I just finished reading David Blankenhorn’s interesting and excellent* The Future of Marriage. I’m not sure yet how I intend to blog about this, either as a more formal review-type post or a series of posts on the issues he raises, but I do want to draw your attention to something he says in the Acknowledgments at the end of the book as it echoes what I’ve been saying about gay marriage at least as long as I’ve been blogging about the topic:
Today’s gay marriage debate is an invaluable opportunity for Americans to have a serious national discussion about marriage’s meaning and future.
The greatest criticism I make of gay marriage advocates is that most are unwilling to have that conversation. They’ve reduced the discussion to a debate over rights and equality without considering the history of marriage and the very ideas the social institution embodies. Blankenhorn addresses these issues. It one reason I recommend his book.
To be sure, there are exceptions to this rule, gay marriage advocates who do consider the institution’s meaning. It’s just too bad they’re not more prominent in the debate. Instead we’re subject to those who blather on with their trite and treacly tirades against those who would deny their right to shack up with the individual of their choosing.
All too many neglect to address the social benefits of marriage and the obligations which inhere in this ancient institution. And the transformation it effects on those who agree to submit to its strictures.
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*I use this adjective despite finding some flaws in the book. Blankenhorn repeats himself a bit overmuch in the second half and does not adequately address the point some gay marriage advocates, Jonathan Rauch most particularly, make about how expanding marriage to includ same-sex union could strengthen this ancient institution. That said, he offers a valuable argument backed up by much research. It’s why I recommend the book and believe it merits at least one review on this blog.
I think alot of people want the right to marry only because they can’t have it. When me and mine have aceremony I wish it would be legal with the same responsiblities personal and to society at large. Such as raising kids to be good people and good citizens, for looking after ourselves and our families.
A year ago David Blankenhorn and Jonathan Rauch had an interesting debate on the topic of gay marriage over at BloggingheadsTV. Unfortunately it appears not to be available any more.
It was fascinating to watch these two men respectfully discussing the issue, there were moments of great disagreement, but never anger or name calling.
I do recall that Blankenhorn conceded that marriage would probably be good for the gay adults, but he feels that traditional marriage is best for the children. There has been a lot of breakdown of families that has adversely effected children. (not that gay couples would be bad parents). So for the sake of children he feels it important to maintain traditional marriage as much as possible – probably because of all the erosion in the last 40 years.
On a societal level- he puts childrens’ welfare above adults.
That conclusion would make sense if we had a causal relationship between the “breakdown” of the traditional nuclear family and negative effects on children. Presently, we see marriage rates dropping in much of the Western world. And yet, in countries with the lowest rates of marriage (Scandinavia) children are doing better than ever. They have far lower infant mortality rates, teen pregnancy rates and STDs (the HIV rate is less than 1/4 of ours), and the world’s highest life expectancy.
David, in Scandinavian countries, the birth rate is falling. The people having babies there are muslim. So when you have less children, there are fewer problems.
Children from broken homes have more problems than children in intact homes. That hasn’t changed yet. So Blackenhorn is concerned that anything that breaks down the traditional home is not good for children. He sees Gay marriage as another way of weakening traditional marriage.
You may not agree with that, which is a fair point. But his point, that he is more concerned with children than with adult gays – is also a fair point. Since most gay couples won’t have children – he is still advocating for children over adults.
Have you taken a look at the black community lately?
I know infant mortality rates are measured differently in the US, so that is comparing apples to oranges. Are we measuring teen pregnancy and STD rates the same? It would not surprise me if we were not.
I am curious how many gay marriage advocates can have an honest discussion about marriage and its effects on society, of if the conclusion will always be predetermined that gay marriage is indeed good for society.
For example, if one of the major purposes of marriage is to encourage children to be born into a legally binding union between their natural parents, is it in society’s interest to encourage relationships that by definition cannot contribute to, and indeed may necessarily detract from it? More specifically, if the focus of marriage is whats best for children, doesn’t encouraging gay marriage by definition change that focus to whats best for adults? And is that good for society?
I don’t know the answers to these questions. I’m just wondering how many gay marriage advocates are going to be able to look at them objectively.
It’s probably the same proportion of anti-gay marriage advocates who have already reached the conclusion that gay marriage is bad for society. I would enjoy an honest discussion, but this topic is such a hotbed for emotional responses that I’m not confident that such a discussion will take place.
The question is why does it detract from the traditional institution of marriage? Why does a union between a same-sex couple have any effect on a heterosexual couple? People always quote divorce rates and out-of-wedlock statistics, but I have yet to see a true correlation between these phenomena and gay marriage.
