How does gay marriage damage 'marriage'?

crosswalk ^ | April 13, 2004 | Mary Rettig and Jenni Parker

[RichardEdward]

In Scandinavia, illegitimate birth rates exceed 50 percent. The majority of Swedish and Norwegian children are born out of wedlock, and 60 percent of first-born children in Denmark have unmarried parents. Meanwhile, marriage rates subtly decline while, in some countries, divorce rates have skyrocketed to nearly 80 percent

[HitmanLV]

Actually, government does enforce the public morality when it passes laws. That is, it creates a standard at least partially based on what is 'right' and 'wrong.'

[Dimensio]

I'm sorry, did my excluding racists step on your toes? Or was it the exclusion of the other group?

My objection is to your appeal to the poisoning of the well fallacy, where you define anyone who disagrees with you as "indecent" and dismiss their argument out of hand based upon that rather than addressing any actual problems with arguments that they might make.

I could claim that everyone who disagrees with me on issues of gun control is a jackass, but if I tried using that in a debate as an excuse not to address arguments put forth by gun control advocates, I'd be the one looking like an idiot.

[FormerLib]

My objection is to your appeal to the poisoning of the well fallacy, where you define anyone who disagrees with you as "indecent" and dismiss their argument out of hand...

Actually, your error stems from the belief that I was attempting to define the term "indecent." In actuality, the term used to be well-known before morality was degraded into an opinion pole. Much can also be said for the term "racist", which is grossly overused by such folks as the Reverends Jackson and Sharpton, but you did not seem to object to my use of that term.

Hmmmmm...

[FormerLib]

It's actually the "breeders" as referenced above -- those who Plan their children like good little citizens and those who avail themselves of the sort of technologies providing our pro-life president with "stem cell lines" to purposefully destroy -- who have nailed down the "rights" of homosexual couples to ape traditional marriage.

That statement is as nonsensical as "homosexual marriage", which no one has a "right" to and which any society that invents such a "right" will not be long for this world anyway.

[stylin19a]

right.... i see your point.....u win.

[Dimensio]

Actually, your error stems from the belief that I was attempting to define the term "indecent."

You weren't defining the term "indecent". You were labelling anyone who disagreed with you with the term "indecent". If I were calling all gun control advocates "jackasses", it would not be an attempt to redefine "jackass", it would be using the definition of "jackass" to taint anyone with an opinion that differs from mine. It may well be the case that all gun control proponents are jackasses, but that alone does not nullify their arguments.

You're sinking into a game of semantics, arguing that you are right because anyone who disagrees with you clearly isn't worth hearing anyway.

[FormerLib]

You were labelling anyone who disagreed with you with the term "indecent".

No, that is incorrect. There may be decent people who might think "homosexual marriage" would not be harmful and that would not make them indecent.

That would merely make them stupid. ;-)

[spunkets]

Sex is intimately connected with procreation. That's a biological fact. It is also a fact that it takes the 2 parents to raise and tech the kid. That responsibility belongs to the parents, not anyone else.

The free sex culture attemps to separate the pleasures of sex from the responsibility of it. They even go so far as to provide contract killings to allow complete removal of responsibility for a small fee.

Pushing the homo perversion to be culturally acceptable is an extension of the removal of sex and it's responsibility from the institution of mariage. That institution has been developed and elaborated on for raising healthy kids and to provide for an intact family support system and companionship after the kids are raised.

Homo prevertions have no part in any of it. At best it's a friendship between homos, nothing more. There is no relationship with their arrangements to mariage whatsoever. In addition to pushing the message that sex is for good times, it destroys the underlying family and the responibilities involved within it.

That destruction of the idea of family and the repsonsibilities is what the leftists are after. Govm't bozos wielding dictates and demanding more taxes is what ensues. Homos can no more be married than tin cans can procreate.

[spunkets]

"No hetero who holds onto the "Right" of birth control has standing to decry homosexual marriage."

The right to birth control is absolute and is retained by the parents that make up the family. A family is not just about sex and procreation, there are also the responsibilities to contend with that involve the already created kids, and/or the potential kids. That right to determine if and when pregnancy should be attempted exists and in no way reduces marriage, or family to a union for sexual activities.

[Askel5]

=== That statement is as nonsensical as "homosexual marriage", which no one has a "right" to and which any society that invents such a "right" will not be long for this world anyway.

Okay ... try this one, then:

That statement is as nonsensical as "NonProcreative Sex," "Conception without Procreation", or the right to "privacy" which is aborting one's own child ... none of which anyone has a "right" to. Any society that invents such "rights" will not be long for this world anyway.

Or will need to work hard at drafting in a breeder underclass until folks are comfortable with letting "stem cell lines" be born from artificial uteruses for use as drones.

