You keep ignoring my central point. The issue is not "why is the gov't involved in marriages at all?" That's been covered - marriage is a contract and so when things go wrong it ends up in a civil court. But it also has nothing to do with legalizing gay-marriage. Legalizing gay marriage means issuing licenses - not acknowledging contracts. That would be a civil union or even just straight up contracts.
The REAL question is "why do governments issue marriage licenses?" This is more than just the gov't hearing cases about contract disputes in civil court (a passive role). This is the gov't handing out licenses for two people to get married (an active role). Why do they do that?
You are right IF gay parents can raise kids as well as straight parents. I'm not convined this is true. We know psychologically that kids need a mother and father to develop - and that they don't do as well if either is missing. I don't think it's 2 parents that are necessary - I think it's two parents one from each gender.
I'm willing to concede I don't have the science to back me up on that yet. But I think the burden of proof is on the gay-marriage advocates. Our social revolution of the 60s to advance things like sexual liberty have had a pretty bad effect on families thus far. If premarital sex is supposed to help people know their partners or sexual compatibility better before marriage then you'd think that the divorce rate would go down. It goes up. And numerous studies confirm this: premarital sex and/or cohabitation is bad for marriages.
Now I'm NOT saying that we should outlaw premarital sex. It's immoral in my most cases (and in my opinion) but it's also neither my business nor the gov't's business what consenting adults do to/with each other. But I am saying that the last thing we need is to further the "progressive" agenda by changing laws to further disenfranchise the traditional family.
Lastly - I think the argument you make is the strongest argument for legalizing gay-marriage, but it's not one that is used. Instead the "rights" rhetoric is employed. It may sound better, but it's logically bankrupt.
This doesn't change the fact that the US government doesn't issue contracts. They issue licenses. If there was no license the gov't could still be involved in the case of a dispute via the civil courts.
But what I'm discussing is not the contract aspect (although it is there) but the license. What business does the gov't have issuin the marriage licenses? That's the question that your talk of contracts fails to address.
Hahahahaha... no - I haven't. That's why I avoided states in the south though! I live in VA - so I know what it's like down here and even though there's no way 70-80% of these states are "the religious right" is sure can feel that way sometimes.
It means more in the sense that there are support groups, political action committees, newsletters, magazines. There are gay publications. When you go the universities they have special courses and even entire disciplines like "queer studies".
Once you've got a "---- studies" discipline I'd say it's fair to conclude it's become more than just a descriptive nomenclature (whatever the ---- may be).
So why does gov't get involved in the institution of marriage at all?
Because it is a contract between two people.
That doesn't make sense. A marriage license is not a contract. It's a license. Hence the clever substitution of the word "license" for the word "contract". That may have fooled you - it can be tricky.
To further illustrate: Before I bought my house I rented a house. I signed a contract with the landlord. The contract was between me and the landlord. It was not issued by the gov't. The gov't was in now way involved. The gov't probably didn't even know the contract existed. The only way the gov't would ever have been involved is if one of us broke the contract and we took it to civil court.
By contrast when I got married I didn't sign a contract with my wife. My fiancee and I went and applied - jointly - for a marriage license from the justice of the peace. The gov't WAS involved from step 1: it issued the license. It did not issue a contract.
Marriage licenses are not contracts - that's what pre-nups are. Prenuptials are, interestingly enough, NOT handed out by the gov't precisely because they ARE contracts.
To fall back on the business license analogy - where on the business license does it state that you agree to be a good CEO? It doesn't. Why should it? You don't get a business to be a bad CEO - why would you get married to be a bad parent? The roles of spouse and parent are both traditionally entailed in the concept of "marriage". Nowadays it's not uncommon to get married and then not have kids - but that's a very recent development. Historically marriage was starting a family and that's why they don't have it in the license.
Well then, my reasoning still holds. From about the Rennaissance on, to about the 1960's, the reason for a western government to recognise marriages was for the exchange of property...and fees.
This doesn't make any sense to me. Please try and explain it better. It is clear that marriage makes it a little simpler to transfer inheritences in some instances (usually next of kin is also pretty clear) but I fail to see why it would be in the gov't's best interest to promote marriage to make inheritance less of a headache. If anything - the gov't stands to gain by stepping in and divying up inheritances that can't be passed on.
Also, if people are so concerned about the "raising" of children...why not have the government ban single parenthood?
I have no idea why that gov't would do that. That's like saying "why doesn't the gov't ban poveryt?" Most people don't want to be single parents. It's hard and you don't need to add any incentive not to do it. On the other hand if the objective is to raise good kids than single parents could use all the help they can get. Since for me that it is the objective my conclusion is quite the opposite.
From the tone of your posts...I'm guessing that you don't think that is such a bad idea. You are ignorant and afraid, that is no reason to deny gays the right to marriage.
If you assume that the only people who can be opposed to gay-marriage are both ignorant and afraid then you're displaying your own prejudice - not revealing anyone else's.
I really like your approach to arguing why the gov't has a vested interest in promoting monogomy. I'm having trouble keeping up with all my responses, so I'll leave it at this for now:
I think this is possibly sufficient for the gov't to consider issuing civil unions, but I think there's something to be gained by continuing to distinguish marriage as unique. The benefits of raising kids in a family - in my opinion - far outweigh the benefits of extra incentive to be monogomous.
