Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: MP-Ryan on March 15, 2013, 09:55:02 am
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/republican-us-senator-has-change-of-heart-on-gay-marriage-after-learning-son-is-gay/article9812751/
Ohio Republican U.S. Senator Rob Portman, a longtime opponent of same-sex marriage, said on Friday he now believes gays have a right to marry after learning two years ago that his son is gay.
Portman, who was on the short list to be 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s running mate, made the announcement in an opinion piece in an Ohio newspaper and gave interviews on his change of heart.
“I have come to believe that if two people are prepared to make a lifetime commitment to love and care for each other in good times and in bad, the government shouldn’t deny them the opportunity to get married,” Portman wrote in an op-ed piece in the Columbus Dispatch, titled “The Freedom to Marry.”
“That isn’t how I’ve always felt. As a Congressman, and more recently as a Senator, I opposed marriage for same-sex couples. Then something happened that led me to think through my position in a much deeper way.”
Good for this guy, and shame on the people calling him a hypocrite. Progressive-minded people want to challenge these beliefs and cause social conservatives to re-think their positions, then when one actually does because something in his life forced him to think about the issue differently they call him a hypocrite? Way to help the cause, folks.
Anyway, more fodder for CPAC.
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Now I understand "God's" Tweet a few moments ago:
That's it. I'm making all conservative politicians' kids gay. It is a choice, after all... MINE.
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If God's proven anything by now, it's that he's not without a sense of humor and/or irony, so this isn't surprising :P
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Just reading the thread title I thought "he had a son or daughter come out?"
IIRC Dick Cheney also had similar issues cause his daughter is a lesbian.
Good for this guy, and shame on the people calling him a hypocrite. Progressive-minded people want to challenge these beliefs and cause social conservatives to re-think their positions, then when one actually does because something in his life forced him to think about the issue differently they call him a hypocrite? Way to help the cause, folks.
Having a change of heart because of personal experience does not make you a hypocrite. Hell if anything this man is actually showing more of a spine than I'm used to from Republican politicians. Being pro-gay marriage as a Republican senator can't be easy and it would have been all too easy for him to actually have been a hypocrite and not said anything.
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I happen to think it's actually pretty heartwarming to see a conservative change his views because of what his son is going through. It means he puts human relations way above ideology or party politics.
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I happen to think it's actually pretty heartwarming to see a conservative change his views because of what his son is going through. It means he puts human relations way above ideology or party politics.
One of the Westboro Baptist Church leader's daughters also left the church after a series of calm rational conversations with an outsider :toot:
We have not lived nor fought in vain
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I can imagine some fool will say this was a test from God and he failed it.
It's a nice story.
Step by step...
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Granted someone who is as mercurial as a weather vane isn't worth much but I always thought that the ability for a someone in a leadership position to be able to adapt to new information and reevaluate their views is a strength not a weakness.
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Only a cow doesn't change it's mind, as they say. He had a good reason to flip one the issue and it's a good thing he done so. I wish there were more such politicians, I think too many of them stick with their positions against all reason.
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The comments section is full of social liberals who are actually mad at him for changing his viewpoint.
So at first they're like "GAY MARRIAGE IS A CIVIL RIGHT YOU HOMOPHOBIC PIECE OF ****!" and when a conservative actually changes his viewpoints it's "HOW DARE YOU AGREE WITH US? YOU ****ING HYPOCRITE!" If anything, I'd say they're being hypocritical. Well, that just shows how hostile liberals and conservatives are towards each other.
Anyway, I'm glad he reconsidered his stance on gay marriage. Now if only the rest of the Republicans would stop *****ing about it...
Who knows? They might even win the presidency.
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The comments section is full of social liberals who are actually mad at him for changing his viewpoint.
So at first they're like "GAY MARRIAGE IS A CIVIL RIGHT YOU HOMOPHOBIC PIECE OF ****!" and when a conservative actually changes his viewpoints it's "HOW DARE YOU AGREE WITH US? YOU ****ING HYPOCRITE!" If anything, I'd say they're being hypocritical. Well, that just shows how hostile liberals and conservatives are towards each other.
Anyway, I'm glad he reconsidered his stance on gay marriage. Now if only the rest of the Republicans would stop *****ing about it...
Who knows? They might even win the presidency.
Heh. I thought you were going to tear a strip off all of us initially.
I'm sure that's really going to encourage others to follow his example.
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Heh. I thought you were going to tear a strip off all of us initially.
While I'm socially liberal in nearly every aspect, I still find stuff like this immensely tiresome. We should admire Portman for changing his views, not flame him as a hypocrite.
I'm sure that's really going to encourage others to follow his example.
My comments or theirs?
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Heh. I thought you were going to tear a strip off all of us initially.
While I'm socially liberal in nearly every aspect, I still find stuff like this immensely tiresome. We should admire Portman for changing his views, not flame him as a hypocrite.
I'm sure that's really going to encourage others to follow his example.
My comments or theirs?
I agree.
Theirs.
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Only a cow doesn't change it's mind, as they say. He had a good reason to flip one the issue and it's a good thing he done so. I wish there were more such politicians, I think too many of them stick with their positions against all reason.
Actually, cows do change their minds so what they say is inaccurate :p
I agree with Apollo here. It's ridiculous to think about how divided people are in their political views despite the fact they're agreeing with eachother
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That's also normal. They are all bitter between themselves.
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It's annoying in that this is someone who is in control of a lot of power. He has known theoretically that there are many sons and daughters of many people who his policies have prevented from getting married. When his own son comes out, then he notices there is a problem. I am not condoning the flaming he's getting, but I can certainly see where the criticism lies.
That said, this is a very human trait, and ultimately he acted in an honorable way.
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I don't agree with that at all Mars. Making policies will always be a work that has a ****ton of responsibility in that regard, and denying rights is as much important thing to do as giving them / recognizing them. IF you are a politician that believes that marriage is an institution incompatible with the notion of "gay marriage" I think it only fair and correct that you should oppose it.
Personally I am not 100% convinced gay people *should* have the right to marry. I don't actually "mind it" (Portugal has legalized it recently and I am really not one iota offended or bummed by it), but I've always found the arguments lacking given enough thought and ponderation.
But hey, that's just me, I am a father of three brats and not even married!
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but I've always found the arguments lacking given enough thought and ponderation.
I really wish you'd elaborate on that.
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*should*
Ethically, practically, or politically?
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Personally I am not 100% convinced gay people *should* have the right to marry. I don't actually "mind it" (Portugal has legalized it recently and I am really not one iota offended or bummed by it), but I've always found the arguments lacking given enough thought and ponderation.
I have similar view. I support gay marriage, however I also consider it largely a non-issue and I hardly would call gay marriage to be some basic right that is being denied. Theres no right to marry, and its all more like a custom than anything important, IMHO.
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The problem does not stem from the lack of my own elaboration, but from the proponents of the policy. There are a variety of reasons for the legalization / institutionalization of gay marriage, but I've always found them either lacking in logical terms or solvable through other (simpler) means.
The most common argument is that there are a lot of gay people who can't do what other heterossexual people can, namely marry, so they should be able to do this. While I recognize the emotional appeal to the argument, I do not find it logical. To agree with it would force us to agree with a much more alien generalization of the definition of marriage, that would allow polygamy, harems, and other strange things. Given that the main reason the government regulates and defines marriage is to organize and foster the creation of families as the best archetype of procreation and children education, to do so in gay marriages stretches the purpose of it into a kitch and fetiched territory.
The idea that gay people should be given the government right to marry is a silly idea in itself, that is, only with all else being equal*, for if the main purpose gays appeal to is the emotional one (we love each other), why then have the government have anything to do with it? Buy a ring to each other and make a celebration with your friends. If the purpose is to get legal rights that they otherwise wouldn't, then I agree there should be ways for these rights to be given (and let the society discuss them each one at a time), not only to them but also to unmarried heterossexual couples and so on.
Having said all this, I don't oppose it. I am 100% tolerant to it, and I hope it does give many homossexuals the happiness they strive for, and why not, teach the whole society to be more considerate towards them.
* This is the point that I find most unsettling, for obviously it isn't "all equal". Gays have been persecuted in our societies for so much and so long (and still are to incredible degree), that political measures like these have really important symbolism in itself, signaling to the society at large that homossexuals should be respected as equals and that their sexual inclinations are not morally wrong in any way. But there is also a problem in creating laws because of "symbolic importance". I don't like that kind of ****. To me, laws should be above symbols and the society should be able to grow itself out of its bigotry.
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The most common argument is that there are a lot of gay people who can't do what other heterossexual people can, namely marry, so they should be able to do this. While I recognize the emotional appeal to the argument, I do not find it logical. To agree with it would force us to agree with a much more alien generalization of the definition of marriage, that would allow polygamy, harems, and other strange things. Given that the main reason the government regulates and defines marriage is to organize and foster the creation of families as the best archetype of procreation and children education, to do so in gay marriages stretches the purpose of it into a kitch and fetiched territory.
Marriage confers a set of economic benefits in most jurisdictions. Married couples have legal options not available to unmarried ones; Being able to have shared banking accounts, being in the "next of kin" category in medical emergencies, that sort of thing. Denying homosexual couples those benefits is completely stupid in my opinion; and allowing those forms of marriage you term "strange" is a plus in my book.
Secondly, using procreation as an argument is spurious as well. I agree that a couple caring for a child should receive more benefits than one without a child, but whether or not that child was conceived by partner 1 sticking his penis into partner 2's vagina should be immaterial.
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Yeah thanks The_E you completely skipped most of my paragraphs that dealt with your comeback. Why not read what other people write before scrambling to the quick reply box?
PS: In Germany bestiality is legal. You also okay with that kind of ****? Why not even let a person marry its cat, if both love each other? (If you say "but marriage is a contract between two consenting adults", the answer is obvious: why is it so? If we are free to say marriage is not only something a man and a woman can do, we can also strip from "marriage" any other meanings we put into it. All those things suddenly become fair territory, and the word just loses meaning over time).
