Working on my traditional marriage argument.

A lot of homosexuals don't buy the argument that protecting traditional marriage is not about marginalizing homosexuals. The reason for this is that liberalism is about arguing that different things are/can be equal. Contrarily, conservatism acknowledges that differences and inequality are the same thing. Homosexuals, seeing themselves ranked differently by social conservatives, demand equality-- equality with that which is different from them.

Now, it has effectively been proven that two parents, raising children that share in both of their genetic legacies, do the best for a child. This makes their committed pairing the best thing for society. Every mainstream conservative tradition, from the Abrahamic religions to Shinto and Hinduism, recognizes that.

To try and put this hierarchy argument into perspective and explain why it is not about marginalizing gays: two young, monogamous people ritually breeding does not rank only above gay marriage. It also ranks above two old people getting married, above a young couple who don't intend to have children getting married and above couples where one of the partners is sterile.

This is not a fun or happy thing to say. I think that much of the frustrating from the conservative side is that we do not like saying such things as the above, but the gay marriage agenda is forcing us to start saying it. Society needs to have values. To have values means having priorities. To prioritize means to rank things and only one thing is ranked at the top.

Inevitably, someone will bring up the possibility of gay adoption, in-vitro fertilization, etc. One could point out that gays who want to get married, be monogamous and care for children are not merely a minority; they are a minority, within a minority, within a minority, within a minority. Yet even that does not really matter because homosexuals will never both share in the genetic legacy of the same child. As such, even this four times over minority cannot actually compare to the traditional married couple. Therefore, traditional marriage remains at the top of the hierarchy.

It is not about putting gays down; it is about recognizing that something else is at the top.

 

Really...what should you care as far as Gay Marriage.

We have had Gay Marriage in Massachusetts for some time now and contrary to the belief of some people...the sky did not fall down...the earth did not open up and swallow the state....and children are not running around saying...Mommy...Daddy....I want to be a Homosexual when I grow up!

Leave them alone.

AboveAlpha

 

I'm not convinced it's that straight forwards and even if it is, it overlooks the complex realities of life. For whatever reasons, lots of people are not able to have children that are genetically their own yet would make perfectly good parents anyway. I think dismissing all of them out of hand is short-sighted at best. You also have to address the question of people who already have children but are not/no longer married. Should they be forced to bring up a child alone because the other genetic parent isn't available, quite possibly for a reason entirely beyond their control?

Does that mean you're also arguing for marriage between those kind of people - basically any couple unable or unwilling to have children of their own - to be prevented too? What about separation and divorce of married couples with children?

You present a position with an assumption that marriage is entirely about raising your own genetic children when it has always been much more than that. It has a wider social structure purpose, formally recognising the relationship between two otherwise unrelated people and the rights and responsibilities that carries.

So what if it does? Just because something is (or is perceived as being) best doesn't automatically mean everything else that maybe isn't quite as good should be entirely eliminated.

 

As an aside, how would you go about leaving someone alone if they went up to you and explicitly demanded your acknowledgement and respect? The entire idea that conservatives need to leave gays alone got turned on its head by the time we moved from civil unions to gay marriage. To leave gays alone means ignoring them, but ignoring them is also to bully them. They are fed up with being ignored.

Clearly, it's impossible to satisfy such a person and therefore it must be a mistake to go through the motions over and over again.

Marriage traditionally invokes ritual celebration regarding the couple's social status, it is impossible to leave gays alone and to celebrate them at the same time.

 

Uhhh....I have NEVER had a Gay Person or Couple come up to me and demand respect nor do I believe has this ever happened in Massachusetts.

It is simple....if you don't approve that's fine just leave them alone and if Homosexuals don't approve of the views and beliefs of others...they leave them alone as well and this works very well.

AboveAlpha

 

Why are they different, they love someone, how is that different from you loving someone .. just because they love someone of their own sex doesn't make them any different from you . .still a human being are they not.

What complete and utter BS, the only studies showing this are ones funded and conducted by right-wing conservatives, and of course there is no bias or agenda there

What ALL studies consistently show are that children who are in stable families (be they heterosexual or homosexual) fair better, the children who do not almost inevitably come from a family where there is divorce, abuse or poverty.

Sorry but anyone who 'ranks' some people above other people based purely on whether they can procreate has some sort of superiority complex IMO.

Again pure BS, how dare you say that your values are any better than another persons. I find you so called values very disturbing and belonging in the past.

and why is this .. because right-wing religious nut jobs fight tooth and nail to stop homosexual people being even considered equal to what they think is the 'right' way. Tel me how is a happy homosexual family effecting you personally, how is it effecting ANY heterosexual marriage, all it effects is the puritan mindset of an outdated model.

