Being a frequent reader of his political essays as well as a devoted fan of his novel, I see an extremely complex and confusing view with respect to homosexuality emerging. Despite his fervent opposition to gay marriage, he treats the homosexual characters in his novels with a great deal of respect and empathy (although, a la Songmaster, homosexuality does seem to lead —almost coincidentally— to death and destruction). It has given me cause to wonder exactly what his opinions on homosexuality as a whole are.
Is it genetic or is it a choice, and does it matter? Is it a sin? Is homosexuality in general destructive to society or just gay marriage?
Mr. Card, if you would be so kind, I would be delighted to hear an answer from the source.
P.S. As far as my personal beliefs, I am not gay myself, but I do support an expansion of recognition of the rights of gay couples.
[ April 09, 2005, 02:20 PM: Message edited by: AutumnFire ]
Posted by mothertree (Member # 4999) on :
Can you not see the search feature?
Do you not know how to use it?
Or is it possible you think you are the first person ever to have attacked OSC about this here?
I'm looking forward to your response. Posted by Occasional (Member # 5860) on :
I will answer for him (sort of) as he has expressed it many times.
Homosexuality "as a practice" is a sin. It is a sin because the behavior is destructive to society. On the other hand, people who are homosexual are still people who should be treated with respect as humans, even if the practice is wrong.
Posted by AutumnFire (Member # 7320) on :
Occasional, thanks for the information. That's roughly what I expected. Mothertree, it was not my intention to "attack" him at all! I was asking for clarification roughly along the lines of what Occasional provided. I've not found any of the past threads to actually answer the question directly. Thanks.
Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
I didn't see it as an attack, either.
As a matter of fact, your question was actually a very perceptive explication of the fact that I have only issued statements on my policy concerning a radical redefinition of marriage without regard for its possible consequences on society, and on my belief that the Mormon Church has a regular procedure for determining what is and is not a sin, and it is not a matter to by whimsically changed in order to comply with the fads of modern society outside the church.
I have also assessed the extremely poor quality of the "science" that claims to have "proven" the genetic inevitability of homosexuality without any serious attempt at gathering evidence or trying to falsify the hypothesis. The outcome of widespread genuine scientific inquiry would be interesting. No one has even tried to do it - the few pathetic attempts are not science, since they're trying to prove, rather than disprove, something, and almost all rely on anecdotal or self-reported evidence.
When real evidence comes up, I will be fascinated to see it. Until then, my speculation can beat your speculation ...
But you see, we live in a time when if you question in any way the dogma of the PC Left, they immediately brand you with all the worst names they have, because the last thing they can tolerate is diversity of thought, since it always leads to uncomfortable questions, and we wouldn't want anybody on the Left to be uncomfortable.
So you will hear from others that I'm a raging homophobe who hates gays and indulges in gay-bashing. But if you examine what I actually say, and how I treat homosexual characters in my fiction, you will discover that (a) I didn't say any such thing in my essays and (b) I don't show any such attitude in my fiction. None of my homosexual characters represent a "position" on homosexuality. They represent themselves, human beings with a wide array of motives and choices, and I present them, as I try to present all my characters, as if they were the heroes of their own story.
The funny thing is that I've been criticized very hotly by conservative Christians (including Mormons) because I'm so PRO-homosexual.
Then again, you should see the hilarious hate mail I just got from an unbelievably self-righteous Mormon who seriously thought I should be excommunicated because I had expressed such warm feelings about John Paul II in my recent essay. It's just mind-numbingly bigoted and smug.
So you see, in the world I live in, I'm such a namby-pamby moderate.
[ April 10, 2005, 11:04 PM: Message edited by: Orson Scott Card ]
Posted by Shan (Member # 4550) on :
Well, there you have it. Fence straddling is just not an accepted art these days . . . Posted by Cashew (Member # 6023) on :
Just goes to show what a diverse spectrum inhabits the "committed Mormon" community. I just finished reading the essay on the Pope, and flipped over here to see if anybody else had. I loved it, it having expressed my own thoughts on a good man teaching truth as he saw it. My own belief is that God takes an interest in who heads the Catholic church, if only because of its vast power to stand up for good in today's screwed up world. Can't believe some of these Latter-day Saints! I am LDS, if that wasn't clear, by the way. (And glad you liked New Zealand, Mr Card, I like it here too!)
Posted by signine (Member # 7671) on :
quote:When real evidence comes up, I will be fascinated to see it. Until then, my speculation can beat your speculation ...
Okay, that just made me spit soda all over my laptop. I had to comment because that was really funny.
<- otherwise staying out of this.
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
That's what's great about life; you never have to be lonely, because if you share an opinion out there where others can get it, there's bound to be somebody who will be offended.
And I figure it's better to be hated than ignored. At least someone's thinking about you. Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
Estavares, that was a great one! I am going to be borrowing that if you don't mind Posted by AutumnFire (Member # 7320) on :
quote: The funny thing is that I've been criticized very hotly by conservative Christians (including Mormons) because I'm so PRO-homosexual.
Hahaha, I KNEW it!! Reading Songmaster, I figured that imperceptive liberals would think you homophobic and imperceptive conservatives would think you PRO-homosexual (homophilic...?).
Anyway, I'm glad you didn't interpret that as an attack on your views. I hadn't realized that that was a touchy subject on this forum.
Incidentally, about the scientific evidence: I'm reading a book by Francis Fukuyama right now which mentions in passing some interesting and rather convincing studies on the subject. The book itself, Our Posthuman Future is primarily about how advances in biotechnology will keep history going (contrary to what his earlier book argued). However, it makes reference to some interesting studies comparing monozygotic twins and dizygotic (sp?) twins. The conclusion is that homosexuality has roughly the same genetic component as left- or right-handed ness; that is, it can be influenced or completely changed by the environment, but that - all other things being equal - an individual is influenced by either a genetic or develomental (pre-birth) factor.
Anyway, thanks for the detailed answer. I appreciate hearing you air your own views and opinions on the subject.
Posted by curmudgeon (Member # 7804) on :
Interesting topic. I myself have not "assessed the extremely poor quality of the "science" that claims to have "proven" the genetic inevitability of homosexuality " but it would appear the science doesn't need to extend much farther than the eyeballs can see.
Homosexuality has been around since, what, the dawn of man? And in every culture yet. It would appear to be a naturally occurring condition based on those terms alone. And we should also ask the opposing question whenever this topic rolls around, "Were the rest of us born heterosexual?" I'd answer 'of course' which makes the opposite not so hard to imagine.
In any event, the villification of homosexuals is essential to so many political and religious agendas that it will surely be around as long as they are, which is to say as long as humans are.
[ April 13, 2005, 08:17 PM: Message edited by: curmudgeon ]
Posted by Rose the ____ (Member # 7791) on :
I've gotten the impression that it's not so important whether homosexuality is a genetic trait, nor whether it's evil.
it seems to me that the issue has been - why would the state reward homosexual couples in the same way they reward heterosexual couples? with the same tax benefits and child benefits and so on. What purpose, positive or negative, is served by the state supporting such a marriage, and supporting families with two parents of the same sex?
I mean, really, it seems all we have is "The Birdcage" in this culture, telling us the son of two homosexual parents is going to work out fine while his parents will be just as crazy and caring as regular parents are. It's a kind assumption, and were I to jump to conclusions I'd share it- but is there any research to back it up?
and that seems to be the problem. there's no serious research into the effect of homosexuality on people's lives, and yet people jump to make laws assuming that the answers to the research are already apparent, even obvious.
Posted by Rose the ____ (Member # 7791) on :
I should amend that. I personally assume that - one - homosexuality is not a sin, (and I know no cruel men or women who are homosexuals) - and I believe that homosexual men and women are just as capable of being good fathers and mothers, whether they end up raising children with members of the same sex or the opposite sex. But this is something I believe. It’s something I assume and I would never want for such laws to be passed based on my personal assumption that I can hardly back up with any evidence except my faith in some of my friends. - and I assume people are born with homosexual tendencies.
but I know that my assumptions are just that. assumptions. I cannot back them up. and I wouldn't try to pass laws that affect my community, my state, or my country based on these assumptions. it seems a bit - hasty?
Posted by curmudgeon (Member # 7804) on :
I don't understand why conservatives don't insist on gay marriage.
One of the things they like to bemoan is promiscuity, and marriage is supposed to end that behavior in particular.
I would guess that the thought of married homosexuals is upsetting in that in certain respects it would put that lifestyle on equal footing with their own and otherwise take the legs out from under those existing feelings of superiority that anchor so many peoples lives.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Just out of curiosity, had you lived in the era when cheap automobiles were altering courtship patterns, would you have objected to them on the grounds that they would have an unknown effect on society?
Posted by Rose the ____ (Member # 7791) on :
hmm. no, but I don't think that's what I'm saying no to w/ regards to homosexual couples, either.
I guess what I would have done is say -yes, people may buy automobiles, but until we get some studies on how this will change the way we live (studies that probably would be finished satisfactorily in, what, a week?) - we won't give the same tax breaks to these - automobile drivers - that we give to our time-honored horse riders. harumph.
... yeah. it's still a bit silly that way. try this though.
The problem is there's only two sides yelling at each other right now, and Mr. Card was reminding us that no one has done serious scientific research into this. Marriage is a pretty important institution in a civilization, and when we're going to make big changes to it, let's have real research ready.
Posted by Rose the ____ (Member # 7791) on :
whoa. I totally skimmed over what you wrote and missed the point entirely . sorry about that.
Posted by Rose the ____ (Member # 7791) on :
hmm. ok. I read it this time :-[. and - no, no, I would not have objected to cheap automobiles. but are we really going to be passing laws on a whim? ok, of course we already are, and I don't know anyone, including myself, who pays close attention to the laws getting passed in my state, so already I'm passing I don't know how many laws on a whim .
but it still seems to me it should be a question of why should we, as opposed to why shouldn't we, in giving the same tax breaks to exclusive couples of the same sex - that we give to exclusive couples of the opposite sex.
ok. the wording up there is terrible... because I remembered a neat idea I got from - well, where I get most of my neat ideas. from a comic book.
Ex Machina, it's a Wildstorm/DC comic about some universe's first superhero who happens to run for mayor of NY after 9/11 and wins. it's like Iron Man meets The West Wing set in NYC. in comic book form. sorry I digress too much -
so. now that I've completely discredited the idea, out w/ it: abolish marriage. make it simply a religious institution, have people go to the court for a seperate civil union licence... oh dear I'm going to get yelled at now . <ah well>
Posted by 1135813 (Member # 7816) on :
I think the question here is really about the purpose of marriage-- should people get married because they want societal recognition for their relationship, or because it is their duty as humans to continue the species?
Opponants of gay marriage tend to believe that the latter is true. The purpose of marriage is to start families, and good families need a mommy and a daddy. Thus, homosexuals have jsut as much of a right to start a family as straight people do. This seems to be the belief of the patron saint of this forum board. I don't know how true this claim is. The weak link seems to be the belief that solid families must have two parents of diffrent genders-- previous posters are right, no research has been done to prove or disprove this claim, so speculating about it is a waste of time.
Proponants of gay marriage tend to argue that marriage is about love, not about society. The purpose of marriage to allow people in love to attain recognition for their relationship-- as well as fringe benefits like visitation rights, convenience in tax filing, and so on. If one subscribes to this belief, gays do not have the same rights as heterosexuals-- they do not have the right to live in a legally convenient way with the person they love.
As these beliefs spring from moral differences rather than factual ones, neither can be considered more or less legitimate than the other. Everyone has to make up their mind for themselves about whether or not they are going to get married, who they're going to marry, and why. It is not the government's place to dictate that.
Orson Scott Card believes that the most legitimate reason for getting married is the starting of a family. I believe that there is nothing wrong with marrying someone because you love them, and you want to spend your life with them. That's okay; we don't have to agree. The difference is that while it is perfectly legal for persons of the former persuasion to live according to their beliefs, without a change in legislation, me and my girlfriend will never be allowed to get married. That's not right.
I am not trying to call Mr. Card politically incorrect for not personally believing that it isn't right for homosexuals to get married. If he thinks that gay marriage is detrimental to society, he can feel free to try to convince as many gay people as possible not to get married. It is important to remember, however, that both of our beliefs are just that-- beliefs. They can be debated about, disagreed on, but they shouldn't be legislated.
Posted by Rose the ____ (Member # 7791) on :
hmm. ok, I was a bit of an idiot earlier, and I think that's become fairly obvious - but I'm posting again because I just remembered - same sex marriages are already legal in certain European countries, and - they're still legal in Vermont, right?
so if a state or country wants to figure the effect allowing same-sex couples to marry - presumably for reasons comparable to the reasons opposite-sex couples marry (raising a family, sharing your life with the one person you've fallen hopelessly in love with, etc.) - they can just look at these states. They have a wealth of information before them already, - surely this question's been answered already.
so - yeah. sorry I forgot to figure that in before.
Posted by AdamSchmidt (Member # 8078) on :
I just recently re-read the Ender/Shadow series and found a scene which speaks to this subject. In it, Bean and Petra have gone to Anton and the following bit of conversation takes place:
quote:“Listen to me, both of you. Here is the meaning of life: for a man to find a woman, for a woman to find a man, the creature most unlike you, and then to make babies with her, with him, or to find them some other way, but then to raise them up, and watch them do the same thing, generation after generation, so that when you die you know you are permanently a part of the great web of life. That you are not a loose thread, snipped off.”
“That’s not the only meaning of life,” said Petra. sounding a little annoyed. Well, thought Bean, you brought us here, so take your medicine, too.
“Yes it is,” said Anton. “Do you think I haven’t had time to think about this? I am the same man, with the same mind, I am the man who found Anton’s Key, I have found many other keys as well, but they took away my work, and I had to find another. Well, here it is. I give it to you, the result of all my. . . study. Shallow as it had to be, it is still the truest thing I ever found. Even men who do not desire women, even women who do not desire men, this does not exempt them from the deepest desire of all, the desire to be an inextricable part of the human race.”
From this scene, I have two questions... first, is this a case of the author using a character to speak from the author's own heart, his own point of view?
Second, I've come across several theories (and sociology being a "soft" science and the conclusions being nigh impossible to reproduce in laboratory conditions they will remain only theories) that homosexuals perform a valuable service to society by being producers but not consumers. A simple modern example would be that gay men and women pay taxes which fund public schools but lacking children, they do not consume this service. Another example which spans time is their childless status enables them to assist their community/tribe/family by being able to provide childcare as needed.
I also recently re-read the Ship Who Sang series and one of the characters there posits that Darwinian selection also works in societies. Those societies that produce desirable traits survive, those that don't... well, don't. That individuals within a society contribute to its success or failure. While homosexuals do not provide more members of the society by breeding, is it possible that their ability to produce (economically as well as secondary caregivers) without the added consumption created by being parents themselves is therefore a desirable trait? Of course I am suggesting this as a small portion of society as too large a number would drastically reduce procreation but that should be obvious. Also it should be noted that while I am asking this outside the context of any particular religious beliefs they would have a significant impact upon the answer a person might give.
Posted by tern (Member # 7429) on :
quote: It is important to remember, however, that both of our beliefs are just that-- beliefs. They can be debated about, disagreed on, but they shouldn't be legislated.
Most of our legislation is based upon beliefs of subsets of our society. Some of this legislation is even good, specifically the legislation that agrees with my beliefs. Posted by Junkman (Member # 8076) on :
listen the problem was that marriage is a religous thing. and if your religon has certain rules for marriage and you don't like them then you can always change religions. the problem as i see it was that the goverment got involved and got the power to marry people, where i believe it should have only had the power to make civil unions.
and its alot harder to switch goverments then to swtich religons.
but with all that said and done there's nothing we can do about it now.
Posted by Junkman (Member # 8076) on :
quote:Originally posted by Orson Scott Card: But you see, we live in a time when if you question in any way the dogma of the PC Left, they immediately brand you with all the worst names they have, because the last thing they can tolerate is diversity of thought, since it always leads to uncomfortable questions, and we wouldn't want anybody on the Left to be uncomfortable.
I could say the same about the Right. But I digress.
Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
You could say the same thing about the Right, but you would be wrong. When I read Commentary, for instance, I see the ideas of the Left treated fully and fairly - I can learn more about BOTH sides than I can learn about EITHER from most Leftwing publications, which are primarily invective or cant.
There are idiots on the right; but the idiocy is not uniformly distributed. As witness the fact that Republicans in the Senate are not voting in a lockstep bloc, but have to be persuaded, while the Democrats have utterly purged their party of any divergent thought at all, so everybody votes the party line on every important issue.
Posted by AdamSchmidt (Member # 8078) on :
Being completely honest, you could say the same thing about the Republican minority Senate previous to 1996 when they took back control. It seems to be more symptomatic of the minority party of the time rather than what ideology they subscribe to.
Beyond that, while both parties have some divergent beliefs on issues (it's obvious that not all Republicans believe in sound fiscal policy even though they are the party known for it) Democrats have been the party with the greatest problem of too many divergent beliefs. The very concept of conservative and liberal describe this as conservative subscribes to existing long-held beliefs while liberal looks to change those systems. Look at all the stuff that gets thrown under "liberal beliefs"... drug legalization, gay rights, minority rights, pro-choice, labor unions, commerce regulation, social security/welfare programs, and so on. Picking out the right-wing stance on those issues is pretty easy but do you honestly believe that ALL or even a VAST majority of the left hold the same beliefs on the issue of say drug legalization? The biggest problem Democrats have had for the last several decades is because they accept non-traditional viewpoints on all these varying issues they have had terrible problems getting consensus.
Posted by Antony (Member # 7947) on :
Mr. Card, I was just wondering if your opinions on lebian relationships are the same as your opinions gay relationships between men
and, with appologies if this question comes across as crass whether you believe anal and oral sex between hetrosexual couples is also sinful?
[ May 22, 2005, 01:32 PM: Message edited by: Antony ]
Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
1135813, I appreciate the depth of your post. I want to propose a tweak or two.
It sounds like you're talking not about the purpose of a marriage, but about the purpose of state recognition of a marriage. You listed 2 options: wanting societal recognition, and reproduction. Those might make sense for state recognition, but surely the reason most people marry is that they want that kind of bond, with that partner? Whether the state is involved or not.
I hear many reasons for opposing state recognition of gay marriage. "Supporting reproduction" is just one, and maybe not the most common.
Proponents of state recognition of gay marriage might SAY they're arguing that marriage is about love (or not), but if it were, they could go ahead, have the ceremony, and love each other, whether the state gave them a piece of paper or not. It must be about something else.
Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
Adam, I'm stunned by your statement about the Democrats. There doesn't seem to be _any_ move among Democrats to legalize drugs. You also list "pro-choice"; there's no move among Democrats to back away from any part of the most extreme position they have. If they have such a rough time getting consensus, why is it that they always have it on every issue they promote, even on technical issues like filibuster, or how best to run Social Security?
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
I dislike that passage on several levels...
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
Mr. Card, what you had to say was sensible untill you reached your poin about commentary. I am a Liberal, but I read the Economist. I know that high quility journlism exists on both sides. The B.B.C. has a slight liberal bias, but it does not interfer with their reporting. The Wall Street Journal has a slight conservitve bias, but this does not interfer with their reporting. I belive that both are good and nesescary for good news, just as both Michael Moore and Bill O'Reilly are bad for news.
Posted by Junkman (Member # 8076) on :
quote:Originally posted by Orson Scott Card: You could say the same thing about the Right, but you would be wrong. When I read Commentary, for instance, I see the ideas of the Left treated fully and fairly - I can learn more about BOTH sides than I can learn about EITHER from most Leftwing publications, which are primarily invective or cant.
There are idiots on the right; but the idiocy is not uniformly distributed. As witness the fact that Republicans in the Senate are not voting in a lockstep bloc, but have to be persuaded, while the Democrats have utterly purged their party of any divergent thought at all, so everybody votes the party line on every important issue.
You're arguing relative things here. What you consider to be stupid, another could consider to be smart. And everything you say about the Democrats I can argue the Republicans have done it as well.
Instead of making statments like these, use actually dates and facts to prove your point.
Posted by kojabu (Member # 8042) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rose the ____: hmm. ok, I was a bit of an idiot earlier, and I think that's become fairly obvious - but I'm posting again because I just remembered - same sex marriages are already legal in certain European countries, and - they're still legal in Vermont, right?
Civil unions are legal in Vermont and Massachusetts and they aren't recognized anywhere else.
Posted by Shan (Member # 4550) on :
*shakes head while watching the poor horse being flayed to the bones*
Posted by signine (Member # 7671) on :
*gets a stick and a marshmellow, sits down to watch the flamewar*
Posted by tern (Member # 7429) on :
I'm not really sure that there is a practical difference between laws based upon religious beliefs and laws based upon non-religious beliefs.
Say I claim that theft is bad based upon my religious beliefs and deserves to be made a felony, and another also claims that theft is bad and should be a felony, but based upon other beliefs as they are not religious.
Are laws based upon my belief bad, and theirs good, even though they are the same? If he changed his mind, does the law become bad now that a non-religous person now opposes it and a religious person does?
I feel that playing the religous Card regarding gay marriage comes uncomfortably close to disenfranchising people based upon religious beliefs, saying that because their belief is based upon religion they cannot put it into law whereas someone whose belief is not based upon religion can put it into law.
Democrats, Republicans, dislike 'em both. Democrats say they support views opposite to my own, and usually do, Republicans say they support my views and usually don't...
Posted by alluvion (Member # 7462) on :
eh?
So, lemme get this straight. Just cuz I support gay marriage don't mean I should be roasted does it?
(though a good roasting is ever as bit as pleasant as a good deep tissue massage)
harummph!
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"I'm not really sure that there is a practical difference between laws based upon religious beliefs and laws based upon non-religious beliefs."
Do you believe we should stone witches? What if the majority of the people in this country belonged to a religion that advocated the stoning of witches?
How, for example, do you feel about legalized peyote?
Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
My religious belief suggests that we shouldn't burn witches.
In the last century, there were laws based on eugenics, a belief which most people would not call religious. People were sterilized against their will. I think (I hope) most of us would oppose that.
So it seems there ISN'T a practical difference between laws based on religious, and on non-religious, beliefs. Both can be wrong and both can be right.
Posted by RoyHobbs (Member # 7594) on :
Junkman: You are supporting OSC's claims to the fullest extent. Your posts have done nothing but respond blindly according to your bias. You are a perfect example of what the democratic party has done to make itself the minority party in the USA; you respond negatively to creative ideas without offering any sort of plan in response.
You tell OSC to defend his point of view, but you do not defend your pov. Why should he spend anytime arguing with someone who does not have the inclination to offer a thoughtful, cogent, concise argument in response?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"Your posts have done nothing but respond blindly according to your bias. You are a perfect example of what the democratic party has done to make itself the minority party in the USA..."
I'm a Democrat, too. Please tell me what I'm an example of. Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: So it seems there ISN'T a practical difference between laws based on religious, and on non-religious, beliefs. Both can be wrong and both can be right.
I think the common ground you're looking for is this: laws should be based on fact and reflect both justice and mercy even for those who do not share the values reflected in those laws.
Posted by Exploding Monkey (Member # 7612) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I'm a Democrat, too. Please tell me what I'm an example of.
I second that request. Posted by RoyHobbs (Member # 7594) on :
I didnt say all Democrats did that, I said that it is one way through which the Democrat party has achieved its current station in America.
Posted by RoyHobbs (Member # 7594) on :
Responding to Tom's second post: AMEN!
Now lets agree on what exactly constitutes "justice". Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
quote: Do you believe we should stone witches? What if the majority of the people in this country belonged to a religion that advocated the stoning of witches?
Seeing marriage and death are two vastly different things (well, I suppose it depends on the marriage, hee hee) this question is a bit of a stretch. We're not talking about life and death. We're talking about giving people special rights simply because they want them, because they "love" each other. Hey, I "love" my cat and I'm not asking for breaks on my taxes.
Let's be honest here––this is an issue of "Jimmy has it, why can't I?" It's an issue of someone mimicking behavior and expecting the same benefits. I suppose I can wear a police uniform and put a siren on my car and expect a policeman's discount at Dunkin Donuts, right? Why can't I do what my heart tells me to do––to don a suit and utility belt fight crime as Batman?
As I've said ad nauseaum, I'm of the opinion there can be have some kind of "friendship contract" for two or more people, regardless of relationships, to secure basic legal and medical rights. But traditional marriage holds a special place in the social, physical, emotional, mental balance of society. It's a higher standard, and study after study shows a healthy traditional marriage is the best means by which children are raised and socially healthy values are passed on.
LIke Tina Turner asked, "What's love got to do with it?"
(Insert sound of dead horse being soundly beaten.)
Posted by tern (Member # 7429) on :
quote: "I'm not really sure that there is a practical difference between laws based upon religious beliefs and laws based upon non-religious beliefs."
Do you believe we should stone witches? What if the majority of the people in this country belonged to a religion that advocated the stoning of witches?
That's a strawman, TD. I've made it quite clear that I'm LDS, and you should know by now that we're not up with killing people who don't agree with us.
Here's a strawman for you - do you believe that we should kill people because they have Down's syndrome? Because that's one thing that abortion is used for, and that's an example of a personal belief placed into law. Eugenics in practice.
So what if a religious or non-religious belief that I do not agree with is made law? I will of course, strive through democratic means to change the mind of the majority and stop the action from taking place. Which the proponents of gay rights are free to do - and I am free to stop them, again through democratic means.
Again, in this respect, there is no difference between beliefs based upon religious or secular views. Both can be extreme, both can have severe consequences, both can be disagreed with, both can have a majority agree with them (in theory, if not in practice) and still be wrong.
Posted by lego feet (Member # 8093) on :
I'd like to point out that "Enders Game" is an anagram for "Same Gender"
OBVIOUSLY MR. CARD IS A HYPOCRITE!
[ May 24, 2005, 07:20 AM: Message edited by: lego feet ]
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: It's a higher standard, and study after study shows a healthy traditional marriage is the best means by which children are raised and socially healthy values are passed on.
I need a definition for "healthy" here, I think.
quote: That's a strawman, TD. I've made it quite clear that I'm LDS, and you should know by now that we're not up with killing people who don't agree with us.
It's not a strawman; it's a slippery slope argument. In other words, if you believe that a religious majority should have the right to create laws based solely on its religious doctrine, then the stoning of witches is a no-brainer. Clearly, some secular considerations come into play here -- as they well should.
Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
I don't know if anything can have solely a religious doctrine basis, including religious doctrine. But if law can, then I think "thou shalt not murder" qualifies. And I think we should keep it.
And, you're right, it's a no-brainer that stoning of witches is a bad idea.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: But if law can, then I think "thou shalt not murder" qualifies.
Ah, but it doesn't. Murder is a demonstrable, provable harm -- unlike, say, witchcraft or homosexual behavior.
Posted by dab (Member # 7847) on :
enders game anagrams...
A DENSE GERM A MENS GREED A DR GENES ME A DREG SEMEN GRENADES ME DERANGES ME GREASED MEN GEARED MENS EARNED GEMS GRADES ME NE DREAM GENES READS GEM NE DNA ERE GEMS MEAGRE ENDS RAGE ENDS ME
Posted by Antony (Member # 7947) on :
wow some of them are amazinh!
RAGE ENDS ME --- so relevant! DREAM GENES --- a bit controversial MEAGRE ENDS --- just cool
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
I think what a lot of you are forgetting is that a lot of what is perceived as "religious law" was originally societal law. To put it another way: 'X' was the law of this society that happened to worship the god known as Yahweh (Jehovah, I am that I am...) Most of this law was not based on what God passed down or allegedly passed down, but what made sense to those in power and their counselors. Whether your society is explicitly religious or secular, certain things make sense: if someone can be randomly murdered in the street, they don't form any of the businesses and relationships that form and strengthen society, but rather cower in their homes and stockpile weapons and food. If someone who didn't earn or create something can steal from someone who did, the impetus to earn and create is diminished. And so on. Some of these laws made sense at the time, or at least the best sense that the smartest people could come up with: many people who eat pork and shellfish get sick, so we should ban it altogether. Leprosy is a horrible and terrifying plague of our time, so we have a long and somewhat ridiculous list of symptoms that might indicate leprosy; having this list gives us a sense of control over something that frightens us and we do not understand. Then there's passages about burnt offerings and slavery, which have been the fodder of humor postings before...
Full disclosure: religious background (Catholic.) Democrat, albeit disgruntled (party has no spine.) Heterosexual, married, one child. I would call myself a liberal, but some twenty years of conservative PR has worked to poison that word beyond any reason, so I'll call myself a progressive instead.
As a resident of Oregon, I witnessed one of the most well-funded, highly-organized, and completely hysterical (not in the funny sense) political campaigns of my life in the effort to ban homosexual marriage. I was literally receiving mail and brochures insisting that if we let gay marriage slide, "they" would be teaching explicit sodomy in our schools. I'm tired of hysteria. Those who oppose gay marriage do so on an emotional basis, and I understand that. Frequently, it doesn't seem like they do. With nothing beyond their own hunches, they spin a tale of complete societal decline on the basis of this issue. What I understand is this: plenty of children who are the product of families with a traditional mommy and daddy end up abused and neglected, and in need of foster care. Many of those children would be better off in the hands of a sane and loving homosexual couple than their natural parents. I'm not saying there aren't plenty of heterosexual couples that aren't also sane and loving, or that homosexuals are posessed of some inherent nobility; there are plenty of messed up people in every category. I just don't think that homosexuality alone should be used in declaring people unsuitable for qualities and rights straight people take for granted. If it's a "special" right for gay people to be able to adopt and have the same legal rights with their partners as a married straight couple, why is it not a "special" right for that married couple? Is it merely a matter of procreation? And if so, with 6 billion people and mounting on the planet, should we really be putting that ability on such a pedestal? If it's tradition and fear that cause us to ban homosexual unions, we should consider those ancient people with their traditional fear of leprosy and undercooked pork and try to come up with reasons for this tradition that are based on sense, not hysterical conjecture.
Card has suggested those who allow gay marriage are performing a reckless experiment on society. The whole of Canada is currently engaged in this experiment. I ask: if their society fails to show the complete breakdown some have imagined in the wake of gay marriage, will those entrenched against it reconsider? Or will we just hear how Canada is such a different case, and they are breaking down in this other way, and blah blah blah... <Whew> All right, I'm going to stop ranting now.
Posted by Peter (Member # 4373) on :
quote:Originally posted by lego feet: I'd like to point out that "Enders Game" is an anagram for "Same Gender"
OBVIOUSLY MR. CARD IS A HYPOCRITE!
hehehe.....that's funny, but exactly what some one might use as an argument. wait!! you were being sarcaastic, yeh?
Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
And why should I care about demonstrable harm to another human being? Looks like we're back to religious doctrine again.
If you're arguing against victimless crimes, I'm with you. But there are victimless crimes that are not based on what we usually call religious doctrine (such as the Swedish ban on criticizing homosexuality; or the capital crime in Stalinist Russia of "anti-tractorism"), and there are victim-ed crimes that can certainly be based solely on what we usually call religious doctrine (as I just showed).
This is a common type of argument. I knew Democrats who were passionate about voting for Kerry because Bush said the war in Iraq was justified. So did Kerry; it didn't matter. Others were passionate for Kerry because Bush, like Kerry, opposed gay marriage. In 2000, I met someone who was horrified that Bush supported the death penalty, and therefore was passionately for Gore, who also supported the death penalty.
A man sent a note to his wife: I'm coming home, across the bridge over the ravine, but my enemy is trying to get there first, so he can kill me. You have to let me in and keep him out. She sent him back a message: should I destroy the bridge to keep him out, or should I leave it, to let you in?
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
that was a really good post Will B!
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
err...I really didn't understand that post, except for the very first bit. So I'll answer that and hope that someone can explain the rest of it to me.
There are many arguments for setting up systems concerned with harm ot human beings that don't rely on "Because I (or God) said so.", which is what I assume is meant by religious doctrine. Two of the most convincing for me are the "veil of ignorance" and the utilitarian one. I'd make a case for it being one of the core principles of the Enlightenment, but that'd take more time than I really want to spend.
Anyway, the veil of ignorance is the idea that when setting up a system, you have no idea what role you are going to take on in that system. This leads pretty directly to making the harm of people a central concern, because you have no idea whether or not the person who is going to be harmed is you. The utilitarian argument is that a society that concerns itself with its citizens being harmed and with justice is likely to be more successful than one that does not.
Posted by lego feet (Member # 8093) on :
quote:Originally posted by Antony: wow some of them are amazinh!
RAGE ENDS ME --- so relevant! DREAM GENES --- a bit controversial MEAGRE ENDS --- just cool
also:
Raged Semen Enema Dregs German Seed DNA Emerges
I also think "Rage Ends Me" is very appropriate. Missed that one last night. Good find!
I can take no responsibility for the ... subject nature of these anagrams.
Posted by RoyHobbs (Member # 7594) on :
The real villain behind this whole argument is the federal government, more specifically its unnatural, unconstitutional power and size.
Imagine if you will a pie. That pie is all the things that the federal government has control of, indirectly or directly.
If the pie is a large thick, juicy pie full of wonderful, rich ingredients every citizen will want a piece.
If, on the other hand, we have only a few crumbs and some frosting on a plate, not very many people will be fighting to get it.
If the federal government (and government in general) was smaller, with jurisdiction over a few, albiet important, things, we would not see all the national controversy we see today over who gets the biggest piece of pie of tax breaks and contracts.
Our founding fathers, fortunately, saw that the expansion of federal power could become a problem, that is why they went so far as to actually write down the exact number of things that the federal government is allowed to do (we have a government of ENUMERATED powers), they wrote these things in a document called the Constitution, which is now used as toilet paper by activist judges who legislate their beliefs into law.
If the federal government was impotent regarding the issue of the definition of marraige, than no one could get hurt by its ruling.
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
quote:Originally posted by RoyHobbs: ... which is now used as toilet paper by activist judges who legislate their beliefs into law.
If the federal government was impotent regarding the issue of the definition of marraige, than no one could get hurt by its ruling.
Wow, another slam against "activist" judges, who saw that coming?
If the feds are impotent, then the status quo in marriage would remain. Presumably you favor this, Roy. But others do not, and claim the right to petition the courts, under constitutional rules.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"If the feds are impotent, then the status quo in marriage would remain."
Perhaps not. On this issue, I agree with Roy; one of the reasons social issues are becoming so important is that the federal government is increasingly sticking its nose in where it should fear to tread.
Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
There would be one clear federalist way to change marriage: by legislation. (Another would be referendum.)
--
The veil of ignorance argument doesn't work well even in our society, and it's been abysmal in most societies throughout history. If I were utterly selfish, and lower class, I'd want mercy for the lower class. If I were utterly selfish, and upper class, I'd want to maximize power for the upper class. This is what many people through history did. But fortunately, societies are full of people who aren't utterly selfish in this way. In the mid-1800's whites in the USA, the UK, and France pushed for the abolition of black slavery. It was not clear at the time that this would make whites more prosperous, but they did it anyway because they thought it was right (and in most cases this involved them thinking God wanted it). And a good thing.
The utilitarian argument seems to assume that if my society is successful, this is a good thing. But why would I want my society to be successful? African dictators ruined their societies by robbing them, and ended up with mansions, fat Swiss bank accounts, etc.
Posted by Exploding Monkey (Member # 7612) on :
Ooops, nevermind. You guys already covered it. Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Will, I'm not sure that you understand either of the points I made. The whole point of the veil of ignorance is that you don't know whether you'll be lower class or upper class or black or white or whatever. This perspective provides a definitive reason for pushing for equality without recourse to unprovable value arguments. If I understand you correctly, I think you were trying to say that peopel don't often utilize veil of ignorance reasoning in their actual lives. That's completely irrelevant to what I was saying.
I really don't understand your point about African dictators. You've shown that not caring about the harm caused leads to cultures that collapse, which supports rather than detracts from my argument as you seem to think it does. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you. If that's not what you were saying, could you elaborate?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Roy, I'm wondering, as you're talking about the constitution and what our country is supposed to be, could you explain how you feel the Federalist Papers fit into to what you are saying? It is often hard for me to follow these types of arguments and I find that tying them to directly relevant concrete influences greatly assists my understanding of what people are saying and the FP is one you must obviously have considered. If you'd be willing to do that, I'd appreciate it.
[ May 25, 2005, 01:07 AM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
I'll try again.
>The whole point of the veil of ignorance is that you don't know whether you'll be lower class or upper class or black or white or whatever.
Yes. I'm saying that isn't what happens in the real world, and since it doesn't happen in the real world, it's not useful for giving a motivation for law in the real world. It might make an interesting thought experiment.
>I really don't understand your point about African dictators. You've shown that not caring about the harm caused leads to cultures that collapse, which supports rather than detracts from my argument as you seem to think it does. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you. If that's not what you were saying, could you elaborate?
I've shown that it is not necessarily in the interest of the individual for society to succeed. They profited from causing their societies to fail. Therefore "it is in my interest for my society to succeed" is not always valid.
Since it doesn't hold up, it's not reasonable to want laws that are good for society because this will benefit me. So whereas utilitarianism is a useful perspective, it doesn't answer the question of why I should support this law or that.
So neither utilitarianism nor "veil of ignorance" are sufficient to take the place of religious views in creating motivation for law. Therefore it is not true, as someone stated earlier, that all laws that have a foundation solely in religious doctrine are bad laws. (I assume that "solely" doesn't mean "I have to turn off all my other faculties," but something like "this faculty is necessary.") Laws against murder, and laws against buying alcohol on Sunday, are both based on religious doctrine (although the alcohol one is very tenuously connected). Laws by rabid anti-religious people like Mao and Stalin are also sometimes bad law. Knowing whether the people supporting a law have religious motivations won't help us in determining the value of the law.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"Knowing whether the people supporting a law have religious motivations won't help us in determining the value of the law."
And yet the motivations behind a law are in fact relevant, if the law is not based on other logic. Consider blue laws, which you mentioned. What non-religious motivation compels them?
Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
I didn't say blue laws weren't based on religious doctrine. I said the opposite: "Laws against murder, and laws against buying alcohol on Sunday, are both based on religious doctrine."
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Laws against murder, and laws against buying alcohol on Sunday, are both based on religious doctrine.
And that's where you're wrong. Laws against murder are based on provable harm, whereas laws against buying alcohol on Sunday are based on religious doctrine. This is an important distinction, because the former criteria is the important one in a secular society.
In other words, if murder is a provable harm, it's okay to have a law against it even if religious doctrine also forbids it. No one's saying otherwise. What people are saying is that if something is considered "wrong" solely due to religious doctrine, it would be improper to legislate against it in a society that does not universally accept that doctrine.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Will, I still think you're not getting it. We're talking about the theoretical bases for systems of laws here. Such as systems are (usually) about curbing people's "bad" actions and encouraging their "good" actions, based on the values derived from the theorectical bases. So, what people have done or are predisposed to do are largely irrelevant. It's like criticizing using the 10 commandments as basis for a system of laws because people are always breaking them.
Of course people don't act on the veil of ignorance in real life. That's not what we're talking about. What we're talking about are what values one should use to determine a system of governance. You are arguing that it must come from an irrational (and likely at some point irreducible) source and I'm demonstrating that it doesn't. The realm of values is not necessarily logically arbitrary.
And again, the dictator argument actually supports my point. You're presenting a case where equality and harm are not central concerns and showing that in some cases this leads to a screwed up and pretty much doomed society. That is the utilitarian argument, that we should value these things because they lead to more sucessful societies.
Look, I don't know if that explanation is going to get through to you. Here's a summary. We're looking for reasons why we should value something, in this case concern about harm and equality, while setting up and maintaining a system of laws. The claim was made that there is no basis for these things other than "religious" values. I'm showing that there are in fact rational, logical reasons for valuing these things.
edit: We're concerned with the "why" chain. The idea that you must have a "religious" basis is saying that for any law there's going to come a point where asking why are we doing this is going to end up at "Because X is by definition right (or wrong)." In this case, we reached a point in the why chain where the answer was "Because we value concern about harm and equality." People then calimed that at the next step ("Why do we value concern about harm and equality?") the only possible answer is "Because harm is by definition wrong and equality is by definition wrong." whereas I'm supplying other answers.
Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
The dictator argument: no, I didn't say we should value certain policies because they lead to more successful societies. Why should we? You're right: we are talking about a why? chain, and it's a valiant effort to answer this tough question, but your answers still beg the question.
I should support law X because it's good for society. Why should I support what's good for society? [Here we reach the limit of the utilitarian argument.] Because it might benefit me in some hypothetical situation of a veil of ignorance. But why should I support something that might benefit me in some hypothetical situation I don't live in? [And here we reach the limit of the veil-of-ignorance argument.]
It's fun arguing with you, by the way.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Laws against murder make excellent sense, in that they protect the lawmaker too. No religious motive is required to be afraid of death - quite the opposite, one might say.
Posted by Telperion the Silver (Member # 6074) on :
I've talked about this so many times I don't think I have much energy anymore for it (or at least the energy to argue very politely about it).
Ok... just a little bit.
For me, the religious argument against me and other gay folk doesn't hold water. Religion is an ancient form of science and/or philosophy. It was trying to explain the world around us. We've grown up. We've found better ways to explain the universe. While moral codes are good to keep us from killing each other, many are outdated. We don't need slaves, we don't need women below men, we don't need to hate homosexuals, we don't need human sacrifices.
The whole reason the taboo on homosexuals began was way back when the key to success was the size of your clan/tribe. If you weren't breeding you were not a productive member of society. Now in a world of 6 billion I think the greatest threat is way too many people.
The modern reason why most religions have a ban on birth control and want people haveing 12 kids is still that age old worry... not anymore about saving your city from an invading army that is larger then yours, but down to politics and the number of believers. If you have more believers then the next religion, you can crush them, get more donations, save more souls, etc...
It's not because "God" hates gay folk... it's because religion is afraid of low numbers.
I'm sure some ethinc groups are worried about population where that still matters...and then you have Italy with a declining population. But while the Vatican tries to get Italians to breed, their policies are helping to create a population explosion in South America and Africa.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
I read somewhere that an excellent indicator of juvenile delinquency is family size. That says something to me about the REAL effects of Mormons, Catholics, other religious groups with large families, etc.
Bear in mind the conclusions of "The Fates of Nations" in which it becomes clear that a sudden rise in population comes immediately before ALL major wars of conquest.
Keep it in your pants. I don't care if you're married or not. I neither want to have your 18-year-old kids fighting FOR me or AGAINST me. At least that's my common sense attitude. Of course, few will listen.
Posted by jeniwren (Member # 2002) on :
What a pleasant and oh-so-reasonable, yet simplistic and condescending viewpoint of religion. If there is more to homosexuality than gay bars and dressing in drag, could it not be possible there's more to religion than a set of ancient, now mostly irrelevant platitudes?
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
quote:What people are saying is that if something is considered "wrong" solely due to religious doctrine, it would be improper to legislate against it in a society that does not universally accept that doctrine.
So how is it proper to legislate gay marriage in a society that, by majority, does not universally accept that "doctrine"? Minority opinions are legislated all the time, often against the express will of the majority.
Establishing proper behavior via laws does not necessarily advocate that religion––and neither Jefferson nor the rest of the Founding Fathers believed that keeping religion out of politics meant removing the doctrines. This country was never intended to be completely secular. If you read the works of many of the founders you see a common thread––religious doctrine (though not religious organization) is an essential part of this nation's success.
Assuming all laws must be secular in origin is a handy presumption by those who want to enforce their belief systems on others. That's the beauty of the system. If the majority want blue laws, for example, they can have them. It's their right. It's never improper.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
What's with you Americans and the 'intent of the Founding Fathers'? They lived two hundred years ago, in a different country. Surely we've learned something since then? They may not have intended the USA as a secular country; then again, they also didn't intend the USA as a country without slavery. Try to think for yourselves for a change, why don't you?
Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
There are some 280 million of ourselves. What will really happen if we dump the Constitution and its intent is that a very few living people get to decide for the rest of us. Not something I want to see happen.
The rule of law may have its problems, but it's better than the alternative.
--
Laws against murder do not benefit those who wish to commit it. Why should I prefer the rights of a victim over the rights of a killer, if I'm not the victim? There must be some reason.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Well, that's kind of the point : A law against murder protects you from becoming a victim. It's a bit late to go legislating when the dagger is lifted against you.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"Laws against murder do not benefit those who wish to commit it."
Will, are you seriously implying that the only reason people might obey laws which do not directly benefit them is religion? Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
King of Men:
I can only hope your arrogance is based on ignorance.
I could "think for myself" and use water instead of gasoline for my car, of course, because I'm far more practical and advanced than the inventors of the automobile, right?
I suppose we can simply reshape the Constitution to fit whatever whim and fancy we want, because it feels good and we want our way. We ought to follow Ancent Rome's sterling example of pissing away a bright future by doing whatever we dang well please. Isn't that the credo of the secularist?
Whoopie! Bread and circuses for everyone!
Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
Tom, I wasn't talking about obeying laws, I was talking about _supporting_ laws. I thought that was clear.
But if what you reall meant was "only reason people might support laws," propose an alternate reason, and let's see if it's religion.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"propose an alternate reason, and let's see if it's religion."
Because the preservation of society, for all but the most sociopathic of people, is a goal that provides concrete benefit to the most individuals.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:What's with you Americans and the 'intent of the Founding Fathers'? They lived two hundred years ago, in a different country. Surely we've learned something since then? They may not have intended the USA as a secular country; then again, they also didn't intend the USA as a country without slavery.
Americans don't think we have to do exactly what the Founders would have done. Rather, some of us think that if we wish to change the foundational principles upon which this country is founded, that is better done by majoritatarian process rather than judicial fiat. The principles subject to enforcement by unelected officials should be ones that, at some point, the people enacted.
quote:Try to think for yourselves for a change, why don't you?
Actually, we're being prevented from doing that, or at least from implementing the product of our thoughts, by 9 people who insist on doing our thinking for us.
[ May 26, 2005, 03:32 PM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
Couldn't have said that better myself!
Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
Tom, why should I care about what gives concrete benefits to the most individuals, as opposed to what benefits me?
Don't you see how this begs the question? I should care about things that don't benefit me but benefit society overall, because it would benefit the most individuals. Since society is the set of all individuals in it, and "overall" means "most," you've just restated the question in with different terms. It's like saying I should clean the house because that will give me an orderly domicile.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Because the more individuals are benefitted, the more statistically likely it is that you will be one of them; moreover, it is also less likely that a large and powerful group will take to the streets and remove you from power. That kind of thing is usually painful for all involved.
Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
That statistical likelihood doesn't works for those in power, because they are not typical individuals: they have power. So they can twist the law to make themselves rich. It is not in their interest to put society ahead of themselves.
It doesn't work too well for the rest of us, either, once we know our social class (which we do) and the particular law. We don't live under a veil of ignorance.
Be careful what you wish for. Suppose you convince everyone that the only necessary reason to vote for laws for everyone, is self-interest. Then, since we have a white majority, we'll return to race discrimination against blacks -- reduces the competition for jobs and slots at the university. Very few of us are gay, so we can vote for a gay tax -- after all, they don't have any children to support -- and we can make sure of that by maintaining bans on gays adopting or being foster parents. It makes many of us uncomfortable to be around the handicapped, and it costs an enormous amount of money to make everything handicap-accessible; so that goes too: expenses go down a little, and we don't have to feel depressed from seeing someone blind or in a wheelchair. We'd save even more money if we killed the ones who aren't economically productive. They don't have the votes to stop us.
Is that what you really want? Because all I have described is voting in one's self-interest.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: That statistical likelihood doesn't works for those in power, because they are not typical individuals: they have power. So they can twist the law to make themselves rich. It is not in their interest to put society ahead of themselves.
As religion hasn't prevented this over the last four thousand years, either, I think it's safe to say that those in power are going to try to rewrite rules in their favor, either way.
Respect for society, fear of god, or fear of authority: all these are effective sticks (and, in reverse, carrots.)
You seem to be equating religion with anything that isn't short-term self-interest, which seems a bit narrow to me.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:That statistical likelihood doesn't works for those in power, because they are not typical individuals: they have power. So they can twist the law to make themselves rich. It is not in their interest to put society ahead of themselves.
Not ahead of themselves, no. But it is in their interest to keep the peasants sufficiently happy that they don't revolt - the second point I made, which I note that you didn't address at all.
Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
KoM: A society that keeps the peasants subservient and happy for the benefit of the masters -- is that what you're proposing?
ToM: So is it right for the powerful to rewrite the rules in their favor -- legalize murder provided the accused is upper class, etc.? If not, why not?
I still haven't heard why I should prefer to benefit society over benefiting myself (long-term or otherwise).
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
No, I'm not saying such a society would be a good thing. I'm saying that the ruling / legislating class needs to do an absolute minimum in terms of keeping their peasants happy if they are going to remain rulers, and this is a good selfish reason for them to support laws against murder. As the peasants become more sophisticated and win power, as in a democracy, that minimum becomes considerably larger.
Regarding legalisation of murder done by the upper classes, I don't take a stance on its rightness or otherwise. I merely say that I would prefer not to live in such a society. I also note that such laws have existed, and have been burned out by risings of the peasantry - take a look at the privileges (literally, 'private laws') of the French nobility before the Revolution.
Posted by alluvion (Member # 7462) on :
Lots of interesting stuff here. Thought I'd respond a bit. This from OSC:
"There are idiots on the right; but the idiocy is not uniformly distributed. As witness the fact that Republicans in the Senate are not voting in a lockstep bloc, but have to be persuaded, while the Democrats have utterly purged their party of any divergent thought at all, so everybody votes the party line on every important issue."
I'm not sure what his point is here. There are any number of reasons or rationales for this behavior.
1. The republicans who don't vote in lockstep are fearful of a "liberal conspiracy" that might undermine their careers.
2. The republican's who don't vote in lockstep have a reason to do so based on a principaled conscientiousness opposed to party-line.
3. Divisiveness amongst the GOP make them look more like questioning truth-seekers in the face of the mindless onslaught of knee-jerk Democratic zombies.
4. Well, the Dems are on the losing end of things, so why wouldn't they act/speak in strict accord with team strategy (ok, that's laughable).
5. Being in the majority, with lotsa control, the GOP simply has the luxury of divisive opinion (for now)
so... what's the point? Idiocy is a function of complacency as a result of what?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: I still haven't heard why I should prefer to benefit society over benefiting myself (long-term or otherwise).
I'm wondering whether you consider any reference to enlightened self-interest and/or human decency to be religious in nature. Do you?
If not, there are plenty of philosophical justifications for altruism. Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
No, I concede that "enlightened self-interest" may be non-religious . . . but it's irrelevant, since I've shown that enlightened self-interest is not sufficient to motivate good laws. Enlightened self-interest will give us discrimination against minorities, persecution of gays, and elimination of the handicapped.
I notice you keep dodging the question: why should I prefer to benefit society over benefiting myself?
It's no surprise you don't have an answer. Nobody's ever been able to come up with a way, in all those attempted philosophical justifications of altruism, to derive "ought" from "is." It's nothing to be ashamed of -- being unable to solve a philosophical problem no one in human history has been able to resolve.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"Why should I prefer to benefit society over benefiting myself?"
Will, the problem here is that the answers I've already given you -- enlightened self-interest, concern for one's fellow man, etc. -- are not answers that you have been willing to accept.
Speaking as someone who is NOT religious and yet is rather stridently moral, I'd be interested to hear why you think I have a code of ethics.
Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
I've already shown that enlightened self-interest leads to benefiting myself over society, not society over myself.
So: why should I be concerned for my fellow man?
This is the nominal fallacy. "Concern for one's fellow man" is a _name_ we apply to benefiting society over oneself, not an explanation.
Posted by entropygirl (Member # 8132) on :
It must be really weird to have so many people fanatically asking your opinion on things.
Posted by RoyHobbs (Member # 7594) on :
Will's logic is why capitalism works.
People motivated by selfish self-interest, in a national marketplace, are "guided as if by an invisible hand" to benefit that marketplace, and therefore "their fellow man".
That individual in a free, capitalist society, can only make a profit by voluntary exchange - with both parties benefitting .
He is therefore guided to create products/services that benefit the most other people, he cannot benefit individually otherwise!
Not only is capitalism the most successful economic system, it is the most moral.
Posted by Starsnuffer (Member # 8116) on :
Will_B I understand that you think people do thinge because it benefits them. But in regard to obeying laws there is a sense of duty and conscience. If I get really mad at someone I wont kill them even if it weren't against the law because I would feel bad for making everyone they know sad. I think your views are a bit too narrow is what I'm getting at.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Perhaps. But market theory makes as many assumptions as introductory physics does: no transaction costs/frictionless surfaces, perfect information/spherical cows, etc.
The problem with unregulated markets is that they are not free, because the natural market penalty for certain types of misrepresentation is less than benefit derived from them and because individual participants are able to make the market less free.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Hey, Dag, that's an extremely good analogy! "To explain how the market works, first, assume a spherical worker in simple harmonic motion..."
Posted by RoyHobbs (Member # 7594) on :
Of course there is misrepresentation in a free marketplace just as there is lying in everyday interaction with people: just because it happens does not mean that all people are bad or that morals are a sham.
Many people have the idea that making a profit is based on tricking someone or stealing from someone, though this is obviously possible, this is not the way that most people make money.
If a car salesman tricked someone into buying a horrible car, the car salesman would benefit in the short term, that is true.
In the long term however, it would be near impossible for him to continue to do this, especially in todays information age.
In the long term, he would almost certainly go out of business.
But lying salesman are a necessary evil in a free marketplace. I would rather choose a lying salesman voluntarily, and learn from that decision, than be forced to choose an honest one by my government.
Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
> Will_B I understand that you think people do thinge because it benefits them. But in regard to obeying laws there is a sense of duty and conscience. If I get really mad at someone I wont kill them even if it weren't against the law because I would feel bad for making everyone they know sad. I think your views are a bit too narrow is what I'm getting at.
No, Starsnuffer, that's not my view at all. I don't think people only do what benefits them. I think the opposite. I think that if people only did what benefited them, society would be awful (and I showed this several posts back). The idea that purely selfish motivation was sufficient justification for law has been proposed here, but not by me.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Of course there is misrepresentation in a free marketplace just as there is lying in everyday interaction with people: just because it happens does not mean that all people are bad or that morals are a sham.
Congratulations. You refuted an argument nobody made. *golf clap*
quote:But lying salesman are a necessary evil in a free marketplace. I would rather choose a lying salesman voluntarily, and learn from that decision, than be forced to choose an honest one by my government.
And if these were the only two choices, I might agree. But they're not. Not even close.
Posted by RoyHobbs (Member # 7594) on :
No, I was refuting the argument that you made about misrepresentation in the marketplace.
You seemed to imply that because there is misrepresentation in the marketplace, the free market system does not work. Using that reasoning, I tried to show that the misrepresentation people do in their own lives does not lead to a similarly overgeneralized moral barrier.
quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- But lying salesman are a necessary evil in a free marketplace. I would rather choose a lying salesman voluntarily, and learn from that decision, than be forced to choose an honest one by my government. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"And if these were the only two choices, I might agree. But they're not. Not even close."
Show me a government regulation and I'll show you a man with a gun pointing it at my head not allowing me to make choices that I may or may not want to make.
Just because something needs to be done in the marketplace or in society does not mean the government, much less the federal government, needs to do it.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
You know, 'The Government' isn't some alien organisation imposed on us by little green fascists from Alpha Centauri. It is the representative of the people, not perfectly by any means, but reasonably responsive to their will. So when the federal government imposes a regulation (often against the will of the corporations it is imposed on) to benefit the rest of us, that is essentially the people taking the market in their own hands. What is the problem with that?
Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
It's a powerful rhetorical technique, and sometimes maybe even a good idea, if it's done openly: restate the question to make it more friendly to one side. Surely, though, speaking ONLY of federal regulations that are beneficial to the public is too big a restatement? Plenty of federal regulations aren't.
We'd still have the issue of unwarranted invasion of personal freedom, and the problem that our government often makes legislation -- usually through the courts -- that the majority opposes.
[ May 30, 2005, 03:04 PM: Message edited by: Will B ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:No, I was refuting the argument that you made about misrepresentation in the marketplace.
You seemed to imply that because there is misrepresentation in the marketplace, the free market system does not work. Using that reasoning, I tried to show that the misrepresentation people do in their own lives does not lead to a similarly overgeneralized moral barrier.
I do not imply that the free market system does not work. I stated that for a market to be free, some regulation is necessary. For example, the ability to compel performance when you prepay for delivery and delivery does not occur.
quote:Show me a government regulation and I'll show you a man with a gun pointing it at my head not allowing me to make choices that I may or may not want to make.
Just because something needs to be done in the marketplace or in society does not mean the government, much less the federal government, needs to do it.
If nothing else, a civil law system to enforce contractual and property rights and to allow bringing torts is necessary.
Dagonee
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
quote:Originally posted by Will B: Surely, though, speaking ONLY of federal regulations that are beneficial to the public is too big a restatement? Plenty of federal regulations aren't.
We'd still have the issue of unwarranted invasion of personal freedom, and the problem that our government often makes legislation -- usually through the courts -- that the majority opposes.
I'm still a little curious how this topic got from gays to this. I'm going to have to look back and squint real hard. In the meantime...
The problem with putting the free market above government is that however flawed representative government may be, it's still on some level dictated by the people. If the representatives of the people aren't adequately serving the people, they are (at least in theory) eventually run out of office.
In the free market, representation is based on money. That representation comes in many forms, from a worker base that produces a product to a consumer base that purchases the product to the various upper-level executives and investors. But ultimately, your representation in that system is only based on your perceived value to it. A multi-millionare has many times the effective "vote" of a sweatshop worker in Indonesia.
Adam Smith (he of the "Invisible Hand") constructed an interesting and useful model of the market, but it was definitely flawed even at the time and has only become more so. The workers who produce a product in China are not part of the market for the same product. Their wages wouldn't even allow them to be part of that market. Those who conduct their business using them as a work force have no responsibility to them; indeed, if a cheaper work force becomes available, market forces encourage them to pull their ventures out of China and into the cheaper workforce.
It may be possible for the consumer base to inflict pressure on the system, through boycotts and letter-writing campaigns and such forms of public pressure. This kind of pressure becomes increasingly unlikely as the same business interests begin to control the flow of information that would inspire such public pressure.
The free market definitely has its points, but I'd argue it has absolutely no inherent morality of its own. This is why it is crucial for the people to instill some measure of control upon it. It doesn't take a very careful look at our current market model to suggest that over the long-term, it will probably be self-destructive. You just can't funnel your money into cheaper and cheaper work-forces, because in doing so you erode your own consumer base. However, it may take decades to do so, and to the executives who make such decisions, it may seem worth it. Local, individual self-interest trumps group and societal self-interest.
As for the judiciary, ideally it is their role to take the long view. Sometimes, that means taking actions of which the present majority may disapprove. It may make the majority uncomfortable to racially integrate their schools; forcing a company to dispose of their waste properly may raise the price of that company's product. But in the long term, the entire populace has a chance at a decent education, and doesn't increase their risk of cancer and birth-defects. We may not like some of those decisions, but we should be very careful before we arbitrarily revise that role.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
I'm still interested in hearing why Will thinks I choose to live a moral life, since by his logic it makes little sense for me -- an unbeliever -- to do so. Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
I'm pretty sure that making environmental regulation is a brand new role for judges!
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Still hasn't actually answered that question....
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
Maybe you're really a believer after all, Tom.
Posted by Zotto! (Member # 4689) on :
You know, over the years of lurking at Hatrack I think I've picked up a fair bit about your philosophy, Tom, but I'd nevertheless be pretty interested in an all-inclusive philosophy/manifesto/explanation thingy from ya.
Take your time. *grin*
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
I think it's along the lines of 'Win one for the Gipper!'
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:I'm pretty sure that making environmental regulation is a brand new role for judges!
Not really. Nuisance, trespass, and other tort law have dealt with environmental issues for centuries, and most of that was made up by judges as they went along. That's what common law means.
Dagonee
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
quote:Originally posted by Will B: I'm pretty sure that making environmental regulation is a brand new role for judges!
Making, yes. Enforcing, no. Whether and to what degree the rules are enforced makes a huge difference. Depending on the damage done, "environmental" enforcement may also fall under other legal statutes. Or a judge might accept reports produced by an industry's own scientists and turn a blind eye.
Posted by curmudgeon (Member # 7804) on :
It turns out scientists recently altered a gene in a female fly that caused it to act as a male to attract a mate. Hmm. And there was a finding last year that the brains of homosexuals had an area that was larger than the same area in heterosexuals. Hmm. It'll be interesting to hear what the queer-haters will come up with when the proof becomes empirical that being homosexual is no more of a choice than it is being heterosexual.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
quote:... when the proof becomes empirical ...
So let me see if I understand you. You're expressing implicit faith in the truth of a scientific idea that you acknowledge has not yet been proven Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
And calling those who don't share his faith "queer-haters."
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Actually he doesn't do that Dag. Not at all.
The anti-homosexual bigots already denied gays the ability to adopt children in Texas based on terrible research done by a man who was censored and thrown out of the APA and ASA because he just couldn't stop lying and making things up.
I wonder as well if (as the increasing amount of reputable support seems to be suggesting) the idea that homosexuality has a biological/genetic component becomes strongly supported and widely accepted, what these people, accurately if crudely described as queer-haters, will come up with.
Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
Well, so much for civility.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
Squick, it's pretty obvious from curmudgeon's post that people will believe what they want to believe, pretty much regardless of the evidence Why even ask the question? I mean, to use an example you'll agree with, there are people who campaign every day to remove evolution from school curricula ...
Though some people do get sidetracked into pointlessly arguing the causes of homosexuality, the real debate here is about the wisdom and morality of promoting homosexual relationships as the equivalent of heterosexual relationships in our culture. If it is suddenly proven, beyond a reasonable doubt, that homosexual desire is an entirely genetic phenomenon that cannot be affected by personal choice or environmental factors, the disagreement over what should be done about it on a societal level is still pretty much unchanged.
Posted by alluvion (Member # 7462) on :
how so, pup?
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
People seem to be assuming that the fact that a trait or desire is inborn, and isn't somehow the "fault" of the person experiencing it, automatically means that it should be indulged to the fullest possible extent.
The one does not imply the other. So establishing the cause of homosexuality does not automatically define the proper societal response.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
He makes the clear implication that anyone who doesn't accept this "empirical proof" (whatever that is supposed to mean) at that point will be "queer haters." He also makes the clear implication that the queer haters as a group justify their hate based on homosexuality being a choice.
Both sides of this are flat out wrong. One only has to look to the KKK to see that humans are well capable of hating others for inborn traits.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Dag, Honestly, to me, those implications are by no means clear. They are certainly a great deal less clear than a lot of the implications I've gotten from OSC's writing that you've said you didn't see. Could you show me how it seems to you that curmudgeon makes that clear implication that everyone who disagrees with him is a queer-hater or that people or that peopel are incapable of hating for in-born traits? I don't see them at all.
I agree that whether homosexuality has a certain strength genetic or biological genesis should be largely irrelevant to the debate about its role in society, but from what I can see, it's not. There is a reason why gay advocates welcome each supporting bit of evidence for this gladly, while people who oppose pro-gay stuff put effort in to arguing against and discrediting them. Heck, a large percentage of OSC's arguements rely on this not being true.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:It'll be interesting to hear what the queer-haters will come up with when the proof becomes empirical that being homosexual is no more of a choice than it is being heterosexual.
The very clear implication of this statement is that they will "come up" with something, and that the reason they will come up with something is related to their group attribute. What's the group attribute? "Queer hat[ing]." What's the event that will cause them to "come up" with something? "Empirical proof" that homosexual attraction is an innate trait. The one is linked to the other by the very nature of his pondering.
The only reason to ponder what a group will "come up" with after an event is because one believes the event is somehow important to a group. When the event is proof of the falsity of a particular premise, it's logical to conclude that premise is important to the group. When the group is identified solely by a belief ("queer-hating"), it's logical to conclude that the premise is one upon which the belief is founded.
Dagonee
Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
I'd give it up, Dagonee. Anybody who does such vile name-calling is not going to be convinced by any evidence, however ironclad.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
This is more of a study in interpretational methods at this point, Will B. And Squick is right that there are both "anti-homosexual bigots" and "queer haters" a-plenty in this country.
We happen to disagree on how many and on how much of current policy debate is driven by this factor. And no, we won't convince each other of that.
But the issue we're actually discussing is one of interpretation.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Dag, But many of the groups we're talking about are firmly entrenched on the biological basis for homosexuality issue. They've shown that they consider it important and attacked anything that supports the idea that it is strongly biologically determined. They've also shown, as bigots pretty much always do, that truth be damned, they're going to keep their prejudice. The supremecy of attitude over specifc, supportable beliefs is one of the hallmarks of bigotry.
Strong evidence for a biological component takes away the "It's unnatural" argument. It also pretty much takes away the "They're psychologicaly sick, probably because they were abused as children." one, although that's already been shown to be untenable and people (OSC included) cling to it anyway.
Regardless of all this, I don't think you've addressed where crummy clearly implied that anyone who disagrees with him is a bigot or that people can't hate for natural reasons.
The implications of Crummy's argument, as I read it, was that there exist anti-homosexual bigots and that they've made denying that homosexuality is significantly based in biology an important part of their thinking, such that, were it to be shown as something we can have a lot of confidence in, they'll need to come up with other reasons. That was the clear implcation I saw.
---
And hey, the bigots got gay people banned from adopting in Texas based on absurd logic from a terribly disreputable source. To me that's a pretty clear evidence that they hold a significant bit of influence.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:The implications of Crummy's argument, as I read it, was that there exist anti-homosexual bigots and that they've made denying that homosexuality is significantly based in biology an important part of their thinking, such that, were it to be shown as something we can have a lot of confidence in, they'll need to come up with other reasons. That was the clear implcation I saw.
You're leaving out the part where he blithely assumes they would come up with something new to justify their hate and that the evidence should be clear enough now that homosexuality is innate.
Whatever. You clearly disagree.
quote:And hey, the bigots got gay people banned from adopting in Texas based on absurd logic from a terribly disreputable source.
Right. Because there are no other possible reasons for supporting that law other than bigotry. Did you take a poll to find out why everyone who supported it did so?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
He does assume that homosexuality is going to be priven innate. That's not a position I'd take, but I also think that the evidence for there being a biologial component is mounting (although to be honest, I don't follow that research with any sort of rigor). But I do address the second part, and pretty directly too. The prejudice comes first and the reasoning afterwards. If these people exist and if the biology thing is important to them (both of which I think are tenable statements), then if the biological nature of homosexuality is proven, they are going to come up with something else to justify their hatred. That's how prejudice works.
And you still haven't address the two points that you said were so clearly impied by his post, or if you have, it's been in such a way that I didn't catch it. Could you try to make it more explicit for me?
---
The Texas case wasn't a law and it was a pretty darn clear case of bigotry. We had a thread about it. The rationale explictedly used by the people who decided this was drawn from insupportable conclusions from the research of a guy who has lost his credentials because of his ethical violations. They were looking for a reason to deny gays rights. He provided it, even though he clearly had to make it up. And it'll will most likely stand until some "activist judge" makes them stop.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:And you still haven't address the two points that you said were so clearly impied by his post, or if you have, it's been in such a way that I didn't catch it. Could you try to make it more explicit for me?
What? In reverse order:
Implication 2: queer haters as a group justify their hate based on homosexuality being a choice.
Do you agree with my reasoning above that his statement suggests that the premise is foundational to the belief? You haven't really commented on it yet. The statement "X is a foundational premise of Y belief" is pretty much the same as "people who belive Y justify it with premise X."
Implication 1: anyone who doesn't accept this "empirical proof" (whatever that is supposed to mean) at that point will be "queer haters."
The thing they "come up" with can be of two forms: they can trash the conclusion or come up with a whole new reason to justify their belief. He's founded this on "empirical proof" being found and made the very clear implication that the group will do something intellectually dishonest (i.e., come up with a whole new reason to hate homosexuals). The flip side of this intellectual dishonesty would be to simply ignore the empirical proof. Why would someone do this? Why, because it justifies their hatred.
Posted by RoyHobbs (Member # 7594) on :
MrS: Do you believe that an "activist judge" overturning legislation without proving that it is un-Constitutional is a good thing?
Do you really want to give that power to these unaccountable-to-the-people judges?
I believe that these judges should have the place that the Constitution intended them to have: judging the laws, not creating new laws.
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
Um, Fourteenth Amendment? Equal protection to all citizens under the law?
Posted by Mallaien (Member # 8170) on :
OSC does have a very interesting charater in the homecomming set where a gay man marries out of convience. I believe you find it near the end of "The Call of Earth" or in "The Ships of Earth". I read thoes back to back this week and well there a bit blurred together right now. But allso there was a theory mentioned in the book that homosexualiaty had it cause due to a random chance of the mothers hormone balance during a crutial time of the males development in the womb. OSC does not take a side in the book in his treatment of this charater allthough he brings up the social and inner conflict of being homosexual. I think he tries to say that a homosexual can be "redeemed" in a social sense thrugh a marraige of convience.
One last thought after "Enders Game" the rest of the set covers the concept of bigitory and the results of hatred for what people dont truly understand. I believe that is the truth of OSC conviction, as Ender learned more of the formics he couldn't blame them for what they are, but embrace them for there diffrences.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Roy, When the judiciary strikes down that ban (which I imagine will take all of 5 minutes), they'll be amazingly within the realms of their jurisdiction. My stand on activist judges is somewhat complex, but my stand on "activist judges", which is what the bigots are going to call them, is pretty darn straightforward.
Posted by Dr. Evil (Member # 8095) on :
It is amazing to me how the people who celebrate "diversity" often refer to others who have differing opinions and viewpoints as "bigots". Seems like diversity only applies to what fits for them.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
What Squick ignores is that there are probably many people that think the rule is stupid, would acitvely campaign or vote against it, yet still think it possible that the judges who strike it down are activist judges. It depends on the actual law and the actual justification used to strike it down.
Posted by Angiomorphism (Member # 8184) on :
I started reading the beginning of the posts here, and they were very interesting, but since then the conversation seems to have degrated a bit. Anyway, the point I wanted to make was in reference to something that was said before, which was along the lines of: "why do gays have to get married? cant they just love each other or have civil unions etc." I would just like to add something that i think is relevant to this point of view. I feel that telling gays to have civil unions or some form of non-religious marriage would be akin to telling Rosa Parks to sit on the seats at the back of the bus, as they are just as comfortable as those in the front. The reason we should let gays marry is simply because they are people, and they deserve the same rights as everyone else. There have been countless studies in recent years that show that being raised by a gay family has no more adverse effects than being raised by a strait family, and if there isnt any harm being posed to society by gay marriage (and now that science is advancing, there might even be ways for gay couples to reproduce, ie two gay men combining their DNA in the egg of one of their close female relatives) then why does it matter to anyone if gays marry? fow does it affect anyones life it the least bit? the answer is, it doesnt, at least that is my perception. and since i live in toronto (canada), where gays have been allowed to marry for a while now and there hasnt been any devastating consequences, how can anyone make a convincing case against gay marriage?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Dr. E, I may have missed it. How is what you said in any way relevant to the conversation? I'm not sure that I see anyone celebrating diversity here nor do I see anyone calling people bigots because of a difference of opinion. Could you point these out to me?
Dag, I feel like there's a significant difference between "is ignoring" and "didn't mention in his post". Do you disagree?
It's possible that the judge who strikes this down could fit into the description of an activist judge. It's further possible, though I'd argue highly unlikely, that he'd ignore the many water tight justifications to strike it down in favor of making some crap up.
It's also possible that a meteor from outer space might crash down into the center of Texas and distribute a chemical that alters people's brains and spreads an overwhelming desire to help gay people and the Texas Great Gay Jamboree Jamboru of 2005 will go on to become a party still mentioned in legends centuries from now and this whole issue will drop by the wayside.
If you want to say that something is a likely possibility than just come out and say it. I don't think what you said is all that likely and it didn't really have much to do with my point, but that doesn't mean that I'm ignoring it.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Let me be blunt. Depending on the particulars of the law, I and many other people who tend toward strict constructionism would find a judge who overturned this to be activist.
Again, depending on the law. If a judge overruled state restriction of civil marriage to heterosexual couples on federal constitutional grounds I would call that judge activist.
Edit: And it's not just "likely" that a decision overturning this regulation would be judicial activism. It's more likely than not.
Sure, the bigots might call them activist judges. But I bet a lot more non-bigots would call them activist judges, too. And yes, it's relevant to your post.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Dag, I'm not sure I followed your answer. I'll give my impressions.
This part:
quote:Implication 2: queer haters as a group justify their hate based on homosexuality being a choice.
Do you agree with my reasoning above that his statement suggests that the premise is foundational to the belief? You haven't really commented on it yet. The statement "X is a foundational premise of Y belief" is pretty much the same as "people who belive Y justify it with premise X."
I definitely don't agree with, as, again, we're talking about bigots. I was relatively sure that I've established that one of the central characteristics of bigots is that their attitude, and not specific beliefs, are the foundational part.
From The Nature of Prejudice(pp. 13-14):
quote:Mr. X: The trouble with Jews is that they only take care of their own group. Mr. Y: But the record of the Community Chest campaign shows that they give more generously, in proportion to their numbers, to the general charities of the community, than do non-Jews. Mr. X: That shows they are always trying to buy facor and intrude into Christian affairs. They think of nothing but money; that is why there are so many Jewish bankers. Mr. Y: But a recent study shows that the percentage of Jews in the banking business is negligible, far smaller than the percentage of non-Jews. Mr. X: That's just it; they don't go in for respectable business; they are only in the movie business or run night clubs.
The other part seems to me to stumble on the same part and I've yet to see a reason for how he was clearly implying that anyone who disagrees with him was labeled a bigot.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Squick, (edit: remove snark) I'm not going to let your conception of bigotry, especially when it's unlikely to be one fully understood and shared by the poster of the original statement at issue, set the stage for how I interpret things someone else writes.
I'm sorry, we're not going to agree on your premises about bigotry. You paint with your bigotry brush far more than you have proof to do so.
[ June 06, 2005, 03:59 PM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Dag, I'm mainly asking you to show me how hese implications were clear. I honestly didn't see them at all. I still have no idea why you think they are so clear.
I'll restate my impression. Crummy establishes that there are queer haters and that they are going to come up with something when homosexuality is proven to not be a choice. That is what you think he says, right?
I don't see the implications that you claim are so clear, nor do I see why you think they are clear at all. He certainly makes no claims that believing it is a choice is the only or even a foundational part of anti-gay bigotry. I think it is clearly implied that it is a popular component of this bigotry, but I don't see anything else there.
And I don't see where he says that people who don't think that homosexuality isn't going to be shown to not be a choice are bigots. He makes a strong pronouncement that he thinks it will be, but makes no character assesments, implied or otherwise) of the people who don't think it will be.
I don't see how my mind reading enters into it. You were the one who made the statement that it's clear to see what this guy meant. I don't think it is and you've failed to establish this to my satisfaction.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Then you're not going to see it. *shrug*
Posted by Telperion the Silver (Member # 6074) on :
I'm a little late replying, but here goes:
quote:What a pleasant and oh-so-reasonable, yet simplistic and condescending viewpoint of religion. If there is more to homosexuality than gay bars and dressing in drag, could it not be possible there's more to religion than a set of ancient, now mostly irrelevant platitudes?
Welllll..... I think you hit the nail on the head. While it is possible there is more to religion, I personally do not think so. While religion is beautiful in many ways and is very useful in creating communities it's stories are out of date and what real history in them, while beautiful to study and maybe to live by for some, cannot be taken as Absolute Truth on the nature of the Universe and how we should live as Humans. Thus, Government should not be bound by strange religious laws that really have no function.
Let religious people worship all they want... religion is not evil... just wrong imo... and should be kept out of government. Granted we cannot escape our culture, which for us is Judeo-Christian...so what we as a culture and government deem right/wrong has been influenced by those religions. That in itself is no problem; cultural consensus is good. The problem lies with ancient bigotries that serve no purpose anymore for the survival of our civilization.
I agree that you need to be educated in the subjects you are talking about. Myself, I was raised Catholic, a fan of history, and fairly devote for many years and I think I can safely make a personal judgment on religion. Just as a gay man I live the life that lawmakers and people are arguing about, I know a bit about being gay. Best of both worlds. Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Telp, I'm reasonably sure you meant prejudices instead of bigotries in
quote:"The problem lies with ancient bigotries that serve no purpose anymore for the survival of our civilization."
Another way of saying it would be irreducible values (or it would be if I could spell that word) and the response you leave yourself open to there is what of your own irreducible values? What makes them better than those of the religious?
Posted by RoyHobbs (Member # 7594) on :
Its easy to say that the stand against gay marriage is " an ancient bigotr[y] that serves no purpose" but it is far more difficult to argue, point for point, where OSC makes mistakes in his reasoning in his article on Ornery regarding this topic.
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
Funny how someone can call religion "wrong" and presume so-called "ancient bigotries" to be the reasoning behind someone's opposition to gay marriage. Yet if I call homosexuality "wrong" and an "ancient perversion" I'd be blasted off the map.
Just because someone doesn't agree with something, doesn't make it wrong. And if all religions seem "wrong," well, you haven't found the right one. So did God grant you the right to determine which truths are absolute, and which are not? Anything else God had to say?