Why are the two mutually exclusive? Are children only affected by the stability of their parents’ marriage? I would argue that to a lesser extent, the stability of those around children, such as neighbors, teachers, coaches, etc., also have an affect on children. You know, the whole “it takes a village” concept. I would argue that stable relationships within the “village”, whether they include children or not, should be encouraged for the betterment of society as a whole, including the children around them.
Because a thing cannot have two primary foci. The needs of children and the desires of adults are different and often at odds; and meeting them, respectively, is not of equal value or concern to society.
Also, if we have determined that encouraging the nuclear family is what is best for children, and thus best for society, then encouraging relationships that are contrary to that formula is counter-productive to that goal by definition isn’t it?
No, but it affects them more than almost anything else. Again, look at the current state of the black community where the nuclear family is the exception and not the norm.
it’s really true: marriage is all about the children.
There is something profound that goes on when 2 people get married: they stop being children. Especially men, they start thinking about the MORE than themselves. I have noted that young people are still “young” when they are 30 years old… they think they are too ‘young’ to ‘get married.’ And when I mention marriage and children (I am cantankerous enough to do so), they look FRIGHTENED.
And whatever people think, that ritual has not real meaning… it does. You cannot overcome that reality. Do you know that a child has FOUR HUNDRED TIMES a chance of being assaulted in a home with a step parent? The old stories of the Evil Step Mother have some very basic truths.
Personally? I do believe that – in civil law – marriage should be limited to couples WITH children. As to religious laws: that should be up to the religion performing the marriage.
To say it’s about civil rights is to talk about something other than marriage–provided we’re not being arrested for living together with the ones we love.
#11: “To say that there needs to be a discussion about gay civil rights makes about as much sense as entering a meaningful dialog with slaves about emancipation.”
And speaking of “meaningful dialogue”…
Your comment is an insult to the millions sold into slavery as chattel by their own people, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglas, the Board of Directors of a certain museum in Memphis, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ulysses S. Grant, 320,000 dead Union soldiers and the entire cast of Roots.
MLK himself would give you a knuckle-sandwich.
I understand that you feel that way. However, as even the most liberal courts in the country have agreed, you’re wrong.
Straight and gay are not the same. Straight relationships can provide society with something, ie children, that gay relationships cannot.
It doesnt mean gay relationships are not worthwhile, or do not provide something else that is also of value to society, but the whole idea that they are the equivalent of straight relationships and therefore you are being denied your civil rights per the “equal protection” clause is patently false.
This is something it takes some effort for people who are emotionally invested in the issue to accept, but you will see that it really is irrefutable once you do.
And once you do, the whole gay marriage issue becomes so much more rational and so much less hysterical.
Yet this is not as true today as it once was. More and more gay couples are having children and raising them. If the purpose of marriage is to provide a stable environment for these children, why are these couples excluded from it? My uncle, who is straight, has been married for many years and has no kids. Should he and my aunt have been barred from marriage? I think not and society is better off with childless couples like them settling down and pairing off. I believe the same applies to many same-sex couples.
I believe the focus of this discussion is misdirected because of the numerous gay relationships, usually childless, which dissolve and the fear that given how heterosexuals are still divorcing at alarmingly high rates, extending marriages to same-sex couples would somehow only make matters worse. If this was done under the current climate, there might be some legit reason for concern. Yet what this discussion does give us is a golden opportunity to examine the problems the institution is facing rather than making this solely about rights or exclusions. Personally, I think “quickie marriages” should be banned, some form of counseling prior to the vows should be mandatory and “no-fault” divorces should be done away with. I also believe society has a good interest in civil same-sex marriages as well as opposite sex ones with these things in mind. Marriage shouldn’t be entered into lightly regardless of sexual orientation.
Thank you John; you’ve eloquently expressed almost exactly what I wanted to in your first paragraph. I would like to add something that I’ve said before, though, too.
(I address the following mostly to AE. Where “you” appears, treat it with that meaning. I will use the term “non-reproductive couple” to refer to any pairing of people who are not capable of producing children without medical or other “non-natural” assistance)
If marriage is just about encouraging reproduction and “making babies”, then why in the world do we let infertile couples marry?
I know of all kinds of gay relationships that have yielded children in the same way that infertile couples often have children. First, of course there is adoption, which both use. Then there is artificial insemination, which both have been known to use. And finally there is surrogacy, which, again, both have been known to use.
