460 times, actually. Probably 460 times without following it with a comma as well! Gah! Sorry. I have a pet peeve for monotonous use of the same word. (Okay, didn't mean to hijack the discussion. Move on.)
adoption is a different subject, however i will try to answer.
The administration should not discriminate homosexual living in union (in order to give the necessary stability) on the sole basis of their sexuals behavior. This is the first point
The second point is to consider the interest of the child.
Kids tend to be normative until they enter in puberty.Homosexuals can be better parents than many others heterosexual parents, but being homosexual is not a big + for the adopted child in a psychological (the different role model of both gender) and social (the acceptation of others)point of vue.
Should the administration discriminate on the sole basis of this point ? : the answer vary in US within differents states. However we should keep in mind that in the adoption process, the admin make discriminations based on differents factors : income, age, stability ...All this points are aslo debatable.
sorry to have derailed a thread, but i did not want to avoid to answer to Bunge's post. However furthers post about the adoptions subjects should be made in an another thread (there was an old one if my memory is correct).
I'm confused, are there people here who are actually arguing that the actions of NAMBLA members is, in fact, Love?
Also, with respect to trumptman's argument about the need for rationality-
This is a truly fascinating position. Your arguing that since we make irrational judgements on some things we should be free to make them on others.
First, I don't accept that the restrictions on marriage that you cite are irrational. Age requirements are designed with the intent that participants in marriage are of sufficient psychological and biological maturity to enter into such a relationship. As with almost any law, there are those who stand outside the averages, but what is the effect of the law? We are balancing the potential harm of allowing the immature to marry against the inconvenience to the outliers who might have to wait a couple years. Seems rational to me.
With regards to polygamy, I believe there is sufficient evidence that such a dynamic is unequal to the parties involved in our current society. In the case of mormon polygamist holdouts it would appear that wives are often coerced into such marriages.
Finally, while love is quite subjective and contextual, it does manifest some behaviors which are largely applicable to the majority of the public. We have certainly defined a lot of behaviors as "non-loving" and apply them in divorce hearings when deciding which party has not satisfied the contract of marriage (i.e. not been a loving participant).
Actually I am arguing that we do make rational decisions in a number of areas and thus can make them with regard to homosexual marriage. Others are arguing that the reasoning against homosexual marriage isn't rational. I contend it is just as rational as the reasoning for prohibitions against age, multiple partners, etc.
However within the context of all of this is the Texas sodomy decision which ruled that the detriment to society cannot be assumed (as was the case in say... sodomy for example) it most be proven. The state must prove a compelling interest that outweighs the privacy right if they are going to pass a law against an action.
I don't agree with decision and think (as I have mentioned here a couple times) that they tossed out the baby with the bath water and could have simply ruled against it using the equal protection clause.
So now the argument has become (and if you look at the posts here, you will see them pressing it with varying degrees of effectiveness) "What is the compelling state interest to deny homosexual marriage?" It must be compelling enough to override the privacy right or else the state cannot deny it.
However what we assume are societal norms that could easily hold up to scrutiny are usually nothing more than the norms we were born into and operate within. There are societies that allow homosexual marriage. However there are also societies that allow 13 year olds to marry. 14 year olds to vote, and polygamy. The harm from many of these actions is just assumed. It was assumed when blacks and women were denied the vote for example. In fact if you go back and look up the literature and arguments from those times, they are profoundly consistant with what is said today in each instance.
The point is that the harm cannot be assumed, and even if some harm occurs, you cannot restrict an individual and their privacy right for possibilities. As I mentioned in many ways no-fault divorce is profoundly harmful to most parties involved when considered from an economic standpoint. Yet society has to prove a compelling interest to deny that divorce since the parties are unhappy.
Do I think it more likely that 16 year olds who marry would be less successful than say 26 year olds who marry? When sampled as an entire group, probably. However I cannot restrict someone's rights just because I believe it will lead them to a path of less than their full potential. Likewise consider 16 vs. 18 or even 20. I would bet that the percentages were quite close in all those age groups, yet we choose 18 and not say, 26 or even 20.
So please understand that while I draw my circle of tolerance about as wide as others, I do realize that I draw the line mostly from my comforts, discomforts and what I think society can work with in this area. However if many had to defend those circles in a court of law against a very strong privacy right and find a compelling state interest for actions not allowed outside of my circle (incent, polygamy, adult-child sexual relationships, etc.) the burden of proof is pretty hard to satisfy.
