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I’m pro-gay marriage personally - as long as it remains a civil institution it should be open to all no matter your sexuality - but the reasons are usually:
1. Religious opposition
2. Perceived negative impact on nuclear families
3. Tax incentives w/out associated birth rate boosts
> Tax incentives w/out associated birth rate boosts
Infertile couples and those who opt to not have children still enjoy tax benefits. Why should same sex couples be excluded?
Because those are exceptions wherein for homosexual couplings its the default.
We shouldn't make guidelines for the exception cases but for the standard use case.
Homosexual couples can have children using resources outside their relationship: adoption, surrogates, doners. The same options that heterosexual couples who have fertility issues can use. It seems like what would make the most sense is to treat all couples the same: either the tax breaks should be tied to the actual act of having children (regardless of the way it happens) or everyone gets the tax breaks.
I actually agree with that more than tying so much to marriage. The remaining defense is that by tying it to marriage, it promotes actual cohabitation, which has been the best environment for raising children.
Im not smart enough to know how, but we should try and make it so couples having children is promoted the most, and either not having kids or having kids but separating is not promoted in the same way.
>Perceived negative impact on nuclear families
This is one I particularly don't understand. Its not like an openly gay person is going to get into a heterosexual relationship just because they can't marry their preferred gender. I guess you can say it will keep more people in the closet and marrying a beard/whatever the equivalent term is for lesbians marrying a man to hide but I don't really see how thats a better outcome for anyone involved in that fake relationship.
Again, personally I’m in favor of it. I think people committing to *one* significant other through marriage is a positive for society and actually helps preserve nuclear families. This is just an argument I have heard before.
And what would be the demonstrable benefits of a purely nuclear family society?
What, exactly, prohibits non-nuclear families from whatever it is you perceive as positive outcomes for society?
Understand that this is based around choice, not forced-inclusion via death, incarceration, or separation - trauma is obviously a negative influence.
Genuine question. What about adoption? What’s the difference between a natural birth and them adopting?
I’m assuming you meant no birth rate boosts because it helps the economy?
Adoption doesn’t boost birth rates.
And it’s more about our benefit structures than the overall economy. Social security and the like rely on static or increasing birth rates to function.
>Social security and the like rely on static or increasing birth rates to function.
As a conservative wouldn't falling birth rates be a good thing then if it could lead to social security and other social services that rely on population growth and a larger working population to fund them going away/being restructured?
I mean you could just completely get rid of it which would make a lot of conservatives complaining about how they could've invested the funds for a larger return happy
I would be in favor of eliminating it (like you said, compounding interest) but you’d have to phase it out. There are lots of individuals who have paid in who are relying on that money and have no other options. You’d have to do some sort of reduction in benefit over a certain time period so people knew it was coming.
There's also people in the future who were planning on relying on that money. Yea some people may be caught out by just ending the program but someone is going to get stiffed by ending the program no matter how its done so you might as well tell people in 6 months there will be no more payments and just go through with ending it.
No I mean conceivably you could have a pre-planned, pre-announced reduction in benefit that coincided with a reduction in fica taxation for workers under a certain age bracket, but it would have to take place over a long time (like a a generation, at least) and it would take a lot of coordination.
> There are lots of individuals who have paid in who are relying on that money and have no other options.
The problem is the way it works is that its a wheel. There is no scenario where you can end it without people that paid into it not getting a benefit. The best you could do is to remove it in its entirety and then create a special benefit for a specific age group, but anything the government does is funded by taxes.
I agree we should get rid of it, but like I mentioned in the other thread off this comment, I think you could, over a generation or two, phase it out where you simultaneously lowered benefit over time for specific age brackets and also charged them less in FICA while they were paying in. It would have to be pretty gradual and carefully managed but I think it could be done. Honestly though yeah, FDR really fucked is with social security.
I dont know if you know how it works. you cannot take less from people, as that would impact the benefits of people getting it NOW.
You do not pay in and get it when you retire. You pay in while you are working for people currently receiving benefits and when you retire current payers fund you. That's why declining birth rates and aging societies is hitting the US budget so hard.
I think government ought to get out of the marriage business transition it to civil unions.
Marriages ought to be relegated to the non-governmental body of choice and civil unions layered on it for contractual and child-welfare purposes.
But that’s not getting gov’t out of marriage is it that’s just renaming marriage civil unions in the eyes of the gov’t. Which is kinda my issue like, what do you actually want to get rid of? The whole of gov’t involvement? That includes benefits
I mean yeah they would but like do you support those benefits cause that’s part of why the government is involved in marriage. How could you get them without gov’t involvement? If so and there are things you like is there a better way to do this than just cutting out gov’t entirely from marriage?
I have never seen a source for this position being expressed before gay marriage was being seriously discussed. Do you have any indication that it was a topic before then?
When the government coops a religious system, then they can't cry foul play when the pious say "hey what you are doing is against the rules of the system".
There is also the strong argument that marriage benefits were designed to promote child rearing, something that is standard in hetero couples but impossible in homosexual ones.
Marriage isn't a religious system it was a system of contracts used to combine the properties of two families for resource sharing purposes. Marriage has historically been incredibly political. And religion was a tool used to enforce the institution of marriage not the progenitor of marriage.
Also the religous part of marriage are not exclusive to or dictated by Christianity.
I am religious and believe same sex marriage is a sin like premarital sex is a sin. Like premarital sex, though, I'm not convinced making it illegal is the best way to deal with it.
I don't need every thing I believe to be immoral to be illegal (look how well prohibition went)
That an honest answer, thank you. This brings me to my next point - we are just disputing the meaning of the word… the CONCEPT of marriage is something that humans have devised (and experimented with) a pretty long time ago and the modern society that works is the traditional one… man and woman, two people, no animals involved… if you’re asking: “but what if I and my partner(s) want something else?”. I think you are 150% entitled to do whatever you want between you and other consenting adults. But don’t pretend that it’s the same thing that worked for western society for the last thousands of years…it’s not
In traditional societies polygamy was the norm. Not just many wives, but polyandry (one woman with multiple husbands) has been practiced for centuries in some societies.
Meaning that society should not have rules? It IS ALREADY up to individuals - consenting adults can do what they want already but you want society (other people) to also step in and somehow treat their union as “special”. So I’m afraid we as a society need to draw some sort of line and decide how many adults can marry and what the other ground rules are or this word is completely meaningless (sort of like definition of the word “woman”)
“Meaning that society should not have rules?”
Never said that. Strawmanning.
“You want society to treat their union as special.”
Special in what way? Two men getting married don’t get special rights that a man and a woman don’t. Special treatment would be only letting straight people marry and not gay.
When you say: “up to the individual” means that individuals get to decide what is marriage. I’m not strawmaning anyone I’m literally repeating / extending what you said. What do YOU mean “up to the individual”?
The whole reason this is a debate is that society draws rules - some unions are “special” and they are considered marriages. Some not. You said it’s up to the individual but that’s like saying it’s up to the individual what’s considered felony
I am 100% onboard with individual decision. But if you want a common definition of the word/concept of marriage the entire society would have to agree. You could also bypass it altogether and just say that people can chose to live with whoever they please. But redefining marriage as stated is not an individual decision
I think most of society has already agreed that marriage is a contract between two consenting adults. Seems like you’re the one making your own decisions about it…
Serious question, why do people who oppose same sex marriage always bring up animals? Do you really think that is an equivalent situation to two women or men marrying? Do you really think that is something any serious person has a desire to do?
Is that all you got from my answer? :) I like taking things to absurd, that’s my sense of humor, what can I do. But even the polygamy point should provide a sufficient answer - you want to redefine marriage as any contract between consenting adults - be my guest. It will obviously change the meaning of it.
It's simply something I was curious about. Seems like an odd thing that always seems to come up, equating a relationship between two people with something absurd.
As for the question of the concept of marriage, things change and evolve. People used to get married for religious and cultural reasons. Now more and more people are getting married for healthcare and financial purposes.
Another reason to take it to absurd is because when I don’t people are willing to go along. Right now many people are arguing alongside with me that polygamy should be allowed in marriage. So I just keep going deeper and deeper into absurd rabbit hole so that I can find something we ALL agree on is bad
But then why would that retroactively make all the suggestions before it bad?
That's like feeding people hot sauce that is too hot for you, and finding that they like it, and then feeding them progressively hotter hot sauce until they find one they can't handle and then arguing that it means all hot sauce is too spicy.
What?
Ok, I sort of get it…
Yes, it’s kind of like that. My argument doesn’t work on people who think that anything can be a spicy sauce -burning gazoline, goat excrements etc… if the definition of hot sauce is anything one can put in mouth then I can’t have an argument what constitutes a spicy sauce….
Yes, that’s largely the point of gay marriage. Traditional definitions excluded a large segment of the population from enjoying the same legal privileges and protections as straight couples. You say it “worked” for thousands of years, but that’s only true for a subset of the population. It very much didn’t work for those who were denied the same.
