Argument from Consistency Contra Same-Sex Marriage

[mimpibird39]

Same sex marriage and homosexuality is not immoral. It harms no one.

Marriage is a legal document that provides a couple legal rights and benefits.

A gay couple can have children and be fantastic parents to them so that marriage for the sake of children argument is false. What about a man and woman who get married and decide to never have children? Should they never get married then? What about a woman who does not have the ability to have children? Should she never get married?

Argument from Consistency Contra Same-Sex Marriage:

1. If one accepts the proposal that marriage, as the supporter of same-sex marriage alleges, is merely the recognizing of individuals who are "lovingly committed to one another," then logic demands that you accept a "marriage" between 9 men and 9 women who are "lovingly committed" to one another, or a "marriage" between 1 man and 18 women who are "lovingly committed" to one another, or a "marriage" between a man and his sister who are "lovingly committed" to one another, or a "marriage" between a woman and his grandson and his cousin who are "lovingly committed" to one another, or indeed any conceivable configuration of individuals who are "lovingly committed" to one another.
2. Supporters of same-sex marriage are opposed to these configurations of marriage.
3. Therefore, their position is incoherent.

Do you want to talk about gay marriage or do you want to talk about polygamy and incest? All three of them are separate issues and should be treated as such. I do want to say something about this though. Polygamy and incest tend to be harmful while a gay marriage between two consenting adults (which is what gay marriage supports are advocating for) is not harmful.

There are two main types of polygamous relationships out there: Religious polygamy and secular polygamy. Religious polygamy is oppressive. For example, young women growing up in a group like Centennial Park are exposed to very little of the rest of the world and taught from a very young age that this way of life is normal and the correct path. If you do not live in a plural marriage then you will not go to heaven. They are also taught that the man is in charge of the family and has the final say in all matters which does not imply love and equality but rather control.

1 man loving 18 women isn't very loving and equal either because how in the world can one person have a working, loving, equal and unique relationship with 18 different people? The man gets 18 women but each woman only gets a small amount of time with the man. That's not much of a relationship let alone a loving one. Huge polygamous relationships like that don't work out in reality.

Incest is not a loving relationship because it usually implies a power imbalance even when it is a brother-sister type of relationship. A relationship where one person has more power over another is not an equal and loving relationship. There is also a genetic argument against incest when it comes to children.

But I will try to explain. A male has potentially unlimited reproduction potential while a female has a much more limited reproduction potential. Encouraging males to limit their reproductive partners to one female, encourages more responsible reproduction.

Unless you are part of the quiverfull movement. They only support marriage between one man and one woman but they also encourage irresponsible reproduction.

 

[Curious George]

Unless you are part of the quiverfull movement. They only support marriage between one man and one woman but they also encourage irresponsible reproduction.

I had never heard of such a movement.

 

[nilsz]

Well, feel relaxed with the knowledge that I needn't rely on scripture not "psuedo-scientific instutitions" to provide a case as to why homosexual acts (among other acts) are immoral :beach:. There are a number of ethical theories that lead to the seeing of homosexual sexual acts as immoral. One of these, surprisingly, could quite plausibly be a consequentialist ethical theory (say, utilitarianism). Provided we were to have good empirical reasons to think that the performing of homosexual sexual acts are detrimental to the one participating in it and to others who are not, we could reason deductively as follows:

P1. [Principle of Utility]

P2. Homosexual acts are not optifimic (i.e., they do not promote the maximum total social net utility)

C: Therefore, homosexual acts should be condemned, not promoted, etc.

Note that I am not defending this argument, I am merely demonstrating how such an argument might look like. Moreover, as I mention above, an essentialistic moral theory like that of Aristotle or Aquinas or Philippa Foot et al. would also be effective in showing that homosexual acts are immoral.

How terrible the argumentation is distracts me from whatever it was supposed to demonstrate. It seems equally applicable to confections, and I think it reflects badly upon anyone who would deny someone a pleasure that is inconsequential to anyone else.

Suppose that I accept that. Why not think, then, that the "practical function" of marriage isn't the same as its "prescribed purpose," namely, as I am convinced of, that marriage exists to join a man and a woman to one another and to any children that may result from their union, upon whose stability the children depend?

[...]

The relevant question here is "why are these benefits provided for in the first place" and so we come once again the fundamental question: "What is marriage?" or "What is marriage for?"