460 times, actually. Probably 460 times without following it with a comma as well! Gah! Sorry. I have a pet peeve for monotonous use of the same word. (Okay, didn't mean to hijack the discussion. Move on.)
Come now Shawn, that is only once every 6-7 posts.
Besides at least toss in some otherwords from a thesaurus you would like me to use if you are going to criticize.
460 times, actually. Probably 460 times without following it with a comma as well! Gah! Sorry. I have a pet peeve for monotonous use of the same word. (Okay, didn't mean to hijack the discussion. Move on.)
Same sex marriage is an oxymoron. You can contract with another individual to do almost anything, say power of attorney...., sole heir...., etc. This is not about people who love each other committing to each other. Anyone can do that at any time.
This is about pulling the wings off the institution of marriage and still calling it "marriage." This is about redefining terms and nothing else---a normal cycle when a predominant culture fades while another takes it place---or, much more likely, the rabid act of a mad dog before it's put down or dies of it's own disease. Much in the same way a person with the XY chromosome insists on calling himself "transgendered" there is little sense to be made of moral and logical vacuity of the atheist/humanist mind---except perhaps it's struggle for predominance in the cultural matters, including society's lexicon.
Marriage, the context of "one flesh" is a theologically based, God-given concept. This nonsense of homosexual marriage is simply a ploy to marginalize 6000 years of history, and it's never worked. There's nothing new here except the date in which this "argument" is being perpetrated.
Same sex marriage is an oxymoron. You can contract with another individual to do almost anything, say power of attorney...., sole heir...., etc. This is not about people who love each other committing to each other. Anyone can do that at any time.
This is about pulling the wings off the institution of marriage and still calling it "marriage." This is about redefining terms and nothing else---a normal cycle when a predominant culture fades while another takes it place---or, much more likely, the rabid act of a mad dog before it's put down or dies of it's own disease. Much in the same way a person with the XY chromosome insists on calling himself "transgendered" there is little sense to be made of moral and logical vacuity of the atheist/humanist mind---except perhaps it's struggle for predominance in the cultural matters, including society's lexicon.
Marriage, the context of "one flesh" is a theologically based, God-given concept. This nonsense of homosexual marriage is simply a ploy to marginalize 6000 years of history, and it's never worked. There's nothing new here except the date in which this "argument" is being perpetrated.
Yikes.
Still, it seems you would then agree that seperation of church and state obliges the law to stay out of defining marriage, since it's a "theologically based, God given concept".
... Still, it seems you would then agree that seperation of church and state obliges the law to stay out of defining marriage, since it's a "theologically based, God given concept".
First of all, to the people who define it as a "religious" restriction: Well, maybe someone's religion does. My church, however, will marry a gay couple. It will be a Christian ceremony, because it's a Christian church, but we decided many years ago that the gender requirement was essentially arbitrary.
The argument against polygamy was actually set by a Jewish council in Europe - I can't remember the date, but it was very early on. The old law was that a man could marry as many wives as he could support; the conclusion of the council interpreting that law was that, given that the Jews in Europe were no longer semi-nomadic shepherds and "nations," that number should be fixed at one. It stuck.
Their reasoning has held pretty well, simply because unless you're agrarian, you simply don't need to have all the free labor and insurance against pestilence and ill fortune that a large family provides (and that a prospering flock supports). As of fairly recently, children can't work, childbirth is safe and reliable, disease is relatively low, food plentiful and accidents few, so there is none of the urgency you find in old accounts about fertility. And given that the rights and freedoms of women have broadened considerably since Deuteronomic times, the number of wives a man can support is not an issue that needs to be reflected in law.
Given contraception, adoption, and the increasing number of people who want to marry without children, the old definition of family as a social unit responsible for rearing children is still relevant (which is why would-be heterosexual couples get tested for compatible blood types), but it's no longer entirely descriptive. Given that, it should not be proscriptive either. From the point of view of the role of family, an infertile heterosexual couple who wish to adopt, a heterosexual couple who do not want children, and a gay couple (whether or not they wish to adopt) all broaden the purpose of marriage.
