The most incredibly stupid ignorant hateful thing I've read Follow

It's emotional on both sides. Or are you under the impression that those who march for gay marriage are any less blindly supportive of "their side"?

I'm presenting an argument based on reason, not emotion. Isn't that better?

Thats a little like trying to say you judge a painting on the quality of the paint used instead of the passion and energy of the artist. Love is all there is in life Gbaji and its a duel edged sword, it comes along with fear, hate and bigotry.

As long as you're aware that your logic is bull compared to the real reason that a number of people are voting against gay marriage. Here's a tip: we're arguing the reality and majority of the situations, you're trying to eliminate everything based on some bizarre logic of one special case you've come up with. Maybe you should get out of your own special little world.

It doesn't matter how many people hold a position. What matters is whether the position is valid by itself. My example shows that. You cannot assume a position is incorrect simply because some people (or even most people) have bad reasons for holding it. At one point in time, virtually everyone thought the earth was flat. They're reasons were bad ones, but it didn't stop them from believing it. They were wrong, not because their reasons were wrong, but because if we actually examine the earth we find that it's spherical.

Get it? What people think doesn't change what is, no matter how strongly they feel it or believe it. The illogic of your argument applies in both directions. Many people are wrong to oppose gay marriage because they don't like gay people. And many people are wrong to support gay marriage because they like gay people. Both are wrong.



You've incorrectly stated the issue. In an amusing way, you've repeated the "us vs them" dynamic I've mentioned previously by stating it in a "I'm supporting your benefits, but you aren't supporting mine" manner. Strange, isn't is, how hard it is to step away from this assumptive dynamic.

What I've explained is that all of us "pay" for the benefits of marriage one way or another. It's not me paying for you, it's me and you and everyone else paying for anyone who qualifies for this benefit. In exactly the same way we all pay so that the handicapped guy can park a bit closer to the store. The question is who should receive the benefit we're all paying for and why?

To answer that, you need to ask why the benefit exists. You need to look at the cost and results of not providing it versus the cost and results of providing it. I have already gone through this logic several times. It's not about "us vs them". It's about paying for a benefit for a group of people, and wanting to make sure that the group that gets this benefit match the original criteria for which the benefit was created.

I believe that the benefits provided by the legal status of marriage serve as an incentive to get heterosexual couples to marry. I believe that this is a worthwhile objective because the cost to society if too many heterosexual couples have children without being married is greater than the cost of the benefits. I also believe that since homosexual couples do not produce children as a natural consequence of being a couple, that there is no reason to apply this incentive to them. They can choose to form lasting relationships if they wish. They can choose to enter into a set of identical civil contracts if they wish. But there is no societal reason to provide them with an incentive for doing so.

Thus, I believe that it is perfectly reasonable to restrict qualification for those benefits to couples consisting of one male and one female.


Now. For the umpteeth time, I've explained why I hold my position. I'm still waiting for a similarly well thought out assessment of this from the other side. Yet, all I've gotten is a repetitive insistence that to not provide these benefits to same-sex couples is discrimination, and therefore wrong. I'm sorry, to me this is just as ludicrous as the apple/earth argument.

I'm still waiting. You guys keep insisting that I repeat my argument over and over as though I haven't already made it. How about applying the same rigorous requirements to your own position? Just once? Pretty please?




No. People are usually most swayed by appeals to emotion. That's exactly why you have so many people saying that gay marriage is wrong because it's a sin and so many people saying it's right because it's discrimination.

But that does not change the actual argument. We can all sit here and wave bumper sticker slogans back and forth, or we could do something shocking and actually have a reasoned discussion of the issue. Just because most people are swayed by emotion doesn't mean that we can't discuss it using logic and reason.

I'll also point out that this is exactly *why* logical thought processes were created. So that scientists and thinkers could cut through the BS and try to reason things out. We use the tools of logic exactly because it allows us to derive a correct solution rather then just one that appeals to people the most.



I can when I've already made the logical argument (several times!) that most (all?) government funded or mandated benefits come with qualification criteria. They are all "discrimination", by definition. Thus, unless you wish to argue that all of these programs are violations of someone's "rights", then you must agree that discrimination by itself isn't sufficient argument. You need to show that the qualification criteria in this particular case is not correct with regard to the benefits being granted.


You haven't done this. No one has done this. Just saying it's discrimination isn't enough.



I'm not disagreeing with that definition at all. I'm asking you to apply it to other government benefit programs as well. You're the one arguing that if benefit qualifications are discriminatory that they must be eliminated. But if that's true, then it must be true for them all, right?

