Free Republic

Is there evidence to support your implication that the existence of homosexual marriage depresses birth rates? I'm also waiting for some evidence that pregnancy is contingent upon a heterosexual marriage.

Your ignorance of human history is noted. Historicall, marriage has been a property management system--the property in question pre-marriage being the assets of the woman's parents, as well as the woman herself, and post-marriage the property passing to any male heirs resulting from the union.

You do not have a right to call your fetish sex "marriage", because it is not, and can never be such. . . You do not have the right to force me or my children to put our stamp of approval on your aberrant behavior.

I note with interest that this is again about me and my aberrant behavior. You just can't discuss the topic without personalizing it, can you? Emotion is a weak position from which to argue.

So a same sex marriage devalues an opposite sex marriage. When two men get married in Vermont, then the value of any given heterosexual marriage is suddenly diminished? How exactly does one measure this quantity? Does the hetero pair love each other less? Are they more likely to get divorced? Less likely to have kids?

By what objective measure do you make this claim?

You choose a narrow interpretation of the benefit, "mixed-gender marriage." Why impose that limitation over the broader benefit, namely the ability of an individual to marry a loving partner?

It does not matter that the sodomites do not wish to enter an opposite sex relationship.

But they could if they wanted to, so no harm no foul? I seem to recall some old guy writing about inalienable rights yadda yadda the pursuit of happiness, but I forget where I heard that.

Homosexuality IS NOT an inborn trait that can never be altered. It is a behavior.

Citation needed. When did YOU choose to become a (presumably) heterosexual? Moreover, if sexuality is a choice, why aren't there more homosexuals? If it's a choice, then it strikes me that it could go either way. Alternatively, given the intense social pressures against it, why are there ANY homosexuals in fundamentalist religious communities?

At age 83, my grandmother an 82-year-old man. Under your standard, her marriage should have been prevented.

Marriage exists to ensure the continuation of the human race.

Bull. Since when does pregnancy require marriage? If you want to get REALLY traditional about it, marriage was an early property management system. I prefer an approach that recognizes marriage as a partnership between two committed, loving adults. I hear that also contributes to social stability and the general well-being of the partners.

kids who are raised without both a mother and father are far worse off. Society has an interest in ensuring that stable male-female relationships are maintained for the betterment of our future generations.

I hope that the thousands of childless couples are properly grateful to you for overlooking their audacious failure to procreate. Do you keep track of those who aren't?

No, I asked you what Ian is; I'm sure it's hilarious. Naturally, you'll be delighted to enlighten me.

Wiki: Appeal to Consequences

Appeal to consequences, also known as argumentum ad consequentiam (Latin for argument to the consequences), is an argument that concludes a premise (typically a belief) to be either true or false based on whether the premise leads to desirable or undesirable consequences. This is based on an appeal to emotion and is a form of logical fallacy, since the desirability of a consequence does not address the truth value of the premise. Moreover, in categorizing consequences as either desirable or undesirable, such arguments inherently contain subjective points of view.

Now that's just silly.

Equal protection demands that laws treat alike all people who are “similarly situated with respect to the legitimate purposes of the law.” “ ‘[S]imilarly situated’ cannot mean simply ‘similar in the possession of the classifying trait.’ All members of any class are similarly situated in this respect, and consequently, any classification whatsoever would be reasonable by this test.” Likewise, “similarly situated” cannot be interpreted to require plaintiffs be identical in every way to people treated more favorably by the law. “No two people or groups of people are the same in every way, and nearly every equal protection claim could be run aground [under] a threshold analysis” that requires the two groups “be a mirror image of one another.” Rather, equal protection demands that the law itself must be equal. It requires that laws treat all those who are similarly situated with respect to the purposes of the law alike. Thus, the purposes of the law must be referenced for a meaningful evaluation.

The purpose of Iowa’s marriage law is to provide an institutional basis for defining the fundamental relational rights and responsibilities of persons in committed relationships. It also serves to recognize the status of the parties’ committed relationship. In this case, the court concluded, plaintiffs are similarly situated compared to heterosexual persons; they are in committed relationships and official recognition of their status provides an institutional basis for defining their fundamental relational rights and responsibilities.
Iowa Supreme Court Gay Marriage Opinion (Summary)

Feel free to explain how the above argument for gay marriage can be used as justification to marry a woman and her dog as you suggest. I'll wait.

