Either between a man and a woman or it is inequality unless it also includes marriage between-
-a man and a boy.
-a man and a girl.
-a woman and boy.
-a woman and a girl.
-two men and one woman.
-two women and one man.
-two men and two women.
-three women and five men.
-every conceivable numerical permutation.
-a man and an animal.
-a woman and an animal.
-a man and an inanimate object.
-a woman and an inanimate object.
-a man and a dead person.
-a woman and a dead person.
Now about here people who shout loudest for what they call marriage equality will suggest that both parties in a marriage have to be consenting. So, I ask, how do they know a 5 year old boy doesn’t mean it when he ‘loves’ his special older 45 year old mate? Or how do they know that the dog presently ‘loved’ by a woman doesn’t ‘love’ her back in whatsoever ways a dog might love? Are supporters of marriage equality also readers of minds?
Marriage is a social contract, construed as a boundary marker within a society so as to delimit as much as it prohibits. It isn’t now nor has it ever been nor can it ever be a borderless frontier which anyone and everyone may inhabit- else the fabric of society itself is undermined and society unravels into lawlessness and anarchy.
So I have a series of questions for the supporters of marriage ‘equality’- and I hope that someone among them is able to answer questions directly without equivocating and/ or demonizing:
1- What sorts of ‘marriage’ would you deny?
2- Given your claims of questing for equality how do you justify your exclusions?
3- If all love is real love (as you suggest) then why doesn’t the love of a man for a dog qualify the two of them to marry?
4- How do you know the dog doesn’t love the man?
5- Define love.
6- If marriage is such a serious matter, why is promiscuity so widely practiced?
Feel free to respond in comments- but if you just ramble and don’t answer each of the 6 questions, I’ll presume you have no answer and you’ll just have to vent elsewhere.
Zwinglius Redivivus 
1. Marriage should only be allowed between two consenting adults that have been deemed competent enough to sign a legal document.
2. Courts do not recognize contracts signed by children, and animals, inanimate objects, or dead people.
3. I didn’t suggest this. You assumed it. Again dogs aren’t currently considered able to sign legal documents.
4. This question is irrelevant. Dogs can’t sign contracts.
5.. This is a broad question. In the sense in which you are asking however love is a sense of caring for another individual and their long term well being as we’ll as a desire to share life experiences. While sexual attraction may often be one component it is not required. Marriages without love have existed for centuries. They may not have been ideal but they were legally binding, usually to the benefit of one of the parties at the expense of another.
6. Humans don’t always make the est decisions. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t legal consequences for their actions.
Marriage is a form of legal contract in The US. As such the legal benefits must extend to all its citizens. To do otherwise is unjust.
If you are referring to the covenant between man/woman and God, that is a separate issue but not necessarily the one being argued in the court. That is a theological and doctrinal matter.
However I would suggest that this issue is far less critical to the failings of our society than the rampant poverty, greed, and self preservation at all costs mentality that has taken over our communities and has destroyed relationships and understandings about the need to take care of the widow the orphan and the alien. Those are things Jesus spoke about as well. Take care of these issues first then worry about other people and their legal rights.
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well at least you gave it a shot.
1- deemed competent by who?
2- why don’t they? they formerly didn’t recognize marriage between men and men. whose to say they wont recognize animal contracts in 5 years?
3- i hear it all the time so it isn’t an assumption.
4- they do indeed through their representatives- i.e., dogs in hollywood have contracts through owners and agents and dogs even inherit property. ergo, they can receive contractual benefits. leona helmsley left her dog her fortune. so, dogs definitely do benefit from contractual arrangements.
5- so by your definition dogs can love. there are plenty of people who love their animals in just the way you describe and their animals show reciprocal affection.
6- what you see as separate issues are really all interrelated.
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1.Judged by the legal system.
2.Marriage between men no but contracts between men which from a legal standpoint is all the document is for. Courts don’t define the theological definition of marriage. Just the legal contractual obligations.
3. I don’t assume that marriage is about love. I assume its a legal document that on occasion has a church ceremony attached. I know plenty of people that repeat lots of things all the time. It doesn’t make them true and it certainly doesn’t necessarily mean I agree with them.
4. I see where you are coming from with dogs getting benefits through a contract but the dog itself did not sign the contract. The contract is with the owner of the dog. As for Leona Helmsley, the dog had nothing to do with the creation of the Will, it is merey a beneficiary.
