Dan Simmons is, for my money, one of the most impressive authors working today. He's won awards in nearly every genre he's tackled and written superlative examples of space opera (Hyperion), horror (Song of Kali), hard-boiled detective fiction (the Joe Kurtz novels) and historical literature (The Terror). A former teacher of the 'talented and gifted', he's both. Intellectually, he can run circles around me.
He's one of the few authors I've run across (Charles Stross is another) who (a) has his own web forum; (b) posts regularly to it (c) engages his readers in conversation and debate on any topic that happens to catch his or their fancy. The forum members are almost uniformly of higher than average intelligence and their backgrounds are diverse enough to make life there very interesting. What really sets the place apart, though, is the openness and general civility. Competing views are aired and thrashed out with an absolute minimum of ad hominem attack, although things can get quite heated. Simmons himself will jump in and fling insults about, but--it took a while to realize this--they're always directed at a mental process, not the person him or herself.
Oh, and the forum leans fairly heavily rightward, politically. The social conservatism is mostly kept in check, but let's just say there are a number of disappointed McCain supporters there who care (in my view) a little too much about their pocketbooks.
Anyway, the night after the American election, I posted a quick, two-sentence lament over the passing of California's Proposition 8, to wit:
The amendment to the California Constitution "protecting" marriage looks like it's going to pass, albeit narrowly. Sad to see that on a night when history is made electing one minority member President, so many people saw fit to stomp all over another minority.
That touched off a shitstorm. I should have known it would; the forum had gone through the issue before, writing about a book's worth before agreeing to disagree. Still, I felt I had to say something: Prop 8 directly affects my closest friend and the sentiment behind it affects countless others.
All the arguments against gay marriage were duly trotted out--including a novel one I hadn't heard: homosexuals have every right to get married, the same as straights; they just wouldn't be sexually attracted to their spouses. Marriage, not too long ago, had nothing to do with sexual attraction anyway. So what's the problem?
The mind boggles, reading that. I have a very hard time thinking so coldly and dispassionately. I mean, suppose you, a straight man, were told you could only marry another man. What's your reaction likely to be? Bear in mind that sex with a woman under these circumstances--sex outside marriage--is a sin. So you have a choice if you want to remain virtuous: go without sex...or try to engage in a kind of sex that at the very least does nothing for you and at worst actively disgusts you. You'd probably find such a prospect alarming.
So I'm arguing and getting nowhere. Arguing and getting nowhere. Arguing and getting nowhere. I mentioned that the United Nations sees marriage as a fundmental human right, to which the reply was "thank God the United States isn't subject to the 'exhaustive' list of things the U.N. considers 'rights'. (I beg to differ...)
In the midst of all this, somebody told me "the case for these [gay marriage] rights has not been compelling" and I, politely, snapped:
When you say "the case for these rights has not been compelling", right there is one disconnect among many for me. You shouldn't have to make cases for human rights. When you start questioning human rights as they apply to human beings, on some level you're dehumanizing them.
Whereupon Mr. Simmons jumped in and stomped on me with both feet, leaving me seething for days. Here's the full text:
Originally Posted By: KenBreadbox
mrstandfast: I'm sorry. I saw a number of pro-Prop 8 commercials essentially characterizing homosexuals as monsters and fools and retaliated in kind. I will try to define my terms and advance the argument as best I can...when I can. Time constraints prohibit the kind of in-depth argument I'd like to mount.
When you say "the case for these rights has not been compelling", right there is one disconnect among many for me. You shouldn't have to make cases for human rights. When you start questioning human rights as they apply to human beings, on some level you're dehumanizing them. Lest we think marriage is not a fundamental human right, let's go to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Article 16.
(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
(3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.
Now, you will note the first clause does not specify that men must marry women, or that women must marry men. It simply says that men and women of full age have the right to marry. It also implies (in my mind, at least) that marriage in and of itself is sufficient to "found a family". I only note this because so many people seem so determined to deny family status to any couple without children--which includes most (but not all) same-sex couples.
There's my first salvo. Intercept and destroy.
