Same Sex Marriage Debate
 

Lion IRC and I have agreed to debate the following proposition: "Same sex marriage should be legal in all jurisdictions with the inherent benefits regarding same extended in full." Terms were discussed in the debate proposal thread. We agreed i would go first, taking the affirmative position.

Same Sex Marriage IS now legal in approximately 13 of the 50 United States of America and the District of Columbia. Legal challenges to its prohibition are presently pending in all other states except two, which will likely be filed as soon as plaintiffs are ready to file there. It is also legal in several European and South American countries, Canada, South Africa, and several Mexican states.

These changes represent a changing consensus on the topic. As recently as twenty years ago these developments were unexpected. There has been a marked increase in the understanding of LGBT relationships. Also, by and large, these changes reflect an acceptance and understanding that these changes confer a changed legal status in existing relationships. In short what has occurred and is occurring is a belated recogntion of that which already existed. One reason for the change is of course and increased "coming out" to use the vernacular, of minority sexual orientations both to those who are in such relationships and those who know them. Research has clearly shown people change opinions on this matter in large part due to their acquaintance and ongoing family relationships and friendships with LGBT couples, whereas previously little was known or understood regarding such couplings. When people were "closeted" to use another term regading the hidden natrure of LGBT folks, few pondered the meanings of such things,

In certain times and places, "civil unions" were instituted as an intermediate status which conferred some of the rights of married persons but not all. Civil unions are not adequate for LGBT couples due to the lack of equal status with heterosexual marriage. As GLSEN [The Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network] noted, the following is a summary of rights denied to those in civil unions as opposed to marriages:

Source: http://www.freedomtomarry.org/pages/...rtnerships-etc

No negative consequences have been discovered to have resulted in those jurisdictions which have adopted same sex marriages. Actually such a change results in increased respect for the law and the institution of marriage. When people previously not allowed the right to marry fight for it, it shows its value to the society. It is in short the good and the right thing to do.

Opening Post - Lion IRC
 

Opening remarks. Lion IRC.

Thanks to the Admin and Mods at talkrational.org for allowing this debate and thanks to Texas Lynn for the debate invitation.
I look forward to a great exchange of competing ideas. :beerchug:

If “The State” had no vested interest in, and was unaffected by, the type of union which society typically refers to as marriage, then there would be no such thing as matrimonial law, family law, divorce law,
probate legislation governing deceased spouses… and so forth.

But the State does involve itself, deliberately, in regulating the meaning and definition of that institution. And it does so for numerous valid reasons, both with and without the consent of those who seek to be married and those who seek to remain unmarried.

The State’s interest in legally defining the institution called “marriage” even extends as far as arbitrarily designating certain people to be “married” in a de facto sense, and treating them as such, even if they don’t consider themselves “married” in the traditional sense.

Legislatures and courts in several Magna Carta jurisdictions can order a person to;

* pay money to another person by a certain time,
* transfer or sell property,
* sign documents,

- all on the basis that, whether they like it or not, certain people are legally deemed to be in a de facto “marriage”.
(Or they were in such a relationship prior to it breaking down and coming before the courts.) :(

So why does the State intervene in peoples’ lives by defining marriage and enforcing definitions upon people who otherwise say… my marriage has nothing to do with you?

If same-sex “marriage” doesn’t affect anyone, (meaning… it doesn’t affect the State,) how can it logically or reasonably be compared to an institution that certainly DOES affect The State?

The function and dysfunction of marriage and the family is not solely a private matter affecting no one.

My approach to this debate is that we, as a society, have the desire and the right to promote and protect certain types of institutional, regulated human relationship arrangements that are beneficial to the wider functioning of the State. This necessarily involves positive discrimination. It necessarily involves the setting of legal pre-conditions that certain classes of humans simply cannot and will not be able to meet.

I’m glad the topic is worded – "That same sex marriage should be legal in all jurisdictions…" because, as I’m sure Texas Lynn realizes, some jurisdictions are deliberately established by their citizens in order to “dissolve the political bands” which have connected them with another jurisdiction.

They claim that democratic entitlement for the express purpose of being independent and having their own separate laws for their own independent reasons.

:sherlock: I look forward to seeing the argument that every jurisdiction – culture, nationality - has to permit “gay marriage”.

Opening post - Lion IRC
 

And I will be arguing from the legal notion that marriage (mat•ri•mo•ny From Latin mātrimōnium/māter mother,) is a foundation institution in society and that the weight of legal
authority – imprimatur – for its existence in a legally-defined form, is variously backed by either;

- A mandate of the masses (ie. Democracy,)

- The military power of prevailing totalitarian rule (ie. Kingdom/Empire/Soviet,)

- And/or ultimately, the unimpeachable law of nature (aka Mother Nature/Celestial Dictator/God.)

In order to protect and regulate marriage, The State intentionally discriminates against certain people preventing them from getting “married”.

Many jurisdictions legislate to prevent prisoners from marrying (and voting!) We routinely legislate to prevent consanguineous marriages.

Many jurisdictions impose “cooling off” time-limits preventing instant, spur-of-the-moment marriages.

Why? Because The State does not want people diluting the concept of marriage and watering down the social concepts that accompany marriage – fidelity, commitment, family, child rearing.

Divorce is similarly controlled by many jurisdictions forcing people to wait (and stay married) for a minimum period before their divorce is formally approved. Governments around the world legislate to protect the interests of The State by guarding against marriages of legal convenience whereby non-citizens contrive fake marriages in order to obtain visas, Green Cards, citizenship, taxation advantage.

Many jurisdictions around the world recognize that adoption of children ought to favour married couples as against unmarried partners or single people.

In this debate I will presenting 5 core argumentative themes against the proposition. (Not necessarily in this order.)

1. Slippery Slope – fact or fallacy?
2. Culture of religion. Democratic autonomy. Jurisdictional independence.
3. Moral argument from divinity. Objective morality/immorality.
4. Biology. Evolutionary superiority of primate (heterosexual) mate selection. Gender balance.
5. Philosophy of tolerance/intolerance. Legal, linguistic complexity.

I will also be inspecting and interrogating my opponents case to see whether Texas Lynn can logically and empirically justify her demand for this (experimental) social change to family law.

Confucius and many other philosophers have referred to The Family as a microcosm of The State. Let us be sure we protect our family.

On the above points, I have no disagreement in the general sense. As they say, the devil's in the details. I regard every single one of the points Lion makes regarding domestic relations law and the history of it as foundational in support of my position.

I'll refrain from commenting on the above at this time. I had not heard the term "Magna Carta Jurisdictions" before and I thank Lion for introducing it to me. As an American (USAian) I believe we are not included in same, having severed our ties with the mother country against its will. However, it is regarded as a foundational document of basic human rights even though those who benefitted from it were nobility and it didn't do jack shit for the peasantry, friars/nuns/monks, yeoman freemen, etc.

I may have a libertarian streak with a small l, but I agree with the concept here. I didn't always. As a previously divorced person I have plenty of healthy skepticism about the institution of marriage. I don't anymore, primarily due to parenting and coming late to the movement toward the legal recognition of LGBT marriages. I'm one of the 4.5% of adult Americans with a postgraduate degree, married to someone with a Ph.D. an even smaller cohort of eliteness, a nonconformist nerd who requires no validation from others as to my marriage and family. My idea at first was, who cares whether we're legally married or not? Marriage is at best a bourgeios institution of little use to self-cultivating individuals.