[FormerLib]

It would seem that you're citing a host of social ills as being responsible for a certain amount (I'll let others quibble over the amount) of evil in our nation.

How would forcing people to acknowledge "homosexual marriage" against their personal morals help the situation?

If anything, it would seem a giant leap down the path which we can clearly see was the wrong one to pick in the first place. If anything, it is becoming quite clear that we need to reverse course until we once again have our bearings before attempt to blindly pitch in the direction that we hope is "forward."

[Askel5]

=== How would forcing people to acknowledge "homosexual marriage" against their personal morals help the situation?

I think it's you who are operating under the misconception here.

I've no interest in further mainstreaming homosexuality, I'm just pointing out that anyone accepting of birth control and artificial conception hasn't got a choice BUT to afford homosexuals the same "rights" as everyone else.

It's not homosexuals who have "ruined" marriage, heterosexuals have. You cannot embrace this Artificial Reality that is Population Control (each requiring prodigious and only increasing attentions and permissions from the state) and then assert that it's only for heterosexuals just because homosexuals beat you at your own game not only where the nonprocreative sexual satisfaction is concerned but also because they get their Choice of more perfect embryos or adoptees to purchase whereas heteros may end up getting a dud mongloid they'll be sorely tempted to abort out of mercy if they dare to procreate naturally as God intended.

Again ... I can't stress this enough .... absent a return to the utterly natural state of things -- with birth control and artificial conception rightfully recognized as the absolutely immoral and utterly destabling tools of state control that they ARE -- you have no grounds on which to assert that homosexuals have no right to a civil union from which children may or may not be produced.

It's not their problem homosexuals fit so well the current model of "marriage" as dumbed down by Useful Idiot heteros and their "rights" to artificial realities.

[Askel5]

=== If anything, it is becoming quite clear that we need to reverse course


Agreed entirely.

But I doubt you'll find many takers for giving up their birth control or foregoing their dreams of conceiving a more perfect child once they've decided -- career-wise, etc. etc. -- they're ready to accessorize their lives with progeny courtesy of the Clinic and some anonymous donors.

But absent such a movement, there never again will be grounds on which to distinguish between hetero and homo marriages since both have the "rights" to artificial reality.

[William Wallace]

It appeared that you were suggesting that we could not prohibit "homosexual marriage" without making some move against childless heterosexual couples. If you were attempting to make some other point by introducing them into the discussion, I seem to have missed it.

Respectfully, I believe you did miss askel's point. I don't believe she is making an apologia for homosexual marriage generally or painting a moral equivalence between homosexuals and married couples who are unable to have children. I think what she's saying is, there is not all that much difference between a homosexual couple wanting to get married versus a heterosexual couple who regard marriage as a living arrangement terminable at-will and children as a decision or lifestyle choice. Both put their own selfish interests first and foremost. Both act in defiance of God's will and the natural law.

As Peter Kreeft says, the Bible contains the world's oldest and simplest sex instruction manual, with only two simple rules: “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” and “Be fruitful and multiply.” IOW, no sex outside the sacrament of marriage, but within marriage -- the more, the merrier.

There is a sinister relationship between the condom distribution mentality and the abortion-on-demand mentality. The U.S. Supreme Court understood this if only subconsciously, when it found a married couple's “right” to use contraceptives in Griswold v. Connecticut in the same imagined “zone of privacy” that later justified abortion as choice under Roe v. Wade.

Married or unmarried couples who use contraceptives implicitly assert a “right” to engage in sex without any responsibility for bearing and rearing children, who are the natural consequences of sexual activity. Since contraceptives don't always work, couples who experience pregnancy after contraceptive failure inevitably consider themselves justified to have an abortion. After all, why should they be “penalized” because the contraceptive failed? After all, didn't they acted “responsibly” by using contraceptives in the first place? If you assume the answer to both questions is “yes,” then the decision to abort is easily rationalized as a simple correction of a “mistake” that happened only because the contraceptive failed.

The topic of this thread is how does gay marriage damage marriage. If/when we write the obituary for the notion of marriage as sacred union of man and woman, the scapegoating of homosexuals when we decide to “round up the usual suspects” is both irrational and unjust. It's irrational to blame the recent phenomenon of homosexuals getting married for a slew of pathologies and disturbing trends that long predated the spectacle of Rosie and her new “spouse” exchanging their “I do's” without the necessary equipment to consummate the vows. Their “marriage” is a sham of course, but that holds equally true for anyone with the physical tools but not the intention to honor their vows.

There's plenty of blame to go around and the “if it feels good, do it” contraceptive mentality and the perpetrators/enablers of the abortion holocaust are good places to start.

Humanae Vitae was right.