When you say "the case for these rights has not been compelling", right there is one disconnect among many for me. You shouldn't have to make cases for human rights. When you start questioning human rights as they apply to human beings, on some level you're dehumanizing them. Lest we think marriage is not a fundamental human right, let's go to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Article 16.
(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
(3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.
Now, you will note the first clause does not specify that men must marry women, or that women must marry men. It simply says that men and women of full age have the right to marry. It also implies (in my mind, at least) that marriage in and of itself is sufficient to "found a family". I only note this because so many people seem so determined to deny family status to any couple without children--which includes most (but not all) same-sex couples.
There's my first salvo. Intercept and destroy.
-------------------------------------------
Dan Simmons comments:
Bold in quoted statement mine.)
This statement shows a profound lack of understanding of culture, government, the United States, of democracy, and of the entire idea of "rights." It's a staggering misperception and the fact that more and more young people tend to think this way -- that whatever they think should be a "basic right" needs to be imposed on entire societies by force -- makes it no less a misunderstanding.
The constitution of the United States created no rights. It tried to define the universal human rights that should be protected through guaranteeing that NO GOVERNMENT SHALL INTERFERE WITH THEM. Thus the right to free assembly, free speech, voting, etc. But the list was very short -- and meant to be. The idea that there is a cosmic, universal, Gaiea-given right for men to marry men (and have sex with them) and women to marry women, (etc.) is absurd.
Marriage is such a basic societal function that every culture in history, while having variations in it, has reserved its own right to legally and socially (and usually religiously) define what marriage is and to whom its status will be granted. These definitions and boundaries to marriage are decided within each culture by human beings based on their basic religious and civil mores and have nothing to do with "basic rights" that have to be imposed by force on citizens and cultures unwilling to recognize them.
Throughout history -- and in some Arab nations today -- it is a man's "right" to marry any number of women he so chooses. The United States does not now and never has recognized that right. Indeed, the U.S. government refused Utah's admission to the Union for decades until the Mormons there legally and officially abandoned polygamy. Thus this "basic right" was denied.
Throughout history -- and in some nations today -- a man's "right" in marriage was to be the de facto owner of the woman he marries. She is legally counted as property and protected in the courts as such. This "basic right" has never been accepted by the people and culture of the United States. It is denied.
Throughout history -- and in many parts of the world today -- it is a basic right of men to marry (and to have sex with) women and girls of any age. A man might marry a girl of six and, if he wishes, force conjugal relations at any time he wishes. The societies supported this (and continue to support it even in some modern industrial nations). The people of the United States -- because of their religious and philosophical background -- have never acknowledged this "right." It is a right denied.
Throughout history and in much of the world today, cultures recognize and legally enforce the "right" of men to divorce their spouses unilaterally and easily -- in some cultures by publicly saying "I divorce you" three times while dropping a stone each time you speak. The United States denies this basic right so commonly associated with marriage.
Until recent years in certain post-industrial (and, whether incidental or not, post-Christian and post-religious) nations, there has been no culture anywhere in the world, no culture in all the annals of history, that granted the term "marriage" with all its accruing legal rights and privileges, to homosexuals wishing to live together. If it is a basic human right, it is one which no one -- not even the homosexuals from ancient Greece (where many city states had elaborate social accommodations for the man-boy relationships, but which held the practice itself to be illegal and immoral) through thousands of years of European pagan and then Christian societies, Asian societies, Islamic societies, African societies, aboriginal societies in Australia, South Pacific tribal societies, Aleut societies in the arctic . . . nowhere in history or the world did men wishing to have sex with men or (much less common) women admitting to wanting to have sex with women -- believe it was any sort of "right" for them to have a public union recognized by the society as marriage.
The United States preserves the democratic mechanism by which to change its official state (but never the many religious) views on what constitutes even so central an institution as marriage -- which has always, in all cultures, at all times, been defined as a recognized union between men and women -- but the idea that this new demand for homosexual marriage is a "right" that trumps all democratic process, and one that must be inflicted on the majority of Americans not wanting it as a feature of their society, and that a small minority of special pleaders should be allowed to enforce such a basic change to society, culture, and laws simply because they shout "basic right!" -- goes beyond being arrogant. It's essentially fascist.
