Working on my traditional marriage argument.

Where did Mr Graduate level study go?

 

It a pattern, as soon as you have her cornered she turns tail. She(?) is behind on 5 or 6 replies to quotes that I posted in response to some inane clap trap. I would like to know where she undertook her "graduate studies" I would advise everyone I know not to go there.

 

You could reply to what his post actually said.

 

He did say that.

I'm just curious if that was an actual anti gay marriage argument in Massachusetts.

 

Are you suggesting that the anti gay marriage postion only applies to the local community in which the anti gay protesters operate?
In other words, if there are people that oppose gay marriage in... Loisiana (for example) on religious grounds, those people would think it's fine in Massachusetts?

 

Judging by the wailing replies so far...I'd say you are pretty accurate.

 

Wailing responses? She is accurate? What is accurate about what was sent? Care to elaborate? I called her out on ever bit of this logically fallacious moronic, discriminatory clap trap and she has failed to respond. She went into hiding. Lets see what you have.

 

How do Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich go against the idea of traditional marriage?

 

Serial divorcees

 

They rant about the sanctity of marriage...whilst hey take their fourth or fifth wife.

Don't make me laugh.

 

Opponents made doomsday predictions about how gay marriage would damage traditional marriage and lead to problems with children raised in same-sex households. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/16/massachusetts-gay-marriage_n_4288726.html

 

The OP is such an epic fail and that the spanking already on this thread it would be piling on to say anything. So let me comment on the comments.

1. If you are opposed to gay people marrying the people they love, why are you not protesting drive through chapels that allow people to marry after knowing each other for a few hours? Why are you not attacking people with children who get divorced and remarried several times?

2. Those who now believe the government should get out of the marriage business sound like the guy who kills his ex so she doesn't marry someone else. Now that other people are getting the benefits of marriage that they don't like, they want to kill the institution.


Many houses of worship and religious traditions bless homosexual couples with marriage (for many centuries so did the Catholic church) and the government doesn't extend the rights heterosexual couples get. Also there are places that are making even civil unions illegal. The only reason for that is simple bigotry.

 

I'm not suggesting anything. I was asking the poster, who apparently lives in Massachusetts, about comments he made that anti gay marriage activists in Massachusetts, predicted the earth would swallow up the state if gay marriage was approved... again, in Massachusetts. So people opposing gay marriage in Louisiana are irrelevant to this since, I'm unaware of anyone making a similar claim about them.

 

Nothing in that article about the poster's contention that anti-gay marriage activists saying the Earth would open up and swallow the state. Your Puff Post article doesn't address that.

 

Are you saying the Catholic Church performed homosexual marriages? When and where was this?

 

http://www.amazon.com/Same-Sex-Unions-Premodern-Europe-Boswell/dp/0679751645

There is a whole book about it.

 

Do you understand sarcasm ?

- - - Updated - - -

Do you understand sarcasm ?

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Do you understand sarcasm ?

 

Of course I do Sheldon.

 

Sorry, I'm having a hard time seeing where he said "anti gay marriage activists in Massachusetts, predicted the earth would swallow up the state if gay marriage was approved"...
Perhaps you could point it out?

The only reference I see to Massachusetts refers to the location of the gay marriage, not to the anti-gay activists.

 

I was simply using an example to detail how some of the Anti-Gay Marriage people...and mostly these people were from OUTSIDE MASSACHUSETTS....were coming in to our state from OTHER STATES....to protest in front of the State House and attempt to rally Massachusetts citizens to start Mass Protests over the Gay Marriage Bill that passed.

In reality since most people in Massachusetts are MODERATE....even though we have a primarily Democratic Legislature we OFTEN have a Republican Governor...as a BALANCE as just as I am most people in Massachusetts are FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE AND SOCIALLY LIBERAL.

Well all these out of state Anti-Gay Groups mostly Southern and Midwestern Baptist Christian Groups and few Ultra-Right Wing Family Value Groups came into Mass. and basically....no one paid attention to them.

And as we do have legal Gay Marriage in Mass....no one really cares about that either...BECAUSE WE HAVE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO DO AND WORK ON THAN SUCH STUPID FLASH POINT ISSUES!!!

AboveAlpha

 

Actually, most of them come from single mothers.