5 love is not enough of a reason to get married. Also I never predicated my personal view of marriage within the context of this discussion on love so I’m not sure it’s fair to assign an argument to me that isn’t based on my own answers.
6. I suppose on this we will have I agree to disagree.
Question: are you opposed to a situation where from a governmental standpoint that there should be a distinction of entitlements and tax breaks as well as a theological point or would you be open to some legal status not defined as marriage like a “civil union.” After all the government does not require a church or a clergy for a union between man an woman.
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I object to marriages which occur outside the community recognized ‘one man and one woman’ definition. The state is the embodiment of the will of the people in a democracy, ergo the state has no business nor right to recognize what the majority doesn’t.
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So what if in 20 years the majority disagrees with you? Also the majority of Americans agreed with slavery, prohibition, no vote for women, civil right for minorities. Then they changed their minds. What if the popular view differs from what is right based upon the law?
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then in 20 years i will be in the minority and my view will be the minority view. and i can live with that.
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Jim, you’re a smart guy.
You DO realize that heterosexuality, homosexuality, monogamy, polygamy, rape, bestiality, incest, sex with inanimate objects(?), and pedophilia are all DIFFERENT things, right?
You are smart enough to understand the difference between legally consenting (since that’s what were discussing here – legal state secular marriage, and not whatever some denomination, sect, or religion chooses to do inside the walls of wherever they worship).
You realize that the difference between consenting and non-consenting, correct?
Likewise, you realize that polygamy is a completely different set of arguments, correct?
(Or are you just lumping all of the above into one pile and saying they’re bad ‘because the Bible tells me so’?)
The Bible redefined marriage many times within its pages. Likewise, the US has redefined marriage a number of times in its history. (Can you marry slaves? Can different races marry?)
You sound like a man desperately trying to convince yourself that what you’ve been teaching all these years is STILL right and STILL the ONLY way it can be.
The above lists are, to be honest, embarrassing. Any college freshman can differentiate between the issues and problems that arise, for instance, from polygamy (subjugation of women, as it is usually one man marrying multiple women and not vice verse – which was once ‘marriage’ in the Bible BTW), or jealousy, or the unequal distribution of assets, etc. There are also many advantages to polygamy in a tribal context where the men are constantly at war and there fore dying, usually leaving many times more women than men. Likewise, the advantage of having multiple children by many wives allows more farmland to be farmed and more herds to be grazed, BUT, as we progressed away from hunters/gatherers to tribal agrarians to nuclear urban dwellers, and away from constant tribal warfare and defense from bandits to nations of laws in urban settings, polygamy slowly went away.
Surely you recognize that the pros and cons of polygamy are DIFFERENT from the pros and cons of binary, consensual, same-sex relationships, right?
PLEASE tell me you understand the difference, and that you’re not just condemning anything that the Bible says is bad and sanctioning anything the Bible says is good. Otherwise, we’re going to have to have a chat about your agreement with slavery and your opposition to women having authority over men.
Do you REALLY see this issue so simplistically?
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You ignore the questions. Just answer the first two.
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I’ll answer yours if you answer mine.
1) Two consenting adults.
Those three words all carry meaning:
– Two (not three (or one, to satisfy your inanimate object gambit)).
– Consenting (so capable of entering into a legal, consensual agreement, so not your dog)
– Adults (so of legal age that is ALSO set (arbitrarily?) by a consensus of legal opinions.
It’s that simple. Black or white. Male of female. Religious or not. American or not. Capitalist or not. Disabled or not.
2) The justifications for each term are each independent arguments, decided on a case by case basis. I’ve discussed the pros and cons of polygamy above. I’m personally opposed to it, but am open to having a discussion if someone has a compelling argument. The Bible had no problem with it early on, but it does tend to subjugate women.
The basis for consenting is one that deals with mental capacity/disability, children, and animals and your inanimate objects. One should be able to understand what they are getting into.
They should be adults, for many of the same reasons as the ‘consensual’ argument.
Marriage is not for procreation (or else infertile individuals should be prohibited from marrying).
Two consenting adults.
3) This is absurdly silly. However, I’ll refer you to the ‘consenting’ argument above.
4) Again, embarrassingly silly, but see ‘consenting’ argument above.
5) Define beauty. You can’t. That’s why “love” isn’t a part of my definition above. It is best if two people love each other, but people marry for other reasons.