Secondly, using procreation as an argument is spurious as well. I agree that a couple caring for a child should receive more benefits than one without a child, but whether or not that child was conceived by partner 1 sticking his penis into partner 2's vagina should be immaterial.
It isn't spurious, it's the standard organization of our society. To call it spurious is indulging in empty abstract thinking that has little to do with how our world actually works. I think that many really important things in the social web are hidden or unnacounted for and whose importance would only come out if we suddenly didn't have it. This does not mean that people who foster children who aren't theirs should be unnacounted for, etc. and so on. But I also fail to see what that has to do with marriage, which is a traditional institution whose main job has been to date to create a stable organization between a man and a woman, financially, socially and educationally, in order to bring about the next generation of citizens.
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Yeah thanks The_E you completely skipped most of my paragraphs that dealt with your comeback. Why not read what other people write before scrambling to the quick reply box?
PS: In Germany bestiality is legal. You also okay with that kind of ****? Why not even let a person marry its cat, if both love each other? (If you say "but marriage is a contract between two consenting adults", the answer is obvious: why is it so? If we are free to say marriage is not only something a man and a woman can do, we can also strip from "marriage" any other meanings we put into it. All those things suddenly become fair territory, and the word just loses meaning over time).
So your basic argument is that changing the meaning of marriage to any degree whatsoever could lead to bestiality?
It amazes me that you can hold that position on gay marriage and still not be strongly opposed to it.
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So your basic argument is that changing the meaning of marriage to any degree whatsoever could lead to bestiality?
No, that's not "my basic argument". You'd know that if you read what I said and not skimmed what I said.
I said that the argument for gay marriage is weak. And that, in logical terms, it would mean that such things can theoretically come into play. I did not say that I oppose it, for I also fail to see strong arguments against it that make me really rally against the idea.
One thing is certain, the definition of marriage is being diluted slowly.
It amazes me that you can hold that position on gay marriage and still not be strongly opposed to it.
It does not amaze me at all that many people can't see the world isn't black and white.
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I obviously should have prefaced everything with "between consenting adult humans". I would have thought that caveat to be obvious, but I suppose it wasn't.
Regarding your PS: No, actually, it isn't legal. It's considered a violation of animal protection law.
One thing is certain, the definition of marriage is being diluted slowly.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Let me be more precise here: Marriage currently confers a set of benefits. Most of them were initially created to incentivise procreation. But there's a subset of those benefits that have nothing to do with that aspect, and everything to do with being a legal mechanism that defines the relationship between people who are not related in genetic terms.
That homosexual couples want their relationships to be recognized in the same way (with all the legal stuff surrounding it), is a completely understandable desire.
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I say it like it's a thing to consider, not a "bad thing". I think that if we are going to dilute it, we should be aware of that and the social problems that it may cause so we can react to it.
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So your basic argument is that changing the meaning of marriage to any degree whatsoever could lead to bestiality?
No, that's not "my basic argument". You'd know that if you read what I said and not skimmed what I said.
I said that the argument for gay marriage is weak. And that, in logical terms, it would mean that such things can theoretically come into play. I did not say that I oppose it, for I also fail to see strong arguments against it that make me really rally against the idea.
One thing is certain, the definition of marriage is being diluted slowly.
That seems to be your primary potential objection.
It amazes me that you can hold that position on gay marriage and still not be strongly opposed to it.
It does not amaze me at all that many people can't see the world isn't black and white.
Gay marriage is one of the simplest and most clear-cut issues ever. It would grant same-sex couples equal legal benefits, and we would be one step closer to removing religion from our legal system.
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Some of those benefits of marriage discriminate against single people or polygamists, anyway. If they can be discriminated against, I dont see why it is suddenly more wrong when gays are. Its all pretty arbitrary.
If you want to incentivise reproduction, then the benefits should be tied to parenthood instead.
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So your basic argument is that changing the meaning of marriage to any degree whatsoever could lead to bestiality?
No, that's not "my basic argument". You'd know that if you read what I said and not skimmed what I said.
I said that the argument for gay marriage is weak. And that, in logical terms, it would mean that such things can theoretically come into play. I did not say that I oppose it, for I also fail to see strong arguments against it that make me really rally against the idea.
One thing is certain, the definition of marriage is being diluted slowly.
That seems to be your primary potential objection.
My primary objection is the dillution of the institution of marriage. Bestiality is *not* the focus of the objection, it's a simple example of a reductio ad absurdum, which I even think there's a chance it won't be considered "absurd" 30, 40 years from now.
Look, people already leave assets to animals nowadays. Marrying animals isn't unimaginable, even if it might be disgusting to 2013's tastes (and that's the point, since gay marriage would have been depicted as disgusting 50 years ago if anyone had the "bad taste" of bringing that kind of stuff out then).
The point is that this dillution will cripple the meaning of marriage to a point where marrying animals and other crazy things won't be seen as a big deal, since the institution won't have much of a "status" of itself anyway.
Gay marriage is one of the simplest and most clear-cut issues ever. It would grant same-sex couples equal legal benefits, and we would be one step closer to removing religion from our legal system.
That's the point I addressed, and you would know it if you didn't skim me. I don't think these rights should even be granted only for married couples. I am not married and I have most priviledges / rights a married couple has, since the state recognizes automatically that I am in a "joint - relationship". This is a conversation worth having in itself, but it is decoupled from marriage.
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Regarding your PS: No, actually, it isn't legal. It's considered a violation of animal protection law.
Regarding this small issue, you are absolutely right. A law passed on this February 2013 finally forbids bestiality.
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Lot of slippery slope fallacies in this thread...
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Ahah. Nope.
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Regarding your PS: No, actually, it isn't legal. It's considered a violation of animal protection law.
Regarding this small issue, you are absolutely right. A law passed on this February 2013 finally forbids bestiality.
Look, I can give you a bit of leeway regarding the historical and legal issues for why this took so long (Including such reasons as "the Nazis did it" and "Noone cares"), but please do not make this a bigger issue than it is.
Lot of slippery slope fallacies in this thread...
Ahah. Nope.
The point is that this dillution will cripple the meaning of marriage to a point where marrying animals and other crazy things won't be seen as a big deal, since the institution won't have much of a "status" of itself anyway.
Looks plenty slopey to me.
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I love how people try to link marriage to procreation and child rearing, as if infertile people are not allowed to get married.
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Yeah, Luis, your argument is entirely slippery slope. You can try to dress it up in terminology all you like, but we can all see what you're arguing.
Here's how I look at this: Whether or not a homosexual couple can get married does not affect my marriage to my wife one whit. It doesn't make it any less meaningful - our marriage is a social contract between us, we didn't have a religious marriage ceremony in the first place, and frankly we could have done it so much more informally but for one thing:
Government recognizance.
There are legal, social, and economic benefits to marriage. Historically, the state has recognized that a socially-bonded couple makes a meaningful social contribution to society, and that behaviour is therefore rewarded. This is historically predicated on the child-rearing aspects of marriage and the formation of the nuclear family. However, there are no longer any barriers to homosexual adoption and rearing of children, or having their own for that matter, and every credible study on the subject has concluded there is no harm to being raised by two people of the same sex in a loving relationship versus two people of opposite sex, all other variables being equal.
Therein lies my problem with this "dilution of marriage" argument. For one, the religious folk objecting to marriage do not have a monopoly on the term, the institution of marriage existed long before Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and the other major modern religions. For two, it is fundamentally unjust in a democratic to arbitrarily deny government-recognize legal/social/economic benefits to couples that exhibit all the same characteristics as other couples, albeit they happen to be of the same sex.
Homosexuality does no harm to society; similarly, allowing marriage between homosexuals does no harm to the institution of marriage. Frankly, at the end of the day it only affects you and me because allowing a government to arbitrarily apply their guaranteed charter/constitution-written protections in one context opens it up to others.
I've long argued that the best solution is for the government to get out of the marriage business entirely. Allow couples to apply for a benefits license and force that process to occur separately of any religious marriage ceremony. Marriage simply becomes a term without any legal weight. Then whomever wants to call themselves married can do so, and meanwhile the legal/social/economic coupling becomes a separate matter that is merely applied for. Of course, this WOULD dilute the meaning of marriage because anyone could call themselves married if they chose to. Then again, if you object to this then you would seem to also be rejecting the notion of granting legal status to homosexual relationships, something that has tangible social benefits.
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To agree with it would force us to agree with a much more alien generalization of the definition of marriage, that would allow polygamy, harems, and other strange things.
Polygamy's hardly alien, humans have been known to practice it.
Given that the main reason the government regulates and defines marriage is to organize and foster the creation of families as the best archetype of procreation and children education, to do so in gay marriages stretches the purpose of it into a kitch and fetiched territory.
Even if we accepted this as "the main reason the government regulates and defines marriage", one would find that the LGBT families are just as good an environment for education of children. Promoting exclusively straight families is surely contrary to "the society growing itself out of its bigotry" idea you're espousing.
As for procreation, that's a non-issue, seeing that no one relevant calls the straight marriages which can't result in biological offspring kitch or fetiched.
The idea that gay people should be given the government right to marry is a silly idea in itself. [...] Buy a ring to each other and make a celebration with your friends. If the purpose is to get legal rights that they otherwise wouldn't, then I agree there should be ways for these rights to be given (and let the society discuss them each one at a time), not only to them but also to unmarried heterosexual couples and so on.
One wonders then why the government allows straight marriages, seeing how unnecessary they are.
As for the concern that the same-sex marriage will lead to bestiality, that's easily solved by never allowing bestiality.
You could make the same argument against any change of any law, which is patently absurd. Marriage is an institution that predates religious and legal codification, and how it's codified is obviously subject to discussion and change.
added: not trying to repeat what MP-Ryan said, just posted at the same time :P
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While many would think that it is 'just' seen as wrong in many religious beliefs. Even long before these same sex marriage things became an issue, the meaning of marriage (very very sadly) has slowly faded into the wind, see how they made marriage looks like troublesome and unecessary. Allowing same sex marriage will just push that even further, and I do not with to delve further into bestiality here. Still, even as a religious person, I do not by any means, condemn the homosexuals to hell and back like the WBC does all the time. Still, sorry if I offend anyone, since this is a highly sensitive topic that is very very hard not to piss off anyone, just like polygamy.