 

As the subject matter is about same sex marriage and how children are supposedly doing worse due to the lack of both sets of parents .. your comment has nothing to offer to the discussion.

The premise made was;

My response was on topic, yours is not.

 

I thought that this would be a good place to repost this article and my response to it since Kolasinski also made a failed attempt to present a secular argument against gay marriage . The fact is that there really is no secular argument that will stand up to scrutiny.

Adam Kolasinski Debunked http://tech.mit.edu/V124/N5/kolasinski.5c.html

Kolasinski "The debate over whether the state ought to recognize gay marriages has thus far focused on the issue as one of civil rights. Such a treatment is erroneous because state recognition of marriage is not a universal right. States regulate marriage in many ways besides denying men the right to marry men, and women the right to marry women. Roughly half of all states prohibit first cousins from marrying, and all prohibit marriage of closer blood relatives, even if the individuals being married are sterile. In all states, it is illegal to attempt to marry more than one person, or even to pass off more than one person as one’s spouse. Some states restrict the marriage of people suffering from syphilis or other venereal diseases. Homosexuals, therefore, are not the only people to be denied the right to marry the person of their choosing. "

Progressive Patriot:The fact is that gays who want to marry one consenting adult of their choice, who they are unrelated to, are only asking for the same right granted to heterosexual couples. There is no compelling government reason, or even a rational basis as to why gay couples should not have those same rights. Even if you could make the questionable argument that “ marriage “ itself is not a right, the fact that gays are being denied equal protection under the law as well as due process. (I'll get into the procreation matter later) The fact that marriage is regulated in other areas as mentioned here is irrelevant in that those restrictions apply equally to gay and straight couples and are extraneous to the debate and a distraction from the issue of equality. While it's true that gays are not the only ones that are not allowed to marry the one of their choosing, they are treated differently than straight couples who must also adhere to those same restriction. Therefore it is in fact very much a civil rights issue.

Kolasinski:" marriage between two unrelated heterosexuals is likely to result in a family with children, and propagation of society is a compelling state interest. For this reason, states have, in varying degrees, restricted from marriage couples unlikely to produce children.
Granted, these restrictions are not absolute. A small minority of married couples are infertile. However, excluding sterile couples from marriage, in all but the most obvious cases such as those of blood relatives, would be costly. Few people who are sterile know it, and fertility tests are too expensive and burdensome to mandate. One might argue that the exclusion of blood relatives from marriage is only necessary to prevent the conception of genetically defective children, but blood relatives cannot marry even if they undergo sterilization. Some couples who marry plan not to have children, but without mind-reading technology, excluding them is impossible. Elderly couples can marry, but such cases are so rare that it is simply not worth the effort to restrict them. The marriage laws, therefore, ensure, albeit imperfectly, that the vast majority of couples who do get the benefits of marriage are those who bear children."


Progressive Patriot: In today’s society, marriage is about far more than having children. It is much more about a status, about economics and about security. If the inability to reproduce is valid reason to deny marriage, should we allow ANYONE who cannot or chooses not to have children to marry?. What about heterosexual couples who are past child barring age? It's not rare at all and it would not be hard or costly to identify them. What about a younger couple who may not be able to have children? Perhaps marriages should be automatically void after a certain time if no children are produced. That would solve the problem and expense of fertility testing. Anyone who does not like these ideas, will have to drop “reproduction” as an issue. I will add that gay people can and do have children. The fact that hetero couples may have children more frequently is irrelevant . The only difference is that one parent is not a biological parent…but wait isn’t that also the case with many heterosexual couples? Lastly, advocating denial a civil right because it might cost something is opprobrious. The question should not be about the benefits to the state or to society that might justify same sex marriage, but rather, about what compelling interest there is for denying marriage equality. In other words, the burden of proof is on those who would deny that right.

Kolasinski: Homosexual relationships do nothing to serve the state interest of propagating society, so there is no reason for the state to grant them the costly benefits of marriage, unless they serve some other state interest. The burden of proof, therefore, is on the advocates of gay marriage to show what state interest these marriages serve. Thus far, this burden has not been met.