If it's not true, then the mere fact that the qualifications discriminate does *not* mean that they are wrong.


That's logic.

More or less correct. I tend to define it more as an attempt to avoid a negative (children supported solely by their mothers), but that's close enough.



All discussions of cost versus benefit are based on this at some level. And let's be clear. It's not just "what's in it for me?". I can certainly choose to provide benefits to people for emotional reasons. The example of the handicapped spaces is a good one. I'm more than willing to bear the cost of this, even though it does not benefit me one tiny bit.

The better statement of principle is "what am I willing to pay for and why?". I'm ok with paying for handicapped people to park closer to the store. I'm ok with paying for heterosexual couples to gain some benefits if they marry. But I wouldn't be ok with having a "pink spaces" in which gay people get to park closer to the store (for example), and for much the same reasons, I'm not ok with providing those benefits to same-sex couples who marry.



Financial encouragements to get married in the first place, actually. But close. It's not an after the fact thing. If two people see a significant financial benefit to getting married instead of just shacking up, they'll be more likely to get married. And if they have children, that's better. But if those two people are of the same sex, there's no point to providing the incentive.



Nice facts, but a bit misleading. Unemployment levels only show people looking for work. In many marriages, one spouse stays at home (often to care for children), while the other works. If we were to calculate the actual percentage of single people who work compared to married people who work, the numbers would come out totally differently.

Not to say that your general argument that marriage is a stabilizing influence isn't correct, just that your facts don't really have much bearing on that. I will agree that married couples will tend to be more stable and beneficial to society overall than single people.



Yup. But you can't show whether this is because people who get involved in crime are less likely to get married or the other way around. Social benefits don't necessarily show up in this sort of statistic. Again. I tend to agree with you, but it's not as cut and dried as that. The mere fact of being single isn't going to make you want to commit more crime. It's just that if you commit crimes, you're more likely to be single.

You could argue that a married person would be less likely to risk his relationship and family, but that's strengthened (again) by the presence of children. I think if you calculated the statistics for any of a number of social measurements against married couples with children versus those without, or even single parents with children against single people without, you'll find a much stronger correlation.

Just a guess though. But one that I'm fairly certain is true. The point being that chasing the "symptom" isn't really correct. Applying the label of marriage to different types of relationships doesn't automatically confer the same statistical results. It's at least an attempt, so I'll give you credit.



Only by choice though. You're approaching the issue backwards. You're trying to make this about choice. But the benefits are provided across the whole population. That's deliberate. If you think about this from a 10k foot perspective, you'll realize that child bearing is not actually a choice for heterosexual couples. For each individual, it is. But for the whole, it is not. That group *must* produce children, or our species becomes extinct. Therefore, it's *not* really a choice. Not as a group. They must breed. Therefore, it's relevant to apply some benefits to make that process as painless and inexpensive (or even beneficial) to society as a whole.

While a lesbian could choose to be impregnated, it will never be with whomever impregnated her. Should we reward her for that choice? That's a separate issue though IMO. The point is that we provide some sort of incentive for those who will *not* choose to have a child, but will (must) have them for our species to survive to do so in a state of marriage as often as possible. That's why we target the benefits at that group.




How is that any more stable than a woman having a child as a single person and then marrying someone else? While that's a step in the right direction (after the fact), it's not something that should be encouraged. She's free to choose that, but there's no reason for me to have to subsidize that choice.

If a heterosexual couple has sex often enough, they will produce children. Whether married or not. If a homosexual couple has sex, they never will. We need to cover for the eventuality that will happen, not the choice made by an individual.



You're assuming that.


Um... But remember. I'm not opposed to gay couples marrying. I just don't see why their marriages should be subsidized. The value they bring by doing so is a minor good. But the value to society for heterosexual couples marrying is much much greater. That's the point here.



Not to the extend that failing to do so for heterosexuals does. Remember, it's about cost versus benefit. We lump a whole bunch of financial benefits into the marriage status. That cost is justified given the extreme benefit to having more children born to a married couple than to single mothers.

The societal benefit for gay couples getting married is minimal. That's nice, but it doesn't justify that much cost. Give them a fruit basket maybe...



It's not about "sides" though. That's the wrong way to look at it.

The issue is about a set of benefits designed to be an incentive for behavior. The group we target those benefits to needs to represent a value as a result of that changed behavior equivalent to the cost of the benefits. Heterosexual couples meet this requirement, so it makes sense to provide the benefits to them. Homosexual couples do not. Therefore, it does not make sense to provide the benefits to them.

