Same Sex Marriage Debate

[Texas Lynn]

Yes or No Texas Lynn.

Should I have the right to freedom of expression by way of opposing SSM as a conscientious objector - in where I shop, how I vote, which church/mosque/synagogue I attend, where I choose to live, what I say in the public square, which movies, books and magazines I find immoral and offensive to children?

I guess this is my question - I think you should have - and do.

What a lot of people with views similar to yours want, however, is not that at all.

Instead, what they want is "the right to free expression" with no consequences for their actions.

You have a right to say "I am opposed to same sex marriage" and to state the reasons why, but, if you do so in the workplace and the boss finds your behavior reprehensible you may be in trouble. If you say that at a dinner party people may not like you. Some may say "he's a bigot." But none of that prevents you from doing so.

If you choose to, like a lot of American right wingers, refuse to fly American Airlines or us Microsoft products because of their support of progay groups, that's your right - but if you say so, some may not like that, which is their right.

You have a right to vote for whomever is on the ballot. But if you state your reason for spreading Santorum some may shun you, which is their right.

You have aright to worship as you wish; however religious bodies are not in possession of rights to tax exemptions, or exemptions from civil rights laws in their non-religious business enterprises, i.e., day care, hospitals, publishing.

Where you live, within reasonable real estate procedures and your means to pay for them is certainly your right. We moved from Tx to NY precisely due to the right-wing infestation of the former. We had jobs here before we moved here as most prudent people would do. You may live where your neighbors don't like you. That's OK.

You have a right to say what you want in the public square and there will always be consequences for what you say there.

As far as "which movies, books and magazines I find immoral and offensive to children." that's your right or should be. Of course if your kids read a copy of Justine by DeSade at the neighbor's house, that's the cost of having neighbors. If you demand censorship however you deserve opprobrium and will receive it.

You absolutely have a right to demand others agree with you just as they have a right to tell you to go fuck yourself.

Keep in mind the above is argued from the position of what is ideal. Freedom is not absolute in the U.S. and I know it is less so in your Magna Charta countries.

In no way were the "free speech rights" of right-wing indivioduals who violated civil rights laws violated. The right to discriminate against oppressed groups is one no one possesses.

[Texas Lynn]

Last question:

Frank Bruni addressed the sturm und drang over Michael Sam's kiss of his significant other in The New York Crimes:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/25/op...lips.html?_r=0

I agree with Bruni. I have a wife which frequently travels to Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc. and you can damn be sure when she arrives at JFK she gets a big wet one and if anybody doesn't like it they can suck my beef. We each have pictures of our family (the same pic) on our desks from our first wedding day, just like a few of the hets at work do. Anybody who says "kids don't need to see that," (as a few ignorant boors said of the Sam brouhaha) are full of shit (you guys say 'shite' I think). The fact these motherfuckers say "kids don't need to see that" is precisely why they do.

Do you disagree, and if so why?

[Lion IRC]

I disagree with the NY Times Op Ed because it equates a nebulous, unscientific, facile, political term - “race” – with a biologically empirical term - gender. And whereas males and females of differing nationalities and cultures (and heights and weights and ages and skin colors) have started families by procreation for THOUSANDS of years, two men have never procreated no matter how long their kiss lasted.

The Op Ed also makes a stupid and false assertion about ‘in-your-face’ public displays of affection by gay people.
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=G...w=1536&bih=697



My final question to Texas Lynn relates to the inability of same-sex marriages to provide gender balanced parenting for their artificially adopted or surrogate children.

Many same-sex couples claim that they can provide surrogate “stand-ins” to satisfy the need for gender role models and to assist with gender-specific child raising issues such as, for example, the potential need for two gay men to find and provide an adult female mentor for their adopted female child as she enters puberty. (Menstruation, female hygiene, contraception, Prom Night. etc)

Why would gay “marriages” seek to provide this type of gender balance role model for their adopted children if it wasn’t seen as necessary for the child’s welfare?

[Texas Lynn]

I'm sorry if I erred in answering what I thought was Lion's final question. Anyhow I have asked my final question.

Lion's final question (refer to the post for context) was:

Why would gay “marriages” seek to provide this type of gender balance role model for their adopted children if it wasn’t seen as necessary for the child’s welfare?

The question is begged since by assuming such is somehow wrong, it also negates single parenthood even if the only parent is a widow or widower.

Nothing like that is ever "necessary. It's nice to have it if it can be had but if it's not it's nobody else's business. We all do the best we can and that's good enough. In rare cases where parenting must be investigated by authorities that doesn't even meet the threshhold for an investigation. It's not a perfect world and there's no such thing as a perfect family. The question presupposes a "because of a, then b" logic which is invalid.