Besides, not recognizing homosexual marriage is not bigotry. We have never lived in a world where every person had the exact same benefits as everyone else. They have the same rights...but getting married isn't a right. It is a privilege, based on keeping to certain standards that benefit society as a whole, regardless of religious persuasion.
The two very different things.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
This IS an interesting comparison to make — Homosexuality and Faith.
Both involve individuals who develop subjective desires and beliefs about their own lives ("I want to sleep with men!" "I feel inspired to believe in this set of morals!") which are unprovable and incomprehensible outside that individual's experience. IE, someone who is not experiencing the same thing can have trouble deciding what to think about it. Is it "real"? How does its "realness" stack up against what I am used to?
Both have recently been the subject of studies that point out possible correlations with genes and brain features, but neither has been completely nailed down, and because both deal with human perceptions, they may never be.
So, is it fair for someone to insist that one unprovable, subjective experience influence legislation, while keeping the other out? Hmm ... interesting to think about ...
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
But Geoff, there is a important difference in that the religious justification is used against other people while the homosexual one is largely an individual matter.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
Both are used to justify changes in the law that make other people feel threatened, ignored, or discriminated against.
[ June 06, 2005, 10:42 PM: Message edited by: Puppy ]
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
IS that just poor word choice or are you actually suggesting that people's feelings are an adequate basis for laws?
I'm sorry if people feel oppressed because they can't force other people to live the way they want them to, but I'm not going to say that they deserve to be taken seriously. Actual reasonable threats or discrimination is a whole other matter, though.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
quote:IS that just poor word choice or are you actually suggesting that people's feelings are an adequate basis for laws?
Isn't it your position that it would be wrong to draw a line between "civil unions" and "marriages"? How is this not about people's feelings?
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
quote:I'm sorry if people feel oppressed because they can't force other people to live the way they want them to ...
Putting words in someone's mouth is not the best means of persuading them to agree with you, but I'll bet you already knew that
I think the issue for many people isn't a desire to control, but rather a concern that redefining the terms used to describe our social structure will actually change that structure on a level that threatens the survival of their own customs. That it will be more difficult for them to pass on their culture to their children intact if the nation they live in presents a fundamentally-different, competing model.
I really doubt that most people care, at all, what goes on in someone else's relationship, or in someone else's bedroom, so your accusations don't impress me too much. People DO, however, care about the survival of their way of life, especially when they are rooted to it through faith.
My own people (Mormons) are used to living as a separate entity from the surrounding culture, and we sort of relish our differences. Not all Christian groups have that same survival advantage, and I think they're just realizing it now, as a major change in the surrounding culture looms before them.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:People DO, however, care about the survival of their way of life, especially when they are rooted to it through faith.
Why should anyone's way of life be protected by law, though, when such protection harms other people? Let them compete for their children's souls, like the rest of us. Religious myths are powerful enough already without having the force of law behind them.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
What if two ways of life have trouble coexisting under the same set of laws? How do you choose which takes precedence?
And I'm really not advocating anything here, so people don't have to react to me like I just shot their dog for kicks I'm just trying to find a new way to consider this problem ...
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Geoff, Using that logic, would it be okay for the Protestants to ban LDS missionaries from their neighborhood in order to protect their way of life and their culture, which is rooted to their faith?
It's not the government's job to limit the choices that people have so that their children won't be exposed to other ways to live. We don't burn books here. We don't run the "strange" guy out of town; We don't burn the "witch"; We don't lock up the atheist. We don't kill people because they convert to another religion.
If you're saying that your way of life can't survive people being able to choose a different one, you've already lost. I personally think many people make really crappy decisions in regards to their lives, but the right way, the ideal American way to is persuade them, to show them why their choices are poor and why others are better. Not to make it so they can't choose any different.
edit: And honestly, when you force people into it, that's not faith. That's like the opposite of faith. It's like the Christians who say "Yeah, we're supposed to love our neighbor and help out those who attack us and the Beatitudes are really nice and all, but we can't live like that in the real world." That's being faithless. If people don't think that their way of life is going to hold up when people can see and choose something else, it seems to me that they don't actually have faith.
---
And yeah, you know what, people do care about what goes on in other people's bedrooms. That's why the fight was very recently about laws that made gay sex illegal. OSC himself (talking about the topic) has said that we should have laws against gay sex so that, every once in awhile, we can throw them in jail.
In other contexts (many of them brought up in other threads on this board) we've shown that at least some of the time, when people are crying "religious oppression", what it means is that they are losing their ability to force others to live acording to their beliefs. A somewhat trivial, non-controversial example of this is the changing of some state laws, such as PA's, allowing businesses to operate on Sundays. Recently, the state liquor stores have been allowed to sell alcohol on Sunday and there was a loud protest that this was an attack on Christianity.
---
On the other bit, I'm not all that concerned about the marriage/civil union thing, but there are still arguments against the divide that don't rely on feelings - completely unneccesary complication is one, "separate but equal" is another. I wonder, what are the arguments for it that don't rely on feelings?
[ June 06, 2005, 11:51 PM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Geoff, All you need to do is present us (well me anyway) with a reason for opposing various gay stuff that doesn't come down to "because God said so" or some bizarre genetic argument or things that aren't true, like how marriage was great until a bunch of family haters started the great divorce experiment or that gay people are incapable of forming adult relationships or that they are actually mentally ill and hate being gay, or stuff that's just not what we do or who we are, like what you've been saying here.
Really, that's it. In the whole time we've hashed this out at Hatrack, I don't know that I've ever seen anyone do that. The closest people have come is "We don't know what'll happen.", which, as it is a stock argument against anything, as well as not actually all that accurate, isn't really all that convincing.
[ June 06, 2005, 11:40 PM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
As I see it, the problem we have with these two way of life coexistsing under the same laws is that one group is unwilling to countenance the existance of the other group and is upset because the system and spirit of the laws we have prevent them from forcing them to not exist or at least not as first class citizens without giving any reasons besides "God said so" or "I just don't like the idea" as a justification.
If they were willing to say "I personally don't approve of the way you live your life and I don't consider what you have a marriage, but under the Enlightenment spirit of America and the laws we have, I realize that I don't have the right to force you to stop." there wouldn't really be a problem, except for the fringes on either side.
Posted by alluvion (Member # 7462) on :
There's 2 things I want to know about Gerd:
1. Why is he so fuzzy?
2. Why is he not warm?
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
Squick, I'm not arguing with your position right now. I'm arguing with your mischaracterization of your opponents, which annoys me when anyone does it, regardless of which side they're on.
I personally don't feel threatened by the gay marriage issue. I imagine a future conversation with my kids that goes something like:
"Now, outside the church, in some places, a man will marry a man, or a woman will marry a woman. But that's because they don't believe what we do about eternal marriage and God's plan.
"We believe that men and women are meant to marry in the temple and create families that last forever. But not everyone knows that, so they do things that we would never do.
"Part of being an American is learning to live with lots of very different people. So we need to be nice and understanding when we meet someone who has different customs from us. But just remember who you are — we're Mormons, we're led by a prophet, and we have a special purpose here. We don't follow other people's customs, we follow the prophet and the scriptures."
Or something like that. Anyway, you get my point. I don't think my kids are going to be terribly confused. I think that once some form of gay marriage becomes common in America, to my family, marriage will become something like the Word of Wisdom or Temples or anything else that makes Mormons different. Heck, we even have our own word for it — getting "sealed" — and we already draw a distinction between that and conventional marriage.
But I understand why some people would feel more anxiety about it than I do. Many Christian denominations have proven to be far less resilient against cultural forces than my own, and I can see members of those denominations worrying that this change could lead to drastic unwanted changes within their own culture.
I know that, were gay marriage to suddenly become a part of the Mormon faith, major cornerstone doctrines would crumble, and the entire religion, from its customs to its most esoteric doctrines, would become something else. Eternal marriage and family are such a key part of the Mormon faith that to alter or remove them would mean essentially throwing away the old church and starting a new one.
While other Christian denominations lack the concept of eternal families, still, their adherence to the modern literalist interpretation of the Bible attaches a similar kind of importance to maintaining the doctrines as they stand. To admit a change would mean shaking the foundation upon which they have built their entire moral worldview.
So it's scary. And I can understand it. And even though I am confident in my own family's future, I do get the sense that living as a Mormon will become harder and harder as our adherence to our marriage customs becomes increasingly unpopular with the surrounding culture. Remember, it was differences over marriage customs that got us mobbed and lynched two centuries ago. At the very least, it is likely to get us branded, rejected, and disenfranchised in the future. If current trends continue
So, NO, I reject your notion that people just "like to control what goes on in people's bedrooms". Even Card, when he endorsed sodomy laws many years ago, did so (if I remember correctly) specifically because he saw them as a buffer to keep other crimes on the books, and because he wanted to maintain a culture (as I've been describing), not because he wanted to control other people. And he hasn't repeated the position since, so I'd love it if people stopped throwing that in my face as though I needed to defend that position as my own (which it is not).
It's easy to attack other people's motives when you think you get to make them up yourself. I could decide that you secretly want to destroy all religion, and that's "really" why you endorse gay marriage so emphatically. But that would be stupid. I take your motives at face value and address your position. I'd appreciate it if you'd offer your opponents the same courtesy. If someone says, "I want to stop gay people from having sex with each other all the time!" then you can accuse that person of wanting to control what goes on in other people's bedrooms. But if all they say is, "I think legislating gay marriage is a bad idea," then you really shouldn't. It makes you look bad, and does nothing to address their actual opinion.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Geoff, You're attributing some stuff to me that I didn't say. First, I'm not throwing what your dad wrote in your face. I've always respected the way that you've handled yourself with regards to that and I understand that it sure isn't easy for you. You and OSC are two distinct people and I wouldn't ever treat one of you as equivilent to the other. I was putting out a comment in regards to the topic of the thread (OSC and gays) and providing a particularly relevant example out of the multitude available of people advocated regulating what people do in their bedrooms.
And whether or not people like to control what other people do in their bedroom is irrelevant to what I was saying. What their motivation is (and I don't think the statement that the desire to control other's "deviant" sexual practices - or, in the other example I provided, behavior on the Christian Sabbath doesn't play a significant role in this is tenable) doesn't enter into to my statement that, according to what you are saying, they feel threatened because they are not being allowed to force other people to live the way they want them to.
I'm pretty sure that you agree that this is case here. You're just providing an extra step, that they want to force other people to live the way they want them to because of the motives that you provided (and which I agree make up part but by no means the entirety of the picture).
---
Looking at this, I'm not sure what angle you're trying to come at this from. If you're trying to share a perspective, that's one thing, but if you're approaching this from a system of laws/philosophy perspective (which is the context I've been taking your comments in), it's a whole other thing. Could you clarify how I should be taking your comments?
Posted by alluvion (Member # 7462) on :
Here's a diddley-doofus conundrum:
If western civies are experiencing a shortage of worker-births, why aren't the conservos at the helm advocating the sensuality that would insure (ensure? sp? never sure) that position?
alluvion
Posted by alluvion (Member # 7462) on :
I meant "shoring up".
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
quote:... according to what you are saying, they feel threatened because they are not being allowed to force other people to live the way they want them to.
Let me state my disagreement with you as succinctly as possible. I think that your portrayal of your opponents in this debate constitutes an unfair demonization. I strongly doubt that most people in this debate are motivated by a desire to "force other people to live the way they want them to". People often have opinions about other people's lives, sure, but they typically don't protest and legislate unless:
1. They are being hurt or threatened. 2. They see another helpless party being hurt or threatened. 3. The behavior in question violates their sense of fair play.
Note that the gay rights movement hasn't faced this degree of legal opposition in years — not until the issue of marriage came up. Only when people perceived that THEIR customs would be affected by this movement did the majority of your opponents start actively opposing you. Up until that point, they were willing to live and let live. For most opponents of gay marriage, this isn't about trying to control other people. This is about trying to protect a concept and a custom that people care about.
Basically, I see you ascribing to your opponents (who make up a large segment of the population) motives and intentions that I pretty much never see among people that I know personally. It is very easy to fall into the trap of viewing your opponents in a debate as an impersonal malevolent force to which you can ascribe all kinds of terrible motivations that you could never imagine a real human — a friend of yours, for instance — having.
When the two sides in a debate view one another as somehow less than human, or unworthy of consideration, it becomes impossible to resolve the conflict through anything less than all-out war (whether the violent, or in this case, the legal kind). All chance of compromise goes out the window, and it becomes destroy-or-be-destroyed.
It would be really nice if you could look at your opponents, not as a pack of raging, incurable bigots, fascists, and bogeymen who want to control the world, but rather as normal people with concerns and anxieties — ones that you disagree with, but that you can understand on a human level, and work with in an attempt at reconciliation and compromise.
The conflict over the gay marriage issue is a problem, but there is a much larger problem that pervades not only this, but almost every political debate in America today. The longer these fights go on, the more bitter and willing to dehumanize the opposition the combatants become. We're getting to the point where democracy and political opposition are producing, not palatable middle-ground decisions, but constant pendulum swings back and forth as different groups gain power. One state bans gay marriage forever, while another legalizes it, and if a new party takes control tomorrow, both decisions will be reversed. We can't run a country this way.
So I'm just asking you to stop being part of the problem.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Geoff, And I'm saying, again, that my statements did not in any way hinge on people liking controlling what other people's behavior, but instead on that their position included controlling other people's behavior. I wasn't arguing ends. I was arguing means. You don't get to force other people to conform to your standards because you have enough power to.
And yet, I find the idea that there isn't a significant element of liking controlling others' behavior and yes bigotry in the motivation of many of these people fairly ridiculous. I've already provided examples in this thread of both. But, hey, rather than even addressing them, I guess you can say "I'm offended that you doubt the purity of the motives of the God Hates Fag crowd."
And really, if you're going to deny that they exist, you don't get to use this:
quote:Remember, it was differences over marriage customs that got us mobbed and lynched two centuries ago. At the very least, it is likely to get us branded, rejected, and disenfranchised in the future.
You know the people who attacked the Mormons? Yeah, they're not people like me. They're on your side on this issue. Heck, a lot of them are still quite vocal about hating Mormons, but they find your political support convenient. So when they're doing it to you, you say it's wrong and then turn around and actually use the behavior of your allies intellectual forebearers as support for them trying to do similar to another group and an arguemnt for why the people who are saying that you can't force other people to live the way you want are wrong?
I know it's SOP to accuse anyone who says that anything anti-gay is bigotted, but I expected better of you Geoff. I agree that there are plenty of people who do this, but I'm not one of them. There are bigots and there are people who desire to control others. And there's the grayer area where these impulses are in the people who have plenty of other reasons. You don't get to change reality because it's inconvenient.
One of the other big problems on this issue is that, for many people, as long as other people share the basic orientation on the issue, they must be the good guys. That's never true. You can find the good guys by their actions, not their stances.
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
Oh no, of course you are right that there are bigoted people involved in this debate. I just got the impression that you were suggesting that it was a dominant motivation for people on the anti-gay-marriage side, which seemed an unfair assessment of their motivations.
And maybe we're simply mishearing each other about the whole "control other people" issue. When you say "control other people", what I'm hearing is something along the lines of "stop gay people from being gay". But I realize that perhaps all you mean is "enact laws in such a way that certain options are not available". If that's what you mean by the phrase "control other people" then of course I can't argue with a truism. I just don't really think of that as "controlling other people" ... the phrase itself connotes a much more extreme degree of interference (as I noted above) than I think is fair to apply here.
quote:You know the people who attacked the Mormons? Yeah, they're not people like me. They're on your side on this issue.
First of all, I haven't picked "sides" the way you have. I'm looking for compromise. All you seem to see of me is the places where I disagree with you or question the wisdom of your position, when I am actually much closer to your side than I am to the fanatics you devote so much energy to opposing.
Second of all, it is rather disingenuous to apply our current political division to a long-past conflict as though the abusive bigots in any situation are naturally the Republicans, while the nice, innocent victims are the Democrats, or whatever. I see that kind of thing a lot, and it's annoying. I don't define myself along those same us-vs-them lines. I'm a Mormon, and the Mormons have been a pretty consistent political group for nearly two hundred years. Our typical economic positions have drifted, but our moral positions and customs really haven't all that much. So no, "my side" would not have been the mobbers back then. "My side" was the Mormons.
On the subject of "wanting to control people", I'm curious ... wouldn't you say that enacting ANY law, to some degree or another, expresses a will to control other people?
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
quote:On the subject of "wanting to control people", I'm curious ... wouldn't you say that enacting ANY law, to some degree or another, expresses a will to control other people?
The root of this question seems to be "is a law banning gay marriage [legislating fear/trying to exact legal control over an improper arena (the bedroom)/using a merely emotional issue as the basis for law], or is it legislating against something in which people have a genuine possibility of hurting [themselves/others/society]?
And while, for the record, I don't precisely agree with the latter point of view, or at least think any potential social harm would be exceeded by the social good, I think it's possible to fervently hold the latter view without necessarily being a "bigot".
I would also caution again against presuming that because a law is religious in nature, it is inherently without merit in the legal arena. Saturday and Sunday may have begun their lives as days of religious worship, but they were also days of rest, a reasonable compromise preventing labor forces from being exploited. Again, not eating pork and shellfish was a good idea at the time; however, that time may have passed on.
Beyond being an act of deep symbolism and a foundation for family life, marriage is legally a set of guidelines for things like custody, inheritance, hospital visitation and funeral arrangement rights, etc., etc. There are homosexual advocates who merely want marriage as another notch in their belt from how they "stuck it to the man", and they're an irritating, pugnacious bunch. But there are also homosexual advocates who can tell you plenty of horror stories about how someone's long-time partner couldn't see their beloved in a hospital, or watched their families deal with matters of estate in a way the person would have hated, or watched children lose the only parents they've known. Marriage cements these things in a way that Civil Unions might not, however carefully worded. Rather than face decades more of legal wrangling to try and make whatever CU laws can be eked out into marriage-equivalents, some gay groups have tried to lunge for the jugular, metaphorically speaking. They may have misjudged their reach.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:And yet, I find the idea that there isn't a significant element of liking controlling others' behavior and yes bigotry in the motivation of many of these people fairly ridiculous. I've already provided examples in this thread of both. But, hey, rather than even addressing them, I guess you can say "I'm offended that you doubt the purity of the motives of the God Hates Fag crowd."
What do you mean by "address them"? Every time this issue comes up, you feel the need to point out that people on one side are motivated by bigotry. To what end? Just as the fact that some bigots oppose affirmative action doesn't mean the other arguments against it are bigoted or invalid, the fact that some bigots oppose civil same sex marriage rights doesn't mean that other reasons for opposing it are bigoted or invalid.
What should be done to "address" the fact that bigots exist?
I doubt anyone is offended by your calling "the God Hates Fag crowd" bigots, except for the God Hates Fag crowd. Rather, it's either the carelessness of your language or intentional assigning of the bigoted motives to the majority of people on the other "side" of the issue that offends. You may not intend it, but Geoff and I seem to both see it in your posts on a fairly regular basis. And neither Geoff nor I have ever "denied that they exist."
The irony is that the two people who consistently call you on it are either entirely or mostly on "your side" of the issue politically.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:What if two ways of life have trouble coexisting under the same set of laws? How do you choose which takes precedence?
Make them both legal, let the market decide. If one of them can't survive in the face of competition, too damn bad.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Dag, You've tried to assert that the Crusaders were pure in heart, among other things, and here are jumped over Crummy's statements to say that he clearly intended a bunch of negative stuff that I don't think was there at all. You'll understand if I take your complaints with a grain of salt. I regard you as heavily biased. I think my assessment of the negatve things that beset the group you're trying to defend and expression of such is reasonable and you take issue in large part because I'm saying bad things about your in-groups. I'm pretty sure this is a tendency of yours that others besides me have commented on. Doesn't mean that we're right (and I'm on the extreme end of the scale regarding your bias), but that's the perspective I come from (which, to me, is a shame, because when you're not in apologetics mode, you're one of the most reasonable people on the forum).
I don't think Geoff has responded to actually me in most of this debate. He keeps attributing positions to me that I'm haven't said. Now, for some strange reason, he thinks that I'm saying that Democrats are the good guys. I haven't mentioned anything about either political party nor do I think I've taken any position that could even by stretching say I'm supporting one party at any cost.
I don't have a side. I stand for the principles that I'm expousing. I don't ally with and then cover up the bad behavior of groups with somewhat related goals.
---
Geoff, When I asked if you were talking about perspectives or legal/philosophical reasonings, I was seriously looking for an answer. It sounds now like you are talking about perspectives, but mixing it with legal stuff. From a legal standpoint, I don't see there being middle ground. And you should be glad about that, because a lot of the people who are coming from the perspective you're talking about will turn on LDS if they have no better targets.
From a perspective thing, I do actually get that perspective. Of course, my perspective is that their way of looking at thigns is fatally flawed, especially in light that they themselves think that they can't ensure it's continuation without making sure people don't consider the alternatives.
Of course, I'm anti-populist, so I don't think that this means that there's actually something wrong with the way they want to do things. I think that for a bunch of other reasons.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Squick, why don't we just set up a mutual ignore each other pact. I don't know if you realize how incredibly insulting and condescending you are to me, but I'm past caring. You don't know me, you clearly have absolutely no clue what motivates me, and I'm now convinced you have no good faith intention with respect to me.
So how about this - you pretend I don't exist, and I'll pretend you don't exist.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Dag, I don't have a problem with you ignoring me if you have to, but I don't see why I should ignore you. Sure, you can be terribly insulting and condescending to me - you love to tell me what I do and don't udnerstand - but you say plenty of interesting things. And you know, in these little confrontations, from what I can see, you're usually the agressor. I've tried to make a practice of not doing that after, I'll admit, doing it way too mcuh. Maybe if you tried doing that too, we'd get along better.
But whatever works for you.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:you're usually the agressor
*snort*
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Bad word choice. I meant initiator.
Posted by Mirkmaid (Member # 8208) on :
quote:... you should see the hilarious hate mail I just got from an unbelievably self-righteous Mormon who seriously thought I should be excommunicated because I had expressed such warm feelings about John Paul II in my recent essay. [/QB]
JP2 is awsome! I'm glad OSC thinks so! Posted by RoyHobbs (Member # 7594) on :
First, I believe that enacting this legislation would fundamentally alter the foundation of our society - monogamous male-female marriage.
I agree with most of OSC had to say on the issue in his old Ornery article, which everyone involved with this topic would do well to revisit, particularly his point that it takes years of environmental research to add a runway to an airport, but we plan to enact same-sex marriage legislation on a whim, with a very small portion of the population being the beneficiaries.
The example of the partner not getting to be at the hospital, though touching, is not any more touching to me, than a similar story involving two same or different sex friends. Friendships can be and are, just as deep and enduring as you characterize same sex partnerships to be.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"First, I believe that enacting this legislation would fundamentally alter the foundation of our society - monogamous male-female marriage."
You know, I never quite understand why people believe this to be the foundation of our society.
"Friendships can be and are, just as deep and enduring as you characterize same sex partnerships to be."
I think the point people are hoping to have you understand is that same sex partnerships can also be as deep and enduring as heterosexual marriages.
Posted by RoyHobbs (Member # 7594) on :
Those reasons of why monogamous male-female marriage is the foundation of our society, the most successful in the history of the world, are most eloquently and thoroughly put forth in OSC's article.
Where do you think he made mistakes in his reasoning?
When he makes the assertion that monogamous male-female marriage is "the system that provides reproductive success to the largest number [and] is the system that will be most likely to keep a civilization alive." ?
Or when he says that "There is a very complex balance in maintaining a monogamous society, with plenty of lapses and exceptions and mechanisms to cope with the natural barbaric impulses of the male mating drive." and that "Civilization thrives only when... those who don't follow the rules [of monogamous male-female marriage] are censured in a meaningful way."
Or do you disagree that... "Huge numbers of children are deprived of two-parent homes, because society has decided to give legal status and social acceptance to out-of-wedlock parenting and couples who break up their marriages with little regard for what is good for the children."
"The result is a generation of children with no trust in marriage who are mating in, at best, merely "marriage-like" patterns, and bearing children with no sense of responsibility to society at large; while society is trying to take on an ever greater role in caring for the children who are suffering -- while doing an increasingly bad job of it."
"Parents in a stable marriage are much better than schools at civilizing children. You have to be a fanatical ideologue not to recognize this as an obvious truth -- in other words, you have to dumb down or radically twist the definition of "civilizing children" in order to claim that parents are not, on the whole, better at it."
"We are so far gone down this road that it would take a wrenching, almost revolutionary social change to reverse it. And with the forces of P.C. orthodoxy insisting that the solutions to the problems they have caused is ever-larger doses of the disease, it is certain that any such revolution would be hotly contested. "
"Now, in the midst of this tragic collapse of marriage, along comes the Massachusetts Supreme Court, attempting to redefine marriage in a way that is absurdly irrelevant to any purpose for which society needs marriage in the first place. "
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
Wow, it's like starting all over again at the beginning. [sigh] Should we invite Leto back?
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:the system that provides reproductive success to the largest number [and] is the system that will be most likely to keep a civilization alive.
Two flaws :
Greatest number of parents is not the same as
a) greatest number of children b) best possible children either genetically or from nurture
And for the second assertion, OSC has no proof.
quote:Huge numbers of children are deprived of two-parent homes, because society has decided to give legal status and social acceptance to out-of-wedlock parenting and couples who break up their marriages with little regard for what is good for the children."
Quite so, assuming of course that a household with constant fighting is any the better than a single-parent household. Also totally irrelevant to the question of gay marriage.
quote:There is a very complex balance in maintaining a monogamous society, with plenty of lapses and exceptions and mechanisms to cope with the natural barbaric impulses of the male mating drive."
Granted, but assumes monogamous society is desirable, which is unproven at best.
quote:Civilization thrives only when... those who don't follow the rules [of monogamous male-female marriage] are censured in a meaningful way
Ridiculous. Greece, Rome, and Victorian Britain weren't thriving societies?
quote:The result is a generation of children with no trust in marriage who are mating in, at best, merely "marriage-like" patterns, and bearing children with no sense of responsibility to society at large; while society is trying to take on an ever greater role in caring for the children who are suffering -- while doing an increasingly bad job of it.
How does one tell the difference between marriage, and a "marriage-like pattern"? As for the rest, asseritons like this are all the better for some statistics to back 'em up.
quote:Parents in a stable marriage are much better than schools at civilizing children. You have to be a fanatical ideologue not to recognize this as an obvious truth -- in other words, you have to dumb down or radically twist the definition of "civilizing children" in order to claim that parents are not, on the whole, better at it.
Again, statistics are nice. Particularly when adjusted for income and social status.
The rest is just hyperbole, so I think I'll ignore it.
Posted by alluvion (Member # 7462) on :
what I want to know is why I can't quote properly? What happened to all the smilicons and font features?
Posted by alluvion (Member # 7462) on :
I'm gonna attempt a flying-tackle of a few points raised here that I don't think have been adequately thought-out or addresses.
*sigh*
here goes:
"Note that the gay rights movement hasn't faced this degree of legal opposition in years — not until the issue of marriage came up. Only when people perceived that THEIR customs would be affected by this movement did the majority of your opponents start actively opposing you. Up until that point, they were willing to live and let live. For most opponents of gay marriage, this isn't about trying to control other people. This is about trying to protect a concept and a custom that people care about."
The conflation of "perception" and "THEIR customs" is likely the root of all of this.
(read that again and again until you grok it)
It sounds A LOT like "everyone is equal, but some are more equal that others". That's where the knee-jerk liberal opposition kicks in (so to speak).
i.e. "All customs, according to my heartfelt and mindful dialect of compassion, are equal, but mine are more equal than yours."
Posted by alluvion (Member # 7462) on :
"When the two sides in a debate view one another as somehow less than human, or unworthy of consideration, it becomes impossible to resolve the conflict through anything less than all-out war (whether the violent, or in this case, the legal kind). All chance of compromise goes out the window, and it becomes destroy-or-be-destroyed.
That's a little dramatic, and I think that drama-space is primarily occupied by the right. Just a thought.
"It would be really nice if you could look at your opponents, not as a pack of raging, incurable bigots, fascists, and bogeymen who want to control the world, but rather as normal people with concerns and anxieties — ones that you disagree with, but that you can understand on a human level, and work with in an attempt at reconciliation and compromise."
Somehow the founding fathers managed to do this. Clearly, their deliberations and conclusions don't quite make happy some factions of our society today. On the one hand, it's a shame. On the other, it's a victory. Renegotiations are possible. I like to think (positively) that the current state of political affairs in the US is painful because of "growing pains" more so than the lackluster metaphor of the pendulum's swing.
"The conflict over the gay marriage issue is a problem, but there is a much larger problem that pervades not only this, but almost every political debate in America today. The longer these fights go on, the more bitter and willing to dehumanize the opposition the combatants become. We're getting to the point where democracy and political opposition are producing, not palatable middle-ground decisions, but constant pendulum swings back and forth as different groups gain power. One state bans gay marriage forever, while another legalizes it, and if a new party takes control tomorrow, both decisions will be reversed. We can't run a country this way."
Yes we can. Right into a hole.
"So I'm just asking you to stop being part of the problem."
It's difficult to NOT be part of the problem when one feels compelled to choose sides. neh?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Geoff, Starting at the beginning? I wasn't aware that we'd really begun anything. I'm still waiting for you to address what I've actually said, the main point that I've been constantly stating and restating, or perhaps answer any of the questions I asked, like are you trying to argue from a legal perspective or rather trying to explain how some poeple say things or where the heck did you pull Democrats from?
I get your point. People don't want stuff they think is important to change. Do you realize how remarkably easy that motivation is to destroy? Were people right to keep slaves because their political, economic, social, and even religious identity were tied into it? They regarded that lifestyle as very important.
People who are preventing others from having rights and who advocate legal punishments for their behavior almost always at least say that they are trying to defend something. They are still wrong. You don't get to legislate against things that you have no proof are harmful because you want to prevent people from considering other choices.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
Squick, I don't think Geoff got into this because he wanted to respond to specific points, but to deal with what he felt was an unfair and inaccurate characterization. Much like my posting here he wasn't taking sides or arguing, so much as attempting to clarify. Though clearly he wound up in an argument I'm not terribly surprised that he doesn't want to continue something he didn't want to start in the first place.
Hobbes Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
Again, dead horse here, is that marriage is not a right. It is a privilege. And when does every group get every benefit?
My mother is a single parent, and she's acting both as mother AND father, she works two jobs, so she ought to claim "Married" status because she's mimicking a marriage, right? A couple might not have children, but they want to have kids, and they babysit a lot, so they ought to recieve the child tax credit because they're just as close to being real parents, right?
Gay couples are not denied love or companionship. They are free to live together, sleep together, have ring ceremonies, and in most cases obtain legal means to cover many of the legal issues such as medical rights, wills, insurance, the like. This is an issue to legitimize their lifestyle by official social mandate, to claim equality in a country where the majority disagrees with their behavior.
Think this is simply about religion? Desmond Morris, the author of "The Naked Animal" and about as pro-evolution as they come, is of the opinion one of the most effective marriage constructs (and most empowering to women) is polygamous.
Go figure.
Posted by alluvion (Member # 7462) on :
I think Geoff's just defending his dear ole dad. He's just done a poor job of doing it, mainly redressing what the old fool has already lain out.
e.g. "seek a POV, earn a POV"
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
Squick, I was making fun of Roy, pointing out that he's basically skipped over all the arguments we've had on this subject over the past several months, and started rehashing the original article that began it all. It makes me tired to think of beginning this whole process over again, and reminded me of that awful "bigotry" argument I had with Leto.
So calm down. Not every post I make is all about you.
Anyway, my reference to American political parties that offended you so was meant to underscore the silliness of applying modern divisions and mindsets to centuries-old conflicts. I guess it didn't work
quote:People who are preventing others from having rights and who advocate legal punishments for their behavior almost always at least say that they are trying to defend something. They are still wrong.
It is intrinsically wrong to try to circumscribe some human behaviors? I mean, I realize that you consider the particular behavior at issue in this thread to be harmless or even beneficial to society, but ... to speak in such absolutes is just weird. I mean, is there anyone here who can't think of a thousand ridiculous counterexamples to the statement above?
quote:You don't get to legislate against things that you have no proof are harmful because you want to prevent people from considering other choices.
You know, all I'm asking you to do is make your point without ascribing motives to your opposition. It's not that hard to do. Could you try it just once?
There may be people in the world to whom the motives you describe apply. But I'm not one of them. At the very least, try not to use the second-person pronoun when you are discussing them with me. I can't remember the last time I "wanted" to "prevent people from considering other choices" in any matter.
quote:I think Geoff's just defending his dear ole dad. He's just done a poor job of doing it, mainly redressing what the old fool has already lain out.
I don't quite know what to say here, alluv. If I were trying to defend my father's position, I probably would have posted something that actually did so. I'm defending my own position, which is quite different from my father's.
Though I do take issue with you actually insulting him to my face. I mean, disagree with him all you want, but ... calling him an "old fool" in a forum he and his family frequents? Was that meant to be a bad joke or something?
quote:That's a little dramatic, and I think that drama-space is primarily occupied by the right. Just a thought.
Trying to ascribe obnoxious tactics to one side and not the other in American politics is a pointless exercise in exposing your own bias and little else
[ June 10, 2005, 04:21 AM: Message edited by: Puppy ]
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
By the way, Hobbes, you're cool. Had to be said.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by estavares: Again, dead horse here, is that marriage is not a right. It is a privilege. And when does every group get every benefit?
Privilege, "private law". It is not usually considered a good thing to extend privileges to one part of the population, but not another.
quote:(...) to claim equality in a country where the majority disagrees with their behavior.
So if the majority disapproves of someone, then they are not equal? Now there's an interesting meterstick.
quote:Think this is simply about religion? Desmond Morris, the author of "The Naked Animal" and about as pro-evolution as they come, is of the opinion one of the most effective marriage constructs (and most empowering to women) is polygamous.
I don't see what evolution has to do with it, plenty of religious people accept evolution. Anyway, if we accept comrade Morris's argument for a moment, what has that got to do with gay marriage? Presumably he would approve of polygamous, gay marriages.
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
I wouldn't go so far as to imply that; I guess my point was too vague (late nights, that sort of thing). I simply meant that neither side may hold the claim as being the most functional kind of relationship.
There have been plenty of studies on the benefits of children being raised in a stable mother/father environment, and one of Card's big issues is that we are trying to make a huge cultural shift without any real data as to the long-term effects of legally encouraging something else. Many people opposed to gay marriage see it as not so much a balancing of rights as it is trying to force-feed a lifestyle into legitimacy by providing legal benefits that pretty much already exist anyway.
And privileges are divided all the time. I don't get the youth or senior discount at the theaters, I'll never get a drink discount during "Ladies Night" and I'll have to get a loan to pay for school while my best friend got a scholarship. I can be drafted into the Army before I can vote.
This is never an issue of equality as the worth of the individual or the freedom to practice what they will. We're not talking about sodomy laws. We're talking about trying to press a square peg into a round hole and demand we all call it a circle. It's the same principle of those who oppose the teaching of Creationism as a scientific principle in school––people are opposed to an alternative lifestyle ramrodding their belief system into the cultural norm.
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
Yes, it is better to have a stable family unit than one that is amorphous or too small to both spend time with the children, put bread on the table, and engage the local community in a meaningful way (a somewhat vague term I'm using to describe a range of activities from belonging to a PTA to going to a place of worship to voting.)
What I don't think Card adequately engages is why a heterosexual married couple is necessarily the "sine qua non" of the family unit. There are lousy, unstable, destructive family units that center around heterosexual marriages; there are happy, productive, stable families in which children are raised by grandparents. Or an aunt and uncle. Or, yes, a homosexual couple. I would tend to agree that a monogamous relationship is a better center for a family, but that's due more to where a polygamous person's time and energy are spent than any inherent, elusive sense of rightness based on tradition. I see zero proof that homosexual marriage harms heterosexual marriage, and forbidding it may harm those members of the homosexual community who do wish to create a monogamous and stable relationship by effectively stating as a community that we believe homosexual couples are either unfit or unable to create a stable monogamous bond.
If we truly wanted to create more stable, functional families, there's a hell of a lot of things we could do that would be more effective than trying to censure gay unions. Working to make affordable daycare available to working parents. Making sure everyone can see a doctor when they get sick. Raising the minimum wage, so it's more likely someone can stay home with the children. The anti-gay marriage stance seems like such a wrong-headed McGuffin from that standpoint...
And stating that a homosexual is welcome to participate in heterosexual marriage is somewhat akin to telling someone with a shellfish allergy to feel free to eat all they want from the lobster buffet.
If we truly believe that gay marriage has the potential to cause societal harm, the only sensible thing to do is examine its effects in a limited circumstance, something no one seems willing to consider.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Actually, if you Americans would lift your noses away from your navels for a change, you would notice - as I have, indeed, pointed out multiple times - that the Scandinavian countries all have gay marriage, since about 15 years now. So far our societies haven't collapsed.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
If you can live in a place made out of ice where the sun goes down all winter, then you can survive anything Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
Oh, great. THAT'S what I start the new page with. Wonderful.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
So should I take that as an admission you don't want to consider actual evidence on this subject? Or do you have a reason for dismissing the Scandinavian data? In fairness, 15 years isn't really that long for a social trend to make itself noticed. Still, that's just formal recognition; obviously social acceptance (more accurately, "who-cares") is a lot older than that.
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
quote:Again, dead horse here, is that marriage is not a right. It is a privilege.
Um, what? Am I actually hearing the driver's license lecture with regard to marriage?!
What did anyone do to earn this "privelige" that any consenting person past the age of majority can receive for fifty dollars in a Las Vegas ceremony?
There is no test. Marriage officiates don't ask if you'd be a good parent, if you can provide for your family, if you know where you're going to live, if your parents approve, if you get along with the person you're proposing to marry, if you have any kind of skills dealing with negotiation or conflict resolution, or any of a thousand reasonable questions that maybe they should, and certainly anyone getting married should.
They'll ask to see your ID. They'll ask you if you want to get married. They'll ask for a signature. They'll ask for the fee. Oh, and in several states now, they'll want the participants to be anatomically different.
Marriage is not a privelige. Maybe it should be. This is not to say that there aren't plenty of married couples that display a tremendous commitment to getting it right and making it work. But sadly enough, that's not necessary.
Posted by Shan (Member # 4550) on :
You forgot the question about venereal diseases, Sterling.
They ask about that, too -
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
And what do they do if you say yes?
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
Sterling:
How right you are. I think all those issues are contributing to the destruction of the most important social construct in our society. Compared to all that, gay marriage is but a drop in the bucket. Personally I think they should make it more difficult to get married, toughen laws on deadbeat dads and abuse, penalize infidelity and make marriage harder to get out of than my cell phone contract.
Having come from a single parent household myself, the big social lie is that alternative families are just as adjusted as stable, mother/father relationships. It is never as effective in the long run. We live in a society that more and more treats marriage with far less urgency than one's mortgage.
That is the problem. You water down the wine so much there's no more wine. A line must be drawn somewhere.
Posted by Shan (Member # 4550) on :
Here in Washington State? I dunno - I think the point is in removing the once-mandatory blood testing and screenings . . . good question, KOM.
I never thought about it -
Posted by alluvion (Member # 7462) on :
The "threat to society" angle?
(erased list of potentially inflamatory society-based angles)
But, if we're sticking to the thread-title of this here discussion, the "threat to society" of homosexuality has been grossly overstated and underevidenced by the titular personality in this here thread's title.
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
King, I was teasing you. Sorry, I think I've been underestimating folks' sensitivity lately Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
quote:Originally posted by Shan: You forgot the question about venereal diseases, Sterling.
And yes, King of Men, I was aware that Scandinavian law permits gay marriage, though I wasn't aware of how long that law was in effect.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Oh, and in several states now, they'll want the participants to be anatomically different.
Actually, in all states except Mass. they'll want the participants to be anatomically different. And this isn't a new requirement.
Dagonee
Posted by 1135813 (Member # 7816) on :
Hmm... I have to admit, I'm curious about the "threat to society" angle, myself. In a Homecoming-esque colony situation, where reproduction needs to be as high as possible, I can see "learning to control strong, almost irresistable desires for the sake of others"... But now? Excuse me if I'm buying into the liberal propoganda, but isn't over-population much more of an issue than survival of the species? How does the lady down the street who wants to marry her girlfriend pose any threat to the straight couple who lives next to her?
::winces::
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
There's clearly no threat to me if my gay friend marries his partner, and I've yet to hear anyone seriously use that argument (though those for the policy claim it's one of the primary reasons people oppose gay marriage). It makes no logical sense, and it shouldn't––that's not why people oppose the change.
People oppose it because it gives legal acceptance to a practice that, in their opinion, isn't a "marriage." Marriage is more than two people who love each other who want certain shared legal rights. If that was the only criteria, then I could "marry" my brother so we both had benefits on our taxes, right?
I do think this debate is calling into question how far we've allowed marriage to be corrupted by a wide variety of sources. We far too often accept changes without thinking about if we really should have; we live in a society that seems to think change is always better when, in many cases, the opposite is true.
The "threat" is destroying a time-honored social construct that, when done right, offers the best means by which a new generation is born and raised. But some people don't see it that way...
So there's the rub, as they say.
Posted by kaioshin00 (Member # 3740) on :
quote: The "threat" is destroying a time-honored social construct
I dont see it as "destroying" - men and women are still free to marry if they choose. It's more like expanding a time-honored social construct.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
If it is expanded, it is changed. If it is changed, then it is no longer what it used to be.
It being what it used to be has been destroyed.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
My God! By posting here, I have destroyed this thread!
Tremble at my power!
Posted by alluvion (Member # 7462) on :
estavares,
"We far too often accept changes without thinking about if we really should have; we live in a society that seems to think change is always better when, in many cases, the opposite is true."
I think I understand where you're coming from, but this statement is false... unless you assume we're living in a utopia. Otherwise, "some" change from the status quo IS better.
Now the direction of that change is certainly one to consider. You're perfectly correct in suggesting that acceptance of "any change" relative to the status quo maybe isn't so good.
I think, per this topic, that the direction of change under consideration is one into uncharted territory vs. a return to some sort of imagined nostalgia golden years. The problem with the latter (and there are certainly problems with the former) is that, particularly if one is going to use evolutionary arguments, why didn't that nostalgic golden period last? What are the underpinnings of it's fragility?
Answering that kind of question could lend a whole lotta wisdom concerning the utility of adopting a new way of viewing the marriage institution, I think.
I hope that made some kinda sense.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:My God! By posting here, I have destroyed this thread!
The power to destroy a thread is inconsequential in comparison to the power of...
Posted by Exploding Monkey (Member # 7612) on :
The Schwarts?!
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
I'm trembling...I am trembling!!!!!!!!!
Alluvion: Of course some change is good. I prefer new and improved Fresca, and I happen to enjoy jet planes and digital cameras and I am glad slavery is long dead and women can vote.
Yet to include traditional marriage as a product of the "imagined nostalgia golden years" already reveals a social arrogance (nothing personal) that is often the basis for proponents of gay marriage––that because it feels right to me it must be normal and, therefore, the system must change itself to meet my needs.
I've yet to hear a decent argument as to why marriage benefits (not freedoms) ought to be given to everyone, regardless of any criteria. In time, anyone and everyone can now "marry," so why make any definition at all? Why couldn't I file my taxes jointly with my brother and get "married" benefits?
The past's fragility is due to selfish behavior by those in the present, who ascribe to their own desires rather than universal truths that preserve the health of a society.
That's my take.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Why couldn't I file my taxes jointly with my brother and get "married" benefits?
If you were living together in the same house, possibly raising children in common - why not, indeed? But perhaps the more obvious solution would be to drop these tax benefits for married couples. Really, the tax structure (not just in the US, but everywhere) is long overdue for a really serious overhaul. All those exemptions, each one perhaps with good reasoning behind it, add to up to something so complex it's not even funny. I suspect, though it's no more than a gut feeling, that if all exemptions - everything, no excuses or exceptions - were removed, the resulting simplification would save so many billions that we could afford to lower tax rates anyway.
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
Frankly I feel we should charge a flat rate, 10-15% of gross income. The flat tax will never pass, because people want their loopholes, but studies have shown it would ultimately mean people pay less yet the government would overall have more to work with.
But people want the frosting on the cake, so the best ideas too often never get baked...
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
A flat rate above, let's say, 40k a year, I could go along with. I'd prefer a progressive rate, though, because rich people can afford it better and get more from society anyway, so they might as well pay for it.
Posted by alluvion (Member # 7462) on :
estavares,
- "Of course some change is good." -
Thank you for conceding that point .
- "I prefer new and improved Fresca"
Well, some new and improved changes are't as necessitating as some. Though, I profoundly agree. Fresca is Fresca. It sucks. So, why change?
- "why is it so freaking difficult to break another's words down into a thought-pattern that serves one's own argument?"
- "Yet to include traditional marriage as a product of the "imagined nostalgia golden years" already reveals a social arrogance (nothing personal)"
That's just a really really sad statement, so I'm gonna pause there.
"I've yet to hear a decent argument as to why marriage benefits (not freedoms) ought to be given to everyone, regardless of any criteria. In time, anyone and everyone can now "marry," so why make any definition at all? Why couldn't I file my taxes jointly with my brother and get "married" benefits?"
now yer just being silly.
"The past's fragility is due to selfish behavior by those in the present, who ascribe to their own desires rather than universal truths that preserve the health of a society. "
This is a very very tough question....
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
Thanks Geoff.
Hobbes Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
Alluvion:
Fresca is God's gift to mankind, aka Ambrosia. I thought about starting a new thread praising its crisp, refreshing taste, low calories and hint of grapefruit, but...
Posted by Clarifier (Member # 8167) on :
I present to you all a short essay on the topic of same-sex marriage (a gay issue contested by OSC) writen by a friend of mine from toronto:
Regarding the issue of legalizing same-sex marriage in Canada and my argument of support:
Firstly, I would like to say, this is an issue that is about a minority population. As such, it is important that we not appeal to the majority regarding the rights of the minority. To do so would be not only be dangerous (take the rights of coloured people for example), but also unconstitutional. The constitution is in place to protect the rights of the minority, as you well know. Therefore, the issue of same sex marriage becomes a constitutional issue and not one that should be weighed according the beliefs of a majority population, many of which carry prejudices and misunderstanding regarding such a sensitive issue. I am not apt to decide how to interpret the constitution, but I trust the courts are, and, given that the courts weigh the issues rationally, I would hope the government and the representative thereof support that rational framework.
Secondly, while I understand that this issue is rooted in realm of the constitution, I also understand that it is deeply woven in cultural and religious issues as well. I understand because, but not only because, I come from a Pakistani/Iranian Islamic conservative background. The courts have said that the issue of same sex marriage is one that will not affect religious institutions, and I am inclined to believe so as well. No religious institutions are mandated to recognize the marriage between two individuals of the same sex if they do not wish to do so, much like no two individuals who want a same sex marriage can impose that social contract upon a religious institution. If this is not a reasonable compromise, I'm not sure what is. The argument put forward by many religious communities is that by allowing same sex marriages to be legalized, we will create a society more tolerant to that sort of lifestyle, and that is something not tolerated in many religions. My counterargument against this is that are we willing to compromise the right of two individuals to share their love in the form of marriage and their rights that come with it because another group does not find it tolerant to do so? I would say no, since Canada should strive toward tolerance. After all, many of the religious and various national groups arguing against this issue have themselves faced discrimination and have appealed to Canada's constitution for the protection and validation of their rights...why are we then not allowing another group to exercise those same rights? It just doesn't make sense.
Thirdly, regarding the definition of same sex marriage: The idea of marriage is a traditional one. I would argue that the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman is very much defined by religion. Of course, if we look through the eyes of a religious institution, the idea of marriage is a sacred one. However, this country, at least today anyways, claims to be a secular one. The government and the courts are not to make decisions based on one framework of thought of religions, but have the obligation (not right, but obligation) to evaluate social issues on the basis of (and I come back to it again), the constitution. So, unless we are willing to take out individuals who identify themselves of a particular orientation from the constitution, how can we deny them those rights? The appeal to tradition, on a purely secular level, is not warranted regarding the rights of a minority. How would Muslims feel if a marriage between two consenting Muslims was not recognized by a Christian majority? How would two individuals of coloured race feel if they're marriage wasn't viewed as legitimate by a majority racial group (mind you, this is written in our history)? How would any two individuals feel if their union, in the form of a marriage with all its legal rights, feel if a majority didn't view that marriage as being valid? They would feel as though they are being discriminated. And, as I've mentioned before, unless we're arguing that individuals of a sexual orientation are "different" or an "exception" to individuals of colour or religious background, then the issue no longer becomes one of marriage, but that of the sanctity and validity of the constitution, which transcends those differences. And that I hoped is something we've already moved past.
What does this come down to? Why does the marriage of two people affect any other individuals? Yes, it is uneasy concept to grasp for many. Yes, it is something that makes us a little uncomfortable, but then again, racial, cultural, religious, national and even sexual differences is what makes our country so diverse. Human rights are rights so as long as humans are humans.
Personally, I don't see why two people wanting to share their love in the same way that any other two individuals can share theirs should not be permitted to do so. Now that I have exhausted my arguments, I would like to here yours. Before I leave with sincerity, let me leave you with a quote to consider that I think hits home the point:
Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands? -Ernest Gaines>
Thank you kindly,
Brought to you by Clarifier
Posted by RoyHobbs (Member # 7594) on :
From estavares: "People oppose it because it gives legal acceptance to a practice that, in their opinion, isn't a "marriage." Marriage is more than two people who love each other who want certain shared legal rights. If that was the only criteria, then I could "marry" my brother so we both had benefits on our taxes, right?"
"The "threat" is destroying a time-honored social construct that, when done right, offers the best means by which a new generation is born and raised. "
I couldn't have said it better myself!
Posted by B-HAX (Member # 6640) on :
Five pages? Who's winning so far? Anyone changed anyones core beliefs yet?
Gay people want to get married, let them...suckers. Though I'm as progressive as they come, it is kind of silly. Marriage, the "time-honored social contruct", is only a construct because of greed. Males projecting dominance over females as personal property. Men trying to increase their wealth by marrying into wealthier families using the women as tools to that effect. Thats the origin, somehow its be molded into being whatever the current generation thinks it should. Now its a covenant between Man, Woman and God (and the Government?)...what a crock. "God" only got into the mix to keep the power of the church whole. Thou Christian Variety #1 shalt not marry someone who is Christian Variety #7 and thus god will smite thee for #7 taking away money and power from #1.
And I'm not a lesbian...I am a heterosexual male, who actually wants to be "married" someday. But I have no fear of Sue and Sandy, Frank and Fred commiting to eachother with some paper that says Marriage Certificate. DOESN'T EFFECT ME!
So do I win, everyone agree with me...good.
END OF THREAD
Posted by Dr. Evil (Member # 8095) on :
Nope, don't agree. AAMOF, yours is one of the most misguided viewpoints I have read so far.
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
Is it really diluting marriage to allow the entry of people who want to get married so desperately that they've been willing to fight tooth and nail for the privelige?
If you'd say marriage is more than the union of two people who love each other and want shared legal rights, I'd agree, though I'd hope even in this day and age love would come first. It joins families and strengthens bonds between people. It creates new families and new, stable social unions. While the example of brother and brother doesn't fall into those criteria, a gay marriage might. If propogation is the fundamental point of marriage, post-menopausal women or other sexually sterile people would be unable to marry as well (not that that's explicitly the point anyone is making, but it's something to mull over.)
If anyone is curious- married, one child. Five years. And no, I don't feel a homosexual couple getting married poses a threat to my marriage.
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
quote:Marriage, the "time-honored social contruct", is only a construct because of greed. Males projecting dominance over females as personal property. Men trying to increase their wealth by marrying into wealthier families using the women as tools to that effect. Thats the origin ...
I don't think that anyone is disputing that marriage has been used this way before ... but the ORIGIN? That's an assertion you're going to have to document.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
What follows is speculation, not assertion. I think it is reasonably well established that the oldest religions we know of are fertility cults with a mother goddess, as is humorously pointed out in this Chick parody. If this is so, does it not seem reasonable that the origins of marriage are matrilineal and matriarchal? As one character points out in my favourite book, "A mother is fact; a father is an opinion." Which is true even if you lock up your women and have them guarded by eunuchs; lust laughs at locksmiths.
Unfortunately, I don't think the question of the origin of marriage can be settled by archeological evidence, short of building a time machine. Still, it's interesting to speculate. Just where does it lie, on that spectrum from our rutting animal ancestors to ourselves? Did one of the early hominids mate for life, as some animals do; or is monogamous marriage purely cultural?
If the question could be settled, Mormons might find it particularly significant. Guided evolution, presumably, implies some particular point when God inserted souls into an animal. Perhaps that was when monogamous marriage was invented?
Looking at the habits of our primate cousins may or may not be helpful here. While it's true that chimpanzees are a promiscuous lot, that doesn't necessarily mean our ancestors were; it is worth remembering that chimp females have a definite estrus. That is, they are rutting beasts in the literal sense of the word, having a mating season. While we can see remnants of this in our own species, whose females' receptivity varies over their menstrual cycle, our mating is no longer very hardwired. So even quite closely-related species can have very different mating patterns; and for that matter, chimpanzees are known to have culture, in the sense of learned (not genetic) behaviours that vary with area. Who's to say some chimpanzee Adam and Eve might not invent monogamy, and teach it to their children? Presumably there are advantages, or it wouldn't be so widespread in humans, and indeed other animals.
I'd be interested in the Mormon perspective a chimpanzee tribe practising monogamy were discovered. Would it have an impact on the status of their souls?
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Edit : This was in response to a post that's since been deleted. I'm keeping it here for postcount purposes.
[ June 15, 2005, 12:08 AM: Message edited by: King of Men ]
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
It wasn't a post by me, was it? I remember deleting a post yesterday, but ... no, I think it was on the other side.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
As to your question, monogamy isn't the only marker of a species that has been influenced by God, and Mormons already don't preclude the possibility that chimps might have souls as valuable as ours in their own way, though they are definitely on a different path.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
Is human sexual behavior hardwired? Check out the first two feral boys mentioned in this link:
Neither of them ever seemed interested in sex. The first boy (wild Peter, who is mentioned on other webpages and in books) lived quite a long life and was very healthy.
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
KoM, I thought that was a Chick tract until I got to the end, even though you said parody. I wondered why it seemed well-researched and funny.
Posted by Dr. Evil (Member # 8095) on :
Interesting article, especially the part about the Masters and Johnson research:
Yeah, dragging this topic back to page one. Sorry.
Interesting article, but boy does the author want to grind his axes.
The author uses statistics but fails to define them. "Success?" Meaning what? The subjects became functional heterosexuals? They stopped feeling homosexual attractions? Or did they merely stop engaging in homosexual activity? If the latter, is turning sexually functional humans into repressed ones something to be cheering about? And how are these statistics confirmed- is it only based on the report of the subjects themselves, who "do not welcome the homosexual attraction" and who quite frankly if asked point-blank if they're still practicing homosexuality are extremely likely to lie?
In a culture where being gay can mean being ostracized (and possibly discriminated against, beaten up, and perhaps even killed), of COURSE you can condition someone who has probably been experiencing guilt about their sexual feelings from the moment they started having them to repress them. You could do the same thing to a heterosexual. It proves absolutely nothing about the "inherent" qualities of sexuality.
A better, more obvious question is why someone would "choose" a "lifestyle" which means accepting the possibility of being ostracized, discriminated against, beaten up, and/or killed.
What the author has proves nothing, except the old truism about "lies, damn lies, and statistics."
Posted by alluvion (Member # 7462) on :
quote: A better, more obvious question is why someone would "choose" a "lifestyle" which means accepting the possibility of being ostracized, discriminated against, beaten up, and/or killed.
I dunno. It yields "street creds"?
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
quote:A better, more obvious question is why someone would "choose" a "lifestyle" which means accepting the possibility of being ostracized, discriminated against, beaten up, and/or killed.
Not a proof of your point — humans do self-destructive things all the time
Realize that many of the people who oppose homosexual activity are the same ones who choose for most of their young lives not to engage in premarital sex, and don't consider themselves to be hideously repressed, as it is a choice they freely make because they believe in it.
Posted by alluvion (Member # 7462) on :
quote:Realize that many of the people who oppose homosexual activity are the same ones who choose for most of their young lives not to engage in premarital sex, and don't consider themselves to be hideously repressed, as it is a choice they freely make because they believe in it.
Rat, can you define "hideously repressed"?
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
Psychologically damaged as a result of the choices they made.
And my name is Dog.
Or Puppy.
Posted by alluvion (Member # 7462) on :
quote:Psychologically damaged as a result of the choices they made.
And my name is Dog.
Or Puppy
ok, pug.
Posted by eyetell (Member # 8229) on :
Wow, what tangent has this altercation flew away to? eh?
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Evil: Interesting article, especially the part about the Masters and Johnson research:
Bull. Total bunk. The ex-gay movement does not work. It's misleading, most of them don't even keep follow up statistics. Read "Anything but Straight." It's ridiculous the torture people have to go through to change something that isn't a mental disorder or a problem until they go to one of these places and learn they can only repress and bury their sexuality and not change it. Face it, the focus has got to shift off of homosexuality to real problems facing society. Like poverty for example.
Posted by eyetell (Member # 8229) on :
Still its sickening. If you ignore the probs of the way peoplet think, let them be as preverse as they want, then whos gonna want to be gernerous and help some1 else.
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
Sickening? How? Too much focus is put on homosexuality by people who don't know a thing about homosexuality other than the stereotypes and lies people like Paul Cameron put out there. And, what does it result in? Tons of pain for millions of people. It is not a perversion or some form of rebelion. The issue is more complicated than Freudian psychology and bible verses taken out of context.
Posted by eyetell (Member # 8229) on :
really? Are you gai? just wondering.
Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
Synesthesia, do you have any evidence that ex-gay people torture themselves and cause tons of pain for millions of people, or is that just something you imagine would happen?
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
It IS something that happens. Read "Anything but Straight". Read about some of the techniques they use. Isolation, aversion. Read Stranger at the Gate. Read about how most of the leaders of these organizations are still "suffering" from same-sex attractions. It doesn't work. It causes vunerable people to crack under the pressure, tons of them have commited suicide. Some of the so-called ex-gay leaders have tried to seduce their own patients. All it is is a mass of lies, spreading stereotypes and rumours and making people who hate themselves already hate themselves more. That's not the point of psychology. Most real therapists regard the ex-gay movement as nonsense. They are even trying to put childrne as young as three years old into these programs. They are a fraud and should be stopped.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by eyetell: Still its sickening. If you ignore the probs of the way peoplet think, let them be as preverse as they want, then whos gonna want to be gernerous and help some1 else.
Personally I find the way you treat the Englsih language sickening, but I'm still helping you by pointing it out.
To address your actual point, what problems? Being gay is 'sickening and perverse' only in your own mind. This is a problem you are imposing on gays, not a problem gays actually have.
Posted by eyetell (Member # 8229) on :
I'm Saying that it is preverse to be gai. I don't need to explain the Birds and the Bees do I? A Plug goes with an outlet, not another Plug!!!! I don't know how do make it ANY clearer. And i'm sorry for my language.
Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
I'm skeptical. Anyway, I'll take Ann Lander's advice -- MYOB -- for gays, ex-gays, straights, and whatever; and hope others will do the same. It prevents high blood pressure.
[ June 18, 2005, 05:40 PM: Message edited by: Will B ]
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
quote:Originally posted by eyetell: I'm Saying that it is preverse to be gai. I don't need to explain the Birds and the Bees do I? A Plug goes with an outlet, not another Plug!!!! I don't know how do make it ANY clearer. And i'm sorry for my language.
I don't normally attack spelling, but yours is driving me insane. From an anatomical point of view, it's not that simple. Take the fact that the clitoris has no function other than pleasure. There are other factors to consider. It's not just outlets and plugs you know... That is a cliche which does nothing to explain why it is perverse to be gay.
I feel so perverse... Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Feels good, don't it? Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
Regarding the youth abstinence movement: without getting into the successes and failures of said movement (that's another thread) that is a movement consisting largely of those who have never engaged in sexual intercourse pledging not to do so until marriage. As I think most people who _have_ had sex would agree, _ceasing_ to have sex once you've become accustomed to doing so is a whole other ball of wax. Further, those who cease having sex under the geis of these programs are not committing to waiting for a lifetime partner; most of them are committing to never having sex again. Apples and oranges.
As far as the ex-gay movement goes, you don't have to look much further than two of the founders of the Exodus International falling in love with each other to realize that at the very least the ex-gay movement has serious problems that it isn't acknowledging.
Synthesia: to claim the clitoris has "no function other than pleasure" fails to consider that the orgasm has a function other than pleasure. Some biologists think female orgasm increases the chance of fertilization. And please stop criticizing eyetell's English. It's not like there's a lack of things to criticize in the argument. Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by eyetell: I'm Saying that it is preverse to be gai. I don't need to explain the Birds and the Bees do I?
What do you care how consenting adults use their plugs and outlets? Grow up.
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
quote:Further, those who cease having sex under the geis of these programs are not committing to waiting for a lifetime partner; most of them are committing to never having sex again.
You're claiming that these programs make people pledge never to have sex again EVER? Am I reading that right?
quote:Synthesia: to claim the clitoris has "no function other than pleasure" fails to consider that the orgasm has a function other than pleasure.
There's also the issue of parallel development of different organs that are genetically tied together. EG, we have big toes because we have opposable thumbs, and developing one without the other would actually have been more difficult. Perhaps, in a similar way, both genders have packs of ultra-sensitive nerves that cause orgasms because it would have been more unlikely, from an evolutionary perspective, for one gender and not the other to develop the capacity for such.
Nature: the ultimate egalitarian.
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
Quote from The Abyss:
quote:LINDSEY BRIGMAN: Hippy, get off my side.
Seemed oddly appropriate at the moment ...
Posted by alluvion (Member # 7462) on :
Rat,
Who in tarnation is LINDSEY BRIGMAN and why is she appropriately on your bad side, momentarily?
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
It's a context thing. Applies to a situation in which someone joins an argument against a bunch of folks, and does such a bad job of it that even the people who are on his side want him off their side.
I'm not really on the side of the person in question here, but I can imagine that he's not really helping them too much Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
quote:You're claiming that these programs make people pledge never to have sex again EVER? Am I reading that right?
I'm saying that if you make a homosexual person pledge not to engage in sex with people of the same sex and you don't somehow create in that person a desire to engage in sex with people of the opposite sex, it doesn't matter if you're explicitly making them pledge not to ever have sex again, you're still doing it.
And I don't see anyone claiming these programs are successfully making real heterosexual attractions materialize.
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
OH. The way you phrased it, I thought you were still talking about the high-school abstinence programs when you made that statement. Totally confused me.
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
quote:Originally posted by A Rat Named Dog: OH. The way you phrased it, I thought you were still talking about the high-school abstinence programs when you made that statement. Totally confused me.
Ah. Yeah, looking back, my phrasing could have been clearer. When I said "these programs" I meant the programs that attempt to "treat" homosexuality. Sorry for any confusion.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Geoff, You keep reading things into what I'm saying without them being there, or being important parts of my argument. (I'm still in wonderment as to where the heck the democrats thing came from. It's not even on the "I'm shocked that people who espouse tolerance are so intolerant." and the anyone who says that an anti-gay thing is wrong or that some anti-gay people are bigots is merely claiming that all anti-gay people are bigots scripts, both of which I've been hit with here. Is there another script floating around that I haven't really seen yet?)
I'll say it again. The motives of these people are irrelevant (although I think if you're going to play the Mormon persecution thing, you pretty much should have to acknowledge that the exact same people who are into persecuting Mormons make up a significant portion of the people you are claiming have pure intentions in regards to homosexuals.) We started off with a disucssion of values where you said:
quote: Both involve individuals who develop subjective desires and beliefs about their own lives ("I want to sleep with men!" "I feel inspired to believe in this set of morals!") which are unprovable and incomprehensible outside that individual's experience. IE, someone who is not experiencing the same thing can have trouble deciding what to think about it. Is it "real"? How does its "realness" stack up against what I am used to?
Both have recently been the subject of studies that point out possible correlations with genes and brain features, but neither has been completely nailed down, and because both deal with human perceptions, they may never be.
So, is it fair for someone to insist that one unprovable, subjective experience influence legislation, while keeping the other out? Hmm ... interesting to think about ...
and I attempted to show you how one group is using their values to direct their own lives and the other group is trying to use their values to direct others' lives. Its like saying, "Well, one group's values make them want to live as LDS and another group's values make them want to use force to stop them from doing so. How are we to determine between these two value driven arguments?"
You don't get to use force against other people in this society with no more substantial evidence than my untransferrable values say I should.
And I'm not the one who said that people are trying to do this because they are afraid that if they allow people this choice, their lifestyle will be diminished. You did. That was the motive that you were attributing to them as a defense.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
I'm sorry, where is this "using force" thing coming from? Are soldiers separating gay couples and dividing them into different concentration camps? Or are people simply disagreeing over whether existing relationships should be supported and given new status by legislation?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
err...I thought that the whole "We should be able to throw them in prision for having sex." was a pretty good example of this.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
We could dredge up a single OSC comment from over a decade ago that I emphatically disagree with, OR we could address the issue at hand.
Posted by RoyHobbs (Member # 7594) on :
The great poet and thinker Marshall Mathers on the subject:
"...We ain't nothin but mammals well, some of us cannibals who cut other people open like cantaloupes but if we can hump dead animals and antelopes then theres no reason that a man and a 'nother man can't elope but if you feel like I feel I got the antidote women wear your pantyhose sing the chorus and it go... I'M SLIM SHADY, YES I'M THE REAL SHADY..."
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
I thought I was addressing the issue at hand. Are you saying that OSC is the only person who advocated something like that and that anti-sodomy laws aren't part of the goals of the anti-gay movement?
What do you think is the issue at hand, Geoff? I've been trying to find that out for awhile, but you never seem to answer my questions.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
I've actually sort of lost the thread of our discussion. Realize that you haven't actually posted on this thread since Page 4. It's a little unreasonable to expect me to jump back in as though no time has passed, especially since I've just been involved in an epic struggle with King of Men
But I'm getting the impression that you've lost the thread, too. We've already hashed most of this stuff out. I took issue with your assertion that this debate is about "controlling other people". My contention was that most people on the opposition side did not even get actively involved in this debate until marriage became the central issue.
Back when it was just "gay people should be treated like human beings", the conflict wasn't nearly as divisive. It's only when it spills over into valued institutions like marriage that most people begin to feel like their culture is being threatened.
So, from where I stand, this does not seem to be about controlling people's lives and forcing them to change. If it were, then our argument would still be about sodomy laws and whether to strike them from the books. That fight is already won, and we're on the same side, so bringing it up again and again is rather disingenuous. Page back if you want to be reminded of the argument you and I ALREADY had on the topic.
THIS argument, from the opposition's perspective, is mostly about protecting a way of life that people value and are afraid of losing. It is the same fear that causes many countries to resist American media influence, and it is shame over these kinds of losses that encourage some conquered peoples to return to their roots and reconstruct their lost identities.
As long as you are unwilling to attribute any but the most demonic-sounding motives to your opposition, the further you will drive them away. Americans — ALL Americans, on both sides of the aisle — need to realize that the only way to achieve a lasting victory in this kind of struggle is to understand what your opponents truly want — not just what you want them to want for the sake of your petty arguments — and find an answer that does not require half the country to feel like they just lost a civil war.
PS: AGAIN, as I explained before, the "Democrats" quote that offended you so was an attempt to demonstrate that it is ridiculous to apply modern political divisions to ages-old conflicts. Like people who say, "Well, you know, Hitler was a conservative" and expect that analogy to tarnish modern conservatives as "little Hitlers".
Apparently, you got the "ridiculous" part without understanding that it was meant to be satirical.
Posted by alluvion (Member # 7462) on :
*bump*
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Ok, I don't agree with your rosy assesment of people's motives or goals, but I'll leave that aside. I still don't get how allowing gay marriage is going to lead to the destruction of these people's lifestyles. Could you explain what aspects would be destroyed and how this would happen?
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
There's a lot of answers to that question in earlier pages of this thread. Scroll up and take a look...
Posted by RoyHobbs (Member # 7594) on :
"Wow, its kind of like starting back at the beginning..."
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
estavares, See, I've read the thread, but I don't actually see these answers. The closest I've seen is the bald assertion that "It will weaken marriage.", but I don't see any reasoning as to how this is actually going to happen. Perhaps I'm missing the subtly of people's arguments. I would appreciate it if you could point out to me where these clear demonstrations of what will be destroyed and how this destruction will occur are, or perhaps recapitulate them. Right not I'm not seeing them, but surely you'd be able to make them clear to me. Thanks.
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
Just my opinion, mind you...
I think bottom-line it's making something into something that it is not. It would be like me insisting I get the senior citizen price simply because I drink prune juice, like to play cribbage, live in Florida and watch Matlock.
Advocates of traditional marriage believe that marriage is more than simply living together and having sex. It's more than love. It is rewarding the best form of social stability (when practiced appropriately) and creating means to encourage men and women to stick it out and keep a stable home for the upcoming generation.
Gay marriage doesn't hurt MY marriage, obviously, and as I've said before no one advocates that. What they're saying is that when you continue to water down the spirit of what constitutes marriage, eventually that institution is no longer viable. If anyone can do it, regardless of any criteria, then when will polygamy be allowed? What if I want to marry my sister? Our society continues to chip away and eat away at the boundaries of marriage in all directions until it's little more than a wedding and a contract easier to leave than my cell phone contract.
Hence the idea of "destroying" marriage, so a line must be drawn.
Another reason is that giving such benefits to someone who does not technically meet the qualifications (some believe) legitimizes that behavior. People hate hanging the ten commandments in a courthouse because they feel it advocates a specific faith and therefore violates the separation of church and state. So when a change in our legal system would advocate a practice by giving it special privileges, those opposed to that practice feel the right to speak up about it.
Ultimately it comes down to both sides striving to prevent the other from spreading their doctrine to the masses and infiltrating popular opinion. Those opposed to religious thought fight against creationism in school, public prayers, singing Christmas carols, etc. Those against alternative lifestyles are waging the same fight but in different ways. This has always been a battle of ideologies, a common excuse for poor behavior since Cain snuffed Abel (or whatever else you believe).
I hope that helps...
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
Well, you're going to get smacked for it, but you expressed those ideals well Posted by Gsee (Member # 3479) on :
I hear so much about preserving the sanctity of marriage that it grates on my nerves. A marriage is only as sacred as the couple makes it. You know who else doesn't hold up the ideals of the sanctity of marriage? Wife beaters. Yet they're ok, a man can beat his wife so severely that he goes to jail for a few years he can then get out of jail and remarry and that's perfectly legal yet two gay men can't get married? Where's the sanctity of that?
Posted by Joshua Newberry (Member # 7864) on :
It's a philosophical notion called "convention". It is what society dictates it to be. It may well be the case that TRADITIONALLY, marriage has been defined by the union of a male and female, but there is no reason, other than tradition, for this convention to continue as it stands. There are pressures to redefine all sorts of terms we once held strictly to be true, based on tradition.
Once we get out of this "it will pollute the sanctity of marriage" we realize that marriage is nothing sanctimonious itself, just a convention agreed upon by members of society. If we allow our minds to accept unions based on love, rather than chromosomes, we find that tradition is not quite strong enough to keep the rigid definition with which we operate.
After all, there was a time when "US citizen" meant "white, adult male (21 or older) who owns property". I believe that if THAT sort of conventional designation can change, so too can our discriptors of loving relationships.
Posted by Dr. Evil (Member # 8095) on :
quote:Originally posted by Joshua Newberry: It's a philosophical notion called "convention". It is what society dictates it to be. It may well be the case that TRADITIONALLY, marriage has been defined by the union of a male and female, but there is no reason, other than tradition, for this convention to continue as it stands. There are pressures to redefine all sorts of terms we once held strictly to be true, based on tradition.
Once we get out of this "it will pollute the sanctity of marriage" we realize that marriage is nothing sanctimonious itself, just a convention agreed upon by members of society. If we allow our minds to accept unions based on love, rather than chromosomes, we find that tradition is not quite strong enough to keep the rigid definition with which we operate.
After all, there was a time when "US citizen" meant "white, adult male (21 or older) who owns property". I believe that if THAT sort of conventional designation can change, so too can our discriptors of loving relationships.
Yes, we should rid our minds of all standards, conventions and beliefs since all they do is create a rigid lifestyle for all. Rid your polluted mind of any principles or values that you hold, if only to give into to someone else's definitions. Once true anarchy has been reached are we then only free and every person will be his own self. Until we have regressed to this state, then true happiness cannot be achieved.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:Ultimately it comes down to both sides striving to prevent the other from spreading their doctrine to the masses and infiltrating popular opinion. Those opposed to religious thought fight against creationism in school, public prayers, singing Christmas carols, etc. Those against alternative lifestyles are waging the same fight but in different ways.
Here is, perhaps not the crux of the problem, but a good place to start examining it from. Quite simply, you are wrong about this. Just like in the case the Geoff started off with the "There is no difference in using value judgements." bit, there is a fundamental difference between these two groups (well the core of them anyway, and any thread where people get upset because I suggest that there are many bigots on the anti-gay side doesn't get to use the anti-religious bigots as typifying anything). This fight, and the other fights you mentioned, is not primary between people who hate religion and people who like it.
People don't oppose creationism because it's religious. They oppose it because it's not science and doesn't pretend to be, nor is the attempt to get it into schools have anything to do with education. There are few people who seriously oppose public prayer, but they do oppose public institutions compelling people to pray, not because they hate religion, but because they hold the principle of separation between chrcuh and state as important. And guess what, many of these people are themselves religious.
Just because the reason why one side is doing something is religious does not mean that the people on the other side are anti-religious. Oftentimes, they're not really anti-anything. I can say that torturing people, like they did in the Inquisition is a bad idea without being anti-religious. I can believe in the Enlightenment principles that went into the founding of our nation, in individual rights and self-determination, without being anti-whatever group a subset of which tries to violate and abrogate these rights.
Despite what the demogouges tell you, the people advocating gay marriage are not primary interested in benig anti-religious. Nor, contrary to OSC's extremely odd assertion, are they concerned with destroying the family. We're not trying to destroy anything.
I'm a big supporter of marriage. I think it is a wonderful institution that, done correctly, greatly benefits society and the individuals in a marriage. One of the reasons I was so appalled by OSC's essay on it was that I find his authoritarian, sex-roled view of what marriage should be, as a condition people have to be tricked into and then prevented from leaving, a perversion.
Removing it from a religious context, marriage is a social arrangement that carries legal rights that we favor because of the demonstrable effects that it has. There appear to me no reasons to believe that homosexual couples and society as a whole would not have an increase in these beenficial effects. The only reasons given from the anti-side, that I have seen, that even touch on this rely on silly prejudices, like OSC's assertion that gay people can't have adult relationships. As Geoff said
quote:[T]he real debate here is about the wisdom and morality of promoting homosexual relationships as the equivalent of heterosexual relationships in our culture.
I believe marriage is a good thing and I see that homosexual couples would benefit it in much the same way that heterosexual couples do, and that this would in turn benefit society. If you have an argument as to why these benefits are dependent on being of different sexes, I'd be glad to hear it.
From what you said (and I could be misunderstanding you here), it's not the fact of homosexual marriage, per se, but rather that allowing this means you have to allow everything else. I think that's obviously wrong. As I said, I don't see how the benefits of marriage are dependent on being of different sexes. Likewie, I don't see homosexual relationships as different in ways that are significnat to this dicussion from heterosexual ones. To me, looking at dyadic romantic pairings, allowing same sex marriage is as much a change to marriage as allowing mixed race or religion marriages, both of which involved significant changes to the defnintion of marraige and both of which produced plenty of people fighting against them under the cover of "defending marriage". Just because you make a change does not necessitate that all changes are now fair game. Do you feel that allowing the mixed marriages "weakened" marraige? If not, how does same-sex marriage differ?
And a word about defending marriage. As I said, I'm a big fan of marriage. From that perspective, I find the enormous amount of effort put into opposing same-sex marriages under the guise of defending marriage almost infuriating. Even if the idea that it's a genuine threat were correct, I don't think it makes the top 5 (and most likely not the top 10) list of biggest threats to marriage. #1 is the personal irresponsiblity of many of the average public, many of those who are so staunch in "defending marriage" when it means doing stuff to other people, but fall so short in their own lives. #2 would be economic concerns. #3 would likely be those who manipulate the public (such as politicans who use the defending marriage banner as a distracting tactic). And so on. I am concerned about these things. I think that the weakness of marriage in America is a terrible thing and I wish that those hordes of people who seem to be so juiced about defending marriage when it comes to denying what I see as benefits to homosexuals and society in general could muster a tenth of this energy when it comes to addressing actual serious threats to marriage.
[ June 30, 2005, 02:10 PM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"Yes, we should rid our minds of all standards, conventions and beliefs since all they do is create a rigid lifestyle for all. Rid your polluted mind of any principles or values that you hold, if only to give into to someone else's definitions."
I'm pretty sure no one used this argument. Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Actually, there is a rational case to be made based in some of the more obscure legal doctrine centered around paternity for keeping seperate legal institutions for m/f and same-sex couples.
