unloved.



There's no reason to address any religious implications. Religion has no place in the government. And as long as the government is in the business of issuing marriage licenses and marrying couples (via a justice of the peace), then marriage loses it's religious meaning.



I agree. Marriage needs to be redefined... again. I also agree that every other single person, man or woman, should receive this "you might have kids some day, lets give you money" tax break.

It's nice to agree on something, isn't it?

But same sex couples can generate children. Many do. They raise families, many even have dogs and cats and mini-vans - the whole bit. Now if you want to argue whether people should be allowed to procreate with whomever they'd like, then you best ask god whether test tube babies, in-vitro fertilization and fertility drugs are ok? ok.

If the government wanted to promote the building of a family, not reproduction (which is a separate tax issue), you think they would certainly legally sanctify the union of two adults regardless of gender. The promotion of marriage when it comes to building a family has never been about biological reproduction and has always included the adoption of children, including kinship care. Not including same sex couples is really just about the historic discrimination of same sex couples, but opponents don't want to be open about it. People know that it is wrong to deny people rights based on bigotry.

As far as the OP goes, it makes sense to a certain extent to have a gay-friendly high school, which would give people a safe haven. I don't know. As a ***** woman, I certainly have chosen to live and work in a *****-friendly environment and wouldn't want that denied for any kid. On the other hand, the regular schools do need to be educated, with counselors and teachers understanding how to promote a more tolerant environment. The most vulnerable kids, which are often kids of color or poor white kids, would have difficulty outing themselves to their families and communities to the extent it takes to go to a separate high school.

They're called the 9th and 10th amendments.

Yes it does. I was responding to a post that said that if Homosexual couples could not marry because they couldn't produce a child, then sterile heterosexual couples shouldn't be allowed to marry either.

I was addressing that one aspect of the issue. Nothing else. And that aspect specifically addressed the ability of a particular pair of people to generate a child together.


You may insist that marriage doesn't exist for that reason if you want, but that's another component of the argument. I just want to verify that if we do assume that marriage exists for that purpose then it *is* legitimate to deny it to homosexual couples on the grounds that the entire set of homosexual couples cannot possibly produce children, while only a small subset of heterosexual couples will not be able to (and it's hard to determine which ones at any given time).

Imagine for a moment that the imaginary "Ickyberries" are poisonous and will always make anyone who eats them sick. We might pass a law restricting the growing and serving of ickyberries due to this fact, right? Now imagine if someone argued that if we're going to outlaw ickyberries that we should make it illegal to serve any berries at all because it's possible that some might be bad and make people sick as well, so it's unfair to discriminate against ickyberries. You'd think they were nuts, right?

That's exactly how silly I think the argument that Damian brought up was. All couples consisting of two people of the same sex will fail to produce a child no matter how often they have sex. Only a small percentage of couples consisting of one adult male and one adult female will not produce children if they have sex, and we can't necessarily know which ones they are ahead of time. So, if we are operating on the assumption that marriage is connected to the production of children (we can go into greater detail about this if you want), then it is perfectly reasonable to deny it to same sex couples while not denying it to opposite sex couples.

That's *all* I was pointing at. Does that logic makes sense or not? Ignore the full issue. I think you're getting too caught up in the final position you believe in and are failing to look at each component of the argument by itself. Again. We can debate why marriage exists if you want, but that wasn't the issue I was responding to in my post.

If you disagree with my logic and can explain it with more than just a broad "But that's discrimination!", then by all means please do so...



I'll be glad to debate this with you. In fact, I'll give you an opener:


For what reason do we need a special legally recognized status for this? What is the benefit to society? What are the costs?



Oh. And for the record Joph. I'm far less opposed to Polygamy than I am to granting gay couples the legal status of "married". Of course, I know that someone will assume that this means I want to deny gay couples rights, and I'll have to spend 8 posts explaining why marriage isn't about rights, but about state granted benefits. Then a bunch of people will disagree with me. I'll explain that most of them have been taught the wrong definition of "rights". We'll spend a few more pages debating that. I'll quote Locke. Others will argue about the interpretation. I'll have to go line by line to explain how their very assumptions about the differences between rights and benefits are wrong, and how this skews their entire view of this (and many other issues). People will call me names when they run out of valid arguments. Then the thread will drop off the page.


And then we'll repeat the entire process in about 2 months or so. Does that about sum it up?

So gbaji, why is giving the benefits of marriage to, say, 2 men, somehow worse than a man and a woman?

What's the huge difference? How will it hurt our society as a whole?

Edited, Oct 14th 2008 10:32pm by DaimenKain

So same sex couples are like poisonous berries?

I don't know why I feel the urge to say this, but in gbaji's case at least, I don't think that this is the reason. To his credit, somehow, every one of his objections to gay people getting married seems to be economic.