As far as the state's involvement: It is certainly in the interests of the state to encourage the proper raising of children, since they'll be running the state in short order. It's also in the interests of the state to encourage its citizens to settle into stable relationships if they choose to, if only for epidemiological reasons. I don't see any harm in extending the state's definition of marriage to encompass this category, whether the beneficiaries are gay or straight.
Since trumptman has brought up some interesting challenges, I'll address them:
* Why 18? Well, children go through a formative period. That period ends at some point which varies by the individual. Since that's not much help from the point of view of national policy, you have to pick an age that captures an inflection point. That's going to vary depending on the nature and organization of the society at any given time. 18 is currently the age when you're finished with mandatory education, and when a great number of other rights and privileges are bestowed upon you, so why not 18? Really, the only hard line for the standard Western definition of marriage is sexual maturity, and some cultures (including the US not all that long ago) allow marriage right there. Of course, in royal marriages, where the marriage functions primarily as a diplomatic pact between two nations, children have been married off considerably younger than that. Clearly, then, the suitable age for marriage depends partly on the organization of society, and partly on the definition and goals of the marriage. So it's arbitrary in the strictly logical sense that "it depends," but that only reflects the insufficiency of logic to describe human social organization and behavior (or, for that matter, much of anything).
* Women in the draft. Well, the difference there is that you don't end up spending months in a trench with other married couples trying to survive open conflict. The reason cited for keeping women out of the draft, and out of combat, have to do with disrupting morale and teamwork and various other issues. Whether or not those issues are valid (and the slippery thing about psychological issues like morale is that they are relevant if people think they are), they don't apply to marriage. As trumptman himself points out, one of the bulwarks of gay marriage is the protection of privacy, and that's obviously not something the military is preoccupied with.
I remember a couple more being offered, but I'll finish this post up and call it good.
Same sex marriage is an oxymoron. You can contract with another individual to do almost anything, say power of attorney...., sole heir...., etc. This is not about people who love each other committing to each other. Anyone can do that at any time.
This is about pulling the wings off the institution of marriage and still calling it "marriage." This is about redefining terms and nothing else---a normal cycle when a predominant culture fades while another takes it place---or, much more likely, the rabid act of a mad dog before it's put down or dies of it's own disease. Much in the same way a person with the XY chromosome insists on calling himself "transgendered" there is little sense to be made of moral and logical vacuity of the atheist/humanist mind---except perhaps it's struggle for predominance in the cultural matters, including society's lexicon.
Marriage, the context of "one flesh" is a theologically based, God-given concept. This nonsense of homosexual marriage is simply a ploy to marginalize 6000 years of history, and it's never worked. There's nothing new here except the date in which this "argument" is being perpetrated.
6000 years of history? God-given? Sorry, but folks have been marrying for far longer than 6,000 years, and marriage long predates the notion of the Judeo-Christian God. So does the existence of gay people, incidentally.
And in any case, no one here is demanding gay access to religious marriage, just the civil institution, which has no real connection to whatever sacrament or ceremony your faith clings to. But remember, the same freedom of religion that gives your church the right to not marry gays should and must give other churches the right to marry gays, and neither should have any bearing on the civil institution.
But remember, the same freedom of religion that gives your church the right to not marry gays should and must give other churches the right to marry gays, and neither should have any bearing on the civil institution.
great quote...if church X, for religious reasons, doesn't want to marry gay couples, that is fine and should be protected...but if church Y, for religious reasons, wishes to marry gay couples, that should be fine and protected also....as for a civil ceremony, the fact that this is even argued against is sad...why wouldn't we want gay couples to have health insurance and "spousal" benefits?? to "punish" them for being gay?? to show them the benefits of being straight?? strange
great quote...if church X, for religious reasons, doesn't want to marry gay couples, that is fine and should be protected...but if church Y, for religious reasons, wishes to marry gay couples, that should be fine and protected also....as for a civil ceremony, the fact that this is even argued against is sad...why wouldn't we want gay couples to have health insurance and "spousal" benefits?? to "punish" them for being gay?? to show them the benefits of being straight?? strange
g
This sums up my point of view. Civil unions are for tax/financial status if you want to get down and dirty about it, but they are based on religious precedent. The separation of church and state is meant to be inclusive of religions, not exclusive of them. To me, American marriage laws are an umbrella under which all legit religious institutions can fit. So if there are legitimate religions and churches which allow same-sex marriages, then the laws for civil unions should at least be inclusive of that if not more. If American law only acknowledged certain lowest common denominators for marriage based on religious traditions, then even divorces would be a tough sell, not to mention equal rights to women and so forth. Does it mean that you're encouraged align your beliefs on marriage with the envelope of US law? I don't think so. Would US law therefore allow polygamy? Maybe. Would it be tolerant to pedophiles? No.
