The Bible is not a justification for banning gay marriage. Legalize it.
Consequentialist Libertarian said 02/20, 03:21 PM
The most common argument against gay marriage is that ???marriage is an institution of god???. To which the answer is, yes, you may believe that, but if so it is no business of the state to impose a religious choice. Indeed, in America the Constitution expressly bans the involvement of the state in religious matters, so it would be especially outrageous if the Constitution were now to be used for religious ends. If we want to make law based on the Bible then we must also stone our kids to death for acting up, or sell our daughters into slavery. Using the Bible to justify discrimination is a non sequitur in a debate; you cannot use the Bible to justify the Bible. And why exactly are they against gays marrying? Surely it isn???t the sanctity of marriage, after all 50% of all marriages end in divorce. After all marriage is really just a binding commitment, legal, social, and personal, between two people to take on special obligations to one another; to look at it in any other way is foolish.
PhilSandifer said 02/20, 04:01 PM
I think this misrepresents many of the arguments against gay marriage, which do not seem to me to be simple Biblical arguments. I support gay marriage - I have numerous gay relatives in committed long-term relationships, and I am unable and unwilling to call them anything other than what they are in spirit and practice - unions as strong as any marriage.
The problem is that marriage is an area where our separation of church and state is heavily blurred, with marriages normally performed by religious officiants. We let the religious and social institutions to become intermingled, and we cannot pretend that we can change one without affecting the other.
The solution does not seem to me to legalize gay marriage - it is to establish that the civic institution of marriage that exists for legal reasons is not the same one that exists for religious reasons. The government should not be sanctioning marriages - it should be sanctioning legal unions between any two consenting adults. And churches should allow the unions that are consistent with their faith. They may ban things the government sanctions, and allow things the government does not. That's OK. Church and state should be separate
Consequentialist Libertarian said 02/21, 08:26 AM
You state that you support gay marriage, then you state that we should not legalize gay marriage. Make up your mind.
Regardless of whether it is blurred or not, religious bigotry is not a justification for discrimination. As Thomas Jefferson put it, "Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law". You state that the arguments against gay marriage aren't rooted in the Bible, yet your entire argument is religious in context. Again, please make up your mind.
I do not recall arguing that we should force churches to marry homosexuals. You reiterated what I stated, and took credit for it. Congrats. And if you want to discuss religion and marriage, for several hundred years the Catholic Church married homosexuals; historically it was not a problem until the 18th century.
You stated that the arguments against gay marriage are not "biblical arguments", so I challenge you to come up with an argument that is not biblical in nature. You have proven a single thing; how you ended up with three votes bewilders me. Please provide a thesis, and defend it; you have yet to do either.
I would also remind the viewers that we are to judge off of the quality of the argument
PhilSandifer said 02/21, 09:39 AM
I think you may have misunderstood my argument. I said I support legal recognition of gay unions. That is distinct from supporting gay marriage - it is more akin to supporting civil union laws. Except I dislike the separate but equal nature of that.
The solution is to stop having the legal and religious institutions of marriage be the same. Civil unions should be all the government recognizes. Any two consenting adults should be able to enter into one. That should be the institution that grants tax breaks, legal rights, etc.
Marriages should be private matters for people to enter into based on their desires and the rules of their faith. The government should have no part whatsoever in them. If your church allows child marriage or multiple marriage, fine. But the government won't recognize that union as legally valid. If your church forbids same sex marriage or interracial marriage, fine. But the government will still recognize civil unions between such people. Note that this also solves the problem of the government forbidding polygamy as opposed to simply not granting tax benefits to polygamous marriages. Marriage is a religious institution and should not have a civic aspect.
Consequentialist Libertarian said 02/21, 12:59 PM
Why in the world did you take on this argument? You are restating everything that I have already stated. We are in complete agreement. You are wasting my time and yours. You need to forfeit. We have nothing to argue except semantics. All you have done is contradict yourself, then repeat me.
I guess the only argument we have is whether or not gay marriage is really marriage; I argue that it is. Considering the opposition to homosexuality exhibited by some modern denominations of Christianity, the most striking historical evidence of same-sex marriages arises from the doctrines of the early Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches. In the early middle ages, same-sex marital liturgies existed in the church's formal collections virtually identical to those for different-sex marriages. These ceremonies, performed by priests in Catholic churches, were widespread in the fifth century. Evidence of same-sex marriage ceremonies existed through the nineteenth century.
http://www.law.fsu.edu/journals/lawreview/frames/252/kanotxt.html
The Catholic Church used to recognize same-sex marriage:
http://www.waf.org/familyarchives/marriage/Historys%20view%20on%20gay%20marriage.htm
PhilSandifer said 02/21, 04:53 PM
I think there is a genuine difference between your position - we must legalize gay marriage - and mine - that marriage and civil unions are different concepts that should be treated differently. Your position is, quite frankly, clearly based on a disrespect for the faith of a large portion of America. Mine is based on the idea that the separation of church and state does not mean that the government needs to or should go out of its way to offend and alienate people of faith.
To legalize gay marriage within the current legal definitions of marriage is understandably problematic to many people. It is not problematic to me. But I am sympathetic to the fact that there are people with genuine religious objections to it. And as long as marriage is a place where the line between church and state is blurred, these objections do have validity. And as long as every state recognizes clergy as people empowered to create state-sanctioned unions, that blurred line exists. Legalizing gay marriage is insufficient. We need to fundamentally sever the civic institution of legal union from its religious counterpart.
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Why should the governmentg only sanction the union of two consenting adults? Why not three or four or more? If I wish to define my "marriage" or even my Union as different from a traditionally rooted one, then it would be discrimination on the governments part to exclude me because I married my Cousin and my sister.