The purpose of marriage is determined individually by two consenting adults who take advantage of its practical function. Idealistic notions of how the legal facility is supposed to be used only serve to restrict adults from acting out their best judgement.

You'll have to clarify this paragraph.

It is a digression, so I will not, but I encourage you to research its claims.

 

[Sovereign Dream]

Back to the OP:
- some proponents of same-sex marriage also support legalizing polyamorous unions. Is their position "incoherent"?

That's not the point; the point is that if an individual supports same-sex marriage on the grounds that being "lovingly committed" to someone else is the sufficient reason for marriage, the that individual has, in principle, no grounds upon which to disallow any conceivable configuration of individuals who are "lovingly committed" to one another from "marrying."

- implementing same-sex marriage is logistically simple: we already have the structure in place to deal with marriages between two people; the only change necessary is to replace "husband" and "wife" on some government forms with "spouse 1" and "spouse 2".

This is problematic for numerous reasons. To begin with (and to perhaps beat a dead horse), if the supporter of same-sex marriage defends his position on the grounds that being "lovingly committed" to someone else is the sufficient condition for the bestowing of marriage, then he has no rational recourse in principle (though perhaps not in practice) to not allow, say, 89,988 individuals who are "lovingly committed" to one another from "marrying." Supposing that we were to ignore this problem, however, the only reason marriage has been restricted to two people is because of a procreative clause, namely, that marriage exists to unite a man and a woman to one another and to any children that may come forth from their union. The supporter of same-sex marriage, however, is obviously very strongly motivated to do away with such a clause. But in so doing, he has eliminated any rational basis for the limiting of "marriage" to only two individuals.

To implement polyamorous marriage, we'd have to solve all sorts of non-trivial logistical problems (e.g. does a person need permission from their current spouse to marry someone else? When a woman with two husbands dies, what sort of legal relationship exists between her widowers? If a man with two wives is incapacitated and needs spousal consent for an operation, what happens when one wife consents and the other refuses?). These issues create a barrier to polyamorous marriages that aren't faced by same-sex marriages.

These are trivial problems at best and only show that the supporter of same-sex marriage, while he may say that, in practice, polygamy is not convenient, he has no grounds, in principle, to disallow it.

 

[Sovereign Dream]

I do not believe that dealing with children of homosexual relationships would lead us astray from the OP. Rather, I believe that this specific relationship that exists depicts the violation of the 14th amendment in a much more pronounced fashion.

However, if you want to table that part of the discussion, then I will do so. However, discussing the recognition and connection of the family unit at all is then also straying away from the topic. Thus, we are left with what marriage is without children.

Marriage without children is a series of obligations benefits that two people can enjoy by entering into a legal contract. This contract deals with many different aspects of the legal system including but not limited to:
Intestacy law
Family law
Property law
Tort law
insurance law
Tax law
.....

Now, when we disregard the children there are still plenty of obligations and benefits concerning these areas of law. In order to deny these legal benefits and obligations to a class of individuals the state or federal government must have a rational basis. This rational basis is different depending on which 14th amendment argument that we are focusing: equal protection or due process.

So the question is not what is the reason for same-sex marriage but rather what is the reason against same sex marriage.

With Polygamy there is no equal protection claim because an individual class is not denied the right to marry. Rather everyone is denied the right to have multiple marriages simultaneously. There is a potential due process complaint though. Thus, we must have a real and substantial reason for denying such a right. This is certainly much harder to do when we subtract children from the equation. However, it is not impossible. There are plenty of cases where a person, (usually a man), has married once and then left that wife only to marry again without pursuing a divorce. This action causes all sorts of problems. A married person might expect to find certain legal benefits only to find out that they must share those benefits. This is fraud. Allowing for the illegality of multiple marriages expedites any remedies the defrauded spouses pursue and helps resolve legal issues. Furthermore, it shelters innocent parties from liability. The state governments has a substantial interest in protecting its citizens from fraud and also from decreasing monies spent on court costs and lessening the burden of the courts by decreasing the docket.

Note that I'm not saying that talk of children is irrelevant to the matter at hand; I think that marriage inextricably has something or other to do with children. Rather, I'd simply like to save the topic of same-sex parenting for another time, though everyone in this thread keeps pressuring otherwise.

 

[Sovereign Dream]

Every person I have spoken to F2F that supports same sex marriage either supports or doesnt care about polygamous marriages so your whole original post is wrong.