I believe that our secular marriage laws are based on our religious traditions, but that these laws are a superset of those traditions.
Since trumptman has brought up some interesting challenges, I'll address them:
* Why 18? Well, children go through a formative period. That period ends at some point which varies by the individual. Since that's not much help from the point of view of national policy, you have to pick an age that captures an inflection point. That's going to vary depending on the nature and organization of the society at any given time. 18 is currently the age when you're finished with mandatory education, and when a great number of other rights and privileges are bestowed upon you, so why not 18? Really, the only hard line for the standard Western definition of marriage is sexual maturity, and some cultures (including the US not all that long ago) allow marriage right there. Of course, in royal marriages, where the marriage functions primarily as a diplomatic pact between two nations, children have been married off considerably younger than that. Clearly, then, the suitable age for marriage depends partly on the organization of society, and partly on the definition and goals of the marriage. So it's arbitrary in the strictly logical sense that "it depends," but that only reflects the insufficiency of logic to describe human social organization and behavior (or, for that matter, much of anything).
* Women in the draft. Well, the difference there is that you don't end up spending months in a trench with other married couples trying to survive open conflict. The reason cited for keeping women out of the draft, and out of combat, have to do with disrupting morale and teamwork and various other issues. Whether or not those issues are valid (and the slippery thing about psychological issues like morale is that they are relevant if people think they are), they don't apply to marriage. As trumptman himself points out, one of the bulwarks of gay marriage is the protection of privacy, and that's obviously not something the military is preoccupied with.
I remember a couple more being offered, but I'll finish this post up and call it good. [/B]
Actually you show how entirely arbitrary these standards are with regard to proof and enforcement. You also show some gaps in your understanding on some of the things you mention. At least you say they are arbitrary though. Compulsary education ends at 16 in most states.
As for your arguments about the draft, what you say about women, foxholes, comraderie, morale, etc. is exactly what use to be said about blacks when they were kept in seperate troops and not allowed into many positions.
I don't see any of those variables being expressed now with regard to blacks. It is likely that would be true for women as well.
Comments
(yeah i know, stupid, silly, off-topic rant)
Originally posted by Eugene
What if she used to be a he!
Nothing wrong if the he used to be a she : sex exchanges
Originally posted by rageous
He only used it 4 times in all his posts.
460 times, actually. Probably 460 times without following it with a comma as well!
Originally posted by bunge
But what about adoption?
adoption is a different subject, however i will try to answer.
The administration should not discriminate homosexual living in union (in order to give the necessary stability) on the sole basis of their sexuals behavior. This is the first point
The second point is to consider the interest of the child.
Kids tend to be normative until they enter in puberty.Homosexuals can be better parents than many others heterosexual parents, but being homosexual is not a big + for the adopted child in a psychological (the different role model of both gender) and social (the acceptation of others)point of vue.
Should the administration discriminate on the sole basis of this point ? : the answer vary in US within differents states. However we should keep in mind that in the adoption process, the admin make discriminations based on differents factors : income, age, stability ...All this points are aslo debatable.
sorry to have derailed a thread, but i did not want to avoid to answer to Bunge's post. However furthers post about the adoptions subjects should be made in an another thread (there was an old one if my memory is correct).
Originally posted by Nordstrodamus
I'm confused, are there people here who are actually arguing that the actions of NAMBLA members is, in fact, Love?
Also, with respect to trumptman's argument about the need for rationality-
This is a truly fascinating position. Your arguing that since we make irrational judgements on some things we should be free to make them on others.
First, I don't accept that the restrictions on marriage that you cite are irrational. Age requirements are designed with the intent that participants in marriage are of sufficient psychological and biological maturity to enter into such a relationship. As with almost any law, there are those who stand outside the averages, but what is the effect of the law? We are balancing the potential harm of allowing the immature to marry against the inconvenience to the outliers who might have to wait a couple years. Seems rational to me.