Steve from Indiana | 02/20/08
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Steve - Because one of the benefits associated with legal marriage is a non-trivial tax break and a wealth of decision-making powers. The government has an interest both in preventing "mass unions" that would serve primarily to create excessive tax breaks and loopholes, and to preventing cult-like groups from using the legal union laws to gain extended control over their members. For reasons that have nothing to do with the promotinon of heterosexuality the government is invested in giving tax breaks and benefits for the creation of family units that function as a limited economic partnership. Again, though - if you can find a church that wants to let you marry your cousin and sister, more power to you. But the government does have a meaningful investment in not providing financial incentive for such unions that is separate from any investment in the genital politics involved.
PhilSandifer | 02/20/08
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Actually Steve from Indiana, Marriage is rooted in economics, not religion; study some history.
Consequentialist Libertarian | 02/21/08
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CL's argument: Homosexual couples should be allowed to have the same po-tay-toes that straight couples do. Phil's argument: No. Everyone should be allowed to have po-tah-toes instead.
IamFry | 02/21/08
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Because you seem to agree, I'll vote for the one who made the claim; if I stand corrected, I'll change my vote (I just found out you can do that).
IamFry | 02/21/08
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Thank you guys; that is exactly what I am saying. This was a pointless debate, because we aren't really debating. I'm willing to debate semantics so this isn't a complete waste of time, but he really did reiterate everything i said.
Consequentialist Libertarian | 02/21/08
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I despise religion yet I am married. Marriage is NOT about religion. My motive for marriage: the financial and legal benefits and love of course. The silly slippery slope - marry my dog or sister - religious based rhetoric - is garbage. essentially, a ban on gay-marriage is as an excuse to discriminate against a group of well meaning citizens. Lets think about this in terms of conservative-slippery-slope-reasoning. If we decide to restrict marriage rights to only the religious whats next; restricting marriage only to Jewish-Christian-Islamic marriage, then only to those who attend church regularly, then only to those who tithe??? I love how conservatives claim they don't want "the government" all-up-in their lives, yet they want to force their restrictive morals down the throats of the rest of us.
Bird Turgler | 02/21/08
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I think there is a genuine difference in position here. CL wants to take an institution that blurs the line between church and state and make a change to it that would reasonably offend a number of religious people. I want to separate the two. In other words, CL would prefer to have an institution that declines to fully separate church and state, and then to use that institution to attack a number of churches. I would prefer to have actual separation of church and state instead. And this is clearly a genuine point of disagreement - if it were not then Oregon, Connecticut, Vermont, and New Jersey would have opted for gay marriage instead of civil union. The difference is real. And I know many people on the pro gay-marriage side adamantly disagree with the position that civil unions are an acceptable solution. To declare that those two sides are equivalent is silly. If your problem is that the debate is not between two sides that are utterly unsympathetic to each other's claims, I suppose that's fine. For my part, I find it more interesting and productive to debate areas where there is a substantial area of genuine agreement. If you would have rather seen a debate between a vehement fundamentalist and CL, I apologize. I genuinely believe that a debate between people with actual common ground is more valuable.
PhilSandifer | 02/21/08
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Technically, Phil, I agree with you that the state could avoid some trouble, maybe, by not using the term 'marriage' any more. But I think that your side of the argument is supposed to be, "The Bible IS a justification for banning gay marriage. DON'T Legalize it."
IamFry | 02/21/08
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I do not believe that the government has any place in marriage; however I realize that it is not going to change. Therefore, it is ridiculous to ban one group from having the same benefits as another, based off of religious bigotry. That was the debate at hand, and he should have refrained from posting.
Consequentialist Libertarian | 02/21/08
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And Phil, how can you have Barry Goldwater as your avatar, yet support Obama?
Consequentialist Libertarian | 02/21/08
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Your objection seems to be that I did not adopt the straw man position you set up, and instead went with an actually nuanced argument. Clearly from the votes the culture of the site prefers extremist straw men to subtlety. A pity. As for my choice of avatars, I have great respect for Goldwater. I support Obama because I think, of the candidates running, he is the one who will do the most short and long-term good for the country, and while my personal preferences generally run a bit Libertarian I do tend to think that the movement of history and the realistic aspects of politics necessitate choices based on who would be good for the country right now instead of ideological choices. That said, an Obama avatar seemed a bit too trendy. So I at least wanted an avatar that amused me. It was between Goldwater and Ahmadinejad. Goldwater seemed funnier. If nothing else, "Goldwater" is a funnier name.
PhilSandifer | 02/22/08
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The act of getting married is a christian ceremony. 1. If you're gay, you cannot be Christian. Part of being Christian is of course, accepting the Christian beliefs. Christians do not believe homosexuals should be married, or that they should even exist. So, if you're gay you can't be Christian imo. 2. Gays should be allowed civil engagements, or whatever you choose to call it. Where legally the couple is bound in the same way a marriage binds two people.
papabear | 02/22/08
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Marriage is historically an economic affair. The Bible says nothing about gays cannot be Christian. The Catholic Church used to marry gays; that point is bunk.
Consequentialist Libertarian | 02/28/08
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Gay love is not a justification for coopting an institution that is religious in origin, is promoted by the state as the basis for stable homes and communities in the larger picture. Most gay folk I know could give a rip about religious morays and are simply looking for the legal grounds for employer and government obligations to benefits and entitlements only afforded to the heterosexual-married couples. Argue for what you really want and stop blowing smoke up our cross dressing skirts.
Steve from Indiana | 02/20/08
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