As I mentioned previously, the argument I provided is strong, I think, because the supporter of same-sex marriage, if he is willing to hold to his support of same-sex marriage, he must deny either premise 1 or 2 (or, of course, both). Doing either one, however, has a high price tag. If he denies P1, he will usually deny that one ought to approve of same-sex marriage on the grounds that being "lovingly committed" to someone else is a sufficient condition for being married. In doing so, however, the supporter of same-sex marriage no longer has a leg to stand on, so to speak, to provide a reason as to why we should allow same-sex marriage anyways. If he denies P2, however, then he has simply embraced the reductio and reduced his position to the absurd as it entails that he is, on pain of irrationality, intellectually committed and obligated to support any conceivable configurations of individuals who are "lovingly committed to one another" to be able to "marry" and thus to grant them "parental rights" even if perhaps only, in the best-case scenario, "in principle."

 

[Sovereign Dream]

Bringing children back in for the moment-

Economics prevents this. If we have 2 people that have one kid then that kid is going to receive resources from 2 people. Though it may seem like 3 people would be economically better than 2, we run into a problem when a child becomes children. If every female in the relationship has one child and there are two females we now get a ratio of 2:1 vs. 3:2 quick math will tell you that the child in the 2:1 relationship is going to receive better support than the child in a 3:2 relationship if all factors are equal. Now, we compound this issue by adding even more wives and we see that the limit of support approaches 1. However, this problem can be avoided if we only allow polyandry. Since women are limited in the number of children they can likely produce, then we are left with a child having more and more resources depending on the number of spouses that the woman can retain. So, if we were going to allow polygamy of any sort polyandry would be the way to go. However, with the increase of people we also affect the decision making ability of the group. More chefs in the kitchen leads to more arguments. The theory is that the more arguments the less stability. Thus, with a combination of economics and psychology we can show that more often than not a child's best interests are served by focusing the decision making authority on fewer people. We have chosen to draw this line at two. This may seem arbitrary but it is based on more psychology. We assume that people do not like to share the person with whom they are the most intimate. We have found that three is often a crowd. So, in order to provide the most stable environment we have settled on two. Must it be so? no. But there is good reasoning behind the idea.

Alternatively, spousal obligations can come into conflict. People have a special duty that they owe to what many regard as the most sacred contract. If we allow this special duty to extend to multiple people then it is easily foreseeable that these duties can conflict. While we are often free to contract, allowing people to contract away spousal obligations while retaining benefits is unconscionable. And unconscionable contracts are void.

Supposing that we have good reasons to think that economic/behavioral reasons may make the distributing of children to polyamorous unions difficult (a sentiment I'd be eager to agree with), this at best only demonstrates that there might be a problem in practice, but the supporter of same-sex marriage has no grounds to disapprove of this in principle.

 

[Sovereign Dream]

Bad logic. You are saying that a child is best raised by his biological mother and father except for when their not best raised by their biological mother and father.

I'm not seeing how you're coming to that thought. Could you elaborate?

But not so Ironically, we find that the parents children need are the adults who want them.

This is also confusingly worded. What do you mean, exactly?

 

[Sovereign Dream]

Good, then I await your posting of them.



No, it's not. If your only argument is to ask whether your claim is intuitive, it's a bad sign.



That some people believe if they use college-level words and sentences, it will disguise the fact that their arguments are nothing more than the same tired bigoted arguments that have been made over and over is worrying, to say the least.

And yet you haven't even purported to demonstrate how this "bigoted" argument I provided is unsound, thus revealing your own bigotry. If this were twitter, I'd be more than inclined to include the following: #irony.

 

[averageJOE]

And yet you haven't even purported to demonstrate how this "bigoted" argument I provided is unsound, thus revealing your own bigotry. If this were twitter, I'd be more than inclined to include the following: #irony.

I've read all your posts and never saw a logical reason given by you. Just the same old tired arguments poorly disguised with fancy words, and constant moving of the goal posts.

 

[Sovereign Dream]

Then aren't you doing the same by suggesting that marriage exists for Some purpose X? The problem here is that marriage is multifaceted. However, since legal marriage is that about which we are talking, we are talking about a civil right. thus we must consider only those purposes which the government has an interest in promoting.