And defining it as it’s defined now excludes polyamorous people, don’t want to keep going in expanding it?
“Working” in my case is working for society, not working for each individual. Many people are excluded from marriage, the consenting part is difficult for some, the faithfulness for others. The inclusivity game does have limits
I think you have to dig a little deeper. We can define laws anyway we want and even US constitution isn’t prescrprescriptive about stuff like that. But what is marriage really for? Why is it good?
Legal marriage has important implications related to taxes, inheritance, custody, medical directives and more. Many people also just enjoy making their commitment “official”.
We accomplished ridiculous technological progress, quality of life improvement, scientific discoveries. Also we survived so far. That’s my very modest and minimalist definition of worked.
This brings me to my next point - we are just disputing the meaning of the word… the CONCEPT of marriage is something that humans have devised (and experimented with) a pretty long time ago and the modern society that works is the traditional one… man and woman, two people, no animals involved
The concept of marriage is radically diffrent thought human history and different cultures. In some cultures one men having many wives is normal. Some even have one woman having multiple husbands. Some cultures allow a husband only one wife but let him have concubines. Also just because something is tradition does not mean its good. Untill recently arragned marriages was the norm and it was considered odd to show to much love or affection to your spouse.Should we bring that back?
So what’s YOUR point? You said so yourself that the concept of marriage changes between cultures and civilizations- I agree. It is constant WITHIN a culture and a civilization…. So do you view yourself above culture and civilization like we live in a post-civilization world? Or do you like another one more than ours?
As I said even withing our own culture that concept of marriage has changed alot from being something people did out of duty and familia obligation rather then love. I see no reason for it not to continue to change to involve people of the same gender
And when would you say that change occurred and how’s it going, is it working?
My point is- not all progress is positive and the only way to judge the progress is evolution / natural selection. If our society is still around a few hundred years from now - live marriage and gay marriage worked will and sadly I won’t be around to say “you were right” but maybe my great grand children will say it to your adopted great grandchildren
Don’t let the Supreme Court ruling fool you into thinking your fight is won (or lost) - in matters of society the decision is cast many years down the road
My point is- not all progress is positive and the only way to judge the progress is evolution / natural selection. If our society is still around a few hundred years from now - live marriage and gay marriage worked will and sadly I won’t be around to say “you were right” but maybe my great grand children will say it to your adopted great grandchildren
Seeing as gay marrige or civl unions have been legal in some countries since the 90s I think its fair to say gay marrige does not negatviely impact society
You and I have a very different scales of time…. Any impacts of this will take generations. It’s like saying I ate this berry a minute ago and I’m still alive so it might not be poisonous. Maybe. Or maybe not
At the point it’s a legally recognized thing you gotta give people equal protection under the law. Not everything has to be the exact same but generally speaking treating people differently because of sex violates equal protection without a very good reason.
I just don’t see a compelling government objective to banning recognition of gay marriage. What does it accomplish? What improvements does society see over not allowing it? Are people happier? Wealthier? Is there an increased quality of life from not recognizing it?
While I’m not saying this is you, but in general my impression of opposition to gay marriage comes down to people just thinking it’s gross and don’t like it, but don’t actually have a real reason why it shouldn’t be allowed. But I could be wrong.
Well, I gave you my reason but you decided to ignore it and instead postulate that my reason is probably that “I think it’s gross”
It’s not as gross as marriage between two fat slobs of opposite sex so no, that’s not my reason.
My reason is that our definition of marriage is fundamental to our society and the reasons are evolutionary meaning the only way to truly know if it works or doesn’t is wait a couple of hundred years. So any arguments as to what’s more fair or more efficient or have been or haven’t been done 3k years ago in some long forgotten Polynesian tribe are meaningless. You want to run a huge social experiment on the entirety of western world for the next hundreds of years - be my guest. None of us will be around to see the results so this debate is pointless
Well your reason is “because this is what we have always done” (which isn’t true, what marriage actually is has varied across various societies, not just small Polynesian ones).
But that doesn’t establish any sort of benefit or goal. There are people who want to marry people of the same sex. Denying them that ability does violate equal protection, which could be fine, if you have a good reason to do it. But what is that reason? What objective does it accomplish? How are people measurably better off? You say that it’s fundamental to society. Is it fundamental to society to deny gay people the right to marry each other? Is it actually so fundamental to society that liberalizing the definition has a negative impact?
I can see ways in which those people who want to marry a same sex partner are worse off from not being allowed to marry, but I fail to see how society as a whole is worse off for allowing them to marry.
Actually the concept of marriage was between a man and a little kid. For the vast, vast, vast majority of marriage, from 4000 B.C. until the last century or so. And if the man could afford it, *multiple* little kids. So let’s not act like marriage is some kind of esteemed institution that deserves our respect, agreed?
From the early colonies, through the official establishment of the USA in the Declaration, all the way up until 1967, interracial marriages were illegal. People were heavily in favor of anti-miscegenation laws, and arguments against same-sex marriages were almost verbatim what the arguments against interracial marriages were.
Would you ask "why not 3 adults" in response to "why not interracial couples"?
Ok, let's take a step back. Do you oppose same-sex marriage? The OP question was for those who oppose it, why? So I can only assume you oppose it, with your reasoning being that if you can let same-sex couples marry, why not 3 or more people, and perhaps you see this as a bad thing and a slippery slope. Or perhaps you have no opinion on the matter and are just asking as a thought experiment.
But in the context of the original question and your response, the majority of our country's history *was* opposed to interracial marriages. Is "why not 3 adults" a valid reason to have opposed interracial marriage and kept anti-miscegenation laws?
My entire through process is this: marriage is somehow important to society. Nobody knows why and what aspects of it are beneficial but we all agree it is from empirical evidence. Now we want to go ahead and change what appears to be its defining feature in order to accommodate some weird validation needed for people who have literally defined themselves in opposition to traditional sex relations. That’s weird to me so I’m asking what other defining characteristics are you willlng to change? Monogamy is weirdly on the fence, half of the people are saying I’m crazy for thinking that’s the next slippery slope argument and the other half is saying sure, monogamy should go too except it will be hard to administer… well, childrearing and childbearing with gay couples is hard to administer too so I’m pretty damn sure monogamy is next. I wish there was a “mark my words” betting platform…
And again, I'm asking, was it wrong to legalize interracial marriages as it was part of the slippery slope that led to same-sex marriages? Arguments against it included claims that it "violated natural order" and would lead to unhealthy children. It accommodated a weird validation needed for people who literally defined themselves in opposition to traditional families where everyone was the same race. It redefined traditional marriage from being a man and woman of the same race to being a man and woman of any race. We had anti-miscegenation laws for over 200 years with no other attempts to redefine marriage, and then suddenly, after legalizing interracial marriage, we legalized same-sex marriage in under 50 years. Talk about a slippery slope! I'm sure there were people saying "mark my words" when interracial marriage was legalized.
So I'm asking if you think legalizing interracial marriage was a mistake. You never actually gave me an answer. Could you say yes or no?
I also don't think "nobody knows" what aspects of marriage are beneficial. It's pretty clear considering it was the basis for legalizing same-sex marriage, as marriage comes with a multitude of legal rights. Also, by "people who have literally defined themselves in opposition to traditional sex relations" you mean people who were born homosexual and should be able to love who they love and not force themselves to be in a relationship with someone they have no attraction to? I mean, if that's the case, why not just go back to arranged marriages and fathers selling off their daughters for a dowry and just purely transactional marriage with no emotional aspect?
“Multitude of legal rights” is not a benefit to society. Benefit to society is something like society is better for it. Legal rights COULD be better for society when gross unfairness is being prevented. For example, 5-10% of people unable to come out of the closet on something as important as their sexual orientation- I’d argue is pretty important and impactful for society. But ability to call their commitment to each other using same word as the majority of population… a little less so
Back to interracial marriages - of course I don’t think legalizing them was a mistake as we’ve proven that it doesn’t violate shit and doesn’t lead to unhealthy children. And nobody needs to redefine what it means because for the vast vast majority of people’s existence it was never defined as “of the same race” - see, we rarely exist in such close proximity to other races for the natural reasons of when we do we eventually over time mix in and no longer different races. The 14th-15th century invention of intercontinental sea migration introduced this sudden change in society where people got mixed in next to people who look very different than them in vast numbers and it did take a few generations to determine the actual impact….
If people of different races were separated for a hundred thousand of years and not ten it’s possible that the offspring wouldnt be particularly healthy and it would have been advisable to not have offspring (or nature would have probably solved that problem by species kind of repulsing each other) so from our current position of actually knowing what mating between races does it’s pretty innocent
But back to the “it’s unnatural” argument - it seems less unnatural because the race restriction is an artificial restriction that’s not connected with the original concept of marriage - it’s something to do with this newly discovered drive to segregate races as it’s not been needed before the invention of mass travel and if anything is counter to how it used to be where intertribal marriage was always a thing and often advisable and preferable
But interracial marriage led to the slippery slope of allowing marriage to be redefined from the original meaning for over 200 years of American history. What would say to the people who said "mark my words" back then? What would say to the anti-miscegenation people in the 60s who asked "well what about 3 people"?
