For many people, especially at low incomes, marriage is a huge financial burden because of the way benefits are allocated.

Don't talk to me about this. I have had people come into my office and lie to me about being married ("Oh, I've been separated from my husband since June" - this with hubby sitting outside waiting for them) because they KNOW that if they admit to being married and cohabiting that they'll get less EITC (and a smaller refund), and they also know that the tax law allows them to file as Head Of Household provided that their spouse didn't live with them at any time during the last six months of the year.

-- MWE

Ray/4584,

Thanks. There is a fine line between making every argument possible and driving intelligent decision-makers insane through the use of the implausible. That line was well and truly crossed, which does not reflect well on counsel for either side.

Yes, the two arguments I picked represented, in my view, the biggest stretch for each side.

Seriously, no argument that uses the word "discourse" non-facetiously should ever be taken seriously.

David, you have no counter to my argument, so you dismiss it. I would say it's a genius tactic, except it's actually chickenshit...but honestly, no one here has come to expect anything different from you. You talk smart, but when the limits of your beliefs are exposed as such, your tactic is just to dismiss the argument outright without serious engagement. And everyone here, except the rest of your Ubermensch-wannabe brethren, see it for what it is.

Dan:
I assume you'd also object to, say, a $1 surcharge at restaurants for those that require the use of those facilities, so that throws reasonable out the window - it's certainly not reasonable to expect a complete stranger to pay something for you that you're completely unwilling to pay at all for yourself.

It's one solution among many. But the problem is that customers who don't use the bathroom are paying for it already. It's there for them should they need it. And should they become disabled, they'll need a bathroom that accommodates them. So if there's a pay for restroom use already in place, I'd say what you're talking about is semi-reasonable.

Nonetheless, I would hope that nobody's primary interest in being married is financial rather than social/religious.

Guilty. I was a NYC "domestic partner" with my wife for about 10 years before we got married - for purely financial and legal reasons. For example, at least one job I had would not provide "partner" health insurance for domestic partners, only married couples.

So, I have a 3-year old. 3-year-olds don't really like to share their stuff. Sometimes they will of their own volition, sometimes they'll bargain (share a different toy) - and sometimes you gotta just force them to share.

Going over DN's house to play must've been a ton of fun:

DN: My ball, my rules!

Friend 1: Your rules say you always win, and that's not fair.

DN: My ball, my rules!

Friend 1: That sucks, anyone else have a ball?

Other friends: No, we lost all the other balls.

DN: MY BALL, MY BALL, MY BALL!!! I WIN, I WIN!!! YOU GUYS SUCK!!!

(friends leave, DN becomes a lonely, bitter Social Darwinist*)

* thanks Andy

"Semantics"? I'm pretty sure the difference between merely being accused of a crime and admitting and being convicted of a crime is a little more than just "semantics."

Someone who is "convicted" was "accused" at one point in time. It's my mistake that I didn't use "had said" or "those who had been his friends", but you still have no point or argument.

Yeah, the perspective that it's a drag being disabled.

Well, it's a lot better to be a happy, actualized person who is physically disabled than an unhappy self-absorbed person who is emotionally disabled.

Am I speaking from personal experience? I'll leave that to you...

So, I have a 3-year old. 3-year-olds don't really like to share their stuff. Sometimes they will of their own volition, sometimes they'll bargain (share a different toy) - and sometimes you gotta just force them to share.

Not really much different from adults.

The finest encapusulation of modern progressive thinking I've ever seen.

Ubermensch-wannabe brethren

Yiiii... we are so close to the record, don't Godwin's law us!

Frankly, these are a sideshow, the real issue is that gays want the government to step in to force everyone to call their "marriages" equal.

No, they want the government to stop calling their marriages unequal. You'll still be free to call their marriages whatever you want to call them (out of curiosity, what would you call a relationship between two men who were married in a church, if not "marriage"?) Also, it's wrong to imply that it is only gays who care about this issue. Straight people care about it, too.

So we see extra taxes on alchohol, and tax breaks for charities - just to give two obvious examples. And if the government doesn't want to extend that encouragement to "gay marriage" then it's perfectly legitimate not to give tax breaks there.

And if the government doesn't want to extend that encouragement to interracial marriage? Is it perfectly legitimate not to give tax breaks in those cases? You need to explain why your logic here can't be used to justify *any* type of discrimination that the government wants to implement.

In fact, a gay man has always been free to get married, if he can find a woman who's willing to marry him. And vice-versa. And similarly a normal man has never been free to get married to another man.

So the in your opinion, a person is either "gay" or "normal"? I'm glad you've finally made it clear where you stand.

Now, you may say that traditional marriage is much more useful to heterosexuals than homosexuals, and I'd agree, but all kinds of laws are more useful to one group than another, that doesn't make them discriminatory.

When they are deliberately designed to be more useful to one group than another, that by definition makes them discriminatory. Or when they can be easily fixed to make them useful to all people, and aren't. But I think you are being dishonest in your argument here. It's perfectly clear that you think marriage laws are *and should be* discriminatory, in order to discourage gay marriage. You simply think that it's okay for the government to discriminate against gays.

What gays actually want is not "equal dignity" for themselves as "a class of people", but "equal dignity" for their relationships. But of course a relationship has no rights and no standing. What's more their relationships are different.

This is a silly semantic distinction that could be applied to all types of relationships. By saying that gay relationships don't deserve equal treatment, you are saying that gay people don't deserve equal treatment. I can't believe that you're even arguing otherwise.

The burden is on them to establish why their different relationships should be treated the same.

No, that's not how it works. The burden is on you to show why their relationships should be treated differently.

But it's really hard for even the strongest defender of marriage to say the institution is in good shape right now. Look at divorce rates, look at the rate of children born out of wedlock, look at the number of children growing up without a father. My expectation of the consequences of further devaluing the institution of marriage is essentially a hardening, an acceleration, and a deepening of this existing situation. Fewer marriages, people being less serious about marriage, higher divorce rates, more children being born out of wedlock, more children being raised without proper families, more crime, more destruction of opportunity, and so on.

Yeah, I can't stand all those gays getting divorced. And it really bothers me when they raise their kids out of wedlock. I can't understand why they won't just get married like "normal" people...oh, wait.

Calling the legal recognition of gay marriage a "devaluing" of marriage is assuming the conclusion. Why do you think it "devalues" the institution. And why do you expect any of these things to happen as a result of allowing legal recognition of gay marriages? This is a huge logical leap for which you provide no argument, let alone evidence.

I don't understand the miscegenation comparison. As a characteristic, race is partially imaginary* and wholly irrelevant. There is no difference in characteristics between a white-white, a white-black and a black-black marriage. Gender is a fundamental attribute** and wholly relevant. There are differences in characteristics between a man-man, a man-woman and a woman-woman marriage. There is no analogy between not recognising "gay marriage" and not recognising inter-racial marriage. Now you may say that despite those differences "gay marriage" should be OK anyway, but that's for you to demonstrate.

As for fighting a losing battle... well, you never know how the future will turn out. There was a time when it looked like defenders of the free market and property rights were fighting a losing battle. But I'm pretty glad they fought, and postponed the evil day, and in the meantime opinions changed. I do think you're probably right - gay marriage probably will be legal in 50 years time. I also think there will probably be a major war in the next 50 years. But that doesn't make either event desirable.

