Oh son of a...
I knew I should've started up a betting pool on how soon JWL would give his "I give up, I'm not talking no mores" post.
JWL, look, you've gone through the same routine
three times already. You really should start assessing the validity of your arguments, because you have yet to offer any convincing logic behind
any of the things that've caused you to throw up your hands and give up discussion (you've made good points in other threads, but not those three instances in particular--which all center around homosexuality/gay marriage, incidentally - EDIT: two out of three did, my mistake).
So far, all your arguments have been grasping at straws and using logical fallacies (cf., your argument that homosexuality or support of gay marriage is equivalent to hedonism--I did point out your fallacy, but it wasn't until after you made your "I'm not talking any more" post there).
If you feel confident in your position, you should be able to come up with a logical reason behind what you claim. You've yet to do that.
For the purposes of discussion, I'm going to assume that you're still reading.
JWL wrote:I'd give a serious reply, but last time I did that, it was a waste of my time. I could explain why it's in the government's best interest to support heterosexual marriage, which is why it does so, and it really doesn't have anything to do with making people happy. I could attempt to explain that marriage is about more than the selfish desires of two (or more) people, and that it actually has quite a bit to do with society staying afloat.
Here's the problem. Making the claim that it's in government or society's best interest to support exclusively heterosexual marriage is a
very tall order. If you only want to make the claim that your religious beliefs do not condone--or actively condemn--homosexual marital union, then that's a very easy claim to make by comparison (and easy to back up, at that). But if you want to claim that society is somehow harmed by
legal gay marriage (as opposed to religiously-recognized marriage), then you would have to explain just how society itself is harmed by gay marriage. So far, you've only proven that it offends some people's sensibilities, but that's not enough to make the claim you're trying to give.
Let me bring up an analogy, and judging by the way your stock responses are usually worded, I doubt that this is an analogy you're used to considering...
So, let's consider interfaith marriage, from a religious and legal standpoint. Specifically, my religion strongly discourages marriage between a Muslim and a non-monotheist (e.g., Muslim-Hindu, Muslim-Buddhist, etc., although Muslim-Christian, Muslim-Jewish, or Muslim-Sabean are permissible in certain circumstances). It's even possible to make the argument that such a marriage between a Muslim and Hindu, for example, will not be recognized religiously; the only reason why I won't make such an argument is that I don't consider myself to be a religious scholar.
Now, personally, I can give many reasons as to why I, myself, would strongly discourage such a marriage. They'd be logical reasons, too--such as how the children would be raised, and issues of fairness between whether the family would follow the traditions of one religion or the other when they conflict with one another.
The question is: does that mean that the government, legally, can refuse to recognize a Muslim-Hindu marriage? Some governments are established such that they can. Ours, however, is not--and yes, it does tie back to that pesky establishment clause.
Fact is, not only is Congress disallowed from respecting a particular religious establishment, but Congress has no mandate on how religious a person should be. In other words, even if
both Islam and Hinduism forbade a Muslim-Hindu marriage, there's no way that the government can mandate how much a particular Muslim or Hindu must follow his or her religious traditions (if that were the case, Muslims wouldn't be allowed to purchase alcohol, and Hindus wouldn't be allowed to purchase beef). It doesn't even matter if most people in either religion would oppose such a marriage--because, yet again, there's no room for government to mandate how much a given person must follow his or her own religious traditions.
Perhaps the marriage has a very low probability of working out, but unless there's an obvious concern of coercion (as would be the case in, say, a child-adult marriage), or a risk of abuse (as would perhaps be the case in a polygamous marriage), or some other element of harm involved, then there's no room in which the government would be able to intervene.
Now let's bring that back to the topic here... In order for there to be a
legal basis (or perhaps more accurately, a Constitutional basis for the laws in place) for the prohibition of gay marriage, there has to be some apparent risk or harm involved in allowing gay marriage (this can include harm to the people involved in the marriage itself). Per the example I gave above, it's not enough just to give reasons why most people would oppose it, which until now is pretty much all you've been able to prove.
Feel free to offer the reasons you were trying to give before, talking about the actual harm to society that would come as a result. I know full well that most people would disagree with the main points I've been making thus far, but I still have yet to see a remotely convincing argument that would support the laws in place that bar gay marriage in the United States. KF