Well, again I haven't even yet offered a comprehensive defense of marriage as I think it should be. To respond negatively however (that is, refraining from producing forth a positive case for my position in the meantime), he hasn't provided any reason to think that marriage should exist for the purpose he asserts it does. Matters of public policy as important as marriage, for example, all exist for some purpose or other or else they wouldn't exist at all. Marriage, thus, exists for some purpose or other, or else it wouldn't exist at all (consider: would anyone have ever thought instituting marriage if the reason for its instituting was "there's no reason to institute it"?). This purpose, however, must be of compelling interest to the state and public good (it can't be a trivial purpose, like, say, "because we felt like it," etc.). Generally, supporters of same-sex marriage argue that marriage ought to exist to recognize people who are "lovingly committed" to one another. But think about whether this purpose is of compelling interest to the state to confer benefits and to the public good at large. Thus understood, this serves no public compelling purpose whatsoever, for why should the state care that, say, Bob has fuzzy feelings for Susan, or that Ted has fuzzy feelings for John? Moreover, why should it be the public's business if, say, Bob has fuzzy feelings for Susan or that Ted has fuzzy feelings for John? These are, of course, just rhetorical questions. For what the supporter of same-sex marriage is really asking for is nothing dissimilar to a government registry of friendships and the only reason they seem to be able to give for the adopting of this is something to the effect of "because it will make people feel good." But such childish reason is of no compelling interest whatsoever to the government of the public good, who would presumably be funding the useless benefits of such pointless enterprise vis-a-vis government appropriation of private funds (i.e. taxation).

Indeed, if marriage really just is a glorified government registry of friendships, as supporters of same-sex marriage seem to think, then the most reasonable position would be that of the contemporary libertarian who constantly gripes on his FaceBook that "marriage should, like, not be a government matter, man -- Hail Ayn Rand!" (there is my feeble attempt at comedic relief). But, of course, I don't agree with the antecedent of that conditional, i.e. I don't think that marriage is just a government registry of friendship or just people being "lovingly committed" to one another; I think that marriage exists to unite mothers and fathers to their children and to one another and to the children that may come from their union, upon whose stability the children depend. And, moreover, I think this purpose is not just of some compelling interest to the state and the public good; I think this is of ultimate importance to the state and public good.

 

[Sovereign Dream]

I've read all your posts and never saw a logical reason given by you. Just the same old tired arguments poorly disguised with fancy words, and constant moving of the goal posts.

That's funny because I haven't seen you even attempt to interact with the argument I presented. Instead, you just seem to dismiss it outright, ostensibly so on the basis of some pathetic ad hominem. Moreover, I genuinely wonder whether you know what an argument being "logical" or "valid" even means in the first place. Do you? In case you do know what it means, then I invite you to demonstrate that my argument is not valid by interacting with the argument I presented instead of just hurling childish insults at me from a kiddie corner of non-interaction.

 

[McBell]

Indeed, if marriage really just is a glorified government registry of friendships...

you are free to attach whatever fluff, window dressing, emotional attachment, etc. you want to your marriage.
What you are not free to do is dictate to every one else what fluff, window dressing, emotional attachment, etc. they are and are not allowed to attach to their marriage.

 

[averageJOE]

That's funny because I haven't seen you even attempt to interact with the argument I presented. Instead, you just seem to dismiss it outright, ostensibly so on the basis of some pathetic ad hominem. Moreover, I genuinely wonder whether you know what an argument being "logical" or "valid" even means in the first place. Do you? In case you do know what it means, then I invite you to demonstrate that my argument is not valid by interacting with the argument I presented instead of just hurling childish insults at me from a kiddie corner of non-interaction.

Cool. Present it.

 

[Sunstone]

You don't need a government to tell people to form sexually-based pair bonds with each other. There's never been a documented instance of a society in history in which people didn't in one way or another pair off in marriage. Abolish legal marriage today and people would still form marriages. This whole issue is more about what role the government should or should not have in marriage. But marriage itself is an institution that humans have always had in one form or another.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

That's not the point; the point is that if an individual supports same-sex marriage on the grounds that being "lovingly committed" to someone else is the sufficient reason for marriage, the that individual has, in principle, no grounds upon which to disallow any conceivable configuration of individuals who are "lovingly committed" to one another from "marrying."

"An individual"? Why not be direct and say "a straw man"?