That's the logic of my position. It's comes back to the original question: "Am I ok with paying for this benefit for this group for this reason"?

I think people are accusing you are being a closet homophobe because you are arguing about maybe 1/5th of the issue, and steadfastly refusing to listen to the other 4/5ths.

Even when it comes to government benefits, maybe 1/3-1/2 of government benefits are directed at supporting children. The rest have to do with supporting the couple as a unit, becuase couples have needs and rights to do with each other, and over each other, that singles people do not have with any other person.

They share their property, their bodies, their affection and their time with each other in a way that single people do not with other people. It makes any two people who are a couple a different entity than any two people who are single

And getting back to government benefits to parents, this is an even more important reason why gays should be allowed to marry. Parenthood is a multi-faceted thing. There is genetic heritage, womb carrying the growing fetus, and parenting the child. Gay couples are able to participate in all three of those actions. (gay males not the womb carrying obviously). Maybe not in the same straightforward combination as a heterosexual couple, but this doesn't make parenting any less meaningful to a *****.

In a world that has blended-families, adoption, fostering, surrogacy, IVF, and those old examples of special arrangements to mutual parenting benefit between a lesbian couple and gay couple, who are both broody, there are no obstacles to gay parenting except for legislation and discrimination.

I would argue that parenting a child that is out of the womb (living with and raising a child) is the most important of the three facets I listed, and I fail to see any reason why gay parents would a priori be worse parents than heterosexual parents. Arguments about the child growing up gay from example are groundless, when their world will be saturated with heterosexual-couple examples from their TV, movies, books, every time they step outside the door, and the majority of their class-mate's parents.

Their internal instincts, set by their brain structure and hormonal system, which is set in the womb, is going to naturally take over at puberty, and 90-95% will come out predominantly heterosexual, and 5-10% will come out predominantly gay.

They are most likely to grow up non-homophobic, which I think is a good thing. I also think they are more likely to experiment during puberty or early adulthood with bi-sexuality out of curiosity, because homosexual sex and love acts will be normal activities in their mind. And I see nothing wrong with that either. I doubt most of them will settle in to life-long bisexuality, they just instinctively won't be interested enough in members of the same sex
in order to settle down in couples with them.

As for examples of gay people being trained out of being gay, with enough incentives and punishments you can train any person out of any instinctual response. Hence Stalin's USSR and Pol Pot's Cambodian "re-education camps". It's totally possible to train someone to leave their hand in a burning fire, while their skin crisps and bubbles and runs, until they are told "It's ok, you can take your hand out now". People can also train themselves to do such a thing with no outside influence, if they are personally motivated to do so.

Edited, Nov 7th 2008 1:45am by Aripyanfar

It's not at all difficult. But your argument has f'uck-all to do with the reality of the situation. Frankly, you're a little like Sarah Palin in the debate when she vapidly declared she wasn't going to talk about the subjects being dealt with by the moderator, but instead would talk about whatever SHE wanted to talk about.

As I've stated before, I have neither the time nor the inclination nor the obligation to respond to your attempts to redefine the situation so that YOUR view of it somehow matters. Start dealing with the reality that in the world outside Gbaji's little fantasyland, opposition to gay marriage has ZERO basis except blind bigotry, then we'll talk.

Edited, Nov 6th 2008 10:36pm by Ambrya

Canada and the states have probably wasted more money debating the issue then it would cost letting gay people get married for the next 20 years.

It's all ridiculous, just let them get married, let them have kids, and stop spending what is probably up in the billions now on debating over the issue.

Gbaji,
I wasn't making the argument. I was only showing you that it could be made and what it would look like. Obviously the data would need to be fleshed out.

[] The group we target those benefits to needs to represent a value as a result of that changed behavior equivalent to the cost of the benefits. Heterosexual couples meet this requirement, so it makes sense to provide the benefits to them. Homosexual couples do not. Therefore, it does not make sense to provide the benefits to them.
[/]

That's exactly what the argument does, when fleshed out. It proves the value of the changed behavior in comparison to the cost of the benefits. And even though it would never convince you, it would convince many who might be on the fence.

Assuming that your position is intellectually honest (in other words, not a pretext for bigotry), it's still narrow and extreme ... "I don't want to pay for it, quit reaching into my wallet, and you can't prove me wrong." ... for the longest time, cigarette manufacturers were correct in stating "you can't prove smoking is harmful." Lack of proof does not prove the reverse.


Edited, Nov 7th 2008 4:50am by Ahkuraj