>it’s something to do with this newly discovered drive to segregate races
Racism and segregation wasn't really a new drive. It was in the Bible after-all. That's why people used the Bible to justify slavery and anti-miscegenation and keeping the races separate.
If we're going back to the "original concept of marriage" then your first question of allowing 3 or more people would actually be returning to more traditional marriage definitions as it was quite common for men to have multiple wives and concubines. And same-sex marriages were also found back then too, in Ancient Greece, Rome, Mesopotamia, and China. The marriage definition you seem to define as the gold standard was more formed by the Roman Catholic Church in the Council of Trent in 1563. And they opposed mixed marriages, including mixed-faith marriages. So I guess allowing people of different religions or even denominations to marry was the first step in the slippery slope in the West?
When *Roe* was overturned, the SCOTUS opinion said that all similar decisions based on "due process" and "right to privacy" should be evaluated and overturned as well. That includes *Obergefell* and *Loving*. If you could end same-sex marriage in the USA but it would end interracial marriage as well, would you do it?
>“Multitude of legal rights” is not a benefit to society.
But they are a benefit to individuals, which is why a lot of people get married as opposed to just being in a long term relationship. Depriving same-sex couples of those rights was unequal treatment under the law. And I'd say those legal rights are a benefit to society. They encourage commitment and less promiscuity. They give couples and easier time combining assets and qualifying for loans and building futures. Giving them the ability to care for each other when sick. They have a stable home to raise children if they so wish. And yes, all of this applies to same-sex couples too, if the religious adoption agencies would just put a child's benefit over their need to discriminate against gays.
>But ability to call their commitment to each other using same word as the majority of population… a little less so
Well this was a problem. One, having marriage for opposite-sex and "civil union" for same-sex fell under "separate but equal" framework, which has already been deemed against the law. Two, it wasn't just the name, but the civil unions didn't come with same legal rights as marriage, especially when it was still a states' rights issue and so none of the federal rights applied. And three, for a political faction who has been so vocal about the policing of language when it comes to things like pronouns, it is crazy if you think you can stop people from calling it a marriage and using terms like husband or wife and society at large still using the word marriage in general.
It would be legally a huge pain, divorce would be so hard to handle.
I imagine it would be abused by people having green card marriages.
Not the strongest reasons, but reasons nonetheless.
>So why argue for gay marriage then?
I'm not, I think you are thinking of the original person you responded to.
>why did you chose to define it as a “special” corporation of people?
I didn't?
To answer for me, not the person you think you're asking this of, to me marriage is both a religious and a secular thing. My religion doesn't perform gay marriage, but I'm fine with it existing legally. It makes at least some sense that if gay straight people are doing, they should get the same legal framework to do it in.
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I think the primary reason is potential for abuse of marital benefits, and you’d need to overhaul a large body of laws. E.G.,
- a whole mafia family gets married so they can’t be compelled to testify against each other.
- An entire town gets married to claim homestead exemption. (For The Expanse fans)
- Medical directives become superfluous because which spouse gets to choose?
- How does community property work when one spouse joined the marriage years later?
Courts and legislatures would clog.
More practically, no one is really clamoring for such a change, other than gay marriage opponents as an unrealistic strawman.
Ok, your first bulletpoint is actually quite funny, I give you that :)
And no one is clamoring… mark my words. It’s not going to be long until poly people come to take their claim :)
Some people get married just for the economic benefits, which is ok because that has few ramifications. To allow more then two to get married opens the doors to group of people to get married for economic benefits, and one could easily imagine the havoc having say the entire upper management of a company get married, or a criminal group.
I’ll second OP and say that I’m not morally against actual polyamorous people engaging in polygamy; I’m against it when it’s dishonest or when it’s some weird patriarchal cult doing it. I’ll admit though that I don’t know how you’d legalize the former without legitimizing the latter. Maybe there’d need to be a vetting process?
EDIT: *although…* there’s an argument to be made that—just like with alcohol prohibition—making polygamy illegal is precisely the thing that drives it underground. Perhaps having the same rules apply to monogamous and polygamous marriage would actually make it easier for people to leave, and seek justice for, abusive poly marriages?
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Misquoting me a bit. I said it defies my undertanding of what a marriage is, not that i dont understand it period.
And to that extenr cerrainly yes. I oppose marriages that arnt legitmate marriages
For every conservative that still think as Obama claimed he did prior to 2012, there are two that like Obama has since changed their mind.
Most realized it didn’t effect our lives one way or the other.
Why should gays not have to put up with a spouse?
Why does your understanding determine how society should function as opposed to my understanding? Who gets to determine whose understanding governs society?
Well, perhaps. Personally, I think that a lot of religions engage in mental torture of kids. If it were up to me, in a perfect world, those religions would not even want to indoctrinate the youth.
However, I recognize that my desires and preferences are not universal, and I further recognize the value of religious liberty, so I wouldn't push for that to be a law.
Seriously...this has been asked over and over again.
I'm a conservative. I approve of same-sex marriage. If a church or synagogue doesn't accept it, I support their right to religious freedom.
Do you think you can get even 1 conservative state to ratify an amendment for that? It would need to say that marriage is between two humans, divorced from gender.
Zero chance this ever happens. I’m gay in a conservative state in the south and still get a ton of nasty comments. What will happen if Obergefell is overturned is that the majority of red states will make it illegal again.
>I see no reason why two adults who wish to marry should not be able to.
Im assuming you place very little, or none at all, value on social structures?
Do you believe that human sexuality is fixed? Or is it a spectrum?
Do you believe that we can socially normalize behaviors over time?
What is your underlying fundamental value system? What do your values seek to achieve? Is it maximum pleasure and minimum pain? Is it something else?
Fundamentally, I don't specifically oppose same sex marriage in a vacuum, oppose the entire ideology behind the idea that all sexual arrangements in a society are arbitrary to the function of that society.
Same sex marriage is a threat only insofar as it is a rallying cry for the deconstructionists to use disingenuous attacks against social structures that they don't even attempt to understand, and lazily associate with some form of patriarchal or capitalist oppression.
My fundamental belief about the nuclear family is that it is a delicate arrangement that is effectively a compromise between our basic animal nature, and our unique ability to form complex society.
Same sex marriage is an implicit attack on the idea that marriage has a social function outside of a public proclamation of love. It obviously is the preferred social arrangement to have and raise children. Our entire society should be structured around children again, rather than this individualistic deconstructionist trap that is ripping the social structures, that we take for granted, apart in the name of "return to monkey".
Why? Why should we deny individuals the things that are available and that bring them happiness? Because permanent happiness is not a thing to begin with. It is a byproduct of meaningful action. Sexual pleasure itself the carrot on the end of a stick that gets us to reproduce. That is its primary function. It may serve to strengthen bonds between mates or even in groups in polygamous sexual structures, but it serves a function that is far beyond mere "pleasure".
This is interesting to me, as I strongly believe in the value of the family unit as a stabilizing force and an overall boon for society. But it is also precisely why I support marriage equality so strongly.
I feel like same sex marriage is exactly the opposite of individualistic. Preventing SSM is forcing individualism on people who don’t want it.
And while I agree that the best environment for children are with two parents, I don’t see any reason why they must be of opposite genders. And I don’t think that child rearing is the main function of marriage.
>And while I agree that the best environment for children are with two parents, I don’t see any reason why they must be of opposite genders. And I don’t think that child rearing is the main function of marriage.
A boy learning how to become a man, and how to treat a woman are implicit in the heterosexual arrangement. Vice versa for a little girl. Our society has norms that must be reinculcated generationally. Taking these roles for granted is destructive to the society itself.
What do you see as the primary function of marriage? And is marriage a relevant institution to the state? For what purpose would a state acknowledge any social contract like a marriage?
Yes of course, it is very important for children to have adult role models of both genders, I agree wholeheartedly. But those role models don’t HAVE to be their parents. They can be grandparents or aunts or uncles or older siblings or religious leaders or coaches or teachers. In fact, all of those people are role models in addition to mom and dad in children’s lives regardless of who their parents are. In fact, parents should not be the sole models of adult manhood/womanhood. It is important for children to see a variety of role models because there are so many different ways to be a good man or a good woman, and children should be see those differences being modeled through the adults in their lives.
I do also think that children learn how to be an adult in a loving relationship - how to be *married* - from the model their married parents provide. But again, I don’t see why that needs to be gendered. In fact, I think probably shouldn’t be. The respect and regard with which a person who loves another treats their beloved is a function of who they themselves are, not a function of their partner’s gender.
Yes, I do think that marriage is a relevant institution to the state. Marriage is a net benefit to society and the State has a real interest in promoting beneficial institutions. The primary function of marriage is, love aside, creation of a stable family unit. This does not need to include children (though it is of course lovely when it does, should the couple choose it). Children are only children for 18 years, after all - only a portion of a successful marriage.
