Posted on 12/08/2003 7:12:17 PM PST by Kay Soze
So then, we have established that homosexuals can both engage in the sexual act, and procreate.
So, what reason does the government have to disallow civil marriage licenses to same sex couples?
In this nation, we have a choice (choice being a gift from God by the way) to believe in God, to not believe in God, or to believe in some other God.
As a matter of fact, even God gave man that choice.
This discussion is about whether civil government has the legal right to deny the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples, not about whether homosexuality is wrong in the eyes of God or not.
Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person...resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State. -Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967)
It goes without saying that the writers of those words had no problem with marriage being defined as a union between one man and one woman. Especially the bit about existence and survival. We have existed and survived with the present definition.
I claimed the law was not enjoined from treating a fertile couple differently from a sterile couple. For example, the government could offer tax benefits to couples that sexually reproduce. It currently does not make the biological distinction but it could.
What is this, a word game?
The sexual act between two persons of the same sex can never produce an offspring and that is why it makes sense to define marriage as the union between one man and one woman. This is not rocket science. This is the way it has been for hundreds and hundreds of years. Science and certain social developments have not changed the fundamental facts of life.
Men and women having sex can produce offspring. To preserve our liberties and our civilization, it is a necessity to regulate that process. Two persons of the same gender having sex cannot produce offspring; therefore we have no need to regulate it.
You act as if it is a huge coincidence when a man and a woman have sex and the result is a baby is born. Marriage is not only about procreation. Marriage is about the stability of the families into which children are born.
When once in a while a gay couple adopts a child, that is what it is, a special case. It does not render invalid the way the vast majority of people reason about marriage and children, namely in terms of a mother and a father. When a man and woman marry without any intention of having children, it does not change the fact that the reason marriage exists has to do with children.
... your crap about "society" preserving the fundamental act of procreation by defending heterosexual marriage.
In both of these sentences, you have garbled my position beyond recognition.
None of which will change one iota if same-sex marriages come into being.
The sexual act between two infertile people can never produce an offspring, the sexual act between two septugenarians can never reproduce an offspring, yet there are weddings happening over at Century Village every day.
The ability to procreate has never been a test for the issuance of marriage licenses.
Irrelevant.
The ability to procreate has never been a test for the issuance of marriage licenses.
Irrelevant.
None of which will change one iota if same-sex marriages come into being.
That has not been proven. I predicted before that litigation is sure to come regarding provisions of marriage law that "discriminate" against same-sex couples. The resolutions of these suits will transform marriage as we know it. You haven't addressed my prediction. By the way, if even one such suit occurs along these lines, that will certainly amount to one iota.
So will you concede that things will change at least an iota? Also do you concede that marriage is about the stability of families into which children are born?
The ability to procreate has never been a test for the issuance of marriage licenses.
I've deflected this argument dozens of times, including more than once on this very thread. Let me put it in full context, so that hopefully I won't have to do this again. First of all, please don't muddy the waters with insignificant exceptions to sweeping truths.
Monogamous marriage as the overwhelmingly prevailing norm and structure for families predates all of our state governments. None of the states, including Massachusetts, has ever enacted laws that have redefined marriage as anything but a union of one man and one woman.
It is fair to say every state currently requires of any couple who wish to be married that they be of opposite gender. All I am arguing is that this arrangement makes sense and we should keep it that way.
I make the case for making sense based on what role marriage has played, plays, and will play for the forseeable future in Western (and Eastern for that matter) Civilization. The stability of laws like this across generations is important. To be sure, immoral institutions like slavery that do harm are not honored just because they exist for a long time. We have justly ruled out race as a test for civil marriage, but we have rightly retained the opposite-gender test. And through many many centuries the institution of marriage has been a wonderful boon to our way of life.
The reason the opposite-gender test makes sense is that, over the huge sweep of human space and time, opposite-gender couplings are the telling ones, because their sexual relations produce children. Children born and raised in stable families do fine, by and large. After they grow up, they tend to repeat the process and that is a good thing.
Take away marriage, and you have a downward societal spiral into chaos. Do you agree?
We have established that opposite-gender couplings are the ones of real concern to the common good. True, coupling and marriage have reasons to exist outside of children. There is no fertility test for marriage and noone has advanced any reason that it would be a good idea to have one. Anyway, these extra roles of marriage do not detract from its main purpose of reinforcing a multi-generational pattern of stable families. But at the same time, what net good with respect to the purpose of marriage would be accomplished by redefining it to be the union of any two consenting adults? Practically zero. The children living with same-sex couples are as important individually as any other children, but their existence in tiny numbers does not justify this change that has the potential to roil our culture for decades.
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