Given that your premise is based on a fallacy, it is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to 'put gays down' and should be treated as exactly that.

 

I've studied this at the graduate level and found literally no evidence at all of alternate family structures being competitive in any measurable area. I think this is the crux of your argument so I'm not going to quote anything else: find anything reputable that supports your argument.

In case you are too lazy to undertake in the search, I will tell you what you are going to find: a lot of rambling about hetero-normative structures suppressing the possible success of alternative family structures. That is the best anyone else has been able to argue and it should be apparent how flawed that is as an argument.

While the APA has noted that children raised by homosexual couples do not have a higher incidence of mental illness, these studies are not only based upon small sample sizes, they are also testing for mental illnesses that usually manifest in adulthood, even though most of their subjects are still children. It's important to view these studies in context because there is more to success than whether or not someone has a mental illness which was defined in the DSM.

 

The OP reminds me of a friend in my "Band" days who felt any band playing Quiet Riot covers was not Heavy Metal enough.....and thus complained about them continuously. No one paid him much head, and he eventually just shut up and drank beer at Gigs. People wanted to hear "come on feel the noise", so we played it regardless of his opinions as they really did not matter to anyone, and most simply considered him to be a pain.

He was never invited to practices, and not even allowed to Roadie.

 

Would you accept a conclusion of a report from ANDREW J. PERRIN, PhD Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
PHILIP N. COHEN, PhD Department of Sociology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA
NEAL CAREN, PhD Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA

concerned with disputing the ark Regnerus (2012a) report;

Regnerus (2012a) spurred large amounts of political, academic, and scientific controversy following its publication. The article claims that “sexual orientation or parent sexual behavior ...
may affect the reality of family experiences among a significant number” and that “the empirical claim that no notable differences exist” for children in “lesbian and gay families ...
must go.” The article claims sufficient evidence, that is, to confirm hypothesis H2. In fact, due to major deficiencies of the data, significant untested assumptions, poor data analysis, unmeasurable recall and selection bias, and lack of consideration of appropriate alternative hypotheses, there is insufficient evidence to confirm this hypothesis. Regnerus (2012a) fails to demonstrate that children from same-sex families display disadvantages. Thus the state of the science remains as it was prior to publication of Rengerus (2012a): there is no systematic evidence demonstrating that children from same-sex households suffer disadvantages relative to appropriate comparison groups from opposite-sex households

http://www.terpconnect.umd.edu/~pnc/GLMH2013.pdf

or the following

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3000058/

thank you for the thinly veiled insult, it just makes your case all the more transparent.

 

Good luck with that. I have yet to see a convincing argument against gay marriage. The closest that comes is "What is the state's interest in marriage as a means of providing a stable environment for children" Of course you have to believe that the state should have any means of coercion over a family to begin with to accept that argument whcih I don't. The highest level of authority for marriage should be individual states as marriage is just a contract between two people, nothing more nothing less. There isn't anything mystical or magical about it and in many cultures, including English common law which we borrow from,you considered legally "married" just by living together for awhile. You didn't even need a specific ceremony for it.

You also have to accept the premise that the primary purpose of marriage is for procreation. That is no longer the case today. Many people end up getting married and opt to not have any children at all. The fastest growing segment of people having kids are single mothers so clearly the incentives giving by the Federal government (which I argue they have no business doing in the first place) aren't working anyways. Thus I am left with marriage is no longer primarily about raising kids and Federal involvement is coercive and should be removed. The good news is that by 2020 gay marriage will not be an issue in any race nationwide as a vast majority of people under 30 support it.

 

The best argument against gay marriage is that government should not be involved in any marriage. Marriage should be a religious institution (made by the church to whom they wish to endorse) not a contract. A civil union should be a contract (between consenting adults) and not a religious institution.

The only argument I have ever read that even makes remote sense is that heterosexuals are the only ones that reproduce falls back to the premise that the government wants to encourage stable family homes WITH children. This argument fails to identify why infertile couples or those that do not wish to reproduce gain the same benefits/protections simply because they belong to a particular group. This would be fixed by allowing child credits to the individuals that care for the child.

Ridiculous arguments include:
*) Allowing ssm infringes on my religious freedom (Your religious freedom stops when you impose burdens on others. If we allow "true" religious freedom in this sense then the radical muslims can say Christians existing infringe on their religious freedom.

*) SSM isn't natural (neither is any of your clothes, the home you live in, the car you drive, your domesticated animal, sex out of wedlock, monogamous relationships, religion, ect...)