Oh noes!!1!! [gasp!] Please.... I... I'll do anything you want, just DON'T READ THOSE PMS FROM OTHER PEOPLE ABOUT ME!!!!

More to the point allow me to direct your attention to post #30 by you in this very thread.

...we helped to stop homo’s from getting married here in FL
Please all conservative who are against this get out of New England, it is not the place where you grew up...

That's more an instruction than a suggestion or a flight of imagination, and rather undermines your claims to the contrary. I await your apology.

Sure, the slippery slope argument. I've seen used it countless times to greater and lesser effect. Mostly I find it to be intellectually lazy. Here, you are using it to suggest that we can't let two men get married now because a woman might be able to marry her dog later. Rather than spend any pixels analyzing your choice of that specific juxtaposition, let me just say that it's an argument from consequences, and not a particularly compelling one at that.

Moreover, you still forgot to specify how the marriage of half a dozen people to each other makes a run-of-the-mill hetero marriage somehow worth less.

No, I find what differences might exist to be superficial at best. By the way, seeing as how you appear to be the most well-versed poster here on the subject, what websites and other forums do you find to be the most authoritative source of instruction for where homosexuals should move and how they should vote?

No kidding? What are my stances on other issues?

you missed this before every argument which liberals, homo’s and yourself have used can be used for any kind of marriage [list snipped]

No, I've seen variations of that list countless times. While many of those arrangements have problems, none of them are the subject of this discussion.

My question, which I've asked patiently several times, is this: How does the marriage between two consenting adult men devalue a marriage between a consenting adult heterosexual couple?

You say that I've received an answer "at least 3" times. I have already responded to one who took the bizarre tack of equating the marriage supply to the money supply. Rather than answer directly you have mostly ranted about teh butt-sechs while suggesting that conservatives should build a big southeast playhouse with a "No Homos Allowed" sign on the gate.

If I am in error please point me to a prior post of yours where you address the question directly.

Is it possible for you to post to me without calling me a perverted, liberal homo once or twice? This from the same poster who complained that I was posting off-topic.

Just curious.

One has been doing it for years
the other as in me is saying maybe we should

So, to be clear, you are criticizing the homosexuals' use of a tactic that you suggest conservatives employ. Please be far away when your cognitive dissonance reaches critical mass.

I find your fixation on the specifics of male homosexual sex somewhat telling. Almost as much as your immediate and unfounded assumption that I am a homosexual.

I care not a whit about changing what you think. I merely asked you to explain how a marriage between two consenting adults had any direct effect on the marriage between two other consenting adults.

That you chose instead to post another explicit description of man-on-man sex acts might be the best answer you can give.

False analogy.

Marriage requires a male and a female.

So you say. The VT legislature and the Iowa Supreme Court disagree. What makes you right and them wrong?

Anything else is a cheap counterfeit that devalues and destroys the institution.

To make this argument, one must believe that "marriage" is a finite quantity. That when two gays have some marriage, there is somehow less marriage for the hetero couples. I confess that this argument puzzles me. Perhaps you can expand on your thesis?

manc complained that homos are doing on their forums what he is doing here, specifically, telling like-minded people where to move and how to vote in order to push their chosen agenda. I thought "inconsistent" was a more diplomatic term than "rank hypocrisy."

You said, "I can tell you how your relationship not marriage is worth less," followed by 6 paragraphs of foaming at the mouth, including the startling revelation that when I cross state lines I am "nothing but two homo’s [sic] having sex".

Have some chamomile tea, take a deep breath, and try again. How does the legal union of two persons of the same sex devalue an existing legal union between two persons of the opposite sex?

gleeaikin:[A 1995 book about unusual sex practices] stated that studies indicate that about 30% of heterosexual couples have tried anal sex.

I'm told that heterosexual anal sex might even go back to the 70s. (The link is entirely safe.)

Are you suggesting that society should NOT promote stable monogamy between loving couples? Do you have an argument against gay marriage that doesn't boil down to "homos shouldn't marry because it's icky"? Can you tell me exactly how my marriage is worth less because of it?

I ask because is instead of talking about what the thread is about you instead would rather attack me.

I apologize for highlighting your inconsistencies.