[W]hom one loves is an essential part of one's being.

Really? But only if you have sex with them, I assume.

*being a social construct rather than a fundamental attribute.
**Yeah I know there are some people who say gender is a social construct too and point to children born with defects etc but let's just accept that these things are very much at the margins.

Don't talk to me about this. I have had people come into my office and lie to me about being married (

What's funny is I used to do taxes back when the Repubs were really railing against "the marriage penalty", and so many couples denied being couples, because they thought filing Head of House Hold or as singles would net them bigger refunds (or less tax due)

Most would have, in fact, been better served by filing as Married Filing Jointly, but you wouldn't believe how hard it was to convince them of that, my favorite client was the one who kept arguing with me, and finally said, "but Rush said...."

Anti-Southern bias! Another great biproduct of the Civil Rights Act and modern Liberal politics. Thanks, guys. What would we do without you nice liberals to tell us what to think?

Probably pork you cousins and sisters.

There are differences in characteristics between a man-man, a man-woman and a woman-woman marriage.

Please explain.

[W]hom one loves is an essential part of one's being.

Really? But only if you have sex with them, I assume.

Please explain.

So, I have a 3-year old. 3-year-olds don't really like to share their stuff. Sometimes they will of their own volition, sometimes they'll bargain (share a different toy) - and sometimes you gotta just force them to share.

The finest encapusulation of modern progressive thinking I've ever seen.

If you wish to be treated like adults, behave like adults.

s/

Yiiii... we are so close to the record, don't Godwin's law us!

Dude, invoking Nietzsche is does not invoke Godwin! I'll go the mat on that one.

I don't understand the miscegenation comparison.

No kidding.

It's apparent that your mind is welded shut on this matter, I don't really understand why we are arguing with you over it.

Gender is a fundamental attribute** and wholly relevant.
**Yeah I know there are some people who say gender is a social construct too and point to children born with defects etc but let's just accept that these things are very much at the margins.

Gender refers to identity, where sex is what's used to refer to the biological equipment.

What's funny is I used to do taxes back when the Repubs were really railing against "the marriage penalty", and so any couple denied being couples, because they thought filing Head of House Ho,d or as singles would net them bigger refunds (or less tax due)

If you are married, and you cohabited for even one day after June 30 before separating, your only options are MFJ or MFS.

We talk about how rich people avoid paying their fair share of taxes - but it is *far* easier for lower-income people to scam the system than it is for higher-income people to do it.

-- MWE

the government uses the tax code to incent and disincent certain behaviours all the time, because they think they are economically/socially/otherwise "good." So we see extra taxes on alchohol

You've thought about this too hard. Taxes on alcohol (and cigarettes) exist not out of any "moral" imperative, but rather because the demand for alcohol and cigarettes is highly price-inelastic.

Right, and before Loving a Black women could get married to a Black man if she wanted to, so there must not have been any issues there. I've yet to hear a single argument against Gay marriage that is not a rehash of arguments used against interracial marriage. I can understand conservative positions on many issues, but opposition to allowing loving families to have their relationship given the same recognition as other loving families is nothing but bigotry.

The problem with this argument is that it proves too much; you can't just go around substituting race for sex in every argument and say, "See, the arguments are the same." Otherwise, you run into the bathroom problem: as 99.9% of the world recognizes, bathrooms segregated by sex are not the moral equivalent of bathrooms segregated by race, but arguments for the former are structurally identical to arguments for the latter.

So, I have a 3-year old. 3-year-olds don't really like to share their stuff. Sometimes they will of their own volition, sometimes they'll bargain (share a different toy) - and sometimes you gotta just force them to share.

Not really much different from adults.

The essence of anti-libertarianism in a nutshell: everyone should be treated like 3-year olds by the government, which has the same relationship to its citizens as parents do to their children.

the real issue is that gays want the government to step in to force everyone to call their "marriages" equal.

I'm not gay, and I can't speak for all gay people, but it's less about what people call their relationships and more about what privileges they are denied. I don't deny that part of the goals some people have is to force people to accept the legitimacy of their relationships. I think it's wrong to judge a loving relationship between consenting adults as morally inferior because they happen to both have the same genitalia, but I certainly don't advocate legislation prohibiting that judgment. Be a bigot if you want to as an individual. Just don't have the government endorse that bigotry.

Now, maybe libertarians object to the government using the tax code to try and influence behaviour, but most people regard it as perfectly legitimate.

Most people regard it as perfectly legitimate until the government exerts that influence in a way that directly affects them in a significant fashion by punishing behavior that's important to them. If the government set forth taxes that punished people for being overweight, or out of shape, people might suddenly reject the philosophy.

Of course just to show that we have more justice on our side, many conservatives supported "civil unions" as a way of defusing this issue. And then of course the gay liberal advocates turn around and use the measure as a Trojan Horse as in California.

If there is no distinction under the law of the land between a civil union and a marriage other than the name, you are I are in agreement that there is no need for governmental intervention to change the definition.

This is what it actually comes down to. But I am not saying we should "deny equal treatment to a class of people based on their sexual orientation." In fact, a gay man has always been free to get married, if he can find a woman who's willing to marry him. And vice-versa.

Pre-Loving, people can (and did) use the same reasoning. I'm not saying we should "deny equal treatment based on race." Blacks can marry blacks and whites can marry whites, so clearly this isn't race-based discrimination.

And similarly a normal man has never been free to get married to another man.

I think you should avoid using the word "normal" as an antonym for "homosexual." It would be unthinkable to consider much smaller minorities that have genetic differences from the mainstream population "abnormal."

What's more their relationships are different.

All relationships are different. The question is whether it's different in a significant way so as to merit different legal rights.

So the correct question then is why should society accord a gay lifestyle choice the same dignity as a proper marriage. I'm not exactly holding my breath for a decent answer.

Take a step back, and think of the following hypothetical. Instead of 2-3% or whatever the actual amount is, imagine a world where 95% of people were homosexuals. Society develops rejecting the concept of men and women forming bonds of marriage as abnormal. You grow up in this society but genetically are attracted to people of the opposite sex. You fall in love with someone similarly inclined.

Justify why your relationship should be treated with the same dignity as a proper homosexual marriage.

The answer is that people who choose to dedicate themselves to a stable relationship to the point where they are willing to legally formalize it have made a life decision that shows evidence of certain decisions, financial or otherwise, that one has entrusted to their chosen partner. We treat post-marriage property as joint property in acknowledgment of this bond. We assume power of attorney and health care proxy for similar reasons.

Of course I don't think "gay marriage" has any benefits at all but I was assuming arguendo that we regarded giving certain privileges of marriage to gays as a benefit of the proposal.

I'm not convinced you've really thought that out. I can buy that you think the net effect on society is negative even though I don't agree, but you don't see any benefits at all?

Guilty. I was a NYC "domestic partner" with my wife for about 10 years before we got married - for purely financial and legal reasons.

Zenbitz, I'm in a similar situation- my GF and I are now starting to make enough of an income that to not get married would be financially unwise. We have no religious beliefs on the matter, and don't really think we need the state to recognize our relationship for it to be worthwhile and committed.

How's it working out for you?

Nonetheless, I would hope that nobody's primary interest in being married is financial rather than social/religious.