A great deal of the change was personal: having children from my first marriage raised the stakes. My ex was not the parenting type - in fact, we had knock-down-drag-outs over both my pregnancies (not physical beyond door slams) because he wanted me to get abortions and I don't believe in it as an individual despite having always been 100% pro-choice. So, when asked to sign a wavier of parental rights so my wife could adopt them, he was enthusiastically "where do I sign?" not in the least because it absolved him of future child support payment obligations. Some said we were crazy, that we could have used that money when we were young and poor, but we did what we believed best. So were lucky with regard to the other biological parent - but many others have not been so lucky. many have lost custody, even lost visitation, and even in some cases being denied contact with children at all, because of prejudices against LGBT parents. Grandparents can also seek custody of kids and some have been awarded it solely on the basis of the parent's sexual orientation, especially if they get a judge as spectacularly bigoted and evil as Alabama's odious Roy Moore, who advanced himself politically with the powerful religious right interests in his state precisely by denying custody to a lesbian parent. In our case, we again prevailed by luck, with disinterested paternal grandparents and supportive maternal grandparents, but any of that could have turned on a dime. Considering how both children were born in Texas, the paternal grandparents live in Texas, the adoption was by a Texas court, etc., you can see how we breathed a sigh of relief when the younger of the two offspring turned 18 a few months ago. What if my ex-in-laws had become born-again religious right nuts? - it happens, especially in Texas. If anyone thinks our relocation to a blue state near the Canadian border was purely job-related they would be incorrect.

However, it was my contact with regular working LGBT folk which changed my position, although having obtained a same gendered marriage - first unofficially in my in-laws' backyard, then in Tornoto, and again at Kings County Courthouse after New York joined the 21st Century - certainly strengthened our position. But we came into contact with people who had been together twenty, thirty years, with nothing on paper. Some lost the houses they'd been living in for decades to greedy relatives of deceased partners. Others were denied hospital visitation, the right to plan funerals, etc.

My first change was like Howard Dean's, in favor of civil unions. Not good enough, they said, and they were right. They wanted the state to recognize what they had, and they were entirely correct in that.

Again, no disagreement. I believe Lion's point here strongly supports my position. Thank you.

Again, we are in total agreement here. This is why, certainly, we have complex rules for recognition of marriages between Americans and foreign nationals, minimum ages, and various other limitations which make perfect sense. Exclusion of LGBTs, of course, does not.

I specifically worded it that way as an ideal - not because I expect that next week we are going to impose it by military force on Iran and Indonesia next week.

Some have indeed considered a severing of the U.S.'s federal union, as that way the Red States and the Blue States could do what we want. However, while the possibility of life in a nation where christofascism is virtually powerless is tempting we have an obligation to brothers and sisters in the Red States - not just LGBT ones, but the youth, and the elders which for whatever reason do not want to live under a system of Xian Sharia Law. Plus we'd have one hell of a refugee problem.

getting internal server error can't post reply to Lion's second post. Saved text and will post later

checking to see if there is a problem with editing. No changes made other than adding this note.
-Testy

I was able to get part of my response to post:

Lion IRC: And I will be arguing from the legal notion that marriage is a foundation institution in society and that the weight of legal
authority – imprimatur – for its existence in a legally-defined form, is variously backed by either;

- A mandate of the masses (ie. Democracy,)

- The military power of prevailing totalitarian rule (ie. Kingdom/Empire/Soviet,)

- And/or ultimately, the unimpeachable law of nature (aka Mother Nature/Celestial Dictator/God.)

In order to protect and regulate marriage, The State intentionally discriminates against certain people preventing them from getting “married”.

Texas Lynn: Here, I have no argument against the basic ideas set forth, although some of the anthropological concepts are not mine, but, I won't quibble.

Regarding "Democracy," our republic is not of course a pure democracy, a point the American right-wing is particularly fond of due to their erroneous notion that they constitute a majority of peaceable citizens and their fears of the underclass. We do of course have a series of checks and balances to protect minority rights.

In the Civil Rights Era, my grandfather strongly opposed the various civil rights acts signed by President Lyndon Baines Johnson, i.e., Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965, etc., out of his racism and belief that segregation maintained the social order of the South. He would tell anybody who listened, "If I have a restaurant and want to serve only red-headed Jews, then, by God, I have a right to do that!" Needless to say that's a great story to tell the enthralled guests as a faculty wife of a professor at a Jewish University as many of my wife's professional colleagues are themselves "red-headed Jews."

Again, the devil's in the details.

and more:


Lion IRC: Many jurisdictions legislate to prevent prisoners from marrying (and voting!) We routinely legislate to prevent consanguineous marriages.

Texas Lynn: Prisoners rights are beyond the scope of this debate, but especially as a child abuse investigator I have no problem with prohibiting incestuous marriage as a principle.

Lion IRC: Many jurisdictions impose “cooling off” time-limits preventing instant, spur-of-the-moment marriages.

Texas Lynn: By and large I have no problem with any of that either. Gays as well as straights should be discouraged from drunken Britney Spears type marriages.

Lion IRC: Why? Because The State does not want people diluting the concept of marriage and watering down the social concepts that accompany marriage – fidelity, commitment, family, child rearing.

Texas Lynn: Precisely my point as to why LGBT families need state-sanctioned marriage. Again, thank you.

Lion IRC: Divorce is similarly controlled by many jurisdictions forcing people to wait (and stay married) for a minimum period before their divorce is formally approved. Governments around the world legislate to protect the interests of The State by guarding against marriages of legal convenience whereby non-citizens contrive fake marriages in order to obtain visas, Green Cards, citizenship, taxation advantage.

Texas Lynn: No disagreement here at all on that.

and the rest:

Lion IRC: Many jurisdictions around the world recognize that adoption of children ought to favour married couples as against unmarried partners or single people.

Texas Lynn: Maybe at one time this was so, but in Western Civilization it's not correct at this time. The exception may be Eastern Bloc states like Russia and Serbia which are devolving into a fascism in which Eastern Orthodox Church bodies have control over such matters and Sharia states like Iran and Sudan.

I've changed jobs in the child protection apparatus several times but my first was as an adoptions specialist. We most definitely did not favor heterosexual married couples over singles generally. We did make distinctions in matching children available for adoption with approved applicants, and in some cases, a married couple was better, while in some a single parent adoption was the more viable option, and so forth. In one case, a family of seven children became available for adoption and were disposed of thusly: the oldest girl was placed in permanent foster care with her long term-foster parents; the next three were placed for adoption with their (very religious) foster parents; another was adopted by a single woman, and the last by a young couple. The stipulation that the siblings be allowed to visit one another after the adoptions were final were not binding on the last child's adoptive parents, who reneged on their verbal agreement to do so.

"Unmarried partners" were considered on a case-by-case basis - often one member of a long-term but unmarried relationship sought to adopt and conceived of it with the partner as a co-parent without portfolio. In almost all cases these were discouraged and/or outright disapproved with little analysis needed - in most cases, the individual seeking to adopt had unrealistic expectations. In at least one, the "boyfriend" for lack of a better term was a parolee who perceived, rightfully, that his recent release from incarceration would have led to disapproval. Again, the point is quite illustrative of how gay marriage is needed to validate existing relationships to preserve parental rights. Thank you again.

Lion IRC: In this debate I will presenting 5 core argumentative themes against the proposition. (Not necessarily in this order.)

1. Slippery Slope – fact or fallacy?

Texas Lynn: That one will be interesting.

Lion IRC: 2. Culture of religion. Democratic autonomy. Jurisdictional independence.

Texas Lynn: Awaiting the arguments.