*) Sanctity of marriage (no excuse with a 50% divorce rate, adultery run rampant, and multiple marriage)

*) SSM will lead to necrofilia / beastility / phedophilia (consent, thats all)

As long as the government is involved - discrimination is not allowed

 

All of this kinda falls apart when you consider couples, of any gender, adopting.

Or the fact that marriage comprises much more than having children, as we saw in the Utah decision. Marriage is a social institution with many meanings, responsibilities, joys, and social influence.

Its about far more than having kids. Its about announcing yourself as a single unit to the community and world at large.

So no matter what way you slice it, denying gays this human right is unconstitutional under the equal protection clause.

 

Two flaws.

1: you can claim that society should be ranking even the old and sterile below the "top", but you didn't address the fact that even they can marry. A convicted child molester can marry a convicted axe murderer. If this is all about ranking, society sends to have taken little effort into establishing those ranks except for with this one scenario we are talking about now.

And on the point about the genetic legacy, that does not explain why married couples get extra rights that facilitate adoption and the legalities of assisted reproduction when they have fertility issues. So while done claim that this is all about recognising the best households with genetic legacies, this does not appear to be expressed in the application of the law.

Finally, not to discuss the truth that hinges with this genetic legacy perform better than those without, on average, just to be clear, this is an average. There are plenty of screwed up homes that have this, and plenty of wonderful homes that don't. But marriage supports all of those games. Why is it that marriage should exist to support just this one notion of the "best" home instead of supporting all of them? Just because a couple is sterile, that doesn't mean marriage is sole not the best form for them if they decide to get a child be done other means. Let's not forget that those who adopt are doing a great service for the child and society, and I don't understand an argument that says this should not be supported. It is just as important, if not more so, for these children and families.

 

How do conservatives claim they are about "protecting traditional marriage"....

when atleast two of their most prominent spokesmen are Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich?

 

We don't buy this argument because it's a load of crap. "Protecting traditional marriage" from what, exactly? 2004, the year my state decreed one man/one woman to be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose, was not so long ago that I have forgotten the anti-gay rhetoric used to support its passage and that of similar measures in other states.

Playing the "liberals believe 'x' card" doesn't persuade anyone. It's just a dog-whistle for the other occupants of your echo chamber.

What's more, it's clear you're attempting an abstract philosophical argument, whereas the equality we're talking about is a matter of legal equality, not identical situation. This has nothing to do with 'liberalism' and everything to do with what the equal protection of the laws requires in real-world application, as contrasted with the golden ideals of people who prefer such imaginings to reality.

One wonders then why we're constantly being fed the line that "civil unions" are the legal equal of civil marriage despite the difference in title that reinforces their inequality.

"ranked differently" - now there's a fine euphemism for the vitriol that 'social conservatives' hurl at us.

Which has nothing to do with who is allowed to legally marry.

Do we really need to cite for you examples of such 'committed pairings' that are far from the best thing for society? Like I said before, golden ideals vs. reality. Generalities that fall apart in specific, real situations.

Not going to score any points with me by using religious beliefs or appeals to tradition as arguments.

Not as a legal matter, it doesn't.

It's a really crappy thing to say.

I would say one's personal bias is the driving force behind the spewing.

Your values? No thank-you.

And the prioritization of fighting same-sex couples' attempts to have their marriages legally recognized bespeaks what's wrong with social conservatism.

Empty rhetoric.

Which doesn't matter at all, since it's not a requisite of legal marriage.

In your narrow, biased opinion, which you clearly think is so superior to the different perspectives of anyone else.

All of which is just a fancy way of saying you think gay people are inferior to straight people. I'm not buying it.

 

Take what you just said and apply that to Jews or African Americans.

Proven by who? 'genetic legacies'? Seriously?

If homosexuals are treated legally the same way as old people or sterile people are then maybe you would have an argument.

But they aren't.

 

It is absolutely about putting gay people down. You just said it right here!

 

Exactly!

 

I think the many cases we have seen where the Biological parents are shown to sexually, physically, verbally, and/or emotionally abuse their children proves this statement totally wrong.

 

Marriage did not begin as a Religious specific bonding.

And since in the U.S. there is a separation of Church and State a Justice of the Peace performs Marriages.

Your post has no logic or basis.