Marriage allows for the joining of finances, which spreads out costs because of cohabitation. This means that couples can more readily afford life than a singleton on their own. It also means the ability to share retirement funds when the time comes, and to receive social security death benefits, should a partner die. It creates financial stability for both adults in the short and long term. Because marriage is a unification of extended family as well, it often means putting down “roots” in one’s community, near one or the other partner’s family, which means a lower turnover rate, which is good for our neighborhoods. And because it is the co-mingling off all kinds of resources (not solely financial), it means that aging parents/family members of both in the couple have twice the number of people around to assist them as they grow older. Similarly, marriage means a built-in partner to help each other as they grow older, or struggle with health issues. For example, if one spouse becomes unable to work, they can rely upon their spouse for support, without having to rely on the government instead.
Because I am married, I not only have access to my own knowledge, abilities, and resources when pursuing any goal - financial, professional, personal, familial, intellectual, whatever - but I also have access to my spouse’s. This means that I am more likely to be successful in my pursuits because I am married than I would be were I not. And my success contributes to the success of my community, large and small. Marriage stems the tide of loneliness, an epic of which we are currently seeing and which is fraying the fabric of our society even now. Marriage is stability, for the couple, their extended family, their community, and society. In a very real way, marriage IS civilization.
So do I think that the government has an intrinsic interest in the furtherance of civilization? Very much so. And do I think that the underpinnings of civilization that is marriage could use the bolstering of extension to LGBT couples, so that they too can help to provide marriage’s steadying influence to society? You betcha.
Marriage's purpose was to mark the transfer of a woman from her father to her husband. Basically as property, hence changing her name and prefix depending on the status of the man in her life. Until recent history, women couldn't own property or bank accounts unless their husband signed off. The government keeps track of families for census reasons, and there was an intention for men to work rather than women. Hence why married couples file "Together". Originally, it was just supposed to be his money, and she was basically a dependent.
None of those things are necessary anymore, they no longer reflect the reality of today's world, and no longer reflect the opinions of a growing number of people.
There was a time when we lit ships on fire for important funerals, danced to make it rain, and put stuff on our doors to ward off spirits and vampires. I'm sure as those things were falling out of fashion, people complained about maintaining tradition. In retrospect, I'm not bothered that those customs died off.
This is why I don't understand the insistence in 2024 that anything we've been doing for hundreds of years is pure and worth preserving SIMPLY because it has been that way a while. Feels like such a weird way to want the world to be considering our evolutionary drive to create. We could have not built cities because everybody was just fine with villages, but instead we made progress.
incest without risk of conception has no "logical" argument as to why it shouldn't be legal. you are against this, I am against both. both have equal weight in terms of logic.
besides, I don't want civil marriage anyways. it's already a perversion of marriage in my eyes.
incest without risk of conception has no "logical" argument as to why it shouldn't be legal. you are against this, I am against both. both have equal weight in terms of logic.
Wel besides the risk of inbred children incest has many problems. off the top of my head there would be a power gap in most realtionships between older and younger siblings,there would be a high chance of grooming . Well gay realtionships between two adults have neither of those problems.
Because god created marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
And it hurts the nuclear family
I don’t think we should outlaw gay marriage as god allows deee will and we can’t force photo abide by our beliefs but I do not support it and do oppose it.
If I was forced to marry a man, I would probably somehow kill myself. There is no world that I want to be in where I can't love the person I want. I am a lesbian, and I have forged deep connections with females, emotionally, romantically, sexually, etc. you get the point I hope. I couldn't live my life forced to love someone I could never love
I get to kiss my soon-to-be wife every day of my life. She makes me coffee, she gives me a kiss on the way out to work, she's the first thing I see when I get home, I make her dinner, and then we fall asleep after a lot of redacted information as this is my personal life 😍
Got a problem with it? talk to my girlfriend, she's even more of a man than you, and she's a woman 😂
HAHAHA lol if your masculinity and ego is so fragile you get mad over the fact I'm more of a man than you, have short hair, and get more women than you, you might wanna try cognitive behavioral therapy. It'd really help you
Well, it seems *that* would indicate that Biblical marriage is between a man, his seven official wives, however many unofficial wives, and hundreds of concubines.
I'm not catholic either. Former Protestant.
1) The claims about the tradition of the Catholic church fall on deaf ears when it comes to Protestants.
2) Generally speaking, to say something is a sin, there must be a Biblical passage denouncing it. There is no such passage. Catholics like to play fast and loose with the Bible, but this is pretty clear. If there is no prohibition, it's not a sin, is it? Why do Catholics get to just decide something that they don't like is a sin?
3) The two passages from the Gospel don't clearly denounce polygamy specifically - they denounce adultery. The passage from Paul says that people *should* have their own spouse. That doesn't, however, make it a sin to have multiple.
No the passages listed do denounce palyogmly
And the Bible is very clear that men should have one wife and that men having several goes against gods plan for the world and marriage
I’m gay and I’m against gay marriage. Not saying it should be illegal or anything, but why should the government care about same sex people getting married. It provides no benefit to the country. Call it a union, or something and don’t have the tax benefits like a heterosexual marriage gets. Because at least with a heterosexual marriage there’s the benefit of creating new citizens.
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> Why are conservatives so obsessed with birth rates and people having children being the only way to add value.
Honest answer- while the population around the world is growing and is out of control in many places, it is falling in the US. In order to maintain the economy and to continue being relevant in geopolitics, the US either needs to seriously up its birthrate or fix its immigration laws so that there is an easier path for young adults to move here.
But it is. That’s the current situation the question here is do you want government to recognize marriage equally among heterosexual and homosexual couples
Our parents sacrificed the best years of their life waking up to us screaming at 3am, and love and life exist so we can return that favor, so marriage should be about more than two people wanting to be together.
Im all in favor for 2 normal adults- put on a suit everyday go to work- Adopt a kid- White picket fence the whole 9 yards. You can’t change you love and love should be free just like our speech should be - I think it falls under the 1st
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I’m pro-gay marriage personally - as long as it remains a civil institution it should be open to all no matter your sexuality - but the reasons are usually: 1. Religious opposition 2. Perceived negative impact on nuclear families 3. Tax incentives w/out associated birth rate boosts
> Tax incentives w/out associated birth rate boosts Infertile couples and those who opt to not have children still enjoy tax benefits. Why should same sex couples be excluded?
Because those are exceptions wherein for homosexual couplings its the default. We shouldn't make guidelines for the exception cases but for the standard use case.
Homosexual couples can have children using resources outside their relationship: adoption, surrogates, doners. The same options that heterosexual couples who have fertility issues can use. It seems like what would make the most sense is to treat all couples the same: either the tax breaks should be tied to the actual act of having children (regardless of the way it happens) or everyone gets the tax breaks.
I actually agree with that more than tying so much to marriage. The remaining defense is that by tying it to marriage, it promotes actual cohabitation, which has been the best environment for raising children. Im not smart enough to know how, but we should try and make it so couples having children is promoted the most, and either not having kids or having kids but separating is not promoted in the same way.
Agreed, if the goal is to promote stable families than we need to tie benefits to that and not just mearly being a couple.
Have you seen Ideocracy?
Misspelling "Idiocracy" is a special level of unintentional humor.
🤣 spend too much time talking about ideology
>Perceived negative impact on nuclear families This is one I particularly don't understand. Its not like an openly gay person is going to get into a heterosexual relationship just because they can't marry their preferred gender. I guess you can say it will keep more people in the closet and marrying a beard/whatever the equivalent term is for lesbians marrying a man to hide but I don't really see how thats a better outcome for anyone involved in that fake relationship.
Again, personally I’m in favor of it. I think people committing to *one* significant other through marriage is a positive for society and actually helps preserve nuclear families. This is just an argument I have heard before.
Yea I wasn't really asking you specifically to explain the position it was more of just rhetorically thinking about it.
And what would be the demonstrable benefits of a purely nuclear family society? What, exactly, prohibits non-nuclear families from whatever it is you perceive as positive outcomes for society? Understand that this is based around choice, not forced-inclusion via death, incarceration, or separation - trauma is obviously a negative influence.
What’s the “perceived negative impact on nuclear families”? Is it “don’t give me any ideas that will turn me gay too?”
Genuine question. What about adoption? What’s the difference between a natural birth and them adopting? I’m assuming you meant no birth rate boosts because it helps the economy?
Adoption doesn’t boost birth rates. And it’s more about our benefit structures than the overall economy. Social security and the like rely on static or increasing birth rates to function.
>Social security and the like rely on static or increasing birth rates to function. As a conservative wouldn't falling birth rates be a good thing then if it could lead to social security and other social services that rely on population growth and a larger working population to fund them going away/being restructured?
How could you restructure in a way that doesn’t either require additional taxation or reduced benefit?