6) What difference does it make that people are promiscuous? As it now stands, 99.99% of all infidelity and promiscuity among married couples has occurred in *heterosexual* marriages. How is same-sex marriage going to change that? Are you seriously arguing that gay people are more promiscuous than heterosexuals? REALLY?
So this is what I mean by ‘your list above is embarrassingly simplistic. I answered 1 and 2, and 3-6 are patently absurd. It’s like you’re stretching for obnoxious analogies and comebacks because you can’t get around the fact that you think that homosexuality is ‘icky’.
Jim, by continually beating this issue, you are just further isolating your self into a deep hole of your own digging.
Same-sex marriage not only is *going* to happen, it *should* happen, in the very same way that slavery should have been abolished DESPITE the Bible’s endorsement of it.
OK, now your turn to answer my questions. You REALLY don’t see this issue THIS simplistically, do you? Do you REALLY not see the differences between arguments for/against polygamy, for/against bestiality, for/against same-sex marriage?
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it isn’t the ‘icky’ factor at all bob. and it really is simple- as we discussed in person in los angeles at that lovely italian restaurant where you and i and ros had dessert that brilliant night a few augusts ago- as i said then- i can’t get around paul’s argument in romans. as i told you then, and as you seemed to agree at the time (though i’m willing to believe you if you say you’ve changed your mind), romans seems insurmountable.
show me, please do, how paul can be jettisoned.
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Paul’s letters are not part of the governing documents even if the country was founded on Judeo Christian principles. Legal contracts of marriage do not rely on or require scriptural agreement. Theological statements and Church doctrines absolutely do but as far as legal documents its a different argument.
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the constitution isn’t the document upon which i base my decisions. it is not my governing document any more than the bible is the governing document of this country.
in sum, my decisions aren’t based on the constitution, but scripture.
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In that case your argument fr democracy makes no sense.
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it makes perfect sense. we live in a democracy not a theocracy. what society decides has no bearing on my personal ethics just as my personal ethics have no bearing on the way culture behaves. that said, the majority of americans have shown in the voting booth that they do not approve of gay marriage. hence, it is not i who am contradicting democracy but the crusading judges and the crusading supporters of gay marriage who have supplanted the democratic process.
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A) the bible makes no mention of democracy. It makes a compelling case for a theocracy that is sympathetic to whatever govt is in place. It’s a theocracy administered by a hierarchy of bishops and elders appointed by the apostolic/prophetic leadership. Since when does the vote of the people mean anything to the biblical understanding of govt?
B) I jettison Paul’s ‘natural law’ argument the same way I jettisoned arguments for slavery and against women. They sucked. They weren’t even good for their context. They were sexist and rooted in part in the ‘Eve’ myth.
Paul makes a number of very poor arguments (as do those writing in Paul’s name). The fact that he bases some of his biggest arguments on a historical “Adam” should give cause concern: he’s making a theological argument on a factual and historical falsehood (a primordial Adam).
So I have no problem jettisoning natural law arguments, as what one calls natural is as subjubective as divine law itself.
But for your readers, please articulate your reasons for being unable to jettison Paul’s argument.
Also, you still haven’t answered my question (even after I went to the trouble of answering yours):
Can you not distinguish between issues of same-sex marriage, pedophilia, bestiality, rape, and polygamy? Are those REALLY all the same to you?
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my unwillingness to do away with paul here is simple- i’m a christian and we don’t have the luxury of dispensing with things just because our culture thinks we should. culture isn’t the final arbiter of truth. revelation is.
i can indeed distinguish between homosexuality, pedophilia, and the rest of them. and insofar as they are different behaviors, they are in fact different. insofar as they are deviations, they are similar.
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So slavery and the silencing of women are OK with you? Those endorsements are ALSO revelation.
And you also realize that every time you equate pedophilia (which is illegal) with homosexuality (which is not), you offend any number of homosexuals, give reason for many to call you homophobic, and give reason for others to agree with those accusations.
Every time you call a gay man a ‘deviation’, you further isolate yourself, not from non-Christians, but for any number of Christian scholars. Every time you call a gay woman a ‘deviation’ you give credence to an argument that only fundys and right wing republican politicians make.
There is nothing wrong about declaring, ‘I’ve weighed the evidence, heard the scholarly arguments, and have decided to change my professional and pastoral opinion on this issue.’ In fact, there’s something quite noble about it. I did it a number of years ago. I’ve grown. I’ve matured. And I found the anti-gay argument – the one you are making – to be a poor, unloving, unfair, discriminatory argument based on fear and rooted in a literal, fundamentalist, hypocritical, and unsustainable hermeneutic. And so I changed my mind.