This is problematic for numerous reasons. To begin with (and to perhaps beat a dead horse), if the supporter of same-sex marriage defends his position on the grounds that being "lovingly committed" to someone else is the sufficient condition for the bestowing of marriage, then he has no rational recourse in principle (though perhaps not in practice) to not allow, say, 89,988 individuals who are "lovingly committed" to one another from "marrying." Supposing that we were to ignore this problem, however, the only reason marriage has been restricted to two people is because of a procreative clause, namely, that marriage exists to unite a man and a woman to one another and to any children that may come forth from their union. The supporter of same-sex marriage, however, is obviously very strongly motivated to do away with such a clause. But in so doing, he has eliminated any rational basis for the limiting of "marriage" to only two individuals.

I think I've figured out the problem: you just don't understand the arguments in favour of same-sex marriage. It's not a matter of just "loving commitment"; it's also a matter of the great degree of harm that's perpetuated when same-sex marriage is illegal. That same balance of harm versus benefit isn't necessarily present in polyamorous marriages. For starters, I think it's fairly common to believe that polyamorous marriages are more prone to subjugation and sometimes outright abuse of the spouses.

These are trivial problems at best and only show that the supporter of same-sex marriage, while he may say that, in practice, polygamy is not convenient, he has no grounds, in principle, to disallow it.

They're trivial? Great - please explain how each of these problems can be overcome. Make sure that all of your solutions are politically viable. Should be easy, since they're trivial... right?

 

[Sovereign Dream]

Whether you want to admit it or not, marriage is a legal contract that answers legal questions for different situations. That's all it is at its base. As for why it has some benefits, it's because they are obvious benefits relevant to the idea of two people sharing a life, like sharing insurance and being the default inheritor of the others' things when they die.

No one is denying that marriage has something to do with the law. Indeed, I think that marriage has much to do with law, but I also think that marriage is more than just a mere "legal contract." Suppose, however, that marriage is just some form of governmental contract between individuals. What might rightly be asked in the first place is "why does this exist?" or "what is the purpose of such thing existing?" and thus we are right back at square one of the debate. The third sentence onwards, then, is muddleheaded; you mention some of the benefits that you think it offers or should offer (e.g. sharing insurance, inheritance, etc.), but you don't ever ponder for what compelling purpose these benefits are handed out in the first place, which is the real issue of contention. Moreover, we can say at least two things about sharing insurance and inheritance rights. One is that you don't need marriage to acquire either. Another is that neither add up to any one public purpose as to why we should have marriage in the first place (you don't need marriage to, say, include someone in your will, or to share insurance, etc.).

1) The first point is important because of your argument against same-sex marriage. The fact is these couples are going to do everything other couples do, even if they can't get married, so the only question is whether to allow them to get legally married.

You say that this is important/germane in regards to the argument I presented. The problem is that this is quite clearly irrelevant; none of what you wrote here even purports to show that any of the premises of the argument are false, nor does it purport to demonstrate that the argument is logically invalid, i.e. that the conclusion doesn't follow deductively from the premises.

Apart from this, no one that is opposed to same-sex marriage is advocating that we disallow homosexuals to live with one another and pretend to be the happy heterosexual couple; we couldn't care less if they wanted to host sodomy parties every Friday and live with as many other homosexuals as they desire. In other words, homosexuals and same-sex marriage supporters aren't asking "just leave me alone with my man/woman!"; they are asking something more akin to: "actively sponsor with your financial resources this relationship between me and my man/woman!" The problem, of course, is that the opponent of same-sex marriage is convinced that they haven't met their burden of proof to show that we should so sponsor their relationship vis-a-vis our income nor have they met the burden of proof to show that doing so would be of compelling interest to the state and to the public good and, on top of that, the opponent of same-sex marriage is convinced that changing marriage in such a way as to make it possible for same-sex couples to "marry" would be utterly pernicious to the public good.

2) You must have a different definition of "meaningful" then I do. Adopting a child makes the child the parents' in a meaningful way.

A couple things: note how "adopting a child" is not the same as "having a child." Note, moreover, that, generally speaking, in order to adopt a child, you need the permission of the child's parents, i.e. his mother and father. Note even further that adoption is a child-centered institution that exists to give children the parents they need, not parents the children they want. Now, there exists countless sources of research that reveal that raising a child in the absence of either a mother or a father means that such a child will suffer in every standard of well-being. Children who are raised, for example, in fatherless families suffer, on average, in every measure of well-being. They have higher levels of physical and mental illness, educational difficulties, poverty, substance abuse, criminal behavior, loneliness, and physical and sexual abuse (much of this research is referenced in David Popenoe, Life Without Father, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996). Now, what is a lesbian couple but an example of a fatherless couple? What is a gay male couple but an example of a motherless couple? We can reason deductively, then, as follows:

P1. Depriving a child of a mother or a father makes it so that he will suffer in every standard of well-being.