****

sorry, this was the only way I could do it without that 'internal server error' thing coming up. I removed lion's bolding, etc. Refer to his original posts for the original format.

Almost forgot:

Lion IRC: 3. Moral argument from divinity. Objective morality/immorality.

4. Biology.Evolutionary superiority of primate (heterosexual) mate selection. Gender balance.

Texas Lynn: Again an interesting milieu.

4. Biology.Evolutionary superiority of primate (heterosexual) mate selection. Gender balance.

Texas Lynn: Again an interesting milieu.

Lion IRC: 5. Philosophy of tolerance/intolerance. Legal, linguistic complexity.

Texas Lynn: Not sure what that is, but can't wait to hear.

Lion IRC: I will also be inspecting and interrogating my opponents case to see whether Texas Lynn can logically and empirically justify her demand for this (experimental) social change to family law.

Texas Lynn: That will be interesting, but what I've proposed is hardly at all how you describe it. Primarily it is a matter of the law catching up with reality.

And there's no "demand" at all; if you do not wish to marry someone of the same gender you are certainly free to refrain from doing so.

Lion IRC: Confucius and many other philosophers have referred to The Family as a microcosm of The State. Let us be sure we protect our family.

Texas Lynn: Exactly why I have taken the position which I have taken, specifically in part as a personal desire to protect my own family! Thank you ever so much.

***

sorry that internal server error thing came back

First Substantive Post – Lion IRC.
 

First Substantive Post – Lion IRC.

Thank you Texas Lynn.

Well, this debate is going to be tough for my opponent if she continues to make ‘substantial’ posts that consist of;

* Cut-and-pasting 400 word kulturkampf tracts provided by The Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network.

* Re-telling personal anecdotes about her Ph.D and her partner’s Ph.D. and her grandfather and her ex-husband and his grandparents and custody of children from her previous marriage who thankfully weren’t aborted before birth and ongoing waivers of parental custody…

* Re-quoting me and agreeing with my statements about the need to prevent certain classes of people from getting married. (Did you see how she agreed that consanguineous couples should face discrimination? Did you see how she is happy to deny Britney Spears a Las Vegas insta-marriage? So much for tolerance! So much for marriage equality! So much for no-fault divorce!)

In fact, taken collectively, Texas Lynn’s opening post, and her first supposedly “substantial” post comments, didn’t contain anything positively assertive in support of the case she NEEDS to make.

I explained that, because the function and dysfunction of marriage and the family affects the wider society, it is not solely a private matter - affecting no one but the participants.

And Texas Lynn agreed. But such agreement makes it implicit that The State is entitled to define and proscribe dysfunction. The State is not stepping on anyone’s sacred rites rights when it arbitrarily defines the biological nuclear family as properly basic and decrees that heterosexual mate selection is its ideal foundation. The State is not irrationally bigoted, it is acting out of collective, enlightened self-interest.

I’m looking for her positive case-building arguments and I find;
:tumble:


Valid assertions?
Nope. That’s an argument from silence. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Later in the debate I will be challenging the claim that there have been no negative consequences. :sixshooter:


She said;
(Well they aren’t legal rights if it is The Law which proscribes them. Are prisoners’ rights being denied too?)


Read the debate topic. It’s her proposition!
But what did she do to support it in respect to the matter of jurisdictional self-determination by those cultures and States where the constituents reject Texas Lynn’s claim...
“that same sex marriage should be legal in ALL jurisdictions"

What did she do? She squibbed it.
I said democratic autonomy. I said jurisdictional independence.
She said she was still... “Awaiting the arguments”.

Don’t hold your breath Texas Lynn. Indonesia (population 247 million) isn’t in any hurry to explain their arguments to New Zealand (population 4 million.)

Furthermore, when she talks about States that have changed their marriage laws, she neglects the fact that laws which can be changed in one direction can also be changed back again.
No legislature - Congress or Parliament - can pass a law today which binds a future Parliament. (Even totalitarian regimes can eventually be removed.)

Texas Lynn also ‘skimmed the surface’ a bit by leaving out the technical point that many of those jurisdictions to which she refers have not embraced SSM by democratic choice.

In June last year Marriage Equality spokesperson in Australia, Rodney Croome, strongly rejected an offer from the then Prime Minister of Australia to put SSM to the vote at a national referendum.
Mr Croome said a process of a referendum would be "unnecessarily expensive".
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-2...ocates/4788796

SSM advocate and spokesperson for the Australian Greens, Sarah Hanson-Young, argued that the time for talking is over. She said; "We could make this happen right here on the Parliament floor, we don't have to send it to a referendum," Well the democratic Australian Parliament did speak and it resoundingly defeated SSM shortly after those comments.

Mainstream media polls in the past have consistently claimed that support for SSM in Australia was around 70%.

BUT...the most recent ABC Election Compass poll showed that number has shrunk to just 52%
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-1...plorer/5016244

The more we think about it and and about the legal (slippery slope) complexity it brings, the more voter support wanes.

The democratic parliament of the most populous State in Australia, NSW, just voted down same-sex "marriage".

Irelands democratic parliament voted down same-sex “marriage”
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-27201120

Croatians vote to ban gay "marriage". 62%.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...age-referendum

Little wonder then, that activist supporters for SSM have relied more heavily on the courts as a judicial means of escaping and circumventing the politics.

Judicial activism from the bench has (undemocratically) deprived voters of their “rights”.

And as recently as this week, Amnesty International was citing so-called “International Law” as the device by which the voters of Ireland would have same-sex “marriage” whether they like it or not - despite the Northern Ireland parliament overwhelmingly voting it down. (Again!)
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2...-block-amnesty

But the propositional topic of this debate compels Texas Lynn to make the case FOR her position, not to sit idle and try to escape the hard politics of persuasion. The constituents of all jurisdictions!
That’s who you have to persuade, not just a few liberal lawyers and activist judges - who make their living (and make names for themselves) arguing about legal complexities, and setting new precedents as they reinterpret existing definitions of marriage.

For someone who wants to persuade others to change (dilute) the definition of heterosexual, monogamous marriage does Texas Lynn look like she is presenting a well-developed case?

What does marriage really "mean". Some people need reminding.
http://tiwibzone.tiwib.netdna-cdn.co...ating-ring.jpg


When I said… “The State does not want people diluting the concept of marriage and watering down the social concepts that accompany marriage – fidelity, commitment, family, child rearing” Texas Lynn emphatically agreed and thanked me.
But then she pleaded that LGBTQIA “families,” as a cohort, was somehow not an ad hoc dilution of the heterosexual, gender-balanced, biological nuclear family!

Lesbians. Gay men. Bisexuals. Transgender people. Questioning (curious) people. Intersex. Asexual... Why not add Bachelors to the list too? :rofl:

Texas Lynn, I really want to see some strong, substantive, cohesive rationale in support of your affirmative case in your next post please.
It’s been about 60 hours since the last round and you now have an additional 72 hours til the deadline for your next post. Don’t rush it.

If you continue with the vague argument from subjective personal happiness and sense of (selfish) entitlement, then your (minority) case – aimed at the wider population in all jurisdictions - isn’t based on persuasive reason and coercive logic, but is rather, based on emotional special pleading. And The State, which takes a longer-term view in matters of collective versus individual self-interest, is going to place a heavier burden of persuasion on you than on me and my defense of a wider, long-standing status quo.

In the meantime, while you are contemplating your next post, let me formally launch one of my SSM counter-arguments.