I don't buy the arguments, though, so I don't feel comfortable really presenting them in detail. Suffice it to say it has to due with establishing the parentage of children born to a married woman. The reason I don't buy the arguments is that a rational reading of existing exceptions within those rules would make them not apply to same sex couples anyway. Personally, I consider those rules to be unnecessary in this age of DNA testing.
But, these arguments are rational and grounded in actual effects. And the arguments, if accepted, can only justify civil unions with every single right and legal rule of marriage except a few related to paternity. They can't justify lack of any legal recognition for same sex couples.
I also think there's some credence to be given to those who fear the gradual intrusion of the government into areas of private conscience. If you look at the history of birth control in this country, it took about 40 years for it to become a recognized constitutional right for married couples only to mandated coverage of birth control for all women in employee health plans with prescription coverage in some states. These fears are legitimate. As Bob stated in another thread, though, I prefer to fight such intrusions when they come up. And I will. So this reason doesn't change my support for equalization of the civil marriage laws.
I also think that it is legitimate to view same sex marriage as a threat to the institution of marriage as a further distraction from the central purpose of marriage. But we as a culture have lost sight of the uniqueness of that central purpose already. Plus, at this point, I consider government recognition no longer essential to that institution, so I don't consider changes in the government's take on marriage to be relevant to the institution. I also think the cultural side of that battle has been lost because most attempts to fight it have been via attempts to change the government's role. I think that's futile, and more efforts are being made to make the case in culture rather than law.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
Squick, the "real threats" you list seem kind of vague. How do you fight the concept of personal irresponsibility on a national and legal level? And I'm not exactly sure which economic issues and which politicians' behaviors are the ones you feel are the particularly damaging ones. (And as before, this isn't an attempt at rebuttal. It's a request for detail and clarification.)
I think that for some people, gay marriage is a wake-up call. It's easy to overlook the subtle cultural factors that have contributed to rising divorce rates and illegitimacy over the past several decades, but suddenly, when the idea of "marriage" had become so vague and ephemeral that gay marriage was suddenly viable, these complacent people suddenly realized that the ideal of marriage that they hold in their minds is NOT the one that actually functions in modern American society. Gay marriage is not an isolated issue. Its emergence an indicator that something larger has been lost, and I think many people are fighting it because they want to get that thing back, whatever it was.
This is definitely fighting the symptoms and not the disease (and as many people have been attempting to demonstrate, it is quite possibly a very benign symptom).
But we agree that the problems with modern marriage are real. That's definitely a good start. Honestly, I would MUCH rather divert the energy that gets poured into this debate towards the actual core issues.
How can we encourage young adults to take a healthy family life seriously, as something to aspire to and sacrifice for?
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
Mormons like to repeat a quote from David O. McKay, one of our more beloved prophets, who led the Church in the fifties:
"No other success can compensate for failure in the home."
This is a value that most active Mormons at least try to live by, but that many people, in general, don't even take into account. It is the idea that how well you succeed in your marriage and at child-rearing are THE things that determine whether or not you are a success in life.
But it makes sense. This society is going to prosper or fail depending ENTIRELY on the choices made by our children. How we raise them, in what kinds of environments, and with what kinds of values and education, WILL determine the future to a much stronger degree than anything most of us could do in our careers right now.
The job of raising these children in stable and happy homes should be given the highest honor, and the highest priority. Instead, for many people, it is only an inconvenience and a distraction, to be discarded if it gets in the way of anything else.
This is a short-sighted attitude, and it will cause us harm in the long run if it is not corrected.
Posted by Gsee (Member # 3479) on :
"How can we encourage young adults to take a healthy family life seriously, as something to aspire to and sacrifice for?"
In todays world it would be very hard. Society teaches us these days that being successful financially is more important then being successful in family life. I hate to say it but that's the message given to young people these days, at least from my perspective.
I'm not religious Mormon or otherwise but "No other success can compensate for failure in the home." is something i firmly believe in.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
We have GOT to roll over to the next page, so I don't have to look at someone misspelling the word "GAY" at the top of this one anymore.
I mean, it's the word "GAY". What the hell?
Posted by Tammy (Member # 4119) on :
roll over push post
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
MrSquicky:
Though perhaps a poor choice of words on my part, people may not be anti-religion but they ARE fighting to prevent an ideology from having any kind of influence and they ARE making things so secular that now the secularists get the podium all to themselves. Everyone plays this game of "shut up and let me talk." Ultimately both sides are crying about the same thing, and one's bias shows up by their declaration of who's being the most unfair.
In most cases people are not compelled to pray, to sing carols, whatever. But people try to remove even the option to pray, the option to sing carols, the very notion of someone's faith by calling it "Winter Break" instead of "Christmas Break." Everyone is so offended that someone is driving the car that they all grab the wheel at once, and then the car goes nowhere.
Study after study after study has shown that male/female committed marriages are the best means to introduce and raise children. Who says otherwise? Such relationships are also best for the adults involved, IF they do all they can to make that relationship work and abide by the promises they made to one another. Marriage ultimately is there to encourage and reward those social units that best serve society.
My question is that if homosexuality is considered equal to heterosexuality, then where do we draw the line? Why is polygamy and polyandry illegal? Why can't I legally have sex when I'm fourteen? Why can't a father marry his consenting daughter? Oh, THOSE ideas are reprehensible, but times change, right? We already broadcast Mary Kay LeTourneau's wedding on "Entertainment Tonight," so clearly what seemed a crime last week is now all the rage.
Year by year, little by little, our standards worsen until we hold no values at all. Dr. Evil's sarcasm has a point, because that attitude of changing the rules based on our own selfish desires will lead to a society that has no rules at all.
What gay marriage advocates want is legal recognition and advocation of their lifestyle. This is not an issue of race or color, not an issue of freedom or slavery, but an issue of a minority group ram-rodding their personal beliefs and expecting government benefits for pretending to be something they are not.
I've said it before and I'll say it again:
"The past's fragility is due to selfish behavior by those in the present, who ascribe to their own desires rather than universal truths that preserve the health of a society. "
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
Puppy:
I figured the word "gai" is the new spelling of the old meaning for "gay" which is "to feel splendid and ripe for a ripping game of badmitton."
So with that, I too am "gai."
Whoooopie!
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
How about trying to counter the pop culture idea that married life is boring, stifling and dull and that it's better to be casual about relationships because you can always get a divorce? Countering gay marriage or civil unions will do nothing towards going against people's misconceptions of marriage and responsibility. Nor, will gay marriage do much to tear apart strong marriages that consist of people who work hard to keep the relationship together and raise their children right. That is all that really matters... People working hard in their relationships no matter what.
(did not even dignify the question up top with a response)
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
Gai= guy in Japanese. Like gaijin, which is a not so nice word for a foreigner. The polite word would be gaikokujin.
(push up post, carry on)
Posted by RoyHobbs (Member # 7594) on :
Every time I start to post I find myself repeating estavares.
Carry on, friend!
Mega-dittos! Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:In most cases people are not compelled to pray, to sing carols, whatever. But people try to remove even the option to pray, the option to sing carols, the very notion of someone's faith by calling it "Winter Break" instead of "Christmas Break." Everyone is so offended that someone is driving the car that they all grab the wheel at once, and then the car goes nowhere.
You're not serious with this surely. Do you really see a world where people are forcing people not to pray, not to sing Christmas carols? That's not actually happening. I'm pretty sure even Geoff or Dags will tell you that.
There's an enormous diffrence between the government not sponsoring your specific religion and the government actively preventing you from practicing your religion. Prayer, for example, is still perfectly welcome in school. Christmas carols can be sung in public places without sanction. And I fail to understand how changing "Christmas Break" to "Winter Break" is anything other than just. Do you really feel that it's right to tell anyone who's not Christian that their beliefs make them second-class citizens? That it's attacking Christians to actually include Jews and Muslims and atheists and Buddhists and Hindus and Daoists etc?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:I think that for some people, gay marriage is a wake-up call. It's easy to overlook the subtle cultural factors that have contributed to rising divorce rates and illegitimacy over the past several decades, but suddenly, when the idea of "marriage" had become so vague and ephemeral that gay marriage was suddenly viable, these complacent people suddenly realized that the ideal of marriage that they hold in their minds is NOT the one that actually functions in modern American society. Gay marriage is not an isolated issue. Its emergence an indicator that something larger has been lost, and I think many people are fighting it because they want to get that thing back, whatever it was.
Now, this may just be because I'm a guy who just wrote an involved post about how he values marriage highly and sees no problem with gay marriage, but I'd suggest that support for gay marriage may have more to do with the dissipation of the extreme bigotry that homosexuals have faced. It might be that the idea marriage is obviously defiled because we let those nasty gay people touch it, strong though it may be in your mind Geoff, has become much less acceptible as people have come to see homosexuals as people more or less like themselves instead of a bundle of foolish prejudices. It might be that people have come to hold gay people as higher, not that marriage has been brought so very low.
It might also be that the time that you are talking about, where marraige was held in such value never actually existed, except in some people's fantasies and old television shows. I don't find appeals to the way we never were to be particularly compelling arguments.
---
How's the whole saying you should value the family above all else working out for the Mormons? I didn't know that you lot were immune to the problems that seem to beset the rest of American culture in terms of marriages and families.
---
For the purposes of this discussion, I don't think that going off on a digression about the problems with marriage is going to contribute to the main point. It would be an interesting discussion on it's own. If you wanted to start the thread, I definitely participate.
Right now, I trying to get someone to present an argument as to why letting gays marry is a bad thing that doesn't start off from the assumption that letting gays marry is a bad thing. I'd also like someone to show me how exactly this is threatening people's lifestyles.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
estavares, So far as I can see, you haven't offered me a reason to believe that allowing gays to marry is diluting marriage except for saying that it changes it, much like allowing interracial marriages, etc. changed it. What makes same sex marriage likely to open to floodgates of people being able to marry anything they want while interracial or interfaith marriages not open these floodgates?
From what I can see, you haven't offered any reason for why letting gays marry constitutes a lowering of our standards except for saying that letting gays marry is a lowering of our standards.
---
And there, I've flipped over to a new page, so you won't have to look at this:
quote:really? Are you gai? just wondering.
whenever you open the thread.
[ July 01, 2005, 12:15 PM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
I'm pretty sure that "you must be the same race" was never considered an integral part of marriage, and people only raised the issue when they were suddenly confronted with it, and it made them uncomfortable. I mean, an interracial marriage was still a marriage ... it was just one that some people didn't like. It was "wrong" the way Romeo and Juliet's marriage was "wrong" ... people from different "tribes" who didn't like each other didn't like their children to marry.
However, people in our culture HAVE considered "man and wife" to be an integral part of the definition of a marriage for a long time, telling their sons to find a good woman and their daughters to find a good man, etc, for generations, even without being confronted with gay marriage as a real possibility.
I'm not saying your position is necessarily right or wrong here. I'm just saying that the comparison to interracial marriage doesn't establish a good equivalence. Allowing interracial marriages didn't change the definition of marriage, legally or culturally, anymore than desegregation changed the definition of "school" or "restaurant" or "bus". Gay marriage WOULD be a much more dramatic change.
EDIT: And think you, by the way, for rolling over the page
SECOND EDIT: And right when I thank you, you go and edit your post to make my gratitude completely undeserved. [sigh]
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
What about interfaith marriages? Wasn't that obviously a direct change to the fundamental defintion of marriage?
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
That still would strike me as a cross-tribe marriage, which is a pretty well-known and well-established way for a marriage to go. It's a more significant difference because it often means that the marriage and the child-rearing will be handled in ways that totally freak out the parents on one or both sides. But it's still Romeo and Juliet.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
ehh...I'm inclined to disagree, but the point isn't really all that important. The changes don't need to be comparable to argue that the idea that changing something doesn't mean that you abandon any standards whatsoever. What estes is saying only works if you assume that allowing gay marriage is intrinsicly bad or that the people who are pushing for change don't want standards for marriage, neither or which are accurate.
On a side note, I put the quote in as a joke. If it really does bother you, I'll take it out.
Posted by Dr. Evil (Member # 8095) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: "Yes, we should rid our minds of all standards, conventions and beliefs since all they do is create a rigid lifestyle for all. Rid your polluted mind of any principles or values that you hold, if only to give into to someone else's definitions."
I'm pretty sure no one used this argument.
It was more at what was being implied that I was being sarcastic about.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
No, it's a really funny joke, so you should leave it up The rub is that it's only funny because it REALLY DOES annoy me But I'll survive until the next page.
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
quote:hh...I'm inclined to disagree, but the point isn't really all that important.
Yeah, actually it is, because it shows that your proof of historical examples don't apply. This isn't about social attitudes. There is a fundimental difference between a man and a woman haxing a married, sexual relationship and two men having the same. Like it or not, we are trying to redefine what it means to be human, what is considered reprehensible and what is considered appropriate.
It's like the abortion issue. There was a time when aborting a baby, regardless of age of gestation, was considered murder. Society has since redefined the criteria, so it's okay BEFORE this point but a crime AFTER this point. Regardless of one's opinion on the subject, we redefined a core physical and social construct.
I never said that proponents for gay marriage don't want standards for marriage. I know most believe this is the means by which to reward committed relationships. But opponents see it much differently. They see giving legal acceptance and equal benefits to every alternative lifestyle makes marriage into a mockery.
You give everybody a discount on their TV, and there's no discount anymore. It's a new price. It's not the same. And when the TV manufacturer goes out of business because everybody's paying less than it cost to make it, we'll wonder why the next generation of TVs are shoddy imitations not worth their weight in plastic.
quote:You're not serious with this surely. Do you really see a world where people are forcing people not to pray, not to sing Christmas carols? That's not actually happening. I'm pretty sure even Geoff or Dags will tell you that.
Three years ago my son participated in his Winter Concert. There were three Kwanzaa songs, three Hanukka songs, and the rest were about winter. No carols featuring Christ. Nothing. Yet the diversity statistics show an overwhelming majority of these kids do not celebrate either holiday. Those voices shouting for PC made sure that not only was the minority over-represented, but that the majority had no voice at all.
It happens all the time. I won't even begin to address the banning of prayer at a whole variety of events, regardless if the majority were of the same faith. That's the irony of such debates; the very same tactics exist on both sides, and to presume one gets it worse than another reveals one's bias.
I know those in a minority struggle to feel equal and to enjoy their chance to express their own opinions. I respect that. But the pendulum swings too far to the other side occasionally.
My original beef with this whole issue is that while I disagree with gay marriage (and I am free to hold that opinion) I strongly believe that any changes to current law must be done by the people. Not judges. Not politicians. Homosexuality was considered an abomination when most of our state constitutions were drafted, so to think that one can interpret its inclusion under the definition of marriage is ludicrous.
For me, this should have been a U.S. Constitutional amendment, but that's not going to happen anytime soon. The next best thing is to amend and/or clarify state constitutions, which has been happening in some states. This should NEVER be the forum for activist judges to redefine core social constructs by their own opinion.
If the majority voted to include gay marriage as part of the definition then the issue has been resolved, hasn't it? I may disagree, and I may believe that marriage continues to become a mockery, but I would respect the rule of law. But I do not respect those who try to redefine marriage through underhanded means.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
estavares, You have yet to show why same sex marriage is a bad thing. All you keep doing is stating it. Why does it make a mockery of marriage? Why does it cheapen it?
Your argument seems to come down to "Because I don't like it." That's not an adequate justification. If you can give reasons for why it's reprehensible for people of the same sex to have sex, why it's a bad thing for our society, you should do it.
---
While I don't necessarily agree with the not having Christimas carols sung bit, I don't see how this is a case of people not allowing peopel to sing Christimas carols. Are you saying that your son was unable to sing Christmas carols? Or are you saying that the school didn't include Christmas carols in this one specific instance?
Likewise, prayer is not actually banned from public events. You are free to pray as much as you want. No one will stop you. What has been disallowed is compelling people to pray and/or giving the appearance that certain religions are being officially sponsored. Just because you don't get to show other people that Christianity is the semi-official religion doesn't mean that you are prevented from practicing it. Or are you saying that people are making it so you can't pray or otherwise follow your religion?
---
Again, I think allowing same sex marriage will have good effects on both gay couples and society itself, in much the same way that I think that real, strong heterosexual marriages have good effects. I've yet to see you show me why this is wrong or if it isn't wrong, why allowing gay marriage is a bad idea. All I keep seeing is the restatement that it's wrong and the assertion that America is persecuting Christians.
Posted by Gsee (Member # 3479) on :
"Why can't I legally have sex when I'm fourteen?"
That sort of thing can't be used as an exemple of declining standards becasue if you go back far enough in history sex at 14 was perfectly fine. It's only in the last hundred years or so sex at 14 has become a big taboo thing.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote: I mean, an interracial marriage was still a marriage ... it was just one that some people didn't like.
They "didn't like" it to the point that laws were passed against it. I think that qualifies for saying such marriages weren't real, at least to the extent that marriage is a contract enforceable by law. And that's the part we're discussing anyway, since nobody has ever stopped gay (or interracial) couples from having a ceremony to themnselves.
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
MrSquicky:
It sounds like you want some kind of scientific study showing someone died because they allowed gay marriage (or something like that). You'll never find it and, I bet if you did, you would dismiss it. I have given reasons...but you don't agree with them, so you dismiss them outright.
You will find study after study after study showing man/woman marriage is by far the best means to raise a child and for social stability. Search them out on Google; there's plenty to be found, and if that's not enough I don't know what else to say. Why reward something that is substandard?
Bottom-line, this is where it gets tricky; what you define as negative and what I define as negative use much different criteria. It's like both sides trying to justify ther need for a shoe as a playing piece in Monopoly by using the written rules of Sorry and Balderdash. Neither side can really prove their assertion (which is why the common rebuttal on such threads is "Why don't you prove it first," and then no one follows up).
Nobody can really prove it, because it's based on ideals. Since gay marriage advocates are trying to change the staus quo, the burden of proof is on them. But, as usual, accountability is placed elsewhere. Selfishness expects everyone else to justify themselves.
This comes full circle in that some people are indeed motivated by their faith. They accept doctrine as fact, and therefore use a criteria considered by others to be bunk. In that way, neither will ever agree...but we should be willing to respect each other's opinion on the matter.
BTW, be careful about putting words where they did not occur. I never said America was persecuting Christians. All I said was that this business of forcing one ideology over another happens on all sides.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:since nobody has ever stopped gay (or interracial) couples from having a ceremony to themnselves.
Not strictly true. The law in Loving v. Virginia prohibited interracial marriage. It specifically banned people from going out of state to marry, and stated that "The fact of their cohabitation here as man and wife shall be evidence of their marriage."
It wasn't the ceremony; it was the marriage.
The idea is over a hundred years old. Mormons were convicted of polygamy and sentenced to jail on the basis of thier private ceremonies.
Dagonee
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
estavares, The whole thing is, I don't see you as having provided reasons. For me, your arguments don't work unless you start out with the idea that homosexuality is wrong and that same sex marriage is wrong as your starting point. I honestly don't see where you've offered up tangible reasons for believing these things. If you could point out where you feel you've done this, perhaps we could explore why we have different impressions.
I don't know that our ideas of damage are all that different. The only damage that I've seen you directly talk about is that it will weaken marriage (which I would agree would be damaging, if I had any reason to believe that it would occur) and that homosexuality would be more acceptable (which definitely shows a difference in our consideration of damage, but is also something I'm pretty sure you're aware, in the context of this discussion, is not a legitimate example of damage in and of itself).
The idea that children raised by homosexuals are worse off would be a concrete argument (though there are plenty of problems with it). However, as far as I can tell, that's not actually correct. I'd be interested in seeing all these studies. From what I've seen of reputable, peer-reviewed studies, children reared by homosexual parents fare as well as heterosexual parents. Here's a thread we had about one of these studies. mackillian, one of the more concientious posters at Hatrack and one who works as a social worker dealing with kids, collected some of the research on this and posted an essay on it here and here. Here's another post from Hatrack detailing studies that show that the research seems to suggest that homosexual parents are not such a bad idea.
There are plenty of claims that homosexuals parents intrinsically damage their children, but there seems to be precious little reputable evidence that this is so, and quite a bit that suggests the opposite. Of course, I'm nowhere near an expert in this area and there could be whole areas in the literature that I'm unfamiliar with. Maybe you could point them out to me, if they exist?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:In todays world it would be very hard. Society teaches us these days that being successful financially is more important then being successful in family life. I hate to say it but that's the message given to young people these days, at least from my perspective.
If you want my complete answer to what's wrong with American society and how to fix it, you're going to have to wait a few years before I start publishing my books on it (seriously), but I'm in the middle of a very compressed run down starting around here.
However, consider, what is society? Who makes it up? Who decides what it "tells you"? Why does it have power to determine what people do? How does this power work?
Society and what it tells people is a dynamic concept. Likewise, it's influence is neither fixed nor insurmountable.
[ July 02, 2005, 01:46 AM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
Oy, there's the rub. There are plenty of studies and opinions stating the very opposite, and that studies tend to downplay any differences seen for fear of being seen as anti-gay.
Here's a sampling, not meant to inclusive, though the first one is intriguing. Regardless if someone agrees with them or not, they exist:
And yes, opponents like myself do base much of their argument on the idea that homosexuality is morally wrong. We have every right to stand up against something we believe inconsistent with the health and happiness of our society. And proponents for gay marriage do the exact same thing––fight against a social attitude they feel is morally wrong.
It's like in one of the articles it states:
"We all have to acknowledge that when push comes to shove this is not an issue that is solved by science," he said. "It will be decided based on beliefs and convictions."
I agree. It is one thing to allow people to live their lives and choose the path they wish to take, and I've plenty of homosexual collegues whom I count as good friends. But we have a right to fight granting legal and social privileges to something that ultimately isn't real.
I imagine there is another option, but calling it "marriage" with the exact same benefits is not the solution.
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
Narth? Like I'd believe those people. They are notorious for spreading lies, half-truths and stereotypes when it comes to homosexuality. They don't even do solid studies with a control when it comes to their ex-gay data. 30%-70%? 65%? Please. More like 0%. They quote Spitzer, who is responsible for homosexuality being taken off the list of disorders, but his scientific methods were questionable and consisted of calling people who were ex-gay and asking them if they had any homosexual attraction. Of course they would say no. He didn't take any of them and attach electrodes to them to study their sexual arousal while viewing sexually explicit material. Also, has anyone conducted studies on extended families? I can't help thinking that an extended family is even better for raising a kid than a nuclear family. At least it insures that someone can be there for the kids when the parents have to work. And what about children raised by their grandparents? I'd be interested in those sort of studies since I was raised by mine.
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
Hence why basing one's life on studies isn't very effective. No one accepts anything they disagree with anyway, so it still boils down to personal belief...
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
It's not a matter of disagreeing with them. It's just that their studies are seriously flawed and biased! They know nothing about homosexuality other than the negative stereotypes about it like promiscuity. They don't realize that most of the problems that gay people experience is NOT because of being gay. Being homosexual doesn't cause AIDS, doesn't cause drug abuse, but society's attitudes towards homosexuality affect a person's self worth! As long as they keep spreading these stereotypes and lies, nothing will change. Plus, it's simple not logical. If homosexuality were caused by environment, then why do so many prominant conservatives have gay children or siblings? If homosexuality were curable, then why did Paulk get caught in a gay bar, why are there so many so-called reparative therapist that take advantage of their patients? And, why does it take a ton of isolation, thousands of dollars of so-called therapy just to teach a person to repress their natural sexuality? It wouldn't work on a straight person and it sure as heck doesn't work on someone who is gay.
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
Syn, just stating that a study is biased doesn't make it so. You do have to provide SOME kind of rebuttal. ANd I don't think this counts:
quote:If homosexuality were caused by environment, then why do so many prominant conservatives have gay children or siblings?
Did anyone assert that being raised in a liberal household was the primary environmental factor causing homosexuality? And how does this example indicate that homosexuality is MORE likely to be genetic? Or are you saying it is environmentally caused, but in the womb, and not during childhood?
Come on, details!
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
No, but most of these ex-gay programs state that homosexuality is caused by inadequate parenting. Which casts a shadow over all of these people like Alan Keyes and the vice president. It's not logical because not every gay person has had a bad childhood, and not everyonewho has had a bad childhood turns out gay. See the books Anything but Straight and Stranger at the Gate. Anything but Straight is very revealing about how ineffective these ex-gay programs really are. As long as a person has a lot of strict structure controlling every aspect of their lives they can repress their sexuality. Most of the programs no longer even say they can "cure" homosexuality... It's such a huge fraud. But, right now I must force myself to go to work and be bored for hours upon end.
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
The problem, Syn, is that you're naturally biased toward your position and you read material that reinforces it, so of course you feel the way you do. It proves my point. It boils down to believing those studies that fit our own personal agenda.
There's nothing really wrong with that (we all do the same thing in our own way) but it shows why relying only on studies doesn't really solve anything. Especially when the majority of us on this board aren't social scientists and haven't performed any studies to disprove much of anything.
Bottom-line, we end up following those personal convictions that are far more difficult to quantify.
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
Not exactly. I've done research from both sides of the fence. The facts are the only thing that matter and they speak for themselves.
estavares, There's a word for when you don't let your biases dictate what you believe. It's called integrity. Because of my training and inclinations, I hold scientific integrity as very important. I'd appreciate it if you didn't imply that I and others don't have any. There are actually reasons that have been well-established why we should have more confidence that one thing is more accurate than another. If you can show me reputable evidence, I'll consider it.
Speaking of which, what in the three things you posted do you think supports your idea that homosexual parents are intrinsicly substandard? I read through them all and I didn't see it. The one didn't seem to touch on parenting at all, the other only offered up "Come on, you know that one male and one female parent is best, even though I don't have any evidence to back it up." and the third was supportive of the claim that homosexual parents are not substandard. I'm not sure why you thought that the things you posted supported your assertion.
[ July 05, 2005, 01:36 PM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by Angiomorphism (Member # 8184) on :
yeah and look at where the studies came from, the "family research council, defending faith, family, and freedom"... hmmmm, i wonder if a council whose mandate is to defend faith is going to consider any evidence in favor of same sex marriages?
also, the second article only provides evidence VS. the evidence (well at least they are agknowledging that there is evidence ), while totally neglecting the "for" side. Furthermore, like Squicky said, the third article only states that children of same sex couples are sometimes different (but different doesn't mean worse, infact, alot of the supposed differences are actually positive ones) than their heterosexual counterparts.
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
Where did I ever imply you have no integrity?
You're reading too far into (and taking too personally) my assertion that biases exist at all levels, regardless of how much we want to claim a balanced approach. To rely simply on science is one kind of bias; to rely simply on spiritual promptings is another. We narrow our vision every day by the choices we make and the opinions we hold, because they mesh with that inner standard we believe in how the world works.
There is no such thing as an objective human. There never has been.
You want absolute proof one way or another. The effects of homosexual marriage and child-rearing are long-term, have recieved little to no real studies, and studies are limited as people fear they'll be dismissed as political anyway. Even if they did prove no lasting difference in marriage or child-rearing, opponents would still feel the same. Because their belief stems from a different source.
A hundred years ago we would have had this discussion about cigarette smoking, and you would have demanded proof when there was none to provide. But we know the truth of its effects on health now, don't we? That's, IMHO, the hazard of relying solely on science and present facts. There must be a standard that goes beyond such limitations––but that standard varies from person to person, and we have that right to differ. It still boils down to ideology in the end.
BTW, as I had said, the links not meant to be inclusive or to prove anything. The Fox News link is an excellent example of exactly my point. No one is objective. Harms to children could be revealed but repressed for fear of appearing political in nature. It shows that science can be muddied by personal convictions on all sides.
The parenting portion is discussed (briefly) under the first link under the heading "Implications for Homosexual Parenting" with the idea that homosexual unions prove far less stable and are at a higher risk for various risks.
My point of these links was to show that for every study and opinion and expert on one side, they exist on another.
So whose science is more accurate?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote: My point of these links was to show that for every study and opinion and expert on one side, they exist on another.
No there isn't. You links don't show that there are reasons to think that gay couples provide substandard parenting. In fact, the only one with a reputable source who could legitimately claim to be an expert supports the opposite claim. Your links were neither of any where near equal weight from the ones I provided nor did they in any way establish what you claimed they did. The science is very very clearly on my side.
You're making an espistemological error in equating science with the world of spiritual values. They are both valid sources of informaiton, but they have different scopes. When we're talking about observable material effects, science trumps the spiritual, as this is beyond the scope of the spiritual world. Were we talking about ultimate values, science would be useless while the spiritual would reign supreme. They are not equal. "My God said it's bad." is not a valid counterwieght to "Nearly all reputable studies show that having gay parents don't lead to significantly worse mental health for children than having straight parents."
Likewise, the system and philosophy of laws and government that America follows does not treat these things as equally legitimate sources. You don't get to legilate based off of your values. You are, however, free to live your life in accordance with these values.
Posted by Angiomorphism (Member # 8184) on :
its like he took the words right out of my mouth. i might add, science and religion are not opposites in the sense that you can validly refute a scientific claims with a religious one. you cannot say, this study says this, but this bible passage says this with any credibility in your rebuttal.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:You don't get to legilate based off of your values.
This just isn't true. It's not unconstitutional to legislate based off values. In this country, we get to legislate what our elected representatives will enact, with relatively few checks enforced by the judiciary. The representatives are checked by their anticipation of what the judiciary will do and by the periodic political check of elections.
I happen to think as much room as possible should be left up to people's consciences. This is why I favor lifting restrictions on same sex civil marriage. I think your statement would be true if rephrased "You shouldn't legislate based solely off of your values." But as you phrased it it's highly inaccurate.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Dag, I was talking about the philosophy as well as the system. You're not specifically prevented from doing this based on the system we've said up, but it's a big prohibition in the underlying philosophy. I don't think looking at it that way, it's highly inaccurate.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
That's a fair statement of the philosophy that underwrote both the Declaration and the Constitution when drafted.
Unfortunately, a large segment of the population does not subscribe to that philosophy. They support the institutions created using that philosophy, but do not hold with the prohibition you describe. (This spans the political spectrum, by the way.) I don't think merely being a citizen of this country means you've agreed to the philosophical underpinnings of those institutions. The institutions contain the limits on the use of values in legislation, and those are the limits citizens are bound to respect. Not the aspirations of the underlying philosophy.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
That's an interesting idea, of a people that accept the artifacts of a certain philosophy but don't accept the philosophy itself.
I support the spirit of the system much more than I do the system, but that's because I feel strongly in the Enlightenment ideals and am aware of the tremendous revolution that actually occured withthe founding of America on them. I don't know, I think that an understanding of this and a valuation of it is essential to being an American, but I agree that this is not now, nor probably ever has been, the case. And I can't offer up a convincing argument for why people should think that.
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
quote: "My God said it's bad." is not a valid counterwieght to "Nearly all reputable studies show that having gay parents don't lead to significantly worse mental health for children than having straight parents."
That sort of secular arrogance, coupled with a presumption of the values and purposes behind the very founding of this nation, is exactly the problem. When have social changes been the sole result of scientific proof? Abortion wasn't made legal because 9 out of 10 women were shown to have this or that. Ultimately it was down to people wanting legal sanction for their behavior.
True that some laws are based on facts, i.e. so may car wrecks lead to a traffic light. But we're talking about a condition that has limited scientific basis in either direction. Science has neither proven or disproven the validity of homosexuality as a part of a successful society, much less granting legal benefits. And all sides have their studies.
And you know what? I bet studies would show it does have ill effects and you'd still keep to your opinion. Your links to a single study and a couple of essays? My science trumps your science? The very fact you see the same articles as I do and get a completely different reaction is exactly what I'm talking about! You see things with the same pair of tinted glasses as the rest of us.
The very nature, then, of such bias shows that science alone can never be the sole means to legislate. Spirituality and ideology is inherent in our system. Our country was founded on both scientific principles and spiritual values. Dagonee is right in this regard.
quote: No there isn't. You links don't show that there are reasons to think that gay couples provide substandard parenting.
When did I ever say the negative effects of child-rearing was the reason for the opposition against gay marriage? You put words in my mouth over and over again--and then refute them, so you're basically enjoying a debate invented by yourself.
Since you brought it up, I imagine gay parent are great parents. I know some homosexual men who would make great dads. But it doesn't change the fact that gay marriage isn't marriage.
Sheesh. Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
quote:I support the spirit of the system much more than I do the system, but that's because I feel strongly in the Enlightenment ideals and am aware of the tremendous revolution that actually occured withthe founding of America on them. I don't know, I think that an understanding of this and a valuation of it is essential to being an American, but I agree that this is not now, nor probably ever has been, the case. And I can't offer up a convincing argument for why people should think that.
That's funny, because I feel exactly the same way. Go figure.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:I bet studies would show it does have ill effects and you'd still keep to your opinion.
You know, it would help to test that if you could provide one.
The scientific basis for either side is not at all equal. All sides do not in fact have their equally valid studies. I'm getting a little tired of the anti-intellectual relativism front on people wanting to believe things that the evidence contradicts. There are rules for what can be said with confidence. One person saying something can have much greater weight than someone else saying it.
Nor am I as lacking in integrity as you have again accused me of being. I know and follow these rules.
---
Is your position now that even if there are good effects and no significant bad effects to allowing gay marriage, we shouldn't allow it? What gives you the right to say that?
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
The right of every American to stand up for what they believe; I am fueled by conscience and faith and yes, what I see. I stand by the knowing there is more to truth than those narrow visions provided by incomplete and ever-changing facts.
You seem to be the only person in the world who thinks science has made up its mind on the subject. What evidence? One under-represented study and a couple of essays do not outweigh much of anything.
The bottom-line is that your integrity has never been in question. I'm still not seeing where you're getting that. You seem an intelligent enough person able to make decisions based on what you see and feel. But issues of social change are never really solved by science. We're talking about attitudes and beliefs here. And what right do you have to say your science has "greater weight" and your "rules" are universal truth? They are valid, but they are not encompassing. How do you know that such issues like homosexuality aren't contrary to an eternal scheme of things?
I could say tons more, and refute things line by line, but it's late and we're spinning around in circles here...
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
estavares, You've made distinct statements about gay parents being substandard, such as
quote:Study after study after study has shown that male/female committed marriages are the best means to introduce and raise children. Who says otherwise? Such relationships are also best for the adults involved
and
quote:You will find study after study after study showing man/woman marriage is by far the best means to raise a child and for social stability. Search them out on Google; there's plenty to be found, and if that's not enough I don't know what else to say. Why reward something that is substandard?
In these statements, you've asserted that there are numerous studies that clearly show this. I've provided evidence that shows that there are numerous studies that dispute this idea. You responded with two position type statements that don't offer evidence as supporting your claim and one news report (on FOX news) of a study that acutally supports the claim that having same sex parents don't negatively affect children's mental health. (I realize now that you probably didn't look for or read the article in question, or for that case, the rebuttal of the testimony of the NARTH guy in the Massachuessets case. You should. That's the sort of integrity that's been drilled into me. Here's the actual study.)
Are you backing away from your claim that gay parents are substandard? Or that there are copious studies that demonstrate this? Or would you care to substantiate your claim?
Incidently Geoff, if you look though those policy statements, you'll see the "reparative" therapy of the ex-gay movements officially disapproved of. The official statements are a great deal milder than the condemnation of specific people and incidents who have been strongly censured for their unethical treatments of data and their patients.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
And, again, you're making an espistemological error. If the reputable science shows something can be said with confidence in the material world, what you believe your God say is true doesn't weigh against it. They have different scopes and even though you may want to translate your value judgements into a scientificly observable context, they don't count there (and, I might add, have a very poor track record).
Likewise, the eternal scheme of things is not the proper arena for science or for government. It's not the government's job to save people's souls. It is, in fact, prohibited from discriminating on the basis of religion. In America, as in nearly all non-theocratic states, a person's soul and values are his own (and possibly his church's) matter.
It's every American's right to determine these values for himself. I agree with you there. But it is not your right to force them on someone else. The government works on material matters. Appeals to your interpretation of what your God says is right and wrong are not valid in this context. You don't get to use the government to force people to live according to your version of Christianity.
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
My original point (which has been ignored) is that regardless of your desire that change should come when intellectuals decide it's time, science rarely dictates social change.
If slavery was an issue of science, heck economics, it would still be around today. The stand for what's right has always been one of ideology and yes, often fueled by relgious thought. For as much as the Founding Fathers relied on social theory to engineer our country, they relied equally on their faith to dictate what was considered appropriate policies for their newborn country. If you don't believe that, go back and read Madison and Washington and yes, even Jefferson.
As for your links, the policies of organizations are just as often fueled by politics as science, especially when you have experts offering different views like this. Whose science is right?
(A good commentary on this issue can be found here.)
Besides, look at the The American Psychiatric Association's criteria: "For a mental condition to be considered a psychiatric disorder, it should either regularly cause emotional distress or regularly be associated with clinically significant impairment of social functioning. These experts found that homosexuality does not meet these criteria."
When does something that basically feels good and doesn't impair you make it right?
As for the American Medical Association, this has nothing to do with gay marriage. It's simply a policy to be aware of and treat fairly all homosexuals in regards to medical treatment. I agree with that policy 100%.
My favorite is the The American Academy of Pediatrics. Right alongside stands the American College of Pediatricians who declare:
They also state this in reference to another study and add:
"Same-gender "marriage" is clearly a highly controversial cultural issue and represents a radical social experiment lacking unbiased research supporting its benefits or even its safety for both individuals and society as a whole."
So whose science is right?
Science is a valid part of making decisions, but I choose to rely on the faith there are things I cannot fully see, do not fully understand, but are right or wrong regardless of immediate, short-term results. History has shown that what one body of scientists vote for one century gets changed the next. Who are we to presume universal truth by studies alone? When has that ever been the sole means for drastic social change?
I imagine you'll drum up more articles trying to disprove all this, but what does it matter? Neither of us will change our opinion, especially when secondary issues in this thread are driven into the ground, and core issues are ignored.
––
I must admit, though, a ripping fine debate. Booyah!
Posted by Eisenoxyde (Member # 7289) on :
I know I haven't been involved in this previously but I'm going to throw my $0.02 in.
MrSquicky - I'd suggest a little more caution about faithfully believing that "science" has proven your side of the arguement.
* During the early part of the 1900s "science" indicated eugenics was correct, which has since been discarded as valid.
* Plate tectonics became accepted in the 1950s - before that, science claimed other mechanisms were operating.
* Until 1915, the plum pudding model of atoms was taken as scientific fact.
* String theory is still not fully accepted in the field of physics.
I could go on about many other "proven" scientific facts that were later disproven, but I think you get my point.
Science isn't the answer to any question, it is an attempt to better understand everything around us. Our models have been wrong in the past and the future will show us which current models are incorrect. To claim that science has "proven" something and therefore no more research is needed is intellectually dishonest.
One last thing - when you said "When we're talking about observable material effects, science trumps the spiritual" I'm curious how you reconcile that faith can heal people that science has written off (There are numerous documented cases of this.)
Jesse
P.S. When I was younger, I had sexual urges towards other men, but based off of my moral and spiritual background, I consciously chose to be hetrosexual. I completely reject the argument "I had no choice in the matter, I was born this way." You ALWAYS have a choice.
Posted by Princess Leah (Member # 6026) on :
So, Eisenoxyde, you
quote: suggest a little more caution about faithfully believing that "science" has proven your side of the arguement.
Well, that's great, but maybe you should follow your own advice.
quote: you said "When we're talking about observable material effects, science trumps the spiritual" I'm curious how you reconcile that faith can heal people that science has written off (There are numerous documented cases of this.)
Your earlier point was that we still don't have the whole story when it comes down to the science of things. If you beleive that, then how do you know that it was in fact "faith" that was responsible for the healing? Does our present scientific knowledge provide no other explanation? Gee, I guess it MUST be faith, then.
quote:When I was younger, I had sexual urges towards other men, but based off of my moral and spiritual background, I consciously chose to be hetrosexual. I completely reject the argument "I had no choice in the matter, I was born this way." You ALWAYS have a choice.
You have a choice in the way you behave, not in what is sexually attractive to you. Did you choose to have sexual urges towards other men? I'd assume not, based on your "moral and spiritual background" aginast homosexuality. So it looks like the only thing you chose was to not acknowledge or act on any sexual urges you find immoral.
Posted by Eisenoxyde (Member # 7289) on :
Princess Leah: Well, that's great, but maybe you should follow your own advice.
I fail to see where I did not. Please show me where I did and I will correct myself immediately.
Princess Leah: Your earlier point was that we still don't have the whole story when it comes down to the science of things. If you beleive that, then how do you know that it was in fact "faith" that was responsible for the healing? Does our present scientific knowledge provide no other explanation? Gee, I guess it MUST be faith, then.
I'm sorry I didn't explain myself better. I meant that scientific studies have shown that if someone has faith that their health will improve from whatever malady afflicts them, their chances of getting better is greater than those with no faith they will heal.
Princess Leah: You have a choice in the way you behave, not in what is sexually attractive to you. Did you choose to have sexual urges towards other men? I'd assume not, based on your "moral and spiritual background" aginast homosexuality. So it looks like the only thing you chose was to not acknowledge or act on any sexual urges you find immoral.
Isn't choosing our behaviors the only thing we can do? Some people are sexually attracted to sheep, young children, dead people, etc. Does that mean they should be allowed to have sexual liasons with what they find sexually attractive "because that's what they're attracted to"? Or should they need to resist their sexual urges?
Jesse
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:To claim that science has "proven" something and therefore no more research is needed is intellectually dishonest.
err....when did anyone on this thread do that? I'm pretty sure I've never claimed science has proven anything. To say so would mistake the very nature of science.
quote:One last thing - when you said "When we're talking about observable material effects, science trumps the spiritual" I'm curious how you reconcile that faith can heal people that science has written off (There are numerous documented cases of this.)
Could you substantiate this claim? If you're talking about the prayer effect, as far as I know, that hasn't been anywhere near enough study to generalize about it (although I find the idea fascinating). If you;re talking about individual faith, I'm not sure how you're discouting the extremes of psychoneuroimmunology and the placebo effect. Maybe you could explain this to me.
You should understand, I'm a big believer in the positive material effects many types of faith can have on a person's life. However, as with any material effects, I believe these yield themselves to a scientific analysis. Also, considering the wide spectrum of mutually exclusive faiths that appear to introduce benefits, I find it unlikely that these postulated effects are the work of a specific supernatural entity.
quote:When I was younger, I had sexual urges towards other men, but based off of my moral and spiritual background, I consciously chose to be hetrosexual. I completely reject the argument "I had no choice in the matter, I was born this way." You ALWAYS have a choice.
I'm not sure how you can make this claim based on your experience. Could you explain how you feel that generalizing across an entire population from your empirical experience. The reparative therapy movement that sets out to turn gay people to straight has a terrible track record and they deal pretty exclusively with people who are strongly motivated (in many cases, they consent to being tortured) towards not being gay.
---
One of the best uses for science is to combat prejudices. It's very hard to raise a positive to a state of high confidence. It's a great deal easier to show that something is wrong. For example, the idea that gay parents are necessarily substandard to straight parents and the underlying assumptions behind it has not turned out too well in the literature. Or the idea that it's a matter of choice for everyone whether or not to be gay. Not doing too great, either. Likewise the idea that gay people are necessarily mentally ill has very poor support for the accepted definition of mentally ill.
Responsible people don't get to believe whatever they want, no matter what the evidence says. That's what bigots do. You can talk about the not amazing high level of confidence that goes along with some of these things. I wouldn't argue with you there. You can bring up reputable competing studies, which I'm still waiting for peopel to do. But you can't just say deny that objective reality exists of that we can in some way reliably observe it and expect me to take you seriously. You're putting ideology before fact and that's never a responsible position to take.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
estavares, Are you serious with this? The description of the 1973 APA conference that led to the changes in the diagnosis of homosexuality as a psychopathology is biased, to say the least. Also, the decision to reclassify it rested on the fact that there were not enough valid evidence showing that it fit an objective standard for being called a mental illness. This was part of a greater shift in the study and treatment of psychopathology away from ideologically based justifications and towards data driven ones. Over 30 years later, there is still not enough valid evidence to consider homosexuality a disorder, despite a heck of a lot of research that set out to show just that.
You should understand that not diagnosing something as a mental disorder does not in anyway constitute a statement that it's right or that the APA is endorsing it. As I've been trying to explain, there is a fundamental difference between the world of facts and thye world of values. Mental disorders are not a question of values; that's the problem that the homosexuality reclassification and the shift to the DSM III got us away from. They're a question of whether something can reliably be shown to fit a certain set of criteria.
The APA's position on God is "Not in our purview", which is the way that it should be.
---
And the American College of Pediatricians? Even a cursory look at their web page shows them to be an advocacy group formed in 2002 specifically because the AAP supported same sex parent adoption. They're not anywhere near on equal standing with the AAP. Their mission statement is to push the idea that heterosexual marriage is the best way to raise children. They don't even pretend to be objective.
Look, people can say whatever they want and they can call themselves whateer they want. What you need to actually make a case is data that supports what they're saying.
---
I'll ask again. You've stated that there were study upon study showing how heterosexual parents were superior to homosexual ones but have yet to show even one. Are you withdrawing your assertions or would you like to show me a reputable study that shows this?
---
If you think science is not an important of social change, you're wrong. It gives us a better understanding of the way things actually are and allows us to counter people's prejudices (like gay parents are bad for kids or gay people like to molest children).
Consider the civil rights movement. Clark's doll study was one of the strongest pieces of evidence used in Brown v. The Board of Education. One of the books most highly praised by Martin Luther King Jr. and Maclom X was the psychologist Gordon Allport's The Nature of Prejudice. Objective testing allowed people to conclusively demonstrate discrimination and the negative effects of certan policies on people.
The material case against gay people is formed, as far as I can see, on ill informed prejudces. Were people to actually view gay people as human beings similar to themselves, we wouldn't even be having this discussion. You seem to be arguing that people are going to keep their prejudices no matter how strong the case is against them. I think this is true for some people, but I've got more hope and more faith in people than that. If we can consistently expose and debunk these prejudices, I believe that many people will ocme to realize that there are no reasons to fear gay people.
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
But since you refuse any and all opposing studies that have been offered, and there have been plenty, you have put ideology before fact.
Again, you don't address the main contention. What facts should we consider, especially when groups of professionals are more motivated by politics than objective science? And whose science should we believe, when studies differ?
I wish we did live in this utopia where the information we learn is absolute, we come about it objectively, and we make objective decisions that benefit everyone. But this isn't a utopia. We more often make presumptions based on our beliefs, regardless of what they are, then drum up evidence to support it.
As I've said before, science has its place, but it is never absolute. And you ask people why they served the civil rights movement, and it sure isn't because of some study. They did it because they felt it was wrong.
[ July 08, 2005, 12:40 PM: Message edited by: estavares ]
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
You haven't offered reputable studies. Or maybe you did and I missed them. If you could point the ones you think are valid, perhaps we could discuss them. From what I've seen, you've scattershot a web search of things that are related to what you're saying at me. So far, the only peer reviewed study I've seen you you present (and that by way of a news report) supported the opposite of your point.
There are objective criteria that can be used to determine what science is valid. This decision becomes less clear when we're talking about secondary sources, but I feel confident in saying that advocacy organizations like the ACP, that were formed specifically to promote their issues, have much less credibility than an organization like the AAP.
These organizations haven't let politics guide their decision making just because you don't agree with their decisions. If you look at the APA statement, for example, you'll see that the footnotes (referring to reputable studies in reputable journals as opposed to The Christian Journal of Why Gays are Bad) make up nearly as much as the primary text. Their claims are easily up for refutation, not by asserting that they are without integrity, but by showing the flaws in their sources or the flaws in how they treat their sources.
You can determine what information is good and which is not by knowing what you're talking about. That's part of my training. Another part is the opposite of this:
quote:We more often make presumptions based on our beliefs, regardless of what they are, then drum up evidence to support it.
I'm aware that all humans are biased. However, I have a lot more integrity than this gives me credit for.
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
This whole integrity thing is important to you, isn't it?
It wouldn't matter what studies I directed your attention, (like the previously listed peer reviewed study here) because you already have "training" and "know what (you're) talking about," right? For a criteria that must be iron-clad, right? I could throw a thousand peer-reviewed studies your way and it would never be enough.
There was a day when most everyone believed slavery was the natural order of things. There was a day when people thought smoking and drug use was harmless. We can use "facts" to say just about everything––did you know that 100% of people who died of cancer last year ALL used toilet paper? Recall the Charmin!
It's all about using those facts to promote one's own platform. And to presume those who ascribe to your beliefs tend to be "above" such notions...well, there's not much I can do for you there.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
That's not a study. That's an opinion piece. THere isn't a scrap of primary evidence in it. I'm not sure what type of peer-reivew process The Journal of Psychohistory uses or who is involved in it, but they don't appear hold themselves out as a scientific research journal. You can check out the index of their articles here.
Of course integrity is a big deal to me. It's the central aspect that any scientist (especially one that works in the more nebuluous sciences) needs. I don't let my preconceived notions blind me to what the data says. I've had to revise countless theories throughout the years because the data didn't fit. The organizations I've referenced here (in oppostion to the groups you seem to prefer, like NARTH or the ACP) are also strongly concerned about their integrity and police themselves heavily. Imputing a lack of integrity because you don't like what we say is not a responsible thing to do.
I'm not sure you understand what constitutes a reputable source or survey of information. When I looked at this issue, I've specifically looked for disconfirming evidence. That's one of the first steps in a responsible investigation. I found it lacking. This is not a case where there are competing experts of equal weight and number on each side. The people on your side generally make their bias very clear and have little valid scientific support for their assertions. They've routinely been caught in ethical lapses.
It's possible I missed a large chunk of valid evidence against my position (which, I've freely admitted is nowhere near ironclad), but I'm satisfied with the literature review I did. And I'm willing to entertain any reliable evidence you can present. But you haven't presented any, that I've seen, except for the study that confirms my view.
Nor have you presented me with an argument for why gay marriage would be a bad thing for society that doesn't rely on "I don't like it." or "God said so." Or how allowing gay marriage would actually threaten people's lifestyle.
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
What kind of scientist are you? (Just curious.)
Spiritual confirmation can't be quantified in a traditional sense...so it's dismissed. If I relied only on what I can quantify, I suppose I would believe any sort of notions. And I understand better than you might think regarding what constitutes something being "reputable." But "reputable" scientists are debunked regularly. I like to think beyond what I see in my hands.
This inability, or unwillingness to see beyond one's nose makes no sense to me. It seems so limiting. Since I do not believe the issue has been adequately researched and proven either way, I think relying only on what has been shown is a poor and premature way to make up one's mind on such a big issue. Even if all the scientists in the world said one thing, they all once believed the Earth was flat, didn't they? Truth is found in more places than in the scientists's notebook.
That's my take. But hey, I'm only a teacher, not a scientist, so what do I know, right?
BTW, you sure love to put words in my mouth. I referenced NARTH merely to show competing studies exist, but I neither "prefer" them or know anything more about their practices. I suppose that means I have no integrity? Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Let's be clear. You've made a definite claim that gay parents are substandard to straight ones and that there are tons of studies to back this up. Have you changed your mind on that?
Because it sounds like you have. You now seem to be saying that there hasn't been adequate research. I wonder how you've made this determination. Have you studied the available research? How extensive have your studies been?
quote:Spiritual confirmation can't be quantified in a traditional sense...so it's dismissed. If I relied only on what I can quantify, I suppose I would believe any sort of notions.
Spiritual confirmation is unreliable, in the epistemological definition of the word. It changes, from time to time and from person to person. It cannot be replicated and very often contradicts itself. It is also non-transferrable. For all these reasons, it falls outside the scope of scientific evidence.
You'd be wrong about relying on what you can quantify, either as being a necessary aspect of science or as meaning that there wouldn't be objective truth. Relying on what can be shown and replicated is how we move beyond the "what I want to believe" world. And, if you want to talk about the historically bad actions and incorrect beliefs of a group, I don't think relying on religion as a superior position is going to work out for you.
What scientists say (and pretending that the state of things in the modern era is similar to any of the examples mentioned is silly) is not the issue. What the data says is. If the studies are methodologically sound, they produce valid data. This data is subject to interpretation and this interpretation is open to analysis as to how responsible it is. It's possible that the data or the interpretation is unsound or how another interpretation fits better, but saying "Well, it oculd be wrong. People have been wrong before." while much easier, is not a responsible criticism.
I don't rest my belief in the soundness of these ideas on what people or groups say. I rest them on what the data says. It is confirming evidence that the major reputable groups that study these things agree with my interpretation, but I don't believe just because they say so.
Honestly, estaveres, I don't think you understand what having integrity means in the way that I'm using it.
[ July 08, 2005, 09:15 PM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Defensive filler post, because some jokes are only funny once.
Posted by kojabu (Member # 8042) on :
I'm gonna stick this in here so I don't start another thread about it. For my job I had to sort through a box of stuff that was in my supersupervisor's office and I found a lot of stuff related to gays and religion, including a brochure on the Book of Mormon and homosexuality. The back of it says:
quote:The Book of Mormon, which contains the "fullness of the everlasting gospel" says absolutely nothing about homosexuality. Nothing!
Treatment of homosexual men and women as sinners in the LDS Church is an administrative decision, not a revelation from God.
I'm aware of the whole Old Testament argument, etc, etc, but I was wondering what role the Book of Morman played in LDS spirituality and what anyone who is LDS thinks about the above quote.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:did you know that 100% of people who died of cancer last year ALL used toilet paper?
Not that it's particularly relevant to anything, but I find this extremely unlikely. People die of cancer even in poor regions where toilet paper is unavailable. And in the West, both homeless people and people with colostomies get cancer. [/irrelevant nitpick]
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
kojabu, that quote presupposes that the Book of Mormon is the only source for LDS doctrine. It is NOT. We have four books of scripture, and also give equal weight to the leadership of the modern prophet. It's odd for someone to claim that it is an administrative decision, and is therefore NOT a revelation. The two are not mutually exclusive.
The grounds for Latter-day Saint "treatment of homosexuals as sinners" stems from our marriage rites. We practice a form of marriage called "Sealing" or "Eternal Marriage" which we believe lasts beyond the grave, and prepares couples for greater responsibilities in the afterlife.
This form of marriage can only be practiced between men and women. The assumption many people make to explain this is that their future responsibilities in the hereafter involve or are analogous to child-rearing, and that these responsibilities can only be carried out by a man and a woman together — that sexual dimorphism among humans reflects a larger eternal principle that cannot be violated, and that it would be a lie to tell homosexuals that their marriages can carry the same weight after this life, according to our doctrine.
Mormon society is built around family units that are joined by these kinds of marriages. Even heterosexuals who marry civilly are constantly encouraged to work towards this "higher" form of marriage.
Homosexual marriage doesn't fit into this society. We can exist peacefully alongside a society that practices it, but to give equal weight to homosexual marriages would mean denying much of the foundation of our culture and belief.
So Mormons don't believe that it is a sin to BE a homosexual. But we DO believe in chastity outside of marriage, so if someone is unwilling for any reason to marry within the natural bounds set by our doctrine and culture, then their sexual relationships are considered sinful.
To sum it up:
1. Mormon society is built upon a certain form of heterosexual marriage that we believe is tied to a half-known eternal truth that we can't just change on a whim.
2. We also believe in chastity outside of marriage.
3. Therefore, sexual relationships that cannot occur within marriages that Mormons can recognize must necessarily be treated as sinful.
The sex acts performed by homosexuals are never identified as sinful in and of themselves, and homosexuals are never identified as being inherently bad or sinful people — at least, no more than the rest of us. This issue is simply a product of the constraints that affect ALL of Mormon society. Single heterosexuals who are unwilling or unable or marry for whatever reason (who constitute a rather large minority) are expected to live no less chastely than Mormons who do not marry because they are homosexual.
AND we are VERY serious about treating people with other beliefs with tolerance and love. We certainly have known our share of persecution because of ill-understood marriage practices, so there is a lot of compassion here (at least from me) for the homosexual community.
But it doesn't change the fact that the homosexual lifestyle is incompatible with our faith and doctrine. If we set the precedent of changing our doctrine with the whims of the surrounding culture, we wouldn't be who we are anymore.
[EDIT: good-natured teasing of competing faith removed to avoid giving offense or opening can of worms]
[ July 08, 2005, 07:24 PM: Message edited by: Puppy ]
Posted by kojabu (Member # 8042) on :
Thanks, that was the kind of info I was looking for. Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
(And thanks, Squick )
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
Puppy: Well put.
King o'Men: It was a joke.
Squickmeister: Puppy's summary puts my background into perspective, so hopefully you can see where I'm coming from. And I suppose that source of information is incompatiable with how you approach things. No matter. I believe it, so there you go.
I do stand by the notion that male/female parenting is best, and to expect me to prove it to you with sources that you'll not dismiss seems a big waste of time. There's always some excuse why all the data I did present doesn't meet your criteria, so I don't feel like scrambling around to feed a guy who never planned to eat anyway.
I also stand by the notion that data on alternate forms of parenting are incomplete; though a few sources of data were presented, the majority of your links were simply association policy. The change to the social norm has the burden of proof and, frankly, when other data shows the opposite and/or biases inherent in the process, I'm not all that keen to rely only on data.
Martin Luther King never stood and read data on the effects of policies in regards to civil rights. Instead he "had a dream." Great social change ultimately comes from the heart, be the ideological and/or the spiritual. Spiritual confirmation uses its own form of data and "peer review" to help ensure it comes from the right source––but it's a science that requires learning a whole different set of sensory tools to understand beyond the five senses.
The only way you could get a balanced understanding is to convert...so whattya say?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"The only way you could get a balanced understanding is to convert...so whattya say?"
Not gonna happen, I'm afraid.
Posted by kojabu (Member # 8042) on :
Yea but then you have to convert so many times to get the balanced understanding for all the different religions, and someone's bound to catch on...
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Ok, fair is fair. We all convert to whatever estavares' brand of fairy tales is, for three days, let's say. Meanwhile, he converts to a flaming fairy for three days, and does his best to get laid. Who knows, maybe he'll 'gain a balanced understanding'.
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
Cute parallelism, King. Doesn't make it less annoying that you persist in describing religion in the same childish, insulting tone. Just thought I'd remind you.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
estavraes, One of the main that likely contributes to why I discount your sources is that you seem to put almost no time into looking for them. Did you even read the ones you posted to establish that supremecy of male-female marriage, because none of them did so? The only one that tried to had a little paragraph that said, essentially: "C'mon, you all know it's the best way." Then you tried to balance an advocacy group against an established professional organization and called an statment of opinion a study.
I didn't accept your sources because they are very obviously poor ones and your description of what they are and say are not accurate. Like I said, there are established, objective reasons why certain evidence and groups have more credibility than others. These reasons are not in doubt, or at least not unless the credible source say something you disagree with. For all your accusations of me being led by bias and letting politics instead of facts and having almost no evidence to back up my position, I've stayed easily within these bounds while you seem to be willing to take whatever scraps you can find and present (and often misrepresent) them.
You can say that you don't have and don't care to have any evidence except for your prejudices, religiously based and otherwise. You don't have to pretend that you have good reasons to believe that there is science on your side. You're coming across, to me at least, as someone who doesn't know the science and doesn't think that knowing the science is important anyway.
Oh, and you're very wrong about MLK not reading and not using the scientific data. He quite clearly did so, on many occassions. It might fit your prejudices that he did not, but the facts again don't bear your assertion out.
---
Also, I find your presumption that I don't have a rich spiritual life about as arrogant as your assumption that you speak for God. Again, it may fit your prejudices, but it's not actually true.
edit: In fact, I'm going to expand on that. Here's why America is not run on the theocratic model that you seem to prefer. In the development of Western civilization, there was an epistemological (among other things) revolution that directly contributed to the character of the country we now live in. Rather than a revolution, really, you could say that it was the developement of epistemology. People started sitting down, pondering the questions of what we could know and how could we know it. Out of this came a systematic field of classifiying knowledge and the confidence we could have in knowledge. One of the main tools of this field is the scientific method.
One of the primary concerns of this system is that evidence must be transferrible and repeatable. That is, it must be able to be seen by other people. There must also be some objective standard to refer to.
Faith, religious or otherwise, does not fit these requirements and also gives a good illustration as to why they are needed. One of the big problems with faith is that people all have different and generally mutually exclusive ones. While it's common to assume (as you so arrogantly did to me) that people who don't believe as you do are infidels (literally those without faith), the reality is much different. So the resolution of what different subjective faiths comes down to a might makes right situation. If we assert that this is the guiding principle of a civilization, we are limiting the conflict resolution strategies to the application of force. Often this was direct force, as in control of the military or other group of large men with weapons. Recently, with the advent of democracy, it's in the force of numbers, with minority groups being left with only the more violent recourses.
This is a really crappy way to run a society and it also ignores the fact that reality and quality do not follow th will of the masses or of those who control the money or power. There are objective standards, the following of which have led to an unprecendented develoment of accurate, reliable information about the world (and in the process shown many historical "faith" based views of things to be laughably wrong).
The reason why you may want ot push a more theocratic style of government is because you think you've got the force right now. I wager that if some other group with a conflicting view of the world were in power, you'd be pretty set against it. This harkens back to the "veil of ignorance" argument from the second page. The denial of this sort of hypocracy and reliance on a set of standards the protect all of the people in society is one of the hallmarks of the new world order that was heralded by the founding of America.
[ July 09, 2005, 01:32 PM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
Hey King o'Men: Sounds like a great idea! I'll get right on it!
Squickster: You crack me up. You love to put words and motives into people's mouths, and this whole debate was fueled by you forcing my hand to prove something I'm in no position to prove...nor should I have to. Then you basically ignored the main points of my contention with a couple of throw-away retorts. You'd have made a great debater with all the smokescreens. Heck, you'd make a great army general with the way you manipulate. Sometimes your audacity is pretty amazing.
Classic point is your second half with which I basically agree . I do not "speak for God" nor do I demand a more theocratic society. But I have a right to stand up for what I believe for reasons that you may not agree with. But it's done everyday. You saying you disagree with the MLK reference means nothing; what "data" do you present to prove otherwise? He marched based on the hopes and dreams of a million of his brothers fighting the same cvil rights war. I doubt he ran some statistics and said, "Gee, I better do something about that!" He based his belief that equality was God-given. But that doesn't fit your "criteria," does it?
Regardless of whatever spirituality to which you ascribe you make it a second-class citizen, something that many visionaries and social leaders did not do. Like it or not, even the Founding Fathers understood that ideology (often fueled by faith) is the very crux of a new nation. They went into this grand experiment with very little data if it would work.
You never fully address or disprove the concept that when it comes to massive social change, it is rarely dicated by the scientific method or decided by data. Sure it plays a part. Sure it helps us see issues that might have been invisible. Sure it helps us see problems. But the motivating factor that finally decided change is ideology. Faith may be the foundation of such ideology, but that does not mean we demand a new government or must force everyone to believe the way we do.
You are motivated by your ideology as much as the next––the very fact you presume that the gathering of data and making decisions on that alone is your own brand of ideology. It's a valid one, and makes perfect sense. But data DOES change and mistakes ARE made and the very people who sit in their high-handed places die and suddenly a whole new crop of data changes what was once set in stone. It is just as fluid and unstable as you claim religion to be.
To use short-term, incomplete data (when reputable people and groups, regardless of your own brand of criteria, find at fault) to dictate massive social and moral change is irresponsible at best, dangerous at worst. If we were talking about building a bridge, everything you have contended would make perfect sense. But we're talking about making changes to practices that have been around for most of human history.
What this debate HAS done is caused people to rethink why we have marriage and its benefits. That's a healthy reaction. It's been fascinating to see how divided studies really are concerning the matter, and the data often seems to reaffirm one's current beliefs rather than change people's minds.
As in coming up with data to defend my position: of course I'm in no position to take days and days to prove something you wouldn't accept anyway. I could offer a thousand sources and you would either denounce then, claim they don't fit your "criteria" or continue the offer the "they're not a credible source" line with yet no evidence to show why it's not credible. Of course when you're called on it, you start arguing second- or third-tier issues and run them into the ground. It's a clever way of appearing right, and I applaud your ability to muddy the waters by never really answering any of the big questions posed to you.
(But hey, you present big answers to things I neither feel nor advocate, so there you go.)
I must admit your insights have allowed me to better understand another point of view and for that, I offer my thanks. It makes me very afraid to see how quick able-minded professionals can jump on a bandwagon that may one day prove to be yet another Piltdown Man––something that seems so right, yet proves to be a hoax.
Man, that was long-winded. I'm pooped. Posted by The world turned flat (Member # 8314) on :
i couldn't even read this whole thread, it was too big for my little brain to synthesize. but i had a few things to say about some of the things that have been covered. forgive me if i repeat anything anyone else has said. on the subject of democracy: we choose our representatives, but even if they are elected by the majority, they still represent us all and should take that responsibility seriously. Faith and religion are all good in my book, but just because a representative is from a certain faith doesn't mean they can ignore the cries of their other people. i believe they shouldn't, but what can you do? we're too big to be a true democracy. the answer is you take part. you write your congressmen, your local political leaders. A message board is a fine place to start, to discuss, to vent and to learn from other people. But take your message to the people who can DO something about it. And be intelligent and respectful, even if you can't guarantee they will be back. encourage others to do the same. VOTE! you can bet there are boneheads on both sides. AND WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT, BOTH SIDES HAVE A RIGHT TO SPEAK. and that's one of the things that make this country great. I may not like to hear that homosexuals are detrimental to society or that they are the downfall of this country or that they are evil or that...or that...or that...but just as well as it is someone's right to say so, it's my right to not listen. and hate is just bad in general. if you can't see where someone is coming from, try! look at it this way. what if you were taught your whole life that something was wrong and you agreed with what you were taught? let's say you weren't violent or rude or nasty about it. let's say you held something as sacred and in your eyes someone was defiling it? would you be wrong for respectfully standing up for your beliefs and voting accordingly? I don't think so. Now lets say you really loved someone, i mean really loved them and you wanted to be with them for your whole life. Lets say that you don't understand why people have such a problem with it when you are actually in a loving, healthy relationship and you want to cement it. let's say you respectfully stood up for those beliefs and voted accordingly. would you be wrong? I don't think so. The problem i personally have with the debate on homosexuality is that some people have ideas that are so deeply rooted they can't get rid of them (see: all homosexual men are pedophiles, or all lesbian women are man haters, or all christians are intolerant bigots) then the conversations get ugly. you aren't dealing with a dry issue. you're dealing with peoples deep seeded beliefs and desires. I know married couples that have been together forever and love eachother. i've known gay couples that haven't lasted. I've known married couples that destroyed the sanctity of their own marriages without any help from the gay community. and i've known gay couples that have been together upwards of 20 years. I can't tell you who is right and i don't have a religion to tell me. nor do i want one. i have faith, and that's good enough for me. all i know is calling people names will only further their argument against you. and it also makes you into just the bonehead you rail against. left wing, right wing, gay, straight, republican, democrat, athiest, judeo-christian and all the others, too. unless they prove themselves to be other than worthy, they're all people.
whoo! i don't know if you hung with me for the whole thing, but there it is. my jumbled opinion of the sitch.
P.S. Just because people marry and procreate certainly doesn't mean they didn't marry for love.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
That's odd. I'd thought I'd offered clear, specific reasons for why I didn't feel the stuff you linked was strong evidnce in your facor. Maybe In eed to be more explicit.
1) You claimed that there is study after study that supports your assertion that homosexual parents are substandard. I responded with a bunch of links to pieces of information that disputed this claim and requested that you substantiate yours. Do you feel you have done so? Could you show me where? What I saw was two position statements by a Doctor of Religion and a member of NARTH who has been censured that didn't reference any such studies (and that's kinda telling right there, don't ya think?) and a news piece talking about a study that supported the idea that the children of homosexual parents were not significantly worse off than their peers raised by straight parents. Do you feel that you've even made a responsible effort to show me any study (let alone a reputable one) that supports your assertion? Because I haven't seen it.
I realize it's much easier to say that I've always got some reason to not agree with your provided evidence, but you do realize that you haven't actually provided any evidence, right? And that this has made up my complaint? It's not like I have to stretch to find fault with you not supporting your assertion, which I disputed with actual evidence, with nothing but your say-so. Or do you feel that this is not a legitimate criticism?
2) You claimed that I seemed to be the only one who thought science supported these claims. I responded with links showing how the major professional organizations who studied these things agreed with me. You then claimed that they were letting politics trump over science, as was I. Do you agree that I'm not the only one (as I'm pretty sure you do)? What made you think it was responsible to make a definite claim about something you obviously know very little about, or am I supposed to believe that you know a lot about this but happened to miss anything put out by these organizations? Also, if you have any reasons for thinking that these organzations have put politics ahead of science that go beyond "They say things I don't want to believe are true.", could you explain them to me?
The way I see it, if this is what's being done, not only are these organizations showing a grave defect in responsibility, but they're also acting pretty stupidly, as when things are changed based in part on their confident recommendations, what they've said is going to be put to the test by reality. If they're wrong in a significant way, it'll be very damaging to these organizations.
3) You held up the ACP as an equivilent counterweight, in terms of science, to the AAP. I hold that as the ACP is not a scientific organization, but rather a advocacy one, that was started specifically to advocate against the AAP's acceptance of gay parents as legitimate. This is reflected in their character. Nor have they provided any actual science, at least that you've offered or on their web site, to back this up. Do you dispute any of these claims? Do you have any reason for me to consider the ACP a reputable organization?
4) You represented the linked article from the Journal of Psychohistory as a study. I disputed this and said that it was an opinion piece in a non-research oriented journal. Was I wrong?
5) You've made a claim that there isn't enough science to be confident one way or the other. I believe that you've shown pretty clearly that you have no idea what scientific evidence exists nor do you particularly care. Do you feel you've established someone who has made responsible claims that you could easily back up with reputable support? Do you believe that anyone has a reason for trusting your description of the current levels of research, especially as it is opposed to the one provided by the professional organizations that I linked to?
See, because I don't think that this is true. You come across to me as someone who has a prejudice and is deteremined to stick to it. Your attitude on science has gone from "There are tons of easily findable studies on my side." to "You're the only one who thinks that the science supports this." to "There's not enough evidence to know anything." to "Science isn't actually important." Just about any time you've made a definite claim it's been false. You've admitted that in order to find actual stuff that supports your position, it would take days of you looking. This is why I believe you don't even understand what it means to have integrity.
The knowledge of the evidence should precede the claim about it. When you make a claim that there are studies that back up what you're saying, you should actually know that these studies exists and not merely want to believe that they do. When you claim that there isn't enough science one way or the other, you should have some idea of the field that you're talking about. Doing otherwise is very much akin to lying.
----
Specifically related to this issue, the scientific data that show that children of gay parents are not worse off that children of straight parents has led to mnay places overturning their prohibitions on gay couple adoption (although you're going to have bigot holdouts, like Texas). Is this not a significant social change?
Wasn't the ending of segregation on the basis of a Supreme Court decision that was heavily influenced by the doll study I referenced a signficant social change?
See, you may not consider what can be shown to be something we can have a high degree of confidence in being true important, but there are actually plenty of people who consider this important. I do actually care a great deal about the health of chldren and if you could present me with evidence that having gay parents would necessarily be harmful for them, I'd weigh that very heavily. I've been trained as a sceintist to understand why I should have confidence in some things and not in others and I consider adhering to integrity in determining this very important. But don't expect me to take your ignorant prejudices as some sort of evidence, not even if you do a poor job of backing them up with some internet fumbling.
Perhaps you are right and the things I'm advocating are against the eternal plan. My understanding of the eternal plan is somewhat different. Of course, I also have the humilty to realize that I have no right to force other people to live according to my very imperfect understanding and the wisdom to realize that neither science nor government can remain responsible when involved in the spiritual area.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Geoff, I wondering, are you going to chime in at any point or has this discussion ended for you?
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
Okay admit it, Squicky...you're a computer, aren't you?
Here's our impasse, as best as I understand it:
1. First, we base our philosophy on two very different foundations. You rely on a standard to determine what is considered true and credible. You rely on those whom you believe to be credible and objective, and you trust their credentials and trust that if enough of them gather together to say something, they must be right. Fair enough.
I come from a place that says that there is a different standard. It is true that I base a good portion of my belief on this topic on my faith (about 50/50) and I trust those whom I believe speak with authority on such subjects. It is a standard that you do not ascribe to.
2. Second, you have created a debate that can never be won or lost. I realize now that my desire to throw up a few websites to show that alternative opinions exist was like throwing the gauntlet. That was never my intention and yes, it was a mistake. It was like throwing steak to a dog.
It is both insidious and deceitful of you to demand I "prove" this issue––as if I had the time, the crendentials or the inclination to do such a thing, much less beat my head against someone who is biased toward one side of the debate. What do you want, a thesis? Especially when I have history on my side?
You're demanding something that society hasn't accomplished. Has homosexuality been "proven" to be a normal practice by society? Why wasn't this in the news? When did a few studies and the opinions of a few professional organizations change thousands of years of standard practice?
You re-read that FoxNews article. Though the writers saw nothing wrong in and of themselves with gay marriage, the article clearly states that there are differences in children who are raised in homosexual homes (including a higher chance of earlier sexuality) and these differences are not being pursued for fear of political fallout. So if this is the case, how much of those studies advocating gay marriage/paretning tell the whole story? Especially when most of the studies you cited are less than a decade old?
Since you seem to think that unless I prove it it must not be true, you must hold my opinion in high regard. By your continuous degrading and condescending language, I'm guessing you feel the opposite.
3. Third, you do not hold yourself to the same standard you demand from others. You referenced a few studies (with nothing earlier than 1994), but three of the four organizations were simply statements of policy with no data. And what data have you shown that the ACP or the other studies I've shown are not legitimate sources? You've offered none.
You simply decide that this group or study doesn't meet your standard while this one does...and gee, the ones you approve of happen to follow your particular opinion. Imagine that! How much of a sample size officially "proves" a topic? The idea that if I provided proper evidence you might consider it is a lie, and you know it. You're far more interested in appearing right.
4. Fourth, you have cleverly manipulated things to muddy the true spirit of this discussion. I should have seen your plan from the get-go, and I made the first mistake: allowing the opposition to choose the battlefield. You picked those points you could oppose, ignored the rest, and like a fool I followed along with foolish pride. I won't make that mistake again.
You are free to follow your own brand of prophets, and I am free to follow my own. We choose our masters, and you have chosen yours. By definition we are both bigots to our ideologies, and this debate has opened my eyes to how pervasive and important this issue has become.
I stand by my thoughts. You do the same and let's call it good, shall we?
[ July 13, 2005, 09:33 PM: Message edited by: estavares ]
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
When the posts between other people reach a certain critical length, my ADD kicks in, and I cannot continue Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
Wow -- this thread's still going.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Geoff, It's cool. I don't think there'd be much value in anyone else adding to the cul-de-sac that estey and I are in, but that doesn't mean that the overarching point is gone. I'm still waiting for someone to present me with a reason against gay marriage or how, specifically, allowing gay marriage threatens other people's lifestyles.
---
estavares, I have been trying to be specific in the things that I've been saying. I thought I had presented definite, specific reasons for the things I said. It was never my intention to muddy the waters; in fact, I think that clarity can only help my case. In fact, I've seen this as a struggle to get you to make clear, specific statements.
You've made a specific statement that there are plenty of studies that show homosexual parenting to be substandard. I've repeatedly asked you to point these out to me, as I've not seen them and seen many to the opposite. I also don't believe you actually knew of any such studies when you made that claim.
Three of the supporting articles brought up (one of them by you) are survey articles. That is to say, they encompass many studies within themselves. Likewise, the APA position statement contains almost more text in external reference footnotes than for the basic statment. This statement also reflects the response made to the NARTH guy in the Mass. thing (and, indirectly, the stuff in the first link by the Doctor of Religion). There is a great deal more I provided in the periphery than a few studies. And, here's the thing, I've actualy read those other studies. I am knowledgible in this area. What I linked was limited by "things I can link to very quicky and which give an idea of the much broader scope" criteria, not the "things I know" one.
I don't need to re-read the Fox article. I read the actual study (I linked to it too. Did you read it?). Here's some excerpts:
quote:The findings summarized in Tables 1 and 2 show that the “no differences” claim does receive strong empirical support in crucial domains. Lesbigay parents and their children in these studies display no differences from heterosexual counterparts in psychological well-being or cognitive functioning. Scores for lesbigay parenting styles and levels of investment in children are at least as “high” as those for heterosexual parents. Levels of closeness and quality of parent/child relationships do not seem to differentiate directly by parental sexual orientation, but indirectly, by way of parental gender. Because every relevant study to date shows that parental sexual orientation per se has no measurable effect on the quality of parent-child relationships or on children’s mental health or social adjustment, there is no evidentiary basis for considering parental sexual orientation in decisions about children’s “best interest.”
quote:We have identified conceptual, methodological, and theoretical limitations in the psychological research on the effects of parental sexual orientation and have challenged the predominant claim that the sexual orientation of parents does not matter at all. We argued instead that despite the limitations, there is suggestive evidence and good reason to believe that contemporary children and young adults with lesbian or gay parents do differ in modest and interesting ways from children with heterosexual parents. Most of these differences, however, are not causal, but are indirect effects of parental gender or selection effects associated with heterosexist social conditions under which lesbigay-parent families currently live.
quote:Most of the research to date focuses on social-psychological dimensions of well-being and adjustment and on the quality of parent/child relationships. Perhaps these variables reflect the disciplinary preferences of psychologists who have conducted most of the studies, as well as a desire to produce evidence directly relevant to the questions of “harm” that dominate judicial and legislative deliberations over child custody. Less research has explored questions for which there are stronger theoretical grounds for expecting differences—children’s gender and sexual behavior and preferences.