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Thing is, the argument 'marriage has been between a man and a woman for hundreds of years' I hear so often is actually simply repeating the problem not stating a reason not to fix it. The whole reason that marriage has been heterosexual only is because the main influencing spiritual power has had anti-gay tendencies for hundreds of years.
I'm not sure where bestiality comes in, but the idea that marriage is a Christian, or even a religious monopoly is where this problem starts.
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It's always a good thing when someone sees the light. :drevil:
I don't think these people know what "hypocrisy" is. It would be hypocritical if someone supported same-sex marriage, but if their OWN child were to be homosexual and wanted to marry someone, they would suddenly be against it.
It would also be hypocritical if they were to support their child in their life, but still publicly opinionated their opposition to same-sex marriage.
Changing one's point of view does not make one a hypocrite. Regardless of the reasons that made you change your position, that just shows that you have a sufficiently ductile brain that you can actually change your point of view when given sufficient cause to do so.
Hypocrisy is when you have some view for some cases, and another view some other cases. Ie. when you're not consistent in your thinking, speech, and actions. In other words, hypocrisy is when you "talk the talk, but you don't walk the walk".
I shall now generously share my correct views on this matter, so that everyone can agree with me
The solution to all problems related to "gay marriage" is obvious... all you need to do is separate the concept of marriage as a religious union, from what it objectively is - a secular union between two people.
I don't really give a **** what different religions think about their particular view of marriage. It shouldn't even matter. All arguments AGAINST gay marriage simply fall apart when you consider what marriage actually IS from secular point of view - a registered relationship which grants you certain benefits and gives you certain responsibilities.
Anyone should be allowed to register such a relationship with another consenting person (when both are legally adults, obviously). It is not the state's business to arbitrarily name conditions on who you can or cannot register such a relationship with. Saying that same-sex couples should not have this right is discrimination, whatever words are used for it.
Churches should have absolutely no business in the official registration of such relationships. Especially in the US of A where it is actually specifically mentioned in their constitution that the church and the state are supposed to be separate entities, yet the clergy still somehow holds power to officiate marriages.
Churches, then, must make up their own mind about whether their god approves of same-sex couples or not, and based on that decide whether they will allow same-sex couples to go through their particular religious marriage rituals in their church, or not. This is an issue about religious freedom, and as ridiculous as I think it is, churches should have the right to decline to marry same-sex couples. But that matter is between the church and its members. If you disagree with your church's official position on whether same-sex couples can be married or not, you're always free to find another church that will perform the marriage.
After all, why belong to a church that you disagree with?
However the churches' right to refuse same-sex couples has absolutely nothing to do with whether same-sex couples should have the right to register their relationship via official channels and get the same benefits and responsibilities as heterosexual couples. And the official marriage registration should have nothing to do with the clergy, but instead it should be done in the magistrates.
The issue of polygamy should similarly be treated separately as a religious issue (which doesn't matter) and a secular issue (which is what actually matters). I don't have a particularly strong position either for or against. I think from secular point of view the biggest question is, if there is a group of people living in a polygamous relationship, should all participants receive equal tax breaks, or should it be considered as a singular marriage where the tax breaks per person depend on exactly how many people are in the relationship.
Religiously, I hold no views on any matter.Ethically and morally, I really don't see anything wrong in any relationships between consenting adults*, so polygamy itself cannot be a bad or a good thing - it is what the people practicing it make it to be.
Notoriously however, polygamy is often practiced in patriarchal societies or even cults where the conditions for freely given consent are usually not fulfilled. In such cases I consider the "consent" usually given under duress - either by threat of being thrown out of the cult, or threat of punishment of some other kind (physical or otherwise). These schemes often concentrate on keeping their members - especially females - dependent on the males, economically and emotionally, which means leaving the cult is not usually a viable option and thus the decision to enter polygamous relationship is not consent in my view - it's a decision made under duress, with no other options. Needless to say, I find polygamy in these conditions to be despicable - especially in those cults where underage girls are sent to polygamous relationships by parental consent.
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Not exactly just Christian i'd say. Marriage has been the norm in many other cultures, including those that has otherwise nothing to do with Christianity, just look at those Asian traditions in which most of them are neither Christian, Muslim, or Jew. It isn't a 'Christian Idea'.
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I've long argued that the best solution is for the government to get out of the marriage business entirely. Allow couples to apply for a benefits license and force that process to occur separately of any religious marriage ceremony. Marriage simply becomes a term without any legal weight. Then whomever wants to call themselves married can do so, and meanwhile the legal/social/economic coupling becomes a separate matter that is merely applied for. Of course, this WOULD dilute the meaning of marriage because anyone could call themselves married if they chose to. Then again, if you object to this then you would seem to also be rejecting the notion of granting legal status to homosexual relationships, something that has tangible social benefits.
No nono ononono, I completely agree with this assessment. I also think the government should get out as much as it can from the "marriage" thing. I don't think it can "completely" for it is for the benefit of society the family institution, which is unparalleled in its ability and competence to create new generations in the best way possible, IMHO.
Polygamy's hardly alien, humans have been known to practice it.
Wat da hell. What kind of discussion is this? Humans have also been known to practice slavery, is that an argument *at all*? I don't agree with polygamy one bit for a variety of reasons, and I don't think the government should condone the practice, but to say "we've been known to do it"... I mean come on.
One wonders then why the government allows straight marriages, seeing how unnecessary they are.
It would solve a lot of problems regarding divorces.
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Humans have also been known to practice slavery, is that an argument *at all*? I don't agree with polygamy one bit for a variety of reasons, and I don't think the government should condone the practice, but to say "we've been known to do it"... I mean come on.
Now I'm curious. Are your reasons to oppose polygamy based on ethics, morality, religion or none of the above?
I'm asking because it's easy to show that slavery violates basic human rights on a conceptual level and that's a good reason to oppose every possible implementation of slavery.
Meanwhile the concept of polygamy does not in itself contain any violations of basic human rights, and as such I don't see any reason why it would be a bad thing in itself, so I think comparing polygamy to slavery is a bit too much like a strawman argument for my liking (although more likely it's just a faulty analogy).
Implementations of polygamy have an unfortunate tendency to be problematic, but I'd like you to clarify whether your opposition is directed toward the concept of polygamy itself, or some specific implementation of it.
Also I don't think it the "humans have practiced polygamy" is so much an argument for polygamy as simply evidence provided that polygamy is just as much a natural occurrence in human species as monogamy is.
Which basically nullifies the argument that (heterosexual) monogamy would somehow be THE natural basis for human societies to build on. It doesn't take any stance whether monogamy or polygamy is better, it just states that both have occurred so you can't make an argument that monogamy is the only "natural" relationship while polygamy would be "un-natural".
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Polygamy's hardly alien, humans have been known to practice it.
Wat da hell. What kind of discussion is this? Humans have also been known to practice slavery, is that an argument *at all*? I don't agree with polygamy one bit for a variety of reasons, and I don't think the government should condone the practice, but to say "we've been known to do it"... I mean come on.
I apologize for causing a misunderstanding, but that was a joke.
The point of which was that like the others who commented on this topic I don't find the idea of polygamy abhorrent, nor do I think alien is a right word to describe it.
One wonders then why the government allows straight marriages, seeing how unnecessary they are.
It would solve a lot of problems regarding divorces.
... and the point of this was that the same-sex marriages are just as (un)necessary as straight marriages are. So that can hardly serve as grounds for legal discrimination.
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Meanwhile the concept of polygamy does not in itself contain any violations of basic human rights, and as such I don't see any reason why it would be a bad thing in itself, so I think comparing polygamy to slavery is a bit too much like a strawman argument for my liking (although more likely it's just a faulty analogy).
Example =/= Analogy. The logic was bad, and I explained why with an example. Now your logic is also bad, I'm getting tired of this.
Implementations of polygamy have an unfortunate tendency to be problematic, but I'd like you to clarify whether your opposition is directed toward the concept of polygamy itself, or some specific implementation of it.
I have yet to see any "implementation" of polygamy that doesn't create problems with the other values we consider worth having, such as equality, for instance.
Also I don't think it the "humans have practiced polygamy" is so much an argument for polygamy as simply evidence provided that polygamy is just as much a natural occurrence in human species as monogamy is.
Except that I have *never* made the argument that monogamic marriage is the "natural state of affairs". Can you stop misreading me.
Which basically nullifies the argument that (heterosexual) monogamy would somehow be THE natural basis for human societies to build on. It doesn't take any stance whether monogamy or polygamy is better, it just states that both have occurred so you can't make an argument that monogamy is the only "natural" relationship while polygamy would be "un-natural".
Whatever, forget it. Why did I even bother.
... and the point of this was that the same-sex marriages are just as (un)necessary as straight marriages are. So that can hardly serve as grounds for legal discrimination.
And that's precisely the kind of reasoning that numbs my criticisms down sufficiently so that I don't have an axe to grind, if it had been referended I wouldn't have voted "no". Wouldn't have voted "yes" too...
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Meanwhile the concept of polygamy does not in itself contain any violations of basic human rights, and as such I don't see any reason why it would be a bad thing in itself, so I think comparing polygamy to slavery is a bit too much like a strawman argument for my liking (although more likely it's just a faulty analogy).
Example =/= Analogy. The logic was bad, and I explained why with an example. Now your logic is also bad, I'm getting tired of this.
Yep, that is a pretty commonly used backdoor to withdraw from a discussion when you run out of argumentation...
...or you could tell me why my logic is bad, in your view.
Implementations of polygamy have an unfortunate tendency to be problematic, but I'd like you to clarify whether your opposition is directed toward the concept of polygamy itself, or some specific implementation of it.
I have yet to see any "implementation" of polygamy that doesn't create problems with the other values we consider worth having, such as equality, for instance.