If and when you can show me one baby that is the naturally produced offspring of an infertile couple, then I’ll cede that they should be allowed to marry under a reproductive qualifier. If not, then condemn them to the same fate as other non-reproductive couples.
But if infertile non-reproductive couples are respected by the law even when they have children in the same ways as gay couples typically do, then I would say, along purely reproductive lines, that provides more of an argument for marriage equality.
(The rest has as more general audience.)
As for the multitude of arguments about what environment is best for children to be raised in, well, there have been several studies, and they have found that children raised by gay parents are perfectly well-adjusted and are just as happy and successful as their “straight-reared” peers, so I don’t really see that child-welfare is an issue with same sex relationships.
The problem is, PSUdain, infertile couples constitute at best a tiny minority of heterosexual couples.
ALL gay and lesbian couples are by definition infertile.
What is never mentioned is that all of the things mentioned — surrogacy, adoption, and whatnot — require additional legal structuring above and beyond, mainly because our laws towards children are based on biology as being the ultimate arbiter of rights.
As AE put it succintly, the vast and overwhelming majority of heterosexual couplings can create something that no same-sex coupling can — children that are biologically linked to both its members.
It thus only makes sense that that relationship will be treated differently than others. The fact that there are exceptions is not grounds for nullifying the rule.
John is right in that society needs to fix the problems with heterosexual marriage, i.e. abolishing no-fault divorce, demanding premarital counseling, and building penalties for those who choose to be non-monogamous. However, that hardly argues for adding a whole group of people who have historically and culturally demonstrated an inability and/or unwillingness to enter and create sexually-exclusive, committed relationships.
On the contrary, there is very little justification for society to exclude that exception you mention based solely upon sexual orientation – especially with the changing realities with many same-sex couples having children. For that matter, why even have the exception for infertile couples? The Catholic Church used to deny sacramental marriage upon those grounds, why should the state do otherwise?
When nearly half of heterosexual marriages are ending and subgroups like African Americans are having upwards of 70% of their children out of wedlock, this kind of stereotyping in seeking to maintain an exclusion seems rather absurd.
Gay people want to get married for the same reason that straight people get married. Because they love each other and they want more than just a casual arrangement.
BTW, I hope everyone saw Kevin propose to Scottie on Brothers and Sisters on Sunday not. If you missed it find someone who recorded it (or find it on youtube…it’s all over the place). It’s best seen in context of the entire episode but the highlight is very powerful. It’s one of the best proposals anyone has ever done in a tv show or film.
On the contrary, there is very little justification for society to exclude that exception you mention based solely upon sexual orientation – especially with the changing realities with many same-sex couples having children.
Again, John, I repeat myself.
Same-sex couples do not “have children”. They adopt, surrogate, artificially inseminate, or do other things, all of which require ADDITIONAL legal documentation that revolves around the fact that our laws hold the biological linkage between parent and child to be the highest and most overriding factor.
Babies are the natural result of heterosexual coupling. That fact is why society has esteemed relationships that can produce that to the greatest degree and gives them the smoothest path. We want to encourage straight people to marry and have children, because that is what will perpetuate society.
Gay people want to get married for the same reason that straight people get married. Because they love each other and they want more than just a casual arrangement.
Then, by that logic, we should extend marriage to incestuous couples, polygamous groups, and pedophiles, because they too can “love” and ‘want more than just a casual arrangement”.
If you’re going to argue that marriage is a “right” based on that, you must extend it to those groups. If, however, you are willing to acknowledge that society can restrict marriage for its own reasons, then you can justify these restrictions.
When nearly half of heterosexual marriages are ending and subgroups like African Americans are having upwards of 70% of their children out of wedlock, this kind of stereotyping in seeking to maintain an exclusion seems rather absurd.
A bit of advice, John; if you’re going to argue that gay marriage will help society, you probably don’t want to argue how screwed up society is because of heterosexual marriage.
Second off, given that marriage is already screwed up, why would we want to be adding people to it and compounding the problem? Why not fix heterosexual marriage first, since it IS the fundamental building block of our society.
Third, and be honest; does the gay community represent more the culture seen among the urban blacks you call out, in which promiscuity is esteemed and monogamy is cast aside, or the traditionalist bastions of marriage, where monogamy is esteemed and promiscuity is cast aside?
Because they do not change the formula:
1. Babies come from straight couplings
plus
2. It is best for children to be raised by their biological parents
equals
3. society should encourage as many men and women to marry as possible
Gay relationships do not fit into that formula, infertile couples do, as do perfectly fertile couples who choose not to have children. In fact, gay marriage would, by definition, debtract from that formula.