But I like the line of thinking and think it's telling that very few gay-marriage advocates use thinking like this at all. They're too busy asserting that marriage is a "right" - which I just don't think makes sense. Even if it is a right they're not trying to say gay people should be allowed to get married to. Gay people can get married - to people of the opposite sex. They're trying to redefine marriage and that's a seperate issue.
Lastly I understand the idea that people want marriage to be "real" and it just feels more real when you get a license. But I don't think that's sufficient reason for the gov't to hand them out. The gov't shouldn't be in the business of just making people feel good: it should restrict it's activities to what's necessary. But then, that's just my (politically) conservative politics shining through.
That's complete bullshit, but about what I'd expect from someone who's username is Stormin'Mormon.
I suppose any reasoned or well-thought out argument would have come before rather than after that line. If you posted as "storminAtheist", "storminJew" or "storminBaptist" etc I would listen to what you wrote - not what you were. Same if you want to be called "storminHomosexual". All that matters to me in a discussion is the arguments that you make and the evidence that you can bring to the table.
Really, it's not worth me responding to your points with logic, reason, and evidence of my own when you've already advertised that you don't care what I have to say. I'm here to discuss with people - not shout at them.
Being homosexual is just being homosexual. In a way you're proving my point. Because you can also say "being a vegatarian is just being a vegetarian". But can you say "being a strawberry-eater is just being a strawberry-eater" in the same way? First of all there's no term for liking strawberries. Secondly when you say "being a strawberry-eater" there's no addition connotation other than ingesting the fruit in question.
When you say "being a vegetarian" you immediately have a wealth of contextual evidence. What kind of vegetarian? Do you object to eating all meat - or just to humans eating meat? Do you think humans are designed to eat meat and can overcome it, or just are naturally vegetarians who've been corrupted from the original state of things?
You can deny all you want - but the fact is that in our modern society it means a lot more to be gay than just that you have sex with other guys/girls.
If being homosexual is now a political issue, it is clear that this has not occurred as a result of the actions of homosexuals, but rather as a result of the politicisation of private sexuality by others.
How is this clear at all? Are there no homosexual activists? This is your opinion, yes, but I don't see why you think it's obvious or clear at all.
In the case of the Sistine Chapel yes, the pope paid for it. But a lot of religious artwork has been paid for by private citizens. Take Leonardo's "Last Supper", all of the monks with the illuminated manuscripts who preserved literacy through the dark ages ("How the Irish Saved Civilization") and Handel. If you only oppose religious works funded by unjustly gained money you're going to end up opposing the minority of the art.
I keep saying this so I clearly should have stated it more clearly ealier on. I'm NOT explaining "why we have marriage". That's a HUGE issue. I'm explaining why a modern, western gov't legally recognizes marriages. And I'm not even explaining that from a historical standpoint. I don't believe that the issue was ever discussed - it was inherited from older forms of gov't.
I'm expressing the logical basis for the US gov't issuing marriage licenses. That's it!
And as for your final point "gays are just as capable as anyone to raise a family": If being gay is perfectly healthy than you still have to prove that an child doesn't suffer from the lack of a female (or male) presence in their development. I don't believe that has been proven yet and I'm inclined to think that since we know they suffer from the lack of a father or mother in a single-parent relatioship this deficiency can't be made up with an addition of another father or another mother. I'm not saying I can prove this or that you have to believe it and I'm not an expert. But that's what makes sense to me. If you've got scientific evidence to the contrary I'd be happy to hear it.
since even in the past people didn't ONLY get married to have children
This is just flawed logic. I'm saying the only reason FOR THE GOVERNMENT to get involved in marriage is to promote healthy raising of children. That is just one reason among many FOR THE COUPLE to get married - but the couple doesn't issue themselves a license so how is that relevant to our discussion?
You think it's all about kids, but marriage is about property, life/death decisions, health insurance, etc. When you die and you have no will who gets your stuff?
Now you're inventing problems. A lot of people DO die and are not married. Do you think our entire system grinds to a halt because we don't know who gets the stuff? It's called "next-of-kin" and marriage is actually just a way to feed in to that older concept. The same argument applies for pretty much all of your examples. Next of kin ALWAYS decides these issues. You can make your spouse next of kin (by marrying them) or you can make a will - in either case you have to take action to override the standard next of kin laws.
As for the bigotry comment I think if you read my posts so far you can see that I'm engaged in a series of interesting conversations with people about this issue. Some of them agree with you, some of them aggree with me, some of them don't agree with either of us. So far no one has had to resort to name-calling.
bigotry - The attitude, state of mind, or behavior characteristic of a bigot; intolerance.
bigot - One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.
[from dictionary.com]
How have my writings been in any way intolerant? I'm perfectly tolerant of your ideas and your opinions. I'm tolerant of gays. I just don't necessarily agree with their definition of marriage or their politics. I can do this without being a bigot. The comment about marrying a dolphin was part-jest, part serious. If marriage is just about commitment, why do you think it must be restricted to just two people (of any gender?) Why not more than 2? Why not a person and a non-person? Are you saying dolphins can't be committed?
