Can opponents of gay marriage give a single way that it interferes in their lives?

As a social libertarian, I believe that the ONLY time the government should be permitted to regulate a person's personal life is if it infringes on the rights of others.

So, can anti-gay marriage folks please enlighten us about how gay marriage interferes in your ability to live how you want? Please note that not liking the idea or being offended by gay marriage is not having your life interfered with.

 

I can give one argument.

children ought to have good, responsible parents, that will preferably stay together commited to raising the children in a good stable relationship. Homosexual couples that are going to adopt are typically already very commited to what they are about to do, else they wouldn't adopt in the first place. heterosexual couples can more or less procreate spontaneously in a way that homosexuals cannot, which means that heterosexual couples are not guaranteed to be as commited to their relationship and responsibilities for the child. Thus, marriage -with legal and monetary benefits- can be said to exist to give an incentive to heterosexual couples to stay together and care for their children which can come to be in a spontaneous way not true for homosexual couples. Thus, giving the same benefits to homosexual couples are superflous. And because the benefits needs tax money, and because giving it to homosexuals would be superflous, it is interfering with my life because I'd pay unnecessaily high taxes were the benefits given to homosexual couples.

 

Wow. I stand by my initial assessment of you. So legal protections afforded to heterosexual couples need not be extended to homosexual couples, simply because they made a conscious decision to have kids? Astonishing, but not that surprising.

So let me get this straight- I should subsidize your kids, but mine get screwed? Do I get a tax cut if I'm a homosexual?

Wow, just wow.

 

Great, you do that, but let's not make it personal.

The justification is that heterosexuals can get kids more or less spontaneously so it makes sense to take that into account so that the children are more likely to be raised properly. The same simply isn't true to the same extent with homosexuals, and I'd say it makes sense to make policies as specific and aimed as possible. Kind of like how we subsidise handcapped people, but not getting any use of it ourselves.

Now, I really don't care about same-sex marriage either way actually, just throwing the argument out there as I found it rather convincing and seldom mentioned.

 

You made your opinion quite clear in your previous post- you thin that because we decide to have kids, that we don't deserve the same rights as you. Would you like me to quote your post for you?

 

You're obviously missing the point of that argument. If marriage benefits were to be justified for the purpose of doing something about couples procreating spontaneously it wouldn't make sense to include couples that can't procreate spontaneously would it?

 

Keep digging. I missed nothing. The point should be to encourage ALL couples to stay together.

 

I don't see the state having a legitimate role in encouraging couples per se to stay together. You could make a case about couples, regardless of sexual orientation, with children being encouraged, but not couples per se.

 

But procreation is irrelevant to who can marry. The government doesn't care if you can procreate or not

 

so older couples, infertile couples, they don't get tax benefits? Where is your protest to these freeloaders going to start?

 

i am still waiting to hear a legitimate answer to the OP's question

 

Infertile heterosexual couples should be barred from adopting as well.

Whoops.

Anti-human rights contradiction #53.

- - - Updated - - -

You will never hear one.

There is not a single argument that cannot be applied to other infertile couples. The supposed "secular" arguments tend to be more stupid than the religious ones.

And that is hard to beat.

 

That contradicts what you originally said.

A reminder of what you said:

How can you say the state does not have a legitimate role in encouraging couples to stay together when you say that that is the reason for the existence of state-licensed marriages? You are simply changing your argument when it is necessary in order to confirm your bias.

 

Exactly. If he honestly believes what he is saying, he would have to prohibit infertile couples and older couples from obtaining marriage licenses.

Sorry, I don't buy it.

It is seldom mentioned because it is utterly unconvincing.

 

So the benefits for heterosexual couples should be removed from homosexuals...because homosexuals cant accidentally make a baby.

That's pretty ridiculous flip flopping to set up a double standards that arbitrarily targets one group for differential treatment.

 

Sounds like A LOT of assumptions about a group of people (homosexuals) to which you don't seem to belong!

Do you have ANY FACTUAL research and statistics showing that gay couples are less committed to their children than heterosexual couples? Do you have statistics showing that gay couples cost more in tax to society than heterosexual couples?

By the way, if the ONLY reason you can think of to withhold tax benefits from gay couples is that they cannot procreate. . . what about heterosexual couples who are passed the age of procreation? Or heterosexual couples who have no intention of procreating? Or heterosexual couples who are infertile? . . ..

Or. . .more simply, why couldn't gay couple procreate the same way as those heterosexual couples who desire a child, but face infertility problems, and decide to use artificial insemination or surrogates?

I'm sorry, but in my opinion, your "argument" (which really isn't one, it's just "assumptions") fails!

 

Again. . .more "IF"S" that are totally unrelated to reality!

We are far beyond the time when we NEEDED to "procreate" the race to assure survival of a community or humankind!

We are at that stage that was described in the Bible where "our descendant are as numerous as the grains of sand on the beach!"
We don't need to PAY people to entice them to have children! In fact, I thought the Republicans RESENTED "welfare mothers who continue to have kids they can not feed to get more welfare money!" (I don't believe this is true. . .but it sure is an argument often used by the Right!

 

So by that logic, stable hetro couples who plan their children in advance shouldn't be allowed to marry either, for the same reasons that gays should not be.