Guilty. I was a NYC "domestic partner" with my wife for about 10 years before we got married - for purely financial and legal reasons. For example, at least one job I had would not provide "partner" health insurance for domestic partners, only married couples.

Well, see, I think conservatives would point to your statements as an example of how marriage is devalued by certain arguments: your marriage is a sham, entered into for "financial and legal reasons," and you apparently are proud of it.

(Full disclosure: my wife's former employer provided "domestic partner" benefits; those benefits were implemented for the sake of gay couples, but were provided in a sex-neutral fashion to anybody who affidavited that they had a committed relationship of financial interdependence (*), and we took advantage of them when I was in law school, before we were married. This was (as it should be) a purely private arrangement between us and her employer, and did not depend on any government sanction. We got married after I graduated, and ultimately reaped the various tax benefits and penalties of marriage, but our motive for marriage was purely social/cultural/religious and entirely unrelated to those benefits or penalties.)


(*) I don't remember the exact words since this was a dozen years ago, but that was the essence of it.

Going over DN's house to play must've been a ton of fun:

DN: My ball, my rules!
Friend 1: Your rules say you always win, and that's not fair.

It's an interesting psychological phenomenon. Liberals simply can't imagine that people would cooperate with each other voluntarily. I believe this is called "projection." Liberals know that they themselves can't be trusted without "Mommy" to make them behave, so they don't trust anybody else to behave. Give me a libertarian anyday; they don't pretend to be acting in my best interests -- just their own -- but they're honest, because they recognize that honesty is ultimately in their own interest.

David, when you have the chance, do you think you could point me to some discussion of how the ADA passes Fifth Amendment scrutiny? It seems on its face to be in violation of the "just compensation" clause, but it's been around long enough now that I assume it's been unsuccessfully tested on those grounds, and I'm curious about the reasoning in the case(s), if so.

The essence of anti-libertarianism in a nutshell: everyone should be treated like 3-year olds by the government, which has the same relationship to its citizens as parents do to their children.

And libertarians are the petulant teenagers.

Libertarians don't really disagree with the above anyway - after all "they are not anarchists". At most they argue whether people should be treated like 3 year olds, 6 year olds, or 16 year olds - and how strict the parent is. I mean, some people's idea of parenting is "don't kill anyone"

The difference of course, is that you have no say in your (real) parents rules, while in a democracy you do. Although in our democracy, the more money you have, the more say you have.

There are differences in characteristics between a man-man, a man-woman and a woman-woman marriage.

Please explain.

You really don't see it? Well OK, here's a start. Only the second is capable of having children. See if you can work out any others.

[W]hom one loves is an essential part of one's being.

Really? But only if you have sex with them, I assume.

Please explain.

My comment was semi-sarcastic, more a "please explain" to you, actually. I don't see how whom you love is an essential part of your being. In fact, considering that whom you love can change over your life, perhaps repeatedly and rapidly, it seems a particularly non-essential part of your being. In addition (and this is what my comment was getting at) we can love lots of people, and not in a sexual way. Friends, family, etc. But if I have a very dear friend I assume you don't think the government should recognise him/her as a family member. So if I have long-term sex with someone why does that entitle me to make them my spouse? What you seem to be doing is reducing the complex web of human relationships, purely to sex. Which I think is ultimately at the heart of the pro-"gay marriage" position. Some people like to f--- people of their own gender, some people like to f---- people of the other gender, and f---ing is the only thing that matters in the world.

Take a step back, and think of the following hypothetical. Instead of 2-3% or whatever the actual amount is, imagine a world where 95% of people were homosexuals. Society develops rejecting the concept of men and women forming bonds of marriage as abnormal. You grow up in this society but genetically are attracted to people of the opposite sex. You fall in love with someone similarly inclined.

Justify why your relationship should be treated with the same dignity as a proper homosexual marriage.

This is of course the fundamental problem of conservatism as a philosophy. I have been so lucky as to have lived my life in England and America, two fundamentally good and free countries, with a culture, tradition and history (most of it shared) that you can be proud of. But what if you live in a country with a really bad culture and tradition, like say you lived in Nazi Germany, or your homosexual dystopia? And it's not just a hypothetical - arguably much of the world lives in fundamentally "bad" societies. Conservatism really doesn't have a lot of answers there. My father was from Iraq. He certainly wasn't a conservative growing up in Iraq in the 1960s. He did become a conservative living in England.

So basically my answer is that I don't have an answer, at least with my conservative toolkit. But as I think that positing that you live in a fundamentally "bad" society changes just about everything, I don't think it's a fair question.

Incidentally for those people jumping up and down that I used "normal" as the opposite "homosexual" - arguably yeah it was a bad word to use. You may liberally substitute whatever PC-terms you feel more appropriate throughout whatever I write, if that will less offend delicate sensibilities.

It's an interesting psychological phenomenon. Liberals simply can't imagine that people would cooperate with each other voluntarily. I believe this is called "projection." Liberals know that they themselves can't be trusted without "Mommy" to make them behave, so they don't trust anybody else to behave. Give me a libertarian anyday; they don't pretend to be acting in my best interests -- just their own -- but they're honest, because they recognize that honesty is ultimately in their own interest.

What's an even more interesting psychological phenomenon is your casual stretching of liberal beliefs, as in "Liberals simply can't imagine that people would cooperate with each other voluntarily"; "Liberals know that they themselves can't be trusted without "Mommy" to make them behave, so they don't trust anybody else to behave."

Whereas libertarians are "honest."

Yes, and all conservatives are dittoheads who take their clues from Rush. All conservatives are bigots. All neocons are slaves of AIPAC. And all libertarians are so insecure in their own beliefs that they have to set up strawmen to argue with.

Same old Nieporent: Whatever the question, there's only one answer.

Give me a libertarian anyday; they don't pretend to be acting in my best interests -- just their own -- but they're honest, because they recognize that honesty is ultimately in their own interest.

Still ducking the big questions- 1) What is the age of viability in your system? At what point do people become capable of recognizing and acting in their own self-interest? 2) How do people achieve this realization of their autonomy and self-interest? Is it inborn? Does it exist outside of language, or do they learn it by acquiring language? This is a huge question that speaks to the possibility for their own understanding to be compromised by those who teach them what these concepts mean and those who define these concepts. Power circulates not just in brute physical materiality but in language as well. You're smart enough to understand this, but insist on denying it. 3) What about those not capable of acting in their own self-interests? Oh wait, that's the "go #### yourself" part, you answered this already.

We got married after I graduated,

I feel a deep sense of pity for this woman...

What is the point of allowing the government to count the number of penises and vaginas in a marriage?

It's an interesting psychological phenomenon. Liberals simply can't imagine that people would cooperate with each other voluntarily. I believe this is called "projection." Liberals know that they themselves can't be trusted without "Mommy" to make them behave, so they don't trust anybody else to behave. Give me a libertarian anyday; they don't pretend to be acting in my best interests -- just their own -- but they're honest, because they recognize that honesty is ultimately in their own interest.

Cue Homer Simpson/"Liberals" clip.

What about people who cannot be honest with themselves about the history of the society?

