But marriage isn’t about having children, remember? Isn’t that what you said? We’re not supposed to think of marriage in terms of what it might mean to children and procreation. Right? It’s about the love between the people seeking the marriage. Isn’t that what you believe?
No. I'm sorry I wasn't clear. My fault so here goes. STATEMENT: Children are a big part of marriage, but not a requirement, and does not encompass all of marriage. ARGUMENT: Lots of people get married with no intent or possibility of having or adopting children. EXAMPLE: In "The African Queen", Hepburn and Bogart ask the Nazi captain to marry them first before he executes them both minutes later. I have yet to hear any Christian argue against this type of marriage. EXAMPLE: When it comes to vows, and I'm going out on a limb here, only that Catholic weddings (and only some of them) actually use the word "children" in their wedding vows. Do you remember your wedding vows (assuming you're married) or a friend's wedding vows? Did the word "children" ever come up? If so, have you ever been to a wedding where the vows omitted the word? I have. If you have also, did you protest? For the rest of you, this is what I call an argument.
The opposite [Even mice and bugs have incest taboos via pheromones. So let's dispense with incest] is true. In nature, incest is quite often acceptable and desirable. In domestic animals, incest is common, even intentionally.
No. Incest is not desirable. See: Incest and Breeding. Just because you find examples of it, like suicide, does not mean it is desirable, nor does it mean the opposite is true. It is not an argument. Incest is not-optimal for all sexual creatures' DNA.
Look at the pedigree of any purebred animal. You cannot find one without incest. Incest is used in animal breeding to increase the likelihood of the inheritance of certain traits. In fact, without incest, different breeds of dogs or cats could not exist.
CONFIRMATION: I found a reference that supports your statement: The Myth of Canine Incest -- Breeding Methods Examined. ARGUMENT: But you know what? Pedigree breeding is artificial. All dogs have descended from wolves some 13,000 ago. Without human intervention, purebred dogs would quickly become mutts by their natural aversion to incest. Just because humans like incest in dogs, doesn't mean the dogs intuitively like it. See: Is Incest Common In Gray Wolf Packs? which says: In sum, our results show that within wolf packs, mated wolves are rarely related as siblings or as parent-offspring. FYI: Little Jeremiah, you'd probably call this government research paper "unintelligible gibberish" too.
(By the way, mice have no incest taboos: http://www.horns.freeserve.co.uk/mouse4.htm They will mate with any relatives.)
Thanks for the link, but this behavior is observed in the laboratory, where the taboo has been bred out of the mice accidentally, but not so much in nature. Google Search "MHC, the Major Histocompatibility Complex". From: Why Incest Isn’t Best, claims that mice are the greatest cited example of incest because of artificial laboratory experiments, and is not a reflection of what mice really do in natural habitats.
Hey, you know what Gelato, this might just be the line of questioning you need to explain why gay people are the way they are? Perhaps our society, by definition an artificial one, has bred out some of the homosexual taboos. Maybe the population increase and density has done that. Just a thought. Still doesn't make it right to persecute them.
Using the pattern set by nature as a guide, certainly a little incest wouldn’t hurt, right? Some degree of it is natural, and in some cases in nature it is beneficial. Why should the small minority who wants to practice incest be legally barred from the benefits of marriage, if marriage is not prohibited to gays? This question is especially valid when children are excluded from the marriage argument.
Now you are starting to get logical! You are giving me a taste of my own medicine, and I like it. Incest taboos are the best supporting argument that marriage laws exist for the sake of children. If I could prove that gay marriages increase the chance of producing genetically defective children, which I (a tax payer) will be force to subsidize, then I would vote against it. But there is that AIDS thing isn't there? I'd hate to stoop so low to argue that AIDS is a much shorter problem, less economical problem than defective children. The gay people that get AIDS tend to pay for their own treatment, and die soon. And AIDS is not just a "gay" thing.
Denying this couple the right to marriage is a violation of American freedom--wouldn’t you say? “All we want is to be left alone,” Carrol Ferdinandsen said in an interview, “so we can finish our lives together.” If homosexuals can marry, what reason do we have, legally, to prohibit marriage for this couple?