AboveAlpha

 

You might not think that gays are equal but the courts are increasingly taking a different view of that:

The recent federal appeals court decision, finding the Defense of Marriage Act in conflict with the equal protection of the laws, guaranteed to all persons in the United States by the Fourteenth Amendment, broke new ground when the two-judge majority determined that a legal standard called “heightened scrutiny” should be applied to its review. Windsor v. United States of America is the first case where any federal court has taken this step.

http://www.examiner.com/article/how-heightened-should-judicial-scrutiny-be-for-gay-marriage-cases

You cannot deny rights, such as to marry to gay people, while extending it to all other similarly situated people without discriminating against them and MARGINALIZING THEM. You can delude yourself all you want into thinking that is not what you're doing ( if in fact you really believe that) but that does not change anything.

Please explain how, by denying gays the right to marry , you're protecting traditional marriage. Will traditional marriage be displaced or diluted but the presence of gay married people. Assuming you're in a "traditional marriage" will the presence of presence of gay married people in your community somehow undermine your marriage? If so, maybe you're not where you should be.

 

I've heard it many times before: Children have a fundamental right to a mother and a father” and” that when gay couples adopt or use a surrogate, they are denying that child that fundamental right” However, public policy in New Jersey states that children have a right to a stable, nurturing and permanent home and it is well established that that goal can be realized in a variety of family structures. The NJ Department of Families and Children-the public agency charged with the responsibility of finding adoptive homes for children –states, in part, on their web site that no one will be denied the opportunity to adopt based on sexual orientation. In fact, the Department’s Division of Child Protection and Permanency (formerly DYFS) has been placing children for adoption with gay and lesbian people- those who are single and those who are in a relationship- for decades with good outcomes for the children. And there are many, many more who still need homes while there is a dearth of people willing and able to adopt them. I know this because I worked in the foster care and adoption field in New Jersey for 26 years.

I might add that children who are placed for adoption are already in a situation where they have neither a mother nor a father available to them. To imply that that a child would better off languishing in the foster care system as a ward of the state, than to be adopted into a nontraditional family is beyond absurd. Furthermore, the vast majority of child psychologists will tell you that there are far more important factors that impact a child’s development than the gender or sexual orientation of the parents. No doubt that one could dredge up research studies that claim to prove that gay parenting is harmful. However, well established organizations like the American Psychological Association take the position that gay and lesbian parents are just as capable of rearing emotionally healthy children as anyone else. Yet even if family composition was, as some purport, a critical factor in children’s development, the fact is that there are and will always be children in non-traditional living situations where they do not have a mother and a father.

Like it or not, it is also a fact that gay and lesbian people have children, be it from a prior relationship, adoption, or surrogacy. Denying gay and lesbians the opportunity to marry does nothing to ensure that any greater number of children will have a home with a mother and a father. All that will be accomplished will be to deny numerous children the legal rights, protections, status and stability that comes with having married parents. And, to deny gays the ability to adopt will only ensure that more children will have neither a mother nor a father. Everyone is entitled to their moral views and religious beliefs but it is disingenuous and outright shameful to use children as pawns in the lost fight against equality by bloviating about how they would be harmed by it. While single people can be great parents, the benefits to children of allowing two people who are in a committed relationship to be married are obvious for anyone willing to look at the issue objectively. Those who truly care about children should be willing to open all of the possible pathways for them to be adopted and to have married parents when possible.

 

These people who harp on reproduction as a reason to deny gays the right to marry or create some artificial hierarchy of marriage rights, and receive the associated benefits don't even believe their own claptrap. It's willful intellectual dishonesty. It's cowardice because they don't have the courage to say what they really believe, that they simply do not want equality for gays. Marriage is now about much more than having children. It is much more about a status, about economics and about security. If the inability to reproduce is valid reason to deny marriage, should we allow ANYONE who cannot or chooses not to have children to marry?. What about heterosexual couples who are past child barring age? What about a younger couple who may not be able to have children? Perhaps marriages should be automatically void after a certain time if no children are produced. Anyone who does not like these ideas, will have to drop “reproduction” as an issue. I will add that gay people can and do have children. The only difference is that one parent is not a biological parent…but wait isn’t that also the case with many heterosexual couples?

Reproduction as an issue in the gay marriage debate is OVER. The courts overwhelmingly reject it as an argument:

http://www.politicalforum.com/showthread.php?t=339726

 

I've got to know who in Massachusetts was going around saying the Earth would open up and swallow the state?

 

Oops...
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2013/03/18/peds.2013-0377
http://www.frc.org/issuebrief/new-study-on-homosexual-parents-tops-all-previous-research
http://www.nllfs.org/images/uploads/pdf/nllfs-quality-life-january-2012.pdf
http://www.livescience.com/17913-advantages-gay-parents.html