My comment was semi-sarcastic, more a "please explain" to you, actually. I don't see how whom you love is an essential part of your being. In fact, considering that whom you love can change over your life, perhaps repeatedly and rapidly, it seems a particularly non-essential part of your being. In addition (and this is what my comment was getting at) we can love lots of people, and not in a sexual way. Friends, family, etc. But if I have a very dear friend I assume you don't think the government should recognise him/her as a family member. So if I have long-term sex with someone why does that entitle me to make them my spouse? What you seem to be doing is reducing the complex web of human relationships, purely to sex. Which I think is ultimately at the heart of the pro-"gay marriage" position. Some people like to f--- people of their own gender, some people like to f---- people of the other gender, and f---ing is the only thing that matters in the world.

Is this semi-sarcastic too, or do you really not see sexual love as an integration of spousal love?

If there ever was projection, this is it? You may only see sexual orientation as being equivalent to "who I want to ####", but I assure you that doesn't mean everyone who disagrees with you shares this sad state of being.

You really don't see it? Well OK, here's a start. Only the second is capable of having children. See if you can work out any others.

So logically, you're opposed to any marriage where either person is infertile, then.

I assume you're also opposed to any sex act between married people that also doesn't result in procreation? No BJs or anal sex for the straights, either, right?

[O]ut of curiosity, what would you call a relationship between two men who were married in a church, if not "marriage"?

Well I'm not religious, and if I were I wouldn't be Christian, so I don't see what a church has to do with it. But I'd call it a "relationship."

I believe ... illegitmacy rates have been trending downward recently

Look at the trend over the past century. What you're seeing over the past couple of years is a small blip. And the rates of illegitimacy are masked by abortion.

And the rates of illegitimacy are masked by abortion.

Abortion rates are declining, and have been for a long time.

Liberals simply can't imagine that people would cooperate with each other voluntarily

Interestingly enough, liberals are often characterized as hopelessly sunny optimists, while conservatives are often given the mantle of dour pessimists believing that human nature must be kept under wraps by force. Both impressions are caricatures. Some conservatives believe that a free market, for instance, will always be rational and functional, the sunniest of all possible worlds. Some liberals believe that a free market tends toward monopolies, Gambinos, and Gottis. Obviously some people take readily to certain kinds of voluntary cooperation, and obviously some socialized state services or industries can become cesspools of evil. I think some liberals tend to fall into the category of people who believe that moderate regulation is the only thing that can preserve a free market, for instance. If you want beautiful, creative, competitive basketball, there ought to be rules against allowing Shaquille O'Neal to stiffarm his man to the floor, carry the ball five steps, and drop it into the basket.

Incidentally for those people jumping up and down that I used "normal" as the opposite "homosexual" - arguably yeah it was a bad word to use. You may liberally substitute whatever PC-terms you feel more appropriate throughout whatever I write, if that will less offend delicate sensibilities.

Well if you were a normal human being, perhaps you would understand.

If you want beautiful, creative, competitive basketball, there ought to be rules against allowing Shaquille O'Neal to stiffarm his man to the floor, carry the ball five steps, and drop it into the basket.

Mind you, there also ought to be a rule against the Hack-a-Shaq.

So logically, you're opposed to any marriage where either person is infertile, then.

I assume you're also opposed to any sex act between married people that also doesn't result in procreation? No BJs or anal sex for the straights, either, right?

Amen Chip

Defending gay rights by implication defends rights that straight people assert

My keyboard is losing its full stops

some letters are goWng too

SOON I WILL TURN INTO TOLAXOR

Abortion rates are declining, and have been for a long time.

This is in part because pro-life advocates - while they have failed to overturn Roe v Wade - have succeeded in making access to abortion more difficult, both through getting laws passed that limit the amount of public assistance available for abortions, and by harrassing abortion providers.

-- MWE

You can't just go around substituting race for sex in every argument and say, "See, the arguments are the same." Otherwise, you run into the bathroom problem: as 99.9% of the world recognizes, bathrooms segregated by sex are not the moral equivalent of bathrooms segregated by race, but arguments for the former are structurally identical to arguments for the latter.

They are only structurally identical if the reasons for the segregation are the same. We have men/women restrooms for reasons of biology and modesty. Women can't use urinals, which are faster and more convenient for space in a restroom.

Similarly, it's a very different argument to say that a black man should take a certain medicine because it's proven to be more effective that another type for his particular physiology than to say that he should take that medicine because he doesn't deserve the quality "white-person" medicine.

For the prong of the marriage argument that is based on tradition, it's the same argument for same-sex marriage as interracial marriage pre-Loving. It's why tradition-based arguments generally are problematic. When we agree with the traditions, it's right to be traditional. When we disagree, change is appropriate.

If there's a good argument against same-sex marriage, it can stand on its own.

Well, see, I think conservatives would point to your statements as an example of how marriage is devalued by certain arguments: your marriage is a sham, entered into for "financial and legal reasons,"

Who cares what people think of my marriage? I guess it makes my mother in law happy though.

Liberals simply can't imagine that people would cooperate with each other voluntarily. I believe this is called "projection." Liberals know that they themselves can't be trusted without "Mommy" to make them behave, so they don't trust anybody else to behave.

Everything is so black and white to you David. Either you can trust people, or you can't. Either you are free or you or not.

The state enforces laws. Some of these laws are stupid, some are injust, some are right-headed but poorly worded or implemented, some have punishments all out of proportion. Most of them are debatable.

Is the irony intentional that ADA sized bathrooms are resulting in many, many unisex bathrooms (at least in sunny california)?

I support gay marriage, but it does raise some interesting legal questions. Should a person be able to marry a corporation? They have the capacity to enter into consensual contractual relationships. If not, why not?

So logically, you're opposed to any marriage where either person is infertile, then.

That's an interesting use of the word "logically."

Should a person be able to marry a corporation?

One of my wife's former colleagues in the insurance industry used to call herself "the bride of CIGNA."

So basically my answer is that I don't have an answer, at least with my conservative toolkit. But as I think that positing that you live in a fundamentally "bad" society changes just about everything, I don't think it's a fair question.

You're making my point. Conservative (or traditionalist) is not really an accurate description of your position. You are a conservative only so far as you embrace the values of your society. If you were truly conservative as a philosophical position, you'd embrace the values of any society, even those with values diametrically opposed to your own.

My philosophy of libertarianism doesn't change as the society becomes more statist or less statist. It's independent of the society I live in. I reject the government endorsement of marriage as exclusive of same-sex unions, just as I reject the exclusion of interfaith, intergender, or, if such technological advancement or alien visitation should come to pass that resolve issues of consent, interspecies unions. I'm pro-legalization of trans-fats, tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, and heroin. I support the right to speech that I agree with, that I'm ambivalent to, or that I disagree with.

That's an interesting use of the word "logically."

No more or less interesting than your incoherent logic.

Are you going to address the point? If it's about procreation, are you opposed to marriage between infertile couples?

You can't just go around substituting race for sex in every argument and say, "See, the arguments are the same." Otherwise, you run into the bathroom problem: as 99.9% of the world recognizes, bathrooms segregated by sex are not the moral equivalent of bathrooms segregated by race, but arguments for the former are structurally identical to arguments for the latter.

Are they? I'm not familiar with these arguments, can you explain. Why do you think we don't have same-sex bathrooms?

Well, see, I think conservatives would point to your statements as an example of how marriage is devalued by certain arguments: your marriage is a sham, entered into for "financial and legal reasons," and you apparently are proud of it.