Someone on this forum recently argued -- actually, stated as if it were a truism -- that the best sort of government was a "benevolent despotism." Benevolent by whose definition? Despotisms, by their very nature and definition, are never benevolent because they deny and suppress the most basic right acknowledged and defended across more than two centuries by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States -- the right of a free people to decide their own destiny by free speech, free ballot, and by the will of the people being heard and heeded by their government within the safeguards and protections of the constitution.
These "progressive" judicial fiats that attempt to change the legal and cultural definitions of the single most basic human association and legally protected institution in our or any other culture are not merely wrong-headed, they're dangerous to the very structures of freedom that protect homosexuals and other formerly unpopular groups from real discrimination and harm.
Several years ago, almost two-thirds of Americans were polled as being "very sympathetic" to homosexuals' demand for various "rights." The support of the idea of legally recognized civil unions was -- and remains -- very high.
But gay groups and their supporters overreached by demanding judicial recognition of the basic and profound redefinition of marriage as one of those "rights." Public support went from two-thirds in favor of supporting "gay rights" to almost two-thirds opposed.
It's not Americans' basic tolerance and sense of fairness that changed. It's their recognition that this superior, arrogant, anti-democratic demand that the historical and social definition of marriage itself be changed -- without due democratic process and simply through claims of moral superiority by a minority and their supporters demanding special treatment -- is wrong.
It's not right and it's not their right.
DS
Dan Simmons comments:
Bold in quoted statement mine.)
This statement shows a profound lack of understanding of culture, government, the United States, of democracy, and of the entire idea of "rights." It's a staggering misperception and the fact that more and more young people tend to think this way -- that whatever they think should be a "basic right" needs to be imposed on entire societies by force -- makes it no less a misunderstanding.
The constitution of the United States created no rights. It tried to define the universal human rights that should be protected through guaranteeing that NO GOVERNMENT SHALL INTERFERE WITH THEM. Thus the right to free assembly, free speech, voting, etc. But the list was very short -- and meant to be. The idea that there is a cosmic, universal, Gaiea-given right for men to marry men (and have sex with them) and women to marry women, (etc.) is absurd.
Marriage is such a basic societal function that every culture in history, while having variations in it, has reserved its own right to legally and socially (and usually religiously) define what marriage is and to whom its status will be granted. These definitions and boundaries to marriage are decided within each culture by human beings based on their basic religious and civil mores and have nothing to do with "basic rights" that have to be imposed by force on citizens and cultures unwilling to recognize them.
Throughout history -- and in some Arab nations today -- it is a man's "right" to marry any number of women he so chooses. The United States does not now and never has recognized that right. Indeed, the U.S. government refused Utah's admission to the Union for decades until the Mormons there legally and officially abandoned polygamy. Thus this "basic right" was denied.
Throughout history -- and in some nations today -- a man's "right" in marriage was to be the de facto owner of the woman he marries. She is legally counted as property and protected in the courts as such. This "basic right" has never been accepted by the people and culture of the United States. It is denied.
Throughout history -- and in many parts of the world today -- it is a basic right of men to marry (and to have sex with) women and girls of any age. A man might marry a girl of six and, if he wishes, force conjugal relations at any time he wishes. The societies supported this (and continue to support it even in some modern industrial nations). The people of the United States -- because of their religious and philosophical background -- have never acknowledged this "right." It is a right denied.
Throughout history and in much of the world today, cultures recognize and legally enforce the "right" of men to divorce their spouses unilaterally and easily -- in some cultures by publicly saying "I divorce you" three times while dropping a stone each time you speak. The United States denies this basic right so commonly associated with marriage.