 

That arguement falls falt when you take into account that procreation is not a requirement of marriage.

 

I always love up the fact that people who claim gays should not be allowed to get married cause they can't procreate with each other don't use the same rule to hetro couples who can't.

 

First of all, I must say that I'm impressed by the amount of replies I gathered for one night. A record of mine.

Indeed, it currently is. My argument was detached from how things are though, or atleast it should have been.

Indeed, you are right in that. While I didn't adress that in my first post, it is true. Now, I only put an argument out there -again, independent of how things currently are- I personally wouldn't mind same-sex marriage, so don't try to make it personal. It's really up to the people to decide the definition of marriage, as for my part I'm really as apatethic to it as it gets. In fact, I don't even think the definition of marriage is something the state should be involved in to begin with.

In my view there ought of course to be equality under the law for couples, but wheter that is called marriage or civil unions doesn't matter in my view though. Things like being allowed to visit your spouse in the hospital and such things ought to be the same for all couples, but when it comes to monetary incentives I don't think it's any business of the state to encourage couples per se to stay together. When children are involved though -including in same-sex relationships via adoption- I think it's justified to have the state grant them some money so that no one will be discouraged from having children because of economic costs.

But above that there is also the fact that heterosexual couples can procreate in a spontaneous matter which homosexuals cannot, and since it is in the common interest to make sure children are brought up properly it makes sense to tailor a policy just for this.

There we go, that's basically all I have to say about gay marriage. Note that in the first post of mine the argument was deliberately made as a case against gay marriage, which it doesn't need to be.

Read above.

Indeed, seems it did if we go by what I wrote and not what I meant. So let's clarify: heterosexual couples which might spontaneously have children.

Look, I just heard this argument when I listen to a hoover institution interview, and I though it was an interesting one and a seldom heard one, so I brought it up here. I never said that I stood behind it myself a 100%, and I do in fact use it so justify a special policy aimed at just heterosexual couples which might spontaenously procreate, as I've explained above.

Right, right. Stop that, I don't at all care what you think or not about me. Why need everything be made personal like this?

Read above.

That homosexuals can't spontaneously procreate like a heterosexual couple is an unfounded assumption? Isn't that true of homosexual couples per definition?

No, I don't have any such statistics and nor do I need to present them because you obviously misread or didn't at all read my post. What I really said was "Homosexual couples that are going to adopt are typically already very commited to what they are about to do, else they wouldn't adopt in the first place"

Nor did I ever claim that homosexual couples cost more in taxes than heterosexual couples.

Read above.

Ironically, that's some assumptions on your part. I'm not a republican.

I didn't say we should pay people to have children. I said that heterosexual couples are going to procreate more or less spontaneously by themselves, and that it makes sense to steer them into a relationship because of it.

Btw, there needs to be more children born in the west, especially in europe and Sweden. The birthrate is currently much lower than 2.0 which is needed to sustain the current population levels. I know many are malthusians, but if a society loses it's population too fast that will have severa economic consequences.

Indeed. And read above please.

Read above.

*puh!* done!

 

Yea, that's the argument from the Heritage Foundation and it's pretty much the last presentable argument out there. In fact it's the position Paul Clement forwarded on behalf of the BLAG in support of DOMA section 3 earlier this year.

Sadly for Paul the SCOTUS nixed that one by proposing, as have many posters here, that a great many heterosexual couples who can't have children for whatever reason are still able to marry. In some states firsts cousins are permitted to marry but only after they prove that they can't have kids together. I think they also got the argument behind the argument which is: "God doesn't like it" and "gay sex is icky".

Years ago that was all that had to be said in court because nobody was going to rule in favour of gay rights regardless of how sound the arguments they presented. Times have changed and the flat-out unconstitutional is no longer being given such a free pass, at least not regarding this issue.

As I said at the outset that pretty much is the last presentable argument and, if that's all there is, I can't see how this has anywhere left to go in the long run.

 

So to clarify, the only couples you believe should be allowed to marry are couples who can already have their own children (fertile couples), and couples that cannot have their own children should not be allowed to marry? If marriage is about the welfare of children, through adoption infertile couples can still have children. Once they do, they are no more likely to stay together than a fertile couple with a biological child. Furthermore, straight couples who have children are often incredibly intentional about doing so. Birth control and other forms of contraception can ensure a child is not born when it is not wanted. Once the child is had, either by adoption or by sex of the parents, there is still plenty of possibility for relationship issues in both cases that may result in the couple breaking up. So why not afford infertile couples with adopted children the same benefits of marriage, to make it more likely that the child is not raised in a divided home?

You should only write what you mean. I can't read your mind.

I don't care where you heard this argument--its a flat out terrible argument, and should not be used to justify anything.

When you advocate denying other's their rights, it becomes personal to them. If you really didn't care about same-sex marriage, you wouldn't be posting in this forum in the first place.

 

Exactly- it IS personal. It affects us directly.

 

It really does. I have a gay friend who just today told me he really wants to get married even though not too long ago he said he never did. I think the idea that gay marriage becoming legal across the country is giving him a new hope and desire. And honestly? I couldn't be happier that he feels that way. I also want to get married soon. I think everyone should have the right to want to and be excited at the prospect of being married someday. Pursuit of happiness you know?