Let's just leave aside the flaming and politicking and discuss the issues please.
I couldn't agree more with your post. I ended up arguing this exact same issue that last time the Blizzard story got posted and ran into some serious flaming for taking the position you're outlining here.
Again (I'm repeating myself in multiple threads) - marriage is an incentive to the general population to get married. It doesn't make sense to put a filter on it. Banning gay marriage is NOT a filter because you're not changing who's admitted (gay people can marry just like anyone else) you're changing where they go.
As far as the benefits, what about them? In the first place I think it's laughable to worry about hospital visitation. That's just such a bogeyman. No one is really going to be denied access to their gf/bf or whatever without a marriage license. What - do you think married couples carry around a copy of the license to get into the hospital?
As for the end-of-life and such - I'm not against civil unions.
Agreed. It's a general tool for general use. Not just for the kids, but for the social declaration that a couple is bonded in a more "serious way", and the tax/estate/power-of-attorney benefits
The social declaration bit has no ramifications for the gov't that I can think of. If you want to be committed to someone - why do you need a piece of paper?
As far as the benefits - those are there because of the kids. If you recognize marriage but don't provide incentive then what's the point? The incentive is to promote marriage. If you give the incentive to everyone then it's no longer an incentive is it?
What I'd like to know from you is how many gays really want to raise children? Not what percent of those that want to get married, but what percent of those thare are gay. I want to know that and I want to know for sure that raising kids in a gay family is as healthy as raising them in a traditional family. If a significant number of gays want to have kids and if the gay family is as good as the straight family that you've pretty much toppled my argument. But I think that most gays are not really interested in child-raising and more importantly I think a mommy and a daddy is better for child-rearing than two of either.
Finally - if you're open to gay marriage are you similarly open to communal marriages of all sorts? I don't see any logic to allow boy-boy or girl-girl union and then say "no" to girl-girl-boy or boy-boy-girl or any other permutation you can think of.
1. For the example of the woman-over-65 and others your logic is flawed. Marriage has to seem attractive to those not yet married in order to be an incentive. That's just the definition of the word. If you are considering getting married and you find out that if you don't actually have kids the marriage is annulled, or that if you don't manage to have them fast enough, or at the right time, etc. that it gets annulled then you've significantly impaired the ability of marriage to act as an incentive even though the people actually feeling the results of such a law would not be the married ones with kids. The point is not to reward child-rearing - it's to ben an incentive for it. This in no way logically necessitate punishing those who don't rear children (their own or adopted).
2. I don't think you can say that marriage was always around with the chief purpose of "raising better children." First off - nobility represents a miniscule fraction of the child-rearing that was going on. Secondly for the peasents marriage was about raising children. Perhaps not 100%, but the fact is that by instituting this division of labor between women rearing the children primarily and men laboring in the field or whatever primarily child-rearing was possible. It's basic economics - you get more overall if you specialize. This doesn't mean that the peasents had PhDs in economics - it means that they sensed the same economic pressures that, in different ways, have made marriage a near-universal establishment throughout human history.
As far as your final points I've NEVER said that marriage is just for raising kids. The ONLY thing I'm saying is that it's that aspect of marriage that causes the gov't to have a vested interest in marriage. For all I care - marriage is 90% about having sex and 10% about making babies. But the gov't has no business offering people a license to have sex, so from the gov't point-of-view marriage is about making babies.
Finally, you can easily agree with all of this and then say "gays would make excellent parents, we SHOULD make marriage legal to them for the same reasons (since they can adopt)". I'm aware of that - and if you honestly believe it I frankly have very little available evidence to argue with you. Interstingly enough, however, gay-marriage is usually set forth as a "right" or being about love or commitment. This seems ridiculous and THAT is my primary target.
Now to be honest I don't believe that gay-marriage should be legalized. I believe that the nuclear family should be given priority because I believe the traditional, nuclear family is the most healthy environment for raising children. I don't have the sociological or psychological evidence handy to prove my point, however.
In a sense, however, I don't have to. If marriage isn't a right than the burden of proof rests on those that want to change the law (with standard definition) - not on those that want to maintain it.
the art and science done by religious men was done on the backs of peasant laborers who had no choice but to tithe their hard work to the church under threat of violence
What are you smoking? This would fit building a cathedral - yes. But that's not what I had in mind. I had the painting on the ceiling of the Cistine Chapel in mind. I had Handel's Msesiah in mind. I had illuminated manuscripts laboriously hand-copied for generations by monks (voluntarily!).
I would argue the opposite. Most of the injustices done in the name of religion had nothing to do with religious belief or conviction. Religion was a powerful institution so it made sense to hijack it to get rich, powerful, etc. By contrast Handel's Messiah is nothing without the Messiah. I'm not saying you can't make great art without religion. But I am saying that a large chunk of our great art is inseperable from the religious sentiment with which it was made.
What I consider to be the essential criteria of religion: it's morality, it's consideration of mortality, it's philosophical insights are far more angel than demon. I understand that in the name of God much that is demonic has been done - but that doesn't reflect on religion, in my opinion, so much as it reflects upon human nature. If you were going to do great deeds - for good or ill - in the days before powerful nations were distinct from their gods you could not do it without invoking the vocabulary of religion. That doesn't make the deeds themselves - good or bad - necessarily religious.