With regards to polygamy, I believe there is sufficient evidence that such a dynamic is unequal to the parties involved in our current society. In the case of mormon polygamist holdouts it would appear that wives are often coerced into such marriages.
Finally, while love is quite subjective and contextual, it does manifest some behaviors which are largely applicable to the majority of the public. We have certainly defined a lot of behaviors as "non-loving" and apply them in divorce hearings when deciding which party has not satisfied the contract of marriage (i.e. not been a loving participant).
Actually I am arguing that we do make rational decisions in a number of areas and thus can make them with regard to homosexual marriage. Others are arguing that the reasoning against homosexual marriage isn't rational. I contend it is just as rational as the reasoning for prohibitions against age, multiple partners, etc.
However within the context of all of this is the Texas sodomy decision which ruled that the detriment to society cannot be assumed (as was the case in say... sodomy for example) it most be proven. The state must prove a compelling interest that outweighs the privacy right if they are going to pass a law against an action.
I don't agree with decision and think (as I have mentioned here a couple times) that they tossed out the baby with the bath water and could have simply ruled against it using the equal protection clause.
So now the argument has become (and if you look at the posts here, you will see them pressing it with varying degrees of effectiveness) "What is the compelling state interest to deny homosexual marriage?" It must be compelling enough to override the privacy right or else the state cannot deny it.
However what we assume are societal norms that could easily hold up to scrutiny are usually nothing more than the norms we were born into and operate within. There are societies that allow homosexual marriage. However there are also societies that allow 13 year olds to marry. 14 year olds to vote, and polygamy. The harm from many of these actions is just assumed. It was assumed when blacks and women were denied the vote for example. In fact if you go back and look up the literature and arguments from those times, they are profoundly consistant with what is said today in each instance.
The point is that the harm cannot be assumed, and even if some harm occurs, you cannot restrict an individual and their privacy right for possibilities. As I mentioned in many ways no-fault divorce is profoundly harmful to most parties involved when considered from an economic standpoint. Yet society has to prove a compelling interest to deny that divorce since the parties are unhappy.
Do I think it more likely that 16 year olds who marry would be less successful than say 26 year olds who marry? When sampled as an entire group, probably. However I cannot restrict someone's rights just because I believe it will lead them to a path of less than their full potential. Likewise consider 16 vs. 18 or even 20. I would bet that the percentages were quite close in all those age groups, yet we choose 18 and not say, 26 or even 20.
So please understand that while I draw my circle of tolerance about as wide as others, I do realize that I draw the line mostly from my comforts, discomforts and what I think society can work with in this area. However if many had to defend those circles in a court of law against a very strong privacy right and find a compelling state interest for actions not allowed outside of my circle (incent, polygamy, adult-child sexual relationships, etc.) the burden of proof is pretty hard to satisfy.
Nick
Originally posted by ShawnJ
460 times, actually. Probably 460 times without following it with a comma as well!
Come now Shawn, that is only once every 6-7 posts.
Besides at least toss in some otherwords from a thesaurus you would like me to use if you are going to criticize.
Nick
Originally posted by ShawnJ
460 times, actually. Probably 460 times without following it with a comma as well!
Actually I was only referring to this thread
Originally posted by Powerdoc
abortion is a different subject, however i will try to answer.
Adoption man! Adoption!
This is about pulling the wings off the institution of marriage and still calling it "marriage." This is about redefining terms and nothing else---a normal cycle when a predominant culture fades while another takes it place---or, much more likely, the rabid act of a mad dog before it's put down or dies of it's own disease. Much in the same way a person with the XY chromosome insists on calling himself "transgendered" there is little sense to be made of moral and logical vacuity of the atheist/humanist mind---except perhaps it's struggle for predominance in the cultural matters, including society's lexicon.
Marriage, the context of "one flesh" is a theologically based, God-given concept. This nonsense of homosexual marriage is simply a ploy to marginalize 6000 years of history, and it's never worked. There's nothing new here except the date in which this "argument" is being perpetrated.
I certainly think it does.
Originally posted by dmz
Same sex marriage is an oxymoron. You can contract with another individual to do almost anything, say power of attorney...., sole heir...., etc. This is not about people who love each other committing to each other. Anyone can do that at any time.
