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 While religion is beautiful in many ways and is very useful in creating communities it's stories are out of date and what real history in them, while beautiful to study and maybe to live by for some, cannot be taken as Absolute Truth on the nature of the Universe and how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. Posts: 4953 | Registered: Jan 2004
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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?
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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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.
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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.
Posts: 325 | Registered: Dec 2004
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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 ...
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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 ...
Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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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.
Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
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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).
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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?
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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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?
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.
Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
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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.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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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?
Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
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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.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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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.
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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.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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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.
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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.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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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.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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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.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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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! Posts: 25 | Registered: Jun 2005
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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.
Posts: 201 | Registered: Mar 2005
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"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.
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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. "
Posts: 201 | Registered: Mar 2005
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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.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
what I want to know is why I can't quote properly? What happened to all the smilicons and font features?
Posts: 551 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
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."
Posts: 551 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
"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?
Posts: 551 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
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.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
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.
posted
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.
posted
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"
Posts: 551 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
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
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.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
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.
Posts: 325 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
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.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
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.
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