[little jeremiah]

Every argument you make is wrong. Let us disset them one by one:

"i love how we preach freedom and tolerance and then try to limit the private lives of people who do not hold the same values as we do."

Homosexuals were tolerated and left alone for decades as long as they didn't push their deviant sexual behavior into public notice. Very few conservatives advocate bringing back the sodomy punishments that were on the books for the first couple of hundred years (or more) of colonization and countryhood of the US. But, you will have to admit unless you have been in a coma or actively support the "gay" agenda, that homosexuals are aggressively pushing their aberrant sexual behavior into every single aspect of OUR lives.

"this is a relatively small issue given the number of people it affects."

It would be affecting a small number if people if they kept their sexual activity to themselves. Unfortunately, they want all of US to see them, applaud them, honor their behavior, legalize, and promote it. And, in the case of young people especially, to actively experiment with it and participate. So their behavior affects all of us.

"the definition of the term "decent people" is changing and i believe it is America's duty to, once again, change with it as she has so wonderfully done before."

This statement makes no sense. So you're saying that there are no moral absolutes, that right and wrong change over time. What causes that change? Majority rules? Well, the majority of Americans are NOT in favor of "gay" marriage.


"if the chuch doesn't wish to recognize gay marriage, fine. but that is not the issue here. this is about "the state"."

Homosexual activists in other countries are working like busy little fellows to enact "hatespeech" laws so that even pastors in churches cannot quote Bible verses condemning homosexual behavior. Priests in Europe have already been sued, one in Canada has been fined.

"i know too many hardworking, god-fearing, CONSERVATIVE, DECENT, gay people who just want the same courtesies the rest of us get."

If a homosexual fears (or better yet, loves) God then such a person will (a) attempt to follow His rules about homosexual acts and (b) certainly not promote such acts. Second, what the heck do you mean by "courtesies"? You think conservatives are rude to homosexuals????

"there was a time when interracial marriages weren't allowed. we have come to our senses. i believe we will in this case too."

Ah, this chestnut. Many black people (and white ones too) take offense at a person of a minority race being compared to someone who chooses to indulge in same sex sodomy.

[little jeremiah]

Homosexual Agenda Ping - check the comments and join in with your own, if you haven't.

I already pung you all to this thread, but the so many great arguments have been posted I just had to alert you all again.

[William Wallace]

The right to birth control is absolute and is retained by the parents that make up the family.

There's no such thing as a “right” to birth control, only a sundry variety of techniques/devices of varying effectiveness for preventing pregnancy.

For starters, there is no judicially recognized “right” to birth control. The Supreme Court struck down laws banning the sale of contraceptives to married persons on the basis of a suddenly discovered “right of privacy” somewhere within the “penumbras” of the Bill of Rights, not on a “right” to use birth control per se. That happened in 1965, so it's a curious species of “absolute right” that wasn't even asserted for 189 of our nation's 228 years of existence.

If there was an absolute “right” to birth control, then you should be able to exercise it without restriction on an otherwise deserted island save you and a member of the opposite sex. After all, there are no laws or other people around to infringe upon the exercise of your absolute right. I think you'll find your claimed “right” to be guaranteed only if you refrain from having sex or one of you is unable to reproduce. That doesn't sound like an absolute right to me.

[Askel5]

Thanks for the most beautiful reply, William Wallace.

Indeed I am not serving as apologist for homosexuality (which I find the zenith of rebellion against reality) nor the posing of homosexuals as suitable parents to start a family. I find nothing more repugnant and morally untenable than a parent's forcing his peculiar and aberrant view of reality on a child by specifically depriving him of the right -- or at least the ideal -- to be born to and reared by his natural parents.

As bent as homosexuality itself may be, there's no difference whatsoever between the homosexual and the heterosexual where comes the divesting of sex from procreation, the divesting of children from marriage, or the utterly abhorrent practice that is plucking select embryos from those individuals forced into being only to be suspended in liquid nitrogen until some humanitarian pro-lifer quoting Scripture or the utterly amoral and matter-of-fact bio-tech profiteer "sacrifices" them in the lab for whatever purpose.


Your post was particularly moving for me and I hate to dumb things down but I have to say that I found the opening images in "Finding Nemo" to be some of the most refreshingly natural and pro-life I've ever seen. The mother giving her life for her fertilized eggs. The father cupping the little embryo in his fins and pledging his lifelong protection. Those too were beautiful diamonds in the rough that is your average kids show or "I live next door to a porn star" pg movie.

[Askel5]

are you still around at all?

[William Wallace]

I missed your follow-up posts to formerlib and his last responses. You explained your position far better than I could and appear to have corrected whatever misunderstanding there was. Sorry for butting in.

BTW, welcome back! :-)