I'm explaining the reason why marriage is endorsed by the gov't. This necessarily means I'm talking about history. Thus, present attitudes about marriage aren't entirely germane. Did the US decided in 1995 to start recognizing marriages? No. It's been going on for centuries.
So the question is a couple hundred years ago did women worry about marriage before they had kids? I think the answer is a definitive "yes".
The concept of marriage is changing, however. As you put it: "Marriage is about commitment between two people, and that's all it's about." Let's just say that's true. If that is the case, then why on earth would the local, state, or federal gov't be involved? Answer that for me! What business does the gov't have in who I'm committed to?
That's the problem. You're redefining marriage in such a way that there's no reason whatsoever for the gov't to give anyone marriage licenses and then saying "give them to everyone!". I'm of the opinion that either we keep the traditional conception of marriage (which from a legal standpoint has nothing to do with any diety) or we just separate marriage from the gov't entirely. It makes no sense whatsoever to give two people (why not 3? or 4? why not a person and a dolphin?) a scrap of paper and/or tax benefits so that they can be committed to one another.
Of course it does. What's the point of just recognizing a marriage if you're not going to do anything about it?
The gov't gives licenses to promote families (because families are good for society in aggregate). But a paper license isn't going to promote family. It has to come with tangible benefits. You've listed some of them. Those benefits aren't because they're in love, want to spend their lives with each other, etc. - they're because the gov't wants to make being married palpable to more people to induce people in general to get married.
No one couple is going to be like "hey - do you want to start a family? I don't know - what are the tax ramifications?" But if you do have a couple that wants to start a family and they take a tax hit for getting married, you might dissuade them. If they have a tax benefit - they may get married earlier.
Now the question has to be - are gay marriages similarly helpful for society? Once we move the question away from "rights" (there's no such thing as a "right to marriage") and from love (which has nothing to do with licenses) we can start to actually argue the relevant ponts about gay marriage. It comes down to this: should the federal gov't be in the business of endorsing gays to enter financial unions.
I'd say the incentive is far less than with heteros. The gays aren't going to go around knocking each other up - the hetero's might. But should we deny gays the tax advantages? I don't think so. That's what civil unions are for.
Take a question of preference and of action. Say the question is "do you like strawberries?" You might like them, I might not (ok - who doens't like strawberries? but it's an analogy). So you like strawberries and you eat them. Do we have a name for that in our society? No - we just say that you eat strawberries and you like them. A movement? Not that I know of. An agenda for strawberry-eaters? Well, I guess to eat strawberries.
No consider a similar question of preference and of action. Do you like meat? Do you eat meat? In this case we DO have a name: we have vegans and vegetarians for people who don't eat meat (or animal products, depending on how hard core you are). If you happen to not eat meat one day - are you a vegetarian? If you're a vegan and you don't realize there's animal products in jello and eat it - do you stop being a vegan?
See what I mean? In this case we have a cultural identity that is based on an action or preference but then takes on a life of it's own. What I'm saying is that historically being gay was kind of like eating strawberries. It didn't mean anything other than what it meant. Now being gay is like being a vegetarian - it's not about what you do (or want to do) anymore - it's about who you are.
I hate to interrupt your characiturization of religion - but it was the religion that kept developed literacy, most forms of art, and even science (although they regretted that at the time).
Religion, like most things human, is neither monster nor angel.
1. You are right about the statistics. That was careless of me. I stand by my original opinion but I realize my evidence for it has been significantly reduced.
2. While this has some merit, marriage is not only about procreation.
Substituing "raising children" for "procreation" I disagree. Give me one good reason why the gov't should issue a license for two people who want to spend their lives together. If you take raising children out of the question - why have marriage as a contract at all? It's a nice thing, could still have social and religious significance - but why bring in a contract?
The only reason for the contract is because marriage in general is seen as the acceptance of the two who are married to create a new family. That's the reason for the license - but it doesn't mean that you have to have kids to get a license.
The reason for this is simple. The kind of personal invasion that would be necessary to actually make sure marrieds have or raise kids is utterly anethma to our system of gov't. The marriage license is a general tool for general use.
It's like business licenses. You get a license because you're going to enter the world of free-trade, offer a product or service to others, and hopefully make some money and even maybe hire some people. That's the point of the license. But no one is goign to force someone who gets a business license to actually offer products or services. No one is going to keep you from giving them away for free. Sure - if you're not using the name you registered under your license you may lose it. But the point is that the gov't has adequate cause to give licenses to peopel who want to start businesses for that purpose - it has no reason to chase down every single business licensee and make sure they really are using their license.
1. The club is untouched. 2. The club can advertise off-line.
The only thing they've stopped is in-game politicizing. What's wrong with that? If I try to preach my religion online and they shut me down - I'm OK with that (not that I would try to preach on WoW - EQ is where the field is ready to harvest)
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See other threads. I've responded to these points.
You keep ignoring my central point. The issue is not "why is the gov't involved in marriages at all?" That's been covered - marriage is a contract and so when things go wrong it ends up in a civil court. But it also has nothing to do with legalizing gay-marriage. Legalizing gay marriage means issuing licenses - not acknowledging contracts. That would be a civil union or even just straight up contracts.