The moral argument from divinity. This is an argument which CAN be used by any jurisdiction to universally defend their opposition to (LGBTQIA) marriage equality against minority ad hoc claims such as the one proposed by Texas Lynn in this debate. People from all jurisdictions around the world can appeal to a transcendent, objective, moral virtue that prevails, even if the lawyers and judges and big business (mammon) and the hedonist mainstream media seem to disagree.

If that jurisdiction collectively, in the majority, asserts that they share a common experience which leads them to think that their theist moral worldview on a given matter is objectively true, then what authority can prevail against that? Who, for example, can tell the citizens of the United States of America that they are NOT endowed (by their Creator) with certain inalienable rights?

Such a jurisdiction might feasibly hold the collective view that there IS a given moral truth which transcends terrestrial the day-to-day whims of politics and applies to everyone in the same way that 2+2=4 is a Transcendent, Eternal Truth.

To those in the audience who are among the minority of humans living on Earth who find the existence of a Higher Being (divinity) improbable, this argument will probably amount to little more than Pascals Wager.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Pascal's_wager

But to those who have experience and reason to think that such a Higher Power does exist, this argument should be at least as persuasive as the mandate held by some other competing authority which asserts its case in the matters of sexual orientation and gender identity. (SOGI)

When Texas Lynn and SSM advocates talk about “tolerance” and “human rights” and “justice” and “equality”, they are appealing to intangible, conceptual, ideals that cannot be empirically demonstrated to exist.

They are, at best, ontological notions that any materialistic skeptic worth their salt, can simply dismiss as imaginary. Nebulous words like "justice" and "tolerance" are often as difficult to define as SOGI.

Even the atheist who says we “ought” to believe in marriage equality;

…because “justice”
…because “discrimination”
…because “tolerance”,
…because “good and evil”

...is an atheist (ironically) appealing to immaterial concepts to support their assertion. They may as well substitute the words “…because God”. Right? *wink*

Are these noble virtues objectively true? Or can any person just hang a shiny label on whatever subjective cause they want others to tolerate and expect nodding agreement in return?

Says who? Ultimately, these are merely subjective, terrestrial claims made by a mortal, temporary human being – unless someone asserts they entail some transcendent, eternal moral or ethical truth.

So I challenge Texas Lynn to consider that when someone says…”I was born this way” what they are effectively doing is appealing to a higher, uncontrollable, superior power which somehow condones and naturalizes the assertion. Are things meant to be this way or are they mere happenstance which doesnt objectively mean anything about how things universally OUGHT TO BE??

You cannot appeal to an objective, higher, moral standard to underpin your universal ethical assertion about SSM being;
…unless you actually believe in the existence of an objective Higher Truth. (Of the type 2+2=4.)

And the only way I know of, to reach the conclusion of a universal, objective right and wrong, good and evil, moral and immoral, is if there exists a transcendent, capital “L” Law.

And if such a Law exists... if we really ARE endowed with inalienable rights, (and responsibilities,) then I argue that it is reasonable and probable that such a Law is objectively enforceable.
A law which is not enforced... rights and responsibilities which are not subject to sanction when transgressed, can hardly even be called a ‘law’.

And, if such an objective law of right and wrong, moral and immoral, good and evil does exist and is enforced then I argue that it is reasonable and probable that such a Law has a PURPOSE.

And finally therefore, if it has a purpose, it is no accident and has behind it, a personal intent which the theist would recognize immediately as transcendent divinity.

The monotheist would name that divine Being God/Allah/Jehovah and they would be quite right to take their well-founded belief in the existence of the transcendent Higher, Creator Being make it central to how they answer the question of what humans “ought” to do.

In summary, if there is no “celestial dictator” then there is no objective, arbitrary umpire to adjudicate the matter and Texas Lynn and me might as well have an arm-wrestling contest to settle the matter because mere special pleading about;
...ends in a stalemate. A nil-all-draw.

I mentioned Pascals Wager earlier and before I conclude this post, I want to point out that Pascals Wager is not an argument for the existence of God. It is an argument for pragmatism. It (basically) says if you are agnostic about God, and can’t make up your mind, why not give His existence the benefit of the doubt?.

But billions of people in jurisdictions around the world, hold the view that God, and God’s law, exists not only ontologically, but also as an experienced, corroborated reality. And the religious (divinity) argument against SSM is entirely consistent with logic and rational behaviour because, if God wisely says Honor your Mother AND your Father then obedience to God’s (heterosexist) law makes good sense.

Logically, God doesn’t need moral laws for His own benefit. (Right?)

Therefore His omniscient moral commandments, His ‘laws of nature’, must have been given altruistically for our benefit not His.

The divine, heterosexual template for marriage must be there in order to confer some survival advantage on those for whom it was intended. And when I say “survival advantage” I don’t mean the humans who made it onto Noahs Ark. (Four heterosexual couples.) Nor do I mean survival at the Day of Judgement – although cooperating with the inevitable is always sound judgement.

I tend to be a player who holds cards close, so I will not be commenting on the progress of these event particularly at this time.[/QUOTE]

By way of introduction I posted a brief summary of the reasons why civil unions are insufficient as compared to marriage from a group which has studied the same extensively. I think that is all I have to say about that.

Oh…my…

In my youth Second Wave Feminism was ending its impact and I in contrast was attracted to Third Wave Feminism which differs from the seemingly sex-negative rhetoric of the 2WF. Much as I find 2WF irrelevant to my needs due to its focus as a counter to the Mad Men culture (Sorry, Borealis) it did succeed in developing a culture among women in which sharing of one’s personal stories is valued and for beginning the valuable slogan, “The Personal is the Political.” I firmly believe our personal stories are what makes us what we are and how we view the issues. Therefore I share when it is appropriate, which may of course be disconcerting for those mired in extremist and paranoid ideologies among others.

In 1992, Retired Admiral James Stockwell was H. Ross Perot’s Vice-Presidential running mate and he caused a stir in the one and only Vice-Presidential Debate by beginning his opening statement with, “Who am I? Why am I here?” While people laughed at Stockdale for this, wasn’t he asking what is the quintessential question of life?

I wonder, for instance, about Lion IRC: Who is he? Why is he here? Why Lion? From the C.S. Lewis metaphor, perhaps? And “IRC”? Initials? Ivor? Illya? Ian? Or a slogan? “I reject cancer”? “I recycle cans”? “International Relief Commission”? I know he is not an American, and is from a British Commonwealth country in the Southern Hemisphere, and is some sort of conservative christianist of sorts, but, that’s all. Where does he come from? How old is he? What is his relationship status? Under what circumstances did he grow up? The fellow in not without knowledge, and does not lack courage entirely, as no doubt others of his cohort would be scared shitless to post on a forum dominated by nontheist slackers, or, in contrast, liberal Christians to post at CF. So we will see what unfolds there. No one arrives at ideology independent of anything else.

His jumbled up summary of my personal bio however does require minor correction. I imagine the dismissive attack is but an attempt to belittle, but, I will be like a duck and let the water roll off these feathers. I’m not a Ph.D. I’m an MSW. My Dean’s husband was my field practicum instructor and he tried to get into the Ph.D. program they were starting, but I told him I would rather be eaten by bugs. I think I mentioned my Grandpa once, but when I was referring to “grandparents” I meant our children’s grandparents, my parents and ex-in-laws. And it should be clear once one’s children reach majority age, there is no “ongoing wavier of parental custody.” Once accepted by a court a wavier of parental rights is considered irrevocable unless, just somehow, a rare occurrence happens like a parent of minor children dies in a wreck and somehow the parent who waived his or her rights becomes aware of that a comes forward, and even then the judge and lawyers go over the statutes with a fine toothed comb. If that happened and the parent who waived his or her rights never came forward the authorities would not go looking for him or her. In any case, the two offspring of this union are now 21 and 18. I imagine some noticed how he called my wife my “partner” as well. That’s fine. If someone wants to use language to denigrate and imply inequality, that’s fine. It’s the equivalent of when Martin Luther King, Sr. sat in the white section of a movie theatre with his then 8-year-old son, Martin Luther King Jr., and the usher told him, “Boy you have to move to the nigger section.” King Sr. did, but not before saying, “I am not a boy. This [indicating his son] is a boy.” Besides the Province of Ontario and The State of New York recognizes I have a wife, as does the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, so his prejudicial sneering is inconsequential.