As for the ACP, here's their mission statement:
quote:The Mission of the American College of Pediatricians is to enable all children to reach their optimal physical and emotional health and well-being. To this end, we recognize the basic father-mother family unit, within the context of marriage, to be the optimal setting for childhood development, but pledge our support to all children, regardless of their circumstances.
They are not a scientific or professional organization. They don't pretend to be. They're an advocacy group, founded to push an agenda. Do you disagree with this or do you disagree that they thus lack objectivity and therefore scientific credibility?
Finally, I fail to see how I manipulated the discussion. Such was not my intent. For me, I was asking for a credible case against gay marriage, as I've yet to see one. From that point, what I presented was directly determined by what you said. To wit, "gays are substandard parents" -> "Here's a bunch of evidence that says otherwise. Do you have any evidence for this claim?' -> "Here's three links that support it." -> "No, they don't. In fact, one supports the opposite."
Or, "You seem to be the only one who thinks that the science is for gays here." -> "Here are professional organizations that seem to thinks so too." -> "What about the ACP? And they are letting politics trump integrity." -> "The ACP is clearly an advocacy organization that got upset that the AAP supported gay parents adopting. I'd hardly call their secondary source positions reliable. Also, what evidence do you have that these organizations are overwhelmed by political concerns and I by bias?"
And, "It doesn't matter anyway, because social changes don't come from science." -> "What about these cases from civil rights and gay parent adoption?"
If you could present how you saw me subtly manipulating the conversation and muddying the waters, I'd appreciate it. Neither of these were what I intended. Likewise, if you care to make more specific criticisms of or responses to what I've said, I'd again appreciate it.
Posted by Dr. Evil (Member # 8095) on :
I have read this entire thread and I still haven't seen a credible case FOR gay marriage and considering that this is the real agenda that the pro-gay community is trying to achieve, it would be better to approach it from this perspective.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"I have read this entire thread and I still haven't seen a credible case FOR gay marriage..."
Here are two:
1) Social acceptance of monogamy among homosexuals will reduce homosexual promiscuity, currently one of the worst elements of homosexual culture.
2) It's the decent, moral, and ethical thing to do.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Here's another, we value marriage as a social institution in large part because it confers many benefits on its participants and benefits society in general. There seeems to be no reason why these benefits are tied to the partners being of different sexes, so allowing gay marriage is a good thing for those people and a good thing for society.
I have actually made that argument multiple times on this thread.
Posted by jebus202 (Member # 2524) on :
quote:When the posts between other people reach a certain critical length, my ADD kicks in, and I cannot continue
Man oh man do I know what you mean, Geoff. So I'll jsut ignore the last 20 or so posts and address something you said earlier.
quote:1. Mormon society is built upon a certain form of heterosexual marriage that we believe is tied to a half-known eternal truth that we can't just change on a whim.
Let's look at it this way. (This is taken from the perspective of someone who beleives homosexulaity is a sin, by the way) I have... let's say a cup and a glass. Now I can only take cups with me into this next room, ok? But I really want to take my glass. So I tried to rename my glass a cup so I could take it with me. But they still wouldn't let me because ultimately my glass is just a glass.
Homosexual marriage isn't real marriage in the eyes of the church. Therefore worrying about what it's called is silly because it still won't be a "sealed" marriage.
Geoff, what do you think will happen, in a spiritual sense, if homosexual marriage is legalised?
Posted by Junkman (Member # 8076) on :
quote:Originally posted by jebus202: [QUOTE]Geoff, what do you think will happen, in a spiritual sense, if homosexual marriage is legalised?
There are 612 mitzvah one can preform. They are not doing one of them. This is purly a sin against G-d. It is not a sin against fellow man. If a person sins against G-d then they can always make up for it come Yom Kippor.
Now, this is the perspective I've gotten from the teachings of Judaism. Well from my denomination anyways.
That's my spiritual sense, homosexuality is as important as keeping kosher. And I know Christians read the "Old Testament" and yet they don't keep kosher. Infact alot of people inculding Jews don't preform the 612 mitzvah.
And yet the world keeps spinning.
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
Squickster:
Nah, I'm done. I'm not real certain you take the time to read and digest my posts (heck, they're too long anyway, so I get bored re-reading them myself) and it's like a broken record on both our counts.
I figure if you need studies to convince you having a mother and a father in the home is the best means to raise children, and thousands of years of history doesn't prove that to you (yet you're convinced by a decade's worth of scattered studies and the policies of a few organizations) I'm not sure anything I could say would be of any value.
EDIT: One thing i must add, though, is that making the assumption that advocacy must dimish scientific merit works both ways. A great example is if you scroll down to the bottom of the APA page and see advocacy group after advocacy group. Who's in whose pocket? Can you really assume them objective?
When the time comes that I write my thesis on the subject, I'll send along a copy.
It's been a hoot though, thanks for your insight. I may strongly disagree on just about everything you bring up, but I do value the importance of seeing the other perspective.
[ July 16, 2005, 06:03 PM: Message edited by: estavares ]
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
Hmm. Been a while. How's the water? <splash> Yep. 'Bout the same as I left it.
Regarding the pieces linked by estavares: all three of these groups have their axes to grind, which naturally makes me skeptical, much like when tobacco companies find their product doesn't cause cancer or petroleum companies find no links between car emissions and increased rates of asthma. Focus on the Family is a conservative group lobbying for their particular brand of "family values", Fox News is unquestionably right-of-center (and proud of it), and NARTH's very existence is dependent on those who see homosexuality as a disease to be treated. Skepticism itself, however, is not sufficient reason to put aside data; it merely serves as a warning light.
However:
Focus on the Family's "study" compares statistics on heterosexual marriage to homosexual relationships. Do you see the difficulty? Assuming the statistical data itself is correct, this is still comparing the length of relationships between people who are, for lack of better info, "dating" with people who have presumably known each other for some time and then planned and executed a wedding. The data sets do not match; you're comparing people who are inherently committed to people who aren't. Unless you include all the heterosexual couples that are "in a relationship" but not married...
The data that Dr. Satinover presents makes conclusions on a number of fallible points, including:
a) that accurate data about persons' homosexuality is available at sufficient length to plot out a family history and make Mendelian models thereof,
b) that the treatment of homosexuality has a certain "success" rate, and homosexuals are subject to a [undisclosed] higher rate of "pathopsychology", without definition of either term or disclosure of any information about the studies the individuals may have undertaken for said proofs,
c) "What is known, from decades of research on family structure, studying literally thousands of children, is that every departure from the traditional, stable, mother-father family has severe detrimental effects upon children; and these effects persist not only into adulthood but into the next generation as well."
The doctor refuses to acknowledge that this statement has much the same quality as the "as everyone knows" statements he condemns earlier, seeing as how he sites no specific studies nor makes clear if any of the alleged studies have specifically taken note of children raised in the home of a homosexual couple.
Further, the doctor makes use of innumerable quotes taken out of context, and veers between statistical "proofs" and the say-so of people of letters who may have had their own axes to grind with no description of the studies that generated their possibly pre-disposed proofs. While such tactics are not unique to this cause, I find the doctor's statement lacking.
None of the conclusions in the research sited by Fox News suggest that children raised by lesbian and gay couples are affected negatively, except in as much as the viewer feels that homosexuality in and of itself is negative, with the possible exception of "Young girls raised by lesbians are more likely to be sexually adventurous and active than their counterparts raised by heterosexual parents" and "A significantly greater proportion of young adult children raised by lesbian mothers than those raised by heterosexual mothers say they have experienced sexual intimacy with a partner of the same sex. They were not, however, statistically more likely to identify themselves as gay or lesbian". And in these cases, you have to wonder if such children were more likely to actually engage in such behaviors, or merely more likely to report them. The conclusions in the concluding paragraph do not necessarily follow the researchers' claims.
I haven't gotten to the "Journal of Psychohistory" page, but I must confess that a journal that names itself for Isaac Asimov's utterly fictional science of precognition is already behind in my scorebook.
Apologies to the readers suffering from ADD.
I do not agree that these matters should be left entirely to personal beliefs and moral/spiritual/ethical convictions; I think science and statistics can and should play a role.
If anyone has information on studies conducted regarding children in the scandinavian countries where homosexual marriage is legally permitted, I should be interested to see it.
I remain unconvinced that permitting homosexual unions will result in the apocalyptic scenarios some have described.
Posted by Miranda (Member # 7647) on :
quote:Let's look at it this way. (This is taken from the perspective of someone who beleives homosexulaity is a sin, by the way) I have... let's say a cup and a glass. Now I can only take cups with me into this next room, ok? But I really want to take my glass. So I tried to rename my glass a cup so I could take it with me. But they still wouldn't let me because ultimately my glass is just a glass.
Homosexual marriage isn't real marriage in the eyes of the church. Therefore worrying about what it's called is silly because it still won't be a "sealed" marriage.
Personally, I think it is up to God to choose whether we can bring a cup or a glass or even a chair with us into the other room. But as individuals with free will, we should be able to choose what we would want to take with us. And by preventing same sex couples (who undeniably exist) to marry, it is we who are preventing them from being chaste until marriage. Granted, they could remain chaste forever, but should the judgement of the rightness of their togetherness be up to us? Give them the tools to allow the strongest relationship and bond in this life, and leave the next to God (who actually knows what is in the next room).
m. not perfectly expressed but it feels complex
Posted by Junkman (Member # 8076) on :
I dunno if this is been brought up, and it might very from state to state. But what are the benefits, the legal benefits of marriage. I'm talking about taxes or just things that come when you legally marry someone.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Social Security survivor benefits. Joint tax filing. Rights to adopt spouse's child in many circumstances. Eligibility for inheritence through intestacy. Automatic next of kin status, which contains many related benefits. Spousal immunity and marital communication privilege. Right to own real property as tenants in the entireties. Eligibility for spouse's employment benefits. Many others.
Posted by kojabu (Member # 8042) on :
Re: Sterling
Yea, I wouldn't necessarily trust a Focus on the Family study either. It's hard to find something that's unbiased either way.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Junkman:
quote:Originally posted by jebus202: Geoff, what do you think will happen, in a spiritual sense, if homosexual marriage is legalised?
There are 612 mitzvah one can preform.
Um... that would be 613, Junkman.
quote:They are not doing one of them. This is purly a sin against G-d. It is not a sin against fellow man. If a person sins against G-d then they can always make up for it come Yom Kippor.
Now, this is the perspective I've gotten from the teachings of Judaism. Well from my denomination anyways.
That's my spiritual sense, homosexuality is as important as keeping kosher. And I know Christians read the "Old Testament" and yet they don't keep kosher. Infact alot of people inculding Jews don't preform the 612 mitzvah.
And yet the world keeps spinning.
Um... okay. Here's the thing. And I'm saying this as an Orthodox Jew who happens to also be a lesbian. As far as traditional Judaism is concerned, the prohibition of "a man shall not lie with another man", etc. refers only to anal sex between men. Other intimacy between men is an extension that most authorities consider to be rabbinic (though no less binding), and the verse has absolutely nothing to do with women.
The rabbis did prohibit certain acts between women, specifically those which are imitatory of heterosexual intercourse. But that's it.
As far as gay marriage is concerned, marriage is fundamentally a religious status, and the government of a free country has no business involving itself in such things. If they can dictate what marriage is, they can dictate what form of worship is acceptable.
Nevertheless, the word is used also for "civil marriage", which is a state-recognized status. And this is something else entirely. If a man has a right to marry me, but my partner of almost 8 years does not, that's discrimination. If we are not allowed to file our taxes jointly, that's discrimination. If she is covered by my health insurance at work, but I have to pay taxes on her insurance that I wouldn't have to pay if I were married to a man, that is discrimination. It is harmful and punitive.
If the government wants to get out of the marriage business, that's fine with me. But whatever it chooses to do, it should be done even-handedly.
Let me clarify. There is no such thing as "marriage" between members of the same sex in Judaism (except for the various movements which don't accept Jewish law as binding anyway). There never will be. There should not be. It's meaningless to even talk about such a thing.
But the government should either stop recognizing marriage, or start recognizing it between members of the same sex, because to do otherwise is unjust and immoral.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:And I'm saying this as an Orthodox Jew who happens to also be a lesbian.
That puts a whole new spin on keeping kosher.
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
That sounds extremely interesting... *would love to hear more details about what it is like to be Orthodox Jewish and lesbian.*
Posted by Junkman (Member # 8076) on :
Starlisa: I already typed what you typed on page one
quote: listen the problem was that marriage is a religous thing. and if your religon has certain rules for marriage and you don't like them then you can always change religions. the problem as i see it was that the goverment got involved and got the power to marry people, where i believe it should have only had the power to make civil unions.
and its alot harder to switch goverments then to swtich religons.
but with all that said and done there's nothing we can do about it now.
I just think that we can't stop the goverment from getting people married to just civil unions. Marriage started out as a religous thing but its not a religous act to everyone nowadays.
quote:Originally posted by starLisa: Let me clarify. There is no such thing as "marriage" between members of the same sex in Judaism (except for the various movements which don't accept Jewish law as binding anyway). There never will be. There should not be. It's meaningless to even talk about such a thing.
That doesn't make sense, it never will be? I hope you realize that's you opinion and not a fact. And the movements such as Reconstructionist don't count as Judaism, again that's your opinion.
I do know that the Conservative and Reform and Orthodox movements don't except any form of homosexual marriage, although Conservative and Reform movements have said they support civil unions.
Anyways my spiritual thoughts are my opinion, being a Reform Jew I know our movement doesn't believe in Jewish same-sex marriage. But that doesn't mean I have to agree with everything they say. And even if I don't agree with the Reform movement on that stance that doesn't make me anyless of a Reform Jew or a Jew. But that's my opinion.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Synesthesia: That sounds extremely interesting... *would love to hear more details about what it is like to be Orthodox Jewish and lesbian.*
<laugh> What would you like to know?
I'm a lesbian because I was born that way. I'm an Orthodox Jew because I'm convinced that it's true (though I was not raised that way). I don't have whatever special quality is necessary to alter my convictions to be make things more comfortable for myself. I wish I did.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Junkman: Starlisa: I already typed what you typed on page one
quote: listen the problem was that marriage is a religous thing. and if your religon has certain rules for marriage and you don't like them then you can always change religions. the problem as i see it was that the goverment got involved and got the power to marry people, where i believe it should have only had the power to make civil unions. and its alot harder to switch goverments then to swtich religons.
but with all that said and done there's nothing we can do about it now.
I just think that we can't stop the goverment from getting people married to just civil unions. Marriage started out as a religous thing but its not a religous act to everyone nowadays.
That may be true. But the non-religious marriage needs to be equally accessible for me and for my brother, and it isn't.
quote:
quote:Originally posted by starLisa: Let me clarify. There is no such thing as "marriage" between members of the same sex in Judaism (except for the various movements which don't accept Jewish law as binding anyway). There never will be. There should not be. It's meaningless to even talk about such a thing.
That doesn't make sense, it never will be? I hope you realize that's you opinion and not a fact.
Relax, Junkman, and look at what I actually said. I said "except for the various movements which don't accept Jewish law as binding anyway". Surely you aren't suggesting that there are any movements which accept Jewish law as binding and recognize "marriage" between members of the same sex?
quote: And the movements such as Reconstructionist don't count as Judaism, again that's your opinion.
They surely don't count as accepting Jewish law as binding. If you'd like me to give my view on such movements, I can, but I haven't done so. I've merely stated a fact. Jewish law will never recognize any such thing.
quote: I do know that the Conservative and Reform and Orthodox movements don't except any form of homosexual marriage, although Conservative and Reform movements have said they support civil unions.
You need to keep up, I guess. Reform rabbis have been officiating at same-sex weddings since long before it was legally recognized anywhere. The Conservative movement has opposed them, but that's largely due to the outgoing head of their seminary, who prevented it. There is strong sentiment among them to change it.
And I wouldn't use the word "movement" for Orthodox Judaism. All movement has to be relative to something. Orthodoxy is that something.
quote: Anyways my spiritual thoughts are my opinion, being a Reform Jew I know our movement doesn't believe in Jewish same-sex marriage.
Honestly, Junkman, that's not the case.
quote: But that doesn't mean I have to agree with everything they say. And even if I don't agree with the Reform movement on that stance that doesn't make me anyless of a Reform Jew or a Jew. But that's my opinion. [/QB]
I have never suggested that a Jew who doesn't accept Jewish law is not a Jew. If you are born Jewish or have converted according to Jewish law, you are Jewish. Forever. Neither Mormon post-mortem baptisms nor actual attempt to convert out can change that.
Posted by Junkman (Member # 8076) on :
quote:That may be true. But the non-religious marriage needs to be equally accessible for me and for my brother, and it isn't.
that's where problems come from. in the best case scenario, also the least likely to happen (I'm just saying it so it actually happens) all the state goverments change the word marriage to civil unions when dealing with it legally. So you can be married and have a civil union too. Although now thinking about it I wonder if this might have problems when getting divorced.
ya and the Jewish law and orthadox as a movement thing is all relative we could go on that for a while, and since its been a while since i've gone to sunday school i'll pass.
you'd probaby win anyways
anyways to everyone else, "treat others as you would like to be treated." I think that works well here.
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
quote:Originally posted by starLisa:
quote:Originally posted by Synesthesia: That sounds extremely interesting... *would love to hear more details about what it is like to be Orthodox Jewish and lesbian.*
<laugh> What would you like to know?
I'm a lesbian because I was born that way. I'm an Orthodox Jew because I'm convinced that it's true (though I was not raised that way). I don't have whatever special quality is necessary to alter my convictions to be make things more comfortable for myself. I wish I did.
Extremely fascinating. I don't know nearly enough about Orthodox Judism except from what little I read in those Chaim Potok books... I wish I knew more.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Synesthesia:
quote:Originally posted by starLisa:
quote:Originally posted by Synesthesia: That sounds extremely interesting... *would love to hear more details about what it is like to be Orthodox Jewish and lesbian.*
<laugh> What would you like to know?
I'm a lesbian because I was born that way. I'm an Orthodox Jew because I'm convinced that it's true (though I was not raised that way). I don't have whatever special quality is necessary to alter my convictions to be make things more comfortable for myself. I wish I did.
Extremely fascinating. I don't know nearly enough about Orthodox Judism except from what little I read in those Chaim Potok books... I wish I knew more.
Chaim Potok is a Conservative rabbi. His portrayal of Orthodox Judaism comes from that perspective. So... take it with a grain of salt.
Don't get me wrong: I love that book. It just bears no resemblance to anything I've ever seen in over 20 years of being Orthodox.
Try Faye Kellerman's Rina Lazarus mysteries. She shows various different shades of Orthodox Judaism, from the moderate to the extreme, and the books themselves are extremely well written.
quote:I'm a lesbian because I was born that way. [/QB]
Any evidence of this?
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Evil:
quote:I'm a lesbian because I was born that way.
Any evidence of this?
What would you consider as evidence?
Just to give you an example, I have a slight headache today. I don't know how I could present evidence to that effect, but it's quite clear to me.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Dr. E, Did you find what Tom and I offered valid reasons for gay marriage? And did you also realize that I had offered up my reason on more than one occasion on this thread?
Also, starL was describing her life. Why should she have to "provide evidence" that she wasn't lying? Do you have any evidence that she was not born that way?
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
If one was attracted to the same sex for as long as one could remember, I would think that would be perfectly adequate "evidence". Not that I think one should have to provide evidence of such personal things.
Posted by Gonademobe (Member # 6811) on :
Has anyone on either side pondered the idea of civil unions for all under the recognition of the government?
This would allow the Religious to keep their sanctity/tradition/values in place. (Because you can still get 'married' in a church and have it considered a marriage within your religion)
This would allow the government to be truly secular.
And this would allow the gay community to be recognized as a minority group with rights within the government.
This wouldnt hurt soul and completely gets rid of the arguments for both sides.....what are you thoughts?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
It's been my preferred option all along (OK, for about 3 years).
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
That's been pointed out as an acceptable comprimise by many people, altohugh perhasp not specifically on this thread. It's important to realize though, that many people on the anti-gay side are in fact bigots and would not accept this solution and that many of the 2004 ballot initiatives against same-sex marriage specifically banned civil unions, even when used as a separate term for only same sex marriages.
State sponsorship of marriage is already divorced from the religious context, by use and by culture. The legal definitoin of marriage and the varied definition used by different religions share some common features but are not (or no longer, anyway) derived from each other. I care very little what we actually call this secular legal relationship. If making it a "civil union" across the board helps people realize that they are free in themselves and in their religions to hold "marriage" as whatever the heck they want and that the legal situation is not there to reflect this understanding, then sure, why not change the terminology.
But it's by no means as easy as that.
Posted by Omega M. (Member # 7924) on :
In my ideal world I'd allow gay marriage. But I wonder if allowing any two people to marry in our current society would result in children being seen as an ever-smaller adjunct to marriage, resulting in underpopulation and neglect of the children that are born.
Basically, if the vast majority of people (gay or heterosexual) get married with the intention of having children somewhere along the line, I'm fine with gay marriage; I think any hypothetical deficiencies in the childhood experience caused by not growing up very close to a member of each sex can probably be worked around. I'm not keen on paying taxes just to help people validate their romantic love for each other, though.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
It should be noted that a majority of Americans favor civil unions for gay couples with "essentially the same legal rules" (or something like this) as marriages, if I'm remembering the various polls correctly. The difference was something like 40% in favor of allowing same sex marriage and 57% in favor of allowing civil unions. So far civil unions are the only mechanism passed by a state legislature without judicial prompting (Connecticut, I think).
Posted by Omega M. (Member # 7924) on :
In some ways it's even worse when people are against gay marriage but for civil unions with "essentially the same legal rules." They must see no rational reason to deny gays marriage benefits, but they're still jealous of the name "marriage."
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Some of them prefer that marriage law remain centered on its procreative aspects and fear dilution of that aspect of the law if the legal institution is opened to entire couples that don't contain both sexes necessary for reproduction.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: That's been pointed out as an acceptable compromise by many people, although perhaps not specifically on this thread. It's important to realize though, that many people on the anti-gay side are in fact bigots and would not accept this solution . . .
Because of course no one could possibly be against civil unions unless they were a bigot. Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Gonademobe: Has anyone on either side pondered the idea of civil unions for all under the recognition of the government?
This would allow the Religious to keep their sanctity/tradition/values in place. (Because you can still get 'married' in a church and have it considered a marriage within your religion)
This would allow the government to be truly secular.
And this would allow the gay community to be recognized as a minority group with rights within the government.
This wouldnt hurt soul and completely gets rid of the arguments for both sides.....what are you thoughts?
That sounds nice, but what about the details? How would tax filing status work? Would civilly unioned couples be able to file jointly?
When a straight married couple has a child, the husband is automatically considered the child's parent. Would this work as well for civil unions?
Anyway, it won't work. Because opponents of marriage equality want this to be unequal. I've run into plenty of non-religious and anti-religious folks who are just as homophobic as Fred Phelps.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Omega M.: In my ideal world I'd allow gay marriage. But I wonder if allowing any two people to marry in our current society would result in children being seen as an ever-smaller adjunct to marriage, resulting in underpopulation and neglect of the children that are born.
Basically, if the vast majority of people (gay or heterosexual) get married with the intention of having children somewhere along the line, I'm fine with gay marriage; I think any hypothetical deficiencies in the childhood experience caused by not growing up very close to a member of each sex can probably be worked around. I'm not keen on paying taxes just to help people validate their romantic love for each other, though.
Sounds reasonable to me. I assume that straight married couples who don't have children would also be a problem according to you?
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Some of them prefer that marriage law remain centered on its procreative aspects and fear dilution of that aspect of the law if the legal institution is opened to entire couples that don't contain both sexes necessary for reproduction.
And yet they have no problem allowing infertile heterosexual couples to marry. That sort of makes their claim seem a bit questionable.
Maybe a fertility test should be required before issuing a marriage license. Or... oh, wait. My daughter managed to be born just fine, thank God, so fertility didn't seem to be an issue for my partner and myself.
Posted by Gonademobe (Member # 6811) on :
starlisa- The civil union in MY world would have all the rights and benefits of marriage right now. I am simply just offering a name change to make people more comfortable in the religious realm.
Their issue is mostly a religious one...even if it is just about diluting the marriage system...and that change be changed in this way.
In my opinion this isnt that complicated......as a previous post stated before the majority really shouldnt have a say in minority rights unless (in my opinion) it incringes on theirs.
On being against civil unions: I just dont see how any self respecting human can be against civil unions...that doesnt mean you have to be FOR civil unions, just that you dont vote on the issue. It doesnt effect you.
on proving 'gayness': This will be a time old debate that will go on forever and all I can say is this. If you are gay and think its a choice...could you make the choice to have sex and fall in love with someone of your gender? If yes, then you aren't straight....SORRY! ;-)
Posted by Junkman (Member # 8076) on :
how would one prove their straight? you have relations with the opposite sex? maybe you're just in denial.
its not like gay people can't get kids. if you're a guy find a egg doner, if your a gal go to a sperm bank. the real issue is legalling making their partner a guardian of that kid.
as long as their are males and females, unless we evole to become asexual, unless you don't believe in evolution, then we'll be okay, if anything OVER population is more of an issue.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:And yet they have no problem allowing infertile heterosexual couples to marry. That sort of makes their claim seem a bit questionable.
As I have stated previously in this thread, I don't buy the argument myself. BUT, there are particular legal rules about determining paternity that are very much tied to one-man, one woman. I think the problem can be handled by intelligently interpreting these exisiting laws (if not substituting DNA testing for them entirely; some legal scholars disagree.
Something else I've said before, many times: If you refuse to understand the reasons underlying opposition to gay marriage, you will never convince anyone to change their mind. If you assume the person whose mind you're trying to change is a bigot, you'll never change their minds.
quote:Maybe a fertility test should be required before issuing a marriage license. Or... oh, wait. My daughter managed to be born just fine, thank God, so fertility didn't seem to be an issue for my partner and myself.
This is specious from a legal point of view - we have lots of overinclusive laws. For those who think reproduction is the underlying central reason for having any societal recognition of marriage, this demarcation makes perfect sense, as there is no other 100% easily determinable marker for whether children are possible.
In fact, the reason I favor civil marriage for same sex couples is because I think it can be granted without interfering with the central functions of legal marriage that support the societal goal of orderly reproduction. Since the benefit can be extended at no cost to its legal functioning, I view it as discriminatory not to do so.
But there are two places to disagree with that reasoning: 1) that it won't interfere, and 2) that it would be discriminatory not to do so. Either or both clauses can be disagreed with on bigoted grounds or non-bigoted grounds.
Posted by Omega M. (Member # 7924) on :
Well, it might be the case that allowing people to get married (and receive marriage benefits) before they have kids will make it easier for them to have kids; if so, we shouldn't worry too much about childless couples getting benefits for free. Encouraging couples to have kids is probably done least invasively by couples' friends and family.
I do get concerned when I hear so many people saying that they don't want to have kids because they're "too much hassle." They don't seem to realize that if everybody adopts their attitude the human race will disappear, as it already is in Europe. I hope gay marriage won't encourage the idea that children are an "optional extra," to be had only if they'll enhance the parents' lives.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Dear me. People who think children are too much hassle - admittedly an eminently rational attitude - are a completely self-correcting problem. I don't know whether the trait is genetic or cultural; but in either case, it doesn't get passed on to children, and disappears. Poof!
In any case, the world is rather badly overpopulated; 1 billion would be entirely enough, really.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I'm not so much concerned that people won't have children but rather that societal structures exist to help raise them and promote their welfare once they exist.
My support for equal civil marriage rights for same sex couples is entirely contingent on my belief that extending these rights will not hurt the institution of marriage's ability to do that.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Dear me. People who think children are too much hassle - admittedly an eminently rational attitude - are a completely self-correcting problem. I don't know whether the trait is genetic or cultural; but in either case, it doesn't get passed on to children, and disappears. Poof!
Unfortunately, I don't think that's the case. It's almost certainly cultural, and the "DNA" of culture is the media. TV, movies, music, literature... they have a far bigger impact on children these days than parents do. Tragically enough.
Lisa
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
rivka, You know, I would have figured that you would have more integrity and sense of shame than to follow Directive 27, but there you go.
Dag,
quote: If you refuse to understand the reasons underlying opposition to gay marriage, you will never convince anyone to change their mind. If you assume the person whose mind you're trying to change is a bigot, you'll never change their minds.
Yes, but part of understanding the reasons for the underlying opposition to gay marriage is acknowledging the large amount of bigotry and irrational prejudice that is out there. Assuming that a person, regardless of evidence, isn't a bigot will greatly hamper your ability to change their opinion and/or overcome their objections. I think the recent exchange on this thread (or OSC's columns and the reactions to them) has shown how far you can trust many people when they make claims about why they are against gay marriage and what they know about it.
---
quote:They don't seem to realize that if everybody adopts their attitude the human race will disappear, as it already is in Europe.
I wasn't aware that the human race had disappeared from Europe. How shocking.
The idea that the birth rate is not keeping up with the death rate constitutes the vanishing of the human race is a silly one. Growing the population is not an unconditionally good thing, nor is it shrinking an unconditionally bad thing.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: rivka, You know, I would have figured that you would have more integrity and sense of shame than to follow Directive 27, but there you go.
Trying to shame me, instead of owning your implication? Charming.
BTW, am I supposed to have any idea what Directive 27 is, or did you simply pull that out of thin air?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
It's the bit where, in order to counter the severe liability of there being many, many bigots on the anti-gay side, you blindly say that any statement the refers to bigots means that the person saying it believes that all anti-gay people are bigots. It's somehwat related to directive 26, where you say "I'm suprised that people who value tolerance are being so intolerant of people having a different opinion."
There is no such implication in what I said. I was suprised that you would be one of the people to pretend that there is. I always had more respect for you than that.
I said, quite clearly, that there were many people on the anti-gay side who were bigots who would not accept this comprimise. I was specifically pointing out that one of the main problems in resolving any gay issues is that there are a whole host of people who are anti-gay bigots.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Assuming that a person, regardless of evidence
I'm sorry, we're we talking about a person here? Or the best way to get equal civil marriage rights for same sex couples. I've convinced two very conservative people to change their minds on the issue using my method. How many people have you called a bigot that have changed their mind?
quote:I said, quite clearly, that there were many people on the anti-gay side who were bigots who would not accept this comprimise. I was specifically pointing out that one of the main problems in resolving any gay issues is that there are a whole host of people who are anti-gay bigots.
And one of the other main problems is the insistence of people on the other "side" in villifyig the opposition and thinking this will change their minds.
Squick, you have given the very clear impression here that anyone against civil unions is a bigot. You blithely dismiss motives that you think aren't consistent with your view of the enlightment as inappropriate ("You don't get to legislate off of your values") andinsist that only reasons that your standards for not offering equal civil marriage rights are acceptable.
If you want to be an effective voice in this debate, you need to understand this: There are people who honestly think that allowing gay marriage will harm society through a further dilution of moral standards. They believe, as did some of the best judicial minds of the last century, that preserving the moral standards of society in the face of a change is a legitimate function of the law. You disagree. But if you don't meet them on their grounds using their premise, you can't change their minds. This means you can convince either convince them that it won't lead to moral dilution, or you can convince them to change their more foundational premise to something closer to your (and mostly my) standard that identifiable harm to other people or society as a whole must exist before restricting people. But simply repeatedly stating or implying your premise and inisting that others' arguments satisfy it is not going to change their minds. Especially when you imply that those not advocating policy in accordance with your premise are acting from bigoted motives. And taking your posts here as a whole, you definitely imply that.
Dagonee
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
No, no I don't Dag. That's what your mind wants to see, but I've been very clear that I don't think that all people who oppose gay issues are acting out of bigotry. Or did we not have this conversation? You, on the other hand, seem to think that there's a small, pretty much insignificant handful of them out there.
And, as I've said before (I think on this very thread), I agree that you don't change people's minds by calling them bigots. However, it is important to have people realize the extent of the bigotry out there and also to acknowledge that an effective argument will atually make bigotted people more bigotted. The way to change people's prejudice is not through reasoned argument, but through less diret manipulations of their environment. Failing changing their minds, you can at least get people to see them for what they are and greatly dimish the power they achieve by displaying their prejudices.
[ July 26, 2005, 11:40 AM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
"I'm sorry if people feel oppressed because they can't force other people to live the way they want them to, but I'm not going to say that they deserve to be taken seriously."
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Do you think that the argument that we should be able to lock people up for not following Christianity is an argument that is worthy of respect?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Did I say that? No.
But you have, in the past, on too many occasions, trotted out your little standby that making up rationales for policies is a hallmark of bigotry. So when you state or imply that people aren't letting on their real reasons for opposing a particular policy, in the context of a thread where you are also accusing people of bigotry, the implication is clear.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Where did I say that, regarding the civil unions thing, that people's objections would all be answered by changing it to civil unions?
I was responding to the idea that introducing the "civil union" moniker for legal marriages would pretty much resolve all the problems people have with this issue with what I think was the greatest stumbling block to this, the large contignent of anti-gay bigots out there.
In the context of this thread, I've already taken exception to Directive 27 when you applied to crumudgeon and by extention to me by explaining that saying that there are bigots (a statement that people jumped on as displaying that I was too uncivil to talk with) means that I'm saying that they are all bigots, which I've repreatedly, here and in many other threads, said that I don't believe.
Just as in that case, what was said is that there are bigots and that they are a serious obstacle. There was no indication that I thought that anyone who wasn't satisfied with the name change was a bigot. And I've been very clear in the past that this is not how I think, or do you doubt that I can easily link to mulitple occasions where I've said that I don't believe all anti-gay people are bigots (some of them directly to you)?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Where did I say that, regarding the civil unions thing, that people's objections would all be answered by changing it to civil unions?
You didn't. Is this a random question?
quote:I was responding to the idea that introducing the "civil union" moniker for legal marriages would pretty much resolve all the problems people have with this issue with what I think was the greatest stumbling block to this, the large contignent of anti-gay bigots out there.
And I was pointing out the other major stumbling block to this idea:
quote:And one of the other main problems is the insistence of people on the other "side" in villifying the opposition and thinking this will change their minds.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Dag, I'm sorry, what are you accusing me of again? From what I understood, you seemed to be saying that I was clearly impying that the people who wouldn't accept the civil union compromise are all bigots. That is the heart of what I'm being accused of, right?
---
And I'm pointing out the other stumbling block, which is apologists who like to pretend that groups that they belong to don't have any bad points. You can't have a comprehensive discussion of gay issues without acknowledging the extremely large anti-gay prejudice that is out in our society. As I've repeatedly said, you don't change people's minds by calling them bigots, but the fact that there are bigots is an important part of the converstaion.
In a parallel track, check out the dialog I had with estavares. I was clearly not trying to change his mind (I highly doubt that this would be possible) and yet I believe that I accomplished some important stuff in this exchange. Were it just he and I, the converstaion would have little effect other than to reinforce his beliefs. However, (I hope) that wasn't the only effect here, because there are other people reading this thread besides the two of us and judging what is said.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:I'm sorry, what are you accusing me of again? From what I understood, you seemed to be saying that I was clearly impying that the people who wouldn't accept the civil union compromise are all bigots. That is the heart of what I'm being accused of, right?
I'm saying that's the impression you've left. And it is - that's an almost indisuptable fact given that at least one person had that impression. Of course, you treated her possession of that impression as a dishonest, shameful, rhetorical tactic instead of an honest impression. And this is exactly the heart of why your posts give off that impression: because you don't just question, but pronounce final judgment on the motives of those who disagree with you.
What you're being accused of is being so caught up in your self-righteousness that you accuse one of the most honest people on this board of lacking integrity and a sense of shame. Of failing to see that you leave a swathe of insults in your wake.
quote:And I'm pointing out the other stumbling block, which is apologists who like to pretend that groups that they belong to don't have any bad points.
If I see any I'll let you know.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Dag, rivka posted dismissively and disrespectfully and followed the pattern that has been clearly laid out of claiming that any mention of bigots must be met with an accusation of "You're saying all people who disagree with you are bigots." which I was clearly not doing. I stand by my description of what she did.
If I'm wrong, then I guess I owe her an apology. Of course, rivka would also owe me an apology.
edit: Do you see yourself as not dripping with insults? Because that's not how you come across to me.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
The very first thread I discussed this topic with you you accused me of accusing you of "saying all people who disagree with you are bigots" when I did no such thing. The closest I've come is in this thread, where I said that you give off the clear implication. In the first thread we talked about religion in, you accused me of accusing you of hating Christians (or religion, I can't remember which).
If you want to examine patterns in people misinterpreting or showing disrespect for others, buy a mirror.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I probably am dripping with insults - at you, that is, because you make a point of insulting me just about every time we interact. You show disdain for others, you make periodic pronouncements about how shallow Hatrack is, and you lie about what I've said on a fairly regular basis. You call our hosts names, you make outright pronouncements about the motives of others - pronouncements that are 100% wrong for the only case I can verify personally.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
And I don't have a particularly good impression of you either Dag. What do you hope to accomplish here?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Well, there's always that mutual ignoring pact. If I wasn't worried about you misrepresenting me, I'd do it unilaterally. Since you can't seem to break yourself of the habit, I'm not sure.
What do I hope to accomplish here? Maybe for you to start treating people as if they were intelligent people who mean what they say instead of questioning their motives so often.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Dag, Where did I misrespresent you here or in the other threads you're breaking your previously declared "I'm going to ignore you." thing? I wasn't aware that I had done so.
---
Do you think that the method you've chosen of convincing me is an effective one?
I'd be much more impressed if you admitted to the large number of anti-homosexual bigots out there or for example that the Catholic Church has made and continues to make major mistakes.
I don't think that people are generally scrupulously honest. I don't think that the majority of people have a lot of integrity, are free from prejudice, or are particularly difficult to manipulate. That doesn't fit with what I know about people. I don't trust people unless they give me a reason to. Even then I don't accept what they say without reservations. I don't have a rosy view of the world, even those parts of the world that belong to the same groups I do.
[ July 26, 2005, 05:30 PM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
I'm sorry. At some point in an argument like this, you just have to laugh.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Easiest example: The fact that I didn't say "I'm going to ignore you."
quote:I'd be much more impressed if you admitted to the large number of anti-homosexual bigots out there or for example that the Catholic Church has made and continues to make major mistakes.
Since I've admitted both those things before, forgive me if I don't believe you this time.
There's been at least three people, all generally considered reasonable, who have noted the general implications in your posts in this thread alone. You can insist you don't mean them. I even kind of believe you. But you keep making them.
quote: Even then I don't accept what they say without reservations.
Not surprising from someone who lies as a rhetorical tactic and is proud of it.
quote:I don't have a rosy view of the world, even those parts of the world that belong to the same groups I do.
And yet, somehow, you're going to figure out how to fix us all.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
Hey Squick, if you admit there are a bunch of narrow-minded, self-righteous hypocrites on your side, and accept without protest the implication that these character traits are somehow implicit in your opinions, then I think everyone will be even and we can all be friends Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Geoff, I've never denied the first part. I'm not sure what this:
quote:accept without protest the implication that these character traits are somehow implicit in your opinions
means. I'd need you to explain it before I think I could agree to it.
How would that make us even, though? I've not seen people acknowledging the large amount anti-gay bigotry that is a major force behind this issue.
---
Dag, I must have misunderstood you here, where you said
quote:I'll pretend you don't exist.
It's possible that this wasn't a firm resolution, given the somewhat ongoing nature there. It seemed so to me. Especially in light of you then ignoring me and then later where you appeared to be saying that replying to me involved breaking your own rule. I'd be curious as to what rule that was you were breaking then?
As far as I can tell, I didn't in any way misrepresent in the threads in which you are replying to me today. Again, could you point this out to me? I'd think that an accusation of lying would require some sort of support.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Geoff, Also, while I make it a practice of answering accusations of my misconduct even to the point where they become very tiresome, I'm not all that interested in them.
I think we've left off with me asking for a argument against gay marriage that doesn't rely on prejudice and/or appeals to religion or possibly a specific argument for how allowing gay marriage is going to destroy people's cultures. I've been asking these questions for 4 pages or so now and I've yet to get an answer, except one for from estavares that I found...unsatisfactory.
I'd also be willing to go into areas that you think are relevant if you could indicate what they ara.
[ July 26, 2005, 10:27 PM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
If you would just quote in context you wouldn't have these problems:
quote:So how about this - you pretend I don't exist, and I'll pretend you don't exist.
I've already explained today why I won't institute a blanket unilateral ignoring of you.
Dagonee
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Yes, you said it was because I can't seem to stop misrepresenting you. And yet, I didn't do this in any of the cases where you came at me. Again, you came at me. I don't talk about you unless I'm talking to you.
Quoting it in context? I linked to the darn thing, which gives the full context. Weren't you resolved on a course of action of ignoring me after this? If not, what was the whole deal about "breaking your own rule" in responding to me?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Quoting it in context? I linked to the darn thing, which gives the full context.
Leaving out the part where the damn proposal was mutual ignoring - how the hell is that in context? The very sentence you partially quoted made it very clear that it was a MUTUAL thing I was proposing.
Why was I insisting on this? Because of the post immediately preceeding the one where I made the proposal, the one in which you misrepresented me.
That's why the proposal was mutual. That's why I can't safely ignore you. Because you've made it clear you won't not respond to my posts, and I can't trust you not to misrepresent me.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
And yet, you came at me. I was neither talking about you nor in any way responding to something you said.
Again, you said you were going to ignore me. I said, sure, if you need to. You then did ignore me. Then, when you responded to me in the other thread, I thought you were pretty clear in that respondingto me was breaking the rule you had set for yourself. How then is me saying that you said you were ignoring me a mischaracterization?
---
I'm also not clear as to how I was misrepresenting you in the preceding post to the proposed pact. I wasn't being particularly nice, but I don't see the misrepresentation.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
quote:I'd need you to explain it before I think I could agree to it.
Essentially, as Dagonee has shown, whether you explicitly intend it or not, your posts about "bigotry" seem to imply that people who hold certain opinions about gay marriage are implicitly sanctioning or promoting bigotry. Yet you expect people who hold such opinions to sit there and take it without responding to these implications.
So I was suggesting that, to be fair, you would need to similarly sit through implications that people with your opinion implicitly sanction narrow-mindedness, self-righteousness, etc, without protesting.
However, it seems to me that you would be hard-pressed to sit through just about ANYTHING without finding a way to protest about it
quote:I've been asking these questions for 4 pages or so now and I've yet to get an answer, except one for from estavares that I found...unsatisfactory.
If your standard of "getting an answer" requires that you be "satisfied" with it, despite the fact that you are completely intransigent when it comes to this issue, I submit that nothing I do will ever count as "giving you an answer".
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Again, you said you were going to ignore me.
God gracious, can you actually read? I did not say I was going to ignore you. I said "So how about this - you pretend I don't exist, and I'll pretend you don't exist." A linked joint proposal. An offer to ignore you if you ignore me. You rejected the offer in the very next post.
The rule I was breaking was responding to you, not ignoring you. And it was my own rule, not the one discussed here. I would have liked to have been ignoring you.
quote:I'm also not clear as to how I was misrepresenting you in the preceding post to the proposed pact. I wasn't being particularly nice, but I don't see the misrepresentation.
The Crusades thing is an utter misrepresentation. And you know it.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
quote:And yet, you came at me.
By the way, I find arguments by highly-aggressive arguers that "he attacked me first!" kind of funny, and not conducive to sympathy.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
No I don't. You said that the Crusades was a case of people setting out to do good that resulted in evil. You said that right here. You took strong objection to my description of the Crusaders as bad peopel who set out ot do bad things. How is saying that you claimed they were pure at heart a misrepresentation? Weren't you saying they had extremely good intentions?
And, agin, I may have been wrong about you resolving to ignore me, but from you saying "Hey, let's mutually ignore each other." and me saying "Nah, you can ignore me if you want but I see no reason to ignore you." and then you ignoring me, I kinda thought that's what you were doing. Right now you still seem to be implying that you'd like to ignore me but can't because I'll say terrible things about you, but that doesn't fit with your behavior.
---
I'm not saying that you attacked me first. I'm saying that you seem to be saying that the reason why you can't ignore me is that I'll be misrepresnting you and you'll not be able to defend yourself. However, you have clearly be responding to me in a completely non-defensive context. So, to me, saying that you'd ignore me except that I'd then misrepresent you doesn't seem to fit.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
What do you get out of this, Squick? You never seem to learn anything. Nothing anyone says ever seems to impact you in a positive way. People who discuss things with you either get attacked, get ignored, or get bored, but they never get through. Don't you ever tire of this conflict?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote: The crusaders, at least some of them, deceived themselves about what their purpose was and what they could accomplish. The specific evil they committed was based on the conditions of their society and beliefs. The fact they committed evil was based on their human nature.
Yep, you accurately summed this up, didn't you. </sarcasm>
For example, I said this:
quote:Their attempt was flawed because their understanding of good was flawed.
Having a flawed understanding of good is pretty much the opposite of "pure in heart."
I also said this:
quote:The execution of the Crusades was unjustifiable. The stopping to slaughter people was unjustifiable.
quote:Weren't you saying they had extremely good intentions?
Nope. I said:
quote:The Crusades were undertaken, at least by some participants, in order to accomplish what they saw as a great good. Yet they committed evil in doing so.
Their intentions were not good. They thought they were good. Which would be why I brought them up as an example of the proposition that "humanity's attempts to do good carry the capacity for evil." It's why I say "they intended good" rather than their intentions were good.
Of course, you know that even if I had said "they had good intentions" it would not mean the same as "they were pure in heart."
quote:I'm not saying that you attacked me first. I'm saying that you seem to be saying that the reason why you can't ignore me is that I'll be misrepresnting you and you'll not be able to defend yourself. However, you have clearly be responding to me in a completely non-defensive context. So, to me, saying that you'd ignore me except that I'd then misrepresent you doesn't seem to fit.
The benefit I get from ignoring you is not reading your posts. Being unable to do that, for reasons stated, means that I don't get the benefit.
Ignoring does not equal not responding to.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Geoff, That's ridiculous. I've had plenty of illuminating conversations, some of them with Dags himself. I think you and I may have slipped one or two in there too. I have learned and taught a great dal at Hatrack.
What was I supposed to have learned during this thread? I could barely get you to actually speak to me. People kept on shooting the "tolerance" and "you're saying that everyone who disagrees with you" script arguments at me, estavares claimed a bunch of things that just weren't true and no one has yet to answer my request for arguemnts agasinst gay marriage or for specifically how this would destroy people's culture. Also, despite making a clear argument for gay marriage multiple times, I was told that no one made such an argument.
Where should I have handled things differently? You jumped on me for saying that there are a significant number of anti-gay bigots out there and didn't seem to me to want to respond to the epistemological distinction I was making between values that guide ones one life and values that are used to guide other peoples. I don't think you did answered any of my requests for information or clarification and you implied that you didn't even read the lengthy exchange o nthis subject I had with estavares.
What should I have done to have a productive conversation with you? This is an honest question. I would like to explore all of those issues but seemed unable to get you to do it. I would like to build and understand, but by that I mean actually build and understand and not just swallow assertions that, for example, the anti-gay bigots are not a significant force.
I do truely want to know why poeple fear that homosexual marriage will destroy their culture. I don't see this occuring. I'd also like to hear the arugments against homosexual marriage that don't rely on prejudice or appeals to religion. How do I get people to share them with me?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
See Dag, to me, saying that they intended to do good is equivilent to saying that they were pure at heart. Wanting to do good but not knowing what it is is being pure but ingorant. And that's not what the Crusaders were. Nor did it seem, at least to me, to be your argument at the time. I took this to be that they intended to set out on a sacred quest to free the Holy Land, but ended up falling into doing evil. Whereas I was arguing that they set out having the slaughter of Jews and Muslims as a primary goal and then sucessfully slaughtered Jews and Muslims.
quote:The benefit I get from ignoring you is not reading your posts. Being unable to do that, for reasons stated, means that I don't get the benefit.
I don't talk about you in posts that aren't related to you. If you feel you need to set about the ornerous task to defend against that, set you mind at rest. I will not introduce you as a topic of conversation when I'm not talking directly to you. I never have and I never will.
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
I vowed to stay away but when I saw the proliferation of posts I was silly and took a peek. I'm addicted! I NEED HELP!
Dagonee:
Don't get sucked up into this. I'm sorry, but Squicky is very, very manipulative. He's very good at this, and I'll admit it would have been a rip-roaring hootenanny to have met him during my college debate years. He does make me think, and that's always good.
But the problem here is like this––a guy comes up and slaps you on the head and when you say "Hey! Why did you hurt me?' he'll say "I never intended to hurt you, that was my way of saying hello, but if you can provide evidence as to my motives and/or current studies as to how head-slapping is, in actuality, abuse, then perhaps I might consider those findings."
And see, here's the funny part, because you CAN'T meet his criteria, because the rules keep changing! And he dismisses everything you say anyway, all because he disagrees with it! And if you doubt him, he'll infer you're a liar and an idiot when you don't dance like a monkey to his calliope!
Mwa ha ha ha ha haaaa!
It's helpful to review the definition of bigot, per Webster: "One blindly and obstinately devoted to a particular creed or party." In this regard, I think just about everyone fits the bill, both those against AND for gay marriage.
[ July 27, 2005, 10:13 AM: Message edited by: estavares ]
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Dag, rivka posted dismissively and disrespectfully and followed the pattern that has been clearly laid out of claiming that any mention of bigots must be met with an accusation of "You're saying all people who disagree with you are bigots." which I was clearly not doing. I stand by my description of what she did.
If I'm wrong, then I guess I owe her an apology. Of course, rivka would also owe me an apology.
edit: Do you see yourself as not dripping with insults? Because that's not how you come across to me.
Gawd, I hate to break into such a slapstick discussion, but at the risk of making certain people blow blood vessels, I think it's clear that anyone who opposes equal standing under the law for gays and lesbians is, technically speaking, a bigot.
I generally don't use the term "bigot", because it's been so overused that it's become a general pejorative, like "fascist", which is just a thing to hurl at anyone who disagrees with you.
But according to dictionary.com, bigot means "One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ."
How can you argue that this doesn't apply to someone who supports a situation in which my brother could marry my partner and have all the rights and responsibilities pertaining to marriage, but I can't do the same thing?
Sure, there are people who oppose gay marriage, and even civil unions, who aren't "bigots" in the sense of surly and obnoxious haters. I'm well aware of that. I don't think that all such people hate people like me. Far too many, perhaps, but definitely not all. Still, it's an unconscionable prejudice.
It is just plain wrong for people to try and force their personal religious beliefs into the laws of a country whose Constitution prohibits doing that kind of thing.
Lisa
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
If you would have no problem if I were to classify those who oppose legal protection for unborn children as bigots against the unborn, I can accept your usage.
Your call.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: If you would have no problem if I were to classify those who oppose legal protection for unborn children as bigots against the unborn, I can accept your usage.
Your call.
Are you saying that you think it's okay for people to be defined as other than human beings because they're gay?
There can be legitimate debate on when life starts, but if you define any adult human being as other than human, that's certainly bigotry.
Over to you.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Unless you think people are against gay marriage for the sole reason that they don't think gay people are human, your statement is a non-sequitur.
There can be legitimate debate on what "marriage" is. And there can be legitimate debate on who should be allowed to marry whom. First-cousin marriages are viewed favorably by a huge portion of the world's population, but are banned here. Are our laws in this regard bigoted? Or are people with legitimate concerns about consanguinity going to be given the benefit of the doubt by you?
Go ahead and continue to call people bigots. The more you do, the fewer minds you will change, the more people you will solidify against you, and the longer it will take for policies to be changed.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Unless you think people are against gay marriage for the sole reason that they don't think gay people are human, your statement is a non-sequitur.
How so? You drew the comparison between denying rights to adult human beings who are gay and denying rights to the unborn.
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: There can be legitimate debate on what "marriage" is.
In a religious context, there certainly can be. But we live in a society where the government, which is supposed to be a government of all citizens equally, extends perqs to people it considers "married".
To deny those rights to a couple because they are gay is bigotry.
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: And there can be legitimate debate on who should be allowed to marry whom. First-cousin marriages are viewed favorably by a huge portion of the world's population, but are banned here. Are our laws in this regard bigoted? Or are people with legitimate concerns about consanguinity going to be given the benefit of the doubt by you?
If incestous unions are a health issue, that's one thing. And in truth, I don't like the idea of government being in a position to determine who is and isn't married. At all. But if they are, saying that a guy can marry me, but my partner can't... that's bigotry. Denying us the right to inherit from one another the way we could if we were a married couple is bigotry. Punitive bigotry, to boot.
We own a house, which we bought together. What possible justification is there for the fact that we can't have the title be as safe as a married couple?
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Go ahead and continue to call people bigots. The more you do, the fewer minds you will change, the more people you will solidify against you, and the longer it will take for policies to be changed.
Oh, I hardly think so. As I said, I rarely use the term, and I'm only doing so now because of the whole argument about who is implying that who is a bigot.
But change certainly won't come by just sitting tight and waiting for people to get over their desire to impose their beliefs on others.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
quote:quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Dagonee: Unless you think people are against gay marriage for the sole reason that they don't think gay people are human, your statement is a non-sequitur. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How so? You drew the comparison between denying rights to adult human beings who are gay and denying rights to the unborn.
This only makes sense to you because you don't consider the unborn to be human.
Posted by 1lobo1 (Member # 7762) on :
Neither does the census...
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
Wow. That was irrelevant.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by katharina:
quote:quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Dagonee: Unless you think people are against gay marriage for the sole reason that they don't think gay people are human, your statement is a non-sequitur. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How so? You drew the comparison between denying rights to adult human beings who are gay and denying rights to the unborn.
This only makes sense to you because you don't consider the unborn to be human.
Who says I don't? I'm an Orthodox Jew, and I consider abortion to be something that should never, ever, be done unless the health of the mother is at risk.
Don't make assumptions.
I repeat, there can be a legitimate debate on when life begins. All you have to base your absolutist view on is religion, and that has no place in US law. I'm not saying that life doesn't begin at conception. I'm merely saying that it can be debated honestly.
My daughter has 10 frozen siblings (so to speak) in a freezer in Israel. No one knows if they are viable, and no one will know until and unless they are implanted. Are blastulae people? Maybe. Does it matter whether they came into being inside of a womb or outside? I'm not sure. But I know that those are reasonable questions that can be asked. But if a blastula were to walk up to me and say, "I'm a person", I wouldn't consider it a question any more.
I'm a person.
Posted by Tante Shvester (Member # 8202) on :
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:I repeat, there can be a legitimate debate on when life begins.
And I repeat: There is a legitimate debate about what marriage is and what it is for. The question can be debated honestly.
The similarity is that the difference in views rests upon definitions, not that they rest upon definitions of the same thing.
quote:I'm a person.
Again, unless you are assuming that people who oppose gay marriage are motivated solely by their belief that you aren't a person, this is a non-sequitur.
Abortion is a controversy that hinges on different people's definition of person. Same sex marriage is a controversy that hinges on different people's definitions of marriage.
Dagonee
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee:
quote:I repeat, there can be a legitimate debate on when life begins.
And I repeat: There is a legitimate debate about what marriage is and what it is for. The question can be debated honestly.
The word doesn't mean a lot to me. Call it blikspizzle if it suits you. If the government gives goodies to a man and a woman who have committed their lives to each other and to their family, but won't give the same goodies to two women who do the very same thing, that's wrong. That's discrimination, and that's bigotry.
You want to have your own definition of marriage? Cool. Then get it out of my government.
See, the whole point to having a nation that explicitly bars religion from being part of the government is that your religion may say one thing, and mine may say another. The government isn't supposed to take sides and support one religion over another.
Take one of the previous posters, for example. She apparently believes that an embryo is a human being. Not a potential human being, but a human being.
Now, in my religion, that's not possible. Why? Because God says these three things:
If someone causes a woman to miscarry, the penalty is to pay a fine.
If someone commits murder, the penalty is death.
Money may never be accepted in place of capital punishment.
So my religion says that an embryo cannot possibly be a human being, but that it's nevertheless prohibited to destroy one unless it is threatening the life of its mother.
(Interestingly enough, I suspect that her religion claims to accept the books in which God says those things, and somehow manages to overlook them.)
Why should her religious view trump mine? Why should mine trump hers? We started this country to get away from fights like that.
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: The similarity is that the difference in views rests upon definitions, not that they rest upon definitions of the same thing.
quote:I'm a person.
Again, unless you are assuming that people who oppose gay marriage are motivated solely by their belief that you aren't a person, this is a non-sequitur.
Abortion is a controversy that hinges on different people's definition of person. Same sex marriage is a controversy that hinges on different people's definitions of marriage.
Dagonee
Same sex marriage is a controversy that hinges upon whether equal rights are to be extended to people who are gay. I don't care if people have a set definition of marriage in their religion. My religion will never recognize a union between members of the same sex as being in its category of kiddushin or nisuin (the constituent parts of marriage), and I support that fully. But I pay taxes the same as a straight person, and it is unacceptable that my government should play favorites on the basis of a religious definition.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
quote:Same sex marriage is a controversy that hinges upon whether equal rights are to be extended to people who are gay.
This controversy is about whether we, as a society, will broaden the definition of one of our institutions in a very specific way, to support a very specific practice. And different people think it is or is not a good idea for a lot of different reasons.
If this were about equal rights for all Americans, we'd simply abolish all definitions of marriage, because ANY definition would restrict SOME kind of marriage that SOMEONE might want. As far as I know, marrying three of your underage sisters will still be illegal after gay marriage becomes commonplace.
There are many pairs of people — not only homosexual couples, as I demonstrated above — who, despite the fact that they are definitely human, and are perfectly capable of loving one another, cannot get married because we as a society have defined marriage in such a way that it is not available to them. It doesn't mean that we consider them inferior or want them to go away. It just means that the institution of "marriage" was not created with their specific pairings in mind. Much the way that "custody laws" were not designed to keep employees bound to their employers. Not every relationship must necessarily be included by every institution.
This debate is over a legitimate question that we need to address, but don't think that you can arbitrarily make it about someone's "humanity" just because it sounds better in an argument.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
starLisa, you've made some very compelling arguments in favor extending equal civil marriage rights to same sex couples. In many ways they track with my own reasons for thinking we ought to do so.
But the point is that these are arguments. They can be countered with other arguments, ones that emphasize different factors. Just as people can disagree over how free speech and establishment clause issues should be balanced, they can disagree over how equal protection and reserved powers should be balanced, or how fairness and family policy should be balanced.
There are thousands of values that are embodied in our system of government. Minor changes in relative priority of two or three can lead to thousands of different policy outcomes.
For you to tarnish the many different particular prioritizations of such values that lead to a policy outcome of "no same sex marriage" with the label "bigotry" is not argument. It's refusal to engage the issues. Which means the prioritizations go unchallenged. Which means the status quo doesn't change.
Even holding the attitude that it must be bigotry will prevent you from honestly engaging those who desire a different outcome.
[ July 28, 2005, 11:07 PM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]
Posted by Tante Shvester (Member # 8202) on :
You guys are doing great with this debate. I'm enjoying sitting back and watching it unfold.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Puppy:
quote:Same sex marriage is a controversy that hinges upon whether equal rights are to be extended to people who are gay.
This controversy is about whether we, as a society, will broaden the definition of one of our institutions in a very specific way, to support a very specific practice.
This controversy is about whether a government that is not the government of a certain religion is entitled to extend rights and protections to two members of the opposite sex while denying them to two members of the same sex.
Like I said, I don't care whether you call it marriage or not, so long as I'm not discriminated against. I don't have any problem whatsoever with "seperate but equal".
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: And different people think it is or is not a good idea for a lot of different reasons.
If this were about equal rights for all Americans, we'd simply abolish all definitions of marriage, because ANY definition would restrict SOME kind of marriage that SOMEONE might want. As far as I know, marrying three of your underage sisters will still be illegal after gay marriage becomes commonplace.
Nice red herring, Puppy. The same arguments were made about allowing interracial marriages. After all, that was simply a matter of defining marriage as a union between members of the opposite sex and the same race. The idea of mixing races was quite as repugnant to many people then as the idea of homosexuality is to many people now.
Not surprisingly, the opposition in both cases was and is rooted in the very same communities. How about that?
Keeping the races pure was considered a public policy issue. Nowadays, it's viewed as despicable (except, I'm sure, by some members of the communities I mentioned above).
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: There are many pairs of people — not only homosexual couples, as I demonstrated above — who, despite the fact that they are definitely human, and are perfectly capable of loving one another, cannot get married because we as a society have defined marriage in such a way that it is not available to them.
Puppy, those same arguments were made about interracial marriage. The idea of a free society such as the United States is that society isn't *allowed* to define public institutions in discriminatory ways.
Define private ones as you wish. But not public ones.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: It doesn't mean that we consider them inferior or want them to go away. It just means that the institution of "marriage" was not created with their specific pairings in mind.
The institution of marriage is a religious one. The state started registering marriage for reasons of inheritence. Gradually, a legislation-happy government started giving various rights and recognition to couples who were married.
All of this was at a time when you could be killed for being gay and no one really cared.
But now gay people have chosen to resist being forced into hiding, and have chosen to be proud of their families. My partner and I have been together for 8 years now, and our daughter is 5 years old. And yet the 18 hour marriage of Britney Spears and Jason Alexander had a legal standing that we are denied. The disgusting spectacle of Rick Rockwell and Darva Conger getting married as part of a gameshow counted more than the 20 year long relationship of friends of ours.
At one time, Puppy, it was just taken for granted that marriage was "what it'd always been". Black folk didn't marry white folk. It just wasn't done. It took an actual change in laws to break that horrible restriction. This is really no different.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: Much the way that "custody laws" were not designed to keep employees bound to their employers. Not every relationship must necessarily be included by every institution.
And I get accused of non sequiturs...
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: This debate is over a legitimate question that we need to address, but don't think that you can arbitrarily make it about someone's "humanity" just because it sounds better in an argument.
You mistake me. I brought up the issue of humanity only because someone wanted to compare this to the issue of abortion. I know that it's not because we're not deemed human. It's because we're deemed icky.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
The interracial marriage analogy is kind of flawed. The fact that one reason to prohibit marriage between a given couple has become despicable in our culture, and has been rescinded, does not imply that every other restriction is ALSO despicable, and should therefore ALSO be rescinded.
Off the top of my head, here is a list of reasons why, a hundred years ago, a couple might have been prevented from marrying.
1. They belonged to different races. 2. They belonged to different social classes or castes. 3. They were first-cousins/siblings/parent-and-child. 4. One or more of them was underage. 5. One or more of them was already married to someone else. 6. One of them bought or captured the other as a slave. 7. They shared the same gender.
In the past hundred years, we have rescinded reasons 1 and 2, and now find those attitudes despicable. At various times in various cultures, reasons 3, 4, 5, and 6 were not in force, which we also consider despicable today. Right now, in the United States, reason 7 is coming into question.
You cannot say that just because 1 and 2 have been rescinded in the past, therefore number 7 should also be rescinded. You need more of a reason than that. I'm not saying there IS no reason. But you have to have one that is better than "you used to not let THOSE people marry, and now you do!" There are a LOT of people who could say that, not just you.
Posted by B-HAX (Member # 6640) on :
But I never understood the purpose of unwinnable debates. Maybee Iam stoopid.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Geoff, Again, can you provide an argument for why gay marriage is a bad idea? People keeping tlaking about the honest debate, but for all there's been reasons provided for why extending marrige to gay people would be a good thing, I've yet to see, after many many pages of asking, an argument for why it would be a bad idea except for ones relying on prejudices (e.g. they're substandard parents) or religion.
The interracial analogy is flawed if that were the only argument, but it it not intended that way. Your framing of it is not consistent with how it came up. It wasn't introduced on it's own, but rather to counter the idea that gay marriage is a bad idea because it would change the definition of marriage, without other reasoning. The interracial marriage thing (or many of the other times marriage has changed in a significant manner) shows that "It will change marriage" is not a good argument when it's on it's own.
Marriage has been changed and we're better for it. Many people believe that this is the case for altering it to allow gay marraige. Can you provide reasons for why we would be worse off?
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Geoff, Again, can you provide an argument for why gay marriage is a bad idea? People keeping tlaking about the honest debate, but for all there's been reasons provided for why extending marrige to gay people would be a good thing, I've yet to see, after many many pages of asking, an argument for why it would be a bad idea except for ones relying on prejudices (e.g. they're substandard parents) or religion.
The interracial analogy is flawed if that were the only argument, but it it not intended that way. Your framing of it is not consistent with how it came up. It wasn't introduced on it's own, but rather to counter the idea that gay marriage is a bad idea because it would change the definition of marriage, without other reasoning. The interracial marriage thing (or many of the other times marriage has changed in a significant manner) shows that "It will change marriage" is not a good argument when it's on it's own.
Marriage has been changed and we're better for it. Many people believe that this is the case for altering it to allow gay marraige. Can you provide reasons for why we would be worse off?
I believe that the arguments against it come down to exactly one:
Homosexuality is bad, and doing anything that might encourage it is bad by extension.
In some cases, this extends to treating gays and lesbians poorly. In other cases, an opponent might be civil and friendly to people who happen to be gay, but still think that homosexuality is wrong, and that doing anything that might encourage it is wrong by extension.
What I don't get is why it's such a huge issue for some people. I mean, what does it do to you if my partner and I marry? How does it affect anyone else?
I wrote a story once. It wasn't about being gay, but of the five characters in the book, two were lesbians and one was a bisexual woman. <shrug> You write what you know.
As a result, simply because the characters happened to be gay, the story was virtually unsaleable.
Eventually, it was bought for an anthology of mystery stories that's coming out in another 2 months (yay!), but it's a collection of lesbian mysteries, which means that there are people who might actually be offended if I were to give them a copy of the book.
OSC is one of my favorite writers. Had my story been published in a "regular" anthology, I would have wanted to send him a copy of the book. But I'm afraid to do so, because I don't want him to think I'm being "in-your-face" about the gay issue.
That's the kind of defensiveness you get used to when something that's just part of who you are is such a huge issue to people it doesn't even really affect.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Well, OSC has argued that the dark secret of the pro-gay movement is how many homosexuals are victims of sexual abuse who are trapped in a lifestyle that they hate and that the gay people he knows are not made happy and are generally made miserable by acting on their being gay. He's also seemed to imply (by saying that they were playing dress up and by saying that the marriage that they are so earnestly seeking wouldn't do them any good and would only further the agenda of the people who seek to destroy marriage) that gay people are unable to form adult relationships.
He's also implied that gay people harm others merely by their existance as gay people.
Were any of these true, I'd be skeptical of gay marriage too. It's possible that these are the arguments that people are relying on. If so, I think it would be nice if they could substantiate them. Or possibly someone else could do a better job with the "gay people are substandard parents" hook?
I honestly don't know what these responsible arguments against gay marriage that don't rely solely on religion that people keep suggesting exist are. It's entirely possible that they are out there, but I haven't come across them. I'm hoping that someone could spell them out for me.
---
edit: starL, Obviously, I don't know him very well, but from what I've gotten from OSC's personality, he'd be glad that you got published and happy that you sent him a copy if you included the explanation that you did above. I could see how you might be worried that he'd take it as an attack if you just sent it to him out of the blue, but I don't know that he would even then, if you talked about how you were a big fan and wanted to shared your success with someone who inspired you. Oh and congratulations.
[ July 29, 2005, 03:03 PM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Well, OSC has argued that the dark secret of the pro-gay movement is how many homosexuals are victims of sexual abuse who are trapped in a lifestyle that they hate and that the gay people he knows are not made happy and are generally made miserable by acting on their being gay.
<sigh> The truth is, I can't even answer that. Because almost all of the claims in that direction refer almost exclusively to gay men.
I know that gay men and lesbians are considered to be subsets of a single group these days. Which is funny, if you think about it, because the truth is, the difference between lesbians and gay men is far, far greater than the differences between men and women in general, and for the same reasons.
You know the saying that men have relationships in order to have sex, and women have sex in order to have relationships? Think of that in terms of just men, or just women.
Sure, they've combined forces politically, but then again, so have the transsexuals, and there's certainly no commonality between sexual orientation and gender identity.
So as far as I know, there might be something to that argument. I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt, though.
As to gay people being miserable when they come out... well, with so many people out there who are so dedicated to making us miserable because we're gay, it's a wonder that any of us can find happiness.
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: He's also seemed to imply (by saying that they were playing dress up and by saying that the marriage that they are so earnestly seeking wouldn't do them any good and would only further the agenda of the people who seek to destroy marriage) that gay people are unable to form adult relationships.
Well, of course we aren't. If you define adult relationships as heterosexual ones.
Did he really say we were "playing dress up"? That saddens me.
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: He's also implied that gay people harm others merely by their existance as gay people.
Would you mind citing that? It doesn't sound like him.
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: starL, Obviously, I don't know him very well, but from what I've gotten from OSC's personality, he'd be glad that you got published and happy that you sent him a copy if you included the explanation that you did above. I could see how you might be worried that he'd take it as an attack if you just sent it to him out of the blue, but I don't know that he would even then, if you talked about how you were a big fan and wanted to shared your success with someone who inspired you.
I know. See, I'm torn. I think it'd be okay, but... you know how when you get slammed for doing something time after time, and you just get nervous about doing it, even if you know you're doing nothing wrong?
I was at a book signing of his once, and he stood up to shake my hand when he realized that I'd written one of the essays on ornery.org. I just don't want him to lose respect for me.
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Oh and congratulations.
<smile> Thanks. Um... if you want to see some reviews of the book (which I haven't even had a chance to see myself!), they're here.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
starL, Here's the thread we had about the article where he said this(reporter speaks first, OSC answers):
quote:"How is that different from changing the law so that blacks and whites can marry?" I have to force the words out.
Incredulously: "Are you asking that question seriously?"
"Yes."
"I find the comparison between civil rights based on race and supposed new rights being granted for what amounts to deviant behavior to be really kind of ridiculous. There is no comparison. A black as a person does not by being black harm anyone.
As to the playing dress-up, he said:
quote: But homosexual "marriage" is an act of intolerance. It is an attempt to eliminate any special preference for marriage in society -- to erase the protected status of marriage in the constant balancing act between civilization and individual reproduction.
So if my friends insist on calling what they do "marriage," they are not turning their relationship into what my wife and I have created, because no court has the power to change what their relationship actually is.
Instead they are attempting to strike a death blow against the well-earned protected status of our, and every other, real marriage.
They steal from me what I treasure most, and gain for themselves nothing at all. They won't be married. They'll just be playing dress-up in their parents' clothes.
in his famous Ornery essay you can read here.
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
quote:Did he really say we were "playing dress up"? That saddens me.
I have heard so many people claim that by this he means they are not capable of adult relationships (perhaps because "dress up" is a children's game). But considering the immense respect and tenderness he shows the gay characters in his books, this assumption is ridiculous. It doesn't line up with any of OSC's actual behavior.
I propose (on his behalf, I guess, if that is OK) that he is more referring to the idea that marriage is all about it being a male and female being joined to each other, and that same-sex pairs seeking marriage are trying to be like the the opposite sex pairings, and never can be.
In order to accept this, you have to accept that marriage is all about it being a male/female pairing above all else including love. There are plenty of people who believe this.
You also have to accept the idea that same-sex pairings are trying to immitate opposite-sex pairings, which I think is a wacky assumption. Pairings aren't so much trying to immitate anything as just find a way to be together and live life.
But it does seem that same-sex pairs are annoyed and put off at the idea that opposite-sex pairs should get benefits that they don't. If this is just a matter of getting a few extra bucks in your tax return, then I might write that off as silly.
But if it is a desire to have hospital rights and share insurance, I can totally understand. When two consenting adults have made an intimate life-long commitment to each other, it seems that certain rights involving how much influence they are allowed have in each other's lives should come with that.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
<sigh> Maybe I'm deluded, but that stuff seems so utterly out of character with OSC in general that I have to assume:
He's just not that aware of what most gays and lesbians are like.
He's completely unaware of the extent to which we are penalized for being gay.
He is basing his views on some of the nastier antics of the organized gay and lesbian community (of which I do not consider myself a member).
Or some selection of the above.
I mean, if Donna Minkowitz had been interviewing me, she'd probably have come away thinking of me as a war-monger and a homophobe. When you're that far to the left, any deviation from the leftist paradigm makes you a crypto-fascist. Or worse.
As to his comments about his enjoying "well earned" goodies from the government as part of a married couple, well, he and I disagree on the perogatives of government. I don't think the US government has any right to play favorites, and I definitely don't see how he had earned anything in that area that I haven't also earned. On the contrary: marriage provides a structure that makes a lot of things a lot easier. The fact that my partner and I have been as successful (thank God) in our relationship as we have despite being denied that structure would seem to me a greater achievement.
Not that I'm drawing comparisons, of course.
Everything gets so polarized nowadays. Was it always like that?
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
starLisa, I really appreciate you giving OSC the benefit of the doubt in this debate. I think you're one of the only people I've seen who has managed to simultaneously (1) disagree with him, and (2) not demonize him. Hats off to you.
Squick's first quote is from an extremely hostile and biased interview in which OSC was basically ambushed with a topic he had not planned to discuss. I'm pretty sure that (1) the quotes from him are not exact, and (2) had this been a written interview, and not a verbal one over the phone, he might have phrased himself more carefully to begin with.
quote:Everything gets so polarized nowadays. Was it always like that?
It always seems like it's getting worse, but I'm betting that I'm just becoming more aware of the sickness and more frustrated with it the older I get.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
Squick, you can't just dismiss religion and pretend it doesn't exist, especially when you are legislating for this particular nation, a majority of whose citizens are, in fact, religious. You might not value religion yourself, but that doesn't make religion and religious people any less a part of the society you belong to. To marginalize them and pretend that their needs and desires do not matter is no more noble than doing the same thing to homosexuals.
Our government is (quite correctly) designed to prevent any single religion from achieving dominance and state sponsorship. But that does not mean that the government should not take into account the fact that many of its citizens receive benefits through religion that the government itself cannot provide.
You have already heard arguments that marriage has evolved as an institution because it provides stable environments in which to raise offspring. In recent years, our culture has already largely abandoned the idea of marriage as a serious responsibility for adults, and instead treats it as a contract of convenience between a romantic couple that wants to share their assets for a while, and who can decide at any time to back out of their agreement.
And now we have serious problems with unwed parents struggling to raise families with little or no support from a family structure. When someone signs on to raise a family and support a spouse, it should be much harder than it is for them to weasel out of their responsibilities. Yet we have decided that a parent's boredom or lust or unwillingness to compromise trumps a child's need to have a family.
That really sucks, and with marriage weakened as it is, we have very little means of encouraging people to stay together and counteract this plague of broken homes. We resort to law enforcement to track down deatbeat dads, where once we depended on a sense of honor and social disapproval of divorce and illegitimacy to keep those guys in their homes.
When you depend on the police, and not social pressure, to do your social work for you, your society has already failed.
There ARE still subcultures in America that take marriage seriously for the purposes I've described — treating it as an honorable adult responsibility geared towards raising healthy and civilized families. The problem (for you) is the fact that most of these subcultures have managed to hold onto these values because it was a part of their faith. Where members of other subcultures might be more promiscuous, or might break up their marriages with less provocation, these people AREN'T and DON'T, and society benefits because of it.
Wouldn't it be nice to live in a society where people made responsible decisions about sex, did not risk having children without first ensuring that they would be raised in a stable family, and stuck to their responsibilities once they said their vows (barring abusive situations, of course)?
Government cannot make this happen. Education programs cannot make this happen. Nothing can make it happen perfectly, but the societal force that comes the closest is religion. People willingly changing their behavior, not because they are forced to by the police, but because they believe it is right, or (when their personal morals break down) because they will face disapproval from their fellows if they don't adhere to their religion's standards.
THAT force is much more effective than anything you could legislate. And you can't just make it up, either. You can't go and invent a new religion for America that provides all the benefits you want, with none of the esoteria that you'd like to eject. Well, you CAN, but I doubt anyone will listen to you.
So the problem with the gay marriage issue is, it basically repudiates some of the only subcultures left in America that still value marriage and family the way I've described.
I think that civil unions are a fair compromise because that concept allows these religions to maintain their marriage traditions as a separate institution from what is offered by the government, and can keep the benefits they offer their people going strong, while still providing for the needs of newer subcultures for whom those traditions are not helpful.
If, after fifty years, these cultures merge, and the two become synonymous, then you've got your victory, and you can gloat.
In the meantime, though, why do you want to repudiate some of the only modern cultures that are promoting stable marriage in an efficacious way?