OK. Long post. As I said to TexasTransplant, I wish you were my neighbor too. I don't think I can argue against your statement. Not sure if I want to. I haven't yet. I was arguing that our laws constitutionally allow constraining the number of people in a marriage (polygamy) but not about the sexual nature of the people (homosexually), and certainly not the race of the people (interracial marriages). Is it unconstitutional to constrain the relationships between (two or more) people, such as brother and sister, doctor and patient, incarcerated felons, etc? Good question! If yes, then it cannot be an argument against prohibiting sexual nature because being gay is an attribute of an individual, whereas relationships are attributes of plural sets. If no, there's the Ninth Amendment getting in the way. Our Constitution is all about protecting individual rights, and does very little more than the First Amendment to protecting the rights of groups.
Congress won’t have to. The courts will make that law for them. Do you think that would be constitutional or unconstitutional for the courts to act in this way?
I believe it is unconstitutional for them to do that. Courts (and other judicial branches) do not create laws. That's the role of the legislative branch of our state and federal government. Now the courts often bend the law, but that's up to the Supreme Courts to resolve conflict. This is an honest question. Is it illegal for gays to get married? Or is it just a bill submitted to the house? http://www.nolo.com/lawcenter/ency/article.cfm/objectID/6DF0766E-C4A3-4952-A542F5997196E8B5 Someone quote me a federal law please. I believe that if the law does not say you cannot do it, then you can do it.
The latter is not unconstitutional, though I would change it to "union," not "relationship."
Agreed.
If the denial of marriage to homosexuals is inherently “persecution,” how do you justify “persecuting” bisexuals who would like to marry both a man and a woman?
Refer to above.
The constitution of Massachusetts states that all laws dealing with marriage are to be handled by the governor and the legislature, not the courts. Yet, the high court got involved and legalized gay marriage. Supporting their ruling is antithetical to the idea of enforcing the law, wouldn’t you say? As Dr. Keyes points out, their ruling violated the separation of powers. Do you support this kind of interference by the courts in general, or just when it comes to decisions you like?
If what you say is correct, then I am against it. If it breaks the law, then it is illegal. But I don't think that was the case, and my facts may be wrong. I think what happened is that governor and legislature created laws in the past. These laws did not explicitly state that gay people could not get married. The courts interpreted the laws in favor of gays. If this is not what the law was meant to do, then the legislature needs to change the law. But it is OK for the courts to interpret the laws -- that's what they do, and why they exist.
The Constitution does not say we have rights based upon what “technology” has to say. That’s a dangerous theory for rights. We either have rights or we don’t. There is either an equal right to any kind of marriage, or there is not.
You are right. We do have rights. But rights change, and new laws are created. There are laws for changing the law. We used to have a prohibition law. Then it was repealed. We used to have laws for slave trading. Then they disappeared. We currently do not have a law that prevents people from smashing asteroids into comets. Someday in the far off future, Congress might just create one. But until they do, the Ninth Amendment says I can go out and smash heavenly bodies together, regardless of whether I am technologically constrained by a gravity well.
You will have no such option to vote on this issue. The matter will be decided by the courts, and they will use the precedent that has been set by the arguments for gay marriage you have supported. They will be consistent in their logic, and base their decision on the premise they have already established.
Voting is not the only legal method for fighting an idea. I can fight it by testing and challenging people near me, on chat groups, and in forums. Perhaps one of my children might one day participate on that court.
The Constitution does not allow the courts to write law, only to apply it. The constitutional principle of separation of powers was violated by the Massachusetts high court. Do you support that?
Yes. I'm with you on that! You probably have me at a disadvantage on what actually happened in Massachusetts. If they broke the law, hang 'em high. If all they did we interpret the law, escalate it to the Supreme Court. I think that the fact that GW wants to get a Constitutional Amendment, means they probably just interpreted the law. Please prove otherwise and cite links.
The premises I accept allow the logical rejection of marriage between same-sex couples, incestuous couples, bisexual couples, and polygamist couples. The premises you accept necessitate the granting of marriage rights each and every one of these relationships--unless you allow discrimination as another premise, in which case I would like to hear your reasoning.
I had hopes that my arguments said otherwise. In either case, premises are not an argument, as I can disagree with them. But I think you were on the right track for arguing. That is, you tried to find common ground with your antagonists (me) and then applied Aristotelian logic rules to show contradiction. Did my arguments contradict myself (a very bad thing for me), or did my premises merely contradict yours (something I can live with)?