As one who has testified in court on many occasions I have a great respect for the law. I am not a LEO but have been associated with them as when I’ve testified in criminal case it’s been as a witness for the prosecution. The law is the law, but good judgment is essential. A judge who is forced to deny assets to a married couple because their particular jurisdiction does not recognize them as having been married in that territory is forced under equal protection guarantees to invalidate the prejudicial law. So also are all persons of good character and sense. A marriage legal in one area of this country is also legal in another per our constitution’s full faith and credit clause. To recognize same commits no harm whatsoever to the residents of the jurisdiction, and in fact helps them by showing them how the law is impartial to their prejudices. So also should the views of good persons everywhere recognize.

No one under age 16 or without mental impairment seriously takes comparison of same gender marriages of competent adults with marriages between siblings, intoxicated individuals, man and goat, woman and table, etc. These straw men arguments are beneath the dignity of even as raucous a website as TR.

I BELIEVE this form of argument is known as concern trolling. That having been noted, let’s move on.

I tend to be a player who holds cards close, so I will not be commenting on the progress of these event particularly at this time.[/QUOTE]

By way of introduction I posted a brief summary of the reasons why civil unions are insufficient as compared to marriage from a group which has studied the same extensively. I think that is all I have to say about that.

Oh…my…

In my youth Second Wave Feminism was ending its impact and I in contrast was attracted to Third Wave Feminism which differs from the seemingly sex-negative rhetoric of the 2WF. Much as I find 2WF irrelevant to my needs due to its focus as a counter to the Mad Men culture (Sorry, Borealis) it did succeed in developing a culture among women in which sharing of one’s personal stories is valued and for beginning the valuable slogan, “The Personal is the Political.” I firmly believe our personal stories are what makes us what we are and how we view the issues. Therefore I share when it is appropriate, which may of course be disconcerting for those mired in extremist and paranoid ideologies among others.

In 1992, Retired Admiral James Stockwell was H. Ross Perot’s Vice-Presidential running mate and he caused a stir in the one and only Vice-Presidential Debate by beginning his opening statement with, “Who am I? Why am I here?” While people laughed at Stockdale for this, wasn’t he asking what is the quintessential question of life?

I wonder, for instance, about Lion IRC: Who is he? Why is he here? Why Lion? From the C.S. Lewis metaphor, perhaps? And “IRC”? Initials? Ivor? Illya? Ian? Or a slogan? “I reject cancer”? “I recycle cans”? “International Relief Commission”? I know he is not an American, and is from a British Commonwealth country in the Southern Hemisphere, and is some sort of conservative christianist of sorts, but, that’s all. Where does he come from? How old is he? What is his relationship status? Under what circumstances did he grow up? The fellow in not without knowledge, and does not lack courage entirely, as no doubt others of his cohort would be scared shitless to post on a forum dominated by nontheist slackers, or, in contrast, liberal Christians to post at CF. So we will see what unfolds there. No one arrives at ideology independent of anything else.

His jumbled up summary of my personal bio however does require minor correction. I imagine the dismissive attack is but an attempt to belittle, but, I will be like a duck and let the water roll off these feathers. I’m not a Ph.D. I’m an MSW. My Dean’s husband was my field practicum instructor and he tried to get into the Ph.D. program they were starting, but I told him I would rather be eaten by bugs. I think I mentioned my Grandpa once, but when I was referring to “grandparents” I meant our children’s grandparents, my parents and ex-in-laws. And it should be clear once one’s children reach majority age, there is no “ongoing wavier of parental custody.” Once accepted by a court a wavier of parental rights is considered irrevocable unless, just somehow, a rare occurrence happens like a parent of minor children dies in a wreck and somehow the parent who waived his or her rights becomes aware of that a comes forward, and even then the judge and lawyers go over the statutes with a fine toothed comb. If that happened and the parent who waived his or her rights never came forward the authorities would not go looking for him or her. In any case, the two offspring of this union are now 21 and 18. I imagine some noticed how he called my wife my “partner” as well. That’s fine. If someone wants to use language to denigrate and imply inequality, that’s fine. It’s the equivalent of when Martin Luther King, Sr. sat in the white section of a movie theatre with his then 8-year-old son, Martin Luther King Jr., and the usher told him, “Boy you have to move to the nigger section.” King Sr. did, but not before saying, “I am not a boy. This [indicating his son] is a boy.” Besides the Province of Ontario and The State of New York recognizes I have a wife, as does the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, so his prejudicial sneering is inconsequential.

As one who has testified in court on many occasions I have a great respect for the law. I am not a LEO but have been associated with them as when I’ve testified in criminal case it’s been as a witness for the prosecution. The law is the law, but good judgment is essential. A judge who is forced to deny assets to a married couple because their particular jurisdiction does not recognize them as having been married in that territory is forced under equal protection guarantees to invalidate the prejudicial law. So also are all persons of good character and sense. A marriage legal in one area of this country is also legal in another per our constitution’s full faith and credit clause. To recognize same commits no harm whatsoever to the residents of the jurisdiction, and in fact helps them by showing them how the law is impartial to their prejudices. So also should the views of good persons everywhere recognize.

No one under age 16 or without mental impairment seriously takes comparison of same gender marriages of competent adults with marriages between siblings, intoxicated individuals, man and goat, woman and table, etc. These straw men arguments are beneath the dignity of even as raucous a website as TR.

I BELIEVE this form of argument is known as concern trolling. That having been noted, let’s move on.

Based upon rational analysis and competent measures to protect all citizens this is certainly true. There will be none of these, however, which are relevant to LGBT unions whatsoever.

Here is an assertion without evidence, for which the contrary evidence is compelling. Sharia Law or christianist law is abhorrent in a pluralistic society and not acceptable to anyone who wishes to “let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” (Amos 5:24).

Well, here we’re passing into the ridiculous. The State has no interest in promoting irrational discrimination, as countless court rulings have confirmed.

Wikipedia notes: Murray Lipp at Huffington Post notes:

***
When California first legalized gay marriage, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom (now Lieutenant Governor) married several couples on the City Hall steps, the first of which were Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, who had been together fifty years. Most other marriages have not confirmed as long a union, but many have been together years and even decades.

I can’t wait to see it. In the more progressive U.S. States and Canada, we have had more or less a decade to see if any negative consequences have developed. The results? Zilch. Zippo. Nada. It appears in contrast it is you who offers an argument from silence. No major crime increase has been detected. No ups in interpersonal problems, none. No increases in societal turmoil. Now, if you wish to argue hurricanes and droughts are because of same sex marriage, by all means, please proceed, Governor.


Non sequitur.