This is about pulling the wings off the institution of marriage and still calling it "marriage." This is about redefining terms and nothing else---a normal cycle when a predominant culture fades while another takes it place---or, much more likely, the rabid act of a mad dog before it's put down or dies of it's own disease. Much in the same way a person with the XY chromosome insists on calling himself "transgendered" there is little sense to be made of moral and logical vacuity of the atheist/humanist mind---except perhaps it's struggle for predominance in the cultural matters, including society's lexicon.
Marriage, the context of "one flesh" is a theologically based, God-given concept. This nonsense of homosexual marriage is simply a ploy to marginalize 6000 years of history, and it's never worked. There's nothing new here except the date in which this "argument" is being perpetrated.
Yikes.
Still, it seems you would then agree that seperation of church and state obliges the law to stay out of defining marriage, since it's a "theologically based, God given concept".
Originally posted by addabox
... Still, it seems you would then agree that seperation of church and state obliges the law to stay out of defining marriage, since it's a "theologically based, God given concept".
Perfectly stated and 100% correct.
The argument against polygamy was actually set by a Jewish council in Europe - I can't remember the date, but it was very early on. The old law was that a man could marry as many wives as he could support; the conclusion of the council interpreting that law was that, given that the Jews in Europe were no longer semi-nomadic shepherds and "nations," that number should be fixed at one. It stuck.
Their reasoning has held pretty well, simply because unless you're agrarian, you simply don't need to have all the free labor and insurance against pestilence and ill fortune that a large family provides (and that a prospering flock supports). As of fairly recently, children can't work, childbirth is safe and reliable, disease is relatively low, food plentiful and accidents few, so there is none of the urgency you find in old accounts about fertility. And given that the rights and freedoms of women have broadened considerably since Deuteronomic times, the number of wives a man can support is not an issue that needs to be reflected in law.
Given contraception, adoption, and the increasing number of people who want to marry without children, the old definition of family as a social unit responsible for rearing children is still relevant (which is why would-be heterosexual couples get tested for compatible blood types), but it's no longer entirely descriptive. Given that, it should not be proscriptive either. From the point of view of the role of family, an infertile heterosexual couple who wish to adopt, a heterosexual couple who do not want children, and a gay couple (whether or not they wish to adopt) all broaden the purpose of marriage.
As far as the state's involvement: It is certainly in the interests of the state to encourage the proper raising of children, since they'll be running the state in short order. It's also in the interests of the state to encourage its citizens to settle into stable relationships if they choose to, if only for epidemiological reasons. I don't see any harm in extending the state's definition of marriage to encompass this category, whether the beneficiaries are gay or straight.
Since trumptman has brought up some interesting challenges, I'll address them:
* Why 18? Well, children go through a formative period. That period ends at some point which varies by the individual. Since that's not much help from the point of view of national policy, you have to pick an age that captures an inflection point. That's going to vary depending on the nature and organization of the society at any given time. 18 is currently the age when you're finished with mandatory education, and when a great number of other rights and privileges are bestowed upon you, so why not 18? Really, the only hard line for the standard Western definition of marriage is sexual maturity, and some cultures (including the US not all that long ago) allow marriage right there. Of course, in royal marriages, where the marriage functions primarily as a diplomatic pact between two nations, children have been married off considerably younger than that. Clearly, then, the suitable age for marriage depends partly on the organization of society, and partly on the definition and goals of the marriage. So it's arbitrary in the strictly logical sense that "it depends," but that only reflects the insufficiency of logic to describe human social organization and behavior (or, for that matter, much of anything).
* Women in the draft. Well, the difference there is that you don't end up spending months in a trench with other married couples trying to survive open conflict.
I remember a couple more being offered, but I'll finish this post up and call it good.
Originally posted by rageous
Adoption man! Adoption!
Sorry : typo erros
Originally posted by dmz
Same sex marriage is an oxymoron. You can contract with another individual to do almost anything, say power of attorney...., sole heir...., etc. This is not about people who love each other committing to each other. Anyone can do that at any time.