Until recent years in certain post-industrial (and, whether incidental or not, post-Christian and post-religious) nations, there has been no culture anywhere in the world, no culture in all the annals of history, that granted the term "marriage" with all its accruing legal rights and privileges, to homosexuals wishing to live together. If it is a basic human right, it is one which no one -- not even the homosexuals from ancient Greece (where many city states had elaborate social accommodations for the man-boy relationships, but which held the practice itself to be illegal and immoral) through thousands of years of European pagan and then Christian societies, Asian societies, Islamic societies, African societies, aboriginal societies in Australia, South Pacific tribal societies, Aleut societies in the arctic . . . nowhere in history or the world did men wishing to have sex with men or (much less common) women admitting to wanting to have sex with women -- believe it was any sort of "right" for them to have a public union recognized by the society as marriage.
The United States preserves the democratic mechanism by which to change its official state (but never the many religious) views on what constitutes even so central an institution as marriage -- which has always, in all cultures, at all times, been defined as a recognized union between men and women -- but the idea that this new demand for homosexual marriage is a "right" that trumps all democratic process, and one that must be inflicted on the majority of Americans not wanting it as a feature of their society, and that a small minority of special pleaders should be allowed to enforce such a basic change to society, culture, and laws simply because they shout "basic right!" -- goes beyond being arrogant. It's essentially fascist.
Someone on this forum recently argued -- actually, stated as if it were a truism -- that the best sort of government was a "benevolent despotism." Benevolent by whose definition? Despotisms, by their very nature and definition, are never benevolent because they deny and suppress the most basic right acknowledged and defended across more than two centuries by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States -- the right of a free people to decide their own destiny by free speech, free ballot, and by the will of the people being heard and heeded by their government within the safeguards and protections of the constitution.
These "progressive" judicial fiats that attempt to change the legal and cultural definitions of the single most basic human association and legally protected institution in our or any other culture are not merely wrong-headed, they're dangerous to the very structures of freedom that protect homosexuals and other formerly unpopular groups from real discrimination and harm.
Several years ago, almost two-thirds of Americans were polled as being "very sympathetic" to homosexuals' demand for various "rights." The support of the idea of legally recognized civil unions was -- and remains -- very high.
But gay groups and their supporters overreached by demanding judicial recognition of the basic and profound redefinition of marriage as one of those "rights." Public support went from two-thirds in favor of supporting "gay rights" to almost two-thirds opposed.
It's not Americans' basic tolerance and sense of fairness that changed. It's their recognition that this superior, arrogant, anti-democratic demand that the historical and social definition of marriage itself be changed -- without due democratic process and simply through claims of moral superiority by a minority and their supporters demanding special treatment -- is wrong.
It's not right and it's not their right.
DS
I can't even begin to tell you how furious this made me. It's that kind of "let's-be-reasonable-and-when-you-grow-up-you'll-finally-see-it-my-way" style of arguing that chafes on me like a lack of lube. (Sorry...)
Besides, it's irrelevant in many places and plain inaccurate in others. It engages in an extended logical fallacy (the appeal to tradition: "this is how it's always been") and concludes with the statement that "it's not Americans' basic tolerance and sense of fairness that has changed".
Oh, really? First off, the last Prop 8-type bill passed in California, eight short years ago, 61% to 38%. A full sixty one percent voted to outlaw same-sex marriage. This time, despite massive spending by religious groups (chief among them the Mormons, who don't even have a dog in this hunt), Prop 8 passed 52% to 48%. If current trends hold--and there's no reason to suggest they won't--California will revisit this issue in a couple of electoral terms and gays will have their marriages back. Which is no excuse for the eighteen thousand-plus couples that have had their marriages nullified, of course...but it does show that Americans' basic sense of tolerance and fairness is changing for the better. In some areas.
Also, Mr. Simmons' assertion that almost two thirds of Americans are opposed to same-sex marriage does not jibe well with its acceptance in other parts of the world, most notably above America's border. In Canada, nearly two thirds of people polled in 2003 supported same-sex-marriage, with the data showing the young were more likely to be in favour. This is the reverse of conditions Mr. Simmons cites for the United States...and also the sentiment about a decade before in Canada. In short, acceptance of same-sex marriage is inevitable. We don't see it as a "special" right--just a matter of equality.