Isn’t the Exodus also revelation? And yet you have had little problem rightly siding with the ‘minimalist’ argument, despite the very ‘revelatory’ claims of the Exodus.
You should consider changing your position.
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you are, of course, free to hold whatsoever views you wish. i happen to disagree. you’ll note, though, that i’ve never attacked you for your views. nor have i ever attacked anyone else (except the dilettantes but let’s face it, they deserve it). you’re reading far too much into my position, claiming things which i do not claim.
i object to slavery, the mistreatment of women, and the abuse of anyone. i also object to being painted- as you have done by implication- as a fundamentalist (which everyone knows i am not) or a right wing republican (which everyone knows i am not). why do i object to these labels? because they aren’t true.
i have thought long and hard about the biblical teaching on same sex marriage and i am yet to be persuaded that my view is unbiblical. your suggestion that if i hold to an anti-slavery and pro-woman view means, perforce, i must also adopt a pro homosexuality view is logically flawed. i NEED not hold such a view unless i choose to.
like you, you see, i am free to think as i wish. unlike you, i don’t disdain others who don’t see things my way (except the dilettantes, but only because they haven’t earned the right to speak on subjects they don’t know anything about).
i’ve never been as rude to homosexuals as pro-gay commentators have been to me. i’ve never cussed anyone out because they had views different from mine. you should see the hate mail. and all because i reject a viewpoint.
and i will continue to reject it until my mind is changed by clear exegesis and sound reasoning. if people don’t like it i can only say, too bad. but i’m not going to change my mind JUST to make other people happy.
that isn’t me.
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Jim,
You still haven’t answered me regarding why, after you say that a Christian doesn’t have the luxury of choosing which rules to follow because the Bible is ‘revelation’, you side with the biblical minimalists are reject a historical Exodus, do not consider the Bible’s endorsement of slavery as ‘revealed, or the Bible’s teaching that women should not have authority over men as ‘revealed’.
In claiming ‘revelation’ to reject same-sex marriage, but then working around revelation to argue for the role of women or against slavery is in consistent and therefore untenable. Again, you’re not articulating your reasons against same-sex marriage (and the listed ones above are easily dismissed and quite frankly, offensive to some), you’re simply claiming revelation. Except you do pick and choose, because you reject the revelation of the historical Exodus.
I don’t call you names. I’m just pointing out the weakness of your argument, and offering done friendly rationale perhaps for why you are receiving foul emails and why no fellow scholars are rushing to your defense on this one. I know you don’t care what people call you, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t offending a whole bunch of people when you lump gays and pedophiles together.
I just don’t understand why, with all your other sophisticated arguments on the history of early Israel, why you’d side with the fundamentalists on this particular issue.
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i have answered your question. my decision, like yours, as to what to accept and reject is based on our own inclinations.
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So not ‘revelation’, but picking and choosing which biblical claims to keep, and which to abandon (or, let us say, alter).
I agree. That is the way to do it.
So, the question ultimately comes down to why you jettison slavery, why you jettison the suppression of women, why you jettison the Exodus, why you jettison theocracy, and yet retain a view where, regardless of what you think of homosexuality, you are opposed to a secular state granting equal rights to same-sex couples.
Again, this debate is not about how to define marriage in the church, but about whether the state should treat couples equally under the law. Can you at least get on board with that?
Enjoyed the discussion.
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i’ve enjoyed it too. as to why i object to the state granting equal rights to same-sex couples – again, it’s simple. the state is the people and the majority of people who have voted on the subject have voted against it.
sure, the day is coming when the majority will accept it- and then – when they do – let them vote accordingly. until then the state should act in accordance with the wishes of the majority and not the minority.
and when the majority vote to allow men to marry men i will continue to oppose it. i won’t perform same sex marriages nor will i participate in them in any way. if the state says i must, i will refuse.
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The legalisation of same sex marriages does not infer that the state will ever dictate that you must perform them in your church. It will merely allow same sex marriages to be recognised. If same sex couples want to get married they will choose churches who are friendly to them.
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Bob said in part: “Those three words all carry meaning:
– Two (not three (or one, to satisfy your inanimate object gambit)).