You’re absolutely right.
And gay people can get married in this sense. Gay couples can commit to eachother, they can do it in front of all their family and friends, they can do it in a church with a pastor presiding. They can draw up legal commitments that bind them to each other legally.
What they cannot do is get the incentives we give to get men and women to marry eachother so that as many children as possible are born into a union between their mother and their father.
The problem is that what most gays really want is a pat on the head from government telling them that their relationships are just as good and just as important to society as straight relationships. But they arent. They may or may not be just as good, but they absolutely arent just as important to society.
Ugh. How many times does one need to repeat these things:
Incest: Prexisting familial/legal relationship.
Polygamy: Marriage is an exclusive legal contract between two people. This contract’s fulfillment does not pivot on monogamy, regardless of how you view that fact. Swingers are still legally married. So don’t try saying that the fact that a person can have extramarital relations disproves the fact that marriage is an exclusive contract. By that exclusivity it is, well, exclusive, ergo no being married to two people at once.
Children: Can’t enter into legal contacts, they’re not major adults. You’ll notice that the fundamental right of voting is restricted by age. (And for felons, who, I might add are not denied marriage.) Why, time and time again, do you insist on bringing up this red herring.
———–
Now, NDT, as for your views about the supposed or real promiscuity of the gay populace as a whole (By the way, it does vary, like any other human characteristic, from person to person, so why should I be punished because some people sleep around?), that should have no bearing on legal positions. It is not up to the state to become involved in legislation of morality. People will and should be permitted to live as they will so long as it does not impinge upon the liberties of other citizens. You may not like it. I often don’t like choices people make. But it’s neither up to me, nor to the government to make those decisions for them.
However, as the government offers special legal rights to certain couples, it should offer them to all couples. Again, Equal Protection.
AE, I will again put forth the fact that gay parents have children via the same means presented to and used by infertile couples, where often the child is not the biological offspring of at least one of the parents, perhaps both. There is effectively no difference except the gender of the parents.
Nobody has ever shown that infant adoption is harmful to the child.
So if we hand these benefits even to adoptive infertile couples who are non biological parents. Is your only logic, then that it’s not ok if it’s two guys or two gals, just because that’s not what the typical case has been???
I would remind you again that research and studies have shown that children raised by same-sex parents are exactly as well-off emotionally and are just as successful as those raised by opposite-sex parents.
So if both are equally beneficial to the children (evidenced by the fact that the children show no marked difference between the two groups), what is your argument for allowing adoptive (non-biological) parents marriage rights, but not gay parents?
If we’re really talking about what’s best for the children of same-sex couples, wouldn’t it be best if mommy and mom, or daddy and dad could get married?
Why are the two at odds? Just because gay marriage isn’t the main focus of marriage laws doesn’t mean that it is necessarily detrimental to the efforts to support marriage by those laws.
No, not really. Why is gay marriage counter-productive to encouraging the nuclear family? Gay people who get married aren’t preventing or discouraging straight couples who want to get married.
But those legal structures already exist for straight couples who adopt, use surrogacy, etc. Extending those same rights to gay couples would required little additional effort.
Why would extending gay marriage “nullify” the rule. What impact would allowing gay marriage have on straight marriage?
Why is it relevant if the majority of the gay community doesn’t want to enter into committed relationships? Should the few suffer because of the actions of the many?
Again, how does gay marriage change that equation. In what way does allowing gay marriage hamper straight couples?
Why is this relevant? Just because the majority may prefer promiscuity, it does not stand to reason that those who wish to be in a committed relationship should be unnecessarily burdened by the law.
Again, there’s that concept of “detracting” but no explanation of how it would detract.
It’s not always that simple. It varies by state, and can even vary by the presiding judge if the documents are challenged.
Yes, I realize that I’m asking the same questions over and over again, but people keep making statements about how gay marriage will be bad for society without provide any real examples of how this would happen. On and on my broken record goes…
PSUdain,
1. We don’t offer any rights to couples or any group (we don’t “offer rights” period, rights are inherent and we protect them.) There is no such thing as group rights, there are only individual rights. And what we offer are incentives and they are equally available to all individuals.
2. I understood your argument perfectly and showed why it is wrong — I thought clearly, but I guess not. So, let me expand:
Gay couples don’t have children under any circumstances. At best one of them has a child with a person of the opposite sex in one manner or another, or they adopt because society allows them to (note: adoption and marriage are not the same thing, you’ll notice we also allow single people to adopt), but under no circumstances do gay couples “have” children together.