That's exactly why I asked whether you oppose polygamy as a concept or some specific implentation of polygamy.
The concept of polygamy itself does not have any bias towards inequality. It simply means a relationship with more than two people in it. If you want to go into specifics you can have either polyandry or polygyny variants, but there's also nothing that could prevent having an equal gender distribution in a polygamous relationship.
If your opposition is based on the assumption that there are no implementations of polygamy that don't create problems - and you make this argument just because you haven't seen a non-problematic implementation - that's not good enough to show that the concept of polygamy is flawed. You can cite examples of why this or that implementation of polygamy causes problems, but then you would have to show that these problems are something fundamental to polygamy itself.
Also I don't think it the "humans have practiced polygamy" is so much an argument for polygamy as simply evidence provided that polygamy is just as much a natural occurrence in human species as monogamy is.
Except that I have *never* made the argument that monogamic marriage is the "natural state of affairs". Can you stop misreading me.
Which basically nullifies the argument that (heterosexual) monogamy would somehow be THE natural basis for human societies to build on. It doesn't take any stance whether monogamy or polygamy is better, it just states that both have occurred so you can't make an argument that monogamy is the only "natural" relationship while polygamy would be "un-natural".
Whatever, forget it. Why did I even bother.
You wrote this earlier in the thread:
The most common argument is that there are a lot of gay people who can't do what other heterossexual people can, namely marry, so they should be able to do this. While I recognize the emotional appeal to the argument, I do not find it logical. To agree with it would force us to agree with a much more alien generalization of the definition of marriage, that would allow polygamy, harems, and other strange things.
Alien, strange, un-natural... whichever word you want to pick, that's the argument you're making here. You're saying that polygamy is strange (among other things), and my logical conclusion from that is that you consider monogamous marriage to be at least less strange, if not "normal".
I don't really care what words you're using and I might paraphrase you incorrectly, but I strive to go into the crux of the matter regardless. If you think there's a fundamental difference between the comparisons "strange/normal" and "unnatural/natural", fine - I'll go with that.
... and the point of this was that the same-sex marriages are just as (un)necessary as straight marriages are. So that can hardly serve as grounds for legal discrimination.
And that's precisely the kind of reasoning that numbs my criticisms down sufficiently so that I don't have an axe to grind, if it had been referended I wouldn't have voted "no". Wouldn't have voted "yes" too...
Well, abstaining from voting is sometimes the right thing to do if one does not have a strong position for or against the issue at hand. Personally though I don't see the issue very complicated at all - it's discrimination vs. equality, and to me the choice is quite clear: If marriage has secular benefits, then everyone should have the right to marry.
Also, making the argument that it "dilutes" marriage as an institution, you would have to
a. show that this actually happens, and
b. convince me why this is a bad thing.
Personally, I think dilution of marriage as an institution - ESPECIALLY as a religious institution - is a GOOD thing, simply by the virtue of reducing the influence of churches and religions on our everyday life.
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So your basic argument is that changing the meaning of marriage to any degree whatsoever could lead to bestiality?
No, that's not "my basic argument". You'd know that if you read what I said and not skimmed what I said.
I said that the argument for gay marriage is weak. And that, in logical terms, it would mean that such things can theoretically come into play. I did not say that I oppose it, for I also fail to see strong arguments against it that make me really rally against the idea.
One thing is certain, the definition of marriage is being diluted slowly.
That seems to be your primary potential objection.
My primary objection is the dillution of the institution of marriage. Bestiality is *not* the focus of the objection, it's a simple example of a reductio ad absurdum, which I even think there's a chance it won't be considered "absurd" 30, 40 years from now.
Look, people already leave assets to animals nowadays. Marrying animals isn't unimaginable, even if it might be disgusting to 2013's tastes (and that's the point, since gay marriage would have been depicted as disgusting 50 years ago if anyone had the "bad taste" of bringing that kind of stuff out then).
The point is that this dillution will cripple the meaning of marriage to a point where marrying animals and other crazy things won't be seen as a big deal, since the institution won't have much of a "status" of itself anyway.
It would take a pretty goddamn extreme dilution for that to happen.
Gay marriage is one of the simplest and most clear-cut issues ever. It would grant same-sex couples equal legal benefits, and we would be one step closer to removing religion from our legal system.
That's the point I addressed, and you would know it if you didn't skim me. I don't think these rights should even be granted only for married couples. I am not married and I have most priviledges / rights a married couple has, since the state recognizes automatically that I am in a "joint - relationship". This is a conversation worth having in itself, but it is decoupled from marriage.
As long as marriage is a government institution it needs to be available to heterosexual and homosexual couples.
Why go to the trouble of creating an equivalent institution just to prevent gay marriage? What would be the point in that?
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Gay marriage is one of the simplest and most clear-cut issues ever. It would grant same-sex couples equal legal benefits, and we would be one step closer to removing religion from our legal system.
That's the point I addressed, and you would know it if you didn't skim me. I don't think these rights should even be granted only for married couples. I am not married and I have most priviledges / rights a married couple has, since the state recognizes automatically that I am in a "joint - relationship". This is a conversation worth having in itself, but it is decoupled from marriage.
As long as marriage is a government institution it needs to be available to heterosexual and homosexual couples.
Why go to the trouble of creating an equivalent institution just to prevent gay marriage? What would be the point in that?
Wait. What? Your reply (as above) has nothing to do with what you quoted.
Actually, from an outsider's perspective, you guys are jumping all over Luis without actually reading his ****. This is turning into noise.
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His argument is that we could grant same-sex couples the same rights without letting them get married, so my reply has plenty to do with what I quoted.
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My primary objection is the dillution of the institution of marriage. Bestiality is *not* the focus of the objection, it's a simple example of a reductio ad absurdum, which I even think there's a chance it won't be considered "absurd" 30, 40 years from now.
Look, people already leave assets to animals nowadays. Marrying animals isn't unimaginable, even if it might be disgusting to 2013's tastes (and that's the point, since gay marriage would have been depicted as disgusting 50 years ago if anyone had the "bad taste" of bringing that kind of stuff out then).
The point is that this dillution will cripple the meaning of marriage to a point where marrying animals and other crazy things won't be seen as a big deal, since the institution won't have much of a "status" of itself anyway.
Why does it matter if marriage is meaningless? It already is pretty meaningless, maybe a bit more meaningful than common-law relationships. In the end, those terms just define who you're allowed to have sex with. If it can be proven that you're not in a sexual relationship with your partner, it can really change the meaning of the relationship, in the eyes of the law. That means that all considerations of property rights and money all hinge on banging someone.
Saying it's meaningless doesn't mean it has no impact, though. That sexual exclusivity (and the social dynamics within such a relationship) is a form of possession, and can be used to control one member of the party. In our society, marriage is definitely a product of our patriarchal and prudish culture. Working mothers and stay-at-home dads are still deviants of the norm. Two husbands or two wives are still deviants from the norm. Polygyny is a deviance from the norm, and polyandry is even more of a deviance from the norm. Marriage just gives people and society a vehicle for excluding these relationships from being normal.
My prediction is this: Human\Non-Human marriages will never come into existence, because marriage will cease to be in existence.
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Meanwhile in Canada...
Seriously. The States could learn a thing or two from their neighbors and allies
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Indeed.
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Meanwhile the concept of polygamy does not in itself contain any violations of basic human rights, and as such I don't see any reason why it would be a bad thing in itself, so I think comparing polygamy to slavery is a bit too much like a strawman argument for my liking (although more likely it's just a faulty analogy).
Example =/= Analogy. The logic was bad, and I explained why with an example. Now your logic is also bad, I'm getting tired of this.
Yep, that is a pretty commonly used backdoor to withdraw from a discussion when you run out of argumentation...
...or you could tell me why my logic is bad, in your view.
The original argument was that polygamy is something that mankind has been known to do for millenia so why be against it. The counter example of slavery just proves that the argument is silly. He agreed immediately with this point, and you strawmanned it as if I was saying that slavery had something to do with polygamy.
That's exactly why I asked whether you oppose polygamy as a concept or some specific implentation of polygamy.
The concept of polygamy itself does not have any bias towards inequality. It simply means a relationship with more than two people in it. If you want to go into specifics you can have either polyandry or polygyny variants, but there's also nothing that could prevent having an equal gender distribution in a polygamous relationship.
If your opposition is based on the assumption that there are no implementations of polygamy that don't create problems - and you make this argument just because you haven't seen a non-problematic implementation - that's not good enough to show that the concept of polygamy is flawed. You can cite examples of why this or that implementation of polygamy causes problems, but then you would have to show that these problems are something fundamental to polygamy itself.
The problem isn't "polygamy" itself (couldn't give a toss about what people do with their private lives), but with its legal possibilities, which are nowhere near clear in their consequences (should we limit the amount of elements? if not, is it possible to marry a thousand people? And to what purpose this kind of "marriage" would exist? How would we deal with its legalities? If yes, isn't that "descriminatory"?) Too many loopholes and too much silliness to the point of stupidity. Marriage would then cease to exist as a concept. There are people like you who would see that as a win, but to say that those who do care about that institution shouldn't oppose you is not even silly, it's outright bigotry.
Personally, I'm not deeply invested in the concept per se, but I admire and respect those who do. So if my perspective is somewhat numbed to the concept, I won't fight it, I won't try to dilute it. I'll just "not marry" myself.
Alien, strange, un-natural... whichever word you want to pick, that's the argument you're making here. You're saying that polygamy is strange (among other things), and my logical conclusion from that is that you consider monogamous marriage to be at least less strange, if not "normal".
By strange it's ****ing clear I mean arrangements that we are not even considering and aren't tested in the big lab that is life and society at large. By "alien" I don't mean "unnatural", which would entail that there's anything "natural" about a legal contract between two people. I don't see things that way, I don't recognize "natural laws" and so on, but I do recognize the importance of the experience of tradition, in the sense that the institutions and solutions that lasted so long are to be respected: they probably lasted so long because they are ****ing good at its job. Not to mean they aren't ever to be changed: I said *RESPECTED*. That means that no ****ty new comer gets to have his comment about how marriage being diluted is a good thing be respected whatsoever.