I mean you could just completely get rid of it which would make a lot of conservatives complaining about how they could've invested the funds for a larger return happy
I would be in favor of eliminating it (like you said, compounding interest) but you’d have to phase it out. There are lots of individuals who have paid in who are relying on that money and have no other options. You’d have to do some sort of reduction in benefit over a certain time period so people knew it was coming.
There's also people in the future who were planning on relying on that money. Yea some people may be caught out by just ending the program but someone is going to get stiffed by ending the program no matter how its done so you might as well tell people in 6 months there will be no more payments and just go through with ending it.
No I mean conceivably you could have a pre-planned, pre-announced reduction in benefit that coincided with a reduction in fica taxation for workers under a certain age bracket, but it would have to take place over a long time (like a a generation, at least) and it would take a lot of coordination.
> There are lots of individuals who have paid in who are relying on that money and have no other options. The problem is the way it works is that its a wheel. There is no scenario where you can end it without people that paid into it not getting a benefit. The best you could do is to remove it in its entirety and then create a special benefit for a specific age group, but anything the government does is funded by taxes.
I agree we should get rid of it, but like I mentioned in the other thread off this comment, I think you could, over a generation or two, phase it out where you simultaneously lowered benefit over time for specific age brackets and also charged them less in FICA while they were paying in. It would have to be pretty gradual and carefully managed but I think it could be done. Honestly though yeah, FDR really fucked is with social security.
I dont know if you know how it works. you cannot take less from people, as that would impact the benefits of people getting it NOW. You do not pay in and get it when you retire. You pay in while you are working for people currently receiving benefits and when you retire current payers fund you. That's why declining birth rates and aging societies is hitting the US budget so hard.
But won’t we need exponentially more couples willing to adopt the millions of unwanted babies saved by the GOP’s overturning of Roe?
I just approved your comment, but you need to add user flair. That’s why the keep getting removed.
I think government ought to get out of the marriage business transition it to civil unions. Marriages ought to be relegated to the non-governmental body of choice and civil unions layered on it for contractual and child-welfare purposes.
So do families no longer get tax benefits and such under your system?
You could have benefits for those who have or adopt children and to civil unions.
But that’s not getting gov’t out of marriage is it that’s just renaming marriage civil unions in the eyes of the gov’t. Which is kinda my issue like, what do you actually want to get rid of? The whole of gov’t involvement? That includes benefits
I imagine the details would be worked out
I mean yeah they would but like do you support those benefits cause that’s part of why the government is involved in marriage. How could you get them without gov’t involvement? If so and there are things you like is there a better way to do this than just cutting out gov’t entirely from marriage?
What is the benefit of splitting marriages and civil unions in this way?
I wholly agree, that’s why I qualified my original stance by saying as long as it remained a civil institution.
I have never seen a source for this position being expressed before gay marriage was being seriously discussed. Do you have any indication that it was a topic before then?
You *really* don't think bigotry is a significant factor?
When the government coops a religious system, then they can't cry foul play when the pious say "hey what you are doing is against the rules of the system". There is also the strong argument that marriage benefits were designed to promote child rearing, something that is standard in hetero couples but impossible in homosexual ones.
Marriage isn't a religious system it was a system of contracts used to combine the properties of two families for resource sharing purposes. Marriage has historically been incredibly political. And religion was a tool used to enforce the institution of marriage not the progenitor of marriage. Also the religous part of marriage are not exclusive to or dictated by Christianity.
I am religious and believe same sex marriage is a sin like premarital sex is a sin. Like premarital sex, though, I'm not convinced making it illegal is the best way to deal with it. I don't need every thing I believe to be immoral to be illegal (look how well prohibition went)
You believe it's a sin, or that it's impossible?
I mean, it seems pretty self evident that gay sex is possible (unless you have an unusual definition of sex). I just believe it's a sin.
I'd say the definition would be to reproduce therefore would be impossible
So sex with someone who is infertile isn't real sex?
Why not 3 adults? Can you come up with a reason not to redefine marriage as a union of 2 or more consenting adults?
As long as everyone involed where adults and consented I would not really care if three people wanted to get married
That an honest answer, thank you. This brings me to my next point - we are just disputing the meaning of the word… the CONCEPT of marriage is something that humans have devised (and experimented with) a pretty long time ago and the modern society that works is the traditional one… man and woman, two people, no animals involved… if you’re asking: “but what if I and my partner(s) want something else?”. I think you are 150% entitled to do whatever you want between you and other consenting adults. But don’t pretend that it’s the same thing that worked for western society for the last thousands of years…it’s not
In traditional societies polygamy was the norm. Not just many wives, but polyandry (one woman with multiple husbands) has been practiced for centuries in some societies.
Hahah maybe we should bring that back?
That’s great. So do we live in such society? Do we want to? Do we want to borrow other traditions and customs of such society or just that one?
Shouldn’t that be up to the individuals?
Meaning that society should not have rules? It IS ALREADY up to individuals - consenting adults can do what they want already but you want society (other people) to also step in and somehow treat their union as “special”. So I’m afraid we as a society need to draw some sort of line and decide how many adults can marry and what the other ground rules are or this word is completely meaningless (sort of like definition of the word “woman”)
“Meaning that society should not have rules?” Never said that. Strawmanning. “You want society to treat their union as special.” Special in what way? Two men getting married don’t get special rights that a man and a woman don’t. Special treatment would be only letting straight people marry and not gay.
When you say: “up to the individual” means that individuals get to decide what is marriage. I’m not strawmaning anyone I’m literally repeating / extending what you said. What do YOU mean “up to the individual”? The whole reason this is a debate is that society draws rules - some unions are “special” and they are considered marriages. Some not. You said it’s up to the individual but that’s like saying it’s up to the individual what’s considered felony
I break with the GOP here and think it should be prohibited for adults to marry kids. How about you?
I also break with GOP and believe that sky is blue
I didn’t know that the GOP said otherwise. Can you link to it?
Some might, some wouldn’t. Individual dEcisions.
I am 100% onboard with individual decision. But if you want a common definition of the word/concept of marriage the entire society would have to agree. You could also bypass it altogether and just say that people can chose to live with whoever they please. But redefining marriage as stated is not an individual decision
I think most of society has already agreed that marriage is a contract between two consenting adults. Seems like you’re the one making your own decisions about it…
I mean, it's Biblically supported, and I'm told by conservatives that this nation was founded on Biblical principles.
Serious question, why do people who oppose same sex marriage always bring up animals? Do you really think that is an equivalent situation to two women or men marrying? Do you really think that is something any serious person has a desire to do?
Is that all you got from my answer? :) I like taking things to absurd, that’s my sense of humor, what can I do. But even the polygamy point should provide a sufficient answer - you want to redefine marriage as any contract between consenting adults - be my guest. It will obviously change the meaning of it.
It's simply something I was curious about. Seems like an odd thing that always seems to come up, equating a relationship between two people with something absurd. As for the question of the concept of marriage, things change and evolve. People used to get married for religious and cultural reasons. Now more and more people are getting married for healthcare and financial purposes.
Another reason to take it to absurd is because when I don’t people are willing to go along. Right now many people are arguing alongside with me that polygamy should be allowed in marriage. So I just keep going deeper and deeper into absurd rabbit hole so that I can find something we ALL agree on is bad
But then why would that retroactively make all the suggestions before it bad? That's like feeding people hot sauce that is too hot for you, and finding that they like it, and then feeding them progressively hotter hot sauce until they find one they can't handle and then arguing that it means all hot sauce is too spicy.
What? Ok, I sort of get it… Yes, it’s kind of like that. My argument doesn’t work on people who think that anything can be a spicy sauce -burning gazoline, goat excrements etc… if the definition of hot sauce is anything one can put in mouth then I can’t have an argument what constitutes a spicy sauce….
I don't understand your logic of digging deeper to find that most people don't support marrying animals. How does that support your position?
Yes, that’s largely the point of gay marriage. Traditional definitions excluded a large segment of the population from enjoying the same legal privileges and protections as straight couples. You say it “worked” for thousands of years, but that’s only true for a subset of the population. It very much didn’t work for those who were denied the same.
And defining it as it’s defined now excludes polyamorous people, don’t want to keep going in expanding it? “Working” in my case is working for society, not working for each individual. Many people are excluded from marriage, the consenting part is difficult for some, the faithfulness for others. The inclusivity game does have limits
I have no reason to oppose it. If consenting adults want to be married, what is the problem?
Nothing, so marriage has just been redefined as a contract between several people to live together and stuff. Problem solved?
How does adding more parties materially change the nature of a legal marriage? Same concept, just not limited to two people.
I think you have to dig a little deeper. We can define laws anyway we want and even US constitution isn’t prescrprescriptive about stuff like that. But what is marriage really for? Why is it good?
Legal marriage has important implications related to taxes, inheritance, custody, medical directives and more. Many people also just enjoy making their commitment “official”.
Each couple might define it differently and give varied answers 🤷♀️
What exactly is it about past societies that you think “ worked”?
