Dumping gay marriage prop in California is getting intense

[Tetro Kornbluth]

If it is genetic and their were a test to prove that would you support abortions if the women did it for that reason? I would still say HELL NO of course, but just curious as to what the pro-infanticide folks think.

I don't understand why we're bringing abortion into this topic, other than maybe to play Moral One-Up or something?

Someone brought up the silly notion that homosexuality was genetic.

As if that is really relevant.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

The people for gay marriage are missing the point here and are not being considerate of facts.
They are not willing to find common ground, but instead wanting to force this issue.  Like I said before in this post - homosexual marriage will  NEVER BE ACCPECTED.  By forcing this without taking a step back and maybe reevaluate the issue, or finding common ground will not help the case for gay rights. 

Like Miscegination? Or Abolitionism?

Come on, that arguement makes no logical sense whatsoever.

Other than that, this thread has got 18 pages. Why do topics relating only to Sex and occasionally Drugs get this much attention? (Actually DON'T Answer, because I think I know why already, but if you think I'm wrong then go ahead...)

[Tetro Kornbluth]

obviously, I didn't start lying on the first day of my life, but I inherited a sinful nature that predisposed me to sin. 

No, you didn't. You were born free of sin.

I might not have sinned while I was an infant, but that doesn't mean I wasn't born ingrained with a sinful nature:

Psa 51:5 "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me."

So, then, we can conclude that we were born with a sinful nature, but we don't sin as infants (as you stated)...but at some point in our early lives, the sinful nature awakens and we become condemned:

Rom 7:9 "Sin sprang to life and I died"

Jmfcst, what you fail to realize is that nobody here cares.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

The idea that marriage has a "primary purpose" is ridiculous and smacks of the worst sort of popular sociology, I doubt much people who get married think they do so for the sake of whatever children they may have.

(If they so, it is much higher now than say, 50 years ago.)

[Tetro Kornbluth]

I doubt much people who get married think they do so for the sake of whatever children they may have.

(If they so, it is much higher now than say, 50 years ago.)

Well, a lot of people (in Britain anyway, I don't know about elsewhere) these days marry after they've had their first child, so it might be a factor in those (just an assumption really).

Ah, but that suggests a response (to me anyway) that is due to convention or an ideal view of marriage itself rather than "we must have a better structure to look after the kids". (Which probably suggests that people who do marry after their first children have on average put more thought into looking after their children then those that don't, ergo it will probably end up being a more stable relationship.)

[Tetro Kornbluth]

I doubt much people who get married think they do so for the sake of whatever children they may have.

(If they so, it is much higher now than say, 50 years ago.)

Well, a lot of people (in Britain anyway, I don't know about elsewhere) these days marry after they've had their first child, so it might be a factor in those (just an assumption really).

Ah, but that suggests a response (to me anyway) that is due to convention or an ideal view of marriage itself rather than "we must have a better structure to look after the kids". (Which probably suggests that people who do marry after their first children have on average put more thought into looking after their children then those that don't, ergo it will probably end up being a more stable relationship.)

Probably, yeah. It's also an example of how marriage, as a cultural and social institution, is always changing. You just didn't get that sort of thing fifty years ago.

Which is my point (and that and the whatever marriage "means" to anyone person getting married might "mean" - if it means anything at all, goddamn functionalism - something completely different to another individual. Even if these individuals are the bride and groom.) Thus its stooopid to argue "OMG GAY MARRIAGE TO DESTROY OUR SOCIETY!!1111112" and so on.

EDIT: Why does this thread have 19 pages?

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Why does no-one ever read my posts?

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Why does no-one ever read my posts?

I did, and I agree, but I'm kind of going for the more-objective stuff now, because subjective's gonna get shot down real quick, trust me. 

Sorry, what? My posts are at least as subjective as CARLHAYDEN's, at least I'm not hypocritical to use "pseudo-objective" language.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

I doubt much people who get married think they do so for the sake of whatever children they may have.

(If they so, it is much higher now than say, 50 years ago.)

Well, a lot of people (in Britain anyway, I don't know about elsewhere) these days marry after they've had their first child, so it might be a factor in those (just an assumption really).

Ah, but that suggests a response (to me anyway) that is due to convention or an ideal view of marriage itself rather than "we must have a better structure to look after the kids". (Which probably suggests that people who do marry after their first children have on average put more thought into looking after their children then those that don't, ergo it will probably end up being a more stable relationship.)

Probably, yeah. It's also an example of how marriage, as a cultural and social institution, is always changing. You just didn't get that sort of thing fifty years ago.

Which is my point (and that and the whatever marriage "means" to anyone person getting married might "mean" - if it means anything at all, goddamn functionalism - something completely different to another individual. Even if these individuals are the bride and groom.) Thus its stooopid to argue "OMG GAY MARRIAGE TO DESTROY OUR SOCIETY!!1111112" and so on.

EDIT: Why does this thread have 19 pages?

Because it's two sides screeching at the wind?

And we like that because...?

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Clearly, there can be no justification for anti-miscegenation laws, morally or otherwise.  But anti-miscegenation laws were based on race, whereas, obviously, anti-same sex marriage legislation or initiatives, if you want to call them that, are not based on race, nor are they based on minority rights.   

So I do not agree that same sex marriage and anti-miscegenation laws are related, tenuously or otherwise.

The gay movement is always trying to relate same sex marriage to racial or minority causes of the past, but the relationship is simply not realistic and is certainly not accurate. 