When I calmed down enough to come back to the debating table, I was armed with all manner of statistics and such supporting my side and refuting Dan Simmons'. But in the end I decided not to use them...because they prove acceptance is growing for something the forum members, by and large, don't accept. My posting them would only rub everyone's nose in it...and I'm not...quite...that mean. I went, once again, with an appeal to empathy:
This will be my last word on the matter, and then I'll give up. I feel like I'm tilting at windmills.
Once again we're drawn back to "marriage is a union with an established composition, and same-sex marriage is a violation of this composition." Or in other words, "this is how it's always been done, so any other way of thinking about the matter is invalid." Also known as a logical fallacy: the appeal to tradition. And not even universal tradition. Same-sex marriages date back to the Roman Empire. Lo and behold, they exist today in several parts of the world...including within the borders of the United States of America itself.
So yes, I've ignored Dan's history lesson because, while eloquent, it couldn't be more irrelevant.
Marriage is, in almost all cases, between a man and a woman. So what?
To answer that, you need to know the purpose of marriage. And since each couple has a different answer to that question, marriage being deeply personal--I submit you can't. Oh, many have tried. Quoting Charles Stross:
"[M]arriage is for the purpose of having children," they say, conveniently side-stepping the question of why they aren't in favour of mandatory divorce for childless or elderly couples, or why they oppose allowing gay couples to adopt. Or, "marriage is a holy sacrament," which kind of assumes that everybody shares their definition of "holy".
I've heard the idea that marriage is the basic building block of society so many times, I'm surprised I don't believe it yet. The *individual* is the basic building block of societies everywhere, and always has been. Surely that's a fundamental truth in a country that values individual freedom as highly as does the United States. An individual is not required to marry in order to be a fully functioning member of society; nor is he or she required to be a product of a married mother and father. Even the social stigma of bastardy has all but abated in civilized places.
As to marriage being a right--well, yes, in fact I do side with the United Nations on that matter. I should think all married persons would: imagine a world where you didn't have the legal right to marry your spouse and get back to me on that.
My issue with Proposition 8 is, and always has been, the revoking of rights previously granted. Over eighteen thousand couples were married in California before this travesty of a proposition robbed them of their marriages. Put yourself in the place of a newlywed gay couple, if you can, and imagine learning that "the people" have decided your marriage is unacceptable and unlawful. Anyone with a shred of empathy would scream bloody murder.
Other states are free to pass their hateful "Defense of Marriage" acts--defense against what? Why, that awful gay agenda, of course!--and progress will have to come from the judiciary. The onus ought to be on "Focus On The Family" and groups of their ilk to explain how humans in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York are different from those in Arizona and Florida; why people in America should be denied rights granted in Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, South Africa and Spain. Good luck with that.
That's it--I'm done. My words probably won't convince anyone: this is one of those issues that people have made up their minds on and can't be swayed. But I find I must, however, write them, for the sake of friends and relatives who deserve what I myself enjoy: the security of marriage.
So yes, I've ignored Dan's history lesson because, while eloquent, it couldn't be more irrelevant.
Marriage is, in almost all cases, between a man and a woman. So what?
To answer that, you need to know the purpose of marriage. And since each couple has a different answer to that question, marriage being deeply personal--I submit you can't. Oh, many have tried. Quoting Charles Stross:
"[M]arriage is for the purpose of having children," they say, conveniently side-stepping the question of why they aren't in favour of mandatory divorce for childless or elderly couples, or why they oppose allowing gay couples to adopt. Or, "marriage is a holy sacrament," which kind of assumes that everybody shares their definition of "holy".
I've heard the idea that marriage is the basic building block of society so many times, I'm surprised I don't believe it yet. The *individual* is the basic building block of societies everywhere, and always has been. Surely that's a fundamental truth in a country that values individual freedom as highly as does the United States. An individual is not required to marry in order to be a fully functioning member of society; nor is he or she required to be a product of a married mother and father. Even the social stigma of bastardy has all but abated in civilized places.