The REAL question is "why do governments issue marriage licenses?" This is more than just the gov't hearing cases about contract disputes in civil court (a passive role). This is the gov't handing out licenses for two people to get married (an active role). Why do they do that?
-stormin
You are right IF gay parents can raise kids as well as straight parents. I'm not convined this is true. We know psychologically that kids need a mother and father to develop - and that they don't do as well if either is missing. I don't think it's 2 parents that are necessary - I think it's two parents one from each gender.
I'm willing to concede I don't have the science to back me up on that yet. But I think the burden of proof is on the gay-marriage advocates. Our social revolution of the 60s to advance things like sexual liberty have had a pretty bad effect on families thus far. If premarital sex is supposed to help people know their partners or sexual compatibility better before marriage then you'd think that the divorce rate would go down. It goes up. And numerous studies confirm this: premarital sex and/or cohabitation is bad for marriages.
Now I'm NOT saying that we should outlaw premarital sex. It's immoral in my most cases (and in my opinion) but it's also neither my business nor the gov't's business what consenting adults do to/with each other. But I am saying that the last thing we need is to further the "progressive" agenda by changing laws to further disenfranchise the traditional family.
Lastly - I think the argument you make is the strongest argument for legalizing gay-marriage, but it's not one that is used. Instead the "rights" rhetoric is employed. It may sound better, but it's logically bankrupt.
-stormin
This doesn't change the fact that the US government doesn't issue contracts. They issue licenses. If there was no license the gov't could still be involved in the case of a dispute via the civil courts.
But what I'm discussing is not the contract aspect (although it is there) but the license. What business does the gov't have issuin the marriage licenses? That's the question that your talk of contracts fails to address.
-stormin
Hahahahaha... no - I haven't. That's why I avoided states in the south though! I live in VA - so I know what it's like down here and even though there's no way 70-80% of these states are "the religious right" is sure can feel that way sometimes.
-stormin
It means more in the sense that there are support groups, political action committees, newsletters, magazines. There are gay publications. When you go the universities they have special courses and even entire disciplines like "queer studies".
Once you've got a "---- studies" discipline I'd say it's fair to conclude it's become more than just a descriptive nomenclature (whatever the ---- may be).
-stormin
Demonstrably give up on that example, please.
I thought I already had.
So why does gov't get involved in the institution of marriage at all?
Because it is a contract between two people.
That doesn't make sense. A marriage license is not a contract. It's a license. Hence the clever substitution of the word "license" for the word "contract". That may have fooled you - it can be tricky.
To further illustrate: Before I bought my house I rented a house. I signed a contract with the landlord. The contract was between me and the landlord. It was not issued by the gov't. The gov't was in now way involved. The gov't probably didn't even know the contract existed. The only way the gov't would ever have been involved is if one of us broke the contract and we took it to civil court.
By contrast when I got married I didn't sign a contract with my wife. My fiancee and I went and applied - jointly - for a marriage license from the justice of the peace. The gov't WAS involved from step 1: it issued the license. It did not issue a contract.
Marriage licenses are not contracts - that's what pre-nups are. Prenuptials are, interestingly enough, NOT handed out by the gov't precisely because they ARE contracts.
Clear?
-stormin
To fall back on the business license analogy - where on the business license does it state that you agree to be a good CEO? It doesn't. Why should it? You don't get a business to be a bad CEO - why would you get married to be a bad parent? The roles of spouse and parent are both traditionally entailed in the concept of "marriage". Nowadays it's not uncommon to get married and then not have kids - but that's a very recent development. Historically marriage was starting a family and that's why they don't have it in the license.
Well then, my reasoning still holds. From about the Rennaissance on, to about the 1960's, the reason for a western government to recognise marriages was for the exchange of property...and fees.
This doesn't make any sense to me. Please try and explain it better. It is clear that marriage makes it a little simpler to transfer inheritences in some instances (usually next of kin is also pretty clear) but I fail to see why it would be in the gov't's best interest to promote marriage to make inheritance less of a headache. If anything - the gov't stands to gain by stepping in and divying up inheritances that can't be passed on.
Also, if people are so concerned about the "raising" of children...why not have the government ban single parenthood?
I have no idea why that gov't would do that. That's like saying "why doesn't the gov't ban poveryt?" Most people don't want to be single parents. It's hard and you don't need to add any incentive not to do it. On the other hand if the objective is to raise good kids than single parents could use all the help they can get. Since for me that it is the objective my conclusion is quite the opposite.
From the tone of your posts...I'm guessing that you don't think that is such a bad idea. You are ignorant and afraid, that is no reason to deny gays the right to marriage.
If you assume that the only people who can be opposed to gay-marriage are both ignorant and afraid then you're displaying your own prejudice - not revealing anyone else's.
-stormin
I really like your approach to arguing why the gov't has a vested interest in promoting monogomy. I'm having trouble keeping up with all my responses, so I'll leave it at this for now:
I think this is possibly sufficient for the gov't to consider issuing civil unions, but I think there's something to be gained by continuing to distinguish marriage as unique. The benefits of raising kids in a family - in my opinion - far outweigh the benefits of extra incentive to be monogomous.