– Consenting (so capable of entering into a legal, consensual agreement, so not your dog)
– Adults (so of legal age that is ALSO set (arbitrarily?) by a consensus of legal opinions.”
On his own words Bob would have no moral or legal objection, if he were no longer married, to his marrying any one the following: his adult daughter, his adult son, his father, his mother, his brother, his sister, his aunt, his uncle, his grandmother, his grandfather. Any one of them with himself would represent “Two consenting adults”
Sounds like Bob’s defence of homosexual mariage needs reconsideration.
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Yep. Matthew is correct. I forgot to include ‘unrelated beyond first cousin’ to my definition, because there may be people like Matthew Hamilton above who read ‘incest’ into those who claim marriage should be between ‘one man and one woman.’
So yeah, let’s add an anti-incest clause to the definition: two consenting adults, who are unrelated beyond first cousins.
The rationale for adding this provision is the years of genetic research and the millennia of observed reality, in both humans and primates (see: “transferring” of females) that reveals that the inbreeding of individuals too closely related *can* and often does lead to a genetic homogeneity within offspring that can lead to dinished mental capacities and at times, other disabilities.
So yeah, incest is bad, and we should make that clear in definitions on *both* sides of the argument (‘one man and one woman’ and ‘two consenting adults’) reflect that incest is bad, if for no other reason than to protect against folks like Matthew Hamilton above, who don’t see incest as an obvious prohibition.
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I also want to add one point on Matthew Hamilton’s last line above, which he tried to sneak in there.
Note the logical fallacy of the last line.
“Sounds like Bob’s defence of homosexual mariage needs reconsideration.”
See what he tried to do there? Because both sides of this argument don’t mention incest because it is already obviously proscribed, neither side includes it in their definitions (i.e., “one man and one woman” and “two consenting adults”).
But note that Matthew is attempting to argue that because I didn’t specifically include incest in my definition (because it is already illegal), that my “ENTIRE DEFENCE [sic] OF HOMOSEXUAL MARRIAGE needs reconsideration.”
His logic is as bad as his orthography.
Leaving one already proscribed case (incest) out of the definition DOES NOT cancel the merits of the other arguments above. In Matthew’s mind (as betrayed by the last line), because one little thing that is dismissed as obvious and already dealt with under existing law is not underscored in my definition, THE WHOLE CASE for same-sex marriage (note he refers to it as “homosexual marriage” – another giveaway that you’re dealing with someone opposed to same-sex marriage) should be dismissed.
It is this kind of illogical rhetoric that is poisoning the debate. The only ‘reconsideration’ that is necessary is to ask both sides of the argument, “We’re still leaving INCEST illegal, right?”
And when both sides say yes, and site their evidence for doing so, the arguments remain the same. (And we can add “unrelated beyond first cousins” to each side’s definition, just so that Matthew Hamilton doesn’t get any ideas.)
But this is yet another example of the poor logic that is being attempted by those opposed to same-sex marriage. They can’t bring evidence or data, so they hope that no one catches their rhetorical sleights of hand.
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Three things I need to reply to Bob
First: “that my “ENTIRE DEFENCE [sic] OF HOMOSEXUAL MARRIAGE needs reconsideration.”
His logic is as bad as his orthography.” Bob, I’m not an American but Australian and while the customary spelling in America is defense, in Australia it is defence. So Bob if my logic is as bad as my orthography, and if orthography is good, then Bob is stating my logic is also good 😉
Second: “See what he tried to do there? Because both sides of this argument don’t mention incest because it is already obviously proscribed, neither side includes it in their definitions (i.e., “one man and one woman” and “two consenting adults”).”
The general discussion is to overturn the historical definition of marriage, to do away with biblical and historical norms and replace them something new, and at the moment that new definition includes homosexual marriage – something that is at present illegal under existing law. On the margins of the discussion however are other forms of marriage such as bisexual marriage, polygamy, chain marriage, and incestuous marriage – these too at present illegal under existing law.
Once the homosexual marriage debate ends, probably within the next 10 years, there will not be a place in the next round of the debate for anything to do with biblical or historical norms as society will have ditched these and will be unable to return to these.
Third: “The rationale for adding this provision is the years of genetic research and the millennia of observed reality, in both humans and primates (see: “transferring” of females) that reveals that the inbreeding of individuals too closely related *can* and often does lead to a genetic homogeneity within offspring that can lead to dinished mental capacities and at times, other disabilities.”