Besides the question is irrelevant to the issue at hand because some marriages regardless of the genders of the spouses are childless either by choice or by biology.

[Texas Lynn]

This is my final post on the subject. I proposed this debate with three goals in mind:
1. To hone my own debating skills
2. To integrate Lion IRC into the tribe, as he is by and large an angry drive-by poster. Granted some of the slacker secularist types have not made him feel welcome but he does keep coming back and that ought to be worth something.
3. To see just what he comes up with – wondering if his arguments will be as piss-poor as American antigay types make?
Here’s how I assess how those three were met:
1. I did OK, which wasn’t easy, since Lion kept moving the goalposts like he had the St. Vitus Dance. It wasn’t that hard, mostly because in Western Culture my side has all but won the thing.
2. Lion seemed to enjoy it and did a good job with coming up with the terms and keeping it in movement. We PM’d a little about the procedure and he was OK. At first I had a concept of him as a twentysomething dork but now I have to think he came up in the 1960s, an engineering student maybe. He seemed confident and to understand ideas, although at times appeared to confuse gender and sexual orientation but it may have been a misprint it was so minor.
3. Well, he didn’t come up with anything I hadn’t heard before although his presentation was like something an ADHD 16 y.o. on wine’d come up with. If that’s the best Britannia can come up with it won’t be long before we have conquered the West for sodomy, fellatio, cunilingus, and tribadism. His choices of graphics were mostly OK – I think I would’ve gone with Conchita Wurst instead of the drag Dolly Parton imitator, but that’s OK. But, woo, all he did was change the subject over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.
I tried as best as I could to stick to the subject and advocate for the position as a matter of simple justice. I think that’s all that’s required. It’s wrong for some couples to be treated differently from others out of prejudice. I also alluded to the hopes and dreams of LGBT couples, using personal stories as needed and stated that as a matter of fact we’re just as good as everyone else. I’m no activist or theorist – my interest lies in electoral politics. In part we lost in 2004 (Bush II v. Kerry) due to statewide referenda in seventeen states on the gay marriage issue, a manipulation orchestrated by Karl “Bush’s Brain” Rove. Had just Ohio or two others gone for Kerry we could have perhaps avoided the great Recession or at least mitigated it. In 2008, however, the California “Proposition Hate” campaign served as a wake-up call. In the few years since then we have made up for lost ground and with one exception –Purple North Carolina, possibly affected by the supposed endorsement of the infirm native son Billy Graham, or by his son’s issuing a press release in his name – we have achieved success on this continent.
As a Carvillean,* I am not one to idly sit by as the kitchen sink is thrown. Thus I responded to all of Lion’s tangential points although avoiding the prurient links to Folsom et al. I believe in those cases I correctly debunked all of Lion’s straying from the central point and tried to work the conversation back to where recent legislation, referenda, and judicial decisions have placed it, as a matter of simple justice beyond the ephemera he tossed out.
All in all, it was a good debate and I thank Lion for his participation and Testycalibrated for his official role in making sure all the wires had good connections. I may or may not participate in further exchanges of this sort but I ask Lion to not be a stranger and keep active at TR.

• A follower of political guru James “Serpenthead” Carville, the Bill Clinton campaign manager and as a White House aide in the first WJC administration who noted as a Marine Lance Corporal he was the highest military official in the White House staff then who said “every attack must be answered.”

[Lion IRC]

Closing Comments - Lion IRC

Is the continuing dilution of heterosexual, monogamous, committed marriage and the nuclear family a good thing or a bad thing? Is it happening? Does it matter?

The Western generation, which grew up in the brand new era of prenuptial agreements, no-fault divorce, alimony cheques, dead-beat dads, welfare moms, sky-rocketing custody battles,
government funded abortion on-demand of the “unwanted” children and government funded childcare for all the rest, is it any wonder that they are scratching their heads cynically wondering...

...Um, I was all, like, what’s so, like, ya know, um.. sacred about all that, ...like...marriage and stuff anyway



The 1960’s/70’s feminist movement thought that no-fault divorce would liberate ‘wimmin’ but if we are honest, we should admit that it really liberated more men than women.

The my-body-my-choice activists liberated their adulterous husbands and spawned the me, me, me generation of the 80’s and onwards.

And the Internet could not have timed its own arrival more perfectly. The digital baby sitter for neglected kids in basements. The Oracle of Delphi that answers however you want. The repository of 100 billion bloggers all wanting to be heard, and seen and talked about. A 24 hour video channel so everyone can have their 15 MB of fame. A pornucopia treasure trove for hook-up culture hedonists. A megaphone for shouty New Atheists to speak to the rising generation of post-modern angst that wonders if life really is too short, if there really is nothing to worry about, if maybe you should live like there’s no tomorrow.