But I like the line of thinking and think it's telling that very few gay-marriage advocates use thinking like this at all. They're too busy asserting that marriage is a "right" - which I just don't think makes sense. Even if it is a right they're not trying to say gay people should be allowed to get married to. Gay people can get married - to people of the opposite sex. They're trying to redefine marriage and that's a seperate issue.
Lastly I understand the idea that people want marriage to be "real" and it just feels more real when you get a license. But I don't think that's sufficient reason for the gov't to hand them out. The gov't shouldn't be in the business of just making people feel good: it should restrict it's activities to what's necessary. But then, that's just my (politically) conservative politics shining through.
-stormin
For full disclosure, yeah - I'm married.
That's complete bullshit, but about what I'd expect from someone who's username is Stormin'Mormon.
I suppose any reasoned or well-thought out argument would have come before rather than after that line. If you posted as "storminAtheist", "storminJew" or "storminBaptist" etc I would listen to what you wrote - not what you were. Same if you want to be called "storminHomosexual". All that matters to me in a discussion is the arguments that you make and the evidence that you can bring to the table.
Really, it's not worth me responding to your points with logic, reason, and evidence of my own when you've already advertised that you don't care what I have to say. I'm here to discuss with people - not shout at them.
You know my nickname, and that's enough for you.
-stormin
Being homosexual is just being homosexual. In a way you're proving my point. Because you can also say "being a vegatarian is just being a vegetarian". But can you say "being a strawberry-eater is just being a strawberry-eater" in the same way? First of all there's no term for liking strawberries. Secondly when you say "being a strawberry-eater" there's no addition connotation other than ingesting the fruit in question.
When you say "being a vegetarian" you immediately have a wealth of contextual evidence. What kind of vegetarian? Do you object to eating all meat - or just to humans eating meat? Do you think humans are designed to eat meat and can overcome it, or just are naturally vegetarians who've been corrupted from the original state of things?
You can deny all you want - but the fact is that in our modern society it means a lot more to be gay than just that you have sex with other guys/girls.
If being homosexual is now a political issue, it is clear that this has not occurred as a result of the actions of homosexuals, but rather as a result of the politicisation of private sexuality by others.
How is this clear at all? Are there no homosexual activists? This is your opinion, yes, but I don't see why you think it's obvious or clear at all.
-stormin
In the case of the Sistine Chapel yes, the pope paid for it. But a lot of religious artwork has been paid for by private citizens. Take Leonardo's "Last Supper", all of the monks with the illuminated manuscripts who preserved literacy through the dark ages ("How the Irish Saved Civilization") and Handel. If you only oppose religious works funded by unjustly gained money you're going to end up opposing the minority of the art.
-stormin
I keep saying this so I clearly should have stated it more clearly ealier on. I'm NOT explaining "why we have marriage". That's a HUGE issue. I'm explaining why a modern, western gov't legally recognizes marriages. And I'm not even explaining that from a historical standpoint. I don't believe that the issue was ever discussed - it was inherited from older forms of gov't.
I'm expressing the logical basis for the US gov't issuing marriage licenses. That's it!
And as for your final point "gays are just as capable as anyone to raise a family": If being gay is perfectly healthy than you still have to prove that an child doesn't suffer from the lack of a female (or male) presence in their development. I don't believe that has been proven yet and I'm inclined to think that since we know they suffer from the lack of a father or mother in a single-parent relatioship this deficiency can't be made up with an addition of another father or another mother. I'm not saying I can prove this or that you have to believe it and I'm not an expert. But that's what makes sense to me. If you've got scientific evidence to the contrary I'd be happy to hear it.
-stormin
since even in the past people didn't ONLY get married to have children
This is just flawed logic. I'm saying the only reason FOR THE GOVERNMENT to get involved in marriage is to promote healthy raising of children. That is just one reason among many FOR THE COUPLE to get married - but the couple doesn't issue themselves a license so how is that relevant to our discussion?
You think it's all about kids, but marriage is about property, life/death decisions, health insurance, etc. When you die and you have no will who gets your stuff?
Now you're inventing problems. A lot of people DO die and are not married. Do you think our entire system grinds to a halt because we don't know who gets the stuff? It's called "next-of-kin" and marriage is actually just a way to feed in to that older concept. The same argument applies for pretty much all of your examples. Next of kin ALWAYS decides these issues. You can make your spouse next of kin (by marrying them) or you can make a will - in either case you have to take action to override the standard next of kin laws.
As for the bigotry comment I think if you read my posts so far you can see that I'm engaged in a series of interesting conversations with people about this issue. Some of them agree with you, some of them aggree with me, some of them don't agree with either of us. So far no one has had to resort to name-calling.
bigotry - The attitude, state of mind, or behavior characteristic of a bigot; intolerance.
bigot - One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.
[from dictionary.com]
How have my writings been in any way intolerant? I'm perfectly tolerant of your ideas and your opinions. I'm tolerant of gays. I just don't necessarily agree with their definition of marriage or their politics. I can do this without being a bigot. The comment about marrying a dolphin was part-jest, part serious. If marriage is just about commitment, why do you think it must be restricted to just two people (of any gender?) Why not more than 2? Why not a person and a non-person? Are you saying dolphins can't be committed?