There is, in fact, no such thing as “gay parents” if you want to get right down to it, because parenting a child requires heterosexual relations, no matter how brief, even if a whole laboratory of doctors serve as intermediaries.
And THAT is why it is perfectly constitutional and perfectly moral for government to encourage heterosexual couplings without it being necessary to also encourage homosexual couplings — and why the “equal protection” argument is false.
If government encourages all men to marry women and all women to marry men by offering incentives to everyone, then as many babies as possible will be raised by their biological parents. It is not necessary to demand that all couples must produce children in order to encourage this goal. Nor is it necessary to ALSO encourage a completely different kind of coupling that by its very nature can never possibly contribute to this goal.
Now you make a lot of good arguments for why gay marriage might be good for society, but I’m not arguing against gay marriage — I am explaining why marriage is not a right and why the “equal protection” argument is false and has failed in every court in the land including in such bastions of liberal victimhood as Washington, California, Oregon, Hawaii, Vermont, etc…
If anyone is prone to see unequal treatment where none exists, it is them, and yet they all agree with me and disagree with you. When even those most sympathetic to your argument say you’re wrong, I would think that would be a good point at which to stop and consider the possibility that you are.
Naturally Gay,
Again, I am not arguing that gay marriage would be bad for society, I am inclined to think it would be good for society, but I admit, I don’t know whether it would or not.
All I am saying is that gay marriage is not a right, and there is no equal protection issue.
That said, let me answer your questions as directly as i can.
1. The needs of children and the desires of adults are different and often at odds because children often need things adults are not always naturally inclined to do. For example, it can be pretty soundly argued that children do best with a father and a mother raising them. It may come as a shock to you, but many men (and some women) aren’t naturally inclined to remain monogamous to one person. In fact, it could be argued that men are the reason we have marriage laws to begin with — to make it in their best interest to remain monogamous and not go off and leave their wife and children. Another example, adults often desire to have as few responsibilities as possible, but raising children is all about living up to responsibilities. Marriage, because it is focused on the needs of children and not the desires of adults, gives men and women incentives to enter into these commitments, and punishes them when they don’t live up to them.
There are tons of examples of where the needs of children and the desires of adults are at odds. But adults, by nature of being adults, can theoretically take care of themselves — they don’t need the government to tell them when they can be together and when they can separate. Children on the other hand can’t take care of themselves, but do best when their parents stay together and take care of them. That is why government is involved to begin with. And that is how the needs of children and adults are at odds.
How is encouraging same-sex couplings counter productive to encouraging opposite-sex couplings?
I would think it obvious, but…
because if you encourage gay marriage just as much as you encourage straight marriage then some bisexual people who would otherwise enter into straight marriages would enter into gay marriages instead.
People are free to enter into either gay or straight relationships, but if society is trying to encourage children to be born, and born into unions between their biological parents, then I would think it obvious that encouraging people to enter into gay relationships would detract from this goal.
But also, the fact that gay relationships cannot produce children as a law of nature, means that the focus of marriage would HAVE to change from being on the best interests of children to being focused on the desires of adults.
And changing the focus from the needs of children to the desires of adults is pretty obviously detracting from the institution I would think.
Sorry, a few more points I want to address, even though they arent central to the argument
I am not familiar with these studies, but given the tiny percentage of children that are raised by same-sex couples I find it doubtful that the studies could be large enough to provide any meaningful conclusions.
And secondly, as I said, marriage and adoption are two separate things. We allow single parents to adopt. By your logic, we should allow them to marry themselves, but that kind of defeats the purpose of marriage then doesnt it?
This is exactly the kind of issue that I dont think gays are even addressing because they believe, wrongly, that they are being denied a right, and because of the whole selfish, “whats in it for me” approach of most gays to the marriage debate.
But the gay “community” is notoriously accepting of the whole idea of “open relationships” while society as a whole is overwhelmingly opposed to it. yes, i know there are straight people in “open marriages” but they are a distinct minority and a frowned-upon sub-culture.
Is there any reason to believe or any evidence to suggest gay “culture” would suddenly change its stripes and suddenly disapprove of open relationships? I dont see any.
And would it be good for society or the institution to admit an entire group of people that have a radically different view of what the boundaries of the institution should and should not be?
Isnt it reasonable to assume that dramatically increasing the number of people in the institution who think the whole monogamy restriction is unneccessary or even undesirable might be detrimental to the institution?