As to marriage being a right--well, yes, in fact I do side with the United Nations on that matter. I should think all married persons would: imagine a world where you didn't have the legal right to marry your spouse and get back to me on that.
My issue with Proposition 8 is, and always has been, the revoking of rights previously granted. Over eighteen thousand couples were married in California before this travesty of a proposition robbed them of their marriages. Put yourself in the place of a newlywed gay couple, if you can, and imagine learning that "the people" have decided your marriage is unacceptable and unlawful. Anyone with a shred of empathy would scream bloody murder.
Other states are free to pass their hateful "Defense of Marriage" acts--defense against what? Why, that awful gay agenda, of course!--and progress will have to come from the judiciary. The onus ought to be on "Focus On The Family" and groups of their ilk to explain how humans in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York are different from those in Arizona and Florida; why people in America should be denied rights granted in Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, South Africa and Spain. Good luck with that.
That's it--I'm done. My words probably won't convince anyone: this is one of those issues that people have made up their minds on and can't be swayed. But I find I must, however, write them, for the sake of friends and relatives who deserve what I myself enjoy: the security of marriage.
Only then did some measure of support come out of the woodwork. There has been some attempt to goad me back into the debate, but I haven't bitten and don't intend to. There are vast, probably unbridgeable chasms between both sides of this argument. The underlying assumptions and definitions are wholly incompatible. And so--I know how I feel, and you know how I feel, and that's all I have to say.
9 comments:
The fact is that they do not see that this is about discrimination plain and simple. Marriage is a contract that the gov. supports/enables and to deny this same "right" to any group of people based on sexual oreintation is wrong.
The way this guy makes his agruement, he would be ok with Blacks not being able to marry as well, jsut as they were decades ago.
You should check out Keith Olbermans rant on this over at my blog, very nicely said.
I'm with you Ken. I have never understood how Gay marriage is any form of a threat to "traditional" marriages or to society as a whole.
And that is the source of all the counter arguments against gay marriage. Its a threat somehow.
How Gays can threaten straights by being married to each other is a leap of "logic (and I use that loosely)" that I cannot follow.
They say "Gay marriage threatens society!" I hear "1+1=Pi"
Rocket: Olbermann is very powerful here. But most of the people on this forum pooh-poohed the comparison of gay rights with black rights. Gays, you see, choose to be that way. That's the overriding belief these people have, and testimony to the contrary will not change it.
Catelli: you're right, of course. And I argued the same and got "it's not threatening anything, it's just wrong." Okay, whatever. Why fight so hard against it?
Hey Ken,
In short, these people are bigots. Marriage, as Olbermann points out, has changed and evolved over time - this is just the next step. But bigots are bigots - reason doesn't work on them.
Marriage is not a basic human right. It is a sub-structure of society, a building block of something bigger. As such, society retains the right to use whatever building blocks they choose in the same way a child can choose which crayon to use to color a picture. The chosen components are combined to make a presentation of the society's beliefs. To say that marriage is a basic human right is to have an ill-conceived notion of marriage and/or rights.
Historically, marriage, and by extension the family, has been sanctioned by societies because they benefit the society as a whole, either representationally, or structurally.
Representationally, marriage is a picture of the bigger society with a hierarchy of authority, division of labor, and fiscal and social obligations.
Structurally, marriage and family have increased the strength and health of society. In pre-birth control times, marriage produced children which increased the work force and the overall wealth of the society. Traditional marriage provided a context for the values of society to be demonstrated and learned.
Because of these benefits to society, marriage was given special status and, often, special benefits. In American society, these benefits are typically financial.
It is not illegal to be gay. Nor is it any longer illegal for gays to have sex with each other. What society is saying, effectively, is that we don't see what benefits to society gay marriage provides and therefore choose not to support it financially. Opposition to gay marriage need not be religious or simple bigotry, it can be purely pragmatic and relatively persuasive.
So far, gay couples have not provided, or demonstrated that they can provide benefits to society that warrant the same treatment of traditional married couples. So far, gays have demanded rather than demonstrated.