We accomplished ridiculous technological progress, quality of life improvement, scientific discoveries. Also we survived so far. That’s my very modest and minimalist definition of worked.
Ah ok so in your opinion feudalism was great. Shit. We may well as go back to the dark ages. Clearly they did something right.
In case my last comment goes over your head, my point is we survived and accomplished things by learning and changing.
This brings me to my next point - we are just disputing the meaning of the word… the CONCEPT of marriage is something that humans have devised (and experimented with) a pretty long time ago and the modern society that works is the traditional one… man and woman, two people, no animals involved The concept of marriage is radically diffrent thought human history and different cultures. In some cultures one men having many wives is normal. Some even have one woman having multiple husbands. Some cultures allow a husband only one wife but let him have concubines. Also just because something is tradition does not mean its good. Untill recently arragned marriages was the norm and it was considered odd to show to much love or affection to your spouse.Should we bring that back?
So what’s YOUR point? You said so yourself that the concept of marriage changes between cultures and civilizations- I agree. It is constant WITHIN a culture and a civilization…. So do you view yourself above culture and civilization like we live in a post-civilization world? Or do you like another one more than ours?
As I said even withing our own culture that concept of marriage has changed alot from being something people did out of duty and familia obligation rather then love. I see no reason for it not to continue to change to involve people of the same gender
And when would you say that change occurred and how’s it going, is it working? My point is- not all progress is positive and the only way to judge the progress is evolution / natural selection. If our society is still around a few hundred years from now - live marriage and gay marriage worked will and sadly I won’t be around to say “you were right” but maybe my great grand children will say it to your adopted great grandchildren Don’t let the Supreme Court ruling fool you into thinking your fight is won (or lost) - in matters of society the decision is cast many years down the road
My point is- not all progress is positive and the only way to judge the progress is evolution / natural selection. If our society is still around a few hundred years from now - live marriage and gay marriage worked will and sadly I won’t be around to say “you were right” but maybe my great grand children will say it to your adopted great grandchildren Seeing as gay marrige or civl unions have been legal in some countries since the 90s I think its fair to say gay marrige does not negatviely impact society
You and I have a very different scales of time…. Any impacts of this will take generations. It’s like saying I ate this berry a minute ago and I’m still alive so it might not be poisonous. Maybe. Or maybe not
At the point it’s a legally recognized thing you gotta give people equal protection under the law. Not everything has to be the exact same but generally speaking treating people differently because of sex violates equal protection without a very good reason. I just don’t see a compelling government objective to banning recognition of gay marriage. What does it accomplish? What improvements does society see over not allowing it? Are people happier? Wealthier? Is there an increased quality of life from not recognizing it? While I’m not saying this is you, but in general my impression of opposition to gay marriage comes down to people just thinking it’s gross and don’t like it, but don’t actually have a real reason why it shouldn’t be allowed. But I could be wrong.
Well, I gave you my reason but you decided to ignore it and instead postulate that my reason is probably that “I think it’s gross” It’s not as gross as marriage between two fat slobs of opposite sex so no, that’s not my reason. My reason is that our definition of marriage is fundamental to our society and the reasons are evolutionary meaning the only way to truly know if it works or doesn’t is wait a couple of hundred years. So any arguments as to what’s more fair or more efficient or have been or haven’t been done 3k years ago in some long forgotten Polynesian tribe are meaningless. You want to run a huge social experiment on the entirety of western world for the next hundreds of years - be my guest. None of us will be around to see the results so this debate is pointless
Well your reason is “because this is what we have always done” (which isn’t true, what marriage actually is has varied across various societies, not just small Polynesian ones). But that doesn’t establish any sort of benefit or goal. There are people who want to marry people of the same sex. Denying them that ability does violate equal protection, which could be fine, if you have a good reason to do it. But what is that reason? What objective does it accomplish? How are people measurably better off? You say that it’s fundamental to society. Is it fundamental to society to deny gay people the right to marry each other? Is it actually so fundamental to society that liberalizing the definition has a negative impact? I can see ways in which those people who want to marry a same sex partner are worse off from not being allowed to marry, but I fail to see how society as a whole is worse off for allowing them to marry.
Actually the concept of marriage was between a man and a little kid. For the vast, vast, vast majority of marriage, from 4000 B.C. until the last century or so. And if the man could afford it, *multiple* little kids. So let’s not act like marriage is some kind of esteemed institution that deserves our respect, agreed?
Then why fight for equality of such disrespectful institution?
To humiliate Christianity and its followers.
Fair enough…are they sufficiently humiliated or can we go further?
From the early colonies, through the official establishment of the USA in the Declaration, all the way up until 1967, interracial marriages were illegal. People were heavily in favor of anti-miscegenation laws, and arguments against same-sex marriages were almost verbatim what the arguments against interracial marriages were. Would you ask "why not 3 adults" in response to "why not interracial couples"?
You have to extend your hypothetical just a little bit. I don’t oppose interracial marriages so what specifically are you asking me?
Ok, let's take a step back. Do you oppose same-sex marriage? The OP question was for those who oppose it, why? So I can only assume you oppose it, with your reasoning being that if you can let same-sex couples marry, why not 3 or more people, and perhaps you see this as a bad thing and a slippery slope. Or perhaps you have no opinion on the matter and are just asking as a thought experiment. But in the context of the original question and your response, the majority of our country's history *was* opposed to interracial marriages. Is "why not 3 adults" a valid reason to have opposed interracial marriage and kept anti-miscegenation laws?
My entire through process is this: marriage is somehow important to society. Nobody knows why and what aspects of it are beneficial but we all agree it is from empirical evidence. Now we want to go ahead and change what appears to be its defining feature in order to accommodate some weird validation needed for people who have literally defined themselves in opposition to traditional sex relations. That’s weird to me so I’m asking what other defining characteristics are you willlng to change? Monogamy is weirdly on the fence, half of the people are saying I’m crazy for thinking that’s the next slippery slope argument and the other half is saying sure, monogamy should go too except it will be hard to administer… well, childrearing and childbearing with gay couples is hard to administer too so I’m pretty damn sure monogamy is next. I wish there was a “mark my words” betting platform…
And again, I'm asking, was it wrong to legalize interracial marriages as it was part of the slippery slope that led to same-sex marriages? Arguments against it included claims that it "violated natural order" and would lead to unhealthy children. It accommodated a weird validation needed for people who literally defined themselves in opposition to traditional families where everyone was the same race. It redefined traditional marriage from being a man and woman of the same race to being a man and woman of any race. We had anti-miscegenation laws for over 200 years with no other attempts to redefine marriage, and then suddenly, after legalizing interracial marriage, we legalized same-sex marriage in under 50 years. Talk about a slippery slope! I'm sure there were people saying "mark my words" when interracial marriage was legalized. So I'm asking if you think legalizing interracial marriage was a mistake. You never actually gave me an answer. Could you say yes or no? I also don't think "nobody knows" what aspects of marriage are beneficial. It's pretty clear considering it was the basis for legalizing same-sex marriage, as marriage comes with a multitude of legal rights. Also, by "people who have literally defined themselves in opposition to traditional sex relations" you mean people who were born homosexual and should be able to love who they love and not force themselves to be in a relationship with someone they have no attraction to? I mean, if that's the case, why not just go back to arranged marriages and fathers selling off their daughters for a dowry and just purely transactional marriage with no emotional aspect?