Bob, think of what you are saying here – I left a trap and you fell into it. If you favour homosexual marriage you cannot reject incestuous homosexual marriage as there is no way for inbreeding to occur. And if you reject biblical and historical norms you have few grounds to reject heterosexual incestuous marriage if either (A) inbreeding cannot take place or (B) inbreeding is not an issue.
(A) For example: if a 40 year old woman who has had a hysterectomy wanted to marry her 45 year old brother, on what grounds could society keep this as illegal?
(B) For example: if a 40 year old woman wanted to marry her 45 year old adopted brother, on what grounds could society keep this as illegal?
I’m one of the “folks” who rejects homosexual marriage AND incest, and I can do so on the grounds of biblical and historical norms, but I recognise the current flow of society. Bob, once your side wins over the legislature and courts within the next 10 or so years, on what grounds will you join me in rejecting incestuous marriage, as well as possibly a whole range of other forms of marriage?
regards,
Matthew
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You wrote: “on what grounds will you join me in rejecting incestuous marriage, as well as possibly a whole range of other forms of marriage?”
My answer: on a case-by-case examination of the issues. I’m opposed to incest for the scientific reasons I listed above. Please tell me the scientific reasons you are opposed to gay marriage? What harm is done to anyone if two consenting adults (unrelated beyond first cousins) get married?
You have no data, no evidence. You appeal only to tradition and to ‘because the Bible tells me so’. You lump it all together and refuse to realize that homosexuality is different from heterosexuality is different from incest is different from pedophilia is different from polygamy. You can’t lump and condemn (rationally at least).
And did you REALLY just suggest that there was a trap/link between gay marriage and incest?
Sigh. If all you’ve got is tradition and ‘the Bible tells me so’, then just admit that, concede that you’re invoking the fundamentalist argument, and then I’ll let you try to align that with slavery and genocide.
Cheers, bc
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Hamilton said ‘[so] Bob if my logic is as bad as my orthography, and if orthography is good, then Bob is stating my logic is also good.’ Although it’s beating an already dead-as-a-doornail horse, Hamilton’s orthography is as shoddy as his fundamentalist logic. For example in his own very first words in his first comment he says ‘[on] his own words’, using the wrong preposition. The preposition should be ‘in’.
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Steph – what you note as a wrong preposition was actually a wrong keystroke where the O and I are adjacent on the keyboard. In any case I suggest you go back to your dictionary and look up the meaning of the word orthography.
regards,
Mathew
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Appealing to technological coincidences and claiming error by accident misses the point. I know perfectly well what it means including its etymology. It is about ‘correct writing’ and you have failed. It is about conforming to a standardised system for using a particular writing system (script) to write a particular language. It includes rules of spelling, grammar, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. For a pedant you are imprecise but then you’re operating on fundamentalist principles, which are your own previously reached convictions about your own infallibility.
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Bob, it is not as simple as two positions of “tradition and the Bible tells me so” vs. “science and no harm”, because that assumes that the pro-homosexual marriage position is both scientific and would result in no harm – but that is a detailed discussion not appropriate for brief exchanges.
Regarding scientific reasons and incest, of limited application to incestuous reproduction, but irrelevant to to examples I gave that do not result in reproduction – including homosexual incestuous marriages. The trap was you argued science when there is no applicable science.
Regarding the differences between the types of marriages, I agree that there are significant differences, but looking long term the same arguments about civil rights, self-expression, personal choice, no harm to other people, its in private so none-of-your-business, etc can be found at present expressed by diferent groups of people who argue for the other types of marriage, and can only be expected to get louder over time.
regards,
Matthew
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1) “Not appropriate for brief exchanges”??
List your details. I hear this all the time. “There are scientific reasons, but there’s no time to discuss that now, so just trust me, it’s bad.”
What are the reasons? What ‘harm’ does same-sex marriage do that cannot also be attributed to infertility within heterosexual couples, single parenthood, or anything else that is permissible under the law for heterosexual couples?
Tell me. Don’t blow it off, list them below.
2) Again, your ‘trap’ is not a trap, so much as it is you trapped in your own twisted logic.
You stated, “I left a trap and you fell into it. If you favour homosexual marriage you cannot reject incestuous homosexual marriage as there is no way for inbreeding to occur. And if you reject biblical and historical norms you have few grounds to reject heterosexual incestuous marriage if either (A) inbreeding cannot take place or (B) inbreeding is not an issue.