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
Are we sure that the religious have less divorce than the non-religious? I recall seeing statistics that stated otherwise. Though it may be that agnostics and atheists are more likely to co-habitate, and there is no record of those pairings going their separate ways. How many of those pairings bring children into the world? I just don't have the facts on that.
quote:When someone signs on to raise a family and support a spouse, it should be much harder than it is for them to weasel out of their responsibilities. Yet we have decided that a parent's boredom or lust or unwillingness to compromise trumps a child's need to have a family.
Actually, if one of the spouses completely "poops out" on their vows and shows no desire whatsoever to keep trying to make the marriage work, I think it is cruel to force the other partner to suffer through that when they could find a spouse who would take those responsibilities seriously. Especially when the presence of that spouse actually makes life more miserable for the children involved.
I'm not sure that making divorce harder would change the lack of regard with which people treat the marriage commitment. I think the disease goes much deeper than that. I don't know what the best solution is, but I think a tightening of divorce laws probably wouldn't fix it.
quote:We resort to law enforcement to track down deatbeat dads, where once we depended on a sense of honor and social disapproval of divorce and illegitimacy to keep those guys in their homes.
This is far more what is needed, but how do you infuse such things into a culture? I suppose if someone payed for propeganda.... We used to be a culture where seatbelts were nearly unheard of. But a combination of laws and ubiquitous propeganda has "brainwashed" this generation into seatbelt usage. Brainwashing isn't necessarily a bad thing. Could something similar be done to help marriage partners take their commitments more seriously?
If religion does do this effectively, then that is a very good thing.
One thing for sure, divorce is far more common amongst the younger generations. While our grandparents' generation could get a divorce far more easily, they don't seem to be rushing out to do it. I suspect that they really do enjoy being married and something from their culture of the past really has help them make their marriages work far better than marriages today.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
quote:Actually, if one of the spouses completely "poops out" on their vows and shows no desire whatsoever to keep trying to make the marriage work, I think it is cruel to force the other partner to suffer through that when they could find a spouse who would take those responsibilities seriously.
When one spouse refuses to try, that IS a serious problem. I'm not saying we should trap people in unworkable situations. I'm saying that our culture should encourage people to be more compromising and motivated to make their marriages work.
People who consider their marriages temporary by nature are far less likely to even attempt to reconcile differences. By making divorce THIS easy, we've made more people more likely to get to the point at which they would need one.
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
quote: People who consider their marriages temporary by nature are far less likely to even attempt to reconcile differences. By making divorce THIS easy, we've made more people more likely to get to the point at which they would need one.
This may be true. But I'm not sure if I believe that it is. I think it is also possible, and perhaps more likely, that the laws have been relaxed because the attitudes in our culture have changed so very much. I wish there was more we could do about those attitudes.
Just as the fact that gays are openly requesting marriage is a sign that our culture has changed drastically. (Not that this is a bad thing.) Before, they were far too ostracized, the request would have been inconceivable. If the laws about marriage change to include gays, it will be because our culture changed first.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: I have heard so many people claim that by this he means they are not capable of adult relationships (perhaps because "dress up" is a children's game). But considering the immense respect and tenderness he shows the gay characters in his books, this assumption is ridiculous.
I have trouble imagining that OSC would have used the phrase "dress up" if he had not meant to make us think of the connotations inherent to the term. In other words, the guy's a professional writer; he wouldn't've used "dress up," I'd like to think, unless he meant to send a "children's game" vibe.
Sadly, he's never clarified this point -- which is a shame, because it's one of the most insulting things I've ever seen from him and I really would like to know what he was thinking; it seemed at the time to be strikingly out of character, and took me -- as someone who defended him quite loudly when the Salon interview came out -- entirely by surprise.
[ July 29, 2005, 08:58 PM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
I tend to give someone the benefit of the doubt when something they say once doens't jive with the rest of their behavior.
But OSC *is* known for using language more emotionally infused than needed in his non-fiction. I figured this was an example of that.
From what I know of OSC, it just isn't logical that he thinks of homosexuals as childish.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
I don't think that anything OSC has written about homosexuality was drawn from a personal evaluation of individual homosexuals, and I doubt he intended it to come across as the dire insult that many readers received.
You have to understand that, to OSC, taking part in the human reproductive cycle is one of THE central purposes of life and society. From THAT perspective, a marriage is DEFINED by its compatibility with the human reproductive process. A pairing that is not just incapable of reproduction for medical reasons, but is actually intrinsically irrelevant to the reproductive process is, to him, not a marriage. To him, the word "marriage" MEANS society's institution surrounding the human reproductive cycle.
Calling other pairings "dress-up" was an extreme way of saying "a marriage is only real and relevant if it adheres to these criteria ... other relationships, while they can be called marriages, lack the key thing that makes a marriage what it is." He was saying that marriages that are irrelevant to the human reproductive process are marriages in name only. If that idea offends you, go ahead and be offended.
What he was NOT saying, however, was all the other connotations people drew from his word choice. He wasn't saying that "gays are incapable of forming adult relationships", for instance. Such interpretations, while understandable given the emotional nature of this argument, are not warranted.
I think the idea he was trying to get across was something like this (and forgive me if I say anything that comes across wrong):
We've got a concept called "fishing". There are many ways to fish, but all of them involve somehow trying to manipulate one or more fish to come into your possession. Some people fish for pleasure, others for a living. Some people earn great hauls of fish, some people earn none, and some throw back what they catch. Even if someone fails to catch any fish, or if they don't even INTEND to catch any fish, if they sit by a river with a fishing pole and bait in the water, they are fishing.
However, if someone sits in their living room and plays chess against themselves while watching the news, they are not fishing. Their choice of activity may be exactly as fun and legitimate as fishing. It may be very rewarding to them ... in fact, this particular person might find this activity much MORE beneficial to them than fishing ever could be. BUT what they are doing should not be called "fishing" because to call it "fishing" would extend the definition so far that the term would become meaningless, and a new term would need to be developed to denote "trying to manipulate one or more fish to come into your possession" and distinguish it from "playing chess and watching the news".
I think that this is the point that OSC was trying to make about marriage. He was asserting that relevance to the human reproductive process is an intrinsic part of the concept of "marriage", and that by extending the definition to include other relationships — no matter how similar they might be in terms of love, romance, loyalty, etc — would change the term in such a way that it would lose an important facet of its meaning.
I'm sure that he did not intend his "fired-up" words to cause quite the emotional reaction that they elicited in some readers, and I am also pretty sure that some of his word choice came mostly from his frustration with the smarmy dismissal that his views often receive from his (non-gay, but liberal) peers. He wanted to make an impact, and so he unleashed the power of Cardly prose ... with some unintended consequences.
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
I too was more than a bit offended by that... More like deeply hurt, as it really isn't a logical statement considering what gays and lesbians go through.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
You were deeply hurt because the statement wasn't logical?
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
No, because it really is a cruel sort of statement. Not to mention an insult to people like my friend Jan. I took it rather personally. But, yes, it's not exactly... completely logical.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
In what way is it not 'completely logical', Synethesia?
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
Because homosexuality, for the most part is not some form of arrested development or a dress-up game, it's subjected to the same sort of gravity and struggles straight relationships are... Or perhaps I jumped to conclusions and instantly got angered by a phrase like that being used to describe gays and lesbians...
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Assuming Geoff is correct about OSC's intentions behind his statement (and I have this funny feeling he just might be )...couldn't homosexuality be considered 'arrested development' in terms of human reproduction? Bear in mind that though now it's certainly possibly to have children in a homosexual relationship, the technology hasn't been around long enough to have connected, so to speak, with the impulse.
I tend to believe OSC meant something much more benign and compassionate than many people seem to think for one reason: Songmaster. Josef (if I am spelling and remembering the name correctly) was definitely not sub-human, nor was he infantile, or just playacting. He was completely human.
Posted by Zotto! (Member # 4689) on :
I agree with Puppy's and Rakeesh's interpretation of all this (thankfully, because I doubt I'd have the patience to detail my thoughts in posts as clear as theirs have been. *grin*) Keep it up, gentlemen.
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
"Freedom of Religion" as codified in the United States Bill of Rights should be distinguished from "Freedom from Religion". The government could conceivably take away the rights to which marriage entitles one, but doing so would not eliminate the institution of marriage. It would, however, make it far more difficult for those who for whatever reasons wish to get married outside of any particular faith (atheists, agnostics, and people of two different faiths who do not wish to convert and do not think their clergy will consent to such a cross-marriage, for instance.) Such an event is higly unlikely.
My sister loves to tell the story of the courts coming down against lawmakers in Florida who attempted to write a convoluted law prohibiting one particular religion from sacrificing and consuming a chicken during ceremonies without simultaneously outlawing, say, kosher butchery...
I guess aside from throwing that information into the stew, I guess my point is that it is the government-enforced representation of marriage that is at stake, to which the religious representation of marriage has in most cases willingly tied itself.
I might also suggest that there _could_ be reasons for opposing homosexual marriage other than a closed circle of "homosexuality is bad because homosexuality is bad therefore homosexuality is bad and in conclusion..." One might infer, for example, that the children of homosexuals are more likely to adopt promiscuous behaviors and spread sexually transmitted diseases. Or that, as Puppy seems to imply, that accepting a wider range of relationships into the definition of marriage might weaken a bond and an institution already under stress, one which is necessary to the raising of healthy children. I don't happen to agree with these statements, as I think they are based on suppositions and that the potential good caused by allowing some manner of homosexual unions outweighs the potential harm, which I think is often exaggerated or imagined.
And I shudder slightly whenever some halcyon bygone era is conjured when marriages lasted and no births happened out of wedlock and people smiled and waved when you walked down the street and kids respected their elders and...
Fact: In the era following World War Two, America enjoyed prosperity as one of the few largely intact industrial centers in the world. A factory line worker home from a war could make enough to support a house and children, and the G.I. Bill of 1944 meant a lot of people coming home from the war had access to education that meant new opportunities.
A lot of the virtues of those much-touted old days rode upon those economic conditions.
But let us also remember a few things about those good old days. A lot of black people were being denied the vote. What we now call sexual harrassment was something to be tolerated, and joked about, if it was mentioned at all. Alcoholism was the subject of humor- some people just couldn't hold their liquor. Child and spousal abuse was between a husband and his wife and kids, and no one thought to intervene.
And most relevantly- that "queer kid" and the girl who let some boy go farther than any "nice girl" lets a boy and got "knocked up" still existed, but no one talked about them and there was an implicit acceptance of stigmatizing, shunning, and mistreating of same.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Geoff, if that was really your dad's intent, it was a stunningly poor word choice. It's hard for me to imagine that he did not expect people to be offended.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Even if he expected people to be offended, that does not mean that he meant the worst things people have said he must have meant.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
He's not responsible for everything someone reads into his writing. But it's not unreasonable to expect that the phrase "dress-up" was deliberately chosen for its chlldish overtones.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
I hope it hasn't been linked already, but this page has some interesting statistics on divorce rates for various Christian groups.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
I agree with you, Tom, that it was a poor choice of words. Possibly (and it seems to me likely) even chosen because of its obvious connotations.
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
I think OSC's intention was to piss off the interviewer, frankly, because by that time she was chomping on his rear end like a pirranha. People on this board have said far worse when they get defensive.
Geez, cut the guy some slack.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
When he made the "dress up" comment, it was for one of his own essays on Ornery -- not an interview.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Sterling: "Freedom of Religion" as codified in the United States Bill of Rights should be distinguished from "Freedom from Religion".
That's a common slogan, Sterling, but it misses the point entirely. The First Amendment may not be aboeut freedom from religion, but it is most certainly about freedom from any particular religion.
Suppose the numbers of Catholics and Protestants were reversed in this country. Would it be justifiable for the government to make divorce illegal? Remarriage open to prosecution as bigamy?
quote:Originally posted by Sterling: The government could conceivably take away the rights to which marriage entitles one, but doing so would not eliminate the institution of marriage.
Precisely.
quote:Originally posted by Sterling: I might also suggest that there _could_ be reasons for opposing homosexual marriage other than a closed circle of "homosexuality is bad because homosexuality is bad therefore homosexuality is bad and in conclusion..." One might infer, for example, that the children of homosexuals are more likely to adopt promiscuous behaviors and spread sexually transmitted diseases.
One might infer any number of things. One might be making things up out of whole cloth in the doing.
In the first place, lesbians are far less likely to spread sexually transmitted diseases than heterosexuals. So maybe the government ought to think about only allowing marriage between women. Not that I'm suggesting such a ridiculous thing, but it follows from your "inference".
quote:Originally posted by Sterling: Or that, as Puppy seems to imply, that accepting a wider range of relationships into the definition of marriage might weaken a bond and an institution already under stress, one which is necessary to the raising of healthy children.
I've never understood how or why my being able to marry my partner could weaken, say, my brother's marriage to his wife. It doesn't make any sense. It's just rhetoric.
Let me tell you something about my daughter. She's five years old. She has already met the boy she intends to marry. They were three when they decided this. Who knows if it'll last, but they're both extremely determined children.
She is insanely into pink and Barbies and dress-up and all the things that so often get stuffed down little girls' throats.
But on the flip side, we recently watched the movie Quarterback Princess, where a teenaged Helen Hunt plays a girl who joins her high school football team against the strenuous objections of many of the townspeople. It's based on the true story of Tami Maida, who was both the star quarterback that year and the homecoming princess.
My daughter couldn't understand why people were making such a big deal about Tami playing football. She knows that she can do whatever she wants, and was born too late to remember when that was such a controversy. I know what a nightmare that must be to people who shudder at the thought of women outside of the kitchen or bedroom.
Sterling, we are Orthodox Jews. We don't even let her wear pants outside. She is being raised in a strongly moral environment. One in which modesty is a major value. Compared to the general US straight culture, I "infer" that she's far less likely to be promiscuous.
quote:Originally posted by Sterling: And most relevantly- that "queer kid" and the girl who let some boy go farther than any "nice girl" lets a boy and got "knocked up" still existed, but no one talked about them and there was an implicit acceptance of stigmatizing, shunning, and mistreating of same.
Exactly.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: starLisa, I really appreciate you giving OSC the benefit of the doubt in this debate. I think you're one of the only people I've seen who has managed to simultaneously (1) disagree with him, and (2) not demonize him. Hats off to you.
<nod> I've noticed a lot of knees jerking on the issue, starting with the interviewer, but certainly not ending with her.
Demonizing someone you disagree with is cheap. It requires nothing but rhetoric, and it cheats the person you disagree with of the opportunity to hear possibly valid criticism. As well, it cheats you yourself of the opportunity to hear possibly valid counter-arguments.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: Squick's first quote is from an extremely hostile and biased interview in which OSC was basically ambushed with a topic he had not planned to discuss. I'm pretty sure that (1) the quotes from him are not exact, and (2) had this been a written interview, and not a verbal one over the phone, he might have phrased himself more carefully to begin with.
So I presumed, on both counts.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy
quote:Everything gets so polarized nowadays. Was it always like that?
It always seems like it's getting worse, but I'm betting that I'm just becoming more aware of the sickness and more frustrated with it the older I get.
<sigh>
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: Squick, you can't just dismiss religion and pretend it doesn't exist, especially when you are legislating for this particular nation, a majority of whose citizens are, in fact, religious.
But it isn't a matter of dismissing religion. It's a matter of restricting any particular religion, or groups of religions, from forcing their beliefs on others.
The protections that religious groups enjoy in this country, where valid, should be 100% the same whether they are a majority or a minority. I think that basing an argument on a group being a majority is the first mistake.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy You might not value religion yourself, but that doesn't make religion and religious people any less a part of the society you belong to. To marginalize them and pretend that their needs and desires do not matter is no more noble than doing the same thing to homosexuals.
I think that's a false analogy. Essentially, this is a double-edged sword. If you want your religious views to be respected by others, you have to grant them the same respect.
I don't have any problem with someone who doesn't want to hire me because I'm gay. Well, I do -- I think such a person is a bigot, and I have very little respect for such a person -- but I would never, ever try to use legislative force to override someone's personal feelings in the matter.
And that goes equally for someone who might not want to hire me because I'm Jewish. Or because I'm a woman.
We've gotten so used to the "There oughta be a law" mentality in this country, where legislative coercion is used as a shortcut to avoid having to actually persuade people that they're wrong about something.
But this kind of thinking is not the sole province of the left. Using the law to support a conservative or religious institution is just as wrong as using it to support a liberal one.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy Our government is (quite correctly) designed to prevent any single religion from achieving dominance and state sponsorship. But that does not mean that the government should not take into account the fact that many of its citizens receive benefits through religion that the government itself cannot provide.
Certainly. But that seems a bit of a non sequitur to me. In another post, I asked whether it would be just for the government to make divorce illegal if Catholics were a majority. Allowing people to divorce can be seen by Catholics as a threat to their institution of marriage. After all, if divorce wasn't allowed in the US, far fewer Catholics would even consider the idea.
But it would be wrong.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy You have already heard arguments that marriage has evolved as an institution because it provides stable environments in which to raise offspring. In recent years, our culture has already largely abandoned the idea of marriage as a serious responsibility for adults, and instead treats it as a contract of convenience between a romantic couple that wants to share their assets for a while, and who can decide at any time to back out of their agreement.
And that is a terrible thing, I agree. But with the growing number of gay and lesbian couples who are raising families, what you just said is a potent argument in favor of same sex marriage.
My partner and I moved back to the US from Israel when our daughter was 10 months old. It wasn't possible for us to ensure legal recognition for both of us as her parents in Israel. And Arabs were targeting school buses.
Had something happened to the one of us who is our daughter's birth mother, the other would have had no legal relationship with our daughter whatsoever. It wasn't about "I have a right to be her parent"; it was about "she has a right to have both of her parents legally connected to her."
The issue of same-sex marriage is not anti-marriage. On the contrary; it is pro-marriage. It is a measure that will do for gay families exactly what marriage currently does for straight families.
In a society where marriage has become so weakened, same-sex marriage can only strengthen the institution.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy And now we have serious problems with unwed parents struggling to raise families with little or no support from a family structure.
So why try to deprive gay and lesbian families of that structure? Is it a "misery loves company thing"? With so many families breaking up, shouldn't pro-family groups be excited about gays and lesbians wanting the opposite?
quote:Originally posted by Puppy When someone signs on to raise a family and support a spouse, it should be much harder than it is for them to weasel out of their responsibilities. Yet we have decided that a parent's boredom or lust or unwillingness to compromise trumps a child's need to have a family.
You're preaching to the choir, Puppy. I was eight years old before I ever heard of divorce. My best friend told me that her last name was going to be different from then on, and I asked her why. I was shocked, because I'd never heard of such a thing before.
Don't get me wrong -- there is a time and a place for divorce. But it's not because someone feels an itch or because you're too lazy to work things out.
But think about it. What keeps my family together? I make about 4 times what my partner does. In terms of the law, I could cut her off just like that. It won't happen, ever, because I love her, and I do believe in making things work. But why shouldn't the law protect our family in the same way that it protects yours?
quote:Originally posted by Puppy That really sucks, and with marriage weakened as it is, we have very little means of encouraging people to stay together and counteract this plague of broken homes. We resort to law enforcement to track down deatbeat dads, where once we depended on a sense of honor and social disapproval of divorce and illegitimacy to keep those guys in their homes.
When you depend on the police, and not social pressure, to do your social work for you, your society has already failed.
I agree completely. But failure can be reversed.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy There ARE still subcultures in America that take marriage seriously for the purposes I've described — treating it as an honorable adult responsibility geared towards raising healthy and civilized families. The problem (for you) is the fact that most of these subcultures have managed to hold onto these values because it was a part of their faith.
I don't know. My family wasn't very religious at all. I'm unusual in that regard. I didn't become religious until I was in college.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy Where members of other subcultures might be more promiscuous, or might break up their marriages with less provocation, these people AREN'T and DON'T, and society benefits because of it.
And wouldn't society benefit just as much by giving us the tools that would strengthen our families?
And in terms of "subcultures", not all gays and lesbians are part of the "gay culture" you see in the media. There's a promiscuous subculture in this country that cuts across lines of straight and gay. Unfortunately, it's becoming more correct to say that it's the non-promiscuous who are the subculture.
Turn on your TV, Puppy. Check out swill like Desperate Housewives.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy Wouldn't it be nice to live in a society where people made responsible decisions about sex, did not risk having children without first ensuring that they would be raised in a stable family, and stuck to their responsibilities once they said their vows (barring abusive situations, of course)?
Absolutely. But consider: gay and lesbian couples can't have children by accident. It's impossible. When we do, it's because we've thought it through and planned everything.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy Government cannot make this happen. Education programs cannot make this happen. Nothing can make it happen perfectly, but the societal force that comes the closest is religion.
But... whose religion? I have a former friend who is Wiccan. Does her religion deserve less protection from the law than yours or mine?
quote:Originally posted by Puppy People willingly changing their behavior, not because they are forced to by the police, but because they believe it is right, or (when their personal morals break down) because they will face disapproval from their fellows if they don't adhere to their religion's standards.
THAT force is much more effective than anything you could legislate. And you can't just make it up, either. You can't go and invent a new religion for America that provides all the benefits you want, with none of the esoteria that you'd like to eject. Well, you CAN, but I doubt anyone will listen to you.
Well, I think there are cultural groups in this country which are strongly moral without the need to be part of one of the big, established religions.
People have to take responsibility. People have to be willing to make their case and allow others to listen or not. Legislating your position onto someone else isn't a good answer. It may seem pragmatic enough, but it's a moral shortcut.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy So the problem with the gay marriage issue is, it basically repudiates some of the only subcultures left in America that still value marriage and family the way I've described.
Again, how so? Do you believe that legal divorce in this country repudiates the Catholic faith? Do legal sales of pork repudiate Judaism?
As an Orthodox Jew, I can tell you that it's far easier to keep kosher in Israel than it is in the US. I can walk into a grocery store in Jerusalem and just buy groceries. I don't have to check everything to make sure it's kosher.
When I walk by a restaurant in Chicago and smell the ribs cooking, it's a major temptation. Some people give in to that temptation. We might lose fewer kids to assimilation if pork was banned here.
But as the saying goes: "We could do that. But it would be wrong."
quote:Originally posted by Puppy I think that civil unions are a fair compromise because that concept allows these religions to maintain their marriage traditions as a separate institution from what is offered by the government, and can keep the benefits they offer their people going strong, while still providing for the needs of newer subcultures for whom those traditions are not helpful.
Don't assume that "religious" and "gay" are so separate. And I'd be happy with civil unions if they were supported on a federal level, and if they carried 100% of the rights and responsibilities of federally recognized marriage. I won't quibble about the word. But people with a Vermont civil union can't file their taxes jointly. Neither can married couples in Massachussetts.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy If, after fifty years, these cultures merge, and the two become synonymous, then you've got your victory, and you can gloat.
Wow. That seems a little bitter. Why would anyone want to gloat?
quote:Originally posted by Puppy In the meantime, though, why do you want to repudiate some of the only modern cultures that are promoting stable marriage in an efficacious way?
I don't. I don't see any repudiation here.
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
Tom:
Thanks for the clarification; I'd read the Salon interview, and thought he'd said something of the sort, but there you go. Though I still think people ought to be less willing to bark over every comment he makes, I can see why that phrase might rile the feathers.
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Sterling: "Freedom of Religion" as codified in the United States Bill of Rights should be distinguished from "Freedom from Religion". --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That's a common slogan, Sterling, but it misses the point entirely. The First Amendment may not be aboeut freedom from religion, but it is most certainly about freedom from any particular religion.
Suppose the numbers of Catholics and Protestants were reversed in this country. Would it be justifiable for the government to make divorce illegal? Remarriage open to prosecution as bigamy?
quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Sterling: I might also suggest that there _could_ be reasons for opposing homosexual marriage other than a closed circle of "homosexuality is bad because homosexuality is bad therefore homosexuality is bad and in conclusion..." One might infer, for example, that the children of homosexuals are more likely to adopt promiscuous behaviors and spread sexually transmitted diseases. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One might infer any number of things. One might be making things up out of whole cloth in the doing.
In the first place, lesbians are far less likely to spread sexually transmitted diseases than heterosexuals. So maybe the government ought to think about only allowing marriage between women. Not that I'm suggesting such a ridiculous thing, but it follows from your "inference".
<sigh>
I don't know if you noticed from the greater context of my posting, StarLisa, but I pretty much completely agree with you. As to the former, I merely wanted to point out that the Bill of Rights exists not only to protect the individual from religious persecutions, but to protect the religious individual and religions as organizations from persecution by other individuals, religions, or the government. A matter on which we appear to both be thankful.
As to the latter, _I_ wouldn't "infer" any such thing, but others do. I merely wanted to be clear on the point that there may be more to the thought processes of those who oppose homosexual unions than a simple "gay=bad/evil" equation. You might note I _also_ said
quote:I don't happen to agree with these statements, as I think they are based on suppositions and that the potential good caused by allowing some manner of homosexual unions outweighs the potential harm, which I think is often exaggerated or imagined.
I love my daughter more than my own life. If some time in the future she revealed that she was a lesbian, my only negative feeling would be the fear for her for the increased difficulties she'd face in the society we live in.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Sterling:
quote:<sigh>
I don't know if you noticed from the greater context of my posting, StarLisa, but I pretty much completely agree with you. As to the former, I merely wanted to point out that the Bill of Rights exists not only to protect the individual from religious persecutions, but to protect the religious individual and religions as organizations from persecution by other individuals, religions, or the government. A matter on which we appear to both be thankful.
As to the latter, _I_ wouldn't "infer" any such thing, but others do. I merely wanted to be clear on the point that there may be more to the thought processes of those who oppose homosexual unions than a simple "gay=bad/evil" equation. You might note I _also_ said
[QUOTE]I don't happen to agree with these statements, as I think they are based on suppositions and that the potential good caused by allowing some manner of homosexual unions outweighs the potential harm, which I think is often exaggerated or imagined.
I love my daughter more than my own life. If some time in the future she revealed that she was a lesbian, my only negative feeling would be the fear for her for the increased difficulties she'd face in the society we live in.
Sterling, I did see that, as I read on, but you write cogently, and I didn't want to leave those claims unrefuted, even if they were offered as "devil's advocate" claims.
And I honestly do think that the vast, vast majority of people who have a problem with granting any sort of equal rights to gays and lesbians derive that opposition, ultimately, from a basic "Ew. Icky." sentiment.
Whether it is from a religious point of view or not, it's ultimately based on an emotional response, much as opposition to miscegenation was.
As I said, I'm an Orthodox Jew. The Torah that says "A man may not lie with a man in the manner of lying with a woman" is ours, and we take all of the laws in the Torah far more seriously than anyone else.
But the homophobia in the Orthodox Jewish community goes far, far beyond the parameters of that commandment. And I'm used to hearing members of my community using the Torah to support their personal feelings of "Ew. Ick.", rather than taking their feelings from the Torah.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Can people understand how the argument that OSC, one of most on this boards favorite writers in large part because of his clear and emotionally evocative writing, didn't actually mean what it seems clear to many that he wrote, that it was simply poor word choice, doesn't seem to be a strong one to some people? Especially as it's become a perrenial defense of his writing?
I think OSC is a very intelligent man, a writer of tremendous talent, and well versed in persuasive writing. When faced with a choice between believing that he chose "They'll just be playing dress-up in their parents' clothes." to imply that they'd be acting like children or that he's a poor enough writer to not realize that this is the clear implication of such a statement, I choose the former. Especially as it is in line with the other things he's said.
This is the man who said that we should have laws against gay sex on the books and from time to time throw some gay people in jail as a lesson to the rest of them.
Regarded the psychological health of gay people, he said:
quote: The dark secret of homosexual society -- the one that dares not speak its name -- is how many homosexuals first entered into that world through a disturbing seduction or rape or molestation or abuse, and how many of them yearn to get out of the homosexual community and live normally.
an idea (that this number is significantly large) that I know he didn't get from any reputable source because it's just not true.
On their decision making capability he's said:
quote:I'm amused that you think it doesn't hurt anyone. The homosexuals that I've known well, I have found none who were actually made happier by performing homosexual acts.
and
quote: They steal from me what I treasure most, and gain for themselves nothing at all.
And that's leaving aside his greater point that the pro-gay marriage movement is really just an outreach of the power group of people who hate families.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Can people understand how the argument that OSC, one of most on this boards favorite writers in large part because of his clear and emotionally evocative writing, didn't actually mean what it seems clear to many that he wrote, that it was simply poor word choice, doesn't seem to be a strong one to some people? Especially as it's become a perrenial defense of his writing?
I'm sorry, Squick, but to me, there's a big difference between someone who is mistaken and someone who is hateful. I do suspect that he was harsher with Donna Minkowitz because of her hostile attitude, but I certainly wouldn't defend his statements outside of that. He's wrong.
But someone can be wrong and still treated with some respect. And yes, even when he's dishing disrespect at you. I'd rather have someone use their critical faculties and disagree with me than have a hundred knee-jerkers grant me blind acceptance without firing a neuron.
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: This is the man who said that we should have laws against gay sex on the books and from time to time throw some gay people in jail as a lesson to the rest of them.
<raised eyebrow> Might I ask what your source is for that? Particularly the second one? Is it possible that you're engaging in a bit of hyperbole or reformulation of what he actually said?
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Regarded the psychological health of gay people, he said:
quote: The dark secret of homosexual society -- the one that dares not speak its name -- is how many homosexuals first entered into that world through a disturbing seduction or rape or molestation or abuse, and how many of them yearn to get out of the homosexual community and live normally.
an idea (that this number is significantly large) that I know he didn't get from any reputable source because it's just not true.
Well, you don't actually know that. And his statement was more rhetoric than assertion, because he doesn't even say "how many". He just implies that it's a lot. The dark secret of our society -- one that dares not speak its name (whatever that means) -- is how many people had their first sexual experience through a disturbing seduction or rape or molestation or abuse.
It's not what he said that's untrue, I don't think. It's what he implied. As an experienced writer, he knows how to use words.
As to the "wanting to get out" thing, there are Mormons who don't want to be Mormons. Jews who don't want to be Jews. There are people who want to get out of any number of situations that they're in, and often because they're treated like crud by others. If a Jew wants to assimilate, change his name from Jack Cohen to Rodney Dangerfield (no, I'm not kidding), and abandon any connection with Judaism, does it mean that there's something wrong with Judaism? Are ex-Mormons an indication of a fundamental flaw in the Mormon religion?
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: On their decision making capability he's said:
quote:I'm amused that you think it doesn't hurt anyone. The homosexuals that I've known well, I have found none who were actually made happier by performing homosexual acts.
and
quote: They steal from me what I treasure most, and gain for themselves nothing at all.
And that's leaving aside his greater point that the pro-gay marriage movement is really just an outreach of the power group of people who hate families.
I can understand him thinking that way. He's wrong, of course, but I get why he'd think it. I mean, most of the bigshots coming out in support of same sex marriage tend to be the same folks who sling around buzzwords like "patriarchy", and make no secret of wanting to tear down more than they want to build.
YMMV, but this is exactly one reason why I hate being represented by these people. Or being perceived as being represented by them. OSC is wrong, but what does he have to go on?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Geoff, I'm going to try and take it point for point.
First, I've never said that we need to pretend that religion doesn't exist. After multiple times of asking the question, I condensed "relies on defining homosexuality as wrong and harmful based on 'I believe my God say that it is wrong.'" to relies on religion.
If you accept that principle, I don't see what stops say a Baptist majority from saying that being LDS constitutes harm and passing laws agasinst this idea (such as, by default, taking the children away from the LDS parent in a divorce of a mixed religion marriage or barring LDS couples from adopting).
Not only do I value religion (while at the same time looking unfavorably on the seedy semblance of it that many people seem to offer up under this label), but I'm deeply religious myself. Just because I believe, based on both this religion and other factors, that religion is a personal thing and that forcing it on others is both not justifiable and likely to lead to a distortion of this religion, doesn't mean that I am without religion. Just because I don't share your faith, that doesn't mean that I am faithless. (And this is the second time I've been falsely accused of not being religious in this debate.)
---
I'm going to take objection to your description of society at large as some sort of consciously chosen cesspool that the morally superior religious people keep away from. Society is made up of religious people. 80% of our population selfidentify as Christians. If there's a problem with society (and I think there are many) I don't see how you can say that the overwhelming majority of people in that society aren't a part of it.
We haven't consciously chosen to treat marriage "as a contract of convenience between a romantic couple that wants to share their assets for a while, and who can decide at any time to back out of their agreement." We haven't "decided that a parent's boredom or lust or unwillingness to compromise trumps a child's need to have a family." When asked, most people would strongly reject these ideas as reflecting their conception of marriage.
---
And then, your description of the problems with marriage rely on a comparison to the way we never were. Marriage didn't enjoy a golden age in the 50s. It was severely troubled. Conjuring up some fantasty (from the tv shows of the time perhaps) to point to and say "Look at what you people decided to throw away." doesn't work for me.
You said: "We resort to law enforcement to track down deatbeat dads, where once we depended on a sense of honor and social disapproval of divorce and illegitimacy to keep those guys in their homes." which is true, but doesn't treat the fact that this sense of honor and social dispproval didn't work all that well. Consider the cliche'd description of Dad leaving to get a pack of cigarrettes and never coming back. This was a common way of ending a marriage in the time of no or little divorce. Also common, and to a large extent socially sanctioned, was physical and emotion wife and child abuse.
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Also, I wish people would stop making claims about social change that a brief look at the landmarks in the civil rights movement show to be wrong.
Saying, "When you depend on the police, and not social pressure, to do your social work for you, your society has already failed." doesn't really stand up in the face of things like this. Or has integrating the schools and the civil rights movement in general failed?
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quote:There ARE still subcultures in America that take marriage seriously for the purposes I've described — treating it as an honorable adult responsibility geared towards raising healthy and civilized families. The problem (for you) is the fact that most of these subcultures have managed to hold onto these values because it was a part of their faith. Where members of other subcultures might be more promiscuous, or might break up their marriages with less provocation, these people AREN'T and DON'T, and society benefits because of it.
Except that's not true, is it? I mean, KoM's already posted the divorce statistics that show that religious people (which comprise the vast majority of our population, remember) have a higher rate of divorce than non-religious - yes, yes, there are obviously issues using it this way, but you can hardly claim that they are less likely to break up their marriages - and that envangelicals, who make up likely the strongest block of anti-gay activists have just about the highest rate of divorce.
And, as I've said, I am extremely concerned about the state of marriage and the family in America, as are large numbers of other people and groups (or are you saying that the ASA, APA, and AAP don't actively promote stable marriages as the best environment for raising children? Because I can show that wrong with little effort.) who support gay marriage, many of whom are themselves religious and even Christian. Your argument seems to rest on me and many, many others like me not caring about marriage, where this couldn't be farther from the truth.
I mean, really, what you said is like saying that ony people who push abstinence only education are concerned with preventing STDs.
Besides which, I'm pretty sure we'd agreed some ways back that, even if you grant the dubious proposition that gay marriage is a going to hurt marriage, there are real threats to marriage that are far more serious and widespread than this which the por-marriage people don't seem to be doing anything about. In fact, part of the criticism leveled at these people is there twisting of the "protecting marriage" banner into being about being anti-gay and not about actually helping marriage out. There are serious problems out there, but they all seem to be concerned about bashing gays.
I don't buy into the hype and the slogans or the prejudices. Christians are not morally superior to everyone else in society. The people who are against gay marriage aren't anywhere near the only people who are strong supporters of marriage.
---
I don't see how saying that you can't use your religion as sole justification to legislate against other people is "repudiating" religion. Is the argument that some religious say "We want you to do this." and people not doing that constitutes repudiating religion? Because that doesn't make sense to me. Is it repudiating religion to strike down the anti-gay sodomy laws? Is it repudiating religion to insist that the government not raise Christianity to the status of the official state religion?
Is it only on this issue that would saying "No." would be a bad thing. I mean, if we accepted that this is repudiating them and that this is a bad thing logically shouldn't any similar "repudiation" be a bad thign for marriage and for society in general?
---
Finally, if OSC's essay making marriage out to be something that people don't want to chose to do but must for the survival of the species is the view of marriage you want me to support, you can forget it. If the what I see as the immature and weak morality of many of the people who claim to be religious is what you want me to support, if you think I should just assume ignore the evidence and assume that they are more concerned about what acutally makes marriage work than I, you can likewise forget.
Marriage, like most other things, is a lot more complicated to foster than saying "Marriage- Yay!" and punihsing people who don't do right. I find OSC's take on it, were it widespread, a much more serious attack on marriage than anything you could say about letting gay people marry.
People remain married because it is a meaningful relationship where they are building a life with each other and then with their children. They don't remain married because outside forces tell htem to or force them to. In the times of no divorce, there were tons of people who lived together as man and wife under the law who were yet not what I would considered married. If you're for a deeper understanding of what marriage is and can be and what we can do to foster this, I'm all for it. But I don't see this as being something that the anti-gay religious crowd is good at.
I don't think that religious people, or at least the ones you're championing, are right or the good guys here. Even if I did, I wouldn't support the substanital bigotry on that side nor the idea that they should be allowed to legislate their religion onto other people.
[ August 01, 2005, 03:29 PM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
starL, I don't see where I haven't treated him with respect here(although I've somewhat regreted word choice I've used elsewhere). Nor do I think he is hateful. I do think he is actively and consciously playing the demogouge, something I'm not sure I don't think is worse than being hateful.
As to the anti-sodomy laws, he said this:
quote:This applies also to the polity, the citizens at large. Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books, not to be indiscriminately enforced against anyone who happens to be caught violating them, but to be used when necessary to send a clear message that those whoflagrantly violate society's regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society.
I do know that he didn't get the idea that there are a large number of gay people who were sexually abused and are now trapped in a lifestyle they hate from a reputable source. I know the numbers (the APA does too and they've released a statement about these types of claims. I think it will be in the general policy statement of the APA I linked before.) and they don't support that claim at all. No reputable source would claim that they did.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:I don't see where I haven't treated him with respect here(although I've somewhat regreted word choice I've used elsewhere). Nor do I think he is hateful. I do think he is actively and consciously playing the demogouge, something I'm not sure I don't think is worse than being hateful.
(Italics mine).
Are you going for an Orwellian double-speak award?
Edit: I don't think Geoff was saying that marriage was hunky-dory in the 50s.
I don't think you understand the Civil Rights movement at all if you think it was thrust upon an unwilling population by force alone, and that it was police and military efforts that permitted its success.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
errr....what?
That is, what do you mean by the first part and what makes you think that I was suggesting that civil rights were thrust on an unwilling population by force alone? Or how would that characterization be at all analogous to the current gay rights issue?
Also, Geoff has consitently held the past up as this standard from which we have fallen. I don't find that it meets this criteria in anything except for the fantasy version that seems lodged in some people's minds.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Oh, and I do know for certain one thing: any statistics about the 'origins' of homosexuality are by definition suspect, whichever conclusions they point towards. Homosexuality at this point in America is not something that people are open and unafraid enough to discuss that they may be taken at face value, unfortunately.
Rather like distrubuting surveys in high schools for students to take in homeroom, but with a much less pleasant reason than just wanting to raise some hell-homosexuals are in the closet, homosexuals don't want to answer deeply personal questions, homosexuals just don't like taking surveys, not all homosexuals are asked, etc. etc.
Incidentally, I tend to believe that OSC's remark about anti-sodomy laws being kept on the books is probably designed as a means of hammering rapists and child-molesters with another layer of criminal charges. Again, I find it implausible that the man who wrote Songmaster would in any way support the random locking up of homosexuals 'caught in the act' just to 'send a message' to the other homosexuals out there.
But I disagree that such laws should be kept on the books.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Rakeesh, OSC seemed quite clear about who he meant. The part I quoted (taken from an essay that is entirely about homosexuality) is quite explicit about who he means:
quote:Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books
.
And you're wrong about statistics about the origins of homosexuality being by definition suspect. It can be terribly difficult to show a positive case (i.e. this factors cases homosexality), but it's much easier to prove a negative one. There's a nice two way test to see if sexual abuse is a significant causitive factor in homosexuality. You look at homosexuals to see if they have significantly more sexual abuse in their past and you look at people who have been sexually abused to see if they are significantly more likely to turn out to be homosexual. This test, along with tons of others testing the hypotheses that homsexuality is the result of sexual dsyfunction and/or psychopathology have return negative results.
Besides which, if we grant your idea, wouldn't OSC have then made a pretty definite and negative assumption based on very unreliable data?
Also, part of OSC's assumption was that there was a substantial aount of ego-dystonic homosexuality (i.e. gays who hate being gay). This is not accurate in anywhere near the levels to suggest that, even assuming that all of these people were sexually abused, which isn't true, that it would be a dark secret that no one dares to talk about.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
I don't know anything about ego-dystonic homosexuality, my point about the statistics being suspect is this: many, many homosexuals are in the closet.
How do you survey them, exactly?
Many, many crimes of sexual assault, child molestation, etc., go unreported. How do you survey victims of such crimes to follow up on their sexuality later in life?
Yes, I think OSC's statement is not factual, and was in fact made from anectdotal 'evidence'.
Child-molestation between a man and a boy could be considered, by a very bare-bones defintion, homosexual behavior. I do not, however, think that homosexuals are more likely to be child-molesters, for the reasons I stated above (we don't know enough about the homosexual population), and because there are lots of straight child-molesters out there too.
quote:Saying, "When you depend on the police, and not social pressure, to do your social work for you, your society has already failed." doesn't really stand up in the face of things like this. Or has integrating the schools and the civil rights movement in general failed?
You are suggesting here that it was through the efforts of police and government force that the civil rights movement was able to be as successful as it was (and please, don't deny that was an obvious assumption from that statement-you routinely call OSC to the carpet for assumptions that are equally 'obvious')
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:You are suggesting here that it was through the efforts of police and government force that the civil rights movement was able to be as successful as it was
Yes, yes I did. I'm not sure I understand your objection to this. Are you saying that the willingness to use and then application of force to ensure school integration was not a significant thing in the civil rights movement?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Surveying doesn't rely on testing an entire population. Rather, you take a subset of the population and use statistical methods to make inferences (with a defined percentage or error) about the population as a whole.
That there are cases of sexual abuse that go unrecorded and that there are homosexuals that aren't open about this do not invalidate studies of the correlation between these two things. They may introduce a source of eror, although that's one that studies of psychopathology have be aware of and long developed methods of dealing with.
edit: Also, do you still stand by your statement that OSC must have been talking about rapists and molestors in the quote where he says "I'm talking about homosexuals."?
edit 2: Also, I don't understand the Orwellian double-speak accusation from above. What did you mean by that?
[ August 01, 2005, 04:47 PM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
I'll assume you're not joking when you said you didn't understand my Orwellian remark, but how you could possibly be so obtuse is beyond me...
quote:I don't see where I haven't treated him with respect here(although I've somewhat regreted word choice I've used elsewhere). Nor do I think he is hateful. I do think he is actively and consciously playing the demogouge, something I'm not sure I don't think is worse than being hateful.
You say you aren't treating him with disrespect here, but then one sentence later you say you're convinced he's playing an anti-gay demagogue, doing so deliberately, and that it's worse than being a run-of-the-mill anti-gay bigot.
In what way is that possibly anything but disrespectful? I can't wait to hear this, although I'm sure the response will either be 1. That's not disrespectful or 2. I don't mean what I plainly said.
-----
I did not say OSC must have been talking about only rapists and molestors. I said it was possible he might have been doing so, in order to hammer rapists and molesters with another criminal charge. And since it is a sensitive subject, I was also careful to point out that I don't think that such things are behavior common or tolerable or any such thing to the vast majority of homosexuals.
I also said I think it's a mistake to keep such a law on the books even if OSC's intent was what I said it might be, for a variety of reasons.
--
quote:Surveying doesn't rely on testing an entire population. Rather, you take a subset of the population and use statistical methods to make inferences (with a defined percentage or error) about the population as a whole.
That there are cases of sexual abuse that go unrecorded and that there are homosexuals that aren't open about this do not invalidate studies of the correlation between these two things. They may introduce a source of eror, although that's one that studies of psychopathology have be aware of and long developed methods of dealing with.
Yes, I'm aware that a survey never surveys the entire population, but rather seeks a representative sample, and then makes inferences based on a survey of this representative sample. Haven't you been hearing me?
We do not know if the populations surveyed are a representative sample. Because many homosexuals, for good reason, don't admit they are homosexual. I'm not saying that studies about the truth about correlation between past sexual assault and current homosexuality are invalidated-personally I'm unconvinced either way, because of my uncertainty about such studies.
I would love to hear about methods psychopathology has of addressing doubt in statistical studies that, you must admit, may or may not be including whole swaths of the population. Studies whose samples, in short, we have no way of verifying that they're representative.
All that means to me as far as the issue of same-sex marriage is this: if you cannot prove it is harmful to parties other than the couple to be wed, then I believe equal rights, protections, and responsibilities simply must be applied to homosexuals in the same way I know 2+2=4. It's an obvious, as plain as the nose on your face application of equal protection under the law.
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
I know I'm setting myself up here, but I need to pipe in...
quote: All that means to me as far as the issue of same-sex marriage is this: if you cannot prove it is harmful to parties other than the couple to be wed, then I believe equal rights, protections, and responsibilities simply must be applied to homosexuals in the same way I know 2+2=4. It's an obvious, as plain as the nose on your face application of equal protection under the law.
You've pretty much hit the nail on the head on the crux of the problem. It seems a very reasonable request at first glance, and I can see why people would be in favor of it.
The problem I see is two-fold. First, this issue is so heavily influenced by personal bias that studies are immediately accepted or dismissed based on if their conclusions match one's beliefs. Can this issue ever really be "proven"?
That was a big issue between Squick and myself earlier in this thread. Of the five or so professional organizations with an opinion on the subject that he shared, only a couple cited previous studies to back up their claims...with nothing done earlier than 1994 and with sample sizes not always reputable to infer trends on a national level. Of the two with any links to studies at all, one was heavily connected with one homosexual advocacy group after another--clearly in that camp's back pocket.
Those studies that refuted gay marriage were dismissed as wrong, biased, or not to be trusted because they come from advocacy groups. The science wasn't even addressed. So who is to be trusted? Why would one professional organization with a very clear agenda be considered reputable, while another is considered biased? Because the one accepted coincides with one's personal beliefs, and the other does not.
With that kind of subjectivity, especially when we're dealing with a decade's worth of studies against hundreds of years of status quo, I find it both irresponsible and dangerous to start screwing around with such a huge social construct. It was so-called "evidence" cited to "prove" we needed to invade Iraq, and look where we are now. When it comes to disputed social agendas, studies are ever, if rarely, objective.
Second, Squick brings up a good point about making a separation between religious belief and scientific integrity. But the problem is that you can't in this regard. Making religion a second or third class citizen is contrary to the very notion of equal representation. We take all perspectives into consideration--scientific study, status quo, personal belief, religious thought, casual opinion--when laws are changed. This arrogant presumption that religion has no place reveals a level of bigotry often pronounced on others.
I have always been of the belief that such change ought to be the responsibility and accountability of the people. Not government. Not the courts. And everyone on all sides of this debate has a right to cast their vote. Both sides feel the other is morally and ethically wrong, and I seriously doubt most of them will cite a study when they cast their vote.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Rakeesh, If you know my answer, why don't you address it? I don't see how I was being disrespectful. Do you think saying you think someone is doing something that is wrong constitute disrespect?
---
You didn't suggest that it was possible that he might have been talking about rapists and molesters. You said:
quote:Incidentally, I tend to believe that OSC's remark about anti-sodomy laws being kept on the books is probably designed as a means of hammering rapists and child-molesters with another layer of criminal charges. Again, I find it implausible that the man who wrote Songmaster would in any way support the random locking up of homosexuals 'caught in the act' just to 'send a message' to the other homosexuals out there.
and I'm wondering how you can take a quote that is specifically talking about "Laws against homosexual behavior" in an essay about homosexuality and why it's wrong that at no point says that he's talking about rapists and molesters and say that it's implausible that he was talking about homosexuals and that you tend to believe that he was talking about rapists and molesters. Considering the very clear directedness towards homosexuals and the total absence of any mention of rapists and molesters in that part, what are you basing your belief on?
---
quote:We do not know if the populations surveyed are a representative sample.
You're wrong. We do know this. The studies followed established, reliable procedures of statistical population sampling. You may want to believe that they didn't, but you don't actually know anything about the studies, do you?
---
estavares, You didn't provide any studies showing that homosexual marriage was a bad idea. There was no science to address or ignore. You also made claims to information that you clearly did not possess and attempted to back it up with sources that didn't support it and one bit that was directly opposed to your claim. Thinking that you didn't prove your case didn't require bias, merely a tiny bit of common sense. It doesn't take bias or manipulation to show how someone who is just making things up is wrong.
Also, your description of the information I provided is very innaccurate.
There is no move here to treat religious people as second-class citizens. It is specicially about not letting people use their untransferrible, untestible values and biases as the sole justification for legislating against other people. It's not like people are trying to stop religious people from doing this thing that everyone else is allowed to do. Rather, it's removing this priviledged status from some religious people and making them follow the same rules as everyone else.
It's like suggesting that preventing the government from endorsing Christianity, just like every other religion, means you're making Christians second-class citizens. That's absurd.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Incidentally, I tend to believe that OSC's remark about anti-sodomy laws being kept on the books is probably designed as a means of hammering rapists and child-molesters with another layer of criminal charges.
Sounds pretty much like a "suggest[ion] that it was possible that he might have been talking about rapists and molesters."
How is it not?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Something about the difference between possibility and probability. The first statement implies that this is the most (or at least a definitely) likely thing. The second said, "Here's something that might be true." It's possible that OSC was talking about a lot of things. It's possible he when he said "Laws against homosexuals" he actually meant laws against all people who don't get married in a church, but it's not at all probable. Possibilities are endless. Probabilities, on the other hand, are strictly limited.
Also, to finish out the quoted part, he said:
quote:Again, I find it implausible that the man who wrote Songmaster would in any way support the random locking up of homosexuals 'caught in the act' just to 'send a message' to the other homosexuals out there.
That is, it is very unlikely that this quote:
quote:This applies also to the polity, the citizens at large. Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books, not to be indiscriminately enforced against anyone who happens to be caught violating them, but to be used when necessary to send a clear message that those whoflagrantly violate society's regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society.
was actually about using "Laws against homosexuals" to "send a clear message" that they "cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society".
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Incidentally, estavares, here's a little bit about some of your sources and how little they care about integrity. And who knows, maybe OSC got his information from these liars too.
[ August 02, 2005, 03:59 PM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
Squickster:
You are so good at taking people's words and changing them into something that did not exist. It's a very clever talent.
I never said religious people are being treated as second-class citizens. But you clearly said that religion as a basis of civil law or change has no place in our society. Did homosexuals push this issue because of studies revealing that their lifestyle was in all ways equal to traditional marriage? Of course not. They push this issue because it is what they want and how they feel and what they believe and no amount of studies contrary to their lifestyle will sway that view.
You hold to and push a double standard. This has everything to do with both sides pushing their own social agenda. When was science ever a real motivator in this debate? And when did recent studies have the weight to trump centuries of status quo? That sort of arrogance is as dangerous as doctors on TV hawking cigarettes in the 1950s.
EDIT: The majority of this article is about Dr. Cameron. One source I don't recall ever mentioning.
It's funny how the reporter states the APA have no "political agenda" yet they certainly make a point to lobby their ideas to government, all the while touting homosexual advocacy groups in their back pocket. Brilliant.
[ August 02, 2005, 04:36 PM: Message edited by: estavares ]
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Mr. Squicky,
I went out of my way to use like four different words in one paragraph that weren't declaring certainty, and then have said repeatedly that I think his word choice was careless in any case. I'll just drop that particular issue now.
quote:You're wrong. We do know this. The studies followed established, reliable procedures of statistical population sampling. You may want to believe that they didn't, but you don't actually know anything about the studies, do you?
Please, tell me how I'm wrong. Give details. I would love to hear what established, reliable procedures are capable of finding closeted homosexuals who do not want to be found.
You can be snide all you like, Mr. Squicky, but unless those studies are, like, using the Force or something to read people's minds, how are you sure you're finding true statistical samples of the homosexual population? That's almost like trying to find Communists in the 50s in America! People aren't always going to admit they're Communists for a very sensible fear of reprisal.
quote:There's a nice two way test to see if sexual abuse is a significant causitive factor in homosexuality. You look at homosexuals to see if they have significantly more sexual abuse in their past and you look at people who have been sexually abused to see if they are significantly more likely to turn out to be homosexual. This test, along with tons of others testing the hypotheses that homsexuality is the result of sexual dsyfunction and/or psychopathology have return negative results.
This is the only specific method you've mentioned, and it sounds to me-the ignorant layman, please, forgive me-as though its got one problem I've mentioned more than once. Sure, you can look at people who are public about their homosexuality and draw conclusions about them. And you can even study victims of sexual assault / child abuse and draw conclusions about them.
But you and I both know two things, Mr. Squicky. There are closeted homosexuals, and even worse, not all cases of sexual assault are reported. How do you include in any study of homosexuality or the sexuality of sex-crime victims, people you don't know are homosexuals and/or victims?
I'd be very interested in learning how you do that, as I've said. Please, tell me.
-----------
Estavares,
quote:I have always been of the belief that such change ought to be the responsibility and accountability of the people. Not government. Not the courts. And everyone on all sides of this debate has a right to cast their vote. Both sides feel the other is morally and ethically wrong, and I seriously doubt most of them will cite a study when they cast their vote.
I agree. Such changes should be the responsibility of the people, accountable and due to them, not the government. Wait...the government is the people, it is elected by the people, and when it displeases sufficient numbers of the people, it is changed.
I'm sorry, but we have some very compelling legal arguments about how the US Constitution-which is our ruling document, btw, we do what it says until we change it-says we are currently mistreating our homosexual minority.
Even more than that, we have some obvious, extremely compelling moral and ethical arguments as to why the continued persecution, discrimination, and second-class citizenry of homosexuals in America is abhorrent and wrong. I'm sorry, but as much and as well as I can understand your argument that 'the people' should be the ones doing the deciding, I think that line is drawn well before deciding that adult people who pay taxes, serve in the military, work honestly at decent jobs, and try to help one another, should be treated as second-class citizens.
I don't think all people who believe same-sex marriage should not be permitted are bigots. I don't think they're all hate-mongers. I don't think they're all demagogues. I think they've often started from some very basic assumptions about the world, and correctly from their view operate based on those assumptions, in doing so losing sight of one of the most basic assumptions of all about being an American: if you're an adult citizen of this country, you should get to live your life in your own private home, most especially in your bedroom, in your church, in your employment, in your voting-booth, etc., as you choose, so long as it does not infringe on anyone else's rights to do the same.
I know that's not the law of the land. I don't care. I don't care that the Founding Fathers never meant for same-sex marriage to be legal. I don't care that to the majority of Americans (and even, I must admit, to myself sometimes), homosexuality is something that makes us squeamish. I don't care that God tells most people that homosexuality is wrong. I don't give a flying damn about any of that.
They pay taxes. They vote. They're adults. They even, sometimes without us even knowing it, bleed with us. They're living right next to us, they're our brothers and sisters and co-citizens. Those things are facts. You need more than uncertainty about what their being permitted the same dignities as other Americans will do to future generations to deny them those same dignities.
-----------
Mr. Squicky,
One other thing.
quote:If you know my answer, why don't you address it? I don't see how I was being disrespectful. Do you think saying you think someone is doing something that is wrong constitute disrespect?
Now I personally think that being deliberately hateful is something that's pretty bad. In fact, I personally would categorize it as often being evil. You say that OSC is not being hateful, but in fact deliberately playing a demagogue. You say that this is perhaps worse than being hateful, and you expect me to take you seriously when you say you aren't being disrespectful?
Please. Speak plainly, for a change, I beg you.
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
Hey, he called him a "freaking nutjob" elsewhere, so his thoughts on OSC are plain.
Rakeesh:
It makes sense at first, but not caring about how God thinks is where the rift exists. People DO consider God's will higher than anything else. And granting legal and civil acceptance to an immoral lifestyle, in their opinion, is in full opposition of what promotes the means to a stable, healthy society. A few years of research will not dispel that belief, just as hunderds of years of religious thought doesn't convince people homosexuality is a sin.
This idea that we must rely only on short-term evidence is unrealistic at best, dangerous at worst. And this is not about denying anyone the right to live their life as they see fit. It's about getting a piece of a pie, especially when most of the slices are already available.
I'm all for basic rights for adoption and medical access and such for ANY two people who qualify of it. I do think there can be a solution that serves both sides, but it will never happen, because both sides will never be happy until their demands are met.
I figure if the barn doors open, then they open to everyone––polygamy, triads, concentual incest and any other alternative type of marriage should have legal status. Why stop there?
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:This idea that we must rely only on short-term evidence is unrealistic at best, dangerous at worst. And this is not about denying anyone the right to live their life as they see fit. It's about getting a piece of a pie, especially when most of the slices are already available.
I didn't say anything about evidence one way or another. But you lack any substantial evidence at all to say why it is harmful, aside from religious evidence. The law of America, the US Constitution, tells us that this is simply insufficient. Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's.
It is all about denying people the right to live their lives as they see fit. They want a piece of the pie, because they paid for the pie, too. Like I said: they pay taxes, they vote, they bleed with us, they are our co-citizens. It does't matter that 'most' of the slices are already available, they feel-rightly-that to deny them a few other slices is a slap in the face.
Which it is.
There are more than 'two sides'. Your side seems content with 'seperate but equal', estavares. If you're for everything that marriage entails, why not simply call it marriage or else just change the name to civil union? Who do you think you're kidding?
There's a reason 'slippery slope' is called a fallacy, you know. How much incest do you think is really consentual? Why shouldn't polygamy be legal? Frankly I find it distasteful, but so long as it is between adults at or beyond the age of consent who do, in fact, consent?
And anyway, just because someone will later try and marry their cat is insufficient reason to deny equal rights and protections and responsibilities to citizens who contribute and pay just as much today. You spoke of pies, estavares. Homosexuals are being charged $1.95 for a slice of pie, they're paying that price, and they're not getting the same slice that you or I do. They ain't gettin' apple pie a la mode, they're gettin' that McDonald's single-sliced boxed crap, and they hafta jump through hoops to get that. And when they do get that piece of crap slice of pie, they face persecution and scorn for having that much.
Incidentally, I did not say that I don't care what God things, I said I don't care what God tells most people to do on any given issue. In other words, I don't care what God tells you to do, Estavares, about same-sex marriage. God telling you something is insufficient reason to deny rights to someone else. We are governed by the US Constitution, which makes no space for one person getting told something by God and thus getting to deny some other person something.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:polygamy, triads, concentual incest and any other alternative type of marriage should have legal status. Why stop there?
Consensual incest is easy - it potentially victimizes the children of the union, and it's hard to say intergenerational incest is ever consensual.
As to poly- marriage, the answer is even easier. Almost all the legal benefit (as in benefit to the legal system) of marriage derives from the designation of one single person as a spouse's partner. We need to know who to get medical approval from when I'm unconscious? My wife. I died and left no will - who gets my retirement benefit? My wife. The key is that there is no one else in the world presumed to be more capable of speaking for me than my wife.
Once you introduce another person, all that disappears. Now we need a way to decide between two other people - something totally obviated by marriage now.
Of course, there are reasonable solutions to this problem. But every one adds a complication. Either you designate the "real" spouse, in which case you've really got a marriage and something less than a marriage, or you set up a bunch of rules for deciding these things, or you let the spouses designate a different person they want to fulfill each role.
But we already have a bunch of rules for deciding who an unmarried person's next of kin is. We already have a mechanism for any competent adult to change that designation, or decide who has financial power of attorney, or who has medical power of attorney, etc. Adding poly marriage to the mix adds nothing.
Now, I do think the policy enforced in the Reynolds decision which criminalized a person living with other willing partners is wrongheaded. Bigamy laws prohibiting one from getting married when already married are fine on a fraud basis; banning who lives with whom isn't.
Dagonee
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
Rakeesh:
I do like how you word things. Very vivid!
Of course the slippery slope idea seems absurd (and for the sake of my comment, it was), but this debate would have seemed absurd fifty years ago. The arrogance of so-called "modern" society is that the way things are now are somehow superior, self-evident and intuitive.
A big part of my issue with this subject earlier in this thread is the idea that as much as it seems we have the "right" to do just about everything we dang well please, "rights" are really the result of common culture rather than scientific conclusion. Let's get past this liberal flag-waving and fairness fantasy that does not exist, shall we? We allow abortion but can jail a pregnant woman for drinking alcohol. Why? Not because of science, but because a child with fetal alcohol syndrome will put a drain on society's resources.
Bottom-line, it's not about values. It's about me, me, mine, mine, more, more, more.
How is marriage ever a "right"? I've read the Constutution quite closely, and it doesn't say a thing about it. If we were talking about denying people the right to act your point would be made, which is why i am against sodomy laws. But this moral fury over making sure everyone who contributes to society gets their fair share is wonderful doctrine, but it never exists, nor should it.
Plenty of my money serves groups and people and issues I will never experience. Plenty of my money funds issues I oppose and groups I disagree with. My tax money is, right now, basically going to just about everybody else. I'm happy as all that gay people contribute, but this is a fundimental issue of the definition of marriage, and opponents believe that homosexuality is not consistent with that definition.
I can "define" myself as a female and get the reduced price during Happy Hour. It doesn't make me a girl, and it sure doesn't require the place to change their policy just because I make a stink over it.
Regardless if you don't like or agree with one's motives for their support or opposition to an issue, the simple fact is that everyone has the right to it. And there has not been enough evidence to support a practice that has only become vogue in the last thirty years or so. There is little long-term evidence, and frankly this assumption that it's harmless and inconsequential is exactly the problem.
You may not agree with the criteria, but it doesn't make it wrong.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:How is marriage ever a "right"? I've read the Constutution quite closely, and it doesn't say a thing about it.
"Rights" does not simply mean Constitutional rights. Rights are created at law all the time. I have a right to receive my paycheck if I do the work required. The employer has the right to fire me if if he follows applicable law. You have the right to post here - until OSC decides you don't.
The Constitution provides a floor for rights, not a ceiling. I oppose a judicial solution this, quite vehemently, but that doesn't mean I think it's OK to create an inherently unfair system.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Estavares,
quote:The arrogance of so-called "modern" society is that the way things are now are somehow superior, self-evident and intuitive.
All societies feel this way at some point or another, often at the same time that they yearn for the past. Part of being human, really. It is, however, equally arrogant and unsubstantiated that just because something has been done in the past, that such is how it's always been, that it is right, fair, effective, or even worthwhile.
quote:A big part of my issue with this subject earlier in this thread is the idea that as much as it seems we have the "right" to do just about everything we dang well please, "rights" are really the result of common culture rather than scientific conclusion.
The fact is, we do have the right to do just about what we dang well please, so long as it does not infringe on anyone else's rights. More or less all of our proscriptions by law are enforced and legislated to prevent one person from harming another, or the community.
quote:We allow abortion but can jail a pregnant woman for drinking alcohol. Why? Not because of science, but because a child with fetal alcohol syndrome will put a drain on society's resources.
You're wrong. We punish 'mothers' who drink while pregnant because they are deliberately and over a period of time inflicting harm on a child-to-be. Setting aside the inconsistencies with abortion that you appropriately pointed out, that child has the right not to be made a FAS baby.
We also do it because science has proven that drinking more than just a little during pregnancy harms a child.
Frankly I think you're judging Americans unfairly if you think they'd place "because it'll end up costing me money" at the top of the list as to why that sort of thing is criminal.
quote:How is marriage ever a "right"? I've read the Constutution quite closely, and it doesn't say a thing about it. If we were talking about denying people the right to act your point would be made, which is why i am against sodomy laws. But this moral fury over making sure everyone who contributes to society gets their fair share is wonderful doctrine, but it never exists, nor should it.
Dagonee quite correctly pointed out that the Constitution is not the ceiling of our rights. Just as even though the Bible does not mention phones, cars, the Internet, airplanes, and those things are not unChristian, just because the Constitution does not specifically include marriage as a right of all citizens does not mean that it is not, in fact, a right.
I'm sorry, you'll have to do better than that to make homosexuals jump through hoops you create to enjoy financial and legal protections that you do. That's what's at issue here, Estavares. A legal marriage in the United States of America is not just a religious ceremony, it quite explicitly grants legal and economic benefits and protections.
Just like 18 yr olds should have the right to vote if they can be drafted, homosexuals should enjoy the same opportunities as heterosexuals because they contribute. That's not some whimsical fanciful liberal doctrine (and frankly it's amusing that I'm being equated with a liberal flag-waver:) ), that's just simple justice.
They aren't hurting you, except for your sensibilities. Their money is as green, their vote counts for as much, and they bleed red on a battlefield just as well as you do. They should be accorded the same opportunities and protections as you are, Estavares. Your only justifications for denying them that are religious and/or based on uncertain sociological and psychological evidence. You should not be permitted to thrust the burden of proof onto them to prove that their lifestyles aren't harmful. Innocent until proven guilty.
quote:Plenty of my money serves groups and people and issues I will never experience. Plenty of my money funds issues I oppose and groups I disagree with. My tax money is, right now, basically going to just about everybody else. I'm happy as all that gay people contribute, but this is a fundimental issue of the definition of marriage, and opponents believe that homosexuality is not consistent with that definition.
Yes, and you have a say in how those tax dollars are spent. That's part of the deal you make by being an American. Why, exactly, are you happy that gay people contribute? It seems to me that if I were gay, I'd be pretty pissed off about it. Not as pissed as, say, a black man in the 50s, but upset nonetheless, and on the same level.
The definition of marriage in legal terms has nothing to do with the definition of marriage in religious terms, Estavares.
quote:Regardless if you don't like or agree with one's motives for their support or opposition to an issue, the simple fact is that everyone has the right to it. And there has not been enough evidence to support a practice that has only become vogue in the last thirty years or so. There is little long-term evidence, and frankly this assumption that it's harmless and inconsequential is exactly the problem.
Yes, I know everyone has a right to their opinion. Your opinion, however, reduces a minority of people in this nation to second-class citizens.
I think you're very, very seriously mistaken that you think homosexuality has just come into the vogue in the past thirty years ago. All over the world, throughout human history, it's been a practice humans have engaged in, for better or worse. Even in America, since its inception. But until very recently, a homosexual who wasn't closetted in America faced almost certain death or mutiliation. Happily that likelihood has decreased in the past three decades.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by estavares: How is marriage ever a "right"? I've read the Constutution quite closely, and it doesn't say a thing about it.
Oh, come now. The Constitution absolutely does grant all citizens equal rights under the law. The Constitution does not empower the government to tax us in order to give goodies to a favored group, but the government nevertheless gives perqs to married couples.
Well, fine, then. The government can't decide, on the basis of a particular religious point of view, that my brother and his wife are entitled to these perqs, and I and my partner are not.
quote:Originally posted by estavares: If we were talking about denying people the right to act your point would be made, which is why i am against sodomy laws. But this moral fury over making sure everyone who contributes to society gets their fair share is wonderful doctrine, but it never exists, nor should it.
I disagree.
quote:Originally posted by estavares: Plenty of my money serves groups and people and issues I will never experience. Plenty of my money funds issues I oppose and groups I disagree with. My tax money is, right now, basically going to just about everybody else. I'm happy as all that gay people contribute, but this is a fundimental issue of the definition of marriage, and opponents believe that homosexuality is not consistent with that definition.
Neither was miscegenation in its time. But the basic principle in the US is that the burden of proof is, and should be, on those who wish to deny equity to some. And when laws against interracial marriage were done away with, it wasn't necessary to "prove" that interracial marriage was harmless, or that it fit the definition of marriage. Nor should it be in this case. Once a flaw in our system is pointed out, appropriate action should be taken. In this case, that means allowing couples who aren't of the opposite sex to wed anyway.
quote:Originally posted by estavares: I can "define" myself as a female and get the reduced price during Happy Hour. It doesn't make me a girl, and it sure doesn't require the place to change their policy just because I make a stink over it.
Well, if you define yourself as female to the extent of making that change legal, it actually does.
quote:Originally posted by estavares: Regardless if you don't like or agree with one's motives for their support or opposition to an issue, the simple fact is that everyone has the right to it.
Everyone has the right to opine that I should be denied the rights given to my brother. That doesn't mean they have the right to actually deprive me of those rights.
quote:Originally posted by estavares: And there has not been enough evidence to support a practice that has only become vogue in the last thirty years or so.
There doesn't need to be. The burden of proof is on those seeking to deny equal rights.
quote:Originally posted by estavares: There is little long-term evidence, and frankly this assumption that it's harmless and inconsequential is exactly the problem.
You may not agree with the criteria, but it doesn't make it wrong.
You can't just say, "Gee, I think same sex marriage is icky, so let's continue to deny it until they manage to prove that it isn't icky." That's ludicrous.
Lisa
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
HOLY @$%#!
I'm being ganged up on!!!!!!
I've learned to fight one, maybe two opponents at once, and my jujitsu skills are marginal, but an overwhelming pummelling by liberals ain't my idea of fair play.
I mean, were the bats and spiked chains really necessary?
THWACK! (crunch) PFFUMP! (oof)
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by estavares: It makes sense at first, but not caring about how God thinks is where the rift exists. People DO consider God's will higher than anything else.
Well, some people do. And some people who consider God's will higher than anything else disagree with you about what God's will is.
That's what the non-establishment clause is about, estavares. You don't get to force your religious definitions on other people.
I've seen how you've been labeling everything that disagrees with one set of religious views as "anti-religious". That's dishonest.
quote:Originally posted by estavares: And granting legal and civil acceptance to an immoral lifestyle, in their opinion, is in full opposition of what promotes the means to a stable, healthy society.
I'll ask you what I asked Puppy. If Catholics were the majority in this country, would you be cool with them making divorce illegal and remarriage prosecutable under bigamy statutes?
See, the difference between laws and the Constitution is that the Constitution contains things that aren't supposed to be up to a simple majority. Because we all know how easily some of those things can be corrupted.
Religion is high on that list, and for good reason. Too many Christians don't get that the US is different. That this is one place where they aren't allowed to rule others with their religion. It's hard for them to swallow, because, as we all know, the history of Western civilization for the past umpteen centuries is all about attempts to use Christianity as a bludgeon to pummel everyone else with.
You can't do that here.
It doesn't matter how much you want to; you can't do that here.
quote:Originally posted by estavares: This idea that we must rely only on short-term evidence is unrealistic at best, dangerous at worst. And this is not about denying anyone the right to live their life as they see fit. It's about getting a piece of a pie, especially when most of the slices are already available.
Evidence is only necessary on the part of those who want to deny someone their rights. Not on the part of those who are claiming their rights.
quote:Originally posted by estavares: I figure if the barn doors open, then they open to everyone––polygamy, triads, concentual incest and any other alternative type of marriage should have legal status. Why stop there?
Lame. There were slippery slopers who claimed that if whites and blacks could marry, it'd lead to whites marrying chimps. Hasn't happened yet.
Lisa
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by estavares: I know I'm setting myself up here, but I need to pipe in...
quote: All that means to me as far as the issue of same-sex marriage is this: if you cannot prove it is harmful to parties other than the couple to be wed, then I believe equal rights, protections, and responsibilities simply must be applied to homosexuals in the same way I know 2+2=4. It's an obvious, as plain as the nose on your face application of equal protection under the law.
You've pretty much hit the nail on the head on the crux of the problem. It seems a very reasonable request at first glance, and I can see why people would be in favor of it.
The problem I see is two-fold. First, this issue is so heavily influenced by personal bias that studies are immediately accepted or dismissed based on if their conclusions match one's beliefs. Can this issue ever really be "proven"?
Why do you think it needs to be? Barring proof that it's harmful, the principle of equality in this country requires a presumption of no harm, no foul.
quote:Originally posted by estavares: With that kind of subjectivity, especially when we're dealing with a decade's worth of studies against hundreds of years of status quo, I find it both irresponsible and dangerous to start screwing around with such a huge social construct.
There's no power to a status quo. Certainly none that overrides the preeminent principle upon which this country was founded. When we come upon an area in which those principles are not being respected, the proper response is to fix it. Not to demand that the victims of discrimination "prove" that they shouldn't be discriminated against.
quote:Originally posted by estavares: Second, Squick brings up a good point about making a separation between religious belief and scientific integrity. But the problem is that you can't in this regard. Making religion a second or third class citizen is contrary to the very notion of equal representation.
No one is talking about any such thing. In fact, religion isn't a citizen at all. And in further fact, there's no such thing as a monolithic thing called "religion". There are religions. Plural. Hell, my religion says that Christianty bears the same relation to Judaism that Mr. Hyde did to Dr. Jeckyl. Aren't you lucky that we aren't entitled to create laws based on that.
quote:Originally posted by estavares: We take all perspectives into consideration--scientific study, status quo, personal belief, religious thought, casual opinion--when laws are changed. This arrogant presumption that religion has no place reveals a level of bigotry often pronounced on others.
Religion is far more easily abused than those other perspectives. That's precisely why it isn't left to lawmakers to operate in that realm the way they can in others. The past 2000 years have shown us what we can expect from certain religions when they take power. It's not pretty for the rest of us.
quote:Originally posted by estavares: I have always been of the belief that such change ought to be the responsibility and accountability of the people. Not government. Not the courts. And everyone on all sides of this debate has a right to cast their vote. Both sides feel the other is morally and ethically wrong, and I seriously doubt most of them will cite a study when they cast their vote.
You don't have the right to deny me my rights because of an opinion. You bear a burden of proof. And if the only support you can bring for denying me the same rights you have is that your religion says so, then you have no admissible support whatsoever.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by estavares: HOLY @$%#!
I'm being ganged up on!!!!!!
I've learned to fight one, maybe two opponents at once, and my jujitsu skills are marginal, but an overwhelming pummelling by liberals ain't my idea of fair play.
"Liberals." Heh. Boy, are you in for a surprise. If there's one thing I'm not, it's a liberal. Except, of course, in the sense of supporting liberty. But then, libertarian is probably a better term for that.
The fact that I'm gay doesn't make me a liberal, sonny. Not by a long shot.
quote:Originally posted by estavares: I mean, were the bats and spiked chains really necessary?
THWACK! (crunch) PFFUMP! (oof)
<dryly> Gosh. I'm just laughing hysterically...
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:I've learned to fight one, maybe two opponents at once, and my jujitsu skills are marginal, but an overwhelming pummelling by liberals ain't my idea of fair play.
Hehehehehe. Rakeesh, we're liberals now!
(starLisa, I don't know enough about your political views, but if applicable, two of those laughing heads are for you. If not, Rak and I will just have three each.)
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
Wow, called dishonest AND lame. The sharp, pointing wit on this thread continues to amaze--especially when I already labeled my slippery slope "absurd."
There is a difference between between anti-religious and calling people on their bias of denying religion as a basis for action. I've never accused anyone of being anti-religious--what I find hypocritical is that one belief system is allowed full reign, protected under the Constitution, and another is somethered by half-baked attempts to pull the "church vs state" concept which has little, to nothing to do with this issue.
What proof does anyone have that a specific religion would be promoted by banning equal benefits to gay couples? As far as I understand it, every major religion condemns homosexuality, regardless of all the justification and choosing not to ascribe to that particular doctrine. I could be Baptist, LDS, Muslim, Jewish or Nothing At All and still believe it to be a moral wrong. Some opponents use their religion as a basis, but to presume it's the ONLY motive shows a narrow, demonizing point of view that's just as insulting.
The Constitution protects ANY major belief system from dominating the other; that's the whole notion of equal representation. Like I've said before, I think this issue ought to be the people amending their state constitutions to decide this issue once and for all. Gay marriage was never implied or inherent when any constitution was drafted because the very notion was beyond thought a long time ago.
And BTW, the burden of proof is on those seeking to change the status quo. Let's be clear about this. This is an attempt to officially change a major social construct and you think the status quo has to PROVE it's the best way? What kind of smart-aleck bully tactic is that? Thousands of years of proof versus a few years of studies?
Come on. Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
StarLisa:
Wow. I'm enjoying a lively debate and you have to get all personal. You certainly can't be considered conservative so insert whatever moniker best describes you.
Sheesh. Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: Thousands of years of proof versus a few years of studies?
What have the last few thousand years proven? Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
One bit of insight I've gleaned from this discussion/debate/gripefest is that our society has taken male/female relationships pretty much for granted. It's been the overall accepted means (with the exception, of course) of a family structure, foundation of a family, and the primary means to impart values and tradition upon the next generation.
So the concept of "proven" means that it's basically worked since whatever beginning one accepts. It's like demanding that we breathe water instead of air; there's not a heck of a lot of studies on the subject in general, because it's just an accepted notion that air breathing is the norm.
My thought is that not every change is good, and not every status quo is good, but something so monumental as those changes being proposed ought to be made by more than just because we want it.
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
But, letting gays and lesbians is NOT going to destroy or change the structure in any way. People, whether you nag or cajole them or not will get married, have babies, divorce, possibly abandon their kids, have healthy relationships no matter how many gays get married or have civil ceremonies, or whatever. Life will go on! Focusing on this so-called homosexual threat just gives politicians a way to rally up voters and it distracts from the REAL problems that families face that many people refuse to deal with. Especially politicians. Makes no damn sense to go on and on about gay marriage when there are families out there that can't even support themselves on 3 jobs!
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: So the concept of "proven" means that it's basically worked since whatever beginning one accepts.