Is anyone in the gay community even bothering to think about issues like this? Again, I dont see anyone who is. I see a lot of very selfish people believing they are victims when they are not because they are not being treated equally for doing something entirely different. And as far as I see, not one of them is asking what is in society’s best interest.
Hardly necessary, NDT, as your comments are not so profound that I didn’t understand them this latest expression of your views on the matter.
And you repeat this, why exactly? What you have failed to address is the realities that exist now with an increasing number of same-sex couples who are having children, using the same methods for reproduction that infertile heterosexual couples avail themselves of. For these latter couples you make an exception to the rule, ignoring Western tradition from the days of Christendom and even earlier of banning such marital unions or at least heavily discouraging them, yet refuse to do likewise for similiar same-sex families. Rather faulty reasoning IMO.
While I thank you for your unsolicited advice, NDT, I find it amusing that you would state this right after engaging in slippery slope arguments in opposition to same-sex marriage. My comments on this were hardly in the vein of “marriage is screwed up already so why not?”, as you argue below. I believe in dealing with reality as it exists and how that reality can be changed for the betterment of society through the least intrusive means possible.
And the two are related, how exactly? I see no valid correlation between the two subjects and they are not mutually exclusive. Society as a whole benefits from the institution being “fixed” as well as singles settling down and pairing off in legal marriages, regardless of sexual orientation. When it comes to homosexuals, legal marriage aside is this not what you are arguing? That society would be better off if gays as a whole were less promiscuous and maintained long-term relationships? The same is true for straights of course, but you wish to focus exclusively on gays so let’s go with that aspect then.
If we are speaking in general terms, obviously there are significant problems among gays which unfortunately we are also seeing among heterosexuals – especially in the African American community which is why brought that up. You seek to impose legal restraints upon gays in this matter that are not faced by straights. That is where we disagree.
Do you realize that you’ve just made a good argument for the State having a compelling interest in prohibiting sodomy? I also find very little difference between your arguments here and liberal views on taxation which usues the power of the purse to encourage or discourage certain behaviors. If anything, this discussion once again illustrates to me that there is not much of a difference between hardcore conservatives or liberals. Both will use Big Brother to further their ends and achieve their goals.
Really!! Did marriage laws change between the time I wrote my post and when you wrote yours? Because when last I checked I could not marry or receive any legal benefits that straight people do.
Don’t give me this crock (again) that, “Gay people can still marry someone of the opposite sex, just like everyone else.” Anyone who would actually say that just utterly fails to grasp the situation. If you’re really all about government “prompting” people in the right direction, that would be about the worst suggestion possible.
Thing is that the government has no business encouraging or discouraging behaviors that do not infringe upon other people’s liberties. Do you really want the government to be some sort of moral arbiter? That, I would have to say, is one of the least conservative ideas I’ve heard in a long time. Both Reagan and Goldwater (especially Goldwater) would have spoken vociferously against that. You don’t make government the morals-enforcer. That’s a really bad idea. What happens when someone you don’t agree with takes over the government and starts to enforce their morals on you? What about all the people who don’t agree with the government’s moral position?
It’s just a flat bad idea–dangerous, even–giving government that kind of power. Government extends rights and benefits, not “moral incentives”, and they should be extended equally to all citizens.
And I now repeat, using language that should sound familiar:
Infertile couples don’t have children under any circumstances. At best one of them has a child with a person of the opposite sex in one manner or another, or they adopt because society allows them to, but under no circumstances do infertile couples “have†children together.
So, explain (for real this time) what the actual difference is here.
You’ve still not shown why this is. You start out with it taken as read that children are worse off with gay parents. Again and again I have spoken to that, and you seem to just brush it off when I bring up the fact that children raised by gay parents show no difference from those raised by straight parents. (Also, little side note, it is possible to have two primary foci. The ellipse has two foci that are equal to each other. So if it’s possible in simple plane geometry, I’d bet it’s possible in more complex things, like marriage, too.)
Did you seriously just bring up the “Waverer’s Argument”? You should read Andrew Sullivan’s Virtually Normal: An Argument about Marriage. It answers all your claims about marriage being completely child based, and about “waverers”. Seriously, if gay parents are just as good for kids as straight ones, then how is it bad to encourage gay marriage?
Yes, how selfish of me to want the same rights, privileges, and benefits granted to straight people. How selfish!!
I’m going to be blunt: you clearly don’t understand where gay people are coming from on this, if you can, with a straight face, label us “selfish”. I understand where you’re coming from. I used to be on your side back when I was a closet-case desperately trying to deny who I am and thinking I could change. I understand your points first hand; I used to make them. I can see through them now, though.