You are the one who must prove the changes proposed won't destroy the good we have and are for the better.
Also, making the argument that it "dilutes" marriage as an institution, you would have to
a. show that this actually happens, and
b. convince me why this is a bad thing.
na bro, it's the other way around. You want to change society, you prove to me it's a step forward, not backward.
Personally, I think dilution of marriage as an institution - ESPECIALLY as a religious institution - is a GOOD thing, simply by the virtue of reducing the influence of churches and religions on our everyday life.
This is the kind of crappy **** people (usually too young) who have no respect for history might tell us. I'm completely fine with atheism, it's my own sea. I'm completely fine and approve of sharp and "strident" criticisms towards it, Christopher Hitchens is a late hero of mine. What I really don't approve is this kind of despise and disrespect towards a very deep social tradition.
edit: And this last point is probably why I find myself so much in the middle of the conversation. Either the argument goes to the "benefits" that married people have (which is a completely farcical and opportunistic point: people marry for money now? Is that really the point? And if so, shouldn't we discuss instead if these benefits shouldn't be applied to other kinds of social "contracts"?), or they are about the redefinition of the concept of marriage. And I find it quite unsettling and telling that those who argue the second point are usually the same kind of people who hate the concept of marriage itself and don't mind its destruction.
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The original argument was that polygamy is something that mankind has been known to do for millenia so why be against it. The counter example of slavery just proves that the argument is silly. He agreed immediately with this point, and you strawmanned it as if I was saying that slavery had something to do with polygamy.
I don't think that was the original argument. That was your interpretation on the matter.
If it was a case of defending polygamy on the basis that it happened before, then I would definitely agree with you and say that something having happened before is not an argument either for or against it. But you were the one who drew a comparison to slavery, even if it was just for the sake of example.
I merely pointed out that the very concept of slavery is against basic human rights while the concept of polygamy isn't. There is no need to be upset.
The problem isn't "polygamy" itself (couldn't give a toss about what people do with their private lives), but with its legal possibilities, which are nowhere near clear in their consequences (should we limit the amount of elements? if not, is it possible to marry a thousand people? And to what purpose this kind of "marriage" would exist? How would we deal with its legalities? If yes, isn't that "descriminatory"?) Too many loopholes and too much silliness to the point of stupidity. Marriage would then cease to exist as a concept. There are people like you who would see that as a win, but to say that those who do care about that institution shouldn't oppose you is not even silly, it's outright bigotry.
No, it's democracy.
As long as there are people who prefer the current definition of marriage, it will exist as an institution to them just as it exists now. It isn't something that can or should be taken away. But why would their concept of marriage be more valid than other people's concept of marriage?
Some people think marriage by definition excludes same-sex couples or polygamous relationships. Some people think marriage can inlude same-sex couples but not polygamy. Some people think polygamy is ok but same-sex marriages aren't.
Considering the deep personal effect of these definitions on people, I don't think it's a good idea to insist that there should only be one type of marriage in a society and the other types of relationships would have no way at all to officiate that relationship. Socially, marriage is just an agreement with people to live together in a relationship. No one can prevent people from agreeing that they're married, it's just up to them.
The legal benefits and obligations, however, should be EQUALLY AVAILABLE for all relationships.
Religious affirmation of marriage should be available to relationships who desire it, with the discretion of the church of choice. But it should be completely separate from the social and legal aspects and it should NOT make the marriage valid in the eyes of law.
By strange it's ****ing clear I mean arrangements that we are not even considering and aren't tested in the big lab that is life and society at large. By "alien" I don't mean "unnatural", which would entail that there's anything "natural" about a legal contract between two people. I don't see things that way, I don't recognize "natural laws" and so on, but I do recognize the importance of the experience of tradition, in the sense that the institutions and solutions that lasted so long are to be respected
Why? I don't see any reason to give respect to an institution just because it's old.
they probably lasted so long because they are ****ing good at its job. Not to mean they aren't ever to be changed: I said *RESPECTED*. That means that no ****ty new comer gets to have his comment about how marriage being diluted is a good thing be respected whatsoever.
This is a bad reason to respect an institution.
A good reason to respect an institution is if you actually think they are good. I have no problem with people respecting something they think is good, but I really disagree with the way some people think something needs to be respected because it's always been that way.
You said it yourself. Slavery was an institution for thousands of years so presumably it did a good job... but we don't approve of it any more because it conflicts with our values and world view.
Just as well if marriage proves to be an antiquated insititution that conflicts with our values and world view, it should either be changed or abolished. Simple as pie.
You are the one who must prove the changes proposed won't destroy the good we have and are for the better.
So now you're asking me to prove a negative. That's not how it works.
I have demonstrated that the changes to how marriage is handled in society would make it more flexible and less discriminating, and I consider those to be benefits. I have yet to see any valid arguments to why these changes would be a negative thing - all you've used so far are variations of slippery slope argument.
na bro, it's the other way around. You want to change society, you prove to me it's a step forward, not backward.
Again, I've shown why I think the proposed changes would be an improvement and have yet to see any coherent counter-argument.
This is the kind of crappy **** people (usually too young) who have no respect for history might tell us. I'm completely fine with atheism, it's my own sea. I'm completely fine and approve of sharp and "strident" criticisms towards it, Christopher Hitchens is a late hero of mine. What I really don't approve is this kind of despise and disrespect towards a very deep social tradition.
edit: And this last point is probably why I find myself so much in the middle of the conversation. Either the argument goes to the "benefits" that married people have (which is a completely farcical and opportunistic point: people marry for money now? Is that really the point? And if so, shouldn't we discuss instead if these benefits shouldn't be applied to other kinds of social "contracts"?), or they are about the redefinition of the concept of marriage. And I find it quite unsettling and telling that those who argue the second point are usually the same kind of people who hate the concept of marriage itself and don't mind its destruction.
Respect of history? What does that even mean? All you need to do is know the history and understand it. I don't respect social traditions just for their sake, no matter how many people think they're important. If I agree with the content of the tradition then I would agree with it.
For example I think celebrating midwinter is a great tradition, regardless of the name we call it. It's a good thing to spend time with family and give and receive gifts, eat good food, and generally have a good time and relax.
On the other hand I think there are a lot of deep-set social traditions that have glaring negative aspects - such as the traditional division between "men's jobs" and "women's jobs", or nationalism. I will damn well not respect traditions that I disagree with. I hope we're clear on this now.
Let me elaborate on my personal view on marriage in particular.
Marriage is an institution that has social, legal, and religious aspects.
I don't see any point in having all of them bundled together, and I especially oppose how religious organizations use religious arguments to prevent people from benefiting from the social and legal aspects of marriage.
As far as I'm concerned churches should only be responsible of the religious aspect of marriage and leave the social and legal aspects up to society and legislation. If people want to have religious affirmation for their marriage, they go to their church and get it if the church is willing to give it, but that should be between the couple and the church they want to deal with.
The reason why I think it would be better to separate the religious aspect of marriage from legal and social aspects is that now we got this crazy situation where religious arguments are used to deny the social and legal aspects of marriage from people who might or might not give a **** about the religious aspect. I don't have anything against religious people practicing their religion and valuing marriage as a religious institution. I have a problem when the religious aspects of marriage start influencing people who don't particularly agree with religion. That's why I think it would be a good thing if marriage did not automatically have religious connotations - it's already different in all the different religions but the same in the eyes of the law, isn't it?
As far as non-monogamous marriages go, you're again using a slippery slope argument that allowing polygamous marriage between three people will lead to allowing it between four people which will allow marriage up to N people. It's the same argument that if you start reducing the voting age, you'll eventually allow infants to vote.
Allowing polygamy does not mean there can't be any limits to it. It would be up to legislators to come up with some arbitrary non-two number that a polygamous relationship could contain as far as the legal aspects of marriage go. And no, defining an arbitrary limit is not any more discrimination than saying that the age of majority if 18. Legislation is full of such arbitrary limits.
Whether the legal benefits (and responsibilities) of marriage should be extended to all parties in a polygamous marriage is a question I don't really have well formulated opinion on. Shared ownership of things I have no trouble with. Tax benefits are a bit fuzzier, but I don't really see why a polygamous marriage could not file their taxes as one entity - tax breaks could easily be decided by economical experts, for example on the basis of numbers of people in the marriage.
Guardianship of children could also be an issue, but I would think primary guardianship would automatically fall on the biological parents, but I'm sure other members of the relationship could just as well have a secondary guardianship role - sort of like godparents but a step above that, I think.
All in all I don't see any show-stopper issues to why polygamy would be a bad thing per se. The notion that it would lead to erosion of the definition of marriage is, in my view, absurd.
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Unlike Canada, the U.K. doesn’t have marriage for same-sex couples. Rather, in 2004, it introduced civil partnerships for gay and lesbian couples as a form of relationship recognition that is materially the same as marriage in everything but name.
Hey look, they're married but not really!
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The original argument was that polygamy is something that mankind has been known to do for millenia so why be against it. The counter example of slavery just proves that the argument is silly. He agreed immediately with this point, and you strawmanned it as if I was saying that slavery had something to do with polygamy.
I don't think that was the original argument. That was your interpretation on the matter.
Yes, it was and yes it was my interpretation. That's all I got when I read ****, my interpretation.
No, it's democracy.
As long as there are people who prefer the current definition of marriage, it will exist as an institution to them just as it exists now. It isn't something that can or should be taken away. But why would their concept of marriage be more valid than other people's concept of marriage?
Sheer blatant relativism. I am really appalled that I have to side with the ****ing pope Francis and even Benedict on this one. No, you don't get to define concepts and words like you please, there is an inherent "contract" in our society where the meaning of words is sufficiently universal and stable so as we are able to communicate properly between us, let alone devise laws, mores, moralities and so on. This "contract" is more conservative than not.
Some people think marriage by definition excludes same-sex couples or polygamous relationships. Some people think marriage can inlude same-sex couples but not polygamy. Some people think polygamy is ok but same-sex marriages aren't.