This is about pulling the wings off the institution of marriage and still calling it "marriage." This is about redefining terms and nothing else---a normal cycle when a predominant culture fades while another takes it place---or, much more likely, the rabid act of a mad dog before it's put down or dies of it's own disease. Much in the same way a person with the XY chromosome insists on calling himself "transgendered" there is little sense to be made of moral and logical vacuity of the atheist/humanist mind---except perhaps it's struggle for predominance in the cultural matters, including society's lexicon.
Marriage, the context of "one flesh" is a theologically based, God-given concept. This nonsense of homosexual marriage is simply a ploy to marginalize 6000 years of history, and it's never worked. There's nothing new here except the date in which this "argument" is being perpetrated.
I concur. That pretty much sums it up.
And in any case, no one here is demanding gay access to religious marriage, just the civil institution, which has no real connection to whatever sacrament or ceremony your faith clings to. But remember, the same freedom of religion that gives your church the right to not marry gays should and must give other churches the right to marry gays, and neither should have any bearing on the civil institution.
Originally posted by Kirkland
But remember, the same freedom of religion that gives your church the right to not marry gays should and must give other churches the right to marry gays, and neither should have any bearing on the civil institution.
great quote...if church X, for religious reasons, doesn't want to marry gay couples, that is fine and should be protected...but if church Y, for religious reasons, wishes to marry gay couples, that should be fine and protected also....as for a civil ceremony, the fact that this is even argued against is sad...why wouldn't we want gay couples to have health insurance and "spousal" benefits?? to "punish" them for being gay?? to show them the benefits of being straight?? strange
g
Originally posted by thegelding
great quote...if church X, for religious reasons, doesn't want to marry gay couples, that is fine and should be protected...but if church Y, for religious reasons, wishes to marry gay couples, that should be fine and protected also....as for a civil ceremony, the fact that this is even argued against is sad...why wouldn't we want gay couples to have health insurance and "spousal" benefits?? to "punish" them for being gay?? to show them the benefits of being straight?? strange
g
This sums up my point of view. Civil unions are for tax/financial status if you want to get down and dirty about it, but they are based on religious precedent. The separation of church and state is meant to be inclusive of religions, not exclusive of them. To me, American marriage laws are an umbrella under which all legit religious institutions can fit. So if there are legitimate religions and churches which allow same-sex marriages, then the laws for civil unions should at least be inclusive of that if not more. If American law only acknowledged certain lowest common denominators for marriage based on religious traditions, then even divorces would be a tough sell, not to mention equal rights to women and so forth. Does it mean that you're encouraged align your beliefs on marriage with the envelope of US law? I don't think so. Would US law therefore allow polygamy? Maybe. Would it be tolerant to pedophiles? No.
I believe that our secular marriage laws are based on our religious traditions, but that these laws are a superset of those traditions.
Originally posted by Amorph
Since trumptman has brought up some interesting challenges, I'll address them:
* Why 18? Well, children go through a formative period. That period ends at some point which varies by the individual. Since that's not much help from the point of view of national policy, you have to pick an age that captures an inflection point. That's going to vary depending on the nature and organization of the society at any given time. 18 is currently the age when you're finished with mandatory education, and when a great number of other rights and privileges are bestowed upon you, so why not 18? Really, the only hard line for the standard Western definition of marriage is sexual maturity, and some cultures (including the US not all that long ago) allow marriage right there. Of course, in royal marriages, where the marriage functions primarily as a diplomatic pact between two nations, children have been married off considerably younger than that. Clearly, then, the suitable age for marriage depends partly on the organization of society, and partly on the definition and goals of the marriage. So it's arbitrary in the strictly logical sense that "it depends," but that only reflects the insufficiency of logic to describe human social organization and behavior (or, for that matter, much of anything).
* Women in the draft. Well, the difference there is that you don't end up spending months in a trench with other married couples trying to survive open conflict.
I remember a couple more being offered, but I'll finish this post up and call it good. [/B]
Actually you show how entirely arbitrary these standards are with regard to proof and enforcement. You also show some gaps in your understanding on some of the things you mention. At least you say they are arbitrary though. Compulsary education ends at 16 in most states.
As for your arguments about the draft, what you say about women, foxholes, comraderie, morale, etc. is exactly what use to be said about blacks when they were kept in seperate troops and not allowed into many positions.
I don't see any of those variables being expressed now with regard to blacks. It is likely that would be true for women as well.
Nick