The only Non-God anti same sex marriage arguments I have heard are fatally flawed. Their arguments all place procedure over progress.
Um... since when is anything done through the government and the course of law NOT procedure over progress... Governments are set in place for rationally arguing both sides of a debate through a set of procedures. If we didn't follow procedure, it would end up in anarchy and / or mob-rule. And although the procedure may be slow in its actions, it also prevents knee-jerk reactions by allowing for a more thorough study of the issue.
Also who said that these are anti same-sex marriage arguments? Through this entire thread I have been trying to distinguish between the arguments for same-sex marriage as being a part of contractual and family law versus a civil liberty issue. If this gets framed as a civil liberties issue, then the Supreme Court will essentially be saying that marriage is an unalienable right that all citizens have a right to, and therefore foist this view on all of the states. This may also open the door for the state to intrude on religion... If marriage is considered a civil right, then people could sue a church (or other faith-based organizations) for not allowing it.
If on the other hand this remains a states issue, as is all family law, then we may have a nation where some states allow it and others will disallow it. Eventually, as Flackle stated, if the law is good for the entire population, then eventually all states will adopt it. Just like homicide is a state law, not necessarily a federal one, even though all states criminalize murder and so it is up to the states to prosecute and adjudicate violations. Since this thread was predicated on "a huge court case going on about this and people are protesting" I have been framing my feelings on the court action to this issue.
For what it's worth, in our state's most recent election, there was a marriage amendment on the ballot on which I voted no (thus
not making "marriage" as being defined as being between a man and a woman) since for our state, the proponents made there stand more about religious reasons, and I simply did not see how the benefits of marriage (within the state without a religious context) should have only been between members of the opposite sex. Mostly, since a lot of the debate (in a non-religious sense) centers around legal issues that automatically comes through during the course of a marriage contract but would have to be done more manually in a homosexual partnership, I don't see it wrong to allow homosexuals to have that same automatic benefits of the partnership. For example, hospitals may state that only family members are allowed to visit a patient even after normal visiting hours, and spouses are considered family. Although a homosexual person may write a medical directive to allow their partner this benefit as well, this is an extra step that married people don't have to bother with. Since there is no rational reason to prevent this, then just allow homosexuals the same benefit.
There are only a few non-religious arguments against same-sex marriage that I can understand (although I don't fully support). The first is that only heterosexual unions produce children, and since a country thrives on having a healthy population, it may want to promote population growth by giving heterosexual partnerships added benefits. While this may be true, esp. for places with a low population, I don't think the US is really suffering from a lack of population. In fact it might be argued that we are having more of an opposite problem. And that marriage doesn't necessarily correlate to having children since some heterosexual couples have children out of wedlock while some married couples are physically unable to have children. Another argument that I've heard is that all things being equal children are better raised in a heterogeneous family instead of a homogeneous one (eg a male child may not have a male role model if he were a child of a lesbian couple (and vice vs. with a female child had gay male parents). Although this argument may have merit were it true that "all things being equal" could be put to heterosexual couples, but even among the heterosexual population, things aren't always equal. A male child may not have a male role model if he lived in a single-parent household. Does that mean we should ban single mothers from taking care of her child? Conversely it might be argued that if its given that a heterogeneous family raises a more well-rounded child, then perhaps instead of merely requiring a marriage to be heterogeneous in terms of gender, why stop there and define marriage as being between two people of the opposite sex and of different races.
@Flackle: When I was saying that laws defining marriage as being between two people of the opposite sex was not
directly against homosexuals getting married, was to point out the difference between a law having a disparate impact upon a group versus being completely against a particular group. For example, most states disallow felons from voting. It could be argued that in a particular state, since the majority of the felon population is of a minority race, that the law is against minorities. But this is not accurate... Even though the minorities will be disparately impacted by such a law doesn't mean that the law is truly against minorities, and thus is not a civil rights issue of racial discrimination. Likewise defining marriage as being between a man and a woman has a disparate impact on homosexuals, esp. since in the general sense of the term people marry someone they are in love with, but is not necessarily discriminatory against homosexuals from getting married, as long as they follow that it is with someone of the opposite sex.
Community Forum
Topic: Being Gay and Same Sex Marriages......Huh ! (Read 4553 times)
February 08, 2011, 09:41:31 am