I'm not sure I'm willing to grant this. The structure of marriage has changed dramatically throughout human history, and has even changed dramatically in just the last two hundred years. The one thing that's been consistent is that it's biologically necessary for a man and a woman to get together to produce a child -- but pretty much everything else was considered negotiable.
In other words, you're assuming too much: namely, that the American model of marriage that exists today (or existed in the 1940s) is the model that has been "proven" over the last six thousand years, and also that what its existence has "proven" is in some way a direct consequence of heterosexual marriage and not merely other social strictures.
I'm not willing to take either of these as givens.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by estavares: StarLisa:
Wow. I'm enjoying a lively debate and you have to get all personal. You certainly can't be considered conservative so insert whatever moniker best describes you.
Sheesh.
I most certainly can be called conservative, and that's precisely what I am. What, I can't be conservative because I'm gay? That's the litmus test? Or is it because I'm not a Christian?
You need to get out more. Honestly. I voted for Reagan, Perot and Bush (Jr.). I wouldn't walk out my front door wearing slacks or a sleeveless shirt, because it's contrary to the laws of modesty in my religion.
You think you're religious? Sure. I don't eat or drink anything without making sure that it conforms to all of God's laws and without first saying a special prayer, which differs depending on the type of food. There's a prayer after eating as well, and again, that differs depending on the type of food.
I was crazy excited that I won free tickets to see Batman Begins before it actually opened in theaters. And in Imax, to boot. Until I realized that the showing was going to be on a Jewish holiday, which commemorates God's revelation at Mount Sinai, and on which we're not allowed to do certain things. So I missed it.
Then my brother (not religious) invited me to a Neil Diamond concert with him and his wife. He and I had gone with a friend to see Diamond in concert when we were younger. And my brother and I have had some difficulties between us over the past few years. So it was really heartening to be invited like that.
But then I remembered that right now, we're in the middle of a three week quasi-mourning period in which we don't go to see concerts and the like. So I had to say no.
Yeah, I don't have a lot of trouble abiding by God's word, and I have little to no patience for the knee jerk liberal crowd out there.
I don't think abortion is murder (mostly because God says so), but I do think it's forbidden except for cases in which the mother's life is threatened. Also because God says so.
So the nuts who blow up abortion clinics think I'm liberal scum, and the shrill "we can do whatever the hell we want" crowd that think abortion is a form of birth control think I'm a jackbooted fascist Nazi.
Personally, I don't give a cr*p. But what bugs me is when someone is clearly lumping me in with a crowd that I obviously don't belong to, purely because I'm gay. That's bigotry.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee:
quote:I've learned to fight one, maybe two opponents at once, and my jujitsu skills are marginal, but an overwhelming pummelling by liberals ain't my idea of fair play.
Hehehehehe. Rakeesh, we're liberals now!
(starLisa, I don't know enough about your political views, but if applicable, two of those laughing heads are for you. If not, Rak and I will just have three each.)
<grin> Well, you probably know now. Thanks for the heads.
Lisa
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:You think you're religious? Sure. I don't eat or drink anything without making sure that it conforms to all of God's laws and without first saying a special prayer, which differs depending on the type of food. There's a prayer after eating as well, and again, that differs depending on the type of food.
And you brag about it, too, so clearly you must be Really Religious (tm). If it just comes down to doing awkward stuff because you think your god tells you to, aren't all those suicide cults still more religious than you are? Certainly they've really proved their devotion, not to mention being poster examples of evolution in action.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Hey! Don't you go giving out my laughing rolling heads, Dag!
You two'll just hafta have 1.5 rolling laughing heads betwixt the twoayas.
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
StarLisa:
Now you call me a bigot. It just keeps getting better! You need to stop jumping to conclusions and, it sounds like, so do I.
_________
Tom:
I see what you're saying, but that isn't necessarily true. The history of family, especially in regards to bond pairs, has had its alternatives...but time and time again it returned to a basic male/female construct in most major civilizations over the last ten thousand years or so.
Granted that played out varied widely, and what we deem as marriage today is much different than, say, among the Aztecs or ancient Chinese. But we're talking about a major shift (and possible legal recognition) of something much different, regardless of the soothsayers who claim it's exactly the same.
In all my studies I'm not familiar with any major civilization where homosexual bonds were the core form of family and considered on par with male/female pairings. Obviously some of the Ancient Greeks dallied from time to time, and some East Indies tribes practiced it to the point of extinction, but I'm not aware of any historical situation that quite rivals this current debate.
Any thoughts?
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by starLisa: Yeah, I don't have a lot of trouble abiding by God's word
I've been avoiding posting in this thread, because I have no real interest in being part of the latest iteration of this endlessly debated topic.
However, I have to ask. How do you reconcile the way you live -- publicly flaunting your violation of a pretty significant prohibition -- with "I don't have a lot of trouble abiding by God's word"? I am really not trying to be snarky. I simply cannot wrap my head around the concept.
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
I've been away for a while, and I really don't feel like I can catch up with where this debate has gone, SO ... I'll just answer a few posts that were directed at me a page or so ago ...
Lisa, most of your points are not things I disagree with. I don't think that all religious people are shining paragons of virtue, nor do I think that all homosexuals or atheists are hedonistic pigs We've got both types of people in both camps. My main point in that post was simply that religion should not be discounted or marginalized because it has a unique ability to inspire people to make positive choices that they would not otherwise make. It doesn't always work, and it has worked LESS and LESS as our society has valued religion less and less.
However, Squick surprises me in a later post, when he (as the person on this board who is MOST touchy about people misrepresenting his implications, who holds people to reading only the precise, literal wording of his posts, and who refuses to even acknowledge the idea that his words might have connotations that he should be responsible for) misrepresents my position about "teh past"
I never singled out "the fifties" as some kind of golden age. Every decade has had its failures and its victories. America in the fifties was segregated, but that was also when we laid the groundwork for the Civil Rights movement. There were a lot of bad marriages, but there were also a lot of good ones. It may be foolish to idealize a "golden age", but it is no less foolish to demonize a decade as a "dark age" and focus only on its failings, rejecting even the things that it did well.
We have developed a level of sophistication and openness about sex and fairness between the sexes in this country that is unprecedented in America's history, and in some ways, throughout world history. If we were to combine those virtues with the virtues of fidelity and commitment to marriage that our culture possessed in the past, we might be able to do much BETTER than either decade ever could.
What I mean when I talk about what we've lost is that we should make sure we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. We have made a lot of good progress over the past several decades ... but it is hardly time well-spent if simultaneously we throw out a lot of good and valuable parts of our culture. If we do that without some level of restraint and care, we risk ending up in a position that is no better than where we started -- just different.
quote:But consider: gay and lesbian couples can't have children by accident. It's impossible. When we do, it's because we've thought it through and planned everything.
That is absolutely true. But it kind of serves as a reason to focus our marriage customs on heterosexual pairings It is heterosexual couples, after all, who are the baby factories, whether they want to be or not. They are the ones who NEED societal institutions to hold them in their ever-growing families, and to teach them restraint before commitment Not that THAT idea means anything anymore for most of the country. Even among many religious people, it is now thought of as unreasonable to expect a heterosexual couple to remain chaste until they have established a solid, committed foundation for their families. Have we simply given up on the idea that people can control their own actions?
quote:But... whose religion? I have a former friend who is Wiccan. Does her religion deserve less protection from the law than yours or mine?
Have I ever suggested that one religion should be protected above another? Heck, if the extreme end of the Christian Right had their way, my religion would be one of the first ones outlawed
quote:Don't assume that "religious" and "gay" are so separate. And I'd be happy with civil unions if they were supported on a federal level, and if they carried 100% of the rights and responsibilities of federally recognized marriage. I won't quibble about the word. But people with a Vermont civil union can't file their taxes jointly. Neither can married couples in Massachussetts.
Then we agree I don't think that "civil unions" should be second class in any way. I simply think that by establishing a second terminology, we free some religious groups in this country to more effectively do their jobs and transmit their values without needing to constantly redefine their terms and fight against a competing version of the same institution.
quote:Wow. That seems a little bitter. Why would anyone want to gloat?
Note that that "gloating" comment wasn't directed at you Hang around Squick a little longer, and you'll see where I get the edge in my voice.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:You think you're religious? Sure. I don't eat or drink anything without making sure that it conforms to all of God's laws and without first saying a special prayer, which differs depending on the type of food. There's a prayer after eating as well, and again, that differs depending on the type of food.
And you brag about it, too, so clearly you must be Really Religious (tm).
My point was that when faced with what God wants me to do and what I might prefer to do, I do what God wants. I was illustrating that because the context seemed to require it.
In fact, in Judaism, we have a saying:
Make God's will your will, so that He will do your will as His will. --Chapters of Principles
The idea is to actively work to change your own values to conform to those that God wants. The result is that when God does His will, as He always does, you'll be getting what you want.
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: If it just comes down to doing awkward stuff because you think your god tells you to, aren't all those suicide cults still more religious than you are? Certainly they've really proved their devotion, not to mention being poster examples of evolution in action.
Dude, I hardly think that God's word is comparable to suicide cults. He made the world, He gets to make the rules. I have no problem with that.
But I don't care what you think about my religion. The point is that despite my commitment to it, I would never try and force its standards into the law here in the US. That doesn't make me a liberal; it makes me respectful of the purposes for which this country was founded.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by estavares: StarLisa:
Now you call me a bigot. It just keeps getting better! You need to stop jumping to conclusions and, it sounds like, so do I.
Thanks. And maybe I was wrong, too. I was disturbed by your assumption that I was a liberal, and concluded that it was due to my being gay. If I was wrong, I apologize.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by rivka:
quote:Originally posted by starLisa: Yeah, I don't have a lot of trouble abiding by God's word
I've been avoiding posting in this thread, because I have no real interest in being part of the latest iteration of this endlessly debated topic.
However, I have to ask. How do you reconcile the way you live -- publicly flaunting your violation of a pretty significant prohibition -- with "I don't have a lot of trouble abiding by God's word"? I am really not trying to be snarky. I simply cannot wrap my head around the concept.
Hi Rivka. From your name, I assume you're Jewish? Would you mind telling me what that "pretty significant prohibition" is? I'm not trying to be cute; I just think you may be jumping to conclusions.
The prohibition in the Torah is specific to anal sex between men. The extension of that to other intimacies between men, well, it's a dispute between Maimonides and Nachmanides as to whether it's a rabbinic prohibition or a Sinaitic one. Either way, it's a prohibition.
In the case of women, it's a whole other issue. The verses that are so often quoted in the Torah have absolutely not one thing to do with two women. That said, there is a short discussion in the Talmud (Yevamot 76a) where it was necessary to bring an example of a law that was not decided according to Rav Huna, a major rabbinical figure.
The example was Rav Huna ruling that women who engage in imitation of heterosexual intercourse become disqualified from being able to be married to a Kohen (priest). The Talmud notes that this isn't the law, and that such behavior is "mere lewdness".
Maimonides later linked this discussion with a source that talks about the acts of the Egyptians, which we're commanded not to emulate. As a result, he determined that the act characterized in the Talmud as "mere lewdness" is an actual prohibition.
The problem is one of translation. Most English translations of the term nashim ha-mesollelot come out as something like "lesbianism" or "lesbian acts". But that's merely a convenient way to translate. It's like translating tum'ah and taharah as "purity" and "impurity". It's done, but only because translations are understood to be approximations of the original, and never an exact representation of the original. If you want to know what the Torah or rabbinical literature really say, you need to look in the original.
One prominent rebbetzin (that's a rabbi's wife, for those of you who don't know) told someone I know that the thing that's prohibited is tribadism, or laying together in what's called the "missionary position".
Now... my partner and I own a house together. Is there something about that you think is wrong? We are raising our daughter together. Legally, we are both her parents. Is there something you think we're violating in Jewish law by raising her? We are sending her to an Orthodox day school in the fall, when she starts kindergarten.
I'm not sure what it is that we're supposedly transgressing. Could you elaborate, please?
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
I am indeed Jewish (and Orthodox, for that matter).
I am familiar with all the arguments you just made. I happen to disagree with several of your conclusions. Moreover, I am not familiar with any rabbanim (that I would consider mainstream) who agree with them.
I am not interested in debating the point. But you answered my question, thanks.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
For the record, starLisa, not caring what King of Men thinks about your religion is a very wise position to take:)
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Lisa's just lucky she's lesbian. If she were a gay man, she'd be in a real pickle. *laugh*
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by rivka: I am indeed Jewish (and Orthodox, for that matter).
I am familiar with all the arguments you just made. I happen to disagree with several of your conclusions. Moreover, I am not familiar with any rabbanim (that I would consider mainstream) who agree with them.
I am not interested in debating the point. But you answered my question, thanks.
I respect your not wanting to debate the point, but you did accuse me of "publicly flaunting your violation of a pretty significant prohibition". As a courtesy, and without any intent on my part of debating the point with you either, would you explain what the "pretty significant prohibition" is that you're referring to, and in what way I am violating it?
I ask this in all seriousness, because if I am violating a prohibition, pretty significant or not, I want to know, so that I can stop it.
If I'm not, I will limit myself to a simple statement to that effect (silence is considered tantamount to agreement, as I think you know), and will not debate the issue with you unless you change your mind at some point.
Thanks, Lisa
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by starLisa: As a courtesy, and without any intent on my part of debating the point with you either, would you explain what the "pretty significant prohibition" is that you're referring to, and in what way I am violating it?
I ask this in all seriousness, because if I am violating a prohibition, pretty significant or not, I want to know, so that I can stop it.
I forgot to add that you can e-mail me a reply, if you'd rather not even clarify your statement here on the forum. My e-mail address is lisa at starways dot net.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Lisa's just lucky she's lesbian. If she were a gay man, she'd be in a real pickle. *laugh*
<blank look> I don't get it.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I think he's alluding to the fact that a gay Orthodox Jewish man would have no outlet for his natural sexual urges.
I think.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Dude, I hardly think that God's word is comparable to suicide cults. He made the world, He gets to make the rules. I have no problem with that.
Quite so. And if you really, truly believed that God had made rules that required you to die, right at this moment - would you drink the Kool-Aid? Also, just why is "God made rules about what I can wear" different from "God made rules about how long I can live", except as a matter of degree and popularity? Faith is faith.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:Dude, I hardly think that God's word is comparable to suicide cults. He made the world, He gets to make the rules. I have no problem with that.
Quite so. And if you really, truly believed that God had made rules that required you to die, right at this moment - would you drink the Kool-Aid? Also, just why is "God made rules about what I can wear" different from "God made rules about how long I can live", except as a matter of degree and popularity? Faith is faith.
I've never understood the idea of faith. I don't profess any, myself. I think there's a major difference between faith and conviction. Evidence means nothing to someone operating on the basis of faith. But conviction is different. Show me that Judaism isn't true, and I'm gone. It's not like I particularly enjoy not being able to do as I wish.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
OK, that's a whole separate discussion. But I'm curious to hear how you think dietary requirtements and whatnot differ in kind from a requirement to die at a certain time.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by starLisa: I respect your not wanting to debate the point, but you did accuse me of "publicly flaunting your violation of a pretty significant prohibition". As a courtesy, and without any intent on my part of debating the point with you either, would you explain what the "pretty significant prohibition" is that you're referring to, and in what way I am violating it?
Since you already expressed your view on the matter in question without me being specific, I see no reason to rehash.
Your view on certain halachic issues is very different than mine. I leave the issue between you and God, as it should be.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Mr. Squicky,
quote:You're wrong. We do know this. The studies followed established, reliable procedures of statistical population sampling. You may want to believe that they didn't, but you don't actually know anything about the studies, do you?
Well? What procedures? Tell me about these established procedures, please.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: OK, that's a whole separate discussion. But I'm curious to hear how you think dietary requirtements and whatnot differ in kind from a requirement to die at a certain time.
The question is a loaded one, but I'll bite. The difference is the source of the requirement.
If someone comes up to me, places a gun to my head, and says, kill King of Men or I'll kill you, I'll do my level best to avoid it, but if left with no alternative but to kill you or die myself, I'll choose the latter.
If someone comes up to me, places a gun to my head, and says, here's a pagan idol. Get down on your knees before it and pray, or I'll blow your brains out, the same thing would apply. I'd try and kill the person with the gun, but if the only way I could save my life was to worship that idol, I'd say Shema and die.
As far as drinking the Kool-Aid, well, number one, God wouldn't require that, and number two, Kool-Aid isn't kosher anyway.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: I'd try and kill the person with the gun, but if the only way I could save my life was to worship that idol, I'd say Shema and die.
Really? Hm. See, I'd much rather throw myself on God's mercy and understanding by pretending to worship a false idol than be the agent of someone else's death.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
People jump so quickly to the "would you drink the Kool-aid?" question like it's supposed to stump religious people or prove them wrong, which I don't quite understand.
People are responsible for their choices. Religion can inform those choices, but what you do is still always up to you. If someone would rather die than risk violating their faith, then that's a decision they made. If for some reason, that question came up for me, I suspect that I would probably raise an eyebrow and question why my faith would demand such a pointless sacrifice. It's totally out of character for the religion I believe in, so it would take some kind of massive change in my own perspective to get me to make that choice. In other words, if it happened right now, I wouldn't do it, because it wouldn't fit with what I already believe.
But either way, what does the anti-religionist posing the question gain from my answer? Either I would drink it or I wouldn't. That says something about me, but since it's a hypothetical situation, it says absolutely nothing about my actual beliefs. Does my answer somehow make my beliefs particularly true or false? Not as far as I can tell.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Well, really, what does anyone gain from any discussion at all on the Internet? But apart from that, I am not trying for any gain to myself; I am trying to help you, from purely altruistic motives. (Well, almost purely altruistic; obviously, the more atheists we have, the better off society is. But it's a pretty indirect benefit.) The point is to realise that the rituals demanded by various religions are almost totally arbitrary, and rather silly.
quote:As far as drinking the Kool-Aid, well, number one, God wouldn't require that, and number two, Kool-Aid isn't kosher anyway.
I'm sure you could get the cyanide in water instead. But how do you know that your god wouldn't require that? After all, many people have had gods who demanded exactly such things - not only recent suicide cults, but the Aztecs on a vast scale, and indeed Yahweh before Abraham, if the OT is to be trusted on this. How do you know some prophet won't appear tomorrow and say "OK, show's over, time for some human sacrifices for appeasement again." (This is especially relevant to the Mormons, who believe in ongoing revelation.)
I think, quite honestly, you are being rather glibly defensive here, and refusing to think about the question. As you pointed out, your god makes the rules; fine, why can't he make a rule requiring you to kill yourself, or your firstborn son, or whatever? And if he did, how is that any different from a rule requiring you to wear long pants?
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
It's a valid question; one of the big reasons why religion is often dismissed is that its practitioners either A) follow blindly or B) pick and choose whatever doctrine they feel like following, revealing self-interest rather than real faith.
Though this tangent came up regarding Jewish belief, I've no knowledge of it. I'll not speculate one way or another, as it's not my place.
At the same time, this idea that people simply do things just because "God told them/told them not to do it" is patently absurd. This simplistic approach to spirituality is as silly as the assumption that those who support gay marriage are all anti-religion.
I can only relate my own experiences on the matter. I follow my belief system because I recieved a change of heart independent from influence, it makes sense to me, and I am reassured time and time again when those choices I make lead to greater happiness and harmony. My belief in the big picture means I trust the source more than those who see it done.
If a commandment came that was contrary to everything I knew and believed, I have the right to ask for divine confirmation and I have faith I will receive it. I've asked before, and I've received my answers. I trust that same pattern will work as it has throughout my life.
Commandments, though, are not all created equal. Some are to keep us consistent with divine law. Some, IMHO, are simply to encourage good habits and to remind us for blessings and promises we made. Wearing long pants and killing oneself will never have equal footing...
...Nor do I believe such a comparison will ever be required.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:As you pointed out, your god makes the rules; fine, why can't he make a rule requiring you to kill yourself, or your firstborn son, or whatever? And if he did, how is that any different from a rule requiring you to wear long pants?
What you're not taking into account is that starLisa believes that her people received these instructions in person from God, that he passed them on, and there are (to them) clear preconditions that must be met before any of them can change.
It's not a question of whether or not God can make any old rule he wants. It's a question of what rules God did make. And the rules, as starLisa believes he made them, quite simply do not allow for a suicide command (if I understand Orthodox teaching on continuing revelation correctly). Even if I'm wrong about whether new rules are possible, it's still a question of starLisa believing these particular rules are straight from God. Literally.
Dagonee
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
quote:As you pointed out, your god makes the rules; fine, why can't he make a rule requiring you to kill yourself, or your firstborn son, or whatever? And if he did, how is that any different from a rule requiring you to wear long pants?
Because God doesn't determine right and wrong. I believe that "good" and "evil" are eternal concepts that function independent of God. The God I believe in will not arbitrarily change the rules in a conscience-defying way without explanation. If it ever appears, outwardly, that He has done so, I'll deal with it as my own conscience dictates while seeking an explanation for the incongruity.
quote:The point is to realise that the rituals demanded by various religions are almost totally arbitrary, and rather silly.
I've already realized that you believe this. I've also found a great deal of value and meaning in my own faith. So clearly, from my perspective, you are both wrong, and narrow-minded Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
quote:But how do you know that your god wouldn't require that?
Here's another weird thing, King of Men ... why should I make a determination about my own beliefs based on what YOU suppose MIGHT happen? If my God DID require something like that, it would be REALLY REALLY out of character. It would fly in the face of everything I have learned about Him so far. I love, serve, and trust the God that I believe in, to a large degree, BECAUSE His character is so different from the arbitrary God you imagine.
So what would I do if my God demanded such a thing? That's just a bizarre question. I believe in a God that, as far as I can imagine, WOULDN'T.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
And yet we have experimental evidence that people do start out believing in moderately reasonable gods, and end up as suicide cults. But getting a bit away from suicide, how about human sacrifice? You can't say your god wouldn't demand that, because he's already done so. Indeed, isn't there something in Leviticus about buying the life of your firstborn son? (Which maybe isn't so relevant for Mormons, but still applies to the Jews as far as I know.)
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
quote:And yet we have experimental evidence that people do start out believing in moderately reasonable gods, and end up as suicide cults.
Give me an example of a religion as established as my own becoming a suicide cult.
quote:But getting a bit away from suicide, how about human sacrifice? You can't say your god wouldn't demand that, because he's already done so.
I believe that our understanding of God has evolved steadily over time. Not everything you might attribute to "my god" necessarily applies to my beliefs about Him today.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
I think you could make a good case for the Aztecs being a suicide cult on a large scale; estimated population, about 20 million. Apart from that, all the modern ones that I'm aware of, plus the medieval ones, were offshoots of Christianity.
Do you believe, then, that Abraham did not receive a commandment to kill his firstborn, or that he misunderstood it? If so, how can you oppose homosexuals in your church? (Assuming that you do; note that I'm not talking about gay marriage here, but open, practising homosexuals being members and priests of the LDS.) The writer of Leviticus could have misunderstood just as easily. And if you do believe Abraham received such an order, then how can you say that Yahweh has not demanded human sacrifice in the past?
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
Mormons don't reject homosexual practice because of Leviticus. We reject it because it is incompatible with our beliefs about eternal families. You can find a more detailed explanation if you read my earlier posts in this thread.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Fair enough. I'd still like to hear the Catholic and Jewish perspective on this. (I might ask, though, why two men can't form a family? Apologies if you already explained this.) Anyway, returning to the point about human sacrifice, did Abraham receive an order to kill his firstborn, or not?
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
My explanation is on Page 8.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
My personal interpretation of the Abraham-and-Isaac story is that the Lord was intentionally putting Abraham through an experience in which there was no good choice. Humans face countless similar experiences every day, but rarely any as clear-cut and dramatic as this one. It was a difficult learning experience for Abraham, but you'll notice that God rescinded the commandment without giving Abraham the opportunity to obey it.
I do not believe that Abraham would have been condemned had he failed to lay his son on the altar because he loved him too much. But the experience would have been different, and both men would have grown into different kinds of leaders than they did. I believe that God sometimes uses difficult experiences like this as means of shaping a leader's development, and making future tasks and sacrifices more surmountable for them.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
As a tangent, I think that some of the most telling choices that people make are the ones in which EVERY option has immeasurable "good" and "bad" implications. Such choices, in my opinion, do not serve to consign a person to heaven or hell, but rather help to define the specific character of that person.
Not everyone sees the world that way, of course. To some people, it is necessary to believe that Abraham either made "THE right choice" or "THE wrong choice", and that the other choice would have had the opposite value.
I don't think that life is always that simple and straightforward. I believe that it is necessary for a good person to strive to build rather than to destroy, and to provide joy for others rather than suffering. But that lifelong struggle can only be judged by God. On a choice-by-choice basis, it can sometimes be difficult to separate each decision into "right" and "wrong".
Many decisions, of course, ARE pretty clear cut. I REALLY shouldn't kill the guy in the office across from me right now. That would be TOTALLY pointlessly evil.
But how do you measure, for instance, the constant choice to either (1) run out and perform some kind act of service for another person, or (2) keep posting on Hatrack? Clearly, choice (1) is good, but does that make choice (2) bad? I don't think so.
I believe that God will judge us on the lifelong goals and struggles we have made for ourselves, and by how we have developed as individuals throughout those struggles. Some of the choices will not necessarily weigh in as "good" or "evil" ... but they will define us as individuals with certain unique skills or capacities that will qualify us for ... whatever lies ahead.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
quote:My personal interpretation of the Abraham-and-Isaac story is that the Lord was intentionally putting Abraham through an experience in which there was no good choice.
Wow, now I'm even quoting myself This thread has become The Puppy Show!
I just wanted to mention that I consider the choice Adam and Eve made in the Garden of Eden to be a very similar kind of impossible choice.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Well, I guess I should post something just so you won't feel ignored. So you are contending that God never intended for Abraham to go through with the sacrifice; I have to say, that kind of mindf*ck doesn't convey a gentle and reasonable god to me, but your taste may differ.
However, what about the aforementioned bit of Exodus (I said Leviticus above, but I had remembered wrong) where the faithful are commanded to buy the lives of their firstborn? Doesn't that imply a tradition of human sacrifice, Baal-style?
Exodus 34 : 19-20 (Revised Standard Version)
All that opens the womb is mine, all your male cattle, the firstlings of cow and sheep. The firstling of an ass you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. All the first-born of your sons you shall redeem. And none shall appear before me empty.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
I don't get the impression that God is saying they should kill their sons if they don't sacrifice an animal for them. Is that how you're reading that passage?
Or are you simply suggesting that God is replacing a previous tradition of human sacrifice with a tradition of animal sacrifice in those verses? If that's the case, then sure. Why not take a people's preconceived harmful assumptions and turn them to something more positive?
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Well, he has just specified what you are to do with an ass that is not redeemed; why should the rules be different for humans? In Numbers he makes quite a point of treating animals and humans the same, at least when it comes to killing.
But even in your milder version, I think you are having it both ways : You are assuming that when people did human sacrifices, that was their misconception; but when they were commanded to go over to animals, that was the Word of God. Why the one, but not the other?
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
quote:Well, he has just specified what you are to do with an ass that is not redeemed; why should the rules be different for humans?
Um ... because they're humans? Whatever unrelated passage you might have found in Numbers, I'm pretty sure that the ancient Hebrews assumed that different rules applied to humans and animals. They didn't EAT humans, for instance ...
And I find it odd that you expect religious people to be bound by your extrapolations, rather than the holy text itself, as it stands
quote:You are assuming that when people did human sacrifices, that was their misconception; but when they were commanded to go over to animals, that was the Word of God. Why the one, but not the other?
Because the other is recorded as a revelation from God within the canon of scripture, while the one is merely extrapolated as a custom that MAY have existed BEFORE God's documented intervention.
And beyond that, I've drawn a general impression of God's character and practices from all the holy writ that my religion accepts as part of the canon, and from my personal spiritual experiences. It's pretty easy, from that position, to draw tentative conclusions about what God might or might not have sanctioned. Human sacrifice doesn't make the cut.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: However, what about the aforementioned bit of Exodus (I said Leviticus above, but I had remembered wrong) where the faithful are commanded to buy the lives of their firstborn? Doesn't that imply a tradition of human sacrifice, Baal-style?
As someone of the group who actually practices this (not personally, since my first-born was female), might I interject?
The "redemption" is not from being sacrificed. (What a ghastly -- and in my experience, unique -- interpretation!) It's from serving in the Temple. Since the Cohanim (Priests) have that responsibility (as of the sin of the Golden Calf), those with the original responsibility must redeem their obligation. It's a bit like hiring an agent to act on your behalf.
Since the child is generally 30 days old when this is done, and not usually possessed of much in the way of assets (or manual dexterity), his father usually does so on his behalf.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote: I'd try and kill the person with the gun, but if the only way I could save my life was to worship that idol, I'd say Shema and die.
Really? Hm. See, I'd much rather throw myself on God's mercy and understanding by pretending to worship a false idol than be the agent of someone else's death.
Not me. Forget the idol part. Judaism says "If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first". Not only is killing in self-defense not immoral; it is *highly* moral.
As to the idol thing... in most instances, saving a life takes precedence over just about anything. You can desecrate the Sabbath to save a life, and in fact, you *must* do so, if it's necessary to save a life. But there are three things that you can't violate, even to save a life. These are murder, idol worship, and a set of sexual prohibitions called arayot (incest, ~adultery and the like).
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: People jump so quickly to the "would you drink the Kool-aid?" question like it's supposed to stump religious people or prove them wrong, which I don't quite understand.
People are responsible for their choices. Religion can inform those choices, but what you do is still always up to you. If someone would rather die than risk violating their faith, then that's a decision they made. If for some reason, that question came up for me, I suspect that I would probably raise an eyebrow and question why my faith would demand such a pointless sacrifice. It's totally out of character for the religion I believe in, so it would take some kind of massive change in my own perspective to get me to make that choice. In other words, if it happened right now, I wouldn't do it, because it wouldn't fit with what I already believe.
But either way, what does the anti-religionist posing the question gain from my answer? Either I would drink it or I wouldn't. That says something about me, but since it's a hypothetical situation, it says absolutely nothing about my actual beliefs. Does my answer somehow make my beliefs particularly true or false? Not as far as I can tell.
Thank you, Puppy. I agree with every word of what you said. And you said it much better than I could have.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Well, really, what does anyone gain from any discussion at all on the Internet? But apart from that, I am not trying for any gain to myself; I am trying to help you, from purely altruistic motives.
How incredibly condescending and obnoxious. Leave aside the absurdity of anyone doing anything for "purely altrusitic motives"; I don't believe I asked for your "help".
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: (Well, almost purely altruistic; obviously, the more atheists we have, the better off society is. But it's a pretty indirect benefit.)
That's hardly obvious. Like I said, I have little interest in, or respect for, belief, as such. That includes your beliefs. I've seen enough in my studies that I'm convinced that God is real, and that He really did give us the Torah, and that it really is in my best interests to keep it. You, on the other hand, may merely be convinced that there's no God, but you certainly sound more like a true believer in atheism.
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: The point is to realise that the rituals demanded by various religions are almost totally arbitrary, and rather silly.
quote:As far as drinking the Kool-Aid, well, number one, God wouldn't require that, and number two, Kool-Aid isn't kosher anyway.
I'm sure you could get the cyanide in water instead. But how do you know that your god wouldn't require that?
"Know"? Who said anything about "knowing"? I don't "know* that God exists. There are a lot of things people don't "know". You don't "know" that gravity is a constant throughout all areas of space. For all you "know", the earth could move into a region of lower gravity ten minutes after you read this. But it's reasonable and rational to operate on the assumption that it's going to stay the same.
The same thing applies here, but even more so. God did something fairly cute. He gave the Torah, both the written part (the Pentateuch) and the oral part, along with the system by means of which we are to operate the whole thing, and then told us that it was all irreversable. That even if a prophet should come along -- and I don't mean a charlatan, but a genuine prophet who has proven that he is in direct contact with God -- and this prophet tells us to do something that is in the least bit contradictory to what we've already been commanded... that we kill the guy. Dead.
God set it up so that even He can't change the Torah He gave us. And that's not too strange, because God's omniscient, remember? If He had to make a change, He'd have known that in advance, and would have taken that into account when giving us the Torah in the first place.
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: After all, many people have had gods who demanded exactly such things - not only recent suicide cults, but the Aztecs on a vast scale, and indeed Yahweh before Abraham, if the OT is to be trusted on this.
The Torah says no such thing. Give me a break.
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: How do you know some prophet won't appear tomorrow and say "OK, show's over, time for some human sacrifices for appeasement again." (This is especially relevant to the Mormons, who believe in ongoing revelation.)
Maybe it's an issue for them. I can't address that. But for us, such a person would either be a nutjob or -- if he'd previously established his credentials as a real prophet -- a corpse.
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: I think, quite honestly, you are being rather glibly defensive here, and refusing to think about the question.
Heh. Not so much. I just wasn't taking you seriously. But you asked again, so I gave you a more lengthy answer. Two of them, in fact. Do you feel better now?
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: As you pointed out, your god makes the rules; fine, why can't he make a rule requiring you to kill yourself, or your firstborn son, or whatever? And if he did, how is that any different from a rule requiring you to wear long pants?
Well, He *could have* made such a rule, but He didn't. And now He can't.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by estavares: It's a valid question; one of the big reasons why religion is often dismissed is that its practitioners either A) follow blindly or B) pick and choose whatever doctrine they feel like following, revealing self-interest rather than real faith.
Right. Like I said myself. I follow my religion because I'm convinced that God really gave it, and that it's in my best interests to go along with it.
quote:Originally posted by estavares: Though this tangent came up regarding Jewish belief, I've no knowledge of it. I'll not speculate one way or another, as it's not my place.
At the same time, this idea that people simply do things just because "God told them/told them not to do it" is patently absurd.
Why?
quote:Originally posted by estavares: This simplistic approach to spirituality is as silly as the assumption that those who support gay marriage are all anti-religion.
Why?
Unsupported assertions can be fun, but it's often better to actually make an attempt to support your assertions. You know, just for the novelty of the thing.
quote:Originally posted by estavares: I can only relate my own experiences on the matter. I follow my belief system because I recieved a change of heart independent from influence, it makes sense to me, and I am reassured time and time again when those choices I make lead to greater happiness and harmony. My belief in the big picture means I trust the source more than those who see it done.
Oh. And you think anything you do, ever, is "independent from influence"? I think that's naive.
quote:Originally posted by estavares: If a commandment came that was contrary to everything I knew and believed, I have the right to ask for divine confirmation and I have faith I will receive it. I've asked before, and I've received my answers. I trust that same pattern will work as it has throughout my life.
Faith again... <sigh> What is with people who rely on gut feelings instead of using their brains?
quote:Originally posted by estavares: Commandments, though, are not all created equal. Some are to keep us consistent with divine law. Some, IMHO, are simply to encourage good habits and to remind us for blessings and promises we made. Wearing long pants and killing oneself will never have equal footing...
Perhaps not, but that's not a judgement I get to make. My Creator (and yours) is the only One who gets to do that.
quote:Originally posted by estavares: ...Nor do I believe such a comparison will ever be required.
Um... okay.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee:
quote:As you pointed out, your god makes the rules; fine, why can't he make a rule requiring you to kill yourself, or your firstborn son, or whatever? And if he did, how is that any different from a rule requiring you to wear long pants?
What you're not taking into account is that starLisa believes that her people received these instructions in person from God, that he passed them on, and there are (to them) clear preconditions that must be met before any of them can change.
It's not a question of whether or not God can make any old rule he wants. It's a question of what rules God did make. And the rules, as starLisa believes he made them, quite simply do not allow for a suicide command (if I understand Orthodox teaching on continuing revelation correctly). Even if I'm wrong about whether new rules are possible, it's still a question of starLisa believing these particular rules are straight from God. Literally.
Dagonee
Thanks, Dagonee. New rules aren't an option, at least not divine ones, but other than that, you were 100% correct.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Puppy:
quote:As you pointed out, your god makes the rules; fine, why can't he make a rule requiring you to kill yourself, or your firstborn son, or whatever? And if he did, how is that any different from a rule requiring you to wear long pants?
Because God doesn't determine right and wrong.
Wow. Okay, we differ on this.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: I believe that "good" and "evil" are eternal concepts that function independent of God.
That would imply something greater than God. To me, good and evil are concepts that God created, and which are defined relative to Him.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: And yet we have experimental evidence that people do start out believing in moderately reasonable gods, and end up as suicide cults. But getting a bit away from suicide, how about human sacrifice? You can't say your god wouldn't demand that, because he's already done so.
The story in which that happened beings by telling us God was about to test Abraham. I mean, you can't dismiss our saying that it was a test as some sort of apology. It's right there in the same place.
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Indeed, isn't there something in Leviticus about buying the life of your firstborn son?
<sigh> It really is true that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. There's nothing of the sort. Originally, first born sons were the priests in Israel. When God gave that role to the tribe of Levi, there weren't enough Levites to replace all the firstborn males. So there was a "redemption" done to free the first born males of that responsibility.
"Buying the life". Right...
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: (Which maybe isn't so relevant for Mormons, but still applies to the Jews as far as I know.)
The last five words of your post are correct.
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
quote:That would imply something greater than God. To me, good and evil are concepts that God created, and which are defined relative to Him.
Adjectives like "good" and "evil" are simply ways of describing something. They never needed to be created themselves, like rocks or trees or monkeys. But once beings with independent volition were created, the words "good" and "evil" became useful in describing their motivations.
So whether or not God created them isn't the issue ... rather, the issue is whether anything was relevant for them to be applied to before God began creating things.
For instance, the word "blue" did not need to be created. It just described something. BUT if you believe that God created, from nothing, the properties of light and the parts of our eyes that interpret that light, then you can say that "blue" depends on God to exist, because everything that the word "blue" applies to was created by God.
In the case of Mormons, we differ from many Judeo-Christian traditions in that we do not believe in creation ex nihilo. We believe that all matter and the raw stuff of intelligence have existed for eternity, uncreatable and undestroyable, and that God found them and gave them shape. God also has existed for eternity, though not always in His present condition.
IF you believe that intelligence is eternal, and that things can exist independent of God, then it is perfectly reasonable to believe that concepts such as "good" and "evil" which are used to describe the motivations of intelligent beings (including God Himself) would similarly apply independent of God's actions.
I recognize that this belief sets my religion apart from most others. But you can also look at it this way. If God decided to do or command something evil (which I actually believe is impossible, for various unrelated reasons), would that change the definition of "good" and "evil"? Is the word "good" defined as "stuff that God approves of", and is the word "evil" defined as "stuff that God prohibits"?
I don't think so. Those words have meanings to us that describe the qualities of various actions and motives. Their definitions aren't determined by God. These are human words that we define ourselves. While certainly, the capacity to use language was given to us by God, still, God does not tell us how to use these words, and we can certainly decide to use them to describe eternal concepts without tying them specifically to God's actions.
Look at your own doctrinal position. There are parts of orthodox Judaism (as practiced by most Jews) that did not resonate with you, and so you adopted your own stance on certain issues. To you, right and wrong (which are slightly different concepts from good and evil, but still) are defined, not by the arbitrary will of a faith, but by your own conscience. If God seemed to do something that clashed with your conscience, I suspect from what I've seen that you would be inclined to follow your conscience, rather than redefining your ideas of good and evil to match what God had apparently done.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Fair enough. I'd still like to hear the Catholic and Jewish perspective on this. (I might ask, though, why two men can't form a family?
Two men can, but the obstacles are immense. Anal sex between men (whether gay or straight) is prohibited by the Torah. It's included in that group of things that you have to die rather than violate.
I know some Orthodox Jewish gay men who are celibate. Given my impression of men and sex, I can't imagine how they do it. But it's important enough for them to keep God's law that they do do it.
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Apologies if you already explained this.) Anyway, returning to the point about human sacrifice, did Abraham receive an order to kill his firstborn, or not?
Well, it depends. If you accept what the Torah says, then yes, he did. But if you accept what the Torah says, it was a test. If you don't accept what the Torah says, then neither one is necessarily true.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: My personal interpretation of the Abraham-and-Isaac story is that the Lord was intentionally putting Abraham through an experience in which there was no good choice. Humans face countless similar experiences every day, but rarely any as clear-cut and dramatic as this one. It was a difficult learning experience for Abraham, but you'll notice that God rescinded the commandment without giving Abraham the opportunity to obey it.
True. Although I will say that as much of a test as it was for Abraham, it must have been a pretty major one for Isaac, too.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: I do not believe that Abraham would have been condemned had he failed to lay his son on the altar because he loved him too much. But the experience would have been different, and both men would have grown into different kinds of leaders than they did. I believe that God sometimes uses difficult experiences like this as means of shaping a leader's development, and making future tasks and sacrifices more surmountable for them.
<nod> Indeed.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Puppy:
quote:My personal interpretation of the Abraham-and-Isaac story is that the Lord was intentionally putting Abraham through an experience in which there was no good choice.
Wow, now I'm even quoting myself This thread has become The Puppy Show!
I just wanted to mention that I consider the choice Adam and Eve made in the Garden of Eden to be a very similar kind of impossible choice.
How so, if you don't mind my asking?
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by A Rat Named Dog:
quote:That would imply something greater than God. To me, good and evil are concepts that God created, and which are defined relative to Him.
Adjectives like "good" and "evil" are simply ways of describing something. They never needed to be created themselves, like rocks or trees or monkeys.
Um... this may seem like a silly question, but are you the same person who posts as Puppy? I ask, because your style seems very similar, and you appear to hold the same positions.
Combine that with you responding to a comment I made to Puppy (which isn't unusual on a forum like this, but still...), and I'm just a little confused, is all.
Anyway... Isaiah does say that God is the creator of evil. We (in Judaism) view the verb bara', usually translated as "created", as denoting creation ex nihilo. The verb yatzar, usually translated as "formed", would be creation of something from something that exists but hasn't yet been made into anything, and the verb asah, usually translated as "made", means making something from other made things.
Anyway, the verb used in Isaiah is bara', but any way you slice it, it does seem that the prophet is claiming that God creates evil.
Also... and I guess this is a theological difference between us, we consider everything, from good and evil, to rocks and trees and monkeys, to concepts such as kindness and mercy, to be creations of God.
We don't see God as supreme *within* our universe, but rather the Creator of everything in existence.
From the little I've read about your religion, assuming that I understood it correctly (how much can you really understand a religion from the outside?), I can see how this would be an area in which we'd disagree.
quote:Originally posted by A Rat Named Dog: But once beings with independent volition were created, the words "good" and "evil" became useful in describing their motivations.
So whether or not God created them isn't the issue ... rather, the issue is whether anything was relevant for them to be applied to before God began creating things.
Well, I guess we see good and evil as almost a dimension. Where the far end in the good direction is God. To the extent that one comes closer and closer to emulating God (which means by doing His expressed will, rather than the WWJD kind of thing), one is more and more good. And vice versa.
This is the meaning of our being created in God's image.
quote:Originally posted by A Rat Named Dog: For instance, the word "blue" did not need to be created. It just described something. BUT if you believe that God created, from nothing, the properties of light and the parts of our eyes that interpret that light, then you can say that "blue" depends on God to exist, because everything that the word "blue" applies to was created by God.
Right.
quote:Originally posted by A Rat Named Dog: In the case of Mormons, we differ from many Judeo-Christian traditions in that we do not believe in creation ex nihilo. We believe that all matter and the raw stuff of intelligence have existed for eternity, uncreatable and undestroyable, and that God found them and gave them shape. God also has existed for eternity, though not always in His present condition.
So I gathered. As I said, we differ on this.
quote:Originally posted by A Rat Named Dog: IF you believe that intelligence is eternal, and that things can exist independent of God, then it is perfectly reasonable to believe that concepts such as "good" and "evil" which are used to describe the motivations of intelligent beings (including God Himself) would similarly apply independent of God's actions.
It's consistent. But as you said, it's very different from what Jews believe.
quote:Originally posted by A Rat Named Dog: I recognize that this belief sets my religion apart from most others. But you can also look at it this way. If God decided to do or command something evil (which I actually believe is impossible, for various unrelated reasons), would that change the definition of "good" and "evil"? Is the word "good" defined as "stuff that God approves of", and is the word "evil" defined as "stuff that God prohibits"?
Yep. God told us to commit genocide against the Amalekites. That was right. The concept of "accepting the yoke of Heaven" in Judaism means what I quoted from Pirkei Avot -- Chapters of Principles -- before. If God says to do something and it runs counter to my moral sense, that means that I have work to do on my moral sense.
Of course, everyone has work to do on their moral sense and their values. It's sort of what life is all about. Striving to perfect oneself doesn't mean that one has to attain perfection or be a failure. We all do the best that we can.
If I were faced with a 2 year old Amalekite, knowing 100% for certain that it was indeed an Amalekite, would I be able to kill the child? Possibly not. I hope never to find myself in that situation. But if I did find myself in that situation, and I raised my sense of what's right and what's wrong above what God says, I wouldn't be following God anymore. I'd be following me.
quote:Originally posted by A Rat Named Dog: I don't think so. Those words have meanings to us that describe the qualities of various actions and motives. Their definitions aren't determined by God. These are human words that we define ourselves.
Perhaps that's what's commonly done. But our defining something as good or evil only affects our usage. It doesn't affect what is good and evil.
There've been societies in which good and evil were assigned very differently than they are in 2005 in the United States. And even in that narrowed-down context, there is hardly a consensus view.
Some people would say that a woman having an abortion is doing something evil. Others would say that not allowing her to have one is doing something evil. What does God say? Well, according to the Catholics, God says it's murder. According to Judaism, it's forbidden except when the mother is in danger from the fetus. I don't know about Mormonism, but I suspect that it's somewhat closer to Catholicism.
If I look at the text of the Torah, it's clear even there that it can't be murder, so I don't know how to explain the Catholic claim that God says it is.
Ultimately, I don't see how a human being can claim to be able to have a higher moral sense than God.
quote:Originally posted by A Rat Named Dog: While certainly, the capacity to use language was given to us by God, still, God does not tell us how to use these words, and we can certainly decide to use them to describe eternal concepts without tying them specifically to God's actions.
Sure. But we take their definition from God.
quote:Originally posted by A Rat Named Dog: Look at your own doctrinal position. There are parts of orthodox Judaism (as practiced by most Jews) that did not resonate with you, and so you adopted your own stance on certain issues.
Hmm... I'm not sure that I'd go along with that characterization. As a major rabbinical figure once said, "Don't confuse Orthodox Judaism with Orthodox Jews."
To give you an example, when I first came to terms with the fact that I was gay, I was living in New York. I got the number of an Orthodox rabbi in New York and called him. I asked him what I was supposed to do. He told me that while there is nothing two women can do together that is actually forbidden, it's considered highly inappropriate.
I was a little taken aback. I mean, I know that's not true. I know that there is a prohibited act between women. And yet, I was hardly going to debate it with this rabbi.
So I called another one. He told me that while there's nothing that two women can do together that is actually forbidden, and despite the fact that women aren't commanded to procreate (in Judaism, that obligation is only on the men, though they obviously need us to help), there is a general requirement to "build the world", which can be seen as an obligation on women to marry and have children.
I was blown away. I mean, I know that most people with the title "rabbi" aren't overall experts in Jewish law. My cousin is two years younger than me, and he used to call me to discuss things after he was ordained, because there were areas in which I knew more. But I would have expected these men to at least say that they weren't well versed in the applicable laws.
I didn't try a third time, because I thought that would have been a little over the top.
You have to understand: given the way that Judaism and Jewish law works, I am entitled to follow the rulings I received from these rabbis. I don't, because I happen to know that they're wrong.
It's not as if I'm taking the easy way out. I just am honestly convinced that the anti-gay sentiment in the Orthodox community is something that came into being as a result of almost 2000 years of close contact with Christianity.
And you know, in Judaism, it's really easy. If I say that I think I can eat chicken parmesan and someone says I can't, I can ask them to show me where it says so. If they can, they're right. If they can't, I can do as I see fit. In the case of chicken parmesan, I can't. But I've discussed this with some very learned people, and no one has, as of yet, been able to refute my reading of the relevant sources. The most they've been able to do is to claim a public policy need, given the pressures being applied by the "liberal" Jewish movements which have thrown off the yoke of Heaven.
quote:Originally posted by A Rat Named Dog: To you, right and wrong (which are slightly different concepts from good and evil, but still) are defined, not by the arbitrary will of a faith, but by your own conscience.
I don't think so. I'm not saying that as an automatic reaction, either. I've given it a lot of thought, and I honestly don't think I'm doing that.
quote:Originally posted by A Rat Named Dog: If God seemed to do something that clashed with your conscience, I suspect from what I've seen that you would be inclined to follow your conscience, rather than redefining your ideas of good and evil to match what God had apparently done.
I can see, given your beliefs about homosexuality, and given the fact that I'm gay and unapologetic about it, how you'd think that.
I don't know any way to prove to you that you're wrong about me, and I'm sorry for that. All I can do is say that you underestimate me.
[ August 05, 2005, 02:34 PM: Message edited by: starLisa ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Um... this may seem like a silly question, but are you the same person who posts as Puppy? I ask, because your style seems very similar, and you appear to hold the same positions.
Yes, they are the same person. Dog is very confusing that way - most multiple screenname people switch in spurts; Geoff (which you will see him referred to as often) likes to do so daily.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Interesting tangential question: if you did kill someone because God told you to, would consider the civil authorities right and just to convict and punish you for it, assuming God was silent on the subject? Would you submit to such punishment, or feel justified in resisting it violently?
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Interesting tangential question: if you did kill someone because God told you to, would consider the civil authorities right and just to convict and punish you for it, assuming God was silent on the subject? Would you submit to such punishment, or feel justified in resisting it violently?
Like everything, it depends on the context. In most cases I can envision (postulating my killing someone), they'd be completely right and just to convict and punish me on it. Though I'm not sure what you mean by God being silent on the subject. We don't hold by personal communications by God that allow you to do things that the Torah forbids.
However... suppose that the US were to make killing in self-defense illegal. Suppose they decided that doing so is first degree murder. And then suppose that I was attacked and killed my attacker.
If they were to try and convict me for murder under those circumstances, they would be wrong and unjust, and I would do what I could to avoid or evade being victimized in that way.
Provided, of course, that the Jewish community wouldn't be victimized as a result.
See, there are always lots of things to take into consideration.
Lisa
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee:
quote:Um... this may seem like a silly question, but are you the same person who posts as Puppy? I ask, because your style seems very similar, and you appear to hold the same positions.
Yes, they are the same person. Dog is very confusing that way - most multiple screenname people switch in spurts; Geoff (which you will see him referred to as often) likes to do so daily.
Ah. That explains a lot. Thanks.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Though I'm not sure what you mean by God being silent on the subject. We don't hold by personal communications by God that allow you to do things that the Torah forbids.
I meant God being silent on the subject of whether to resist arrest and conviction. My question assumes you've received some pretty direct communication from God.
Also, my understanding is that it would have to be an order to do something which God commanded at some point when revelation was ongoing, not something that contradicts clear edicts of Torah. Am I understanding that correctly?
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by starLisa:
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee:
quote:Um... this may seem like a silly question, but are you the same person who posts as Puppy? I ask, because your style seems very similar, and you appear to hold the same positions.
Yes, they are the same person. Dog is very confusing that way - most multiple screenname people switch in spurts; Geoff (which you will see him referred to as often) likes to do so daily.
Ah. That explains a lot. Thanks.
Oh, my goodness. I just did a search on the forum. Puppy/Dog/Geoff is Geoff Card? Man... did the turkeys dissing his Dad know that? If so, that's even more obnoxious.
Geoff (or however you'd prefer to be called), you write well.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Yes, he's Geoff Card.
And yes, he does. Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Since we cross-posted, there's a post of mine at the bottom of last page with additional questions.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee:
quote:Though I'm not sure what you mean by God being silent on the subject. We don't hold by personal communications by God that allow you to do things that the Torah forbids.
I meant God being silent on the subject of whether to resist arrest and conviction. My question assumes you've received some pretty direct communication from God.
Ah. Well, I don't take orders from God that aren't in the Torah already. He said not to.
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Also, my understanding is that it would have to be an order to do something which God commanded at some point when revelation was ongoing, not something that contradicts clear edicts of Torah. Am I understanding that correctly?
I guess, except that if God commanded it, it can't be something that contradicts clear edicts of Torah. Sort of by definition, you see.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
I only have a few moments because I'm rushing off to a meeting, but ...
1. Sorry, Lisa, for the confusion about my name ... I'm logged in with different names on different machines, and I'm way too amused by that fact to change it
2. I'm also sorry that I drew inaccurate conclusions about your history with your own faith. I think my impressions at least made sense, given what I knew, but your more complete account shows that I misunderstood quite a bit.
3. You said this:
quote:Some people would say that a woman having an abortion is doing something evil. Others would say that not allowing her to have one is doing something evil. What does God say? Well, according to the Catholics, God says it's murder. According to Judaism, it's forbidden except when the mother is in danger from the fetus. I don't know about Mormonism, but I suspect that it's somewhat closer to Catholicism.
Actually, compared to those standards, the Mormon position is even more moderate. I think our official stance (though I'm afraid of misstating it, so take this with a grain of salt) is that abortion is wrong, but that it is not murder. We accept that abortion is permissible in cases where the pregnancy endangers the life of the mother, or when the pregnancy was forced upon the mother through rape or incest. Beyond those cases, we find it very difficult to justify.
Perhaps I'll have more to say later, when I have more time. And thanks for your kind words about some of the turkeys on this forum I'm a little surprised by them myself sometimes ...
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
StarLisa:
You may have already answered this, but how were your rabbis "wrong" about homosexuality and by what knowledge/authority are you basing your claim?
I take it then your obedience to God is based on if behavior is allowed (or not) in the Torah. If it isn't specific, then it's allowed? Is that an accurate assessment?
Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
... 13 pages long?
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by starLisa:
Hmm... I'm not sure that I'd go along with that characterization. As a major rabbinical figure once said, "Don't confuse Orthodox Judaism with Orthodox Jews."
In certain cases, what is done by the local community affects halacha, so I don't see how you can say that.
quote: You have to understand: given the way that Judaism and Jewish law works, I am entitled to follow the rulings I received from these rabbis. I don't, because I happen to know that they're wrong.
Those two statements are mutually incompatible. Moreover, my understanding is that the questioner has the responsibility to ask a rabbi who is well-versed in the issue. Particularly when it is an issue that are controversial or don't come up often. (I agree, however, that a rav who is not well-versed should say so -- and I have had that happen many times. Usually accompanied by a referral to someone who does.)
quote:And you know, in Judaism, it's really easy. If I say that I think I can eat chicken parmesan and someone says I can't, I can ask them to show me where it says so. If they can, they're right. If they can't, I can do as I see fit.
*blink* This is not my understanding of normative halacha.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by estavares: StarLisa:
You may have already answered this, but how were your rabbis "wrong" about homosexuality and by what knowledge/authority are you basing your claim?
Those two rabbis were wrong because they told me that there were not sexual prohibitions between women. I base my conclusion that they're wrong on a number of things. The main one is that the law actually appears in Moses Maimonides' Laws of Forbidden Relations. It's cited in full by all major codes of law written since then, including the most authoritative one, the Shulchan Aruch, written by Rabbi Yosef Caro.
It's not even a question. In fact, there are only two questions that can be asked (where some clarity is lacking):
Is the prohibition Sinaitic or Rabbinic in nature. This doesn't make any difference in most cases, because we don't violate prohibitions regardless of the source, but it's important to make the distinction on a legal level, both because there is a Torah prohibition against creating new laws and attributing them to the Torah, and because there is a difference between the two in a case where there is doubt as to whether something has been done.
What, precisely, is the act that's forbidden. I mean, we know what it is for men, but the term used by the rabbis for what women can't do together is "women who mesollel together. The word I've left untranslated is used in only one other context in the Talmud, and it's not with two women.
As a consequence, a lot of people nowadays just translate it as "lesbianism" or "lesbian acts", because, well, it's not that big a deal. The thing is, it's a really big deal for me. So I looked to see what the various legal commentators over the centuries said about it, and reached my conclusions. I know some rabbis who've agreed with my conclusions. Others who said they don't care to discuss it. And others still who've said they disagree without giving any reason for the disagreement.
quote:Originally posted by estavares: I take it then your obedience to God is based on if behavior is allowed (or not) in the Torah. If it isn't specific, then it's allowed? Is that an accurate assessment?
<laugh> Oh, wow. Estavares, you can't know how funny it is that you asked that just now. But yes, if it isn't prohibited, it's permitted.
That said, you have to understand that when I use the word "Torah", that the Five Books of Moses, which constitute the written part of the Torah, are not the major part at all. That the primary corpus of law and lore in Judaism is the oral Torah. And it's not something that can be written down in stone. It's a living system. Even the Talmud can only be said to be a record of discussions about the oral Torah. It doesn't encompass the entirety of the oral Torah, because no book can. Books can't respond to situations. Only people can do that.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Sid Meier: ... 13 pages long?
<grin> It's included many and varied discussions.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by rivka:
quote:Originally posted by starLisa:
Hmm... I'm not sure that I'd go along with that characterization. As a major rabbinical figure once said, "Don't confuse Orthodox Judaism with Orthodox Jews."
In certain cases, what is done by the local community affects halacha, so I don't see how you can say that.
In certain cases. And it wasn't I who said it.
Still, a community response doesn't override Torah requirements. The laws regarding shmirat halashon (gossip) and rechilut (rumor-mongering) and ona'at devarim (hurtful speech) don't go away just because a community supposes that something is bad.
I'm not talking about how the community responds to the "gay community" as such. I'm talking about how they respond to Orthodox Jews who happen to be gay.
The majority of people in the US today think there's nothing wrong with pre-marital sex. Many even think there's something wrong with not taking a "test drive", so to speak. Would it be legitimate to assume that Orthodox Jews who are Americans hold the same views? Hardly.
Similarly, the lewdness and anti-decency stances of the "gay community" shouldn't be used to judge those of us who are serious Orthodox Jews and gay as well.
quote:Originally posted by rivka:
quote: You have to understand: given the way that Judaism and Jewish law works, I am entitled to follow the rulings I received from these rabbis. I don't, because I happen to know that they're wrong.
Those two statements are mutually incompatible.
How so?
quote:Originally posted by rivka: Moreover, my understanding is that the questioner has the responsibility to ask a rabbi who is well-versed in the issue.
And who would that be? Do you suppose I should have replied to the rabbis that I asked, "I'm sorry, rabbi, but you obviously don't know the law. Would you mind giving me the name of someone who knows more than you?"
Or is there a rabbi out there who is a known expert on lesbians? I'm just curious. I mean, it's the sole issue in all of Jewish law that doesn't impinge directly on men. You get that, right? And rabbis I've spoken with about this since the debacle in New York have agreed with me that it's a rarely discussed issue.
quote:Originally posted by rivka: Particularly when it is an issue that are controversial or don't come up often. (I agree, however, that a rav who is not well-versed should say so -- and I have had that happen many times. Usually accompanied by a referral to someone who does.)
And yet, that's not what happened in my case. Believe me, I would have followed the trail up the food chain had I been able to. If you'll pardon the mutilated metaphor.
quote:Originally posted by rivka:
quote:And you know, in Judaism, it's really easy. If I say that I think I can eat chicken parmesan and someone says I can't, I can ask them to show me where it says so. If they can, they're right. If they can't, I can do as I see fit.
*blink* This is not my understanding of normative halacha.
I oversimplified. Rivka, if I was talking to just you, I'd have been a little more clear. You want me to give a shiur on this forum?
If I tell you that you're not allowed to eat bananas on Passover, are you really going to feel an obligation to go and ask? I doubt it. Maybe you'll ask me, "Since when?" But if I can't substantiate it, you're not bound by what I said to ask anyone.
Although... how do you create a new chumra? Tell a BT a joke.
(A chumra is an extra stringency a person can take upon themselves, and a BT is a person who is newly religious, for those who don't sling the lingo.)
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: I only have a few moments because I'm rushing off to a meeting, but ...
1. Sorry, Lisa, for the confusion about my name ... I'm logged in with different names on different machines, and I'm way too amused by that fact to change it
<grin> I'd probably be amused, too.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: 2. I'm also sorry that I drew inaccurate conclusions about your history with your own faith. I think my impressions at least made sense, given what I knew, but your more complete account shows that I misunderstood quite a bit.
Thank you. You're a gentleman.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: 3. You said this:
quote:Some people would say that a woman having an abortion is doing something evil. Others would say that not allowing her to have one is doing something evil. What does God say? Well, according to the Catholics, God says it's murder. According to Judaism, it's forbidden except when the mother is in danger from the fetus. I don't know about Mormonism, but I suspect that it's somewhat closer to Catholicism.
Actually, compared to those standards, the Mormon position is even more moderate. I think our official stance (though I'm afraid of misstating it, so take this with a grain of salt) is that abortion is wrong, but that it is not murder. We accept that abortion is permissible in cases where the pregnancy endangers the life of the mother, or when the pregnancy was forced upon the mother through rape or incest. Beyond those cases, we find it very difficult to justify.
Interesting. That's very much like the Jewish view.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: Perhaps I'll have more to say later, when I have more time. And thanks for your kind words about some of the turkeys on this forum I'm a little surprised by them myself sometimes ...
Like I said, Xenogenesis. <sigh>
Lisa
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by starLisa: I don't believe I asked for your "help".
I know you didn't, but the first step is to realise that you have a problem.
I am rather interested in this trick of your god's with not changing the laws. Kind of like a constitution, in a way. Like a constitution, though, it is easy for the state authority to circumvent if the army is on their side. All Yahweh needs to do is remove that commandment from the books, and from the memories of the people, and then send in a prophet. Easy for an omnipotent being, yes?
By the way, do you also believe that these tidbits of the books of Moses haven't changed either?
Leviticus 21:9 And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the whore, she profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire.
Deuteronomy 22:20-21 But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel: Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die: because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father's house: so shalt thou put evil away from among you.
Deuteronomy 22:23-24 If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour's wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:I know you didn't, but the first step is to realise that you have a problem.
And I pray for the day you make that realization.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Well there you go then; with all that prayer going on, how can your god fail to step in and change me? However, you would think there are more worthwhile things to use your valuable prayer time on. Aren't the sufferings of those children in Dafur a bit more important than one Internet gadfly? Really, you'd think a lawyer would be able to prioritise.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
Suffering children in foreign lands can actually be helped through means other than prayer.
With you, Dagonee is resorting to using the only tool he has Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Well, he could always convert. Then I wouldn't bother him anymore.
Edit : Also, I was only criticising his use of prayer-time, not total resources. While he's praying, he obviosuly isn't doing anything else for the children of Dafur; thus, at that particular moment, his best option is to direct his god's thoughts thataway. They might appreciate it; I don't, for if the entity described in the bible really exists, I want its homicidal, malevolent attention as far away from me as possible.
[ August 05, 2005, 07:49 PM: Message edited by: King of Men ]
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
StarLisa:
Thanks for the info. I'm a "big picture' kind of guy, so that perspective helps. Though it's unfortunate you consider my form of spirituality "naive" I can better understand why you approach your religion like a scientist––proof before faith.
Interesting...
Why was it so funny I asked that question? Is it in context with the discussion? Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
To quibble, King of Men, what gives you the idea that the chance of a prayer's success is a function of the amount of time spent on the prayer? Why is "prayer time" a limited commodity, in your view?
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Well, even if Dagsie prays 24 hours a day, he can only pray for so many different things. Surely that's obvious? Certainly you can argue that his god, being omniscient and whatnot, knows what he would like to pray for, so there's not actually a need for Dag to form the words. But then, that's kind of why I'm mocking the concept anyway.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
This is why people doubt the altruism of your motives, KoM. You routinely mock and insult, and it's almost certain you're intelligent enough to realize this is hardly an effective means of persuasion.
If you truly believed that it was for a person's good not to be religious, and actually wanted to help, you would not consistently use methods guaranteed to insult, annoy, and stop the hearer from listening.
You're just stroking your own ego.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
I am operating on the theory that religious beliefs are so ingrained that they need a bit of dynamite to dislodge. Certainly mere sweet reason isn't going to do it, or there would be no religions.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
If someone accepts a new worldview because they fear mockery, how genuine do you think their transformation can really be?
And back on the original ridiculous subject, what makes Dagonee's prayer for someone other than a specific group of suffering children in a foreign country intrinsically less altruistic than your doing-nothing-at-all for those same suffering children during the same period of time? (That is, if we assume that he was doing something serious with that prayer, rather than simply mocking you )
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
The mockery is not intended to cause conversion by fear, but to shake the beliefs loose by causing a small shred of doubt. Then I leave it to the target's own reason to examine their beliefs critically.
How do you know I'm doing nothing? If nothing else, I was encouraging Dag to pray for them and not me. But in any case, I wasn't comparing Dag to me, I was comparing him to the hypothetical Dag to prays for the children of Darfur. There is only so much Dag can do about the comparison between me and him; he only controls 50% of that transaction. But he can certainly do better than himself, once the better course is pointed out to him. But in any case, since prayer is about as efficient as swearing, he is actually less altruistic than he is by doing nothing, since he feels that he has done something.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
quote:... he is actually less altruistic than he is by doing nothing, since he feels that he has done something.
Wait, so hold on ... a person who tries to do something good, believing it will work, and fails to accomplish anything is LESS altruistic than a person who doesn't try anything at all?
quote:The mockery is not intended to cause conversion by fear, but to shake the beliefs loose by causing a small shred of doubt. Then I leave it to the target's own reason to examine their beliefs critically.
So essentially, you're the equivalent of the most obnoxious Christian "witnessers" At least I know where to categorize you now.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:The mockery is not intended to cause conversion by fear, but to shake the beliefs loose by causing a small shred of doubt. Then I leave it to the target's own reason to examine their beliefs critically.
There are times I don't like the new more hands-on moderator approach to Hatrack, because clearly this is male-cow excrement, King of Men.
You claim to know a lot about religious people, how they think, why they think what they think, blah blah blah. You think they haven't heard your sort of insulting, smug mockery before? You think they'll listen to you? Of course not.
You're not that stupid. You know that the people you claim to be trying to persuade are just going to turn off their ears because you're being a smug, self-impressed pompous jackass, and that you won't really dislodge anyone.
There isn't anything altruistic in your motives. You're not really trying to persuade anyone who disagrees with you. You're just using the opportunity to mock those you think are stupid, and compliment yourself.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Gosh, for someone who criticises others for claiming to know how others think, you sure as hell know a lot about how I think.
Now, I think Puppy may have a point here; I am using the same methods as the most obnoxious Christian witnessers. So the question is, do those methods really work? I think they do; certainly there are many people who claim to have been converted by a street-corner preacher, or whatever.
Now, there is a valid criticism to be made here : I am possibly aiming at the wrong demographic by using such methods on the moderately literate, reasonable members of Hatrack. I have to admit, the street-corner preachers are not exactly aiming for the upper half of the population.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:The mockery is not intended to cause conversion by fear, but to shake the beliefs loose by causing a small shred of doubt. Then I leave it to the target's own reason to examine their beliefs critically.
And if your mockery weren't based on clear misunderstandings of my beliefs on prayer, then you might have a hope of doing so. As it is, you're making asinine posts to no effect.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Well then, would you please enlighten me so I can mock you more effectively? (I do feel it is rather difficult to mis-understand what has never been explained. By definition, in such a case, you would have to rely on preconceptions.) Perhaps you believe that prayer is good for the one praying, rather than the one prayed for, as I have seen some people here suggest? In that case, you should be thanking me for giving you such a splendid opportunity to improve yourself.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Well, you make it extremely obvious how you think about this, King of Men.
You are intelligent. You think religious people are misguided and stupid. You attempt to dissuade them from religion (by your 'first pebble in a rockslide' method) for altruistic reasons.
And yet your methods do not match these things, not by a long shot. One or more of them is obviously wrong. I don't think you aren't intelligent. I don't doubt you feel religious people are misguided and stupid. I don't doubt you'd be satisfied if more religious people changed their minds to match yours, or at least come into closer accord with yours.
All that's left are your 'altruistic reasons'. This is the only link in the chain that doesn't ring true, and it's obvious to anyone, King of Men. The only conclusion a reasonable person can reach is that your methods aren't entirely altruistic, and that you are, in fact, intellectually masturbating, if you'll pardon the crudity.
There are only two real options here: you're either too stupid to realize that your methods don't work (by the way, do you know a single damn thing about street-corner preachers other than what you've seen on TV? I challenge you to demonstrate you know squat about that issue; I frankly doubt you can do so), or you're lying to yourself and / or others about your motivations for using those methods.
---------
Basically you admit you're using the same methods as the most obnoxious Christian witnessers. I think we can all agree that that particular type of witnesser is not just doing their work for altruistic reasons, but in large part to feel better about themselves by showing to themselves how unwashed the masses are, compared to them.
And yet we're to take your identical methods to be altruistic? That's laughable. Though you're convinced, and tell us so at great length that incredibly stupid, religious people aren't necessarily.
------
Incidentally, I'd still like a response from Mr. Squicky.
Posted by delusional1 (Member # 7896) on :
who gave us the right to tell people who they can and cannot commit the rest of their lives to? who is it really hurting to let a same sex couple take vows to be together for the rest of their lives in front of their friends and families? why should they not get the same benefits for staying in a monogomous relationship with one another and being good people?
there are a lot of heterosexual couples, a lot more in my experience, who cheat on each other and break up "happy, two opposite gendered parent families", and for some reason, no one says those people can't get married again because they made horrible decisions the first time around. heterosexuals can go around nailing everyone in sight while staying married to someone JUST SO THEY CAN reap the benefits of legalalized matrimony. and this goes on while homosexuals struggle under a blanket of oppression and prejudice that society and politicians conveniently and deceivingly label "moral correctness."
i'm so sick of hearing about how gar marriages would be detrimental to society as a whole. explain to me how that is. homosexuality is not a fad. it's been around forever. it's only now becoming a public issue because people are starting to feel more freedom in their religious and moralistic views and are feeling less oppressed by the blind christian standards that have dictated american society for so long. there are many other countries where homosexuality is not an issue, and hasn't been for a long time.
who cares what someone's sexual preference is. i would rather allow equality for all than to be so pompous as to push my moral beliefs on people just to whip them into obedience without mandate from god him/her/itself. christian doctrine, specifically catholicism, has persecuted anyone who didn't bow down to the male dominated, testosterone and money driven society they wanted for way too long. some sects of christianity have gotten better about this in recent years and seen that in order to truly call themselves christians they must practice what they preach (fairness and equality without persecution) but it's still not enough.
i find it interesting and sad that an organization like the catholic church can look down on homosexuality so harshly while so many of it's officials are accused of performing the exact "acts" they deem so immoral and sinful. but of course, none of them really did it right? yes, just like michael jackson wasn't guilty. if you're big, bad, and rich enough, you can make almost any discrepancy disappear.
and to end my rant for now, a lighter note to try and ease my own frustration, if not anyone else's. a quote from i don't know where that makes such a wonderful point, and thus makes me smile.
"IT ACTUALLY DID SAY ADAM AND STEVE, THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR READING THE ABRIDGED VERSION."
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
delusional, it's anti-Christian attitudes like yours, at least in part, that make many Christians hesitate before signing on to your crusade.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Anti-Christian surely describes me rather better; comrade delusional looks to be more anti-hypocrisy. Though, come to think of it...
Totally irrelevant aside : Why did you pick your particular screen names? I get Geoff Card, to be sure, but "A Rat Named Dog" doesn't really convey anything to me.
Posted by delusional1 (Member # 7896) on :
a rat named dog . . . i am not anti-christian. i AM anti-hypocrisy. and that was my point. i don't have a problem with people who are true to the term christian. i just don't think most people who choose to rant about how "christian" they are really know the meaning of the term. i respect all religions. i don't think any of them are wrong, but i don't think any of them have gotten it entirely right, either.
ever seen the movie dogma? that movie makes a lot of points that i have believed for years. it shouldn't matter what you have faith in, just that you have faith. can anyone PROVE that their faith is the only right one like so many organized religions try to do? i have just as many issues with other religions that believe themselves to be "the one true" anything. the reason i have so much to say about christianity is because, being an american, i have had it forced down my throat my entire life as the end all be all religion of the masses and quite honestly am tired of being told that simply because my ideas about a higher power differ from what the crackpots in government office supposedly believe (though never even try to live up to) i'm some atheistic fool who shouldn't be given a voice or be allowed to be heard.
it's closed minded, one sided, intolerant, religious fanatics who cause more harm than good in my opinion, and until you can show me definite prrof beyond a reasonable doubt that YOU have been selected as the interpreter for whatever higher power does exist and can give me indisputable evidence that there is only one "right" way to believe, i will continue to observe my government granted right of free speach, and my, according to YOUR idea of god (as is also referenced in a wonderful book by Og Mandino entitled "the greatest miracle in the world") freedom of choice.
by the way, if your (the christian) god adored us so much as to put us above his angels by giving us the power to choose, how is it that you believe you have any right to limit someone else's ability to do so? doesn't that. in and of itself, make you a sinner and tyrant???
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:ever seen the movie dogma? that movie makes a lot of points that i have believed for years.
That's all very well and good, but I certainly hope you aren't actually using a bad movie as a foundational -- or persuasive -- element of your philosophy.
quote: by the way, if your (the christian) god adored us so much as to put us above his angels by giving us the power to choose, how is it that you believe you have any right to limit someone else's ability to do so?
I think you misunderstand the way "choice" works. Two gay men do have the freedom to choose whether to have sex with each other. That choice brings with it consequences.
What you are saying, then, is that people don't have the right to decide how they're going to react to things that other people do. I'm rather skeptical that you'll convince someone of this.
Same-sex marriage, as an issue, is not about freedom of choice. It is about fairness and the recognition of homosexual relationships as valuable to society, but since many people do not grant the latter, I suggest you focus on convincing them of that first.
Posted by delusional1 (Member # 7896) on :
first of all, dogma was a wonderful movie to anyone who is openminded enough to take it for what it was meant to be. and it's not the basis of my ideas or opinions, it's just a way of trying to get someone who may not understand my way of saying things to have a better understanding by relating it to something in pop culture they may be more familiar with.
secondly, i never said you can't have your own reaction to what someone else chooses to do. i said that your reaction to that choice should not dictate one's ability to do what they see as perfectly acceptable.
thirdly, who says that heterosexual marriages have a positive impact on society or are valuable to it? with over half of heterosexual marriages ending in divorce, and probably a comparitive number of them involving adultry, how exactly is it that you justify the value of marriages that often times end with one parent becoming the lone supporter of children conceived during that "sacred" union and not being able to do so alone and turning to the government for financial support? (i.e. food stamps, TANF, welfare, etc.)
i really don't see how homosexuals could screw up the "sanctity" of marriage any more than the majority of lustful heterosexuals already have.
and lastly, obviously, you still are not understanding me. the government nor any religion has the right to say, "because you are making a choice we think is immoral and wrong, WE CHOOSE to forbid you from binding yourself to this person you love and take away your rights and ability to choose for yourselves what is right." again, you are making a choice for someone that doesn't effect you in any way.
tell me, how does a same sex marriage make more of a difference in your life than the heterosexual imbicile who went and got all 5 of his wives pregnant multiple times then left them to fend for themselves, which required them to seek government assistance that YOU are paying for???
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
Misdirected indignation! What fun! (By the way, this is A Rat Named Dog using a different screen name.)
delusional, I don't quite understand what authority places you in a position to determine who is or is not being a "real Christian". But my main point was that your holier-than-thou attitude towards Christians makes them rather disinclined to listen to you. Your second post did nothing to improve or justify the attitude, so I'm not sure what purpose it served.
quote:ever seen the movie dogma? that movie makes a lot of points that i have believed for years.
Clearly, you have a strong background in serious theological discourse
quote:it shouldn't matter what you have faith in, just that you have faith.
What is the purpose of such faith, if issues like truth and moral integrity are irrelevant? Is faith in the Flying Spaghetti Monster valid and worthy, or should there be more to it?
quote:can anyone PROVE that their faith is the only right one like so many organized religions try to do?
Of course not. Faith is internal and subjective. If a religion could be proven to an outside observer, it would be science or history.
quote:the reason i have so much to say about christianity is because, being an american, i have had it forced down my throat my entire life as the end all be all religion of the masses and quite honestly am tired of being told that simply because my ideas about a higher power differ from what the crackpots in government office supposedly believe (though never even try to live up to) i'm some atheistic fool who shouldn't be given a voice or be allowed to be heard.
So you're angry because you've had a bad experience with some Christians that has made you cynical about others, and over time, pretty much bigoted towards them all. I have friends that have been through the same experiences you have, and probably worse, and have NOT come out of it with the attitude you express ... which leads me to believe that you are judgmental and derisive towards Christians because you choose to be, and not because you have somehow earned the right through years of suffering.
You should note that I've done nothing to try to silence you, prove my beliefs to you, or call you a fool. Well, I've teased you a bit But the point is, there is no reason why you should heap scorn upon me, Dagonee, or any of the other Christians here on this board, because we are NOT the ones that made you the way you are.
quote:it's closed minded, one sided, intolerant, religious fanatics who cause more harm than good in my opinion
We agree on this point. I just think you accuse people of this far too readily. Opposing a particular change in our cultural institutions does not automatically imply that the opposer possesses whatever litany of horrible traits that you might choose to heap upon him.
quote:until you can show me definite prrof beyond a reasonable doubt that YOU have been selected as the interpreter for whatever higher power does exist and can give me indisputable evidence that there is only one "right" way to believe, i will continue to observe my government granted right of free speach, and my, according to YOUR idea of god ... freedom of choice.