Let’s take this one at a time. FIRST, you stated, “If you favour homosexual marriage you cannot reject incestuous homosexual marriage as there is no way for inbreeding to occur.” I get what you’re TRYING to argue, but your logic is bad. You seem to try to be saying that unless sex with a relative results in a viable offspring, it’s not incest. You seem to be trying to argue that because an incestuous zygote is not produced, then it is not ‘incestuous.’ And that since there is no genetic offspring, then technically it is OK to marry your sister.
I get the argument. And beside the fact that you are going to new incestuous depths to argue in defense of the oppression of same-sex marriage, let’s apply that same logic to other situations. If a heterosexual brother and sister want to get married, is it OK to do so under your ‘tradition and Bible’ argument AS LONG AS the sister is infertile? Can a heterosexual son marry his heterosexual mother as long as he lost his testicles to cancer? YOU wouldn’t consider that incest? You think the state should allow that? You have reached so far into the absurd in order to find some flaw with same-sex marriage that you forgot to apply the same standard to heterosexual cases. “Come here sister. It’s not incest if you don’t get pregnant.” SERIOUSLY?? Did you just argue that???
Like I said, it’s not a ‘trap’, it’s ill-conceived (no pun intended) irrational desperation. You’re coming up will all sorts of red herrings (seriously, we are now talking about ways in which you would allow for incestuous relationships) when the topic is should same-sex couples enjoy the same rights and privileges as heterosexual couples. And that’s the tactic that those opposed to same-sex marriage regularly employ: try to get bogged down in some extraneous hypothetical tangent, create a if-then gambit, and try to frag the conversation to incest. It’s the same tactic employed by those who oppose ANY form of birth control: get them lost in the hypothetical ‘what ifs’. (BTW, this used to work until folks just started flipping it back at them and asking if ‘legitimate’ rape and incest are “God’s will”, and then politicians started dropping like flies.)
AGAIN, I just want to summarize and underscore your best argument thus far. You, Matthew Hamilton, argue that:
same-sex couples should NOT be able to marry legally because related homosexuals who want to marry can’t technically commit incest.
SERIOUSLY? THAT’S ALL YOU’VE GOT?
JUST STOP AND THINK OF WHERE YOU’VE GONE WITH YOUR REASONING!
Good Grief. The lengths to which some people will go to defend their own homophobia staggering!
You are hoping that if you can take ANY conversation about homosexuality and interject the words ‘incest’ as many times as possible, that people will be disgusted and reject all of it. I applaud you on your rhetoric, and you get full marks for trying to create clever gambits. But good grief! Seriously, good grief!
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Too many points to deal with in a short time so here is a quick response
You ask me to “List my details”. Please note:
1. You are the one who first introduced science when you wrote about “years of genetic research” but did you list your details?
2. When I wrote “Bob, it is not as simple as two positions of “tradition and the Bible tells me so” vs. “science and no harm”, because that assumes that the pro-homosexual marriage position is both scientific and would result in no harm – but that is a detailed discussion not appropriate for brief exchanges” it was an opportunity for YOU to provide YOUR science since YOU were the one claiming to have science on YOUR side – after all I must be some sort of backward uneducated “fundamentalist” who is “homophobic”
BTW: Although my main training is in librarianship and theology my original training was in genetics and animal reproduction – but I really don’t want to waste time digging through the literature so we can match up paper against paper
You state: “You seem to try to be saying that unless sex with a relative results in a viable offspring, it’s not incest” Re-read through the exchanges, this is NOT what I said as I am opposed to both homosexual and incestuous marriage. Please do not try to mis-represent what I said as it is both rude and unprofessional. If you want to try to summarise what I argued regarding incest it is that if the argument against incestuous marriage is NOT based on the Bible and tradition then there is little else to argue against incestuous marriage except inbreeding – which for many incestuous relationships is not an issue.
This leads into what my overall argument is – if you ditch the Bible and tradition (and as a “fundamentalist” “homophobe” I do not) then once the legalisation of homosexual marriage takes place others in society will argue for their civil rights / self expression / etc to also get married. You might then case by case try to resist this but you will have few grounds on which to resist. In the case of incestuous marriage expect to see the first cases based on non-reproductive couples.
Jim has asked some serious questions and it appears few have bothered to look beyond the next few years to see where it will all end
regards,
Matthew
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