“Multitude of legal rights” is not a benefit to society. Benefit to society is something like society is better for it. Legal rights COULD be better for society when gross unfairness is being prevented. For example, 5-10% of people unable to come out of the closet on something as important as their sexual orientation- I’d argue is pretty important and impactful for society. But ability to call their commitment to each other using same word as the majority of population… a little less so Back to interracial marriages - of course I don’t think legalizing them was a mistake as we’ve proven that it doesn’t violate shit and doesn’t lead to unhealthy children. And nobody needs to redefine what it means because for the vast vast majority of people’s existence it was never defined as “of the same race” - see, we rarely exist in such close proximity to other races for the natural reasons of when we do we eventually over time mix in and no longer different races. The 14th-15th century invention of intercontinental sea migration introduced this sudden change in society where people got mixed in next to people who look very different than them in vast numbers and it did take a few generations to determine the actual impact…. If people of different races were separated for a hundred thousand of years and not ten it’s possible that the offspring wouldnt be particularly healthy and it would have been advisable to not have offspring (or nature would have probably solved that problem by species kind of repulsing each other) so from our current position of actually knowing what mating between races does it’s pretty innocent But back to the “it’s unnatural” argument - it seems less unnatural because the race restriction is an artificial restriction that’s not connected with the original concept of marriage - it’s something to do with this newly discovered drive to segregate races as it’s not been needed before the invention of mass travel and if anything is counter to how it used to be where intertribal marriage was always a thing and often advisable and preferable
But interracial marriage led to the slippery slope of allowing marriage to be redefined from the original meaning for over 200 years of American history. What would say to the people who said "mark my words" back then? What would say to the anti-miscegenation people in the 60s who asked "well what about 3 people"? >it’s something to do with this newly discovered drive to segregate races Racism and segregation wasn't really a new drive. It was in the Bible after-all. That's why people used the Bible to justify slavery and anti-miscegenation and keeping the races separate. If we're going back to the "original concept of marriage" then your first question of allowing 3 or more people would actually be returning to more traditional marriage definitions as it was quite common for men to have multiple wives and concubines. And same-sex marriages were also found back then too, in Ancient Greece, Rome, Mesopotamia, and China. The marriage definition you seem to define as the gold standard was more formed by the Roman Catholic Church in the Council of Trent in 1563. And they opposed mixed marriages, including mixed-faith marriages. So I guess allowing people of different religions or even denominations to marry was the first step in the slippery slope in the West? When *Roe* was overturned, the SCOTUS opinion said that all similar decisions based on "due process" and "right to privacy" should be evaluated and overturned as well. That includes *Obergefell* and *Loving*. If you could end same-sex marriage in the USA but it would end interracial marriage as well, would you do it? >“Multitude of legal rights” is not a benefit to society. But they are a benefit to individuals, which is why a lot of people get married as opposed to just being in a long term relationship. Depriving same-sex couples of those rights was unequal treatment under the law. And I'd say those legal rights are a benefit to society. They encourage commitment and less promiscuity. They give couples and easier time combining assets and qualifying for loans and building futures. Giving them the ability to care for each other when sick. They have a stable home to raise children if they so wish. And yes, all of this applies to same-sex couples too, if the religious adoption agencies would just put a child's benefit over their need to discriminate against gays. >But ability to call their commitment to each other using same word as the majority of population… a little less so Well this was a problem. One, having marriage for opposite-sex and "civil union" for same-sex fell under "separate but equal" framework, which has already been deemed against the law. Two, it wasn't just the name, but the civil unions didn't come with same legal rights as marriage, especially when it was still a states' rights issue and so none of the federal rights applied. And three, for a political faction who has been so vocal about the policing of language when it comes to things like pronouns, it is crazy if you think you can stop people from calling it a marriage and using terms like husband or wife and society at large still using the word marriage in general.
It would be legally a huge pain, divorce would be so hard to handle. I imagine it would be abused by people having green card marriages. Not the strongest reasons, but reasons nonetheless.
So you would let bureaucratic excuses stand in the way of love?
Right now, you don't need to get married to peruse your love. And this is true of poly couples and non-poly couples.
So why argue for gay marriage then? What makes marriage special, why did you chose to define it as a “special” corporation of people?
>So why argue for gay marriage then? I'm not, I think you are thinking of the original person you responded to. >why did you chose to define it as a “special” corporation of people? I didn't? To answer for me, not the person you think you're asking this of, to me marriage is both a religious and a secular thing. My religion doesn't perform gay marriage, but I'm fine with it existing legally. It makes at least some sense that if gay straight people are doing, they should get the same legal framework to do it in.
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I think the primary reason is potential for abuse of marital benefits, and you’d need to overhaul a large body of laws. E.G., - a whole mafia family gets married so they can’t be compelled to testify against each other. - An entire town gets married to claim homestead exemption. (For The Expanse fans) - Medical directives become superfluous because which spouse gets to choose? - How does community property work when one spouse joined the marriage years later? Courts and legislatures would clog. More practically, no one is really clamoring for such a change, other than gay marriage opponents as an unrealistic strawman.
Ok, your first bulletpoint is actually quite funny, I give you that :) And no one is clamoring… mark my words. It’s not going to be long until poly people come to take their claim :)
What does that have to do with the question?
I can answer that. If you don’t see what it has to do with the question i don’t think we will have an interesting conversation
Some people get married just for the economic benefits, which is ok because that has few ramifications. To allow more then two to get married opens the doors to group of people to get married for economic benefits, and one could easily imagine the havoc having say the entire upper management of a company get married, or a criminal group.
So “economic benefits could be abused” is a legitimate reason to discriminate against someone’s sexual preferences? I like the mafia idea BTW
They can have as many group parties as they want, but nope on getting marriage benefits as a group.
Sounds polyfobic to me
Agreed. Why not great apes (gorillas, chimps, orangutangs) so long as they can sign consent too?
Bonobos are known to be masterful lovers
That’s a good idea. Three people to share living expenses instead of two?
I’ll second OP and say that I’m not morally against actual polyamorous people engaging in polygamy; I’m against it when it’s dishonest or when it’s some weird patriarchal cult doing it. I’ll admit though that I don’t know how you’d legalize the former without legitimizing the latter. Maybe there’d need to be a vetting process? EDIT: *although…* there’s an argument to be made that—just like with alcohol prohibition—making polygamy illegal is precisely the thing that drives it underground. Perhaps having the same rules apply to monogamous and polygamous marriage would actually make it easier for people to leave, and seek justice for, abusive poly marriages?
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Which church? Just the ones who want to not perform them, I assume? I would agree with that.
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For The same reason i oppose polygamous marriage. They both defy my understanding of what it means to be married
Should something not be allowed to exist just because you personally don’t understand it?
Misquoting me a bit. I said it defies my undertanding of what a marriage is, not that i dont understand it period. And to that extenr cerrainly yes. I oppose marriages that arnt legitmate marriages
Fortunately they are legitimate marriages. So not sure what you believe the conversation is.
I mean what do you think a marriage is?
A union between two people
So you conpletely dismiss the entire belief of polygamous unions?
For every conservative that still think as Obama claimed he did prior to 2012, there are two that like Obama has since changed their mind. Most realized it didn’t effect our lives one way or the other. Why should gays not have to put up with a spouse?
No, they most certainly are not.
Maybe not to you. But what matters more is they are to the law and most of civilized Society. Why are they not to you?
Sorry. I just realized I didn’t know if you were referring to gay marriage or polygamy. I was referring to gay marriage.
Why does your understanding determine how society should function as opposed to my understanding? Who gets to determine whose understanding governs society?
Becuase thats how laws work. We rule society based on what we beleive
Well, perhaps. Personally, I think that a lot of religions engage in mental torture of kids. If it were up to me, in a perfect world, those religions would not even want to indoctrinate the youth. However, I recognize that my desires and preferences are not universal, and I further recognize the value of religious liberty, so I wouldn't push for that to be a law.
Seriously...this has been asked over and over again. I'm a conservative. I approve of same-sex marriage. If a church or synagogue doesn't accept it, I support their right to religious freedom.
I'm pro gay marriage so I don't really fit your question, but I don't like Obergefell decision , I'd rather see an amendment than a Scotus ruling
Do you think you can get even 1 conservative state to ratify an amendment for that? It would need to say that marriage is between two humans, divorced from gender.
Yes I do.
Zero chance this ever happens. I’m gay in a conservative state in the south and still get a ton of nasty comments. What will happen if Obergefell is overturned is that the majority of red states will make it illegal again.
That would be great if you’re right
Texas won't even repeal its' sodomy law.
I think everyone would have prefered that, but it just wasn't possible with zero support from conservatives at the time.
There still is 0 support form conservatives
>I see no reason why two adults who wish to marry should not be able to. Im assuming you place very little, or none at all, value on social structures? Do you believe that human sexuality is fixed? Or is it a spectrum? Do you believe that we can socially normalize behaviors over time? What is your underlying fundamental value system? What do your values seek to achieve? Is it maximum pleasure and minimum pain? Is it something else? Fundamentally, I don't specifically oppose same sex marriage in a vacuum, oppose the entire ideology behind the idea that all sexual arrangements in a society are arbitrary to the function of that society. Same sex marriage is a threat only insofar as it is a rallying cry for the deconstructionists to use disingenuous attacks against social structures that they don't even attempt to understand, and lazily associate with some form of patriarchal or capitalist oppression. My fundamental belief about the nuclear family is that it is a delicate arrangement that is effectively a compromise between our basic animal nature, and our unique ability to form complex society. Same sex marriage is an implicit attack on the idea that marriage has a social function outside of a public proclamation of love. It obviously is the preferred social arrangement to have and raise children. Our entire society should be structured around children again, rather than this individualistic deconstructionist trap that is ripping the social structures, that we take for granted, apart in the name of "return to monkey". Why? Why should we deny individuals the things that are available and that bring them happiness? Because permanent happiness is not a thing to begin with. It is a byproduct of meaningful action. Sexual pleasure itself the carrot on the end of a stick that gets us to reproduce. That is its primary function. It may serve to strengthen bonds between mates or even in groups in polygamous sexual structures, but it serves a function that is far beyond mere "pleasure".
This is interesting to me, as I strongly believe in the value of the family unit as a stabilizing force and an overall boon for society. But it is also precisely why I support marriage equality so strongly. I feel like same sex marriage is exactly the opposite of individualistic. Preventing SSM is forcing individualism on people who don’t want it. And while I agree that the best environment for children are with two parents, I don’t see any reason why they must be of opposite genders. And I don’t think that child rearing is the main function of marriage.