P2. Placing a child under a same-sex couple will inevitably and by definition intentionally deprive him of a mother or a father.

C: Therefore, we ought not promote same-sex parenting.

A gay couple who has a baby biologically has a baby that it theirs in a meaningful way no matter how you define that term. You can't just decide that your definition of "meaningful" has to apply for everyone.

There's the rub; a same-sex couple cannot possibly "have a baby biologically." Instead, a same-sex couple must either adopt (which, all things being equal, ought to not be promoted) or else one of the members of the same-sex couple must either become pregnant by external means (in the case of a lesbian couple), or must impregnate a woman by external means (in the case of a gay male couple). But then 100% of the time, at least one of the members in the same-sex marriage is not a father or a mother of the child.

Who advocates giving children to adults simply because they want a child?

Advocates of same-sex parenting and marriage, that's who! Advocates of same-sex parenting and marriage hold that a same-sex couple should either be able to adopt a child, or otherwise to intentionally produce a child artificially and then to intentionally place him or her in a situation in which he/she is intentionally denied a mother or a father (and, in many, cases a relationship with his/her biological mother and father). But this is just grossly unjust; a compassionate society comes to the aid of motherless or fatherless children. We don’t intentionally design families to deny children a mother or father. But that’s the result of same-sex parenting.

This whole section, though, highlights the reason for part one above that you said was banal. As I said, gay couples are going to live together in committed relationships, and they're going to have children either by adoption or by other means. Whether or not you let them have the legal contract of marriage doesn't change that.

I don't think that same-sex couples (nor single women, for example) should ever be allowed to produce a child by artificial means and then intentionally deny him/her a mother and a father (or a relationship with both his mother and father) just because they "want to." That is not a good enough reason to intentionally and unjustly deny a child a mother and/or father. While I am not opposed to same-sex adoption outright, I don't think it should be promoted and I think it should be used as a last resort (say, if there are no heterosexual couples available for the child). But, besides what you may think, there is no such shortage of heterosexual couples available to care for adoptees.

 

[Sovereign Dream]

[FONT=&quot]

What's just silly is this response. You can argue your opinion of what's immoral or pernicious, but unless you can prove some verifiable harm, it's just your opinion. If you want something to be illegal, you have to prove some kind of verifiable harm.

This is about as asinine as it is question-begging. You see, you are simply assuming that something can only be immoral if it causes some "verifiable harm." That's just to assume that some form of ethical consequentialism is true, i.e. to rule out all other ethical systems without warrant. That is just silly. Have you ever heard of a deontological ethical theory, for example? Or a teleological ethical theory? I suspect you haven't and so aren't even aware of your own question-begging nonsense, but then again, the public at large seems to be unwittingly consumed with consequentialist thinking generally. Moreover, I assure you that a deontological argument against such-and-such thing being immoral is in no relevant sense "just an opinion." Even more, as I mentioned before, one could very well construct a consequentialist case against same-sex marriage and same-sex parenting!

That's true. If that was the case, you'd have a point. Fortunately, in reality it's not the case, and children only need a loving parent who has their best interests in mind and the ability to reasonably give them what they need. Whether that's one parent, 2 parents or more and the gender of those parents are irrelevant. This has been shown through studies.

This is just utterly naive. They used to say something similar about divorce, namely, that it didn't matter if a kid's parents were divorced; it just mattered if they loved him. Supporters of no-fault divorce even claimed that they had studies that demonstrated that this was the case. We all now know, however, that divorce is utterly pernicious to a child's well-being. But the empirical data for this took, for obvious reasons, about a generation to attain. Echoing the naivety of no-fault-divorce supporters, same-sex marriage supporters equally assure us that it makes no difference whether a child is raised by a mother and father; all that matters is that the people that raise him really love him. Of course, that's just not true, and there exists decades of published research in psychology, social science, and medicine that demonstrate that children do best when raised by a mother and father and that depriving a child of a mother or a father is pernicious to their well-being. For a woman, while she may be a great mother, cannot be a great father. For a man, while he may be a great father, cannot be a great mother. Moreover, chances are that the studies you mention that say that "children are fine" in a same-sex relationship or that they do "just as well" with a gay or lesbian couple are nothing more than advocacy science which are plagued with all sorts of methodological problems. Some of these studies, for example, were no more sophisticated than asking same-sex parents "are your kids doing alright?" In fact, the most sophisticated study on the matter of same-sex parenting, the Regnerus Study, has shown that there are problems. It, unlike others, for example, had random samples and large samples, and it asked the children who had been raised in same-sex homes to report their information retrospectively rather than asking same-sex parents: "gee, how are your kids doing?"