Considering the deep personal effect of these definitions on people, I don't think it's a good idea to insist that there should only be one type of marriage in a society and the other types of relationships would have no way at all to officiate that relationship. Socially, marriage is just an agreement with people to live together in a relationship. No one can prevent people from agreeing that they're married, it's just up to them.
The legal benefits and obligations, however, should be EQUALLY AVAILABLE for all relationships.
Sophistry. Polygamy should never have the same "benefits" and is impossible to even guarantee the same "obligations" than monogamous relationships. Same-sex marriages are even incompatible with many heterossexual marital laws, since they are not gender equal in many details.
Religious affirmation of marriage should be available to relationships who desire it, with the discretion of the church of choice. But it should be completely separate from the social and legal aspects and it should NOT make the marriage valid in the eyes of law.
This crap again?
Why? I don't see any reason to give respect to an institution just because it's old.
JFC. Marriage isn't just "old", it's probably the most important institution that got us where we are today.
Slavery was an institution for thousands of years so presumably it did a good job... but we don't approve of it any more because it conflicts with our values and world view.
See? That's where you go awfully wrong. I know, that fairy tale has been spoonfed to us since we were born, but alas it isn't exactly true. What is true is that once technology reached a point where we could "outsource" slave work to machinery, we reached the epiphany that it is morally wrong. Until then it was something we deemed "necessary", and we rationalized it by dehumanizing slaves (they aren't really human like us anyway...).
I have demonstrated that the changes to how marriage is handled in society would make it more flexible and less discriminating, and I consider those to be benefits. I have yet to see any valid arguments to why these changes would be a negative thing - all you've used so far are variations of slippery slope argument.
The slippery slope argument isn't fallacious. You have to show that you haven't stripped the meaning of the concept so much that it becomes meaningless. Recognizing polygamous marriages will be the final punch to it.
The reason why I think it would be better to separate the religious aspect of marriage from legal and social aspects is that now we got this crazy situation where religious arguments are used to deny the social and legal aspects of marriage from people who might or might not give a **** about the religious aspect. I don't have anything against religious people practicing their religion and valuing marriage as a religious institution. I have a problem when the religious aspects of marriage start influencing people who don't particularly agree with religion. That's why I think it would be a good thing if marriage did not automatically have religious connotations - it's already different in all the different religions but the same in the eyes of the law, isn't it?
Again, I haven't mentioned religion at all in this thread and you keep bringing it up.
As far as non-monogamous marriages go, you're again using a slippery slope argument that allowing polygamous marriage between three people will lead to allowing it between four people which will allow marriage up to N people. It's the same argument that if you start reducing the voting age, you'll eventually allow infants to vote.
****ing ridiculous. There is ZERO arguments you can make where you go from "3 people can marry now" to "4 people can marry now", etc., that will have allowed you to get to "3 people can marry now" in the first place.
Allowing polygamy does not mean there can't be any limits to it. It would be up to legislators to come up with some arbitrary non-two number that a polygamous relationship could contain as far as the legal aspects of marriage go. And no, defining an arbitrary limit is not any more discrimination than saying that the age of majority if 18. Legislation is full of such arbitrary limits.
If the argument for polygamy is that it is discriminatory to limit marriage to 2 people, then you can *always* make that same argument for *N* people, and you will always fail to oppose it in court, because unlike majority age there is no actual "natural limit" to these things: while it is obvious 4 year olds are not "adults", it is not obvious 6 people should marry and 7 shouldn't.
Whether the legal benefits (and responsibilities) of marriage should be extended to all parties in a polygamous marriage is a question I don't really have well formulated opinion on. Shared ownership of things I have no trouble with. Tax benefits are a bit fuzzier, but I don't really see why a polygamous marriage could not file their taxes as one entity - tax breaks could easily be decided by economical experts, for example on the basis of numbers of people in the marriage.
Guardianship of children could also be an issue, but I would think primary guardianship would automatically fall on the biological parents, but I'm sure other members of the relationship could just as well have a secondary guardianship role - sort of like godparents but a step above that, I think.
All in all I don't see any show-stopper issues to why polygamy would be a bad thing per se. The notion that it would lead to erosion of the definition of marriage is, in my view, absurd.
The fact that you don't see isn't an argument either... lack of imagination isn't an argument. The ****fest that a divorce would be, who would get the children, the possibilities of endless kinds of abuses, the cults that would arise, the harems... this is about the destruction of the marriage institution, and I for one am deeply conservative about **** that has the possibility to ruin the social fabric of our society. The levity to which many people discuss these things astonishes me.
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Sheer blatant relativism. I am really appalled that I have to side with the ****ing pope Francis and even Benedict on this one. No, you don't get to define concepts and words like you please, there is an inherent "contract" in our society where the meaning of words is sufficiently universal and stable so as we are able to communicate properly between us, let alone devise laws, mores, moralities and so on. This "contract" is more conservative than not.
Hi, Linguistics called, they said you're pretty much wrong on that one. Words and their meanings shift over time, and trying to prevent that is futile (See also: the usage of the word "gay").
Also, Luis, you are the one who brought religion into this, since your religious devotion to the One True Meaning Of Marriage brought us into this mess.
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What is true is that once technology reached a point where we could "outsource" slave work to machinery, we reached the epiphany that it is morally wrong
Hi, History called, they're wondering where you got the facts on this one
(Totally stole your thing there The E, but I couldn't resist)
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Sheer blatant relativism. I am really appalled that I have to side with the ****ing pope Francis and even Benedict on this one. No, you don't get to define concepts and words like you please, there is an inherent "contract" in our society where the meaning of words is sufficiently universal and stable so as we are able to communicate properly between us, let alone devise laws, mores, moralities and so on. This "contract" is more conservative than not.
Hi, Linguistics called, they said you're pretty much wrong on that one. Words and their meanings shift over time, and trying to prevent that is futile (See also: the usage of the word "gay").
They change conservatively. I said *SUFFICIENTLY*, and also *MORE CONSERVATIVE THAN NOT*. Perhaps next time I'll underline and bold and megasize the key words I use so you won't constantly miss them.
Also, Luis, you are the one who brought religion into this, since your religious devotion to the One True Meaning Of Marriage brought us into this mess.
Derp.
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WANK WANK WANK
too much WANK in one thread!
i most destroy!
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Yes, it was and yes it was my interpretation. That's all I got when I read ****, my interpretation.
But your interpretation didn't really go anywhere. It produced no meaningful contribution to the discussion, so perhaps you should read back and consider some other possible interpretation?
No, it's democracy.
Sheer blatant relativism. I am really appalled that I have to side with the ****ing pope Francis and even Benedict on this one. No, you don't get to define concepts and words like you please, there is an inherent "contract" in our society where the meaning of words is sufficiently universal and stable so as we are able to communicate properly between us, let alone devise laws, mores, moralities and so on. This "contract" is more conservative than not.
Conservatism is not a bad thing. Revisionism is not a bad thing. They're not good either. The good or bad of some Policy X or Tradition Y depend on how they work and what their consequences are to people.
Concepts change between cultures and times. Moral relativism is not something I fully agree with; there ARE certain moral standards that are objectively better than others: Basic human rights, freedoms, liberties, but also the responsibilities associated to them. Moral relativism does not apply to these - as an example, in some cultures freedom of speech and political expression is not respected. In some cultures freedom of religion is not respected.
This makes these cultures OBJECTIVELY WORSE than a culture that respects these freedoms.
However when you go into specific things and compare a culture that considers marriage only as an union of a man and a woman, and a culture that accepts polygamy or same-sex marriages, then moral relativism actually applies: You cannot objectively state that monogamous heterosexual marriage is superior to same-sex or polygamous marriage.
What you have to do is show some mechanism that makes same-sex or polygamous marriages somehow worse.
If you cannot do this, then the conclusion is that same-sex and polygamous marriages do not have an effect on the importance of marriage as a social and legal contract, and they don't make it worse.
Some people think marriage by definition excludes same-sex couples or polygamous relationships. Some people think marriage can inlude same-sex couples but not polygamy. Some people think polygamy is ok but same-sex marriages aren't.
Considering the deep personal effect of these definitions on people, I don't think it's a good idea to insist that there should only be one type of marriage in a society and the other types of relationships would have no way at all to officiate that relationship. Socially, marriage is just an agreement with people to live together in a relationship. No one can prevent people from agreeing that they're married, it's just up to them.
The legal benefits and obligations, however, should be EQUALLY AVAILABLE for all relationships.
Sophistry. Polygamy should never have the same "benefits" and is impossible to even guarantee the same "obligations" than monogamous relationships. Same-sex marriages are even incompatible with many heterossexual marital laws, since they are not gender equal in many details.
So the heterosexual marital laws need to be changed to be not only gender-neutral, but so that they apply to any persons in a relationship they want to call marriage. What's the problem?
And why should polygamy never have the same benefits and why would it be impossible to guarantee same obligations that apply in monogamous marriage?
You're saying things, and not backing them up with any actual argumentation to support them.
Religious affirmation of marriage should be available to relationships who desire it, with the discretion of the church of choice. But it should be completely separate from the social and legal aspects and it should NOT make the marriage valid in the eyes of law.
This crap again?
Yes - because you're continually attributing my opinions to me having something against marriage, when in fact I just want religious organizations to back away from the legal and social definitions of marriage. Since you fail to comprehend what I'm saying, I find myself forced to regurgitate "this crap" again and again until you get it. I shall now break my argument into smaller paragraphs and hope it is easier to understand:
I don't have anything against marriage as such.
I think marriage needs to change with the world as required by the world, and I don't think there's anything inherently good in the current monogamous, heterosexual format of marriage as opposed to other forms of marriage in the past or future.
I oppose the equalization of marriage as a religious institution.
I think marriage should be just as valid without any religious commitment or affirmation, which means I think "marriage" should just be the sum of its social and legal components.
The religious component of marriage should be entirely optional.