Of course, this has nothing to do with gay marriage. If gays were allowed to marry, we probably wouldn't be having these discussions at all.

Are you going to address the point? If it's about procreation, are you opposed to marriage between infertile couples?

You have a point? You seem to be under the illusion that I said the purpose of marriage was procreation or some such. There are enough people disputing the things I say that I don't really have space to argue about things I've never said.

Crosbybird - I agree that conservatism is a society-dependent set of beliefs and that libertarianism, communism, socialism, etc are utopian ideologies divorced from social and cultural tradition. I don't see how that's a weakness in my position (frankly I think it's a huge weakness in yours). Nor do I see how it bears on the issue of gay marriage.

Should a person be able to marry a corporation? They have the capacity to enter into consensual contractual relationships. If not, why not?

Years ago a woman who was the senior associate at a 100 lawyer firm (in Atlanta I think) sued because she'd never been made partner- every other associate with her tenure had long since either been let go- or made partner, the firm did not have, and never had a female partner.

The firm successfully defended the suit on the grounds that a partnership- a legal partnership was "like a marriage" - and you couldn't force someone into a partnership- a "voluntary association" against the will of the other partners- whether they were behaving in a discriminatory fashion or not.

That argument won at the trial level and all the way up to the GA Supreme Court
On Cert to SCOTUS, the lawyer began his oral argument with his winning argument, "a partnership is like a marriage" immediately 3-4 of the Justices laughed at him. He lost.


You can certainly enter into a business partnership with a corporation.

Are you going to address the point? If it's about procreation, are you opposed to marriage between infertile couples?

You have a point? You seem to be under the illusion that I said the purpose of marriage was procreation or some such.

I once met a Priest who believed that marriage was for procreation only, and accordingly refused to marry an elderly couple since the wife was obviously out of her child bearing age... He was reprimanded by his bishop...

I believe that once upon time this was a common belief among Catholic Clergy, common- but not the majority view, it's rarer now, but I'm sure there are some hold outs.

You have a point? You seem to be under the illusion that I said the purpose of marriage was procreation or some such. There are enough people disputing the things I say that I don't really have space to argue about things I've never said.

You wrote:

Only the second [man-woman] is capable of having children.

Infertile heterosexual couples are incapable of having children.

Stop dodging. Answer the question: should infertile heterosexual couples (like the one described by JPWF13) be allowed to marry?

You can't just go around substituting race for sex in every argument and say, "See, the arguments are the same." Otherwise, you run into the bathroom problem: as 99.9% of the world recognizes, bathrooms segregated by sex are not the moral equivalent of bathrooms segregated by race, but arguments for the former are structurally identical to arguments for the latter.

Are they? I'm not familiar with these arguments, can you explain. Why do you think we don't have same-sex bathrooms?

Men and women are different, and it may make people uncomfortable to share a bathroom with members of the opposite sex.

Of course, this has nothing to do with gay marriage. If gays were allowed to marry, we probably wouldn't be having these discussions at all.

His specific decision may have nothing to do with gay marriage, but it implicates the key question: what is marriage? Is it primarily an legal structure for the purpose of receiving various tax and inheritance benefits and other government perks? Is it about sex? Is it about childrearing? Is it an economic exchange in which two people pool income and expenses and share household duties?

To start with "there should be gay marriage" puts the cart before the horse. If marriage is primarily about tax benefits, then it's hard to see why we should differ between same or opposite sex marriages. Or incestuous ones, for that matter. (Of course, that also begs the question: if marriage is primarily about tax benefits, why should those tax benefits exist?)

Meanwhile, the news just keeps going for the benefit of this thread. Oscar Pistorius has won a chance to compete in Olympic sprints using prosthetic lower legs:

The disabled 21-year-old sprinter runs on specially adapted carbon fibre blades after having his legs amputated below the knee when he was 11 months old because he was born without fibula bones in his legs.

The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) had banned the 400m runner from all competitions involving able-bodied athletes because of claims that the artificial legs he uses give him an unfair advantage.

However, CAS ruled today against the IAAF decision, adding: "... it is revoked with immediate effect and the athlete is eligible to compete in IAAF events while wearing the Ossur Cheetah Flex Foot Prosthetics, as used in the scientific tests requested by the IAAF and presented as an exhibit at the CAS hearing."

Pistorius is a Paralympic champion in category T44 (lower-leg amputee). His prosthetics allow him to run near Olympic-qualifying times for an able-bodied person (IOW a hell of a lot faster than any of us). The issue involved is whether the prosthetics actually make him faster than he would be if he had lower legs, which is sort of unknowable on one level but simply a matter of bargaining on another. What is "abled" or "disabled"? Is there a natural distinction, or a technological one, or is it a matter of "discourse"? :)

JPWF13: your description doesn't make sense; why would the Georgia Supreme Court have been hearing a federal case? (Or, alternatively, why would the U.S. Supreme Court be hearing a state case?) That sounds like a distorted reference to Hishon; if you mean to refer to something else, please let me know. I don't know what was said at oral argument and who laughed, but the only question before the Supreme Court in that case was whether partnership offers were governed by Title VII, which on its face applies only to employment.

The law firm cited legislative history in support of its position in which a U.S. Senator argued that selecting a partner was like selecting a wife, but it certainly wasn't intended to be humorous, and the argument wasn't, "you can't force someone into a marriage."

I'm not dodging. Of course infertile couples should be allowed to marry. I wish you would stop dodging and explain what that has to do with the price of fish.

Meanwhile, the news just keeps going for the benefit of this thread. Oscar Pistorius has won a chance to compete in Olympic sprints using prosthetic lower legs:

[...]

Pistorius is a Paralympic champion in category T44 (lower-leg amputee). His prosthetics allow him to run near Olympic-qualifying times for an able-bodied person (IOW a hell of a lot faster than any of us). The issue involved is whether the prosthetics actually make him faster than he would be if he had lower legs, which is sort of unknowable on one level but simply a matter of bargaining on another. What is "abled" or "disabled"? Is there a natural distinction, or a technological one, or is it a matter of "discourse"? :)

I've been following this case (*) closely, because of its applicability to the steroids issue. If we follow the steroid argument, ISTM that the question ought to be not whether the prosthetics make him faster than he would be if he had lower legs, but whether the prosthetics make him faster than he would be without them.


(*) It's a private matter, not a governmental one, which is nice.

Crosbybird - I agree that conservatism is a society-dependent set of beliefs and that libertarianism, communism, socialism, etc are utopian ideologies divorced from social and cultural tradition.

I notice you didn't mention capitalism.

To the contrary, they are philosophies derived from observation of social and cultural traditions. Before there can be libertarianism, there must be a concept of what liberty is, and that's been refined over millenia of human existence (and continues to change).

As for the utopian argument, you'll find few libertarians who believe all the world's problems will disappear once government shrinks to an acceptable level. "Better than what we have now" is very different from "perfect."

I don't see how that's a weakness in my position (frankly I think it's a huge weakness in yours).

Because your position is superficially defined. It isn't "it is proper to stick with established societal and cultural values" but "it is proper to stick with established societal and cultural values to the extent with which I agree with them." So I don't really understand your values. I can't follow your train of thought and your logic.

I think you understand my values, even if you don't agree with them.