Maybe this will help: “should” takes various forms. In no manner did I used it with the intention other nation-states and so forth should militarily enforce it on other nation-states. I meant as a moral imperative they should. That’s it. The exact form in which such should or would occur is beyond the scope of this debate. Children should brush their teeth, but I’m not arguing they should once a day, three times a day, with a Pepsodent brand toothbrush, or in any other form.
So, as stated, I am still awaiting the arguments.
That’s their business, for now. Sharia states are problematic but again beyond the scope of the debate.
I completely understand that. Time marches in many directions, yet, as Martin Luther King said “I am convinced the arc of the universe bends toward justice.”
Yes and no. In some cases judicial decree has advanced human progress. The American South had to be dragged kicking and screaming toward racial justice and isn’t there yet. : life goes on.
I’m no expert on Australia but the opposite is so in the U.S., Canada, Europe, South America, and South Africa. Public opinion changes. If Australia wishes to align itself with the Sharia states, that’s their business, for now.
So did New York but months later they passed it. So it goes.
Ireland’s a unique case. Its legalistic Catholicism is bound to its national identity. If the same is so within a generation it’ll be a surprise.
As a former Titoist province of Yugoslavia, that’s no surprise. Indeed the eastern bloc has moved toward a social reaction, cementing the alliance of former communist appratchiks with Eastern Orthodox right-wing forces.

Then by all means let us vote on your right to marry. Rights are by definition not subject to popular vote.

AI works in ideals. That’s not going to happen. That’s just informing them international pressure to change their ways will not abate.
Glad you asked: As you can see, definitions of marriage throughout human civilization have been multifaceted and varied even within Western or Christian culture.

There are, and always have been, multiple forms of status of relationship in all societies. But let’s not be facetious. A single person is not by definition one in a relationship with another.
Well, here’s what you’ve gotten. Enjoy digesting it.
Love and marriage are by definition matters of emotion.
As it should be, and is being accomplished. Love wins.
Universal human rights more than suffices. One person’s religion is not the same as another’s. Legal status in a free society cannot remain forever entangled to superstition and tradition, or else human progress would cease.
Nor can involvement of deity in temporal political matters.
Exactly what I was thinking there. All such concepts have demanded exposition and definition as to what is included in same. This is in part the sum of the disagreement on the topic.

QUOTE]Are these noble virtues objectively true? Or can any person just hang a shiny label on whatever subjective cause they want others to tolerate and expect nodding agreement in return? [/QUOTE]

Not Texas Lynn, for one. Animals? Prairie voles and beavers are said to mate for life. Let’s stop with straw men and straw menageries, OK?

Earthy politics are not generally associated with such lofty claims, though politicians often claim so when appealing to their bases. What we involved in public life are concerned with is the here and now, and what works.


Here’s where I break into song with Seaweed and Penny in “Hairspray”:

***
“Hairspray”’s subplot involved an interracial romance in the days before [i] Loving v. Virginia, but the issues were the same as the struggle of today. You can’t stop the beat of the human heart!

No problem. Love of human beings is the greatest higher truth there is as all religions have asserted since they first explored the meaning of life. As Kurt Vonnegut Jr. said to children, “Be kind to one another, Dammit!” Or if you prefer, as Christ said, “Love one another as I have loved you.”


As things often do. I believe my position is supported by such timeless truths, and you believe otherwise. So be it. If you don’t believe in same sex marriage, don’t marry someone of the same sex. Case closed.

I dispute the assertion that any of “God’s Laws”
of necessity are informed by heterosexism.


So you say. I don’t believe various religious practices are binding on a free society. Some dietary laws found in religious traditions like Hinduism and Judaism and Islam are fine for those who find usefulness in them but not binding on those who disagree with them in a free nation.

Christ spoke to his society and as such made references to their culture. The wedding at Cana remarks are pretty weak sauce to demand all enter heterosexual marriage. Had his eartlly incarnation arrived in an ancient matriarchical society his remarks would have been tempered to that culture instead.

Nice round. Back atcha.

Second Substantive Post - Lion IRC
 

Second Substantive Post - Lion IRC
Come on Texas Lynn. :toetap:

Stats from your last ‘debating’ round.
*Eight consecutive posts. #13, #14, #15, #16, #17, #18, #19 and #20
*Four of which you edited after having posted.
*Total word count for all eight posts – 5,463 words
*Total word count for all eight posts EXCLUDING the words of other people and off-topic references to Ross Perot, Second Wave Feminism, CS Lewis, your former marriage, the Hairspray musical lyrics ~ 1,300 words.

And even among those, I still didn’t find anything in the way of... SSM should be legal everywhere because--->coercive logic goes here<---

In my last round I challenged Texas Lynn to confront the logical claim that a person, a family, a town, a State, a Nation, that thinks divine moral authority is real (and benevolent towards humankind,)
would be reasonably entitled to adhere to God’s Law as a transcendent imperative, ahead of the ad hoc, man-made, relativist, fleeting, moral assertions they might see presented in an SSM debate here
at Talk Rational forum. And, that Texas Lynn can’t just wave a magic wand and make a brute assertion, by fiat, that so-called marriage “equality” simply IS.... As I said, even the materialist/atheist skeptic who (mistakenly) thinks that God is probably non-existent, would still have to acknowledge that their subjective version(s) of “justice”, and “goodness”, and “morality”,
are not empirical metrics and wouldnt meet the persuasive standard of proof which they themselves would use to reject theistic claims about same-sex marriage.

Appealing to one's OWN self-interest is a nil-all-draw.
http://bittersweetaspects.files.word...oure-wrong.jpg
Original Source = © 1951 Warner Bros. Pictures.



So what did Texas Lynn come back with?

The Great Hollywood Hairspray god that apparently thinks it can trump the divinity which democratic majorities in jurisdictions like Ireland and Indonesia believe, based on shared experience of that divinity,
is ultimately in control of morality in the universe.

Hairspray, (heterosexual romance story right?) – But if it’s more than that, if it really is about the inability to stop the desire in a person’s heart, and if you really are using that as an argument in this debate,
then you forfeit your ability to tell others who they can and cannot “love”.

“You can’t stop” a romance between father and his daughter. “You can’t stop” a person loving several people at the same time. “You can’t stop” a person claiming they love a US citizen, neither can you stop them from deciding that they no longer love that person the day after they get their Green Card. And if the Hollywood Hairspray god issues a musical decree that people ought to be allowed to consensually reciprocate the leg-humping love of their pet dog, then Texas Lynn’s bigotry and hypocrisy can’t stop that rhythm either.

So eventually the definition of love and marriage gets diluted down to the point that it means everything and nothing simultaneously.

I referred earlier to a common SSM line of argument, - the argument from nature - if animals do it, why can’t we, and Texas Lynn called that a strawman.
But she then proceeds to invoke the musical morality mandate from Hairspray which is EXACTLY about that type of reasoning.

You can't stop what? Stuff that happens in nature!

…an avalanche,
…the seasons,
…the world spinnin' around,
…the motion of the ocean,
…the river rushing to the sea,
…the hands of time,
…the sky and the sun,
…animals that eat their young,
…bonobo apes flinging their dung,
…born-that-way pedophiles loving the young,

Texas Lynn used a song from a Hollywood musical that uses stuff in nature to evoke the additional fallacy of inevitability. And I am definitely NOT attacking a strawman by calling her out on this.

In this round I would like to move on to a legalistic and philosophical argument about tolerance versus intolerance and the complexity of trying to partially redefine marriage while simultaneously ignoring the huge elephant in the room in this SSM debate – viz; if you can redefine marriage for them, why can’t you redefine it for us!

Answer? – because there is no clearly defined “us” in the LGBTQI SOGI cohort and there is no agreement within that cohort, about how far so-called “rights” to marry should be extended so as to encompass everyones sexual and personal relationship desires – natural or unnatural, normal or abnormal, nurtured or compulsive.