Let's just leave aside the flaming and politicking and discuss the issues please.
-stormin
I couldn't agree more with your post. I ended up arguing this exact same issue that last time the Blizzard story got posted and ran into some serious flaming for taking the position you're outlining here.
-stormin
Again (I'm repeating myself in multiple threads) - marriage is an incentive to the general population to get married. It doesn't make sense to put a filter on it. Banning gay marriage is NOT a filter because you're not changing who's admitted (gay people can marry just like anyone else) you're changing where they go.
As far as the benefits, what about them? In the first place I think it's laughable to worry about hospital visitation. That's just such a bogeyman. No one is really going to be denied access to their gf/bf or whatever without a marriage license. What - do you think married couples carry around a copy of the license to get into the hospital?
As for the end-of-life and such - I'm not against civil unions.
-stormin
Agreed. It's a general tool for general use. Not just for the kids, but for the social declaration that a couple is bonded in a more "serious way", and the tax/estate/power-of-attorney benefits
The social declaration bit has no ramifications for the gov't that I can think of. If you want to be committed to someone - why do you need a piece of paper?
As far as the benefits - those are there because of the kids. If you recognize marriage but don't provide incentive then what's the point? The incentive is to promote marriage. If you give the incentive to everyone then it's no longer an incentive is it?
What I'd like to know from you is how many gays really want to raise children? Not what percent of those that want to get married, but what percent of those thare are gay. I want to know that and I want to know for sure that raising kids in a gay family is as healthy as raising them in a traditional family. If a significant number of gays want to have kids and if the gay family is as good as the straight family that you've pretty much toppled my argument. But I think that most gays are not really interested in child-raising and more importantly I think a mommy and a daddy is better for child-rearing than two of either.
Finally - if you're open to gay marriage are you similarly open to communal marriages of all sorts? I don't see any logic to allow boy-boy or girl-girl union and then say "no" to girl-girl-boy or boy-boy-girl or any other permutation you can think of.
-stormin
1. For the example of the woman-over-65 and others your logic is flawed. Marriage has to seem attractive to those not yet married in order to be an incentive. That's just the definition of the word. If you are considering getting married and you find out that if you don't actually have kids the marriage is annulled, or that if you don't manage to have them fast enough, or at the right time, etc. that it gets annulled then you've significantly impaired the ability of marriage to act as an incentive even though the people actually feeling the results of such a law would not be the married ones with kids. The point is not to reward child-rearing - it's to ben an incentive for it. This in no way logically necessitate punishing those who don't rear children (their own or adopted).
2. I don't think you can say that marriage was always around with the chief purpose of "raising better children." First off - nobility represents a miniscule fraction of the child-rearing that was going on. Secondly for the peasents marriage was about raising children. Perhaps not 100%, but the fact is that by instituting this division of labor between women rearing the children primarily and men laboring in the field or whatever primarily child-rearing was possible. It's basic economics - you get more overall if you specialize. This doesn't mean that the peasents had PhDs in economics - it means that they sensed the same economic pressures that, in different ways, have made marriage a near-universal establishment throughout human history.
As far as your final points I've NEVER said that marriage is just for raising kids. The ONLY thing I'm saying is that it's that aspect of marriage that causes the gov't to have a vested interest in marriage. For all I care - marriage is 90% about having sex and 10% about making babies. But the gov't has no business offering people a license to have sex, so from the gov't point-of-view marriage is about making babies.
Finally, you can easily agree with all of this and then say "gays would make excellent parents, we SHOULD make marriage legal to them for the same reasons (since they can adopt)". I'm aware of that - and if you honestly believe it I frankly have very little available evidence to argue with you. Interstingly enough, however, gay-marriage is usually set forth as a "right" or being about love or commitment. This seems ridiculous and THAT is my primary target.
Now to be honest I don't believe that gay-marriage should be legalized. I believe that the nuclear family should be given priority because I believe the traditional, nuclear family is the most healthy environment for raising children. I don't have the sociological or psychological evidence handy to prove my point, however.
In a sense, however, I don't have to. If marriage isn't a right than the burden of proof rests on those that want to change the law (with standard definition) - not on those that want to maintain it.
-stormin
the art and science done by religious men was done on the backs of peasant laborers who had no choice but to tithe their hard work to the church under threat of violence
What are you smoking? This would fit building a cathedral - yes. But that's not what I had in mind. I had the painting on the ceiling of the Cistine Chapel in mind. I had Handel's Msesiah in mind. I had illuminated manuscripts laboriously hand-copied for generations by monks (voluntarily!).
I would argue the opposite. Most of the injustices done in the name of religion had nothing to do with religious belief or conviction. Religion was a powerful institution so it made sense to hijack it to get rich, powerful, etc. By contrast Handel's Messiah is nothing without the Messiah. I'm not saying you can't make great art without religion. But I am saying that a large chunk of our great art is inseperable from the religious sentiment with which it was made.