Nor do I see how it bears on the issue of gay marriage.

You refer to fundamental concepts of marriage, but such simply do not exist. There are cultural and societal concepts, that change over time. Polygamy is encouraged in some cultures and rejected in others. Interracial and interfaith marriages are accepted in some cultures and rejected in others. Some communities allow cousins to marry, and others do not.

What you are calling fundamental is really just an emphasis of your own preference, which happens to match the present definition. That's not a compelling argument. I respect that you may have better arguments than "it's always been this way" and "this society respects the tradition in this way" and "it's different."

Certainly, it is hard to reach agreement if we operate with different assumptions, and it probably never will happen, but you have an underlying reason why some values are preferred over others that I'd like to understand. I don't see the 95% homosexual society hypothetical as a "bad" society in and of itself, and you do. I'd like to know why, which is a much more decent thing to do than mock you or write you off as a crackpot.

I'm not dodging. Of course infertile couples should be allowed to marry. I wish you would stop dodging and explain what that has to do with the price of fish.

I asked you to explain what the "differences in characteristics" were which you claimed distinguished man-man, man-woman, and woman-woman marriages.

The only one you've cited, so far, is that "for a start, only the second is capable of having children."

Now you've invalidated that.

So if it's not "capable of having children," can you explain what other "differences in characteristics" set heterosexual marriages apart from homosexual ones?

Only the second is capable of having children.

Not true. Only the second is capable of having children who contain the DNA of both parents (in most cases). Gay couples can adopt children, or use artificial insemination (of course, one of the reasons why some people oppose gay marriage is because they explicitly want to outlaw these things, too).

In addition (and this is what my comment was getting at) we can love lots of people, and not in a sexual way. Friends, family, etc. But if I have a very dear friend I assume you don't think the government should recognise him/her as a family member. So if I have long-term sex with someone why does that entitle me to make them my spouse?

It doesn't. I am not aware of any state where being legally married depends on your having long-term sex. Or loving each other. I believe all that is required is that one of you is a man and the other a woman and that neither of you are married or otherwise related.

What you seem to be doing is reducing the complex web of human relationships, purely to sex. Which I think is ultimately at the heart of the pro-"gay marriage" position. Some people like to f--- people of their own gender, some people like to f---- people of the other gender, and f---ing is the only thing that matters in the world.

I think you are seriously mistaken about what is at the heart of the "pro-gay marriage" movement (or the anti-discimination movement, as I would call it). Frankly, I think at the heart of the pro-discrimination movement is a belief that gay sex is gross and an inability to see gay relationships as about anything other than sex.

The fact that people like you can only see gay relationships in terms of "f----ing" is one of the reasons why gays fight so hard for equal recognition of their relationships. Because to them, their relationships are about much more than that. And the dismissive attitude of people like you, encouraged by the government, encourages or condones discrimination and prejudice in other areas.

Or are you saying that we shouldn't have marriage at all, because marriage gives special status to one relationship simply due to the presence of sex? Because I'm not sure how your argument applies to gays any more than it applies to straights.

So if it's not "capable of having children," can you explain what other "differences in characteristics" set heterosexual marriages apart from homosexual ones?

I think that for most of these people it simply comes down to the "EEWWWWWWWWW!" factor, with whatever constitutional and/or philosophical rationalizations they can think of to justify this gut reaction.

Now since I'm not running for president, I can freely admit that the idea of the physical act of bunghole banditry is kind of a grossout to me, too, whether or not the dirt road belongs to a man or a woman. That's just the way I am.

But once I get past that, I can't see any reason why two human beings who love and care for each other shouldn't be allowed to marry just like anyone else. The "procreation" rationale is just that, as Alou honestly admits.

What harm does gay marriage cause in the real world? None.

And the reaction against it, no matter what the rationalization, at bottom comes down to the same sort of instinctive disgust that many of us have towards the thought of the physical act.

But is that sort of reaction, no matter how "normal" it seems for most of us card-carrying heteros, any serious basis for public policy, and for stigmatizing an entire class of people before the law? What have they ever done to you to deserve this?

Again, strip away the philosophical mumbo-jumbo and get down to cases: What is it to you if that lesbian couple next door wants to marry? Did you and your wife have to clear your marriage with them? Who died and made you the boss of their lives?

To start with "there should be gay marriage" puts the cart before the horse. If marriage is primarily about tax benefits, then it's hard to see why we should differ between same or opposite sex marriages. Or incestuous ones, for that matter. (Of course, that also begs the question: if marriage is primarily about tax benefits, why should those tax benefits exist?)

Agreed. I don't start with "there should be gay marriage". There already is, and government can't really change that without grossly overstepping its bounds. I start with "because there is gay marriage, and because straight marriage receives certain legal recognitions/benefits, gay marriage should as well."

I think at the heart of the pro-discrimination movement is a belief that gay sex is gross

I think that's a factor, as Dave and Andy both maintain. I think that belief that any kind of sex is gross is another (sheer old-fashioned American prudishness). I think that another factor is the deeply-engrained belief that the world we first experienced is "natural" and "normal" (Adam should not marry Steve, people who can't get up and down stairs should just stay home and act crippled, pitchers should bat, fish should be eaten in breaded stick-like form instead of rolled raw between sheets of rice-coated seaweed). Times change, and we do not always change with them.

JPWF13: your description doesn't make sense;

probably because it was based solely upon my memory of a lecture I heard 15+ years ago

Who died and made you the boss of their lives?

Can't the same point be made for the wheel chair ramps discussed at length earlier?

Not that I have a problem with gay marriage or wheel chair ramps. or Bambi.

card-carrying heteros

There are cards? Like they have in Red Sox Nation? How do I get one?

[O]ut of curiosity, what would you call a relationship between two men who were married in a church, if not "marriage"?

Well I'm not religious, and if I were I wouldn't be Christian, so I don't see what a church has to do with it. But I'd call it a "relationship."

Church, mosque, synagogue, whatever. I think you know what I meant. They went through a marriage ceremony at which they made a lifetime commitment to each other. You would say these people are merely "in a relationship." Do you see no value in distinguishing between the different types of relationships and levels of commitment that people can make to each other? Why do you think these distinctions have value for straights but not gays?

Another question I have for you is, what do you think the benefits are of marriage (for the married couple, and for society as a whole)? You've written a lot of platitudes about the value of marriage, but I'm not sure what "value" you actually see.

I think that another factor is the deeply-engrained belief that the world we first experienced is "natural" and "normal" (Adam should not marry Steve, people who can't get up and down stairs should just stay home and act crippled, pitchers should bat, fish should be eaten in breaded stick-like form instead of rolled raw between sheets of rice-coated seaweed).

Yes, what my wife refers to as comfort food (Congee, fish maw soup...) is radically different than what I would refer to as comfort food (hamburgers, french toast...)

Who died and made you the boss of their lives?

Apparently you are looking to have more exchanges with DMN.

there are cards? Like they have in Red Sox Nation? How do I get one?

here

what my wife refers to as comfort food (Congee, fish maw soup...)

No normal human being can make such a statement----EEWWWWWWWW!!

(I have to admit I share that sentiment myself---although now that I just Wiki'd "Congee," I suppose I could learn to live with that.)

