What undermimes marriage more?

[Nym90]

Just curious, where is it that you established your belief that homosexuality is OK.  What was the thing that led you to believe that (I know "thing" is not really a good word, but I can't think of anything else).

I do not believe that anything that does not directly and intentionally harm another person is bad.

^^^^^^^

Although I do feel that it is immoral to hurt others, even if unintentionally and indirectly, I do also feel that the law should be designed in such a way as to best handle problems in a practical way, and that not everything that is immoral should thus be illegal.

Gay marriage on the whole does far more good than harm for society and thus should be legal.

I can understand reckless hurting of others being immoral (and I assume that is what you refer to), but I can't imagine blaming someone for uncontrollable and unanticipatable harm to another.

Well, I think there is a difference between something being immoral and someone being blamed for its result necessarily. I realize that's kind of a nuanced view of it. I do think it is immoral to hurt others even if it is not your fault for having hurt them, although depending on how or why they were hurt, they may well have done something more immoral if they made you feel guilty about it if it was primarily their own responsibility. Do I have you sufficiently confused yet?

There's also risk/reward calculations to consider, as certain parts of an action may be immoral, but may be more than outweighed by the good portions of it.

[Alcon]

I understand what you're saying, but I'm not sure I entirely understand how one can be responsible for - say - hitting someone with your car if they fell out of the sky.

Or are you saying there is an emotional necessity which justifies someone being faulted?  Although I suppose that doesn't fit the layman definition of "immoral," per se, and I'm a hardcore layman.

So, yes, you have!

[afleitch]

I do not believe that anything that does not directly and intentionally harm another person is bad.

That was my view too- and the view of my family when I was little, long before I was aware of my own sexuality

[Ebowed]

I do not believe that anything that does not directly and intentionally harm another person is bad.

I disagree.  Something can be immoral even if it is a private act that has nothing to do with anyone other than the person or people involved; i.e. prostitution or consensual incest.

[Alcon]

I do not believe that anything that does not directly and intentionally harm another person is bad.

I disagree.  Something can be immoral even if it is a private act that has nothing to do with anyone other than the person or people involved; i.e. prostitution or consensual incest.

Why?

Not to veer far off topic, but this is part and parcel of the gay marriage debate.

[??????????]

Where were you yesterday!

States generally doesn't actually get involved in discussions.  He waits until they cool down, posts his position in one line, and doesn't bother to reply again.

Dude, I was just coming back from vacation. I was pretty tired because I had just driven like 7 1/2 hours straight.

[Ebowed]

I do not believe that anything that does not directly and intentionally harm another person is bad.

I disagree.  Something can be immoral even if it is a private act that has nothing to do with anyone other than the person or people involved; i.e. prostitution or consensual incest.

Why?

Because of the direct monetary exchange that occurs within prostitution, I think it's dehumanizing and generally cheapens sex.  It's also been historically associated with violence towards women and greedy, controlling pimps, although this is irrelevant to the morality of prostitution itself.  (Indeed, homosexuality has been historically associated with all sorts of terrible things, often fabricated or totally unrelated, but I don't have any moral qualms with homosexuals.)  Either way, prostitution should be considered a moral gray area at best, although I would go further as to say it is immoral and dehumanizing.

As for (consensual) incest, I can't really explain why I find it immoral.  Maybe I'm too traditionalist on the issue, but something just doesn't seem right about it.

[Alcon]

Where were you yesterday!

States generally doesn't actually get involved in discussions.  He waits until they cool down, posts his position in one line, and doesn't bother to reply again.

Dude, I was just coming back from vacation. I was pretty tired because I had just driven like 7 1/2 hours straight.

I was just playing around.  However, you're not the kind of guy to get into the long, multi-paragraph heated discussions.  I didn't mean anything negative by it.

[Alcon]

I do not believe that anything that does not directly and intentionally harm another person is bad.

I disagree.  Something can be immoral even if it is a private act that has nothing to do with anyone other than the person or people involved; i.e. prostitution or consensual incest.

Why?

Because of the direct monetary exchange that occurs within prostitution, I think it's dehumanizing and generally cheapens sex.  It's also been historically associated with violence towards women and greedy, controlling pimps, although this is irrelevant to the morality of prostitution itself.  (Indeed, homosexuality has been historically associated with all sorts of terrible things, often fabricated or totally unrelated, but I don't have any moral qualms with homosexuals.)  Either way, prostitution should be considered a moral gray area at best, although I would go further as to say it is immoral and dehumanizing.

As for (consensual) incest, I can't really explain why I find it immoral.  Maybe I'm too traditionalist on the issue, but something just doesn't seem right about it.

Is there any victim to cheapening sex, though?  While prostitution overall may "cheapen sex," does the individual act?  I know where you're coming from, but I just don't see the societal harm.

On the second part, yeah, it's kind of "eww."  There are psychological reasons why it's wrong.  But there are psychological reasons why most any relationship has its flaws.  I've never been a big fan of traditionalist thinking, but it even gives me the willies a bit.  Still, immoral?  Nah.

[Ebowed]

Is there any victim to cheapening sex, though?  While prostitution overall may "cheapen sex," does the individual act?  I know where you're coming from, but I just don't see the societal harm.

On the second part, yeah, it's kind of "eww."  There are psychological reasons why it's wrong.  But there are psychological reasons why most any relationship has its flaws.  I've never been a big fan of traditionalist thinking, but it even gives me the willies a bit.  Still, immoral?  Nah.

Well, I don't think there has to be an overall negative effect on society in order for something to be immoral.  i.e. Adultery only harms the person who is being cheated on and maybe the people committing the adultery, but I would still say it's immoral.  Also, to play devil's advocate for a moment, one could say that if sex is continuously cheapened it will eventually cause societal harm.  I don't actually agree with this logic, but it's worth considering.