Progressive Patriot: When did propagation become a state interest? Do we have a problem with too few people? True, the population is aging and that's a problem, but immigration of younger people is balancing that out. Gay marriages may not serve a "state interest" and provide a direct monetary gain-and may in fact cost something( as though that were a reason to deny a civil right) marriage in itself does provide a societal benefit-more stable families, healthier people mentally and physically and yes-homes for children and thus an indirect benefit to the state. In any case, neither procreation nor marriage itself is to serve the states interest , it is to serve the individual and family interest , which in fact has been successfully argued in the courts and in the court of public opinion as evidenced by the groundswell of support for SSM not to mention the fact that it is legal in 16 states and DC, the most egregious section of DOMA was repealed as well as the overturning of prop 8 in California

Kolasinski ":One may argue that lesbians are capable of procreating via artificial insemination, so the state does have an interest in recognizing lesbian marriages, but a lesbian’s sexual relationship, committed or not, has no bearing on her ability to reproduce. Perhaps it may serve a state interest to recognize gay marriages to make it easier for gay couples to adopt. However, there is ample evidence (see, for example, David Popenoe’s Life Without Father) that children need both a male and female parent for proper development. Unfortunately, small sample sizes and other methodological problems make it impossible to draw conclusions from studies that directly examine the effects of gay parenting. However, the empirically verified common wisdom about the importance of a mother and father in a child’s development should give advocates of gay adoption pause. The differences between men and women extend beyond anatomy, so it is essential for a child to be nurtured by parents of both sexes if a child is to learn to function in a society made up of both sexes. Is it wise to have a social policy that encourages family arrangements that deny children such essentials? Gays are not necessarily bad parents, nor will they necessarily make their children gay, but they cannot provide a set of parents that includes both a male and a female. "

Progressive Patriot: Of all the baseless and inane arguments against gay marriage, the most shameful ones are those by people who insist that same sex marriage and adoption of children by gays will be detrimental to those children, and that society as a whole, will somehow be harmed by these arrangements. They take the position that children are entitled to a “mom and a dad” That may be so but the reality is that many people in this life do not have everything that they are entitled to. There are many children without both a mother and a father, and some without either. Banning gay marriage and adoption is not going to change that.

Children also have a right to a stable, nurturing and permanent home and it is well established that that goal can be realized in a variety of family structures. The NJ Department of Families and Children-the public agency charged with the responsibility of finding adoptive homes for children –states, in part, on their web site that no one will be denied the opportunity to adopt based on sexual orientation. In fact, the state agency responsible for child protective services and adoption in my state has been placing children for adoption with gay and lesbian people- those who are single and those who are in a relationship- for decades with good outcomes for the children. And there are many, many more who still need homes while there is a dearth of people willing and able to adopt them. I know this because I worked in the foster care and adoption field in New Jersey for 26 years.

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

Denying gay and lesbians the opportunity to marry does nothing to ensure that any greater number of children will have a home with a mother and a father. All that will be accomplished will be to deny numerous children the legal rights, protections, status and stability that comes with having married parents. And, to deny gays the ability to adopt will only ensure that more children will have neither a mother nor a father. Everyone is entitled to their moral views and religious beliefs but it is disingenuous and opprobrious to use children as pawns in the lost fight against equality by bloviating about how children would be harmed by it. While single people can be great parents, the benefits to children of allowing two people who are in a committed relationship to be married are obvious for anyone willing to look at the issue objectively. Those who truly care about children should be willing to open all of the possible pathways for them to be adopted and to have married parents when possible.

Kolasinski: "Some argue that homosexual marriages serve a state interest because they enable gays to live in committed relationships. However, there is nothing stopping homosexuals from living in such relationships today. Advocates of gay marriage claim gay couples need marriage in order to have hospital visitation and inheritance rights, but they can easily obtain these rights by writing a living will and having each partner designate the other as trustee and heir. There is nothing stopping gay couples from signing a joint lease or owning a house jointly, as many single straight people do with roommates. The only benefits of marriage from which homosexual couples are restricted are those that are costly to the state and society. "