Just some thoughts from someone who does not support gay marriage, but doesn't hate gays either.
Marriage is not a basic human right.
Well let's be clear here Russel - what do you mean by a basic human right? Is it a right on the level of the right to breathe and live? No, but it is a right within our society - you have the right to marry. No one can tell you that you can't (well maybe a priest can I don't know). But no-one can tell you or me that we can't be involved in a civil marriage (non-religious). It is our right.
What society is saying, effectively, is that we don't see what benefits to society gay marriage provides and therefore choose not to support it financially.
I call bullshit. What benefits do marriages between opposite sex couples who can't have kids give to society then? About about those one in two marriages in the U.S. that fail? What benefits do they give to society? This is about bigotry Russel. You, and others like you, think that homosexual relationships are lesser than heterosexual relationships. Quit trying to dress it up as something it isn't. You might not hate gays, but you don't see them, or their relationships, as equals.
You want to know the benefit of same sex marriages? Two people who love each other get to express their relationship like everyone else. That's it. That's all it is about. It's about two people loving each other who want to express it like everyone else. And people like you think that you get to dictate who gets to express it and who doesn't. If i were a lesser man I'd say that you probably campaigned against blacks having the right to marry white's in the 50's and 60s - but I won't (OK, I did).
So far, gay couples have not provided, or demonstrated that they can provide benefits to society that warrant the same treatment of traditional married couples.
So let me ask you a question Russel - what benefit does a 50% divorce rate provide society? Broken families. Confused kids. Great stuff that is.
Again, the benefit is that two people who love each other get to feel as though their relationship matters to the rest of society. They get to feel accepted and cared for. Gay couples with kids (because, you know, lots of gay couples have kids from previous relationships and adoption - a fact lost on most social conservatives) get to feel as though their type of family is validated.
So get off it Russel. We've had gay marriage for two years and nothing has happened. People who love each other get to get married. The sky is falling!
Hear Hear Peter! Well Put.
But as Ken's post alludes to, Russel will refuse to acknowledge that his arguments have been pinned to the mat, the bell has rung and the ref has declared you the winner. But yet he'll keep fighting believing the match isn't over.
And to throw a chair into the ring, just because society had a traditional view of marriage, doesn't mean that society was right. Society used to believe women were inferior and shouldn't have the vote, blacks were a sub-species and not quite human, etc. etc.
Exactly Catelli - marriage has always evolved. My parents don't pick who I marry. I can marry a person of color. I can marry outside the church. But Russel and others will say "but it's always been between a man and a woman....that has always been the constant." Sure, but the next step in it's evolution is to allow for any two people to marry. Institutions change - that's what makes a liberal democracy better than a dictatorship.
I understand what Russell is saying here--he sounds almost word for word like one of the folks I was sparring with on that forum.
Marriage IS a right. The United Nations says so--and I have trouble understanding how anyone who is married could feel otherwise. Imagine being told you have no right to be married, that your marriage must be annulled, made to unhappen.
Not because your spouse is leaving you, or because you're leaving your spouse. Just because.
I can't accept that.
We come back to children. Some say the purpose of marriage is procreation--which begs the question why my wife and I, childless as we are, can still claim to be married. Or, for that matter, why two men or two women shouldn't be able to marry and have kids, via adoption, IVF, surrogacy or any other method of childbearing, now or in the future.
Marriage in and of itself does not present any net benefit to society. What lasting good came out of Britney Spears' 48-hour union? There are good marriages and bad marriages, just as there are good parents and bad parents who may or may not be married. Marriage is a contract between you, your spouse and the government, conferring certain benefits and responsibilities. There may or may not be a sacramental component to the ceremony (i.e., the contract may be between you and your spouse, the government, and whatever higher power you believe in).
I do think churches should be able to place whatever requirements they wish on the sacrament. I myself had to take a premarital course in order to be married in the church we chose. But the marriage itself should be open to any two (or heck, even three or four) people who wish to commit to each other.
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