As I said, I can't really explain why I find incest immoral.  I suppose the psychological reasons could be justification, but I'm not particularly interested in deciding who can and can't get into a relationship based on potential psychological problems that could arise.  Legally speaking, it makes sense to ban incest because of the biological risks associated with inbred pregnancies.

[Alcon]

Well, I don't think there has to be an overall negative effect on society in order for something to be immoral.  i.e. Adultery only harms the person who is being cheated on and maybe the people committing the adultery, but I would still say it's immoral.  Also, to play devil's advocate for a moment, one could say that if sex is continuously cheapened it will eventually cause societal harm.  I don't actually agree with this logic, but it's worth considering.

I suppose, but how cheapened is sex already?  Is prostitution a cause of the cheapening, or a symptom of it?  If sex was not already "cheap," there would be no demand for prostitution, no?

As I said, I can't really explain why I find incest immoral.  I suppose the psychological reasons could be justification, but I'm not particularly interested in deciding who can and can't get into a relationship based on potential psychological problems that could arise.  Legally speaking, it makes sense to ban incest because of the biological risks associated with inbred pregnancies.

I suppose so, but that gets us into the realm of relationships among cousins - illegal currently, but not really all that dangerous.

[Ebowed]

Good points.  But first, I think that the status of how "cheap" sex currently is isn't really all that relevant to whether or not prostitution is immoral.  It doesn't really matter whether people are having casual sex on the streets or if people only have it to rear children; prostitution is an act that minimizes/cheapens sex either way.  There's also the fact that it's dehumanizing and makes people out to be nothing more than objects, although one could (with significantly less grounding, however) use the same argument against masturbation so I won't get into that.

As for relationships between first cousins, it is significantly less dangerous than closer incest.  There are still a few reasons we should be wary of it, however (Supersoulty had a good post on this subject fairly recently, I'll look for it later).  First cousin marriages are also actually legal in a significant minority of states as well as most of Europe.

[Nym90]

I understand what you're saying, but I'm not sure I entirely understand how one can be responsible for - say - hitting someone with your car if they fell out of the sky.

Or are you saying there is an emotional necessity which justifies someone being faulted?  Although I suppose that doesn't fit the layman definition of "immoral," per se, and I'm a hardcore layman.

So, yes, you have!

Well, as I was trying to explain (obviously not succeeding, but at least trying ), I think there is a difference between being held responsible for something bad that has happened and with your own actions being wrong. But you have a good point, if there is absolutely no way to reasonably be able to tell that any harm would be caused, it wouldn't be right to hold the person responsible, and I agree with that.

It is possible to do things that are morally wrong in retrospect with hindsight but that at the time there was no way to know that they were wrong, and thus I would not say that someone should be faulted, blamed, or held responsible since they did not have the knowledge necessary or the means to acquire it to determine that their action was wrong.

[Nym90]

Is there any victim to cheapening sex, though?  While prostitution overall may "cheapen sex," does the individual act?  I know where you're coming from, but I just don't see the societal harm.

On the second part, yeah, it's kind of "eww."  There are psychological reasons why it's wrong.  But there are psychological reasons why most any relationship has its flaws.  I've never been a big fan of traditionalist thinking, but it even gives me the willies a bit.  Still, immoral?  Nah.

Well, I don't think there has to be an overall negative effect on society in order for something to be immoral.  i.e. Adultery only harms the person who is being cheated on and maybe the people committing the adultery, but I would still say it's immoral.  Also, to play devil's advocate for a moment, one could say that if sex is continuously cheapened it will eventually cause societal harm.  I don't actually agree with this logic, but it's worth considering.

As I said, I can't really explain why I find incest immoral.  I suppose the psychological reasons could be justification, but I'm not particularly interested in deciding who can and can't get into a relationship based on potential psychological problems that could arise.  Legally speaking, it makes sense to ban incest because of the biological risks associated with inbred pregnancies.

I agree that incest should be illegal due to the damage done to the child if one is produced. The penalties for it should be very light, however, unless a pregnancy actually does result.

Laws against prostitution really don't make any sense to me; it is repulsive that sex would be reduced to a service to be bought and paid for, yes, but I don't see any real logic behind illegalizing something that is legal if done for free. It should still be the choice of those involved in the transaction.

[nclib]

Marraige is a human institution.

Yes, between a man and a woman, only.

Why?

Because God created marriage between a man and a woman for the purposes of procreation.

So then should infertile [heterosexual] couples not be allowed to marry?

If you're using that argument, you are saying that infertility and homosexuality are on in the same category.  So you're calling homosexuality a "disease" (that's not the right word for infertility, but I can't think of anything else, but you still get the point)

I know what you mean, that infertility (unlike homosexuality) is an abnormal medical condition and therefore the two shouldn't be put in the same category. But then again it is not abnormal for a 65-year-old heterosexual couple to not be able to conceive a child, yet they would not be barred from marrying.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

One answer is keep religious marriage for the Churches, but make all unions between two adults civil unions - keep the whole religion aspect out of legal marriage.

[Matt Damon™]

option 1

[Associate Justice PiT]

option 1

[NOS]

Nothing underminds marriage other then humans themselves.

We are always pushing the bounds on things, and its a good thing we do, or we'd still be in caves.

[opebo]

I'm glad this old thread was bumped - I forgot to mention that poverty is what undermines marriage.  Most working class people cannot afford 'marriage' or any other sort of personal task, such as reproduction.  So, the destruction of these institutions was purposely carried out by the politically powerful (the owning class).  The fact that fools blame gays for it is really quite an hilarious case of misdirection.  One is ever amazed at how persons do not notice that their betters are oppressing them.