When did I say that you shouldn't have the freedom to do or say what you want to? Since I wasn't trying to arrest you, I'm not sure where freedom of speech even comes into this.
(Hay, Dagonee, does Internet posting count as Freedom of Speech or Freedom of the Press? Does the distinction matter?)
quote:by the way, if your (the christian) god adored us so much as to put us above his angels by giving us the power to choose, how is it that you believe you have any right to limit someone else's ability to do so? doesn't that. in and of itself, make you a sinner and tyrant???
Clearly, you have chosen to jump right into screaming at me for having some horrendous opinion without actually bothering to read back and find out what my opinion IS
In theory, I believe that society DOES have the right to determine that certain choices are or are not to be sanctioned, and this works to both your benefit and mine. It means we can punish murderers, stop child molesters, break up polygamy rings, fight drug lords and racketeers, and even protect free speech.
I would be surprised if you didn't agree with me on this. The conflict here isn't over whether or not society has the theoretical right to endorse or prohibit some choices. The conflict is over whether a particular institution should be changed.
So you're arguing beside the point. Stop it
[ August 06, 2005, 07:14 PM: Message edited by: Puppy ]
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Interesting. You get to call yourself 'anti-hypocrisy'. Then, anyone who disagrees with you is by definition not opposed to hypocrisy.
How very clever.
Dogma is a wonderful movie who want to be anti-establishment and anti-religion while still claiming they aren't, really. You get to stand above all of organized religion and play the victim, all at once.
I enjoyed the movie. I thought it made some decent points, and that it was pretty funny. But c'mon. They're old points, and they're points that people within the very churches you're villifying have made before it.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
Crap, Tom made the same point I was making, only he did it faster and better That should teach me to post at work in the midst of constant interruptions ...
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
I think having faith in a Flying Spaghetti Monster would be fun.
I could make up my own religion and, during services, we'd tie streamers to our bodies and run around with our arms outstretched yelling "Rrrrroowwwww, Neeeerrrrrrooowwww" and speak in Italian accents.
Whoopie!
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
delusional, RE: your last post, just a couple of points.
1. Being disappointed in the quality of religious thought in the movie Dogma does not make someone closed-minded.
2. The fact that there are bad heterosexual marriages in no way implies that homosexual marriage should be added to the law. The two issues are pretty much unrelated. Personally, I am much more horrified by the prevalence of easy divorce, illegitimacy, adultery, and single parenthood than I've ever been by gay marriage.
3. The structure of the society you live in communicates a great deal to you about the meaning of your own life, even when a particular institution or practice might not apply directly to you. I, as a heterosexual, care about the issue of gay marriage for the same reason that you (presumably, as a heterosexual) also care about it.
Posted by delusional1 (Member # 7896) on :
okay, the stab at me bringing up the movie dogma is a bit silly. i explained why i chose that particular piece of work in the last post, so if it wasn't clear, oh well, i tried.
i don't see myself as standing above anyone or judging anything. my point is that the decision to ban same sex marriages is being based solely on religious beliefs about morality instead of factual evidence about the detriment it might cause to society. and since there is no factual evidence because no one has ever been given the chance to conduct such research, how is it that one can make that decision for everyone with nothing to back it up.
my problem is that i don't believe such decisions should be made based on moral issues alone. i live in texas, where, until recently, sodomy was against the law. that means that even a heterosexual couple practicing such acts in the privacy of their own homes could be arrested for what was consentual between 2 adults. did that every happen? not that i can find. however, the reason the law was fought, which led to it being retracted, was because it was used to persecute a monogomous homosexual couple in the privacy of THEIR own home.
now, just because you may not like the idea of sodomy, does that mean you should be able to tell consenting adults what they can and cannot do with each other in private when it's not effecting anyone else?
as far as laws against murder and molestation, rape and drugs, those are put in place because there is actual proof of their detriment to human beings. those things that physically, emotionally, or mentally scar a helpless victim should be voted on and decided by society. but telling somoene they can't marry someone else because you don't agree with the idea of 2 people of the same sex doing so, that's just silly.
think and feel however you want about it, and if you don't like it, then don't associate with those who are okay with it. THAT is your choice. but using the stance that we shouldn't change specific "institutions" is a cop-out. if that were the case, then women would never have had the right to vote, there would still be segregation, etc. things change, and like it or not, people have a right to change the rules and laws that govern them when times change and socially accepted ideals of the past are no longer fitting for the present.
and as far as me thinking that anyone who disagrees with me is wrong or not opposed to hypocrisy, that's just not the case. disagree with me all you want to, more power to you. but i don't think that i should be pummeled because i am passionate about an issue. i don't think that i should be accused of being holier than thou just because i am of the opinion that a lot of people who are overly ademant about their religions don't live up to what their religions teach them. that has been my experience. however, the majority of my family believes in christianity and i respect them and love them just as much for it. i have several friends who practice christianity who i love debating with because we open each other's minds to new possibilities.
i don't understand why when i, a person who chooses not to associate themselves with any organized religion but is still open to the teachings of them in a non-smothering way, state my opinion against the mass majority, i get every word i say picked apart and am accused of thinking i'm better than everyone else, while those who are tearing me down are doing exactly the thing i'm upset about. if you don't agree with me, that's wonderful. i appreciate the challenge of differing points of view, but don't personally attack me when the statements i've made are generalizations previously stipulated as being based on my experiences.
and with that, i will read any further responses, but i will refrain from replying because the joy of it has been demolished. i was under the impression that diversity of opinion was respected without forging personal attacks on those who have them. i certainly didn't point out every word of anyone else's posts and attack them viciously for points i disagreed with. i am a firm believer that healthy debates are a good thing as long as you remain fair, but apparently, i have yet to find that.
***edit*** i find that, as a single mother, i must say that my son is doing just fine in society with only one biological parent around. my boyfriend treats him as his own and my son couldn't be happier. he has a ton of people who love him and doesn't need someone who doesn't being forced to deal with him because he donated some sperm. single parents in many cases can be better for a child than 2 parents who show nothing but disdain for one another. i know, i am the child of divorced parents. and quite frankly, i think i would be a lot worse off had my parents stayed together. they did better jobs with us apart than they did with each other.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
quote:my point is that the decision to ban same sex marriages is being based solely on religious beliefs about morality instead of factual evidence about the detriment it might cause to society. and since there is no factual evidence because no one has ever been given the chance to conduct such research, how is it that one can make that decision for everyone with nothing to back it up.
Holy crap, we have the same opinion Except that in the past, I have recommended caution in instituting gay marriage across the board for the same reason
As far as the rest of your post goes, I think you may be overreacting a bit. You do realize that you came in here with both fists swinging at people who either are moderates on this issue (like me) or are on your side (like Tom Davidson), without giving them any benefit of the doubt. You made sweeping judgments of the members of an entire religion, and tarred your opponents with accusations of the basest motivations.
While you did receive a bit of teasing, you were not viciously attacked for any of this. I quoted you line-by-line because I wanted to be clear about what I was responding to. When I saw the long, drawn-out post I had generated over the course of multiple interrupted writing sessions, I regretted it (because I actually hate that kind of debate), but it was too late to completely take it back. If it stressed you out, I'm sorry.
But you have to realize that people on Hatrack do have a sense of fair play. If you run in here with guns blazing indiscriminantly, people are going to want to show you why your arguments are unfair and misguided, even if, in the end, they actually agree with you. Sometimes, quoting back your own words and showing my immediate reactions to them is a good way to demonstrate that the words you are typing are not having their intended effects. But again, if that made the debate harder for you to continue, I'm sorry. I definitely value diversity of opinion. I just think that opinions should be rigorously formed and respectfully delivered, which is precisely why I contended with you. People on Hatrack are held to a very high standard of discourse. This is not the place for flame wars.
One final word of disagreement. Not everyone has the same experience with Christianity that you have had. The fact that you had these bad experiences does not mean that your generalizations about Christianity as a whole are accurate.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: as far as laws against murder and molestation, rape and drugs, those are put in place because there is actual proof of their detriment to human beings
Here's the problem: not everyone is convinced that homosexuality is harmless to individuals and/or society. Seriously.
Do you honestly think that people are lining up to vote against same-sex marriage because they just want to inconvenience two consenting adults who love each other? They do it because, for whatever reason, they're convinced that this sort of relationship is bad for society.
What we need to work on is that perception; whining about people who actually vote according to their sense of morality won't solve anything, and may even force them to choose between your political agenda and their faith.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:first of all, dogma was a wonderful movie to anyone who is openminded enough to take it for what it was meant to be.
I see. The only way one can fail to find Dogma to be wonderful is if one is close-minded?
quote:(Hay, Dagonee, does Internet posting count as Freedom of Speech or Freedom of the Press? Does the distinction matter?)
Yes. That's why the Internet decency acts have been struck down or limited.
quote:i don't see myself as standing above anyone or judging anything.
Then look harder at your first post.
quote:but i will refrain from replying because the joy of it has been demolished.
I'm sorry the posters here have removed the joy of your insulting attacks on others' faiths with their logic and reason.
Dagonee
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
Of all the words to mistype, I chose "Hey" Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
In 3 days, this thread will be 4 months old!
Why no possibility of resolution? I think it's because gay marriage proponents say they want one thing (equality) but ask for something else (approval); and one species of opponents, social conservatives, don't want to give an inch but can't articulate a reason proponents accept.
quote:...the government nor any religion has the right to say, "... WE CHOOSE to forbid you from binding yourself to this person you love."
If you believe this, D, why would you want to grant government this kind of authority? How is it freedom to be dependent on government sanction? Why not just let gay people marry, or whatever they want to call it, and forget the license?
Because it isn't about anyone being forbidden to make a commitment. It's about some people wanting the government to mandate that others have to approve of their sexuality.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
I should point out that pretty much every time I've confronted a gay-marriage opponent with specific instances when the lack of a sanctioned marriage causes difficulty for a gay couple (hospital visitation, inheritance, etc) ... universally, they've responded that the gay couple should get the same advantages as a heterosexual couple.
As far as I've seen, no one in the mainstream is trying to prevent homosexuals from pairing up, and no one wants them to suffer these horror-story disadvantages. ALL they want, from what I can see, is to keep the concept of "marriage" bound to the human mating/reproductive cycle, and not to relationships that fall outside that sphere. I think that if there were a way for homosexual couples to obtain a contract that gave them all the same legal rights as a married couple, everybody could live with that solution. People on the extremes would be dissatisfied on both sides, but ... I normally consider that to be a good thing Posted by delusional1 (Member # 7896) on :
now that idea and statement is something i can agree with happily puppy. we agree on yet another point . . . scary, isn't it??? Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
WHOAH! Awesome
[is totally friends with delusional now]
I like it when arguments end this way.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
But not when pages are turned this way.
Fricking non-sequitur page-openers.
Posted by kojabu (Member # 8042) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Yes, he's Geoff Card.
And yes, he does.
Gasp! I knew it!
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: I think that if there were a way for homosexual couples to obtain a contract that gave them all the same legal rights as a married couple, everybody could live with that solution. People on the extremes would be dissatisfied on both sides, but ... I normally consider that to be a good thing
I agree about frustrating the lunatic fringes.
Have any lawyers come up with a set of standard contracts that confer the same rights and obligations as heterosexual marriage, or most of them, without government sanction or using the word "marriage"?
In previous gay marriage threads I remember people claiming it would cost 1000s of dollars in legal fees to achieve it.
Couldn't some boilerplate contracts with options be written up? Or legal software? Turbometro?
Posted by delusional1 (Member # 7896) on :
i'm glad to know that i can openly state my opinion and be passionate about an issue that is so heated and still end up with the son of my favorite writer respecting my point of view and even agreeing with me. you definitely take after your father in your willingness to take the good with the bad. i also appreciate that you seem to respect someone who would argue with you knowing you're related to someone i admire the talents of so much.
and i would be more than happy to call you my friend. now, if you could just convince whoever needs convincing to get your dad to a book signing in houston, that'd be great. c'mon, you know you've got the magik wand to get that done. Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
Heh heh heh I'm so buried under my own job right now, I'm not even aware of his signings anymore ...
Thanks for the kind words, though Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by estavares: StarLisa:
Thanks for the info. I'm a "big picture' kind of guy, so that perspective helps. Though it's unfortunate you consider my form of spirituality "naive" I can better understand why you approach your religion like a scientist––proof before faith.
I thought I'd only called thinking that we ever do anything independent from outside influence "naive".
But you should know that not all Orthodox Jews share my approach to that extent. Many do operate on the basis of what we call emunah peshutah, which is the equivalent of the English word "faith".
Me, I'm a programmer, and I think analytically. And I lack whatever some people have that makes them want some higher power out there.
I remember a few years after becoming religious talking to my father on the telephone. I was raised in a Jewish home, but Judaism was just a thing that came up at life cycle events and the like. He said to me something like, "I just don't get it. You have the worst authority problem I have ever seen in my life. Of all the things you could possibly have done, you became Orthodox?"
And he was right. I have a major problem with authority. I think it stems from the first time I was clearly and objectively right when a teacher or parent was clearly and objectively wrong. <grin> I think I would have preferred a world without God; I just don't think it is.
quote:Originally posted by estavares: Interesting...
Why was it so funny I asked that question? Is it in context with the discussion?
No... I post on a newsgroup sometimes, and there's a guy there who isn't Orthodox himself, who is constantly trying to claim that the default position in Orthodoxy is that everything is forbidden until permitted. Just that day, he'd started up again, so when you asked:
quote:Originally posted by estavares: I take it then your obedience to God is based on if behavior is allowed (or not) in the Torah. If it isn't specific, then it's allowed? Is that an accurate assessment?
It just struck my funny bone.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:Originally posted by starLisa: I don't believe I asked for your "help".
I know you didn't, but the first step is to realise that you have a problem.
Hmm... smarmy and condescending. You're very unlike most of the regular posters here, aren't you.
I don't mind arrogance, personally. It'd probably be a little hypocritical if I did. But misplaced and unearned arrogance just comes across as a little childish.
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: I am rather interested in this trick of your god's with not changing the laws. Kind of like a constitution, in a way.
Quite.
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Like a constitution, though, it is easy for the state authority to circumvent if the army is on their side.
Not really. The system has multiple redundancy to an incredibly high degree. And Jews are stubborn. That stiffnecked thing works both ways. Sneaking changes by is untenable.
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: All Yahweh needs to do is remove that commandment from the books, and from the memories of the people, and then send in a prophet. Easy for an omnipotent being, yes?
<shrug> We're talking about an omnipotent being who isn't constrained by time. To Whom today, yesterday and tomorrow have no real meaning. If He wanted things to be different, He could have made them different to begin with.
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: By the way, do you also believe that these tidbits of the books of Moses haven't changed either?
Correct. As I told you, the Pentateuch is not the source of our laws. It is a vital part of the Torah, but its role in the Jewish legal system is more akin to a mnemonic, or an anchor, which makes recalling the law easier.
For example, "An eye for an eye" never meant literal lex talionis. The law was about several forms of monetary compensation, and the language of eye, tooth, burn, etc., made it easier to remember the various types of compensation required. Actual compensation, compensation for distress caused, compensation for time lost, compensation for embarrassment, etc.
The same applies to your examples below. A married woman who has sex with a man other than her husband has committed adultery. The man has, as well, in equal part. That's a capital crime in Jewish law. The "burnt with fire" describes one of the four methods of capital punishment, which is actually different from the Jean d'Arc image you might have.
That said, capital punishment is extraordinarily rare under Jewish law. The person needs to be warned, with at least two witnesses present, that he or she is about to violate a Torah prohibition that carries the death penalty. The warning has to be repeated. In both cases, the person has to indicate that he or she has understood the warning and is going to do it anyway.
The same two witnesses (I think they have to be the same two; I'm not 100% sure) have to actually see him or her committing the act and testify to it before a court of at least 23 judges. Don't get me started on the requirements for those judges.
Then the judges have to vote in favor of the punishment. But it has to be more than a majority of one, and if it's unanimous, the perp is aquitted. The theory being that if you get a 23 out of 23 vote, there's likely to be some bias going on.
Yeah... capital punishment in Judaism is an awful lot like suicide.
Oh, and it can only be meted out when the court system is fully up and running, with the high court (the Sanhedrin) meeting in its quarters on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, adjacent to the Temple.
Also? The quotes you mentioned don't refer to what you probably think they do.
See, one of the reasons it's good that the bulk of the Torah isn't written is that, well, look at the way in which the written Bible was misused and misinterpreted by Christianity. Thank God all they had to work with was the smaller part of the whole.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by A Rat Named Dog: delusional, it's anti-Christian attitudes like yours, at least in part, that make many Christians hesitate before signing on to your crusade.
Of course, I'm sure you realize the difference between a perspective and any given advocate of that perspective, right? I mean, you don't see Fred "God Hates Fags" Phelps as representing your position, do you?
Not that I'm comparing delusional to Phelps, but there's a reason why ad hominem is a fallacy.
I think many people are too eager to use broadsides such as delusional's as an excuse to do something they had already decided to do.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Will B: In 3 days, this thread will be 4 months old!
Why no possibility of resolution? I think it's because gay marriage proponents say they want one thing (equality) but ask for something else (approval);
Really. Thanks, Will B. And here I was thinking that I knew what I actually wanted. What would I have done if you hadn't come along to explain to me what I actually wanted? Gosh, you're my hero!
quote:Originally posted by Will B: and one species of opponents, social conservatives, don't want to give an inch but can't articulate a reason proponents accept.
quote:...the government nor any religion has the right to say, "... WE CHOOSE to forbid you from binding yourself to this person you love."
If you believe this, D, why would you want to grant government this kind of authority?
Who does? I'd much rather get government out of the marriage biz.
Unfortunately, the government has seen fit to grant certain perqs to people who are considered married. And a government which is not allowed to adopt the position of a particular religion should not be allowed to discriminate in the granting of such perqs.
Sure, the government shouldn't be in the perqs biz at all. Protecting citizens from attacks internal and external and mediating disputes. That's the only legitimate role of governments to begin with. But so long as I'm being forced to pay for the perqs they give out, I'm not willing to be a second class citizen when it comes to receiving them.
quote:Originally posted by Will B: How is it freedom to be dependent on government sanction? Why not just let gay people marry, or whatever they want to call it, and forget the license?
Sounds good to me. Can my partner and I file our taxes jointly? Can we get the title on our house changed so that we share the protections of the "married couple" title? Hey, how about inheritance? Can we be allowed to inherit from one another without taxes the way straight married couples can?
My employer has domestic partner coverage on medical insurance. But the part for me is tax free, and the part for her is taxed. Can we get that changed? Or do you still think this is about approval?
Suppose one of us wasn't a US citizen. It's not the case, but I know people for whom it is. If one of us was male, the non-citizen would be able to claim citizenship on the basis of being married to a US citizen. Since we're both female, that's not an option.
I absolutely love people who tell me that it's all about trying to force "acceptance" on other people. The only "forcing" here is on the part of those who want to force their religious definitions into the law books.
quote:Originally posted by Will B: Because it isn't about anyone being forbidden to make a commitment. It's about some people wanting the government to mandate that others have to approve of their sexuality.
Nope. It's about your making me equal when it comes to paying into the pot, and unequal when it comes to getting back.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: I should point out that pretty much every time I've confronted a gay-marriage opponent with specific instances when the lack of a sanctioned marriage causes difficulty for a gay couple (hospital visitation, inheritance, etc) ... universally, they've responded that the gay couple should get the same advantages as a heterosexual couple.
And yet, most of these people think that civil unions will actually provide these things. And then we have states like Michigan, where they just passed an amendment which made such things illegal, regardless of what they're called.
Geoff, it's easy to say that when you're having a conversation. But clearly, that doesn't extend to the ballot box.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: As far as I've seen, no one in the mainstream is trying to prevent homosexuals from pairing up, and no one wants them to suffer these horror-story disadvantages.
You really need to read the Federal Marriage Amendment, Geoff. Is the government out of the mainstream?
I believe you have a good heart. I think you just aren't able to understand what it's like to have to constantly fight to get half of what heterosexuals get in this country.
I'm glad, in a way. Because the only way you'd really be able to understand it would be to experience it. And I'm not the kind of person who likes to share the misery.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: ALL they want, from what I can see, is to keep the concept of "marriage" bound to the human mating/reproductive cycle, and not to relationships that fall outside that sphere.
And if your religion holds that this is important, that's great. Let your religion's definition of marriage be defined that way. You just aren't entitled to force that definition into the laws.
I'll take any word you want, Geoff. Honest. So long as there are absolutely zero distinctions made in law between the two. Not one.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: I think that if there were a way for homosexual couples to obtain a contract that gave them all the same legal rights as a married couple, everybody could live with that solution.
I sure could. Would, in fact. But it's not going to happen, because while you may not agree, the vast majority of people who oppose gay marriage really are coming from the view of "Homosexuality is icky. Anything that would make life easier for homosexuals will simply encourage them."
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: People on the extremes would be dissatisfied on both sides, but ... I normally consider that to be a good thing
Me, too. I wish I had your relatively innocent view of the world.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Morbo:
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: I think that if there were a way for homosexual couples to obtain a contract that gave them all the same legal rights as a married couple, everybody could live with that solution. People on the extremes would be dissatisfied on both sides, but ... I normally consider that to be a good thing
I agree about frustrating the lunatic fringes.
Have any lawyers come up with a set of standard contracts that confer the same rights and obligations as heterosexual marriage, or most of them, without government sanction or using the word "marriage"?
In previous gay marriage threads I remember people claiming it would cost 1000s of dollars in legal fees to achieve it.
Couldn't some boilerplate contracts with options be written up? Or legal software? Turbometro?
Well, what do you mean by "government sanction"? For one thing, why should the government "sanction" your relationship and not mine?
But aside from that, do you think there's such a thing as a contract that would allow my partner and me to file our taxes jointly? Change the title on our home so that we are protected in the same way that a straight couple is?
There is no solution for this in contracts. Believe me, it's been looked into.
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
StarLisa:
How I took your "naive" comment is that I DO believe that spiritual confirmation can come from God independant from all influence. I have had many experiences when I have been prompted or guided in ways I had no previous knowledge, and I knew that it was divine guidance.
I don't consider that naive. I consider it a claim based on personal experience.
That being said, I'm curious as to a question I've asked time and time again, with no answer. One of my biggest issues with this subject is this demand that society must rewrite major social constructs simply because we want our way––all the while demanding that religious and/or moral thought must never have influence over government decisions. It's a double standard.
If equal benefits were the main issue here, then why is the concept of "civil unions" considered distasteful, especially when any legal benefits virtually match those found in traditional marriage? Because it's about being "second class citizens?" Why are civil unions dismissed?
What I'm hearing is that benefits are important, yes. But at the end of the day it's about getting the country to eat its brussel sprouts (with a smile) and making it admit it really, really likes them.
Any clarification and/or insight is always appreciated...
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Have any lawyers come up with a set of standard contracts that confer the same rights and obligations as heterosexual marriage, or most of them, without government sanction or using the word "marriage"? In previous gay marriage threads I remember people claiming it would cost 1000s of dollars in legal fees to achieve it.
Morbo, off the top of my head, the following are not available as contract:
Marital communication privilege and spousal immunity.
Joint tax return filing.
Social Security survivorship.
Eligibility for partner's health plan (in some states, this is actually prohibited; in most others it's not required when spousal coverage is granted.)
As far as contracts go, many are not enforceable across state lines - particularly the ones that attempt to bind third parties, such as hospitals allowing visitation, etc.
Dagonee
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by estavares: StarLisa:
How I took your "naive" comment is that I DO believe that spiritual confirmation can come from God independant from all influence. I have had many experiences when I have been prompted or guided in ways I had no previous knowledge, and I knew that it was divine guidance.
Oh. I guess I misunderstood. I would call that influence. I didn't realize that you meant influence other than divine.
quote:Originally posted by estavares: I don't consider that naive. I consider it a claim based on personal experience.
That being said, I'm curious as to a question I've asked time and time again, with no answer. One of my biggest issues with this subject is this demand that society must rewrite major social constructs simply because we want our way––all the while demanding that religious and/or moral thought must never have influence over government decisions. It's a double standard.
Yes and no. It's very clear that the founders had a double standard when it came to religion's influence over the body politic.
Estavares, honestly. Look at history. To take Christianity as an example, because that's the largest religious group in America, history is absolutely replete with examples of what happens when Christianity becomes a state religion. And it's not pretty for the rest of us.
I mean, the Pilgrims came to this country, fleeing religious persecution, right? That's what we learn in school. What they don't mention is that they weren't opposed to religious persecution at all. They just wanted to be the ones on top.
And the same could easily be true for any and all other religions, however sweet and peaceful they may seem when they're not running things. The problem is that religion brooks no argument. "God said so" is the last word in any religious argument, and it's been used to justify so much evil in the past that it simply can't be allowed into our laws.
I have no problem with "God said so", as I think I've made clear. I just have a problem forcing it on others, or having it forced on me by others. And ultimately, the defining characteristic of government is its ability to coerce people to obey rules.
When the United States of American came into being, there were many inequities that remained in law and custom, simply because people were so used to them that they passed beneath notice.
It wasn't legislation that created the general view that blacks were lesser beings. Sure, there were laws to that effect, but the laws followed the social premise. As our society has matured, we have, every time we've become cognizant of inequities that are enshrined in the system, taken steps to remediate them.
You know this. The fight over women being allowed to vote, for example. Good Lord! I mean, the fears of social upheaval and the destruction of the family and family values if women were permitted to vote were even more vociferous than the same fears about same-sex marriage are today. It hasn't been that long in this country since the question of whether women have souls was polite dinner conversation.
Now, the novel idea that women are adult human beings every bit as much as men are is so obvious to almost everyone that people have forgotten how fierce that struggle was.
The same thing happened with race. There are still people today who would disown a child for marrying someone of a different race. People who honestly think that it's immoral and unnatural to mix races.
This nation guarantees you the right to hold whatever opinions and moral stances you want. But it does not allow you to impose those beliefs on others.
quote:Originally posted by estavares: If equal benefits were the main issue here, then why is the concept of "civil unions" considered distasteful, especially when any legal benefits virtually match those found in traditional marriage?
"Virtually"? Please. They do nothing of the sort. Give me a civil union where the rights and responsibilities and protections are 100% identical to those granted to married couples, and I'll be happy to accept it. I don't care about the word. The reason I reject civil unions is that they are nowhere near 100%. I'm not willing to settle for even 99%, and civil unions are nowhere near that, either.
This is the problem, you see. When I mention that women get paid less, on the whole, for doing the same work as men, most people reply with, "Not any more." Or "But you've made real advances." Or "Ah, but men have to support their families." <groan>
If you refuse to recognize an inequity, you don't have to do anything about it. And you don't have to feel bad, either.
When civil unions are no less than marriages, give me a call.
quote:Originally posted by estavares: Because it's about being "second class citizens?" Why are civil unions dismissed?
Because they are half-baked, half-***ed, half-way solutions. For me, at least, it's not a question of semantics.
quote:Originally posted by estavares: What I'm hearing is that benefits are important, yes. But at the end of the day it's about getting the country to eat its brussel sprouts (with a smile) and making it admit it really, really likes them.
Any clarification and/or insight is always appreciated...
HTH, Lisa
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: Sneaking changes by is untenable.
I'm a bit curious, Lisa. How do you think the Jews -- no matter how stiffnecked they might be -- would stop God from sneaking any changes by that He wanted to make?
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote: Sneaking changes by is untenable.
I'm a bit curious, Lisa. How do you think the Jews -- no matter how stiffnecked they might be -- would stop God from sneaking any changes by that He wanted to make?
Who said anything about that? I was referring to prophets or the like doing so. God gave us strict instructions to eliminate any prophet doing that. And He wasn't talking about nutbags on streetcorners; He was talking about genuine prophets. The real deal. Men or women who had proven themselves to be real communicators of God's will. If one of those tells us to do something that contradicts Jewish law, it's a sign that God is testing us or that the prophet is skewing the information he's getting.
But it's also a matter of consistency. God says that God doesn't lie. If He does, there isn't much we can do about it. And if He doesn't, then we figure any "changes" He'd want to make wouldn't need to be made, since He could have rigged things in the first place to have the outcome He wanted.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Ohhh, wow. I just happened to be checking this thread at it was at 666 posts :gasp:! Alas! It was the newbie starLisa who got the coveted number, drat her! *shakes fist*
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Ohhh, wow. I just happened to be checking this thread at it was at 666 posts :gasp:! Alas! It was the newbie starLisa who got the coveted number, drat her! *shakes fist*
Muahahaha!
Ah, but who got 616?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Merry Christmas, Rakeesh. Now you have reply 666 (which is the 667th post, of course). Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
StarLisa:
Two issues to discuss, then I'm off to write four papers for class...
First, your replies reveal the fundimental issue. Is a homosexual relationship on equal grounds with a heterosexual one? This thread has discussed that idea with yet more divisions––do we follow science alone? Should we discount spiritual and/or religious opinion at every level? What kind of evidence would be considered valid for both sides?
There is a fine line here because opponents do not see this as an issue of equality or "civil rights." They do not equate this with gender or race. They see this as demanding the same benefits for something fundimentally different, often due (regardless of strong inclinations) to personal choice. It would be like me demanding the "Child" price at the movies simply because I feel youthful. I may feel and act that way, but I'm not. That's clearly a silly analogy, but it illustrates how this issue is perceived.
What it feels like is what you've already expressed––someone's forcing their beliefs down the country's throat. Churches are kept in check (as they should be), but lobbies fighting to change laws to fit their own convictions are given free reign? It's a double standard. Where does religion and personal conviction begin and end?
This bring up a good point; assuming a conviction's origins is more often wrong. That's why I get irritated by this broad assumption that those opposed to gay marriage do it to force religious beliefs down the country's throat or simply because they think homosexuality is "icky." That kind of simpilization is as inaccurate as presuming those for gay marriage are liberals
This discussion has caused our country to re-evaluate the concepts of marriage and family. That's a very healthy thing to happen. As as been more ably said before, I am far more worried about easy divorces, latch-key kids, far too many single-parent families, slap-on-the-hands to deadbeat parents and the overall displacing of the father's role in the home.
But this has just been a hoot to debate, and I've learned a whole heck of a lot...
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:There is a fine line here because opponents do not see this as an issue of equality or "civil rights."
Actually, in the classic sense, this is precisely about civil rights. Traditionally, these were the right to vote, the right to enter into legally enforceable contracts, access to the courts to redress civil wrongs, right to have crimes committed against one prosecuted, right to a fair investigation and trial when accused of a crime, the right to serve on juries, etc. Basically, the right to receive the basic benefits afforded by the state to its citizens. It is distinct from a liberty, which is the right to perform an act without interference or penalty.
With Lawrence, the liberty half of the equation has been redressed. Unless Lawrence is subsequently limited in a way I can't see happening right now, a same sex couple can live together freely. What they can't do is receive the state benefits associated with that decision. What is now at stake is precisely a civil right as distinguished above: the right to government recognition, the right to sever the relationship with pre-determined property rules, the right to tenancy in common, the right to combine finances for tax purposes, etc.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
I suspect comrade estavares was using the words in the context of the sixties popular movement, rather than the narrow legal definition.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I suspect so. I was attempting to point out that it's not really a matter of how one sees it: access to civil institutions is, by definition, a civil right. Somehow the word got caught up with equality and several important aspects of it were lost in the shuffle.
It's not a question of how one sees the issue. We are talking about civil rights. What we are discussing is whether the approriate decisional framework is best summed up as:
"Does adequate reason exist for not extending these civil rights to same-sex couples?"
or as
"Does adequate reason exist for extending these civil rights to same-sex couples?"
Dagonee P.S., the definition listed above isn't the strict legal defintition. It's more the classical philosophical definition.
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
King of Men is right; sorry for the confusion.
Obviously this is an issue of a "civil right" but I meant making a connection to the civil rights movement and associating the homosexual issue being on par with minority and gender rights. My contention is that they are not on the same level for reasons said over and over again throughout this thread.
Connecting the two, in my opinion, is a clever tactic of those demanding change by forcing the status quo to justify its existence. On the contrary, the dissenting opinion usually has the burden of proof. In that regard, Dagonee, your questions are dead-on correct ones to ask.
The problem is that the criteria for answering these questions varies from group to group and, frankly, a consensus is gonna be tough. Both sides define "proof" in very different ways (even beyond simply science vs. religion), and both seem to think the other is inferior.
Ah, gotta love philosophical diversity...
[ August 08, 2005, 11:16 PM: Message edited by: estavares ]
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by estavares: King of Men is right; sorry for the confusion.
Obviously this is an issue of a "civil right" but I meant making a connection to the civil rights movement and associating the homosexual issue being on par with minority and gender rights. My contention is that they are not on the same level for reasons said over and over again throughout this thread.
Connecting the two, in my opinion, is a clever tactic of those demanding change by forcing the status quo to justify its existence. On the contrary, the dissenting opinion usually has the burden of proof.
Usually. But not always. And in a nation founded on the idea of individual liberty and equality under the law, the burden of proof is on anyone wishing to discriminate. Sometimes that burden can be met, but in this case, it can't.
No one had to "prove" that allowing women to vote wouldn't destroy the family. It was a struggle to make that change, but it was never a matter of proof. Merely a matter of people waking up to the basic inequity of the situation.
And the same thing was true of race. Has anyone ever "proven" anything in that area? What is there to be proven? Discrimination on the basis of race and gender and sexual orientation didn't come into being on the basis of proof. And eliminating those forms of discrimination doesn't require proof that women are adults, or that black people are human or that gay relationships are worthy.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
I agree with starLisa, unsurprisingly. Estavares, why should the dissenting opinion have to prove its validity to the status quo, other than the fact that the status quo is, well, the status quo?
Just because it's always been that way doesn't make it right. And your side (presuming you oppose SSM) needs more than "it's always been this way" to keep it going. And on the issue of threatening current traditions, well frankly heterosexuals do a whole helluva lot more threatening homosexuals than vice versa.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: I agree with starLisa, unsurprisingly. Estavares, why should the dissenting opinion have to prove its validity to the status quo, other than the fact that the status quo is, well, the status quo?
Just because it's always been that way doesn't make it right. And your side (presuming you oppose SSM) needs more than "it's always been this way" to keep it going. And on the issue of threatening current traditions, well frankly heterosexuals do a whole helluva lot more threatening homosexuals than vice versa.
True that. Also, heterosexuals got rid of laws against adultery. If you want to talk about something "anti-family"...
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I agree that the status quo gets a presumption precisely because it is the status quo. But once a prima facie case is made for change, the presumption had served its purpose and is no longer operative. When the prima facie case is based on a denial of existing government benefits to a minority, a new presumption kicks in against the denial.
In this case, the showing has been made that the change will not affect the legal functioning of marriage for heterosexuals, and that identifiable couples suffer identifiable, concrete harms under the status quo. I've never seen the second part refuted at all.
So, reasons have been given for change. Make the case for denying same sex couples these benefits which can be provided at no cost to the legal system and no reduction in the legal institution's suitability to task.
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
And thus we go back to the core problem here. Opponents do not see that the burden of proof has been fulfilled--and they don't see this as discrimination, because that means you're denying something to someone they inherently deserve from birth.
And when this issue is perceived as being fueled by abherrent behavior, all the raised fists won't change the core idea that you're trying to force a definition that can never exist, regardless of how much it feels like it. That's been OSC's contention from the start.
This presumption that it's been proven, especially when data is short-term and ripe with influence from advocacy groups, is false. To say it hasn't been refuted is based on the idea that all evidence for gay marriage is objective, while all evidence against it is subjective and political.
I mean come on, that never happens. Ever. We're all smart enough to know our science and statistics and understand that human behavior is tough to pin down, much less presume a truth after only a decade's worth of hard research.
I just think it's too early to call. I think it's premature to make a complete change. And since both sides are filled with indignation against the other, will this really be solved by studies and science and facts? It will be people discarding their initial values to move one direction or the other.
StaraLisa brings up a great point about adultry––I figure if marriage is easier to squirm out of than our mortgage or cell phone contract, gay marriage is the least of our concerns.
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
One more point: Rakeesh made a great argument earlier about the idea of gay couples paying into the system and not getting back, and of all the arguments I've heard that makes the most sense to me.
I still think some kind of improved civil union could be a fine compromise, something that many (and not just gay couples) could use, but from the sound of things it has to be everything, or nothing.
I've no answer for a solution at this point, but I do love a good puzzler...
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by estavares: And thus we go back to the core problem here. Opponents do not see that the burden of proof has been fulfilled
Dear God, spare me. Enough, already, okay? Pretty please? If you can honestly read what some of us have posted and continue to claim that there is a burden of proof to fulfill in the first place, then you're just not listening.
If you were to argue that, yes, there is such a burden of proof, we could argue the point, and think you'd fail to support it. But you aren't even doing that. You're just ignoring what you don't want to hear and repeating that the burden of proof hasn't been fulfilled.
That's not honest discourse, estavares.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Opponents do not see that the burden of proof has been fulfilled--and they don't see this as discrimination, because that means you're denying something to someone they inherently deserve from birth.
That's not what discrimination means.
quote:This presumption that it's been proven, especially when data is short-term and ripe with influence from advocacy groups, is false. To say it hasn't been refuted is based on the idea that all evidence for gay marriage is objective, while all evidence against it is subjective and political.
I said there would be no repurcusssions to the legal aspects: no law about marriage would have to change at all. You cannot demonstrate one that will. If you want to raise social harm issues, then the burden of proof is on you to do so. And you can't just say, "I think X will happen." Back it up.
quote:I just think it's too early to call. I think it's premature to make a complete change.
OK, then answer me this: name one legal benefit or duty of marriage that should not apply to same sex couples willing to take on the duties and responsibility.
Just name one.
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
Any of them. Because it's not marriage.
The first rule of debate is to agree on definitions, and that's a core problem here. When was marriage officially defined as simply a sexual relationship between two committed, consenting adults...regardless of gender? When did harm to "traditional" marriage constitute a burden of proof to justify gay marriage? Proponents MAKE that a burden of proof because it's easy to win; it's an absurd notion, and a handy distraction while acting as if somehow definitions have already been decided.
And please, spare me the "honest discourse" garbage as if I haven't read every single post and link from beginning to end and processed it. When was the research on the subject been announced as the final word on the matter? Instead every counter proof is dismissed for no reason other than bias, broad generalizations as to the motives of opponents are thrown about, and I've yet to see how homosexuality is on equal grounds with gender or race.
Honest discourse? Show me we're dealing with a universal definition here. But you can't. You want it to be, because it matters to you, but it's like scribbling out a word in the dictionary and writing in a new one and demanding we accept it. Sorry, but that doesn't wash.
So I ask the question again: When was marriage officially defined as simply a sexual relationship between two committed, consenting adults...regardless of gender? Isn't that the whole purpose of defining this in our state constitutions, even as we speak?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: When was marriage officially defined as simply a sexual relationship between two committed, consenting adults...regardless of gender?
I hasten to point out that a sexual relationship is not inherent to either definition of marriage, whereas committment is. Perhaps a more accurate definition would be "a lifelong committment between consenting adults?"
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
Truem but if that was the case then I could be committed to my brother, or mother, or my best friend.
The line keeps getting redrawn and redrawn, and what was impossible a decade ago is now considered vogue. Where do we draw the line?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Any of them. Because it's not marriage.
No, I'm asking which of the civil benefits associated with the legal institution of marriage should not be available to gay couples.
Forget for now that they are associated with marriage. You propose a civil union as an alternative. OK, let's get down to brass tacks. What rights and duties from marriage would you not include in the civil union.
Just name one.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: Where do we draw the line?
Why is it necessary to draw a line? What benefit does the line provide?
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee:
quote:Any of them. Because it's not marriage.
No, I'm asking which of the civil benefits associated with the legal institution of marriage should not be available to gay couples.
Forget for now that they are associated with marriage. You propose a civil union as an alternative. OK, let's get down to brass tacks. What rights and duties from marriage would you not include in the civil union.
Just name one.
Let's make this easier. When you buy a house, there are different ways that the title can be written. I think it may differ from state to state, but here's how it is in Illinois.
Check out this page. My partner and I have joint tenancy on our home. We wanted tenancy by the entirety, but this is reserved for married couples only. It has extra protections against creditors, and requires the consent of both parties to sell any of the property.
Do you think a civil union should allow us to be tenants by the entirety? If not, why not?
Or check this out. It's Arizona, where it says that "Only persons married to each other may own real property as community property."
Or leaving that aside, should a civil union grant me spousal immunity from testifying against my partner the way married couples have? If not, why not?
Should we be able to file our taxes jointly? If not, why not?
When one of us dies, should the other receive Social Security benefits the way survivors in a marriage do? We pay the same Social Security monies in, so if not, why not?
Staying with the death theme, if one of us dies, should the other have to pay estate taxes on what we inherit from the other? If so, why?
And if one of us dies, should the other be allowed to roll the deceased one's 401(k) into an IRA without paying taxes on it, the way a married survivor would be able to? If not, why not?
If one of us wasn't a citizen and one was, should the non-citizen be able to petition for citizenship, so as not to break up our family, as married couples are entitled to do? If not, why not?
Should the Full Faith and Credit clause in the Constitution apply to me and my partner? If we get a civil union in one state, should all other states be bound by law to recognize all the rights and responsibilities pertaining to it? If not, why not?
Here's that clause, btw:
"Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof."
That'll do for a start.
Posted by 0range7Penguin (Member # 7337) on :
I was gone from hatrack for like a month and a half I come back and guess what?....This thread is still going strong! Which leads me to the question. Whats the longest thread ever?
Posted by CRash (Member # 7754) on :
I think the longest thread ever that's still alive and well is the "Begging the Question" game on the other side. It just keeps going and going...
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
On the front page of the other side there are currently threads with 79, 15, 16, 49 146, and 105 pages in them. This thread only has 14 pages.
Posted by Katarain (Member # 6659) on :
*sigh* When are Dagonee's and starLisa's questions going to be answered? I'm getting impatient!!
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
Sorry; I'm in the middle of getting my Master's and I'm buried with papers. Not like I should be the sole voice of dissent, but that's the way it's turned out.
StarLisa's details are very helpful and, frankly IMHO, none of them should be granted under current law as definitions of what constitutes marriage are very, very different. Gay marriage proponents want everything anyway, so nitpicking this benefit and that benefit would be fruitless.
My thought on civil unions should be any two people, regardless of relationship, can apply for certain powers such as hospital/privacy authority and other core benefits that involve life and limb. Since Tom brings up the idea that marriage is simply a committment between two people, then this civil union should be available to gay couples, mothers and sons, siblings, friends, etc.
Heck, why not eliminate the idea of "marriage" out of the civil arena and leave it as simply a unique docrtine of religion? Why not have only a "civil union" available to ANY two (or more) committed people?
What if I was an elderly single woman living with my elderly sister? Why couldn't we get a "civil union" and file taxes together, buy a home and have all the same medical and privacy rights available to married couples?
If "marriage" is nothing more than a committment between two people, then this seems a likely solution. Everyone would need to get a civil union at the courthouse to get the legal benefits, then they can be "married" by the faith of their choice and enjoy whatever it is they believe.
This "civil union" can also be fairly easy to cancel by both parties and then a "divorce" would only be in the religious arena. Non-religious couples could feel so much nicer about themselves because they "canceled their subscription" rather than got "divorced."
It's amazing how much nicer things sound when you change the words you use.
Posted by Katarain (Member # 6659) on :
While I am sympathetic about your paper plight, as I am a masters student as well, I do wish you had actually answered the questions instead of muddying the water even more. Frankly, that wasn't the easiest reply to understand.
The question was simple, and made even simpler with starLisa's break down of it. Your reply: "StarLisa's details are very helpful and, frankly IMHO, none of them should be granted under current law as definitions of what constitutes marriage are very, very different." is extremely vague. What do you mean by current law? Marriage? Um... that wasn't the question. The question was should those things be permissable in CIVIL UNIONS. Current law has nothing to do with it. It's a what should be allowed question.
You also wrote: "Gay marriage proponents want everything anyway, so nitpicking this benefit and that benefit would be fruitless."
That statement is very whiny. How about you actually answer the question rather than saying "Oh, they won't listen anyway since they want everything." It was a SIMPLE DARN QUESTION! You advocate civil unions, but you refuse to state what should be included.
Oh, you did answer part of it... they should be allowed to have hospital/privacy rights over life and limb. That might not even be legal for married couples, based on things I've heard Dagonee say*, and completely ignores the valid points that starLisa brought up.
And your comments about civil unions between people who aren't romantically involved were pretty silly. I'm not sure if you were trying to be sarcastic, I think perhaps you were...but anyway... if a non-romantic couple wanted to enter into a civil union because they share a house and are remaining together... well, what's so bad about that if civil unions are legal?
And for the record, I happen to not be an advocate of gay marriage. I'm not sure how I feel about civil unions. It's pretty bad when your arguments annoy someone who actually leans toward your side.
*in regards to the Schiavo case, I think I saw Dagonee state that the husband could only speak for what he thought his wife wanted...he couldn't make the decision based on his own feelings.
-Katarain
Edited to reword something where I used the word stupid in regards to an argument. And that's never a good technique.
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
Sorry I annoyed you. I re-read it and got confused myself.
If you read it again you'll see I said that NONE of what she says specifically should be allowed, IMHO, because I do not see homosexual unions to be considered "marriage." But she does, and THAT'S a good description of where the division lies: in defining the very nature of the construct. And, basing off of Tom's contention that marriage can be defined as a committed relationship (regardless if sex is involved or not) then what is defined as "committed?"
The idea that ANY two people being "committed" is not silly. Homosexual marriage was considered "silly" at one time, and now many people think it's as right as rain. Where's the line? The more I thought about it, the more the idea of an "Open Door" civil union may have some real merit.
As I said above, StarLisa did not mention issues of medical permission, privacy issues, and other core benefits granted to married couples that involve life and limb. THOSE are issues I think a civil union could solve. I'm not so savvy as to know every jot and tittle of what a couple gets in our society when they get married, so of course I'm more vague than I'd like to be. I DO think there is a compromise that can serve both parties, but many on both sides have an "all or nothing" attitude.
BTW, you can consider my comment whiny, but it's true. Read the posts earlier. Proponents do not want civil unions. They want the exact same system. That's not whining. That's calling a spade a spade. My biggest frustration in this debate is the double standard of those who demand equality and justice, basing their arguement on personal belief, then condemning others for doing the exact same thing.
Posted by Celebrindal (Member # 8466) on :
quote:Originally posted by estavares: My biggest frustration in this debate is the double standard of those who demand equality and justice, basing their arguement on personal belief, then condemning others for doing the exact same thing.
People(and I do this my self) tend to think that their belief is right and just and others' belief is only opinion.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Wait, you seriously don't think any of those listed by sL should be available to civil unions?
My question is, why not? What will providing those benefits hurt?
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Estavares,
quote:Gay marriage proponents want everything anyway, so nitpicking this benefit and that benefit would be fruitless.
This is as counterproductive and inaccurate as the oft-heard suggestion that opponents of SSM are all bigoted religious fanatics.
Not all SSM proponents want 'everything'-and in any case, you have yet to state a compelling reason why they shouldn't get everything anyway, except 'status quo'.
quote:It's amazing how much nicer things sound when you change the words you use.
What is even more amazing is the lengths to which you're willing to go to keep homosexuals from having their relationships recognized as anything even close to marriage. Civil union is fine, but heck, why should it be a homosexual-only thing (could it be because that's awfully close to marriage?)...everyone should be able to do it!
It ain't your word, and it ain't your institution, man.
quote:BTW, you can consider my comment whiny, but it's true. Read the posts earlier. Proponents do not want civil unions. They want the exact same system. That's not whining. That's calling a spade a spade. My biggest frustration in this debate is the double standard of those who demand equality and justice, basing their arguement on personal belief, then condemning others for doing the exact same thing.
Not to belabor the point, but you're wrong. You're overgeneralizing. A spade is not a spade just because you say it's a spade for the same reason a marriage is not a marriage just because you say it is, and your ancestors to the nth degree would have recognized it as such, too.
The problem is that you are not arguing for equality and justice, you're arguing for inequality and injustice and exclusion. Marriage my way, PERIOD, is what you're arguing.
I can easily grasp why people feel this way, and frankly many of the reasons are compelling without being morally wrong. Religious reasons, a very well-defined definition of the word 'marriage', are all well and good, but please don't gild the lily, estavares, and say that you are arguing for justice and equality.
It's only grudgingly that you're willing to even consider granting homosexuals the same rights and responsibilities as heterosexuals. Thus far, your only justification for that stance is thus: "It's not a marriage just because they call it a marriage."
You are being deliberately obtuse. It's like a math problem where 1 = -1. They cancel each other out, because equally your marriage is not a marriage just because you say it is. Once you've removed that flimsy argument, all you've got left is status quo.
You have yet to provide even a single reason beyond 'status quo', or a single compelling reason why 'status quo' is a good reason in and of itself at all. And there's a reason you haven't, estavares: you can't. There is no other reason beyond the status quo, and the status quo is not sufficient reason in and of itself.
A cursory examination of human history reveals to us in the 21st century why the status quo isn't a good reason for anything. You have to do better than that.
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
No, there's no reason you'd accept.
You choose to accept it because it feels right, seems right, but you've no long-term proof. If there is, why wasn't this on the news? The ADA and other professional organizations are only just now making the declaration they believe homosexual marriage is fine, and every study I've read has only been within a decade. When did a handful of short-term studies become concrete truth?
We are dealing with one of the biggest hoodwinks in history––claiming proof has been established on a worldwide scale while systematically ignoring any and all competitive proof for being "opinions," ripe with bias, or merely the tools of the religious right to force their beliefs down people's throats. Both sides are so desperate to prove themselves that they'll take whatever study comes along and hold to it like its doctrine.
Science doesn't work that way.
You need to go back and read some of StarLisa's posts and others who see this as a civil rights violation and demand equal benefits regardless of any "proof." They want it because they FEEL it's right––so why is that any different than religious belief?
So let's stop with the knee-jerking and start answering some of the questions I've posed. How is homosexual marriage the same as so-called "traditional" marriage? If it's merely an issue of love and committment, then what's wrong with a civil union that allows ANY two people, so as long as they're committed, to enjoy those benefits?
Dag:
I look at it this way. It's like me saying I'm 65 years old, so I can get the senior's plate at Denny's. Should I get the same benefits, just because I want them? Am I 65 years old just because I say so?
[ August 13, 2005, 09:33 PM: Message edited by: estavares ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Actually, I'm wondering why you think two people willing to make a long term commitment shouldn't be able to provide for each other financially in a variety of specific ways, and why the ways that are available to them should cost them more money for no added benefit to anyone.
I'm not arguing for equality. I'm asking what is the cost of providing these benefits to particular couples.
Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
quote:Originally posted by starLisa: Who does? I'd much rather get government out of the marriage biz.
That's so interesting! You say this, but you spend the rest of your post arguing for government getting further into the marriage biz.
If the situation is inequitable, it is not a given that the way to fix it is to get government even more involved.
You say later to someone else, "When civil unions are equivalent to marriage, give me a call." Why not make them so? Why pour your effort into more government involvement, when you say you want less?
Posted by Treason (Member # 7587) on :
Did you miss most of her post?
quote:
Unfortunately, the government has seen fit to grant certain perqs to people who are considered married. And a government which is not allowed to adopt the position of a particular religion should not be allowed to discriminate in the granting of such perqs.
Sure, the government shouldn't be in the perqs biz at all. Protecting citizens from attacks internal and external and mediating disputes. That's the only legitimate role of governments to begin with. But so long as I'm being forced to pay for the perqs they give out, I'm not willing to be a second class citizen when it comes to receiving them.
end quote.
Government marriage is not going to go away. So we have to work with what we've got.
btw starlisa, I sense a fellow Libertarian... Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Treason: Did you miss most of her post?
<sigh> I hate when people snip a teeny bit of a long post and present it completely out of context. I want so much to assume that people are interested in an honest dialogue, and that kind of thing just really makes it hard.
quote:Originally posted by Treason: btw starlisa, I sense a fellow Libertarian...
<grin> I can't imagine why. I'm sort of a post-Objectivist. That's a little like an Objectivist without the snarling and condescension.
[ August 15, 2005, 07:34 PM: Message edited by: starLisa ]
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Will B:
quote:Originally posted by starLisa: Who does? I'd much rather get government out of the marriage biz.
That's so interesting! You say this, but you spend the rest of your post arguing for government getting further into the marriage biz.
If the situation is inequitable, it is not a given that the way to fix it is to get government even more involved.
You say later to someone else, "When civil unions are equivalent to marriage, give me a call." Why not make them so? Why pour your effort into more government involvement, when you say you want less?
Why do you suppose it's contradictory to fight for equality under the law at the same time that you fight for less government interference? Or are you just saying that as a matter of rhetoric?
I'm on the record as being willing to accept either solution. The essential thing is not playing favorites.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:I can't imagine why. I'm sort of a post-Objectivist. That's a little like an Objectivist without the snarling and condescension
And the belief in God. That's a little non-Objectivist, too.
quote:But so long as I'm being forced to pay for the perqs they give out, I'm not willing to be a second class citizen when it comes to receiving them.
I've used this same argument in a different context. I was opposed to a particular method of funding activities, but as long as I was forced to subsidize it, I took action to ensure I wasn't arbitrarily excluded. It's a perfectly rational, consistent response.
It can also highlight the reason for not providing certain types of benefits: the inability to fairly limit to whom the benefit is provided can be an indication that the benefit is problematic. It's not the only possible factor, but I think it should send a warning signal.
Dagonee
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: I guess my point, if I even have one, is that I don't care.
Seems to me that you could have boiled your whole "in your face" post to this one sentence, and been both more accurate and more succinct.
You don't care. That's not something to be proud of.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote: As for fairly limiting who a benefit is provided to, it is possible. To me, it seems obvious that if you have to change the meaning of an word that has been around for thousands of years in order to qualify for the benefit, perhaps it IS possible to fairly limit that benefit.
While you were being an insulting jackass, you might trouble your pea-brained what-passes-for-brain to learn that 'marriage' is hardly a word that has meant one thing throughout human civlization.
Oh...was my wording offensive? I don't care.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
IdahoEEBoy,
quote:You either want it for yourself, or you want nobody to have it. Kind of reminds me of this bully I used to know in elementary school that took a birthday cake from a classmate and smashed it because he couldn't have it. Needless to say, this is not normally a productive social attribute, but thats beside the point.
Liar. It is nothing like a childhood bully to want something that is provided to another person, when you're contributing just as much to the government as they are. A very stupid and knowingly stupid example that is.
Was the bully you? Needless to say, resorting to insults immediately in a discussion is not a productive social attribute-but what would you know about those, anyway?
quote:As for fairly limiting who a benefit is provided to, it is possible. To me, it seems obvious that if you have to change the meaning of an word that has been around for thousands of years in order to qualify for the benefit, perhaps it IS possible to fairly limit that benefit.
Oh? Because something has been practiced for thousands of years, that by definition makes it fair? Of course not. Another stupid assertion. That's two in three paragraphs!
quote:I can claim to be African-American all day (in fact, I have about as much in common with African heritage as most people in this group do). However, this does not entitle me to affirmative action or minority scholarships, no matter how loudly I yell about it.
I think it likely that you a) know very little indeed about African heritage (not that there is only one), and b) know next to nothing about what African-Americans know about their own heritage, anyway. Jackass.
StarLisa isn't yelling about it. Homosexuals in this country do not just claim that they pay as much taxes, obey laws, live peacefully, and serve in the military, they actually do.
So that and the Native American, military, welfare, land-owning, etc., 'comparisons' are all by definition stupid and offensive and frankly childish.
quote:Why should we pay for services through taxation that do not directly benefit us, right?
At last! A worthwhile question. Because we live in a republic in which individuals surrender a certain amount of power to the whole, among whom they vote. And because benefits do not have to be direct to be a benefit, either.
But you're not really going to say that just because people pay taxes that don't directly benefit them, homosexuals shouldn't be permitted the same rights and responsibilities as other citizens, are you? Oh, wait...you are saying just that, because they aren't as 'beneficial' to 'traditional society' as heterosexual marriage.
That's a claim you haven't proven, or even attempted to prove.
quote:Society must keep doing what is in its best interest as a whole to do. The government is simply the mechanism to do that, always has been, always will be. Thats its purpose
That is not the purpose of the American government. The purpose of the American government is not to deny rights and responsibilities to a minority of its population for an unproven 'best interest' of the majority of the people.
You need a better reason than, "They're 'abnormal' and granting them recognition harms society as a whole," to continue denying them rights. So long as no individual is harmed or forced, American government should stop at the bedroom door, g-dammit.
But go ahead, IdahoEEBoy. Keep your boot on the necks of 'abnormal' tiny minorities. People making your arguments have been doing so for a long, long time. And their reasons were just as vacuous and at-root bigoted as yours are.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee:
quote:I can't imagine why. I'm sort of a post-Objectivist. That's a little like an Objectivist without the snarling and condescension
And the belief in God. That's a little non-Objectivist, too.
Well, I'd say "conviction", rather than "belief", but yeah, it never did make me popular amongst Objectivists.
Hey, cool story about that. There's a guy in Israel named Ohad. He was sort of the head of the only Objectivist group in the country. At the time I knew him, he was not religious (I fell out of touch with him, so I don't know for sure now).
He managed to convince eight die-hard atheist Objectivists to become religious. And I mean seriously religious. One of them was his wife. But the arguments he brought that convinced them weren't quite good enough for him at the time. Go figure...
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee:
quote:But so long as I'm being forced to pay for the perqs they give out, I'm not willing to be a second class citizen when it comes to receiving them.
I've used this same argument in a different context. I was opposed to a particular method of funding activities, but as long as I was forced to subsidize it, I took action to ensure I wasn't arbitrarily excluded. It's a perfectly rational, consistent response.
<nod>
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by IdahoEEBoy: The government has seen fit to grant certain perks to all sorts of individuals, groups, and organizations. Every benefit that exists does so because of people who receive no equal benefit, otherwise its not really a benefit.
That's... an unusual way of looking at things. And it's clearly untrue. Social Security benefits, for instance. A benefit is any goody given out by the government.
quote:Originally posted by IdahoEEBoy: StarLisa, it seems you've concluded is that the main reason you're upset about the gay marriage situation is that you feel that certain perks (or perqs?) have been given to couples defined as married that you would like to enjoy.
It would be nice if you said something like, "Lisa, is it true that you've concluded yadda, yadda, yadda", rather than claiming that I've done so.
Because truly, I think I've made myself abundantly clear. It's not merely that I would "like" to enjoy them, it's that I claim it is absolutely unacceptable to grant them to some people and not others purely due to their gender.
I do not recognize the right of the government to engage in social engineering on my nickel. This is a nation of the people, for the people and by the people, and not just some of the people.
When the US came into existence, there were many, many groups that were discriminated against. Pretty much if you weren't a heterosexual white male who owned property, you weren't really what "All men are created equal" was referring to.
It's been a maturing process.
quote:Originally posted by IdahoEEBoy: You either want it for yourself, or you want nobody to have it.
That's an offensive and dishonest misrepresentation. That implies that I either want it for myself only, or I want nobody to have it. Dog in the manger, and so on. And I never said anything of the sort. I want equity. That's it. If the government gets to take my money and then parcel it out, it doesn't get to give it to Rick and Darva and deny it to me and my partner.
quote:Originally posted by IdahoEEBoy: Kind of reminds me of this bully I used to know in elementary school that took a birthday cake from a classmate and smashed it because he couldn't have it. Needless to say, this is not normally a productive social attribute, but thats beside the point.
It certainly is not. But if the bully you describe was not actually a bully; if he had worked hard to pay for the ingredients and had helped bake the cake, and then was told that while his contributions were surely accepted, he himself was dirt, and therefore couldn't have any of the cake, maybe smashing it wouldn't have been as wrong as you think.
quote:Originally posted by IdahoEEBoy: As for fairly limiting who a benefit is provided to, it is possible. To me, it seems obvious that if you have to change the meaning of an word that has been around for thousands of years in order to qualify for the benefit, perhaps it IS possible to fairly limit that benefit.
So... is it "obvious", or is it "perhaps" possible? Or are you just playing rhetorical games? Poorly, I might add.
To many people, marriage didn't include miscegenation. Too bad. To many people, the very word "woman" indicated that a woman's place was to serve her man. Yeah, whatever.
I've said dozens of times already that I don't care about the word "marriage". And I certainly have no interest in changing the religious definitions of the word. Call it whatever you want; my family has every bit as much right to security, both financial and legal, as a heterosexual couple. And it's really a little sick that you'd consider defending the opposite.
quote:Originally posted by IdahoEEBoy: Redefining marriage reminds me of what Brad Pitt
Gosh. Another lame analogy? I can't wait.
quote:Originally posted by IdahoEEBoy: said with such refinement in his role as Tyler Durden in Fight Club: "Stuffing feathers up your butt does NOT make you a chicken."
I defer to your superior knowledge of sticking things up your butt.
quote:Originally posted by IdahoEEBoy: I can claim to be African-American all day (in fact, I have about as much in common with African heritage as most people in this group do). However, this does not entitle me to affirmative action or minority scholarships, no matter how loudly I yell about it.
If you're talking about government mandated affirmative action or minority scholarships, no one is entitled to such a thing. It's a travesty.
quote:Originally posted by IdahoEEBoy: I can change the definition of a Native-American to include me, after all, I was born here and this is my native land. However, I cannot own land on a reservation or any of the other "perqs" they receive, even if I change the definition ever so slightly to include me.
Again, you're missing the point. But then, you're not actually making an attempt to engage in honest discourse, are you. You're just flailing about, bringing up every silly cliche as though you just came up with them yourself.
Maybe read the thread and then see if you can add something new.
quote:Originally posted by IdahoEEBoy: Anyway, this whole thread has gone on way too long already.
Your post has, at any rate.
quote:Originally posted by IdahoEEBoy: The real issue isn't gay marriage anyway.
Um... did someone accidentally give you the impression that you get to say what the real issue is? Or is that just more of your reading comprehension problems?
quote:Originally posted by IdahoEEBoy: But maybe I'll do another thread for that topic. Or maybe I'll get back to work.
Please do. Maybe you'll achieve something with that.
Posted by Katarain (Member # 6659) on :
I hear news now and then about gay and lesbian groups (or individual couples) going after churches for refusing to marry them in states or countries that have legalized gay marriage.
This bothers me, as it smacks of trying to dictate belief and change churches with governmental regulation.
Is this becoming a problem? And if gay marriage or civil unions were legalized in the US, do you think it would be a problem? Would churches be barred from refusing to perform gay marriages?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I think there are legitimate concerns it might be attempted, but I feel confident in predicting it wouldn't survive judicial challenges.
For example, Catholic churches can already refuse to marry people who don't meet some of the requirements imposed by the Catholic faith. I don't see why a requirement on the sex of the participants would get special treatment.
It's more conceivable that states might refuse to empower officials who refuse to perform gay marriages, but I honestly don't see it happening. And if it did, it could be worked around.
Posted by Treason (Member # 7587) on :
Quote by IdahoEEBoy "(in fact, I have about as much in common with African heritage as most people in this group do)."
???????
This just stood out to me in the midst of your overly long and weirdly angry post. It just seemed odd.
starLisa: I defer to your superior knowledge of sticking things up your butt. You rule. Posted by Treason (Member # 7587) on :
starLisa, Will you marry me?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Rakeesh, I still fail to see how saying that I believed that OSC was consciously acting as a demogogue and that this is omething that I'm inclined to see as worse than being hateful is disrespectful. From his writing, I've picked up an impression that OSC is not concerned with either persuading those who disgree with them or illustrating as fairly as possible how he believes. Rather, he seems to me to in many cases be writing to enflame the people who agree with him and to dehumanize and spread false information about the people who disagree with him.
From what I see, he's playing Grego, but he wrote Grego and he's studied classic demogogues. If he's actually doing this (and given his familiarity with the tactics of demogoguery and his skill as a writer, I find it unlikely that he consistently reproduces them by accident), then I think he is doing something very wrong and following practices that are harmful for our society.
---
As to unreported/undiagnosed conditions, the technique I was specifically thinking of, which I've read about being used in estimating the amount of undiagnosed schizoprenia in a population, is to utilize more agressive systems of assesment and then compare these results with what you would get by the standard method to get a percentage estimate of undiagnosed cases. So, the normal rate would be schizphrenics properly diagnosed through existing channels (therapists, criminal procedings, self-check-ins, etc.) and the more agressive assessment would be something like going into the population and specifically testing everyone for schizophrenia. If you got say a rate of 5% of the base undiagnosed, you could say with some degree of confidence, that similar populations likely also have around 5% undiagnosed schizophrenics.
You can use this type of estimate in any situation where there are more thorough assesment tools than are typically used. You can then use this information to form an idea of what a representative sample would likely look like and compare your sample against it. Assuming that there is no causitive or otherwise correlative relationship between what you're testing and the undiagnosed part of the population, you don't need to include them for a representative sampling.
Are you suggesting that there is a correlative relationship between unreported child abuse and being firmly in the closet?
---
I'm still wondering in what possible way could you read what OSC wrote and say that it was probably about rapists and molestors and that it was implausible to think that he meant homosexuals. I feel like maybe this is the center of our differing opinions of the character of OSC's writing, because I can't see any way that this is a reasonable statement.
Even if OSC is as poor a writer as you seem to be consistently claiming and is often unable to understand the implications of what he writes, I can't see him expecting a passage in a essay about homosexuality where he's talking about homosexuals and where he never mentions rapists and molestors to be interpreted as being about rapists and molestors instead of about homosexuals.
This is not a case where you saying "I tried to make it clear that this isn't defnitely true." works for me. You implied that it was the most likely explanation, you said that my interpretation was implausible, and I can't see anything in there that would even make someone consider that this might be what he meant. Perhaps if you could explain the thought process that you used to come up with that idea to me, I might be better able to see where you're coming from.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
starL, I wondering, do you think that the bit of OSC's writing that I quoted fit my description or do you feel that this
quote:Is it possible that you're engaging in a bit of hyperbole or reformulation of what he actually said?
is closer to what happened?
---
I don't agree with your idea that homosexuals deserve marriage (and the social supports that go along with it) no matter what. This is not a case of homosexuals being denied basic rights. In it's secular aspect, marriage is not a right; it's a priviledged relationship that the government and society supports at their cost because it is to the wider benefit. I think treating it as a right than anyone should expect is a weak argument and opens up the whole slippery slope argument that anti-SSM people like to throw into the mix.
If I thought that allowing gay marriage would not benefit or would even harm society, I'd be against it, even as much as I am for gay rights.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Katarain: I hear news now and then about gay and lesbian groups (or individual couples) going after churches for refusing to marry them in states or countries that have legalized gay marriage.
That's appalling. I would fight against that kind of nonsense every bit as much as I would fight against governmental discrimination.
That said, opponents of same-sex marriage can't really complain about such antics. What's good for the goose, and all.
quote:Originally posted by Katarain: This bothers me, as it smacks of trying to dictate belief and change churches with governmental regulation.
It should bother you. But this is what happens when you start letting governments set social policy instead of merely keeping the peace and mediating disputes. People love it when it goes their way, but never seem to realize that it's a double-edged sword until it goes against what they want.
quote:Originally posted by Katarain: Is this becoming a problem? And if gay marriage or civil unions were legalized in the US, do you think it would be a problem? Would churches be barred from refusing to perform gay marriages?
It would absolutely not be a problem in the US. Oh, I can see a nut here or there trying to sue, but that's what Americans do best, right? Litigation is the national sport. But the same First Amendment that doesn't allow religions to meddle in politics also doesn't allow politics to mess with religion.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Treason: starLisa, Will you marry me?
I dunno, Treason. I'll have to ask my partner. <grin>
[ August 15, 2005, 11:52 PM: Message edited by: starLisa ]
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: The whole purpose of such an obviously offensive post to both sides of the debate was simply for the benefit of people in this discussion to see who is able to really take the high road, and who sinks low at a moments notice.
Hm. I'm not a fan of this approach. Leaving aside the fact that it's practically the definition of offensive trolling, I feel compelled to point out that your "experiment" here is neither scientific nor conclusive. At best, you clearly upset a handful of people to prove that some people could be upset.
It's like punching random strangers in the face to prove that some strangers would hit you in response -- and that some strangers might even hit you harder. I'm afraid I don't see the point.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: starL, I wondering, do you think that the bit of OSC's writing that I quoted fit my description or do you feel that this
quote:Is it possible that you're engaging in a bit of hyperbole or reformulation of what he actually said?
is closer to what happened?
Um... it's been a while, and there are a lot of pages to look through. Could you jog my rapidly disintegrating memory, please?
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: I don't agree with your idea that homosexuals deserve marriage (and the social supports that go along with it) no matter what. This is not a case of homosexuals being denied basic rights. In it's secular aspect, marriage is not a right; it's a priviledged relationship that the government and society supports at their cost because it is to the wider benefit. I think treating it as a right than anyone should expect is a weak argument and opens up the whole slippery slope argument that anti-SSM people like to throw into the mix.
I don't recognize the right of government to claim that my relationship with my partner is of lesser benefit than my brother's relationship with his wife. The burden of proving such a thing is 100% on anyone wanting to make such a claim.
Further, I don't consider social engineering to be a legitimate function of government. Period. And this is a classic example of why that is. Just the fact that you can even get into a discussion about whether this relationship is better for "society" is... well, let's just say that it may not smell good, but it helps the flowers grow.
Look... there is no such thing as "society". When someone says something is for the benefit of society, what they mean is that it's for the benefit of what they like.
This is my major point of difference with OSC politically. He's a statist, through and through. He thinks it's actually a good thing to have the government running around like the Lone Ranger, righting wrongs, helping old ladies cross the street, and so on. It sounds like you do, too. I consider acceptance of government acting that way to be a forfeiture of individual responsibility. And it has led to an infantilization of the American citizenry to the point that we might just as well replace the Pledge of Allegiance with the slogan "There Oughta Be A Law!"
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: If I thought that allowing gay marriage would not benefit or would even harm society, I'd be against it, even as much as I am for gay rights.
And you'd be wrong. Not, mind you, that it would harm anything, let alone this fictional "society" you speak of, but I'll live and die by my principles. People who place what they view as pragmatism above such things... well, I can only pity them.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Geoff, You're adressing arguments I didn't make again. I didn't attack the past (by which, I am assuming that you're talking about 50s, as that is generally the "past" that people talk about when marriage was better) by bringing up the problems with civil rights and the like. One of the reason I've been very strict about what I've said is that people (yourself particularly) keep on attacking and refuting things I didn't say. I was very specific in that I was talking about marriage during the 50s (and, if this wasn't the past that you were talking about, my appologies and could you specify when this past was?) and showing how your description of it being valued very highly then was inaccurate. Here's the entirety of what I said:
quote: And then, your description of the problems with marriage rely on a comparison to the way we never were. Marriage didn't enjoy a golden age in the 50s. It was severely troubled. Conjuring up some fantasty (from the tv shows of the time perhaps) to point to and say "Look at what you people decided to throw away." doesn't work for me.
You said: "We resort to law enforcement to track down deatbeat dads, where once we depended on a sense of honor and social disapproval of divorce and illegitimacy to keep those guys in their homes." which is true, but doesn't treat the fact that this sense of honor and social dispproval didn't work all that well. Consider the cliche'd description of Dad leaving to get a pack of cigarrettes and never coming back. This was a common way of ending a marriage in the time of no or little divorce. Also common, and to a large extent socially sanctioned, was physical and emotion wife and child abuse.
which, as far as I can see, you've failed to address and instead dismissed me as jumping on what said by talking about the wider social problems of that decade.
---
I wonder how you incorportate the statistics on divorce being higher among the religious (and highest among the pople who are most vocal about anti-gay things) with your statement that religion is one of the only things left that supports marriage?
I also wonder what unique position religion has to encourage moral behavior. You stated it, but I didn't see any explanation of this idea. Considering the track record and current state of affairs, I don't think you can hold this to be simply self-evident. From what I can see, religious does not have a unique position and it has provided a multitude of examples of it encouraging bad behavior as well as good.
----
As to this:
quote:As far as I've seen, no one in the mainstream is trying to prevent homosexuals from pairing up, and no one wants them to suffer these horror-story disadvantages. ALL they want, from what I can see, is to keep the concept of "marriage" bound to the human mating/reproductive cycle, and not to relationships that fall outside that sphere. I think that if there were a way for homosexual couples to obtain a contract that gave them all the same legal rights as a married couple, everybody could live with that solution.
10 out of the 11 anti-gay marriage ammendments of the 2004 elections carried provisions specifically banning "civil unions" or any relationship, no matter what the term that conferred on gay people the benefits of marriage. Your own father has publically joined with a very significant percentage of the population in saying that homsexual sex should be illegal. I don't see how this reconciles with the quoted statement.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by IdahoEEBoy: First I apologize to Lisa. I meant nothing at all toward you in the last post, you just happened to be the most consistent poster lately, please read on.
<...snippage...>
Obviously that last post was as offensive as possible without doing some serious name calling. There were so many fallacies, straw men, red herrings, and slippery slopes, offensive terms, and pointless analogies that I'm really surprised people didn't just reply with a big LOL.
Unfortunately people will always sink lower. I was called insulting, a jackass, pea-brained, stupid, offensive, childish, vacuous, and bigoted. And that was by just one person. But there were a lot of I guess.
I disagree with your claim that those epithets were lower than what you posted. Granted that they were a little stronger than I would have used; you deserved every one of them. And more. They were 100% accurate, and this post of yours demonstrates that they were, if anything, giving you too much credit.
quote:Originally posted by IdahoEEBoy: The whole purpose of such an obviously offensive post to both sides of the debate was simply for the benefit of people in this discussion to see who is able to really take the high road, and who sinks low at a moments notice.
<counting to ten... slowly...>
Listen up, Private Idaho, because this is probably going to be the last time I ever dirty my fingers typing at you.
What you posted was despicable. But this lame attempt to portray it as a public service, of sorts, almost makes me want to hunt you down. If you were here right now, I don't think I'd be able to avoid doing you physical harm.
You did not benefit anyone. I do not believe that such was your attempt. I believe that you are lying through your teeth after having realized what a donkey you made of yourself in the previous post.
Who in the bloody hell do you think you are, anyway, to place yourself above the rest of us, in such a way?
You are like every sophomoric male I've ever met who makes "jokes" that are incredibly unfunny, and when met with criticism, tries to turn it around with, "Gawd, can't you people take a joke?"
You are truly vile, and not only do I not accept your insincere apology, but I do not believe there is anything you can possibly say at this point that would make me interested in responding to you. Particularly as there doesn't appear to be an "Instant Graemlin" with its middle finger sticking up.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
starL, I said that OSC said that we should have anti-gay laws on the books so that we could, from time to time, throw gay people in jail to send a message to the rest of them. you responded with your somewhat insulting accusation, and I countered with this OSC quote:
quote:This applies also to the polity, the citizens at large. Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books, not to be indiscriminately enforced against anyone who happens to be caught violating them, but to be used when necessary to send a clear message that those whoflagrantly violate society's regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society.
---
quote:Look... there is no such thing as "society". When someone says something is for the benefit of society, what they mean is that it's for the benefit of what they like.
Yes, I'm fully aware of the values oriented nature of that judgement. In this case, it's certainly a value judgement that children should not be molested, that they should enter adulthood with a degree of mental and physical health comparable to their peers, that the couples we are specifcally diverting resoureces to should show permenance, and a whole host of other thigns that people have characterized homosexual relationships as lacking in.
If kids had a much higher chance of gettign molested by homosexual step-parents or if they were across the board in significantly poorer condition when raised by same sex couples, then we shouldn't let gay couples adopt, or put up some pretty high hoops for them to jump through before they did. If gay partnerships were intrinsically characterized by violence, infidelity, etc. and were largely of short term duration, then we shouldn't incur costs to support them.
Because it's not all about you. The central concern of child-rearing is by far the children. Marriage is not just (or shouldn't be) a set of cool benefits people get because they went through some ceremony. It also represents a relationship that entails responsibilities to the community. If people aren't going to accept these responsibilities or if they are constitutionally unable to fulfill them, then they don't get to be married in a way where they can reasonably expect community support.
Marriage is a priviledge we extend. Saying that the burden of proof lies on people who say we shouldn't extend it is backwards. Priviledges are made available when people demonstrate that they can use them responsibily. That why you have to pass a test before being permitted to drive instead of being allowed to drive until you do something wrong.
I find the attitude that "We don't have to pass any standards." to be a poor one, especially in terms of the gay marriage debate. If three are no standards, what then prevents the other slippery-slope marriages that people bring up?
edit: Also, the government doesn't make a judgement about the absolute worth of your relationship if it does or does not support it. That's the same confusion of the values-based marriage with the secualr one that the religious people are using as their main (as so far sole) argument against gay marriage. The government (in a theoretical ideal sense) allocates it's reasources in a way that it reasonably expects good returns on. If it were about value judgements, the religious people have a very strong case that you shouldn't be allowed to marry.