You didn't really answer my question.  Here are some of the parallels:

1. Anti-miscegenation laws allowed everyone to do the same thing:  Marry someone of their own race.

2. They were oftentimes supported with Biblical quotations.

3. It was argued that eliminating them would destroy the tradition and sanctity of Biblical marriage.

4. It was considered to be against tradition, moral family values, etc.

What is "tenuous" about that all?  There are folks who would have supported those laws using the exact same logic you're using now to oppose gay marriage.  Are you entirely so sure that it's not your differentiations that are "tenuous"?  I think it's impressive that almost all folks who see opposing gay marriage as a black-and-white issue can simultaneously be on the polar opposite side of the miscegenation issue (at least in retrospect) despite the abundant parallels.

The first thing we need to do is throw the idea of a marriage 'tradition' right out of the window. The fact that so many people believe that marriage and family norms effectively created in the immediate post-war era (and fragmented a few decades later) are 'tradition' rather than an invention is always slightly amusing.

Marriage is whatever society wants it to be. Whether it's the marriage of one to another, or to several others, or to one or several others of the same race, or only to people of the same faith or to people of the same caste, or for adults, or for children, or for a child and an adult, or arranged, or forced, or for property, or for hereditary purposes, or to deflect attention from your sexuality, or for convenience..or even to the bloody sea.

Marriage has only been about 'love' for a blink of an eye in the human timescale and is only for love for the select few who have a comfortable exisitence free from heavy work, or from the kitchen or social pressures. Saying marriage between a man and woman only and in set terms is 'tradition' is nonsense. It is not for the government to uphold 'tradition' whether ancient or constructed and that fact that the government has allowed or disallowed some of the marriages above (to the best of it's legal capacity) proves that what constitutes a marriage has and can change.

Saying it's purely and exclusively religious is elitist - who's religion? Pagans and tribesfolk around the world probably look in horror at the western marriage tradition - probably in the same way as many here may be uncomfortable with Muslim or Hindu arranged marriages and 'child' brides which for many of them are culturally acceptable.

Now I'm not a fan of 'cultural relativism', however can we hold up our heterosexual one man, one woman marriage as an ideal? Particularly when divorce rates are high, partners cheat and many people get married more than once. It is, quite frankly, a rather 'cheap' ideal. Unless it is based on love and commitment alone. That's what gay people want to sure. And sure, many will divroce and cheat and do what everyone else does, but the strong marriages based on love will survive as they always do.

And in a free and democratic vote, a majority of Californian society voting want it to be a union between one man and one woman.

So give it a rest and get over it.

No; the quote in bold is wrong, Marriage is whatever the individuals involved want it to be (what the individuals want being usually rooted in social ideas).

In that case it is mere legalism to write a law that prevents people doing what they want, without harming anyone.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Btw here I should point out that taboos against Interracial marriage and also while we are at Interracial sex are relatively new (Do you know how many illegitimate mixed raced children there were floating around in the Carribean in the 18th Century? Admittely it wasn't consensual in nearly all cases, but it certainly wasn't condemned by colonial society. If you want more relative consent, many early British settlers to India married Indian women around this period.) and in the case we are talking about seem to a mostly Anglospheric phenomen. And even then this mostly built up in the 19th Century, Remember Sally Hemings?

Of course due to the power relations of those involved those are bad examples, however this can be traced more further back. Muslims and Christians aswell as Jews (despite being "enemies" and arguably of different races - I wouldn't argue that, but some might) married each other in Medieval Spain and in Ottoman Eastern Europe. Race was certainly not a factor in Medieval India with the arrival of the Muslims from Central Asia and intermarriage was common too. In South East Asia as far as I know race only comes into real conciousness with the advent of Europeans. And so on, you get the point.

A bit OT, but had to be gotten out of the way.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

That's all true, but that certainly doesn't mean that the argument wasn't used anyway.  I mean, homosexual marriage is currently practiced in other countries (and two states!), and that apparently isn't sufficient for it to be "not the way it's supposed to be."  So extra-cultural examples are apparently not in play here, if contemporary intra-cultural examples aren't.

And I'll also point out that a lot of racial intermarriage still involved the presupposition of inferiority.  Caste systems of all sorts.

Not to mention that there's no real purpose to arguing "that's not the way it was intended" because it's a superficial justification.  The crux of the matter is why that wasn't, and whether the thought behind that assumption makes sense.  I don't understand why original intent is so sacrosanct.

Is this aimed at me? If so, I agree, I just didn't want to get into detail. And anyone who claims that the original intent of these laws was anything but the most ridiculous prejudice/racism/homophobia is simply deluded in the extreme and should be ignored.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

I didn't say all of them "Most" not all.

I have met some homosexual people who I really felt was born gay.

You do have bisexuals and closet gay people.. don't forget about those.

For those people you have met, who you consider to be born gay, does it really matter to you if they get married? If they have a little family wedding like everyone else, move to a house, work and go on vacation every year and grow old together what, to you, are they doing to society? What are they damaging? What are they cheapening?

The Netherlands have had gay marriage for 7 years now and life simply goes on. Gay and straights still marry (and still divorce). The state isn't allowing people to marry their cat or letting people have 6 wives. The 'slope' isn't slippery. It's not slippery in Belgium either, or Spain or even in South Africa.

How is the population outlook in Europe right now?

Denser than the United States of America.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

According to Wikipedia the United States of America has the 180th Greatest Population density among terriorities and countries of the world, with an average of 31 person per square kilometer. While I can't find a general EU figure, there are only two EU member states below the United States in this regard, Sweden and Finland. Two countries where vast swathes of national terriority are near uninhabitable. EDIT: Oops sorry, there is a third though it is just below the United States, that is Estonia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_density

I don't see why it is a bad thing that Europe's population is declining anyway except in regards to a would be pensions mess.

And needless to say, the decline has nothing to do with Gay Marriage anyway.