No, marriage is just a legal contract. That part is fact.

No one is denying that marriage as something or other to do with law (it clearly does). What people are denying is that it is just a private contract.

As for the morality part, the only way to legitimately argue for something to be illegal is to show that it causes harm. If you can't show that, then you're just trying to get your personal belief imposed on everyone else.

Again, this is just indicative of a lack of knowledge on the nature of ethics and its relation with law. Contrary to what you claim, harm is not the only basis for the criminalizing of an act. To be sure, law-making does favor this approach, given its more or less faithful commitment to the endorsing of a Mill sort of rule-utilitarianism and a Mill-style harm principle, but that doesn't thereby show that consequentialism is the the only rational basis for law-making or for moral-decision-making more generally. This, again, is just question-begging and indicative of a lack of knowledge of ethics generally.

I don't know what race you are, but let's say someone wanted to ban your race from getting a driver's license. There is no evidence that your race being able to legally drive cars causes any harm. Should their personal opinion have any bearing on whether it should be legal for you to get a driver's license?

That's not an opinion; that purports to be an argument. This is, of course, just irrelevant but I'll comment nonetheless:

If driver licenses exist to grant some adult the legal permission to conduce a vehicle, provided that such a person is deemed to be a sufficiently well-equipped driver, then it would so be discriminatory or unjust to deny someone who is a sufficiently well-equipped driver a license simply because he is, say, Asian. It would not be discriminatory, though, to deny, say, a child a license, or an individual who is not a sufficiently well-equipped driver a license.

If you mean the one that failed on two premises, then sure, but then it also failed.

Good, at least you are finally attempting to interact with the argument. So how is it that the premises are false, as you seem to imply?

I'm not sure which part you're misunderstanding. Your argument is that supporters of same-sex marriage would logically also have to support polygamous marriages. It's not a new argument, and it's been addressed many times.

If it is "not new" and has been "addressed many times," then it should be rather easy for you to defeat it. Yet you still haven't attempted to do so.

First, polygamous marriages present a lot of legal problems. We have rules in place for how marriages between two people work, no matter what their genders are. Adding more people would significantly complicate how the contract works, and so we'd have to work out a lot of issues before it would be viable. So, it's not as simple as "if same-sex marriage should be legal, so should polygamous marriages". But if those issues can be worked out, most (or at least many) supporters of same-sex marriage don't have a problem with it.

No one is claiming that it will be "simple" to institute polygamous marriages; the argument I provided seeks to demonstrate that the supporter of same-sex marriage has, in principle, no grounds upon which to rationally deny any conceivable configuration of individuals who are "lovingly committed" to one another the ability to "marry." You seem to implicitly accept as much when you write:

"But if those issues can be worked out, most (or at least many) supporters of same-sex marriage don't have a problem with it."

So this just seems to be a concession of P1.

The bottom line being your argument fails because supporters of same-sex marriage don't necessarily oppose polygamous ones (and because polygamous marriages are significantly different from "regular" marriages).

Right, then you'd be saying that P2 is false; that supporters of same-sex marriage are open to accepting any conceivable configuration of individuals who might be "lovingly committed" to one another to be able to "marry." But as I said, claiming P2 is false comes with a high price tag for then the supporter of same-sex marriage has reduced his position to the absurd.[/FONT]

 

[McBell]

P1. Depriving a child of a mother or a father makes it so that he will suffer in every standard of well-being.

P2. Placing a child under a same-sex couple will inevitably and by definition intentionally deprive him of a mother or a father.

C: Therefore, we ought not promote same-sex parenting.

So your argument is that it is better for the child to have neither a mother or a father than it is for the child to have two fathers or two mothers?

Are you also heading up a group to have children taken from single parents or are you content with the double standard?

 

[McBell]

But, besides what you may think, there is no such shortage of heterosexual couples available to care for adoptees.

Then why are there so many children in foster care?