[ August 16, 2005, 12:32 AM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by Treason (Member # 7587) on :
Not to treat any of this too lightly by being funny but-
starLisa: bring along your partner, I'm sure my boyfriend would not mind having two other women around.
All kidding aside, I must tell you that I very much admire you for your eloquence, conviction, wit, and intelligence. Plus, you're quite pretty, I looked at your homepage.
I've never met someone I admire as much as I do you, right away. I swear I'm not hitting on you! I think I'm just a little awestruck and crushy.
For everyone else who thinks I'm being weird by saying all that: to you! She's just so smart and so cool! And she's Jewish, and Libertarian, and it seems she likes Ayn Rand, and she's "alternative" Everything I like!
Ok I'm done now. Sorry everyone.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
The funniest part about your 'experiment', IdahoEEBoy, is that it presumes people don't recognize a deliberate troll when they see one.
You're far, far too clever for little old me!
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Oh, and for the record, starLisa, we do have a birdie pioneered largely by mackillian on the other side. --l--
Woot!
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Mr. Squicky,
Thanks for responding to my question-this thread had more for me to reply to than I expected when I logged on this morning, so I'll have to reply later.
J4
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: starL, I said that OSC said that we should have anti-gay laws on the books so that we could, from time to time, throw gay people in jail to send a message to the rest of them. you responded with your somewhat insulting accusation, and I countered with this OSC quote:
quote:This applies also to the polity, the citizens at large. Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books, not to be indiscriminately enforced against anyone who happens to be caught violating them, but to be used when necessary to send a clear message that those whoflagrantly violate society's regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society.
I apologize if you found my question insulting. I deliberately tried to phrase it in a way that would not be.
And yes, you were right, and what OSC wrote in that case was beyond unacceptable. And the excuses you've gotten along the lines of "he was talking about pedophiles" or "he was just being incendiary" are obvious nonsense. Everyone on these boards knows OSC's style, and it is crystal clear what he is saying.
People are often a mass of contradictions. I continue to think that this seems out of character for him, but I guess that just means that people have various facets, and they don't always harmonize with one another.
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky:
quote:Look... there is no such thing as "society". When someone says something is for the benefit of society, what they mean is that it's for the benefit of what they like.
Yes, I'm fully aware of the values oriented nature of that judgement. In this case, it's certainly a value judgement that children should not be molested, that they should enter adulthood with a degree of mental and physical health comparable to their peers, that the couples we are specifcally diverting resoureces to should show permenance, and a whole host of other thigns that people have characterized homosexual relationships as lacking in.
Wow. Character assassination much? There are just so many things wrong with what you just wrote that it's hard to know where to start.
Most child molesters are heterosexual men.
The idea that "physical health" could even be mentioned in this context is bizarre. My sharing the rights and responsibilities of marriage with my partner cannot possibly effect anyone's physical health.
The same is true of mental health, although here, I suspect you mean that gay kids are more likely to be overstressed. But since that's 100% a matter of 'phobes treating them like crud, the solution is for 'phobes to stop treating them like crud.
I have friends who have been together for almost 30 years. This weekend is my partner's and my 7th anniversary since our commitment ceremony. Lesbian relationships are actually more stable than heterosexual ones. There's a joke:
Q: What does a lesbian bring on a second date? A: A U-Haul.
And that's without the help of the marriage framework.
Lastly, that's my money. You have no right to be diverting it to your pet projects.
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: If kids had a much higher chance of gettign molested by homosexual step-parents
Which they don't.
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: or if they were across the board in significantly poorer condition when raised by same sex couples,
Which they aren't.
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: then we shouldn't let gay couples adopt, or put up some pretty high hoops for them to jump through before they did. If gay partnerships were intrinsically characterized by violence, infidelity, etc.
Which they aren't.
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: and were largely of short term duration, then we shouldn't incur costs to support them.
Really. Then I think we should give some serious thought to not only allowing same-sex marriage, but banning opposite-sex marriage. Because domestic violence and divorce are the rule, rather than the exception, in those marriages.
And once more, because I want to make it very, very clear: the government does not have any legitimate role in "supporting" or "not supporting" personal relationships.
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Because it's not all about you. The central concern of child-rearing is by far the children. Marriage is not just (or shouldn't be) a set of cool benefits people get because they went through some ceremony.
Tell it to my daughter. Maybe infertile couples should be required to divorce. Maybe fertility testing should be a mandatory prerequisite to the issuance of a marriage license. Or maybe government should get out of our lives a bit.
The fact is, many opposite-sex couples marry and never have children. While many same-sex couples have children and are not permitted to marry.
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: It also represents a relationship that entails responsibilities to the community.
<blink> You're really into this living for others thing, aren't you, Squick?
That's a shame.
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: If people aren't going to accept these responsibilities or if they are constitutionally unable to fulfill them, then they don't get to be married in a way where they can reasonably expect community support.
In terms of a religious institution, that may be fine. But the United States of America was founded on the basis of equality under the law. You don't get to push your religious conceptions into that law.
Suppose that Catholics were the majority in this country. Would you defend the outlawing of divorce? Would you support prosecuting people who remarry under bigamy statutes? What makes your standards better than theirs?
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Marriage is a priviledge we extend.
That's an indefensible statement. In fact, marriage is a religious institution, and the government's involvement with it came about as a means of registering marriages that already existed.
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Saying that the burden of proof lies on people who say we shouldn't extend it is backwards.
Not at all. Because it's not a privilege.
(There's no "d" in that word, incidentally.)
The government doesn't get to sponsor certain interpersonal relationships using my money. Your religious group can do that if it likes, but this country guarantees equal treatment under the law.
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Priviledges are made available when people demonstrate that they can use them responsibily.
It's not a privilege, and I don't see opposite-sex couples being required to demonstrate anything.
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: That why you have to pass a test before being permitted to drive instead of being allowed to drive until you do something wrong.
That's a truly delusional analogy. I mean, no analogy is perfect, but I've rarely seen one so bad.
Displaying an "F" and an "M" on identification does not indicate anything about a couple's staying power or responsibleness.
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: I find the attitude that "We don't have to pass any standards." to be a poor one, especially in terms of the gay marriage debate.
I'm not sure why you find it to be a poor one, or why what you find is relevant.
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: If three are no standards, what then prevents the other slippery-slope marriages that people bring up?
That's what they said about interracial marriages. People were afraid that it would mix the races. Well, guess what? It did. It has. It continues to do so. So friggin' what?
There was a public policy against interracial marriages. It was a dumb policy. It was a bigoted policy with no basis to it whatsoever, but it was every bit as important to people then as the anti-gay marriage policy is to some people now.
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: edit: Also, the government doesn't make a judgement about the absolute worth of your relationship if it does or does not support it. That's the same confusion of the values-based marriage with the secualr one that the religious people are using as their main (as so far sole) argument against gay marriage. The government (in a theoretical ideal sense) allocates it's reasources in a way that it reasonably expects good returns on.
We don't live in a theoretical ideal world, so I'm not sure what the relevance of that claim is. Not that I think it's true even in a theoretical ideal world.
And you forget that government doesn't have any resources of its own. Those are my resources. And yours and everyone else's.
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: If it were about value judgements, the religious people have a very strong case that you shouldn't be allowed to marry.
Really? I know a lot of religious people who would disagree with you about that. Different religions, but then, the government doesn't get to decide which religion counts and which doesn't.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:
quote:Yes, I'm fully aware of the values oriented nature of that judgement. In this case, it's certainly a value judgement that children should not be molested, that they should enter adulthood with a degree of mental and physical health comparable to their peers, that the couples we are specifcally diverting resoureces to should show permenance, and a whole host of other thigns that people have characterized homosexual relationships as lacking in.
Wow. Character assassination much? There are just so many things wrong with what you just wrote that it's hard to know where to start.
Squick is NOT saying that homosexuals are more likely to bring about any of these outcomes. The fact they aren't is why he supports gay marriage. There's no character assasination in the quoted section.
quote:Because domestic violence and divorce are the rule, rather than the exception, in those marriages.
quote:nearly 1 in 3 adult women experience at least one physical assault by a partner during adulthood. American Psychl. Ass'n, Violence and the Family: Report of the American Psychological Association Presidential Task Force on Violence and the Family (1996), p. 10.
quote:Domestic violence occurs within same-sex relationships with the same statistical frequency as in heterosexual relationships.
the prevalence of domestic violence among Gay and Lesbian couples is approximately 25 - 33%. Barnes, It's Just a Quarrel', American Bar Association Journal, February 1998, p. 25.
battering among Lesbians crosses age, race, class, lifestyle and socio-economic lines. Lobel, ed., Naming the Violence: Speaking Out About Lesbian Battering, 183 (1986).
each year, between 50,000 and 100,000 Lesbian women and as many as 500,000 Gay men are battered. Murphy, Queer Justice: Equal Protection for Victims of Same-Sex Domestic Violence, 30 Val. U. L. Rev. 335 (1995).
while same-sex battering mirrors heterosexual battering both in type and prevalence, its victims receive fewer protections. Barnes, It's Just a Quarrel', American Bar Association Journal, February 1998, p. 24.
seven states define domestic violence in a way that excludes same-sex victims; 21 states have sodomy laws that may require same-sex victims to confess to a crime in order to prove they are in a domestic relationship. Barnes, It's Just a Quarrel', American Bar Association Journal, February 1998, p. 24.
Posted by Katarain (Member # 6659) on :
Maybe people are afraid of gay marriage because they don't want their kids thinking that it is okay to be gay because their religion condemns it. Maybe they're afraid that people who would otherwise be happily straight would decide to be gay because of a bad experience or lack of members of the opposite sex. Maybe they're afraid that people will just start having mass orgies with anyone and everyone.
Those perceptions might not be held by anyone... or they might be held falsely... but I wonder if that's what's underlying the opposition? There is a vast stereotype out there that homosexuals are very permiscuous with many partners. Shows like Will and Grace with Jack who sleeps with many men, and coverage of Gay Pride parades with naked people dancing around reinforces that idea. I guess it doesn't really matter that heterosexuals display the same promiscuity on television--even more so. (That's a whole other problem!)
I'm posting this because it just occurred to me what people might mean when they talk about the decline of marriage and the family if gay marriage is allowed.
-Katarain
Posted by Katarain (Member # 6659) on :
Nah. If someone has to leave, how about it be you?
See the "log out" button? It's your friend. Push it. You know you want to. (That's you. Laughing and pushing the log out button.)
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Oh, and for the record, starLisa, we do have a birdie pioneered largely by mackillian on the other side. --l--
Woot!
At the risk of sounding utterly clueless... "birdie"? "mackillian"? I'm confuzzled.
Woot?
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee:
quote:
quote:Yes, I'm fully aware of the values oriented nature of that judgement. In this case, it's certainly a value judgement that children should not be molested, that they should enter adulthood with a degree of mental and physical health comparable to their peers, that the couples we are specifcally diverting resoureces to should show permenance, and a whole host of other thigns that people have characterized homosexual relationships as lacking in.
Wow. Character assassination much? There are just so many things wrong with what you just wrote that it's hard to know where to start.
Squick is NOT saying that homosexuals are more likely to bring about any of these outcomes. The fact they aren't is why he supports gay marriage. There's no character assasination in the quoted section.
That's not how it sounds to me.
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee:
quote:Because domestic violence and divorce are the rule, rather than the exception, in those marriages.
I stand corrected with regards to domestic violence. With regards to divorce, however, see here.
quote:Percentage of first marriages that end in divorce in 1997: 50% Percentage of remarriages that end in divorce in 1997: 60%
I hardly think that we can do worse.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
On this very page, Squick says:
quote:If I thought that allowing gay marriage would not benefit or would even harm society, I'd be against it, even as much as I am for gay rights.
Further, he has spent most of his time on this thread responding to others' allegations that gay marriage would lead to those negative consequences.
There's lots to disagree with Squick about, but accusing him of character assasination on the basis of his thinking that homosexual marriages lead to the listed negative outcomes is not one of them. He's the one who has posted studies to the contrary and demanded scientific proof of such allegations.
quote:I hardly think that we can do worse.
What's you're basis for stating that? I have no idea if homosexual couples will do worse or not, but clearly it's possible.
Dagonee
Posted by Katarain (Member # 6659) on :
Okay..I just figured out the birdie thing. mackillian is a user who evidently made up this: --l-- for the middle finger.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Katarain: Maybe people are afraid of gay marriage because they don't want their kids thinking that it is okay to be gay because their religion condemns it.
Could be. I'm sure there are Catholics who dislike the fact that divorce is legal in the US (let alone incredibly prevalent), because it could give their kids the idea that divorce is acceptable, when their religion condemns it.
Honestly, Katarain, I understand what you're saying. And they're entitled to feel that way. But the laws in this country must remain religion-neutral.
There are other religions around where their adherants could dislike the fact that same-sex marriage is banned in the US, because that might give their kids the impression that there's something wrong with gay relationships, or being gay, and their religion condemns those positions.
quote:Originally posted by Katarain: Maybe they're afraid that people who would otherwise be happily straight would decide to be gay because of a bad experience or lack of members of the opposite sex.
I had a friend in Israel who used to tell me she wished she was a lesbian. She found men to be noxious, by and large (I don't, btw), and it annoyed her immensely that she was attracted to them, and not to women.
I get that there are people who have that fear, but ultimately, it really isn't any of their business. They can do whatever social or religious sanctions they want, but legal ones are off-limits.
quote:Originally posted by Katarain: Maybe they're afraid that people will just start having mass orgies with anyone and everyone.
Those perceptions might not be held by anyone... or they might be held falsely... but I wonder if that's what's underlying the opposition? There is a vast stereotype out there that homosexuals are very permiscuous with many partners. Shows like Will and Grace with Jack who sleeps with many men, and coverage of Gay Pride parades with naked people dancing around reinforces that idea. I guess it doesn't really matter that heterosexuals display the same promiscuity on television--even more so. (That's a whole other problem!)
I'm posting this because it just occurred to me what people might mean when they talk about the decline of marriage and the family if gay marriage is allowed.
-Katarain
Maybe. You could be right. I don't think that justifies it, though.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
starLisa,
Mackillian is the name of a poster on the other side, "Books, Food, Culture, etc.". You lamented the lack of a "flipping-you-off" graemlin. I meant to say 'bird', not birdie-golf was on in the background, heh.
--l-- is one way of flipping someone off. It's usually used in jest .
-------
The bottom line is that yes, this is about homosexual and human rights. People making the irrelevant claim that all proponents of SSM want is to throw out obvious definitions are losing track of one simple thing: marriage is not a scientific term. It's not a mathematic formula. 2+2=4 in 1600CE as well as in 2005CE, but by no means was a 1600CE marriage the same as a 2005CE marriage.
Hell, even a 1950CE marriage.
Marriage means what we want it to mean. It's a subjective term. Heterosexuals have been in the business of changing what marriage means for as long as we've been shacking up and making babies.
Already as far as the government is concerned, the term marriage has been stripped down from its 'original' definition (not that there is such a thing outside of religious discussion) to something very different than what most people think of when they think of marriage.
Marriage in the eyes of the government does not mean love, it does not mean a lifetime, it does not mean shared goals, it doesn't even mean cohabitation. Hell, as long as neither party minds, it doesn't even mean fidelity. Marriage in the eyes of the government entails zero committment and sacrifice beyond just getting a darned license, and I'm not even sure THAT costs anything, and it entails a host of benefits and (ideally) responsibilities.
So all this talk about how marriage is between a man and a woman and 'always' has been is hogwash. No one can reasonably deny that every other specific point about marriage has been changed and modified constantly. Therefore the idea that 'this is how it's always been' is meaningless and irrelevant. We (heterosexuals and Americans) have been changing every other aspect of the definition, so frankly let's own up that there's only one real reason we would add homosexuality to it: because we don't want to.
Well, that's not 'we'. That's you (heterosexuals and Americans), of whom I am one.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
Treason:
[ August 16, 2005, 12:33 PM: Message edited by: starLisa ]
Posted by Katarain (Member # 6659) on :
quote:Marriage in the eyes of the government does not mean love, it does not mean a lifetime, it does not mean shared goals, it doesn't even mean cohabitation. Hell, as long as neither party minds, it doesn't even mean fidelity. Marriage in the eyes of the government entails zero committment and sacrifice beyond just getting a darned license, and I'm not even sure THAT costs anything, and it entails a host of benefits and (ideally) responsibilities.
Yup. And in my state at least, not even a blood test.
Very good points.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Mr. Squicky,
quote:Rather, he seems to me to in many cases be writing to enflame the people who agree with him and to dehumanize and spread false information about the people who disagree with him.
Just because you are being sincere about something doesn't mean you're being respectful. You're calling him a lying, bigoted demagogue who is calculated in his hatred and actions. That's disrespectful.
And frankly it should be disrespectful. I don't speak respectfully about David Duke, or Louis Farrakan, or that G-d Hates Fags guy, or any other such pathetic demagogue. You're insulting OSC. Just because you believe you're right doesn't change the fact that you're insulting him.
Telling the truth can be disrespectful. I obviously disagree that you are right about this, but that doesn't change anything as far as disrespect is concerned. I fail to see how it can be anything but deliberate obtuseness that you fail to understand this.
---------
quote:If you got say a rate of 5% of the base undiagnosed, you could say with some degree of confidence, that similar populations likely also have around 5% undiagnosed schizophrenics.
What 'aggressive systems' would you use? Schizophrenia is a mental problem, it has symptoms, symptoms which sometimes are out of the victim's control. It could be noticed or at least inferred without the victim's cooperation.
I don't think homosexuality is like that. I think it's quite possible for a homosexual to 'pass', for lack of a better word. Not every homosexual is 'flaming', not every homosexual is liberal in their sexuality. It is possible for a homosexual to be as conservative in demeanor and silent about their sex-life as it is for a heterosexual.
Homosexuals still have many compelling reasons not to reveal their homosexuality to the community at large, Mr. Squicky. 'Aggressive systems' of sampling aren't going to overcome those reasons in every case, and that's at the heart of my mistrust of studies claming to speak for what the 'homosexual community' is like.
We have a hard time pinning down what the economy is doing, and there are receipts for that!
quote:Are you suggesting that there is a correlative relationship between unreported child abuse and being firmly in the closet?
I think you know that I wasn't, and for the record-again-I was claiming no such relationship or even suggesting it. I was asking a question-how do you KNOW there isn't? You can't! UNREPORTED!
Also, apply your observations about OSC to yourself and writing styles. Am I to take it as anything but an insult, a question designed to paint me as a bigoted homophobe, that you asked that question?
Because given what I've said and the question you asked, the implication is obvious.
----------
I'll explain-again-my inferences about OSC. They stem largely from the novel Songmaster. In it, a homosexual character is portrayed, and the man is not a monster, he's not indecent, he's not a flamer, he's not anything except a human being.
I have said before and I'll say again that I do not believe OSC could both be guilty of what you're accusing him of, and have written such a compelling story including a homosexual man.
His word choice was, at best, very bad and offensive, and he should have known better. That's another thing I've said before. But I have these two conflicting sets of circumstances, and I chose to believe one thing, you choose to believe another.
In point of fact there are only three times I can remember OSC mentioning either rape or child molestation. One time, in Hart's Hope it was the rape of a young girl, a child, by a grown man. Second, in a short story in which a grown man molests his young daughter, another child. The third time is in Lost Boys, in which a grown man molests and murders a number of boys.
I think it's possible to learn something about how a person thinks from what they write, all of what they write. Weekly columns and lengthy novels.
I'm not going to flog this dead horse anymore with you, Mr. Squicky. I have made my meaning very clear.
Posted by Treason (Member # 7587) on :
Rakeesh said:
"I'll explain-again-my inferences about OSC. They stem largely from the novel Songmaster. In it, a homosexual character is portrayed, and the man is not a monster, he's not indecent, he's not a flamer, he's not anything except a human being."
Remember the consequences being gay had for that poor kid in Songmaster...*shudder*
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by IdahoEEBoy: LOL....Lisa, work out some of those anger issues and come back when you don't want to hurt someone for a post
PKB.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: starLisa,
Mackillian is the name of a poster on the other side, "Books, Food, Culture, etc.". You lamented the lack of a "flipping-you-off" graemlin. I meant to say 'bird', not birdie-golf was on in the background, heh.
--l-- is one way of flipping someone off. It's usually used in jest .
Ah, I see. That's going to come in muy useful. Thanks.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
She posted something while angered. You either 1) Posted a list of insults you didn't mean intended to piss people off, or 2) Posted a list of insults that did piss people off and lied about your motivations later.
That makes starLisa human; it makes you either 1) a dishonest troll or 2) a dishonest jerk.
You intended to provoke, you claim. Don't be surprised when we fail to get mad at a person for doing what you wanted.
Add in that starLisa has added many posts of value to the board. To date, you've just conducted this twisted little psychological experiment.
Posted by Treason (Member # 7587) on :
Can you please go away now IdahoEEBoy? I know I should not encourage you by speaking but really. Buzz off. You are ridiculous.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Treason,
Yes, but what were the circumstances of those consequences?
The man was essentially murdered by Riktors because Riktors was jealous, not because Riktors or Josif (I cannot for the life of me remember the name) were homosexual (in fact, he was bisexual come to think of it).
Those consequences also stemmed from the Songhouse's essential neutering of Ansset as well.
But before those things happened-before the jealous, lust for power, cruelty and ruthlessness of Riktors, Josif was a man with hopes, dreams, qualities and flaws.
Posted by Treason (Member # 7587) on :
Rakeesh,
I wasn't being very specific, sorry. Only because I meant it as more of a general idea. I was thinking more about Ansset and what happened to him (the pain he went through) as well as Josif's murder and all the misunderstandings. I don't know if it matters that all this pain came from trying to share in same sex relations, it still makes a great story. I was just pointing out that being gay (or bisexual) did not have a happy ending for these people. And if they had not been trying to be intimate with each other, none of it ever would have happened. Did I explain that ok? Because I don't know if that even made sense to me!
{edit for a P.S.} Ps. I agree with you that Josif was a great character, and that OSC wrote him beautifully. So was Ansset. That's one of the reasons I never understood OSC's views on gays and lesbians.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Treason,
I think it's likely that Riktors would've reacted the same if Ansset had been sexually involved with anyone, not just Josif. Also, the Songhouse's...alterations...would've manifested in heterosexual relations as well.
Then again, now that I think about it, perhaps Riktors would not have reacted the same way. Perhaps Riktors's terrible jealousy would not have been aroused if Ansset had been involved with a woman, because that would mean that his refusal to be involved with Riktors was just because he (Ansset) wasn't homosexual.
Posted by Treason (Member # 7587) on :
I agree that these things would have happened if he had heterosexual relations with someone. But he didn't, you see? I am not saying it was done on purpose either. It was just a thought.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Rakeesh, There are plenty of methods besides asking are you gay to determine if someone is gay. Responses on both projective and physiolgical arousal have been shown to discriminate between gay and straight people. As I've said, this method (which is only one of the methods used to estimate unreported conditions) works whenever there is a more thorough method. Also, as I've said, statistical sampling doesn't need to measure an entire population to form reliable inferences about that population.
You've misunderstood my point about correlation. I was saying that your objection rests on the assumption that there is a correlation between someone being a victim of unreported abuse and being a closeted homosexual, not that closeted homosexuals commit unreported sexual abuse.
---
starL, You could have saved yourself what appeared to be a deal of agitation and effort if you read me more carefully. As Dag said, I wasn't making any accusations about the actual state of homosexcual marriage, which I'm all for. I was describing conditions that could exist (and that many opponents claim do exist) that would make it so that I wouldn't support gay marriage. The way you're phrasing your arguments, it wouldn't matter to you if these were the case, gay people would deserve to get married and (although this perhaps is an overextention on my part, they are closely related issues) adopt and raise children anyway. I disagree with this idea, but as I'm pretty darn sure none of those things are true, I strongly support gay marriage and adoption.
---
Also, I'm still waiting for someone to offer up reasons why gay marriage is a bad idea that don't rely on "God says so" or prejudices.
Posted by Treason (Member # 7587) on :
Ok, now I have finally figured out what I was trying to say. (I'm a little slow, which is why I normally don't enter important discussions) The point I was really trying to make was this: Yes, Orson has created a few sympathetic homosexual/bisexual characters. They were good people and portrayed compassionately but NONE of them had been happy in their homosexuality. Remember, Zorab supressed it to live a "normal" life and have children. Ansset was ruined just by trying and Josef was murdered for it. Orson may have portrayed homosexual people sympathetically, but never the homosexual lifestyle. Does that make anything clearer?
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Now, it's been a while since I read the Homecoming saga, and even longer since I read Songmaster. But at least in the former, isn't Zorab's unhappiness portrayed as being largely due to social norms?
Posted by Treason (Member # 7587) on :
Partly, but I also remember him saying he didn't like the feelings he had.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Mr. Squicky,
I said I was done talking about this, but I'm not going to let you put words in my mouth.
quote:You've misunderstood my point about correlation. I was saying that your objection rests on the assumption that there is a correlation between someone being a victim of unreported abuse and being a closeted homosexual, not that closeted homosexuals commit unreported sexual abuse.
Wrong. That was never my objection. Stop saying, suggesting, or hinting that I said such a thing, because I did not. You're deliberately painting me as someone who says that someone who is homosexual is more likely to be a child-rapist, and it's pissing me off.
I said that we cannot know whether or not there is such a correlation because we cannot know a) who has been a victim of unreported child abuse, and b) who is a closeted homosexual. Tell me something, Mr. Squicky, do you think someone who is in the closet and wants to stay that way will agree to submit to a test designed to discern their true sexuality?
Your answer to that question amounts to at best a guess. That is at the heart of my doubts of studies like you're talking about.
As for unacknowledged child-molesters, how do you find them out? I've certainly never heard of a study whose goal is to ferret out uncaptured child molestors, and I've never heard a whiff of a study that even accidentally came up with that result.
Can you give me one such study, please?
And also for the last time, about statistical studies: I took basic statistics, man. I know you don't have to study the whole bloody population. Please stop telling me I'm not understanding that. But really, Mr. Squicky, are you telling me that homosexuals are reliably spread out throughout the entire American population? If so, what do you base that assumption on? How does that explain for places like-I'll use the cliche-San Francisco?
-------------------------
There are arguments against permitting SSM that don't rely on 'God Says So' and prejudices, but you and I just don't think they're sufficient to continue denying SSM. They've been given, many, many times. You just ignore them, each time.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Rakeesh, I'm not talking about child molestors. I didn't mention them at all here and I certainly didn't ever claim that you believed that you believed that homosexauls were child molestors. I don't even see how you came up with that conclusion.
I'm talking about the victims of child molestation. In order for the samples you're talking about to be unrepresentative in the way you're talking about in terms of testing the child abuse leads to homosexuality, there would have to be a correlation between being the victim of unreported child abuse and a strongly closeted homosexual.
If you understood basic statistics and were using that understanding here, I don't think you'd be making an argument that relies on "You don't test everyone, some you can't know for sure." Of course we can't test everyone and of course we can't know for sure. That's why we use statistical sampling. If there were a correlation between being a victim of unreported child abuse and being a strongly closeted homosexual, then these statistical sampling methods would be invalid. Heck, a large amount of error would creep in if either direction of that were true (unreported abuse to homosexual or abuse leading to closeted homosexuals) but these are all testable hypotheses.
---
Also, hey, if I'm ignoring the arguments against gay marriage, could you make them clear to me? I haven't seen them. I've seen a bunch of people telling me they exist, but I haven't actually seen anyone tell me what they are. Maybe I'm just ignoring them, in which case a simple clear list would really show that this is what I'm doing.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
1.) That there's no need to extend the benefits of civil marriage to nonreproductive couples, and that allowing nonreproductive heterosexual couples to marry is simply a convenience based on the far greater difficulty in determining fertility. The laws in place for dealing with non-married parenthood are sufficient to protect children being raised by gay couples. This argument draws a clear line and also explains why we don't open civil union benefits to siblings or first cousins. Reason I oppose this argument: there are no true costs associated with extending the benefit to same sex couples, so there's no reason to deny them the benefit. Does not rely on either prejudice or "God says so."
2.) Maintaining separate legal institutions allows development of legal doctrine in areas of law inapplicable to same sex couples (such as presumption of paternity). Again, I find the differences easily handled by existing legal doctrine, but the argument doesn't depend on either prejudice or "God says so."
3.) Altering the legal definition of marriage deemphasizes marriage as a reflection of biological reproduction. Dilution of this focus will encourage more changes to the legal institution not in keeping with this core purpose of marriage. I disagree with this one on both historical and predictive grounds.
4.) The laws of a society should reflect the dominant morals of that society. Note the subtle difference between this and "God says so." Although certainly someone using this to justify an anti-civil-gay-marriage position in this country would be relying on "God says so," someone espousing this as a tenet of their philosophy of political science would speak of consistency and heterogenaity as legitimate goals of government. I find this general philosophy fairly repellent, but it has been advocated by many legal scholars. It was in fact advocate in Griswald by the majority opinion which struck down laws banning sale of contraceptives to married couples as recently as the 60s.
5.) The establishment of benefits to identifiable subgroups is legitimate when doing so benefits society at large. Such benefits need not be expanded to groups when doing so will not benefit society at large. Extending benefits to gay couples will not benefit society, so they should not be extended. I agree with the foundational premise, but I think it is incomplete - if the benefit can be extended for no cost, it is better to do so. I also disagree with the minor premise that society does not benefit, even examining only savings to the legal system by extending the savings associated with the default relationships of marriage to gay couples.
I'm sure there are more. I can poke holes in all of them at many different levels. But they exist and should be countered, rather than summarily dismissed.
Further, as much as you dislike it, "because God says so" is enough reason to motivate many voters. And, it is still constitutional to use the power of the state to enforce public morals, within certain restrictions. So convincing people that "because God says homosexual acts are wrong" does not require civil marriage to be denied to gay couples is a necessary argument to be able to make.
Posted by gilmourman (Member # 8501) on :
I don't understand the logic of those who oppose gay marriage. As an avid follower of people such as Milton Friedman, I believe it should be within the freedom of man to chose his own actions so long as the actions a person takes do not inflict any significant consequences upon an outside third party (the so called neighborhood effect). I anticipate what the replies to this post will look like - something to the effect that gay marriage somehow is tearing apart our society - but I would like to see this viewpoint argued effectively. I am by no means gay, but see it morally wrong that others would oppose gay marriage (just as I see it as wrong that marijuana be illegal...but that's another issue).
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Gilmourman, Mr. Squicky, as Dagonee showed-again, for the nth time now-there are arguments against permitting SSM that are neither based exclusively in religion nor are based on personal distaste for homosexuality.
I don't happen to share any of those arguments, nor do I feel they're more complling than other arguments that support SSM.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: 1.) That there's no need to extend the benefits of civil marriage to nonreproductive couples, and that allowing nonreproductive heterosexual couples to marry is simply a convenience based on the far greater difficulty in determining fertility. The laws in place for dealing with non-married parenthood are sufficient to protect children being raised by gay couples. This argument draws a clear line and also explains why we don't open civil union benefits to siblings or first cousins. Reason I oppose this argument: there are no true costs associated with extending the benefit to same sex couples, so there's no reason to deny them the benefit. Does not rely on either prejudice or "God says so."
Except that you're mistaken on two counts.
There actually are costs associated with treating us equally. Every dollar of tax money that we save by filing jointly costs the country a dollar. Then again, the additional marriage license fees ought to make up for that.
But it doesn't matter whether there are extra costs or not. The argument that marriage is about reproduction is specious. I do not believe that there is a person alive who actually opposes same-sex marriage for that reason. One might just as well say that marriage is about carrying on a heritage, and that mixing races actually harms that goal, and therefore should not be allowed. It's a silly excuse.
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: 2.) Maintaining separate legal institutions allows development of legal doctrine in areas of law inapplicable to same sex couples (such as presumption of paternity).
Why on earth should that be a consideration? In California, the registered domestic partner of a woman who gives birth is automatically registered as the child's parent.
And again, it makes as much sense as saying that determining the race of a child becomes difficult if the parents are of different races, and that we should therefore not allow mixed-race marriage.
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Again, I find the differences easily handled by existing legal doctrine, but the argument doesn't depend on either prejudice or "God says so."
It does still depend on prejudice. Look, I can make up any spurious argument for anything. That doesn't make it a real reason. No one actually opposes same-sex marriage for any of these reasons. Only someone who is already opposed to same-sex marriage would raise these issues when arguing against it. You're only coming up with them because you're theorizing.
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: 3.) Altering the legal definition of marriage deemphasizes marriage as a reflection of biological reproduction. Dilution of this focus will encourage more changes to the legal institution not in keeping with this core purpose of marriage. I disagree with this one on both historical and predictive grounds.
My above comments apply here as well. And in fact, this argument makes a fairly good case for polygamy.
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: 4.) The laws of a society should reflect the dominant morals of that society. Note the subtle difference between this and "God says so."
I don't see one. The dominant morals of this society are dictated by the Constitution. I'm speaking of equality under the law. Anyone who wants to try and trump that moral imperative with a different one is out of line, and is clearly attempting to bring in the morals of some other system.
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: 5.) The establishment of benefits to identifiable subgroups is legitimate when doing so benefits society at large. Such benefits need not be expanded to groups when doing so will not benefit society at large. Extending benefits to gay couples will not benefit society, so they should not be extended. I agree with the foundational premise,
I do not. What did allowing miscegenation benefit society at large? It benefited those who were now able to marry.
What did allowing women to vote benefit society at large? It benefited women who wanted to vote.
The only relevant "benefit" is that an inequity which exists in our society is eliminated.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Rakeesh, I've never denied that these arguments exist in potential. I've just said that I've not seen them. If you accept Dag's list as arguments that have been brought up that I ignored, I'd appreciate you showing me where on this thread they were brought up. Because that is what you accused me of, correct, ignoring the arguments that had been given many, many times?
Posted by TheSeeingHand (Member # 8349) on :
Homosexuals are allowed to marry as long as they can convince a member of the opposite sex to engage in it. Orson Scott Card is a genius.
Posted by RoyHobbs (Member # 7594) on :
Yes, I think he is. This equal protection stuff people keep talking about is ridiculous.
EVERY PERSON IN AMERICA HAS THE OPPORTUNITY TO GET MARRIED TO A PERSON OF THE OPPOSITE SEX.
EVERY PERSON IN AMERICA WOULD THEN RECEIVE THE SAME BENEFITS THAT MARRIED COUPLES RECEIVE.
There should be no controversy. Gays like their lifestyle and they're entitled to it, but to say you UNFAIRLY don't receive the same benefits is stupid. Again I say, ANY person in America can receive the government "perqs" of marriage, just get married to a person of the opposite sex and they are yours. This is not legislating morality, it doesn't force someone to change their morals or likes and dislikes, it just says "If you want the benefits of being married, GET MARRIED (by the rules that the people of America decide). If one dislikes the method that the government uses to determine who recieves marriage benefits (namely, by giving them to married people) call your Senator and/or vote for measures to change the laws, but don't say that the law is unfair because its just not true.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: EVERY PERSON IN AMERICA HAS THE OPPORTUNITY TO GET MARRIED TO A PERSON OF THE OPPOSITE SEX.
EVERY PERSON IN AMERICA WOULD THEN RECEIVE THE SAME BENEFITS THAT MARRIED COUPLES RECEIVE.
Wow. That's so profound it's stupid.
Posted by Treason (Member # 7587) on :
Wow is right.
Hey, I'm starting a program: Any people married to the same sex get free healthcare for the rest of their lives.
Now let me see all the heterosexuals rush out and marry the same sex.... no takers? Thought not.
That's a wonderful idea right? Take something that is supposed to mean something special, a vow between 2 people to love and cherish each other for the rest of their lives, and make it a lie. Great idea.
Posted by RoyHobbs (Member # 7594) on :
I agree that your example law would be a stupid one. But I don't think that it is inherently unfair to anyone. And that's the road that the pro SSM activists take.
I disagree with that sample law, and I would work to change it, but I would not lobby and complain that it is unfair, because its not. It may seem stupid to me and I may hate it, but if it is passed by my representatives I have to live with it. Not to say that I wouldn't try to change it, to sway others to my side, but thats not what the pro-SSM crowd is doing, they are complaining that the law is INHERENTLY bigoted and discriminatory to them. That's just not true, in your example and in the case of marriage today, EVERYONE is held to the same law, if you don't want to do the things necessary to receive the benefits, you don't get to receive the benefits, its just that simple.
An example of a law that actually IS discriminatory and bigoted would be the Jim Crow voting laws and black codes, which unfairly held black Americans to a different standard than there white counterparts. Whites did not let blacks receive the full benefit of their citizenship, the right to have your vote counted and respected.
That is NOT what is happening today. In fact, it is almost the opposite, today we have the law that says "Anyone (over 18 or whatever) can marry one member of the opposite sex, who they are not related to."
If you do this you get benefits from the gov't. If you do not do this you do not get benefits from the gov't.
SSM activists say "We don't like your law. Change it yourself or we'll get an activist judge to change it for you." This is disrespectful and arrogant. The SSM activists are not allowing their opponents to receive the full benefit of their citizenship, the right to have our vote counted and respected. Instead they want to go around majority rule with their activist judges. And they complain about us being close-minded zealots...
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Were laws that prohibited blacks from marrying whites and whites from marrying blacks unfair?
Posted by Treason (Member # 7587) on :
Exactly, Dagonee! Well, why don't those people who want to marry a different race just deal with it? If they don't want to follow the law and marry within their race, then they don't get the benefits. Seems fair. Oh wait, no it doesn't.
Edited to say: Sorry for the sarcasm, I just get hot under the collar about this stuff.
[ August 20, 2005, 01:33 AM: Message edited by: Treason ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I should state that I don't think the analysis of mixed-race marriages is exactly the same as that for same-sex marriages. I used it only as an example of how tricky this "fairness" things is.
I've had two law professors call "fair" the "f-word."
Posted by RoyHobbs (Member # 7594) on :
*bump*
Anyone else...
Posted by Treason (Member # 7587) on :
I may sound like an idiot, but what does "bump" mean? I've seen it said a few times but I just don't get it yet...
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Treason: I may sound like an idiot, but what does "bump" mean? I've seen it said a few times but I just don't get it yet...
When you post to a topic, it moves up on the list of topics. If no one replies to a topic for a while, it slides down the list until it isn't even on the first page. Some people will post something contentless just to move the topic back up again, and saying "bump" tells people that it's being done for that reason.
Now... this guy obviously just wants attention, because he's been asked a valid question, and has ignored it. Yet he bumped the topic anyway.
So I'll ask the question again: Were laws against interracial marriage "unfair" in his ideosyncratic definition, and why?
edit: And no, Treason, you don't sound like an idiot at all. Only the tragically geeky would know that without it being explained somewhere.
Posted by RoyHobbs (Member # 7594) on :
As Dag said, that example is not the same, it differs from the current law because that law only applied to whites and blacks. It didn't apply to Asians or Latinos or Native Americans, they could marry anyone they wanted. So, no, I don't think that that law was fair, but that doesn't change my opinion on the current marriage setup for the reasons I've listed above.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: As Dag said, that example is not the same, it differs from the current law because that law only applied to whites and blacks. It didn't apply to Asians or Latinos or Native Americans, they could marry anyone they wanted.
Had the law only permitted anyone to marry someone of the same race, would it have been fair?
Posted by RoyHobbs (Member # 7594) on :
Why does everyone keep asking me questions instead of addressing what I've said? After 16 pages of debate it seems odd to fizzle out after a different idea has been raised...
Posted by RoyHobbs (Member # 7594) on :
No, I don't think that a law saying you can only marry someone of your same race would be fair. But thats a straw man and you know it, I don't accept that your example is close enough to the current situation to draw any sort of conclusion from.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
How is it a straw man when I took great pains to state the following?
"I don't think the analysis of mixed-race marriages is exactly the same as that for same-sex marriages. I used it only as an example of how tricky this 'fairness' things is." As to addressing what you said, it was necessary to know your definition of fair in order to respond. The question was a good way at examining the borders of the concept.
quote:No, I don't think that a law saying you can only marry someone of your same race would be fair.
Then please explain the difference between this statement:
quote:That is NOT what is happening today. In fact, it is almost the opposite, today we have the law that says "Anyone (over 18 or whatever) can marry one member of the opposite sex, who they are not related to."
If you do this you get benefits from the gov't. If you do not do this you do not get benefits from the gov't.
"Anyone (over 18 or whatever) can marry one member of the same race and opposite sex, who they are not related to. If you do this you get benefits from the gov't. If you do not do this you do not get benefits from the gov't."
quote:SSM activists say "We don't like your law. Change it yourself or we'll get an activist judge to change it for you." This is disrespectful and arrogant. The SSM activists are not allowing their opponents to receive the full benefit of their citizenship, the right to have our vote counted and respected. Instead they want to go around majority rule with their activist judges. And they complain about us being close-minded zealots...
This is largely irrelevant. Many same sex civil marriage advocates do not want it implemented via judicial mandate. And many opponents are not concerned with whether it's done by judicial mandate; witness the amendments that not only prevented the judiciary from acting on this issue, but the legislature. Further, this argument says nothing about the merits of whether the benefits of civil marriage should be extended to same sex couples or not. So while I happen to agree with the statement, "Judges should not mandate extending the benefits of civil marriage to same sex couples under the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment," I also agree with the statement, "legislatures ought to extend the benefits of civil marriage to same sex couples as an endorsement of the principles informing the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment."
Posted by RoyHobbs (Member # 7594) on :
Sorry Dag, I was referring to Toms post.
As for your post, I am glad to hear you say that "Judges should not mandate extending the benefits of civil marriage to same sex couples under the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment", as for the second part - I guess I'm just still not convinced, even after 16 pages of posts. Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I'd still like to know why this is unfair:
quote:Anyone (over 18 or whatever) can marry one member of the same race and opposite sex, who they are not related to. If you do this you get benefits from the gov't. If you do not do this you do not get benefits from the gov't.
And this is not:
quote:Anyone (over 18 or whatever) can marry one member of the opposite sex, who they are not related to. If you do this you get benefits from the gov't. If you do not do this you do not get benefits from the gov't.
I don't think "unfairness" is dispositive. But I can't come up with a definition of unfairness that includes the former and not the latter.
Posted by Treason (Member # 7587) on :
Thank you, starLisa.
Posted by RoyHobbs (Member # 7594) on :
Dag, I understand your point, and I admire your tact in bringing it up again after I failed to realize its implications previously.
I guess the only thing I would revise about my former posts is that marriage laws as they are currently, are not (IMHO) unfair .
Considering that it is obvious to nearly everyone in America, if not the world, that limiting (by law) the pool of eligible partners for marriage by your race is unfair. I am willing to accept that, but the fact that there are people who disagree puts the definition of fair into question (your post again!).
I think recognizing unfairness is much easier than detecting a truly universally fair system. Actually, I don't think it is really possible to have a perfectly "fair" system. No one will be 100% happy with any law or system of government.
So* now that I've revamped my position, let me say this - the method of government that is the least unfair is a democratic republic, like ours. Since the majority of the country is still in favor of keeping the status quo in marriage, and in fact, making sure through an amendment that it doesn't change, I guess the argument now comes down to what people think is best for the country.
Is that the conclusion that you have reached? If so, most of the talk from others must have seemed like a waste to you, since they were arguing about the unfairness of the law instead of why their position is best for the country (not only measurable statistics, but also considering the moral steps that changing or keeping the law would represent).
Sorry, this has gone on too long, but just know I turned a corner in understanding this, even if I did it slowly, so... thanks.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
To sum up my position:
I think the law is unfair.
I think certain types of unfairness in law are tolerable under certain circumstances.
I don't think the harm (if any) caused by recognizing civil marriage of same sex couples is sufficient to justify the unfairness.
Dagonee Regarding the morality issue: Civil marriage is no longer a driving force for morality in this country. It has devolved into a collection of rules of property ownership and a means of creating a host of legal relationships (medical guardian) by default. Elaborate rules of guardianship of children exist outside civil marriage.
[ August 23, 2005, 10:37 AM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
There are no measurable statistics that are trustworthy about why SSM would be good for the nation, or why it would not.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by RoyHobbs: Dag, I understand your point, and I admire your tact in bringing it up again after I failed to realize its implications previously.
I guess the only thing I would revise about my former posts is that marriage laws as they are currently, are not (IMHO) unfair .
Considering that it is obvious to nearly everyone in America, if not the world, that limiting (by law) the pool of eligible partners for marriage by your race is unfair. I am willing to accept that, but the fact that there are people who disagree puts the definition of fair into question (your post again!).
<whistles softly> Wow...
You accept that banning interracial marriage is unfair only because lots of people say so?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:There are no measurable statistics that are trustworthy about why SSM would be good for the nation, or why it would not.
What are you using for the basis of this statement? I don't believe that this is an accurate description nor do I believe that you've demonstrated that you have familiarity with this issue at anywhere near the level where making such a statement would be at all responsible.
[ August 23, 2005, 03:05 PM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by Treason (Member # 7587) on :
From the link above:
"It is unprecedented around the country to have a state's highest court recognize that in the absence of an adoption and even in the absence in some instances of a domestic partnership agreement that two men or two women could be the full legal parents of a child born through assisted reproduction," said Joan Hollinger, who teaches adoption law at the University of California, Berkeley.
To me, that's just weird. Why not just adopt? If I had a baby and a woman was my partner and she wanted to be Mom as well, I would think she would just adopt my baby...Legally I think this will be a mess.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by IdahoEEBoy: I hope posting a link to a news article is ok, if not please remove and it won't happen again. I just read this today. I thought I was confused enough about all the definitions and issues--but take a look how confused judges and lawyers are with all the definitions. It makes me wonder how many parents children are legally going to be able to have. Somehow both of them are now legally considered to be the children's mothers. This will be interesting to watch unfold legally. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0508230041aug23,1,3231899.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
My partner and I are both legally our daughter's parents. One of us was the birth mother, and the other did a step-parent adoption in California.
All this ruling says is that if our daughter had been born in California, the adoption wouldn't have been necessary, and we'd both have gone on the birth certificate to begin with.
Suppose there's an opposite-sex couple. The father dies, and the mother remarries, and the step-father adopts the children. If the mother and step-father (now legal father) separate or divorce, should he lose parental rights?
This wasn't a case about two women both being the legal parents of a single child. That's already the law in California.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Treason: From the link above:
"It is unprecedented around the country to have a state's highest court recognize that in the absence of an adoption and even in the absence in some instances of a domestic partnership agreement that two men or two women could be the full legal parents of a child born through assisted reproduction," said Joan Hollinger, who teaches adoption law at the University of California, Berkeley.
To me, that's just weird. Why not just adopt? If I had a baby and a woman was my partner and she wanted to be Mom as well, I would think she would just adopt my baby...Legally I think this will be a mess.
Treason, we had to adopt. We were actually lucky, in that they'd just passed a law making it possible for us to do a step-parent adoption, rather than a second-parent adoption. Both are incredibly invasive. You have to have a social worker come and observe you. Both are expensive, although the step-parent adoption is a lot less expensive.
Let's see... you get to go and have your fingerprints run through a federal database. That's always fun. You get to take time off from work to go to court and have someone who doesn't even know you rule on whether or not your child is really your child.
When I say we were lucky, I mean that we were lucky we didn't have to go through the time and expense and invasiveness of a second-parent adoption. But ultimately, we were already both her parents. All this did was give us a piece of paper saying that the state agrees.
It would have been a great deal more civilized had we been able to get that paper without all of the nonsense.
Posted by Treason (Member # 7587) on :
starLisa- I guess I understand your point of view. (I am adopted, so it seems natural to me in a way it probably does not to everyone) It seems the "original" parents (for lack of a better term) should be considered first. SS or not. But thinking about it, I suppose when you adopt, they recreate the birth certificate anyway to put the adopted parents on there. So my point is moo. (It's like a cow's opinion, it's moo)
Posted by Only Me (Member # 9399) on :
quote:Originally posted by Orson Scott Card: I didn't see it as an attack, either.
As a matter of fact, your question was actually a very perceptive explication of the fact that I have only issued statements on my policy concerning a radical redefinition of marriage without regard for its possible consequences on society, and on my belief that the Mormon Church has a regular procedure for determining what is and is not a sin, and it is not a matter to by whimsically changed in order to comply with the fads of modern society outside the church.
I have also assessed the extremely poor quality of the "science" that claims to have "proven" the genetic inevitability of homosexuality without any serious attempt at gathering evidence or trying to falsify the hypothesis. The outcome of widespread genuine scientific inquiry would be interesting. No one has even tried to do it - the few pathetic attempts are not science, since they're trying to prove, rather than disprove, something, and almost all rely on anecdotal or self-reported evidence.
When real evidence comes up, I will be fascinated to see it. Until then, my speculation can beat your speculation ...
But you see, we live in a time when if you question in any way the dogma of the PC Left, they immediately brand you with all the worst names they have, because the last thing they can tolerate is diversity of thought, since it always leads to uncomfortable questions, and we wouldn't want anybody on the Left to be uncomfortable.
So you will hear from others that I'm a raging homophobe who hates gays and indulges in gay-bashing. But if you examine what I actually say, and how I treat homosexual characters in my fiction, you will discover that (a) I didn't say any such thing in my essays and (b) I don't show any such attitude in my fiction. None of my homosexual characters represent a "position" on homosexuality. They represent themselves, human beings with a wide array of motives and choices, and I present them, as I try to present all my characters, as if they were the heroes of their own story.
The funny thing is that I've been criticized very hotly by conservative Christians (including Mormons) because I'm so PRO-homosexual.
Then again, you should see the hilarious hate mail I just got from an unbelievably self-righteous Mormon who seriously thought I should be excommunicated because I had expressed such warm feelings about John Paul II in my recent essay. It's just mind-numbingly bigoted and smug.
So you see, in the world I live in, I'm such a namby-pamby moderate.
I just could not choose which bit to quote, here. Ok, I'm a newbie, so those of you who love flaming incompetence, please have a go
Mr Card (Orson feels too informal),
I'm new to your books. And it is the quiet homoeroticism in Songmaster that puzzles me.
There is a spoiler below, but I'm guessing that, if people have read this far, then they kind of have the gist
Josif is said to be portrayed positively. Yet he is reviled by everyone except those who love him. And those who love him are somehow the less because they love him. And the poor lad suffers hugely for being seduced by Ansset, and is destroyed.
And some of Ansset is also destroyed because he seduced Josif (though I grant that any orgasm with any perosn at that point would have been quite horrible for the poor child)
Setting this against your statements above, I find that you may portray at time a homoseual character in a positive light at times, but that, from this sample of one book only, it portrays an act of love between two consenting males as having unduly severe consequences.
I was hoping you might comment with that view in mind?
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
First post is a response to a thread that's been down almost a year. That's getting right to the point.
I won't answer for OSC, but it looks like his quote that his characters, "represent themselves, human beings with a wide array of motives and choices, and I present them, as I try to present all my characters, as if they were the heroes of their own story." relates directly to your question.
Posted by BlueWizard (Member # 9389) on :
First with great apologies, I did not read the entire thread, though what I did read, I found interesting. One problem I have with the Gay discussion (in society in general) is the general irrational hypocrisy. The discussion switches between the moral and the practical as it suits the needs of the speaker. I'm sure my position will show little difference but I do try to take a very practical approach to the matter.
First, from a purely legal perspective, there is no reason for same sex couples not to have equal rights. Here is where people try to interject religious and moral beliefs that have no place in law.
Don't get me wrong general morality does have a place in general law. But not everything that is illegal has to be immoral, and not everything that is immoral has to be illegal. Beyond the general; morality and legality are separate issues.
The marital couplings of gay people with respect to civil rights is purely a legal issue. They are being denied rights in the same circumstance in which others are being granded special rights.
So here we have the double standard in agruing this issue. There are those who will use morality to agrue law, and those that will use law to argue morality. Neither is effective or productive.
Again, remember that I'm not totally divorcing law and morality. There is a general and universal morality that is constant in all societies and in all religions upon which are legal system is based. But beyond the general and universal, law is law and religion is religion.
So, in my view, from a practical, legal, and civil rights perspective, I can't see, and have never heard, any reasonable argument against extending uniform civil rights. Isn't that at the heart of civil rights, that they are uniform?
So much for the legal aspect, now to the moral aspect.
First, the one critically important factor that most who argue against homosexuality are denying, and I use 'denial' in the most therapeutic sense of the word.
We, or at least society, generally agrees that homosexual sex is immoral; it is a sin. The issue that society very blindly ignores is that hetrosexual sex is also immoral. Depending on the specifics of your religion, only hetrosexual sex inside of marriage and for the purpose of pro-creation is allowed. To some extent, sex is a sacrament of marriage, not a fun little toy that makes your willie go squirt.
Now for a reality check. Whether you admit it or not, a substantial majority of your sons and daughters are out there drinking beer, smoking pot, and having sex. If you condemn gay sex, then you must equally condemn your own sons and daughters for their sins.
The problem is that while many religiously inclined will say they condemn pre-marital sex, it is done with a nudge-nudge-wink-wink. They know that they have to openly condemn it because the people listening will not tolerate any other position, but I suspect that even those listening accept the harsh reality that people do have pre-marital sex. If fact, it is likely the most who condemn it, did it themselves. Just watch TV, and you see it on nearly every program. It is accepted as a societal norm, even while it is quietly condemned with words, but oh so rarely with actions.
So, figuratively, why is your sin so much less a sin than mine? Why is it 'nudge-nudge-wink-wink' when it comes to your sins, but hellfire and brimstone when in comes to mine (figuratively)? Why do your sons and daughter openly condemn the sins of others while they themselves commit the same (or similar) sins?
If you condemn homosexual sex, then I feel you are a hypocrit if you do not with equal vigor and effort, actively and publicly condemn hetrosexual sex. Sin is sin, your sins are no better than mine.
Further, if we step for a moment beyond the physical; is love ever a sin?
One final point, we do not condemn hetrosexual sinners as universally and completely immoral. We see that they can sin in one area, but still go on to live good, productive and generally moral lives. The point they tend to forget, is the that same it true of gay people. You may feel they sin in one area of their lives, but that does not make the universally immoral. More importantly, it is very wrong, perhaps even immoral of you, to condemn gay people totally and universally, for one particular aspect of their moral lives. If that were true and valid, most philandering televangelist would have been off the air ages ago, and you and your own sons and daughters would be on the road to hell by now.
Final final note, it is not up to us to condemn or forgive, that is the providence of God. It is up to us to embrace and support our fellow Christian (or fellow members of other religions), gay, straight, or otherwise, and help them on the impossible road to enlightenment.
Just one man's perspective, which admitedly is a very unscientific, though hopefully practical, perspective.
Steve/BlueWizard
[ May 05, 2006, 04:11 PM: Message edited by: BlueWizard ]
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
Holy crap, I thought this thread was gone forever ... Can't we even have a full year without freaking out about this?
(Not a comment directly on BlueWizard's post. He seems to be on the more reasonable end of the scale. I'm just still sick of the subject.)
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
Very well put BlueWizard. I doubt I could have said it better.
However, I believe one could argue that those who are against gay marriage are equally against drugs, premarital sex, divorce, adultery, etc. But you gotta pick your battles. Just as there are those who protest gay marriage, there are also those who dedicate their lives to, let's say, improving gun control. If you want to get something done you have to dedicate time to it, which means less to for other causes that you may feel equally strongly about.
Posted by BlueWizard (Member # 9389) on :
rollainm: "However, I believe one could argue that those who are against gay marriage are equally against drugs, premarital sex, divorce, adultery, etc. But you gotta pick your battles."
I do see your point, but I also see people picking their battles to condemn other people while conveniently ignoring their own sins and the sins of those close to them. While it doesn't apply to all people, I generally find amoung the most vocal an 'our sin vs their sin' attitude, and for some reason the sins of others are always much worse than their own sins.
Part of my basis for taking this particular stand is the unbearable guilt that is heaped on impressionable young gay people by the hellfire and brimstone crowd. To those young people who are experiencing near suicidal levels of guilt and shame, I would say that your particular sin is no worse than the sins of those amoung your peers or amoung the adults that are condemning you. You, young gay people, don't need to feel any more guilt or shame than the rest of the hetrosexuals in your peer group. When those people become absolutely perfect saints, then you can feel guilty, until then we are all sinners together.
Just passing it along.
Steve/BlueWizard
Posted by vonk (Member # 9027) on :
I just want to clarify. Are you saying that being gay, or having gay sex, is a sin, but its ok with you because you and everyone else sin too? If so, I think that this attitude would contribute more to any misplaced guilt or shame, and inderectly support the anti-gay marriage agenda.
I don't think any person should be taught to believe that their innocent and harmless thoughts, desires and emotions are sins or that they will lead to sins.
If thats not what you were saying then, never mind.
Posted by BlueWizard (Member # 9389) on :
Oouuu, Vonk, you've worded your question in a very trick way that makes it difficult to answer. I guess what I am saying is that we need to make sure actions are put into perspective.
I guess relative to gay people who are experiencing deep near suicidal shame and guilt, I would simply add the perspective that their thoughts, desires, and actions are no better or worse that those of their peers. Why should straight kids engage in sin, and do so somewhat guilt free, while those same kids heap unbearable guilt and shame on gay people.
It is up to the individual as they travel their own spiritual path to determine the true nature of sin and the guilt that accompanies it. What I object to is sinners heaping guilt on other people while very conviniently ignoring their own guilt and shame.
The amount of guilt and shame that is force on young impressionable gay people is completely out of proportion to the guilt and shame that is heap on other people for similar crimes. Again, it is a plea for a proper and reasonable perspective. OK, maybe the Bible says gay people will burn in hell, but I suspect it also says promiscuous people will burn in hell. So, why are gay people any more guilty than the promiscuous people? I say they are not. And in telling that to gay people, I would simply be trying, not to erase their guilt, but to put in their guilt into the proper perspective relative to the other sin that is occurring all around them.
So, my question is where are the vocal rallies and protest against straight sex; those protests should be going on daily at high school and colleges across the country. Where are the fanatic protests outside divorce court, why isn't the most dishonorable Reverend Phelps protesting and carrying hate signs outside the funerals of straight teens condemning them for Phelps's assumption that they must have sinned sexually.
My protest is directed at the completely disproportionate enthusiasm with which gay people are condemned, yet straight sinners are conviniently ignored.
Specific to the topic of gay people, being gay is not a sin, commiting gay acts is, although that is the religious view, and not necessarly my own. Personally, I don't think pre-marital sex is universally a sin (gay or straight), but at the same time, I do not think it is universally sin free. The sin is in the context. There can be loving emotionally fulfilling one night stands, just as there can be lifelong marriages that are an abomination.
So, my plea is for a reasonable and fair perspective.
Remember the Old Testament says that adulterers should be put to death. That's pretty serious. That should certainly warrant a protest or two outside of divorce court, so why aren't there any? Why are philandering televangelist forgiven instead of put to death? The Bible clearly says they should be unforgiven and stoned, so why don't we? See, it's a matter of perspective. It's a matter of our sins vs their sins. Our sins can be forgive, but the sins of others must be fanaticaly condemned with what I consider a sinful level of vitriol.
I can't give much weight to the protests of the religious right until I see equally vigorous protest in all aspect of sin, and an universal and true saintliness in their own lives. Until then, as far as I'm concerned, they are just spewing a load of self-serving hatefilled crap.
So, can the answer to your question be found in anything I said here?
Steve/BlueWizard
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
Had I made BlueWizard's second to last post my response to vonk would have been a bit more blunt.
I'm not religious. I guess I'm somewhere between atheism and logical positivism, so the term "sin" doesn't really mean much to me. Homosexuality is not a sin. Murderers, rapists, and burglars are not sinners. Rather, it is morally and socially wrong to murder, rape, steal, vandalize, etc. I find nothing morally or socially wrong with homosexuality. Like BlueWizard said, it's a matter of perspective.
It IS morally wrong (hypocritical) for someone who believes homosexuality, premarital sex, adultery, and divorce are sins to condemn homosexuals while taking part themselves in premarital sex, or adultery, or divorce, or any other act they themselves consider sinful. And then there's that whole "Judge not..." bit, but that's another discussion. BlueWizard is generalizing a specific group of people here (homophobic, hypocritical, politically-driven bigots), not all people against homosexuality.
Posted by Only Me (Member # 9399) on :
quote:Originally posted by rollainm: .... Murderers, rapists, and burglars are not sinners. Rather, it is morally and socially wrong to murder, rape, steal, vandalize, etc.
Why are these not sinners in your view? I am making the assumption that "morally and socially wrong" is not as great a magnitude of "offence" as "sinning". If that assumption is incorrect I can accept your view after explanation.
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
quote:posted by rollainm: I'm not religious. I guess I'm somewhere between atheism and logical positivism, so the term "sin" doesn't really mean much to me.
Read his post. If "sin" basically means a crime against the divine, how can you believe in sin if you don't believe in the divine?
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by Juxtapose:
quote:posted by rollainm: I'm not religious. I guess I'm somewhere between atheism and logical positivism, so the term "sin" doesn't really mean much to me.
Read his post. If "sin" basically means a crime against the divine, how can you believe in sin if you don't believe in the divine?
You can't.
But I would define sin more along the lines of "Doing something you know should not be done."
Whether that actual act is wrong to me is less important than the logical processes that preceded it.
Atheists go to sleep every night without praying, I do not feel that is a sin, why should they be required to do something they know not to do. Christians gets in a heated arguement with an atheist that ends with the them both cussing the other out and storming off. The Christian, and quite possibly the Atheist are both sinning because both know how to hold a civil discussion without insulting the other.
Posted by cheiros do ender (Member # 8849) on :
Who in their right mind could think homosexuality is genetic? Think about certain things male and female bodies wouldn't produce if they're "born that way". Why won't advocates of this belief acknowledge the physical aspects of homosexuals that no argument, mental or envromental, can outweigh?
Sorry, just something I read in the first post that annoyed me.
Posted by Princess Leah (Member # 6026) on :
Cheiros, humans still have tails. We still have an appendix, which has no discernable purpose. Not everything about the human body makes sense. Your argument does not stand.
I'm not sure if I'm interpreting what you're saying correctly. Are these "certain things" you refer to eggs and sperm? What about this physical aspect closes the case in your opinion?
Posted by BlueWizard (Member # 9389) on :
cheiros do ender Who in their right mind could think homosexuality is genetic?
Who in their right mind could deny that there is a genetic component to homosexuality? Just as there is a genetic compenent to almost every aspect of life and perference. Why do some people like pork chops and others like lamb chops? Why do some people like strawberry ice cream and others like chocolate? Why do some guys like blonds, while others like redheads, and still others like guys? You can say that they are just making a choice, but if you go down one more level, something is making them make that choice. Something is making strawberry ice cream more desireable than chocolate.
Something is driving that choice, and it is the natural genetic diversity that one would logically expect to find in a long surviving species.
I see gay people the same way, how could they not exist? With over 6.6 billion people on earth, how could some of them not like strawberry ice cream, and how could genetic diversity and random genetic mutation not produce some people who were attracted to the same sex, just as some people are attracted to blonds and others are not? While you may think the existence of gay people is illogical, it seems to me to be a perfectly logical statistical likelihood. It seems to be just one of the many many diverse likelihoods of over 6.6 billion genetic pairings.
Think about certain things male and female bodies wouldn't produce if they're "born that way". Why won't advocates of this belief acknowledge the physical aspects of homosexuals that no argument, mental or envromental, can outweigh?
I actually have no idea what you are talking about. What 'physical aspect' could you possibly be referring to? If you are talking about the mechanics of the reproductive organs, I still don't see the point. The mechanical functioning of the reproductive organs of gay people work just fine even if they don't lead to reproduction.
Remember something deeper than thought drives the desire to couple (mate, reproduce, whatever). The desire for sex, affection, companionship, and the ability to love while related to reproduction, are actually incidental to reproduction.
Everyone desires these things whether they intend to reproduce or not. It is the acting out of these instinctive biological imperatives that lead to reproduction, but again reproduction is incidental, the biological imperitives are the way that nature forces reproduction, but does it through uncontrollable desires and urges. Gay people through random genetic deviation, simply channel those desires and urges in a differnt direction.
To think that homosexuality is pure choice, is hopelessly misguided, and probably driven by a social agenda.
For what it's worth.
Steve/bboyminn
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
Blackblade,
quote:I would define sin more along the lines of "Doing something you know should not be done."
It can be defined that way. Just expect to confuse people and miscommunicate when you do, except, I'd imagine, under very specific circumstances.
From dictionary.com:
quote: 1. A transgression of a religious or moral law, especially when deliberate. 2. Theology. a. Deliberate disobedience to the known will of God. b. A condition of estrangement from God resulting from such disobedience. 3. Something regarded as being shameful, deplorable, or utterly wrong.
I'll grant you, your definition is valid under number three. I think, however, that most people, most of the time, will use it to mean deviance from the will of God, or something similar. Either way, it's clear that rollainm was using definition number one.
cheiros do ender, It sounds like you aren't qualified to answer your own question.
Posted by scholar (Member # 9232) on :
My response to the claim that genetics cannot influence sexuality is the question- do flies have free will? Because you mutate a specific gene in flies, and the boy flies spend all their time trying to mate with the other boy flies. And every time you mutate this one gene, the flies behave the same way. No genetic component there at all. So, it's only flies, but for some reason, scientists aren't allowed to mutate people like we can flies. ;-) However, gay flies seem to only exist in the lab. This is do to the fact that they do not mate so an evolutionary deadend. This may be cheiros was claiming. However, in humans, looking at self-reported homosexual males, their sisters have higher fecundity than the average population. So, the genes are being passed on through the sisters. Common enough in genetics.
Posted by Malakai (Member # 8731) on :
I watched a documentary about a year ago that asked whether there was homosexuality in the animal kingdom and if so was it conditioned (by whatever forces)or genetic.
There were many cases of gay animals (or animals that preferred same-sex companionship and/or sex) from far to jungle to to zoos. Some of the animals refused to mate with the opposite sex even if it the opp sex was abundantly available.
The sickening but laughable part was when the documentarian asked a woman who somehow headed wildlife television programming why all of the gay animal sex always ended up on the cutting room floor and was never mentioned on any programs. She said, in a stuffy, scolding english accent, that they would not want to teach such immoral behavior to the masses who watched.
Yes, let's all live in an imaginary world that only depicts what we want! Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
quote:She said, in a stuffy, scolding english accent, that they would not want to teach such immoral behavior to the masses who watched.
I don't know about you, but I learn most of my morals from observing animals on nature documentaries. Chiefly, the llama.
What a noble beast.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
In a similar vein, there is obviously no genetic component to sickle-cell anemia, either.
Posted by Irregardless (Member # 8529) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlueWizard: I see gay people the same way, how could they not exist? With over 6.6 billion people on earth, how could some of them not like strawberry ice cream, and how could genetic diversity and random genetic mutation not produce some people who were attracted to the same sex, just as some people are attracted to blonds and others are not?
And similarly, how could there not be some people who are attracted to prepubescent children? Yet the existence of such attraction is not relevant to evaluating the morality of pedophile behavior, IMO.
Posted by Princess Leah (Member # 6026) on :
Oh, but it pisses me off when people compare homosexuality to pedophelia. Can a child give legal consent? No. Can another adult? Yes. Whether they are opposite sex or not.
Between consenting adults, there should be no objective morality laws. Some people would outlaw bdsm, or threesomes, or any number of non-missionary position, non-strictly-for-fertilization sexual practices. IMHO, you can't have it both ways. If you feel that gay sex is morally wrong, where does the line go? The slippery slope argument flows more than one way.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
I'm just poking my head it out of morbid curiosity as to how this thread is still going.
P.S. Was it already mentioned how Brokeback Mountain did not refute OSC's view on homosexuality? I still side with St. Paul that everyone is latently gay, but maybe it's just the case that everyone experiences sexually related abuse or trauma.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
Actually, pooka, it kind of is. I mean, I can choose to sleep with a guy. But what I can't choose is for it to feel anything but wrong. As wrong as it would feel to a heterosexual person to sleep with a member of the same sex.
Sure, it's a matter of choice, on that level. But that's a semantic argument.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
Sorry about the egregious post editing.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
Nice edit, pooka.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
Hey, I said I was sorry. And what you replied to was also an edit.
Posted by scholar (Member # 9232) on :
The reason I commented on the genetics is because it was earlier stated "Who in their right mind could think homosexuality is genetic?" Whether or not it is genetic does not determine the morality of it. Ultimately who you choose to have sex with is a choice, even if who you enjoy having sex with is not. I find the pedophilia comment a bit offensive. Pedophilia might be genetic. But it is not the same as homosexuality. Homosexual acts do not have a victim any more so than heterosexual acts imply a victim.
Posted by BlueWizard (Member # 9389) on :
Irregardless, And similarly, how could there not be some people who are attracted to prepubescent children? Yet the existence of such attraction is not relevant to evaluating the morality of pedophile behavior, IMO.
While others object to you bring 'pedophilia' into the mix, you are none the less right, everything on some level is related to the complex and diverse combining of genes. Pedophila likely is genetic deviation, but if you read this thread -
on pages 3 and more so, 4 and 5 we discuss the nature of sin and morality. In the simplest words sin=harm. Something is a sin because it causes some spiritual, emotional, psychological, physical, or practical HARM.
That harm is not necessarily true of homosexuals, and is usually true of pedophiles. More accurately, I should refer to behavior rather than tendency or propensity.
To expand, homosexuality, propensity to thief or murder, propensity to benevolents and charity, propensity to like strawberry over chocolate, and pedophilia all have a genetic component. They are all the acting out of innate genetic desires.
However, to any sane person, we must temper genetic urges with civil restaint. Straight guys of any age find teen girls attractive; they are beautiful, how could they not. Further they may even find them sexually desirable on a fantasy level, but they do not act on those urges. Further they have alternative, legitimate, and legal method of satisfying their desires.
A person with pedophilic tendencies and normal psychological control can and do moderate their urges and channel them in non-harmful directions. Just as some people with murderous desire, do not act on murderous urges or find legal ways to act out those desires.
The current controversy of homosexuality is based in the real and civil context of harm. Who do two consenting people cause harm if they choose to express themselves in this way? Not one that I can see.
Now some may argue that sex between a consenting adult and a consenting, eager, and willing child causes no harm, and in an extremely small number of cases that might be true, but we can not allow the harm to many many kids simply because a few might not be harmed. The potential for harm is substantial and so likely that it can not be ignore, so we make this practive illegal.
Note that in some societies today, the age of absolute consent is as young as 12. However, any where in the modern world, it's reasonably assumed that young people are having sex with young people. In slightly more enlightened areas, that young age of consent is tempered by laws that modify it to control the age gap or age diffential between the partners. In otherwords, to insure that it really is young people having sex with young people.
So, back to the central point, yes, pedophilia is genetic just like homosexuality, and just like preferring strawberry over chocolate. The central issue strictly from a civil and legal perspective is whether gay sex causes harm that is significant, substantial, and likely to the extent that society can justify outlawing it.
So, far all bans on homosexuality have been based in fearful prejudice and/or religious objections. You are certainly free to object on religious grounds as long as you keep in mind that religion doesn't dictate civil or criminal law.
Remember that not everything that is immoral has to be illegal, and not everything that is illegal has to be immoral. Morality is the personal choice of the individual and his conscience guided by his/her religious faith. Legality is the consensus of society with the intent of protecting that society from genuine measurable HARM.
For what it's worth.
Steve/BlueWizard
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
I do not think pedophilia is genetic.
Posted by Princess Leah (Member # 6026) on :
I think there are genetic elements to pretty much everything, but that it is often not the whole story.
But I also beleive that there can be instances where events shape the choice (and I use that word rather loosely) of one's actions.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
I think it is not beyond the realm of what the genetic determinists claiming that driving an SUV is a genetically influenced choice. These people don't think they are harming anyone as long as they can afford to pay for their gas. And, in the interest of drawing in the OSC aspect, I was rather surprised to hear he commutes to another state in a pickup. But I don't know what the reasons were for that. Anyway, OSC's view on gays which I do agree with is that it is not a private matter between consenting adults, but has a definite influence on the moral "economy" of society.
Well, I am going to try harder not to edit my posts. I've gotten lax.
Posted by BlueWizard (Member # 9389) on :
Pooka Anyway, OSC's view on gays which I do agree with is that it is not a private matter between consenting adults, but has a definite influence on the moral "economy" of society.
From a purely religiously driven moral perspective, I agree with you. But, religious morality does not necessarily drive civil and criminal law. The question presented to society today is not what is moral or immoral, but what can justifiably be made legal or illegal based on true, direct, and measurable harm to society.
If we want to deal with the moral 'economy' of society, doesn't rampant promiscuity and pre-marital sex also undermine the moral economy? So, should pre-marital hetrosexual sex be made illegal? And, if it was, would anybody actually be willing to enforce it?
Don't corporate money-grubbing and greed undermine the moral economy as well? So, while greed is clearly immoral, should it actually be made a crime in and of itself?
So, on purely moral grounds, I might agree with you, but I can't agree on the grounds of civil and criminal law.
Princess Leah I think there are genetic elements to pretty much everything, but that it is often not the whole story.
But I also beleive that there can be instances where events shape the choice (and I use that word rather loosely) of one's actions.
Again, I agree. Truly harmful urges can be moderated. Anyone with sound psychology can control their harmful urges and/or channel them into legal activities.
Further, events in our lives certainly affect who we grow to be, and how we grow to act. That can both influence the decisions we make, and influence our ability to make those decisions. But explanation doesn't mitigate actions. Just because I can explain why you murdered someone, doesn't excuse the fact that your did. True harm and true danger need to be controlled, if the individual can't do it then society must.
But who does homosexuality really harm? I don't see it as harming anyone any more than pre-marital hetrosexual sex does. Not implying that harm can't happen in either case, just implying that the occurance of harm is not significant or frequent enough to make the activity illegal.
Just a few thoughts.
Steve/BlueWizard
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
How does it effect the "moral economy" of a society? Even having rules that are too strict can have that effect. You get a bunch of people who will rebel from the so-called standards of society which wouldn't happen if they had reasonable freedoms. Middle groud and really understanding things is what is needed. Like the way irresponsible sex can cause a lot of harm in the form of diseases and children peopel cannot or do not want to take care of, but responsible sex between 2 people who have thought things out? How is that anyone's business?
Posted by Freya (Member # 9429) on :
quote:Originally posted by cheiros do ender: Who in their right mind could think homosexuality is genetic? Think about certain things male and female bodies wouldn't produce if they're "born that way". Why won't advocates of this belief acknowledge the physical aspects of homosexuals that no argument, mental or envromental, can outweigh?
Sorry, just something I read in the first post that annoyed me.
(Newbie, here. Just thought I'd jump into the deep end of the pool at the beginning, simply because this topic interests me.)
Who in their right mind could think that homosexuality is not genetic? Or heterosexuality? Or bisexuality? Or asexuality? Each of these forms of sexual attraction have a strong genetic componant.
How many of us ever sat down at puberty, carefully reviewed the various attractions available and made a clear, deliberate choice about which path we would take? I am heterosexual and the first physical sexual stirrings I felt were 'aimed' at another 12-year old named Jeff. I did nothing to 'aim' these feelings. They 'just happened'.
Additionally, there are many species of animals where homosexual behavior, even homosexual behavior to the exclusion of all other behaviors, occurs at about the same percentage as that in humans. That's a pretty hard statistic to ignore.
However, the point really isn't about how someone came to make his/her gender choices. The point is whether or not we humans allow individual religions to dictate the legality or illegality of consensual adult behavior. There are thousands of religions and denominations within major religious groupings and they all have different 'absolute truths' regarding human sexual behavior. Religions have every right to dictate the behaviors of their members. Religions have absolutely no right to dictate the behaviors of non-members. Secular society has the right to pass legislation permitting/forbidding behaviors that affect that society and religion has no business sticking it's nose into those legislations. Allowing religion to dictate legislation for an entire society is theocracy and is permissable only under a freely-chosen theocratic society. Religion has no standing in a secular government.
Whether or not homosexuality is a 'sin' MUST have no bearing on secular legislation and marriage is secular. Marriage is NOT religious. Anyone can marry without the presence of a religious representative as long as s/he follows secular procedures set up by secular government. No one can marry in a religious ceremony without getting a secular license. Even in churches where it is possible, dogmatically, for a couple to 'marry each other' and where the religious representative merely acts as witness, couples who do so will be considered to hold a 'common-law' relationship to each other without secular licensing and their children will be, legally, illegitimate.
Marriage laws exist to protect the legal/financial rights of spouses and children. The only legal way that secular government can forbid homosexual marriage is by providing clear, neutral evidence that such unions harm the secular society and trample on the legal/financial rights of spouses and children. So far, no one has provided such evidence and, lacking such evidence, I would never vote against homosexual marriage.
And the religions most against homosexual marriage, especially fundamentalist Christianity, need to start looking for that beam because the GT is entirely clear that anyone who remarries after divorce (excepting sexual 'cheating') is committing adultery...one of the Big Ten No-Nos. In order for Christians to call for secular law forbidding homosexual marriage they must also require that every divorced person be legally forbidden to remarry and that those currently remarried leave their present spouses and either return to their former spouses or remain alone and celibate for the rest of their lives.
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