To get anywhere in this debate where we must define ideas like tri-gender, androgyne, intersexuality, third gender, third sex, fourth gender, androphilia, eunuch, transsexual, pangender, trigenderism etc. (And whether any of these qualify as personality disorders, rather than the sort of ‘orientation’ or ‘self-expression’ which people born-that-way might claim demands equal tolerance from society.)

Otherwise, how are we to know where the so-called discrimination begins and ends? :dunno:

Are we, as human beings living in autonomous, legally separate, nation/state jurisdictions around the world, able to define terms like romance and sexual attraction in such a way as to distinguish between the person who “loves” children and the person who ought to be allowed to marry whoever they “love”.

For simplicity, (ontological parsimony,) the law has previously relied, quite succesfully, on fairly basic and obvious heterosexual, gender-specific language to describe the elementary nouns
used in family law and marriage. ...Husband/Wife. Man/Woman. Boy/Girl. Mother/Father. Son/Daughter. Aunt/Uncle. Male/Female.

This is a good approach to the law in my opinion because…. wait for it


So when The State's legal definition of marriage says;
"To the exclusion of all others..." it is giving effect to the desire for legal clarity.

It is not discriminating against any particular single person or any unspecified type of minority.

It is discriminating against EVERYONE that does not meet the clear legal definition of husband/wife marriage.

Does a man dressed as a woman with breast implants and a Dolly Parton wig have the universal “civil right” to be called a woman/wife/mother?
http://www.dollymania.net/kennethblakesm.jpg



No matter how that person might honestly think of themself, I don’t regard them as being truly female? And neither does a human sperm!

But is that really discrimination?

(FYI Texas Lynn, the heterosexual male human sperm which can tell the difference between real and fake biology, is neither homophobic nor racist and it does not discriminate based on female skin color,
so please give it a rest with the African American civil rights stuff. Slavery and the oppression of unpaid labor is motivated by law-of-the-jungle economics and greed.)

The State – society – collectively DOES HAVE the superior right and the responsibility to mandate laws and morality based on gender specificity and heterosexual norms!

http://www.clker.com/cliparts/a/b/2/...gn.svg.med.png
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share free public domain vector cliparts


So why is Texas Lynn asserting that (heterosexist) laws defining marriage and gender-balanced parenthood are a global problem? Where are her logical, empirically-valid, ontologically parsimonious arguments?

Perhaps it's because there is a huge philosophical and linguistic conundrum in this debate arising from;

* the myriad definitions of a persons’ (public and private) sexual preferences and desires.
* the lack of a clear line distinguishing human psycho-sexual gender self-identity.
* the blurred lines between de facto and de jure definitions of marriage

…and questioning whether legal discrimination should exist, or whether real, unjustifiable discrimination even actually does clearly exist at present.

Dont we need clear definitions of "love" and "equality" and "sexual preference/desire" in order to say where the technical line of discrimination officially starts and ends?

Gay people technically CAN get married in Ireland.

It’s only monogamy and gender balance that are stipulated by traditional marriage laws, NOT sexual preferences. A man who married is nonetheless still capable of having sexual attraction to other women.

Is such a man “discriminated” against? Does he have “the right” to be married^TM and yet simultaneously live out his “unmarried” sexual preferences?

In the traditional marriage jurisdiction of Australia, there’s nothing in the law that says bisexuals, for example, are not allowed to get married.

Elton John is gay and he got legally married in Australia in 1984. :hair:

Texas Lynn quips the tired, old SSM canard, ...if you don’t want to marry a gay person, then don’t.
(It’s the same one used by supporters of abortion-on-demand. Nobody is forcing you to have an abortion. Nobody is forcing you to marry a homosexual…..)

But that sort of “reasoning” is what confuses the debate and blurs the lines. What discrimination??? Nobody is forcing Texas Lynn to get married.

The only ‘discrimination’ going on in defense of a strict definition of marriage^TM is of the philosophical type that one might expect when one is naming a “thing” (A) and insisting that a different “thing” (B)
can’t occupy the same taxonomy.
Linguistic distinction is not bigotry. Surely the folk here at a skeptical/rational forum understand the conflation problems with category errors and evidence based on subjective definitions.

Is it real? Or is it fake? A wig.
http://www.getbig.com/boards/index.p...h=335934;image


Is atheism a religion? Is baldness a hair color? Is a bat a bird? Is Pluto a planet? Is intelligent design a scientific theory?
Can the word “father” really mean “mother”? Can there be such a thing as a “married” bachelor?
Can you equivocate the word love with sex?

"...I love him like a father"
http://ww3.hdnux.com/photos/27/63/61.../3/622x350.jpg

Marriage Equality really means Marriage Equivocation and this sort of equivocation violates the Aristotelian law of non-contradiction. A is not the same “thing” as non-A.

What really is marriage? In what does marriage really consist?

Since when do critical thinkers agree to allow such false equivalence and fakery of the type whereby we don’t invent a new word for something different, but instead, change the definition of an existing word to accommodate deliberate imprecision!

When we discover that Pluto doesn’t meet the definition of the word planet, we don’t change the original definition of the word "planet".

Husband = woman. Wife = woman. Father = man. Mother = woman. The word concubine does not mean wife.
No matter how much a philanderer begs his wife to accept cheating as a normal part of “marriage”, you can’t mock reality and pretend their “marriage” meets the original definition.

The term “Open marriage” is an oxymoron and yet the ambiguous notion of “marriage equality” is the very thing which permits those involved to claim that their love is just as valid as everyone else’s.

The SSM lobby, by and large does not affirm tolerance and marriage equality for everyone. That is a fact.

They hate any suggestion that they are diluting the institution of marriage in a way that would open marriage up to gay or bisexual polygamy.

And yet....Lo and Behold. Three women and a baby!

A married lesbian trio from Mass. are expecting their first child.
(Such an emotional ceremony judging by the lump in someone's throat.)
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopo...e23n-4-web.jpg
Source = News Dog Media/News Dog Media http://www.nydailynews.com
(Last accessed 6th May 2014)


The SSM lobby are openly intolerant of consanguineous (incest) relationships between fathers and daughters, uncles and nieces, brothers and younger sisters...

They want to open the floodgates partially to change the definition of marriage just barely enough to include adult, monogamous, homosexual couples then slam them shut again to prevent any further erosion of the so-called ‘meaning’ of marriage.

Don’t anyone dare use the word beastiality and homosexuality in the same sentence or you will face the wrath and fury of someone who finds zoophilia an abomination. :angrymob:

What a bigoted insult to animal lovers everywhere. And what hypocrisy to do the very thing that SSM lobbyists accuse against the supporters of traditional marriage.

Another of the philosophical obstacles in the SSM debate is caused when people like Texas Lynn equivocate on the meaning of the word love.

Love of human beings is the greatest higher truth there is… according to Texas Lynn.

But that is NOT the same type of ‘love’ Macklemore & Ryan Lewis meant when referring to same-sex attraction and matrimonial love.

She invokes Jesus Christ who said, “Love one another as I have loved you.” Does Texas Lynn really not understand the asexual, gender neutrality of the original Greek hermeneutics for that ‘agape’ word ἀγαπᾶτε

The Marriage Equality lobby claims theirs is a “simple” request. Three simple words – love, honor, commitment. That’s all you need apparently. But they immediately stipulate that what they mean is...
only same-sex couples should be able to get married. They are intolerant in their insistence that the strict definition of “marriage’ must be couples only. And so….were back to that ugly word DISCRIMINATION.