Frankly, the central thrust of your argument seems to be, “Gays are different from straight people and bad for children.” The latter notion is patently false, and the former is only based on just one inherent characteristic, which, however foundational, is not the whole of who I am.
The I guess the Supreme courts of Washington State, California, Oregona, Hawaii, Vermont ad naseum must also be “closet-cases” desperately trying to deny who they are. And you, being so much more enlightened on the law and Constitution than Supreme Court justices can “see through” arguments that they cannot.
What childish name calling and ridiculous tripe! Grow up!
The fact is you dont understand where I am coming from at all, because I am coming from a much better understanding of the constitution, the law, and what does and does not constitute a “right” than you.
Yes the very crux of my argument is that gays are different from straight people. The entire crux of your argument is that they are not. Guess which one of us loses that argument? I’ll give you a hint, its not me.
And I never said gays are bad for children. I said, to paraphrase, children come from a sperm and an egg, and the best case scenario is for children to be raised by the people that produced that sperm and that egg.
I also said, quite rightly, that it is perfectly constitutional, and moral and right for government to promote a situation where as many children as possible are raised by the people who produced that sperm and that egg.
Marriage as it now exists accomplishes exactly that.
And finally I said, it is not necessary for government to also promote gay relationships in order for it to constitutionally promote the nuclear family.
And it is you that is deluded if you think otherwise. You seem to be under the false assumption that in order for government to encourage a general behavior, it must specifically exclude every exception.
I assure you, you are wrong. Government encourages all sorts of general behaviors that it deems good for society without specifically excluding all exceptions. People who are driving their kids to school are allowed to use the carpool lanes even though they arent “carpooling”, that is, they arent doing anything to reduce the number of cars on the road. Yet I, as a single driver, am not allowed to use the carpool lane, even though I am reducing the amount of cars on the road exactly as much as the mom with her kids. Guess what? Thats not unconstitutional either! But it is exactly analogous to gay marriage.
And finally, I understand much better than you where gay people are “coming from” on this. They are coming from an emotional and hysterical sense of victimhood (as illustrated by your name calling) and and a desperate desire for society to tell them that being gay is just as good as being straight. And because they are so hysterically emotional about it, they have forgotten that babies are important to society, and deluded themselves into thinking society doesnt have the right to encourage the nuclear family.
And yes, saying that society doesnt have the right to encourage the nuclear family unless YOU get YOURS too! is the very definition of selfish.
“Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”
I give up. You’re hopeless. You trot out the same lines again and again and again and (ad infinitum).
Then I answer them each time. And you refuse to address my points. You latch on to one or two lines, spit out your same little routine again, and expect me to treat it as a novelty.
Try addressing my point about infertile couples:
Or how about this one:
You’ve addressed neither. If hetero relationships are so much better for children, why don’t they produce children who are better-adjusted than kids raised by gay parents? That goes right to your thrust.
I leave you with two exmamples:
Bobby and Sue are married. They get all the legal protections. They have no children and never intend to.
Bobbie and Sue can’t get married. Bobbie is the legal and biological parent of their two children. If she dies, there is no way to guarantee that the children will get to stay with their living mom. If Bobbie’s not around and a child gets sick, there is no guarantee that treatment will be made available (as that normally requires parental consent). They take good care of their kids.
Who actually deserves marital protections there, under your “what’s best for kids” logic?
Maybe, in the end, we can go with a Classically Liberal model, like that our founders used, wherein all couples are treated the same way, actually allowing individual people to decide what’s best for their kids, instead of having the government make a value judgement that it has no business making.
Read “On Liberty” by John Stuart Mill sometime, you frightening, frightening person, who wants to let government dictate values by writ of law.
Also, try arguing, which is more than just parroting the same lines over and over again, a la John Cleese.
Actually PSUdain, it is you that is throwing out the same idiotic argument over and over and over again!
“BUT INFERTILE COUPLES CAN GET MARRIED!” “BUT INFERTILE COUPLES CAN GET MARRIED! BUT INFERTILE COUPLES CAN GET MARRIED!”
I would compare you to a parrot, but a parrot is less shrill and would have understood the logic long ago.
I have addressed your asinine “infertile couples” argument from about 15 different angles. I have referenced the dozens of court decisions, I have explained the logic. I have paraphrased. I have used metaphors. You are too willful or too stupid to understand any of them.
Nevertheless, ignorance of the law is no excuse as they say — and I do stress the word ignorance. That you refuse to understand the logic of my argument, which is identical to that of the decisions of the Supreme Courts of Washington, Oregon, California, Hawaii, New York, Ohio, Georgia, Connecticut, etc… is irrelevant.