Chip - you are obviously extremely confused or arguing in bad faith. If the former, I suggest you re-read what I wrote. If the latter, I suggest you find something better to do. Either way, my continued discussion with you is an exercise in futility.

Crosbybird -

Because your position is superficially defined. It isn't "it is proper to stick with established societal and cultural values" but "it is proper to stick with established societal and cultural values to the extent with which I agree with them." So I don't really understand your values. I can't follow your train of thought and your logic.

No, Crosbybird.

My position is that society is really complicated, and that none of us has any special window into the mind of God. Nor if we did is there any guarantee that our divine ideals would actually improve society. So I detest appeals to first principles, because we probably don't share them, and because even if we did they might end in disaster when actually applied. Instead, GIVEN that we live in a good and free society we should seek to preserve that, to fight ideologues who want to impose revolutionary ideas, and where necessary make small changes around the edges to react to economic developments, mend damages and keep things ship-shape. And where large changes may prove necessary, to keep them within the existing fabric as much as possible.

Of course, if you don't agree with the premise and you think the country you live in is fundamentally evil and malign then of course you won't want to preserve that and you won't mind revolutionary change because there is no baby to chuck out with the bathwater in your mind.

So I don't know how I'd feel if I grew up in your hypothetical society. I assumed you intended it to be that I would be really unhappy with things in it, and would want radical change. But who knows, maybe I'd accept things.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Republican Mike Huckabee responded to an offstage noise during his speech to the National Rifle Association by suggesting it was Barack Obama diving to the floor because someone had aimed a gun at him. Hearing a loud noise and interrupting his speech, Huckabee said: "That was Barack Obama. He just tripped off a chair. He's getting ready to speak and somebody aimed a gun at him and he — he dove for the floor."

There were only a few murmurs in the crowd after the remark.

The Obama campaign had no comment.


***

Chip - you are obviously extremely confused or arguing in bad faith. If the former, I suggest you re-read what I wrote. If the latter, I suggest you find something better to do. Either way, my continued discussion with you is an exercise in futility.

Dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge.

I quoted exactly what you wrote.

You've now said that infertile couples should be allowed to marry.

So it's not about having children. Which is the only thing you've offered so far that distinguishes a straight marriage from a gay marriage (and of course Dave has pointed out the other problems with the "having children" distinction, but I was trying to keep it simple).

Can you explain what other "differences in characteristics" set heterosexual marriages apart from homosexual ones?

Answer the question.

My position is that society is really complicated, and that none of us has any special window into the mind of God...Instead, GIVEN that we live in a good and free society we should seek to preserve that, to fight ideologues who want to impose revolutionary ideas, and where necessary make small changes around the edges to react to economic developments, mend damages and keep things ship-shape. And where large changes may prove necessary, to keep them within the existing fabric as much as possible.

In other words you are a classical conservative

Chip:

Let me place myself in AlouGoodbye's shoes and explain:

Homosexual couples should not be allowed to marry like heterosexual couples, because they are homosexual and the others are heterosexual. This is a difference, and because they are different, they should not allowed to marry. AlouGoodbye logic encapsulated.

No need to thank me.

(Or, he could come out and acknowledge that he opposes gay marriage on aesthetic grounds, but he's apparently too "PC" to do so [much though he purports to deride the concept of "political correctness," it's apparent he's censoring himself in the interest of political correctness on this issue. Either that, or he's simply a chickenshit.].)

Or, perhaps Alou is right, and there are legitimate "differences" between gay and straight marriage that we're overlooking, and that are so obvious that it's beneath him to tell us what they are. Yeah. That's it.

In other words you are a classical conservative

Hayekian.

Exact same argument used against interracial marriage.

(Or, he could come out and acknowledge that he opposes gay marriage on aesthetic grounds, but he's apparently too "PC" to do so [much though he purports to deride the concept of "political correctness," it's apparent he's censoring himself in the interest of political correctness on this issue. Either that, or he's simply a chickenshit.].)

Shorter version: he's a bigot.

And you're right, he's too chickenshit to say it publicly. So he plays dodgeball instead.

In case I wasn't entirely clear, Chip, I agree with you 100 percent on this issue, and am in fact mocking Mr. Goodbye.

Shorter version: he's a bigot.

Yes.

And you're right, he's too chickenshit to say it publicly. So he plays dodgeball instead.

Which is a whole lot more mockworthy than just being a bigot--rather, he's a bigot who thinks his readers are really, really stupid.

He mocks himself with his ignorance.

My position is that society is really complicated, and that none of us has any special window into the mind of God. Nor if we did is there any guarantee that our divine ideals would actually improve society. So I detest appeals to first principles, because we probably don't share them, and because even if we did they might end in disaster when actually applied.

"Society is complicated." "Nobody can comprehend the mind of God." "No proposed improvement is guaranteed to work."

These are, in themselves, first principles. You can't escape them. All beliefs stem from certain underlying principles. All conclusions stem from assumptions that are filtered through some reasoning process.

The goal is not to convince you to abandon or change your assumptions because they are different than mine. The goal is for me to understand your assumptions and for you to understand mine, and also for each of us to better understand our own positions. Hopefully, if some of those assumptions are supported by factual errors, the explanation process and the challenge of defending them will result in some learning. It might be me learning from you, or you learning from me, but ideally, we'll both learn from each other.

I don't really care what your beliefs are so much as why you have them. I'm not so sure of myself that I'm shut off from the possibility that I might be mistaken, and if I can follow your thought process, it helps refine my own beliefs whether I agree or disagree.

Instead, GIVEN that we live in a good and free society we should seek to preserve that,

How can you presuppose that? What are the qualities that make a society good? What are the qualities that make a society free?

to fight ideologues who want to impose revolutionary ideas

How do you confirm that an idea is revolutionary and not merely a logical extension of existing policy? You think gay marriage is revolutionary. I think the difference between marriage of two men and man/woman marriage is so trivial that it's practically nonsensical not to favor one if you favor the other.

, and where necessary make small changes

What changes are necessary? What changes are small?

Of course, if you don't agree with the premise and you think the country you live in is fundamentally evil and malign then of course you won't want to preserve that and you won't mind revolutionary change because there is no baby to chuck out with the bathwater in your mind.

How would you know if you didn't have first principles that helped you determine what was evil?

So I don't know how I'd feel if I grew up in your hypothetical society. I assumed you intended it to be that I would be really unhappy with things in it, and would want radical change. But who knows, maybe I'd accept things.

Maybe you'd think those were the right values and the society you live in now has terrible, backwards values. I'm giving you more credit than that. I'm saying that you do have certain values that would make you fit into some societies with comfort and cause other societies to make you uncomfortable.

Given that homosexuality is pretty well determined to be either inborn (genetic) or developed so early in the life of a human as to make it not a choice (and if you debate that, then you are saying you could switch over and start liking the same sex by "choice"), then gay marriage will have no real effect on the number of gay relationships. But would have the upside of creating more stable relationships/giving more incentive to not separate.

I would like to hear a single instance of how a homosexual marriage will have any detrimental impact on my own marriage. Just one. And not by declaring it will undermine the value of my marriage, but by an actual impact of any sort.

I would like to hear a single instance of how a homosexual marriage will have any detrimental impact on my own marriage.

You may (based on your income) pay relatively higher taxes because a number of homosexual couples will no longer subsidize your relationship without taking benefits for themselves.