Therefore, any religious arguments used to oppose same-sex marriages should be null and void against the social and legal definition of marriage. Churches should be free to discriminate against religious marriage between undesireable couples, if they think they are obliged to do so by their gods.
This is why I find it incredibly offensive when people use religious arguments to oppose same-sex couples from being married.
I'm not saying you're basing your argument on the religious aspects of marriage; your argumentation seems to stem from the social and legal aspects, but I find your argumentation flawed on many levels.
The only way to solve this, I think, is to separate the religious meaning of marriage from the social and legal meanings. This way, religious arguments would only affect those people who think the religious aspect of marriage has some importance, and the rest of us grown-ups could continue the discussion about the aspects of marriage that are actually tangible; what social benefits and obligations a marriage should entail, and what legal benefits and obligations should it entail.
People could get married socially and legally, and then they could separately acquire the blessings of their gods if they so wanted.
If you can acknowledge that you have read and comprehended what I just wrote, then I don't need to repeat it again.
Why? I don't see any reason to give respect to an institution just because it's old.
JFC. Marriage isn't just "old", it's probably the most important institution that got us where we are today.
I'm not disagreeing with that, although you could say that of just about any massive distribution.
I could say that the Pharaos of Egypt were probably the most important institution that got the world to where we are today. And I would be correct because if you remove some important institution from the history, you don't have the same history any more.
That doesn't mean we should have any intrinsic respect toward any of those insititutions.
I really don't follow your logic here. Earlier you said that the fact that polygamy has been an institution is not an argument for it, and I agree with you.
But now you're saying that because marriage has been an institution, I should "respect" it for that.
So why is it that you expect me to respect monogamous heterosexual marriage, but you don't need to respect other forms of marriage?
Slavery was an institution for thousands of years so presumably it did a good job... but we don't approve of it any more because it conflicts with our values and world view.
See? That's where you go awfully wrong. I know, that fairy tale has been spoonfed to us since we were born, but alas it isn't exactly true. What is true is that once technology reached a point where we could "outsource" slave work to machinery, we reached the epiphany that it is morally wrong. Until then it was something we deemed "necessary", and we rationalized it by dehumanizing slaves (they aren't really human like us anyway...).
You shouldn't make assumptions of my personal educational history, it just makes you look worse.
Nothing you said there contradicts with what I said. I said that slavery was an institution but we don't approve of the practice any more.
You went into details on why that shift occurred, feel free to do so but it doesn't change the facts I laid out. First it was approved, now it isn't any more.
Further on I'm pretty sure that even the ancient people - not to mention the slaves themselves - probably had a lot of moral problems with slavery as a concept, but - like you said - they invented moral justifications for it because they couldn't see any alternatives.
Sadly those moral justifications soon became moral facts to at least some of them. But none of this holds any relevance to the discussion at hand.
The slippery slope argument isn't fallacious. You have to show that you haven't stripped the meaning of the concept so much that it becomes meaningless. Recognizing polygamous marriages will be the final punch to it.
Sorry to say but the slippery slope fallacy is exactly that, a fallacy. It's not an argument.
Slippery slope argument occurs when you link an arbitrary amount of events together and use them as evidence that A leads to B, B leads to C, and eventually Y leads to Z; therefore A leads to Z.
It's a fallacy because of the probabilistic nature of these events. To show that A always leads to B, you need to show that there is 100% probability that B will occur if A occurs.
To show that B will always lead to C, you need to show that there is 100% probability that C will always occur if B occurs.
And you need to do this to all the steps all the way to your goal, to prove that A will inevitably lead to Z.
If you consider how unlikely it is for anything to have 100% probability, you should immediately see how the slippery slope argument is fallacious.
Let's say every event has a 90% chance to lead to the next event (I'm being generous with probabilities here).
For A to lead to B there is 90% chance.
B to C, 90 % chance.
But for A to lead to C there's only 81% chance.
The chances for a chain of events leading from A to Z are only about 12 %.
I hope that clarifies why the slippery slope is a fallacious argument: When you can't know the probabilities of each step is 100%, you cannot make an argument that A will inevitably lead to Z.
The reason why I think it would be better to separate the religious aspect of marriage from legal and social aspects is that now we got this crazy situation where religious arguments are used to deny the social and legal aspects of marriage from people who might or might not give a **** about the religious aspect. I don't have anything against religious people practicing their religion and valuing marriage as a religious institution. I have a problem when the religious aspects of marriage start influencing people who don't particularly agree with religion. That's why I think it would be a good thing if marriage did not automatically have religious connotations - it's already different in all the different religions but the same in the eyes of the law, isn't it?
Again, I haven't mentioned religion at all in this thread and you keep bringing it up.
I keep bringing it up until you recognize my reasoning for why I think religion should not matter for the social and legal components of marriage. You don't even have to agree with me, just recognize you've read and understood it.
As far as non-monogamous marriages go, you're again using a slippery slope argument that allowing polygamous marriage between three people will lead to allowing it between four people which will allow marriage up to N people. It's the same argument that if you start reducing the voting age, you'll eventually allow infants to vote.
****ing ridiculous. There is ZERO arguments you can make where you go from "3 people can marry now" to "4 people can marry now", etc., that will have allowed you to get to "3 people can marry now" in the first place.
Incorrect. There would be some arbitrary limit to how many people can be married in legal sense. That's necessitated by having some sort of sensible legislation on the matter. Socially, people could obviously do what they like but legally, it would be necessary to have some limit.
Point is, the number being greater than two would prove more inclusive, providing the option of marriage to relationships that have slightly more than two members in it.
However, aside from bad fan fiction I don't really see a reason why arbitrarily large number of people in a relationship could be counted as a marriage. There would be some arbitrary limit enforced at some point, at least in legal sense.
Allowing polygamy does not mean there can't be any limits to it. It would be up to legislators to come up with some arbitrary non-two number that a polygamous relationship could contain as far as the legal aspects of marriage go. And no, defining an arbitrary limit is not any more discrimination than saying that the age of majority if 18. Legislation is full of such arbitrary limits.
If the argument for polygamy is that it is discriminatory to limit marriage to 2 people, then you can *always* make that same argument for *N* people, and you will always fail to oppose it in court, because unlike majority age there is no actual "natural limit" to these things: while it is obvious 4 year olds are not "adults", it is not obvious 6 people should marry and 7 shouldn't.
Read before. There's no real risk that this would cause an Infinite Hotel scenario of mathematical induction in real life. The legislation would have some element of restriction to it - that is the nature of legislation, is it not?
It's also not obvious why an 18-year-old would be an adult but 17-year-old is not. Hell, it's not always obvious why a 25-year-old should be an adult. Perhaps instead of an age limit there should be some sort of maturity test to be taken to qualify as an adult citizen.
The importance here is to consider how many people would be likely to be willing to call their relationship a marriage. The number of relationships with two people is vastly larger than the number of relationships with three people, which is vastly larger than the number of relationships with four people.
Every increment would affect less people. For example, bumping the number from 2 to 3 would have the biggest effect - it would allow three people to register a marriage and there would be a finite number of people to use this option.
Bumping the number from 3 to 4 would affect much less people and therefore it would have much less pressure to add it to legislation.
Bumping the number from 4 to 5 would affect even less people, and thus there would be even less reason to add it to legislation.
As you can see, it's pretty obvious that every increment of your slippery slope argument is increasingly unlikely to happen.
The fact that you don't see isn't an argument either... lack of imagination isn't an argument. The ****fest that a divorce would be, who would get the children, the possibilities of endless kinds of abuses, the cults that would arise, the harems... this is about the destruction of the marriage institution, and I for one am deeply conservative about **** that has the possibility to ruin the social fabric of our society. The levity to which many people discuss these things astonishes me.
So you're afraid of change and would rather keep social and legal injustices in place and justify it by "risks" supported by bad argumentation.
And the double standards you use are sort of funny to see; apparently when I can't imagine a risk, it's not evidence that the risk doesn't exist - but when you IMAGINE a risk, it suddenly exists!
Your proposed imaginary risks to marriage as an institution are worth more than my imagined lack of them? Do I need to bring up Russell's Teapot and the Invisible Pink Unicorn again? I didn't expect to need them in a discussion that isn't about theism!
You mention problems with the implementation of polygamy - divorce procedure, guardianship of children, etc. etc. All of this can be addressed in legislation, and you didn't specify any of the "endless amounts of abuse" so I'm not even distinguishing that with a reply - as if regular marriage didn't offer loopholes to abuse. And as far as cults are concerned, I would like to point out that there already are cults that practice undocumented polygamy in their closed social and religious circles. They are utilizing the social and legal aspects of marriage, without any legal weight.
Asserting that allowing polygamy would lead to polygamous cults is ridiculous, when in fact only thing it would do is to offer polygamous relationships to register as a marriage, with whatever that would entail in legislative sense.
In full honesty, the problems you brought up are things that need to be considered in the legislative process for defining how the polygamous marriage would work. I am not a legal expert, but I think many of those problems are the exact same kind of problems that have already been considered for monogamous heterosexual marriage. The only difference would be the number of people involved.
Look. This is all getting very convoluted so I'll summarize the discussion so far:
As a response to the original topic about gay marriage, I posted my view that the separation of the religious, social and legal components of marriage would be a good thing; namely, it would remove all religious argumentation against gay marriage. You haven't disputed my argumentation so far and that makes me believe you don't have any good counter-arguments.
You were the one who alleged that same-sex marriages could be the pathway to allowing "stranger" marriages such as polygamy. To which I responded by showing that even if that happened (which is not guaranteed), allowing polygamy would not necessarily be a bad thing because the concept of polygamy itself has nothing objectionable to it.
You responded by saying that allowing polygamy would NECESSARILY lead to complete destruction of marriage as an institution, and I have pointed why your argumentation fails.
If you wish to continue this discussion, please review your argumentation on why polygamy would necessarily lead to unraveling of marriage as a concept.
Also review my argumentation as to why I think religious component of marriage should be separate from social and legal components.
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You are the one who must prove the changes proposed won't destroy the good we have and are for the better.