It is a logical fallacy to claim that because “marriage” is such a unique, virtuous and noble institution… everyone therefore should have the “right” to marry. Marriage is only such “an institution” because it is attended by unique notions of selective rights (and responsibilities.)

If everyone who wanted to be married were allowed to be married without restrictions being placed on the definition and meaning of marriage, it would be an anathema to talk about who should have the “right” to get married.

In this debate, words have important meanings. It is the SSM proponents who are tied up in linguistic knots and tripping up on their oxymorons as they try to dilute and mangle the legal concept of marriage into a puddle of mud just so that everyone can have their particular sexual preference and SOGI validated as “normal".

One territorial jurisdiction in Australia, - the ACT - took this LGBTQIA legal/philosophical, SOGI word salad to a sublime new level by arguing that their same sex "marriage" legislation didn’t conflict with Federal heterosexual marriage law because (they said) national, heterosexual marriage laws only applied to straight people.

They claimed the ACT legislation didnt violate Australia's Constitution as it was was totally different and unique and ONLY applied to gay folk - whose relationships aren't the "same".

The ACT attempted to circumvent the potential conflict with the Federal Constitution (that would have invalidated the ACT law) by creating a distinct and separate type of marriage that could sit alongside the (heterosexual) federal laws. :rolleyes:

http://oi61.tinypic.com/2v81hr7.jpg

Reply to Lion IRC, 5/8/14:

OK, good to know.

That’s not unexpected to me.

OK. I think your premise is faulty because what you are suggesting has not occurred and cannot occur. Whether or not some aggregation of humans believes “divine moral authority is real (and benevolent towards humankind,)” they have no basis whatsoever to determine exactly what that could be. And in a just (and by necessity a just society must be a pluralistic society) society they most definitely are NOT “reasonably entitled to adhere to God’s Law as a transcendent imperative” by any reasonable measure. The characterizations of the discourse at TR are irrelevant to that.

In every case where a form of theocracy has been instituted the result has been widespread injustice and atrocities, be it Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon, Nero’s Rome, Franco’s Spain, Phillip the Fair’s France, Charles II’s Great Britain, Ayatollah Ruollah Khomeini’s Iran, Pol Pot’s Cambodia [man as god there], and so on and so on. In short it is always merely an excuse for the exercise of power and control over others and has no place in a free society.

So (1)What you postulate does not exist; (2) IF what you postulate did exist, it would never be justified; and (3) the invalid premise in no way applies to the issue at hand.

Of course– never expected it would.

Perhaps not. But whether or not such “theistic claims” have validity on free people is an issue of contention. I take the position a free and just society cannot legislate on such a basis.

Perhaps, but not my issue.


Principles supersede simple majority rule which amounts to bullying.

That does not follow.

Strawman after strawman after strawman. Get serious.

All concepts do exactly that depending upon who is articulating them.

Denial ain’t just a river in Africa.

Concepts are always being redefined even as we speak.

As it should be. No one speaks for anyone else.

We’re talking about same sex marriage, not these other strawmen.

Each case must be decided on an individual basis; but the only group of cases we are concerned with here are same sex marriages.

Off-topic, minus -15.

Not as successfully as those who demand mandatory conformity to arbitrary norms think. And not relevant to today’s reality.

Legal clarity is a myth. All laws have exceptions. And the concept mandatory heterosexual marriage must apply to all is abhorrent to a free society.
Precisely the problem. Thank you.
Depends upon by whom and the particular circumstances. Still it’s just another strawman. Gender is a social construct. The individual determines his or her role.
You have a right to your opinion. You don’t have a right to impose it on others.
Non sequitur.

This refers to so many strawmen an answer is not available. We’re not talking about what to call people, just what their legal status may be.
Well, actually, it does in many cases. All have love maps based on many factors of an object of desire, and skin color is certainly one of them. Granted there are multiple factors at play here, such as the white woman who likes dark meat, but determines not to act on it because it would compromise her relationship with racists in her own family and circle of friends.

Nope. Discrimination is seamless. It doesn’t refer to the groups involved, but the attitudes and the actions.
In part, but off topic.

Not rationally and not in accordance with principles of distributive justice.
[quote]


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Both are of equal validity in a free society.

There’s no confusion. Couples, whether same sex or different sex should be allowed to get married if they want to obtain the full legal benefits of the franchise. The discrimination occurs when some cannot have it due to the irrational prejudices of retrograde elements.

QUOTE]The only ‘discrimination’ going on in defense of a strict definition of marriageTM is of the philosophical type that one might expect when one is naming a “thing” (A) and insisting that a different “thing” (B) can’t occupy the same taxonomy. Linguistic distinction is not bigotry. Surely the folk here at a skeptical/rational forum understand the conflation pro
blems with category errors and evidence based on subjective definitions. [/QUOTE]
All definitions are subjective. Exclusion can constitute illogical bigotry and this does.
Everything in this section is an irrelevancy.
It is if we make it so.
Here we’re concerned with its legal definitions found in the laws of all jurisdictions.

As any judge can tell you, precision in the law is always elusive.

Irrelevant. We are not here to talk about planetary taxonomy. There is no metaphorical significance. My love for my spouse is every bit as worthy and holy as any het’s, more so than many. You are in no position to judge such a thing and the presumption thereof is most unfortunate, and the direct cause of this particular conflict.
If a particular religious sect prefers to enact such silly things in their own doctrine and enforce it among their own members that is entirely their business. However, the larger society is not bound by such irrational prejudices. People are who they are and a free society has no business enforcing such ridiculousness.
Biologically this may be so but here it is but another irrelevancy.
Technically this is true. It means the property of the male, as wife also does in certain cultures. Concubinage and Levirate marriages are but additional forms of oppression which are found in so-called “traditional” marriages. The inclusion in the series served to point out that the assertion “marriage has never changed” is at best fallacious and at worst deliberate deception.
Whoa, now, hold up. Male infidelity does not in any form invalidate a marriage. In the past a married man seeking greener pastures would merely take a second wife or more. It seems you are trying for a record of off-topic references.
I think the kitchen sink just got thrown here to nil effect. Whether or not “open marriages” are “valid” is beyond the scope of this debate. And, whether a marriage is an open marriage or not, if it is entered into legally, the contract is still binding. Whether you like it or not is immaterial.
Like any aggregation, a term like “The SSM lobby” is ambiguous by nature, and so a categorical statement of this sort is by definition invalid. Each person advocating for same sex marriage, and each organization which supports that goal, speaks only for themselves and not for anyone else seeking the same goal. What you are suggesting is equivalent to political manipulators stating for example “Christians oppose same sex marriage.” That in itself is a falsehood because some do and some don’t.
The argument is so entirely specious and laugh-worthy it makes me sad for you.
Again, an irrelevant categorical statement not based on fact. I suppose the implication is that some of the more muddleheaded liberal types want to push those who don’t conform out of the picture, much as early feminists did to lesbians. That’s up to them but they are responsible for their own actions. No one else is.
Personally I have no problem whatsoever with polygamy as a concept as long as it is not mandatory. The Mormons in the U.S. got a raw deal from the pecksniffs and wowsers of the late 19th Century who were titillated by the concept. Utah was not admitted as a state until they outlawed it in 1896. It was none of the other states’ business really. It was merely another nefarious attempt to control the sexuality of women under the guise of affording them “protection” they did not need. As to gay or bisexual threesomes, foursomes and moresomes, everybody knows a few, but what they do is none of anyone else’s damn business. It’s beyond the scope of this debate like the rest of your ranting.