What I consider to be the essential criteria of religion: it's morality, it's consideration of mortality, it's philosophical insights are far more angel than demon. I understand that in the name of God much that is demonic has been done - but that doesn't reflect on religion, in my opinion, so much as it reflects upon human nature. If you were going to do great deeds - for good or ill - in the days before powerful nations were distinct from their gods you could not do it without invoking the vocabulary of religion. That doesn't make the deeds themselves - good or bad - necessarily religious.
-stormin
I'm explaining the reason why marriage is endorsed by the gov't. This necessarily means I'm talking about history. Thus, present attitudes about marriage aren't entirely germane. Did the US decided in 1995 to start recognizing marriages? No. It's been going on for centuries.
So the question is a couple hundred years ago did women worry about marriage before they had kids? I think the answer is a definitive "yes".
The concept of marriage is changing, however. As you put it: "Marriage is about commitment between two people, and that's all it's about." Let's just say that's true. If that is the case, then why on earth would the local, state, or federal gov't be involved? Answer that for me! What business does the gov't have in who I'm committed to?
That's the problem. You're redefining marriage in such a way that there's no reason whatsoever for the gov't to give anyone marriage licenses and then saying "give them to everyone!". I'm of the opinion that either we keep the traditional conception of marriage (which from a legal standpoint has nothing to do with any diety) or we just separate marriage from the gov't entirely. It makes no sense whatsoever to give two people (why not 3? or 4? why not a person and a dolphin?) a scrap of paper and/or tax benefits so that they can be committed to one another.
-stormin
Of course it does. What's the point of just recognizing a marriage if you're not going to do anything about it?
The gov't gives licenses to promote families (because families are good for society in aggregate). But a paper license isn't going to promote family. It has to come with tangible benefits. You've listed some of them. Those benefits aren't because they're in love, want to spend their lives with each other, etc. - they're because the gov't wants to make being married palpable to more people to induce people in general to get married.
No one couple is going to be like "hey - do you want to start a family? I don't know - what are the tax ramifications?" But if you do have a couple that wants to start a family and they take a tax hit for getting married, you might dissuade them. If they have a tax benefit - they may get married earlier.
Now the question has to be - are gay marriages similarly helpful for society? Once we move the question away from "rights" (there's no such thing as a "right to marriage") and from love (which has nothing to do with licenses) we can start to actually argue the relevant ponts about gay marriage. It comes down to this: should the federal gov't be in the business of endorsing gays to enter financial unions.
I'd say the incentive is far less than with heteros. The gays aren't going to go around knocking each other up - the hetero's might. But should we deny gays the tax advantages? I don't think so. That's what civil unions are for.
-stormin
Let me put it to you this way.
Take a question of preference and of action. Say the question is "do you like strawberries?" You might like them, I might not (ok - who doens't like strawberries? but it's an analogy). So you like strawberries and you eat them. Do we have a name for that in our society? No - we just say that you eat strawberries and you like them. A movement? Not that I know of. An agenda for strawberry-eaters? Well, I guess to eat strawberries.
No consider a similar question of preference and of action. Do you like meat? Do you eat meat? In this case we DO have a name: we have vegans and vegetarians for people who don't eat meat (or animal products, depending on how hard core you are). If you happen to not eat meat one day - are you a vegetarian? If you're a vegan and you don't realize there's animal products in jello and eat it - do you stop being a vegan?
See what I mean? In this case we have a cultural identity that is based on an action or preference but then takes on a life of it's own. What I'm saying is that historically being gay was kind of like eating strawberries. It didn't mean anything other than what it meant. Now being gay is like being a vegetarian - it's not about what you do (or want to do) anymore - it's about who you are.
-stormin
I hate to interrupt your characiturization of religion - but it was the religion that kept developed literacy, most forms of art, and even science (although they regretted that at the time).
Religion, like most things human, is neither monster nor angel.
-stormin
1. You are right about the statistics. That was careless of me. I stand by my original opinion but I realize my evidence for it has been significantly reduced.
2. While this has some merit, marriage is not only about procreation.
Substituing "raising children" for "procreation" I disagree. Give me one good reason why the gov't should issue a license for two people who want to spend their lives together. If you take raising children out of the question - why have marriage as a contract at all? It's a nice thing, could still have social and religious significance - but why bring in a contract?
The only reason for the contract is because marriage in general is seen as the acceptance of the two who are married to create a new family. That's the reason for the license - but it doesn't mean that you have to have kids to get a license.
The reason for this is simple. The kind of personal invasion that would be necessary to actually make sure marrieds have or raise kids is utterly anethma to our system of gov't. The marriage license is a general tool for general use.
It's like business licenses. You get a license because you're going to enter the world of free-trade, offer a product or service to others, and hopefully make some money and even maybe hire some people. That's the point of the license. But no one is goign to force someone who gets a business license to actually offer products or services. No one is going to keep you from giving them away for free. Sure - if you're not using the name you registered under your license you may lose it. But the point is that the gov't has adequate cause to give licenses to peopel who want to start businesses for that purpose - it has no reason to chase down every single business licensee and make sure they really are using their license.
-stormin
It hasn't been shut down.
1. The club is untouched.
2. The club can advertise off-line.
The only thing they've stopped is in-game politicizing. What's wrong with that? If I try to preach my religion online and they shut me down - I'm OK with that (not that I would try to preach on WoW - EQ is where the field is ready to harvest)
-stormin