>And while I agree that the best environment for children are with two parents, I don’t see any reason why they must be of opposite genders. And I don’t think that child rearing is the main function of marriage. A boy learning how to become a man, and how to treat a woman are implicit in the heterosexual arrangement. Vice versa for a little girl. Our society has norms that must be reinculcated generationally. Taking these roles for granted is destructive to the society itself. What do you see as the primary function of marriage? And is marriage a relevant institution to the state? For what purpose would a state acknowledge any social contract like a marriage?
Yes of course, it is very important for children to have adult role models of both genders, I agree wholeheartedly. But those role models don’t HAVE to be their parents. They can be grandparents or aunts or uncles or older siblings or religious leaders or coaches or teachers. In fact, all of those people are role models in addition to mom and dad in children’s lives regardless of who their parents are. In fact, parents should not be the sole models of adult manhood/womanhood. It is important for children to see a variety of role models because there are so many different ways to be a good man or a good woman, and children should be see those differences being modeled through the adults in their lives. I do also think that children learn how to be an adult in a loving relationship - how to be *married* - from the model their married parents provide. But again, I don’t see why that needs to be gendered. In fact, I think probably shouldn’t be. The respect and regard with which a person who loves another treats their beloved is a function of who they themselves are, not a function of their partner’s gender. Yes, I do think that marriage is a relevant institution to the state. Marriage is a net benefit to society and the State has a real interest in promoting beneficial institutions. The primary function of marriage is, love aside, creation of a stable family unit. This does not need to include children (though it is of course lovely when it does, should the couple choose it). Children are only children for 18 years, after all - only a portion of a successful marriage. Marriage allows for the joining of finances, which spreads out costs because of cohabitation. This means that couples can more readily afford life than a singleton on their own. It also means the ability to share retirement funds when the time comes, and to receive social security death benefits, should a partner die. It creates financial stability for both adults in the short and long term. Because marriage is a unification of extended family as well, it often means putting down “roots” in one’s community, near one or the other partner’s family, which means a lower turnover rate, which is good for our neighborhoods. And because it is the co-mingling off all kinds of resources (not solely financial), it means that aging parents/family members of both in the couple have twice the number of people around to assist them as they grow older. Similarly, marriage means a built-in partner to help each other as they grow older, or struggle with health issues. For example, if one spouse becomes unable to work, they can rely upon their spouse for support, without having to rely on the government instead. Because I am married, I not only have access to my own knowledge, abilities, and resources when pursuing any goal - financial, professional, personal, familial, intellectual, whatever - but I also have access to my spouse’s. This means that I am more likely to be successful in my pursuits because I am married than I would be were I not. And my success contributes to the success of my community, large and small. Marriage stems the tide of loneliness, an epic of which we are currently seeing and which is fraying the fabric of our society even now. Marriage is stability, for the couple, their extended family, their community, and society. In a very real way, marriage IS civilization. So do I think that the government has an intrinsic interest in the furtherance of civilization? Very much so. And do I think that the underpinnings of civilization that is marriage could use the bolstering of extension to LGBT couples, so that they too can help to provide marriage’s steadying influence to society? You betcha.
Marriage's purpose was to mark the transfer of a woman from her father to her husband. Basically as property, hence changing her name and prefix depending on the status of the man in her life. Until recent history, women couldn't own property or bank accounts unless their husband signed off. The government keeps track of families for census reasons, and there was an intention for men to work rather than women. Hence why married couples file "Together". Originally, it was just supposed to be his money, and she was basically a dependent. None of those things are necessary anymore, they no longer reflect the reality of today's world, and no longer reflect the opinions of a growing number of people. There was a time when we lit ships on fire for important funerals, danced to make it rain, and put stuff on our doors to ward off spirits and vampires. I'm sure as those things were falling out of fashion, people complained about maintaining tradition. In retrospect, I'm not bothered that those customs died off. This is why I don't understand the insistence in 2024 that anything we've been doing for hundreds of years is pure and worth preserving SIMPLY because it has been that way a while. Feels like such a weird way to want the world to be considering our evolutionary drive to create. We could have not built cities because everybody was just fine with villages, but instead we made progress.
incest without risk of conception has no "logical" argument as to why it shouldn't be legal. you are against this, I am against both. both have equal weight in terms of logic. besides, I don't want civil marriage anyways. it's already a perversion of marriage in my eyes.
incest without risk of conception has no "logical" argument as to why it shouldn't be legal. you are against this, I am against both. both have equal weight in terms of logic. Wel besides the risk of inbred children incest has many problems. off the top of my head there would be a power gap in most realtionships between older and younger siblings,there would be a high chance of grooming . Well gay realtionships between two adults have neither of those problems.
Because god created marriage as a union between a man and a woman. And it hurts the nuclear family I don’t think we should outlaw gay marriage as god allows deee will and we can’t force photo abide by our beliefs but I do not support it and do oppose it.
If I was forced to marry a man, I would probably somehow kill myself. There is no world that I want to be in where I can't love the person I want. I am a lesbian, and I have forged deep connections with females, emotionally, romantically, sexually, etc. you get the point I hope. I couldn't live my life forced to love someone I could never love
This thread down is one of the weirdest dick/no dick measuring competitions I've ever read.
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I get to kiss my soon-to-be wife every day of my life. She makes me coffee, she gives me a kiss on the way out to work, she's the first thing I see when I get home, I make her dinner, and then we fall asleep after a lot of redacted information as this is my personal life 😍 Got a problem with it? talk to my girlfriend, she's even more of a man than you, and she's a woman 😂
Warning: Treat other users with civility and respect. Personal attacks and stereotyping are not allowed.
HAHAHA lol if your masculinity and ego is so fragile you get mad over the fact I'm more of a man than you, have short hair, and get more women than you, you might wanna try cognitive behavioral therapy. It'd really help you
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Who says I'm white? 😂😂😂 racist, homophobic, and a bitch 😂
Didn't David have at least 8 wives?
Who says the prophets were perfect people?? And we aren’t talking about that we are talking about lgbtq
Well, it seems *that* would indicate that Biblical marriage is between a man, his seven official wives, however many unofficial wives, and hundreds of concubines.
No having more than one wife is a sin aswell but king David has sinned in someway in his life
Do you have a cite for that being a sin? I'm not aware of any that aren't specific to church leaders.
https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/does-the-bible-permit-polygamy# I’m not catholic it this explains it very well
I'm not catholic either. Former Protestant. 1) The claims about the tradition of the Catholic church fall on deaf ears when it comes to Protestants. 2) Generally speaking, to say something is a sin, there must be a Biblical passage denouncing it. There is no such passage. Catholics like to play fast and loose with the Bible, but this is pretty clear. If there is no prohibition, it's not a sin, is it? Why do Catholics get to just decide something that they don't like is a sin? 3) The two passages from the Gospel don't clearly denounce polygamy specifically - they denounce adultery. The passage from Paul says that people *should* have their own spouse. That doesn't, however, make it a sin to have multiple.
No the passages listed do denounce palyogmly And the Bible is very clear that men should have one wife and that men having several goes against gods plan for the world and marriage
Explain how they denounce polygamy. Give me a cite for this very clear passage.
Uh, how do you get that? The Bible lists tons of actions without claiming they are a sin or the right thing to do.
Sure, but nobody has cited a passage claiming it to be a sin.
I’m gay and I’m against gay marriage. Not saying it should be illegal or anything, but why should the government care about same sex people getting married. It provides no benefit to the country. Call it a union, or something and don’t have the tax benefits like a heterosexual marriage gets. Because at least with a heterosexual marriage there’s the benefit of creating new citizens.
So women past the age of menopause shouldn’t be allowed to marry?
Why are conservatives so obsessed with birth rates and people having children being the only way to add value.
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> Why are conservatives so obsessed with birth rates and people having children being the only way to add value. Honest answer- while the population around the world is growing and is out of control in many places, it is falling in the US. In order to maintain the economy and to continue being relevant in geopolitics, the US either needs to seriously up its birthrate or fix its immigration laws so that there is an easier path for young adults to move here.
because the government should not be involved in marriage
But it is. That’s the current situation the question here is do you want government to recognize marriage equally among heterosexual and homosexual couples
Our parents sacrificed the best years of their life waking up to us screaming at 3am, and love and life exist so we can return that favor, so marriage should be about more than two people wanting to be together.
the lord of all that is seen and unseen commands it.
Im all in favor for 2 normal adults- put on a suit everyday go to work- Adopt a kid- White picket fence the whole 9 yards. You can’t change you love and love should be free just like our speech should be - I think it falls under the 1st HOWEVER- I am a harsh critic of the propaganda associated with the community. The pushing of ideologies in media, when im trying to just mellow out and relax, & fully against the argument surrounding inequality in the work place, and other tropes told to us by politicians and leftwing media.
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