And I will pay lower taxes when they can care for each other (combined wealth in old age).

Given that homosexuality is pretty well determined to be either inborn (genetic) or developed so early in the life of a human as to make it not a choice

I didn't realize this had been pretty well determined. I'm not saying homosexuality is or isn't a choice (I don't think it should matter either way), just that I'm not aware of any research that concludes homosexuality is genetic.

The idea that society can foster homosexuality has always been code to me for the opinion that homosexuality is bad. Let's say it is possible that society can encourage homosexuality- what's wrong with that? (other than the gross factor mentioned above...but really, man or woman, isn't there only a very small percentage of the population isn't pleasant to picture having sex...?) Tolerant societies will have higher rates of homosexuality because they'll be allowed to be open about it. Like when Ahmadinejad said that they didn't have homosexuals in Iran like there are in the US- the significant and repressed gay population there made the point that just because they're invisible and intangible doesn't mean they don't exist.

I'm running an exhibition of chimpanzees. Chip wants to enter his howler monkey. I tell him no, that's not a chimpanzee. He says "Why why, howler monkey, chimpanzee, what's the difference? Huh? Huh?" I tell him that for one thing, a howler monkey has a tail, whereas a chimpanzee doesn't (or has only a vestigial one). So Chip says "That's stupid, I could rip the tail off my howler monkey, then it would be a chimpanzee, right?" For the avoidance of doubt, I tell him no, your howler monkey will always be a howler monkey, no matter what you do to it. He now tells me that this proves that tails have nothing to do with a difference between howler monkeys and chimpanzees, and challenges me to make other distinctions. At this point I decide further discussion with Chip is pointless, and I leave him to his own views on biological taxonomy.

And I find it fascinating that I get labelled a bigot for defending what has been the practice of every recorded society in human history bar none. But I should not be surprised. In another thread I got called a Ba'athist for saying that most Iraqis feel a sense of national identity. The practice around here is to shout insults. Well whatever. Because the tone of this thread has been so good I've been happy to respond to everyone, but if people don't want to play nice then I guess I must change my behaviour accordingly.

JPWF13 - I am indeed, as I've said before. Thank you.

Crosbybird - the questions you raise are exactly the kind of questions that (forgive me) I find boring and pointless. I don't mean that as an insult in any way. It's just not interesting to me to think about these things - if you find it interesting, more power to you. I don't know what qualities make a society good or free*. I don't know how to determine evil from good. I don't think anyone really knows the answers to these questions. Or if they do they can't persuade others that their answers are correct. If someone is pro-abortion you won't persuade them to be anti, and if someone is anti-abortion you won't persuade them to be pro. What you might do is persuade the pro-abortion person that although abortion is just, there should be great restrictions on carrying it out. And you might persuade the anti-abortion person that although abortion is evil, laws to ban it entirely do more harm than good (this latter is my own position). And so you might be able to forge some kind of political settlement and compromise. Which to me is the whole point. I'm not really interested in the broad overarch. I'm interested in individual issues. Yes, it is a kind of first principle to say you can't appeal to first principles in settling these issues. But absent that, I don't see how deliberative democracy (or even polite dinner-party conversation) is meant to work.

How do you confirm that an idea is revolutionary and not merely a logical extension of existing policy?

This is a good question, and I suppose the answer depends on perspective. To this day historians argue over whether 1688 and 1776 were "conservative" or "radical" and whether the term "revolution" is appropriate for either.

* I mean you can talk about rule of law and individual rights but the former is really a wishy-washy concept and the latter are meaningless if you don't have the proper means to express them.

for defending what has been the practice of every recorded society in human history bar none.

I'm not calling you a bigot, but what practice are you talking about? Please please please don't say straight marriage...

I'm waiting to hear how a 95% homosexual society could evolve to viability in the first place, or if it burst forth fully formed, how it could survive after a generation or two.

I think that another factor is the deeply-engrained belief that the world we first experienced is "natural" and "normal" (Adam should not marry Steve, people who can't get up and down stairs should just stay home and act crippled,

That one sort of sounds directed at me, so to be clear, I couldn't care less what people who can't get up and down stairs do; the issue is whether they have the right to force other people to accommodate them.

Now we get absurd analogies in further quest of dodgeball, as a way of continuing to avoid the direct question.

I quoted your statements.

I asked you a question.

You still haven't answered the question.

The only conclusion from your repeated refusal to answer the question, to offer any substantive "difference in characteristics" between gay and straight marriages, is that you're a bigot who is too chickenshit to defend his own bigotry.

To repeat, from my earlier post:

You've now said that infertile couples should be allowed to marry.

So it's not about having children. Which is the only thing you've offered so far that distinguishes a straight marriage from a gay marriage (and of course Dave has pointed out the other problems with the "having children" distinction, but I was trying to keep it simple).

Can you explain what other "differences in characteristics" set heterosexual marriages apart from homosexual ones?

I'm waiting to hear how a 95% homosexual society could evolve to viability in the first place, or if it burst forth fully formed, how it could survive after a generation or two.

I'm totally willing to make the sacrifice and be the father of the next generation of humans.

I'm putting Chip on ignore now, but just so no-one else misunderstands my position: If you tear off your howler monkey's tail we do not classify it with tail-less creatures. If a couple have a medical problem such that they are unable to conceive, we try and find a cure, we don't ban them from getting married. So I'm quite happy that the capacity for having children is a legitimate distinction between homosexual and heterosexual couples, even though some people may be medically infertile and some people may simply not want kids.

Agreed. I don't start with "there should be gay marriage". There already is, and government can't really change that without grossly overstepping its bounds. I start with "because there is gay marriage, and because straight marriage receives certain legal recognitions/benefits, gay marriage should as well."

But to say that "there already is" gay marriage is to beg the question of what a marriage is. There exist gay couples who live together and hold themselves out as a being in an exclusive, committed relationship intended to be permanent. Does that make it a marriage? Is that what marriage is? There are gay couples who hold themselves out as married; is that what marriage is?

I'm totally willing to make the sacrifice and be the father of the next generation of humans

.

I would definitely support the government's stepping in to prevent that. ;-

I couldn't care less what people who can't get up and down stairs do

David, really, I hope you don't have the misfortune of a high-level spinal cord injury (although with your attitude, you've got it coming), and but if you did have one, and managed to survive the mental trauma associated with it, you'd be thanking all the people who fought to have ramps built in places where 30 years ago no one thought disabled people had the need to access. You'd be thankful that you live in a society that rather than cast you off on a chunk of ice has elected to at least try to help you overcome the obstacle. But again, my assumption is that you'd go from pitiless #### to suicidal within two weeks of losing the use of your legs.

BTW, you still can't answer the most fundamental questions at the heart of your intellectually bankrupt philosophy...

I'm totally willing to make the sacrifice and be the father of the next generation of humans.

Turgidson: Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn't that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?

Strangelove: Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious...service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature.

Russian Ambassador: I must confess, you have an astonishingly good idea there, Doctor.

Nice, I didn't even think about the Strangelove reference.

I'd totally need a *lot* of Red Bull though.

formerly_dp - it has not been "prooven" by any stretch of the imagination, but recent experiments have shown that "sexual orientation" is very likely to be biological in origin. But not strictly "genetic" in the "obviously heritable" sense