As for your argument that “studies show the children of gay kids are exactly as well off” argument. I addressed that long ago too. I have not seen these studies, but considering the tiny number of children that are raised by gay couples I highly doubt any study is large enough to actually provide any meaningful conclusions.
But again, this argument is irrelevant anyway. We are not talking about whether or not society should approve of gay marriage, we are talking about whether or not gay marriage is a “right” that gays are entitled to.
Moreover, you are talking about adoption law. Marriage law is not adoption law! They are different, separate, distinct things addressing distinct topics. Do you understand the word “different”?
Marriage law exists to encourage men and women to raise their progeny together. Adoption law exists to deal with all the other children who are not being raised in this ideal situation. Marriage doesn’t have to be open to everyone we allow to adopt! The fact that it is open to infertile couples does not mean that it must then be open to everyone who adopts! If your idiotic “logic” were indeed logical, then we would have to allow single parents who have no desire to be coupled with anyone, or whom no one will have, to get married to themselves! But we do not. Why? Because, like your argument, the idea is idiotic and illogical.
Say the word with me… “diff-er-ent”. Perhaps you might revisit the concept by watching some old Mr Rogers reruns. You are clearly incapable of understanding the differences between homosexuality and heterosexuality, just as you are incapable of understanding the difference between marriage and adoption, the difference between “rights” and “incentives”, the difference between “general” and “specific” and, indeed, the difference between “different” and “same”.
But I assure you, the the reason we have marriage laws AND adoption laws is because they are not the same thing! They are dif-fer-ent! If they were the same thing, we wouldn’t have the need for two separate bodies of law.
Are you f**ing serious???? Please pick up a history book and see just how gay couples were “treated the same” in the days of our founding.
I have read it, you ignorant, ignorant person, and like everything else we have discussed, I understand it better than you! Unless you are interested in bestiality or pedophilia, government is not dictating values! If government were outlawing homosexuality or homosexual couples, THEN it would be dictating values. It is not. If government were taking your children away from you because you are gay, THEN it would be dictating values. It is not!
You are free to be as gay as your little gay heart desires! With the gayest person you can find! You can stand in middle of the town square on your big gay soapbox and proclaim how gay you are and how fiercely fabulous you think being gay is!
Government is simply rewarding, with the consent of the governed, the one pairing of human beings that alone is responsible for procreation in order to encourage more of it.
The fact that it is not including your big, fabulous, gay relationship in an institution designed to promote procreation does not mean it is anti-gay, it means government recognizes that homosexuality can’t procreate, heterosexuality can procreate, and it means that government is neutral to homosexuality.
Only an idiot of your proportions could argue that neutrality is “dictating values!”
Oh, and by the way, Andrew Sullivan’s entire argument is predicated on the idea that marriage used to be about children, but has evolved, and is now about love, so the courts should force the people to approve of gay love the way they approve of straight love.
The courts have rejected this argument for the very obvious reason that it is up to the people and not the courts to decide what the purpose of marriage is. And while it may be true that many people marry for love, that doesn’t mean that love is what society has an interest in promoting.
PSUdain is still stuck on his old argument that he should be able to marry anyone to whom he is sexually attracted.
Because, frankly, that’s the only reason he wouldn’t want to marry a woman and wants to marry a man instead.
This is very straightforward; established law says that you do NOT automatically have the right to marry anyone to whom you are sexually attracted, and that the state is well within its rights to limit marriage to those groups it deems beneficial to society.
And I found this particularly disgusting, honestly.
If we’re really talking about what’s best for the children of same-sex couples, wouldn’t it be best if mommy and mom, or daddy and dad could get married?
That to every degree shows the selfishness and self-centeredness of gay and lesbian culture.
Notice how it holds the child hostage — “Give us marriage or our children will suffer.”
My response: “That child did not get into that situation by accident. You CHOSE to bring them into it. You CHOSE to DELIBERATELY put a child into a situation that you yourself state is harmful to them — and now you argue that, because a child is there, the state should somehow be forced to rectify YOUR choice to put them in that situation?”
The facts are simply that God ordained marriage not Homosexuals.In Romans I whether conservative or liberal if your a Homosexual,fornicator or adulterer you are going to hell.This is the facts
and despite what you think the truth is the truth. God wants people of all
races to repent and go to Heaven. John 3:16. Christians don’t hate any one
if they truely Love God.I don’t think any one who violates the Ten
Commandments will ever be happy