Progressive Patriot: "Cost to society? There is no other matter concerning people’s rights where the question of cost is raised. What is the monetary value of a civil right and what cost will justify denying that right? In addition, I keep hearing “I support full rights for gays but they should not be able to call it marriage” and “Civil Unions are the same thing, why all the fuss?” Why all the fuss indeed? First of all there is much in words, especially such a powerful, universally understood word as marriage. A word conveys a status, it means that people who that word applies to have certain rights that others may not have. “Citizen” or Citizenship is another such word. What if the law of the land was, that while all citizens had all the same rights and protections, naturalized citizens could not actually call themselves “Citizens.” Perhaps they could be called “Permanent Civil Residents” Does anyone think that these people would actually feel like real citizens who are full accepted by society? How long would it be before these people got sick of explaining what a “Permanent Civil Resident” is. It would be especially difficult when dealing with people from other countries, or travelling abroad where everyone is just a “citizen” They would have to explain their status every time they applied for a job, applied for a passport, or renewed a driver’s license. They would be sure to encounter people who were ignorant of the term, or perhaps looking for a reason to stand in their way and deny them their rights. Get the point?

Secondly, jurisdictions where civil unions exist do not always provide full equality. Now you will say that can be remedied by legislation. Well, I’m here to tell you that is not so easy. A few years ago, the New Jersey Supreme Court mandated that Civil Unionized people have all of the same rights as married people. However, the reality is a different thing” http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/nyregion/28civil.html

And you might also want to read http://www.gardenstateequality.org/issues/civilunions/
In addition, under federal law, the disparity is even greater, especially now that DOMA has been overturned but couples who are restricted to civil unions do not benefit from that http://www.now.org/issues/marriage/marriage_unions.html

Lastly, I don’t believe for a nanosecond that those who claim that they support equal rights for gays but not marriage actually want and support equality. They are threatened by the idea of gays being able to call their unions “marriage” because if they did , THEN they would ACTUALLY be equal. All of the hoopla about the word is based on that fear. They must defend at all costs the great and stable institution of traditional marriage where the median age for a woman’s pregnancy is now lower that the median age of marriage and where half of these traditional unions end in divorce. Please consider the possibility that redefining marriage may actually strengthen the institution with an influx of stable relationships , and committed partners. Please consider that married same sex couples will simply blend in and become part of the social fabric. However, if you can’t do that, at least be honest and admit that you really don’t buy the “equality” line either.

Kolasinski "The biggest danger homosexual civil marriage presents is the enshrining into law the notion that sexual love, regardless of its fecundity, is the sole criterion for marriage. If the state must recognize a marriage of two men simply because they love one another, upon what basis can it deny marital recognition to a group of two men and three women, for example, or a sterile brother and sister who claim to love each other? Homosexual activists protest that they only want all couples treated equally. But why is sexual love between two people more worthy of state sanction than love between three, or five? When the purpose of marriage is procreation, the answer is obvious. If sexual love becomes the primary purpose, the restriction of marriage to couples loses its logical basis, leading to marital chaos."

Progressive Patriot: The question posed is an important and interesting one but irrelevant to the current discussion of marriage equality for gays. This question obfuscates the real issue of marriage equality –gay couples who want nothing more than to have the same rights as hetero couples. The issue of redefining marriage in any other way.is not on the table and has NOTHING to do with the current debate. Equality means equal to what heterosexual people can do that is generally accepted by society and is legal. When, and if the issue of group marriages or whatever comes up, it will be an entirely different discussion. Why, because it won’t just concern gays but rather everyone who engages in or wishes to engage in marriage, not to mention society as a whole. If anyone thinks that marriage equality as it is currently being discussed will upset the applecart of society think what that would do. AGAIN, it is not now an issue. Those using as an issue are engaging in scare tactics ….the old slippery slope argument and it’s a bogus one. Even if you can make the argument that to redefine marriage will embolden others to further alter it down the road, you can not penalize people who want something now, because of what it may lead to later

Others have responded to him as well: http://bettystoneman.wordpress.com/...nski’s-“a-secular-case-against-gay-marriage”/

 

What silliness. It was a direct response to your quoted post. Children do best with both their married mother and father in the home specifically because the most common alternative is a single mother and absent or even unknown fathers.

 

The single mother and grandmother are consenting adults. What justification is there for excluding the related? Other than the fact you only require special treatment for gays. After all, they "are only asking for the same right granted to heterosexual couples".