Hi. I live in holland. We have had gay marriage and the right for gay couples to adopt children for over a decade now*.
It has not changed one thing, and if it has, nobody has picked up on it. It also made a lot of gay people very very happy.
* I personally think this was to save on printing costs. You have no idea on how much inkt you save when you simply remove "of opposite genders" from the law text concerning marriage. Pretty big savings for such a small change.
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I know man. Ink is bloody expensive these days
What really gets ya, is the printer not printing black and white when it doesn't have yellow! What's up with that ****
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get a 4 cartridge printer next time. be sure its one who's cartridges can be refilled. avoid companies (like epson) who put chips in their cartridge that "expire" when you are "out of ink". you really aren't, the cartridge just decided you printed enough and locked you out, they even sell reprogrammers on ebay to hack the cartridges to keep em working until all the ink is used up. i found me an old laser printer in a dumpster. i have never changed the toner, and it has printed fine for the last 5 years.
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However when you go into specific things and compare a culture that considers marriage only as an union of a man and a woman, and a culture that accepts polygamy or same-sex marriages, then moral relativism actually applies: You cannot objectively state that monogamous heterosexual marriage is superior to same-sex or polygamous marriage.
What you have to do is show some mechanism that makes same-sex or polygamous marriages somehow worse.
If you cannot do this, then the conclusion is that same-sex and polygamous marriages do not have an effect on the importance of marriage as a social and legal contract, and they don't make it worse.
Well, you shouldn't overstate your case here. The fact that I'm not able to do so does not mean such a case isn't possible or, most probably, already made and argued for. It might mean I'm deeply skeptical of changing a such fundamental institution of our society "for the sake of political correctness, equality" and so on, and alas, go all the way to polygamy. This skepticism won't be dampened by words of confidence from you or by abstract reasonings where XY and XX are really the same as XY and XY and so on, it will be dampened by actual social experience on the matter.
As I said before, this gay marriage thing is legal in my country for some years now, and I think we can properly evaluate it within 30 years or so. Perhaps 50.
So the heterosexual marital laws need to be changed to be not only gender-neutral, but so that they apply to any persons in a relationship they want to call marriage. What's the problem?
And why should polygamy never have the same benefits and why would it be impossible to guarantee same obligations that apply in monogamous marriage?
You're saying things, and not backing them up with any actual argumentation to support them.
Didn't think I would need to. Marriage is a legal construct that has a wide transversal inherent notion of it being about two people. Things like divorce, child support, responsibilities and a myriad of unseen (but ubiquituous) rights and duties depend on that notion. Polygamy is a really deep game changer. You see no problem with it, "what's really the difference between 2 or 8 people? Maths say none but prejudice!", and I don't like that attitude.
If you can acknowledge that you have read and comprehended what I just wrote, then I don't need to repeat it again.
I don't even acknowledge its importance. It's irrelevant material that has never been disputed in this thread, you brought it up here and then you argued against it. Why should I even enter that self-debate of yours when I never cared about it in the first place? As you eloquently said, leave the religious marriage alone and debate the real issue like the adults we are.
I'm not disagreeing with that, although you could say that of just about any massive distribution.
I could say that the Pharaos of Egypt were probably the most important institution that got the world to where we are today. And I would be correct because if you remove some important institution from the history, you don't have the same history any more.
The Pharaos of Egypt were important at the time. Not anymore. See, the only way that could work as an analogy was to say that such a system was not worthy of respect when "Pharaos" were the paradigm of rule in Egypt. I would deny it. I might not like it, I might think Egypt probably didn't need it, but I would respect it to understand it and discuss it without disdain for it. Revolutions are costly. Hugely. So thread lightly.
Nothing you said there contradicts with what I said. I said that slavery was an institution but we don't approve of the practice any more.
The point was that there was a moral evolution, when I think there wasn't. The problem was that albeit morally reprehensible, for most of our history, it was deemed less reprehensible than economic failure. I still think we have the exact same insight. What is different is that slavery today is anathema to economic progress. And the times when this "change" of state of affairs was occurring was when the debates were more furious.
Sorry to say but the slippery slope fallacy is exactly that, a fallacy. It's not an argument.
Slippery slope argument occurs when you link an arbitrary amount of events together and use them as evidence that A leads to B, B leads to C, and eventually Y leads to Z; therefore A leads to Z.
Difference is, you already acknowledge Y, polygamy. So I was right. Then I followed it up with animals and such. I can take that back.
****ing ridiculous. There is ZERO arguments you can make where you go from "3 people can marry now" to "4 people can marry now", etc., that will have allowed you to get to "3 people can marry now" in the first place.
Incorrect. There would be some arbitrary limit to how many people can be married in legal sense. That's necessitated by having some sort of sensible legislation on the matter. Socially, people could obviously do what they like but legally, it would be necessary to have some limit.
Point is, the number being greater than two would prove more inclusive, providing the option of marriage to relationships that have slightly more than two members in it.
However, aside from bad fan fiction I don't really see a reason why arbitrarily large number of people in a relationship could be counted as a marriage. There would be some arbitrary limit enforced at some point, at least in legal sense.
If it's arbitrary you have no argument for polygamy, since the inclusion of 3 people into it is as just as "inclusive" as 8. And if your argument is one of "numbers", then you say it's okay we discriminate as long as it's as few people as possible. What? Look, I'm being very pragmatic here. If you have a law that allows polygamy to 6 people max for "inclusive reasons" and some such, then you'll have a very hard time in court when a group of 7 comes to sue you because you didn't include them. If your argument is bureaucratic, it's the worst ever. "I'm sorry, I know you should have these rights because there's no really good reason against them, but you see the paperwork would be tremendous so we don't allow it".
Changing from max = 2 to max = n is as arbitrary as not changing it at all. Without any good reason.
The importance here is to consider how many people would be likely to be willing to call their relationship a marriage. The number of relationships with two people is vastly larger than the number of relationships with three people, which is vastly larger than the number of relationships with four people.
Every increment would affect less people. For example, bumping the number from 2 to 3 would have the biggest effect - it would allow three people to register a marriage and there would be a finite number of people to use this option.
Bumping the number from 3 to 4 would affect much less people and therefore it would have much less pressure to add it to legislation.
Bumping the number from 4 to 5 would affect even less people, and thus there would be even less reason to add it to legislation.
As you can see, it's pretty obvious that every increment of your slippery slope argument is increasingly unlikely to happen.
But if you are to be "inclusive", who the hell are you to define what a marriage is to be about? And as I said, I don't need there to be thousands of 9 people married together. I need one case in court decided favorably, which seems like a given with your argumentation for polygamy.
And the double standards you use are sort of funny to see; apparently when I can't imagine a risk, it's not evidence that the risk doesn't exist - but when you IMAGINE a risk, it suddenly exists!
Risks exist obviously. There is no double standards here other than you imagining them: my null hypothesis is always that the risks overwhelm change, so for revolutionary social changes like these, revolutionary evidence that the risk is worth it are necessary.
In full honesty, the problems you brought up are things that need to be considered in the legislative process for defining how the polygamous marriage would work. I am not a legal expert, but I think many of those problems are the exact same kind of problems that have already been considered for monogamous heterosexual marriage. The only difference would be the number of people involved.
In full polyanna, you mean. "Honesty" would require from you the recognition that this (polygamy) is a fundamental social change in our culture that would revolutionize a lot of our customs, morals, demeanors, standards, behaviors, etc.,etc.,etc., which are obviously filled with obvious risks and non-obvious risks.
If you wish to continue this discussion, please review your argumentation on why polygamy would necessarily lead to unraveling of marriage as a concept.
Whatever. You have a very different definition of marriage than I do. I hope mine prevails and yours do not.
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Ignoring the "this will lead to men marrying their horses" argument (which is rather specious due that pesky 'consent' thing), what risks are you referring to? Anything more specific than "it makes me uncomfortable" or "it hasn't been studied enough for my liking"?
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i want to marry my cats, both of them, one male and one female. kitties <3
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Everything has consequences.
Consequences can be positive or negative.
Consequences can be intended or unintended (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_consequences); or sometimes foreseen and unforeseen consequences.
I have shown what foreseeable positive consequences could result from limited expansion of marriage to include polygamy.
Your suggestions as foreseeable negative consequences have been shown to be based on a logical fallacy.
So now you're saying that the risk of unforeseen negative consequences outweighs the benefits of the foreseeable positive consequences.
I should probably note that I have no strong feelings one way or the other about polygamy. The main reason I'm arguing against your position is that it is based on bad logic and presupposition that the current definition of marriage is best by virtue of popularity and longevity.
In fact, I think what consenting adults do with each other is their business, and as long as they are not harming others, no one has any right to say what they're doing is "wrong" or "unethical" or "underminding fundamental social structures". I think it would be far better if marriage was only a social contract, rather than a legal contract or religious institution. It would certainly simplify a lot of things and also equalize the law for everyone...
Because let's face it - legally, marriage doesn't really amount to as much as one might think. The biggest thing is probably defaulting to common ownership of property (unless specified otherwise) and automatic parenthood of the children born to a married couple (which you can ensure even if you're not married, by having the father recognize the child as theirs). In some countries, marriage entitles to some tax breaks, and may also result in some other minor benefits (along with certain legal responsibilities). But on the whole? The greatest import of marriage is by far in the social sense.
The meaning of marriage from social perspecive is much more significant, in my view, and to be honest, if people consider themselves married, then they are married. Whatever the legal definitions are, people will basically always do what they see fit, and in some societies there are other types of marriages as that between one man and one woman. Same-sex marriages are one of them. Polygamous marriages are another type.
So it is an interesting question, why should legal definition of marriage be limited to one type of marriage, when socially people will practice other types of marriages anyway?
As far as religious aspect of marriage goes, I would be glad to drop that off the discussion altogether. However it's relevant to the discussion insofar as people base their definition of marriage on religious values.
In a society based on religious values only, that would be OK. But since we don't have one religion to rule them all, we need something more agreeable, and that may mean the definition of marriage might also need to change.