The dawning of the Age of Aquarius? WOT A JOKE!

...Woke up this morning and my mama was gone -far far far away.
...When ya comin’ home dad? I don’t know when.
...Used-to-be’s don't count anymore, they just lay on the floor till we sweep them away

By the turn of the century light-hearted pop culture was (nervously) playing down the deterioration of the family with wacky sitcom TV shows about 'other' people’s dysfunctional Jerry Springer family lifestyles - the gradual creep from Mike and Carol Brady to Homer Simpson, from Roseanne to Family Guy. From Ward Cleaver to the misanthropic Al Bundy, Two and A Half Men, Raising Hope, Arrested Development...


Modern Families don’t look like this;




They look like this;


And this.



And this.




My main focus in this debate has not been about sexuality it has been about marriage and the family.

Frankly, I wish people would keep their sexuality in the bedroom.

As a child, I don’t remember having gay activists pushing their "marriage equality" agenda in my face and down my throat. They used to mock traditional institutions and concepts like marriage and monogamy.

Back then we didn’t have lobbyists trying to get Sesame Street to depict gay "marriage" (Bert and Ernie).

The word …homosexual? (with a question mark intonation) wasn’t something adult male Scout leaders said in front of 9 year old boys.

They didn’t have Huffington Post or TV shows like Glee back then, so I never knew 7 year old kids were capable of freely deciding they wanted to be gay after watching Glee.

There were no gender identity ''bathroom laws'' when I was in school. Just segregated heterosexual lavatories - Male/Female, Men/Women, Boys/Girls. I guess, back then, they didn’t want school children to associate toilets with homosexuality or bisexuality or men who dress as women.

Now, I’m not a homophobe or a religious hypocrite. I never dragged a gay person before Jesus accusing them and asking what the Law of Moses demands. Nor would I because I have my own sins to worry about.

But since the gay lobby has decided to take their cause into schools, into the Boy Scouts, into children's television shows, into the bathroom laws...yep!

NOW THEY HAVE MY ATTENTION!

They finally crossed the one bridge too far. The hornets nest has been kicked. Gay activists found the straw (inadvertently) needed to break the camels back. The sleeping dog has been woken up. The frog in the simmering pot eventually DID notice the temperature is rising…in the school classroom, in the boy scouts, on kids television, on football fields where our kids can’t use bible verses on their banners!

Well done Dan Savage! Thanks for the wake-up call.

I have presented 5 themes throughout this debate which weigh against the proposition put by Texas Lynn.

* The philosophical dilemma of comparing thing “A” with thing “B” and knowing that we have good reason to discriminate between fake and real, between religion and non-stamp collecting, between gender and sexual preference. Texas Lynn squibbed this point.

* The jurisdictional autonomy of like-minded people to say “we vote no” and to challenge the subjective special pleading of other jurisdictions or voters who claim (without warrant) the divine right to rule and make moral law assertions over others. If you really do support ‘equality’ and freedom, then 1 vote = 1 value is the highest expression of that democratic principle. Texas Lynn conceded this point.

* The evolutionary biology, the hard and soft science of SOGI does NOT support the Argumentum ad Misericordiam used by LGBTQI folk about the myth of inherited homosexuality. Marriage is a fundamentally heterosexual template for that which flows from human courtship and mate selection – the family and the future generations of offspring which our selfish (heterosexual) DNA want to survive.

[Lion IRC]

Closing Comments - Lion IRC

(cont.)

* The moral argument from divinity. Without the existence of a transcendent, objective moral authority with the power to enforce the moral law, Texas Lynn’s opinion about SSM is no more valid than anyone else’s and we may as well settle the debate by arm-wrestling.

(Hey Lion IRC, your God can’t tell me what to do..”) Really? Wanna bet?

* The slippery slope is no longer a fallacy it’s an unfolding fact. Texas Lynn conceded this point but said so what?. But The State (the taxpayer) that has to pick up the pieces - the social pathologies – of family break-down and dysfunctional marriages does care A LOT! And it is not homophobic for people to be concerned about the fabric of society.



Thank you for the debate Texas Lynn. And thanks to anyone who took the time to follow this debate. And thanks to the Talk Rational Mods/Admin making the forum available for this important contest of ideas.

I unashamedly hold to the view of marriage between 'soul mates' as a truly sacred thing and I wish everyones future could include a happy, peaceful, loving family life.

But the present and the future dont happen except as a result of the past.
And when I look at the past I see a history of ancestors who were heterosexual, families that were nuclear, and traditions that are worth fighting for.